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NSA Surveillance Powers Temporarily Expire; Kerry Remains Hospitalized with Broken Leg; Obamas Visit Bidens after Son Beau's Death; Northeast Facing Flood Threat. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired June 1, 2015 - 06:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Several provisions of the Patriot Act expired at midnight.

[05:58:25] BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This shouldn't and cannot be about politics.

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is a debate over your right to be left alone.

OBAMA: And we shouldn't surrender the tools that help keep us safe.

PAUL: I'm not going to take it anymore.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A surprising new obstacle to a nuclear deal with Iran.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This injury is substantial enough to warrant close medical attention.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How does this injury affect secretary's work on critical issues?

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Tributes and condolences are pouring in after the tragic news of Beau Biden's death.

SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV), MINORITY LEADER: I'd just like to express my sincere condolences. The world is a better place because of Beau Biden.

JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: A father knows he's a success when he turns and looks at his son or daughter and know that they turned out better than he did. I'm a success.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota, and Michaela Pereira.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It's Monday, June 1, 6 a.m. in the East. Mick is off, and Alisyn and I have breaking news for you. The U.S. government can no longer collect your phone records in

bulk, at least for now. Three key provisions of the Patriot Act lapsing just hours ago after a show-down in the Senate that failed to reach a deal to extend them.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: So the Senate now turning to the bill passed in the House in hopes of putting some of those controversial provisions back in place this week.

Let's begin our coverage with CNN's Athena Jones. She is live on Capitol Hill for us. What do we know, Athena?

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. Well, there were dramatic moments last night in that rare Sunday session. Now, Senate leaders are trying to make sure the lapse in this law, which many see as a vital terrorism-fighting tool, is as short as possible.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL: I'm not going to take it anymore. I don't think the American people are going to take it anymore.

JONES (voice-over): The heated debate over the Patriot Act pushing beyond the midnight deadline in Washington, forcing the NSA to immediately stop selecting telephone metadata on millions of Americans across the country.

PAUL: They want to take just a little of your liberty. But they get it by making you afraid.

JONES: Senator Rand Paul blasting the NSA's domestic surveillance program, calling it an illegal spy program on Americans.

This as counterterrorism officials also lose the ability to obtain roving wiretaps, allowing them to listen in on potential terror suspects, even as they change cell phones.

With the advancement of ISIS across the Middle East, some senators say the program is needed now more than ever.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: Isn't this program as critical as it's ever been since its inception, given the fact that the Middle East is literally on fire and we are losing everywhere?

JONES: The NSA's authority will likely be restored as early as Wednesday, when Republican leadership aides expect a final vote on the compromise bill, the USA Freedom Act. The bill amends the Patriot Act, requiring a specific targeted warrant to obtain any call records from telecommunications companies.

REID: We're in the mess we are today because of the majority leader. The majority leader should have seen this coming.

JONES: Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid blaming his Republican counterpart, Mitch McConnell, for not having a plan. After an about-face, Majority Leader McConnell, who had wanted to renew the Patriot Act as is, now says passing the compromised bill is the only realistic way forward.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: I believe this is a program that strikes a critical balance between privacy on the one hand and national security on the other.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JONES: So what's next? We expect a vote on final passage of the USA Freedom Act by around mid-week. That's because of Senate procedures and several likely votes on amendments being offered. Of course, if they make any changes to the law, it will have to go back to the House of Representatives for consideration. It's not over yet -- Chris.

CUOMO: So we're looking at the drama that's going on in Congress. But the White House is certainly not happy either. They say the nation is now vulnerable, but opponents say the Patriot Act simply went too far, compromising your privacy. The big question: now what? CNN senior White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, has that part of the story.

Morning, Jim,

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris.

The White House is blasting the expiration of these NSA programs, warning this temporary lapse could impact counterterrorism investigations. Aides to the president are not calling out senators by name, but it's clear who the White House is annoyed with this morning, and that is Senator Rand Paul.

The White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, released a statement last night, praising the Senate for moving forward with the replacement bill for the Patriot Act, the Freedom Act, but there is also a thinly veiled dig at Senator Paul. We'll put this up on screen. This is from White House press secretary Josh Ernest.

It says, "We call on the Senate to ensure this irresponsible lapse in authorities is as short-lived as possible. On a matter as critical as our national security, individual senators must put aside their partisan motivations and act swiftly. The American people deserve nothing less."

And in terms of what's at stake, the NSA programs at risk right now, we can -put that up on screen. That is the bulk phone data collection that Athena mentioned, roving taps for terrorism suspects who may change cell phones a lot, and then lone wolf provision. That is basically about these lone wolves that may be out there that are not connected to terrorism investigations, but they want to keep track of them anyway.

The White House had warned all last week that there was no Plan B if these programs were to expire, but counterterrorism officials explain investigators may have some work-arounds to continue pursuing these suspects, investigations that had already begun before the lapse on these programs, maybe grandfathered in. But cases that are potentially opened today could be affected, guys. And that's the danger.

CAMEROTA: All right, Jim, thanks so much for all that background.

We want to talk about both the political and the national security aspects of this move on Capitol Hill, so let's bring in Phil Mudd. He's our CNN counterterrorism analyst and a former CIA counterterrorism official. And Sara Murray. She's a CNN political correspondent.

Good morning to both of you. Sarah, I want to start with you with the political implications. Does Rand Paul deserve the credit for basically single-handedly scuttling this program?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's pretty clear that Rand Paul thinks he deserves the credit, and it's pretty clear he sees this as a big victory. The reality is, he may have scuttled it, but it's only for a couple of days.

I think the question about whether this becomes a winner for him or not is how people react to it going forward. Yes, we know that Rand protested this. We know he was able to delay this and maybe even get rid of some of these provisions, but you risk looking like an obstructionist at a certain point. And I think that that's the risk that he's running right now. If he just stands there and opposes this program, and it's not part of whatever moves forward, I think that's the political downside for him.

CAMEROTA: And you're right, because it is hard to tell if he will be considered a winner in the long term, because even his fellow Republicans are having lots of issues with this.

[06:05:03] Let me read to you what the chairman of the Intelligence Committee said about him. This is Senator Richard Burr. He says, "The time to negotiate was a week ago last Thursday, when he turned down every rational offer that was made to him. I can tell you this, there won't be any negotiations with Rand Paul from this point forward."

MURRAY: Yes, Alisyn, it's pretty clear that he set on fire any establishment support that Rand Paul has been looking to build in these past couple months. And that's really what he's been doing as he's been working on this presidential bid, is he's trying to keep the wing of the party that has gotten really excited about the idea of ending some of these NSA provisions. There are a lot of his dad's former supporters, while trying to build establishment support. And it's pretty clear that establishment support is waning very quickly.

CAMEROTA: OK. Let's talk about the national security implications. Phil, I want to bring you in. Does the end of the bulk data collection truly change the way the CIA, the FBI, and local police do business? PHIL MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: Well, it looks like

we'll be able to regenerate this later in the week, as we were talking about just a moment ago. If it were to end, and I think that's highly unlikely, the business I was involved in at the CIA and the FBI would change fundamentally for a simple reason.

When somebody walks in the room that is an analyst or an investigator at the FBI or the CIA, that says, "We have a new subject in an American city," a subject that is an individual in a city like New York or Washington, the first question someone like me has who's managing those investigations is, "Who is this person and what is the web of activity around them?"

What this data allows you to do is to very quickly go into databases and say, "This is all the communications activity of that person." Phone, e-mail, for example. And so without ever going on the street and conducting an investigation wearing a pair of shoes...

CAMEROTA: Yes.

MUDD: ... you can just collect that digital stuff and draw a picture of somebody's life.

CAMEROTA: But Phil, can't you still do that without collecting my data? Can't you still collect the bad guys or go back and retrace the steps of the bad guys without also seeing who called me?

MUDD: No. Because if you open a new investigation today, and I don't know who that person was yesterday, I don't know who their friends and family are, I don't know who their co-conspirators are, I can't predict what investigation's going to walk through the door tomorrow. So I need historical data to recreate somebody's life as soon as that investigation opens.

CAMEROTA: Phil, I know that you are struck by just how far the country has come. In 2002 and 2003, you testified in front of Congress about some of the methods that you were using then, and those conversations were about torture methods, frankly. And now, 12 years later...

MUDD: Excuse me.

CAMEROTA: You can call it what you'd like. Twelve years later, the fact that we're having this conversation about something so seemingly more innocuous is interesting, but how do you see it?

MUDD: Boy, people talk about the threat from ISIS today, fundamentally different from the threat we faced from al Qaeda in 2002, 2003. I thought back then there were a lot more unknowns than we face today. I didn't think we had a great understanding of the al Qaeda organization. I thought we had a Congress and American people who said, "Do whatever you need to do to ensure this doesn't happen again." That is, the 9-11 attacks.

But if you look at the talk about the threat posed from ISIS today and you balance that against the conversations we're having about national security measures, whether it's the CIA detaining prisoners years ago or, in this case, the collection of data, you get a sense that, despite the conversations about threat from ISIS, we've come just so far from when I was testifying and senators and congressmen, congresswomen told me, "Whatever you need to do, do it."

In some ways, my friends will hate me for saying this. In some ways, this is a sign of the success of the National Security Agency, the CIA and the FBI, if we had had a series of major attacks, in my judgements, these debates would never happen. The democracy has had a chance to talk about this, because I think we feel safer than we did a decade ago.

CAMEROTA: Well, we love you for your candor, even if your friends are mad at you this morning.

But Sara, if they are just going to vote on the Freedom Act, the House version of the modifications, why are they going through all of this drama? Why didn't they just do that to begin with in the Senate?

MURRAY: Well, I think you can thank Rand Paul for a lot of this drama, but you can also take Mitch McConnell for this. I mean, Mitch McConnell is the one who did not -- he basically blocked any move to bring the -- to bring the House bill into the Senate. And I don't think that he thought that Rand Paul was going to be able to single- handedly set aside the Patriot Act. And in fact, that's what Rand Paul was able to do.

And so now we're sort of seeing the Republicans regroup, do what they need to do next, bring this House bill over into the Senate.

The interesting thing is that Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul have had a pretty close relationship. Recently, Rand Paul was very helpful to Mitch McConnell when he was reelected to the Senate, and Mitch McConnell has endorsed Rand Paul for president. So to see this relationship fraying now is one of the sort of underlying political dramas going on now on the Senate floor.

CAMEROTA: OK. It will be interesting to watch those allegiances shift this week and to see what happens with the Freedom Act.

Phil Mudd, Sara Murray, thanks so much for all the information.

MUDD: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Great to see you guys. Let's get over to Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Alisyn.

Secretary of State John Kerry is in a hospital in Geneva this morning. The secretary of state broke his leg during a bike ride in France. Now, Secretary Kerry will return to Boston for surgery soon. But that means he will miss critical nuclear negotiations with Iran.

[06:10:08] So let's bring in CNN senior international correspondent Nic Robertson, live this morning in Geneva.

What do we know about timing and who takes his place?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we know at the moment is that Secretary Kerry is holed up in the hospital here, still being treated, has been here for almost 24 hours how. He had those talks with the Iranian negotiators on Saturday, went for the bike ride. But he was due to be in Spain yesterday and early today, meeting with the prime minister there, meeting with the king. He was supposed to go on from there to Paris to the important meetings about ISIS, building a coalition against ISIS. We understand Secretary Kerry's deputy will be attending that, but initially, Secretary Kerry had said that he wanted to attend that by remote.

But it does seem that his doctors have sort of taken a hold of the situation here now. His physician from Boston, Dr. Dennis Burke, is on the way here at the moment to make his assessment. He's treated Secretary Kerry's thigh before, which is what has been injured on this occasion, this accident. He is on his way here to make his assessment.

It's not uncommon here. I was hear in March to see Secretary Kerry going out for a ride on his bike during the negotiations with the Iranians. But of course, Secretary Kerry is a very important part of the negotiations. Yes, he has a team of experts with him, but it's his personal relationship with the Iranian foreign minister, Zarif, that has been so critical to push these talks forward.

It is 30 days now to the deadline to get an agreement on those negotiations. Important issues outstanding: access to sites in Iran; many, many issues outstanding. So at the moment, with this type of injury, Secretary Kerry could very well be a missing link in these very important time -- talks at a very critical stage, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Gosh. Things just change in an instant like that. Nic, thanks so much.

Well, now to the outpouring of sympathy after the death of Vice President Joe Biden's eldest son, Beau. President Obama and the first lady visiting the Bidens' residence to offer their personal condolences.

Our senior Washington correspondent, Joe Johns, joins us live. Good morning, Joe.

JOHNS: Good morning, Alisyn. The Obamas paid a visit to the vice president and his wife, Jill, at their home in Upper Northwest Washington at the Naval Observatory. A reception at the White House on Sunday was canceled out of respect for the Biden family.

Beau Biden had been in failing health for a long time due to brain cancer.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS (voice-over): After the tragic news of Beau Biden's death, tributes and condolences are pouring in. MCCONNELL: At this time I'd like to express my sincere

condolences to the entire Biden family in their moment of such deep and profound loss.

REID: Beau left us far too soon, 46 years old. I'm certain his family will take solace knowing he lived a selfless, noble life.

JOHNS: Vice President Joe Biden's son died Saturday evening, surrounded by his entire family after battling brain cancer. In a statement, his father wrote, "Beau Biden was quite simply the finest man any of us have ever known."

President Obama recalled how much the younger Biden followed in his father's footsteps: "Like his dad, Beau was a good, big-hearted, devoutly Catholic and deeply faithful man who made a difference in the lives of all he touched, and he lives on in their hearts."

This is not the first time tragedy has struck. As a child, Beau was involved in a car accident where his mother and 1-year-old sister were killed. He recalled the incident if 2008, while introducing his father at the Democratic National Convention.

BEAU BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN'S SON: My brother Hunter and I were seriously injured and hospitalized for weeks. I was just short of 4 years old. One of my earliest memories was being in that hospital, my dad always at our side.

JOHNS: Weeks later, his father was sworn in as U.S. senator from Delaware at his sons' hospital bedside.

The father and son shared a close bond, and both went to law school and pursued a life in public service.

J. BIDEN: My dad used to have an expression. He'd say, "A father knows he's a success when he turns and looks at his son or daughter and know that they turned out better than he did." I'm a success. I'm a hell of a success.

Beauy, I love you. I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of the son you've become. I'm so proud of the father you are.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: Beau Biden was Delaware's attorney general until earlier this year. He also served as a major in Delaware's National Guard, and he had planned on running for governor of Delaware in 2016 -- Chris.

CUOMO: He had quite a future in front of him, Joe. Tough news, to be sure.

So now we want to take you to Iraq. Forces there are pounding Fallujah and surrounding villages in the heaviest of three days of bombing. At least 31 people have been killed, many more injured. At least 100,000 civilians are trapped inside Fallujah, caught between the bombs and ISIS. [06:15:07] CAMEROTA: Well, it's a wet and chilly start to June

in the northeast. Parts of the northeast are under a flash flood threat this morning. We want to get right to CNN meteorologist Chad Myers. He's tracking the latest on the storms.

How is it looking, Chad?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You know, Alisyn, it always seems like we go from a draught to a flood. Doesn't it? We can't get anything in between. Just like Texas: a multi-year drought to all of a sudden now, the state's underwater. So it's raining in New York. It's raining on Long Island, up into Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire also into upstate, so that may slow down your commute.

We've had some heavier rain showers around the New York City area, and some of that could cause some street flooding this morning. We're worried about, still, the rain continuing today. And it gets much colder. Yesterday was a beautiful day in New York, because it was 80. It was almost too hot, 88 in some spots.

But today, the cold air comes in. The rain showers move in, and heavy, heavy rainfall all the way from about D.C. right up through Vermont and also even into parts of southern New Jersey, with the heaviest.

Drought conditions still exist here across the northeast. We'll get rid of those drought conditions with this round of showers, for sure. Could see some two- to three-inch rainfalls across a lot of the region. And you know what? We'll take it.

That will make the gardens grow very well.

CAMEROTA: There you go. You need to be careful on the commute in. Thanks, Chad.

MYERS: That's right.

CUOMO: We'll take it, but we're not getting it the way that we want it.

CAMEROTA: Right. Spread out.

CUOMO: Right. A little bit of balance will be nice.

Speaking of lack of balance, check out this video from Canada. This car just goes airborne over the ledge of a gas station, slams into -- no small irony -- an auto-body repair shop. The driver is in serious condition. There's no real word on what caused this. The police believe he may have hit the gas instead of the brake.

CAMEROTA: Scary. All right. Well, former Maryland governor, Martin O'Malley, coming out swinging as he enters the 2016 presidential race. He is already taking shots at Hillary Clinton. And they are not subtle shots. Does the Democratic contender pose a serious threat? We'll debate it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[06:20:28] MARTIN O'MALLEY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I've got news for the bullies of Wall Street. The presidency is not a crown to be passed back and forth by you, between two royal families. It is a sacred trust to be earned from the American people, an exercise on behalf of the people of these United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: That's former Maryland governor, Democrat Martin O'Malley. And he's coming out after Hillary Clinton, even though he used to say she'd be a good president. He's also coming to Jeb Bush, but of course, these insults are the easy part, the attacks. Can he do what it takes to win?

CAMEROTA: Here to weigh in, CNN political analyst and editor in chief of "The Daily Beast," John Avlon, and CNN political commentator and Republican strategist, Kevin Madden.

Gentlemen, great to see you.

KEVIN MADDEN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Great to be with you. Good morning.

CAMEROTA: Kevin, let me start with you. So basically, Martin O'Malley's message is that Hillary Clinton should not be considered the heir apparent. Do you think that that will resonate with people?

MADDEN: Well, look, it certainly provides an opening for someone like Martin O'Malley. You know, 2016 is shaping up to be a lot like the 20 -- 2008 election, where people were really hungry for change, were hungry for something new.

And I think Martin O'Malley's appeal is that he is not of some Washington establishment or not of the political establishment. Instead, he's somebody who is a little bit more in touch with voters than Hillary Clinton, who is not as out of -- who has a little more of a middle class appeal with voters. And I think that's where he sees his opening, which is going after this bit of generational change that he may be offered to voters.

CAMEROTA: What's so funny, John Avlon?

AVLON: I just love that we're at the point of the cycle where Republicans are incredibly generous to Hillary Clinton's challengers.

I mean, look, you know, Kevin -- Kevin makes a lot of important points. And the argument he ' making is actually somewhat akin to Marco Rubio's. He's going to be a candidate of generational change. But he was elected governor in his 30s. So he is actually a little bit younger than Barack Obama. And he's trying to make a point about income equal -- income inequality, which resonates with not only the base of the Democratic Party, but also millennials, in particular.

That said, restyling himself as a progressive champion is kind of a tough sell for a guy who was very much a DLC centrist Democrat when he first introduced himself. I think he will be a credible candidate. He has executive experience. He is someone who, since nature and politics abhor a vacuum, when people look for someone who can credibly be president who is not Hillary Clinton, he will be in that consideration set. Whereas, Bernie Sanders is going to be very popular with the base. But he's probably really just a protest candidate, ideologically.

CUOMO: Do you think he's popping in here, because he believes that he can beat Hillary? Or do you think this is one of those things where, even if I lose, maybe I win in some other way in this new cottage industry of future by laws?

AVLON: I don't think it's if I lose I win, because I'll get book deals and speaking fees. I think it's one of these, you know, maybe I'll get lucky, and some unanticipated event will happen, and I'll be the last man standing. Or your you're in short consideration set for V.P. or a player in the party going forward.

But this is a guy who's been a rising star in his party. He had a good record as mayor, despite the current Baltimore controversies. And so I think it makes sense for him to take this next step. He's just having a hard time getting traction.

MADDEN: On that points, on that point, too, John, he's at 1 percent right now.

CUOMO: Yes.

MADDEN: Nothing is going to get him to 25 percent like running for president now, whereas it may set him up for a future run somewhere down the line.

CUOMO: It makes you a contender on the Republican side if you're at 1 percent, though.

CAMEROTA: Well, that's a great point. And let's talk about the Republican side, because Lindsey Graham becomes the 9th GOP contender by getting into the race. So Kevin, how much oxygen does he get in the room?

MADDEN: Well, look, I think one of the big reasons that Lindsey Graham is running is because he's somebody with foreign policy and national security credentials in a field that's very light on that right now.

I think he believes it's important for someone like him to get in there and really force a debate on some of those issues and make candidates come up with a much stronger platform on some of those issues.

He's also from South Carolina, which is an early primary state. So while he may not be able to win the nomination, he could very 00 figure very prominently in some of the math that's needed for whoever ultimately begins to win some of these early state contests.

AVLON: Yes. I mean, look, Lindsey Graham has been a great senator. He's someone who's had the courage to step across the aisle and to forge things like immigration reform. He's clearly going to run as, someone who's proposing a reality-based foreign policy. Harsh critique of Rand Paul. One could assume in his announcement today.

But the real contribution may be how he affects the math of the race in a race this crowded.

[06:25:05] If you have a favorite son of South Carolina, even if he doesn't win South Carolina, he changes, most likely, who wins South Carolina. It's a dynamic changer, as well as a candidate who can run, kind of representing that John McCain foreign policy tradition.

CUOMO: And I've got to tell you, you know, I've been seeing this along the lines of the narrative of when you have everybody, you have nobody. But then this weekend, I saw Kyle Smith from "The New York Post" wrote an editorial based on a poll where he says 57 percent of Republicans see their field as strong or excellent. So you know, maybe it's not just seen as, you know, a mass of not having what they need. Maybe they do like this variety. Right, Kevin? I mean, you know?

MADDEN: Absolutely. Look, it was certainly a departure from 2008 and 2012, where so many Republicans felt that they didn't have enough options.

CUOMO: Why not? They've got a full baseball team there.

MADDEN: And that -- right. And that was why I think a lot of them shopped between so many candidates. Remember in 2012, so many folks took a turn at the front in the poll position, because voters were shopping around so much, because they didn't really have one person that they could consolidate behind until, ultimately, Mitt Romney did that later on in the primary contest.

CAMEROTA: Should we look at our countdown clock? A rush (ph)? Let's look. Let's see how many days we have left. It's 525.

CUOMO: Let's focus on the seconds.

CAMEROTA: It's 525.

CUOMO: Five-two-five, one-eight, three-three, five-two, that's the daily winning number.

AVLON: Gives us a little bit of perspective.

CAMEROTA: Yes. But only 48 seconds. Well, all right.

CUOMO: Every second that we're closer, we're closer and closer.

CAMEROTA: But let's talk about the sad news, John, about Beau Biden passing.

AVLON: Yes.

CAMEROTA: I mean, this is such -- it's such a terrible story, because this family has been, you know, marked by tragedy.

AVLON: It really does feel like a death in the American family, because, you know, Joe Biden's political career, his public life, began with this horrific tragedy, with the car crash that killed his first wife and daughter. And Beau Biden and his brother, Hunter, were in critical condition. Joe Biden took the oath of office in their hospital room and famously said, "Delaware can get another senator. My kids can't get another dad."

And the reason I think Beau Biden is broadly believed is because that's the backdrop for his political career, because he went home every night on Amtrak to be with his kids.

And the success of Beau Biden, who was broadly beloved, who didn't simply coast his dad's coattails but won election in his own right, was a JAG officer in Iraq. That was a vindication for that sense that you reap what you sow as a father. And for such a bright young talent and son, whose as father and son had so much mutual love to be lost at 46 with two young children of his own is just a tragedy.

CUOMO: And I'll tell you, there's a temptation when someone is lost, especially young, 46-years-old, to lionize them. And that's a good instinct. It is not needed with Beau Biden. He was a star. Kevin, you know this, as well.

MADDEN: Right.

CUOMO: Both sides, you would meet people who would say Beau Biden is the real deal. He didn't have to go back to Iraq. You know, he was in the reserve then. He didn't have to go. 2008, he went back anyway, and he was a real leader.

This is a loss no matter what your political stripe is. This was a quality human being, and an amazing family man. He really was. He moved you in all the right ways.

CAMEROTA: I believe it. He seems like such a role modem. So handsome. Just an impressive guy all around.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on that. Kevin, thank you.

AVLON: Great to be with you.

CAMEROTA: You, too.

Well, key provisions of the Patriot Act are on ice. Are we less safe than we were, say, Friday? We'll ask a member of the House who saw the terror threat up close during two tours in Iraq.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)