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Don Lemon Tonight

House January 6 Committee Announces Next Hearing Date; Trump's Attorney Spoke To FBI; New Arizona Law Bars People From Recording Video Of Police Activity Within Eight Feet Of Officers; Funeral Is Held For Former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe; NASA Unveils Stunning Image Of Universe From New Telescope. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired July 11, 2022 - 23:00   ET

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

[23:00:00]

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DON LEMON, CNN HOST: We are just hours away from the next January 6th hearing and we are getting new details about what we might see. The committee planning to zero in on the ties between extremist groups and Trump's orbit as we learn another one of Trump's closest allies, Steve Bannon, will testify to the committee.

Senior congressional correspondent Ryan Nobles has the latest on what we can expect tomorrow.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RYAN NOBLES, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): CNN has learned that January 6 Committee is planning to zero in on a key link: The extremist groups' ties to Trump associates Roger Stone and Michael Flynn.

The hearing comes as another key Trump ally, Steve Bannon, is changing his tune, telling the committee he would be willing to testify but only in a live public setting. It's a move that prosecutors believe is a stunt to try and wiggle out from his criminal contempt charges, but a federal judge on Monday declined his request to postpone his trial for next week.

REP. ZOE LOFGREN (D-CA): I expect that we will be hearing from him and there are many questions that we have for him.

NOBLES (voice-over): The committee has already revealed a bevy of new information. Among the biggest headlines, that Trump and his allies were made fully aware that there was no evidence the election was stolen.

BILL STEPIEN, FORMER DONALD TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN MANAGER: I didn't think what was happening was necessarily honest or professional.

NOBLES (voice-over): Trump knew he lost the election but kept telling his supporters he won without evidence to back it up. That the campaign to subvert the will of the voters extended all the way to the states where Trump personally pressured officials to help his effort. RUSSELL "RUSTY" BOWERS, ARIZONA HOUSE SPEAKER: You are asking me to do something against my oath, and I will not break my oath.

NOBLES (voice-over): The committee also revealing that Trump knew his supporters were armed and planning to be violent, but he directed them to the Capitol anyway.

CASSIDY HUTCHINSON, FORMER AIDE TO WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF MARK MEADOWS: I heard the president say something to the effect of, you know, I don't care that they have weapons. They're not here to hurt me. Take the effing mags away. Let my people in. They could march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in. Take the effing mags away.

NOBLES: The committee also uncovering details about Trump's efforts to prevent Congress's certification of the election. He ignored his advisers that there was no fraud and instead tried to install an attorney general who would do his bidding.

RICHARD DONOGHUE, FORMER ACTING U.S. DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: And I recall toward the end saying what you're proposing is nothing less than the United States Justice Department meddling in the outcome of the presidential election.

NOBLES (voice-over): That man, Jeffrey Clark, is now under scrutiny as part of a federal investigation into the attempts to overturn the election. And finally, as an angry mob called for the assassination of the vice president --

CROWD: Hang Mike Pence!

NOBLES (voice-over): -- witnesses say Trump did not seem to be bothered. His response to the violence leading several cabinet officials to quit and other quietly considering a plan to invoke the 25th Amendment.

HUTCHINSON: There's a large concern of the 25th Amendment potentially being evoked and there are concerns about what would happen in the Senate if it was -- the 25th was invoked.

NOBLES (on camera): And Don, of course, everyone is wondering when we will see Pat Cipollone, the former White House counsel, who was behind closed doors with the Select Committee for more than seven hours last Friday. The Select Committee members say that we could see clips of that deposition as soon as tomorrow's hearing.

And we are told that Cipollone was asked very pointed questions about a heated meeting that took place in December at the White House with former President Trump and a number of election deniers.

Cipollone was someone that thought that parts that meeting were actually insane. It is very possible that we could see Cipollone talking about that during tomorrow's hearing. Select Committee aides saying today that they believe that that hearing was a pivotal moment that led to the violence here on January 6th. Don?

(END VIDEOTAPE) LEMON: All right. Ryan Nobles, thank you very much for that. I appreciate it.

I want to bring in now CNN political analyst Jonathan Martin. He is the co-author of "This Will Not Pass." Also, CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig. Good evening to both of you.

Elie, now, we are both wondering. Jonathan, you have any scoops for us as you always do before we get started with everything else?

JONATHAN MARTIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, CO-AUTHOR OF "THIS WILL NOT PASS": Look, I think that the scoops that we are recently hearing about are coming from this committee. I think that the testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson is going to, I think, prompt more people to at least consider coming forward as are a number of subpoenas, Don.

[23:05:00]

But as Alex and I captured in our book, the blog there at the top, well, the fact is that there was a deep concern in the Republican Party in the days before January 6th about what could happen at the Capitol.

There was concern about what the Trump supporters may do, Don, because a lot of members of Congress knew that the election was not stolen, knew that Trump supporters were being fed of bill of goods, and therefore knew that they were going to be angry people coming to the Capitol on January 6th when it was clear that the Congress was, in fact, going to ratify Biden as the president.

It was totally, totally, totally sought in advance. It is anticipated by a lot of Republican members of Congress. And so, it was not a huge surprise on January 6th, what happened. We know this because they're on tape talking about the possibility of violence on January 6th.

LEMON: Jonathan, so, I have a scoop for you to respond to, just in that while you were speaking.

MARTIN: Yeah.

LEMON: Our Jamie Gangel and Kaitlan Collins are reporting that Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne is to meet with the January 6 investigators. What can he tell the committee?

MARTIN: He was somebody who was part of this cavalcade of people who Trump was talking to, listening to, seeking out in the weeks after the election, Don.

Remember that President Trump basically cast out anybody who was not willing to sort or reinforce his view that the election was stolen, and so he surrounds himself increasingly with people who would reinforce his delusion, frankly, that this was stolen, from people like Mike Lindell, they My Pillow guy, and yes, people like the Overstock CEO.

This to me says that the Cassidy Hutchinson testimony and the threat of subpoenas and potential more legal case and perhaps prosecution, Don, is encouraging more people to cooperate or at least consider cooperating with this committee.

LEMON: Yeah. I said Kaitlan Collins. It was (INAUDIBLE). My apologies to (INAUDIBLE). But anyway, Jamie Gangel and (INAUDIBLE) reporting that.

Elie, what can the legal significance be of them focusing in on that conversation and focusing in on that Overstock CEO and what he can tell investigators?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Don, this December 18th meeting is going to be the starting point for what we hear tomorrow. This is when it was over, the election was over, Donald Trump had lost, and there is this desperate meeting at the White House where he is getting ridiculous and dangerous advice from Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn and others.

And the counterweight here was Pat Cipollone and Eric Herschmann who are saying, this is crazy, you can't seize voting machines, you can't declare martial law, you can't make Sidney Powell, of all people, the special counsel. That is the starting point.

And what is most memorable about that meeting is that just a couple of hours after it ended, at 1:42 a.m., on December 19th, Donald Trump sends the tweet, January 6th, be there, will be wild.

LEMON: But just think about what you just said.

HONIG: Yeah.

LEMON: Right? This is not normal.

HONIG: No.

LEMON: But there are people who -- who are -- who take these people seriously, who take Michael Flynn, who take Sidney Powell, who take Rudy Giuliani. This isn't normal, Elie. This is -- this is bad.

HONIG: This is what is so alarming about it. I mean, we had people in the White House, in the Oval Office, in the residence, according to the reporting, trying to get the president to do things that would've been historically dangerous, historically abusive of his power, historically irresponsible, and only because of a few level heads, like Cipollone and Eric Herschmann and perhaps others, was Donald Trump drawn back from the brink of that.

LEMON: How do you take a party seriously who don't -- who just basically sit by and condone this or don't speak out about it or don't actively work to change that?

HONIG: I'm not saying they're heroes by any means but they did keep him from going off the edge.

LEMON: Do you think that Cipollone might have had information about extremist groups like the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers? What would you have asked him about that?

HONIG: I would want to know. Did you ever hear? As White House counsel, did any word of any connections to any extremist group ever reach you? And by the way, if it did -- again, we are talking about historically unprecedented. Imagine if there was any other administration in the history of this country that had links, direct or indirect, to extremist domestic groups. Right?

And so, I would want to hear from Pat Cipollone who portrays himself and most people seem to agree as one of the grownups in the room, did you know anything about these extremist groups and the links and what did you do about it?

LEMON: If you're taking council or people like the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers are looking up to you and touting you and your policies, isn't there something wrong?

HONIG: That should be a warning bell. Yeah. And Donald Trump played into that, right, throughout his presidency, from stand back and stand by up to that tweet.

LEMON: Jonathan, there is a high legal bar to prove in coordination between Trump's orbit and the extremists, but can the community win in the court of public opinion maybe?

[23:10:00]

MARTIN: Well, that's certainly the goal here, Don. I think it remains to be seen if they're going to be able to secure a legal indictment. But, obviously, they are very much working, led by Liz Cheney, to secure a political indictment, Donald Trump.

They are focused intently on raising intense questions about his culpability surrounding January 6th. And yes, surrounding specifically to the people who did most of the violence on January 6th. I think that is going to be the focus of the hearing tomorrow.

And you can just see some of the data so far, you know, as our slow leak among, you know, Trump supporters, not the super hardcore but the more traditional Republicans, I think, quietly are sort of fatigued by this, Don.

And, look, I think it's going to be fascinating to see how Trump responds because this committee is obviously entirely focused on him, and they're getting more cooperation from people like Pat Cipollone, who were in the room, are starting to talk. I think it's going to increase the pressure on Trump and create fresh political challenges for him within his own party.

We have a lot of reporting on our book about people like Kevin McCarthy who have tried so intently on keeping Trump close and trying to sort of placate Trump. Are people like Kevin McCarthy still going to see that necessity if Trump takes real damage from these hearings? It's going to be fascinating, Don, to see where Trump's numbers stand by summer's end when these hearings wrap up.

LEMON: What you think? Do you think that'll make a dent, like downwards in these numbers?

MARTIN: Yeah. Look -- I mean, look, it is not going to prompt the hardcore Trump MAGA crowd to say I once was lost, now I'm found. Trump's a bad dude. That is not going to happen any time soon. But, I think for the broader swath of the party, the kind of pre-Trump Republicans who dutifully voted for him but never really loved him, I think it gives them a permission to quietly start easing away and hoping and looking for an alternative in 2024.

It is basically Liz Cheney and a handful of Democrats doing the job a lot of Republicans quietly are happy to see being done.

LEMON: Yeah. Elie, I want to -- let's talk about this because -- I want to get the language correct. "The New York Times" is reporting that Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony was heard in the Justice Department. They are reporting that top officials are now more openly discussing Trump's conduct, including around A.G. Garland. That's a small change but it is a meaningful one. They weren't discussing this already?

HONIG: It's a revealing look inside the Justice Department. Frankly, it's not --

LEMON: What the what?

HONIG: It is not an encouraging look at all. I mean, here is the deal. They get beat to Cassidy Hutchinson. They have no idea she's out there. She testifies two weeks ago, and they are astonished by what they hear. No excuse for that, by the way. For DOJ to get lapped investigatively by the committee, there's absolutely no excuse for that. And what is the result there, according to "The New York Times" reporting, Jonathan's colleagues, jolted to do what? Are they serving subpoenas?

LEMON: To openly discuss it.

HONIG: To talk about it quietly in front of the boss. I mean, what is the rule before this? Thou shall not mention Donald Trump in front of Merrick Garland. Apparently so. So, this is revealing reporting and it doesn't say anything good about where DOJ is at or their phase here.

LEMON: Jonathan, what the hell. I mean, should -- the DOJ --

MARTIN: Yeah.

LEMON: -- should be the lead on this, right, not the January 6 Committee congressional committee.

MARTIN: Yeah, look, there is so much frustration among Democrats in Washington with the Biden DOJ. They believe that there should be a much more intense focus on holding President Trump accountable.

And the line, Don, that you will appreciate that I've heard from people close to Biden goes to something like this, that Biden wanted an apolitical Justice Department, but he didn't mean this apolitical, which, you know, is kind of lighthearted, but it is not totally far removed from the perspective of Biden's inner circle.

Look, they don't want Merrick Garland to sort of, you know, be the solemn black rogue judge totally above the fray. They want him to be the attorney general who when the law calls for it to sort of prosecute people who are culpable for January 6, including potential of the former president of the United States.

LEMON: Listen, I had a conversation earlier where, you know, we're discussing, you know, what the -- people who actually show up to the polls and vote, right, not necessarily the Twitter crowd and the progressives and the younger people, but the people who actually show up to the polls and vote.

And what I'm hearing from those people -- this is just my unscientific survey -- is that President Biden and the people he has hired, they have this sort of outmoded romanticized idea of what Republicans are, sort of (INAUDIBLE) Republicans.

[23:15:00]

And those Republicans no longer exist, and therefore, the administration is operating in a time gone by. Jonathan, is that -- is that fair?

MARTIN: Yeah, that is a critique that you're quite a bit from younger Democrats and more progressive Democrats who, you know, frankly, came of age either in the Trump era or in lead up to the Trump era.

You have people like Mitch McConnell who are a real departure from a lot of the senators that Biden served with in the 70s and 80s where you had a lot more ideological diversity, Don. You have a lot of conservative Democrats like from your home state of Louisiana. And you have a lot of liberal Republicans.

A very different place and time now in Washington. There's very liberal diversity within the parties. Republicans are basically down the line. Conservatives and Democrats are basically progressive. I think Biden is trying to sort of rekindle that old-time religion from the Senate he came up with. It is just not able to do that given where the two parties are today.

LEMON: Not going to happen. Not in this environment. Okay. Thank you, gentlemen. Appreciate it.

HONIG: Thanks, Don.

LEMON: The FBI interviewed Donald Trump's attorney two weeks ago and that may be bad news for Steve Bannon. We're going to tell you why. That is next.

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[23:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) LEMON: So, former Trump strategist Steve Bannon now says that he is willing to testify publicly before the January 6 Select Committee, but he has been refusing to appear for months even after a subpoena, which is likely why the Justice Department is calling this change of heart a stunt to try to avoid criminal contempt charges.

Let's discuss now. CNN senior justice correspondent Evan Perez is here and legal analyst Elliott Williams. Good evening, gents. Good to see you. Evan, what is going on here? Steve Bannon trying to turn these hearings into a circus?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: I think.

(LAUGHTER)

PEREZ: I mean, Steve Bannon, when he was -- when he was first charged, Don, showed up to court with a live streamer, a person who was --

LEMON: Yes.

PEREZ: -- streaming his arrest, his surrender to the FBI. So, this has partly now explained by what has gone on in the last day. We saw the judge today who looked at Bannon's requests to delay his trial. He wanted to obviously present to the defense that he had some kind of shield from the former president for executive privilege which really doesn't exist. The judge made it clear.

Carl Nichols, who is the judge overseeing this case, he is a Trump- appointee. He's one of the -- certainly, he is a Republican. He is an expert on executive privilege, and he rejected this out of hand.

So, there was no privilege to waive. There was no letter from the former president that was necessary. But we found out from the Justice Department today, that what had happened was, two weeks ago, the FBI interviewed Trump's lawyer and found out that there was no blanket privilege that was extended to Steve Bannon. That blew a hole in his defense.

And so, that is what happened today in court. A judge sort of made it clear that really Bannon has no defense. You know, he can't come in there and present that he was a depending on some executive privilege, some reason why he ignored the subpoena.

And keep in mind, Don, he's facing two counts. One of them is for failing to respond to the subpoena from the committee. Secondly, for refusing to turn over documents. He's offering to do the hearing, again, in public, but he hasn't said anything about presenting these documents that the committee subpoenaed.

LEMON: Two counts. I mean, what kind of -- do they have any teeth? I mean, this congressional -- was it a contempt of Congress, Elliot?

PEREZ: Contempt of Congress, yeah.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: Well, it is a crime, and he has

been charged with a crime, Don. And --

LEMON: Will they put him in jail?

WILLIAMS: Well, if he is convicted of it. Now, look, it is a misdemeanor. It is not -- you know, he's not going to get a life sentence for doing this.

LEMON: Yeah.

WILLIAMS: But it is a crime. And to be clear, this is picking up on Evan's point, the crime was committed when he, number one, violated the subpoena by not showing up to testify after protracted extended negotiations with the committee or at least extended outreach from the committee. And number two, didn't turn the documents over.

Saying now, I'm going to show up and testify, doesn't negate or race what he did in the past. Don, that is like me taking $50 out of your pocket, getting charged with theft, and then the day later saying, no, no, no, here's your money back, here's your money back, don't prosecute me for it. That's just not how it works.

So, regardless of the seriousness of it, it is a subpoena, it got violated, it is a crime.

LEMON: So, okay, fine. Maybe not jail. But what happens? What will they do with it then?

WILLIAMS: In any crime, there's any number. Number one, you could find somebody. You can put him on probation. You can put them in jail if they're convicted. Now, look, the way federal sentencing works --

LEMON: Isn't that a badge of honor to him, though? I mean --

WILLIAMS: Well, that is not for me to decide.

LEMON: Yeah.

WILLIAMS: Look, the way federal sentencing works, though, Don, is that once you are convicted, you go to federal sentencing guidelines which lay out based on how serious your offense was, how much they want to use you as deterrence for other future people, how much money was -- all kinds of things going to federal --

LEMON: Got it.

WILLIAMS: -- sentencing guidelines, and then they decide how much time you get it.

LEMON: So, Steve Bannon, Elliot, made this very specific prediction on his podcast the day before the January 6th insurrection. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE BANNON, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STRATEGIST: All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. Just understand this. All hell is going to break loose tomorrow.

[23:25:01]

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Okay. So, listen, this is an if. Legally, what would it mean for Bannon if he knew violence was planned for January 6th?

WILLIAMS: So, it's a couple of different things. So, now, the contempt proceeding is just with respect to not showing up the documents. This, if he knew about violence, this December 18th you're hearing about and you were talking about it in the last segment where there were a number of people meeting in Trump's immediate orbit, there is this question of the extent to which the president knew there would be violence the next day.

And close advisers like Steve Bannon might have been aware of it and might have passed that information on. The committee, the January 6 Committee, has sort of tease that they are going to draw some of that link tomorrow. So maybe that is what might come out. But, you know, one would have to know that there was going to be violence and participated in encouraging it to be charged with a crime.

LEMON: Evan Perez, so Bannon was also part of that Willard Hotel war room group peddling the election conspiracy theories for a few weeks. Explain his role leading up to the insurrection because that's a big part of this.

PEREZ: Yeah. I mean, look, he was one of the biggest proponents of the lie that there was fraud, that there was fraud even though, you know, Bill Barr and others kept telling president and were telling the world really by early December, that the Justice Department had looked into all of these things and had found nothing.

And so, despite that, Bannon and some of his cohorts, people like Sidney Powell, people like Rudy Giuliani, kept propagating this lie which they knew had no basis in fact, they knew had no evidence to support it. And, you know, that is part -- that is part of what his role here was. He's a propagandist. That is what his -- he has always embraced that as his role and his role with the former president.

And keep in mind, Don, at the end of all of this, Bannon gets a pardon for unrelated crime that, you know, some of his codefendants have now been sentenced for.

So, you know, there is a lot here that we still don't know and don't understand about what Bannon exactly was doing behind the scenes. I think that is one of the reasons why the committee really wanted to hear from him, and I think still really does because I think there is a lot here that he can explain about what was going on behind the scenes.

LEMON: Just listening to you. I've been gone for a week. This is crazy, like to come back -- it is crazy.

WILLIAMS: You know, Don, we get so caught up. I'll be guilty if this is a former prosecutor. Former deputy assistant attorney general, right? We get caught up in deciding what is a crime and what is not, what you can go to jail for and whatnot.

LEMON: Yeah.

WILLIAMS: We ought to step back and realize how, what an "S" show wrapped in a -- I don't even want to say the word. But, you know, what a mess this last couple of years have been and how not normal this comment. It is just crazy.

LEMON: I'm so glad this is not --

PEREZ: And how close we came to disaster.

WILLIAMS: How close we came to disaster. Cataclysm in the United States. You know me, Don. I'm not one to go with the conspiracy theories or any sort of sky is falling. But how close the country averted disaster on January 6th and in the months leading up to it? I think, you know, in the rush to sort of pick apart the seditious conspiracy statute on who could be charged with misdemeanors or felonies, let's not forget about what happened and how historically problematic all of this was. Abnormal.

LEMON: I laughed when we all showed up on the scene together because I was like we could be related, like cousins or --

WILLIAMS: It's like looking in a mirror.

(LAUGHTER)

WILLIAMS: We got to get Evan Perez some glasses, you know.

PEREZ: I do. I do need some glasses.

LEMON: Well, Evan has hair.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: I'm slowly behind --

WILLIAMS: I'm shining a little, you know.

LEMON: Mine is going to be gone. I'll give it 10 years. Thank you, guys. I appreciate it.

WILLIAMS: Thanks, Don.

LEMON: See you later.

PEREZ: Thanks, Don.

LEMON: Make sure you join CNN's Drew Griffin for a new investigation to Steve Bannon and his plan to reshape the U.S. government and the Republican Party. The CNN Special Report: Steve Bannon, Divided We Fall begins at 8 p.m. Eastern. That's on Sunday. A new Arizona law prohibiting anybody from recording law enforcement within eight feet of the officer. Eight feet. How many cases of police brutality would we never have known about without cameras? More on this, next.

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[23:30:00]

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LEMON: Okay, so, this happened. Arizona's governor signing a controversial bill into law, making it illegal for anyone to record video of police activity within eight feet of the officers. That's right, within eight feet of the officers.

Supporters say it is going to protect officers from harm. Detractors warn that this will stack the deck against the public, getting rid of a tool that has been a check on police misconduct.

And the fact is video taken by bystanders has been a critical element in multiple cases. They probably wouldn't be in the public consciousness if not for a bystander taking their phone out and recording.

Eric Garner died after being put in a chokehold by New York City police officer. Garner pleaded with the officer that he could not breathe.

Freddy Gray died in custody of Baltimore police officers. Bystander video showed police putting Gray, who is handcuffed, into a police van headfirst. He died from injuries sustained while riding inside that van.

And Philando Castile's girlfriend recorded the traffic stop where he was fatally shot by an officer.

[23:34:58]

And cell phone video of an officer kneeling on George Floyd's neck led to the officer's murder conviction.

And there is a lot to discuss with CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson, a criminal defense attorney, and Captain Ron Johnson, who was formally with the Missouri State Highway Patrol. Gentlemen, good evening. Thanks so much.

Joey, you first. I just talked about a few cases there. But those are just a few of many. Without these videos, we would never even know these folks' names.

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yeah, there is no question about it, Don. Good evening to you and the captain, Captain Johnson. Look, the bottom line is I think that what you're doing is you're bullying the public to look the other way, no one wants to be arrested. I think at the same time, you're really warning civic involvement and you're really lessening accountability. That is problematic.

In addition to that, there are laws on the book now, right, right now that don't need this because in the event that you impede or impair the police from doing their job, there is a law called obstructing governmental administration, and you can arrest someone for that.

And so just think about how do you enforce this when you're seven feet, when you're five feet, when you're 10 feet, in the event police is scuffling with someone and they come toward you, you're talking about criminalizing that behavior. So, it just thwarts what really just the very difficult enforcement, possibilities and potential, and I think it's a law that doesn't need to go into effect and let's call it for what it is.

I think, certainly, police are -- it is a dangerous job. They are out there. We need to certainly protect what they do. I think this goes too far. It says to the public, look the other way or we are going to put you in jail for 30 days or have you pay $500 fine. That is troubling to me, to say the least.

LEMON: Captain, you know, the Republicans say Representative John Kavanagh sponsored this bill. He is also a retired police officer. I mean, this is what he writes in an op-ed for the Arizona Republic.

He says, I can think of no reason why any responsible person would need to come closer than eight feet to a police officer engaged in a hostile or potentially hostile encounter. Such an approach is unreasonable, unnecessary and unsafe, and should be made illegal.

He doesn't say that people can't shoot video at all, rather that it is dangerous for anyone to be less than eight feet from the law enforcement. What do you think?

RON JOHNSON, RETIRED CAPTAIN, FORMER INCIDENT COMMANDER IN FERGUSON, MISSOURI: Hello, Don and Joey. I think -- I agree with Joey. I think there are laws that are on the book interfering with the police officer that allows you to do that. Officer's safety is important. We have to make sure that officers can their job.

But this is a blanket policy of eight feet. Really, they haven't given any reason or define how you came up with eight feet. I think in our country, we've had a lot of instances over the past three years, and I think the public video has captured inappropriate behavior but also appropriate behavior.

And so, I think there are things that are put in place. It just depends on the situation. But I think just have a blanket policy. And I even read the policy were talks about if you are being stopped by an officer, you can videotape it. If you are passenger and you're being questioned, you can videotape.

What we're teaching people in our country, not to be reaching in their purses for cell phones. So, to put that in there is really invalid. Don't (ph) allow people to do it either. Most of video that we see don't come from the people who are actually being the subject of police stop. LEMON: You're right. I didn't even think about that point, is that there has been video out there that has exonerated officers, right, who are doing the right thing. I'm sure those officers didn't mind that the person may have been closer than eight feet.

Joey, this is a First Amendment problem here. Do folks have the right to record police in public places? Bottom line.

JACKSON: Bottom line is you certainly do. Right? The Supreme Court hasn't addressed the specific issue of filming police.

But if you think about it, forgetting about that, think about a public place, think about the fact that the public has a right to be where they currently are, think about the fact that the public simply is attempting to record what people are doing, and think about what police can do when their discretion really to thwart that, to prevent that, and to otherwise undermine accountability.

And when you look to enforce it, is there going to be someone with a measuring stick to say that you are too close or you're too far? Does a police office, because they don't like that you are really filming them, say, hey, you are really eight feet when you are 12, 10, 15 feet away?

My hope is that technology really makes this meaningless to the extent that you can be many feet away and still capture what occurred. But, you know, good police officers who are doing wonderful things, we should capture that. We should capture police officers doing not so good things.

And so, let us call this for what it is. There are specific measures on the books to address this. As I noted, obstructing governmental administration. Let's not target people who are out there simply being involved and simply attempting to determine whether police are doing their job properly and are protecting others. That is really important.

LEMON: Joey, Captain Johnson, thank you very much. I appreciate it. We will be right back.

JOHNSON: Thank you.

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[23:40:00]

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LEMON: Mourners gathering in Tokyo for the funeral of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Abe's assassination is stunning the nation, which has some of the world's strictest gun laws. And CNN is learning new details about the suspect's planning and motivation for the attack.

CNN's Kyung Lah joins me now from Tokyo. Kyung, hello to you.

[23:45:00]

Abe's funeral is getting underway now. The country is remembering a former leader in a place where gun violence is almost unheard of. How are people in Japan making sense of this?

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you see how many people are streaming behind me. This is a temple in downtown Tokyo. It is a very large temple. And what we have seen for the last few hours or so this morning are people, you know, who look like they are on their lunch hour or may have traveled here. A lot of them are wearing black clothes to pay pay their final respects, to lay flowers, to leave messages.

This is a private funeral ceremony that is going to be hosted by his wife. It is happening right now. But it is also an essential gathering place for people here in Tokyo to remember the loss of a true political titan, domestically as well as globally, someone who really was the face of Japan, regardless of whether or not they agree with his policies.

We are seeing so much of Japan in this large city coming out to pay their final respects. All variations of ages, different backgrounds coming here to say goodbye. And there have been so many people coming that we just heard one of the officials come out onto the sidewalk and announced that they are now going to be turning people away because there are just too many flowers, too many people have come, and they want to try to maintain order.

And, you know, I certainly do believe that because the whole area in front of the temple here has been completely packed with people for the past hour or so. You know, we are talking many, many people just lining up and hoping to get in to pay those final respects. Don?

LEMON: We see them streaming in behind you. Kyung, investigators are revealing more about the suspect and why they believe he targeted Abe. What are they saying?

LAH: It's really very curious, Don, because we are getting bits and pieces of who this man was, the timeline and exactly what may have motivated him. Forty-one-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami, he is someone who was a factory worker and basically lost his job in the last year or so.

He has been telling police that he decided about a year ago that he was going to target the former prime minister, that he learned how to make guns off of YouTube, that these were handmade weapons. Because weapons are so difficult to get here in Japan, he made them out of pipe and adhesive tape.

And then, he figured out when the prime minister was going to be in his hometown, this is the political season, the election just happened on Sunday, and that he showed up an hour before Abe was scheduled to speak, figured out where the former prime minister was going to stand, and then stood right behind him. In fact, news cameras caught the gunman standing in the crowd moments before Abe was shot. As far as the motivation, this is where it gets a bit murky, because from what we were told by the police, he was -- the suspect was angry at a particular group that he believed that Prime Minister Abe -- the former prime minister may have been associated with.

That is when the clarity is really lost. There is a religious group that starts to come in. This religious group, it is something that traces its roots back to South Korea. And so, what the government has been very unclear about, the police, is exactly what that relationship is between the gunman and this religious group, other than that the gunman's mother was a member.

So, all of this is beginning to get piece together. He was under the impression that Abe's grandfather, who was also a prime minister, may have been connected to the religious group, the Unification Church that, again, is based in South Korea. Don?

LEMON: Kyung Lah in Tokyo. Kyung, thank you. Appreciate it. We will be right back.

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[23:50:00]

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LEMON: The deepest image of or universe that has even been taken. That is how NASA described the stunning first image from the James Webb Space Telescope unveiled by President Joe Biden during a White House event just today.

I want to bring in now Jonathan McDowell. He is an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Professor, thank you. I appreciate you joining us.

JONATHAN MCDOWELL, ASTROPHYSICIST, HARVARD-SMITHSONIAN CENTER FOR ASTROPHYSICS: Pleasure to be here. Exciting day.

LEMON: This is incredible. The pictures are incredible. Can you tell us what we are seeing here?

MCDOWELL: What we're seeing is a cluster of galaxies that is five billion light years away. So, incredibly distant, and each of the blobby things in that image is a whole galaxy with a hundred billion stars in it.

We are seeing as well streaks that are sort of elongated, curved around it which are even more distant galaxies whose shape is being distorted and magnified by the gravity of the galaxies in the foreground, as Einstein predicted.

And so, in this one image, we have a huge swath of the history of the universe and all kinds of complicated physics that we get to test out.

LEMON: What does this show -- I mean, you said five billion light years. I mean, it is almost too much to even comprehend. But what does this show us? What does this do for us and for science really and astronomy?

MCDOWELL: Well, we believe that the universe has changed over time.

[23:55:00]

It started out young, getting old like the rest of us, and so by comparing the Hubble data on galaxies near to us and the data from this telescope on galaxies far away from us, far back in time, we can understand how the universe has evolved, how it has changed, and so how it came to be that we got our modern universe that generated us and the planet we live on and so on. And so, that is one of the main missions of this telescope, but it is not the only one.

LEMON: Yeah. It really is amazing. So, listen, talk to me about why these are so-called deep field images. What does that mean and why it is it important?

MCDOWELL: Right. So, with the deep field, one of the first things you do with that super new telescope is that you look at the most boring bit of sky you can possibly find that doesn't have anything in it, and then you see what you see that you couldn't see before, right? And so, that is with the deep field projects are. You just look -- you stare really hard to see things that you weren't able to see before.

And that is one of, you know, the sort of standard kinds of things we do with the telescope. The other thing is that you stare at things you already know about and you want you look at it in greater detail.

Tomorrow, for example, this is a cluster of galaxies that, as I said, is five billion light years away. Tomorrow, we are going to get a data on the atmosphere of a planet that is only a thousand light years away. So, Webb doesn't just look at the distant things, it also looks at more nearby things in great detail.

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LEMON: Only a thousand light years.

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LEMON: You say only.

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LEMON: I keep staring at the monitor looking at the images. I'm listening to you, but I'm just staring at the images. They are really just incredible.

Thank you, professor. I appreciate you joining us. Can't wait to see what happens tomorrow and then beyond. If we get to new stuff, we'll have you back.

MCDOWELL: Thank you.

LEMON: Thank you.

Thanks for watching. Our coverage continues.

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