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Supreme Court Delivers Mixed Bag of Decisions; Democratic Socialist Looks to Unseat Incumbent in Colorado Primary. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired June 30, 2026 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BRAD SMITH, CNN ANCHOR: -- Indianapolis International Airport. This was just one of two grenades inside a passenger's checked bag.
[06:00:08]
The passenger was immediately questioned by officials. They haven't said yet if there will be charges. We will continue to track any developments there.
That does it for CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS. I'm Brad Smith. CNN THIS MORNING with Audie Cornish starts right now.
AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Today in the group chat: the Supreme Court. Will it give Donald Trump more presidential power? And will today's ruling on birthright citizenship be another win for the executive branch?
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Supreme Court has said, no, we will not have that independent check. You will not be watchdogs anymore. You will be lapdogs.
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CORNISH: Is the Democratic Party tipping to the extreme? What a Michigan Senate candidate says about the party's future.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm a nobody. I'm just a young man who spent five days trapped beneath a building.
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CORNISH: Miracles emerge from the devastation in Venezuela. People, even pets being rescued from rubble.
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DARIALIZA AVILA CHEVALIER (D), NEW YORK CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: I do regret my tweets. And that's something that I think has brought a lot of division, and that's something I regret.
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CORNISH: A rising star on the left answering for her old social media post. Will her past tweets praising communism be a liability?
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The president said it himself. It is the largest expansion of executive power in over 100 years, and that is exactly why we should be worried about it.
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CORNISH: The Supreme Court enters the final day of its session today after already giving Donald Trump several key victories and some setbacks. So, where will these final cases fall?
Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish, and it's just a few hours before the Supreme Court will publish their final decisions of this term and then head for summer recess.
Expected among those rulings, a key one on birthright citizenship, something the president tried to end with an executive order on his first day in office last year.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Birthright citizenship. What are your thoughts? And will you accept it if it rules against you?
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT; Well, I guess I have to accept. It's the Supreme Court, so I'll accept. I think it's very bad for our nation.
I don't know. It's up to them. But in terms of for the good of the country, it would be great if they did the -- they didn't allow it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Joining me now in the group chat, Francesca Chambers, White House correspondent for USA Today; Elliot Williams, CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor; Chuck Rocha, Democratic strategist and former senior adviser to the Bernie Sanders presidential campaigns; and Ashley Davis, former White House official under President George W. Bush.
You guys, thank you so much for being here. Starting with something easy. You know, the Supreme Court.
CHUCK ROCHA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: That's easy.
CORNISH: And it's been kind of a weird week for the White House, right? Like, something like mail-in ballots --
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes.
CORNISH: -- didn't quite work out. And I want to come to birthright citizenship. But first, can you talk to me about the -- the rejection of the attempt to fire Lisa Cook?
WILLIAMS: Right. And --
CORNISH: Because this was a weird one.
WILLIAMS: It's a weird one.
CORNISH: I'm not quite sure what happened in the end.
WILLIAMS: I'll tell you exactly why. And they were able -- the court was able to treat the Federal Reserve different from other agencies for a host of different reasons.
Something that doesn't get talked a lot about is this idea that the Fed is funded differently than other entities. It's funded, in large part, on account of securities that it holds. Right?
So, they could treat it as not like a typical agency, like the kind that are funded by Congress, and they can carve it out and say that, because of the Fed's unique stature and -- and also, as a policy matter, because the Fed has the power to upend global markets, we have to keep it independent.
Now, Amy Coney Barrett noted in a dissent that's kind of bonkers, because they're sort of being a little cute with treating some agencies one way and some another.
Now, in terms of the specifics of Lisa Cook, she was accused of some --
CORNISH: Mortgage fraud, yes.
WILLIAMS: -- mortgage fraud and irregularities and was -- like, her termination was related to that. Right? Or at least her purported termination.
It's a little different with Rebecca Slaughter over at the Federal Trade Commission, because that was, Can we just fire because we don't want her? Because she doesn't comport with the agency's priorities, with the president's priorities? Pardon me.
The Supreme Court yesterday said that's fine.
CORNISH: OK.
WILLIAMS: Just the president's ability to fire somebody who disagrees with his --
(CROSSTALK)
CORNISH: We can fire people that are in independent agencies --
WILLIAMS: Yes.
CORNISH: -- if we're in the executive branch, except at the Fed, because they've got some special powers. WILLIAMS: They've got special juice.
CORNISH: I want to then --
ASHLEY DAVIS, FORMER WHITE HOUSE OFFICIAL UNDER PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: My question is, though --
CORNISH: Yes.
DAVIS: -- for that, I think that you still have to nominate a Democrat within the party. It still has to be a Democrat nominee. So, her slot wouldn't go to a Republican nominee. It has to still go through Schumer.
WILLIAMS: Well, that's what the law says, but who knows what --
DAVIS: Yes.
WILLIAMS: I mean, so, think about it this way. Yes, technically, a Democratic nominee could be put in the FTC or FTC or whatever else. And what stops the president from firing them the next day for -- for whatever reason that that president so chose?
[06:05:08]
According to what the Supreme Court ruled yesterday, presidents now --
CORNISH: Has the authority, yes.
WILLIAMS: -- have vast authority to remove anybody for any reason that they want.
CORNISH: OK. So, there are some reality checks to that power.
WILLIAMS: Yes.
CORNISH: People think maybe the birthright citizenship ruling will be one of those reality checks.
WILLIAMS: Yes.
CORNISH: Why was this considered a long shot? And I know we've heard the arguments since, so I don't know if there are particular justices you noticed, who expressed skepticism.
WILLIAMS: Right, right. So big picture, the Constitution, 14th Amendment, says that all citizens born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States. That has been a --
CORNISH: And the Trump administration has taken a line we've heard in conservative circles for a long time, which is, hey, that was just an amendment for --
WILLIAMS: Yes.
CORNISH: -- the American descendants of slavery.
WILLIAMS: Right.
CORNISH: And it didn't really mean much --
WILLIAMS: Yes.
CORNISH: -- for everyone else. So. what is happening? Why --
WILLIAMS: And moreover, that line, "subject to the jurisdiction thereof," means that it's -- it's a little bit squishier.
Now, that is a fringe view in American law. Let's be clear. It's not a widely held view in the legal mainstream. And as we saw at the oral argument in this case, whether it's eight of the justices or seven of the justices, a lot of them are just not sympathetic to the idea.
CORNISH: Oh, that's a big number.
WILLIAMS: Yes. I -- I --
CORNISH: We're not looking at, like, one or two.
WILLIAMS: Hard to say and forget, you know -- and Lord strike me down for making a prediction that -- that's a little kooky. But it's just -- just looking at how the oral argument went.
You had John Roberts, the chief justice, saying right there in court, Look, the world has changed, but the Constitution has not. Or I think it was same world, different Constitution.
He is saying that, even though the country might have a different attitude toward immigration today than it did in 1789, the simple fact is, the Constitution is plainly clear on its face, and the administration just has an uphill battle on this one.
So, I think they lose. It's just hard to see how much.
FRANCESCA CHAMBERS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, "USA TODAY": Jumping in as the resident White House correspondent on the panel, I think that President Donald Trump knows that.
You have heard him for months now, attacking justices on the Supreme Court by name, who he thinks are going to potentially rule against him on birthright citizenship; tearing them down over other rulings they've made that have been directly related to tariffs and other issues.
But the way that he's been raising birthright citizenship for months in this context suggests that the administration knows, like you said, that this was -- this was a long shot.
WILLIAMS: Yes.
CORNISH: One other thing. Chuck, I want to ask you about the mail-in voting and the voting fight, because in the end, the court seemed to say, look, if things are postmarked by the day, it's fine.
But this is still a major sort of talking point on the right. Does it feel like it is something that is helpful for Democrats going forward; that they're not fighting redistricting, mail-in ballot, like, multiple battles?
ROCHA: I think when you're talking about letting people legally vote, it's a good thing.
And I think one of the message points we will have when there was a group text last night talking about this, a lot of these ballots are military ballots. People serving overseas, people that are on ships. This is a big part of why we even created this law --
CORNISH: Yes.
ROCHA: -- is that when you're overseas and you're military, you should be able to vote in your home district where your house resides. And I think that's a winning message every day when you're letting Americans, especially service members, do your democratic -- democratic duty.
CORNISH: Ashley, is there a ruling that you've already seen that you were surprised by, or one you're hoping to hear about today?
DAVIS: No, I think the transgender athlete issue today will be interesting. I think, on the opposite side, most people think he'll lose the birthright. Most people think he'll win that that the birthright -- the birth. I'm sorry, the transgender.
CORNISH: State bans on transgender athletes in youth sports.
DAVIS: Exactly. What's interesting to me were the dissents yesterday. So, you have, like, Roberts, who dissented at least twice. I mean, in regards to the two FTC and the Reserve.
And then Brett Kavanaugh --
WILLIAMS: Yes.
DAVIS: -- actually was one of the dissents for -- he sided with Roberts and the minority.
WILLIAMS: Yes.
DAVIS: And then Amy Coney Barrett, who does a lot, do the --
CORNISH: And who I've already seen as a kind of target in sort of right-wing media circles.
WILLIAMS: Yes. I think a couple things. Just in American history, always read the dissents, because that's where you're seeing sort of what the future of American law is.
CORNISH: Yes. Just ask Clarence Thomas.
WILLIAMS: Ask Clarence Thomas. And where they're disagreeing.
But also, the big fight yesterday was Amy Coney Barrett versus Justice Alito over terminations and firings. And there was just -- you're watching fights among the conservatives, which are really fascinating.
CORNISH: Yes. The seeds of discontent become law at some point.
DAVIS: We were reading her dissent that's, like, 80 billion pages that happened yesterday, top.
CORNISH: Hey, you guys wanted on camera, too. So, we'll see.
All right, you guys, stay with me. We've got a lot to talk about this hour coming up on CNN THIS MORNING.
Today is primary day in Colorado. There's a Gen Z congressional candidate taking on an incumbent who has elected -- who was elected the year before she was born. So, are we looking at a generational shift?
Plus, a World Cup knockout. Paraguay stuns Germany, defeating the four-time world champions.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A few have been in this position for Paraguay, but he scores! Paraguay have done it! Paraguay won it!
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[06:14:24]
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MELAT KIROS (D), COLORADO CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: Experience only matters if you actually do something with it. And we're finding now with a lot of incumbent Democrats, that they're not actually able to deliver meaningfully on the things that working families need right now.
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CORNISH: So, it's primary day in Colorado. Democrats are eyeing one particular congressional district, which sees a 30-year-long incumbent, Diana Degette, fighting for her seat against 29-year-old lawyer and Democratic socialist Melat Kiros.
Degette took over in office the year that Kiros was born.
Democratic socialists have successfully advanced in primaries in New York City, Washington, D.C., and L.A. Now, establishment Democrats are wondering if this wave will crash into Colorado today.
The group chat is back. I want to start with my Democratic adviser here.
ROCHA: Yes, ma'am.
CORNISH: Why is Colorado close? I have to admit, I looked at Colorado as a place where the Democrats who appealed in purple states had sort of made a home and were showing they could do it.
And yet even Michael Bennet, the senator, people are looking at his seat now and be like, well, wait a second, what's going on? So, why are they vulnerable there?
ROCHA: People keep forgetting that Colorado is one of those states that 20 years ago was a purple state, almost a red state.
CORNISH: Yes.
ROCHA: And it's become more and more blue as you've had lots of migration into there. But what you're --
CORNISH: A fragile blue.
ROCHA: Absolutely.
CORNISH: A pale blue.
WILLIAMS: And it's been periwinkle.
CORNISH: Yes.
ROCHA: But what you see there is you see this inside versus outside game.
CORNISH: Yes.
ROCHA: This is not much about Democratic socialists against conservatives or however the media or operatives like me want to categorize it. But it's about you see these incumbents, and here's the pattern that's emerged even from New York to Colorado, is you have lots of really safe Democrats I've talked about on this show. Lots of Democrats have very safe congressional seats, just like lots of Republicans do.
And what that causes you to do is not spend any money talking to voters over a long period of time, because you're safe cycle after cycle.
CORNISH: Yes.
ROCHA: And when you have these insurgent candidates where there's money being spent in a time where incumbents are looked at as poison, Democrat or Republican.
CORNISH: It's called a wave.
ROCHA: You see an insurgency ready to happen. CORNISH: So "Politico" is writing about Degette, and one of these on
background types said it's not looking great. And it's very tough when you're fighting against a wave.
And getting to that word, you're talking about, the wave. I think the thing that I wrestle with is that there are so many, both progressives and even, let's say, Congressional Black Caucus has this problem.
ROCHA: Sure.
CORNISH: Latino Caucus has this problem. These guys have been in office for so long, but they only just now are starting to get gavels and be in power. And they're, like, trying to turn to the voter and be like, no, no, no, no, no, no. We just -- we're going to do it now.
ROCHA: It's important to say this. Just one second. Degette, who she's running against, is in the Progressive Caucus.
CORNISH: Right.
ROCHA: She's a very progressive member.
CORNISH: Yes.
ROCHA: She just hasn't spent any money talking to voters in a long time.
CORNISH: Well, she also --
DAVIS: She also has a really reasonable -- I mean, like I know from the Republican side, for her and Bennet, Republicans like to work with both of them. So that's a problem right there when they're in this election.
But I agree with you. Everyone's too old, and everyone is just tired of the status quo.
CORNISH: Yes. And I'm the first to be out here talking about gerontocracy. I'm not going to act as though I've been immune to this language, but I have wrestled with it as I've thought about, like, some of these -- again, the progressives, the black, Latino. There's -- there's some affinity groups in Congress where they really never got into positions of power until now, right? When people are like, well, wait a second. You're too old to do the job.
WILLIAMS: Yes. The other -- the other factor looming over this is that you saw this with Republicans in 2012 and 2016, that when a party is out of power and sort of in the wilderness, people are even hungrier to sort of, as both of you were saying, to sort of upset the world and see a lot of the older --
CORNISH: Yes, because why not? You're already in the wilderness.
WILLIAMS: Why not? Why not, we're in the wilderness.
CORNISH: Yes. WILLIAMS: And -- and also we -- various factions have different visions for how the future ought to be. And they're very, very different. Again, you saw it with the Republicans. And that led, in some part, to the Tea Party, but also to Donald Trump.
CORNISH: Can I talk about this split?
WILLIAMS: -- what the party was.
CORNISH: Let me talk about the split divisions for a minute, because where this surfaces over and over again is this counting of how many socialists may be coming. We are panicking about that. This is our manifesto.
Senator Chris Coons was talking about this on Friday. Here was his take. And we hear this take often.
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SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): I'm a member of the Democratic Party. I'm not a member of the Socialist Party. And frankly, I think that, while folks can take ideas from other political traditions, if you're running in a Democratic primary, you ought to be a Democrat.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: And then in the meantime, poor Hakeem Jeffries --
DAVIS: Yes.
CORNISH: -- has to be asked about this over and over again. He is, as we say, House minority leader, hoping to change that in November. And people are saying, are you worried about the fall? Here's what he had to say on Monday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Mr. Jeffries, do you think that the -- all these socialists who are coming in here, is that good for your party right now?
REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): The party is going to continue to focus on winning seats currently held by Republicans and flipping them blue.
RAJU: Yes, but they're going to come in, and they're going to demand the moon, and you're not going to be able to deliver the moon.
JEFFRIES: Well, let's cross that bridge when we get to it, because I think, before we can even get to governing, we have to win.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Pro tip: when they walk slow, they want to answer.
CHAMBERS: This is part of, you know, this broader debate that's taking place in the Democratic Party right now, leading into not just the midterm elections. I know that you hate it when I talk about 2028, Audie.
CORNISH: No, I'm there. I'm there. We're doing it. We're doing it as it comes.
CHAMBERS: OK. But leading into the 2028 presidential race is the -- the country determines what it wants after Donald Trump, who is term- limited and whether or not the Democratic Party, you know, fighting against Donald Trump is enough. Or if there has to be some other set of policies and ideas.
[06:20:07]
And if so, what exactly those are. You see that playing out in New York, in Colorado, and across the country right now.
But it's not just, by the way, on the Democratic side, although I know that's what we're talking about right now. And I think this is what you were about to get into --
CORNISH: Yes. We didn't even get into the Republican side of the Colorado race.
CHAMBERS: I see this happening on the Republican side, as well, with the country. Republicans, at least in this country, repeatedly siding with President Donald Trump when he backs candidates over people who are establishment, if he simply says that this person wasn't supportive enough.
CORNISH: Republicans in the primaries.
CHAMBERS: In the primaries. In the primaries.
CORNISH: And for both parties, the question is the general.
CHAMBERS: Correct.
WILLIAMS: But it's also -- it's also important to note we're talking about blue district primaries in blue districts, in blue states. These are --
ROCHA: But let me push back.
WILLIAMS: -- you know, this is not the entire country.
ROCHA: Let me push back tonight. In -- in Colorado Eight tonight, in this race today that they're having in Colorado, it's a true marginal seat that we're talking about.
It's one of those 40 seats that is literally 50/50. It's just North of downtown. My PAC, in full disclosure, has run some ads there for a Latino that's running, a young Latino who's 31, running against a sitting state senator there. She's 57.
Between the two Democrats. Also, there's a freshman Republican. This seat will determine who controls Congress and many seats just like that. DAVIS: Who's going to win that one? The -- the --
ROCHA: The young guy's probably going to win it.
CORNISH: Well, don't ask him, will you put money on the race? But also, sir, you're saying 51 is old?
ROCHA: I'm saying in this context it is.
CORNISH: What are we saying?
DAVIS: I know; 51.
ROCHA: It's a generational change.
CORNISH: OK.
ROCHA: Fifty-one is too old.
CORNISH: Hope and change. Chuck Rocha, Elliot, thank you for being here. I love when you enter the chat.
After the break on CNN THIS MORNING from breaking NFL records to fighting for his life. Chris Johnson reveals his life-changing diagnosis.
Plus, a dangerous heat wave set up across the Eastern half of the U.S., taking you all the way into the July 4th holiday weekend. And Washington, D.C., expected to top out Saturday in the triple digits, forecasted to have its hottest Fourth of July on record.
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[06:26:23]
CORNISH: It's now 25 minutes past the hour. This is your morning roundup: some of the stories you might have missed.
Did you know there are survivors still being found in Venezuela after last night's earthquakes? Crews rescued a 12-year-old who was trapped underneath the rubble.
Now, this came hours after a 21-year-old man was pulled from underneath a building that collapsed. He'd been trapped for days. And here's what he had to say after the rescue.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AARON LEVI CANTILLO, RESCUED MAN (through translator): I'm a nobody. I'm just a young man who spent five days trapped beneath a building. But I'm here today, and I'm alive, thanks to my God. He is the only one who got me out of there and sent his angels.
Who were his angels? The people who worked tirelessly on my rescue. The people who cared about how I was doing, the people who were there when I came out, who shouted my name when they saw me emerge. As far as I know, I was just informed that I was the only person in
that building who was found alive.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: In the meantime, there are crews finding pets barking from beneath the damage, which led them to pull this puppy to safety.
Now, these are only some of the lucky few who have been found alive. The death toll currently stands at around 1,700; 5,000 people injured. Many more remain missing.
Former NFL star running back Chris Johnson revealed in a TV interview that he suffers from ALS. The 40-year-old spent ten years in the NFL and last played in 2017.
Now, in his interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," he was only able to communicate through a computerized speech generation device.
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CHRIS JOHNSON, FORMER NFL RUNNINGBACK: I first noticed weakness in my right hand. At first it was little things like my grip didn't feel right, and I wasn't as strong as I've always been.
It's continued to progress much faster than I ever imagined.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Now, Johnson is one of only nine players in NFL history to rush more than 2,000 yards in a season.
And Paraguay shocked Germany in a massive upset last night on penalties.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Down to Jose Canale. A few have been in this position for Paraguay, but he scores! Paraguay have done it! Paraguay have won it! And they've booted Germany out of the World Cup!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Woof. The four-time World Cup winners now out of this year's championships. It's the first time the Germans have ever lost in the World Cup on penalties.
Paraguay advancing to the Round of 16 later this week.
And straight ahead on CNN THIS MORNING, deleted tweets from a rising Democratic figure now raising questions about socialist views inside the party.
Plus, what a key vote on military aid to Israel might say about deep divisions inside the party, as well.
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