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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Two People Dead, Suspect Dead in Madison, Wisconsin School Shooting; President Biden Gives a Statement on the Madison, Wisconsin School Shooting; Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) is Interviewed Regarding the School Shooting in Wisconsin and the Drones in New Jersey. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Is Interviewed About Biden To Ratify Equal Rights Amendment; Trump Vows To Sue Multiple Media Outlets; Suspect Hires High-Profile Lawyer As He Fights Extradition. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired December 16, 2024 - 17:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to "The Lead." I'm Jake Tapper. And we begin this evening with breaking news and new details about today's tragic school shooting in Madison, Wisconsin.

[17:00:00]

A law enforcement source now telling CNN that the shooter was a female teenage student at Abundant Life Christian School, a private school with about 400 students, K-12. Police say that the shooter took her own life and the two victims killed were also a teenage student and a teacher. Six additional victims were injured, including two students were told who have life-threatening injuries.

The mayor of Madison, Wisconsin, saying in the last hour that although there was no longer a threat to the community, the whole community has, of course, been impacted.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SATYA RHODES-CONWAY, MAYOR, MADISON, WISCONSIN: I think we need to do better in our country, in our community, to prevent gun violence. And I hope, I hope that this day would never come in Madison. It is not something that any mayor, any fire chief, any police chief, any person in public office ever wants to have to deal with.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: CNN's Whitney Wild is on the scene in Madison. And Whitney, what more are we learning about the suspect?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: We're learning very little Jake other than what you said before that our Shimon Prokupecz is reporting. According to a law enforcement source that this suspect is a female teenager who attended the school but other than that Jake law enforcement was very reluctant to give many more details. What they did say though Jake is that at this moment they are working to obtain search warrants. They also said that the family at this point is cooperating.

There are many more questions about how this horrific day unfolded. It started at 10:57 when law enforcement received that terrible call that there was an active shooter. That call coming from someone inside the building reporting an active shooter. Law enforcement saying that that shooter had a handgun on them out when they arrived at the school.

Jake, it is not clear exactly how long between that initial call and when law enforcement made that entry but the police chief describing an immediate response when they got there. Jake, they found that the shooter had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Our CNN Josh Campbell is reporting that the handgun on that shooter was a 9- millimeter pistol but there were very few details beyond that surrounding specifically the shooter, Jake.

At this point there are many more questions about the school's protocols. This is a private school, so public law enforcement here doesn't have a lot of visibility on the protocols that were in place at the school at the time. For example, the police chief though is saying that there was, to his knowledge, not a school resource officer. But again, the security protocols at a private school would have been out of his purview. So there may be more, certainly more to learn there.

Jake, the other main question that we asked today was whether or not the shooter had prior contact with law enforcement. Here's what the police chief said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHON BARNES, POLICE CHIEF, MADISON, WISCONSIN: We do not know that the shooter had any prior contact with law enforcement, but I did do a check of the school. There were some calls, but they were like 911 hang-ups, things of that nature. There was nothing that suggested that the school was a place that violence would occur.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILD: And Jake, while the police chief did not know the exact details of the protocols, he was complimentary of the response that he did understand from within that school. We know, again, that sadly a teacher lost their life as well as a teenage student, Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Whitney Wild in Madison, Wisconsin. Thank you. Let's bring in CNN security correspondent Josh Campbell and Stephen Gutowski. And Josh, the source tells you that the shooter used a 9- millimeter pistol. Tell us more.

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, this type of weapon, the 9-millimeter, is something that is quite popular as a law enforcement officer in the FBI as one of the service weapons that I carry. There's a civilian model that's easily available across the United States. Now, here I'm told that a law enforcement source tells us that the ATF is conducting a trace to find out the origin of that firearm. That agency obviously instrumental in these types of crimes to trace the origin of where a particular weapon came from.

Here it's critically important because there's a question about the age of the shooter. Let's look at some of the gun laws governing the use and possession by young people of these weapons. A federally licensed dealer cannot sell a handgun to anyone under 21 years old. In Wisconsin, through a private sale, someone who is 18 or over would be able to obtain this type of handgun, but it is illegal for a minor to possess a handgun, so someone under the age of 18.

The big question here, if it turns out that this is indeed someone who is a minor under 18, there will be a major question about who owned that firearm, how this person got access to it. Jake, we've seen in the past, and sadly in these shootings, that you actually see gun owners, including parents, actually prosecuted whenever their children go on to use these types of firearms in a crime.

TAPPER: And Stephen, what do you make about the use of a 9- millimeter?

STEPHEN GUTOWSKI, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, as Josh said, that's basically the most popular type of handgun in the country would be a nine millimeter, that's what most people would own.

[17:05:00]

So it doesn't narrow things down very much, but again, Josh made a good point that if the shooter is under 18 there's a big question as to how they obtain that handgun in the first place.

TAPPER: Yeah, and we also -- we should know because often when there is a shooting and it's, you know, a semi-automatic rifle is used and there are calls for the banning of that semi-automatic rifle, it's actually handguns in the United States that cause the most fatalities.

GUTOWSKI: Yeah, handguns tend to be the number one used firearm in both general murders and also even in mass shootings. So it's not uncommon to find that a shooter used one like they did in this case.

TAPPER: Yeah, they're just not -- they don't get the attention that a handgun does. Josh, this shooting marks a pretty grim milestone in terms of CNN's calculations of violence in schools, gun violence in schools. Tell us more.

CAMPBELL: Yeah, grim indeed. We're now at 83 school shootings this year in 2024. That according to, as you said, analysis by CNN. You can look at the graph here at just this trend that has continued upwards. The 2020 obviously an outlier there because of the pandemic and so many schools that were closed. But you go back to when we started keeping these figures back in 2008, there was just double checking something like 18 shootings then. Now again, 83. That's the most that we've recorded in any one year since that time frame.

Looking at where these shootings have taken place, you can take a look at some of the characteristics. There have been 83, as I mentioned, 56 within K-12 institutions, 27 on college campuses. We're talking 38 dead, at least 150 people -- 115 that were injured in these school shootings. So as we've constantly reported on with this violence, there's seemingly no place that is immune to this type of gun violence, but of course schools, the data show, can be a violent place and we see those numbers continue to go upward.

TAPPER: Josh Campbell, Stephen Gutowski, thanks to both of you for your expertise. Let's turn now to John DeVito, former Special Agent in charge of the New York Field Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and retired NYPD Detective Marq Claxton. Marq, walk us through the difficulty of investigating a motive when the suspect is dead. What is happening behind the scenes?

MARQ CLAXTON, RETIRED NYPD DETECTIVE: A lot of collection of evidence, a lot of interviews, a lot of background interviews really with the family members, friends, those people who perhaps witnessed this tragic incident who are traumatized and trying to manage and massage that and get as much information as possible. Also you're going to be doing some background, you're going to be looking at some history, some you know, whatever information you can on the shooter themselves and that requires a lot of investigative manpower to get some answers in regards to that.

TAPPER: And John, a source tells CNN the weapon used was a 9- millimeter pistol. The ATF will be tracing where that gun came from. How does that work? How does the tracing procedure work?

JOHN DEVITO, FORMER ATF SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, NEW YORK FIELD DIVISION: If you look at it this way, the tracing process tells you where it was born and where it died. First initial purchase, so when it's manufactured, commercially manufactured firearms transferred to a wholesaler, a distributor, eventually ends up in the hands of a federal firearms licensee. The individual comes in to purchase that weapon, they conduct their background check, that weapon is then sold.

Those records are maintained by the federal firearms licensee until they go out of business, and at which point they are then turned over to ATF. So in this case right here, law enforcement personnel from ATF, as well as our partners can contact the tracing center, provide information from the recovered firearm. They will need to reach out to that federal firearms licensee and find out who in fact did purchase that weapon. Again, leading them to the first person that has officially purchased that gun and then they can start trying to pick up the pieces from there.

And that's exactly what law enforcement is doing in this case. They're trying to figure out how this firearm, this weapon system ended up in the hands of someone below the age of 18.

TAPPER: Marq, we heard the police chief say that the force is not going to interrogate students who survived. The force is going to give them time to come to them, share their experiences. What are the challenges for law enforcement when it comes to having to work with kids, especially those who have just dealt with a tremendous trauma?

CLAXTON: Well, it's always a tremendous challenge when you deal with young people generally, but to add on to that, a lay of difficulty because of the trauma and the pain that they're experiencing right now, and this is so fresh. And information, you want to get is an investigative information as soon as you can obtain it, but you don't want to cause any additional stress or trauma to the witnesses in this particular case.

So these kinds of forensic interviews and interrogations and investigations require a lot of patience, they require some very subtle techniques and tactics that professional investigators use to get as much information that's relevant and important at this point.

[17:09:58]

Not all information is as important at this point. So you want to get that which is most relevant, most important to further the investigation itself.

TAPPER: And John, we know the shooter was a student at the school. We know the shooter's parents are currently cooperating. That's according to law enforcement. Will those conversations begin with a focus on how this underage girl got a gun?

DEVITO: Not in my professional opinion. Right now, I think we need to focus on the mental health issues that created this tragedy in the first place. So I think it's one of those things where we see these undiagnosed issues that go unheard of, unmedicated or untouched, and then these things occur.

So right now, I think investigators are going to be talking to this family, trying to figure out what was going on with the mental health process of the child prior to this incident, and see if there are any warning signs that we all, the community, law enforcement, or the parents didn't pick up on. And then eventually that will lead to a more in-depth understanding of how the child came into contact with someone or acquired this weapon system, unbeknownst to the parents, obviously.

TAPPER: All right, John DeVito and Marq Claxton, thanks to both of you.

Right now, countless families are just beginning to mourn the loss from today's school shooting, nearly 12 years today -- to the 12 years ago to the day. Yet another community endured an unimaginable school massacre. We're going to talk to one of the parents who turned grief into action next.

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[17:15:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARNES: I think you're asking me how can I say 100 percent that no child will ever be harmed in school. I can't. No police chief can. But all I can tell you is that we have systems in place so that if something happens, we can respond like we did today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: That was Madison, Wisconsin Police Chief Shon Barnes earlier today addressing reporters and the public after yet another school shooting in the United States. Today, two victims were killed, six others injured. Police say the female teenage shooter took her own life. The shooter's family is reportedly cooperating with investigators.

The shooting comes just two days after the nation marked 12 years since another horrific day, 2012's Sandy Hook Massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, which left 26 dead, including 20 very young children, six and seven years old, and six adults who worked at the school. I want to bring in Nicole Hockley, co-founder and CEO of Sandy Hook Promise. She lost her six-year-old son Dylan in the Sandy Hook massacre, and she has been coming on the show periodically ever since that horrible day to talk about this insane world in which we find ourselves.

And Nicole, first of all, I was thinking about Dylan on Saturday, and again, my heart and the hearts of everybody watching, I'm sure, go out to you and your family. What was your reaction when you heard the news this morning?

NICOLE HOCKLEY, LOST SON DYLAN IN SANDY HOOK SHOOTING: It's certainly not the news that anyone wants to start their day with and certainly not anyone in the community of Madison and where this happened. It is -- you know, this past Saturday, the 12-year remembrance of Sandy Hook is still incredibly raw for me and my family right now. So for the first starting of the day to see yet another school shooting where lives have been lost is just unacceptable.

TAPPER: At the Sandy Hook Promise, the group that you have helped form after the horrible shooting, you have preventative programs to teach students and staffers about warning signs to look out for. On a practical level, what are some of those warning signs and what more can be done to prevent school shootings? What have you seen that works and could become law given the current political environment?

HOCKLEY: Well, you know, one of the things we learned after launching Sandy Hook Promise is that shooters or anyone who's committing inactive violence almost always gives off signs. In fact, four out of five school shooters tell at least one other person or give signs.

And once we train kids what to look for when someone is making overt threats about don't come to school tomorrow or bragging about access to firearms or studying other school shooters, but also the more subtle signs around feeling that they're not being seen, heard or valued, feeling that they need to take revenge against something really overly aggressive responses to something that might seem more common, not being able to resolve conflicts or their anger in a way that most of us will know how to do.

These are kind of the signs that we teach kids what to look for. And it's usually not just one sign, it's an escalation of signs. While we can mandate for this sort of training to happen in schools across the country and mandate things like anonymous reporting systems to help enable and get early interventions. We can also mandate things like secure storage and ensuring that young people in particular can't access firearms to commit these acts of violence.

So the more we can intervene by recognizing the signs and getting help and ensuring that they cannot access in order to fulfill their plans, these are things that we absolutely can do and that we know work that we have so much evidence and proof how these things work. We just need to scale it more quickly across the country.

TAPPER: So let's say there's some moms and dads watching right now or maybe some students home from school and they're watching right now and they think about, well, I know -- I'm just gonna make up a name, Jimmy, is posting really hardcore, ugly gun themed TikTok's and he's kind of a loner or he's like something happened in his family and he's really changed in the last six months. Assuming they don't know of an anonymous number, right, a parent or a child, what should they do?

HOCKLEY: Well, if you think someone is in imminent danger, you should always call 911. But for kids who are like, I'm not sure if this is real, I mean, we always encourage. You have to take things seriously because so many times people think that someone's joking when they make a threat or that they're just seeking attention.

[17:20:02]

Find a trusted adult, whether that's a parent, a coach, a teacher, a faith leader, someone that you know is going to take you seriously. We urge students to take this information to someone who can help get that person help who can make that intervention for you. We're not asking kids to do this. We're not asking them to diagnose and decide what needs to happen.

We're saying bring your concerns to a trusted adult or an anonymous reporting system like the one that we have at Sandy Hook Promise or like the one that so many schools and states have around the country. Find out a way to get that information to someone who can make the difference. But you need to take it seriously and you need to act immediately.

TAPPER: Nicole Hockley, mother of Dylan, thank you so much and we continue to honor Dylan's memory by thinking about him. And thanks for joining us today.

HOCKLEY: Thank you, Jake. Thank you.

TAPPER: President Biden has just responded to the tragedy in Madison, Wisconsin (inaudible) comments and much more in our breaking news next.

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TAPPER: Just in, we have new reaction from President Biden to today's deadly school shooting in Madison, Wisconsin, where a teacher and a student were killed. The president called the tragedy, quote, "shocking and unconscionable." He went on to say, quote, "Every child deserves to feel safe in their classroom. Students across our country should be learning how to read and write, not having to learn how to duck and cover," unquote. Biden again called on Congress to act. I want to bring in Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, who just won reelection. Thank you so much. So we initially asked you to join today on some different stories and we'll get to those in a second. But today's shooting marks, according to CNN's count, the 83rd school shooting of 2024, which is the most of any year since CNN began tracking school shootings in 2008. What's your reaction?

SEN. KIRSTEN GILIBRAND (D-NY): It's just a continued tragedy of losing so many of our young people to gun violence. For our school children to be afraid to go to school is an outrage. We need Congress to come together to pass an assault weapons ban. We did a lot of good bipartisan work making gun trafficking illegal, making it a federal crime.

We've already confiscated thousands of weapons. We're prosecuting hundreds of traffickers already. But we still need tighter red flag laws and we need a lot more money for mental health. We put about a billion dollars into mental health for violence disruption last year and we need to keep investing in our kids because they are our future and we have to be able to keep them safe when they go to school.

TAPPER: Aside from today's awful news, there's a lot of attention, especially in New England and the Northeastern United States, on the recent drone sightings across New Jersey, New York. President-elect Trump earlier today said the government knows what's going on here. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: For some reason, they don't want to comment. And I think they'd be better off saying what it is. Our military knows and our president knows. And for some reason, they want to keep people in suspense. I can't imagine it's the enemy because it was the enemy that blasted out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: So it doesn't sound like he knows that they know. It sounds like he's hypothesizing that they know. But he does get intelligence briefings. You're on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. What are you learning from federal officials? Do people know what these are? And obviously I'm not referring to airplanes when I say vehicles.

GILLIBRAND: Correct. So we've had a number of these drone incursions over military bases, over highly confidential, secretive sites of where areas like arsenals, over nuclear sites over the last several years. And we recently had a two-week drone incursion over Langley. We just had one a week and a half ago over Wright-Patterson. These are important military bases and we need to have better authorities to be able to take these drones down.

I don't think we do know whose they are or even what technology they're using. It's a huge concern for me personally, for members of the Intelligence Committee and members of the Armed Services Committee. I created an office with Senator Rounds and other senators, Senator Rubio, to find these unidentified aerial phenomena, whether it's drones, whether it's spy balloons, whether it's any other kind of aircraft, and assess what are they, whose are they, what technology is being used.

And that work has been reviewing hundreds of sightings over the last several years. And they figure out about half of them. Half of them they can figure out are aircraft or helicopters or drones or balloons, but there's half that they don't have enough data, they don't have enough information or it just isn't something they can figure out. So it is a concern. We should be treating it like a national security issue, especially when it's over critical infrastructure like bases or nuclear sites.

TAPPER: Do you think the Biden administration is doing enough?

GILLIBRAND: I want to do much more. I'm very concerned that the FAA and the DOJ and Homeland Security aren't doing enough to assess whose drones these are and whether they are adversarial in any way. I think when they say something like, well, we have no evidence that they're foreign-operated or adversarial or problematic, they don't have any evidence that it's not.

TAPPER: Right.

GILLIBRAND: So, I understand they want people to not be afraid, but they should be as concerned as I am because of these incursions over our bases and sensitive military sites. For two weeks, Langley had drone incursions, and it was the type of technology that our radar didn't detect them arriving. So it is problematic. It needs resources and we need answers and I've written a letter asking for those answers.

TAPPER: As President Biden's term winds down, I guess he has like 34, 35 more days left, you're one of many Democrats who want him to ratify the equal rights amendment as the 28th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That would get a legal challenge, I'm sure. People would say what are you doing.

[17:30:00]

Explain why you think you should do this and why that would be legal.

GILLIBRAND: Well, Article V requires two things to happen. Two-thirds of the House and Senate have to support it and three quarters of the states have to ratify it. Those two things have been completed. We voted on it in the 70s in the House and Senate, and the last state to ratify was Virginia in 2020.

However, President Trump was president at the time. He directed his Office of Legal Counsel to deny it and tell the archivist not to publish it, saying it took too long to do. The arguments that they made in that legal opinion are not valid. The requirement of doing this within seven years is arguably not constitutional and is invalid because it was in the preamble, not the amendment itself.

So we believe that it has been officially passed in the House and Senate and ratified. And the only thing left to be done is the archivist should sign and publish it. So what we are asking President Biden to do is to call on the archivist to do so because she feels she is conflicted because of the Trump era Office of Legal Counsel memo. And hearing from the commander-in-chief, who obviously has precedence over the Department of Justice, would give her the comfort that I think she needs to actually do her job, which is ministerial, to sign and publish the ERA.

TAPPER: Have you reached out to the President? Have you reached out to the First Lady?

GILLIBRAND: Yes. So we've reached out to the President. We've reached out to the First Lady. We've reached out to the Vice President. We've talked to their lawyers. We've talked to their senior advisers. We have given them legal memos. The ABA has just issued a legal opinion saying that the argument that I've just described is valid and that the 28th Amendment has been voted on and ratified and it should be signed and published.

We also have a number of attorneys general from many blue and purple states who filed briefs in a D.C. Circuit case also making these same arguments. We all believe the 28th Amendment should be added to the Constitution. And if the President would call on the archivist to do that -- do so, I believe she would have the courage to do so.

TAPPER: All right, Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of the Great Empire State, thanks so much for being here. Congratulations again on reelection.

Coming up, what President-elect Donald Trump said today about Republican senators who might vote against confirming any of his Cabinet picks, plus what he thinks about the tone in Washington this upcoming term versus the last time he was in office.

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[17:36:29]

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT: The first term everybody was fighting me. In this term everybody wants to be my friend. I don't know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: President-elect Donald Trump earlier today offering perhaps a different approach in his first news conference since winning back the White House. He spoke from Mar-a-Lago at an event billed to highlight a $100 billion investment in the United States from the Japanese owned SoftBank. It quickly moved on the news conference to cover a wide range of issues. CNN's Alayna Treene is in West Palm Beach and Kristen Holmes is with me here in studio. And Alayna, Trump presented something of a friendlier tone at moments. What should we make of that? ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Well, I think first of all, Donald Trump is clearly embracing the fact, Jake, that he won the election and also genuinely believes, and you could see this coming through today in his remarks that he has this mandate moving forward because he won the popular vote.

He really does believe that he, you know, is going to be calling the shots moving forward. And he's emboldened by that, I'm told. Now I thought that line that you just played about him commenting on him being embraced by a lot of these tech leaders, commenting that, you know, in his first term they were all trying to fight him. Now they want to be his friend.

It's the same thing I'm hearing about how he feels about the foreign leaders all reaching out to call him. He said he spoke to more than 100 foreign leaders since Election Day. Unclear if that's actually true. But again, he's emboldened by this. What he feels is the world and also many of these companies embracing him, unlike the way that they operated with him his first time around.

And what I took as notable as well is that again this was supposed to be this major announcement, him touting alongside the SoftBank CEO this investment of a $100 billion over the next four years with them claiming that it should create 100,000 -- 100,000 jobs.

And then Donald Trump kind of used the stage to give somewhat of a campaign speech. He painted this optimistic view of America, but then tried tout all of the things that he wants to talk about, talking about his policies as it comes to the economy, as it comes to energy, and trying really to use this moment and use this platform to, again, paint this, you know, bright future for America.

It is very different than a lot of the rhetoric we know Donald Trump used on the campaign trail. But that's again because he has now won the election and he is very much happy with the way that the world is responding to him.

TAPPER: And Kristen, Trump defended his more controversial cabinet picks and he offered a bit of a threat to Republican senators who might -- who might contemplate voting against them.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jake, it was a little bit of a veiled threat. I mean this obviously comes up for what we saw, which was essentially the entire MAGA world coming down on Iowa Senator Joni Ernst trying to say that they were going to primary her, putting an enormous amount of pressure on her over Pete Hegseth. This is what he said when asked specifically about primaring people who oppose some of his picks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: If they're unreasonable, if they're opposing somebody for political reasons or stupid reasons, I would say has nothing to do with me. I would say they probably would be primaried.

(END VIDEO CLIP) HOLMES: Then he went on to kind of say, well if there are reasonable reasons, I could see that happening, but then never really said what would happen if somebody reasonably opposed someone. Now the reason why this matters is of course what we're watching on the Hill right Now, which is RFK Jr. who is making his rounds this week along with Kash Patel and some of the other more controversial figures. But I will point to RFK in particular because he is somebody who Donald Trump has said that he will go to bat for. We know that his army of MAGA supporters is backing RFK Jr. and that's someone that they will use political capital on to get him through the confirmation process.

TAPPER: And Alayna, Trump did seem to walk back a bit on the MAGA desire to push the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, to appoint Trump's daughter-in-law, Lara, to the U.S. Senate seat from Florida. That will be vacated -- vacated if Senator Marco Rubio is -- is confirmed to be Secretary of State.

[17:40:15]

TREENE: That's right. He kind of dodged on this question and definitely didn't push it when asked by reporters about this. I'd remind you that many people on social media who support Donald Trump, other senators, including Florida Senator Rick Scott, have been saying, you know, Lara Trump would be the right person to replace Marco Rubio. We also know that this is something that Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis have discussed before. But today Donald Trump kind of moved away from that, saying he doesn't know what DeSantis is going to do, saying it's his decision. And then he added that Lara Trump is also receiving offers from different T.V. networks. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Lara's got so many other things. I mean, she's got so many other things. People want her to be on television. They want to give her contracts. You know, her predominant thought is our country and her family.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: So, Jake, we'll see where this leads if Donald Trump is going to continue potentially trying to talk to DeSantis about this role. But for now, it seems like he is leaving the ball in Ron DeSantis court on this one.

TAPPER: And we should note, Kristen, I don't want to overstate Trump's friendliness and genial attitude at this press conference because this weekend "ABC News" agreed to pay $16 million, including legal fees, to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Trump against the -- the network and the -- and their anchor, George Stephanopoulos. And that obviously will not be the end of this campaign against the media, legal campaign against the media. We -- we heard him go after many other news outlets today. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I'm going to be bringing one against the people in Iowa, their newspaper. We're filing one on "60 Minutes." We're involved in one which has been going on for a while and very successfully against Bob Woodward. We have one very interestingly on Pulitzer because reporters at the "New York Times," "Washington Post" got Pulitzer Prizes for their wonderful, accurate and highly professional reporting on the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: We don't have time to go into all of that, but -- but just touch base on a couple, there's one of them is the people of Iowa, the "Des Moines Register." That's because there was a poll that was -- that was inaccurate. The one on "60 Minutes" is because they didn't like the editing that had been done to the Kamala Harris.

HOLMES: -- from Kamala Harris.

TAPPER: Yes. I mean, this is -- this is wildly ridiculous.

HOLMES: Well, one of the things to keep in mind here is that Donald Trump feels like he won, I mean, this weekend by having a settlement with "ABC," one that many people did not think was going to come to fruition, thought that this would end up in court or that it would certainly not be a settlement in which "ABC" paid $16 million and issued a public apology, which was part of this has been a situation which has empowered and emboldened Donald Trump.

Now, what you're looking at when you talk about "Des Moines Register," he's clearly picking things that were personal to him. This was something that really bothered him during the election. He was angry behind the scenes.

TAPPER: It was a bad poll. It happens.

HOLMES: I'm telling you that this isn't based on what I believe.

TAPPER: Right. I know.

HOLMES: This is based on what Donald Trump is going after his enemies --

TAPPER: I know. I know.

HOLMES: -- based on what he perceives as slights, including the "Des Moines Register," which he believed he was angry about that poll. We also know that they were angry about the editing when it came to "60 Minutes" because they believed it helped Kamala Harris, it helped her answers there. So clearly now they're taking that anger and moving it from just talking about it to the court of law, likely because of the fact of what they saw this weekend when they feel like they got a victory.

TAPPER: He himself has sat for taped interviews on "Fox" --

HOLMES: And he knows how T.V. works.

TAPPER: -- that were edited. HOLMES: Well, he knows how television works. I mean, obviously we know, we've heard him behind the scenes when he's done interviews with --

TAPPER: "The Apprentice" was edited.

HOLMES: -- cut this out or start this at this point or let me start over. I mean, we know that he has done that because he understands how television works when it's not live T.V. We've seen the behind the scenes footage. However, this is Donald Trump enacting the way that he feels and his anger in a legal court of law.

TAPPER: The fear is that corporate masters of these news organizations will chillingly settle so as to not have it affect their theme parks or whatever. Kristen Holmes and Alayna Treene, thanks to both of you.

[17:44:15]

The new details we're learning today about Luigi Mangione, the CEO shooting suspect and the defense his new high profile lawyer might use if his case goes to trial. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In our law and Justice Lead now, the suspect in the cold blooded murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson is fighting extradition to New York. You might remember he was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania. As a grand jury mulls over the evidence against him, the suspect obviously Luigi Mangione retained a new high powered former Manhattan prosecutor. And a defense fund set up for the suspect reached $115,000, though it's unclear if his defense team will accept that money.

Let's bring in -- bring in Ben Brafman, a New York defense attorney. His defendant list includes such folks as Sean "Diddy" Combs and Harvey Weinstein. Thanks for joining us Ben. So the suspect's new lawyer is Karen Friedman Agnifilo. She's been on CNN dozens of times as a legal analyst. Here she is talking about the case on Anderson's Cooper show last week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAREN FRIEDMAN AGNIFILO, DEFENSE ATTORNEY FOR CEO MURDER SUSPECT: It looks to me like this -- he -- the -- there might be an -- a not guilty by reason of insanity defense that they're going to be thinking about because the evidence is going to be so overwhelming that he did what he did. And I hear what you're saying about being radicalized. I hear what you guys are saying. But as a former prosecutor in that office, I would be concern that you have someone who is a valid -- valedictorian of his class. He was brilliant his whole life. He comes from this great family. I mean something changed, right? Significantly, something changed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[17:50:10] TAPPER: So what I know of the insanity defense, it has to do with whether or not mens rea, right, your state of mind, whether or not you knew what you were doing at the time of the crime was wrong. It seems on its face that he knew it was wrong. No?

BEN BRAFMAN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yes. I think -- I think the insanity defense is not an appropriate defense under the facts of this case. He premeditated this execution. He wrote about it in a manifesto. He went through great efforts to hide. He had a forged driver's license that got him into the hostel, and they arrested him with the gun that was apparently used in the execution.

I think smarter defense might be extreme emotional disturbance, because an insanity defense requires that you not know right from wrong. And here it's clear that he targeted this individual. So he obviously knew that it was wrong. But extreme emotional disturbance might have some legs in a case like this.

TONY DOKOUPIL: We may know as soon as tomorrow whether the suspect is going to be successful in -- in waiving his expedition to New York. What -- what's your prediction?

BRAFMAN: I think he's going to waive extradition because the standard from one state to the next is, do you have the right person? And if you do, then they allow extradition. And I think there's no point in fighting extradition. You know, I would save my battles for some -- something I can win. And he clearly cannot win this battle.

TAPPER: When considering a jury for this high profile case, if this goes to trial, the -- the judge usually tries to make sure that the jury is full of people that don't already have set opinions on what occurred. That -- that's what the whole voir dire process is with the prosecution and defense eliminating jurors that they think will not help them. Will that be difficult in this case, given how much attention it got, especially in New York?

BRAFMAN: I don't think that's going to be the difficulty. I think the difficulty for the prosecution is this man is apparently, ironically turned into a type of folk hero. You have posters up throughout Manhattan supporting him. You have people calling in, and social media suggests that there are a lot of people who had similar experiences with the health care industry and as frustrated as he apparently was.

I think that the real issue is going to be finding a jury that knows about this case, but has not yet formed an opinion. And if I were trying this case, I think the issue would be do I look for a manslaughter compromise verdict that will save him from 25 to life. There might be a mandatory minimum, but I think that would be the appropriate verdict in this case if you really believe that he suffered from extreme emotional disturbance.

TAPPER: All right, Ben Brafman -- Ben Brafman, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

[17:53:20] The lawyer for Jay-Z speaking to reporters today, saying the allegation of sexual assault against his client is, quote, completely false. We're going to take a closer look at the next steps in that case. That's ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: The defense attorney for rapper, Jay-Z, is out with a staunch defense of his client today, saying that the rape ball allegation against his client is, quote, probably made up and completely false, unquote. The woman known as Jane Doe is standing by her claim that in the year 2000, Jay-Z and Sean "Diddy" Combs raped her at an award show after party when she was only 13. CNN's Elizabeth Wagmeister joins us now. Elizabeth, walk us through what Jay-Z's attorney said.

ELIZABETH WAGMEISTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So Jay-Z has already denied these claims. He's come out against them fiercely. They've asked the court to dismiss this case entirely. But today, Jay-Z's attorney met with a small group of reporters, including CNN, and said, this is all made up. This never happened. He, quite literally, Jake, had a PowerPoint presentation for reporters and he showed a series of details that he says proves that his client is innocent.

Now, as you said, this Jane Doe, who remains anonymous, she is claiming that in the year 2000 that she was raped by both Sean "Diddy" Combs and Jay-Z at an after party for the MTV VMAs. Now, here's where Jay-Z's attorney says that the facts actually prove that this never happened.

He says that in her initial complaint, she says that she got into a limo that was waiting outside of the VMAs by a driver who said that they worked for Diddy. Well, Jay-Z's attorney says that could have never happened because the limo line was completely blocked off for fans and only available to VIPs. He also says that Jane Doe said that she was watching the VMAs on a jumbotron outside of the VMAs. But he said, well, there was no Jumbotron that year. Let's take a look at a bit more of what he had to say today, Jake.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEX SPIRO, JAY-Z'S ATTORNEY: This is not an account of inconsistencies. I wanted everybody to understand that this never happened. This is completely false. You have to look at the timeline. You have to look at the timeline. So there's an old expression that time doesn't lie. Everything else that I'm talking about, these glaring inconsistencies, these are not minor inconsistencies. These are not minor problems with this story -- this story. This is utter falsehoods. Time never -- never lies. And so if you look at the time, no matter what, this couldn't have happened. It's not even possible that this happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[18:00:17]

WAGMEISTER: All right. Now I reached out to Jane Doe's attorney and he says that they did vet her claims. And he tells me, quote, our client remains adamant about her claim.

TAPPER: Elizabeth Wagmeister, thanks. The news continues on CNN with Wolf Blitzer in The Situation Room. I'll see you tomorrow.