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Biden Commutes Most Federal Death Row Sentences to Life in Prison; Mangione Set to Be Arraigned on State Murder and Terror Charges in New York; Sources Say, House Ethics Committee to Release Report on Matt Gaetz. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired December 23, 2024 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking overnight, President Biden is commuting the sentences of more than three dozen people on federal death row. Why he says he's showing mercy to convicted murderers.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Very soon, Luigi Mangione, the man charged with the killing the UnitedHealthcare CEO, he's going to be back in a New York City courtroom. We are tracking that one for you live.

And also new this morning, Honda and Nissan announced possible merger plans, a deal that would create the world's third largest automaker and help both catch up in the race for electric vehicles.

I'm Kate Bolduan with Sara Sidner. John Berman is out today. This is CNN News Central.

SIDNER: New this morning, President Biden in his final weeks in office has now commuted the sentences of nearly every federal death row inmate. There were 40, but now 37 men are no longer facing execution but rather life in prison without the possibility of parole. Biden without saying President-elect Trump's name did say the next administration is part of the reason behind his decision.

The move this morning considered a major blow to Trump in a key campaign promise he has made.

Let's get right to CNN's M.J. Lee live outside the White House. What is the president saying this morning? And this is certainly a 180 from where he was in 1994.

M.J. LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's absolutely right, Sara. In one of his last major acts as president, President Biden is choosing to use his clemency power to commute the death sentences of 37 inmates who are on federal death row to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

As you noted, back in the 2020 campaign, President Biden had campaigned on getting rid of the federal death penalty. And there had been a swirl of speculation in recent weeks about whether he might at some point before leaving office, take this kind of action. He had come under pressure from human rights activists and other advocates who will argue that the death penalty tends to disproportionately affect black people and other people of color.

I do want to read for you, Sara, a part of the statement from President Biden in announcing this. He said, make no mistake, I condemn these murderers, but guided by my conscience and my experience, I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level. In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.

That last reference there to a new administration resuming executions I halted, that, of course, refers to incoming President Donald Trump. Remember during his first term as president, 13 federal death row inmates had been put to death. And in his most recent presidential campaign, Donald Trump has made quite clear in his public statements that he intends to bring back and aggressively seek more federal executions.

This is a little bit of a sampling of some of the things that Donald Trump has said over the last year on this issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: And I'm hereby calling for the death penalty for any migrant that kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer.

We are an institute and a powerful death penalty we will put this on. We have to bring in the death penalty if we want to stop the infestation of drugs coming into our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: Now, after this morning's clemency announcement, as you noted, Sara, three people still remain on federal death row, these people responsible for some of the most notorious mass killings and acts of terror. They include the murderer who killed nine black worshipers at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, one of the people responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing, and then Robert Bowers, who killed 11 worshipers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.

I will finally just note, Sara, that President Biden, of course, is a devout Catholic, and the White House recently announced that he is going to be traveling back to Italy for a meeting with Pope Francis. Of course, the pontiff was among those who had publicly called on President Biden to take exactly this action and commute the sentences of those on federal death row. Sara?

SIDNER: M.J. Lee, thank you so much for your reporting for us this morning.

[07:05:02]

Kate?

BOLDUAN: Also we are standing by this morning for another court appearance by the suspected CEO killer Luigi Mangione. He'll be back in a New York courtroom to be arraigned this time on the state charges he faces.

Now, those are the 11 state terror and murder charges that he was hit with last week in the shooting and killing of CEO of UnitedHealthcare Brian Thompson.

Let's talk more about what today means in the grand scheme of everything that he is facing now with a former deputy director of the FBI and CNN Senior Law Enforcement Analyst Andrew McCabe. It's good to see you, Andy. Thank you so much for jumping on.

So, this -- I mean, a lot of people remember this is the arraignment that essentially was expected to have happened last week, but then the proceedings were postponed when federal authorities announced that they were bringing charges. He was whisked off to a federal courtroom, catching everyone -- most people by surprise and how it all played out. So, what does today now look like?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: So, the anticipation of this hearing and the kind of excitement around, it is a little bit -- honestly, Kate, it's a little bit overblown compared to what's actually going to happen in the courtroom.

So, the arraignment or initial appearance purposes to inform the defendant of the charges against him to make sure he's represented by counsel, maybe give him an opportunity to request fail, and, of course, he'll have to enter a plea.

It's really very administrative in nature. I don't expect anything surprising to happen. It seems like the surprises -- we got all those last week with the surprise announcement of the federal charges.

So, you'll see him go in. They'll offer to read the indictment. He'll probably decline that he'll enter no doubt a plea of not guilty simply because that preserves his rights as the process goes forward. And I think he's also almost at a zero chance of being offered bail under any circumstances. And so it's likely he may not even ask for that.

BOLDUAN: You also pointed out -- you're also pointing out that the first-degree murder charge, especially, which is rare in -- which is a very rare one in New York. It also gives prosecutors additional leverage in possible plea negotiations. Talk me through how you see that or what you see in that.

MCCABE: Sure. So, the top charge that he's facing on the state side is that first-degree murder charge. And he qualifies for it only because the prosecutors have said he executed the murder as an act of terrorism, so meaning to intimidate or coerce some portion of the population or change in action of government. And to rely on that or the evidence they'll rely on to prove that is the fact that he wrote in those infamous writings that were seized from him when he was arrested, things about wanting to kill the healthcare CEO because it would send a message, and it was a way to strike back against that corporate community. And then, of course, the murder had the result of putting an entire class of kind of corporate leadership in fear of their own safety. It's still a bit of a -- I don't want to say an overreach, but it's a tough charge to prove, but simply having the first amendment charge on the indictment gives the prosecutors the opportunity to plead him to a lower level of murder, which is murder in the second-degree. So, that sort of bargaining leverage is very helpful to the prosecution. It could still end up landing with a guilty plea of a very serious murder crime that would give him a lot of time in prison.

BOLDUAN: One thing we've talked about since all of this began is the kind of surprising, kind of morbid fascination and support that Mangione has received. We've talked about what we've seen online. We've talked about kind of how that somewhat contributed to that very rare, aggressive and public perp walk we saw last week. And we saw again another example of it in a surprising of places on Saturday Night Live just this weekend, Andy. Let me play what happened on SNL.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Luigi Mangione dropped -- yes, definitely woo. You're wooing for justice, right?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: I mean, he asked it with like, you know, a smile and a laugh, but it was like surprising even to hear it play out with that live studio audience. I mean, this will have, of course, zero impact on a legal case against Mangione. But from an FBI threats perspective, Andy, this isn't going away. How troubling should this be?

MCCABE: I think it's incredibly troubling, Kate. I mean, like I'm not, you know, that concerned about Saturday Night Live. It's a comedy show.

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This is kind of what they do for a living. But it's the kind of this publicity moment that Mangione is experiencing online, I think, reveals a very concerning undercurrent of American culture right now. The fact that he is appearing to so many people as bold, courageous, or heroic in some way is really concerning.

There is a very small but concerning number of people that might take that to the next level. We've seen this particularly with mass shooters time and time again in the past, people like the Columbine shooters or the Christchurch shooter who are embraced by a very small but concerning part of the culture that kind of lionizes what they've done and kind of creates this mythology around these acts of -- these horrific acts of murder that can, in some circumstances, inspire others to take violence into their own hands.

So, I think it's a sad commentary about what people are interested in right now, but it could actually be a portent of some threats that we may have to face in the future.

BOLDUAN: Andy, it's good to see you as always. Thank you so much. Sara? SIDNER: This morning, we're expecting our first look at the House Ethics Report that former Congressman Matt Gaetz did not want the public to see. What his colleagues found about accusations of sexual misconduct, drug use, and bribes.

A holiday light show ended with a terrifying injury. A young boy hospitalized after several drones just fell from the sky in Florida.

Plus, dozens of people at a Colorado ski resort forced to climb down a rope to get to safety. You can see why there. The gondola lift malfunctioned.

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SIDNER: New this morning, the House Ethics Committee will release its report on the conduct of former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz. The years-long probe investigated numerous allegations against Gaetz, including illicit drug use and sexual misconduct with a minor. Gaetz has denied the allegations.

In a stark reversal, the Ethics Committee quietly voted earlier this month to release the report before the end of this Congress.

CNN's Lauren Fox is live in D.C. for us. Lauren, what are you learning this morning?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this has been a long time coming, Sara. If you remember back in November when Matt Gaetz was nominated to be Donald Trump's pick for Attorney General, the House Ethics Committee actually voted and declined to release this report despite the fact that there were many lawmakers who were pushing for its release given the fact that he was up for that job. Then what CNN learned is that earlier this month, the committee met again and secretly voted to release this report. We do expect to see this report sometime today.

Now, what's interesting here is that a lot of Republicans have argued that this will break with precedent of releasing a report of a member who is no longer in Congress. But what we are learning, obviously, is that there is some past precedent for these reports being released after a member has left Congress. There are two examples that we have looked into, both the example of Representative Bill Bonner and the example of John Ensign, both of whom had resigned when the Ethics reports were released into their past behaviors.

Last week, once this was reported that this report was coming, Representative Matt Gaetz, former Representative Matt Gaetz tweeted, quote, in my single days, I often sent funds to women I dated, even some I never dated but who asked. I dated several of these women for years. I never had sexual contact with someone under 18. Any claim that I have would be destroyed in court, which is why no such claim was ever made in court.

Matt Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. We should also note that the Justice Department declined to bring charges back in 2023. Sara?

SIDNER: Lauren Fox. Thank you so much for reporting this morning.

Still ahead, a horrific crime on a New York subway. Police say a man intentionally set a woman on fire. She died. How three teenagers help police catch the suspect.

And we're tracking two storms as many of you travel to your holiday destinations. It is the winter folks and here come the storms. A check of the forecast, next.

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BOLDUAN: So, a man has now been arrested after he allegedly carried out what the New York City Police commissioner called one of the most depraved crimes a person could possibly commit. It happened Sunday and police say that is when the man allegedly approached a woman sitting on a subway car and lit her on fire and then sat and watched as officers race to put out the flames. The woman died. Hours later, police found the suspect riding the train again.

CNN's Gloria Pazmino has much more on this. I know you're covering this. Every detail about this just gets worse, Gloria.

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A really disturbing crime, Kate, and a really tragic incident happening early on Sunday morning. It appears that this woman was asleep inside the subway car. It was at the end of the subway line in Brooklyn and Coney Island. She appeared to be asleep. And that's when police say this man approached her out of nowhere. There seems to be no interaction between the two of them before this. He uses a lighter that he had on him to light a blanket that she was using to cover herself, lights her on fire. She immediately is engulfed in flames. And as you said, as she is burning, he steps outside the train, sits down on a bench and appears to watch as this woman is dying.

Now, police were on the platform pretty much immediately. They had been patrolling that morning. They saw the smoke. They responded right away. They try to put her out. EMS were called. Unfortunately, she could not be saved and she was pronounced dead at the scene. But because those officers were on the platform, they were able to capture pretty incredible photos of the suspect who, as you mentioned, was sitting on that bench. They actually walked right past him. So, it was the combination of the officers walking past him, capturing him on their body worn cameras.

BOLDUAN: Unbeknownst to them at the time, right?

PAZMINO: Exactly. As well as surveillance video captured by a camera that was inside the subway train.

This is a relatively new thing for New York City subways to have surveillance cameras inside of those cars. So, pretty quickly, we actually had a lot of information about who the police were looking for.

He was found about eight hours later on the same subway line on the F Train in Manhattan, in midtown, far from the scene.

[07:25:04]

And he was spotted by three high school teenagers who had seen the photos, recognized him, and reported it to the police. They were able to arrest him right inside of that subway train. So, a combination of a technology, good old fashioned police work on New Yorkers who were paying attention after such a horrific crime.

I want you to take a listen from the law enforcement officials talking about this incident last night. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH M. GULOTTA, NEW YORK POLICE CHIEF OF TRANSIT: This is amazing work done by the public and the police working together. Once again, someone saw something. We got it out through technology in numerous ways, and we're able to make a quick arrest on this nothing less than heinous crime that occurred in our subway system.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAZMINO: Kate, we're still waiting to learn more about the suspect. We do know that he was an individual who came in from Guatemala in 2018. We don't know more about his immigration status just yet. We're waiting to hear those details. And we're also waiting to see what charges he will be facing as well as learning more about this victim.

BOLDUAN: Yes, we don't know much of anything about the victim quite yet either. Thank you so much, Gloria. She's going to have much more updates on this horrific crime for us coming up.

Also ahead, President-elect Donald Trump is talking about Elon Musk and batting down suggestions that Musk is having an outsized influence now on the Republican Party as they're about to head into office.

And a mega merger just announced. Two Japanese automakers could soon become one of the biggest auto companies in the world in the race toward electric.

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