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Parents Of Uvalde Victim Implore Lawmakers To Enact Gun Reform; GOP Senator Describes Gun Talks At Lunch; Republicans Are Divided; Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) Discusses About The Impact Of Victims' Testimony On House Oversight Committee's Hearing Over Gun Reform; January 6 Panel Eyes Trump's Culpability As Hearing Begin. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired June 08, 2022 - 15:00   ET

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

SIMONE BILES, OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST: To be clear - I'm sorry.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take your time.

BILES: To be clear, I blame Larry Nassar and I also blame an entire system that enabled and perpetrated his abuse.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: After that hearing, the Department of Justice said they would really look at this but it was last month that they declined prosecution for the second time and thus, today, this was sent to the FBI. Now, the FBI has six months to respond and if they don't or if a settlement is not reached, then all of these 90 ladies can file a lawsuit.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Okay. We know you'll stay on it. Jean Casarez, thank you very much for the latest.

It's the top of the hour on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Alisyn Camerota.

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

We start this hour with the tears, and the grief, and the stories of terror from Capitol Hill today as people who have been deeply impacted by America's latest mass shootings testifying to the House Oversight Committee. The youngest voice, just 11 years old, a fourth grader who survived the massacre in Uvalde, Texas.

CAMEROTA: Miah Cerrillo recounted the worst moments, when she - that she endured 77 minutes of living hell. She had to play dead. She had to smear her best friend's blood on her to hide from a gunman.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIAH CERRILLO, SURVIVED CLASSROOM MASSACRE IN UVALDE, TEXAS: There's a door between our classrooms and he went through there and shot my teacher and told my teacher 'good night' and shot her in the head. And then he shot some of my classmates.

When I went to the backpacks, he shot my friend that was sent to me and I thought he was going to come back to the room. So I grabbed her blood and I put it all over me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you feel safe at school?

Why not?

CERILLO: Because I don't want it to happen again.

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

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Just awful on every level. CNN Correspondent Omar Jimenez is in Uvalde for us. Omar, Miah there was just one of a handful of witnesses and she gave that incredibly just unbearable, heartbreaking testimony, so tell us about what happened today. Tell us about the others.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Alisyn. We also heard from a pediatrician here in Uvalde who described what he saw in particular with two children whose bodies, as he described, were so pulverized and decapitated by these bullets. They were only recognizable from the cartoon prints on their clothes.

We heard from parents who laid out the realities not just of what happened a little bit more than two weeks ago now, but the realities of what persist day in and day out dealing and maybe even second guessing decisions that were made that day. One, Miguel Cerrillo who is the father of a survivor, Miah Cerrillo, who also testified, but also we heard from Kim Rubio who is the mother of 10-year-old Lexi Rubio, who was killed, and I want you to take a listen to a little of what both of them had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIGUEL CERRILLO, FATHER OF UVALDE SHOOTING SURVIVOR MIAH CERRILLO: I come because (inaudible) lost my baby girl. She's not same little girl that I used to play with and run with and do everything because she was daddy's little girl.

KIM RUBIO, MOTHER OF UVALDE SHOOTING VICTIM LEXI RUBIO: We promised to get her ice cream that evening, told her we loved her and we would pick her up after school. I can still see - I left my daughter at that school, and that decision will haunt me for the rest of my life. Somewhere out there, there is a mom listening to our testimony, thinking I can't even imagine their pain, not knowing that our reality will one day be hers unless we act now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: And that's the question right now. That's what so many people are working toward, an uphill battle on many cases, what is going to change as a result of this and many of the people that testified or, say, all of them that testify today on Capitol Hill, we're hoping that at least some portions of their story could influence those on Capitol Hill, towards some form of long-term change. BLACKWELL: It was gut-wrenching to watch and listen to today. We also

heard today, Omar, from the Attorney General, Department of Justice announced the team responsible for reviewing the police response in Uvalde. What did you learn?

JIMENEZ: That's right, Victor. So the Department of Justice is going to be reviewing the investigation into what happened here at Rob Elementary School. Attorney General Merrick Garland was quick to make clear this is not a criminal investigation.

[15:05:03]

It is an after action review, a critical incident review. And he says they're not going to be able to undo the pain that has already caused so much damage in this community but what they are going to try and do is get in there, find what went wrong, where there were breakdowns and offer recommendations to how this couldn't happen again in the future. This was something the Mayor here in Uvalde requested.

So after that announcement came from the DOJ, the Mayor put out a statement thanking Attorney General Merrick Garland and also said he trusts that this will be a fair and transparent investigation. He is offering the full cooperation of officials in Uvalde.

CAMEROTA: Okay. Omar Jimenez, thank you very much for reporting from Uvalde.

So a bipartisan group of senators met today to try to come up with gun safety measures. Democrats say they're hopeful that there can be a framework by the end of the week, but Republicans remain divided on the issue.

CNN's Lauren Fox is at the Capitol. Lauren, where is it at this hour?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Well, I just spoke to Thom Tillis, one of the leading Republican negotiators in this talk. And what he told me was that there are no arbitrary deadlines when it comes to when they would get a deal. You hear Democrats saying they want to have a framework by the end of the week. He said they're going to work toward that.

But at this moment, he argued that they still have quite a few issues to work through. One of them is the issue of red flag laws. There are some Republicans who do not believe that even incentivizing states to pass their own red flag laws is a fair response to the crises that we are seeing across the country. They argue that it could result in a loss of due process for gun owners. You also have Republicans that have concerns about other issues like raising the age from 18 to 21 to buy a gun that like an AR-15.

That is something that Tillis told me just has not really come up in these negotiations, because he said that it is just not really been on the table. They need at least 10 Republicans to back any deal they get and he didn't even make any guarantees when I just spoke with him about whether or not they would be able to pass a bill by the end of this work period, which is at the end of June, many weeks away. So there is still a lot of work to do and while folks are very

optimistic in their public comments about trying to find a compromise, it's clear that they still have many issues that they have to work through, Victor and Alisyn?

BLACKWELL: Lauren Fox for us on Capitol Hill watching those talks. Lauren, thank you very much.

Joining us now is California Congressman Ro Khanna. He is a member of the House Oversight Committee that hosted the hearing on gun violence this morning and that's where I want to start. And we hear from Miah Cerrillo - and welcome, Congressman, thank you for being with me. Where does her voice fit into this conversation? And do you think any minds were changed today by what we heard from these witnesses, these families?

REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): I do. I mean, I was just listening as a father and it was just heartbreaking, gut-wrenching when Kimberly Rubio talked about Lexi and that she was going to be on a scholarship, her aspiration was to have a scholarship for soccer and to be - study math and a lawyer. You just realized what a senseless waste of life and she asked the question, I think, the whole country should be asked, and that is do we value guns more or do we value our children more.

Actually, even Republicans were moved. The question is, what are we going to do now, how are we actually going to get something done.

BLACKWELL: Let's talk about that then, the House will likely pass the Protect Our Kids Act, which is essentially a non-starter in the Senate. You've heard from Lauren Fox's reporting there the limited scope of what is possible that Republicans will agree to. Will Democrats in the House, specifically progressives, accept whatever you can get that can get passed through the Senate?

KHANNA: Yes, we will, because I want to move the ball forward, because I've been in Congress almost six years and we've had mass shooting after mass shooting. We have moments of silence and not a single piece of substantive legislation has gotten passed in my six years in Congress. That's an embarrassment.

So yes, if we can get longer waiting periods for people who are 18, 19, 20 to get a military style weapons, that's not enough. I rather they not have these weapons, but sure, I will take that. If we can get red flag laws - by the way, red flag laws have due process. You have to go to a judge. You have to say there's evidence that someone has made threats. If people who have made threats shouldn't have weapons, that's progress. But one I want to say ...

BLACKWELL: Red flag laws, Congressman, let me just say ...

KHANNA: Sure.

BLACKWELL: ... red flag laws are not in the column of things that are likely progressing. It's potentially incentivizing states to pass red flag laws, which we've actually heard from some conservatives in the Senate who say they don't support that either. KHANNA: Well, that's even - I mean, that's even more diluted.

[15:10:00]

We're not even saying let's have red flag laws so that if someone like the Uvalde shooter makes threats against his own family that you can go to a judge and say, let's take the gun away. What we're saying is let's just incentivize the states to do that. I don't understand how you can't be forced such common sense.

One of the things I asked on the hearing is do you believe that felons should have these guns? Do you believe drug traffickers should have these guns? And of course, even the Republicans agreed that they shouldn't have them. Well, right now they can get them because they can get them from private sellers. I don't understand why we wouldn't want to make sure you have background checks so that drug traffickers can't get these guns. This is not about taking away Second Amendment rights, it's about protecting law abiding citizens from getting guns and not having criminals or people make threats get guns.

BLACKWELL: Let me ask you about the approach here from Democrats. As I said, Democrats likely going to pass the Protecting Our Kids Act, which frankly, does a lot of the things in the column on that graphic we just showed that are not on the table for the members of the Senate.

But I remember, Congressman, you were on several times during the discussions over Build Back Better, there were bicameral talks, there were bipartisan talks, talks at the White House, bringing Republicans into the conversation. In this case that didn't happen in the House, why not do you think that could have been helpful in this process?

KHANNA: Well, we are hearing from the families who have victims that they want something done and we're moving forward with things that are already a compromise. Many of us wanted an assault weapons ban. That's not in the bill we're going to be voting on. Many of us wanted a buyback program for assault weapons, that's not on the bill.

BLACKWELL: But you did without conversing with the Republicans in the House, do you think that could have been helpful to get to some type of agreement in the House?

KHANNA: Well, we have conversed, we had hearings where Republicans were there. We've reached out to Republicans. I'm so hopefully some Republicans will vote for the bill. But let me just say clearly what the bill does that we're voting on tonight, it says that if you're 18 years old, you shouldn't have a military weapon. It raises the age to 21. It says that we should strengthen the laws against gun trafficking, so you can't be illegally creating a fake ID to have these guns. I mean, these are common sense things that I'm hoping that some moderate Republicans will support.

BLACKWELL: All right. Congressman Ro Khanna of California, thank you for your time, sir.

KHANNA: Thank you. CAMEROTA: Well, an armed man is charged with attempted murder after

being arrested near the home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

BLACKWELL: Plus, just one day before the January 6 Committee takes their investigation to primetime, members are getting access to more than a hundred emails from former Trump Attorney John Eastman. What this could mean for the former president next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:17:12]

CAMEROTA: Tomorrow night, the January 6 Committee will begin to share their findings about the Capitol riot with the public. CNN has learned the Committee will try to zero in on former President Trump and how he abused his power to try to upend American democracy.

BLACKWELL: Meanwhile, two dozen top Democratic officials say they want to see more action from Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Justice Department's investigation. Democratic Congressman Ruben Gallego of Arizona told CNN this, "I'm just not seeing the urgency from the Attorney General. He's thinking more about protecting the institution of the Department of Justice. He has to be thinking about protecting the institution of democracy."

Joining us now is University of Baltimore law professor and former Assistant U.S. Attorney Kim Wehle and CNN Chief Political Analyst, Gloria Borger. Welcome to you both.

Kim, let me start with you. This Attorney General came into that position saying that he wanted to move away from the partisanship of the last administration and the politicizing of the DOJ. Is the timeline of getting close to primaries and what this could mean politically for Trump something that he is likely considering even as he goes over this case?

KIM WEHLE, LAW PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF BALTIMORE: Well, sure, under Department of Justice policy there's an internal memo that indicates that they should not be bringing high level indictments close to an election. It's unclear whether any of the people involved in what I think we will see will be a widespread conspiracy, a major crime on the democracy of the United States, whether any of the people involved in that are actually on the ballot.

I've thought for a long time, Victor, that the timing of this in part is around these hearings. That is the Justice Department we know is already asked for some of the transcripts of - from the House Committee reportedly they haven't been turned over yet. So I think this is like a one two punch.

That is we have an investigation that has been done by former career prosecutors, it's been put together very carefully. I expect they're going to hand that off to the Justice Department. And we will have to see in the waning months of the Democrats majority, whether the 800 plus insurrectionists that have been indicted, whether on top of that we will see people who plan the conspiracy. I don't think we can decide what Garland is going to do until these

hearings wrap up, frankly.

CAMEROTA: And just very - one quick follow up, Kim, about that. Is this taking longer than a usual process to work its way up to the big fish?

WEHLE: I don't think so, in part because according to the Attorney General, this is the biggest FBI investigation in the history of the United States. And it does get to the President of the United States. And that's really unprecedented. He has to be extremely careful not just to make sure all the spade work is in place but to make sure he has a case that can be won.

[15:20:07]

Prosecutors don't like to bring cases that possibly they could lose. I've written on this for Politico as a constitutional law scholar. I really believe if Merrick Garland does not bring indictments, then we are going to potentially see widespread crimes in the White House moving forward.

There are no other checks and balances available now that impeachment has failed twice for crimes in the Oval Office under the Constitution. And I think given Merrick Garland's history of a federal - being a federal judge, being involved in the Oklahoma City bombings, he's aware of the stakes here and I join those who believe that he has to bring some high level indictments in order to sort of prevent future presidents, whether it'd be Donald Trump or someone else from feeling they can use the massive powers of the presidency to commit crimes.

BLACKWELL: Gloria, we just got this in. I want to get your input on this. Our Ryan Nobles on Capitol Hill spoke with the Chair of this committee, Bennie Thompson, and he asked about potentially using video from Ivanka Trump's interview with the panel, he said it's possible.

Now either the Committee hasn't decided or he doesn't want to, you know, steal his own thunder for the presentation that's going to start this week, but you spoke with the chairman as well ...

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: I did.

BLACKWELL: ... about Ivanka Trump's testimony. What did you learn about that that exchange?

BORGER: Well, I spoke with him, I'd say now almost a month ago when we were talking about Ivanka Trump. And to my surprise, and we did a piece on it in early May. To my surprise, he was saying how useful her testimony was and that was because she answered their questions directly.

And in answering their questions directly, what he said to me was, look, she didn't give away any trade secrets about her father, but in answering those questions, she did corroborate other people's testimony about the President's reluctance to stop the riot, to go out there and tape a videotape, to go out there and tweet about it and say you have to stop this right now.

And I would have to say that it would be very effecting for the American public to watch his daughter talk about what her father did or did not do. And we know from other testimony that she spent an awful lot of time with her father that day. And so she was in his office, near the Oval Office with him. We know she was in contact with him. We know she was trying to get him to do something and then people can watch what she said.

CAMEROTA: Gloria, one follow up question to you.

BORGER: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Is the feeling on Capitol Hill that the window is closing for Merrick Garland to do something before - I mean, obviously, already, the Trump supporters say that it's political, but is it getting dicier?

BORGER: Look, I think they would have liked to see more indictments on contempt of Congress, for example, for the former chief of staff Meadows and Dan Scavino, former Trump aide, so I think they were disappointed in that. They would have liked to have seen the Justice Department move more quickly.

But I think Democrats haven't given up hope, they just don't want to be accused of being blatantly political heading into an election year. And, of course, you know they're going to be accused of that anyway, so there's no escaping that. I think they have to hold their hearings. I think the Democrats have to make their case about the origins of the riot, whether it was part of an attempted coup and what the President's role was, those are the three things they have to do.

They have to make their case to the American public and they have to make their case to Merrick Garland. And I think - so Merrick Garland right now doesn't matter in the near-term.

BLACKWELL: Kim, let me ask you about these John Eastman emails a judge determined 159 will be handed over to the Committee sometime this evening. The prime time beginning of the hearings, that's tomorrow. If you're putting together a case, is this something that you try to find a way to get in the first day or weeks to be expected they're coming?

WEHLE: Well, reportedly, they had a thousand witnesses and over 137,000 documents that they looked at. Watergate was 51 days. The fact that they're consolidating this into six days, and they're reportedly using a professional producer, someone who worked on nightline to sort of roll this out, I agree with Gloria, this is going to be theater. The idea is to make this look like a nonpartisan story of something that could happen again, to sort of wake people up, to understand that this is not a Democratic thing, this is an American thing. So I doubt these Eastman emails will shift in a meaningful way or a substantive way how they're unfolding the story.

[15:25:02] But it certainly could lead to more evidence in - for Merrick Garland

potentially to bring a case against high level officials, because it looks like these emails relate to meetings that happened in December in which the - John Eastman, there was floated an idea of bringing to the courts the question of whether take - forcing or asking Mike Pence to ignore the Electoral College votes, whether that will be constitutional. And reportedly, they've decided not to do it because they didn't want an adverse ruling. A ruling saying you can't do this.

So all of those little pieces show a state of mind and knowledge that this really wasn't okay and that these people didn't adhere to the tenets of the Constitution.

CAMEROTA: Ladies, while we've been talking, there's been a new development. This is just into CNN, lawyers for the former President Donald Trump and his children, Ivanka and Don Jr., say they have reached an agreement with the New York Attorney General's Office and the Trumps will sit for depositions beginning on July 15th, unless the New York appeals court intervenes the deadline for all that was tomorrow. Kim, what's the significance?

WEHLE: Well, that was a - that's a civil investigation relating to financial transactions in which - and tax transactions in which Donald Trump and the Trump administration - or excuse me - the Trump Organization, either inflated or deflated the value of their assets. I think it's important because these people are going to be under oath, locking in testimony from the former president is quite serious. And, of course, this is not the only ongoing investigation. It's the only one left, it looks like, because the Manhattan DA dropped the criminal investigation or that's winding down relating to the same transactions.

But here, I mean, this is a man for many decades, avoided any kind of legal liability and it looks like maybe he's going to have to talk.

BLACKWELL: That's the legal half. Quickly, if you give us the political portion of this, Gloria.

BORGER: Well, the attorneys that I have spoken with who have represented Donald Trump in the past, in assorted cases, have never wanted him to testify because they're afraid. They're afraid that he would not be completely truthful by testifying and so they've always tried to avoid it.

Remember, even in the Mueller case the President did kind of a written deposition. If you'll recall, he didn't actually testify. So I think if I were the president's attorneys, I'd be a little nervous about this. So I'm wondering whether how this is going to unravel because they've always tried to avoid this in the past.

CAMEROTA: Okay. Kim Wehle, Gloria Borger, thank you very much. And CNN's special coverage of the January 6 Committee hearing begins tomorrow night at 7 pm.

While the California man who was arrested near Justice Brett Kavanaugh's Maryland home has now been charged with attempted murder. BLACKWELL: Authorities said the suspect was armed and dialed 911 to

say that he had a firearm in a suitcase and was experiencing suicidal thoughts. CNN Law Enforcement Correspondent Whitney Wild is here with the latest, so what more have you learned?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we've learned, according to this indictment, is that around one of the morning, this man got out of a taxi outside the - in the indictment and unnamed justice - but we know that it is Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's home. And he was dressed in all black and he was carrying a black - excuse me - a backpack and a suitcase.

And when he saw two U.S. Marshal deputies, he walked away and that's when he called 911 and that's when he told them he was having suicidal thoughts and that he had a firearm in his suitcase.

When police contacted him, they took him into custody. There was no incident. He went to a Montgomery County Police Department substation where police were able to interview him and he laid out basically his entire intention here which was to go to Brett Kavanaugh's home, kill the Supreme Court Justice and then kill himself.

Through an investigation, police opened up that suitcase and what they found inside as well as inside that backpack were a list of items, they are simply frightening. Here's what they are: a tactical knife, a Glock 17 pistol, two magazines, ammunition, pepper spray, zip ties, a hammer, a screwdriver and a nail punch, a crow bar, pistol light and duct tape among other things.

Again, through this investigation, police learned that he had been angered over a leaked draft opinion of the Supreme Court - opinion that was leaked about a month ago that shows that the Supreme Court may overturn Roe v. Wade, may undo federally protected abortion rights.

Further, he was angered over the shooting in Uvalde and he indicated to police that he was concerned that the Supreme Court Justice would side with the Second Amendment and loosen firearms laws. Further he told police that, again, that he indicated that the justice he intended to kill would side with Second Amendment decisions that would loosen gun control laws and then further, according to this indictment. Here's another quote, he stated that he began thinking about how to give his life a purpose and decided that he would kill the Supreme Court Justice.

[15:30:07]