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Judge Pauses Rule Requiring Georgia To Hand-Count Ballots; Sources: Israel's Plan To Respond To Iran's Attack Is Ready; New Evidence Released In Erik And Lyle Menendez Case. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired October 16, 2024 - 07:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:30:10]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, a new NBC News poll finds just over half of likely voters plan to cast their ballots early. That early enthusiasm on full display in the key battleground state now of Georgia where a record 328,000 people cast ballots on the first day of early voting.

This as a Georgia judge has paused a new rule from the Georgia State Election Board that would have required election workers to hand-count ballots. The judge said it's too much too late.

CNN's Zach Cohen is joining us now. What else did we hear from the judge? This was one of those rules that had a lot of particularly Democrats and some Republicans up in arms.

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yeah, Sara. There's been bipartisan criticism over this new rule and the judge in this case really taking issue with the fact that the Trump-backed Republicans on the State Election Board in Georgia were trying to change the rules about how votes were counted so close to Election Day.

The judge writes that it would have caused -- this new rule would have caused "administrative chaos that runs counter to the entire mission of ensuring a safe and fair election." And he goes on to write that "Because the hand-count rule is too much, too late, its enforcement is hereby enjoined while the court considers the merit."

He writes invoking January 6, 2021, "This election season is fraught; memories of January 6 have not faded away, regardless of one's view of that date's fame or infamy. Anything that adds uncertainty and disorder to the electoral process disserves the public."

Now this is something we've also heard from election officials in Georgia, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger and his top deputy Gabe Sterling. Gabe Sterling warning also too that practically speaking, this new rule -- they view it as illegal, and they also don't have the infrastructure in place to support it.

Take a listen to what he said after this ruling -- or about this ruling.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GABRIEL STERLING, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE'S OFFICE: Not enough monitors. There wasn't enough processes put around this. It's just -- it's a bad idea to ever change rules this close to an election, especially on something that can open up the chain of custody like that, which we think is really against the law.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: So Democrats are celebrating this as a short-term victory over that Trump-backed, Republican-led state election board.

But this issue of hand-counting ballots is still subject to litigation on multiple fronts in Georgia. There will be a hearing today where this issue will come up again. And there's also just a wave of litigation in that key battleground state that's going to have to get sorted out between now and Election Day. Obviously, a lot of different pro-Trump groups are trying to lay the groundwork potentially for a post-election challenge as well and it's something we're watching very closely, Sara.

SIDNER: Yeah. I mean, we're less than three weeks from the election and this is a heck of a lot to be considering when you see the number of people, especially who are coming out to vote. So far, that early voting number is huge.

Thank you so much Zach Cohen for that -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. New this morning, while facing tough questions about his economic agenda, Donald Trump defended his plan to implement steep tariffs on all kinds of companies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I said if I run this country -- if I'm going to be president of this country, I'm going to put a 100, 200, 2,000 percent tariff. They're not going to sell one car into the United States because we're not going to destroy our country.

JOHN MICKLETHWAIT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, BLOOMBERG NEWS: Fourteen million jobs rely on trade. It accounts for 27 percent of GDP.

TRUMP: OK.

MICKLETHWAIT: If you cut that off, that's also going to have an effect on many, many businesspeople here.

TRUMP: Yeah.

MICKLETHWAIT: Tariffs also have another side. This is not something that you have to acknowledge.

TRUMP: No.

MICKLETHWAIT: You could be plunging America into the biggest trade war --

TRUMP: No.

MICKLETHWAIT: -- since Smoot-Hawley.

TRUMP: But there are no tariffs.

MICKLETHWAIT: You're going to -- you're going to stop -- you're going to -- there are tariffs already in --

TRUMP: No, there are no tariffs. All you have to do is build your plant in the United States and you don't have any tariffs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right, let's get right to CNN's Matt Egan. Matt, I keep reading the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal talking about how economists almost universally pan the tariff project from Donald Trump.

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Yeah, John, that's right. Trump's tariff plan is really the part of his agenda that freaks out economists the most, right, across the board.

And rather than soften his pitch yesterday, Trump really went all in. He praised tariff as the most beautiful word in the dictionary. If anything, he sounded concerned that his tariff plan isn't tough enough, suggesting that his idea of 10 percent tariffs on all U.S. imports hasn't gone far enough and it might have to go up to 50 percent.

But look, we've heard, across the board, economists say that they're worried that this could reignite inflation. The Wall Street Journal had a survey of economists where they found that the majority -- 68 percent of economists say that prices are going to go up more under Trump than under Harris. Just 12 percent said Harris.

[07:35:00]

And this same survey of economists found that they think that the number of manufacturing jobs in the United States will be lower with Trump's tariffs than without them.

Now, part of the problem here is that Trump has argued that other countries are going to pay these tariffs, but that's just not how it works. Remember, this is a tax on imports. The U.S. importer pays the tariffs, and they have to decide are they going to eat that cost and maybe pay their workers less or, more likely, are they going to pass the cost on to consumers. Study after study finds that Americans bore almost the entire cost of the Trump tariffs on China.

Now, Trump was also asked from the Bloomberg editor-in-chief about how he's going to pay for all of his sweeping tax cuts. Listen to what he said about the cost of his economic agenda.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICKLETHWAIT: The markets are looking at the fact you are making all these promises. The latest one was car loans. You're flooding the thing with IT (PH), giving giveaways. I was --

TRUMP: But we're going to grow.

MICKLETHWAIT: I was -- I was actually quite kind to you. I used seven trillion. The upper estimate is 15 trillion.

TRUMP: Oh, you can forget it.

MICKLETHWAIT: People like The Wall Street Journal, who is hardly a communist organization --

TRUMP: Yeah, but you don't know --

MICKLETHWAIT: -- they have criticized you on this as well. You are running up enormous debt.

TRUMP: What does The Wall Street Journal know? I'm meeting with them tomorrow. What does The Wall Street Journal know? They've been wrong about everything. So have you, by the way. You've been wrong about everything.

MICKLETHWAIT: You're trying to turn this -- you're trying to turn this --

TRUMP: You've been wrong about everything.

MICKLETHWAIT: No, you're trying to turn -- you're trying to turn this into a debate.

TRUMP: No, it's not a debate.

MICKLETHWAIT: There are businesspeople -- there are businesspeople --

TRUMP: No, you're wrong. You've been wrong -- you've been wrong all your life on this stuff.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

EGAN: So there you have a classic Trump dismissing objective, criticism -- just attacking the interviewer. He struck a really defiant tone again and again, whether it was on interfering with the Federal Reserve, on massive tax cuts, or even bigger tariffs. Trump made it very clear yesterday, John, he's not backing down.

BERMAN: I am familiar with that answer. I know you are, but what am I?

Matt Egan, thank you very much for your reporting on this -- Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Isn't that how we start our day every day? Joining us right now is CNN political commentator and Republican strategist Shermichael Singleton. And executive committee chair of the New York State Democratic Committee, Christine Quinn. Guys, thank you for being here.

I've got a ton of stuff to get to so let's get to it. Let's start in Georgia. Big early voter turnout -- record-breaking.

Here's my question. We are all happy and everyone should be happy --

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Yeah.

BOLDUAN: -- that people turned out.

Is it better, do you think, for Republicans or Democrats that there are more turning out breaking records in early voting? What do you think?

CHRISTINE QUINN, EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE CHAIR, NEW YORK STATE DEMOCRATIC COMMITTEE, FORMER NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL SPEAKER: Well, what we've seen in early voting in past elections is that it benefits the Democrats, and I think that's what we're going to see when this is all over in Georgia. I mean, it's almost 200,000 more votes cast than there were through early voting four years ago. In any race, but one as tight as this --

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

QUINN: -- is, that is enormously significant.

Now, things could change but history tends to repeat itself, good or bad -- and good in my opinion. Usually early votes are Democratic votes.

SINGLETON: But yeah --

BOLDUAN: But Republicans have been confident --

SINGLETON: Um-hum.

BOLDUAN: -- more than other swing states about Georgia.

SINGLETON: Yeah. I mean, look, it does make me a little nervous. Typically, I've worked on three presidential campaigns and when you look at early voting numbers you think holy smoke, Democrats have an early advantage.

I will say, however, as of late the former president and Republicans in the state have been attempting to encourage Republicans there --

QUINN: (INAUDIBLE).

SINGLETON: -- to vote early. So I wonder what percent of those overall numbers are Republican voters. And then, Republicans have the benefit of voting the day of. QUINN: Yeah.

SINGLETON: Republicans typically turn out in large numbers there. So perhaps I can offset some of that with some Republicans voting early. We'll see how this plays out.

But look at Pennsylvania where the numbers are a bit different. I mean, so it's interesting, Kate --

QUINN: It is.

SINGLETON: -- as you're looking at some of these states --

QUINN: Yeah, that's true.

SINGLETON: -- you're seeing early numbers that are high. You're seeing some early numbers that are a bit lower than 2020 --

BOLDUAN: Don't put money on anything.

SINGLETON: -- which goes to show you this is a --

QUINN: That's a fact.

SINGLETON: -- very, very tight race.

QUINN: Don't bet the mortgage.

SINGLETON: Yeah, not at all because I need a house.

BOLDUAN: Don't do that. Let's just sit and enjoy these last three weeks -- yeah.

OK, both Trump and Kamala Harris are on Fox today.

Donald Trump did a town hall yesterday that will air today, but with women. And some of the reporting coming out from the town hall is he made new comments -- was asked about abortion and the new abortion bans that have gone in place in states across the country post-Dobbs.

Here is what he said in reaction to that. "And some of them, I agree, they're too tough -- too tough. And those are going to be redone because already there's a movement in those states."

This adds to just the long string of examples of Donald Trump not being able to or intentionally not being clear on the issue of reproductive rights. His lack of clarity at this point on this issue, could it help him with women voters, or does it only hurt him?

QUINN: I don't think it helps him with women voters at all. Women voters, for the most part, are very clear that Donald Trump appointed the Supreme Court justices who took down Roe versus Wade. They're also clear that he has said repeatedly this issue should go back to the states where it should have always been.

[07:40:12] Now he's trying to spin it around and confuse people. Wink to his, you know, far-right base but try to pick up women.

This issue -- we've seen it in all the polls. It's one of the top issues in this election, which it's usually not --

BOLDUAN: Right.

QUINN: -- in presidential elections. That means that the voters, particularly women voters, understand this issue and are not going to be fooled by Donald Trump's trickery.

BOLDUAN: And maybe a minimum they want clarity --

QUINN: Correct.

BOLDUAN: -- rather than -- rather than confusion with this -- with this issue.

SINGLETON: Um-hum.

BOLDUAN: Shermichael, for you. Kamala Harris was -- had a very long conversation --

SINGLETON: Yeah.

BOLDUAN: -- with Charlamagne tha God yesterday. I want to play kind of -- it was almost one of his first questions out of the gate. Let me play this for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD, HOST, THE BREAKFAST CLUB: One thing they've been saying, a lot of your press hits get criticized. You know, folks say you come off as very scripted. They say you like to stick to your talking points. And some media says you have --

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: That would be called discipline.

CHARLAMAGNE THA GOOD: You -- ooh, OK.

HARRIS: Uh-huh.

CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: But what do you say to people who say you stay on the talking points?

HARRIS: I would say you're welcome.

CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: Um-hum.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: OK, the way she made -- she's -- I don't know why I'm giggling about it other than I -- it is creative and maybe also honest. You tell me. SINGLETON: Yeah.

BOLDUAN: The way she explained it like essentially, I'm doing the job. And the way she said it later is that she needs to repeat herself because she wants to make sure everybody understands exactly what her position is.

SINGLETON: I get that point. I get that point, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Um-hum.

SINGLETON: I get the point of being disciplined. You want a disciplined candidate. As someone who has advised candidates it surely makes our job easy as heck.

But that authenticity factor matters a lot and you don't want the candidate to come off as a robot where people are wondering well, am I trusting what they're saying? Is this like a script written by people like myself or Christine --

BOLDUAN: I prefer a robot.

SINGLETON: -- or had the candidate taken the opportunity to really digest these issues --

QUINN: Yeah.

SINGLETON: -- and formulate their own thoughts and views.

And I -- and I do think for some voters --

QUINN: Yeah.

SINGLETON: Not all but some voters -- they do look at the vice president and they say well, I like her. She's obviously a very smart woman. You can look at her career and see that. She just doesn't always seem like it's herself behind some of the positions that she's taking.

BOLDUAN: Back --

SINGLETON: And you can see that from when she first ran to some of her transitions on positions today.

BOLDUAN: Back to who do I want to have a beer with --

SINGLETON: Yeah.

BOLDUAN: -- if that still applies today. We'll see.

Finally, Donald Trump, in this town hall, was also asked to basically clarify his comments recently about the enemy within and using the National Guard and the military to fight the enemy within. And also to clarify something that Republicans have been bending over backwards in the last couple of days trying to do themselves.

Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: He says he's talking about sick people, radical left lunatics. He went on to identify Adam Schiff as one of these people. "The thing that's tougher to handle are these lunatics," he says, "that we have inside, like Adam Schiff -- Adam Shifty Schiff."

You are a decorated veteran. How would you feel about deploying --

REP. MIKE WALTZ (R-FL): Um-hum.

BERMAN: -- against Adam Schiff?

WALTZ: Well, I don't think that's what he said, John.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: But I'm talking about Donald Trump saying that he wants to use the National Guard and the military to go after the left. That's what he's saying.

GOV. GLENN YOUNGKIN (R), VIRGINIA: I don't believe -- I don't believe that's what he is saying.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: The governor of Virginia saying I think you're misrepresenting --

SINGLETON: Yeah.

BOLDUAN: -- and misrepresenting this point.

Yet, here is what Donald Trump said at this town hall. "We have China, we have Russia, we have all these countries. If you have a smart president, they can all be handled. The more difficult are, you know, the Pelosis. These people, they're so sick and they're so evil."

He may be talking about using the National Guard and the military against rioters or even illegal immigrants and whatever he's talking about with the border crisis, but he seems to also definitely be talking about his political rivals.

What do you do with this?

SINGLETON: I mean, look, if you want to make the argument we're going to go after people who are ideologically different in Congress, right. We're going to make sure we try to keep the House. We're going to make sure we keep the Senate. Republicans, go out and vote so that if I win, I have the support in Congress to pass legislation that we believe is important to us.

BOLDUAN: But --

SINGLETON: That is what the former president should be saying. I don't think he should have said this. This race is tight. Christine and I were talking about this. You really don't want to take

the risk, Kate, this late in the game where you're looking at Georgia or Pennsylvania, or even North Carolina, which appears to be more competitive now, of voters saying you know what? I was on the fence. I was teetering towards Trump. Now I may go ahead and vote for Harris or sit this out. That's just not good for him.

BOLDUAN: But then people say that he uses this kind of language as a distraction. But now he is -- he is -- this is the clarification.

QUINN: Right, right.

Look, I hear the political side of this --

SINGLETON: Um-hum, um-hum.

QUINN: -- but this kind of language and calling out Congressmember Schiff and Nancy Pelosi whose husband was attacked in their home -- it is dangerous.

SINGLETON: Yeah.

[07:45:00]

QUINN: And so you know who uses this kind of language? Dictators. That's who use their military to push their opponents out and, in many cases, kill them.

This is not mistaken -- off the cuff. He did this on purpose to double down and it will stoke fear and potential violence, in my opinion.

SINGLETON: Yeah, and we don't -- we don't need that.

QUINN: Right.

SINGLETON: We -- again, we were talking about this and it's just really sad, Kate, to see where we are as a country.

QUINN: Totally.

BOLDUAN: But -- well --

QUINN: Yeah.

SINGLETON: But this type of rhetoric -- it is dangerous.

QUINN: Yeah.

SINGLETON: You don't want it. And again, I'm looking at it politically because I'm thinking to myself --

BOLDUAN: Why?

SINGLETON: -- a typical candidate wouldn't do this --

BOLDUAN: No. SINGLETON: -- wouldn't say this because it's not helpful.

BOLDUAN: What is the one thing we have learned in the 10 --

SINGLETON: Well --

BOLDUAN: -- years he's been a politician?

SINGLETON: -- you know, Donald Trump says what Donald Trump is going to say.

QUINN: Uh-huh.

BOLDUAN: And he's not a typical anything.

It's good to see you, guys.

SINGLETON: Good to see you, Kate.

QUINN: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Thank you so much -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right. This morning, lawyers for Sean "Diddy" Combs say they want the names of his alleged accusers. Attorneys for the disgraces music mogul asked the judge overseeing his sex trafficking case to order prosecutors to disclose the names of his alleged victims. It comes as attorneys argue they need the names in order to prepare for trial. Combs has pleaded not guilty to the flood of accusations against him.

A Broadway dancer who appeared in "Hamilton" and "MJ the Musical" is missing. Twenty-eight-year-old Zelig Williams has been missing for almost two weeks now. Three of his friends got SOS pings from his cell phone, according to his cousin, shortly after Williams' mother saw him leave home on October 3 in Columbia, South Carolina.

The Richland County Sheriff's Department says deputies found Williams' car 20 miles from his home in a parking lot for a hiking trail, but not Williams. He remains missing this morning.

The future of space suits is here and they're haute couture straight from Italy, darling. Axiom Space and Prada collaborated on the flight suit for a year to come up with the design. The space suits will be used by astronauts on NASA's Artemis 3 mission. The suits focus on giving the astronauts some mobility despite several layers. They're also designed to keep space dust out and are expected to be delivered by the deadline -- the end of 2026.

I always say no space dust here. That's -- I'm not into that, John. You?

BERMAN: Also, a lot of room in the seat, I notice, on those space suits.

SIDNER: Well, for some of us, we need it. BERMAN: Just saying.

SIDNER: Anyhoo --

BERMAN: Just saying.

Breaking just moments ago, new details on when Israel might launch a retaliatory attack against Iran.

And after 30 years and a new wildly popular show on Netflix, the new evidence just presented that has the possibility of leading to freedom for the Menendez brothers.

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[07:52:05]

BERMAN: All right. Breaking this morning, Israel says that its plan to respond to Iran's attack -- October 1 attack -- that the retaliatory attack is now ready. That's according to a source familiar with the matter.

CNN has also learned now that U.S. officials expect that attack to come before U.S. Election Day.

With us now, retired Army Major General James "Spider" Marks.

Spider, that's the win. It will happen soon within the next three weeks. The question is what will Israel do? Now, apparently, we're told it won't be an attack on Iran's nuclear or oil sites. What does that leave?

MAJ. GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS (RET.), U.S. ARMY, CNN MILITARY ANALYST (via Webex by Cisco): Primarily, John, what I think the Israelis want to try to do is further degrade Iran's capacity to conduct command and control. Go after headquarters. Go after the communications backbone. Going after fiber. Going after towers.

Also, go after the launchers -- the fixed launcher sites and try to determine where the mobile launchers might be or where they routinely fire from and get after them there. And also, you want to degrade or at least try to -- yeah, try to degrade as best you can their ammunition depots.

And then also, there hasn't been any discussion about attacks against the Iranian Navy. Look, let's be frank. The Iranian Navy does a -- does its job in terms of providing support to the Houthis. It's the only way the support gets across the Gulf is either by air or by sea. I think the Israelis might be able to take a page from the Reagan playbook back in the mid-'80s and put some of the Iranian Navy under the bottom of the Gulf.

BERMAN: Yeah. Again, we're talking about regions like here where the Iranian Navy operates.

And then when you talk about strikes against -- MARKS: Right.

BERMAN: -- military installations. This is Tehran. You know, the hugely populous capital.

Do you think that Israel would strike any targets in or around Tehran?

MARKS: Oh, sure. I mean, absolutely.

Look, the Iranians have demonstrated they've got a precision capability. And a legitimate target -- military target that provides command and control, communications backbone, support, decision-making -- those are legitimate targets. And I think the Iranians -- well, the Israelis have demonstrated that they've got the ability to be very precise and to target very narrowly those areas that need to be struck.

Iran is not Gaza. Iran is not Beirut.

BERMAN: Um-hum.

MARKS: What you see in Tehran will be a significant separation between the two. And so I think it's -- it would be on the target list for sure.

But I think there are other places. Look, you don't have to go after the enrichment facilities, and they've indicated they won't -- or uranium enrichment facilities in both Natanz and Fordow. But you can go after research and development facilities, which are routinely co- located on military bases -- legitimate targets.

BERMAN: Spider, so Israel continues its attacks on Hezbollah inside Lebanon. They've already decapitated the organization and they've taken out a lot of the missile sites just north of the Israeli border.

[07:55:00]

What more do you think Israel can achieve with this military pace that it's now undertaking?

MARKS: Well, we have to realize that Hezbollah has incredible depth and resistance to what the Israelis -- you know, depth in terms of capabilities and resistance to what the Israelis have been doing.

So I would not want to characterize this as a clean-up operation and to say that Hezbollah is completely decapitated at this point. Look, there are aspirational members within Hezbollah that want to step up even though they might be on a target list. Every organization has those that want to take over.

Hezbollah is not going to go anywhere for the -- for the long term. In the near term they're suffering greatly. They're kind of frozen in place because they are lacking leadership and decision-making capacity.

But the Israelis still have a lot of work to do. I mean, the infrastructure underground is significant. We've already seen elements of that, and we saw that earlier on in 2006. I mean, the Israelis got into the underground fight and realized wow, this is hugely significant and suffered pretty greatly. So I think there's tons of work to be done yet.

BERMAN: All right, Major Gen. James "Spider" Marks. Always great to see you. Thanks so much for being with us -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right. The family of Erik and Lyle Menendez, the two brothers found guilty nearly 30 years ago of murdering their parents, is planning to hold a news conference now. This comes after new evidence was released in the high-profile case. CNN has obtained a letter from Erik Menendez alluding to his father's allegedly sexually abusing him.

A Netflix documentary this month about the case sparked renewed interest in the case. Actually, online on TikTok sort of sparked this new documentary.

A review of Erik and Lyle Menendez's sentence of life without parole is now being had at the district attorney's office.

CNN legal correspondent Jean Casarez is now joining us to discuss. This has gotten renewed interest partly because of folks on TikTok. That is the truth. They went and looked at this case and they're saying all manner of things.

But you have been looking at the transcripts of what actually happened in these trials, and there were two trials. Walk us through what is happening.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN LEGAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, George Gascon of Los Angeles -- he's running for re-election.

And he's also the one that's really put this front and center saying that he is running on the progressive platform for allowing people when they have been rehabilitated to come out of prison, and he is really focused on this. And, you know, Sara, he says he hasn't looked at the entire case, but you can tell he's really leaning toward this.

Now, we've got to remember 1996, second trial. A jury found that the brothers premeditated the murder of their parents. And the facts are they had many discussions about murdering their parents.

They had to get guns though, so they went to Orange County, California from Beverly Hills. They couldn't get the guns -- there was a waiting period -- so they went to San Diego, County -- it's about three hours away from Beverly Hills more or less -- and they were able to get these shotguns. They took them.

The parents were watching television one night and they went in and there weren't just a couple of shots. They blew their heads off. And when they didn't think their mother was dead, they continued to shoot the mother until she was dead.

Now, the defense was that the father was sexually assaulting the two sons. That was the defense. It really came out in the first trial, which was a mistrial. It didn't come out that much in the second trial.

But now the defense is saying they have potential new evidence. We say potential because a judge has to determine this is actual new evidence. And it's a letter that one of the Erik Menendez wrote to his cousin.

Here are some excerpts from this letter. It didn't come out in the trial.

"So now I'm stuck here all alone. I've been trying to avoid dad. It's still happening Andy, but it's worse for me now. I can't explain it. He's so overweight that I can't stand to see him.

I never know when it's going to happen and it's driving me crazy. Every night I stay up thinking he might come in.

I need to put it out of my mind. I know what you said before but I'm afraid. You just don't know dad like I do. He's crazy."

And Gascon is also relying upon a California law on rehabilitation, as I said, which is interesting because prisoners want to rehabilitate.

Now remember, the sons -- even before murdering their parents, they went around Beverly Hills at night burglarizing very, very wealthy homes and people with thousands of dollars of things. So this criminal behavior.

Now, they've been in there for 35 years --

SIDNER: Yeah.

CASAREZ: -- but it is a life sentence without parole.

SIDNER: Right.

CASAREZ: Kim Kardashian has gone to the prison. Gascon is going to hold a press conference today. The momentum is there - the Netflix documentary. I mean, we're all talking about it at work --

SIDNER: Yeah.

CASAREZ: -- right?

SIDNER: Yeah.

CASAREZ: So we'll see where this leads. But potential new evidence and also rehabilitation. But many others are going to say now -- it's going to start -- I'm rehabilitated too. Why can't I get out?

SIDNER: That is the knock-on effect. We will see what happens with this case.