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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Police: 2 Dead, 5 Injured In Mass Shooting In FSU Campus; DHS Threatens To Revoke Harvard's Ability To Host Intl Students; Trump Blasts Fed Chair After He Warned Tariffs Could Hurt Economy; Supreme Court To Hear Arguments On Whether Trump Can Enforce Birthright Citizenship Plan While Litigation Continues; Schumer Seeks Hate Crime Investigation In Shapiro Arson Case. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired April 17, 2025 - 17:00   ET

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

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: They said that the suspect was a -- a member of the family.

[17:00:04]

And I think it's really important that we highlight that as well, because that goes very far to let communities under tremendous stress, under social stress, and -- and everyone watching to feel like that this is when we need government to work. And so --

KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Yes.

KAYYEM: -- as part of what we're learning today, it is that transparency that should really be applauded as well.

HUNT: It's a very, very good important point. Juliette Kayyem, our panel, thanks very much. Do stay with us. The Lead with Jake Tapper starts right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper. And we begin with the breaking news in our National Lead, and tragedy again on a campus, this time a U.S. college campus.

Authorities just gave an update on the mass shooting earlier today at Florida State University in Tallahassee, the capital of Florida. Two individuals were killed, six are hospitalized.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERIFF WALT MCNEIL, LEON COUNTY: The shooter is 20-year-old Phoenix Eichner -- Eichner, and he's the son of a Leon County Sheriff deputy. Our deputy, Deputy Eichner, has been with the Leon County Sheriff's Office for over 18 years. Unfortunately, her son had access to one of her weapons, and that was one of the weapons that was found at the scene.

(END VIDEO CLIP) TAPPER: Officials not providing any information at this time about any of the victims. They confirmed that the two killed were not students of Florida State. The shooting was first reported at the Oglesby Building, the student union on campus. New cell phone video from FSU also appears to capture some of the frightening sounds when shots were fired.

We're going to play that video, so brace yourselves or be prepared because a warning now, what you're about to hear and see is disturbing.

Our experts are standing by here to react to the latest CNN law enforcement analysts, John Miller and Andrew McCabe joining us now. John, let me start with you. We learned the suspect was the son of a member of the Leon County Sheriff's Department, the son of a deputy. What -- what else do we know about the shooter?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: We know he is a political science major, that he is a student at FSU, that he is the son of a deputy sheriff who was not just an 18-year-old veteran, 18-year veteran of the department, but also a school resource officer where the tragedy is just compounded in that her job was to keep students safe in another school in the area.

Her son was a member of the Sheriff's Department's Youth Advisory Council, so he was kind of embedded in his mom's law enforcement career and working with the Sheriff's Department as part of a citizen outreach program. So for him to emerge as the suspect here using his mother's former service weapon as a weapon to open fire on other students at the school where he attended, which I understand is also the college that she attended, is just layer upon layer of irony, tragedy, and frankly, shock.

TAPPER: Andy, what questions might you have about anything, but -- but maybe in particular about or for that deputy, the mother of the shooter?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: In the aftermath of every one of these mass shootings, which we're very familiar with because we have many in this country, one of the first questions that comes up is how did this shooter get access to the weapon they used? And so we have a few of the answers, right? We know it was his mother's weapon. We know it was her former -- her former service weapon that she purchased, and so it became a personally owned weapon.

But the questions are still, I think, relevant about how that weapon was available to him in the home, how it was controlled or made safe or not, as the case may be. And those are going to be very painful things for this woman and this family who no doubt have committed an enormous part of their lives and her life to the idea of public safety. And it's just an incredibly painful process, but it's one that they will have to go through regardless.

And then, of course, we have the questions of motive. Why did this person do what they did? That'll be particularly relevant here because he is still alive. He survived his encounter with the police and will no doubt be prosecuted. So prosecutors will want to be able to present all those facts to the jury in -- in the event that they -- they do get in front of a jury and a trial at some point.

[17:05:03]

TAPPER: John, the shooter had at least three guns with him. What can law enforcement do with that information?

MILLER: Well, they can trace those guns, but part of that mystery is if the primary weapon he was using was a weapon that came from the home. And, you know, as Andy points out, we've seen this before. Remember the -- the Appalachia High School shooting where the student was given the gun by his father, the Michigan case where they prosecuted the parents who bought that gun as a present for their son even though they knew he was deeply troubled.

Or in the case of the Sandy Hook shooting in Connecticut where the little children were killed in their classrooms in kindergarten and first grade, that was a rifle that the mother had purchased because it gave them something to do together to go to the shooting range. This is a theme we see again and again, and this is just a reminder that law enforcement is not immune to that.

TAPPER: Yes, Andy, the shooter was part of the Sheriff's Department's Youth Advisory Council. It's possible in this tragic way that he learned information that actually helped him carry out the attack.

MCCABE: Yes, that's absolutely right. And of course, we'll find out more about that as the investigation goes on, but it's, you know, Jake, it's not uncommon for offenders, violent offenders, to be people who have in -- in other parts of their life exhibited a great interest in law enforcement. Some of them follow law enforcement issues or try to engage in law enforcement as a career. So, you know, that could very well be the situation here.

We don't know for sure just yet, but no doubt some of the things that he learned in his exposure to law enforcement, both in his home with his mother's example and through the -- through the program that he was enrolled in gave him some insight as to what a response would look like. And it could possibly have aided him in his familiarization with the weapons he used. Again, these are all facts that we'll have to find out as the investigation goes on, but could be very relevant to his prosecution.

TAPPER: Andy McCabe, John Miller, thanks so much to both of you. Let's bring in Jayden D'Onofrio. He's a student at FSU. And Jayden, we're so glad you're safe. Thank you so much for joining us. Can you tell me where you were when this started to unfold today?

JAYDEN D'ONOFRIO, FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY STUDENT: Yes, I was actually in my apartment complex about a block from the campus with a friend of mine who received the text that, you know, there was a shooting on the campus. And, you know, having received that notification, it's immediately, you know, where's all our friends? Where's, you know, is everyone OK? Are we able to check in on all of them? And we immediately tried to check in with every single one of our friends and make sure they were all OK.

And, you know, we had one of our friends stuck in the library during that moment. And that is one of the most gutting feelings possible to not know if your friends are OK on this campus and -- and have to wonder if -- if they're going to make it through that moment. And we actually ran over to the campus to try and retrieve her during the moment. It was just -- it's -- it's terrible.

TAPPER: Were you able to get her out of the library?

D'ONOFRIO: Yes, after, you know, the -- the -- the incident sort of resolved, we were able to -- to take her and she was shocked. I mean, it's -- there's no words to sort of describe that feeling and that experience. And I -- I can't imagine what that -- that has to be like. And she was shaken. And -- and we had to make sure that, you know, we -- we get her out of there and support her as much as we can in that moment. And we were able to -- to bring her around and -- and make sure we were -- we were with her.

TAPPER: You tweeted this afternoon, quote, I spent my day checking in on friends and answering texts about my wellbeing. It is a feeling that is gutting and indescribable, unquote.

I -- I -- at the risk of, I mean, you said it's indescribable, but if you could try to describe it for us, because you're young, you shouldn't have to go through this. I mean, this is the kind of experience that people have in war, not going to college. Help us understand what this experience has been like for you and your fellow classmates.

D'ONOFRIO: Unfortunately, you know, like I mentioned, it's gutting, but it's something I've lived with. You know, I remember being in my seventh grade English class in Indian Ridge Middle, when I got a notification on my phone that 17 people had been shot and killed 15 minutes away from me in Parkland. And going through school shooting drills constantly, every single month growing up.

[17:10:00]

And this is just another chapter of that, whether it's my life or all of my friends' life or students' lives, you know, lives in general, it's awful. It's -- it's -- it's depressing. And there's no work being done to really change that, especially here in Florida. Having grown up through this, you know, you find, for example, the Parkland students, there's students on the FSU campus who went through the Parkland massacre and now have gone through this, through their career in school.

Imagine -- imagine what that's like to have twice to go through these events and --and -- and not see real change exist --

TAPPER: Yes.

D'ONOFRIO: -- from whether it's our government or our community around this. We have a legislature here in Florida led by Republicans who have actively actually introduced a law, this legislative session, to lower the age to own rifles and guns in our state --

TAPPER: Yes.

D'ONOFRIO: -- which was a bill that they passed after the shooting at MSD in Parkland.

TAPPER: Yes. So --

D'ONOFRIO: The shooter today was, I believe, 20 years old. It just doesn't make sense. It's nonsensical, Jake. It's nonsensical.

TAPPER: So just -- just to get people up to speed, when the Parkland shooting happened at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in large part because of the efforts of students from that school and also just from all over Florida, there were gun laws changed. Red flag laws passed. The -- the -- the age to own a handgun in the United States is 21, but in Florida, the age to -- to own a rifle or a long gun was only 18. That was changed in May of 21, and the governor at the time was Governor Rick Scott, currently a senator.

The effort after the shooting in Uvalde to make that national law failed to -- to make it 21 for long guns as well. And currently, what our guest is referring to is there's an effort in Florida, as Jayden pointed out, to bring it back to 18 from the 21 that it had been raised to after Parkland. And all that, for people who don't know FSU and Tallahassee, all of that is going on in the same town.

FSU is located in the capital of Florida. There are roughly, Jayden, there are roughly 30, 35,000 students at FSU, undergraduate, plus an additional 10,000 or so graduate. This is going to affect all of you, I -- I suspect. I don't know if you know anybody that has been directly impacted. I don't know if you know the shooter. But -- but do you know anybody connected at all beyond the obvious connection of all of you being traumatized by this?

D'ONOFRIO: Yes, I'm actually sitting here with a friend of mine who says they've actually seen the shooter before in class. This is a small community, and it's -- this -- this is not the way it should be. This -- this -- it's just not normal for this stuff to happen constantly, over and over and over again. I live two minutes from the capital here in Tallahassee, and if I were to go speak to the legislators here, specifically, I believe the Republican legislators who are passing these types of bills that allow this stuff to happen, they're going to give me thoughts and prayers, and I don't want to hear that, because there's people dying actively, constantly, from these -- these kinds of shootings. It's -- it's -- it's ridiculous that we continue to deal with this.

They actually just, to take it back again, they -- they just passed another bill to have the longest tax holiday in the entire state history to promote gun ownership in this state, and ammunition ownership. It's just -- it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense, and it doesn't have to be this way, but we keep doing it. We keep going down this road, and I think all of our -- us as students who, you know, see this constantly, but also, you know, knowing each other, and being friends with all of each other, and having such a community here, I think it's really up to us to kind of lead the way on this, is the legislators, and specifically Republicans in this state are not helping us in any real way right now, and it's awful to see.

TAPPER: Jayden, let me just say, I have said it before on the show, and I'm sure I'll say it again, the adults of this country are failing the children of this country, and the young adults of this country, like yourself, and this didn't happen when I was your age. This wasn't something I had to fear when I was your age. This is something that is a relatively new development in this country, and whether one wants to ascribe it to mental health crises, or lax gun laws, or a combination of the two, you have every right to feel outraged. And I thank you for your time, and your eloquence today. Please take care of yourself.

[17:15:11]

D'ONOFRIO: Thank you, Jake, I appreciate you.

TAPPER: We'll get much more from Florida State. We're also covering the Trump administration's escalating fight with Harvard. I'm going to talk about it with constitutional scholar, Harvard law professor, Laurence Tribe.

Plus, President Trump sounding ready to cut ties with the Federal Reserve Chairman that he appointed saying that Jerome Powell's termination cannot come fast enough, accusing Powell of playing politics. Does Trump have the legal authority to fire him? We'll get into that ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In our Politics Lead, the Trump administration is intensifying its fight against Harvard University. Now they say they are threatening to revoke Harvard's eligi -- eligibility to even host international students, which could pose another potential economic hit to the Ivy League school after the threats of defunding. This as a group of students at Harvard University gathered on campus today in support of Harvard's leaders, rebuking the Trump administration's demands to enforce certain policies and to get rid of others.

[17:20:01]

Let's bring in Laurence Tribe. He's a professor emeritus of constitutional law at Harvard University. Professor Tribe, thanks for joining us. So these funding cuts are already threatening critical academic research and potentially life-changing innovations, the university says. How long do you think Harvard can financially afford this standoff with the Trump administration, even with your huge endowment?

LAURENCE TRIBE, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW PROFESSOR, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL: We're going to stand up for basic principles, for the rights of our students, for the rights of research, for the survival of the teaching hospitals, as long as it takes. We cannot last this bully.

What we have discovered is that he is a combination of ineptitude, vindictiveness, lawlessness, and bluster. The people who cave to him and who make deals with him, the universities and the law firms who thought that if they paid his ransom, they would be safe, have learned that they're not safe. He comes back for more.

That's the way it works. But because all of these demands, the attempt to take over essentially a private educational institution to tell us what we can teach, to tell our students what they can say, what they can think, to tell law firms whom they can defend, those efforts are absolutely illegal. It's not even a close question.

Judges across the spectrum are going to rule against Trump. We are going to prevail. And in doing so, we hope that we will give courage to others because the only way to deal with a bully is to stand up to him, to stand up in solidarity and say, no, you will not dictate all of us. You will not control our lives. You will not control our thought.

TAPPER: So this began with a letter to the university talking about the need for Harvard to make some policy chain -- make some policy changes, getting rid of DEI, trying to make sure everything is merit- based, trying to make sure that there's more ideological diversity, you know, clapping down on anti-Semitism on campus.

But President Trump just wrote in a lengthy Truth Social post yesterday about Harvard a whole other criticism. Part of it reads, quote, Harvard has been hiring almost all woke, radical left idiots and bird brains who are only capable of teaching failure to students and so-called future leaders, unquote. And I wonder, as a legal matter, does that post undermine the President's case that this was based on policy changes that were actually in -- in the interest of -- of the country? Because what he's going after there is just you're hiring Democrats and I don't like it.

TRIBE: Well, he always undermines himself. If you wait long enough, he will take every position required to show what an incoherent mind he has, honestly. He -- he says that he is fighting anti-Semitism. It's just a fig leaf. We're fighting anti-Semitism, but he says Nazis are sometimes good people. He is not defending any value that is an American value.

He is simply defending the value of being the boss of everybody. You know, when my kids were growing up, when they were very young, I remember one of the things that they would typically say. I'm sure other parents have heard this. You are not the boss of me. Well, I wasn't. But Trump wants to be the boss of everyone and everything. He wants to be the boss of the Federal Reserve, even though that will destabilize the dollar.

He wants to be the boss of all of these law firms. He is not going to succeed in that. And even with a Supreme Court that is highly favorable to Donald Trump, that gives him total immunity from criminal prosecution, he's not going to get his way when it turns out that he can't do what he wants without the affirmative cooperation of judges.

And we've seen with Judge Boasberg and Judge Zinus (sp?) that judges have had it. They are not going to go along with the efforts of this administration to abscond people and throw them into penal colonies in El Salvador. They're not going to go along, I'm confident, with his attempt to control thought and to censor newspapers and to censor CNN and MSNBC. He's going to lose those battles.

TAPPER: So just in -- in point of clarification, and this is by no means a defense, what the President said was that there were very fine people marching alongside the Nazis --

TRIBE: Yes.

[17:25:00]

TAPPER: -- not the Nazis per se. Just want to make sure that correction is -- is there.

TRIBE: OK. You -- you can -- you can -- you can parse it pretty closely, but what is clear is that this is not a champion of diversity, tolerance, of freedom of religion. He wants to have a -- as he has said from time to time, a Christian nation. He wants it all.

TAPPER: Professor Tribe.

TRIBE: What the framers had in mind --

TAPPER: Yes.

TRIBE: -- was a nation where you could believe what you wanted, whatever God you believed in, not Christian nationalism or any kind of fascistic trope of the sort that Donald Trump was pushing.

TAPPER: Professor Tribe, always good to have you here. Thank you so much, sir, appreciate it.

President Trump started this day writing on Truth Social that the termination of the chairman of the Federal Reserve's Jerome Powell, quote, cannot come fast enough, unquote. That's an interesting comment. Does Trump actually have the power to fire him? Hear Trump's response when asked that very question this afternoon and what ultimately has him so upset. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:30:12]

TAPPER: In our Money Lead, the Dow closed down 527 points today after President Donald Trump went on a tear against Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Powell yesterday warned that Trump's unprecedented tariffs are putting the Fed and therefore the economy in uncharted waters. This morning, Trump called for Powell's termination. Then later, he said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't think he's doing the job. He's too late, always too late, a little slow, and I'm not happy with him. I let him know it, and if I want him out, he'll be out of there real fast, believe me. (END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Powell has pointed out that removing the independent Fed chair is not allowed, quote, under the law, unquote. Let's bring in Lael Brainard, former National Economic Council Director for the Biden administration, as well as a former Federal Reserve Vice Chair who worked with Fed Chair Jerome Powell. Lael, thanks for joining us. So Trump says Powell's rate cuts always come too late, and today he also said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I would say the Fed really owes it to the American people to get interest rates down. That's the only thing he's good for, and he would have an effect on that if he -- if he -- if he lowered them. And I think at some point he will.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Explain to us non-math majors why any Fed chair might not want to cut rates right now while these tariffs are creating so much uncertainty.

LAEL BRAINARD, VICE PRESIDENT, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: It's pretty simple. You know, Congress gave the Federal Reserve a very straightforward job, keep inflation low while supporting strong employment. And what the Federal Reserve right now is confronting is high tariffs.

High tariffs raise prices, so that means they could increase inflation. At the same time, they mean that businesses aren't investing and hiring as much and consumers aren't buying as much, and so the economy and the job market slows down. And the challenge for the Fed is to decide how much that inflation is going to go up, which really constrains its ability to cut rates, and that is at the heart of the issue that the White House is dealing with today.

TAPPER: Do you think, knowing Powell, that he's bothered at all by the President's attacks? What might be going through his head as he tries to do his job?

BRAINARD: The Federal Reserve is a very strong institution. The decisions on interest rates are made actually by committee, and they take their mandate to guard against high inflation and to cushion the economy from high unemployment very seriously, and it's -- it's very clear what their job is, and they try to stay focused on that. So my sense is they are not at all distracted.

They are simply focused on the fact that high tariffs raise prices for consumers. That could lead to inflation, and if you look at the way consumers are talking about inflation right now, they're really worried that these tariffs are in fact going to lead to higher inflation, and that makes it difficult for the Federal Reserve to think about cutting rates right now.

TAPPER: Powell's critics are not always on -- are not entirely on the right, of course. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts is a big Powell critic. Take a listen to what she had to say about him earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): I have tangled with him on a regular basis about both regulations and interest rates, but understand this. If Chairman Powell can be fired by the President of the United States, it will crash the markets in the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Do you think that Trump firing Jerome Powell would -- would cause a market crash?

BRAINARD: Well, that, I think, is something that the White House needs to weigh very carefully. Even if they could have the Federal Reserve chairman depart early, the real question is whether that might actually undermine the credibility of the Federal Reserve in its fight against inflation, and that would lead to the kind of bond market reaction that got the White House to pull back on the very high reciprocal tariffs in the first place.

So even if it were possible to terminate the chair of the Federal Reserve, it might not be a good idea at all because it would really raise some doubts about whether inflation is going to stay under control.

TAPPER: "The Wall Street Journal" reports today that Trump has been for months talking about privately firing Powell. "Politico" reports that in private messages, quote, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has repeatedly cautioned White House officials that any attempt to fire a Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, would risk destabilizing financial markets.

[17:35:12]

That's according to two people close to the White House talking to "Politico." How concerned are you about this possible move?

BRAINARD: The way that our financial markets work is very much based on confidence in the institutions and the rule of law that are so strong in -- in the United States and the independence of the Federal Reserve, its ability to pursue low inflation and making sure employment is strong without political interference is one of the most important parts of that.

And so I think there is a real risk that you could see further declines in the stock market, you could see further increases in the rate that the U.S. government has to pay on deficits and debt at a time when the administration wants to see trillions of dollars of additional debt and tax cuts. So it would be a very, very destabilizing move.

TAPPER: Lael Brainard, thanks so much. Always good to have you on. As a candidate, Donald Trump said he would challenge birthright citizenship in the United States, and when signed -- when he signed an executive order to try to end it, a lower court paused that plan. Today, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it will take up and weigh in on that pause, the cornerstone of Trump's argument and the debate over it, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:41:04]

TAPPER: In our Law and Justice Lead, more on that move by the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear oral arguments next month, May, on whether the Trump administration can take steps to try to enforce its executive order to end what's called birthright citizenship. While the legal fight over the plan continues, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether lower court judges had the authority to put that executive order on hold across the entire country. So let's talk about this with CNN's chief legal affairs correspondent, Paula Reid, and CNN's senior legal analyst, Elie Honig.

And Paula, the Supreme Court did not agree to Trump's request that would have allowed him to start enforcing his birthright citizenship plan right now. But it does seem significant that they're hearing this argument on whether or not the lower court even has the authority to pause his executive order.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: This is huge because we've seen this tension between the White House and the judiciary building, and nothing vexes President Trump more than the fact that lower court judges can, a single judge, can block his policy for the entire country. And he's not the only one this happens to. All modern presidents have faced this. It frustrates all of them.

But look, no one has had more policies blocked than Trump because he's issued a record number of executive orders, and he plays at the edges of constitutional power. Now, the argument in favor of allowing judges to do this is that you have one policy governing the entire country, and the policies can be paused while they are vetted for whether they're constitutionally valid.

And I think it's so interesting that what brings this issue to the Supreme Court is birthright citizenship because for all the bravado the Trump legal team has about how their policies are going to be upheld by the Supreme Court, this is the one where they sort of tell me, you know, we're not sure we're going to win.

So it's interesting. It's become like a Trojan horse to get this bigger issue of the power of judges before the high court.

TAPPER: Yes, and as you note, you know, this is an issue that has -- that -- that Biden had to grapple with, that Obama had to grapple with. But like you say, Trump's had to grapple with it more than others, the power of one judge to block something all over the country. Elie, what would happen if the U.S. Supreme Court actually said district court judges don't have the ability to make this type of sweeping decision, blocking an individual law all over the country, not just their -- in their district -- in their district?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Jake, I think it's quite possible that the Supreme Court could say just that. As you've said, this is an issue that's come up over the last several presidencies, and I think there's a perfectly valid legal question there about how can a single district court judge, unelected, dictate policy for the entire country? If that were to play out here, though, we might see the downside of that, which is a lack of uniformity.

Let's take birthright citizenship. How can it be the case, hypothetically, that a person born in the Western District of Pennsylvania perhaps is not a citizen, but a person born under the same circumstances in the District of New Jersey would be a citizen? And I think the ultimate solution there has to fall to Congress, where they'd have to look at laws that would expedite these types of cases, get them up to the Supreme Court as quickly as possible.

And it's worth noting, the House actually just passed a resolution along these lines just a couple weeks ago. It was a straight party line. Republicans were for it, Democrats were against it, but as a rule, whichever party is in the White House hates these injunctions, whichever party is on the other side tends to favor them.

TAPPER: And, Paula, there's also a legal update on the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran man accused of being an MS-13, deported to El Salvador despite a judge's order saying he -- he should not be deported to El Salvador. What's the update?

REID: So the judge has ordered a discovery, so the gathering of evidence that you would usually do in a big case over what the government has actually done to facilitate this man's return. Not surprisingly, the administration is fighting that. And today, in the most eloquent way possible, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected this attempt. This is what -- I'm not saying I agree with everything they say, but this is one of the best-written things I have read in a while.

[17:44:59]

They talk about how the government is asserting the right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. They talk about how the government is asserting the right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. This should be shocking, they said, not only to judges, but to the intuitive senses of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.

I won't read all my favorite quotes. But they say, yet we cling to the hope that it is not naive to believe our good brethren in the executive branch of the White House perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos. So, they're rejecting the administration's fight against this discovery process.

I would just note that some of these complaints should probably be directed to their brethren at the Supreme Court that offered an ambiguous order that allowed all this confusion.

TAPPER: But they said their good -- their good brethren?

REID: Couldn't make it up.

TAPPER: They actually is good brethren.

REID: Good brethren.

TAPPER: Did Alexander Hamilton write that order?

REID: A Reagan appointee, Judge Wilkinson. So it's great, read it. I think it's the best thing I've read in a while.

TAPPER: No, indeed. All right, Paula Reid and Elie Honig, thanks so much.

My next guest says, the arson attack, the assassination attack on the governor of Pennsylvania and his family was motivated in part by politics. I'll ask him about his reasoning, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:50:47]

TAPPER: In our National Lead, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, wants the Justice Department to investigate the arson and attempted murder of the Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro.

He wants it investigated as a hate crime. A warrant released Wednesday revealed that the suspect, named Cody Balmer, called 911 after the attack and said he targeted Governor Shapiro for, quote, what he wants to do to the Palestinian people, unquote. Shapiro, who is Jewish, we should note, has been a vocal critic of Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and supports a Palestinian state.

Balmer allegedly set fire to the residence hours after the governor and his family hosted a Passover Seder there. Joining us now is Noah Rothman, a commentator from the National Review. So, Noah, what do you make of the response to this attack from Senator Schumer saying he wants it to be investigated as a hate crime and from the Democratic Party in general?

NOAH ROTHMAN, SENIOR WRITER, NATIONAL REVIEW: Certainly welcome. It does appear to be a hate crime. It seems to have been motivated by a pretty common delusion shared by those who equate liberal Zionism, Jewish Zionism, with essentially Israeli policy. Governor Shapiro has no influence over the direction of Israeli policy.

An addled mind would conclude that, and we've seen quite a lot of that. It's hard to not link the kind of sequence that this individual came to with the agitation against Governor Shapiro over the course of 2024 when he was in line to be the vice presidential nominee. The campaign against Genocide Josh, as he was deemed by the activist class, was a pretty horrific one, and it certainly didn't, from the reporting that I've read, serve as the sole reason why he was not selected as Kamala Harris' running mate.

But it did contribute. According to the "New York Times" on August 6th, the Harris campaign was sensitive about the prospect of inflaming the left and inviting the prospect of more protests that would torment this campaign. It contributed to the decision not to elevate Governor Shapiro.

And so you can conclude, and subsequently the campaign did its best to ingratiate itself to the protest movement as late as six days before the election. "The Associated Press" reported that Kamala Harris attempted to, quote, validate protesters' concerns to harness some of their manic energy. If this contingent is not welcome within the Democratic Party, a reasonable observer could forgive their confusion. It's welcome that Democrats want to investigate this as a hate crime.

TAPPER: Yes.

ROTHMAN: But they also need to engage in some elementary political hygiene and tell the individuals who are engaged in this kind of behavior that their views, much less their conduct, are not welcome within the Democratic firmament.

TAPPER: I actually -- it was -- it was interesting, we talked about this back then after Tim Walz was picked on air, and I mean, Josh Shapiro, Governor Shapiro's position on Israel is to the left of several other people that were in the running to be VP. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, for example, to the left of Joe Biden. I mean, what Shapiro has said, that Benjamin Netanyahu is one of the worst leaders of all time, is more critical of Netanyahu than I've heard from most, you know, quote unquote, mainstream Democrats. Why do you think there was a Genocide Josh and not a Genocide Andy or -- or anything like that?

ROTHMAN: Well, no one wants to get inside anyone's head and assess their motives from the remove of a television studio in New York City. But it is difficult to -- to reach any other conclusion other than Josh Shapiro's last name and his faith are animating a certain contingent of people to believe that he is, has a certain level of influence over Israeli policy or is least complicit with Israeli policy in ways that others who do not share his accidents of birth are not similarly complicit. We call that anti-Semitism. It is raw, naked bigotry. It needs to be called that.

TAPPER: Yes. One of the things that's interesting also is that the Overton window on the acceptability of anti-Semitism within mainstream political discourse seems to have opened in an uncomfortable way for many American Jews. Not only what you just talked about on the left but on the right. Has it troubled you? I'm sure it has to -- to see people with, you know, clear anti-Semitic beliefs at least out as a spouse like Andrew Tate or Candace Owens occupying a relatively mainstream position in the Republican Party.

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ROTHMAN: Almost certainly. I myself and a lot of my colleagues experienced some rather rank anti-Semitism as early as 2015 and 2016 when the movement that erupted around Donald Trump succumbed to some delusions that the President would be the author of some kind of a retributive policy against the forces that they believe are stealing from them their due. This is classic anti-Semitic thought processes. The notion here being that there is some shadowy cabal that is manipulating -- manipulating, pulling the levers of power behind the scenes.

That thought process invariably leads you to rather 19th century style anti-Semitic tropes. Fortunately, Donald Trump himself seems to be a philosemite. He doesn't seem to be friendly to those elements. But they do accrete around a movement that is conspiratorial in nature. Anything that invites that kind of conspiratorial thought, a paranoid impulse, is something that invites anti-Semitism. Paranoia is the problem here and responsible political actors on the right and the left need to make it plain that there is no place for these elements in their movements.

TAPPER: Yes, well, from your lips to the ears of those politicians. Noah Rothman, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

ROTHMAN: Thank you.

TAPPER: The breaking news this afternoon. Tragedy, two killed at Florida State University in Tallahassee. Five others injured. We're going to go live to the Florida State Capitol with a priest who was helping to shelter students as they ran for their lives. Stay with us.

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