Presidential Debate Prep, Assange Plea Deal, Key Primary Results
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Voters 50 and over have the power to decide elections. So candidates who want to win need to talk about the issues they care about. Learn more from our latest polling in Pennsylvania at aarp.org slash PA polling. Overnight, Duncan's pumpkin spice coffee has sent folks into a cozy craze. I'm Lauren LaTulip reporting live from home in my hand-knit turtleneck that my nana made me. Mmm, cinnamony. The home with Duncan is where you want to be.

It's Wednesday, June 26th, right now on CNN This Morning. One day to go, new details about the candidate's final preparations for tomorrow night's highly anticipated presidential debate. Julian Assange, a free man, arriving minutes ago in Australia. How that plea deal that led to his release happened.

Primary results are in. One Republican incumbent, you might recognize her, gets to keep her job while a member of the squad, the progressives, loses his. And two members of Congress, one Democrat, one Republican, joining us live for their take on tomorrow's night's historic presidential debate. Just after 6 a.m. here in Washington, a live look at the White House on this Wednesday morning. President Biden is not home. He is preparing for the debate at the Camp David. Good morning, everyone. I'm Casey Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.

The first 2024 presidential debate now just a day away. The rematch between President Biden and Donald Trump set for 9 p.m. Eastern time tomorrow at CNN's World Headquarters in Atlanta. It'll be a night of firsts. A sitting president and a former president have never debated in modern times. And this is the earliest in the calendar scheduled debate in recent memory.

But this is obviously not the first time that these two have stood opposite each other on the biggest political stage. The last time these two men faced off, you may remember, it was chaos.

The question is, the question is, the question is, will you shut up, man? I'm not here to call out his lies. Everybody knows he's a liar. You know, Joe, I ran because of you. I ran because of Barack Obama, because you did a poor job. He's the racist. You're the worst president America has ever had. We can't lock ourselves up in a basement like Joe does. It's hard to get any word in with this clown.

Oh boy. Tomorrow night, new rules will be in place. The candidates will stand at podiums just a few feet from each other. Trump on the left, Biden on the right. There will be no audience in the studio as CNN's Jake Tapper and Dan Abash moderate the 90-minute debate.

And the candidates' microphones will only be turned on when it is their turn to speak, meaning interruptions or answers beyond time limits that the candidates agreed to might not be heard. So that will be different from last time. Also different, the context. What's going on in the country? You may recall that just days after that contentious first showdown in 2020, then-President Trump was helicoptered to Walter Reed while deathly ill with COVID-19.

And that first debate also included this moment that would come back to haunt the country when Trump failed to condemn the white nationalist Proud Boys. I'm willing to do anything. I want to see peace. Then do it, sir. Say it. Do it. Say it. Do you want to call them? What do you want to call them? Give me a name. Give me a name. White supremacists and white supremacists. Who would you like me to condemn? Proud Boys. Proud Boys. Stand back and stand by.

OK, let's bring in our panel. Evan Osnos, staff writer at The New Yorker and Biden biographer, basically. Former Biden White House communications director Kate Bedingfield is here. And former Trump campaign advisor David Urban also joins us. Good morning to all of you. Relative calm on this set this morning.

We're all tired. We will see. It is early. But we're setting the stage for, you know, we're not sure what we're going to see on stage on Thursday night from these two men. But the 2020 debate was a very specific moment in time. Obviously, there have been some adjustments, Evan, in terms of how this is likely to

play out? How do you think that the way that this is set up is going to impact how much this debate matters and how it matters? The format is really important. I mean, it's really the closest analogy we have is 1960, you know, when JFK debated Richard Nixon. You had no studio audience. You had this kind of

at the time, quite orderly atmosphere. Today, nobody is expecting an especially quiet or sedate atmosphere, but it's just no question that having mics that can be silenced in between changes the whole nature of the thing. Last time, Chris Wallace estimated that Trump interrupted more than 100 times.

I think that one of the elements that will allow Biden to emphasize is a message that he's been talking about recently, which is, as he said in a new set of ads, he said, look, Donald Trump is interested in himself. He's not interested in making changes and doing things for the middle class.

The degree to which Donald Trump talks about himself and goes on and on and on and seems to overstep the boundaries and overstep the limits, that says more about him than it does about the policies he wants. - So one of the things that Trump is out there talking about in the lead up to the debate is the idea that there may be

performance enhancing drugs, I guess. Although he's not really specific, but I do think it's worth noting, we talked about these claims that Trump is making a little bit on the show yesterday, but we didn't go back and find the tape from before because we've seen the movie. Let's look at kind of what Donald Trump had to say back in 2020 about this. And actually, I think even before that, I think it goes back to 2016. Just watch.

I think she's actually getting pumped up. So I think we should take a drug test. Anyway, I'm willing to do it. They give him a big fat shot in the ass and he comes out. And for two hours, he's better than ever before. The problem is what happens after that? Nah, we're going to ask for a drug test. We are. I'd like to have a drug test. Both of us. So a little before debate time, he gets a shot in the ass and that's...

They want to strengthen him up. He'll come out all jacked up, right? All jacked up. Masks that say MAGA, that's a specific throwback. But David Urban, what's going on here? Yeah, so look, I think what former President Trump's trying to do is kind of raise expectations, right? Joe Biden's not going to come out and be Sleepy Joe there. I think he's going to come out being combative.

if there's two things that need to occur to the state to be successful for both sides, Donald Trump needs to be sedate and Joe Biden needs to be animated, right? And so it's almost, it's the reverse of what we see every day, right? So Trump at the rally on Saturday was pretty good. You know, Evan said if he's grievanced Donald Trump, that's problems for the Trump campaign. Saturday night in Philadelphia, he was kind of on message about working for you, fighting for you, right?

And Joe Biden has to appear dynamic. He has to appear vigorous. He has to be combative. I think if Joe Biden comes out and is combative, people think, whoa, who's this guy, right? I mean, that's what the Biden campaign wants to see. The Trump campaign wants to see the opposite. And so the mic's being cut off. I think the format lends itself to more orderly debate.

But I think both teams want to see something maybe a little bit different from their candidates. You know, Kate's the director here. What do you say, director? Look, I broadly agree with that. I think for Trump, the aim here is to try to show these moderate suburban voters that he is a palatable option. They shouldn't be scared. Yeah, they shouldn't be scared of him. And we know from that first debate in 2020, that was a bad moment for Donald Trump on the

the Biden campaign in 2020, we saw his numbers fell off. We saw it in our data. I mean, that was not a good moment for him. And I think we've seen a lot of reporting that suggests that, and David would know better, that he gets that and he knows that. So I do think it's reasonable to expect that we will get a kind of more sedate version of Donald Trump. We get second debate Donald Trump. Whether we get...

Whether we get that for 90 minutes, we'll see. Also, don't underestimate, don't forget how much these two personally dislike each other. They really do. And so I think the intensity of being on stage together eight feet apart with no audience, really just kind of mano a mano,

I think it's gonna add a little bit of, a little bit of X factor, shall we say. - It's worth remembering, because Donald Trump didn't show up for the inauguration, they haven't been on stage in a very long time. We often talk about how Donald Trump tried to steal this election. From Joe Biden's perspective, he tried to steal it from Joe Biden. There is an intense element to this that is going to be electricity that is right between these two. - It's gonna be like the Jake Paul, Donald Trump, that video you see them staring at each other down. That's what it's gonna look like before the debate starts.

Maybe I'll have to pull that for some B-roll. I mean, David, how do you think that that affects Trump? I mean, you know Trump. Oh, I do. I agree. Listen, I think Kate's exactly correct. There's going to be this visceral response, right? They both personally, there's a personal animus between each other. And so when they're standing there, from Evan to eyes distance apart, right, there's going to be like,

I want you, buddy. They may get in a fight. Who knows, right? They may throw it out. Biden said, I'll take him out back, right? I mean, Trump would say throw it out. I mean, you may see like the Jake Paul with Mike Tyson thing going on there, you know, Thursday night. We should have some pay-per-view. We actually should dig those soundbites up too, guys. Let's go looking for that. All right. We've got a lot more to talk about this morning. Coming up next here, new reporting on that plea deal that led to the release of Julian Assange, plus two members of Congress, Democrat Debbie Dingell and Republican Tim Burchett, here to preview tomorrow's presidential debate.

And then there's this: massive wildfires triggering evacuation warnings in Fresno, California. It's one of the five things you have to see this morning.

I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast. What are some of the social service agencies that have supported you and your family growing up? That's Dr. Robert Waldinger. He's a psychiatrist, a professor, and a Zen master. What kind of relationships actually help us maintain happiness? And what should we do in those moments where we have setbacks and things that don't work out? Listen to Chasing Life, streaming now, wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, welcome back. WikiLeaks is preparing to weigh in this morning on the newfound freedom of its founder, Julian Assange. Assange touched down in Australia moments ago for the first time in 12 years after formally entering a guilty plea in a U.S. court on the northern Mariana Islands. His attorney using the opportunity to again frame their argument. They claim Assange had no business being locked up in the first place.

We firmly believe that Mr. Assange never should have been charged under the Espionage Act and engaged in exercise that journalists engage in every day. Assange pleaded guilty to conspiring unlawfully to obtain and disseminate classified information. It was one of the largest breaches of classified material in U.S. military history. And now new details are coming to light about the circumstances leading up to the plea deal. I'm joined now by CNN's senior justice correspondent, Evan Perez. Evan, good morning to you. Wonderful to have you here. Good morning. What are we learning about this? Well,

Well, we know that over the years there was a lot of discussion between Julian Assange's lawyers and the Justice Department, always really far apart. But I think over the last couple of years you've seen the Australian government become more involved. There's a new left-leaning government there in the last couple of years that viewed his case as something that they wanted to champion. You saw, for instance, in October,

Anthony Albanese, the prime minister, bringing up personally with President Biden. We're told that, you know, Kylie Atwood is told that, you know, pretty much over the last couple of years, every time Australian diplomats met with the U.S., they would bring up the case of Julian Assange. And so what we see, like, you know, in April, we see that, you know, the Australian officials were

right to attorney general Merrick Garland saying we think that there's a deal possible they also raise the possibility of a felony plea that would bring this down and resolve this now you know some of this I think for for Justice Department officials they also were losing in in court in England where Assange has been holed up he's been fighting extradition and in May they also lost another effort to try to get him extradited

lengthening this fight. So I think what ended up happening is you saw, I think they came to terms with the idea that he's already served five years, which is probably about the maximum that he would probably have gotten if he had gotten convicted on one of these counts. And I think both sides decided that it was time. In the case of Assange, he was insisting on

a misdemeanor, which of course he didn't do. He got a felony and he also wanted to make sure he did not come to a court in the continental United States, which is why he was in Saipan in Northern Mariana Islands. Stopped at the North. Of course, because why not? Right, 2,000 miles away. Evan, what are the implications of this plea deal for press freedoms here in the U.S.? I think that's one of the most fascinating parts of this. The Obama administration looked at charging

Julian Assange, very much the same case. And they decided that there was too much of a risk or the precedent, right? And the issue was, you know, if WikiLeaks is cooperating and partnering with U.S. news organizations to publish some of these stolen documents, you know, why are you going after Assange and not after the New York Times editor, for instance? And so they were uncomfortable with it in the

everything changed after the the the hack of of of the DNC documents and Hillary Clinton targeted by Russian intelligence and passed to WikiLeaks that began changing the view of what was happening and in the end what I think the government believes is that is a Julian Assange was not a journalist he was directing and actually encouraging people to steal stuff which is something that a line that we don't cross when we're doing our work and so they view Julian Assange as in a totally different

in a totally different way than I think certainly Barry Pollack, his lawyer, described them just now. But you're going to hear from Julian Assange today, and he is going to embrace this idea that I'm a journalist and I was prosecuted for being a journalist, and I think the picture is a lot more complicated. All right. Evan Perez for us this morning. Evan, so grateful to have you. Thank you very much.

All right, ahead here, new CNN reporting how President Biden and Donald Trump are gearing up in the final hours before tomorrow night's debate. Plus, state of emergency in the Midwest after days of heavy rain. It's one of the five things you have to see this morning. All right, 23 minutes past the hour. Five things you have to see this morning. Evacuation warnings near Fresno, California as crews work to get control of two wildfires. The cause still under investigation, but it's suspected that lightning from recent thunderstorms are responsible.

Olympic swimming legend Michael Phelps on Capitol Hill last night testifying before a House committee on problems with the global anti-doping system ahead of the Summer Olympics.

Ultramarathon swimmer Katie Humphrey completing a historic 24-mile swim from the Chesapeake Bay to Baltimore's Inner Harbor. That feat accomplished just as the city announces that the harbor's water is finally safe to swim in again. Messi swung into the near post, knocked in. Leto Argentina breakthroughed. A late winner for Argentina last night in the Copa America, superstar Lionel Messi playing in front of a sold-out crowd at New Jersey's MetLife Stadium.

New video of the devastating flooding in the upper Midwest where towns remain submerged. Floodwaters taking out this bridge in North Sioux City, South Dakota. Yikes. All right, coming up next here, Representatives Debbie Dingell and Tim Burchett join me live with their analysis ahead of tomorrow's debate. Plus, several blockbuster rulings expected from the Supreme Court at any time.

Everybody knows he's a liar. But you agree. I just want to make sure. Joe, you're the liar. I want to make sure. You graduated last in your class, not first in your class. I want to make sure. Mr. President, can you let him finish, sir? He doesn't know how to do that.

It will be Joe Biden and Donald Trump's first face-off in four years set for Thursday. New polling shows 57% of Americans are likely to follow coverage of the CNN presidential debate, and it's gearing up to be a consequential showdown. Both men will be on stage, their legacies on... Somebody should ask the question.

you know, up for the test. But according to new CNN reporting, some top Democrats are urging Biden not to focus on his legacy tomorrow night, instead advising him to spend more time going after Trump directly. Here to talk about how these candidates are preparing are two people that couldn't be better to do it, senior White House correspondent here at CNN, Kayla Tausche, and CNN reporter Elena Treen, who covers Donald Trump for us, along with some others on our team.

Ladies, thank you so much for being here. Kayla, let me start with you because this is your reporting on Democrats and how they want to see Biden play this out. What have you learned? Well, there are some statistics that the president has a tendency to lean on to try to explain that the economy actually is doing better than voters feel. And that's the 15 million jobs created, the fact that the domestic growth in the country has continued to be good, and the fact that inflation is improving. But the problem is that still hasn't really improved the way that voters feel about the cost of living, which has been

considerably higher than it was

four years ago and also notably pre-pandemic. So they're saying, don't waste your two minutes of response time going deep into the litany of accomplishments, which hasn't moved voters so far. Focus on Trump, focus on the contrast, focus on the choice, try to recenter that for voters who are newly engaged. But to that end, when he's focused on that contrast and that choice, there's a thing that he's not going to be doing that he has employed in prior debates, and that is unveiling new policies or new personnel. You may remember in March 2020 when CNN hosted a

debate between biden and senator bernie sanders president biden or then candidate biden came out and announced that he'd pick a woman for vice president he was a new supporter of student loan forgiveness and he reiterated a pledge to put a black woman on the supreme court and sanders advisors say that was a really effective strategy it earned a lot of media but i'm told that biden if he decides to employ that strategy won't do it until a later debate because he really wants to make this one about the substance

His aides are helping him practice substance and stamina at Camp David, long working days. Some staff are staying in cabins. And so that's really where their strategy is at debate camp right now. - Yeah, I was gonna say debate camp, exactly, summer camp. Elena, we have seen Donald Trump, I mean, Maggie Haberman, who has been a student of Donald Trump for so many years, was on our air last night talking about how these moments for him

you can see meanness come out sometimes. I'm curious what your reporting is in terms of how he is thinking about this. He's doing more preparation, I think, than he seems to be publicly admitting. But there also just, there seem to be some nerves in the Trump camp as well about what temperament, shall we say, will be on display tomorrow. Well, I think anyone who says they know exactly which type of Donald Trump is going to show up on the stage on Thursday is lying. I mean, even Donald Trump's own advisors note that

they don't know if Donald Trump is going to kind of meander and rant and show his more aggressive side. But they are advising him, both Donald Trump's own advisors as well as many of his allies on the outside, that they want him to focus on the issues. And there's really three specific issues that they think they

they really want him to zero in on, which is the economy, immigration, and crime. Now, these are all issues that the Trump campaign sees as being his best issues looking ahead to November and ones that they think Biden is more vulnerable on. But they also are the ones where they see that Donald Trump is pulling higher. If you look at the economy, if you look at immigration and the border, a lot of different polls are showing that Donald Trump does very well on those issues. So they are urging him to talk about those and focus less

on his grievances. Now, as for the panic that's kind of happening behind the scenes, it's been interesting because, you know, for months we heard the Trump campaign say we will debate anywhere, anytime, anyplace.

We're really hearing them sing a different tune over the last week. Part of that is they do want to manage expectations. I was told that when they learned that Joe Biden and his campaign were going to be spending a full week at Camp David preparing for this, that was kind of a turning point in where they realized we do need to go on offense more and try to raise the expectations for how he will perform. Because we know that Trump himself and his team have been the ones—

essentially calling him senile for the last several months. The other part of it too is some of the pre-spin we're seeing with them, rather than working the refs, attacking the refs and the moderators and really trying to already frame this debate as being rigged. And that's something that's exactly out of Donald Trump's well-worn playbook, which is, you know, he's done it with the election, he's done it with the courtroom, he's done it on the campaign trail.

saying that something is rigged and that, you know, it's kind of an insurance policy depending on how he does in the debate stage. - Kayla, how is the Biden team thinking about this? I mean, you point out he's got all these options that he could do to try to get attention or whatever, but for this, it does seem like the bar is he just got to show up and prove that he is actually not in as bad of shape as the Trump people keep trying to tell voters that he is. - But they also don't want that to be the story, right? They don't want to say the bar was low and the president of the United States stepped over the bar.

and he managed to not fall asleep on stage or create a viral moment or a deep fake or a cheap fake, they don't want that to be the takeaway. They want him to outperform. They want him to be the type of Joe Biden that the American people saw at the State of the Union, which is seen as something of a corollary. I mean, he got

very high marks for the State of the Union, for the high energy, for the content, for the delivery. And there was a lot of practice, including at Camp David, for that address. And notably, it started at 9 p.m. as well. So for people on the Republican side who are saying this is past Biden's bedtime, he's just going to show up.

I heard he's a night owl. Exactly. He tends to be a night owl sometimes. But that's the corollary that they're drawing and saying he outperformed there, and that's what they're hoping this time, too. All right. Let's talk briefly about the reporting you have on Veep stakes because this, you know,

Everyone except for me seems to like this Washington parlor game. I sort of dread it every four years. Oh, me too. But you write that Donald Trump Jr. has made his affinity for Senator J.D. Vance well known. Rupert Murdoch has urged Trump World to consider North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum. Fox News host Sean Hannity has gone to bat for Florida Senator Marco Rubio. I mean, these seems to be the names in the mix.

Elena, the other big question is, is this going to be a move Trump makes at some point in the next couple of days as he's trying to gain control of the news cycle in some way that benefits him? There has been a lot of speculation about whether Donald Trump would move up his self-imposed deadline. He has said repeatedly, as has his team, that it's more likely and that he plans to announce his pick

in the days leading up to the convention or at the Republican National Convention next month. However, there's been a lot of speculation around whether he may announce at the debate or at his rally in Virginia on Friday. I'm told that a lot of that is just the rumor mill and it's speculation, but also you never know with Donald Trump. And when he decides he wants to make this announcement, I think some of it is also going to depend on how the debate goes. If they need to change the narrative, we could see a difference.

But as for all of the people in Donald Trump's ear about this, that's another thing. I just find it fascinating that different, there's so many people that Donald Trump speaks to frequently that he respects, who he listens to, who are pushing entirely different candidates. And so it was fascinating to kind of pull back the curtain and see who's going to bat for who and who's in Trump's ear on this. I would just say, I...

I wouldn't want to report this under my byline until it comes out of Donald Trump's mouth, I got to tell you. - Yeah, it's so true. - Because I feel like you just really never know. Kayla Tausche, Elena Train, thank you both very much for being here. Hopefully see you in Atlanta. - Will do. - All right, let's turn now to continue our conversation with Michigan Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Dingell and Tennessee Republican Congressman Tim Burchett, who joined me to talk more about the debate. Thank you both for being here this morning. Congresswoman Dingell, let me start with you just

In terms of the expectations for President Biden, the Trump team is trying to raise them, as we were just discussing. I want to ask you, we talked a lot about this ahead of the State of the Union, where President Biden performed in a way the Democrats were really happy with. How are the nerves going into this around the potential for President Biden's performance to meet or not meet what people hope are?

are their expectations. I think people love to wring their hands and have a lot of angst and play this game of how well are either candidates going to do. I think that President Joe Biden is doing what he's got to do to prepare for this debate. Can't quite say I think that President Trump is. And I think you're going to see a very clear split between the two visions that the men have.

Congressman Burchett, I want to play a little bit of what Donald Trump had to say at his rally on Saturday in Philadelphia. He was kind of raising questions, asking the crowd that was there for him, you know, how should I approach President Biden in this debate? Here was Donald Trump. How should I handle him? Should I be tough and nasty? Or should I be, should I be, she said, should I be tough and nasty and just say you're the worst president in history? Or should I be nice?

and come and let him speak. Which Donald Trump do you think we're going to see? I think you're going to see a little bit of both. I think he's going to be, you know, he doesn't have much trust in the system of debates because of, you know, Hillary Clinton was leaked.

debate questions the last time and that's been a documented fact. And so, and a lot of people on our side are just, are really unsure about this. And I have a theory about debates and my friend Debbie Dingell is wonderful to be here with me. But you bring your side, I bring my side and we both leave thinking we won. I don't really think a lot's gonna, nothing will happen from this because people already have predetermined expectations and I think all you're gonna do

their team is gonna get sound bites from Donald Trump and we'll get sound bites from Joe Biden. And they'll probably both be taken out of context. And this is what this will be because I really just think the time has passed for debates because these aren't really true debates. Used to be debates, people would travel the country and in the history of Tennessee, I mean, they literally had a stump that they put out

and one guy for governor would get up and speak and the next one would and people would ask questions and it'd be that and there's really just not that this because of these

these arbitrary agreements. So I really don't think much will become of this. I mean, there was some evidence that the 2020, the first debate in 2020 helped President Biden pretty significantly. I would actually agree partially with you. The reasons are in trauma. Everybody's all worked up. Everybody's doing the hand-wringing. But both of these candidates could make serious mistakes that could then have impact from now until November. And

And both of these candidates have an ability to, I mean, the Trump campaign's been setting these expectations that he's not gonna be able to make it through the night. They're trying to, I think you're gonna see two different visions. We're gonna see their visions that night. I think Joe Biden's gonna come out prepared. He's gonna talk about protecting people's liberties, their freedoms, working to fight the middle class and protecting women.

I don't, you know, I've seen unfortunately all sides of Donald Trump. I've seen the total charming man. I've worked with him on trade issues. I was the person in 2015, 2016 that said he was going to win. He liked me then until he didn't like me. So I've been the woman he's gone after too. Is he going to talk about issues and stay calm or is he going to be the Donald Trump we all know he can be? And I think he can't help himself if he gets really worked up. What do you think?

I think Donald Trump's gonna dominate this debate. I think he's gonna come prepared. I think he's gonna hit issues that are important to Americans. We're $600 more out of pocket every week just to buy groceries, just to survive. I think the border is a disaster. I think he can lay that right at the foot of Joe Biden.

And I think worldwide our status has dropped considerably under Joe Biden and his leadership. - So the one big issue of course, that's looming over all of this, and as we've been talking about the analysis of the debate is the stakes for this are in some ways, each man needing to show that they were capable of doing the job. That's certainly how both sides frame it. And Mitch McConnell, not from Tennessee, but neighboring state, nearby part of the country. - I make Corvettes up there.

He had this to say. I like those Corvettes. I love, I have a Corvette. My wife wants one. Now I'm in trouble. So there you go. You two are going to gang up on me here. Mine is from 1989 and I have to say it's a beautiful machine. But let's watch Mitch McConnell. The other problem the president has, something I'm familiar with, is how old he is. But the two candidates are almost the same age. So it's going to be really interesting to see how they react.

play off each other. I mean the reality is right now we are a country of old men. Old white men. You said it, not white men. I love black men. I love all kinds of men. It's whether you're up to doing the job. Age is a state of mind. And I think people have to see, I want people to look at the vision.

I worry about the vision of Donald Trump, by the way, who said he will be a dictator on the first day. I think one of the toughest issues, and everybody's gonna be listening to this, Tim, for Donald Trump is the women, is the right of women to make their own healthcare decisions. That's an issue he gets very flustered over. He knows it's an issue that matters to every woman across this country, and I think that that's gonna be one. He wants to give tax cuts to the uber wealthy. What's that gonna do to the budget? How are we gonna protect the middle class?

I'll make you this bet right now. Nobody's telling me to do this, so I'm already totally off scripted. He'll go after EVs somehow, some way. Electric vehicles. That's your neck of the woods. He cannot. It's 3% of the pile. It's a disaster. I mean, you've got slave labor making your batteries. I mean, you can go EV all you want. I'm a motorhead. I like to smell the gas. I love cars, but I also. It's not happening. It's not working. But I'm going to tell you, it's where the world's going. If we want to stay a leader in an

We're forcing the world to do that. We're not forcing the world. The world's going there, and we've got to make sure we're there. Well, we can at least agree that we love the Corvette. We love the Corvette, and we love each other. Just don't put an electric motor in it. I know they did it with the Mustang. I'm still not sure about that. Don't drive it through a car wash. That's all I can tell you. They have 15 trucks.

Performance. Great. You all are very good sports. You can't pull anything with an electric vehicle. I'm glad that the biggest fight we're having is about electric vehicles. Not something else. You know, maybe this whole thing will be a model civility. I wonder if we'll see it on debate stage on Thursday night. We are two people that respect each other. We're friends. You're our friends. Congressman Dingell, Congressman Burchett, thank you very much for being here today. Thank you so much.

All right, we are officially entering, as you may have noticed, what's likely to be the final frenzied days of the Supreme Court's term, with the justices poised to hand down opinions on their remaining cases through the end of the week. Already, we've seen early divisions and bitter internal and ideological conflicts as the court turns towards several high-stakes decisions on emergency abortions. The power of federal agencies...

And of course, Donald Trump's presidential immunity claim. Trump argues that he has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution.

You have to leave immunity with the president. If a president is afraid to act because they're worried about being indicted when they leave office, a president of the United States has to have immunity and the Supreme Court's going to be ruling on that. If they don't have immunity, no president is going to act. You're going to have guys that just sit in office and are afraid to do anything.

Another case before the court would impact the sentences of some January 6th rioters. A former Pennsylvania police officer who was at the Capitol on January 6th is challenging his federal obstruction charges.

The former president was charged with violating the same obstruction law for different reasons, along with 300, some 350 other rioters. Our panel's back. So is Evan Perez, who I've mistakenly said thank you to earlier in the show. Evan, let me start with you on the immunity question in particular, because we are entering these kind of final days of Supreme Court decisions. They added Thursday and Friday, but we expect potentially this could go into next week here.

There are a lot of dynamics on the court at play here. What are you kind of looking for as we enter this intense phase? Well, for us, I mean, I think the big, big question that looms over all of this is whether the court

rules in a way that allows the the election interference trial to go forward judge Tanya Chutkan is Locked and loaded and ready to go we think that if the court sends it back to her as we expect the sheet that they will that they will likely Say that the former president does not have absolute immunity based on the oral arguments that seems to be the direction They're going the question is how much of?

work does she have to do, the judge have to do before restarting the trials and how much time does she want? I mean the big, I think controlling factor is how much time do you need to be able to get a jury together? So it looks like about maybe five, six weeks, you know, so conceivably if Judge Chutkan gets this trial back from the Supreme Court, you know, she could be trying to start a trial in August sometime or early September and the question is, Casey,

Is that enough time, right? Because the election is right upon, looming right behind it. And so the decision will be on part of the judge. Evan, you often think of things in terms of the sweep of history. And this is, I think we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that this is about, it's not just about this one person. It is about the presidency, broadly speaking. But

It also, as Evan notes, has the potential to sweepingly affect this election and whether or not voters get a chance to understand is a jury going to convict Donald Trump for what happened on January 6th or not? It's really worth stepping back and reminding ourselves just how extraordinary this is. You know, you've got Donald Trump, of course, who's already been convicted in one case. And I think one thing we've learned from that is

is that it is very hard for us to anticipate reliably what the public response could be. You know, there was a lot of smart people who said, "This is actually going to help Donald Trump." Hasn't been the case. The reality, of course, is we know that his polls have suffered since then. The idea of the immunity of the presidency coming up in the fall right before this election could very well focus attention on something that

would not benefit Donald Trump, the idea that it would introduce that whole set of questions again for Americans. Do we want to put our hands, put ourselves in the hands of Donald Trump? And all of the legal uncertainty and chaos that comes with that, that would not be a welcome development.

Kate Bedingfield, how do you see how this decision is going to actually impact the race? Obviously, we don't know what it is going to say. The likelihood seems to be that it is going to delay the case so much that voters don't actually have a chance to see what they would do. But I mean, how do you think about this from a political strategic point of view? Yeah, well, look, I mean, I think either way, we know that

Biden and the Biden campaign are going to continue to talk about the threat that Donald Trump poses to democracy based on based largely what happened on January 6th based on his election denialism from 2020. So, you know, I think there is certainly an argument that getting to a resolution in this case would have significant political impact because I think we've seen the fallout from the conviction, you know, just a month ago, six weeks ago, has has hurt Trump. But

Whether this transpires before the election or not, I don't think it fundamentally changes the argument Biden is making about what Americans saw with their own eyes on January 6th. I mean, that's the other piece of this. I mean, it was televised and people have seen the video. This is not something where you need the ultimate decision from the court to make a determination about whether...

like Donald Trump was involved, we've seen significant reporting that shows that he didn't do anything to prevent the crowd from storming, from looking for Mike Pence, from committing violence. So I think it doesn't change the way that Biden talks about these issues broadly. And I would imagine that if anything, it probably impacts Trump and the way Trump talks about all of this more than it impacts the Biden campaign strategy. - You wanna brief what you heard? - Yeah, real quickly. So I disagree with both Kate

and Evan, obviously, because if you look, it's just the numbers, right? So the verdict in the Trump case, record fundraising, Trump got a bump in the polls. I think the electorate's kind of discounted it, right? I mean, the first Fox poll that showed Biden leading nationally. I will take that and run with it. You keep telling your guys. What qualifiers?

- Keep whistling past the graveyard. Listen, I think that President Biden, he's gotta talk about democracy, he's gotta talk about abortion because of the things that move the needle on the Democratic side. If he's gotta defend the border, foreign policy, crime, I think he's in a bad spot. If he's defending his record, he's in a bad spot. If he's on attack,

on trump and those things that's where he's got he doesn't have anything else to argue about so he's going to go there that's you're going to hear thursday night it's going to all be about democracy uh woman's right on jobs and and that's where he's going to stay trump's going to want to talk about the biden record all right 51 minutes past the hour here here's your morning roundup the closed door espionage trial for wall street journal reporter evan gershkovich in russia will continue on august 13th according to russian media gershkovich has been in prison since last march

CNN has learned that later today, President Biden is expected to pardon U.S. veterans who were convicted over a 60-year period when the military banned gay sex. The pardon will affect about 2,000 veterans. Steve Bannon's upcoming criminal fraud trial in New York will no longer be overseen by the same judge who presided over Donald Trump's hush money trial. Bannon is preparing to report to prison on Monday for defying a congressional subpoena in a separate case.

And the Tesla Cybertruck is being recalled again, this time because of a defect with the four-foot-long windshield wiper and a piece of trim that can fly off. This latest recall involves almost all of the nearly 12,000 Cybertrucks that are currently on the road. Have you guys seen these on the streets? I mean, there was one in D.C. It was insane. I like it.

I mean, it looks like a military tank. I mean, it's huge. It reminds me of the old Hummers, right? When they were back and Arnold Schwarzenegger was driving around town. It kind of has that vibe. I don't think Representative Burchard and Dingell would be seen in that. I'm safely saying that. It's electric, right? I assume. It is. Yeah. Okay. Well, then definitely not Burchard. Yeah. All right. Let's get back to politics. In a

Major defeat for progressives. CNN projecting that House member Jamal Bowman is out after an ugly and expensive primary battle. Westchester County Executive George Latimer defeating him by more than 15 points. According to Ad Impact, it was the most expensive House primary race on record. Outside, pro-Israel groups pouring millions into the race to back Latimer's bid. Bowman taking the dig at his rival last night. Opponents may have won this round in this place.

But this will be a battle for our humanity and justice for the rest of our lives. So of course, Bowman is the first member of the squad to lose one of their seats. This really exposed, Kate, the divide in the Democratic Party over Israel and Gaza. It's a very emotional one. What do you think it says about the state of things broadly? Yeah, look, no doubt Israel-Gaza was a huge piece of this race, but I think

One kind of piece of the narrative that isn't getting as much focus this morning that I think is important is, you know, Bowman also voted against the infrastructure bill. He was sort of, had consistently moved away from Biden's agenda. That was a centerpiece of a lot of the ads that were- He also pulled a fire alarm. He also pulled a fire alarm. So I think it's a confluence here of the candidate-

struggling and not being a great candidate. And I would argue that, you know, the idea of running away from the Biden agenda didn't help him here. It was a centerpiece of the ads that were running against him. It's lower Westchester County. It's not a flamethrower district. It's a pretty, you know, sedate kind of suburban district. They don't want Jamal Bowman. He's a bad candidate. Well,

I mean, half the district is the Bronx. Yeah, right. But it's still a very nice, you know, a nicer area. Like, genteel. It's genteel, right? I mean, in their politics, I'm saying. It's not a progressive kind of like rah-rah, right? I see. You're saying it's not a fire... Yeah, they don't want firebrands. The Bronx is nice. I mean, you need to... No, but I was just there. But I'm saying, Latimer fits the district better. No one is saying bad things about the Bronx.

No, it's Bronx. It's beautiful. I just drove through it the other day coming back from the airport. It's great. Great spot. All right. We are unfortunately out of time. Thank you guys so much for being here this morning. Be sure to tune in tomorrow when President Biden and former President Trump face off in the CNN presidential debate. It starts at 9 p.m. Eastern. It'll be broadcast live from CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta.

Thank you all so much. Look at that. That's that outside of that, the spin room or the debate hall. Thanks very much to our panel. Thanks to you for joining us. I'm Casey Hunt. Don't go anywhere. CNN News Central starts after this quick break.

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