Biden Reverses Abortion Stance Amid Intense Criticism; Nadler & Pelosi Clash Over Trump Impeachment Inquiry; Trump Faces Deadline Today to Impose Tariffs on Mexico; U.S. Navy: Russian Destroyer Almost Collided with Cruiser; More Rain to Hit Southeastern U.S.
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I can't justify leaving millions of women without access to the care they need.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Biden, is, in fact, going to support repealing the Hyde amendment.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is a clear cave to the pressure that he was getting.</s>REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY): It may very well come to a formal impeachment inquiry. We will see.</s>MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Behind the scenes, he has made multiple pitches to the House speaker. The two Democrats are at odds.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They are more focused on undermining this president than they are to solving major problems in the United States.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.</s>ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is NEW DAY. It is Friday, June 7, 6 a.m. here in New York. And we begin with Democratic front- runner Joe Biden reversing his stance on federal funding for abortions. After days of criticism from his Democratic rivals and women's rights groups, the former vice president says he no longer supports the Hyde amendment, which bans the use of federal health care dollars to pay for abortions. The about-face is sure to be an issue on the campaign trail as a majority of the Democratic hopefuls head to Iowa this weekend.</s>JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We have new developments this morning in the debate over impeachment. CNN has learned that the House judiciary chair, Jerry Nadler, is privately lobbying Speaker Nancy Pelosi to begin an impeachment inquiry against President Trump. Sources say he's offered two new arguments. Will they persuade her? Also, today is the manufactured deadline on Mexican tariffs. If the president is serious about imposing new tariffs on Mexico starting Monday to force action on immigration, he would have to sign the order today. U.S. and Mexican negotiators have been meeting. Both sides claim some progress, but so far, no deal. We have it all covered. We want to begin, though, with this huge reversal on a huge issue for Democratic voters. CNN's Arlette Saenz live in Atlanta, where Joe Biden just flipped, Arlette, on federal funding for abortion. Why?</s>ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John. This was a major reversal for Joe Biden. This measure bans the use of federal dollars on most abortions, except in cases of rape, incest, or for the life of the mother. And it's one that Biden has supported for more than four decades. But last night here in Atlanta, as he spoke to Democrats, Biden, after he had faced swift pressure from his Democratic colleagues, decided that he is now reversing his position and is against it. Take a listen to what he had to say.</s>BIDEN: I make no apologies for my last position and I make no apologies about what I'm about to say. I can't justify leaving millions of women without access to the care they need and the ability to exercise their constitutionally-protected right. If I believe health care is a right, as I do, I can no longer support an amendment that makes that right dependent on someone's ZIP code.</s>SAENZ: Now, over the past two days, Biden had faced intense criticism not just from his Democratic rivals, but also from abortion rights groups that had said said the former vice president was wrong in supporting this amendment. And right now, abortion is really an animating issue for many Democrats, especially as you're seeing more states try to implement legislation that creates abortion restrictions in their states. Now, while most of the Democratic field is going to descend on Iowa this weekend, Joe Biden won't be there, but he is heading to Iowa next week and, in fact, will be in the state the same day as President Trump -- Alisyn.</s>CAMEROTA: OK, Arlette, very interesting. Thank you so much for that. Meanwhile, CNN has learned that House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler is privately pushing for an impeachment inquiry to begin into President Trump. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not yet buying that pitch. CNN's Lauren Fox is live on Capitol Hill with more. What have you learned, Lauren?</s>LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, new details in closed-door meetings. We've learned that the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Jerry Nadler, has been pushing Nancy Pelosi to move forward with impeachment as sort of a way to try to coalesce the investigations that have been going on for several months now.</s>FOX (voice-over): House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler making his pitch to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a private meeting. Again, laying out why he believes it's time to begin an impeachment inquiry into President Trump. A source tells CNN Nadler told Pelosi the inquiry will help centralize House Democrats on growing investigations into the Trump administration and make it easier for lawmakers to discuss allegations against the president on the House floor and within committees.</s>NADLER: When that decision has to be made, it will be made not by any one individual. It will be made by the -- probably by the caucus as a whole. Certainly, Nancy will have the largest single voice in it. Our various committee chairmans [SIC] and rank-and-file members.</s>FOX: The California Democrat explaining her reluctance earlier this week.</s>REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): When you're impeaching somebody, you want to make sure you have the strongest possible indictment. Because it's not the means to the end that people think. All you do, vote to impeachment, bye-bye, birdie. It isn't that. It's an indictment.</s>FOX: According to Politico, Pelosi told her colleagues behind closed doors, "I don't want to see him impeached. I want to see him in prison." President Trump firing back at Pelosi in an interview with FOX News Channel, while sitting in front of tombstones of World War II heroes in Normandy.</s>DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think she's a disgrace. I actually don't think she's a talented person. I've tried to be nice to her, because I would have liked to have gotten some deals done. She's incapable of doing deals. She's a nasty, vindictive, horrible person.</s>FOX: In addition to the House speaker's resistance, a source telling CNN Nadler is also receiving pushback from House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, who's also a key figure in leading Trump investigations. But Pelosi's spokeswoman writing that she and committee chairs, quote, "agree to keep all options on the table and continue to move forward with an aggressive hearing and legislative strategy," something Nadler told House Judiciary members in a conference call according to multiple participants, offering alternative solutions to keeping the pressure on Trump after unsuccessful negotiations with Pelosi. Nadler pledging to ramp up on growing obstruction of justice investigations into the administration, by issuing more subpoenas and holding more officials in contempt of Congress, if necessary. And this question about whether or not it is time to open up an impeach inquiry, of course, has divided Democrats for several months now, but we're starting to see a bit more pressure from leading committee chairman like Nadler. And of course, the question is how many more Democrats will come out in support of an impeachment inquiry in upcoming days or weeks -- John.</s>BERMAN: The number has been rising day by day, but slowly and certainly not yet, a majority. Lauren Fox for us on Capitol Hill. President Trump heads back to Washington this morning, following his five-day trip to Europe. As you heard from Lauren, he faces new questions about the political attacks he hurled just feet away from gravestones of U.S. service members. He also faces a deadline if he's serious about slapping new tariffs on Mexico to force immigration -- action on immigration. If he wants the tariffs in place by Monday, he'd really have to sign the order today. CNN's Abby Phillip traveling with the president. She joins us live from Limerick in Ireland, with the very latest on this. Abby, what have you heard about the negotiations?</s>ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, President Trump is expected to head back this morning for the United States, where he's going to face, potentially, a revolt among Republicans over his stance on tariffs. According to White House officials, the talks have been ongoing for the last two days; and they have been positive, characterized by both sides as positive. But there has been no breakthrough yet, and most officials believe that the first round of tariffs expected to go into place Monday will go into place, because they won't be able to get anything nailed down by today, which is really the deadline for President Trump to sign the order in order for those to go into effect. But President Trump is defiant this morning. He's telling Republicans that they really should love what he's doing with tariffs.</s>DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Tariffs are a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful word, if you know how to use them properly. Republicans should love what I'm doing. Because I view tariffs in two phases. No. 1, it's great to negotiate with, because people don't want to be tariffed for coming into the United States. They don't want that. And No. 2, frankly, if they go in, you make a fortune, because all the companies are going to move back into the country.</s>PHILLIP: What has made Republicans so uncomfortable with this move from President Trump is because it's intended to deal with an unrelated issue, immigration. It's not to do with economics, really. And we may have reached a high-water mark. If President Trump does go forward with this plan, there could be enough votes in the House and the Senate to potentially block him, setting up a major fight for the president, as he goes forward, trying to put into place tariffs against Mexico and also China in the future -- Alisyn.</s>CAMEROTA: We will see. Of course, he doesn't think it's unrelated, but we will talk about a lot of that in the program. Abby, thank you very much. The Trump administration insists that tariffs on Mexico are needed to slow the overwhelming flow of migrants attempting to cross into the U.S. So why has the situation at the border become so much more urgent recently? CNN's Dianne Gallagher is live in El Paso, Texas, with more. What's the situation, Dianne?</s>DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, Alisyn, look, we had more than 130,000 people who were apprehended by Customs and Border Protection just in the month of May. The majority of those were families and unaccompanied children. Now, here in El Paso, at least when you're looking at fiscal year comparison, we're looking at almost a 1,500 percent increase in the number of people that are being taken into custody. Now, the reason why they're coming is, of course, due in part to what's going on in those northern triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. You're talking about violence, extreme poverty, and weather conditions coupled with food and things like that. But the Republican who represents this El Paso border area -- in fact, Will Hurd, represents more border than any other representative, 800 miles worth -- says that part of these increases might be due to the Trump administration and its interpretation of asylum laws. Now, Will Hurd has created a proposal to narrow down asylum laws himself, but he says that the Trump administration is treating everyone they apprehend as if they are seeking asylum. And that's creating some of this backlog we're seeing. Both the Department of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services have requested emergency funding to kind of catch up with this, because there are so many women and children and families who are coming right now. We're seeing this backlog. We're seeing this overcrowding situation in shelters and in these processing centers, so much so that even the charity organizations that have been doing for this decades, like here in El Paso, they're sending them to other places, John. Now Mexico has said that they are sending 6,000 National Guardsmen to the border with Guatemala to hopefully appease President Trump and the administration when it comes to those tariffs.</s>BERMAN: All right. Dianne Gallagher for us in El Paso. Thank you for being there and telling us what's actually going on. Appreciate it. We do have breaking news. Local media here in New York City reporting that a man has been arrested in an alleged terrorist plot. Sources tell the "Daily News" the man was looking into buying grenades to try to set them off in Times Square. Police then arrange an undercover operation to catch the suspect, who they believe acted alone. Officials have not yet released his name. We are told he is expected to appear in federal court in Brooklyn today.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.</s>CAMEROTA: We have just gotten this breaking news into our newsroom. The U.S. Navy tells CNN that a Russian destroyer almost collided with one of its guided cruisers in the Philippine Sea. The ships came so close together, that the Navy says they had to throw the vessel into reverse and hit the gas to avoid a crash. CNN's Fred Pleitgen is live in St. Petersburg, Russia, with all of the breaking details. What happened, Fred?</s>FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Alisyn. Well, apparently, all this happened in the morning hours of this morning in the East China Sea, and the ship involved was the USS Chancellorsville. And apparently, what they're saying that this Russian destroyer, the Admiral Vinogradov, came at the Chancellorsville so quickly as it was trying to recover a helicopter that, indeed, the Chancellorsville had to hit full throttle reverse to try and avoid a collision. Now, the U.S. obviously extremely upset about this, calling this maneuver unprofessional. I want to read to you the statement the navy has put out. They're saying, quote, "We consider Russia's actions during the interaction as unsafe and unprofessional and not in accordance for the international regulations for preventing collisions at sea, the rules of the road, and internationally recognized maritime customs." In fact, an official is telling our own Barbara Starr, Alisyn, that the U.S. is so angry and taken aback by this incident that they're actually thinking of and trying to declassify both images, as well as video of this incident to show just how dangerous this interaction was from the Russian side. Now, the Russians, for their part, are also lodging a complaint about this incident. They came out a little earlier today with a statement saying that it was the U.S. ship that they believe acted unprofessionally. They put the distance at a little bit bigger. The U.S. side is saying 50 to 100 feet. The Russians are saying it was about 50 to 100 meters. So that's a little bit of a larger distance. All of this, of course, coming as the relations between both the U.S. and Russia and the U.S. and China continue to very much deteriorate with that trade war going on between Washington and Beijing. And at the same time, right here where I am, at the St. Petersburg economic forum, the Russians and the Chinese really cozying up to one another. Vladimir Putin meeting with Xi Jinping in just a couple of minutes from now. And both of them have already said, of course, of one another that they are each other's best friend. And both of them, of course, very critical of the United States at this point -- John.</s>BERMAN: All right. Frederick Pleitgen for us in St. Petersburg. Fred, thank you very much. I have to say, a hundred feet, a hundred meters, and it's still incredibly close for vessels of this size. And if the Russian vessel did get that close, you have to wonder what they were trying to do. It was obviously some kind of, if not a provocation, at least game playing that was very dangerous.</s>CAMEROTA: Well, we just don't know if it was incompetence or intentional at this point. And as Fred said, they're trying to declassify those photos. Maybe that will reveal something. But obviously, we'll be following this story, because that is much too close for comfort. And the timing is also interesting, as Fred just pointed out, because of what's happening there in St. Petersburg.</s>BERMAN: Generally speaking, you can't get that close by mistake, is sort of the problem, is what they're going to have to explain, the Russians.</s>CAMEROTA: In 1976, Congress outlawed federal funding for most abortions. Joe Biden backed that plan, and he backed it until yesterday. Why he changed and what it means for his campaign. That's next.