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Don Lemon Tonight

Lawmakers' View On January 6th Insurrection; Security Compromised Due To Tweets; Video Evidence Speaks The Truth; Survivors Of Uvalde Shooting Testified In Congress; Suicidal Man Arrested For Planning To Kill Justice Kavanaugh. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired June 08, 2022 - 22:00   ET

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

[22:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LAURA COATES, CNN HOST: Hey, thanks for watching. I'll be back Friday night. So please join CNN tomorrow for attack on democracy. The January 6th hearings are live, special coverage begins at 7 p.m. Eastern. DON LEMON TONIGHT starts right now. Hey, Don Lemon.

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: Hi. We'll be here late into the evening covering it for you on this very program and we're going to look forward now to what's going to happen tomorrow. Thank you, Laura. I'll see you on Friday.

COATES: Thank you.

LEMON: This is DON LEMON TONIGHT.

And on the eve of the first public hearing on -- by the committee, I should say, investigating what happened on one of the darkest days in our history. That's January 6th. We have brand-new audio tonight of what Republican lawmakers were saying just after the attack on our capital.

This comes from the New York Times reporters Alex Burns and Jonathan Martin. And their book "This Will Not Pass." I'm going to talk to them in just a moment right here on this program, you don't miss that.

But I want you to hear Kevin McCarthy describing what happened when he was evacuated from his office, and how he called the then president, to tell him to call off those rioters.

(BEGIN VOICE CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: I made a phone call to the president. Telling him what was going on. Asking him to tell these people to stop, to make a video and go out. And I was very intense and very loud about it. He did put a tweet out, and later, he did put a video out. I told him I didn't like the video he put out later. But the second day, I wish that video was first.

(END VIDEOTAPE) LEMON: It's interesting to hear all these recordings, right? Because

what they said then and what they are saying now. And then it goes on to Kevin McCarthy goes on to call for a bipartisan commission to investigate the circumstances around the attack. And to insist, and I'm quoting here, "we cannot just sweep this under the rug. We cannot just sweep this under the rug," he says.

So, that's what he said. Now I want you to listen to this. This is from Arkansas Congressman French Hill, pleading with his fellow Republicans to get then president to do the right thing.

(BEGIN VOICE CLIP)

REP. FRENCH HILL (R-AR): For all of you have such a great wonderful warm relationship with Donald Trump, why don't you get on the phone to him, tell him to call Joe Biden and tell Joe, congratulations and that they ought to meet and schedule a meeting. And if he does that in the morning, maybe he'll resolve some of this stuff.

(END VOICE CLIP)

LEMON: Again, that was then. It's interesting to hear what they're all saying now. So that is happening as new evidence is still coming out. A federal judge ordering right-wing attorney John Eastman to turn over 159 e-mails to the committee. E-mails that could shed light on what then judge calls, quote, "his and President Trump's pressure campaign to stop the electoral count."

The e-mails due to be turned over next week, by -- but tomorrow, I should say, the January 6th committee starts there to show their work. And to make their case to the American people, live, in primetime.

The chairman, Bennie Thompson says, it's a possibility that they'll play video from Ivanka Trump's interview with the committee though not in tomorrow's hearing. He also says that they're still looking at playing video from Jared Kushner's interview.

So, there's a lot to get to this evening. I want to get straight to Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, the authors of "This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America's Future."

I'm so glad to have you here gentlemen, thank you so much for joining.

JONATHAN MARTIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Thanks, Don.

ALEX BURNS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Thanks, Don.

LEMON: So, Alex, I'm going to start with you. To hear Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, say that he called Trump on the day of the insurrection and say that he was very intense, very loud about telling people to stop. McCarthy didn't seem to doubt that Trump had the power to stop that attack, did he?

BURNS: No. It's one of the most important implications of the audio that we just heard. This is not Kevin McCarthy saying that he called President Trump and that they shared outrage over what was going on. He briefed the president. The president took it very seriously.

No. He saw people rampaging through the capitol. He describes his own evacuation from his own office. And he decides, who can I call who can make this stop? And he calls Donald Trump. And that decision on its own speaks volumes about the dynamics that day.

But Don, even more than that, he goes on to say, it took a little while for the president to do anything productive in response. And that tells you a whole lot more about what Kevin McCarthy knows and has not shared in public about how the president responded in real- time to what was going on. And what else he might have done to try to bring an end to the violence.

LEMON: Jonathan, here we are less than 24 hours until the January six committee unveils their findings. And your newly released audio shows what Republicans thought about January 6th and having, you know, a committee to investigate that just days after the insurrection. This is more from Kevin McCarthy and then you and I will talk.

[22:05:05]

MARTIN: Sure.

(BEGIN VOICE CLIP)

MCCARTHY: I know there's going to be some dark days, and it's going to get really dark. But the one thing I will tell you, we should take this moment, change course, to improve and more importantly, we've got to be united in what the Democrats are going to do in the future. We cannot just sweep this under the rug. We need to know why it happened, who did it, and people need to be held accountable for it. And I'm committed to make sure that happens.

(END VOICE CLIP)

LEMON: OK, he went on to say that he wanted bipartisan investigation. At what point did his view, not to sweep things under the rug change? Because his trip to Mar-a-Lago to meet Donald Trump was just a month later?

MARTIN: It was less than a month he was back to Mar-a-Lago, Don, before the end of January as you can see in that picture on the screen. Right there. Look, I think once McCarthy realizes that his members in a lot of Republican voters just don't care that much about Trump's conduct on January 6th. That he basically loses interest in any kind of accountability, and just wants to move past it, or to borrow his words, sweep it under the rug.

I mean, keep in mind that, you know, there was a vote in the House in 2021 to establish a bipartisan panel to investigate January 6th. And McCarthy turned against them, why? Entirely because of pressure from Donald Trump who had no interest in that kind of bipartisan panel.

As we get to, in the book, there was real frustration in the ranks of the House GOP. Because there was support even among more conservative even sort of fairly poor pro-Trump members of the House GOP, Don, who still one of the kind of, accountability for January 6th that Kevin McCarthy is talking about in that audio that you just played.

LEMON: What was the decision though? Why did everyone come to this one decision to sweep it under the rug? Even the people who said listen, we can't -- we can't -- we can't let that happen. What happened? Did they realize that the rift that Trump --

(CROSSTALK)

MARTIN: Politics.

LEMON: Go on.

MARTIN: Yes, politics. Look, they realized they're talking about Donald Trump and holding him accountable was going to divide their party. They were better off talking about Joe Biden and criticizing Democrats. And that just was what their voters wanted to hear and to their eyes that made more sense politically. And so that's what they did.

I just don't think it's any more complicated than that than a very straight very raw calculation based on the politics. We go into this in the book at some length. I mean, I think that the mindset in the days after January 6th in both the House and the Senate was let's hold Trump accountable. And that changed pretty rapidly once the leaders realized that their voters didn't want accountability.

LEMON: Alex, you said politics as well. Let me play this clip and then let you respond. Because this is a heated exchange, this is Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler confronting Representative Lauren Boebert for tweeting information out in real-time about where members of Congress were. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER (R-WA): Is it true that you are live tweeting from the floor on location to people on the outside as we are being attacked, Lauren?

REP. LAUREN BOEBERT (R-CO): Yes, those tweets did go out and that was something that was live in public information that was broadcast live from --

(CROSSTALK)

BEUTLER: So, don't ask us about security if you're telling the attackers where we're at. I yield back.

BOEBERT: So that was something that was being broadcast live from C- SPAN and once we were on the move there is absolutely nothing else that was -- that was broadcast.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Alex, what does that exchange reveal to you?

BURNS: Look, I think it reveals the extraordinary tension even between but between Republican members of Congress in the days after January 6th. You know, Don, this is something that Republicans certainly have swept under the rug. It's something Democrats used to talk about a little bit more openly than they do today.

It was the fear in those days, and in some cases up until today there maybe folks in Congress who represents a security threat to themselves. That's because they're carrying firearms around the capitol complex or bringing in people who might be carrying a firearm.

We report in the book that in the days after January 6th, House Democrats were desperately trying to change the screening procedures around the inauguration. Change the method that Joe Biden was going to use to travel from Delaware to Washington, because they were afraid about an attack on an incoming president.

Just this climate of incipient violence was everywhere. And it was within the House Republican conference. What you hear there, and this is an important moment in the book and in the modern history of the Republican Party. And the House of Representatives as a deliberative body.

[22:094:53]

It's one Republican confronting another, not over ideological differences of policy differences or even strategic differences, but accusing her and calling her to account for sharing information that could've, that she believes, could've put people in physical danger during the insurrection.

LEMON: It's just astounding to me. It seems like they made these calculations, I think that they realized just how terrible this was for them, and that was obviously part of the calculation.

But I really want to play this, I want to play as much of the sound as possible, Jonathan, this is for you.

MARTIN: Yes.

LEMON: This is more from -- this is from January 5th, the day before the attack. This is Congressman Louie Gohmert saying that he won't vote to certify Biden's electors, raising this a wild conspiracy theory about l fraud, and then Congressman Adam Kinzinger shutting it down. Listen.

(BEGIN VOICE CLIP)

REP. LOUIE GOHMERT (R-TX): There is one check left between fraud completely taking over the presidency and the Department of Justice, and the intel apparatus. And yes, they were involved too, but I'm not going there publicly.

REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-IL): I have no doubt that voter fraud existed. I have no doubt that voter fraud exists in every election. But is it enough to take a 300-some electoral victory-victory and cause us to overturn it? I love you, Louie, but Louie had mentioned a comment about an intel agency being involved in this. Do we really believe the CIA vote-switched, like we've seen on twitter? Every conspiracy theory that I have research that's been a hobby of mine has been debunked. But it's hard to do the research to find that it's debunked.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Will the 1/6 committee debunked some of these conspiracy theorists, is that part of their mission too, Jonathan?

MARTIN: Yes, I think they're going to try to sort of offer up an (Inaudible) account of what did happen on January 6th and who caused it. But look, I think hearing that audio there that the frustration, and really, the makings, Don, of the breakup between a handful of House Republicans and the bulk of the GOP caucus.

People like Kinzinger and Cheney and a few others Fred Upton who obviously chose to retire, who just have no time at all for the conspiracy mongering fringe in their conference but who have lived with these members for years and years and years. And even before the election, for putting up with that kind of totally unfounded speculation about the CIA being involved in overturning the election.

I think that's what radicalizes people like Kinzinger. And that's what prompts them to wind up where he's going to be tomorrow on the 1/6 committee, install there by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Somebody who did not have much of relationship with two years ago to put it mildly.

LEMON: All right. This is something that I want to play now, this is from Representative Debbie Lesko, also the day before the riot. She was worried about what could happen. Listen.

(BEGIN VOICE CLIP)

REP. DEBBIE LESKO (R-AZ): I'm actually very concerned about this, because we have who knows how many hundreds of thousands of people coming here. We have Antifa. We also have quite honestly, Trump supporters, who actually believe that we are going to overturn the election. And when that doesn't happen, most likely, will not happen, they are going to go nuts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Let's be clear, another conspiracy theory is that Antifa stormed the capitol. Antifa did not storm the capitol or infiltrate the mob. Lesko was worried about Trump supporters becoming violent, Alex, Republicans knew what could happen.

BURNS: Well, it's something that you hear over and over again. Republican conversations amongst themselves in the run up to January 6th, if you have the folks who were true believers who think the election was stolen making a case for objecting. And you have the folks who think that it's totally legally and constitutionally inappropriate.

And then you periodically have these voices speaking up, and Debbie Lesko is an interesting one, because she's quite a conservative --

MARTIN: Yes.

BURNS: -- member of the House. Folks speaking up to say, you know, we are leading people on here. We are letting people develop a set of expectations about what we can do on January 6th. It's just not rooted in reality. It's seldom that you hear someone articulated in the way we heard in that clip, where she draws a straight line between those bogus expectations that they might actually stop Joe Biden from becoming president, and the risk of actual physical danger to members of Congress. And boy was she right.

LEMON: Yes. Well, the folks who are out there, you know, storming the capitol have paid some consequences. Now it's time to see with these hearings if lawmakers will actually face some consequences as well because of this.

Thank you, gentlemen, I appreciate it. Alex and Jonathan, the book again is "This Will Not Pass," and the audio book is out today. We appreciate it, we'll see you soon.

BURNS: Thank you.

LEMON: I want to bring in now Denver Riggleman, he is a former adviser to the House select committee on January 6th and a former congressman from Virginia. Thank you, Denver, for joining, I appreciate it.

DENVER RIGGLEMAN, FORMER SENIOR TECHNICAL ADVISER TO JANUARY 6TH COMMITTEE: Hey, Don, how are you tonight.

[22:15:00]

LEMON: I'm doing well. Look, it's been almost a year of collecting a evidence. Thousands of texts, e-mails, phone calls, and hearing for more than 1,000 witnesses. What should we expect tomorrow at this first primetime hearing?

RIGGLEMAN: Timeline. I think they're going to rebuild the timeline to the American public. So, when they show video, when they are talking to the USCP police officer. I think what they're trying to do is reintroduce the timeline to the American public through video. And I think it's a pretty smart way to start things.

You know, they're trying to be concise, they're trying to roll through a narrative. So that's what I would do, right? The video is very powerful, but it does sort of, I would say standardize the timeline for the rest of the hearings. So, they're really doing a bottom line of front, what we say in the military, a bluff, what you're going to see over the next month.

LEMON: There's this newly-released audio from Republicans including Kevin McCarthy talking about having castigated Trump the day of the insurrection, and then there's all the Meadows text messages that you reviewed. You call Meadows the MVP for the committee. What troubles you the most about those texts?

RIGGLEMAN: I think what troubled me was, there seem like a conspiracy theory really infiltrated every, I would say, every level of the Republican Party. You heard Louie Gohmert with Adam Kinzinger on that last recording, Louie Gohmert was talking about the intelligence apparatus. It wasn't just the CIA.

Sadly, don, I'm familiar with every single conspiracy theory with the intelligence apparatus, and all of them are absolutely bizarre. I've said it before. I mean, these are individuals, you know, that think the "Lord of the Rings" is a documentary.

And Adam's frustration was coming from people who are ignorant about actually how the government works. And that's what scared me, when you're talking about congressional representatives. So when you're looking at, you know, when you're looking at, I would say, private communications, or you're looking at public communications, you're looking at what you're seeing in open source intelligence, you're looking at all these things.

Those text messages were a roadmap not only to what was happening in real-time when it came to choosing electors, when it came to looking at other types of ideas or conspiracies that would happen -- it really was a roadmap to the entire Republican Party sort of in lockstep, or at least the people that were on those text messages and the people in public reporting to try to, you know, that were behind this stop the steal ridiculousness which is really a QAnon based conspiracy theory.

LEMON: Well, I mean, people should know that your expertise comes from your background in the military intelligence, and so you know about these things. Tomorrow, the committee will focus a lot on the right-wing groups involved in the violence on January 6th, and the idea that it was premeditated.

The Proud boys, the Oath Keepers, the video of the Oath Keepers walking up to the capitol with arms on their shoulders. Do you think that there are connections between these groups and the White House? If so, what and how?

RIGGLEMAN: Well, that's what the committee has to look at, right? They have to look at all the (Inaudible). So, there's something I want to say very quickly. The committee can't walk and chew gum at the same time. So not only are they looking at the data they have now because a lot of data coming in, Don.

So, when you're talking about connections, you're talking about what the committee is trying to prove, they still have data coming in. Where even though we're looking at the six hearings right now, I wouldn't be surprised if there's other things coming based on what we have today.

Don, you mentioned at the top of -- at the top of your show about 159 e-mails from Eastman, all this data from the archives, other data that's coming in from our requests that happened maybe months ago, that still coming in. So, they are still going to be connecting those dots.

I don't take any thunder away from the committee, but I can tell you that the one thing the American public should look at, if there's one word they should concentrate on tomorrow, and for the rest of the hearings, and all the way until that reporters release, it's coordination. And that's with the committee is setting up tomorrow with the timeline. And they are going to try to prove the coordination between multiple groups for the day on January 6th.

LEMON: Multiple groups, meaning which groups? Are you talking about the QAnon Proud boys? Or the Oath Keepers? Or are you talking about the White House, or lawmakers? What groups?

RIGGLEMAN: Well, they're looking at a lot of groups. It's a lot of investigative teams. So, we already have right wing, you know, right wing extremists, which we're all very familiar with, you have rally planners, you have individuals from the state legislators, you have people that are around Trump, you have congressional representatives, all these people are part of the issue when you are talking about January 6.

So, all these groups, all of these individuals, all the planning, all of that has to be reviewed by each separate portion of the committee that has that responsibility. Then, they have to merge all that data and present to the public in a very coherent, concise way. And then go back to the --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: Do you think that's provable? Do you think that's provable?

RIGGLEMAN: I think -- I think with the data that they have in the way that they're putting it together, I think it's absolutely -- I think it's absolutely possible.

LEMON: Denver Riggleman, thank you. Former Congressman, I appreciate it. Thanks so much.

RIGGLEMAN: Yes.

LEMON: Be well.

RIGGLEMAN: Thanks.

LEMON: The committee may play video from Ivanka's Trump's interview with them at some point during the hearings, but tonight we've got inside details on what she and Jared Kushner, her husband, were doing in the days -- the days -- of the last -- the last days, excuse me, of the Trump White House. That's next.

[22:20:04]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: The House select committee investigating January 6th is zeroing in on former President Donald Trump and those around him in the days surrounding the attack on the capitol. What will we learn from the committee's first primetime hearing tomorrow night?

Joining me now, CNN global affairs analyst, Susan Glasser. Susan, good evening to you.

Here we go after what, a year and a half of discussing this. And finally, the first hearings are going to happen in primetime. The committee says that we're going to hear new information tomorrow. The chairman Bennie Thompson says at some point, we could see video testimony from the former president's daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump. What key information could she have shares with that committee?

SUSAN GLASSER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, Don, thank you so much. I mean, first of all, Ivanka Trump, I think it's pretty notable as we found in reporting our new book about Trump and the White House, Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, never believed in Trump's rigged election fantasy. And essentially absented themselves rather than wage a fight to stop those who are promoting it inside the White House.

[22:24:59]

As you know, she and her husband both testified, apparently on video for at least some portion of it to the select committee. There's been reports that they may show a videotape portion of it on the day of January 6th itself.

Ivanka Trump, according to our reporting, was back and forth, up and down the stairs, repeatedly asked by Mark Meadows, the chief of staff, to go in to Trump to try to get him to call off his supporters. As we all know, he really didn't do that. In fact, he even taped a video message in which he said, we love you. So, it could have enormously interesting testimony obviously, but she's not spoken publicly about this.

LEMON: I wonder, this is from your, you have this new reporting and your upcoming book with your husband and New York Times correspondent Peter Baker on the final days of the Trump administration, including what Jared and Ivanka Trump were doing after the election through January 6.

And I just want to read some of the reporting from Kushner, about Kushner from Peter's piece in today's Times, OK? He says, he understood that his father-in-law would not concede right away, and would ask for a recounts and file lawsuits. But he believed that even if there were some irregularities, it was mainly a way of soothing a wounded ego, and explaining defeat.

Mr. Trump would lash out and make outlandish claims, and would eventually accept reality and move out of the White House, an assumption many Republicans in Washington made, only to discover how far the president was willing to go. So how did he react on January 6th?

GLASSER: He, meaning Jared Kushner?

LEMON: Yes.

GLASSER: Well, interestingly, Don, he wasn't even around until late in the afternoon. He was in the Middle East, as we all know, he's now raised billions of dollars including from the Saudi, a Saudi investment fund. You know, there's a question being investigated by a House committee about whether he is leveraging, essentially his official government work to do so.

But he was on a plane back from the Middle East as this horrible attack on the capitol was taking place. He returns home, just about to get in the shower that afternoon when he receives a frantic panic phone call from Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, who, as you were talking about tonight, has radically changed his story from what it was on January 6.

But he pleads with Jared Kushner to help once again intervening with his father-in-law. But Kushner quickly concludes there is really nothing that he can do.

LEMON: yes. You and your reporting shows that a lot of people in Trump's orbit did not believe the election was stolen. And one key player in the White House leading to January 6 was Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows, and you also reported on his strategy in the final days of the Trump administration. What did you learn about Meadows, and what might the committee know?

GLASSER: Well, Meadows, again, has been, you know, for someone who is not going to actually be up there testifying been a key witness. Before he stopped cooperating of course he turned over thousands of text messages, which have, many of which have already been released to the public or have leaked out via CNN and other outlets.

And those text messages really, I think, are crucial evidence. They show that Mark Meadows was, in the words of one of our sources, a matador for Donald Trump. Waving the red flag of the rigged election at him, facilitating the entrance of what another former White House colleague called the crazies. Letting the crazies into the Oval Office.

And you know, one of the conclusions I came to after doing this reporting was that it's very possible, January 6th would not have happened had a different and more responsible white chief of staff been in place.

LEMON: Susan Glasser, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Great reporting by the way. Thank you.

Next, an 11-year-old testifying to Congress today telling them how she had to smear blood on herself in order to survive the Uvalde school shooting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIGUEL CERRILLO, FATHER OF FOURTH-GRADER WHO SURVIVED UVALDE SHOOTING: I could've lost my baby girl. She is not the same little girl that I used to play with.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[22:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: The House passing sweeping gun reform legislation tonight as the country reels from a recent string of mass shootings. That coming just hours after the House oversight committee heard emotional testimony from both survivors and families of gun violence victims.

Among them, 11-year-old Miah Cerrillo who survived last month's massacre at her Uvalde elementary school. She described, in chilling detail, her experience that day and what she wants to see following the horrific tragedy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIAH CERRILLO, UVALDE SHOOTING SURVIVOR: He shot a little window. And then he went to the other classroom. And then he went -- there is a door between our classrooms and he went there and shot at a teacher and told the teacher (Inaudible) that he shot her and then he shot some of my classmates and the white board.

When I went to the back, he shot my friend that was next to me. And I thought he was going to come back to the room so I grab a little blood and I put it all over me.

UNKNOWN: Is there something that you want people to know about that day and about you? Or things that you want to be different, what would it be?

[22:35:01]

M. CERRILLO: To have security.

UNKNOWN: Do you feel safe at school?

M. CERRILLO: No.

UNKNOWN: Why not?

M. CERRILLO: Because I don't want to get attacked again.

UNKNOWN: Do you think it's going to happen again?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: For more now, I want to bring in the chair of the House oversight committee Representative Carolyn Maloney. Representative, thank you so much.

This is really such gut-wrenching testimony today from a lot of folks, but 11-year-old Miah Cerrillo. Tell me what it was like for the committee to hear from a victim so soon after a mass shooting?

REP. CAROLYN MALONEY (D-NY): It was highly emotional. It was heartbreaking. There were many tears in the room from everyone listening and it was, it brought to life the pain and the suffering of the families in real-time. They know more about gun laws than anyone. They just experienced it. But they all spoke with the same voice. Saying that they hoped that we would act. That we would have the courage to pass comprehensive gun safety legislation and move forward.

LEMON: So, do you think --

(CROSSTALK)

MALONEY: And actually, we passed a comprehensive package but I would've gone further, I would've banned assault weapons, which were the weapons that were used in both Buffalo and Texas.

LEMON: That's where I wanted to ask you, do you think that the victims were heard? Do you think that your colleagues, especially on the other side of the aisle took this seriously enough? Were they moved by this testimony?

MALONEY: I know that many of them said they were watching it. They were listening. Hopefully that they will be. We did on some votes pick up as many as 10 Republicans. Usually, they just vote and block against gun safety legislation, this time we did have some Republican support. And hopefully we'll have it in the Senate.

Senator Schumer has said that he has a committee, a bipartisan committee, that is working on coming forward with bipartisan proposals. I am hopeful that we will move forward.

LEMON: The only pediatrician in Uvalde who rushed to the hospital to help also testified today. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROY GUERRERO, PEDIATRICIAN, TREATED TEXAS SHOOTING VICTIMS: In this case, you are the doctors. And our country is the patient. We are lying on the operating table. Riddled with bullets like the children of Robb Elementary and so many other schools. We are bleeding out, and you are not there.

My oath as a doctor means that I signed up to save lives. I do my job. And I guess it turns out that I am here to plead, to beg, to please, please do yours.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: When you hear this pediatrician begging Congress to do their jobs versus what's actually likely to pass, I mean, what do you tell him?

MALONEY: Well, he lost five patients in one day in his testimony was extremely moving. I hope that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will open up their hearts and work for the meaningful gun safety reform. It's long overdue. We stand alone in mass shootings. We have more than any other country in the world, if guns made a safer, we'd be the safest country in the world, but we are the most dangerous. We need to act.

LEMON: Representative, the mother of 10-year-old Lexi Rubio laid out a list of demands for gun control policy. She wants a ban on assault rifles. She wants red flag laws. And she wants to raise the age to purchase these weapons to 21. Listen to her warning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KIMBERLY RUBIO, MOTHER OF LEXI RUBIO: Somewhere out there, there is a mom listening to our testimony. Thinking, I can't even imagine their pain. Not knowing that our reality will one day be hers. Unless we act now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: It has been 10 years since Sandy Hook, is she right? Is this just going to be more and more, there are just going to be more and more parents for realities since Congress can't come together on this?

MALONEY: Well, hopefully Congress will come together. And we're certainly not going to come together if we don't try. At the very least, we put people on record, on where they stand on gun safety legislation. And it will be taken out to an election.

Personally, I think voters should vote for representatives that will work for and pass gun safety legislation fundamentally were democracy. And this will be on the ballot coming in the midterms.

LEMON: Representative Maloney --

(CROSSTALK)

MALONEY: And at least we'll know where they stand, and they will force the vote in the Senate too.

LEMON: Representative, thank you for your time, we appreciate it. Thank you so much.

[22:40:01]

MALONEY: Thank you. Thank you.

LEMON: Un armed man arrested near Justice Brett Kavanaugh's home today telling law enforcement he traveled there to kill a specific United States Supreme Court justice. Stay with us.

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LEMON: So, this happened today. Police arresting an armed man early this morning near Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's home. He is charged with attempting or threatening to kidnap or murder a U.S. judge.

Nicholas John Roske called authorities on himself saying that he was having suicidal thoughts, and had a firearm in his suitcase. He told law enforcement that he traveled from California to kill, and I quote here, "a specific United States Supreme Court justice."

Roske was dressed in all-black, carrying a suitcase and a backpack packed with weapons and ammunition, including a Glock 17 pistol, two magazines, pepper spray, zip ties, a hammer, a screwdriver, and duct tape.

[22:45:07]

He appeared in federal court today and agreed to remain in jail.

So, let's bring in now CNN chief legal analyst Mr. Jeffrey Toobin. Jeffrey, good evening here. This is a very serious story. This man said that he was upset about the leaked SCOTUS opinion on abortion rights. He said that he was concerned about an upcoming gun control case. The FBI affidavit says that he thought killing Kavanaugh would give his life's purpose. This was very nearly another tragedy.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. I mean, this is some really scary business. I mean, that list of stuff that this guy had with them, I mean, this is a terrible, terrible thing. It's bad enough that it happened, but we can only be grateful that it didn't get worse. It didn't turn into a real act of violence. But you know, this is just a sign of how ugly things are out there.

You know, the Supreme Court has this enormous, ugly fence around it now. That's been put up since that leaked opinion came out, and I think that's indicative of the security system -- state of affairs at the Supreme Court right now.

LEMON: As I said in the introduction to you, he is still in jail, he remains in jail. What do you expect to come for him on these charges?

TOOBIN: Well, I think he's going to be prosecuted, and he's charged with attempted murder, which is a 20-year sentence. But I think, you know, in a larger sense, you know, when I started covering the Supreme Court 20 years ago, they walked around more or less like members of Congress. They didn't have security. They were public figures. But they were not under constant threat.

That's changed. And it's only going to get more intense, the security around the justices. And it's too bad it's come to that, but given the circumstances, you have to think that's the right decision.

LEMON: And we got to -- we have to talk about what's just happened just this week in Judge Roemer, right, a retired judge in Wisconsin was found zip tied and killed in his home by a gunman with an apparent -- apparent hit list. There were 4,500 threats to judges last year alone. It didn't used to be like this. You know, judges and their families were able to, as you said, live their lives pretty publicly and pretty freely. What has changed here?

TOOBIN: Well, I think it's the general ugliness of our lives. You know, that today, that there's just this more violence. I mean, actually, the number of murders is down from where it was in the 90s, but there is this tremendous, you know, there are tremendous number of guns out there, public figures get death threats more than they used to.

And it's just, I think, indicative of where we are as a society. You know, one of the federal judge in New Jersey, someone came to her house a couple years ago trying to kill her, wound up killing her son. She's become a big spokeswoman for increased security. There was a bill before Congress to increase security for judges. I think it's just got to be done. But there's just no alternative. People are in danger.

LEMON: Jeffrey Toobin, Jeffrey, thank you. We'll be watching tomorrow as you're covering the January 6th hearing. So thank you. And that's why Jeffrey is in Washington and not in New York on the set with me.

TOOBIN: Right. See you.

LEMON: We'll see you tomorrow night. Thanks.

TOOBIN: OK. Bye.

LEMON: A sheriff's department says they're out of gas money. Out of gas money. And that means that they won't be able to respond to some calls. Plus, January 6th committee putting on a public hearing tomorrow. Those details, straight ahead.

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LEMON: It's the gas prices, right? Skyrocketing gas prices are not only impacting wallets, but also how law enforcement in one community responds to calls. Michigan is one of 16 states, along with Washington, D.C., where gas is $5 a gallon or more, causing one police force in the states to already exhaust their fuel budget for the year.

The Isabella County Sheriff's office explaining how they plan to deal with the pain at the pump in a Facebook post. And this is what they say, quote, "I've instructed the deputies to attempt to manage whatever calls are acceptable over the phone. This would be non-in progress calls, non-life-threatening calls, calls that do not require evidence collection or documentation."

We reached out to the Isabella County -- to Isabella County for comment, and we haven't heard back. And unfortunately, it seems that the consequences of rising gas prices could get worse. Our energy analysts predicting the national average for gas could be close to $6 by later this summer. I'm sorry I had to tell you that, but that's where we are.

Next, a yearlong investigation now being made public. We're going to go inside the January 6th committee's plans for their primetime hearing tomorrow.

[22:55:00]

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LEMON: Tonight, new audio what Republicans were saying just before and right after the January 6th insurrection. It's all from New York Times reporters Alex Burns and Jonathan Martin. Here's Republican Congresswoman Debbie Lesko talking about Trump supporters on January 5th.

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LESKO: I'm actually very concerned about this because we have who many who knows how many hundreds of thousands of people coming here, we have Antifa, we also have, quite honestly, Trump supporters, who actually believe that we are going to overturn the election. And when that doesn't happen, most likely will not happen, they are going to go nuts.

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LEMON: We're going to have more new audio in just a moment. But this is the eve of the January 6th select committee's first public hearing.

CNN's Pamela brown has the latest on what we can expect.

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: After a nearly yearlong investigation, the January 6 committee is preparing to share their findings with the American people. And they are zeroing in on one man. Former President Trump.

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD), JANUARY 6TH SELECT COMMITTEE: I think that Donald Trump and the White House were at the center of these events, that's the only way really of making sense of them all.

BROWN: From the beginning, the investigation has focused on the unprecedented efforts by Trump and his allies to try to stop the transfer of power to President Joe Biden. While Trump was impeached by the House just days after the riot for inciting the pro-Trump insurrectionists, the committee says it's uncovered more since then.

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RASKIN: The select committee has found evidence about a lot more than incitement here.