Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Rep. Brooks Finally Served With Lawsuit For Role In Jan.6 Speech; Two Arrested In CA Road-Rage Shooting That Killed 6-Year-Old Boy; Mexico's President Loses Grip On Power After Violent Elections; Bezos Invites Brother On Company's First Space Tourism Flight; USA- Mexico Soccer Game Interrupted By Homophobic Chants, Projectiles Thrown At Players, Fan Tackled On Field. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired June 07, 2021 - 13:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:30:56]

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: After months of trying and even hiring a private investigator to track him down, Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell has finally served his Republican colleague Mo Brooks with a lawsuit. It aims to hold Congressman Brooks accountable for his alleged role in inciting the January 6th insurrection. Here's what the Alabama Republican told a crowd of Trump supporters just before they marched on the Capitol.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MO BROOKS (R-AL): Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Brooks says Swalwell's legal team broke the law while serving the legal paperwork. He says they sneaked into his house and accosted his wife. Now CNN can't corroborate that claim, I should say, but Swalwell's attorney told us this earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHIL ANDONIAN, ATTORNEY FOR REP. ERIC SWALWELL: The Process Server did not go into the Brooks's home. And the Brooks's (ph) know that.

Yesterday morning, a different process server who was successful, was in front of the house in the morning and actually saw Mrs. Brooks drive by twice apparently spotting him even parking at the dead end of their street, apparently watching and waiting and then took off for a few hours. And she came back when she obviously thought the coast was clear. And that's when he was able to serve her. It was a lawful service. And Mo Brooks is now in the case.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: CNN Legal Analyst and former Federal Prosecutor Jennifer Rodgers joins us now to discuss this. Jennifer, now that Congressman Brooks has been served, what happens next?

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, on and now, he has to answer the complaint. So he has to or his lawyers really will answer all the allegations in the complaint, of course, mostly with denials, but presumably some facts as well. And then it's time for motions and discovery. That's really the big ticket item here. It's the reason I think why Representative Swalwell filed the case in the first place to get discovery in terms of depositions and interrogatory is to try to learn exactly what happened on January 6th.

CABRERA: Now, if Brooks feels he was improperly served, is there anything he can do legally?

RODGERS: He can make a motion. I mean, the motion really will be that he doesn't feel the court has jurisdiction over him or over the case, and that's not going to succeed. This case was filed exactly where it should be. D.C. is where the events happened. It's where Mo Brooks spends a big chunk of his year as a representative. So he can try to make that motion to dismiss the cases to him, but it will not succeed.

CABRERA: The issue over whether it was appropriate to serve Brook's wife, can they do that if she's not named in the lawsuit?

RODGERS: They can. Yes, there are specific rules about who you can serve. If you go to the person's home and there's an adult there, you can serve that person. But this is all, I mean, even if they weren't able to serve the wife yesterday, eventually, if they try enough times, and the person obviously knows about the lawsuit, which we know Representative Brooks does, because he's talked about it publicly, then they can eventually waive service, the court eventually would have waived service.

So all of this is really just a bit of silliness, frankly, about the Brooks's hiding under their beds or whatever they were doing. It doesn't really, at the end, impact the fact that they do have to answer this complaint and move forward with the lawsuit.

CABRERA: How strong is Swalwell case against Congressman Brooks?

RODGERS: You know, it's really hard to say, Ana, until discovery starts. We all know what he said publicly. You know, there's the First Amendment though. So the issue of whether he actually incited those actions is going to be a tough one. I think in discovery, they're going to be looking for these connections between the groups that came to the Capitol, armed for violence ready to go, and people like Mo Brooks to see whether they can make a stronger case than just their words at the rally.

So at this point, I would say it's pretty hard to say, although, you know, it is a civil suit, it's not a criminal suit. They don't have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was guilty. They just have to convince a jury that it's, you know, 51 percent, the preponderance of the evidence suggests that he was responsible for what happened.

CABRERA: How long do you think it takes for this process to play out?

RODGERS: Civil cases are very, very slow. Discovery by itself take months and months and months. I mean, I think we're talking about a couple of years before this plays out for sure.

CABRERA: Good to know. I appreciate your insight and expertise. Thank you, Jennifer Rodgers.

RODGERS: Thank you.

[13:35:05]

CABRERA: In California, an intense manhunt is finally over. Police have arrested two people now in connection with a road rage shooting that killed a six-year-old boy. Aiden Leos was on his way to kindergarten when he was shot late last month. Police say the suspects fired at the car because they thought his mother made an improper lane change. The two suspects, 23 and 24 years old are now expected to face murder charges.

Ninety-six politicians killed, hundreds more targeted and human remains found in voting booths. A bloody election season in Mexico comes to a close, leaving a power hungry president weekend.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:40:29]

CABRERA: Mexico just wrapped up midterm elections marred by a wave of brutal campaign violence. Preliminary results show Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will lose seats in the lower House, so that would keep him from securing a super majority and the power to change Mexico's Constitution. Now this vote also ends one of the deadliest election campaigns in the country's recent history. Listen to this, at least 96 Mexican politicians or candidates have been killed since September and more than 600 others were targeted.

Jorge Castaneda was Mexico's secretary of Foreign Affairs under President Vicente Fox. He's also a professor at NYU, and he joins us now from Mexico City. Secretary, thanks for taking the time. Given all the violence, dozens of candidates killed. Was this a free and fair election? Do you trust the results are legitimate?

JORGE CASTANEDA, FORMER MEXICAN FOREIGN AFFAIRS SECRETARY: Hi, Ana. Yes, I think the results are legitimate. There may be cases of tampering here or there or rough (ph) results that may be overturned by the courts, but by and large, the election was free and fair, the results are legitimate and the violence was, of course, something terribly tragic and unfortunate. And that something should have been done about it to avoid it by the government. But at the end of the day also, this is one of the largest elections in recent Mexican history more candidates than ever.

Now, 1,900 town mayors were up for election, 15 governors, 300 congressmen, et cetera. So you had a lot more people competing which leads perhaps in part to more violence. And you also had some parties making local alliances with some cartels or many drug (ph) cartels, which made their candidates targets for other cartels.

CABRERA: Yes.

CASTANEDA: But by and large, the results are accepted (ph).

CABRERA: But that's what I guess I don't understand because if the threat of violence exists and is leading people to behave a certain way, or to not participate or to participate, and it just seems like that would maybe throw the election in some way. We know AMLO as he's known, the President of Mexico, has come under controversy for targeting independent institutions and groups, everything from the judiciary to, you know, independent election officials. I wonder is Mexico's democracy under assault right now, and what could it mean for the United States?

CASTANEDA: Well, I think it is under threat, it is being threatened menace by President Lopez Obrador who has been doing what you just described, particularly with regards the judiciary branch, and in particular, the Supreme Court.

Mexico's democracy, which is a young democracy, it's really only 25 years old, is under threat. People went to vote yesterday, slightly more than the average for midterm elections. Not a huge turnout, but a decent one. There weren't that many incidents on Election Day. But the main threat to Mexican democracy is what President Lopez Obrador has been doing.

And I'm looking forward to Vice President Harris's visit tonight and all tomorrow in Mexico City, to bring up this issue with President Lopez Obrador and tell him that the United States is concerned about these threats to Mexican democracy, in the same way that the United States contributed to bringing about Mexico's democracy back in the 1990s and early 2000s. Very important that on this visit, she bring these issues up.

CABRERA: I want to ask you more about that in a minute, but I think for a lot of Americans who are looking at what's happening in Mexico, they're frankly afraid. Mexico, of course, is a popular tourist destination for Americans. Right now, the U.S. State Department's telling Americans do not travel or reconsider travel to more than a dozen states in Mexico because of crime and kidnapping. What's your reaction to that?

CASTANEDA: Well, one of the reasons that President Lopez Obrador's party Morena, did not fare (ph) as well as he expected and yesterday's election, he lost more than 50 seats in Congress. He only has a simple majority now.

He lost miserably in Mexico City, is the levels of violence in the country since he took office, two and a half years ago, almost three years ago, the number of killings of homicides per 100,000 inhabitants hasn't gone down. It's stayed at very, very high levels. People are afraid and they're unhappy with this. He simply has not been able to manage or bring down the levels of violence. It's perhaps his greatest failure as President and he has many failures, by the way.

[13:45:04]

CABRERA: You mentioned Vice President Kamala Harris's visit in Mexico and she's there to really address the surge of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border. What do you want to hear from the Vice President on this?

CASTANEDA: Well, I think it's important for her to understand, first of all, that there are a lot of Central American migrants moving through Mexico towards the U.S., but there are many single Mexican males, adult males, also leaving far more than the number of Honduran children or El Salvadorian young women.

The largest chunk of people moving north are Mexicans and they're leaving because Lopez Obrador is driving the economy into the ground, and because of these threats, the Mexican democracy, and because the levels of violence. If she wants to address root causes of migration to the United States, of course, she has to bring up the Northern Triangle, but she also has to bring up Mexico.

Most of the migration comes from Mexico. And a lot of that migration is being driven by the policies and the mistakes and the mismanagement by President Lopez Obrador. I hope she brings this up with him tonight, then tomorrow.

CABRERA: Jorge Castaneda, the former Mexican Foreign Affairs Secretary, I really appreciate the conversation. Thank you for shedding some light for all of us.

Hey Alexa, book me a flight to space. Billionaire Jeff Bezos says he'll be on board, his space company's first crewed spaceflight, but what (ph) do you even pack? Start thinking about it because space tourism may come sooner than you think.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:51:05]

CABRERA: Talk about a brother's bonding trip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF BEZOS, AMAZON FOUNDER: You see the Earth from space that changes you, it changes your relationship with this planet, with humanity. It's one Earth, I want to go on this flight because it's a thing I've wanted to do all my life.

I really want you to come with me, would you?

MARK BEZOS, YOUNGER BROTHER OF JEFF BEZOS: Are you serious?

J. BEZOS: I am. I think it would be meaningful. I have my brother there.

M. BEZOS: I wasn't even expecting him to say that he was going to be on the first flight. And then when he asked me to go along, I was just awestruck.

Seriously?

J. BEZOS: If you're willing, if you want to.

M. BEZOS: Oh my God.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: OK, it's not a cross country, you know, caravan. It's not like, let's take a trip to the Caribbean. Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos and his brother Mark are going to space together. They will be the first manned flight of Bezos's Blue Origin aerospace company. That is set for July 20th, as in six weeks from now.

CNN's Innovation and Space Correspondent Rachel Crane is joining us. Rachel, Bezos says he has dreamed of this since he was five years old.

RACHEL CRANE, CNN INNOVATION AND SPACE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Ana. You know, Bezos, he's been very vocal that since he was a child, he has dreamed about traveling to space and he founded his aerospace company Blue Origin more than 20 years ago, and they have been working on the new Shepard spacecraft, which will make this historical suborbital space journey for more than six years.

So this journey has been a long time coming. And the flight, as you pointed out, is set to take off from the company's facility in West Texas on July 20th. I want to highlight that that will be the 52nd anniversary of Apollo 11's Moon Landing, as well as just days after Bezos steps down from his role as CEO of Amazon.

And Blue Origin has conducted 15 consecutive successful test flights, many with payloads onboard. But the plan flight for January 20th, that will be the first time Blue Origin sends crew to space. And it's perhaps the biggest vote in confidence in his team and in the system that they have built. You know, as it announced today that Bezos and his brother, Mark -- Jeff Bezos and his brother, Mark Bezos, will be on that first crewed journey. So as you pointed out, Ana, I mean, this is really like the ultimate gift that you could give your brother. You know, hey --

CABRERA: Incredible.

CRANE: -- it's (INAUDIBLE) in space and go down in space history.

CABRERA: Yes, no kidding. It's amazing. And I guess somebody else, some lucky stranger out there has a chance to potentially go on this flight as well, right, because one's being auctioned, a seat is being auctioned, bidding already at $2.8 million, tell us how this works. Who will joined the Bezos brothers?

CRANE: That's -- yes, that's right, Ana. I wish I could tell you that I was going to be that lucky person that would be in this spacecraft, joining the Bezos brothers. Unfortunately, as you pointed out, that $2.8 million price tag is just a little too steep for me that makes every second on board right now over $4,000. But, as you pointed out, this is an auction right now.

And on June 12, there will be a live online auction and all the proceeds will go to Blue Origin's foundation Club for the Future and that's when, you know, that price tag might go even beyond $2.8 million. So, you know, as much of as space enthusiasts as I am, sadly, that price tag is a we (ph) out of my budget, Ana.

CABRERA: Just still a lot of the budget. This will be interesting to see how this goes. Thank you so much, Rachel Crane, for your reporting.

Well, another disturbing, this playoff fans gone wild, we'll explain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:59:17]

CABRERA: Chaos erupts at last night's USA-Mexico soccer match at Denver's Mile High Stadium. First, the match was paused for three minutes after fans chanted a homophobic slur in Spanish. Then there was this, a bottle thrown at young American star Gio Reyna's head.

Medical staff actually treated him on the field and had to help him walk back to the bench. Later, a fan was also tackled by stadium security after he ran into the pitch. All of this capping a wild game featuring two penalty kicks and a promising young American team, the United States winning the game three to two an extra time.

And Simone Biles proves once again that she is the greatest gymnast of all time. She won her seventh national women's all-around title Sunday, the most by any American woman. Biles is already a four-time Olympic gold medalist heading into the Tokyo games this summer. Her floor routine in particular was just jaw dropping, with a few flips, even more twists. She threw the laws of physics out the window. Incredible.

Thanks so much for being here. I'll see you back here tomorrow. Follow me on twitter at AnaCabrera and Newsroom continues with Alisyn and Victor.