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Worth Morgan is Interviewed about the Memphis Shooting; New Poll on Presidential Race; Twitter Sues Hate-Speech Watchdog; U.S. Advances in World Cup. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired August 01, 2023 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Issues working with the White House to accomplish those. So, there's no doubt that Republicans are going to continue to investigate Joe Biden through his son Hunter. I don't think the cooperation the White House is demanding there is, you know, in the near future.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Zachary Cohen, always great to have you on. Thank you so much for your meticulous reporting on this.

Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Right now, authorities are trying to figure out why a suspect opened fire at a Jewish day school in Memphis. According to police, the accused gunman fired shots outside the school yesterday after he tried, but failed, to get inside. No one was at the -- no one at the school, though, was injured.

Police later tracked down the suspect, who had left the scene in his own vehicle. When they stopped him, they say he got out with a gun in his hand. Authorities say an officer then shot the suspect, critically wounding him. Police have not yet identified the suspect by name, but a security official says he is also Jewish.

Joining me now is Memphis Councilman Worth Morgan.

Thank you so much for being here.

Councilman, we rarely get to talk about what went right during one of these school shootings where nobody was injured. Can you tell us what you know about exactly what happened and how this shooting went down?

WORTH MORGAN, MEMPHIS CITY COUNCILMAN: Yes. So, as you reported, this is a former student of the school. This is an orthodox Jewish school in Memphis in my district. And this is an individual in his early 30s. And I think it's a clear case of this is a - this is a young man that needed help instead of a gun.

I think the school did a great job with their protocols. The Memphis Police Department did a great job in tracking him down and stopping him once it escalated to, you know, the violent incident that it was and prevented it from going further. And that ultimately this is somebody that needed help. And they had a fixation on their previous school.

SIDNER: Councilman, you talked about the suspect needing help. I am assuming you're talking about he may have been suffering with mental illness. How do you feel about red flag laws? Tennessee does not currently have one, but those would stop someone with known mental illness from being able to obtain a gun.

MORGAN: Great. And I think that's going to be the discussion we have in the days to come. You know, is -- what are the systems that we could put in place to prevent something like this. And Governor Bill Lee has called a special session of the Tennessee legislature in three weeks, August 21st, to discuss red flag laws, they're called in some states. What they're going to try to introduce here in Tennessee is extreme risk protection orders, which are very similar, which simply says that if an individual has demonstrated that they are a risk -- they're going to use a gun and that they are a risk to the community, that evidence needs to be presented in front of a judge. And then that judge can conditionally remove the gun from the individual until they get the help that they need.

And the name of this - of the shooter, as you say, has not been released publicly, but it's known to those in the community. The picture has been. And I went on their social media last night and I can - you know, I can tell you that they were very open -- the gunman was, just in the last week, about their struggles with mental health. And that they were, you know, posting about their - their high school experience, that is easy for them to become triggered. And then even three days ago they were posting about a gun store nearby Memphis and their interaction with it.

So, there were clearly signs. The friends and the family are on the front lines when dealing with people that are potentially violent with mental health. The government needs to come alongside the friends and family and give them a system to be able to, you know, step up, raise their hand and say, hey, this person may be a threat to themselves or others. We need to intervene and have the government intervene. And red flag laws or extreme risk protection orders allow for that system to be put in place for these people to get help and to protect the community.

SIDNER: Is this something, Councilman, that you will push for locally or do you see this being something that the state will take on because, you know, there are several states that do have red flag laws, but Tennessee is certainly not one of them.

MORGAN: Yes, and look, I'm a conservative Republican that understands and deeply believes in the need for the Second Amendment. But this is something I'll be pushing the local Tennessee legislators, that this -- this is something that we need. It's some - it is their job to sit down, to figure out the language, because the language is unbelievably important to make sure that it's both effective and constitutional.

And then, yes, we need this in Tennessee. So, I'd be urging all of my Republican colleagues on the Tennessee legislature to get to work this month and to figure out how incidents like this and the covenant school shooting in Nashville this past March could be prevented. Rarely - I'd say more often than not the government is response - you know, responds as an entity when it comes to public safety through our police force. This is something we can do to be preventive and to help save lives on the front end.

[09:35:01]

SIDNER: Are you hearing some of the same sentiments from your constituents? What are you hearing from the community members about the potential of a red flag law and, you know, about this incident itself?

MORGAN: Yes, you know, I don't think this is a battleground issue that it's been made out to be so often. This is more -- from my opinion, this is more of a common ground issue that most people, including Republicans, understand that somebody who, again, has demonstrated to be a risk and using a gun to commit a crime against, what, others or even a danger to themselves, they don't need to have that gun. I think that is something that people would generally agree on. And more of the disagreement, what needs to be worked out in legislation is, how does the government intervene? What is that mechanism in order to remove the gun and what is the path that individual, if they get help, in order to receive their Second Amendment right back? That's the debate. But we -- and that's the duty of the legislature to work through that issue, but it can and should be done.

SIDNER: Councilman Morgan, thank you so much for sharing that with us. And we'll be watching to see what happens there in your state and in your city. Appreciate you.

MORGAN: Thank you so much.

SIDNER: John.

BERMAN: Brand-new polling shows President Biden and Donald Trump neck and neck in a possible rematch. What's underneath the numbers, truly interesting. Much more ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:40:53]

SIDNER: All right, a new poll this morning shows that more Democrats support President Joe Biden's renomination than they did last year. According to the most recent "New York Times"/Siena College poll, 45 percent of Democrats think Biden should be nominated again. That's compared to only a quarter of those within his own party just last summer.

BERMAN: But also in this poll -- but and --

SIDNER: And but.

BERMAN: And but in this poll, look at this, it is a dead heat right now between President Biden and Donald Trump in a rematch. That key number there is the 14 percent other. The 14 percent. The double haters. The people who don't like either candidate. With us now, CNN political commentator Ana Navarro.

Nice to see you.

ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Nice to see you.

BERMAN: Dead heat. Surprising to you?

NAVARRO: Actually, yes. A little bit considering that Donald Trump is under two indictments currently. Possibly a third. Possibly a fourth before this month is over. And that, you know, that people are still supporting him that way. Yes, it's surprising to me.

But, look, I have been that 14 percent in the past where I didn't like either candidate. It happened to me for governor of Florida. It happened to me in 2016. And the bottom line is, that as you get closer, as the election inches closer -

SIDNER: Yes.

NAVARRO: The reality dawns on you that it is a binary choice and that throwing away your vote is a very stupid thing to do. And so I think more and more people are going to go back to supporting Joe Biden. The trend is pretty good for him from where it was a year ago. He's doubled his support.

BERMAN: Among Democrats.

NAVARRO: Among Democrats.

SIDNER: Among Democrats.

BERMAN: Yes, but those are people who should have liked him all along in theory.

NAVARRO: Yes, but, you know, I -- as a Republican I've learned, Democrats really like to fret. They really like to clutch their pearls. They really like to, you know, just - I mean, fidget. And, you know, they want - and Joe Biden says something that I think he's going to -- you're going to hear him say over and over again. He always says, don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative. The alternative is indicted. The alternative had a four-year crime spree in the presidency, that didn't even stop after he left the presidency. So, I think that alternative is going to help Joe Biden a lot.

SIDNER: Let's talk about Hunter Biden. His business partner testifying in front of GOP lawmakers on The Hill yesterday and saying - and the word he used was he was peddling the illusion of access to putting -- to Joe Biden, putting his father on the phone, but Joe Biden never did any sort of business deal. It was like, hello, blah, blah, blah. Is this a crime to you? Like, politically it seems to be working with Republicans, but the illusion of access doesn't sound criminal.

NAVARRO: Well, if we're going to talk about the illusion of access or actual access, I'd like to start talking about the $2 billion that Jared Kushner got from the Saudis. And I'd like to start talking about all the benefit that Ivanka Trump got while being a senior adviser in the White House, as did Jared Kushner. So, I think -- you know, I think it's a - it's a legitimate topic. I think we need to talk about family members who benefit from their parents, their spouses, their siblings in positions of power.

But the people who start -- who need to start looking at it also include Congress because, listen, if we identified every spouse, every sibling, every useless child who gets a job because their father was a senator, or a governor, the list would be long. I know a few of them.

BERMAN: Ana, I want to go back now to Republican primary politics. And this may be one of the few times I say this. Do you know who agrees with your theory that an indicted former president would not make a good general election candidate? It's your governor, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who I think in more stringent terms than he has spoken to date is now going after the Republican frontrunner, Donald Trump.

Listen.

[09:45:01]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: You don't believe that former President Trump could win a general election against Joe Biden?

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL) AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't think so because I think that there's too many voters who just aren't going to vote for him going forward.

The polls that come out that put -- I beat Biden in Georgia. Trump doesn't. I beat Biden soundly in Arizona. Trump doesn't. Those are just the realities.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Like I said, this is probably the most strident he's been. Is this the winning message for Ron DeSantis in a Republican primary?

NAVARRO: At this point I don't even know what the winning message for Ron DeSantis is because I, you know, I keep hearing all of this rebooting happening of his campaign. He's blaming the campaign. He's getting beat by 37 points in that same poll -- and we saw those numbers yesterday -- by Donald Trump. So, he's got a huge problem that's not going away. People are going -- getting behind - the Republicans are getting behind Donald Trump, and he is making less and less of a sale.

Part of the reason that people -- Republican primary voters are going and aligning themselves with Donald Trump is precisely because Ron DeSantis has proved to be such a failed, flawed, terrible, awkward, socially inept candidate. This weekend he was in Iowa scolding a kid for having an icee (ph) and make a joke about a 15-year-old who told him he was struggling with mental health. Ron DeSantis has very big problems. One of them is Donald Trump, but the other one is staring him in the mirror.

SIDNER: So, Ron DeSantis' own biggest problem at this point, you think?

NAVARRO: Is Ron DeSantis?

SIDNER: Yes.

NAVARRO: Yes. And that's a hard one for him to fix, isn't it?

SIDNER: Yes, it is.

All right, Ana Navarro, thank you so much.

BERMAN: So, a nail-biter of a match at the World Cup. And that's putting it nicely. I mean I think if you're a U.S. soccer fan right now, it is time to panic. Panic. The U.S. barely makes it through. What's going to happen here?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:50:57]

SIDNER: No, not the "X-men." That is the sign formerly known as Twitter. Elon Musk is picking a new fight. He is going after a group of - that has accused Twitter of hate speech and misinformation. X's legal action follows a report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate that found the platform failed to act on 99 percent of the 100 Twitter blue accounts that the center reported for posting hate.

CNN's Brian Fung is joining us now with the details on this.

Give a sense of what's happening. Twitter is suing this group who says that they do not deal with hate well on their platform.

BRIAN FUNG, CNN TECH REPORTER: Yes, Sara. This is about the future of accountability for Twitter. And, of course, Twitter has been under increasing pressure since Elon Musk's takeover of the company, when he's brought on, you know, more individuals who have been previously suspended for hate speech or other violations of Twitter's terms. Now Twitter is firing back at some of the groups that have been highlighting that. It's -- in this lawsuit it's - you know, accusing the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit that tracks hate speech and misinformation on multiple social media platforming, accusing it of engaging in a campaign to drive advertisers away from the platform, accusing it of, you know, violating Twitter's terms of service by scraping data off of Twitter, and even accusing it of violating U.S. anti-hacking laws as part of a separate allegation in this lawsuit.

Now, what is CCDH have to say about all of this? Well, they're saying, you know, we wouldn't have to engage in this type of, you know, methodology if Twitter were just more transparent. And, you know, there should be no surprise that, you know, you're finding more hate speech and misinformation on the platform after some of Twitter's actions to, you know, lay off a huge amount of its staff, particularly on the content moderation team, as well as, you know, changing some of its policies around enforcement of this stuff.

So, here's what the CEO of CCDH told CNN earlier this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IMRAN AHMED, CEO, CENTER FOR COUNTERING DIGITAL HATE: There's a lot of unknowns that they - that they are claiming to get to where they want to get. It sounds a bit like a conspiracy theory to me. The truth is that he's been casting around for a reason to blame us for his own failings as a CEO, because we all know that when he took over he put up the bat signal to racist, to misogynists, to homophobes, to anti- Semites, saying Twitter is now a free speech platform. He welcomed them back on. He - he actually reinstated accounts that were suspended for spreading that kind of stuff. And now he's surprised when people are able to quantify that there has been a resulting increase in hate and disinformation on his platform.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FUNG: Sara, all of this looks just like, you know, a similar type of litigation thread playing out with other companies that Twitter has threatened in the past, including Microsoft and Meta. And so, you know, we're just going to have to see how this particular suit plays out. But it's going to be a very interesting one.

Sara.

SIDNER: That's right. And with a lawsuit generally you get discovery on both sides. So, they might get more transparency, oddly, because Twitter has sued them.

Thank you so much. I appreciate it, Bian.

John.

BERMAN: All right, as I said this morning, U.S. soccer fans, it is time to panic. A fight for survival at the World Cup. The U.S. team did advance to the knockout round, which is about the nicest thing you can say about it because it was ugly. The two-time defending champs barely scraped - well, they didn't scrape past Portugal, they tied Portugal, which was enough to get them to advance.

CNN's Andy Scholes is here.

Andy, I'm not pleased.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Yes.

BERMAN: I'm not pleased at all.

SCHOLES: A lot of people watching haven't been pleased this entire World Cup. John. And this was just another similar performance. Very underwhelming. And because the Netherlands are beating Vietnam handily this morning, you know, a Portugal goal, the U.S. would have just been out of the World Cup completely. And it was about this close from actually happening. The U.S. inches away from elimination. In the 91st minute this morning Portugal's Ana Capeta gets lose here and a strike off her foot goes off the post.

[09:55:08]

Oh so close to going in. The U.S., meanwhile, had six shots on goal, unable to score the entire match, though. This is just the fifth time ever the U.S. failed to score in a World Cup game. But a 0-0 draw, that was good enough to get second in the group and advance to the round of 16.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEX MORGAN, TWO-TIME WOMEN'S WORLD CUP CHAMPION: It's tough to be second. We wanted to go through first. I mean, this team gave everything. We just didn't put the ball in the back of the net. And in the last few minutes, we just had to hold it down. We had to get the result and move on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Yes, so this is the U.S. women's worst ever performance in the group stage. They won just one game. Next up for the team, likely a matchup against Sweden, John. That's going to be 5:00 a.m. Sunday morning.

And Sweden is like Team USA's kryptonite. They've beaten the U.S. in two straight Olympics. So, they're going to have to flip the switch and play much better if they hope to make a run at a third straight World Cup.

BERMAN: And the player who may be the best on the U.S. team, Rose Lavelle, won't be able to play because she picked up her second yellow card in this game.

SCHOLES: Yes, two yellow cards. Yes.

BERMAN: As I said, panic, but maybe they can turn it around.

Andy Scholes, thank you very much for all of that.

Sara.

SIDNER: John, I think you need a little soothing tea to help you not panic and feel good.

BERMAN: It's only every four years. It's only every four years.

SIDNER: It will be all right, I promise.

All right, right now, a federal grand jury investigating Donald Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election is meeting as we speak in Washington, D.C. Could we get news on a possible indictment today? A live report outside the court coming up.

Also, an Ohio K-9 officer is out of a job after releasing his police dog on an unarmed black man who was surrendering at the time, but that's not the reason that he was fired. We'll explain, coming up. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)