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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Memphis Officials To Release Tyre Nichols Arrest Video Tonight; Video Shows Attacker Hitting Paul Pelosi With A Hammer; Ronna McDaniel Re-Elected As RNC Chair Despite Mounting Opposition; Israel: 7 Dead, 3 Injured After Shooting In Jerusalem. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired January 27, 2023 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:12]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Only the video can tell the story of what really happened to Tyre Nichols.

THE LEAD starts right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROWVAUGHNN WELLS, MOTHER OF TYRE NICHOLS: I still haven't had time to grieve yet. I'm still dealing with the death of my son.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: A mother's pain and calls for justice for Tyre Nichols, ahead of the release of video described as horrific and even sickening. This hour, what public can expect and what the Nichols' parents tell the most telling part.

Plus, more disturbing video out today showing the hammer attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband Paul and the split second police had to intervene.

And a consequential vote setting the tone for the future of the Republican Party.

(MUSIC)

BROWN: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Pamela Brown. Jake Tapper is on assignment.

And we start today with our national lead, heartbreak, grief and calls for justice in Memphis, Tennessee, in just a few hours from now, the city is set to publicly release videos of Tyre Nichols' arrest. The 29-year-old died three days after a confrontation with police on January 7th, an encounter Nichols stepfather who has seen the video described as a brutal beating.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RODNEY WELLS, TYRE NICHOLS' STEPFATHER: I saw officers hitting on him. I saw officers kicking him. One officer kicked him like he was kicking a football a couple times. And -- but the most -- the most telling thing about the video to me was, the fact that it was maybe ten officers on the scene and nobody tried to stop it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: The five officers charged with murder in Tyre Nichols' death have been released from jail on bond and Nichols' mother tells CNN despite losing her son she doesn't hate those officers and prays something positive will come from her son's horrific death.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROWVAUGHNN WELLS: They have brought shame to their own families. They brought shame to the Black community. I just feel sorry for -- I feel sorry for them.

God is not going to let any of his children's names go in vain, so when this is all over, it's going to be some good and some positive because my son was a good and positive person.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: CNN's Sara Sidner starts our coverage from Memphis where Tyre Nichols' family is demanding the police department make immediate changes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROWVAUGHNN WELLS: No mother, no mother.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No mother.

R. WELLS: No mother should go through what I'm going through right now.

SARA SIDNER, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The mother of Tyre Nichols, full of sorrow, but also filled with concern, knowing the release of the police video showing her son being brutally beaten by police after a traffic stop is about to be shown to the world.

ROWVAUGHNN WELLS: I've never seen the video, but what I've heard is very horrific, very horrific any of you who have children please don't let them see it.

CHIEF CERELYN "CJ" DAVIS, MEMPHIS POLICE: You're going to see acts that deny humanity. You're going to see a disregard for life.

SIDNER: All five of these fired officers are now out on bond after being charged with the murder of Tyre Nichols stemming from a reckless driving stop that police chief says her department still can't substantiate.

DAVIS: It doesn't mean that something -- something didn't happen, but there's no proof.

SIDNER: Nichols' mother and stepfather called for calm but spoke of the horror that unfolded on the video during an exclusive interview with CNN's Don Lemon.

ROWVAUGHNN WELLS: It's still like a nightmare right now. They beat my son to death.

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: He cried out for his mom?

ROWVAUGHNN WELLS: Yes. Yes, he cried out for me because I'm his mother. And that's what he was trying to get home to safety.

RODNEY WELLS: I saw officers kicking him. One officer kicked him like he was kicking a football a couple times. It was maybe ten officers on the scene and nobody tried to stop it.

SIDNER: Soon, the public will be able to judge it for themselves.

STEVE MULROY, SHELBY COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Once you see the video tomorrow night -- tonight I guess, I think people can draw their own conclusions, but I don't imagine there will be a lot of perceived ambiguity.

[16:05:06]

SIDNER: Are you saying in plain English that Tyre Nichols was beaten to death by these officers?

MULROY: Yes. I don't want to get into characterizing the video, but clearly, the charges do say that the officers beat him and caused his death and are responsible for his death.

SIDNER: A defense attorney for Desmond Mills Jr., one of the five officers charged with murder says his clients has regrets.

BLAKE BALLIN, ATTORNEY FOR DESMOND MILLS JR: He is remorseful that he is attached to anything like this, that he is involved or connected to the death of somebody. I caution everyone to look at this with an open mind and treat each of these officers as individuals.

ROWVAUGHNN WELLS: I don't care what color is the police officer, but by them being Black, it hurt the Black community. They have brought shame to their own families. They brought shame to the Black community.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER (on camera): You hear that absolute sorrow in her heart. She says she really hasn't been able to deal with this, to process this yet. It's still very much something that she is going through. She does not want to see the video, as you heard, and she warned parents they should not have their kids watching it.

We were able to get a little bit more details about the video, that it is probably going to start with the body camera of an officer who comes up to the scene as it's already under way, the very first stop, where you'll see Nichols and officers together and then see some tower cam video of them as he runs away and they catch up to him. And that is where you're going to see this brutality. I lastly want to say something about what the family and their

attorneys have said about the Scorpion Unit, which is a unit supposed to be a crime suppression unit here in Memphis because of the crime issue and they would go after people for he potential guns in their cars, things like, you know, stolen cars, they were after folks for stuff like that, to try to stop crime from going on the rise.

But what they're saying is that unit, because some of these officers were members of that unit, it was an undercover unit, that unit needs to be disbanded and it needs to be disbanded immediately. We have not heard anything from the police department or the city council on that, but the city council member told me today that if there is evidence that they are going after people and oppressing them, that he will think about doing just that -- Pam.

BROWN: All right. Sara Sidner, thank you.

We're going to discuss the Scorpion Unit in this panel.

Here to discuss, retired Los Angeles Police Sergeant Cheryl Dorsey, Captain Ron Johnson, a former incident commander in Ferguson, Missouri, and Dr. Jeff Warren, a member of the Memphis City Council.

You saw portions of the video of Tyre Nichols' arrest this afternoon and I know we're all sort of bracing those who haven't seen it, bracing to see it. How do you feel after what you saw?

DR. JEFF WARREN, MEMPHIS CITY COUNCIL: Pretty much like I thought I would feel before I went to look at it. Incredibly saddened and disheartened, much like all of Memphis is feeling about right now. I heard about this case before it got any national attention from a friend of Tyre's who called me and said, Dr. Warren, something's very wrong here. You need to make sure it's investigated.

And I think that our police department and our D.A. have gone out of their way to be transparent and to make sure that we can try to get justice served for Tyre and his family.

BROWN: Yeah, the police chief there in Memphis, CJ Davis, said the video showing the beating of Tyre Nichols is as bad if not worse than Rodney King in 1992. How do you prepare yourself and your community to see that full extent of what happened?

WARREN: I think everyone just needs to know it's horrific. We've had a lot of horrific things happen here in Memphis. You know, we're the capital of the Deep South, so we had lynchings here for decades and years. We were where Martin Luther King was assassinated.

So, I mean, we, as a community, are used to grieving, unfortunately, and these horrible situations, which in my mind, sort of point to where we still have situational or we have societal racism that make it okay for us to be able to harm and hurt young Black men. Here we had Black men doing that.

It's sort of like -- it's different, but if a white man had been doing this you would say, well, this person should have just complied with the officers. We're not hearing that now, but it's the same sort of excuses we make for not having our systems try to address this specifically, and in Tennessee, we can't even talk about critical race theory. It's been made illegal by our state legislature.

BROWN: So, what's -- I want to talk about what you -- the point you raised and I want to go to Sergeant Dorsey on this. One of Nichols' -- actually, Don Lemon asked the chief about the role of race in this incident and as we know, five Black officers, a Black victim and your predominantly Black community in Memphis, Tennessee, I want to listen to her response and talk about on the other end Sergeant Dorsey.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVIS: It takes off the table that issues and problems in law enforcement is about race. It is not. It's about human dignity, integrity, accountability, and the duty to protect our community.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: What do you make of that, Sergeant Dorsey?

SGT. CHERYL DORSEY, LOS ANGELES POLICE (RET.): Well, we can't take race off the table because certainly race plays a part in this, but I've often said that, you know, these officers that we see -- that we're going to see on this video, are much like the others, they're drunk with power. These are black men, who now bleed blue, something I never did, who have bought into the system, who are locked in to that police culture.

And once they stopped this young man and engaged him, they realized that they had gone far too far and then began to think about how to manufacture probable cause for this detention, so they came up with reckless driving. He was able to get away briefly after having been maced according to reports, and then they catch him again and do what officers do sometimes at the end of a foot pursuit, they punish you.

This wasn't about compliance. This wasn't about taking him into custody clearly because they spent three minutes according to reports beating Mr. Nichols unmercifully, so I think these are officers who are drunk with power. These are young officers who probably had no business on a specialized unit like the Scorpion team and the name alone gives me reason for pause.

Scorpion? Why would you want to call yourself that? So I agree the unit needs to be disband immediately and those officers and everyone they touched in their career needs to be looked at.

BROWN: Ron, I want to get your reaction to something else we heard from Chief Davis about the officers involved in the confrontation. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVIS: What I saw on this video was more of a group think sort of mentality, you know, a group think and no one took a step to intercept or, you know, intervene, and that's why the charges are as severe as they are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: And after the death of George Floyd, we should note, many police departments implemented policies that if an officer witnesses anything that's against policy, that where there's wrongdoing they should step in and do something. Clearly, that didn't happen in this case.

What do you think about this group think mentality we heard from the chief?

CAPT. RON JOHNSON, FORMRE INCIDENT COMMANDER IN FERGUSON, MISSOURI: Well, I think she's absolutely right and when we've talked about this unit being disbanded or suspended, that answer is yes because the chief has said there's group think there, so there's group think between these five, apparently at least up to ten officers there who did not intervene, so there seems to be that group think and this is a cultural issue that must be addressed.

One thing that I talk about from a consulting standpoint is we have to teach leadership, leadership at the lowest levels. So, when we have situations like this, someone will step up and be a leader and have responsibility.

BROWN: How do you combat -- go ahead.

JOHNSON: But --

BROWN: Just to follow up on that, how do you combat group think in police departments?

JOHNSON: Well, I think one thing you have to do, when you have a unit like this and these young officers, you have to make sure you have a senior officer there that's out there monitoring that and supervising that and making sure things are being done in a proper way.

You have to have alerts, alerts on how many incidents officers have had as far as use of force. You have alerts that tell you that. You have to monitor these units and look at their arrests when making arrests that involve use of force, you have to view those. I think you have to have these conversations.

But you talk about leadership and responsibility, can't just be something that's written in a document. It has to be something that's a part of your strategy and part of your daily conversation.

BROWN: Right --

JOHNSON: So, I think when we look at this and the other officers talked about the name of the unit, I don't think we name units that empowers those officers that are part of those.

BROWN: All right. I want to bring in Dr. Warren on this because you've actually seen parts of the video, does it reflect this idea of group think? Help us better understand what you saw in that regard and what would you like to see with police reforms moving forward in the wake of this horrific death?

WARREN: You know, one of the things that we have in Memphis and I think the reason everyone is so sad, is that we've got an incredibly high murder rate. Two years ago, we had 347 murders in our city, and we have this population of 630,000.

[16:15:03]

To compare that to New York where it's slightly less than too 500 with a population of 8.6 million.

So, what our police -- what our citizens want our police to be able to do is to help stop the murders and to stop people from killing each other. That's what this unit was initially designed to do. But as you look at this tape, what you can see is, things got out of control and there weren't checks and balances that automatically kicked in.

I know today, our police chief said that we're doing a top down search on and evaluation of this unit to see what we can do to correct this deficiency and make sure it never happens again.

BROWN: And the police chief also mentioned the department lacks supervisors.

Sergeant Dorsey, what do you make of that issue that she raised?

DORSEY: I certainly believe had there been a sergeant, someone with some tenure on the police department on scene, they would have properly managed that use of force. So, while they're conducting evaluations, they need to also look at psychological evaluations. Police officers are generally given a psychological evaluation when they're hired and never again unless and until they're involved in a deadly use of force.

So, officers need to have their head cracked open every couple years, looked into and make sure everything is working properly. If you have an officer who doesn't have the temperament, skill set or experience to do that job, there is no harm or shame in getting them off the police department, or at the very least tying them to the desk as a police chief can do.

BROWN: All right. Thank you to you all. We appreciate it.

Up next to another disturbing case and comments moments ago from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after recordings are released in the gruesome attack on her husband Paul.

Plus, a Friday night shooting at a synagogue in Jerusalem. CNN is live near the scene as information comes in on this attack.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:20:49]

BROWN: In our national lead, new disturbing video released in the brutal attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Video and audio show the break-in at their San Francisco home back in October.

Here's CNN's Veronica Miracle. And a warning for you, what you're about to see may be hard to watch.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

POLICE OFFICER: Drop the hammer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nope.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, Hey.

POLICE OFFICER: What is going on right now?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whoa.

(EXPLETIVE DELETED)

VERONICA MIRACLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Body camera video shows police struggling with Paul Pelosi's assailant after witnessing the assault.

POLICE OFFICER: Give your (EXPLETIVE DELETED) hands. Give me your (EXPLETIVE DELETED) hands.

MIRACLE: Police responding to the Pelosi home around 2:30 a.m. on October 28th after Paul Pelosi called 911 reporting an attacker had broken into their San Francisco home.

PAUL PELOSI, HUSBAND OF SPEAKER PELOSI: There's a gentleman here just waiting for my wife to come back, Nancy Pelosi. He's just waiting for her to come back. She's not going to be here for a day. We'll have to wait.

MIRACLE: The 82-year-old husband of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appears to try to signal the 911 dispatcher that he needs help without upsetting the intruder.

PELOSI: Is the capitol police around?

DISPATCHER: No, this is --

PELOSI: They're usually here at the house protecting my wife. He told me to put the phone down and do what he says.

MIRACLE: Then, before he hangs up the phone, the intruder interrupts.

DAVID DEPAPE, INTRUDER: I'm a friend of theirs.

MIRACLE: The intruder David DePape has been charged with assault and attempted homicide, among other charges, and has pleaded not guilty on all counts. After his arrest DePape told police he was out to get then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and, quote, other targets and repeated baseless conspiracy theories about Pelosi and Democrats spying on the Trump campaign.. DEPAPE: It's just like an endless (EXPLETIVE DELETED) crime spree.

Like the whole (EXPLETIVE DELETED) four years until they were finally able to steal the election.

MIRACLE: He said he woke Paul Pelosi and was looking for his wife.

DEPAPE: I was going to hold her hostage and to talk to her, and tell her what I would do. If she told the truth I would let her go scot- free. If she (EXPLETIVE DELETED) lied, I was going to break her kneecaps.

MIRACLE: DePape had previously posted conspiracy theories about the January 6th attack at the U.S. Capitol on his Facebook account. He told police --

DEPAPE: When I left my house, I left to fight tyranny. I did not leave to go surrender.

MIRACLE: Nancy Pelosi spoke with CNN's Chris Wallace about the attack one week ago?

CHRIS WALLACE, CNN HOST: How is your husband Paul doing?

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): He's doing okay. It's going to take a little while for him to be back to normal. I feel very sad about it because the person was searching for me and my dear husband, who is not even that political, actually, paid the price.

MIRACLE: Paul Pelosi underwent surgery for a skull fracture and serious injuries to his right arm and hands, and he has been seen wearing a hat at events with his wife in recent months. She said she would not watch the video showing the attack.

PELOSI: I have absolutely no intention of seeing the deadly assault on my husband's life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MIRACLE (on camera): And San Francisco police have been keeping watch over the Pelosi residence here in San Francisco. Now this video and audio was released today because news organizations, including CNN, pushed for transparency and pushed the court to release that information. DePape's lawyer said that release of all of this could irreparably damage his right to a fair trial but the court sided with the news organizations today -- Pamela.

BROWN: Yeah, another thing this video does is undercuts all those conspiracy theories that went around about this.

Veronica Miracle in San Francisco, thank you.

Well, up next, today's secret ballot with major implications for the Republican Party.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:28:59]

BROWN: Topping our politics lead -- a new direction for the Grand Old Party? Well, not quite yet. Ronna McDaniel was just re-elected as the chair of the Republican National Committee, defeating her 11th hour challenger Harmeet Dhillon in a secret ballot vote today. Dhillon is a conservative lawyer who worked for former Arizona governor candidate and election denier Kari Lake and defended former President Trump in some of his most high-profile legal battles.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny was at the RNC meeting today in Dana Point, California.

So, Jeff, are Republicans there telling you they feel more united or divided after this vote?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pamela, many Republicans are telling me they feel relieved that at least this chapter of this really family feud inside the party is over, at least for now. But there are still questions going forward about how united this party will be.

Let's take a look at some of these numbers. The vote came in a short time ago and a pretty overwhelming victory for Ronna McDaniel who is running for an unprecedented fourth term. She got 111 votes out of the total of 167 members of the National Committee here voting.

[16:30:03]

Harmeet Dhillon from California, the lawyer, a member of the national committee, got 51 votes, and Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow, the election denier and Trump conspiracy theorist, got 4 votes.

So, certainly, an overwhelming majority, 66 percent of the vote, if you calculated that way, for Ronna McDaniel going forward. She talked about why -- why unifying the party is important going forward. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RONNA MCDANIEL, RNC CHAIR: Nothing we do is more important than making sure that Joe Biden is a one-term president. But in order to do that, we have to be unified. We have to be unified in that effort.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: So this really has been just a discussion of if there are changes that should be made at the top of the Republican Party. Of course, she has presided over this party through three election cycles that have seen losses in the House and Senate and certainly in the White House.

She was the handpicked chairman of Donald Trump. He stayed out of this race but did comment a short time ago calling it a big win for Ronna McDaniel.

So, certainly, the party is trying to move forward as it looks on to 2024, but the question is, had they settled the score? Have they settled the feud that's been going on that is quite unusual for a party election that normally is just simply inside baseball, Pamela.

BROWN: Yeah, exactly. Jeff Zeleny, thank you so much.

Let's discuss with our panel.

Sarah, things are really inside baseball when it comes to Trump, right, and Trump is a factor here, even though he kind of stayed out of it for the most part, both of these top candidates to lead the RNC, they supported Trump, right? They were backed -- Ronna McDaniel backed by Trump for many years now, even though there was a fight over the future of the party that was a big theme there.

So, Ronna McDaniel now re-elected. How do you feel about the near term future of your party?

SARAH MATTHEWS, FORMER WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY, TRUMP ADMIN: I agree with her sentiments that we need to be unified as a party moving forward in order to beat Joe Biden in 2024. However, I think that she needs to look at what happened in the midterms and learn from that.

It seemed like she and others were more concerned with appeasing Donald Trump when selecting candidates who were extremist candidates, election deniers, poor quality, et cetera, and we need to learn from that because voters overwhelmingly rejected those candidates. And so, in order for the party to perform well in 2024, we need to change the direction that we're going, and I'm not convinced that she's capable of it, but I certainly don't think that Harmeet Dhillon or Mike Lindell were not great options either.

BROWN: Mike Lindell, really?

MATTHEWS: Yeah.

ABBY PHILLIP, ANCHOR, INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY: I think that is a crucial point. Everything that Sara is saying is I think a view that is probably shared by quite a lot of Republicans. But the alternatives weren't really an answer to that problem, and I think probably by virtue of that, Ronna McDaniel sort of cruised in to this re-election victory and the problems remain.

I mean they still are dealing with an electoral problem in which they have extreme elements kind of running the show and Trump included, and no one really speaking to the parts of the party that want to move beyond that and want to move on to more substantive things.

HEIDI PRZYBYLA, NATIONAL INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT, POLITICO: It did seem like a little bit of cognitive dissidence, the choice on the one hand between Ronna McDaniel, as you said, Sarah, kind of supported Trump's picks for these nominees and Harmeet Dhillon who was actually representing some of the most prolific election deniers like Kari Lake. She was on the phone call with John Eastman when pushing the false electors scheme. And so, that is where the Republican Party is reconciling between the

far right and the far, far right, right? But then there were structural issues which I think are legitimate, such as should the RNC be more decentralized and have more representation out in the states. Did they spend the money the best way and the auditing and what not? There are structural issues that I think there will still be a debate about in the party.

ROHINI KOSOGLU, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: Heidi makes a good point. I think that, you know, at the end of the day, the average American is really would have had trouble deciding who actually in -- would be a good chair for that party to unit independents and people in the more extreme wing of the party. It's important to realize at the end of the day to everyone's point, what we saw is that a number of people across that we were looking at denied the results of the election and they were involved in different parts of January 6th and all of that and their different conversations with President Trump going into it.

It's hard to tell the distinction as they were choosing the chair of the party.

BROWN: It's interesting, Dhillon, you mentioned, you know, represented, she worked with Kari Lake. She said she's not an election denier but has propped up all these election denier candidates. She actually ran on changing the Republican messaging on mail-in ballots, which is just so interesting given her background and given how it really started with Trump, criticizing it and a lot of people blamed his loss for the fact that --

[16:35:10]

PRZYBYLA: Maybe she learned something from being down in Kari Lake's election. That hurt her that so many Republicans were afraid to vote early or by mail. That was something that that party should have learned from.

PHILLIP: It's like a band-aid on the larger problem. I'm not an election denier. It doesn't address the underlying problem, there's been a two-year effort to delegitimize elections in general, whether or not it's vote by mail or anything else. I just think that that's -- that was sort of a small thing to say, I'm not like the other folks.

I don't think it really gets at what's really not working for the Republican Party which is that extremism as a message was rejected in November and I don't see how Ronna McDaniel or Harmeet Dhillon or certainly not the my pillow guy, none of them seem to be addressing that funds concern.

BROWN: And what about Trump, the role he plays in this, right?

MATTHEWS: It seems like that Ronna McDaniel has kind of appeased Trump throughout her tenure as RNC chairwoman, and I'm curious to see if that will continue because, you know, voters rejected Trump's handpicked candidates in the 2022 midterm elections, and it seems like voters want other options and I think that that's something that's growing in the party is wanting other choices for Republican nominee in 2024, but, obviously, you know, there have been no other declared candidates yet.

BROWN: He still looms so large, right. I keep -- I've been hearing this for some time now, and yet he's always a big factor, right?

KOSOGLU: There's no question that part of the whole conversation has been this extreme wing of the party and Trump's role in it, and none of the candidates made it very clear what their relationship is going to be with the former president, what the role moving forward is, with bringing in this extreme wing of the party and uniting it. People can use that rhetoric, but at the same time none of the actions are lining up with how people want to move forward.

PRZYBYLA: I think DeSantis' endorsement of Dhillon spoke to that anxiety because his only reason, his self-interest in doing that, was that McDaniel had been handpicked by Trump. That's not saying she's going to remain loyal to him going forward, but that was the tension there.

BROWN: We have that sound if you want to listen and react on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R), FLORIDA: I think we need a change. I think we need to get some new blood in the RNC. I like what Harmeet Dhillon has said about getting the RNC out of D.C.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: What do you think, Abby?

PHILLIP: Well, look, I mean it didn't work, and if you look at the numbers, it was pretty resounding victory for Ronna McDaniel. So I think that that actually kind of does not speak to DeSantis' power as an insurgent if you're looking for clues as to whether RNC members are going to unite behind a non-Trump figure. DeSantis gave them an opportunity, and it didn't work and I think that's significant.

BROWN: I'm going to turn to today's top story. We're all bracing for this video to be released of the brutal police beating of Tyre Nichols.

And CNN's Manu Raju asked Speaker Kevin McCarthy if the house would move on any policing legislation in congress. A while back there had been a bipartisan evident to reach an agreement on police reform and that fell apart. Now it's back into focus. McCarthy replied, quote, look I think anything we do goes through committee.

What do you make of that?

PHILLIP: I -- he's saying that nothing is happening in the House on this issue. I think that's the reality of it. When you look back at the movement that that had been on police reform, it originated in the Senate, you had Senator Tim Scott on the Republican side working with Democrats on this.

McCarthy, I think, understand that there's very little appetite among Republicans to deal with police reform, especially in a moment when they want to, you know, they want to weaponize the idea of crime and not deal with the other side of it, which is this clear case of police brutality. You know, I think the fact that that sentence really had nothing else to it means that there's really not much --

BROWN: No Republicans voted, right, for the George Floyd Police Reform Act?

KOSOGLU: No Republican voted in 2021 for it. Even in 2020 when they were negotiating the contents of the bill, post-George Floyd, this has all been leading up to this standstill in Congress, and really, you know, what we know is the president called the family today. We know that, you know, that answer by Speaker McCarthy is basically saying, no, we're not going to take up this piece of legislation, which basically, I think, also he is trying to gauge where his caucus is and so we can pretty much expect that they're not going to be clamoring at his door to do something about this.

BROWN: Yeah, it will be interesting to see how much pressure, perhaps, this video puts on them to do something. As we know the pressure comes and then it goes.

PHILLIP: And think about the fact that there has been almost virtual silence by Republicans on this issue.

[16:40:05]

The video will be as clear as day. This case is horrific as it could possibly be. There's been really very little said by Republicans in general, so I do wonder if the pressure will --

PRZYBYLA: I think, though, there will be a moment, I may be wrong about this, but let's all think back to Rodney King and what a watershed that was, catching that all on camera. We're told that this was worse, this beating was worse.

BROWN: From the police chief. There have been different accounts depending on who saw it, yes.

PRZYBYLA: Let's talk about the elephant in the room here, we're bringing in the issue of -- we have been for years, of race and policing and these were five black officers, which points to the fact that yes, we need to discuss whether there was implicit bias going on here, too, but just much broader structural problems within the police force that something like this we haven't seen before.

It's always been an issue of, you know, white police officers and Black victims. And I think this is a moment for us to talk as well about just structural problems within the police force and the quality of police officers that we have out there on the beat.

PHILLIP: But, you know, the sad part is that that seems to continue to be a one-sided conversation. There is the -- the philosophy on the Republican side is this is a bad apple problem, not a structural problem, and I have yet to see any indication that they believe that there is a structural problem at happened here, even though this keeps happening all over the country.

BROWN: Yeah.

PHILLIP: Black officers, white officers, all over the country.

BROWN: Just because there's a structural issue here, which clearly in my view there is, I mean, you look at all the different police brutality attacks, it doesn't mean that there aren't really good police officers out here who are protecting the community. We just saw the Paul Pelosi video attack where the police went to the house, jumped in, to save Paul Pelosi.

So -- but you're right. The bottom line here is the systemic issue at play.

Thank you all very much. Appreciate it.

Be sure to catch Abby Phillip, this -- this and every weekend on "INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY" at 8:00 a.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.

Up next, to the scene in Jerusalem, and the night of terror after a deadly shooting at a synagogue.

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BROWN: At least seven people were killed at a shooting at a Jerusalem synagogue tonight and this comes after the deadliest day in nearly two years for Palestinians in the West Bank. At least nine people were killed by Israeli forces on Thursday.

CNN's Hadas Gold is at the scene in Jerusalem.

So, tell us more about what happened.

HADAS GOLD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Pam. I'm in the Neve Yaakov neighborhood in north Jerusalem.

From what we understand happened is around 8:15 local, the shooting started just outside of a synagogue. It is Friday evening. It's Shabbat here, so a lot of people were at that synagogue. At least five men and two women were killed on the scene and at least three others were injured, including a 15-year-old who is still in hospital.

The attacker then got back into his car, started driving, before he ended up just past the intersection behind me. There are a few white cars behind me. One of those white sedans is the car that the shooter was in before he was encountered by police. There was a shootout, and he was ultimately killed at the scene.

Israeli police are calling this a terrorist attack. They say as far as they understand the attacker is a 21-year-old Palestinian from an east Jerusalem neighborhood and they believe he was working alone, meaning that he didn't have any sort of people who were working with him.

As you can see, there's a very heavy police presence here. This is being described to me by the Israeli spokespeople, police spokespeople, as one of the worst terror attacks targeting Israelis in recent years. The police presence here is so big. As we were driving up the first thing that encountered us was a police officer with his rifle drawn at us before we were able to identify ourselves as members of the media.

And this comes not in a vacuum. Within the last 36 hours or so, the situation in this region has been incredibly tense and violent. You mentioned what happened in Jenin. A few hours after that military raid in Jenin, in which the Israeli military said was to target Islamic jihad militants, who they say were about to carry out an attack.

A few hours after that, at nightfall, rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel, Israel responded with air strikes targeting what they say were Hamas workshops and then tonight, we had this attack. I mean, when I'm trying to think about the last time there was an attack this grave, it was probably back in 2008 when eight people were killed.

But clearly, the question right now is, how will this new right wing government led by Benjamin Netanyahu now respond -- Pam?

BROWN: All right. Hadas Gold, thank you so much.

Up next, what CNN found when we followed the money behind the "He Gets Us" campaign.

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BROWN: If you're planning to watch the upcoming Super Bowl, you'll likely see a few ads about Jesus.

CNN's Tom Foreman looks into the "He Gets Us" campaign and why some are calling this a PR stunt for right wing politics.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was a controversial figure. Everywhere he went, people challenged him.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The message is stark, arresting, and backed by $100 million. That's how much organizers say is behind this campaign to market Jesus as a patient, loving, inclusive cure for our divisive times. With the tag line, "He gets us".

Jason Vanderground.

JASON VANDERGROUND, PRESIDENT OF HAVEN: We're trying to unify the American around the confounding love and forgiveness of Jesus.

FOREMAN: The campaign website is filled with phrases saying Jesus called out the toxic religious and political systems, led the protest against the walls that divide us, and broke the chains that held women in bondage. Merchandise declares Jesus was a refugee and an immigrant.

At first blush, it can all read like a stand against radical right wing politics and related divisiveness. But the campaign pointedly says this is not an attack on anyone. It is an outreach to young Americans, whom polls show are abandoning Christianity and other faiths at a historic pace.

VANDERGROUND: A lot of times when people look at Christianity, they see it as hypocritical, judgmental, kind of discriminatory.

FOREMAN: Add the fact that "He Gets Us" is funded by anonymous donors acting through a Kansas nonprofit linked to conservative causes, and it raises alarms for some skeptics, such as Chrissy Stroop, a former evangelical who now reports on religion.

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CHRISSY STROOP, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT, RELIGION DISPATCHES: I believe the "He Gets Us" campaign is a PR effort and website strategically developed by right wing evangelicals to rope people in with inclusive sounding messaging and get them plugged into local churches that will eventually teach that to be a Christian means to support right wing politics.

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FOREMAN (on camera): On top of that, this whole big money marketing of Jesus makes some Christians uneasy, so take it how you will. The "He Gets Us" campaign is moving forward. They plan to release two new commercials during the Super Bowl where some 30-second spots are now going for $7 million a pop.

BROWN: Wow. Tom Foreman, thanks so much.

And coming up Sunday on "STATE OF THE UNION," a joint interview with Democrats Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell and Ilhan Omar. Plus, Republican Governor Chris Sununu. That is Sunday at 9:00 a.m. Eastern and at noon.

And up next on THE SITUATION ROOM, CNN is on the ground in Memphis, ahead of the video to be released soon in the Tyre Nichols case.

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