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January 6th Committee Gears Up For Next Round After Explosive Primetime Hearing; March For Our Lives Rallies Planned In More Than 400 U.S. Cities; FOX Refuses To Air 1/6 Hearings, Pushing Disinformation Around Riot; Inflation Rises At Fastest Pace In 40 Years, Hits 8.6 Percent & Soaring Gas Prices Top $5 A Gallon For First Time; Uvalde School Police Chief Defends Delay In Confronting Gunman. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired June 11, 2022 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00]

AMARA WALKER, CNN HOST: Our thanks to Matt Rivers for that.

Thanks for joining me today. I'm Amara Walker in for Fredricka Whitfield. CNN NEWSROOM continues right now.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

The call to arms was coming from inside the White House. That is what the January 6th Committee has promised to prove during hearings in the coming days. They say evidence will show that former President Donald Trump knew he had lost the 2020 election and didn't care, orchestrating a seven-point plan to stay in power by any means necessary and directly inspiring violence against the capital in his name.

Here's what they have been telling us so far from the first hearing. The presentation is not some partisan thesis. We heard from witnesses in Trump's own circle, his Cabinet almost turned on him and discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office in those final days. Trump's attorney general Bill Barr told Trump the idea that he won the election was BS and Trump's own daughter Ivanka testified that she accepted Barr's assessment.

Trump's defense strategy now is to claim his attorney general, quote, "sucked" and to throw his own daughter under the bus by saying she was checked out. So far no Trump defense on this disturbing revelation. We're going to tell you about. We see that the mob's chants of hang Mike Pence erupted after a rioter broadcast a Trump tweet about Pence's decision to certify the election results. And that's not all.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): And aware of the rioters' chants to hang Mike Pence, the president responded with this sentiment, quote, "Maybe our supporters have the right idea." Mike Pence, quote, "deserves it."

(END VIDEO CLIP) ACOSTA: We expect to hear more on all of these revelations in the next hearing which begins on Monday. Let's bring in CNN senior legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Prett Bharara and history professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat. She's the author of "Strong Men: How They Rise, Why They Succeed, How They Fall" which now has a new epilogue, we should mentioned, about January 6th.

Preet, let me start with you first. The committee promised that these hearings would be a blockbuster event. Did the first one do you think live up to that hype if you want to call it that, live up to that assessment, that prediction from a legal standpoint?

PREET BHARARA, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: From a legal and political and transparency standpoint I think it was very, very strong. I think a lot of people had suggested it was going to be overproduced and slick because they have a former TV person involved in television news, who was involved in putting it together. I think what you saw was a very crisp demonstration of evidence that they had that we knew about and some evidence that they had that we didn't know about.

They didn't guild the lily, they didn't engage in histrionics, there was no yelling, there was no screaming. There was no overt emotion other than conveyed by the words of the chairman and the vice chair, Liz Cheney, along with the other witnesses some whom, as you said, were testifying openly and freely to the committee, and some of those snippets were shown.

So I think overall not only was it, you know, an excellent job and made a big impact but I think the ratings numbers are a testament to that also. Upwards of 20 million people on television alone which is a lot more than what people thought.

ACOSTA: And Preet, just very quickly, I mean, the committee also promised to share mountains of evidence. In your view what does that look like? What does that need to look like?

BHARARA: Well, look, it depends on what you're thinking about. So far we have the Justice Department having arrested hundreds of people who were at or around the Capitol that day. The committee has been focusing on the people who are high up, who were in Trump's orbit up to and including Trump himself. And I think what people are looking for and what Liz Cheney signaled that she was prepared to believe is that the president himself, the former president himself, was culpable in this.

So the evidence that I care about related the most, relates to what Trump did, the statements he made, the people he ordered to do things, the votes he was looking for to sustain the big lie, and also the things he didn't do, like not calling the National Guard, like not talking to the attorney general, like not talking to the Department of Defense during the time that his violence was taking place. And he knew the violence was taking place.

So I think it was a combination of things he did, things he didn't do, communications he had, and communications he didn't have that will I think present a picture of how blameworthy or not he was. ACOSTA: And Ruth, as we first reported you were interviewed by the

committee to offer insights about threats to democracy. I know you can't really get into the specifics of what was said behind closed doors but what impressions did you have after talking to the committee in terms of, you know, what they're looking at?

RUTH BEN-GHIAT, INTERVIEWED AS AN EXPERT BY JANUARY 6TH COMMITTEE: I was so impressed at the integrity and the diligence of the investigators that they're casting a wide net, you know, consulting people like me who worked on coups and what happens when autocrats think they're going to have to leave office and do anything, you know, use violence to try to stay there.

[15:05:12]

And it was very moving to me to, as a first generation American, to assist the work of the committee and also to see that 20 million people tuned in because it's so important to show that the rule of law is being respected. It's also important for our allies in the world. You know, in a lot of places you couldn't have a hearing like this. And anybody who wanted to investigate abuses of power would be locked up or worse.

ACOSTA: And Preet, this morning former attorney general Bill Barr told FOX that he holds Trump largely responsible for people going to the Capitol on January 6th. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL BARR, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL: I said at the time, I said, on January 6th, that I thought his behavior was shameful. Not because I felt he legally incited the riots but I thought he was largely responsible for directing those people up to the Hill with the idea that there was something that could be done to turn things around and to stop the steal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Preet, he stopped short of saying that there was legal liability for Trump but is there a legal case?

BHARARA: That's an interesting caveat from the former attorney general who was very, very loyal to Donald Trump up until almost the very end, and that sentence is interesting, parsing his words carefully, basically saying he's responsible for sending those folks to the Capitol asking them to do something to save the election on behalf of Donald Trump who legitimately lost the election, as Bill Barr had told him.

But then also inserting a little bit of a hedge saying he doesn't think he's criminally responsible for inciting. Now I don't know how Bill Barr would know that because he hasn't seen all the testimony, he hasn't seen all the communications, he doesn't have all the body of evidence that the committee has, and the succeeding Department of Justice may have. I think the more you see and the more that gets revealed, the closer

you get to a determination that one or more laws may have been broken. I'd like to see all the evidence and I'd like to come back to the question at the end of the hearing, six or even, as the case may be. But as the judge has already said in connection with the discovery dispute, it's more likely than not that Donald Trump and others broke laws, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and perhaps the obstruction of an official proceeding. But I'd like to see all the evidence first.

ACOSTA: And Ruth, let's focus on this point made by the vice chair of the committee, Liz Cheney, on Thursday. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHENEY: President Trump invested millions of dollars of campaign funds purposefully spreading false information, running ads he knew were false and convincing millions of Americans that the election was corrupt and that he was the true president. As you will see, this misinformation campaign provoked the violence on January 6th.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: And Cheney also said Trump had a sophisticated seven-point plan to overturn the election and the chair of the committee, Bennie Thompson, flat-out called this a coup attempt.

Ruth, you're an expert on coups, what's the significance of that?

BEN-GHIAT: I was really pleased to see Chairman Thompson use that word because it's the right word for something that's the result of a process that started -- in a sense it started before November 2020 because Trump had been trying to discredit elections for several years and forming his personality cult so the faithful would rally when he summoned them. But, you know, coups can take months or years to plan, and this was a multi-pronged attempt to overthrow our democracy.

And it's worth reviewing that, you know, he tried so many things simultaneously. He had General Michael Flynn trying to have some kind of martial law or military intervention, then he tried all the electoral trickery which we know about because of what happened with the Georgia secretary of state. And then when none of that, you know, worked he went nuclear and did what autocrats have done in the past and used violence, and summoned these people there to, you know, to right this monstrous wrong on his behalf.

It was really interesting, Jim, what came out recently is that he was trying -- Trump was trying to get to the Capitol on January 6th.

ACOSTA: Right.

BEN-GHIAT: He couldn't get there. And this is consistent with, if you're having a coup and you've summoned everybody and you expect to be anointed as the head of a new illegitimate government, you have to be there. And there's a phase in coups, they're violent, they're quick, and then you have your pronouncement of the new order. And so that's why he was trying to get there.

ACOSTA: Wow. That is a great point. And Preet, I can't get over this indelible image of, you know, Trump watching the rioters chanting hang Mike Pence and Trump apparently saying that Pence deserves it.

[15:10:02]

How does this play into determining Trump's motive or intent if that's established?

BHARARA: I think it's really powerful evidence.

ACOSTA: Yes.

BHARARA: I think it's a very powerful evidence. As many other data points are. You know, his defenders keep saying that he didn't want the bad thing to happen. You know, he used language that was misinterpreted or overinterpreted by the people who stormed the Capitol and engaged in violence. But what puts a lie to that is the way he behaved after the violence began and after violence was specifically being directed at or sought for Michael Pence.

So it's totally inconsistent with the defense that he didn't want the violence to happen. And there are other bits of evidence and testimony, some of which we've heard and some of which we will hear that showed that Donald Trump delayed in trying to stop what was happening. The best person in the entire universe who would have been able to stop the violence earlier was Donald Trump. And by many accounts he was reluctant to do it, kind of enjoyed it, kind of enjoyed that Michael Pence, you know, was being frightened and people were going after him.

That is all -- that is all consistent with the idea that he wanted what was happening, which was the violence and the prevention of the certification of the votes. So I think it's incredibly important to the overall picture.

ACOSTA: All right. And we'll see how that picture develops over the coming days. It starts up again on Monday.

Preet Bharara, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, thank you so much to both of you. Both great experts. We really appreciate your time.

And a reminder to check out Ruth's book, "Strongmen: How They Rise, Why They Succeed, How They Fall" now available in paperback with a new epilogue about January 6th. Great book. I've read it myself.

Coming up, hundreds of protests under way across the country renewing calls for gun reform after more than 250 mass shootings just this year.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:15:59] ACOSTA: Demands for tougher gun control echoing across the country today as people take to the streets for March for Our Lives demonstrations in nearly every U.S. state. A series of high-profile mass shootings from Uvalde, Texas, to Buffalo, New York, are reigniting outrage and sparking fresh calls for lawmakers to address the violence.

The March for Our Lives movement was born in the wake of the deadly high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, in 2018. Today activists in more than 400 cities are taking part.

We have correspondents covering the rallies up and down the East Coast. Let's begin with our Brian Todd in Washington.

Brian, rally goers have heard from a slate of speakers at today's march there and it was passionate at times. I was watching some real heartfelt messages from parents and students who survived these kinds of attacks. What was the message?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, the messages were those of anger and frustration, mostly, that more has not been done to end gun violence in the United States especially since the Parkland massacre in 2018. Also, you know, this March for Our Lives movement was started by young people who were involved in the Parkland shooting, who are victims of the Parkland shooting. They say that they want to be the generation that ends this kind of nonsense, this madness of gun violence in schools and elsewhere.

But also, Jim, the message was that of personal loss. People recounting the horror that they felt as they went through a mass shooting in the sense of loss. And part of that was the visuals that they put up here. Look at these. These are placards with pictures of the victims of the Uvalde massacre on May 24th. You can these wonderful young children who lost their lives that day. And there were placards of other people, other gun violence victims dating back to 1966 that were put up along these railings here.

And on that theme of personal loss we did hear today, I spoke to Raymond Whitfield, the son of Ruth Whitfield, one of the victims of the Buffalo shooting. Also we heard from X Gonzalez, who was a Parkland survivor. Here's what both of them had to say in our interviews and during the speeches today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAYMOND WHITFIELD, MOTHER KILLED IN BUFFALO SHOOTING: If it a happen in a grocery store at 2:30 in the afternoon to an 86-year-old woman who couldn't run if she wanted to, it can happen to you anywhere at any time.

X GONZALEZ, PARKLAND SHOOTING SURVIVOR: How many ways can we say it? Gun violence does not discriminate. It happens everywhere and all the time.

(END VIDEO CLIP) TODD: Now to be frank there's not a lot of confidence among the people who spoke and the people who attended this rally that Congress is going to pass really meaningful and, you know, hard hitting gun violence legislation here or, you know, gun law restrictions. So what a lot of people were talking to us about in the crowd was they've got to take it to another level and be somewhat creative with how to pressure people. And one of them talked about putting more pressure on corporations in the United States.

So, Jim, those are some of the things that we could see in the years ahead if the frustration mounts with Congress just not getting anything done on this issue.

ACOSTA: Yes, I get it. There's a lot of frustration and just skepticism really that anything is going to get done.

Brian Todd, thank you very much.

Polo Sandoval is in New York City. Polo, what are you seeing?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, the crowd actually just now breaking up after what was several hours of not only tribute but a call for change. What we saw earlier today was a massive crowd that started in Brooklyn and then marched over the Brooklyn Bridge as the NYPD cleared the way and then made their way here to Lower Manhattan for a series of speakers.

One of the last speakers just a few moments ago taking an opportunity to really sort of hail New York state as an example in terms of what kinds of policy changes people would like to see, many people would like to see throughout the country. Of course, this crowd wants to see in terms of meaningful gun reform. That speaker referring to those changes that we saw just a few days ago with the New York state assembly introduced, passed and enacted various different pieces of legislation, including increasing the age of purchase for semiautomatic rifles.

And that's what we heard today from New Yorkers that were participating in this march. They want similar legislation to be passed at the Senate level.

[15:20:01]

Of course, they're also very familiar with how difficult that might be to accomplish but they say they're not giving up especially as today marks four weeks since the shooting in Buffalo, New York, as New Yorkers became familiar with the pain and anguish that comes with these mass shootings.

And finally, Jim, I also had an opportunity to speak to New York mayor, Eric Adams, who says this level of violence that's being seen specifically here in New York City alone is no longer just a threat to the public in general but he says to first responders as well. Here's what he told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MAYOR ERIC ADAMS (D), NEW YORK: Yes, I have never in my life of public safety, in my public life have never witnessed the easy accessibility of guns, through easy feeling of using a gun and the lack of fear of reprisal. That's a terrible combination. Traditionally you shot at night, you feel you can get away. Now we're having broad daylight shooters. That's an indictment on our criminal justice system.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: It's a chilling trend that the mayor is referring to, not just what he's seeing here in New York City but major American cities throughout the country as well.

Jim, back to you.

ACOSTA: Yes. It's frustrating for our mayors as well in this country. No question. Polo, thank you.

Nadia Romero is in Parkland, Florida. Survivors of the 2018 Parkland shooting know all too well about this problem. They were among the first to create this student-led March for Our Lives organization which really has made a huge impact in terms of galvanizing public support out there in these types of demonstrations that we saw today. What was the mood at the rally today that you saw?

NADIA ROMERO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, as you mentioned, this is where it all began. Here in Parkland, Florida. Just a month after the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School shooting where 17 teachers and students were killed on Valentine's Day back in 2018, less than two miles from here. This was the site of our first March for Our Lives. And we're back again today, more than four years later, and many people citing that not a lot has changed.

So we did see change happened in Florida, some gun laws were implemented right after that shooting, right after Parkland, including getting rid of bump stocks, including red flag laws but we didn't see that action on the national level. So there were two lines that really stuck out to me tonight by the 16-year-old organizer of March for Our Lives Parkland. She said today your pockets are lined with dirty money and she said our country is drowning in the blood of children.

Those two very strong lines, those messages directed directly at lawmakers for their inaction on gun reform. And she was only 16 years old putting this whole thing together and inspiring some 400 other March of Our Lives rallies across the country. She was just 12 when Parkland happened, at the middle school right next door. She said she heard the gun fire, she was on the lockdown herself, and she was able to use the PTSD to help fuel her activism. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZOE WEISSMAN, PRESIDENT, MARCH FOR OUR LIVES PARKLAND: Because of that experience, you know, I heard guns, I saw all the first responders flowing through the streets. And from those experiences, I developed post-traumatic stress disorder at the age of 12. It's something that a lot of survivors like myself and other people with PTSD feel is that we're watching as more shootings continue to happen and I think that almost makes it worse. So for me getting involved in activism not only is it helping others but it's also helping myself deal with my own trauma from Parkland.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMERO: And she's 16 years old, creating her own nonprofit called Heal Together. Jim, it's a virtual support group so that shooting victims across the country can come together virtually to support one another because she says there are so many of them who are sharing in these same traumatic experiences. That's where we are in this country. But again one of the biggest calls for action is to vote, be a participant in the midterm elections, not just in the presidential elections, and vote for politicians that want gun reform -- Jim.

ACOSTA: That's right. And a lot of those kids in Parkland are now of voting age. Something that they perhaps were not back in 2018. So now they can make those voices heard at the ballot box.

All right, Nadia and all of our correspondents covering these marches today, thank you very much.

Up next, more than 20 million people watched the primetime January 6th hearing this week. But will the nation keep listening to what the Huse committee has to say. The legendary Sam Donaldson, former White House correspondent, my old job, joins me live next.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:29:05]

ACOSTA: The divide that prompted thousands to storm the Capitol is still on display more than a year later as FOX News which played a key role in amplifying Trump's big lie refused to air the first night of the January 6th Committee hearings. You can see right there in the center of your screen, it's a remarkable image.

Former ABC News anchor Sam Donaldson joins me to talk about this. Former White House correspondent, covered Watergate.

Sam, great to see you. I know you know this but FOX hosts Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity whose texts, whose own texts with the Trump White House during the insurrection were revealed by the committee. They called these hearings propaganda and a Democratic fundraiser. Viewers could see onscreen graphics calling it an anti-Trump show trial.

I mean, you were there through all of Watergate, Sam. It's got to be shocking to you when back then much of the nation was glued to the news media's coverage of that White House scandal.

[15:30:00]

Can you imagine a major network back then behaving like FOX during Watergate and just shutting it out and not showing it to the American people?

SAM DONALDSON, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, ABC NEWS: No, no. Good to be with you, Jim.

Watergate, everyone wanted to know what happened. Republicans, who supported Nixon, wanted to know. They wanted to see the evidence. If he was guilty of something, show me. I'm here to see.

And Republicans and Democrats got together in the Watergate committee, laid out the evidence they could find, the testimony. They sent it to the House Judiciary Committee, the proper route for impeachment.

Now this committee has said it found the evidence. It's going to lay it out for the American people. It's then going to send it to the Justice Department for prosecution. That's the right route for Donald J. Trump.

During impeachment, they tried that twice and that didn't work.

ACOSTA: But your thoughts on a major TV personality like Sean Hannity having his texts shown during these hearings, almost with his hands caught in a cookie jar.

While, at the same time, he's on his program telling his viewers, nothing to see here, don't watch what's happening on these other networks. It's remarkable.

DONALDSON: That's one of the problems that the January 6th committee has in trying to lay out for the American people the evidence. And saying to them, hey, here's the evidence, take a look at it. If people won't take a look at it, you're not going to persuade them to anything.

In this case, it's not like Watergate where everyone wanted to know, what are the facts, what's the truth? And when it finally came out, Richard Nixon's thought was he could survive it. But, no, the Republican Party turned against him.

Look at what Republicans are doing today. Ron Johnson -- you just showed again a video of the terrible, vicious assault on our capitol.

Ron Johnson, a Republican Senator of Wisconsin, after what he said, all in all it was a peaceful demonstration. Oh, Senator Johnson, who's going to believe you?

Well, unfortunately, as opposed to the Watergate days, a large segment, a minority segment, of the American people don't want to see the evidence. They want to believe what they think they know and that's what they're going to stick to.

So that's more difficult for the January 6th committee to lay it out.

ACOSTA: And two Murdoch family newspapers had one scathing message for Trump in the wake of these hearings.

The "New York Post" writing today -- this is their editorial report -- "Trump has become a prisoner of his own ego. He can't admit his tweeting and narcissism turned off millions. He won't stop insisting 2020 was stolen, even though he offered no proof that it's true."

"Meanwhile, reports that Trump was pleased that the January 6th crowd chanted for Pence to be hanged, a truly reprehensible statement, make him unworthy for the office. Trump can't look past 2020. Let him remain there."

And "The Wall Street Journal" editorial board concluded with this quote, saying, "Mr. Trump betrayed his supporters by conning them on January 6th and he's still doing it."

Sam, what do you make of the Murdoch newspapers coming out after Trump in this fashion, despite the fact that FOX was shutting out the hearing the other night?

DONALDSON: Well, Murdoch owns both of them.

ACOSTA: Yes.

DONALDSON: He owns FOX and he owns "The Wall Street Journal."

And what you see there is a dichotomy from the standpoint of saying to one group of viewers, or listeners, one thing, and to another, another thing.

Let me tell you about Rupert Murdoch. I think you know it. He's after the cash. He's after the money. It's a business.

I understand that. And I'm for the free enterprise system and for the capitalist system, except for the injuries it sometimes can do to people.

But he uses FOX and "The Wall Street Journal" and all of his publications to make money.

Remember when FOX had a big problem on election night? It called Arizona for Joe Biden before any other news organization. And what FOX discovered was its viewers were agonized. It's viewers were angry.

How dare you do that to our man, Donald J. Trump. Surely he won Arizona. He didn't. But FOX lost viewers. It learned its lesson. If it wants to make money, it has to have Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson.

Carlson can say that Putin's invasion of Ukraine has some justification and his viewers like that. And Murdoch likes the money it brings him.

ACOSTA: I have to ask you, as someone who covered Watergate -- and I know you found the hearings to be totally compelling back in those days. They had a very large impact on the American people and shaping public opinion in terms of how the public felt about Richard Nixon at that time.

Given that knowledge that you have, that experience you have, how do you think this January 6th committee handled itself the other night, the presentation from Liz Cheney and Bennie Thompson? What do you want to see moving forward?

[15:35:10]

DONALDSON: I think it handled itself quite well. It laid out, in broad aspects, what it's going to show us with the specifics and the testimony and the evidence in the coming days. And that's what it should have done.

But no one expects that a whole number of Americans, who have supported Donald J. Trump right down the line, who don't want to see the evidence, are going to be changed.

I don't think that Rudy Giuliani and the lawyer, Eastman, who, came up with the idea that the states could come up with alternative electors to Congress, not the ones elected by people of their states, I don't think they were watching.

And if they were, they're not going to say to themselves, oh, gee, I was wrong, look what the evidence shows, I'm going to repent. Not for a moment. Not for a moment.

And the big basic problem here, Jim, between the two, the Watergate situation and this situation, is, and I repeat myself, then, almost all Americans, certainly a vast majority, wanted to know the truth. They wanted to know the facts.

Many skeptical in the beginning that Richard Nixon had anything to do with this, rightly so perhaps. Until the evidence is there, why not, reserve judgment?

Now one-third or more of the American people simply have tuned out the facts.

If I tell them the apple falls down because Newton's first law of gravity says it will, and they sit under the apple tree and it falls on their head, they won't believe it. That wasn't an apple, the apple falls sideways because Trump said so.

I don't know how you solve that problem. I don't really know. If I did, I would give you an answer.

ACOSTA: The truth is not partisan, but sometimes the truth hurts as we both know.

Sam Donaldson, great to see you as always. Thank you so much. We'll have you back again.

Let's see how it goes with the hearings and have you back and get your assessment.

DONALDSON: Enjoy to see it.

Thanks very much, Jim.

ACOSTA: Alright, thank you, sir. Much appreciated. Coming up next, taking a look back at another time when America had

its eyes glued to congressional testimony about the actions of a president. It was 1973 and it was President Nixon in the hot seat, as Sam Donaldson was just talking about. So what made John Dean decide to testify against Richard Nixon.

Here's a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN DEAN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: Secrets and lies are far too common in politics. And I have, from my experience, learned, in the long run, they don't work. The truth has its own way of coming out and will come out.

The weekend of April 14, 15, 1973, is when the Watergate coverup imploded.

I talked to Halderman and Ehrlichman, the fact that I thought we were breaking the law. And I showed particularly Ehrlichman, being a lawyer, the statute that was involved and why I thought we were violating it.

He said, I disagree. He said, John, I have no criminal intent, and so I didn't violate the statutes.

I can't believe that a man who went to law school had to miss school the day they talked about criminal intent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Remarkable stuff. Be sure to tune in. "WATERGATE, BLUEPRINT FOR A SCANDAL," continues tomorrow night at 9:00 on CNN.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:43:09]

ACOSTA: In case you needed another sign of how much more you're paying at every turn, inflation hit 8.6 percent for the 12 months ending in May, the fastest pace it's gone up in 40 years.

So if you haven't gotten a raise of 8.6 percent over the last year, you can do the math.

Add to this, the national average price of gas just hit record $5 a gallon.

Let's talk about this. Mark Zandi is the chief economist at Moody's Analytics. He joins me now.

Mark, great to see you. Thank you so much.

As you know, food at home has risen 10 percent. Energy has risen almost 35 percent. How much worse is this going to get? Have we plateaued maybe and perhaps relief is in sight?

MARK ZANDI, CHIEF ECONOMIST, MOODY'S ANALYTICS: Jim, yes, I think so. A lot depends on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, how that plays out and what that does to oil prices, which, obviously, is key to the runup in gasoline and diesel prices here.

It's hard to know if we're at the end of that. But we're closer to the end than the beginning.

I do think, as we look toward the end of the year to this time next year, I would expect, at worst, oil prices leveling off and supply chains easing and inflationary pressures abating.

I've said it before, and I've been wrong that we've saw the peak. I thought that was back in March. So I say this with lots of trepidation. But I do think we're close to a peak and we'll see better inflation numbers down the road here.

ACOSTA: Yes, I mean, we want to be optimistic about this for sure.

Mark, you and I drive pass the gas stations and see the eye-popping gas prices. What does history tell us about gas prices and how quickly could this reverse.

For the folks at home wondering, why am I paying so much, what do you tell people?

[15:45:00]

ZANDI: Well, I think you can connect the dots right back to the invasion of -- Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And then sanctions. The U.S. put sanctions on Russia's oil. And then the European Union, a few weeks ago, put sanctions on Russian oil.

So you're taking that oil out of the market. And it takes time for supplies from other parts of the world, from the U.S., from Saudi Arabia, from the UAE, to kind of kick in and fill the void.

In the interim, you have the imbalance between supply and demand and higher prices.

At this point, I think the sanctions are in. I don't think there are any other countries that are going to impose sanctions.

I expect supplies to pick up because these energy companies can make a lot of money and I think they'll produce more. The Saudis seem to be suggesting they'll produce more. So I do expect prices to begin to abate.

But it's not -- I don't think these prices are going to come in fast, because there's a big hole to fill, given all the sanctions on Russian oil.

ACOSTA: Do you think consumers are being gouged?

ZANDI: No. I don't think that's part of the story. If you look at the margin, the profit margins of energy companies, I don't think they're out of bounds from historical norms. I don't think that's what's going on here.

I think this is really about the fact that, you know, we're -- demand is there but the supply has been significantly curtailed because, as we just said, we not buying Russian oil, to put pressure on the Russians to do the right thing.

And as long as that's the case, prices are going to be high.

ACOSTA: And any administration policies that should be considered at this point? There's some talk about the Biden administration trying to mend fences with Saudi Arabia.

What do you think? Could that have an effect?

ZANDI: Yes, sure. I mean, it's about supply. We need more oil produced. And the Saudis have excess capacity, a fair share of it. So I think it makes sense for the president to talk to the Saudis and figure out a way to get them to pump more oil.

There's a few other countries with capacity, the United Arab Emirates, I mention.

Just a thought, Iran had a lot of excess capacity as well. Two to two and a half billions a day out of 100 million barrels is a lot of oil. We need to come to some kind of agreement with them. Perhaps that could be accelerated.

There's all kinds of pros and cons, political things you have to think through, but that's a possibility.

But it's also going to take time. Because there's physical constraints on the ability of American producers. Because there's capacity to produce more here but a restraint on their ability to put more rigs in the ground and produce more oil. So it's just going to take time.

So there's no smoking gun, slam-dunk solution here. It'll just be a bit of time before supplies kick in and prices come down.

ACOSTA: All right, Mark Zandi, thank you very much.

Also a lot of humanitarian considerations to keep in mind as well, as the U.S. is trying to --

ZANDI: Sure.

ACOSTA: -- find a solution for the prices in the Middle East.

Mark, thank you very much.

And we'll be right back.

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[15:52:39] ACOSTA: New shocking comments from Uvalde school police chief, Peter Arradondo. Arradondo spoke to the paper by phone in written statements and through his attorney.

We reached out to Arradondo for comment but his attorney tells CNN his client is not doing any interviews right now.

CNN's Camila Bernal joins me from Uvalde, Texas.

Camila, this is interesting. What is the chief saying?

CAMILA BERNAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jim, this is very interesting. And the chief is saying that not only did he not consider himself to be the incident commander that day.

But he also said he assumed someone else had taken on that role. He said he believed he was taking on the role of firsthand responder a frontline responder.

He told "The Tribune" that he did not issue any orders that day. And yet, "The Tribune" is also reporting that he did tell other officers to begin breaking windows in order to get children and teachers out of the other rooms.

So just a lot of different information, and still, a lot of questions.

I want to read one direct quote from "The Tribune" where he said: "Not a single responding officer ever hesitated, even for a moment, to put themselves at risk to save the children."

Now we learned a lot of new details in this "Texas Tribune" article. And one of them being what he did with the radios. There were a lot of questions on whether or not he had radios at the school.

And he told "The Tribune" a couple of things. Frist, he left two radios outside the school. He thought the radios would slow him down. He wanted his hands free in case he needed to shoot.

He said he was aware the radios didn't always work in some of those school buildings. And his attorney claiming that officers would have turned off the radios anyway.

As a result, Arradondo was not aware of the 911 calls of children who were calling and begging for help.

In the meantime, of course, people continued to come to this memorial. This community coming together but still trying to understand how and why this happened -- Jim?

ACOSTA: That's right. Another weekend goes by, we still don't have all of the answers.

Camila Bernal, thank you very much.

And this week's "CNN Hero" works to provide one of the most needed, yet often overlooked item for kids across the country. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[15:55:56]

RABBI AMY WEISS, CNN HERO: Underwear is just an overlooked item. And it's super expensive. So the parents who are struggling financially tend to think, you can't see the underwear, so it will be OK.

There's a crisis for this very essential need that really makes a big difference in their social and academic world.

Kids who need underwear don't want used underwear, right? That's gross, isn't it?

UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: Yes.

WEISS: We only give away new underwear.

Kids, they want what all of us want, security and dignity.

We want to increase these kids' self-esteem and confidence. That's really what it is all about, helping fill that gap when no one else is doing it.

And to keep them in school, when they've got underwear, it's just easier to be a kid.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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