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Lawmakers Debate School Security; Conservative Jurist Robert Bork Dies; Biden to Lead Gun Control Review; Searching For Answers; Benghazi Report Finds Security Lacking

Aired December 19, 2012 - 10:00   ET

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


GENO AURIEMMA, HEAD COACH, UCONN WOMEN'S BASKETBALL: I think going forward we have the power to make those that come after these kids and these adults maybe benefit from this tragedy so that it doesn't end with just footnotes in the paper and that there is actual scholarship memorial in these names of these children and these adults and maybe as long as we can if we raise enough money. It is not enough, but it is the best we can do under the circumstances.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Coach, thanks so much for joining us this morning. We sure appreciate it.

AURIEMMA: Thank you for having me, Carol.

COSTELLO: Next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

Stories we're watching now in the NEWSROOM, learning lessons from Newtown, Connecticut, you're about to hear from one senator that will unveil her plan to beef up security in schools across the country.

British tennis star Andy Murray reaching out to the families and victims of the Newtown tragedy, but he may have more in common with them than you think.

Systemic failures in Benghazi, an independent review releases a report on just what happened that night in Libya and how it could have been prevented.

Forget the days where smoke and cigarettes and chugging beer was school in high school. A new report released just minutes ago says teenagers today are turning to Adderall to get their fix.

NEWSROOM starts now.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

Good morning. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Carol Costello. Happening now on Capitol Hill, new efforts to protect the nation's children. Senator Barbara Boxer is the latest lawmaker responding to the massacre of school kids and teachers in Newtown.

At any moment now, she will announce new measures aimed at bolstering security at every single school in America. Dana Bash is our senior congressional correspondent. Dana, have any idea what Boxer might say? DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I do. I am told that she is going to come out and talk about new ways that she is going to push legislatively for schools to be more secure. For example, I am told she will propose building on some pre-existing federal programs like what's called the cops program that already gives money to schools to help with security. And so if she is going to be calling for more money that might be difficult for her to get now when every single program in the federal budget is on the chopping block.

Still, this obviously is a very unique and raw situation, so maybe this would be an exception. Later today we're going to hear from other Democrats also pushing for broader gun control and, Carol, just the fact Democrats are doing this much more aggressively now is a massive, massive change.

We talked about over the past few days, from what we have seen over the past 10 years where Democrats shied away because they concluded it was bad politics to talk about gun control.

COSTELLO: OK, we've also heard there is an effort to allow guns in schools and arm teachers. Will we hear anything more about that today?

BASH: Not from Capitol Hill. In fact, we have been hearing that there has been an effort by Republican leaders to get people to not talk about that, especially right now. Listen to what Congressman Steve Latourette from Ohio said about what the Republican speaker is telling members.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. STEVEN LATOURETTE (R), OHIO: The speaker said, look, this is an obviously a horrible event that touched everyone in the country and certainly devastated a community. We need to be respectful. We need to be diplomatic in our remarks. Remarks like, well, we should just arm the principals and teachers are probably not appropriate, and that we're going to have to next year engage in a discussion about what's appropriate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: There really has only been one congressman that talked about the idea publicly of arming teachers as a way to mend this horribly broken system, but the bottom line is we obviously have heard it from outside of Washington, from local officials, some pundits.

And I think the most interesting thing still is, Carol, that we are not hearing very much if anything from most Republicans about the whole issue of guns. They are waiting. They are staying quiet. It is not unlike what we're seeing from the NRA that decided not to say anything until they have a press conference Friday. They want to wait until things are not as incredibly raw as they are now.

COSTELLO: All right, Dana Bash, thanks so much. A bit of news just into CNN, CNN has now learned that former Supreme Court Nominee Robert Bork has died. He died of a heart condition. He had a long career and a lustrous legal career before President Ronald Reagan nominated him for the high court in 1987.

Bork was a former solicitor general to the Supreme Court. He was also attorney general under President Richard Nixon and later served on the Court of Appeals. After failing to become Supreme Court justice, Bork left the bench and went to work for several think tanks.

He also went back to being a law professor. Most recently Bork was part of the Romney campaign serving as the leader of the campaign's Justice Advisory Committee. Robert Bork was 84 years old. We're going to have Jeff Toobin come up a little later in our show to talk about Robert Bork and the legacy he leaves behind.

Also new this morning, President Obama takes first steps towards new gun control laws. As you remember, he promised those changes Sunday at a heart wrenching vigil for the school shooting victims in Connecticut.

Next hour, Mr. Obama will announce that Vice President Joe Biden will lead the effort to form new policies to rein in gun violence. One of the toughest questions investigators will try to answer is why did this happen in the first part, this terrible tragedy in Connecticut?

Where did Adam Lanza shoot and kill his mother plus 20 children and six adults inside Sandy Hook Elementary School before turning the gun on himself? Those who knew Lanza described him as quiet and socially awkward.

He was a fan of video games. He did not have a criminal record. It is hard to believe actually that anyone would really commit something this terrible. Mary Ellen O'Toole is a former FBI profiler. She still works for the bureau at times and she joins us now from Washington. Good morning. Thank you for being here.

MARY ELLEN O'TOOLE, FORMER FBI PROFILER: Good morning. Thank you.

COSTELLO: I think that so many people are just trying to get a grip on who this kid was and why he did what he did. As a profiler, what have you come up with?

O'TOOLE: Well, looking at the available information about this case and really we look as profilers the behavior at the crime scene, this crime really started days, weeks, or months before the event, and it appears from what I can see right now that it was thought out in a very strategic way, in a very logical way, and it was very cold blooded.

There is just an enormous amount of callousness to this crime, and what that tells me is that if there were precipitating triggers in his life that made him decide that he is going to act out this way, I think the important point is that he knew what he was doing.

He appeared to be in touch with reality and understood the consequences of his behavior. His intent was for maximum lethality, which is a very cold word to comprehend. He wanted to kill as many people as he could.

COSTELLO: Let's go back to -- I am sorry. Could you hang around for just a minute? Because Senator Barbara Boxer is now talking on Capitol Hill about new security measures in schools across the country. Let's listen.

(BEGIN LIVE FEED)

SEN. BARBARA BOXER (D), CALIFORNIA: -- in January 1989, a deranged gunman stepped onto the grounds of Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, California and fired at least 106 bullet from an AK-47 rifle across the schoolyard. He killed five children ages 6 to 9, one teacher, and injured 29 other students before fatally shooting himself.

That horrific crime led California to enact our state's assault weapons ban. California still remembered this tragedy and just as the nation will always remember the victims of Sandy Hook Elementary School. I know what it means when someone close to you is suddenly taken away in this unspeakable way.

My family was touched by the brutal mass shooting at a law office in San Francisco in 1993 where a crazed gunman with an assault weapon killed eight people and wounded another six. One of those people was a brave young lawyer who threw his body over his wife's, sacrificing his own life to save hers.

That young man was one of my son's best friends. So I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt how these horrific and senseless tragedies live on with the survivors forever, the parents, the spouses, the children, the families, and the friends.

It changes their lives forever and it pierces their psyche forever. Since 1999 which was the year of the massacre at Columbine High School and we'll have a chart to talk about this, 258 students, teachers, and others have been killed in school shootings.

Another 212 have been wounded due to gun violence at our schools. I will break down just some of those crimes, a 2005 shooting at Red Lake Senior High School in Minnesota --

(END LIVE FEED)

COSTELLO: OK, we're going to go away from this for a bit. When she gets into the meat of her speech, of course, we'll fill you in and go back to Senator Barbara Boxer live. She is supposed to outline security measures to be taken in schools across the country for legislation to be introduced to address those concerns.

Let's get back to our FBI profiler right now, Mary Ellen O'Toole, she was talking about Adam Lanza, the shooter in Newtown, Connecticut and how he had planned out his attack.

I just wanted to go over some of the things that make you think that he planned carefully for this attack to happen. Number one, his computer was smashed to smithereens. I mean, so smashed that the FBI doesn't think it can get any information out of it. What does that tell you about Adam Lanza?

O'TOOLE: Well, on the surface that certainly suggests that he does not want anybody to get into his computer. That was his world. He doesn't want people to understand what he was involved in. There may have been plans. There may have been all sorts of information that he left there, and he does not want anyone to have access to it.

COSTELLO: And that he also shot his mother. Do you think that was pre-planned?

O'TOOLE: I do think that it was pre-planned, and there certainly there is every reason to think their relationships at times was very, very problematic, but if you shoot your mom, she then cannot pick up the phone and call the police and warn them you're going to the school to commit a horrific act.

So it could have been emotionally based, but it also could have been as far as he was concerned very pragmatic. He did not want to be stopped. He wanted to go to the school and that's it is mission oriented aspect to it because she would have picked up the phone and called the police and they would have stopped him.

COSTELLO: So when people say he was mentally ill, maybe didn't know what he was doing, do you buy that argument?

O'TOOLE: I think there are certainly mental issues here. I would stop at that point and say that's the reason that he committed this tragic series of homicides. You can be mentally ill.

You can have a mental disorder, but it does not mean that you are not aware of your actions and that you are not aware your actions are wrong. I think that's a very important distinction.

I am just not hearing that. Mental illness does not equate to not knowing what you're doing and being responsible for what you're doing.

COSTELLO: Mary Ellen O'Toole, former FBI profiler joining us this morning. Thanks for sticking around. We appreciate it.

O'TOOLE: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: All right, let's get back to our breaking news, the death of the former Supreme Court Nominee Robert Bork. CNN's senior legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, is on the phone with us now. I don't know share some memories of Robert Bork with us, Jeffrey.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST (via telephone): Well, he was really an epic figure in American law. He is one of the intellectual godfathers of the conservative movement in this country. The originalism, the idea that the constitution should be interpreted as the framers of the constitution wrote it in the late 18th Century.

That was really an idea that Robert Bork popularized and Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas really followed on his example. His nomination to the Supreme Court in 1987 was one of the great constitutional dramas of our time. Joseph Biden was the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and he led the opposition and it was a titanic struggle over what the constitution meant and Bork lost 58-42. But he remained a vivid constitutional voice for all of those subsequent years.

COSTELLO: Can we stay there for just a second?

TOOBIN: And in the 1970s -- I am sorry. Go ahead.

COSTELLO: I just wanted to go back to the hearings because, of course, Democrats blocked his nomination to the Supreme Court and a word was born that went into the nationality lexicon, you were Borked. Where did that come from and why do people still use the term?

TOOBIN: Borked is a controversial term just like Robert Bork is controversial. The idea -- Bork is used by Republicans as a noun to mean unfair caricature. You have the views distorted and reputation damaged unfairly by Congress. That's how it is used by Republicans.

Democrats I think are quite proud of how they handled the Bork hearings. They viewed it as a fair examination of Bork's record, which 58 senators found too conservative.

Just as Robert Bork's work is legacy, his work is controversial, his name is controversial because the verb that his name became, Bork, remains viewed very differently by Democrats and Republicans.

COSTELLO: Jeffrey Toobin, thanks for sharing this morning. We appreciate it. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: It's 18 minutes past the hour. More on Benghazi, an independent federal committee released vivid details from the September attacks in which four Americans lost their lives.

This report is the result of a month-long investigation and laid out recommendations in six key areas including training and awareness and intelligence and threat analysis and personal accountability.'

Just moments ago, we heard from Republican Senator Bob Corker on this report. Here is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BOB CORKER (R), TENNESSEE: I know that Secretary Clinton was unable to be able to testify tomorrow in an open setting. I do think it is imperative for all concerned that she testify in an open session prior to any changing of the regime. I think that that's very important for her. I think it is very important for our country, and I think it is very important to really understand sort of the inner workings of the State Department itself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Joining me now, Robert Baer, CNN contributor and former CIA officer. Good morning.

ROBERT BAER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Good morning.

COSTELLO: So this report, it lays no blame, but Senator Corker suggests that Secretary of State Clinton should testify. Do you agree?

BAER: I don't think it is important. I think this is a good report. Ambassador Pickering and Mullen are sterling reputations. They assigned blame to the State Department to their political analysis and the absence of absence of security and I think that's exactly what happened in Benghazi.

There is a question whether we should have left that place open. Was that proposed? Did it go to the Secretary of State? That maybe is one question you want to ask her. I think with the Pickering and Mullen report I think we have our answers on this and it is now it is time to do better.

COSTELLO: The report is scathing. I am going to read you a couple of quotes out of this report. It says that security at the consulate in Benghazi was, quote, "Grossly inadequate to cope with the attack and that the State Department ignored repeated requests to beef up personnel." Ultimately the report finds there was a, quote, "lack of transparency, responsiveness and leadership at senior levels." That's pretty scathing.

BAER: I think with a report like that somebody should lose their job. Somebody ignored the warnings and it was probably a lower level than the Secretary of State. Secretary of State is not responsible directly for security of these embassies.

I think somebody should lose their job, be moved, reprimanded, however the State Department works. We simply are in a new era in the Middle East where the decisions have to be taken seriously and not just Libya. It is Syria and so forth where our posts will come under attack and somebody has to be headlight accountable for this. There is no excuse after 9/11.

COSTELLO: You say that but the board recommended no disciplinary action. They named no names. You say someone specific should be held accountable. Who should decide who that person is if not this independent report?

BAER: I think the report they did name six people and I think somebody should be assigned responsibility. We're not at the end. It is a good report in the fact that responsibility has been assigned for this tragedy and you take it from there.

I mean, this report cannot recommend action that the State Department should take. That's up to Hillary Clinton right now to act on it, and we'll see what she does. If she ignores the report or doesn't do anything, yes, call her up. We'll ask what have you done.

COSTELLO: Robert Baer, CNN contributor and former CIA officer. Thank you so much for sharing your insights with us this morning. BAER: Thanks.

COSTELLO: Talk Back question for you this morning: Should teachers be armed? Facebook.com/CarolCNN. I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Now is your chance to talk back on one of the big stories of the day. The question for you this morning, should teachers be armed? I don't know about you. I cannot imagine my first grade teacher, Mrs. Van Horn packing a Glock 9, or this, an M4 assault rifle.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. LOUIE GOHMERT (R), TEXAS: I wish to God she had an M-4 in her office locked up so when she heard gun fire she pulls it out and didn't have to lunge heroically with nothing in her hands but she takes him out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: He is talking about the principal at Sandy Hook. It's an idea that's catching on. Take a look at the map. Lawmakers in Oklahoma, Tennessee, Florida, Virginia, Texas, Minnesota, South Dakota, Nevada, and Oregon are open to arming teachers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DENNIS RICHARDSON (R), OREGON STATE DEPARTMENT: What I am suggesting we have campus responders, two or three volunteers that are on the staff whether administrators or teachers or staff members hopefully maybe prior military, prior law enforcement, but people who are trained and will be armed and when the first shot is fired on the next campus they can respond and meet lethal force with lethal force.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: The liberal blog site "Mother Jones" did a two-month investigation on this topic. It found that more guns doesn't equal fewer mass shootings. It pointed out that America has 300 million firearms, a barrage of NRA-backed gun laws and record casualties from mass killers.

The site quotes Dr. Steven Hargarthen, an expert on gun violence at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He says, quote, "Armed civilians attempting to intervene are actually more likely to increase bloodshed given that civilian shooters are less likely to hit their targets than police in these circumstances," although even police officers are not expert marks men in the heat of battle.

Remember the chaotic scene last August at the Empire State Building. New York City Police officer confronted a gunman and in the process wounded nine innocent bystanders. Would my first grade teacher, Mrs. Van Horn, be a better shot?

Talk Back question for you today: Should teachers be armed? Facebook.com/CarolCNN. Your responses later this hour.

The NRA ready to respond. They're promising meaningful contributions to make sure Newtown doesn't ever happen again. What exactly does that mean? We'll speculate next.

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