preferred better science better results julian assange will soon be a free man. assad claimed his mission was to shine a light on evidence of war crimes and abuses of power if everything goes well, julian will be on a plane on the way to freedom biden is preparing for whatever version of donald trump might show up thursday night before for this thursday's debate, will give donald trump far fewer opportunities to score with those unscripted, colorful moments. >> over the next few days. >> more than three-quarters of the country will see temperatures over 90 degrees fahrenheit live from london. this is cnn newsroom with max foster hello, will warm. >> welcome to our viewers joining us in the us and around the world. i'm max foster. it is tuesday, june the 25th 9:00 a.m. here in london, 4m of the ceiling studios in atlanta with the first us presidential debate will be held in just two days president joe biden huddling with top aides at the camp, david presidential retreat in maryland. and his republican rival donald trump says he's been preparing for the debate by going to events and taking questions hey indicated podcasts, maybe the best way to get ready for the showdown how are you preparing? >> i'm preparing by taking questions from you and others if you think about it, but i'm preparing by dealing with you. you're tougher than all of them. >> cnn's mj lee has a closer look now the biden camp and how it's preparing everybody knows he's a liar, but you i just want i want to make sure that you wanted lasting get less. >> first four years after this hunches debate between joe biden and donald trump be during a torrent of insults, name-calling, an interruptions or she did that because the question is justice left, would you president biden, is again preparing to face off against his unpredictable predecessor on the debate stage. >> cnn is learning that biden is preparing for whatever version of donald trump might show up thursday night including a potentially disciplined donald trump recreating the experience of going up against trump, a key feature of the mock debates. >> you want to find some balance between recreating the experience and not attempting to, if you will, audition for saturday top campaign aides insisting that regardless of whether the president is unhinged or more demure on thursday, there is simply no altering his record. people are going to know that he's a twice-impeached, convicted felon, who has been found to have defamed somebody sexually abused somebody, and gone bankrupt six times. they will always there's no that ahead of the high-stakes debates set to unfold inside cnn's atlanta studio. biden hunkering down with more than a dozen of his top aides at camp david, the campaign hoping to showcase to starkly different visions on a whole host of issues. the economy democratic institutions, and reproductive rights, decades of progress shatter just because the last guy got four years in the white house, you know what will happen to begets another floor or maga republicans row is just the beginning. >> democrats on monday seizing on the two-year anniversary of the supreme court's overturning of roe v wade in place singh blame squarely at trump's feet, a new biden campaign ad featuring testimonial from one louisiana woman who says she was turned away from two emergency rooms after a dangerous miscarriage at 11 weeks of pregnancy, he's now a convicted felon. trump thinks he should not be held accountable for his own criminal actions. chins but he will let women and doctors be punished vice president kamala harris, who has emerged the administration's leading voice on the issue. >> one of many top democrats blanketing the country today in the case of the stealing of reproductive freedom from the women of america donald trump is guilty now, if it's impossible to predict how former president donald trump might behave on thursday, even biden allies would acknowledge that presence is it a biden's performance can be mixed. there are dates and events were the president is very focused and sharp and other times when he is simply less on his game so there's no question that the president and his group of aids that are huddled right now at camp david are also going to be working on the performance aspects. and there certainly hoping that at the present, biden that gave his state of the union remarks back in march, that that is going to be the version that shows up to the debate stage on thursday night mj lee, cnn white house, every debate presents opportunities for shocks and twists of course, and thursday showdown will be no exception cnn senior data reports and harry entin looks at some of the great debate unknowns how rusty will these candidates be? we're dealing with record all candidates and neither from debated during the primary season. that is the first time that that has ever happened where neither candidate debated during the primary season, usually at least one, if not two, has done going into a general election debate. so how rusty will they become thursday, we're just going to have to wait and see all right. how about some other great unknowns heading into the debate, this trump name a vp, he's kinda ties that a little bit because if he does, it might be the only thing that we talk about post debate up all of a sudden you have a complete ticket on the republican side, it could cover up for a potential gaff that he in fact might make. maybe if he feels like the betas going well, he won't actually say anything. all right, that's two unknowns how about a third unknown? >> which donald trump shows up at the debate on thursday night, or we didn't get that first debate, donald trump from 2020, where he's trying constantly trying to interrupt folks or are we potentially going to get a calmer trump a comma trump to maybe throw by north whose sole prepping for trump to try and interrupt them at every turn. >> but all of a sudden we got to trump that is dare i say a little bit more presidential. of course presidential and trump, not necessarily two things that i always go together in a sentence finally, one other thing i'll note. what will be the impact of the fact that this is the earliest debate on record by four this is happening three months before any prior general election debate. it could make for a maximum effect, right? oftentimes we have these debates and then you see a debate a week later, a vice presidential debate, which basically keeps the sort of bump a candidate. my cap at a minimum. maybe we could have a maximum effect on this one especially sintering. there are no other debates anytime soon. so this is going to basically take up a chunk of the new cycle, not just this week, not just next one. bug going into july be sure to watch cnn as it hosts the u.s. >> presidential debates. it's on thursday, june the 27, 9:00 p.m. eastern the us. that's 9:00 a.m. friday and ongoing 2:00 a.m. here in london will tampa sled during a long day of hearings and the classified documents case against donald trump. but one point, the judge told the prosecutor she did not appreciate his tome. she also appeared skeptical about placing a gag order on trump, who had appointed her the special counsel's office says the gag order is needed because law enforcement officers are facing threats after trump repeatedly and misleadingly claim that the federal agents who searched his mar-a-lago estate, we're authorized to murder him but judge aileen cannon said prosecutors must show connecting facts between what trump said and the actual threats cannon hasn't yet issued a ruling on either the gag order on allegations from chunk that the special counsel's office is being improperly funded a temporary election worker in arizona is under arrest after allegedly stealing a security fob and keys from an election center in america per county court documents reveal walter ringfield was seen on surveillance video last week grabbing a lanyard with keys and a fog attached to it it was later confronted by supervisor and the fob was founds during a surge of his home ringfield now faces charges of fift and criminal damage. arizona america, the county specifically has been a hotbed for election conspiracy theories since 2020. but arizona officials say ringfield's the rest shows that election safety he protocols in the county are working wikileaks founder julian assange is expected to appear in a us courtroom on wednesday to accept the plea deal with the justice department, but it won't be in new york or in washington. the 52-year-old australian is heading to the northern mariana islands after spending the last five years in london prison he's expected to plead guilty to a single count in one of the largest ever leaks of classified us government material in return, assange will avoid spending any time in an american prison and return to australia, a free man, a spring in cnn's claire sebastian, we're expecting this in a sense, we were because we had heard back in april comments from president joe biden that he was considering a request from australia to to stop this case to end the prosecution against assad just really had been labouring for a while, but that really did shift to the narrative. there's comments from biden and when we saw the last hearing that he had in the uk courts in may, there were a lot of banners up saying let him go, joe and the wikileaks head at the moment, told me that he was placing a lot of hope on the political process. what we didn't expect. and i think this is characteristic of a tail with so many twists is how this is all now unfolded he is a sign as well, having to plead guilty to one count, and i suspect that we shall hear more about that from wikileaks. he is avoiding having to ever set foot on us soil. he is going to make that plea on a remote pacific island chain, the town of psi pan, the northern mariana islands, which has a us territory and the pacific near guam he will make that police there. a federal judge in a federal district court based there will then either approve or not. but we suspect approve the deal and they will sentenced him to 62 months. that's where us prosecutors are asking for, but that will be offset by the time he's already served in bohmer high security prison in the uk. so this is something that seems to have happened very quickly, but his team recorded a video a week ago where they seem to be already confident that this was going to go through, take a listen to a portion of that video with his wife, stella assange throughout the years of julian's imprisonment. and persecution. an incredible movement has been formed. a movement of people from all walks of life from around the world who support not just julian and not just us in our family but what julian stands for, truth and justice truth and justice is the argument that you hear from his supporters, his team, that this was all about journalism, and that the charges against him there were by the way, 18 charges 17 of which one under the espionage act in the u.s. >> only one of them he's not having to plead guilty to. but as i said, we we will likely hear more about that. we think that a plane that is believed to be carrying him has now landed in bangkok. that will then be heading on to the northern mariana islands. the hearing set for wednesday morning. their time around 9 am, about 15 hours or so from now, it has been 12 years since he has walked free. >> yeah. okay. claire, thank you so much the us some regions are receiving very heavy rainfall while other areas experiencing blistering temperatures cities like sioux falls in south dakota, over a month's worth of rainfall and flood warnings are still in place in waterlogged areas and along rivers as water levels, there are running well above normal and as rivers in the region swell and aging dam in minnesota is said to be on the brink of collapse. authorities say they don't know if the rapidan dam, their, the city among carto will totally fail. but for now is still intact. and there are no plans for mass evacuations emergency officials say the blue earth river cut around the west side of the dam, carrying damaging debris and causing power outages. the dam has been around since 1910 and was only and was once a source of hydroelectric power now the us national weather service is warning that temperatures will continue to soar across parts of the country today, states in the central plains could see temperatures over 100 degrees fahrenheit, more than 37 degrees celsius. cnn meteorologist chad myers has your latest forecasts another hot day in places across the southeast, across parts of the midwest, across parts of california, still fairly cool across the lingula and, and even upstate new york. >> but we've seen all of this very heavy rainfall. keep mainly the northern part of the country cool here across the us with heavy rain in fall, some spots picking up a foot and a half. now that's just about a half a meter of rainfall in 72 hours. and every place there is flooding. some places major flooding other places record flooding. a lot of water still to get down into those bigger rivers. there'll be a few scattered storms across the midwest, across parts of iowa all the way through the cargo land later on today. but the storm's keep moving. notice they're not just sitting in one place when they sit. that's when they create all of that havoc, when it comes to the flash flooding could feel like 110 degrees though with the heat and humidity in places before it does decide to rein later on today. and over the next few days more than three-quarters of the country will see temperatures over 90 degrees fahrenheit. so, yes, a couple of cool days in store for boston, even new york, 90 doesn't feel that bad compared to where you were almost 100 dc, you did get to 100. it'll be 93 later on today. and even for atlanta, a high 97. so stay cool if you can a few more days of this still on the way for more now, julian assange is released from a uk prison. >> i'm john bye rebecca vincent. she's director of international campaigns for reporters. without borders. thank you so much for joining us today we, some people suggested something something was moving in this case and then the news came in, didn't it? last night how did he react to it i mean, we're hugely relieved to finally have some good news in this case. >> it has certainly been a long time coming. we've been campaigning for many years in support of julian assange because of his contributions to journalism. and although we were following the legal proceedings in the uk courts, we've long said that this is a political case that a political solution could be possible. and we've advocated with the us government and the other governments involved for precisely this outcome. so frankly, we're delighted so voids us prison hill, avoid any prison time, won't he has. i understand it, because he served so many years here in the uk. already. he has admitted one point of guilt though, hasn't just take us through that so the full details have not yet been released, and i believe that there's still helps under legal still, so i'm not able to speculate fully. >> were very much waiting to see the details of this, but it is true. he's already served more than five years in prison in the uk, and he's been deprived of his liberty in fact, for 13 years in various means so we've maintained on a point of principle that he should not have spent a single date deprived of his liberty. we believe that the publication of these documents was in the public interest. nobody should be pursued like this for publishing in the public interest. so this is now a victory for journalism, for press freedom and for everyone's right to know can i just go through the journey? >> on this as well because just to explain why this is so important to journalism, because there's obviously shades of gray here, isn't it? for many parts of the journalism industry, because there was releasing what many people see as a public interest document but with that was released a list of unredacted names, which is an issue lot of journalists do have with it. so where do you stand on that? because it put many lives at risk as well? >> so actually, i would refute that framing a little bit that was part of the us government's legal case against julian assange, but it was far more complex by that. actually wikileaks republished the leaked information. it was another party that accessed the unredacted documents and it was never intended to be released in that way, wikileaks had worked in partnership with a coalition of professional media the organizations to treat the information journalist journalistically before it was published but indeed it is a complicated case. it is one that has put our democracies to the test that is tested what journalism means, what press freedom means, what we really mean by freedom of information. the reason that we have defended this case. so ardently is because of the implications would have for journalism around the world. this is the first time that the us government has pursued a publisher under the espionage act in this way, we've seen that law used against whistleblowers in the past, but never a publisher if they had succeeded in bringing him to the us in possible sentencing him up to 175 years. that precedent be applied to any journalists and immediate organization, anyone around the world working with leaked classified information, which is normal journalistic process. so it's not just about the rights of this one person, although that matters to is about the future of journalism. and i have to say now, we think journalism is a little bit safer with this release but there will be some preston that will be broken here because he will be facing he will be found guilty, and he will be accepting guilt. and it will be received a sentence on part of what you've been fighting so what matters now is that his free in principle, we would we would have liked to see it done in a different way. we have been calling for all of the charges to be dropped and for him to be released. but most importantly, this man will not spend a single day further unjustly deprived of his liberty his mental health has been up serious concern. his physical health has been of concern up and really worried following some of my prison visits to him, the conditions there were grim. it wasn't really as bad as he would have possibly faced in the u.s. i'm pleased that we will never find that out, but enough is enough. we can't undo the past 13 years, but we can do the right thing now, i'm glad that the us government finally has, frankly, we expect better from the country of the first amendment. and i hope this kind of a case will not be repeated. we need to see in the earliest stages, urgent reform of the espionage act. so it cannot be used again in this way to target journalistic activity are you already come to know him well, what you expect him to do, and it gets back to australia i think first and foremost, we'll probably want to spend time with his family because of course he has two young sons who have only seen him in belmarsh prison i also hope that he'll seek some medical care and take some us frankly, we're hoping to be able to speak later today. >> the last time i saw him was about a month ago in prison and he seemed more upbeat than during some of my previous visits. so perhaps good news was already on the horizon, but as a person, i think he probably need some time to recover okay. rebecca vinson in paris really appreciate you spending your time with us today. thank you princess, on the youngest sister of britain's king charles, in hospital with a head injury suffered during a walk and our home on sunday, buckingham palace's the 73-year-old is being treated for a concussion and other minor injuries should make a full recovery. the exact cause of injuries unclear, but her medical team