Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

New 40-Acre Brush Fire Erupts Overnight in L.A.; Trump Defends Jan. 6 Pardons in Oval Office Interview; Authorities Search for Motive in Deadly Nashville School Shooting. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired January 23, 2025 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Tens of thousands of people are right now facing evacuation orders in L.A. Fire crews racing to contain two new wildfires in Los Angeles County that have just exploded, one already burning more than 10,000 acres.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: In his first attempt at an interview since assuming the Oval Office, President Trump slamming Joe Biden's decision to pardon his family, but then questions why Biden didn't pardon himself. Is that a potential threat that he may have Biden investigated?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A shooting inside a Nashville high school cafeteria leaves one dead and two injured. We've got new reporting on what authorities found in the shooter's social media.

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

BOLDUAN: The breaking news overnight, there are new fires now threatening Los Angeles, California one, right off L.A.'s 405 freeway. Drivers could see the flames from the Sepulveda fire as they drove by. There you see it. It's burned roughly 40,000 acres right across -- sorry, it's burned just about 40 acres right across from the Getty Museum.

At one point, that fire led to an evacuation order for the community of Bel Air. That was just a few hours after another fire near Castaic exploded in size. That one's called the Hughes fire and it's burned more than 10,000 acres. It's just 14 percent contained this morning.

These new fires are now just adding to the historic disaster that has been unfolding for more than two weeks now, stretching fire crews to their limits. They're still working to contain the Palisades and Eaton fires.

President Trump, in a new interview, he went after California's Democratic governor for his handling of it all. Trump is planning to visit the state tomorrow.

CNN's Josh Campbell, he's in L.A. following all this for us. Josh, what can you tell us about the situation this morning? JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kate. I mean, our community here across Los Angeles on edge because of those red flag wind conditions that continue here. Just as you mentioned overnight, yet another fire popping up. I'm now in the Sepulveda Pass. For those who are familiar with Los Angeles, between L.A. and the valley area. This fire breaking out, as you mentioned, up to 40 acres, but it's near the Bel Air neighborhood, so near a populated area. Authorities were able to halt forward containment on this to 40 acres.

I want to get straight to David Ortiz with the Los Angeles Fire Department. Sir, can you tell us -- we've got crews all around us here. What are they doing right now?

DAVID ORTIZ, FIREFIGHTER AND PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER, L.A. FIRE DEPARTMENT: Well, right now is what we call the mop up operation. We want to make sure that we don't leave anything hot that can later be carried by wind. So, our firefighters were very effective in keeping the fire from spreading into the Moraga community, which is behind this hill.

This fire was topography-driven, meaning the fuels and the angle of the hillside. The Santa Ana winds are blowing against this fire. So, we have that in our favor. And we also had available aircraft that were able to fly this. We had five medium helicopters and two heavies that engaged fire right away.

250 firefighters from L.A. City fire jumped on this very quickly and we were able to keep it to only 40 acres.

CAMPBELL: And then, finally, the winds are relatively calm right now, but what's your concern over the next few hours?

ORTIZ: So, we're still expecting some dry humidity and then gusts of wind possible up to 60 miles an hour before we are expecting rain starting on Saturday and Sunday. But once that rain passes, it's going to dry up again, so we need sustained rain. A lot of the vegetation looks like this. It's super dry. Anyone's park, yes, we'll have a new start of a fire that establishes and race as quickly like we had yesterday, a huge fire.

CAMPBELL: Thanks for the update, sir. Thanks for what your team is doing here.

Kate, you know, this is one fire that authorities here are dealing with, as you mentioned, just north of us, yesterday, this fire exploding, the so-called Hughes fire up near the Castaic area. We saw tons of resources being thrown at that fire as well. Thousands and thousands of people are facing evacuation orders at this hour.

The good news is that although that ballooned over to 10,000 acres, authorities continue to work towards containment currently about 14 percent.

[07:05:02]

One final good thing I'll tell you is that if there's any good news in all of this, you know, terrible activity here is that because of those two recent deadly fires in Palisades as well as Eaton, this whole area has been flooded with fire resources, not only from California, neighboring states as well as Canada and Mexico having resources here that were on standby. We saw that heavy attack overnight, helicopters, the Chinooks, the Blackhawks, just attacking that fire with water, trying to get that down, trying to stop the spread, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. And they stay at it this morning. Josh, thank you so much. Sara?

SIDNER: All right. There were several eyebrow raising moments during Trump's first Oval Office interview, including one that has some folks asking if Trump is about to investigate former President Biden.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: The funny thing, maybe the sad thing, is he didn't give himself a pardon.

I went through four years of hell by this scum that we had to deal with. I went through four years of hell. I spent millions of dollars in legal fees and I won, but I did it the hard way. It's really hard to say that they shouldn't have to go through it also. It is very hard to say that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: CNN's Alayna Treene is live for us at the White House. What more are you hearing about this? Because that did, to a lot of people, sound like the threat of an investigation against President Biden.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right. You could hear there that he's kind of toying with the idea of, you know, going after his enemies potentially through the court and also they're suggesting that perhaps former President Joe Biden should be investigated.

Look, this is a little bit different. We've heard Donald Trump vacillate on this topic throughout his time on the campaign trail. One time, he gave an interview saying that retribution would be success. We heard him just last month when he talked with TIME Magazine and NBC News saying that he didn't believe that it was up to him whether Biden and others in his administration should be prosecuted or investigated, that he would leave that up to his Department of Justice.

But as you said, as you could hear there, he's kind of toying with this idea of perhaps Biden should be investigated and really lamenting what he argues he went through over the last couple of years.

Now, we also heard him as well, bring up Hillary Clinton during that interview, he told Hannity that essentially during his first term, he could have gone after Hillary Clinton. He could have investigated her and potentially prosecuted her, and that he didn't.

And one thing just, you know, to take a step back from all of this, just looking at the first few days of Donald Trump's second administration, a lot of what he's done so far has really been catering to the base. We saw that in his early executive orders and actions with, you know, the pardons on the people who were convicted for their role on January 6th, on, you know, really trying to gut the DEI programs in the federal government. This issue about whether or not to go after political enemies is something as well that Donald Trump's base cares a lot about. They believe, as does Donald Trump, that he was wrongly persecuted by Joe Biden's administration.

And so it's still unclear, obviously, but What Donald Trump would do. But this answer to Hannity is very different from what we've heard him saying over the last several months. Sara?

SIDNER: Yes. Alayna Treene, thank you so much for rolling that out for us. I appreciate it. John?

BERMAN: All right. Quote, they need to feel the heat. Success is going to be retribution. Newly released Capitol rioters now vowing to seek revenge.

And new overnight, Pete Hegseth ex-wife has given a new statement to the FBI. What she had to say about his drinking.

And then users on Facebook and Instagram complained this morning that the apps have automatically forced them to follow the new president, vice president, and first lady. Meta's response? It's not me, it's you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:10:00]

BERMAN: This morning, a new justification from President Trump for pardoning the roughly 1,600 January 6th rioters, including those who attacked police.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They were in there for three and a half years, a long time, and in many solitary confinement, treated like nobody's ever been -- treated so badly. They were treated like the worst criminals in history. And you know what they were there for? They were protesting the vote because they knew the election was rigged and they were protesting the vote.

Some of those people with the police, true, but they were very minor incidents, okay?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: This comes as one of the most high profile pardoned January 6th actors, the Oath Keepers leader, Stewart Rhodes, was back on Capitol Hill yesterday, speaking with lawmakers just hours after his release.

Let's get right to CNN's Katelyn Polantz for the latest on this. Good morning, Katelyn. KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. There is a lot of people right now outside of the Republican Party, Donald Trump and the people surrounding him that are pushing back with indignation against the pardons and the clemency the president granted to these January 6th rioters. Judges on the federal court that handled these 1,500 or so cases, they have been asked by the Trump Justice Department to dismiss the 300 about pending cases that are still in the court system, and they are not doing so without having a final say.

[07:15:06]

Judge Tanya Chutkan, the very judge who oversaw Donald Trump's own criminal case related to the 2020 election that is now dismissed, she was asked to dismiss one of the rioter cases yesterday and wrote that the dismissals cannot whitewash the blood, feces, and terror that the mob left in its wake, and it cannot repair the jagged breach in America's sacred tradition of peacefully transitioning power.

She was one of a handful of judges on that bench who had many things to say to make sure they put on paper that they administered justice neutrally on these cases, people were convicted, and that those actions of violence toward police especially were memorialized in the court record.

There also were officers yesterday who were attacked during the riot speaking on Capitol Hill at a press conference. Here is officer Daniel Hodges with a reminder of what happened to him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANIEL HODGES, D.C. METROPOLITAN POLICE OFFICER: I was beaten, crushed, kicked, punched, surrounded. Someone reached underneath my visor, tried to gouge out my eye.

And all these people were just pardoned by Donald Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POLANTZ: And so people like that are still speaking publicly. At the same time, Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers, is up on Capitol Hill. Here's what he had to say when he was there yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So bottom line, no regrets?

STEWART RHODES, FOUNDER OATH KEEPERS: Well, I don't regret standing up for my country. I don't regret calling out the election as what it was, which was stolen, illegal, and unconstitutional.

ENRIQUE TARRIO, FORMER MEMBER, PROUD BOYS: I'm happy that the president's focusing not on retribution and focusing on success, but I will tell you that I'm not going to play by those rules. The people who did this, they need to feel the heat. (END VIDEO CLIP)

POLANTZ: Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys, out many, many years, decades before they were supposed to because of Donald Trump's clemency toward them. John?

BERMAN: Interesting. They need to feel the heat, says the one time leader of the Proud Boys. Katelyn Polantz, thank you very much for that report. Sara? Kate?

BOLDUAN: So we are still in the first month of the year and America is already facing the first school shooting of 2025. Investigators digging now into violent, racist and anti-Semitic social media posts tied to the teenager that police say shot and killed a 16-year-old girl.

And scientists are also raising alarm this morning the abrupt and sudden announcement coming from the Trump administration that could now threaten medical research through the NIH.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:20:00]

BOLDUAN: This morning, Nashville Police are searching for a motive after a deadly shooting inside a high school cafeteria. Police say a 17-year-old male student opened fire Wednesday and killed a 16-year- old girl, wounded two others before he took his own life. A focus now of the investigation, social media posts from the shooter. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF JOHN DRAKE, NASHVILLE POLICE: The investigation is still very much ongoing as to a motive. We're looking into that. There are some materials on the internet that we're looking at that's under the investigation on the initial stages, but we'll continue to follow up on that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: CNN's Ryan Young has the very latest on this for us. Ryan, good morning.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Kate, this is tough to look back at. Obviously, investigators are looking into those social media posts. But as you understand, even if they have racist posts, it still doesn't give them that solid motive in terms of moving forward in terms of what the shooter may have been thinking at that school. You're talking around 11:00 A.M. in the cafeteria. We've all sat in our school cafeterias. But it's that sound that reverberates through the room because this was partially live stream.

We want you to take a listen to this because when you hear it for yourselves, you can understand the fear that these students must've been feeling. Take a listen. Yes, Josselin Escalante, 17, was killed in that shooting. You can understand the fear that was going through that section of the cafeteria.

The things that we do know right now, you can -- obviously, the shooter fired his pistol multiple times. He did take his own life. The parents at this school obviously were shaken by this, the violence happening again just outside of Nashville, ten miles southeast of downtown. This is a community that's already felt the pain of a school shooting before. Take a listen to the parents who had to go through this and pick up their students yesterday after the shooting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I heard her running and I heard the anxiety and the anxiousness in her voice. That is something I cannot -- I can't get out of my head.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was so sad to hear him like text me, just because he's like, it's fine mom, it happens. Should it though? It's my 16-year-old is like, oh, it's fine mom, it happens.

It breaks my heart. It breaks my heart that it's normal. It should not be normal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: Yes, I think it breaks all of our hearts at this point that people are saying it feels like it might be normal.

WTVF, our affiliate there, actually talked to the father of the young lady who was killed in the shooting. He said his daughter liked to play soccer, got good grades, and these are things that, of course, investigators will be dealing with, of course, when they talk about the victims.

But they'll be looking at those social media posts to figure out exactly what the motive is for the shooter. Were there red flags before this happened? Did anyone know about this beforehand? Of course, that shooter took his own life in that cafeteria as well.

There were two deputies, SROs, that were in the building, at the school, but they were not in the cafeteria at the time of the shooting. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Ryan, thank you for your reporting. But as that investigation continues, my God, Sara, that was gut wrenching hearing from those parents.

[07:25:01]

SIDNER: Truly, these parents going through so much as well as the students.

All right, breaking overnight, new fires have erupted in California, forcing thousands more to evacuate. Firefighters battling relentless winds as they try to contain the flames.

And also breaking, what happened in San Antonio that led to seven police officers being shot in an incident response. The latest from Texas.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:30:00]