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Interview With State Rep. Melissa Provenzano (D-OK); Economic Outlook; Tulsa Mass Shooting; President Biden Set to Deliver Address on Gun Violence. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired June 02, 2022 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:37]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Hello. I'm Victor Blackwell. Welcome to CNN NEWSROOM.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: And I'm Alisyn Camerota.

A grocery store, a church, an elementary school and now a hospital, all scenes of mass shootings, all within the span of about two weeks. Just yesterday, four people were killed in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when a gunman opened fire inside a medical building. He killed his orthopedic surgeon, another doctor, a receptionist and a patient. He then took his own life.

The shooter purchased the AR-15 rifle at a gun store at 2:00 p.m. yesterday. Less than three hours later, he went on his shooting rampage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WENDELL FRANKLIN, TULSA, OKLAHOMA, POLICE CHIEF: Our training led us to take immediate action without hesitation. That's exactly what officers do. And that's what they did in this instance.

Law enforcement across the nation is dealing with increased violence among people. This is yet another act of violence upon an American city.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: President Biden will address the nation tonight about the gun violence crisis in this country.

There have been 233 mass shootings this year. It's June 2. That count is according to the Gun Violence Archive. Now, that defines mass shooting as an incident where four or more people are injured or killed in a shooting.

In the eight days since the Uvalde elementary school massacre, there have been at least 20 mass shootings in this country, 20 in eight days; 104 people have been injured or killed.

We have reporters covering the aftermath of mass shootings across this country. CAMEROTA: Let's start with CNN Lucy Kafanov. She's outside of the

hospital in Tulsa.

Lucy, it sounds like, with this mass shooting, officials are zeroing in on the gunman's motive.

LUCY KAFANOV, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Alisyn.

The gunman, identified as Michael Louis, entered the medical campus behind me with an AR-15-style rifle, which I should add was also the same style rifle that was used in Uvalde and the Buffalo supermarket shooting.

He bought that weapon earlier that day, and he had the intent to kill a Dr. Preston Phillips and anyone who came in his way. That's according to police, who say a letter was discovered on Michael Louis' body, the gunman, suspected gunman, taking his own life.

And I want to walk you through the timeline. We know that, on May 19, he, Michael Louis, went for back surgery at this campus. He saw Dr. Phillips. He was released on may 24. After that release, he called the office several times over several days complaining of pain, back pain. He wanted additional treatment.

On May 31, Dr. Phillips saw Mr. Louis again for additional treatment. And then, yesterday, June 1, Louis called Dr. Phillips' office again complaining of back pain. He wanted additional assistance. At 2:00 p.m. yesterday, he purchased this AR-style rifle from a local gun store. We know that he also purchased a semiautomatic handgun, a .40- caliber Smith & Wesson, on May 29.

That was three days before the attack. He purchased that from a local pawn shop. He used that to take his own life. Police say both weapons were discharged at some point during the massacre yesterday.

And by 4:52 p.m., the first 911 call came in.

And I want to talk about, the victims the people who lost their lives yesterday.

Dr. Preston Phillips, 59 years old, he is the surgeon who treated Mr. Louis. He was killed, alongside Dr. Stephanie Husen. She was a 48- year-old sports medicine specialist. Dr. Phillips used to volunteer in Africa. He would go on medical missions. He used his spare time to save the lives of others less fortunate, more needy.

There were two other victims, Amanda Green, a receptionist. She also had a supervisory role at the clinic. And also William Love, he was just a patient, Victor and Alisyn, who was in the office that day. We understand from authorities that he actually held one door closed in order to open another one to let another victim, or another survivor, I guess, escape with their life

But William Love was shot. He was critically wounded. He was taken out of that building. But officials, doctors, the trauma surgeons who were all on standby could not save his life. [14:05:03]

One of the doctors at the hospital breaking down into tears apologizing to William Love's family. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. RYAN PARKER, ST. FRANCIS HEALTH SYSTEM: We still wanted to be able to utilize our skills and training to save these precious lives.

To the family Mr. Love, I'm so sorry we couldn't save you. We are grieving with you. When I woke this morning, I really just wanted this to all be a bad dream. But this is the reality of our world right now. And, today, our world and our St. Francis family are devastated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAFANOV: The reality of the St. Francis Hospital world, the reality of Oklahoma, and the reality that we uniquely as a nation seem to be facing as we cover now the 233rd mass shooting of 2022 -- Victor, Alisyn,

BLACKWELL: Dr. Parker there said that she was searching for the right words, but there are no right words now. So she just spoke from the heart. A lot of us are feeling that.

Lucy Kafanov there for us in Tulsa, thank you.

CAMEROTA: Now to Uvalde, Texas, the mayor offering more information about what was going on during those horrible 77 minutes that the gunman was inside Robb Elementary School.

He says police used a negotiator to try to talk to the shooter.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DON MCLAUGHLIN, MAYOR OF UVALDE, TEXAS: The negotiator was trying to get the shooter on the phone and so forth. I was in the room.

They tried his -- every number they could find. The moment he went in that classroom, they started calling him from -- I wasn't there at the initial -- but at the moment he went in that classroom, they were trying to get numbers and call.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: The gunman never answered.

CNN's Shimon Prokupecz is in Uvalde.

Shimon, I understand there's some breaking developments about new search warrants. What do you know?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, I just want to make a point about the negotiator. And that's fine the mayor is talking about it. But I think people need

to be a little bit critical of that, because it's not even clear that they even had a phone number, that they could find a phone number for this. And it Also goes against some of the protocol that is established in active shooter situations.

As we know from experts who've been talking about this and other law enforcement officials, it's important to just go in the room and take out the gunman.

And, obviously, waiting on negotiators is not something that protocol calls for. Outside of that, certainly here, again, we keep getting pieces of information, like we did from the mayor there about a negotiator.

Today, we have been able to review the search warrants that were filed by the investigators, the Texas Rangers. And, interestingly enough, in those search warrant affidavits, there's no mention of the initial moments that we were told in the beginning of this investigation, where police had engaged the gunman, there was some confusion over that.

Obviously, that turned out not to be the case. That is never mentioned in the hours after these documents were written, in the day -- the next day when it was filed. They never, ever mentioned any of this. So it just leads us to wonder as to how many days did officials know that that was not the story until they finally revealed what the story was?

And then today, also, we are on a search for answers, a search for answers on this investigation. What do investigators know? We have been told that the district attorney here, the local district attorney, is now perhaps launching a criminal investigation. And so she has told investigators to no longer publicly comment about this investigation.

So, today, we went to her office and we spoke to her. She didn't say much, but -- actually, she didn't say anything at all. But take a look at that encounter.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Ma'am, are we going to get a report on Friday into this investigation? Ma'am, are you running the investigation now? Are we going to get a report on Friday?

PROKUPECZ: There's a lot of information that needs to come out. Ma'am?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PROKUPECZ: And, so Victor and Alisyn, one of the state senators here is also saying that he has issues now, because he's concerned that with this DA's office telling investigators not to publicly answer questions, it's not going to clear up a lot of the bad information that we have been receiving. The state senator also says that he hopes, he thinks he's going to get

a -- some kind of preliminary report, which could shed some light on what officers were inside the school and where they were. So we will see. We will see if that happens actually tomorrow.

CAMEROTA: Shimon, it's just -- it's strange, the silence. The silence there and the lack of answering has just been strange, particularly when we tragically have other examples at our fingertips now, like Oklahoma, of how they are responding to reporters' questions and the public's questions.

PROKUPECZ: Well, exactly.

And I think Tulsa is an example. We're hearing how the police went in and, in three minutes, they neutralized the gunman. We have had consistent updates from the police there.

[14:10:09]

I watched a lot of that coverage last night. I have been working on that story, even though I'm here. And you're seeing a very different way in which the police there are certainly handling this vs. here.

CAMEROTA: Shimon Prokupecz, thank you very much for all of the reporting.

BLACKWELL: And now, for the third straight day, families in Uvalde will be bearing those children who were killed in that classroom.

Today, there are funerals for 11-year-old Miranda Mathis, 10-year-old Eliahana Torres, and 10-year-old Nevaeh Bravo.

In Buffalo, New York, right now, the 18-year-old suspect accused of shooting and killing 10 people at a supermarket is in court being arraigned for an act the sheriff calls pure evil and racially motivated, a hate crime.

CAMEROTA: Investigators say he studied previous hate attacks and shootings and traveled nearly four hours away from his home to target a zip code with a high percentage of black residents.

CNN's Miguel Marquez is in Buffalo for us.

So, Miguel, tell us about the charges the suspect is facing.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's shooting that -- it's just gotten under way, the hearing here.

And he is in -- the shooter, the suspected shooter is in orange jumpsuit shackled at the feet and his hands. He faces domestic terror charges, hate crimes, murder charges, and one weapon charged, in all, 25 different charges, one domestic terror motivated by hate charged, 10 first-degree murder charges, 10 second-degree murder charge of murder charges as a hate crime, three attempted murder charges as a hate crime and one weapon charge. His attorney speaking on his behalf says that he is pleading not

guilty to all of those charges, that happening just now. The victims in this heinous shooting from 20 to 86 years old -- 11 of the 13 victims were African-American. All 10 who died were African-Americans, among them, a former police officer, a substitute teacher, a taxi driver and a civil rights activist.

The 18-year-old suspect in this case also faces possible federal charges. Officials here saying that they have no doubt this was a hate crime. In a 180-page racist screed that this suspect released on the Internet prior to the shooting, he described himself as a white supremacist, as an antisemite, and subscribed the idea of Replacement Theory, this idea that white Americans are being replaced by minorities, something that used to be on the fringes of society and the fringes of the Internet and is now very much in the mainstream.

Officials say that he had more weapons and the intent to go to other locations to kill more black people -- back to you.

BLACKWELL: Miguel Marquez for some Buffalo.

Thank you, Miguel.

Let's go back to Tulsa, Oklahoma, now, where a man went on a shooting rampage at a medical complex. Police say he killed four people there. In a news conference a short time ago, Tulsa police laid out the timeline of the attack.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRANKLIN: Now, we know through the help of our ATF and their gun tracing, that, at 2:00 p.m. on June the 1st, Mr. Louis purchased a semiautomatic rifle from a local gun store.

That semiautomatic rifle was an AR-15-style rifle.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Joining us now is Oklahoma state Representative Melissa Provenzano. She represents the district where this shooting happened.

Representative, we're so sorry for what's going on in your district and the horror that everybody there is having to deal with. We can hear the doctors themselves, the toll it's taking on the doctors themselves and how emotional they are.

We have we have all become so tragically accustomed to the term soft targets, so grocery stores, schools, now a doctor's office. Is there anything from where you sit today that could have changed this horror?

STATE REP. MELISSA PROVENZANO (D-OK): Gosh. Thanks for having me on.

I just -- I think we all are sort of in shock. This hospital is a central location, a hub of our community. I was there just yesterday morning and was off-campus by that time, but in a different building. I have visited that office. And a doctor there at the time gave me rotator cuff surgery.

So if you don't work there, you go there for care. That's just a central location, that, yes, our Oklahoma folks deserve better. And to hear that he purchased this weapon just a few hours prior to showing up and using it definitely speaks to specifically the things that we could do, perhaps a waiting period and background checks, that could help prevent this situation, not to say -- gosh, bless our Tulsa police and all of the forces that descended upon the hospital within three minutes and were in the building.

[14:15:22]

But we could have backed it up, hopefully, and caught it much sooner, had we just had a waiting period.

BLACKWELL: Yes, and you discuss the potential for stopping this if there had been a background check. As we cover these mass shootings, we have to catch up on the laws from state to state.

And Oklahoma has a distinction that no other state has. Not only does it not have red flag laws. Oklahoma passed a law against red flag laws. Why? I mean, that could have certainly helped here in that -- the three hours of passion.

(CROSSTALK)

PROVENZANO: Excellent question.

I actually authored a bill -- an extreme risk protective order is what they're called -- the year before this law became active. And it's hard for me to wrap my head around why we would need to do this, because there are, in my experience, always warning signs.

And if you know something, and you can say something, and we can put in place those protections ahead of time in a respectful way, and get you the services that you need, so we can kind of calm things down a little bit, I don't see why we wouldn't do that.

But, for some reason, our body decided to go a different way. We're the only state in the union that does so.

CAMEROTA: And, Representative, do you think anything will change now? I mean, it's so striking to hear you say that you have gone to that very office, you have been treated in that very doctor's office. That does tell us how central it is to your community.

Do you think that, because of this, the Oklahoma state legislature will do anything different?

PROVENZANO: Gosh, I have to hope that this is our best shot.

I heard Chief Franklin say: Please come talk to me. I'm open to sharing our thoughts.

And I look forward to working with him. And, hopefully, we can get some commonsense gun legislation here across the line in Oklahoma. In our state, almost everyone has a weapon, but we have got to know how to be responsible with it. We have permitless carry as well.

So you can just walk in and walk out. It's much easier to get a weapon than it is to get a driver's license or a food handler's permit, that you have to prove that how to safely do those tasks here in Oklahoma, so I think we can do better.

CAMEROTA: Oklahoma state Representative Melissa Provenzano.

Again, we're sorry for everything that you and your community is going -- are going through. Thank you for your time today.

PROVENZANO: Thank you so much.

BLACKWELL: Well, energy crisis fears, severe inflation has one of the world's most prominent bank CEOs issuing a warning that an economic hurricane may be on the horizon.

CAMEROTA: And on a much lighter note, a four-day celebration for Queen Elizabeth kicks off today, marking her 70 years on the throne. We are live in London.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:22:28]

BLACKWELL: Oil prices are on the rise today, despite the announcement from OPEC that it will boost production more than previously expected.

The White House welcomed the decision, of course, in the wake of rising energy costs. But some economists fear this is just the beginning and prices could rival the '70s energy crisis.

CAMEROTA: CNN business reporter Matt Egan is with us, as well as CNN anchor and business editor at large Richard Quest.

Matt, I want to start with you.

Victor and I don't understand the math. Why are the costs rising after OPEC increased production?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: It's a great question.

It's just not enough. I think the message from the market is too little too late. I mean, it's definitely great news that, after months of refusing, OPEC is finally agreeing to ramp up some supply that was sidelined two years ago when prices were crashing. And this is in some ways a diplomatic -- both for the White House and for Saudi Arabia after a very rocky start to the Biden era.

But the market is signaling that a lot more is needed because of all of the problems caused by the war in Ukraine. Oil prices are actually higher right now than they were this morning before this announcement came out, $117 a barrel for oil. That's up from like $70 a barrel a year ago.

And there's a sense that this might be just too big of a problem for OPEC to solve. And I think this also speaks to this bigger concern that this energy crisis that we're in could actually get worse before it gets better. Some current and former energy officials that I'm talking to, they worry that, after years of underinvestment, and then you have the war in Ukraine, that this is going to be an energy crisis that rivals what we saw in the 1970s or even something worse, because this isn't just about oil.

It's about natural gas and electricity too. I mean, hopefully they're wrong. But the experts I'm talking to, they're alarmed and they fear that policymakers are just waking up to this problem now.

BLACKWELL: Yes, Richard, on that fear of a 1970s-style energy crisis, how serious are the fears and are they warranted?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR AT LARGE: The reasons are different.

Is it likely to be that sort of awfulness of the mid-'70s that some of us do actually remember? Unlikely, because we have many more tools at our disposal. There are also renewables. There are different sources of supply and distribution. But the real difficulty here is the underlying economies are really not in very good shape.

Having gone through the great financial crisis, the debt crisis, then the pandemic, with huge levels of government debt, central banks tapped out, the range of tools available to help deal with an overarching crisis is more limited than before.

[14:25:07]

And if you have inflation -- and we haven't had this sort of inflation for 40 years -- then we know how to get rid of it. You squeezing it out the system. It's painful. But there's one other thing to bear in mind with energy. China is, albeit slowly, opening up again.

Now, as China opens up, its requirements and demand for fuel increases. Therefore, the price goes up. There is -- there are many forces against the economy at the moment, which is why Jamie Dimon spoke about being an economic hurricane possibly on the horizon.

CAMEROTA: I'm glad you mentioned that.

Let's listen to what Jamie Dimon said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMIE DIMON, CHAIRMAN, J.P. MORGAN CHASE: Right now, it's kind of sunny, things are doing fine. Everyone thinks the Fed can handle this. That hurricane is right out there down the road coming our way. We just don't know if it's a minor one or Superstorm Sandy or -- Sandy or Andrew or something like that.

And -- so you better brace yourself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Matt, a few days, ago wasn't Jamie Dimon a little bit more optimistic?

EGAN: He was. Just about a week ago, he said that there are big storm clouds on the horizon. But he expressed hope that they could -- quote -- "dissipate."

It's not really clear what, if anything, caused Dimon to really darken his weather forecast. In fact, there have been some positive signs that perhaps inflation is peaking and that financial markets are actually calming down a bit. But I think his overall message is that this might be the calm before the storm, because there are some positives in the economy, no doubt, I mean, historically low unemployment, near record number of job openings

Consumers are spending, and they have accumulated a bunch of savings. So that's all great. He's worried about high inflation, right, because we have seen all these price spikes in not just gasoline, but use cars, food shelter. And the concern is that the Fed in its war on inflation is going to go too far, possibly tipping the economy into recession.

To take that weather metaphor from Dimon one step further, though, let's remember, hurricanes, they can change direction, sometimes even at the last minute. So even though the odds of a recession over the next few years have definitely gone up, it's not a foregone conclusion.

BLACKWELL: I don't know if the weather metaphor holds.

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: I like it. I like it, yes. And I totally got it.

BLACKWELL: A hurricane go in a different direction, because it still hits somewhere. It's still a Category 3.

CAMEROTA: Sometimes, it goes out to sea.

BLACKWELL: OK. All right. Could be a storm.

Richard, your take?

QUEST: I'm a lot more pessimistic.

I have got my overcoat. I have got my galoshes. I have got an umbrella. And I think that if you look at the downgrades that have taken place on economic growth by, for example, Chase, they're now saying next year 1 percent economic growth.

Well the reality is, from 1 -- from plus-0.9 to minus-0.1 is not a huge difference. And I think what you're going to see is these higher energy prices feeding further and faster into the economy. And places like Europe are going to be really badly hit too.

If anything, the U.S. is in a much better situation because of the vitality and the openness and the deregulation of the economy. It can respond much quicker than other parts of the world. But if you're looking at Europe, you're looking at the U.K., and you're looking at Asia on the back of China, I think you're looking at a very gloomy weather forecast, which, coming from England, of course, we know a thing or two about bad weather.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: Only Richard Quest can make galoshes sound good.

Richard Quest, thank you very much for that economic and weather forecast. Matt Egan, thank you, as always.

BLACKWELL: Thank you, Matt.

All right, let's stay in England, the pomp and circumstance under way to celebrate Queen Elizabeth, as the first monarch in British history to mark 70 years on the throne.

CAMEROTA: And one father's TikTok post goes viral after he gives up his guns in the wake of the Texas school shooting.

He's going to join us to explain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)