stephanie ylim and los angeles and this is cnn good morning. welcome to cnn this morning, it is saturday, june 22. i m victor blackwell, a dime. amara walker. thank you so much for joining us. here s what we re watching for you this morning. there are new details about the suspect to open fire at a grocery store in arkansas police are saying about how this unfolded and the conditions of the victims and in just five days, president biden and former president trump will meet face-to-face for the cnn presidential debate. what both candidates are doing to prepare for their first base off of this election. since i can and lawyers for donald trump or back-end court yesterday as they tried to get special counsel, jack smith s case against trump in the classified documents case dismissed their arguments, and the judge s response alec baldwin was in court yesterday trying to get a judge to dismiss the manslaughter charges against him in connection with the shooting on the rust movie
again, nancy pelosi has made it clear they want to make a case that is clear and simple and convincing. having said that, if you believe that you don t just have to convince the american people who will then put pressure on members of congress to vote for impeachment, that you might actually have to win over some of those members of congress themselves, what is the strongest national security argument in all of this that might possibly have some people sit up and take notice? anything out there that we haven t thought of or they haven t already heard? i m not sure if it is anything that hasn t been said already, but just to reinforce the fact that the sort of machinations with ukraine was always about trying to get to the national security interests with russia. because of russian aggression in ukraine and certainly influence in other parts of the world that are diametrically opposed to our national interests. so this is also a story about combatting russian aggression
thing from the perspective of thinking about the president s exposure here. because the president has maintained that to the extent that he asked zelensky to do anything in exchange for the u.s., the release of the u.s. aid, although he maintains there is no quid pro quo. but even if there was, it was okay because he was pursuing u.s. interests in rooting out corruption. and rudy giuliani is saying in that statement that he was there actually pursuing the president s personal interests. and if he is pursuing the president s personal interests, then he is not pursuing the country s interests and that is where the president is in trouble because the impeachment inquiry will be about whether he abused his power by pursuing his personal interests rather than the interests of the united states and holding up aid that has been appropriated by congress for the american national security interests. let me stop you there.
mass destruction. she also served as national security council director on europe, nato, and the european union. elizabeth, thanks so much for joining us. let s talk about this very important visit by kim jong-un to beijing. the trip seemed to end some years of strained ties between the two countries. aside from bridging the gap somewhat, what do you think these two leaders accomplished? it s very important that china be in the game, of course, because china has influence over the north koreans, particularly with respect to keeping their struggling economy afloat. but the reality is that china is playing chess, not checkers. we have to be aware that china s interests don t entirely align with the interests of the united states. so china doesn t necessarily want to keep america in the region and has every reason, therefore, to want to advance an agreement that might put pressure on us to retreat from our commitment to asia. that would not be in the american national security interests
about pakistan as the pakistani country and you have herman cain with this becky, becky, becky, stand, stand, stand. there are places in the world that are critical to the american national security interests. can they be taken seriously? i m not going to defend any of the republican congressional candidates on this issue. i think the american people node to be concernied about the fact that we re promised billions of dollars in foreign aid to nations, money that we don t have, money that we ve borrowed from china while americans suv every. i think president obama would be better off focusing on the domestic problems rather than trying to be a liberator of the middle east when i think all he s doing is destabilizing the region and creating unnecessary chaos, and we should be focusing on those missiles that are missing and the fact that we don t know, you know, what the future s going to hold. well, its is one of the concerns, dick, without a doubt.