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U.S. Weekly Jobless Claims Fall In Christmas Week; High-End Champaigne Shortage Hits U.S. Ahead Of New Year's Eve; Trump Attorneys Ask Supreme Court To Read "WAPO" Interview With 1/6 Committee Chair; Denver Shooting Suspect Foreshadowed Killing Spree In His Series Of Books. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired December 30, 2021 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

MATT EGAN, CNN BUSINESS REPORTER: And the numbers also really suggest that, despite COVID and high inflation, the economy is ending the year in pretty good shape.

As you mentioned, jobless claims dipping in the latest week. They're holding near this 52-year low that was set earlier this month.

Simply put, workers are in high demand and companies are not letting go of the workers that they have.

And as you mentioned, if four-week moving average, which smooths out some of the volatility that we see week to week, that is actually down to the lowest level since October of 1969 when -- back when Richard Nixon was in the White House.

This is a slam-dunk positive for the economy. And another positive right now is what we're seeing in the stock market.

They typically call the last few days of the year the Santa Claus rally because markets tend to do pretty well. And we're seeing that play out again.

You know, all three major markets that are up double-digit percentages on the year. The S&P 500 is up by 28 percent this year. It has hit 70 record highs so far. Today, if the gains hold, would be 71.

And everyone wants to know whether or not this will continue. We shouldn't expect the market to go straight up forever. That's just not likely.

Two big challenges that the market has to contend with, of course, one being COVID, what happens next, how much disruption, what does that do to the economy?

And then, the Federal Reserve. The Fed is taking away the punch bowl that has been juicing the stock market. And Alisyn, that is going to be a challenge for the market in the months ahead.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Speaking of punch bowl, Matt, I've been reading an alarming story. Is there a dangerous shortage of champagne this year?

EGAN: Well, Alisyn, this is the year of shortages, right? We've seen shortages of everything from lumber and paint and chlorine and new cars and used cars to, yes, champagne. At least high-end brands.

We are seeing signs that those supplies are running low, which is obviously a concern heading into New Year's Eve.

Three big factors there.

One, demand is really strong.

Two, there's been less of a grape harvest, so that has impacted things.

And, three, the supply chain issues that we have been talking about for months and that have impacted the supply of so many items, yes, that is also impacting champagne.

So, Alisyn, it is a fitting way to end the year that we were talking about yet one more shortage.

CAMEROTA: Luckily, I'm cool with cheap champagne, despite the headache.

So, Matt, thank you very much for the update on all of that.

EGAN: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: All right, so attorneys for former President Trump have submitted a new filing asking the Supreme Court to read "The Washington Post." We'll explain why.

[14:37:22]

CAMEROTA: The U.S. Supreme Court still considering whether to take up the case to release former President Trump's January 6th White House records to the House Select Committee.

Yesterday, Trump's attorneys asked the court to read a "Washington Post" interview with Congressman Bennie Thompson. He's the chair of the House committee.

CNN's Whitney Wild joins me now.

Whitney, why does the Trump team want the justices to read this interview?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, they want the justices to read this interview because they think this shows that this committee is engaged in a law enforcement investigation, not an investigation with a legislative purpose.

Here's the quote that they think is key to us. This is from "The Washington Post." "Thompson added, I can assure you, if a criminal referral would be

warranted, there would be no reluctance on the part of the committee to do that."

So, Trump attorneys read this. Here is how they're utilizing that quote for their argument:

They say, to the Supreme Court justices, "The committee cannot make a mockery of Congress's constitutional mandate that its requests in investigation be supported by a valid legislative purpose."

"It cannot embark on what is essentially a law enforcement investigation with the excuse that it might legislate based on information it turns up in the course of the exploration."

Alisyn, I think it's worth noting here that his attorneys have made a pretty similar argument up until this point. They have made something similar at the district-court level as well as to the circuit court.

And basically, what they've argued here is that the committee has not articulated a legislative purpose, and so this is all, in some way, illegitimate.

But the reality is, judges don't buy that. I mean, in the very first hearing where they tried to put forth that argument, a judge really pressured the attorneys in which she was trying to make sense of it.

And basically saying, so, you have to have a law drafted before you embark on the investigation? Doesn't that defy logic? That's not verbatim but that was the gist of what she was saying.

And what we've seen now, Alisyn, is, two times, his legal team has tried to put this argument forth and, two times, judges have just not bought into it.

So, the degree that the justices are swayed by a "Washington Post" article, I guess we'll have to see.

But this is a case we are very closely watching because, the reality is, it did go to the Supreme Court, and it has major implications for what will happen next for the committee.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely.

Thanks for explaining all of that, Whitney Wild.

OK, joining us now, on this and more, is former U.S. attorney and former deputy assistant attorney general, Harry Litman.

Harry, great to see you.

Let's just skip to what the end result of this House committee could be.

So, it's -- I mean, you believe -- and you have a great new op-ed in the "L.A. Times" today -- that there could be a criminal referral at the end of all of this from the committee.

[14:40:06]

And I just want to ask you about that. Because, obviously, we all know that President Trump was shamefully silent on January 6th as people were being killed and police officers were being maimed.

But what evidence have you seen that there could be a criminal referral?

HARRY LITMAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, it's been out of the committee's mouth itself, and -- including Chair Thompson. And then just all the facts that we know as we try to put them together.

But the big point -- Whitney is dead on, Alisyn. It's perfectly fine. It's no news. And with respect to "The Washington Post," this is really not hot news.

And to the Supreme Court, they read "The Washington Post."

That they could make a criminal referral is just part and parcel of what they do.

What Trump needs to argue is there's zero legislative purpose. And as Whitney says, that's been rejected roundly.

So, I don't think that's going anywhere. And it's probably been done for P.R. purposes.

CAMEROTA: Yes, but I mean --

(CROSSTALK)

LITMAN: To answer your immediate question --

CAMEROTA: I'm talking about the nitty-gritty.

LITMAN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: What makes you think that he wasn't just an accidental bystander?

LITMAN: Oh, well, because of the -- what he needs to be to be guilty is to encourage them in their mission. And to then -- you know, because when he's standing by, he's already whipped them up into a frenzy, sent them to -- into battle for him.

And somebody who's done that, if it's a mistake, and he actually just meant a peaceful protest, would not be standing by for over three hours while all his closest allies are saying, you must stop this, you must stop this, you must stop this.

He's needling Kevin McCarthy. There's an air of jubilation to what's happening. And that would figure in a criminal case.

CAMEROTA: So, do you think that's where the committee is headed? LITMAN: My best guess is, yes. Based on what Liz Cheney has said,

Thompson has said, and just the evidence.

Big, big, big difference between that and whether the Department of Justice will go there. That's going to be a royal headache for Merrick Garland.

But the committee, I think, is really flexing its muscles and showing it's not afraid to go to the upper echelon of things that have to include Trump.

And if the evidence is -- and we already saw all the texts to Meadows and the like that seemed to be ginning it up, trying to put pressure on Pence.

If that's where the evidence is, a referral would, I think, be very much in line with what they've done to date.

And it's easy enough for them to do the referral, right, Alisyn? Then it gets dumped on to the lap of DOJ and it becomes Merrick Garland's problem and not a small one.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

LITMAN: But I think that's the noises they're making.

CAMEROTA: OK, that leads me to my next question.

Wasn't it interesting, Harry, to hear these two Trump-appointed attorneys on Tuesday reject the arguments of the capitol rioters who were saying, we're the same as the people who rioted in Portland in the summer of 2020?

And the judges said, that is a complete false equivalency. In Portland, the rioters, who vandalized a federal building, it happened at night.

And there were no congressmen and vice president inside trying to make a free and fair election certified. They weren't interrupting democracy.

So, they rejected that.

But one of the attorneys, I think, interestingly, did point out that there should have been harsher prosecution for the Portland rioters.

I'll read you what this judge, Trevor McFadden, said.

"Rarely has the government shown so little interest in vigorously prosecuting those who attack federal officers, especially those during politically charged unrest. The Justice Department must strive for even-handed justice."

"Judd" -- the of the defendants -- "raises troubling questions about this department's adherence to this imperative in Portland." I'm just interested. It's not the same as Portland at all. The judges

have established that. But why weren't they prosecuted more severely in Portland?

LITMAN: Well, with all respect to Judge McFadden, he's mistaken.

In fact, I've been involved in some of these big demonstrations going on in federal buildings. There's a big round-up. And then what do you do with them?

It is not unusual for many of them to be referred to state or just released after the whole commotion has passed.

And January 6th is a singular event, which is why the other judge, Trump judge also, in D.C., said, don't try to sell me that analogy.

So, I actually think there's nothing unusual when the government gets its hands around these sprawling kinds of demonstrations that, as they parcel out justice, many people wind up walking.

You'll see that in the run of big kind of demonstration cases.

Portland was pretty -- it got close to violent. It's a very serious one. But it's not a big surprise that that's what happened here.

[14:45:03]

CAMEROTA: And I do think that actually police officers were injured. I think that -- in other words, I think it crossed the line --

LITMAN: Definitely.

CAMEROTA: -- for violence.

But you're saying --

(CROSSTALK)

LITMAN: But all those people, Alisyn, are being prosecuted. Anyone who was involved in actually injuring the officers, that is where they're drawing the line.

CAMEROTA: OK, that's really helpful.

Harry Litman, thank you. Great to see you. Happy New Year.

LITMAN: Thank you, Alisyn. Happy New Year.

CAMEROTA: Thank you.

All right, we do have some chilling new details that are emerging about this man who went on a shooting spree in Denver. So, there's a series of books written by the gunman that have foreshadowed this attack. We have more next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [14:50:04]

CAMEROTA: Chilling new details on the Denver shooting suspect who killed five people on Monday and wounded several others, including a police officer.

Authorities say the gunman foreshadowed his killing spree in a series of books that he wrote under a pseudonym.

CNN's Natasha Chen has more on this bizarre rampage.

Natasha, as I understand it, in these writings, he used the actual names of some of the victim's that he later targeted?

NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. He used real people's names, including his own.

So keep in mind this is a series of self-published books that he wrote under a pseudonym.

And they describe some very violent acts, including the murders of two characters whose names matched two of the people who died on Monday night.

Just to give you a run here of what we're looking at. They foreshadowed the shootings in these series of books. At least two of the victims have the same names as the people who died on Monday.

And the writings contained extreme views about violence, murder, what he saw as the decline of masculinity.

Talked about living off the grid, the roles of women in society, talking about guns and a major of war.

Some really disturbing passages, including, in one case, a character with his own name went into a condo building dressed in police gear to shoot and kill a person named Michael Swinyard, a character named Michael Swinyard.

But of course, on Monday night, one of the victims had the same name. And the shooting happened in the exact location that was described in the writings.

And a memo obtained by our affiliate, KUSA, from that building, in the condo building, said the suspect arrived Monday night impersonating a police officer.

So there are some very eerie comparisons here.

It's unclear if investigators were aware of all these details before Monday.

But they did say they had investigated this suspect in 2020 and early 2021. Those investigations did not result in any charges being filed.

And they will not elaborate on what those investigations were about at this point.

We do also want to point out that a Lakewood police agent, Ashley Ferris, was the one who engaged in a shootout that ended this on Monday night.

Despite being shot herself, she was able to compose herself, and shot back, killing the suspect.

This is in a suburb outside of Denver, in the final location of the shooting spree that spanned four locations and killed five people, injuring more.

Just a really devastating and shocking event for that community -- Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: You're right. And all of the new details just get more and more horrible.

Natasha, thank you.

Well, as COVID cases break record highs, the FDA is expected to green- light a booster for 12- to 15-year-olds. We have all of the details ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:57:43]

CAMEROTA: This weekend, a new CNN film shines a spotlight on the incredible careers of singer/songwriters, James Taylor and Carole King.

The documentary is called "JUST CALL OUT MY NAME." And it takes us inside their first tour together.

Here's CNN's Bill Weir.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(SINGING)

BILL WEIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Those words from one of their most famous songs have been ringing true for singer/songwriters, James Taylor and Carole King, for more than 50 years.

"You've Got a Friend" became Taylor's first number-one hit and won a Grammy for both artists in 1972, validation of their immediate musical connection.

They first performed together at The Troubadour in 1970, a famed L.A. club that gave birth to so many musicians of their generation.

That performance changed the direction of American music forever.

DAVID BROWNE, SENIOR WRITER, "ROLLING STONE" MAGAZINE: Those really direct and very personal songs that Carole and James wrote back then basically kicked off the singer/songwriter movement. It had been gestating and existing in various forms.

WEIR: "You've Got a Friend" was just one of their hit collaborations, including "Fire and Rain" and "I Feel the Earth Move."

(SINGING)

WEIR: Which was the first of several number-one hits for King as a singer that have been credited as inspiring a whole range of artists, from Taylor Swift to Celine Deon to Garth Brooks and Jack Johnson.

(CHEERING)

WEIR: But despite their intimate musical bond, they never toured together until the 2010 Troubadour Reunion Tour, spotlighted in the new CNN film, "James Taylor and Carole King, Just Call Out My Name."

(SINGING)

CAROLE KING, SINGER/SONGWRITER: James, we've got a problem.

[14:59:57]

JAMES TAYLOR, SINGER/SONGWRITER: We have a problem here, which is we have an embarrassment of riches. She wrote too many good songs.

KING: As did he.

WEIR: The tour marked a milestone in the relationship.

We couldn't ask for more.