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Police: 2 Dead, 5 Others Shot At Florida State University; Mortgage Rates Climb To 6.83 Percent, Highest Level In Two Months; Rubio: Time To "Move On" If Russia-Ukraine War Can't Be Ended. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired April 18, 2025 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Police say he was a current FSU student and the son of a Leon County sheriff's deputy. The question yet another grieving community is asking this morning, why? Why did this happen? Why did he do it?

Joining me now is CNN senior national security analyst and former assistant secretary of Homeland Security Juliette Kayyem.

Is there any indication from the few details we know about the suspected shooter as to why he carried out this deadly attack on campus?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST, HARVARD PROFESSOR, FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (via Webex by Cisco): Not yet, and our understanding is that he is -- he has asked for a lawyer and is not speaking openly.

But we certainly know just from his biography that he was around law enforcement. He knew about guns. He had been a sort of youth volunteer to law enforcement. And, of course, it was part of his family's fabric with his mother as a senior member of the sheriff's team and a long- serving public safety professional.

And why that would lead to this we do not know, and why he would focus on his school or any particular incident that may have happened that would explain why he targeted it, we will learn either through his parents, his friends, his social media presence. And so all of that will be forthcoming.

SIDNER: Yeah. I'm curious about those details because he is the son of a sheriff's deputy and police say that he was trained in law enforcement and part of the Leon County's Sheriff's Office Youth Advisory Council.

From the details that we do have we are told that he did use his mother's firearm to carry out this shooting. As the investigation goes on, we've seen so many cases in recent times -- two, particularly -- where the parents are implicated in this.

What would -- KAYYEM: Yeah.

SIDNER: -- the implication -- what would need to happen for that to be the case in this case? Because look, the mother was in law enforcement. He is an adult so technically you don't necessarily need to have the guns locked up. He's not a child in this case.

What are law enforcement looking for in the house now, you think?

KAYYEM: And it's interesting because our understanding is that one of the guns was purchased by his mother. This is often common -- and when the -- when the police department was elevating to a new type of gun. Purchased for her personal use. This is very common.

We don't know what requirements were for lock boxes, but as you said, he is not a minor.

There were also two other guns whose ownership and how he acquired them we do not know.

These cases against parents are different for two reasons. One is that it's generally a younger child who is --

SIDNER: Right.

KAYYEM: -- in sort of custody of the parents -- the parents. He lives with the parents. The parents should know what's going on. They take him to school. They have an understanding of who that child is.

And then there's a gross -- like, absolutely gross negligence standard. The standard is still very high. And we -- and we just simply don't know how much notice the parents may have had and how much awareness they may have had.

And in the cases that you were talking about there was a sort of aiding and abetting by the parents.

SIDNER: Right.

KAYYEM: They were -- they were arming the kid, and they understood.

There will be, no doubt, professional consequences for her in terms of her status -- employment status, any disciplinary actions. That I think is likely because of - essentially because of what happened.

But given the facts we know now --

SIDNER: Yeah.

KAYYEM: -- I think it's unlikely this is one of those parent cases.

SIDNER: Yeah. I mean, you sort of went through the details in the other cases. There was knowledge that the child was having serious issues -- mental issues. Had mentioned certain things that led to violence. And so there was a lot of information that the parents knew at the time that this was a possibility. And like you said, the standard is very, very high.

Is there anything unusual about this particular shooting on a school campus because unfortunately, we have seen this happen so many times before? It's really become a part of the American experience for many, many, many students and teachers.

But in this case, we're hearing from students that it looked like to them -- the witnesses -- that he wasn't singling anybody out. That it looks like he was just firing his weapon randomly at people.

KAYYEM: Yeah, and we will learn more about the motive why that is.

Look, the K-12 environment is just so different because of the lockdown capabilities. The children are younger. There's lots of drilling going on.

[07:35:00]

This university is like a city, right, and so the -- and the children -- they're not children -- the college students are adults, but their parents have an interaction with them and sort of know where they are and are concerned about them.

So what I was impressed by -- and it's worth noting when this goes right so we can learn from it -- is not simply they were able to stop the violence relatively quickly. There are two lost souls and that's a tragedy, but we certainly know he had intended on hurting more given the number of guns -- is how quickly they were able to lock down, communicate, and at the press conference simply tell parents what's going on because parents are going to be concerned, and how people notify or identify themselves. Because in these college and university environments attendance isn't taken. Kids go off for the weekend --

SIDNER: Right.

KAYYEM: -- and don't tell anyone.

I think there was a really smart focus on understanding where people were so that they knew what the scope of the harm is. It's very, very different in these environments than, say, K-12.

And I really -- I said it yesterday. We live in a world in which there is not a lot of transparency and truthfulness. The university president, with the police -- university police with the local and federal police were very transparent. Were very honest about what was happening. That is important for a community. A community is then able to absorb the shock and also come to terms with what happened. The social consequences of this are going to continue for a long time and the pain --

SIDNER: Yeah.

KAYYEM: -- will as well. It was really, really a strong response.

SIDNER: Yeah. When they do things right fewer people are hurt and killed -- KAYYEM: Yes.

SIDNER: -- and this was an instance of that.

Juliette Kayyem, it is always a pleasure. Thank you so much for that analysis -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. This morning Luigi Mangioni has officially been indicted on federal charges in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The 26-year-old is facing both federal and state charges for the shooting of Thompson on a Manhattan sidewalk in December. The federal charge of murder with a firearm carries a maximum sentence of death, and the prosecution says it will seek the death penalty in this case.

Police arrested a man in California for kidnapping a young girl they say he met on the poplar gaming site Roblox. The 10-year-old girl was reported missing by her family on Sunday. Police discovered the minor had been communicating with 27-year-old Matthew Macatuno Naval on Roblox and Discord. They later found Naval with the missing child more than 250 miles away in Elk Grove, California. He is charged with kidnapping and unlawful sexual conduct with a minor.

So, big news from a galaxy far, far away. Ryan Gosling is joining Star Wars -- the Star Wars universe in a new film "Star Wars: Starfighter." It will begin production this fall and is set five years after the "Rise of Skywalker." They say it will be a standalone adventure featuring new characters in an unexplored period of the galaxy. It is set to hit theaters in May of 2027.

And I will say among Star Wars fans there is some trepidation about --

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: What?

BERMAN: -- all of this. Fear, Kate -- yes, yes -- oversaturation.

BOLDUAN: No.

BERMAN: That is the concern. There is some concern.

BOLDUAN: I mean, you know -- do we need to tell everyone my history with Star Wars?

BERMAN: You've never seen it or, like, you --

BOLDUAN: Correct. It's become a point of just --

BERMAN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: Now it's just an ego trip because I just refuse to.

BERMAN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: But this may be -- if Ryan Gosling's in it --

BERMAN: Yeah, then you'll see it. BOLDUAN: -- it might be my first one.

BERMAN: My history is I still have action figures, so we're slightly different on this. So, well done.

BOLDUAN: Very exciting news this morning. OK, here we go.

This morning President Trump's global trade war is shaping up to mean bad news -- maybe more bad news for potential homebuyers. The average rate of a 30-year fixed mortgage in the United States now climbing. And the data, as you see this -- this is the new rate -- showing the largest one-week jump in mortgage rates in nearly a year.

CNN's Paula Newton has much more on this, and I think a lot of people would say I'm afraid to ask. But good morning, Paula. Tell us what we -- tell us what you learned.

PAULA NEWTON, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: OK, I do have the proverbial trite good news-bad news. We will deal with that bad news first, Kate.

I mean, look, the 30-year fixed -- it is hard to miss, right? It is now up to 6.83 percent. But I want you to look at that trendline, right? Things have been trending in a good direction and now they're at their highest level in a couple of months -- 6.83 percent average for a 30-year fixed mortgage. Still not great but hey, better than last year when we had a seven handle on those numbers.

I think the concern is where is the market going now. So much of this is tied to what is happening not in your house but in the White House, and that has to do, of course, with the trade war. And the fact that the mortgages -- the 30-year mortgages are set really to 10-year treasury notes. The United States government has to pay more to investors to buy their debt -- to buy their bonds, and that's why you may be paying more for a mortgage.

[07:40:05]

I think that something that was a little bit more unsettling than all of that though, Kate, was to actually see some of the hard data from homebuilders.

And I point to D.R. Horton, one of the largest homebuilders in the United States, with results yesterday saying, "The 2025 spring selling season started slower than expected as potential homebuyers have been more cautious..." -- no surprise, right -- "...due to continued affordability constraints and declining consumer confidence."

I mean, look, you've got to feel for people that are out there trying to either switch homes or, God forbid, try and buy their first home, right. Because Kate, I'm going to take you to the way back, right? Spring 2021, rates just under three percent. Twenty-twenty-two also not great but not bad, five percent. We are now heading steadily towards seven percent.

The president has been very clear he wants interest rates to come down. Look, sometimes that does not affect mortgage rates. What will affect mortgage rates, especially in the long term for the 30-year fixed, is if this trade war settles down and if on Capitol Hill they get a handle on budgetary constraints. Yes, your home budget depending on what happens at the White House and on Capitol Hill.

It may not make you feel that great right now but look, there is a trendline happening and perhaps by the fall those 30-year fixed mortgages should come down again -- fingers crossed.

BOLDUAN: Part of the uncertainty though is you're in Ottawa. You're talking about your -- you were just quoting a homebuilder. Lumber is getting -- building costs are going to go up, so it makes sense that the homebuilder is saying it's starting slower this season. It's a little -- it's definitely just buckle up.

But regardless, it's always good to see you. Thank you, Paula.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:46:52]

BOLDUAN: So the Trump administration is facing setbacks on more than one front in the federal courts over the president's mass deportation strategy. An appeals court, yesterday, calling the government's position on the Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador -- saying the government's position is "...shocking not only to judges but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear."

And the president's border czar was on CNN just last night defending that position to CNN's Kaitlan Collins.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM HOMAN, BORDER CZAR: I don't think anybody in the administration did anything wrong. I don't think we actually violated a court order. They think he is a citizen of El Salvador and he's in El Salvador. He's home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: At the same time there is new CNN reporting in on another impact of the Trump's immigration strategy -- the crackdown and funding cutbacks leaving migrant children caught navigating an immigration system now alone.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

EVELYN FLORES, MANAGING PARALEGAL CHILDREN'S PROGRAM, AMICA CENTER FOR IMMIGRANT RIGHTS (through translator): They had to cross the border of Mexico and the United States. PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): This story time starts at the U.S. southern border. It's a tale for children who crossed into the United States alone and are in government custody.

Fulanito, a cartoon cat, is supposed to represent them. The lesson, almost impossible to imagine for a child, how to navigate the U.S. immigration system alone.

FLORES (through translator): A very important right that Fulanito has now that he is in the United States is the right to go to immigration court.

ALVAREZ (voiceover): Evelyn Flores, of the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, gives this presentation to kids in custody weekly. And she's not alone. Legal service providers serve a critical role for unaccompanied kids, whether preparing for court or getting ready for school.

Now, those lessons are taking on added significance amid concerns that children will be stripped of the very legal services they need.

ALVAREZ: This image that you share in your storytelling could be all a child has to get through their immigration proceedings.

FLORES: Yes.

ALVAREZ (voiceover): The termination of a federal contract for legal services has left organizations like Amica scrambling, and the thousands of children they and others serve potentially facing deportation proceedings alone.

Without attorneys, advocates say, kids don't stand a chance.

SCOTT BASSETT, MANAGING ATTORNEY, CHILDREN'S PROGRAM, AMICA CENTER FOR IMMIGRANT RIGHTS: The system is just too complicated for a child to succeed alone without an attorney. To ask a 12-year-old to do that without the support of an adult, much less one trained in the complicated world of immigration law, it's just not feasible. It can't happen.

ALVAREZ (voiceover): A child's deportation proceeding start shortly after they cross into the United States, similar to an adult.

WENDY YOUNG, PRESIDENT, KIDS IN NEED OF DEFENSE: I was in a court last summer where a 3-year-old was in proceedings. He played with his toy car in the aisle of the courtroom until he was called, and then a young woman picked him up and brought him to the front of the courtroom.

I knew that child knew something dramatic was about to happen. He started crying. He was inconsolable at that point.

[07:50:00]

ALVAREZ (voiceover): Under U.S. law, immigrants don't have a right to counsel at the government's expense -- not even children, leaving them to depend on volunteer lawyers or NGOs.

YOUNG: Federal support is everything. Without those monies, we would probably see more like 90 percent of these kids going through proceedings without counsel.

ALVAREZ (voiceover): In March, the Trump administration cut off federally funded legal services for 26,000 unaccompanied children in the United States, prompting lawsuits. A federal judge has since ordered the administration to temporarily restore funding, but to date, that hasn't happened.

The uncertainty has led to staff layoffs and disrupted legal services for kids. As the administration cracks down on immigration, experts argue that taking away attorneys will only hurt efforts to get migrant kids to court.

BASSETT: The dinosaur and the unicorn --

ALVAREZ: OK.

BASSETT: -- are huge hits.

ALVAREZ (voiceover): Organizations who work with migrant children often have to get creative to get the kids to open up. Children often color as they share why they fled their home countries and get acquainted with attorneys --

BASSETT: They get thrown off the walls --

ALVAREZ (voiceover): -- or they play with stress balls. One group in Michigan even has toy court sets for one-on-one legal screenings with kids.

YOUNG: We'll have toddlers running all over the place, and my staff is explaining to them using toys, crayons, chalkboards, what their rights are in the immigration system. And it's both -- something that's both very poignant, it's very joyful, but there's also a tremendous sense of gravity to it.

ALVAREZ: It's a nursery school where the lesson is how to fight your deportation proceedings.

YOUNG: That's exactly right.

ALVAREZ (voiceover): Priscilla Alvarez, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: All right. High-level talks on Europe and the Middle East brewing right now. Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying if Russia and Ukraine cannot end the war in Ukraine soon, as in within days, the U.S. is dialing back. Despite those comments, sources say American, European, and Ukrainian officials had an "excellent" exchange in Paris.

And another round of Iran nuclear talks begins this weekend. CNN's political and national security analyst David Sanger is joining us now.

I want to go to what Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, warning that if they can't get a deal done in the next few days to end the war in Ukraine that the U.S. is going to "move on."

Let's listen to his words.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: The president has spent 87 days at the highest level of his government repeatedly taking efforts to bring this war to an end. We are now reaching a point where we need to decide and determine whether this is even possible or not, which is why we're engaging both sides. We need to figure out here now, within a matter of days, whether this is doable in the short term. Because if it's not, then I think we're just going to move on from our perspective.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: What does that mean, "just move on."

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST, WHITE HOUSE AND NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES, AUTHOR, "NEW COLD WARS": Great question, Sara. I mean, when I heard it, I imagined two different scenarios.

One is to say we're moving on, as in we are basically wiping our hands of this entire thing. Not our problem. At another point, Secretary Rubio said, "This isn't our war."

The other way to look at it is that he's saying well, we'll go back to supporting Ukraine providing them with the arms, the intelligence -- everything they would need to remain an independent state. He didn't say that.

And, of course, that's a source of huge division inside the administration. Mr. Rubio and Mike Waltz, the national security adviser, have been, in the past, significant supporters of Ukraine. That's when they were in -- Mr. Rubio was in the Senate and Mr. Waltz was in the House. But we don't know that that's the case now. And, of course, Vice President Vance and others have said we're done with this.

SIDNER: I want to ask you about Iran and this new deal that the Trump administration says that it is working towards. I mean, I remember it wasn't that long ago that Donald Trump was trashing Obama for making the Iran deal. I remember because I lived in Jerusalem.

SANGER: Yeah.

SIDNER: That Prime Minister Netanyahu had -- absolutely hated that deal and wanted to get rid of it. And now we're hearing that Prime Minister Netanyahu, from the

reporting from The New York Times and your colleagues Ronen Bergman, and Maggie Haberman, and Julian Barnes, and Eric Schmell -- Schmitt that, indeed, Trump said no, we do not want to be a part of any strike. We want to try to make a deal.

So is there any sense that this nuclear weapons deal that is on the table or that will be on the table is going to be very vastly different from what Obama had already put in place?

SANGER: Well, there's a big division on that issue inside the Trump administration as well, Sara, as I reported earlier this week.

[07:55:00]

The concern is basically this. A couple of weeks ago Mike Waltz, the national security adviser, came out and said simple rules here. Any deal we sign has to be full dismantlement. That means you take apart the enrichment facilities that make nuclear fuel. You take apart your stockpiles of missiles. You take apart any labs that are working on weaponization.

But then Steve Witkoff, who is the chief negotiator here, as he's been in the Middle East and has been in Ukraine, came out on Fox News earlier this week and said well, we could imagine a situation in which Iran gets to keep their nuclear facilities, but we just have to verify that they're not making bomb-grade fuel. That's basically a summation of what he said.

Well, that was the Obama-era deal. It was 150 pages long.

SIDNER: Right, literally.

SANGER: As you say, President Trump --

SIDNER: Yeah.

SANGER: -- railed against it -- literally, 150 pages.

He told me at one point during the 2016 election he would have walked out of the negotiations. He may now be stuck with something that's very similar. They haven't really declared what their position is going to be.

SIDNER: My, my, how times have changed.

David Sanger, thank you so much --

SANGER: Yeah.

SIDNER: -- for your great analysis -- John.

BERMAN: All right. New this morning President Trump says he thinks a trade deal with China could happen over the next three or four weeks. Now it's unclear if he actually is talking about something specific or whether he was just musing there. If there is no deal, the sky-high tariffs on Chinese imports could hit Americans hard.

Moira Weigel joins us now. She's an assistant professor at Harvard University and is researching ecommerce platforms.

She has a new op-ed in The New York Times titled "I Trained at an Amazon Center in Hangzhou. You'd Be Surprised What They Think of Trump." Now, I read the op-ed, so I'm not surprised but surprise our audience here. What do they think of President Trump?

MOIRA WEIGEL, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, HARVARD UNIVERSITY (via Webex by Cisco): Well, I think -- I hesitate to generalize about what everyone I met in Hangzhou or Shenzhen thinks about Trump.

But what the title is referring is that a number of my contacts from my time there have the view that while these tariffs will be very painful for their ecommerce industry in the short term, in the medium to longer term they'll help drive processes of Chinese-led globalization that are already underway in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and other parts of the world.

BERMAN: Reading your op-ed, what struck me was that they think President Trump, the President of the United States, is hurting the United States.

WEIGEL: I think that's right. And in the piece, I share a little bit about popular memes about President Trump in China, and I think like all memes they should be taken with a grain of salt. There's a lot of irony and playfulness about them.

But the joke I opened the piece with is about this name for Trump in Chinese, which means literally Trump, the nation builder, with friends who are bilingual. I've talked about how I'd translate comrade Trump. But the joke is that he must be a Chinese agent because he's causing so much chaos in the United States.

BERMAN: Yeah, the nation builder. The nation he's helping to build in this case is China, is the suggestion in a way here.

WEIGEL: Yes.

BERMAN: So why do you think --

WEIGEL: Yeah, very clearly -- very clearly the suggestion.

BERMAN: So why? I mean, why is there this notion that he's actually helping China achieve superpower status -- even more superpower status?

WEIGEL: Well -- so the name that's used in Chinese, Jianguo, is a name that was really popular in the 1960s during the cultural revolution and for people to give their children. And again, I'd say it's a little bit of playful, you know, as memes are.

But I think the idea is that the pressure that the tariffs and the trade war are placing on Chinese manufacturing, and the Chinese export industry and ecommerce industry will continue to encourage initiatives that have been underway for some time in China to encourage Chinese- led globalization elsewhere. And that could look like selling goods elsewhere. It can look like opening factories in Vietnam, for instance, and Cambodia. It can look like providing tech -- you know, software and services or consulting services in those places.

But I think that's the gist of the joke, at least as I interpret it.

BERMAN: It is interesting over the last few weeks what we've seen. While the investors in the United States have been concerned about the chaos in the United States, China seems to have been taking day-by-day deliberate steps that were almost part of a playbook.

I mean, what does it look like from where you're sitting?

WEIGEL: I think it's interesting. I was talking to a friend from Shenzhen yesterday over WeChat and he was remarking that in his perception the Chinese response is sort of more measured and scientific than the U.S. response has been.

I think in the ecommerce sector, which is where I focus specifically, there's a lot more state coordination, and support, and planning around building out the sector.