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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
CEO Murder Suspect Captured, Arraigned, Held Without Bail; Pennsylvania Governor Says, CEO Murder Suspect is Not a Hero; Daniel Penny Acquitted in Subway Chokehold Death. Court Acquits Daniel Penny; "NewsNight" Tackles Trump's Campaign Promise On Immigration Issue; Pete Hegseth Appears On Fox. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired December 09, 2024 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, found at the golden arches, police put a name to the face of the suspected CEO killer. New developments on where he was captured, what he was caught with and why investigators think he committed murder.
Also, acquitted, a politically charged case draws cheers from some, as a New York jury clears a former Marine captured on camera, choking to death a mentally disturbed subway rider.
And get out, Donald Trump says he'll deport criminals first and possibly whole families if some members are undocumented.
Live at the table, experts and analysis on the arrest of a fugitive, plus Scott Jennings, Hillary Rosen, Solomon Jones and Arthur Aidala.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH (voice over): Good evening. I'm Audie Cornish in for Abby Phillip. We're going to get right to what America is talking about, captured. Tonight, a trip to McDonald's ends with a suspected CEO killer in handcuffs.
Now, despite what the internet wants to tell you, Luigi Mangione wasn't out of the country, and there does not appear to have been some sophisticated escape plan. The 26-year-old is now behind bars after being spotted at McDonald's.
The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections just released this intake photo of the suspect. The charges so far, two felonies, three misdemeanors, forgery, carrying a firearm without a license, tampering with records or I.D. possessing instruments of a crime, and false I.D. to law enforcement authorities, all of which are seemingly in service to what he is suspected of doing last week, gunning down the UnitedHealthcare CEO in Midtown Manhattan with a 3D printed firearm. Brynn Gingras tells us how this all went down today. What more have you learned?
BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So, I mean, like you said, this was not a career criminal and he was caught by someone who paid attention to all those pictures that were posted by the NYPD. It spread all around really this country and this world.
Essentially, what we're learning from police is that it was someone who spotted him eating at this McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, who then alerted an employee at that McDonald's, who then called police, is a person -- rather a police officer, only six months on the job, then responded to that call, confronted Luigi Mangione there while he was eating while he was typing on his laptop right there at that restaurant, essentially said, please lower your mask because he was still wearing a mask at that time, and was able to also identify the fact that he looked like this person in those pictures.
And we're told through the complaint that when asked had he been in New York City recently, he got nervous, he got quiet, he started to shake a little bit. He also didn't give police his actual name. He gave them a fake name, which also is in correspondence with what they also found on him, which was a number of fake I.D.s, including one fake I.D., which directly ties him back here to New York. That was a key piece of evidence for police is what you're looking at right here. This New Jersey fake I.D., which police say he used when he checked into a hostel on the upper west side before this murder was committed last week.
Police also finding on him a ghost gun, as well as a magazine filled with a number of bullets, as well as articles of clothing, cash a number of things that police are now looking into as part of this investigation. As you just said, Audie, he is now in custody right now, NYPD waiting to also now work with the Manhattan D.A. to file its own charges, extradite him back here to New York and continue this investigation.
CORNISH: We should say all those charges I listed earlier basically Pennsylvania. So, we're going to hear more.
Arthur, I want to talk to you because you said you were reaching out to law enforcement. And what are you hearing so far?
ARTHUR AIDALA, VETERAN NEW YORK TRIAL ATTORNEY: Well, I spoke to NYPD Chief John Chell just a couple moments ago. And I said, you know, Chief, what do you give credit to here? And he said, it's good old fashioned police work.
[22:05:01]
Of course, there's a technology, you know, jump from the 1950s until today, but they had 400 different tips about his whereabouts. But even if you back up before that, they were able to use hard work by the NYPD detectives to get pictures of him. A key piece was in the Starbucks. He went in and bought a specific type of water in Starbucks, not Poland Spring. They had him on video drinking it and throwing it in the garbage. They were able to get that, and that was -- the DNA is what they're working on right now to make this case even stronger than it actually is.
They -- one of the things the chief wanted me to point out is how the last big three huge cases here in New York, the murder of three people by one individual, the shooting of a police officer, and now this case, they were all solved by citizens working with the police. But the citizens were the ones who really told police officers, that's the guy, that's the guy, that's the guy. And the community --
CORNISH: And I think of a face more widely publicized than this one, frankly. I mean, this is -- even the hard sheets probably couldn't compete with just the sheer volume of internet imagery.
I want to bring it to this side of the table for two reasons. One, as we're learning more and more about who this person is, people are readjusting what their expectations were. And I think at first, when the images of the shooting came out, that sort of wide stance, adjusting when the gun jammed, people were using the term assassin.
Now that you're hearing a different description of who the suspect is, what's coming to mind for you Felipe?
FELIPE RODRIGUEZ, RETIRED NYPD SERGEANT: It was the fact it was still proficiency. You know, here we have a gun, a ghost gun that's basically homemade, you know --
CORNISH: And we should say ghost guns means they don't have serial numbers and they're self-assembled. Is that right? People, the gun experts, tell me.
RODRIGUEZ: Correct, self-assembled. So, you make him -- using a firearm you're making it at home. You know, you went out there, you decided to commit a homicide. And even though the gun was jamming, and I've had numerous students, you know, panic when a gun jams, he still went through with the homicide. He did it, walked away cool a cucumber. It was amazing the way he did --
CORNISH: But then is still caught with like a backpack with all the things.
RODRIGUEZ: And that's -- you know what, we have such a huge dichotomy here. One moment he doesn't want to get caught, the other moment, he's giving you clues. So --
CORNISH: And, Dr. Jeff, this is where we bring you in, because we now also know that, I don't know, it seems like most kind of high-profile violence, there is a manifesto, so to speak, and he was interested, allegedly, in the Unabomber's manifesto, which seems to have the longest afterlife. It's unreal.
JEFF GARDERE, BEHAVIORAL MEDICINE ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, TOURO COLLEGE: Yes.
CORNISH: Can you talk about what you see in all these little details as they spring to mind? GARDERE: Well, now that we're bringing this back to earth, right, here's a person that we described as being cool as a cucumber. He was riding off of that fame. And we know that fame is a knife that cuts both ways. And that's why the citizens got involved. And, you know, we're the ones -- that one person at McDonald's was able to identify this person.
But I think what we're seeing here is that maybe he wasn't as much of a professional as we thought he was when he was finally caught, if he is the killer, of course. He was shaking when they asked him if he was in New York, so evidently not as confident as we thought that he was. But looking at the fact that in his manifesto he says, I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done, already apologizing. And it tells me that this is a person who may have been riding high for a while but eventually knew that he was going to get caught. It was just a matter of time.
CORNISH: I just realized the detail earlier when you said he was on his laptop and I was just like that is -- I can't imagine what they're going to find.
GINGRAS: What kind of forensics they're going to find, yes. I mean, they're going to try to relay everything back to New York. And just like Arthur was talking about, that water bottle, the cell phone, the burner phone that he dropped when he tried to escape, they got a partial fingerprint off of that. So, we've been saying that they weren't able to make an identification with those pieces of evidence because, hello, we just found out this guy has no history, no criminal history, really, but now they'll be able to take the fingerprints from that booking photo in that booking, and also DNA, hopefully, with more charges come as well, and go back to that evidence and hopefully build a stronger case.
CORNISH: Jennifer Mascia, I don't want to leave out of this because you've done some really excellent reporting in the past on just how many guns are in the United States. And now, I'm thinking of ghost guns and the idea of like this just, I don't know, expanded pool of potential weapons. What are you seeing and what you're reading so far?
JENNIFERS MASCIA, SENIOR WRITER, THE TRACE: Well, there are 400 million guns in the United States. And if you make a ghost gun with a 3D printing machine, which it sounds like this person did, there's an unknown number of guns in the United States. And --
CORNISH: Untraceable.
MASCIA: Yes, totally untraceable. And that complicates things for law enforcement. If the gun hadn't been on him, there might have been no way, if there was no print, to trace that gun because there's no serial number.
CORNISH: And you're nodding. Is that something law enforcement is talking about?
GINGRAS: I'm nodding because I think a couple years ago, I did a story about ghost guns with NYPD sounding the alarm about these ghost guns and how there needs to be regulations because of this exact concern.
[22:10:02]
And I find it so interesting too, because when we were talking to sources while this was unfolding, you know, you talk to them about that silencer, and people said just what we were talking about. I haven't seen this in years. This is like an assassin. And it was 3D printed. I mean, this was not some --
GARDERE: And it's interesting. Did he make it himself, knowing that he had this education, you know, Ivy League school, a master's in computer and information science, or was this something that he got somewhere else?
CORNISH: Like the YouTube rabbit hole.
MASCIA: You don't even need that to make a 3D printed gun. It's so simple. You can buy parts online. Or for a few hundred dollars, you can get a 3D printing machine and you can make this thing with a plastic that's the same plastic that's in Legos.
AIDALA: And what NYPD Chief Chell told me a little while ago is because it's a ghost gun, you know, they had the bullets. So, they could -- the databases now that they have regarding matching the shells to the firearm it was fired out of is enormous and usually they can figure it out. But here, when it's a ghost gun, no, because it's not registered anywhere, even if they scratch off the serial number, which a lot of kids do in these gangs, they could figure out where the gun at least emanated from. Here, there was nothing to happen, but they did say, Chief Chell was like, it's pretty nice when you catch someone and they basically have a written confession on their person in terms of going forward.
CORNISH: Yes, but it complicates things when the person obviously wants to send a message, right, now they're around to be.
GINGRAS: And that gun's going to be key. I mean, you know, as you're familiar, they're going to bring that back to the labs here in New York. They're going to fire it, test fire it, they're going to compare that what they fired to what they found at the scene, and that could also be a big investigation.
AIDALA: That'll be huge.
CORNISH: All right, you guys stay with us, because, next, we're going to talk about the governor of Pennsylvania. He had sharp words for anyone who's basically praising this suspect, calling him a hero.
Plus, some MAGA allies are celebrating the verdict of Daniel Penny, a former Marine acquitted for choking to death a mentally ill homeless man on the subway. Our group's going to discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00] CORNISH: Tonight, the internet cheers on an alleged shooter indifferent to the killing of health insurance CEO. 24 hours after gunman murdered the head of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, the company shutdown comments on a LinkedIn post noting his death. On Facebook, same thing, comments on lock after a post about Thompson's killing received more than 6,000 thumbs up, 400 laughs, and 78 claps.
Just hours after the arrest of Luigi Mangione, the reaction is very, very different. The comments posted in reaction to the CNN news post, brutal. McDonald's employees snitched on a working class hero, 251 likes. I hope someone creates a GoFundMe for his legal defense. This man needs to be acquitted of any and all charges. Not all heroes wear capes. Some wear backpacks. Does he need someone to corroborate his alibi, because I got him? And leave him alone, he did us justice. It's okay for a CEO to intentionally hurt people, but not okay when the tables turn?
Well, Pennsylvania's Governor Josh Shapiro addressed the online praise for the suspected killer this way.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. JOSH SHAPIRO (D-PA): Violence can never be used to address political differences or to address a substantive difference or to try and prove some ideological point. That is not what we do in a civilized society. That was true in Butler. It was true in New York City. The suspect here who shot at that CEO and killed that CEO is a coward, not a hero.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: So, Dr. Jeff, I want to go to you to diagnose us a little bit. What is going on with this outpouring?
GARDERE: Well --
CORNISH: It's used as a catalyst, it seems, for other grievance.
GARDERE: Well, exactly, and it's purely a projection, I think, that people have. It's part of a class and culture war that we see. I think a lot of it has come out of the woodwork since this last presidential election, where hate is allowed to be an impetus, to support certain people and certain causes. But this is more than just sentiments against a health insurance company. I think this is a feeling that many people have that corporations, rich, are taking over and therefore whatever justice is sent their way is allowed to happen, even though this is something -- this killing was absolutely horrific, so many people affected. There is a better way, a stronger way. The pen is mightier than the sword. Peaceful protests are, you know, much better.
AIDALA: I don't think you should be correlating an execution and assassination with the election of President Trump. I just don't think that's fair.
CORNISH: No, I don't think it is either. GARDERE: No, and I didn't say that.
AIDALA: Well, you just said hate, you know, like the president got elected because of hate.
GARDERE: Oh, and I never said that, Arthur. What I did say is that there has been a lot of hate and there has been divisiveness from this particular presidential election, and we see this happening on both sides where hate separates people.
AIDALA: That's a little different. Okay.
GARDERE: Absolutely.
CORNISH: Yes. And Shapiro was responding in fact because a reporter asked in the context of the attempted assassination attempts on the president. So, it was in that context.
Does anyone else want to jump in here? I mean, I think it's interesting. We've pointed to the manifesto and the idea of him admiring the Unabomber, calling him a revolutionary.
[22:20:00]
He is placing -- attempting to a place his actions allegedly in some sort of political term.
RODRIGUEZ: It's almost a level of justification. And the way we keep seeing -- it keeps growing more and more on the internet. As a, you know, retired law enforcement officer, we just can't continue like this. At what level of -- you know, when do we say enough is enough? You know, people, they start hero worshiping it. It's at the point that it's going to get really dangerous.
CORNISH: I'm going to phrase it slightly differently, and you guys can tell me if I'm completely wrong in saying it this way. You know, later in the night, we're also going to talk about penny and the verdict there. There you also have a victim who somebody determined did not deserve to continue living.
AIDALA: No.
CORNISH: Yes. Tell me. Tell me which vigilante action is okay.
AIDALA: One is being proactive, right? So, this kid who executed someone, executed a guy walking away from him, shot him in the back, shot him in the -- for no reason, whatsoever. Daniel Penny is a hero. You can say anything you want. Talk to people who ride the subway every day, because I do all the time. I do all the time. I can't find anyone who rides the subway who's unhappy about this verdict.
CORNISH: Well, that doesn't sound any more pleasant than what we're hearing from. But here's an ICU nurse commenting on Reddit saying, honestly, I'm not wishing anyone harm, but when you've spent so much time and made so much money by increasing the suffering of the humanity around you, it's hard for me to summon empathy that you died. I'm sure someone somewhere is sad about this. I'm following his lead of indifference. This is so specific and it's from someone in the healthcare industry.
I don't know. I'm just trying to make sense of it.
GARDERE: And what's happening in our society is there is this lack of empathy. And, Arthur, again, it is because we allow this to happen.
CORNISH: But she says it doesn't come from nowhere, right?
GARDERE: Right, exactly.
CORNISH: She's making a justification.
GARDERE: And people feel disaffected. They feel very angry. They feel cheated. They feel that there's no way that they can participate in the system in a fair way. And I think that's a lot of what's happening.
Now, if we had more empathy with this situation, with this alleged killer of the CEO, we would say, this is a tragedy for the person who died. This is a tragedy for the family of this person who's the alleged killer because there may be some mental health issues, some other things happening. And it's also a tragedy that that person on the subway was killed.
AIDALA: Of course. Of course, no --
CORNISH: It didn't sound like a chorus, Arthur.
AIDALA: I was with Daniel Penny this afternoon. You don't think he regrets what took place? Absolutely. He -- when they grabbed him right after it happened, he didn't even know someone was dead, let alone did he mean to kill anybody, and the jury of 12 people who heard all the evidence, unlike all of us here, found the same thing.
GARDERE: People should not be celebrating something that appeared to be or may have been an action, whether out of defense, whether helping, but seen as vigilante and saying, well, that's good.
AIDALA: He wasn't being a vigilante. A vigilante is the executioner who took things into his own hands.
GARDERE: Someone saying one less person, one less mentally ill homeless person, and that's a good thing? No, it's not.
AIDALA: No, it's not a good thing.
GARDERE: It's about a broken system --
AIDALA: It's all failure of society.
GARDERE: It's about a broken system that we need to address.
AIDALA: I agree with you because we as a society didn't take care of Mr. Neely, and therefore he was on the subway with that young woman who took the video who said she was shaking like a leaf because she thought she was going to die if Daniel Penny didn't stand up and do something. And the jurors heard that and the jurors said, not guilty.
GARDERE: The question is going to be whether he went too far.
CORNISH: But thank you for talking, because the question was fundamentally about empathy, who deserves it, who does not.
GARDERE: Yes.
CORNISH: Everyone, I want you to -- I want to thank you so much for being here. And also note that tonight, there's going to be a special edition of Laura Coates Live covering this capture. That's going to be at 11:00 Eastern right here on CNN.
Next, as we mentioned, a verdict is dividing the nation as a former Marine is acquitted in the chokehold death of a homeless man on the subway. A new group joins the roundtable to debate the case.
Please stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:25:00]
CORNISH: Tonight, a verdict that has split much of the country, a jury acquitting Daniel Penny of criminally negligent homicide, not finding him guilty of killing Jordan Neely.
Now, when he put the homeless street performer in a chokehold while riding on the NYC subway, the case shoved a discussion about race, crime, and urban decay onto the front pages. It also turned Penny, a former Marine, into a MAGA hero.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VIVEK RAMASWAMY, FORMER REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Jordan Neely, this is somebody who should have never been on the streets free to do what he did.
I want to make sure that this individual who actually appears to have been taking action for a guy who was supposedly actually issuing threats to others on the train, I want to make sure he receives a fair defense.
GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): I think to be able to step in as a Good Samaritan and protect people, I think that's something that was the right thing to do. And I don't think he should be prosecuted.
REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): It's not only permissible but it's right and just to act in self-defense and in the defense of others. This is the behavior that all great societies must encourage. We must do our part to save Daniel Penny from the leftist lynch mob.
(END VIDEO CLIP) CORNISH: Criminal Defense Attorney Bernarda Villanola -- sorry, Villalona joins us in our fifth seat. And, Bernarda, you've actually said you weren't shocked by this, that after like a decade of looking at New York juries, you weren't surprised. How come?
BERNARDA VILLALONA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: No, I wasn't surprised at the verdict. Was it the right verdict. Absolutely not. I think he should have been found guilty of criminally negligent homicide.
[22:30:00]
But I wasn't surprised given where it was tried, New York County, and the jury pool that you have in New York County and the amount of media coverage that this case has gotten ever since the very beginning from when he was arrested. And let's not forget that law enforcement originally let him loose.
However, I will say, I think, the biggest mistake that was made was when the prosecutor dismissed the manslaughter into second degree charge on Friday. I think that left a negative taint on the case for those jurors. So, whoever was standing still --
AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, and for context for people, the jury said it was essentially kind of deadlocked. They were struggling.
VILLALONA: Exactly, exactly.
CORNISH: And they ended up dropping one of the charges, I assume, in the hopes that they might find for the lesser charge?
VILLALONA: Yes, so what I think is the prosecutor had jolted her bets that the issue was with the elements of the crime and that's why she was fine and comfortable with saying, well, I'll dismiss the manslaughter in the second degree and I'll just let you decide as to the criminally negligent homicide.
But for those jurors that were probably steadfast on that this man is guilty on manslaughter in the second degree, now they're left with egg on their face when they're looking at the other jurors and be like, look, look --
ARTHUR AIDALA, VETERAN NEW YORK TRIAL ATTORNEY: Why couldn't they have just said he's guilty of that? OK, you're saying he's not guilty of man, too? Well, then I feel, if I felt he was guilty of manslaughter in the second degree, I would degree, then I definitely feel he's guilty of the lesser included charge of criminally negligent homicide.
But in fact, that's not what happened. They got rid of the top count. The jury focused on justification, self-defense. The last question they asked substantively on Friday was, we need the definite definition of what is a reasonable person, because that's what you need to use for self-defense.
CORNISH: Well, if they were focused --
AIDALA: They came back not guilty.
VILLALONA: If they were focused on justification, why were they deadlocked on Friday then? Because if justification is not an issue, then it's not guilty across the board, so there's no deadlock.
CORNISH: So, before we move on, I want to mention something that you mentioned from the closing arguments, one of the questions that the attorney raised, which is, I think it was, would you rather ride the subway --
VILLALONA: Which was completely improper.
CORNISH: -- with Daniel Penny or Jordan Neely?
VILLALONA: It was improper.
AIDALA: Not as an offense. Not for a defense attorney, it's not improper. For a prosecutor, it's improper.
VILLALONA: Of course.
AIDALA: Not for a defense attorney. But you're allowed to get away with a lot of stuff as a defense attorney because you're up -- you're up against it. The prosecutor can't say that. A defense attorney could definitely say that.
SOLOMON JONES, AWARD-WINNING COLUMNIST, "THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER": I don't believe that I'm sitting between two lawyers and neither of you have defined criminal negligence.
AIDALA: Carelessness.
JONES: Because criminal negligence, it's carelessness.
AIDALA: Right.
JONES: It's going beyond what a reasonable person would do.
AIDALA: And the jury found it was reasonable. Is it reasonable? No, excuse me. I didn't write two hours up here for you to yell on me. It's not reasonable to kill somebody for yelling.
AIDALA: But the jury --
JONES: He was yelling on the subway. There's no way that they could know his criminal record. They couldn't know if he was mentally ill. They couldn't know any of that.
AIDALA: They knew it. They knew it.
JONES: All they knew is that he was yelling on the subway. He was a hundred and forty pounds soaking wet. Who was he going to kill? He was unarmed. There was no way he was going to kill anybody.
AIDALA: Who said he clearly appeared to be mentally ill? That's what the jurors heard. They heard the witnesses on the subway car. VILLALONA: But it doesn't give you a free pass to kill because you
see someone that's mentally ill.
CORNISH: Hold on, this side of the table. I want to bring in the politics of this because when I hear lawmakers hailing Penny as a hero, as a good Samaritan, really being promoted, can you help me understand the thinking? We started at the top of the show talking about the killer of the UnitedHealthcare CEO being hailed in similar terms.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, let me just help you understand. If you're on the American left tonight, here's my chart. The good guys today -- Daniel Penny. The bad guys -- Luigi Mangione. It seems to me --
CORNISH: How do you --
JENNINGS: Everybody on the left --
CORNISH: What's the chart for victims?
JENNINGS: I'm just telling you what I see out in the world today.
CORNISH: I know, I know. I just want you to finish the chart. Which victim is good and which victim is bad.
JENNINGS: What I see out in the world today. It's my chart. You can make your own chart. What I'm telling you is --
CORNISH: That's not on the second page?
JENNINGS: People on the left -- people on the left can't seem to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys.
CORNISH: Scott, I'm not actually asking you about people on the left. I'm asking you -- on this in person --
JENNINGS: They don't --
JENNINGS: We had people praising Luigi and that there had to be Penny. One is good, one is not.
CORNISH: I want to know whether you think that as Congressman Crane does, that Daniel Penny should get the Congressional Gold Medal to recognize his heroism. I'm not asking you about anyone else.
JENNINGS: I think he ought to get medal. I think he ought to build a statue to this guy in New York City.
JONES: I think that race -- and I'm going to say it. I'm going to say it the dreaded R-word. Race place a role in this, right? And so, we see it --
JENNINGS: Does it?
JONES: Yes, absolutely, because statistics -- wait a minute. Statistics -- that when people kill people who are white, they tend to get harsher sentences especially if they're people of color.
JENNINGS: What about the Jordan Williams case?
JONES: That is what happens in our criminal justice system. No, I'm not going to stop because race absolutely plays a role in this.
JENNINGS: What about the Jordan Williams case here in New York? Same situation, African American gets on a subway, ends up killing a guy. Grand jury tosses it out at the exact same time as the Penny Case.
UNKNOWN: What about Bernard Goetz?
VILLALONA: That's different. That's different because he used the same weapon that the alleged victim had, so he was using his own weapon. He was met with deadly physical force. Jordan Neely, all he had in his pocket was a muffin.
HILARY ROSEN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: All right, listen guys. First of all, this is not a left-right issue. I'm on the left. And I actually think this was the right decision.
[22:35:01]
Because the reason I think this is the right decision is because that's what the jury decided. And juries tend to get this stuff right. And that's what we have to believe in. There were multiple witnesses that were people of color. There were multiple people on the jury that were people of color.
UNKNOWN: More people on the jury.
ROSEN: I think it's not really OK to call this a race issue. One of the guys who helped hold him down was a black man. He, you know, testified, too, on his behalf. Like, this is not a race issue. This is a, wait, this is a -- the jury who spent days and days and days and days listening to detailed facts came to this conclusion. Do I think he's a hero? No.
JENNINGS: Why not?
ROSEN: Do I think he was a good Samaritan trying to protect people? Yes. But there's a difference. Somebody died and that, really, is awful.
JONES: Well, here's a fact, though. There's a fact.
ROSEN: I'm not saying that it's OK that somebody died.
AIDALA: And Daniel Penny agrees with you.
ROSEN: I'm just saying --
AIDALA: But Daniel Penny agrees with you.
ROSEN: I don't think Daniel Penny --
AIDALA: -- that somebody dies and it's awful.
ROSEN: First of all, he was still alive when the paramedics got there and they ended up delaying their attention to him because they were afraid he might be dangerous to them or have --
CORNISH: I want to show you one -- hold on a second.
JONES: This is important. There were two voices. One of them says you don't have to catch murder charge, though man, right? He didn't stop choking him at this point. So, I mean he knew that there was a risk that this man was going to die and it's a shame that a bystander had to tell him that and he did not stop at that point.
ROSEN: Because nobody came to help him. They're just talking at him. No one was helping.
AIDALA: As soon as the police came, he let go. As soon as he saw law enforcement, he let go.
JONES: He's already -- he's already about to die.
AIDALA: He was about to -- he was still kicking. He was still kicking.
JONES: He was a 140-pound man.
ROSEN: The jury decided he was still alive.
JONES: Well, the jury also decided that Donald Trump was guilty of 34 felonies. He's about to be president.
CORNISH: Wait, before veer off.
ROSEN: -- disagree with that. Wait, wait.
CORNISH: No, no, before we go there, I want to show you guys.
JONES: I don't agree that the jury is always right. Jordan Brown brought both cases.
ROSEN: Do you think that the jury was wrong in the Donald Trump verdict?
JONES: Juries aren't always right.
AIDALA: Thank you. You agree with the jury in the Donald Trump verdict. That's Hillary's point. And you disagree with the jury here.
JONES: Because juries aren't always right. They're not infallible. They're human, just like you and me.
ROSEN: They know more than you do.
AIDALA: No, I know. They heard all the evidence.
JONES: All I know is it's all on video. It's all on video. We watched Daniel Penny kill this man.
AIDALA: But we watched him kill him. The jurors heard the state of fear in the other subway riders, and that's the defense of justification.
CORNISH: I'm going to stop you guys from relitigating a case that has been decided by a jury by showing you two things. One, an Instagram post of Daniel Penny after his post-verdict announcement, which I think is good context here. Do we have that photo? And we also have one clip and this is from Jordan Neely's father. He was at a press conference today after the acquittal.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDRE ZACHERY, JORDAN NEELY'S FATHER: I just want to say I miss my son. My son didn't have to go through this. I didn't have to go through this either. It hurts. It really, really hurts. What are we going to do, people? What's going to happen to us now? I had enough of this. System is rigged.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Bernarda, thanks so much for, well, I don't want to answer her father's plea, who's just lost his son. But Bernarda, thank you so much for staying with us. We are going to talk more but first, the president-elect is giving another preview of his immigration policies that includes deporting children that may be here legally. Another special guest joins our fifth seat.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (R): The only way you don't break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:43:18]
CORNISH: And breaking news just coming into CNN, Luigi Mangione is now officially charged with murder. Manhattan prosecutors filing the charges tonight, according to an online court document, accusing Mangione of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO.
Prosecutors also leveling four other charges against the defendant. Mangione remains jailed in Pennsylvania this hour. It's unclear when we will see him in court. Arthur, I just want to turn to you very briefly. Are these charges surprising at all?
AIDALA: Yes, no, there's no surprising. I mean, they're probably, when they go into the grand jury amongst murder in the second degree, they'll probably add manslaughter in the first degree, which means that you're intending to cause serious physical injury, which causes death. Murder in the second degree, the minimum jail time is 15 years to
life. The maximum is 25 to life. Manslaughter is five to 25, anything in there. and then there's the gun charges and the ID charges.
But I was thinking if his grandfather, you know, called my office today to represent him, you know, this is -- this is a very tough case to represent individual on and get any kind of relief based on what the evidence they have right now when, you know, between the gun, the DNA, the confession, I don't think Mr. Mangione is going to be going anywhere.
CORNISH: All right, I want to turn to national politics for a bit because the president-elect has started sketching out some of his immigration policies. It happened in a new interview. So, his pledges continue for mass deportations of criminals here illegally as promised. His promises didn't stop there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KRISTEN WELKER, "MEET THE PRESS" HOST: You promised to end birthright citizenship on day one. Is that still your plan?
TRUMP: Yes, absolutely.
WELKER: The 14th Amendment, though, says that, quote, "All persons born in the United States are citizens."
[22:45:02]
TRUMP: Yes.
WELKER: Can you get around the 14th Amendment with an executive action?
TRUMP: Well, we're going to have to get a change. We'll maybe have to go back to the people, but we have to end it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Joining us in our fifth seat, Cristina Jimenez, co-founder of United We Dream, a non-profit immigrant advocacy organization here in the U.S. Cristina, can you get your reaction the president-elect tried to parse some of these other policies beyond the mass deportations?
CRISTINA JIMENEZ, CO-FOUNDER, UNITED WE DREAM: Well, I think I just want to remind everyone that when he and the future administration is talking about their immigration policy, they are talking about separation of families and going after anyone that they can get a hold to for deportation. I know this because I was formerly undocumented.
I have a brother who's a DACA recipient, and I know this because I was working with immigrant communities in his first administration. And so, I know that under the disguise of going after people that have committed crimes, they use a frame of criminality to go after everyone. Under the past administration with Trump, DACA recipients were
deported. Families were separated not only at the border as people came here seeking refuge, but also in the interior of the United States. So, we're talking about children, families, and I think that we take we take this seriously.
CORNISH: Scott, I want to come to you because I do find it interesting that during his first term, the president did engage in this family separation policy as a deterrent, right? It was like don't come here because this will happen.
And now, when asked this question about families with mixed status, he didn't talk about separation, right? He was like, basically, maybe everyone should go. Do you think that reflects some kind of, like, I don't know, shift after that first experience in the first term?
JENNINGS: Yes, I thought -- I thought his answers on that and on, really, everything else on the immigration portion of the interview were eminently reasonable, fit with his campaign promises, are politically popular and showed some pragmatism. Even on the Dreamers issue, he talked about finding a solution for the Dreamers and an overall immigration deal.
But make no mistake, the immigration platform that he laid out in the campaign is popular. People want him to do something about it. The family separation issue -- I mean he clearly said he doesn't want to separate families. So, I think what he's laying out, Republicans are going to support it. You may get a few Democrats to support it if it -- if it is a comprehensive deal which the American people desperately want.
CORNISH: Hilary, you're shaking your head a bit and I think that all that for Democrats, the whole conversation around Dreamers, undocumented young people who are brought here on their own, it's just been this like kind of long-running saga. Can you talk about like what is the kind of Democratic argument about this point if Republicans believe they have a mandate to take this level of action?
ROSEN: Well, I think Democrats should be and have been sort of much more moderate about this. Yes, asylum needs much more scrutiny, and there are significant numbers of undocumented workers where people are worried that there is criminality. But those people are actually identifiable. That does not require the sweep that I think people are legitimately afraid of.
Also, I think what he didn't say was almost as important as what he did say. He seemed to imply that naturalized citizens are not -- don't belong in the United States. And then I thought, well, sorry, dude, aren't you married to a naturalized citizen? Are you going to, like, is Melania and her father -- they all of a sudden not legitimate Americans?
JENNINGS: I don't think that's true.
ROSEN: Well, no, no. I'm sorry, when you talk about birthright and citizenship, that's kind of what people are thinking all day. JENNINGS: His priorities were clear. People with deportation orders, violent criminals, that's where they're going to start and that is really popular.
ROSEN: That's why they shouldn't -- I totally agree with them.
JENNINGS: I think there's a lot of fear mongering going on about the rest of this issue.
JIMENEZ: I do think we need to look at not only what he's saying but what he did. Like there's a track record, actions speak louder than words. They went after everyone in the last administration. So, I just don't think we need to fall for that trap.
And on the point about DACA recipients, my brother is a DACA recipient, as, you know, formerly undocumented part of the Dreamer movement that was able to win DACA under the Trump administration. And when we engaged in very credible bipartisan efforts to pass legislation, what did Trump do? He killed every single bipartisan deal. And the last one, let's remember, he killed it by using language I will not use here to refer to black and brown immigrants when we're talking about immigration policy.
CORNISH: But can I ask you, what we do hear are Democrats talking about we need to be more moderate, they will say, right? We need to talk in different ways about immigration. We need to be tougher on immigration. That kind of we need to, we need to language I'm hearing from Democrats a lot. Where does that leave an activist like yourself in the middle of this discussion?
[22:50:00]
JIMENEZ: For me, I think that we need to have a real conversation about the immigration system and the laws that we need. And quite frankly, I'm not going to be here to also defend where Democrats have gone wrong on this issue. Our movement is actually quite independent and we have been on opposite side with Democrats, as well.
But the thing here is that this is about a conversation, to your point about birthright citizenship, about who gets to be an American and the soul of this country? And when we're talking about taking away birthright citizenship, when we're talking about not caring about deporting children, who are U.S. citizens, separating them from their parents, I think we're talking about who gets to have full protection under the Constitution?
JONES: And I think that that goes to the origin of the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment was created for black people who had been enslaved, who are now free. It was one of the reconstruction amendments, the 13th, 14th, and 15th, and the 14th declared birthright citizenship specifically for black people. So, this isn't just a Latino issue. This is an issue about who you go after when you're finished with the Latinos. Who do you --
AIDALA: Hold on.
JONES: After you do that. This is something that black people should be very concerned about.
AIDALA: Black people weren't running here, OK? They were taken here. There is a big difference between being pulled out of your continent into this continent and you deserve rights versus people who are coming into this country without obeying by the laws.
JONES: Why was the 14th Amendment created?
AIDALA: To help the people who were brought here against their will.
JONES: Right.
AIDALA: OK?
JONES: And who are those people?
AIDALA: These are the black people.
JONES: OK.
AIDALA: These are people who are coming here voluntarily --
JONES: That's why I'm making the point that I'm making.
AIDALA: -- against the law. They're -- Cristina, what you said about the system being broken --
JONES: Was it lawful to enslave black people?
AIDALA: -- nobody disagrees with you.
JIMENEZ: Yes, it's not -- look, all of us here benefit from immigrant labor.
ROSEN: I was just going to say --
JIMENEZ: If you just like came, took the train, you ordered delivery from a restaurant, or you had a nice meal at a restaurant, we all here depend on immigrant labor. And what he's talking about is going after families, going after workers and going after entire communities that will destroy not only families.
ROSEN: I think that there's a real need though to not -- to try and maybe this is where Democrats should be adding value and maybe aren't adding enough value, to really not just look at individuals but to look at what this country needs and where people are actually getting jobs and working because our country does depend on immigrant labor in all sorts of industries and that's something where, to be honest, Donald Trump cares about growth -- economic growth, as do Democrats and immigrant activists.
And so, you know, when Cristina says there needs to be a thoughtful conversation about this, the rhetoric needs to go away. You do need a thoughtful conversation.
JIMENEZ: You can't say we need immigrant labor and then have people here sustaining major parts of our economy and they say, oh, by the way, we don't want you. We're going to deport you. So, we really need to have a conversation.
JENNINGS: And we do use immigrant labor in this country and it's very important but you can't have a country without laws. And the political reality is that the American people believe the border is not secure. They believe the immigration system is a mess. They believe the politicians in Washington have failed.
And they believe this has gone on and on and on and a major reason he won the election is to clean it up and part of cleaning it up is saying, if you came here illegally and you don't obey our laws, we're not giving you special privileges anymore. That's the political bottom line.
ROSEN: Yes, but you know what? He didn't clean it up last term.
JONES: He didn't clean it up in his first term. Right.
ROSEN: It's not that easy.
JENNINGS: Where's the wall? Why did Joe Biden throw out all of his executive orders on day one that led to this crisis?
JIMENEZ: Did you call though a better job traumatizing over 5000 children, separating children from their families?
JENNINGS: How many children has this administration lost track of? Do you know? It's tens of thousands. Tens of thousands.
JIMENEZ: Yes, the Trump administration made it impossible to have any way to be able to reunite.
JIMENEZ: Where have you been the last four years, honestly? I mean, the Biden administration has done nothing but make this worse.
ROSEN: But nobody has done his job on this, Scott.
JENNINGS: The reality -- the political reaction to this in November was to go back to Trump because they believed he had it under control and could get it under control.
CORNISH: And Jennings, do you hear ending that birthright citizenship?
JENNINGS: This has been --
CORNISH: In that vote, I mean.
JENNINGS: This has been a long-standing argument of some on the right who are immigration hardliners. I assume it'll be litigated. To me, the most critical issues are border security, deport the criminals, people with deportation orders. That's where you got to start.
CORNISH: OK.
JENNINGS: And the DACA thing, which he said in the interview, is a violation.
ROSEN: If you limit it there, you'd probably be all right.
CORNISH: Well, this conversation will continue but I want to thank you all for spending your evening with us. There is more breaking news. Donald Trump's controversial pick to lead the Pentagon just spoke out against new accusations. You'll hear more about that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:59:37]
CORNISH: Breaking tonight, a preview of what a Pete Hegseth confirmation may look and sound like. The president-elect's choice to lead the Pentagon, making an appearance on Fox, and telling Sean Hannity that stories about his bad behavior, including allegations of a non-consensual sexual encounter with a former colleague, well, that they're all made up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETE HEGSETH, TRUMP DEFENSE SECRETARY NOMINEE: It was fully investigated at the time, years ago, and I was completely cleared.
[23:00:00]
And that's why, Sean, you know what I look forward to? I look forward to the FBI background check. I look forward to the actual under oath conversations with senators as we go through the process because again, this is what the left does, Sean. It's the anatomy of a smear.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: I want to thank you all for being with us for watching "NewsNight". You're now going to be treated to a special edition of "Laura Coates Live". That starts right now.
