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Supreme Court Blocks Biden's Student Debt Forgiveness; Biden To Announces New Actions On Student Loans Today; Supreme Court Limits LGBTQ Protections; Political Fallout From Supreme Court Rulings; Supreme Court To Decide If 2nd Amendment Protects Gun Owners Subject To Domestic Violence Restraining Orders. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired June 30, 2023 - 12:00   ET

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

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DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Today on Inside Politics, two new rulings to fix the three decisions, two more sweeping changes to American life. The Supreme Court tilts the scales to the right on speech versus gay rights and on the signature Biden policy to zero out student debt.

Plus, the ruling spark theory in Congress and celebration on the GOP campaign trail. Republicans say, the justices will correctly, Democrats say they are controlled by the MAGA right. And justice versus justice. The final day of the term sees another pair of on the bench trading jabs over law and life.

I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

Up first, it is a new world, defined by new math, six-three. The Supreme Court ends its session with two more decisions and two more clear reminders that elections have consequences. Donald Trump put three justices on the bench, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. They have all ruled in the last two days to push the country right in ways that many of you will see and feel every single day.

We want to start our coverage with CNN's Jessica Schneider, at the court. So, Jessica, let's start with the student loans decision. Walk us through that.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Dana. The Supreme Court telling the Biden administration that they cannot enact their student loan debt forgiveness program, as they had planned, as they had tried to put in fact, back in 2022. The justices here saying that the federal law that the Biden administration had acted under the Heroes Act just wasn't broad enough, wasn't intended to cancel this massive amount of debt amounting to $400 plus billion.

Now, this was a six-three decision, split along those conservative and liberal lines. The Chief Justice John Roberts, he wrote this opinion and in it, he invoked the former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi writing this. As then speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi explained, people think that the president of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness. He does not. He can postpone. He can delay. But he does not have that power. That has to be an act of Congress.

Now Justice Elena Kagan read her dissent from the bench, something that is relatively rare, but that we've seen repeatedly throughout the past few days, yesterday with affirmative action, and today in the two cases. Justice Kagan shot back saying, the result here is that the court substitutes itself for Congress and the executive branch in making national policy about student loan forgiveness.

So, the takeaway here is that the 40 million plus student loan borrowers who are maybe waiting and excited about the prospect of getting this student loan cancelled up to $20,000. In some cases, they are out of luck, at least for now. And Dana, interestingly, student loan payments have been on pause, but they will resume starting October 1. Dana?

BASH: OK. Jess, standby for us because we want to come back to you about the other big ruling. but I want to go first to the White House to CNN's Arlette Saenz. So, Arlette, you're learning that the president met immediately with senior advisors after this ruling came down against him and his executive order.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Dana. President Biden has been meeting with his senior team throughout the morning. I'm told he stopped meeting started about 15 minutes after the Supreme Court's decision came down that blocked President Biden's student debt relief plan.

Now, this all comes as the White House, a source of the White House has told us that the president is also planning on announcing some new actions today that they can try to take to protect student loan borrowers. It's unclear what those actions might entail. But officials have been meeting behind the scenes for months, trying to come up with other policy options that they could roll out in the events that the Supreme Court ruled this way.

I think another thing that's important to know is the argument that we are expecting to hear from President Biden and his administration over the course of the next few weeks. And the administration official said that the president is expected, and the administration wants to make clear that quote, they want to make crystal clear to borrowers and their families, that Republicans are responsible for denying them the relief that President Biden has been fighting to get to them.

That is a key argument that we're expecting to hear from the White House going forward. But this ruling from the Supreme Court really is a significant blow to a signature initiative of President Biden's administration. They had hoped that they could offer this type of relief to up to 40 million against federal student loan borrowers, but now they have that decisive decision that this program will be blocked.

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BASH: Arlette, thank you for that. We're going to talk much more about the politics and the ramifications of this decision later in the show. But now I want to go back to Jessica Schneider at the court. And Jessica, talk about the other very big decision today that impacts LGBTQ rights. What did the justices rule?

SCHNEIDER: Yes, Dana. This is a ruling that could really up end public accommodations laws all across the country, when it comes to creative or expressive businesses. Because the court in this case, again, along those six-three lines written by Justice Gorsuch, saying that a Colorado law that prohibits discrimination against same sex couples by businesses, violates the free speech clause of the constitution saying, that this really compelled speech and that's just not proper under the constitution.

So, Justice Gorsuch, writing this, saying Colorado does not seek to ensure the sale of goods or services on equal terms. It seeks to use its law to compel an individual to create speech she does not believe. So, ruling in favor of this website designer who sought a ruling saying, that she wanted to preemptively even before starting her business, get a ruling that said she did not have to service those couples, of same sex couples who she didn't agree with.

And once again, we saw a fiery dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor that she read on the bench just like she did yesterday. This time she said this, today, the court for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve his members of a protected class. And Justice Sotomayor even went further saying, this raises questions about businesses that are creative or expressive, whether they could refuse service to other people, including interracial couples.

Now, Dana, I will mention that Justice Gorsuch in a footnote shot that idea down. He said that this decision does not concern or endorse anything like a straight couples only sign that he said the dissent conjured out of thin air. So, a lot of tension on the bench today, when we saw the justices reading from the opinion, and then obviously a lot of tension in this six-three split. Dana?

BASH: Jessica Schneider, keeping us all honest and straight and informed mostly about the incredibly consequential few days that we've seen at the Supreme Court. Here with me at the table to share their insights and reporting CNN's Joan Biskupic, CNN's Carrie Cordero and CNN's Laura Coates.

Once again, Joan, you are just arriving here from up the street at the court. What was it like?

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN SENIOR SUPREME COURT ANALYST: It was amazing. You really saw all the tensions in America playing out in that courtroom, based on what they ruled and the voices that we heard. First, we hear from Justice Neil Gorsuch, talking about the free speech rights of this woman who does not want to do a wedding website for same sex couples. He cast it all in the notion of speech rights for this woman.

And when Justice Sotomayor spoke herself in dissent, she pulled back and said, this is not about just speech. This is about discrimination against gays and lesbians. And she likened it to discrimination against African Americans back in the 60s, discrimination across the board and talk at the core of what she said. And then the other -- the other one I'll mention when the chief gets into it, with Justice Kagan, is kind of the identity of American, the identity of rights.

Justice Sotomayor said at one point, look at how much at this court has changed, so much has changed just in the last five years. And she raised this one case from back in the 60s that involved African Americans who could only be served through a window of a driving rather than come in and sit down at our lunch counter and said, essentially, this website owner has said, she will only sell her wares at a side counter.

And then just one other part that kind of shows the broader atmospherics with today's Supreme Court in the student loan case that involves the power of government. Chief Justice John Roberts, reading his dissent, essentially saying, we are going to interpret this law in a way that negates the power of agencies department of education here, but others to really follow through with congressional delegation.

And Justice Kagan, in her dissent said, you have essentially made the court the decision maker here. You have -- your taking powers, your majority and misreading the statute and contracting regulatory authority and the authority that Congress wanted to give to the secretary of education. Core debates played out in terms of what the country is all about and what the powers of government are all about.

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BASH: So interesting. And Laura and Carrie, as I bring you in, I just want to read a bit more of what we heard and actually read in the decision and the opinion and the dissent. At first, let's just start with Justice Sotomayor more of her dissenting opinion. The decision threatens to balkanize the market and to allow the exclusion of other groups from many services. A web designer could equally refuse to create a wedding website for an interracial couple. This is what you're referring to, Joan.

Then Neil Gorsuch, the dissent refuses to acknowledge where its reasoning leads. In a world that as Chief Judge Tymkovich highlighted, governments could force an unwilling Muslim movie director to make a film with a Zionist message, they could compel an atheist muralist to accept a commission celebrating evangelical zeal, and they could require a gay website designer to create websites for a group advocating against same sex marriage. So, long as these speakers would accept commissions from the public with different messages.

LAURA COATES, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: This really is the battle of the slippery slopes, isn't it, which one has the more persuasive argument as to what could ultimately be the end result of what they've now ruled? A real plain way of speaking about this ruling is, we normally think of if you're open to the public, that means you're open to the public, not your hours, what you'd normally expect to have constrained in some way.

But this essentially says, you can be open, but open except. You're talking about expressive ideas or your creative endeavors, and particularly what they're focusing on here. You cannot be compelled to do something for the greater public and be fully inclusive if you've got some sort of religious or faith-based reason why you do not want to do so.

And that does create some bit of a Pandora's box opening. Because you could have actually foresee someone saying, well hold on a second, maybe I'm a barista. And the way that I do the foam on top of the cappuccino is very artsy. I don't want, whatever you're kind in here to actually partake of my artistry.

Well, what is the day-to-day enforcement mechanism to show that's not the case? Is it going up the Supreme Court again? Is it having redress from the court, I mean, or the state in Colorado, who now says Supreme Court inside our hands?

CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL & NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, and this court is demonstrating that it is taking a very expansive and robust view of the First Amendment. And it wasn't just this particular case that the justice who issued the opinion in this case, wrapped himself in the First Amendment, and presented the entire argument not as one of public accommodation as Jessica Schneider was recording, but really of First Amendment protections.

There was a case actually earlier in the week countermine, where the court also based on First Amendment rights up to overturn a conviction of an individual who was making threatening Facebook messages to a performer.

And the Supreme Court throughout that conviction, and again, weighing the First Amendment rights of that individual more strongly than the threatening conduct that the individual was engaged in, which really was affecting a particular performers ability to live her life and engage in her work. So, this court is staking out a very broad view of First Amendment rights in particular.

BASH: OK, guys. Thank you so much. Again, we could be talking about this for like hours and hours and hours, and I would like to after the show. Up next. We'll break down the political fallout from these decisions. Stay read there.

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[12:15:00]

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BASH: Now, let's go inside the politics of today's consequential Supreme Court rulings. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy are applauding the decision to block President Biden's student led debt forgiveness program. We should note neither GOP leader has weighed in on the other big ruling of the day, which allows a website designer to refuse to make wedding websites for gay clients.

Let's discuss this with CNN political director David Chalian, CNN anchor and host of the assignment podcast Audie Cornish, and CNN White House correspondent Jeremy Diamond. Before I get you all to open up your giant brains and spill it all out for everybody to see your analysis. Let's look at two, I think very telling reactions that we've gotten over the last hour or two.

Mike Pence candidate for president of course Republican, we must elect leaders who will appoint judges who support religious freedom. I'm honored to have played a role in appointing three of the justices that ensured today's welcomed decision. Reminding everybody that it was the Trump Pence administration who got three of them on the bench.

Then the Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. Today's ruling by the MAGA right wing activist -- MAGA right activist wing of the Supreme Court is a giant step backward. This is bigotry that the vast majority of Americans find completely unacceptable.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: I certainly think it's true that a majority of Americans find bigotry unacceptable. And I have no doubt that that's going to be a rallying cry for the Democrats to piece together yesterday's affirmative action case, the LGBTQ rights case here, and even the student loan piece as well to try and energize their base.

Perhaps, they hope in a not dissimilar in fashion from what we saw last year with Democrats rallying politically in response to the Dobbs decision. I don't know that these issues are cut exactly the same way politically as unpopular decision as Dobbs.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: What I think where they do is with young people.

CHALIAN: Yes.

CORNISH: Right. That's the vote. There was a dissatisfied voter who believed that the Biden administration was not doing enough on student loans. Now, they have the ability, the administration and say, look, we are trying but there are -- these are the roadblocks and it's sort of out of our control. Same thing, we know younger voters across the spectrum do approve of LGBT rights. And think of them as a civil rights movement.

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CHALIAN: It's just a narrower play. Do you know, but politics is won or lost in the margin, so it's not like energizing young voters is not a requirement for Democrats that is.

CORNISH: (crosstalk) depressed energized, a depressed youth vote is not brave (Ph).

BASH: Well, that's I mean, that was going to bring you on in on that, Jeremy, since you cover the White House. You know, we started the program, reminding people that elections have consequences that three of these justices are only there because Donald Trump won the election. And then the question inside Democratic circles now is enthusiasm. And how you get the various parts of whatever the Biden coalition is this time around to actually be energized to get out and vote. JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Right. And I think that this does, as you guys were saying, give Democrats and the president an opportunity to go out and say, look, I tried to do this, I wanted to deliver on his major campaign promise that I made in 2020.

Republican state attorneys general across the country supported by Republicans in Congress prevented me from doing this. And the next step will be that we need to do this through legislation. And therefore, you need to not only reelect me, but you need to elect Democrats to Congress.

I think there is a question, though, of you know, this could cut the other way as well, right? I mean, you look at young voters who are going to look at the president say, hey, you promised us this during the 2020 campaign and you didn't deliver. You know, perhaps he overhyped expectations.

You know, there are some questions about as this majority opinion rules that saying that he didn't have the legal authority to do this using the statute that he used. Of course, the dissent very much disagrees with that, but that's an open question.

BASH: There is the legal authority, there is the question of enthusiasm in favor of forgiving student loan debt. And then there's something else that I found really fascinating, which is something that Tim Scott immediately came up with in a video that he posted. Listen to his message.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TIM SCOTT, (R-SC): Joe Biden wants you to pay off the student loans of lawyers and professors. I want to strengthen vocational education and apprenticeships. We need more welders, carpenters and electricians.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: I remember before the executive order that came out of the Biden White House talking to senior people in the White House, saying that they were actually concerned that this student loan issue could cut the other way with some working-class Americans. Those are the people Tim Scott is appealing to in this video.

CHALIAN: No doubt about it, Dana. And we saw the president himself struggled with this for quite some time. He got to that student loan decision after a ton of pressure from the left wing of his party, this was not Joe Biden's natural. But do you remember, they kept kicking the can. I'm sure you remember, Jeremy, but they kept kicking, kicking the can down the road on this decision because Joe Biden is also attuned a bit to that kind of messaging that you're hearing there.

So, yes, he'll fight against this decision, and no doubt uses an opportunity to rally everyone around. But we saw in very public display, how he was not 100 percent sure of where he was going to land on this issue for quite some time. CORNISH: You know, it's interesting with all of these rulings, I think that the conservative movement is having these victories. And what happens after you have that victory, especially if so much of your messaging, prior to that point, has been about victimization or grievance. We see this with Roe v. Wade, in terms of how that is actually policed. And what happens to women who are actually charged with pregnancy related crimes?

Those kinds of things can have an effect going forward. And that the voter will now see how your world, how your vision of the world actually plays out and has an effect on them. The student loan debt thing is just like that, the LGBT issue is just like that, and affirmative action is just like that, where people are now going to live in the world that has been theorized for a very long time, for two years going right up into the next election.

BASH: Absolutely, fascinating. And there might be something else that the court is going to deal with on that very topic. I want to get to the court with more breaking news. Jessica, talk about what the justices said today that they are going to deal with in the next session.

SCHNEIDER: Yes. Typically, at the end of the term here, Dana, after opinions are issued. We hear from the court about additional cases that they'll take up starting in October, and they have agreed to take up a case about a federal law that are -- that says, anyone subject to a domestic restraining order cannot possess a firearm.

Why this case is important is obviously critics say that if this law is not on the books, it could open up gun rights to domestic violence abusers. And the Fifth Circuit in this case actually has invalidated this federal law. They did that back in March, in a case involving a drug dealer who assaulted his girlfriend. So, this law is not in place.

The Supreme Court will hear the case and decide on the merits of this case, but in those months in between this law is not in place. This law barring domestic violence abusers from actually getting their hands on a gun.

[12:25:00]

I will say, Dana, this is important because it was just last year that the Supreme Court ruled on a case involving a New York State law, and they really have opened up a broader array of challenges to gun laws because of their decision last year. They said that courts in deciding whether a gun law is constitutional has to look to an analogous historical law. And a lot of these courts and judges around the country have really struggled to find analogous laws that support current laws.

So, the Supreme Court, just about a year after a major decision, which sort of threw things into chaos for the lower courts, they will again, starting in October, here a case about this law that has now been struck down by lower courts. So, a big decision next term that will start in October, Dana? BASH: A big decision and it will be a hot button issue that will land this time next year, which is just going to be a few months before voters go to the polls. Thank you so much, Jess. Appreciate that. And President Biden just weighed in on one of those controversial Supreme Court rulings. What he said is next. And I will speak with a Democratic Congressman Ritchie Torres in New York. He is the only openly gay black man now serving in the U.S. Congress.

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