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Boris Johnson Resigns; Freddy Gray is Interviewed about Boris Johnson; New Report on Uvalde Shooting; Police Visit the Highland Park Shooter's Home Multiple Times; Robert Berlin is Interviewed about Red Flag Laws. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired July 07, 2022 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: A very good Thursday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Erica Hill.

Breaking news at this hour, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has resigned. The conservative party leader facing intense pressure to step down over the last 48 hours, including a mass exodus of top cabinet ministers from his own party. This, of course, on the heels of multiple scandals. Though, important to note, he did not directly address those.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: To that new leader, I say -- whoever he or she may be, I say, I will give you as much support as I can. And, to you, the British public, I know that there will be many people who are relieved and perhaps quite a few who will also be disappointed. And I want you to know how sad I am to be giving up the best job in the world. But them's the breaks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Remarkable development.

Just three years after his party won a huge mandate in parliament, it is important to note that Johnson gave no timetable for exactly when he will leave office, saying that will be announced next week.

Let's bring in CNN's Nic Robertson. He is outside Number 10 Downing Street.

So, tell us, first of all, your reaction to Johnson's words as he finally, under intense pressure, we should note, from inside his own party, to step down.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, this feels like a place holding resignation and less a resignation from power, because he's still behind the doors there appointing replacement ministers for all those who have quit. More he is resigned to the fact that his party no longer wants him.

Last night he was talking about, and even early this morning, talking about holding on until October, until the fall, until the conservative party's annual conference. Today he's talking about holding on for an indeterminate period until a replacement can be found.

Now, government ministers that are still faithful to him, at least publicly, are saying that they need not to have chaos. They need to continue to work with unity within government, to present a united face in this current situation, to give some stability to the country at the moment. But there is such a momentum within his party to replace him that the inevitable contest to find a replacement is going to play out. But we don't know a timetable for it. We do know it can be a lengthy process. Any MP, conservative MP, that gets more than eight other MPs to support them, will put their name in the contest for prime minister. It will then be whittled down amongst MPs, conservative MPs. They will all get a vote. Generally, they vote once a week and it's whittled down person by person. Some will volunteer to drop out. Some will drop out by the votes until there were just two conservative MPs left standing for the prime minister's job. And then it goes to the conservative membership. Hundreds of thousands of people across the country who will vote by mail, by post.

So, a very long and slow process. So it really appears Boris Johnson, while today saying that he is going, is really digging in, still, in a way and holding on until the party can actually replace him, which could be many, many weeks, many months away. And this is at a time when his credibility in the party has gone. This morning ministers were still resigning. And it's not clear if it's even going to be able to patch up his existing government. But that's what he wants to do. No sense of remorse in what he said. Even a sense that -- of his dim view of his own party, describing them as is a herd, saying when the herd moves on, they move on. Is his party really a herd? Is that what he really thinks about them? That's what he was implying today.

SCIUTTO: Yes, that was quite a swipe. Noticed. Yes.

HILL: Yes, that it was.

Nic Robertson, appreciate it. Thank you.

Joining us now to discuss is Freddy Gray, deputy editor for the weekly British magazine "The Spectator."

Freddy, I just want to play a little bit more of the comments that we heard from Boris Johnson this morning.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: As we've seen Westminster, the herd instinct is powerful. When the herd moves, it moves. And my friends in politics, no one is remotely indispensable. (END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:05:05]

HILL: Those herd comments there that we were just referring to, you know, further evidence, as Nic pointed out, of him digging in, really holding on.

I mean, I have to say, in watching that, Freddy, it really came across as, it's you, it's not me, it's you, in that speech.

FREDDY GRAY, DEPUTY EDITOR, "THE SPECTATOR": Well, I agree to a certain extent. Certainly there was some bitter darts, but I think there's already some immediate consensus that this was a very bitter speech.

I'm not sure it was. I thought he actually said some graciousness in parts me made. He said, them's the breaks, rather winningly. And I think if any human being were to try and imagine, to put themselves in Boris Johnson's shoes as to what he's just gone through, he has had his whole party collapse on top of him in the last few hours, really. It's been a dramatic event. He's stubbornly held on. Some commentators here also were trying to compare him to Donald Trump and suggest that this was a sort of Britain's January 6th moment where you have a prime minister holding on in spite of the democratic impulse to remove him.

I'm not sure that's quite fair. He has resigned. He didn't lose an election and refuse to accept it. He lost his party. And he has accepted it.

SCIUTTO: The comparison to Trump based in part on the fact that he, like Trump, an elite himself, who politically took on the elites and was able to win over voters who didn't, in the past, vote, in this country, Republican, in your country conservative. But the difference, of course, is that his party, the conservative party, did eventually abandon him in a way that the Republican Party has yet to do so, at least in numbers, for Donald Trump.

What made that change?

GRAY: Well, I think the -- Donald Trump was able to sort of bend the Republican Party to his will far more than Boris Johnson was ever willing or able to do. And that's partly because of the democratic nature of Republican primaries. I mean a lot of Republicans, although they tried to rebel and go against Trump, they were always quite scared of being voted out by the MAGA movement. And British politicians don't have that fear factor. And so it's easier for them to -- for the establishment, if you like, to turn on him.

HILL: Where does this put things? And as Nic pointed out, there is this momentum in the party, as we know, to replace him. But this is not an overnight process. So, there is sort of this limbo period now which impacts, of course, not just the United Kingdom, but the rest of the world in terms of, you know, just doing business.

What does this mean and how long do you anticipate that period will last?

GARY: Well, the first rule of Boris Johnson's politics is everything always gets messier. So I think we can anticipate more -- a little more chaos.

I don't think it's quite true to say he's completely digging in. I mean he will hand over now to the conservative party to make the time frame through which he'll leave. And they are - obviously, have quite strong incentives given the fact that the government's collapsed to make it as quick as possible. Will that mean Dominic Raab coming in next week. We'll have to wait and see. I suspect it will, but I can't be sure.

SCIUTTO: Freddy, to his credit, Boris Johnson led the way in many respects on the west's support for Ukraine since Russia's invasion, oftentimes even ahead of the U.S., for instance, sending missiles, such as anti-ship missiles, before the U.S. did, more forward leaning, visiting Kyiv a couple of times.

Our Wolf Blitzer sat down just moments ago with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has expressed his public support for Johnson in the past and asked him about this very question. I want to play what Zelenskyy said and get your thoughts.

Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINE (through translator): He resigned not because he was in Ukraine. What Johnson was doing for Ukraine, he was a true friend of Ukraine. But he totally supported Ukraine. And the United Kingdom is on the right side of history. He, I'm sure - and I'm sure the policy of - towards Ukraine of the United Kingdom won't be changing. And our relationship, obviously, gained a lot from the Boris Johnson activities.

Yes, we - we don't know if something will affects our unity. But, first of all, we got military support from the United Kingdom for this time, and that's been secured.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:10:05]

SCIUTTO: Freddy, he says Johnson was a friend of Ukraine. Will the next prime minister be a friend of Ukraine as well, equally?

GRAY: I think that's almost certain. There's pretty strong consensus among both parties, both major parties in Britain, that Britain should be supporting Ukraine. The most leading candidates to replace Boris Johnson are as firm on their support for Ukraine as Boris Johnson was. And they won't have the problem that Boris had, which was that a lot of people were quite cynical about his support for Ukraine. They thought that it was just sort of, you know, an escape route for him. And it's true that the Ukraine war came at a time when it looked like things were just about getting (INAUDIBLE). And there was quite a (INAUDIBLE) occasion a week ago when he didn't appear at a press conference where he was widely expected to be sort of heckled and barracked (ph) and nobody knew where he had gone and then it emerged that he was making a surprise visit to Kyiv.

SCIUTTO: Well, a remarkable turn of events in British politics over the last several years, frankly, since the Brexit vote.

Freddy Gray, good to have you on. Thanks for breaking it down for all of us.

GRAY: Great (INAUDIBLE).

SCIUTTO: You will be able to see Wolf Bitzer's full interview with the Ukrainian president tonight at 5:00 p.m. Eastern time on "THE SITUATION ROOM." Don't miss. It's a CNN exclusive.

HILL: A new report lays out a series of missteps that contributed to the Uvalde school massacre and the loss of 21 lives, 19 young children and two teachers. Officials say an officer had a clear opportunity to prevent the gunman from entering the school but failed to stop him, waiting for a supervisor to green light him to shoot, and didn't hear back in time.

SCIUTTO: One of the authors of the report says the officer actually did not need permission to shoot.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J. PETE BLAIR, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ALERRT AT TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY: Under Texas law, they do not. The law makes it clear that the officer believes that the officer's life or someone else's life is in danger, they're authorized to use deadly force to protect their own life or someone else's life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: The question, of course, is, did he know that? Is that part of the training? All these are split second decisions.

CNN's Shimon Prokupecz joins us now from San Antonio.

Shimon, what other headline stood out to you from this report?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, just the utter chaos that was going on at the scene that day and how there was really no one, no one in charge. You know, there's different levels of command, outside, inside, people need to take leadership roles. And the leadership role could be just the first officer on the scene. And that did not happen.

And also the other thing is they talk about momentum. You know, we've talked a lot about this, those first few minutes when the gunman arrived on scene, the missed opportunities there, when they could have possibly killed the gunman, the officers were still trying to figure out what to do, allowing the gunman inside the school and then, of course, we know what happened after that. The report speaks about that officer that was a Uvalde police officer,

arriving on scene, who had a sight, he had through his rifle he could see the gunman and could have, could have fired at the gunman. And here's what the report says. It says that the officer armed with this rifle asked his supervisor for permission to shoot the suspect, but by the time he got permission, by the time he heard back from his supervisor, it was already too late and the suspect, the gunman, had already entered the school.

And, of course, as you heard there from one of the authors, and any law professor, no, any police officer will tell you, you have probable cause to shoot someone when you think someone's life is in danger. And, sadly, it appears that that did not happen here.

HILL: Yes. And that will be parsed for years to come.

Shimon, you also were able to speak with the only survivor from one of those classrooms in Uvalde. What did he tell you? How is he - how is he holding up at this point?

PROKUPECZ: He's a remarkable, remarkable man. Arnulfo Reyes. We spoke to him for quite some time. We sat with him. And he talked about that day. And one of the things that he highlighted was being inside the classroom and hearing police officers outside the door, and just saying to himself, come in, come in, come, help me. And he just cannot believe that officers would not come in and rescue him.

And then just talking about the overall day. Take a listen to some of what he told us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARNULFO REYES, TEACHER: He did a lot of things to make me flinch or react in some way. And that was one of them, where he, like, got my - like, as I'm laying down, like, either like this or like this, tapping it, but it was splashing in my face.

PROKUPECZ: The blood?

REYES: Yes.

PROKUPECZ: Was he trying to see if you were still alive?

REYES: I think so.

PROKUPECZ: You're laying there for over an hour, right? And no one is coming to help. What do you think of that?

[09:15:07]

REYES: That they forgot us. I mean, they probably thought that we were all dead or something. But, if they would have got in before, some of them probably would have made it.

PROKUPECZ: When did you realize that the children that were around you were dead or were not going to make it? REYES: After they shot him, and the border patrol said, anybody get

up, let's go, let's go, you know, like, try to get the kids out. Nobody moved but me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PROKUPECZ: And that's certainly something that he's struggling with, you know, knowing that these kids in his classroom, his children he calls, all died.

The other thing a lot of people are asking questions about, obviously, is whether or not people could have survived had the officers gone in sooner. And that's something that's still -- medical professionals and the investigators are trying to figure out. Even this report that we're talking about, they can't say definitively if that's the case, but there certainly - it's something that they're certainly looking at.

But, overall, obviously, the pain on this man's face and his body is just so horrendous and hard to believe that officers would allow him to stay in that room for so long and not go in and get him.

HILL: I mean the pain in his voice and the pain that he will carry with him, Shimon, really appreciate it.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HILL: Joining us now to discuss, CNN law enforcement analyst Charles Ramsey. He led police departments in both Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

Chief, always good to have you with us.

There was actually - there was a lot in this report. We talked a lot about that moment when the officer was waiting for permission.

I was also struck that the report said the officers lost momentum. I'm trying to wrap my head around what that means. Does that mean that they had just given up? How did you read that?

CHARLES RAMSEY, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: I don't really know what that means, but I do know that that officer was justified in using deadly force and should have used deadly force. I also know that they should not have waited more than an hour to enter that classroom. Even though he fired at him at one point in time, they had to gather themselves and make another attempt to get in there and neutralize the gunman, period.

And so there's just no excuse for what took place in Uvalde. You know, there is no training that I have seen that would justify the actions of those officers or the leadership that was there at the time. It is just totally inconsistent with training. And so they have a lot to account for.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you, though, would that officer need to have known the law to know he could take that shot, or would that have been part of his training to know he could take that shot without asking for permission?

RAMSEY: Well, both would be part of his training, part of police training. He has understanding the law. And the other part of the training, I mean, remember, this is an active shooter situation.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

RAMSEY: He fired shots before he ever went inside the school. So, he was more than justified to use deadly force against this particular individual to stop the threat, period. And he didn't do it, for whatever reason. You don't need permission in a situation like this. You have to act and you have to act quickly.

HILL: This calls into question, again, the who was in charge -- the question of who was in charge. And the report found there was a lack of effective command that likely impaired the situation. We're going to keep coming back to this because it's important.

It really leaves me stunned that this was playing out for an hour and there was still all this confusion as to who was in charge.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

RAMSEY: Yes. There was some confusion as to whether or not there was incident command or whatever. But the chief of the school police was there on the scene. The ranking officer there. And whether you have a formal incident command structure or not, people look to that ranking officer for guidance.

Now, they didn't need it because your training would have said, you know, you go in. Whether it's one police officer, two, four, whatever, you know. And they had the equipment. They had ballistic shields. They had ballistic helmets. I mean they had everything they needed. There's no excuse not to go in. Part of it is training. Part of it isn't necessarily training. It's just poor leadership on the part of that department and poor execution of any kind of tactics on the part of the officers.

So, it's just a bad situation that just keeps getting worse.

SCIUTTO: Yes, it just seems like a multilayered failure, right, at so many levels.

RAMSEY: It is.

SCIUTTO: Chief Charles Ramsey, always good to have you on.

RAMSEY: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Still to come this hour, the Highland Park police give more details about their prior encounters with the gunman accused of the July 4th deadly parade shooting.

[09:20:09]

There's his mug shot. Those 911 calls from the Crimo household, not just on the son.

HILL: Plus, a key witness prepares to sit down with the committee investigating the January 6th insurrection. Why former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone is now agreeing to talk and what the parameters are with that interview tomorrow.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: New overnight, we are learning more details about the 21- year-old gunman in the Highland Park shooting on July 4th that killed seven people. Police records reveal that the shooter attempted to kill himself in 2019 using a machete a week before a wellness check.

HILL: Well, the documents also outline multiple domestic incidents between his mother and father that resulted in nearly two dozen police calls to the family home.

[09:25:01]

CNN's Josh Campbell is in Highland Park.

Josh, there's a lot of new information here. I know you've been sifting through it. What more can you tell us?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: That's right. You know, we've been trying to look into the background of this shooter. We obtained a number of police reports showing significant police contact at the residence of the shooter over the years. We're learning more about the alleged shooter's mental state, according to these police reports, and, quite frankly, these reports are painting a very unflattering picture of the shooter's parents.

Now, we reported earlier on this April 2019 incident where police were called to the house, the suspect, according to a relative, had attempted suicide. According to this police report, one of them, he attempted to kill himself using a machete. Later on there was another contact in September where a family member said that he was threatening other family members. The suspect said that he was depressed. He admitted to drug use, but told investigators that he didn't feel like harming himself or other people at the time. So, you know, we're learning more obviously there about the shooter.

But their -- in these 22 police reports that we're seeing, most of them actually involve domestic disputes between the shooter's mother and the shooter's father. In one incident, for example, the father says that the mother came at him with a screwdriver. In the report the father later downplayed that saying, you know, it's actually not a big deal.

There's another report police say that the mother was calling 911, reporting on her neighbors, some dispute. Police said that she appeared to be intoxicated.

And the reason why this is important to bring up is because we -- as we cover these mass shootings, we always talk about, well, you know, parents need to take greater concern in their kids, know what they're doing, know what they're doing online. These police reports indicate that this appeared to be a household that was in disarray.

Now, we have, obviously, reached out to the parents multiple times trying to contact them for comment. We have not yet received that. But some new insight there into the shooter's household.

Finally, I want to show you a picture that we received of this weapon that was in the shooter's car, according to police, at the time of his arrest. This is important because we know that he dropped a weapon behind us here at the crime scene. That was ultimately used to identify him. But he still had a gun with him. Police say that he was contemplating conducting another attack as he was on the run.

Jim and Erica.

HILL: Josh Campbell, important updates. We know you'll keep us posted on anymore. Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Well, over the last two years, in the state of Illinois, judges have stepped in more than 100 times after individuals used the so-called red flag law. The law empowers courts to take guns away from potentially dangerous people, essentially issuing temporary firearm restraining orders. More than half of those incidents, however, took place in just one country, DuPage County.

And joining me now is the DuPage County state's attorney, Robert Berlin.

Good to have you on this morning.

ROBERT BERLIN, DUPAGE COUNTY STATE ATTORNEY: Good morning, Jim. Thank you. Good morning, Erica.

SCIUTTO: So you have said that red flag laws allow a, quote, time-out in cases like this, take the guns away when someone might be going through a particularly difficult period of time.

I wonder, do you believe that this law has saved lives in your county?

BERLIN: I'm convinced it has saved lives. We're protecting the public, but we are still protecting people's constitutional rights. And the law allows us to safeguard those guns, while still not infringing on someone's constitutional right.

SCIUTTO: Now, when you look at a case like Crimo here in Highland Park, as the red flag laws written in Illinois, would the encounters that he had with police and authorities have been enough to take his weapons away?

BERLIN: So, you know, I don't know all the facts of the Crimo case in Lake County and I really don't want to speculate or comment, especially while that investigation is still ongoing.

What I can tell you is that here in DuPage County, we have trained our police officers on how to implement this law. They know what to look for. They know what facts are needed. We have to show a judge, we have to present probable cause that a person poses an immediate and present danger, causing personal injury, to either themselves or another. If we can prove those facts, then the judge does grant the order, which is a two-week order.

SCIUTTO: OK.

BERLIN: And then there's a different order that comes into play for a six-month order.

SCIUTTO: So, give me an example. What constitutes probable cause to allow for that to happen?

BERLIN: Most of the situations that come in are people experiencing suicidal ideations or they have made threats about harming themselves or somebody else. And it's typically a family member that brings this to the attention of law enforcement. And then the law enforcement officer, in most of the cases, is the person that comes to court.

[09:30:01]

SCIUTTO: We should note, we have learned that Crimo did attempt suicide prior.

I wonder, Illinois is a big state, a lot of counties in the state. Half of the