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Cheerleaders Shot in Texas; Suspects Arrested in Alabama Shooting; Pentagon Leak Suspect Back in Court; Supreme Court Abortion Deadline; Supersonic Chinese Spy Drone. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired April 19, 2023 - 13:00   ET

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

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ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS, U.S. SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: Every day, day and night to increase its security.

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JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Today, markup starts on a resolution to nullify a Biden administration run rule weeks after that markup was initially scheduled, then delayed because of a mass shooting.

The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee plans to roll back an ATF rule that would reclassify pistols with stabilizing braces as short- barreled rifles.

Appreciate your time today on INSIDE POLITICS. We will see you tomorrow.

"CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Supersonic spy drone. China is preparing cutting-edge technology that could give Beijing an espionage edge over the U.S. This new discovery comes from classified documents leaked online, reported in "The Washington Post."

Lawmakers have plenty of questions, understandably. And we will get a briefing from intelligence officials just hours from now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Midnight deadline. The Supreme Court up against the clock to decide whether to take up a controversial case on medication abortion. This could set the stage for the biggest abortion rights case since the court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, with the future of a commonly used abortion pill at stake.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: And an innocent mistake leading to two cheerleaders being shot after one of them confused someone else's car for her own. One of those victims is now in critical condition.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SCIUTTO: Today, 21-year-old suspected Pentagon leaker Jack Teixeira was back in court to waive his right to a preliminary hearing.

Meanwhile, inside the Pentagon, the Air Force unit where he was assigned has now been stripped of the intelligence duties it had, as an internal probe ramps up. A short time from now, all members of the House and Senate will be briefed on the extent of the classified leak.

And it reportedly has yielded another alarming detail about China. According to "The Washington Post," one Pentagon assessment shows Beijing is about to unveil a high-tech spy drone unit -- have a look at that right there -- that would give it surveillance program potentially a significant boost.

CNN's Oren Liebermann, he's at the Pentagon.

Oren, as we know, the Pentagon still trying to come to terms with the extent to this on a whole host of national security threats. Tell us what specifically we're learning about this spy drone.

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Jim, we have seen this supersonic spy drone before in the image we just saw right there, the WZ-8 spy drone, that picture from back in 2019, when China showed it off at a parade.

But, at the time, it wasn't believed to be operational. It was a sort of prototype or a mockup. But, according to "The Washington Post," in these leaked documents we're seeing come from the Pentagon, documents that CNN has not been able to obtain or verify, that program has come a long way, this WZ-8 eight surveillance spy drone part of what the U.S. believes is part of a Chinese surveillance drone unit that's based inland from Shanghai.

Take a look at the capabilities of this drone. Travels at Mach 3-plus, or more than three times the speed of sound, at an altitude of 100,000 feet, so far higher than commercial aircraft. And because of that, because of its speed and its altitude, it's difficult to detect or to intercept, making it another potential addition to what we have seen in terms of China's spy capabilities.

And, of course, nobody here forgets the Chinese spy balloon that traveled over much of the United States. What's interesting here is, the U.S. has seen this in a bit of a role reversal, if you will. The U.S. had its own super -- supersonic spy drone back in the '60s that -- called the D-21. It was specifically to spy over China.

It conducted four unsuccessful missions back in the late '60s, early '70s time frame before that program was canceled. Jim, it looks like the Chinese have very different intentions and much broader intentions, which would allow them to spy on, for example, Taiwan and parts of South Korea.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Frankly, those two planes look a lot like, interestingly.

LIEBERMANN: They do.

SCIUTTO: All right, the fact that Teixeira's unit now has been removed, at least temporarily, from its intelligence duties, is that a standard step when the Pentagon is doing a damage assessment here, in effect, to have that unit removed?

Or does it signal that this is worse than we knew?

LIEBERMANN: Well, it certainly signals that the Air Force is taking this very seriously.

Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall removing the 102nd Intelligence Wing's mission from them. They will no longer, at least temporarily, collect and put together data for combatant commanders and other senior leaders. Other wings will do that, as the Air Force investigates.

Other steps the Air Force is taking, take a look at this list. Within the next 30 days, all of the Air Force will do a stand-down or essentially a review of security procedures and how to how handled classified documents. They will also reassess security procedures security procedures around classified documents and the handling of sensitive information.

[13:05:97]

Finally, everyone who has access to this will be validated for their need-to-know basis -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Oren Liebermann, good to have you at the Pentagon.

As I mentioned a short time ago, every member of Congress will be briefed on the Pentagon leak this afternoon

CNN's Manu Raju is on Capitol Hill.

Manu, of course, so this is not the committee that is cleared for this level of intelligence, but broader, probably a bit more of a general briefing on the extent. But what are you hearing from lawmakers in advance of this briefing?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there is a lot of concern.

And they do want to learn more information from senior administration officials, led by the director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, who will be in the Senate this afternoon and then in the House with a number of other national security officials detailing the extent of this leak and how exactly a 21-year-old Air National airman from the Massachusetts Air National Guard had access to this classified information.

And in talking to senior members in both parties, there is ample concern about how he got this information and what Congress should do to prevent this from happening again.

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SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): To me, the classification of the documents ought to be reserved for the very most exceptional national security risks and not as broadly as it is now.

But, as we have seen with classified materials being at President Trump's home, at President (sic) Pence's office and at the -- President Biden's residence, they're -- people are not taking care of classified materials the way they should.

SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): How in the heck was there not some system in place that said, if this guy was copying this many documents, why wasn't there an alarm going off, especially with the security classification?

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RAJU: And that second senator there was Senator Mark Warner, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, who also indicated that he is still pushing to get all the access to the classified records that were at the homes of Joe Biden and Donald Trump and Mike Pence.

He's expecting another tranche of documents as soon as today, as Congress grapples with this issue, why all these classified documents appear to be leaking, appeared to be in the wrong places, including this major leak that happened, and deciding what they need to do next -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Yes. And Senator Warner as such a key question there, which is why no tracking of this? Because the guy was printing it -- printing it out and then sharing it.

Manu Raju on the Hill, thanks so much -- Boris, over to you.

SANCHEZ: Yes, one of many unanswered questions at this point, Jim.

Let's dig deeper now on the case against Jack Teixeira with Bradley Moss. He's an attorney who specializes in litigation related to national security and security clearance law. He's also a law partner at the offices of Mark S. Zaid.

Bradley, thank you so much for taking time to chat with us today.

BRADLEY MOSS, NATIONAL SECURITY LAWYER: Absolutely.

SANCHEZ: So, there was a delay, the defense asking for the trial to be set back about two weeks, the prosecution supporting that decision.

Did that surprise you?

MOSS: Not really.

Look, there's only so much to do right now, at the beginning, for this. This would have been a very preliminary hearing, if anything, would have been talking about bail, which I don't see happening.

He has got a public defender. What they are most likely doing, given the evidence we have seen both in the indictment and the media reporting, they're likely talking about a plea deal. They're trying to see if there's a viable path to negotiate something by which this guy gets maybe 10 to 12 years in prison, outlines the entirety of what he did, so the government, from an intelligence standpoint, can make sure to close up any gaps in its systems, and that he can go forward with his life once he gets out.

SANCHEZ: Because it's hard to imagine what a defense might look like, right, because the evidence there, there's a clear trail back to him.

MOSS: Yes, the evidence -- the defense is simply going to be poking holes in the government's case, if this went to trial, because it would be the government's burden, obviously, to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that he had, in fact, done this, that he had the access, that he took the documents, that he posted it on Discord.

They likely could do so. But it would be a little complicated for them, because there'd be issues of classified access. There's classified -- there's a statute called the Classified Information Procedures Act that would come into play, any number of complicating factors.

So, if the government can plea this out with him, and they get what they need from purposes of a punishment standpoint, they will be happy with that.

SANCHEZ: Now, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby was here in CNN NEWS CENTRAL yesterday, and he spoke with my colleague Jim Sciutto.

He acknowledged that some of the classified documents appear to have been manipulated, and that some of them had information that was false. Could that lessen the severity of the charges that Teixeira is facing?

MOSS: It won't lessen the severity, but it's a reason for him to look into a plea deal, because if he can then debrief the government on all the documents he knows he took, and they can start to track down which ones were authentic that are out there that are being viewed all over the media and which ones were manipulated, they can clarify for their own damage assessment what actually got leaked out, where did we have holes in our security protocols, and what is the extent of the damage to U.S. national security?

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SANCHEZ: I'm curious about something that Oren talked about, and that is that his unit was essentially stripped of its intelligence mission.

Does that imply to you that other people may be facing potential charges, perhaps supervisors in an oversight role that kind of let him get away with this?

MOSS: Well, I think, at a minimum, that was a required short-term thing. You had this massive breach, huge breakdown of security protocols. They had to stop it, everything there, to start doing an initial review.

Whether or not security messed up, why he was able to hand-transcribe some of this stuff, and no one noticed, that's, at a minimum, going to possibly result in personnel actions. I don't necessarily know about criminal charges, but they have got to do a review for that.

SANCHEZ: Yes, a story we will continue to watch.

Bradley, thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us.

MOSS: Absolutely. Any time.

SANCHEZ: Yes -- Brianna.

KEILAR: The clock is ticking on a seismic medical abortion case. Any moment now, the Supreme Court could decide whether women can have full access to the widely used abortion pill mifepristone.

It's the first drug in a two-pill regimen used to terminate pregnancies, and it's used in more than half of abortions. It's also frequently prescribed to treat miscarriages. The FDA approved this back in 2000. And, about two weeks ago, a federal judge in Texas who was appointed by President Trump ruled the agency violated the law in how it went about approving it.

An appeals court then ruled that women could still have access to the drug, but imposed significant restrictions. Last week, Justice Samuel Alito put a temporary hold on that decision to give the court more time to review the case. The hold paused restrictions on the pill, but it expires at 11:59 tonight.

And at stake here is what kind of access women will have to this drug, including in states where abortion is legal, those colored in purple on this map here.

We have CNN's Jessica Schneider with us on this story.

Walk us, Jess, through the options that the High Court has.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, all eyes are on the Supreme Court, because we are less than 12 hours until they have to make this decision.

So there are a number of things that the Supreme Court could do here. I will give you the two most probable options. They could extend this stay for a few days, for weeks. And what that would do is, that would pause the lower court's ruling while this appeals process stays out.

If that happens, it remains status quo, meaning there would be no restrictions on the abortion pill, women could get it as usual. However, if they do nothing here, if they don't move to extend the stay, that would mean big changes in the way the pill is administered.

So, I will run down for you what would happen. First of all, women over seven weeks' pregnant, they would not be able to get this pill. Right now, it's available up to 10 weeks. If the restrictions go into effect, it would stop at seven weeks.

In addition, women would have to really go more in person to their doctor. Right now, they can get this prescribed via telehealth. They can get it in the mail. If these restrictions take effect, all of that would go away. It would no longer be available by the mail.

So, the FDA in their filings to the Supreme Court saying, let this hold on the lower court ruling remain. They're really warning about mass confusion, about chaos with doctors, patients, just the drug industry as a whole, because they're not even sure how they would implement these changes, let alone overnight.

So there's a lot at stake here in the hours that are ticking down to midnight, Brianna.

KEILAR: Has the court, have the justices given any hints as to what direction they may go here?

SCHNEIDER: So, when we heard on this initial stay, it was solely from Justice -- conservative Justice Samuel Alito. He oversees the Fifth Circuit.

So the question is, if they do another short administrative stay, it's possible it could come from Justice Alito himself. The question is, are more justices writing about this, dissenting? What's happening behind the scenes? That's something that's unclear.

However, in past opinions, many of the conservative justices have talked about deference to the FDA because of their scientific knowledge in things just like this, in medication. So it's very possible that this court will still keep on hold all of these restrictions while it plays out at the lower courts.

The big question might be, does the Supreme Court step in right away and decide to hear this case in the next few weeks, possibly issuing a decision on this broader case before July 1? We will see.

KEILAR: We will see. We will be looking for that.

Jessica Schneider, thank you so much -- Jim, much more ahead.

SCIUTTO: No question.

Two teenagers arrested for a mass shooting at a sweet 16 party that you will remember left four people dead. We're going to be live in Alabama with the latest.

Plus, for the third time this week, young people have gotten shot just for making a mistake. A man in Texas is under arrest for shooting two cheerleaders after one of them opened the door to a car she just thought was hers.

And, later, FOX News is paying out nearly $800 million to settle a massive defamation lawsuit, but the network's legal battles, they're not over yet. We're going to discuss just ahead on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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[13:19:17] SCIUTTO: Well, police say they have now arrested two teen suspects in the sweet 16 birthday party shooting that left these four young people dead.

Let's look at their smiles. It's always hard to see that. Dozens others were injured, this in Dadeville, Alabama.

The suspects are 17-year-old Ty Reik McCullough and 16-year-old Travis McCullough, both from Tuskegee, Alabama. They now face four counts each of reckless murder.

CNN's Ryan Young, he's on the scene in Alabama.

There was some time before they got suspects. They now have suspects. Tell us what the reaction has been in the community there and what continuing frustrations are.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there are real frustrations here in the community, Jim, because people want to know what the motive is.

[13:20:02]

As reporters, we want to know what the motive could be. But, right now, police are saying, that's a part of their investigation they're just not willing to share right now. In fact, they're not even willing to give us the warrant or tell us where they're being housed.

What we have been told, though, is that more charges could be coming, because, obviously, when you have 32 other people who were injured in the shooting, more charges could be coming. Four more people are still in critical condition. So this case could change.

We're told both young men will be charged as an adult. But you want to know why someone would show up to a sweet 16 party with handguns and open fire, especially when they don't live in this community. This is a small community, about less than 3,000 people. I believe they only have like 12 officers on the police force here.

So you can understand the pain that's rippling through this community, as they ask questions about exactly what happened. The police chief sort of addressed the idea of why they're being so strict on this case just a few moments ago.

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JONATHAN FLOYD, DADEVILLE, ALABAMA, POLICE CHIEF: This case is not just about making an arrest. That is not the finish line.

If we hurry, if we're careless, and we do make an arrest, but it does not result in conviction, it does not result in ultimate justice for our victims, we have failed our victims.

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YOUNG: Jim, I want to stress how much compassion there was at this news conference. They even shut down the street around this courthouse, so that everyone who wanted to walk up to this news conference could listen to this debriefing about exactly what happened.

These two young men don't live in this community. So there are so many questions about exactly where they were. We know they were taken into custody around 8:00 last night. But in terms of whether or not mug shots will be released, when they will have their first court appearance, what they figured out and who maybe called police to tell them that these two were the suspects, we have none of that information right now.

We do know they're still gathering video evidence at this point. They are asking the public, if they have a cell phone video, to send it into them because they're trying to close this case and nail the suspects and figure out what this motive is -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Ryan Young there in Dadeville, Alabama.

You know, Boris, one commonality, things -- it's not always clear what the motive is, right? We search for them every time, but, sometimes, you just don't know or can't explain it.

SANCHEZ: Yes, definitely a good point.

And we have another shooting to tell you about, this one in Texas, where a suspect is now charged for allegedly opening fire on a car full of cheerleaders, two of them teenagers that were injured. One of them is Payton Washington. She's now in critical condition. It happened after one of the girls in their group mistakenly tried to get into the suspect's car in a parking lot after their practice.

CNN's Ed Lavandera joins us now live from Texas.

And, Ed, we learned in the last hour that this suspect is someone that police were familiar with.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we just -- we don't know many details about that.

But in an affidavit court document that we obtained earlier today shows that Elgin police are saying that they had some sort of previous contact with this suspect. We don't know much more beyond that at this point. We're continuing to look into it.

But this comes just a day after the suspect, 25-year-old Pedro Tello Rodriguez Jr., 25 years old, opened fire in the parking lot of a grocery store in the town of Elgin, Texas, just outside of Austin.

And these four cheerleaders had been commuting back and forth from the Austin area to the Houston area to practice with their cheerleading squad. They were preparing for a huge competition this weekend. They arrived at this parking lot just after midnight Tuesday morning. And they started getting into their own cars.

One of the girls mistakenly got into a car that she believed was hers, when she noticed a passenger. And then, according to that young woman, they -- she got back in the other car, and that man came around the side of the car, and then quickly opened fire on them.

And there were several, but two of them were struck as the car was driving away to get away from the gunman. One of those young women who was treated at the scene and release, she was grazed by the bullet on her leg, spoke to her cheerleading team last night in an emotional speech.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As I'm backing up, I see the guy get out of the passenger door. And I roll my window down. And I was trying to apologize to him.

And then he -- I just -- halfway my window was down, he just threw his hands up, and then he pulled out a gun. And then he just started shooting at all of us.

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LAVANDERA: And we were told that Elgin police say that they will have an update on this case here within the next couple of hours.

So, we are awaiting that. As we mentioned, the suspect, 25-year-old Pedro Tello Rodriguez, remains in jail there in the Elgin area.

SANCHEZ: And, Ed, tell us about the status of Payton Washington, the cheerleader that was in critical condition. How is she doing?

[13:25:04]

LAVANDERA: She is in critical condition.

But we just spoke with the manager of their cheerleading squad, who said she's actually alert. She had a ventilator removed. This woman is -- young woman is an incredible story. She's actually had been -- is committed to perform -- to cheer and be part of the tumbling and acrobatic squad at Baylor next year.

And she's done this despite having been born with just one lung. So there was a great deal of concern when she was being treated about any possible damage to her lung. But that appears to be fine. We are told that she's alert. She's actually been FaceTiming with some of her teammates. She has had a -- her spleen removed. And there's some other internal injuries, so not out of the wood yet -- woods yet.

But I think people around her are starting to feel a little bit more hopeful.

SANCHEZ: Signs of progress. We certainly hope she continues to improve.

Ed Lavandera from Texas, thank you so much -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Boris, the family of Tyre Nichols is suing the city of Memphis after his deadly beating at the hands of police. A member of the Memphis City Council will be joining us next.

Plus, he was the CFO of the Trump Organization and spent 100 days at Rikers, but, today, he's set to be a free man.

We have details ahead on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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