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Democrats Demand Biden Act Faster on Abortion, Inflation, Other Issues; GOP Lawmakers Pin Blame for Mass Shootings on Mental Health Issues; Former Trump White House Counsel Pat Cipollone to Testify for January 6 Committee. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired July 06, 2022 - 10:30   ET

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

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Debra Messing and Alyssa Milano, who was also part of it, saying, we voted to get Joe Biden in office.

[10:30:04]

We did all the things we were supposed to do. Why aren't you doing more? Why are we just getting fundraising texts? What's the point of any of this?

And the White House, as well as a lot of other Democratic officials are trying to push back on that sense. It's coming into a lot of core Democratic voters that they just can't get anything done.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: They're saying, what, you've got to vote in the next election, in effect, is the idea?

DOVERE: They're saying these are hard problems. Think about the hole that Joe Biden came in with, and that it takes a long time to fix these things. They're also saying that, yes, the Democrats have control of the House and the Senate but the filibuster is still there, they're still have trouble lining up the margins that do exist, and it's not like Joe Biden has the power, as a couple of his aides put it to me, to like a dictator or a tyrant to just say what he wants to do and they're saying he purposely is acting differently from how Donald Trump did.

SCIUTTO: Well, it appears for Republicans to, in effect, take control of the Supreme Court on this issue, successful effort from their perspective. We'll see if it's matched on the other side. Isaac, thank you so much.

DOVERE: Thank you.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: And for more now, we're joined by Ron Brownstein, Senior Editor for The Atlantic, and Laura Barron-Lopez, White House Correspondent for PBS NewsHour. Good to have both of you with us.

Picking up on Isaac's excellent reporting there, there is some frustration, I know, and a lack of action. Ron, you had a similar piece. You found these frustrations in your reporting as well among Democrats that the president is following, not leading. Bakari Sellers this morning said he needs to fight. Biden needs to fight and with more just words. There's talk of executive orders, getting rid of the filibuster and the fear, right, of what that could mean if and when Republicans then take back control in Washington.

But the reality is there ain't a lot happening. What are the chance any of that changes, that you do see some fight, to Bakari's point, or some action?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Look, I think the feeling in the Democratic Party, obviously, as Isaac said, I think there's a recognition that Biden came into a difficult situation. But I think the risky phases is a growing sense that he is a man out of time, as I wrote, that while he was the right candidate to beat Trump, he may be the wrong leader to combat Trumpism.

And there is a feeling that, in effect, he has left a job vacancy in the Democratic Party for voices that will push back harder against what is happening in the red states and at the Supreme Court, to roll back seemingly long settled civil rights and liberties.

I think there are two separate issues, Erica. One is his pedigree. He is someone who was elected to the Senate in 1972. He was shaped by Washington almost clubbier (ph) and more cooperative. His first instinct is always to uphold the old rules, whether that's the filibuster or not criticizing the Supreme Court too harshly. He eventually gets to where the party is but he always seems to be behind.

But there's a second issue in this. It's exemplified by today. Biden political strategy was to try to mute this kind of cultural, polarizing issues and focus on lunch table, kitchen -- lunch bucket, kitchen table concerns, like he's never happier than he is today, with the union hall in Cleveland talking about pension benefits, that's what he wanted his presidency to be. Instead, he is president while these rights are being threatened. And as one activist said to me, you go to war with the Republican Party you have, not the Republican Party you want, channeling Donald Rumsfeld, and it's not clear that Biden has made that transition.

SCIUTTO: Well, Laura, on these issues, not just abortion but gun rights and even the decision on climate, right, these were the results, as Isaac and I were saying, of many years, even decades long effort by Republicans and conservatives to get influence on the court to overturn past decisions and create new precedence here. I mean, is there an understanding inside the party that that's what's required on the flipside, that there's no executive order the president can issue today that turns that around?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Definitely, Jim. I mean, the party members understand that anything that President Biden ultimately does, via executive action, is not going to reverse what the Supreme Court just did on Roe v. Wade, what they've done on guns, but they understand that. But what they're saying is that the president, you know, to Ron's point, needs to battle on the same playing field as this Republican Party, which it may not mean that he's able to get any Supreme Court justices on the court anytime soon other than the recent historic one of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, but that he looks for creative ways -- by the fact that the White House didn't issue even low-hanging fruit executive actions on the day that the Roe decision came down.

[10:35:00]

But also they're trying to tell the White House that, ultimately, anything they do is going to be challenged by Republican states and in the courts. We saw that with the eviction moratorium, which the White House still ultimately moved forward to decide to extend that. And so they're just saying, just try it and see what happens, and see where ultimately the courts end this.

HILL: We will see. Ron Brownstein, Laura Barron-Lopez, good to have you both here. Thank you.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

BARRON-LOPEZ: Thank you.

HILL: So, what can be done to stop the next mass shooting? Many experts say putting a focus on mental health is not necessarily the solution. We'll take a closer look, next.

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[10:40:00]

HILL: We are getting our first look, as are you now, at the mug shot for the suspected gunman in the Highland Park mass parade shooting. He's expected to appear in court at the top of the hour, now facing seven counts of first-degree murder. The state's attorney though says he does expect to file dozens more charges to account for all of the victims, including those who were injured.

SCIUTTO: In the wake of this mass shooting and many others, gun advocates will once again point to the shooter's state of mind rather than the weapons the gunman used.

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SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): I think yesterday's shooting is another example of what the problem is. The problem is mental health.

GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON (R-AR): This is a planned attack but is someone who appears to have had mental issues.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: So, what does the data show? Mental health experts say, in fact, the majority of people dealing with mental illness do not commit violent acts, and if so, are more likely to harm themselves than others. And also, according to research from my next guest and the Department of Health and Human Services, between just 3 percent and 5 percent of violent crime can be attributed to people with serious, diagnosable mental illness.

So, joining me now to discuss the reality, Jeffrey Swanson, a sociologist who studies gun violence at the Duke University School of Medicine. Thanks so much for joining us this morning.

JEFFREY SWANSON, PROFESSOR IN PSYCHIATRY AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES, DUKE UNIVERSITY: Thanks for having me on.

SCIUTTO: So, first, you're familiar with the point from McConnell and others, and that is that this kind of violence is primarily a mental health issue. You're deep in the research. What do the facts show?

SWANSON: Well, let's just distinguish between mental health and mental illness. I mean, if somebody goes out and massacres a bunch of strangers, that's not the act of a healthy mind. That's someone who has a serious problem that is acting on some deviant cultural script. But it doesn't mean that they have one of the well-characterized disorders that psychiatrist treat, like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder that impair the brain's ability to reason and perceive reality and regulate mood. Some do, different estimates, maybe one in five or so. But, you know, these are two really different and complicated public health problems, gun violence and mental illness. It just intersects on their edges. So, that person that we're looking at, even if they do, psychopathology may not be the only reason. There are lots of other reasons for it.

SCIUTTO: So let me as you this, because the Department of Justice, for instance, has done a study on this before, and looking at commonalities in mass shootings going all the way back to 1966. And they did find some commonalities, childhood trauma, personal crisis or specific grievance, a script or example that validate their feelings or provide a roadmap.

So, I wonder, is there a way to identify the folks who fall into that category who are clearly not mentally healthy but have not been diagnosed with a formal mental illness?

SWANSON: Yes, well, the warning signs, first of all, they always look more obvious when we look at them through this remarkable device called a retrospectoscope. But the fact is that there are a lots of people, thousands of people who would probably meet that profile who are not going to do that because the risk factors tend to be non- specific. They apply to many more people who are not going to do that. Lots of troubled young men who say scary things on social media, and you can't just round them all up.

So, if you -- yes, if somebody sees something, if someone is around you, you're really concerned about them and they have some of these characteristics that you're talking about, you should say something or do something. Maybe calling the police is appropriate. The question is what are the police going to do when you call them? Because the person -- if they don't meet probable cause to be arrested and they aren't mentally incompetent or manifest with obvious mental health crisis, the police might say, well, call us back when he does something, which might be too late. If you're in a state that has a red flag law, well, maybe you can't do something. Otherwise, we're limited in this country. We're talking about guns. Because it's not like you have to go prove that you are worthy and safe to have a gun. The fact is it's a default that you have a right, the way our Supreme Court has interpreted the Second Amendment, to have a gun, and we make some exceptions for really dangerous people.

[10:45:00]

It's hard to identify who they are. It's a real puzzle to figure this out.

SCIUTTO: It sounds like what folks are being asked, in effect, are to profile an entire population, right, to look for these commonalities. We had Andy McCabe on last hour who was saying that the burden had been shifted to folks like families, local police. I've been out with cops who basically have to act like mental health professionals. But you do say that red flag laws can help. They don't stop everything. They can help if they were used more effectively. How so?

SWANSON: Yes. So, they have to be scaled up. Just having the law on the books, if it's not used, if people don't know about it, they might as well roll up the new bill and throw over the ocean, hope somebody finds it. But, yes, we have done studies in Connecticut and Indiana, and although the law was passed as a legislative response to the public outrage over mass shooting, yes, they're actually used two- thirds of the time is for somebody with a suicide concern. This might be granddad who's bereaved and drinking heavily and has five shotguns. What do you do?

Well, in a state like Connecticut, the police can look into it. And it's a civil restraining order that gives police officers clearly to remove those guns. And what it does, it creates -- if finding that person who is going to end their own life is a needle in a hay stack, it gives you a smaller hay stack with more needles in it. That population only matches the death records at 40 times the suicide rate. And we found for every 10 to 20 of those gun-related actions, one life is saved by averting suicide. So, it uses information that people have around the person.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you a bigger picture question since this is something you research so deeply. If it's a mental health issue, then, presumably -- primarily, then, presumably, the U.S. would have a higher incidence of mental health than other countries given we have a much higher, frankly, by an order of magnitude, incident of gun violence? Does the U.S. have an unusually high rate of mental illness?

SWANSON: No, we don't. And for that matter, we don't have an unusually high rate of violent crime either. We just have a higher rate of homicide because guns are involved in many more of those cases.

Now, I'm a mental health services researcher, not just gun violence researcher, and I would be the first to say, yes, we need to, quote, fix mental health. That's just a good slogan for a different public health problem. But we have probably 14 million people in our country with serious mental illnesses, like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and depression, and a third are not getting any treatment at all and lots of them. (INAUDIBLE) of the criminal legal system, and they're in jail and not for violent crime, mostly it's for less serious crimes, but that's really a scandal.

I mean, the public behavioral health system we have, if you can call it that, is fragmented, it's overburdened, it's underresourced, it's maldistributed, the workforce is on the wrong place, and if we fix that. But if we did, which would be wonderful, it's not going to solve our gun violence. That's a different problem. The problem is not why did this person do that, which -- I mean, it's a good question, we just don't -- we're not going to know the answer. The question is, why did that person, and why they're living in a society where they have access to such an efficient, lethal technology, this instrument that's designed to kill so many people with so little physical effort?

SCIUTTO: Well, Jeffrey Swanson, thanks so much. It's a difficult issue, I think, often oversimplified. So, we appreciate you helping us dig down deep.

SWANSON: Thanks very much for having me.

HILL: Still ahead here, the suspect charged in the deadly Fourth of July parade shooting heads to court this morning. Stay with us for the very latest.

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SCIUTTO: This just in to CNN, and it's significant. Former Trump White House Counsel Pat Cipollone has now agreed to testify for the January 6th committee.

HILL: CNN's Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins joining us with these new developments. So, there are some parameters to this interview, as I understand it, Kaitlan. What are they?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there are. And this, of course, comes after the committee had subpoenaed Pat Cipollone. He was the top lawyer in the Trump White House. This is a very rare step for congressional committee to take but clearly is one they felt they needed to given he was at the center of so many of these conversations in those final days in the Trump White House about January 6th. And he was one of the key figures that you have heard from other testimony pushing back on the efforts to overturn the election results.

And so we are now confirming that he will be sitting for a transcribed interview with the House committee this Friday. That comes after that subpoena had been extended until July 8th to allow him to go in and sit down with him. But you won't see Pat Cipollone on camera in the way that you did with Cassidy Hutchinson or some of these other officials who have been testifying publicly. And, instead, this will be behind closed doors and we're still trying to clarify whether or not it is going to actually be taped and on camera, like you've seen some of them happen in the past. This is confirming reporting from our friend, Maggie Haberman, over at The New York Times, who first reported that Cipollone is now going to be doing this transcribed interview. And it's notable for so many reasons, not just that it's a rare step because of his role in this but also because he had resisted testifying to the committee. He had met with the committee back in April in a closed-door session but, Jim and Erica, that was not transcribed, it was not under oath, it was a more informal conversation that Pat Cipollone had with the January 6th committee. And now, this is going to be under oath, it will be a testimony coming from Pat Cipollone.

[10:55:00]

So, we'll see what it is he has to say. Obviously, this could be hugely consequential for this committee given the key role that he played in all of this. And we'll also see what he says about the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, who had testified about conversations and comments that she overheard Cipollone make in those final few days of Trump pushing back on the election and the results of it.

SCIUTTO: Kaitlan, just quickly -- sorry, go ahead.

HILL: Kaitlan, quickly, there is also another hearing that was just scheduled for next week.

COLLINS: Yes, there is going to be another hearing on Tuesday. We are waiting to see who exactly the witness list is going to be for that hearing. But, obviously, you've seen just how aggressive this committee investigating January 6th has proven to be.

And this testimony from Pat Cipollone comes after Liz Cheney in one of these hearings at the end of it basically looked directly into the camera and called on Cipollone to come and testify, arguing that he needed to be there.

And when you talk to people who speak to Cipollone, who are familiar with how he's viewing this and his thinking about this, he is someone who deeply values institutions. And I think that is why you saw him resisting going to speak to the committee because, obviously, he was a top attorney in the White House, White House counsel. It's a sense of privilege that he wanted to protect.

But, of course, what we'd heard from sources was that he got under a subpoena that would change his thinking and, clearly, it has, Jim and Erica.

HILL: All right. Kaitlan Collins, important development, thank you.

And thanks to all of you for joining us today. I'm Erica Hill.

SCIUTTO: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

At This Hour with Boris Sanchez will start right after a quick break.

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