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Matthew McConaughey Speaks at White House on Gun Reform; New January 6 Evidence Emerging; Interview With Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA); Gun Safety Negotiations Continue on Capitol Hill; Teacher Who Survived Uvalde Massacre Speaks Out. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired June 07, 2022 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Alisyn Camerota. Welcome to CNN NEWSROOM.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: I'm Victor Blackwell.

Last hour, the mayor of Uvalde admitted there were missteps in the police response to the massacre last month, and that the city's police chief was on vacation at the time of the shooting. We're also hearing from a Robb Elementary teacher who was just feet away when all 11 students in his classroom were killed.

Fourth grade teacher Arnulfo Reyes told ABC News that he was in classroom 111 and played dead for 77 minutes bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds.

CAMEROTA: Reyes had to listen as the gunman went on to kill 19 children and two teachers in that elementary school.

Reyes said at one point he heard a student in the connecting classroom call out for police to help, but the police had retreated. And he is outraged over the lack of action by police. He says it's unforgivable.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARNULFO REYES, WOUNDED IN UVALDE SCHOOL SHOOTING: Just bullets everywhere.

And then I just remember Border Patrol saying: "Get up. Get up." And I couldn't get up.

QUESTION: Did you feel abandoned in that moment by police, by the people who are supposed to protect you?

REYES: Absolutely. After everything, I get more angry, because you have a bulletproof vest. I had nothing. I had nothing. You're supposed to protect and serve. There is no excuse for their actions.

And I will never forgive them. I lost 11 that day. And I do want to tell my parents that I'm sorry. I tried my best with what I was told to do.

Please don't be angry with me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Can you imagine what that man lives with?

CNN's Rosa Flores is in Uvalde. Texas.

Rosa, before we talk about that teacher's firsthand account, we know the Uvalde City Council just held this special meeting. So what happened?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, during this special meeting, there was an extension of the disaster declaration for the city of Uvalde. That extended for another 30 days.

This frees up resources for this community. And during a short question-and-answer session after that, the mayor did answer some questions. What we learned is that the investigation here is ongoing. He says that he has full confidence in the investigation of the Texas Rangers, but that he did ask the U.S. DOJ to investigate because there have been missteps.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DON MCLAUGHLIN, MAYOR OF UVALDE, TEXAS: Well, we were told one thing one day, and the next day, the story, the narrative change. You were told for a week to the teacher propped the door open with a rock. And at the end of the week, that story was gone too. That's the missteps I'm talking about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: Absent from this meeting was newly elected Pete Arredondo.

This is a new City Council member. Now, you probably remember his name because he's also the police chief at the school, also the incident commander at the school at the time of the shooting. Now, Victor and Alisyn, as you know, this is an important note because we haven't heard from him. He has not answered questions. We have tried to contact him.

CNN has multiple times. And we're still waiting to hear his side of the story. He was absent from the City Council meeting, so we were not able to approach him -- Victor, Alisyn.

BLACKWELL: Still so many questions still there.

We just heard from Arnulfo Reyes, and just asking the parents, please don't be angry with me. I did all that I could. And you can hear the torture and the heartbreak. What more can you tell us about what we learned from him?

FLORES: You know, he spoke to ABC News. And he speaks about the intense moments that both teachers and students endured during this mass shooting.

He says that, of course, it starts like every day at school. It's a normal day. In this case, it's towards the end of the school year. So they're watching a movie, because this is after an honor roll award ceremony. Some of the kids had gone home. But there were 11 students in his classroom when the gunfire went off.

And the students, of course, turned to their teacher and asked him what was going on. This teacher Arnulfo Reyes, said that he didn't know what was going on. But he asked them, as they're trained, to go under a table and stay there, pretending to be asleep.

[14:05:11]

That's when he says that he turns around and that the gunman is right in front of him. He fires gunshots, hits the teacher twice. It hits his arm, his lungs and his back. And that's when he says that the gunman turned to his students. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REYES: It all happened too fast. Training, no training, all kinds of training, nothing gets you ready for this.

We trained our kids to sit under the table. And that's what I thought of at the time. But we set them up to be like ducks. You can give us all the training you want. But it's -- gun laws have to change.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: Now, Victor and Alisyn, that teacher played dead for 77 minutes, he says. And you heard it from him right straight from his mouth. He says that there's only so much training, that laws need to change.

What the governor of this state is asking for now is for more training for resource officers at schools -- Victor, Alisyn.

BLACKWELL: Rosa Flores with the reporting from Uvalde, thank you.

CAMEROTA: The devastation of gun violence took center stage on Capitol Hill today.

The son of 86-year-old Ruth Whitfield spoke to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

BLACKWELL: She was the oldest victim killed in that racist attack at the supermarket in Buffalo that killed 10 black people.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GARNELL WHITFIELD JR., SON OF SHOOTING VICTIM: If there is nothing, then, respectfully, Senators, you should yield your positions of authority and influence to others that are willing to lead on this issue. The urgency of the moment demands no less. My mother's life mattered.

My mother's life mattered. And your actions here today will tell us how much it matters to you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: CNN's Jessica Dean is on Capitol Hill.

Where, Jessica, are the bipartisan talks on potential gun reform now? What's in, what's out?

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They are going very quickly right now.

Victor, they are working as fast as they can on an issue that they know is really turbocharged from both sides. And so this group of bipartisan senators is trying to find what can get 60 votes. We have been saying this in the last several days. It comes down to what Republicans are willing to agree to, because, in this 50/50 divided Senate, they have got to get those 10 Republicans to join them.

So we caught up with Senator Thom Tillis, one of the key negotiators, a Republican, earlier. He was talking about one of the things that's kind of circling the drain for them that they're really focusing on. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): We're talking about a lot of things. And what we're talking about most are background checks, juvenile records, the areas where we can get consensus. That could be in the discussion, but right now we're trying to work on things where we have agreement.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: And that's something that we have really been hearing again and again, where there seems to be some bipartisan support building and some Republican support building, Victor and Alisyn.

And that is these 18-to-21-year-olds. That seems to be the age demographic they want to key in on. Should there be a waiting period, especially to check for perhaps juvenile records that, once they turn 18 may, not show up right now in the background checks that currently exist? So that's something they're looking at.

They're also looking at incentivizing states to put into place red flag laws, school safety funding, mental health funding, also safe storage. This is -- these are kind of the issues and the components of a bill that we continue to hear again and again.

And, as we speak, Victor and Alisyn, the Senate GOP Conference is wrapping up its weekly luncheon. They were going to be talking about this issue, kind of taking the temperature of those in the room. So we are expecting to hear kind of more about how that went over in the room right now and earlier today. We have also heard from Senator Chris Murphy, the Democrat from

Connecticut who's really spearheading this, and he really hopes to have a deal by the end of the week. Even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he hopes to have a deal by the end of the week.

So, Victor and Alisyn, there is a lot of pressure on them to move quickly. They know that. If they can get it done the end of the week or not remains to be seen, but those are the key issues that they're kind of really zeroing in on right now.

CAMEROTA: OK, Jessica Dean, thank you very much for the latest.

BLACKWELL: There is an alarming new warning coming from the Department of Homeland Security today that the U.S. could face a summer of heightened violence and domestic extremism in part fueled by recent mass shootings.

CAMEROTA: This bulletin also warns that a toxic combination of election disinformation and the upcoming Supreme Court ruling on abortion could spark violence this summer and into the midterm elections.

CNN's law enforcement correspondent, Whitney Wild, is covering all this for us.

[14:10:02]

So, Whitney, tell us more about the warning.

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, this bulletin threads together these recent attacks, Buffalo, Uvalde, the New York subway shooting, the shooting at a church in California, among others, and assesses that we are still in dangerous territory here.

The other reality this report makes clear is that the environment we were in leading up to January 6, 2021, hasn't changed that much. The new advisory assesses that some of the risks still centers quite a bit on elections. The bulletin notes that misinformation, disinformation spinning up on social media remains incredibly dangerous.

Here's a quote from that bulletin: "As the United States enters midterm election season this year, we assess the calls for violence by domestic violent extremists directed at democratic institutions, political candidates, party offices, election events, and election workers will likely increase."

Further, the abortion ruling is a major concern for intelligence officials, who note that people who advocate for abortion rights and those who advocate against abortion rights have on public forums encouraged violence.

The major challenge here is that, when you look across the spectrum, these motivators don't always necessarily fit into defined categories of terrorism. This bulletin is a terrorism advisory bulletin. And, sometimes, what law enforcement sees is this blend of ideologies, personal grievances, extremist ideologies, among other things, or, sometimes, it's simply one or the other.

And so that's what law enforcement is trying to assess here. Current and former officials point out that, whatever the motivator, often, the pattern of behavior before a mass incident is the same.

And so the hope here is that people across the spectrum, mental health workers, faith leaders, community leaders, as well as local police, who see these threats sometimes in real time, see them ramping up, make contacts in real time, will use this information to recognize that they are in fact looking at a threat, have the competence to know what they're looking at, and then further have the evidence to back up their attempts to advocate for real a intervention before a crime happens.

And what I think is the most alarming about this bulletin is, prior to January 6, so we're talking two years ago, these bulletins usually centered on foreign extremism, so groups outside the United States posing the biggest terrorist threat. And what this bulletin makes very clear, as did six others -- or five others issued since January 6, 2021, is that officials believed the terrorism threat generates from inside the United States -- back to you.

BLACKWELL: Yes. Now it's us.

Whitney Wild with the details of this bulletin, thank you.

CAMEROTA: Let's bring in now Senator Alex Padilla. He's a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee that met today.

Senator, thanks so much for being here. I want to play a little bit more of what that grieving son said about his mother. She was one of the victims, the oldest victim, at that Buffalo supermarket mass shooting. So let's listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: What I loved most about her was the way she loved her family unconditionally, sacrificing everything for us.

Our lives are forever changed, forever damaged by an act of profound hate and evil. But we're more than hurt. We're angry. We're mad as hell, because this should have never happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: And, Senator, I'm sure that everyone in that room is moved by hearing a personal story. That's just one victim, I mean, just one loss. And we have seen so many.

But do you think that personal stories like that do move you and your colleagues towards action? In other words, like, what comes out of this hearing today?

SEN. ALEX PADILLA (D-CA): Yes.

No, it's -- nothing could be more powerful, in terms of testimony, than those personal experiences and heartfelt emotions, whether it's Mr. Whitfield, who was talking about his mother.

For weeks now, we have been reflecting on the tragedy in Uvalde that you have been covering as well. Anybody who's a parent and sees images of young children as victims of gun violence has to be moved.

And what the hearing today was about, it's really the convergence of two significant challenges that we have in America, number one, yes, the radicalization and recruitment of domestic terrorists, because these conspiracies and theories and lies that are rampant on the Internet, and not just on social media, but especially on social media, that's bad, in and of itself.

But when you couple that with the laws across the country that make it far too easy to get a weapon, particularly assault weapons -- I call them weapons of mass destruction. That's what led to the tragedy in Buffalo at the speed and the numbers that we saw it.

We have to get our arms around it, and that's why we're building support for the Domestic Terrorism Protection Act in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

CAMEROTA: OK, but let's also talk about this very small bipartisan group of senators who is trying to work on cutting down on gun violence in this country. And here's -- as far as we can tell from our reporting, from what little they have answered so far, here's what's on the table.

[14:15:05]

So they would incentivize states to pass red flag laws, in other words, trying to keep guns out of the hands of people who are showing troubling either mental health or just some sort of signs of being unhinged. Then that would sort of necessitate a potential waiting period for 18-to-21-year-olds, and then they would beef up somehow school safety, harden those soft targets and invest more in mental health care.

I know that you and so many Democrats wish that these would go much further. But if that's all there, is that good enough? In other words, is that something you would vote for?

PADILLA: Yes, I think the question may be better put is, is it worth passing even if it's just this?

And the answer is yes. You hit the nail on the head. Do I believe an assault weapons ban is in order? Absolutely. We have it in the state of California. And the rates of mass shootings and violent incidents like this is a fraction of what it is in other states.

Do I believe we should ban high-capacity magazines and strengthen background checks and those sort of things? Absolutely. We have seen it work in states where it's implemented. But we're dealing with the political reality of the United States Senate.

I mean, put the filibuster rule aside, literally a 50/50 Senate. If we can make progress on background checks, on these red flag laws, and at the same time invest more in mental health, I do think it's worthwhile. Get this done. Help communities. Help try to prevent additional tragedies and keep working towards those other policies, either before the end of the year, or make sure voters keep this in mind when they go to vote in November.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

PADILLA: If you want stronger gun safety, elect more Democrats, so we can get this done.

CAMEROTA: Senator Josh Hawley, who's a Republican, as you know, he doesn't like the idea of red flag laws. So let me play for you what he said earlier.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): I don't particularly like the red flag laws. I mean, I think that this is -- when you're taking away somebody's Second Amendment rights when they have not yet committed a crime, and they're not there to defend themselves -- most of those proceedings are ex parte proceedings.

So the defendant is not present. His or her lawyer is not present. I got a lot of concerns with that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: What do you think of that logic? And how hard do you think it's going to be to pass something?

PADILLA: Yes. Well, thankfully, we don't need all 100 votes in the Senate to get something done. We just need the minimum, 60.

I got to hold that hope that we will get more than that, because our kids deserve no less. Look, I, Democrats respect the Second Amendment, but the Second Amendment and the lives, the futures of second graders in America are not mutually exclusive.

We can make progress on smart gun safety laws that respect the Second Amendment, but are proven to work to minimize mass shootings and other violent tragedies in America. This has got to stop.

CAMEROTA: While I have you senator, I just want to ask you about the primaries, particularly in your state of California today.

Our -- one of our political gurus, Ron Brownstein, basically says that it could be a referendum on Democrats for all of the people who don't like the policies that they're seeing in even liberal cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles when it comes to crime and homelessness.

He writes: "The outcome will again underscore how much danger a party in power can face when voters feel that certainty has been stripped from their lives, a dynamic that extends beyond crime and homelessness to inflation, soaring gas prices, continued disruption from COVID."

Do you think this is going to be a referendum for Democrats? PADILLA: Look, I think that remains to be seen

Let's see what the outcomes are of today's primary elections in California and then the November general election, and see who California voters put in charge to lead at the federal, state and at the local level.

I agree with you with all these issues, whether it's rising prices, housing and homelessness, still COVID concerns, and so much more. But I do think Democrats have the solutions. I know, in Congress, we have been putting forward a lot of ideas.

But trying to get -- bring Republicans around to make the investments and policy changes necessary, that's far from easy.

CAMEROTA: Yes. OK.

Senator Alex Padilla, thank you for your time.

PADILLA: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: The January 6 Committee is preparing for prime time. We're now learning who will be testifying and how the Proud Boys will play into the first hearing.

CAMEROTA: And newly released e-mails show the Trump campaign told fake electors in Georgia to meet in complete secrecy.

The details next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:23:50]

BLACKWELL: Two witnesses who interacted with members of the Proud Boys on and around the day of the Capitol insurrection will testify at Thursday's first public televised hearing.

CAMEROTA: The select committee investigating the riot has asked a documentarian to testify about his experience of filming members of the extremist group in the week leading up to January 6.

Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards is also expected to testify. She was injured when rioters stormed the Capitol, which she was trying to defend.

And the Justice Department has charged five leaders of the Proud Boys with seditious conspiracy in connection with the January 6 attack.

BLACKWELL: All right, let's discuss now with CNN legal analyst Elie Honig and CNN senior political correspondent and anchor of "INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY" Abby Phillip in the flesh, here in person with us.

(LAUGHTER)

BLACKWELL: Also good to have Elie, who is here. ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Thanks.

CAMEROTA: Elie is here too.

(LAUGHTER)

HONIG: It's good to be here.

(CROSSTALK)

BLACKWELL: Let's start the Proud Boys and this charge and their role on Thursday at these prime-time hearings.

Fit this into the narrative here, because I'm not suggesting there's any coordination between DOJ and the committee, but the timing of the charges and the upcoming hearings, that could certainly help build the narrative.

HONIG: Yes, these new charges, to me, raise a really important question that the committee may be able to answer, maybe not.

[14:25:06]

Seditious conspiracy. Conspiracy simply means an agreement to commit a crime. Sedition means to use force in order to interrupt the functioning of government or overthrow the government. And so the big question I'm looking at now, as we head into these hearings, is, is there some connection? We really do not know if there is, but is there a connection between the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, who've now been charged with seditious conspiracy, perhaps through some intermediary, into the inner circles of the White House?

We genuinely do not know the answer to that at this point. But I want to see if the committee can answer it for us.

CAMEROTA: There's a lot of new developments that we have to get through, because a lot has just come to light, including these e-mails from someone on the Trump campaign to this slate of basically fake Georgia electors.

And here's what it says.

This is from Robert Sinners, who was on the Trump campaign: "I must ask for your complete discretion in this process. Your duties are imperative to ensure the end result, a win in Georgia for President Trump, but will be hampered unless we have complete secrecy and discretion."

When somebody is asking for you to operate in complete secrecy, you should probably ask a few more questions.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Yes.

CAMEROTA: But how do you think this changes the equation?

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, it shows that they knew that what they were doing needed to be kept secret because it was wrong and probably illegal. And that's contrary to what you have been hearing actually out loud from some former Trump advisers, including Peter Navarro, who, even though he was an economic adviser, was somehow involved in a lot of this election-related stuff.

And Navarro has publicly claimed that trying to put forward fake electors was a legitimate use of the sort of the constitutional scheme that we have. It was not.

And I think that these messages seem to show that, at the time, they knew that it was not. And the other part of this is that the broader scheme of the big election lie is that this was all about fairness in our election system.

And that message says the outcome that they wanted was a win for President Trump. And if you're just trying to make the system fair and let the chips fall where they may, you're not seeking a particular outcome.

BLACKWELL: All right, let me jump in here, because we have Matthew McConaughey, who we know there in Uvalde -- he's at the White House now talking about the shooting and moving forward on gun control.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY, ACTOR: My wife and I -- my wife and I, Camila, we spent most of last week on the ground with the families in Uvalde, Texas.

We shared stories, tears and memories. The common thread, independent of the anger and the confusion and sadness, it was the same. How can these families continue to honor these deaths by keeping the dreams of these children and teachers alive? Again, how can the loss of these lives matter?

While we honor and acknowledge the victims, we need to recognize that, this time, it seems that something is different. There's a sense that perhaps there's a viable path forward. Responsible parties in this debate seem to at least be committed to sitting down and having a real conversation about a new and improved path forward, a path that can bring us closer together and make us safer as a country, a path that can actually get something done this time.

Camila and I came here to share my stories from my hometown of Uvalde, came here to take meetings with elected officials on both sides of the aisle. We came here to speak to them, to speak with them, and to urge them to speak with each other, to remind and inspire them that the American people will continue to drive forward the mission of keeping our children safe, because it's more than our right to do so.

It's our responsibility to do so. I'm here today in the hopes of applying what energy, reason and passion that I have into trying to turn this moment into a reality, because, as I said, this moment is different. We are in a window of opportunity right now that we have not been in before, a window where it seems like real change, real change can happen.

Uvalde, Texas, is where I was born. It's where my mom taught kindergarten less than a mile from Robb Elementary. Uvalde is where I learned to master a Daisy BB gun. Took -- that took two years before I graduated to a .410 shotgun.

Uvalde is where I was taught to revere the power and the capability of the tool that we call a gun. Uvalde is where I learned responsible gun ownership.

Now, Uvalde called me on May 24, when I learned the news of this devastating tragedy. I had been out of cellular range, working in the studio all day, when I emerged.

[14:30:00]