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Gunman Leaves Notes Claiming He Wanted To Show How Easy It Was To Buy Gun With Mental Illness; GOP Leader Who Voted To Expel The "Tennessee Three" Suddenly Resigns; Sources: Possibility of Modifications To Firing Mechanism Of Gun Prompted Dismissal Of Charges Against Baldwin; A City In Japan Using ChatGPT To Help Run The Government. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired April 21, 2023 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:30:03]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Here's a look at this hour's top stories.

A major bomb strike in Russia carried out by Russia. You can see the explosion here. The Russian warplane dropped the bomb on the Russian city of Belgorod just 25 miles north of the border with Ukraine.

State media called this an accidental release. The region's governor says two people were injured.

And at any moment, the Supreme Court could hand down a major ruling on a widely used abortion pill. The justices have a self-imposed 11:59 p.m. deadline to decide if they will uphold an appeals court ruling that would severely restrict access to Mifepristone.

And court appearance today for this man, accused of shooting a 6-year- old girl and her parents after a basketball rolled into his yard.

Robert Singletary turned himself into Florida police about 500 miles from the scene of the shooting in Gastonia, North Carolina. A short time ago, he waived extradition and he will be returned to North Carolina.

Jim?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Well, onto another shooting. Law enforcement sources tell CNN the man who killed five people inside a Louisville bank left extensive notes about what he said were his motivations.

He claims he wanted to show how easy it is for someone in America with serious mental illness to just go out and buy a gun. We should note, under Kentucky state law, he was only required to fill out an ATF form and undergo a criminal records check.

CNN national security analyst, Juliette Kayyem, joins us now.

Juliette, you know, I don't want to advertise this person's own, you know, presentation of his reasons for this shooting. But particularly in states such as Kentucky, it is true, is it not. that it's fairly easy to get a weapon, well, under any circumstances, and even if you do have a record of mental health issues.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: That's exactly right. And he's correct. I mean, in the end, what he was telling the world before he started his shooting spree ended up being accurate.

And it's a -- it's a case in which his motives might be mixed. I mean, he might have said one thing in a note. There is an additional note. And it shows how difficult it is to know why exactly someone wakes up one day and becomes a mass murderer in a mass shooting.

This is a unique case. There's no criminal record we know of. The family didn't know that there was -- that there were guns.

And when the roommate discovers the note about what's about to happen, the roommate does the right thing, calls the mom. The mom does the right thing and immediately calls the police.

And here's where the weapon becomes relevant. She calls the police, he's already in the bank, and within one minute he kills five people. That's the timing that we know of.

So even the best interventions are just not fast enough at this stage.

SCIUTTO: And we should note that oftentimes in these shootings, there can be more -- more than one motivating factor or factor that led to this and sometimes suicide, right, death by cop as they call it. It's one of them.

But let's talk about Red Flag laws then. Obviously, the mother's call sadly came too late.

But had there been a Red Flag law in the state of Kentucky, where a family member or someone else could have said, hey, wait a second, this guy has problems. Can you see the circumstances where this could have been prevented? Obviously, you would need time in advance.

KAYYEM: Yes. Not all Red Flag laws are the same. But there are also -- some are quite broad. And interventions by family or coworkers will justify the inability -- well, at least to justify a court hearing.

Others are quite narrow and strict. It really does take, you know, sort of a spouse to come forward.

But let's assume that there is a broad one or at least a standard for the Red Flag laws. In that instance, the mother, who clearly had longstanding concerns about her son, and he was in I think some sort of therapy, could have asserted the Red Flag law to ensure that he appeared on a list.

And that when he went through a security clearance or a gun -- a gun check, even for this weapon, he would have been flagged. So Red Flag laws do work.

And you raise, you know a great point, Jim, in terms of, you know, are we -- as anything as -- that the cure all and the answer is no, right? So you could have Red Flag laws, but someone gets out of them or a family member doesn't come forward or -- or whatever it is.

But where we are now, with the number of guns we have on the streets, and then this particular type of gun, the A.R.-15, is you just want to have a number of ways to avoid the mass shooting incident. So you do call it layered defenses.

So I'm not -- letting people who are talking now about gun control, I'm talking about like a single solution. It's just multiple ones. And a Red Flag one, are -- they're proving themselves very, very effective in other jurisdictions.

SCIUTTO: Well, let's be frank, that this one reason you have that sort of -- sort of you will hear that refrain oftentimes after this -- after events like this by gun advocates to say, well, that one particular law would not have prevented this one.

[13:35:02]

But you're someone who worked at DHS, right? You speak about layered defense. This country has layered defense for --

KAYYEM: Yes.

SCIUTTO: -- to prevent terror attacks, right, that they have checks for folks who get on airplanes and they try to track bombs, for instance.

I'm just saying, from a Homeland Security perspective, given gun violence is a threat to Homeland Security, are you saying you need multiple solutions, defenses?

KAYYEM: Yes. I mean -- it's just -- it's the same way to think about it. You wouldn't have all the terminology that I use on air all the time. You wouldn't have a single point of failure, right?

I mean, in other words, I wouldn't -- I wouldn't allow all passengers on a plane and then just hope no one gets through the cockpit door. You have multiple layers of security.

The same has to be true for the kind of culture that we're in right now, which is you want you want defense, which is where we tend to focus a lot, armed guards in schools, arming others so that they can protect themselves or metal detectors. That's defense.

But you also want to be in a position in which you are making it harder for one individual to kill lots of people before there can be a law enforcement intervention.

And we are denying both the public that ability to run or hide or protect themselves and, of course, law enforcement the ability to stop this from happening.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

KAYYEM: As you remember, this is the -- this was a terrific response. But within one minute, five people are dead.

And just think of-

SCIUTTO: Yes.

KAYYEM: I think about that all the time that you think of each of those individuals, you know, like one minute? That's all it took.

SCIUTTO: We've seen that so many times with a gun, particularly you could fire that quickly, semiautomatic with that sort of damage with each round. You could do a lot in seconds.

Juliette Kayyem, thanks so much.

Boris?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: A Tennessee Republican who voted to expel two black lawmakers calls it quits. The accusations of inappropriate behavior he's facing next.

Plus, new details about the gun used in the "Rust" movie shooting and why they led prosecutors to drop charges against Alec Baldwin. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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[13:41:31]

SANCHEZ: Now to some of the other headlines were watching this hour.

A sixth person has been arrested in last Saturday's deadly shooting at a Sweet 16 birthday party in Alabama. Four that are facing murder charges are teenagers.

Authorities have not yet revealed a motive for the rampage, which killed four people and injured 32 others. We should note more charges are expected.

Also at least three men who participated in the 2017 white nationalist demonstration in Charlottesville, Virginia, have been indicted by a grand jury and are now facing felony criminal charges.

They're accused of carrying those burning tiki torches with the intent to intimidate as they marched through the campus of the University of Virginia, shouting racist slogans. The charges carry a maximum of five years in prison.

And a Texas woman who is now an Italian princess has been booted from her historic Roman villa. A judge ordering the sale of the villa, which features an original Caravaggio ceiling painting and a recently unearthed Michelangelo statue.

The princess lost her royal digs after she and her stepchildren fought over the estate of her late husband.

Jim? SCIUTTO: Goodness.

Well, a Republican leader in the Tennessee House of Representatives, who voted just last month to expel three of his Democratic colleagues for protesting against gun violence, has himself now resigned from office.

State Representatives Scotty Campbell, who served as vice chair of the House Republican Caucus there, resigned from his seat in a sudden move Thursday after an ethics panel found that he violated the General Assembly policy on workplace harassment.

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SCOTTY CAMPBELL, (R), FORMER TENNESSEE STATE REPRESENTATIVE: I did not know that a workplace policy could be enforced when you're not at work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: CNN's Ryan Young has been following these developments for us.

So, Ryan, what exact workplace policy did he or is he accused of violating here?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, this all comes down to conversations that he apparently had with interns off the property of the state capital.

There's a lot of conversation about this. In fact, the complaint was originally made March 29th of 2023. So you can see how quickly this ethics violation went through the process, and it did this investigation.

And of course, there are so many eyeballs on the Tennessee State House. You got to think about the fact of how much power this man had, as he was pushing forward the expulsion of those three members.

But all along behind the scenes he was saying he had to consensual conversation as an adult. Apparently. at least one of those ladies did not feel that way. They reported to the committee. They did this investigation.

Some of this coming to light because of the great work of WTVF -- it's an affiliate of ours -- Phil Williams tracking down this lawmaker outside yesterday.

Take a listen to this exchange as he tried to go to work.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAMPBELL: They broke the House rules of decorum.

PHIL WILLIAMS, REPORTER, WTVF: And you broke the House policies regarding sexual harassment. According to this letter. CAMPBELL: I had a consensual conversation with adults. And when the

adults informed me that we could talk and that there weren't guardrails, I talked to who I thought were my friends.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: Yes, Jim, after that conversation, a few hours later, he simply said this simple resignation letter. It's one line, basically saying that he resigned at 2:18 from his House seat. A lot of questions about exactly what's going on there.

I can tell you the details in this report and what the women alleging the words that he was using with these women off campus obviously were something of a concern.

[13:45:03]

Now we'll show you what the Ethics Committee actually said. They are obviously "making sure that everyone who's involved in the State House ethically is treated."

So this is, "The Ethics Committee is committed to protecting members, employees and visitors by providing an environment free of discrimination, harassment or retaliation."

So, Jim, with all the eyeballs on this state, and all the things that are going on, you have three members go down and try to protest gun violence, all the while, the second in command there was facing this ethics violation.

And now you've seen he's dropped out and basically resigned as of yesterday after this was reported on the air -- Jim?

SCIUTTO: To your point, he had a senior role in Republican leadership there.

Ryan Young, thanks so much for covering it.

Brianna?

KEILAR: Jim, we're learning what is leading prosecutors in New Mexico to drop these manslaughter charges against Alec Baldwin. Sources telling CNN it may be due to modifications to the firing mechanism in that prop gun that he was holding.

You can actually see a gun here that is similar to the gun used on the set of "Rust" in 2021, that fired that bullet that killed cinematographer, Helena Hutchins.

CNN's Chloe Melas is joining us now.

Chloe, what more are you learning here about why prosecutors dropped the charges?

CHLOE MELAS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: Look, this was a very significant development, Brianna, that I think caught most people off guard.

Meanwhile, Alec Baldwin, he's back filming "Rust." When the news broke, he was in Montana, where he will be for the next few weeks, finishing "Rust." Ironically, all happening on the same day.

We know that the district attorney in New Mexico got new information about a modification to the gun. But the big question is, who modified this gun?

And now that charges are being dismissed on Alec Baldwin, pending further investigation by the D.A., could potential other charges be brought against someone who they might think might have, you know, modified this gun?

You know, I have spoken to Alec Baldwin's legal team. The lawyer releasing a statement praising the DEA yesterday. Alec Baldwin, taking to social media to thank his wife and his attorney, specifically Luke Nikas.

But this comes after many significant legal victories for Alec Baldwin's team. And the first was reducing these charges, Brianna, which was removing the firearm enhancement charge, going from potentially facing five years in prison to 18 months.

Look, there's a status hearing on this in just about two hours, and so we are going to be watching. It's open to the public. And we will see if the D.A. says anything more about what they're learning and why these charges are being dismissed.

KEILAR: All right. We'll see what happens at that status hearing.

Chloe, thank you for the very latest on that.

Boris?

SANCHEZ: So we know ChatGPT can do a lot of things. But can artificial intelligence run a real government? One city in Japan is about to find out. That's next on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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[13:52:33]

SANCHEZ: Would you trust a bot to run your local government? As Japan continues to face rapid population decline, a municipal government in Yokosuka City is now using the artificial intelligence platform ChatGPT to help with the agencies' municipal tasks.

CNN's Jon Sarlin has been following this story for us today.

Jon, I'm going to keep you away from my terrible Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonation and spare our viewers as well. Brianna's, I promise you, is way better.

But isn't this how "The Terminator" starts?

JON SARLIN, CNN HOST, "NIGHTCAP": Well, Boris, I mean, they said they'd be back. So maybe it's like this. I don't know.

(LAUGHTER)

SARLIN: ChatGPT is an LLM, a large language model. Right? Basically it's auto complete on steroids, the world's most advanced chatbots.

It can do things like spit out thousands of words of text in seconds. It can take those that same text and mix it around. It can spit out your college thesis and put it into a -- as a Shakespearean sonnet.

What are the things that people are using it for? People are using it to write college-level essays. It passed the bar. People are using it to write business emails and memos.

And even wedding vows. Although I don't know how long you might stay married, if your spouse finds out that you were using it to write your vows.

But one of the big concerns with ChatGPT is that it just doesn't exactly tell the truth. ChatGPT infamously hallucinates fact. So you can be using it and it can spit something out that is completely false. A fact, a quote, a dat.

So in those thousands of words that it can spit out in seconds, there can be huge whoppers, huge lies hidden within it. That can be a huge liability if you are not fact-checking every single thing that comes out of it.

SANCHEZ: I would pay to watch it hallucinate wedding vows. That would be something to watch.

So what duties is this city in Japan actually having ChatGPT carry out?

SARLIN: So that is a great question. Yokosuka City is in Japan and has around 400,000 people. And it announced that it is going to be using ChatGPT within its government.

The reason, a spokesperson told CNN, is because of Japan's population crisis. They don't have enough people to staff government jobs, and they think ChatGPT might be able to fill in the gaps.

Now what will it actually be doing? That is the big question. And to be fair, it's a bit vague. They said they're going to use it to summarize sentences, to check spelling errors and to create ideas.

[13:55:07]

I mean, some of that has already existed. Right? Spell Check is a thing that's existed for a long time. But create ideas. We don't exactly know what that means.

They also told us in the press release that will be used for rote administrative tasks to free up workers to do tasks that only humans can do. And it's interesting to contextualize this with a country, with Italy.

Italy earlier this month banned ChatGPT. It's a temporary ban that's currently in effect. The reason? Privacy concerns.

SANCHEZ: Fascinating.

Jon Sarlin, thank you so much for that report.

Brianna?

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: So at any moment here, we could get a decision from the Supreme Court in this fight over the abortion pill. Today's deadline and what happens next, coming up? This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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