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Crews Race to Find Survivors in Venezuela; Former FAA Air Traffic Controller Harvey Skolnick is Interviewed about a New Air Traffic System; Supreme Court Issues Major Decisions as Term Nears End; GOP Lawmakers Warn of Misplaced Priorities before Midterms. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired June 29, 2026 - 06:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:33:00]

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish. I want to thank you for joining me on CNN THIS MORNING.

It's now half past the hour. And here's what's happening right now.

Four people confirmed dead after widespread flooding in Kentucky. The state's governor is saying that conditions, however, are improving. Now, this is following a declared state of emergency. Some areas received more than seven inches of rain.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ANDY BESHEAR (D-KY): Really massive, devastating flooding. But we've got a lot of great first responders who heroically got out there and rescued people. And I think we're starting to see at least a light at the end of the tunnel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So, the state still faces extensive infrastructure damage and will need to rebuild over the coming months.

Alex Murdaugh will appear in court today. His first hearing since the South Carolina Supreme Court overturned his double murder conviction. The judge will hear arguments for his new trial, which will include motions for a change of venue and more DNA testing of evidence. Murdaugh was convicted of killing his wife and son. This was back in 2023. But the state supreme court ruled a local court clerk improperly influenced the jury and overturned the conviction.

And the Trump administration defending the push to return hundreds of thousands of Haitians to their homeland, even though the U.S. State Department issued a do not travel advisory for Haiti earlier this year.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MARKWAYNE MULLIN, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Well, that do not travel is not for Haitians. That's, do not travel for the United States, because they are kidnaping or trying to kidnap individuals from the United States. So, that isn't -- that advisory is to American citizens traveling to Haiti, not Haitians going back home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Last week, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the administration to remove protections from Haitians and Syrians living legally in the U.S.

And the search for survivors becoming more desperate in Venezuela as the death toll continues to grow. At least 1,450 people have died since last week's devastating earthquakes.

[06:35:02]

Rescuers are working around the clock to pull survivors from the rubble.

(VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: You're looking at this video shared by the president of El Salvador. He says Salvadorian crews rescued this 60-year-old woman after she was trapped under the rubble for 86 hours.

CNN's Stefano Pozzebon is on the ground in Caracas.

I actually paused because reading that number was so jarring. More than a thousand people dead. Can you talk about the challenges facing rescuers right now?

STEFANO POZZEBON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. And that number, unfortunately, Audie, will grow in the upcoming hours as we are now entering the fifth day since the tragedy. And so, the chances of rescuing someone and successfully rescuing someone are almost gone. Almost past our shoulders, unfortunately.

We're coming to you live from the city of Caracas because I think this is, today, it's Monday morning. We're starting a new week here in Venezuela. And there is more of a feeling of a nation coming to understand, coming to ask itself how to -- what to do with this tragedy. How to make it. How to process it. Of course, as much as possible as it can be.

Clearly, for somebody who has lost everything in that tragedy, it's terrible. But also there is a -- there is another nation surrounding it that is still trying to understand it, to come -- to come to senses with the magnitude of this catastrophe.

Like I said, we spent the day yesterday in La Guaira. That is the disaster zone where most of the damages have been confined and where there is still no power, no signal in most of the neighborhoods. Like I said, for someone who has lost the most important thing in life, this is the hour of pain. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILKER MOLAYA, FATHER SEARCHING FOR MISSING DAUGHTER (through translator): I pulled my daughter halfway out. I pulled my daughter halfway out. They're not going to move from there. I have nothing to lose. Let them kill me if they want.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POZZEBON: That gentleman's daughter are joining the list of more than 1,400 people killed in this terrible double earthquake.

For the rescue workers, it's, yes, it's still a race against time. Yesterday we spend the day speaking with rescue workers from L.A. County and Fairfax County in Virginia. They flew down here between Thursday night and Friday. And they were very busy trying to get to the bottom of the pile of rubble where we met them. They said that they want to keep working until everyone is accounted for. However, of course, the chance of finding someone alive now are really, really, really, really slim, unfortunately.

Audie.

CORNISH: OK, that's Stefano talking to us about the rescue effort in Venezuela as that death toll is rising.

I want to turn to this, American Airlines flight bound for Bermuda was forced to abort its takeoff on Friday after a business jet crossed its path.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOWER: Four Quebec Sierra.

BIZJET PILOT: Four Quebec Sierra.

TOWER: Four Quebec Sierra, you just crossed an active runway. Hold short of runway eight left.

BIZJET PILOT: You just told me to cross the runway, sir.

TOWER: No, we said Amerijet 461.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: The two planes were just a third of a mile away from each other at one point. The FAA now investigating how the call sign mix-up nearly led to disaster.

Now, this also comes as the FAA announces its plans to launch an ambitious A.I. powered initiative. The government has partnered with Airspace Intelligence to use their A.I. programing aimed at predicting potential aircraft conflicts hours in advance.

Former FAA air traffic controller Harvey Skolnick joins us now.

Harvey, welcome back.

The good news is, I'm talking about a near miss and an aborted takeoff and not an actual crash, which a lot of times when I have you on, we're talking about. But it's a reminder of how difficult things have been when it comes to air safety. Is this A.I. thing going to help? Like, is this something where it feels like it's actually pretty necessary for this industry?

HARVEY SKOLNICK, FORMER FAA AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Well, if I could -- if I could address the problem of runway incursions for just a second. This has been a problem in the FAA for -- since I can remember. And whatever they've done with regard to new equipment, to new radars, ground radars, status lights on the ground, protocols and air traffic controllers' phraseology and rules, they just seem -- there's nothing that has seemed to have worked so far. All the A.I. and artificial intelligence that's being used today still hasn't put a dent in runway incursions.

[06:40:06]

CORNISH: Harvey, that's depressing.

SKOLNICK: Well -- yes, and I --

CORNISH: I mean, can I -- like, can I press you a little bit? Like it feels as though you've got shortages, which we've talked about, with air traffic control. You've got this new technology that they say they want to start rolling out in the fall. Is there a sense of relief? Is this the rare industry where workers might say, you know what, we'll take any help we can get? Or are there real questions here that should be raised?

SKOLNICK: No, I think -- I think the air traffic controllers will certainly say they'll take all the help they can get. It's not as though that the FAA hasn't, over the years, continually been upgrading and introducing new equipment. And I'm sure the new software and new programs and new technologies are going to help. But in the end, I really do think that the biggest challenge to the U.S. airspace system is controller staffing.

You know, I'm an advocate for air traffic controllers. And I don't see where this is going to change the job that they do. They're still going to have to vector airplanes and when they get close to the airport, they're going to have to separate arrivals and departures, with en routes in arrivals and en routes in departures. And they still have to do the same job they've ever done. And their numbers are decreasing. People are retiring at a greater rate. And the target hiring of more -- of additional controllers seems to be lower than they first anticipated. And that's the kind of thing that worries me.

CORNISH: I'm not sure how much you know about this, but in the military they had a big problem with recruitment as well. That's way better now under this Hegseth Defense Department. When it comes to Duffy and recruiting here, what's going on? Have they changed the credentials required? Are they looking at new recruiting pools? Like, how is it going?

SKOLNICK: So, they have -- you know, they put out this request to have people that were gamers apply for the job. And they had a huge --

CORNISH: Video gamers?

SKOLNICK: Video gamers, right? And so, when they -- the last announcement that they had, lots and lots of people applied, but they still only were going to hire 2,000 or so. So, the amount of people that apply have nothing to do with the amount of people that they hire.

And I would say this, there are programs coming online that seem to get people from college initiatives into the workforce sooner than they would have to taking people off the street and having them go to school in Oklahoma City. I hear about that.

But I also hear -- I also hear people in the field telling me that the quality of train -- of the trainees just doesn't seem to meet the old standards. They don't know why, because I don't think those standards have changed.

But I'll say this about training. The most difficult job that an air traffic controller can do is training other controllers because it's live traffic, they're standing behind someone, you want to give that person an opportunity to go as far as they can, but not so far as they make a mistake in separating airplanes, because the person that's doing the training is the one responsible for that loss of separation. So, that's very, very difficult. And controllers are training sometimes more than 50 percent of the time that they're on duty each day. And that's still -- we're still talking about six-day weeks and ten-hour days.

CORNISH: Yes. Harvey, as always, I really appreciate you sharing what you learned for your community. Thank you so much.

SKOLNICK: Thank you for having me, Audie.

CORNISH: So, next on CNN THIS MORNING, we're going to talk about President Trump, whether or not he has overplayed his political hand.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): It will be an absolute shellacking if they don't wake up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Are the president's priorities becoming a liability for his party?

And later on CNN, today, Luigi Mangione returns to the courtroom as his attorney discusses a possible plea deal. But is he going to take it?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [06:48:05]

CORNISH: So, in just a few hours, the Supreme Court is expected to hand down decisions in some major cases as it wraps up its current term. Cases that test the boundaries of Donald Trump's presidential powers. They include challenges to mail-in ballots, transgender sports bans, and whether Trump can fire officials from independent agencies. And perhaps the most highly anticipated case is the attempt to end birthright citizenship via executive order. Essentially, who gets to be an American? The move would undo more than a century of legal precedent that says babies born on American soil are automatically American citizens and could affect millions of children and their families. This is the argument from Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: All of this legislation, all of this, everything, having to do with birthright citizenship, it was at the end of the Civil War. The reason was it had to do with the babies of slaves and the protection of the babies of slaves. It didn't have to do with the protection of multi-millionaires and billionaires wanting to have their children get an American citizenship. It is the craziest thing I've ever seen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Group chat is back.

As I said, this is one of a couple of complex cases. Some of them are about the power of the presidency, right? One of them, Trump v Slaughter, independent agency leadership. The president wants to overturn the precedent of whether you can fire people with cause or not.

And then there are these ones that culturally are kind of ingrained. My baby, born here, in an American hospital, is automatically a citizen, which is part of a longer term conservative project, no.

MICHAEL SCHERER, STAFF WRITER, "THE ATLANTIC": Yes. And almost with -- certainly what's going to happen this week is it's going to be a split decision for the president. And it'll be interesting to see, the last few weeks, every time a decision has come out to hurt one party or the other, they attack the court as being somehow illegitimate or wrong. And this is --

CORNISH: Yes. And the court saved them all for this week before they leave so they can play (ph), good luck.

[06:50:01]

SCHERER: Right. And they're going to throw --

CORNISH: Yes.

SCHERER: They're going to throw a punch. I mean the betting money is that birthright citizenship, the president's going to lose. He'll win on transgender sports. He probably wins on the -- on the -- on the independent federal agencies.

CORNISH: Yes. Hold on. Let me get all my legal tabs here. So, you just mentioned transgender sports. This one's West Virginia state will decide if state bans on transgender students playing in girls' sports are permitted under the Constitution in federal law.

What are you watching, Alex?

ALEX THOMPSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: There is -- Democratic and Republican strategists are really watching a campaign finance case which the Supreme Court could further roll back restrictions on what the big parties can spend. And the upshot of this is that it would give the Republican National Committee a huge advantage in this midterm cycle, because the RNC has a ton more money, cash on hand, than the DNC, which is still in debt.

CORNISH: Yes.

THOMPSON: And so, you could end up seeing a surge of over $100 million pour into those Republican races depending on what the Supreme Court does.

CORNISH: So, it's funny, we're focusing on these things like Federal Reserve independence, right, or birthright citizenship. And meanwhile, something like mail-in ballots, Watson versus RNC. Reviewing state laws that allow election officials to receive mail-in ballots after election day. Meaning, you've sent it in, you've postmarked it before election day, but it doesn't arrive until election day. This is also extremely important.

THOMPSON: Yes.

CORNISH: Especially in the context of what you're talking about, the spending.

IGOR BOBIC, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, "NOTUS": It's hugely important. It's a big priority of the president, who wants to limit these mail-in ballots. We've seen him complain about the California elections, where, obviously, you can send in a mail-in ballot late. And I think that they're trying to use this as a -- as a pre-November sort of setup to help them win these elections, Republicans are. I think it's going to be a hugely -- a huge case to watch here this week.

CORNISH: I'm going to turn to the elections in one second, but I want to ask you, Michael, one more thing. This is Mike Johnson talking about why he thinks birthright citizenship should end. Want you guys to hear it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): Like all good things, it can be abused. And birthright citizenship goes back to the, you know, root of the country, the history of the tradition. You look at the original intent of the Constitution and the founders and what they were doing, of course. They were facing a very different set of circumstances than we're facing now. We know that it's been abused in recent years because people have literally just come over the border just to have a baby.

I don't think it's inconsistent at all. I think we can celebrate immigration, legal immigration. We are a nation of immigrants, as we all recognize.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So this is, for them, always couched in the immigration conversation. Does anyone on this panel have kids other than me? Anyone?

SCHERER: Yes.

CORNISH: OK. Do you remember being in the hospital? And do you remember thinking to yourself, I really want to fill out citizenship documents right now? Like, why would you piss off a whole bunch of parents before the election?

SCHERER: The hilarious part about that clip is I'm old enough to remember when conservatives were about the original text of the Constitution. It wasn't a living and breathing document. His argument there is basically, because we have different people and new ways of travel, and people are coming into the U.S. that --

CORNISH: We need to interpret it based on the now.

SCHERER: The now.

CORNISH: Which some Democrats would love to be hearing as an interpretation.

SCHERER: Right. But as -- yes, but we're just going to change what the Constitution means.

CORNISH: I mean originalist means something to someone.

OK, I want to talk about one other thing. We were talking about the mail-in ballots thing. We were talking about the campaign finance thing. Over all of this, the Republican lawmakers who are on their way out, they are the loudest in issuing new warnings to Donald Trump, saying, look, his priorities are going to cost the GOP the midterms. The latest concerns are spilling into the open after President Trump refused to sign a bipartisan housing bill at the last-minute last week. Why? Well, because he wants Congress to pass his controversial bill aimed at controlling elections first.

Over the last few days, Senator Bill Cassidy, Congressman Thomas Massie, both lost their primaries to Trump-backed challengers. And they're like, look, he needs new focus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. BILL CASSIDY (R-LA): Well, I can't tell you what his priorities are beyond the SAVE Act. I can tell you what I think they should be. And how do we make life more affordable for the average American?

I voted to uphold the Constitution. The president was offended by that.

REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): The problem is not the elections. We won the damn elections. The problem is, we're wasting our opportunity that the voters gave us. And the Republicans are going to pay for that in November. It will be an absolute shellacking if they don't wake up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: All right, group chat is back. There's a world of Republicans who say, look, we shouldn't listen to the shellacked about shellackings. These are people who struggled against Trump-appointed -- what's the word in Congress? Are they scared? Are they frustrated? Because there's always the dudes who speak out, and then there's the people who talk to you in the hallways.

BOBIC: Well, yes, I call them the YOLO caucus. You only live once caucus.

CORNISH: Yes.

BOBIC: The guys who actually have the freedom to talk.

But listen, Cassidy may be out front there on this, but a whole lot of Republicans I speak to agree with him.

CORNISH: So, that's the yellow caucus.

BOBIC: Yes.

CORNISH: They're the ones who are going to speak publicly.

BOBIC: Exactly. Exactly.

CORNISH: Go on.

BOBIC: Yes. I mean, they see a president who's more focused on, you know, renovating a golf course, as opposed to signing a housing bill, a huge bipartisan housing bill that passed Congress overwhelmingly, that still hasn't gotten signed. Why?

[06:55:00]

CORNISH: Right. Well, to rob Democrats and a Senate that he's frustrated with of the photo op.

THOMPSON: I think -- I think the fear with Republicans, it's actually much more petulant than that. And that it was a completely emotional decision by Trump because he is obsessed with the SAVE act and he denied his party wins. And, you know, Republicans are basically resigned at this point that

Donald Trump is just never going to be on message throughout the midterms. He's not going to be out front talking about specific policies to bring down prices. And what you're seeing in some ways is a second term Trump that just has an exhausted legislative agenda.

CORNISH: Yes.

THOMPSON: They have not really proposed any big things.

CORNISH: But is it because he knows he can rile up his supporters and really rally them around pet culture war issues? So, one of them, of course, is the SAVE Act, which does a myriad of other things other than voting. There's a lot of stuff stuck in there. Transgender sports. And then telling states, turn in all your voter rolls because we've got to compare notes. There's a lot of question marks there.

Here's Senator Tillis on Sunday, again, part of this wounded bear caucus you're talking about. But here's how he sees this focus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): Why are we doing more things to undermine our confidence in elections, rather than getting the strong message out that we'll win for Republicans this year? Talk about the emergence and the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America. Accept that the voting laws are going to be fundamentally what they are today. Win by them. Win buy the good results that Republicans have produced and stop undermining the confidence in the elections.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: The argument is not crazy, considering that just over the weekend a bunch of Democrats released a promise to America, we are capitalist, not socialist. Manifesto, if you will.

THOMPSON: A capitalist manifesto.

CORNISH: Yes, a capitalist manifesto, ironically. But does it show that even though Trump's not on message, Democrats are not exactly getting to November together?

SCHERER: Yes, everything's not going well for the Democrats right now for a number of reasons. I mean, the problem we in -- they have in Maine as well as a -- is an issue. I think --

CORNISH: The Maine Senate race.

SCHERER: The Maine Senate race. Yes.

CORNISH: Yes.

SCHERER: The thing with Trump is, he's not convinced. And he is -- his aides have tried to convince him -- that the midterm elections are really something he should devote his energy to.

CORNISH: Yes.

SCHERER: He's not sure. He basically assumes he's going to lose the House. He doesn't think it matters much. So, he's trying to figure out what he can do -- what leverage he has here. And right now he's taking his own party hostage. I mean that housing bill is a messaging bill that's supposed to help Republicans go home and say, look, I do care about affordability. I'm doing stuff for you.

He's hurting his own party because he thinks he can get the SAVE Act passed. The SAVE Act pass -- is not going to pass.

CORNISH: Yes. Which Senator Thune and many other Republicans have said, we're not voting for it. Democrats surely are not.

THOMPSON: Well, I was just going to add, you know, he may think that he can stir up his base, but his own political team in that Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan book, his own political team has written memos back in December that he -- that voters feel that he is not focused enough on cost of living. And that was even before the Iran War.

CORNISH: That's before they get on the road and pay for gas and buy snacks and find all the expensing.

All right, so, Alex, since you're back, it's been a while, what's in your group chat?

THOMPSON: The new Larry David show, which basically drops "Curb Your Enthusiasm" into huge American history moment.

CORNISH: Sure.

THOMPSON: For example, you have a -- you have Rosa Parks refusing to go to the back of the bus, but then Larry David sits next to her and annoys her so much that she ends up going back to the -- to the back of the bus. Stuff like that.

CORNISH: Yes, of course. Yes, stuff like that.

Michael, what about you? What's in your group chat?

SCHERER: I watched it over the weekend. It was very.

I -- mine's a little less funny. I think the degree to which the Democrats are going back to their old pattern of moving to the left in a way that is going to endanger them is just a huge story that is just now emerging.

CORNISH: Yes.

SCHERER: We had two years of Democrats saying we were wrong on trans, we were wrong on immigration issues, and now we're back to discussions about whether the police are good or not, about how we should pack the Supreme Court, about --

CORNISH: Yes, which will be familiar if you're like in the Romney campaign or something. I just want to show this "Axios" headline, "Dems Tea Party-Like Rebellion Built by a Decade of Frustration." This is the conversation. When you say moving to the left, some of them think, well, maybe we're just doing what MAGA did.

SCHERER: No. And if you remember back in 2018, 2019, it really hurt Democrats going into 2020. And it -- and it helped set the stage for a lot of the mistakes that Joe Biden made in his first couple years of office.

CORNISH: All right. What's in your group chat, Igor?

BOBIC: My chat is dominated by the World Cup right now.

CORNISH: Nice.

BOBIC: I am going to the USA versus Bosnia game, which is --

CORNISH: You are?

BOBIC: I am.

CORNISH: Oh my gosh.

BOBIC: And having been born in Bosnia, this is going to be a really tough decision for me. Basically, whoever wins, I lose or I win. I don't know. I haven't decided.

CORNISH: Wow. Oh my gosh. Wow.

BOBIC: Yes.

CORNISH: I'm excited for you.

BOBIC: Yes. Thank you so much. There's a lot to cheer for. One of the -- our players on the Bosnian national team, Esmir Bajraktarevic, was born in Wisconsin. He's the son of Bosnian refugees who --

CORNISH: I like that you said that name, but in a Wisconsin accent.

[07:00:01]

BOBIC: That's right.

Listen, he -- his parents, you know, came from the Srebrenica genocide. So, there's a lot of tragedy there. This country is pumped up. First time that it's made the knockout stages. We're all rooting for them. It's going to be tough for me, though. (INAUDIBLE).

CORNISH: Oh, love this.

Igor, so glad to have you here. Thank you so much. Thank you guys for being in the group chat today. And thank you for kicking off the week with us.

We've got the headlines coming up next. I'm Audie Cornish.