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Uvalde Families, Officials Furious Over Leaked Surveillance Video; NASA Releases Stunning Images From Webb Telescope; Soon, Biden Visits Holocaust Remembrance Center in Israel. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired July 13, 2022 - 10:30   ET

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

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[10:30:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Many of the family members of victims killed in the Robb Elementary School shooting are outraged after the Austin American-Statesman newspaper released surveillance video from the hallway the day their loved ones were killed. They say the world got to see the footage before the families to view it privately.

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KIMBERLY RUBIO, MOTHER OF LEXI RUBIO: What they were going to show us was sufficient. He didn't have to do this. I didn't want to hear the children. I didn't want to hear the gunfire. That wasn't needed. That wasn't necessary.

NIKKI CROSS, AUNT OF UZIYAH GARCIA: Once again, the world got to see it before us, just like the day of the shooting when Governor Abbott announced to you all that our children were dead and we have no idea. So, it's like reliving that day all over again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Heart absolutely breaks for them. That is just some of the incredible anger over the public seeing it but also, of course, over what we all see in this video, law enforcement retreating from the gunfire, waiting more than an hour to confront the gunmen, actions that are baffling and incredibly disturbing.

Rosa Flores is in Uvalde, Texas, this morning, Rosa, good morning. What can you tell us?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, Poppy, there's so much outrage in this community right now because of how this video was released. These families have been emotionally preparing themselves to view this video in its entirety on Sunday with the Texas House Investigative Committee. They were preparing for that moment the committee was expected to prevent them a fact- finding report and also to view this video in its entirety. They were planning to answer the questions and their concerns about the findings of this report, and now it was leaked. And so they are very, very concerned about that. They are outraged. In their own words, the world got to see the final moments of their loved ones before they had a chance to do so.

The mayor of this city, the mayor of Uvalde, calling for a criminal investigation into the leak of this video to the Austin American- Statesman. Take a listen.

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MAYOR DON MCLAUGHLIN (R-UVALDE, TX): The way that video was released today is one of the most sickening things I have seen. There is no reason for the families to have to see that. I mean, they were going to see the video, but they didn't need to see the gunman coming in and hear the shots.

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FLORES: The Austin American-Statesman defending the publishing of that report, saying, quote, we have to bear witness to history and 1transparency and unrelenting reporting is a way to bring change.

Now, Jim and Poppy, from watching this video in its entirety, all 77 minutes, a few things stand out to me, and that is, first of all, the waiting is unbearable, all of these police officers with various badges who are in the hallway. And you really wonder what are they waiting for as the minutes and more than an hour goes by, and you are wondering, what are they waiting for? It is very unclear from watching all of this video, what it is that they are waiting for and what actually triggers them to breach the door.

And then you have got to think about the accounts of the children, because we've heard from some of the survivors and them saying that they could hear the police officers in the hallway. And from this view, it's very clear, these police officers were very loud, that they were very noisy, a lot of rushing into the hallway in and out of that school, some of them making phone calls or sifting through their cell phones. At one point, we see one officer fist and elbow, like almost like a bump to each other.

And so you watch this video and you can't help but think about the children, the teachers who were in those two classrooms were just waiting for the good guys with guns to go in and take down the threat. Jim and Poppy?

HARLOW: Rosa Flores, thank you so much for being there all of these weeks to try to get answers for these poor families.

Let's bring in to discuss CNN National Security Analyst Juliette Kayyem. Juliette, you watched the video. I mean, I watched -- there's like an hour-plus video and then there's that four-minute cut down that the paper put out. And I couldn't believe what I was watching when I saw it last night. I wonder what you thought.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Same thing. I mean, it's actually just impossible to watch. I found myself sort of looking away from it in hopes that some hero was going to come along, even though we know the end of the story. It is -- I mean, we've said all the right words now. It's unimaginable. It's incomprehensible. It's against all the training they would have gotten. We don't know how many children would have survived had they had an immediate entry.

[10:35:02]

We certainly know some because there are some phone calls going out, how many children bled out.

And one of the things about the video that is just so striking to me is just I think exactly what you said at the beginning, what are they thinking? Were they told something that we aren't aware of that made them think that like hanging out in the back is okay? Like that, I just -- I can't get my head around in any rational way. Most of the time, I can see things like this and think, okay, well, they thought X but it was really Y. In this instance, I just -- it just seems deeper, deeper than what was going on there. Something was wrong in that police department, really wrong.

HARLOW: It's not just one department. I mean, when you watch the video, because the Statesman did edit out, the paper edited the children's screams but it did not edit out the gunshot. So, the minute you hear the gunshots begin in the classroom, multiple officers, actually anyone who was close to the classroom, all retreat all the way down the hall, some of them were around the corner.

So, because it was multiple failures from multiple departments, do you think it calls for a more streamlined national strategy, national guidelines, national rules? I mean, after Columbine, everyone knew you go, but they didn't go.

KAYYEM: Yes, right. So, all of them, all of these departments would have been trained in active shooter protocols. This is like not something that is new or secret. Like, in other words, it's just sort of -- if you go to law school, you learn (INAUDIBLE). This is if you become any kind of law enforcement officer, you learn active shooter drilling, active shooter training.

So, what it seems is that there's no command authority, that no one who should be in authority is asserting that authority.

Now, why others still stayed behind, I can't answer. But one of the reasons why I'm getting sort of frustrated, not at the conversation, but I think one of the consequences of, should the video have been released or how bad the response is, is that, ultimately, the horrible response and the lack of transparency and the line essentially from various government officials, means that they have kept the focus away from an 18-year-old Texas man who, on his birthday, around his birthday, buys weaponry that kills 19 kids. That's the consequence, ultimately, of all of this horror is we lost the focus on guns and access and mental health and all of the things that we should be focused on. That's a legacy. That would honor the kids, right, not fights about whether the video should be released or not.

HARLOW: Juliette Kayyem, thank you for bringing the important issues to light, as you always do. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Coming up next, the administrator of NASA will join us live to talks those incredible, new images from billions of years back in time, trillions of miles away, all from the Webb Telescope, what they tell us about the universe.

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[10:40:00]

SCIUTTO: Well, it's a moment that is decades in the making. The James Webb Telescope giving us incredible, never before seen views of parts of the universe far away. NASA released five incredible full-color images yesterday, some of the deepest views of space ever captured. Scientists say images coming over the next 20 years from the telescope will fundamentally change our understanding of the universe and perhaps ourselves.

Joining me now to discuss, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, good to have you, sir.

BILL NELSON, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: Hey, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Looking at these images, I got to tell you, I felt a combination of exhilaration but also, frankly, intimidation, right, because you just see how vast the universe is. I mean, the one you mentioned in the break is this first one that came out that shows thousands of galaxies in what is a grain of sand-like cut of the universe. What do you see when you see that?

NELSON: Well, you said it very well. And what you see is you are looking back in time to light traveling over 13 billion years to get to you. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second and it has been traveling over 13 billion years. And this is just the first image. Wait until we refine it.

We've got 20 years to do this. But, shortly, you will see all the way back to just after the beginning. And we know the beginning of the universe was 13.8 billion years ago. You are going to see back to a couple of hundred, 300 million years right after the very beginning. That's what's mind boggling about how big this universe of which we are this very small little part.

SCIUTTO: Yes. So, in addition to showing us that we are tiny specks floating in the cosmos, what is this potentially going to teach us about us, our place in the universe, our origins?

NELSON: Well, with the precision of this telescope, we are going to be able to look at other planets circling other suns or stars. And we're going to be able to analyze their chemical content.

[10:45:02]

And we're going to be able to see if there is a habitable atmosphere. We have the chance of finding other planets like our own that have a habitable atmosphere.

SCIUTTO: That's remarkable. You know, the distances are so great and that distance means time, right? So, does that show us that -- let's say that we did find a planet or two or several that could sustain life, because this is a time machine we are looking at here, that might not be in the same time we are, right? I mean, this could be many billions of billions of years ago.

NELSON: Yes. Our own Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. We are looking back at a number of these galaxies that are maybe 2 billion years old. So, you just think, even in our own galaxy, we look at another star and we find a planet going around it. It may well be a thousand light years away. Well, that is light that occurred a thousand years ago. And yet it is our quest to find out who we are and what we are. And we are learning how this whole universe developed.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Well, let's hope it's a moment to bring us down here on Planet Earth together, right? Because, goodness, if one thing shows us, we are all in this together, right, it shows how tiny we are in the scheme of things.

NELSON: Amen.

SCIUTTO: Bill Nelson, always good to have you on. Thanks for taking the time.

NELSON: Thanks, Jim.

HARLOW: What a great interview.

All right, well, at any moment, President Biden will honor the victims of the Holocaust at Yad Vashem. The ceremony will take place in Jerusalem. He is also expected to also meet two survivors. We'll take you there live in just a moment.

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[10:50:00]

HARLOW: President Biden is in Jerusalem right now. In just minutes, he will arrive here at Yad Vashem. He will participate in a wreathing ceremony at this World Holocaust Remembrance Center. This is one of his first stops and most significant stops on his four-day Middle East trip.

SCIUTTO: Wolf Blitzer, Kaitlan Collins in Jerusalem following. Wolf, Yad Vashem means a memorial and a name, a line from the book of Isaiah. Tell us the importance of a visit to the memorial, to the Holocaust for the U.S. president.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: It's so important, especially, obviously for Israelis, for the Jewish people, that the president of the United States is paying his respect and honoring the memory of the 6 million Jews and millions of others who were killed by the Nazis during World War II. And Yad Vashem is very, very special. I've been there several times. I've seen it up close, similar to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, and the president has been there on several occasions as well.

And it's a tribute, it's a historic memory for so many people not to forget what happened, out of fear that, God forbid, it could happen again. So, it's really important for this president. And he has been very involved, President Biden, over all of these years as a senator, as vice president and now as president in dealing with this issue. So, it's personal for him and it's very significant as part of the U.S./Israeli relationship.

HARLOW: And, Kaitlan, speak to us about what is ahead for the president. You had noted earlier on our that on President Obama's first Middle East trip, he did not go to Israel. So, notable that President Biden is doing that on his first trip. But where else does he go from here?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And also the last time President Biden was here six years ago, of course, he was not President Biden yet, it was a moment where he nearly cut the trip short as vice president because they felt that they had been basically kind of insulted by Prime Minister Netanyahu at the time when they were talking about settlements and agreeing to construction of more settlements. And so it's just a really different dynamic for him. And, obviously, it's because now he is in office and he is the president. It's his tenth visit. It's his first since taking office.

And so it is a very symbolic first day to get and get this briefing on the Iron Dome Defense System, which the Congress approved a billion dollars for last year to get this briefing on the Iron Dome System, and then to go here to Yad Vashem, the second most visited site in Israel by guests who come here to Israel to visit it, about a million people a year. And so the president is going there obviously to pay his respects and lay wreath and meet with some of the Holocaust survivors as well.

And then tomorrow, it's going to be more of the business aspect of the trip, the meeting with the current prime minister, the meeting with Netanyahu, of course, since he is the leader of the opposition here. That is customary both when Israeli prime ministers visit the United States and when U.S. presidents visit Israel. And so that will be a big part of this stop.

But also it's really looking ahead to Saudi Arabia, as well, and the more -- the trickier part of the trip, the one that's more politically fraught for this president, as he's going to be dealing with his words on the campaign trail and his actions now, which are more pragmatic, the White House says, because it's a realistic sense of, they said they didn't want to rupture the U.S./Saudi relationship but they wanted to recalibrate it.

[10:55:07]

Well, certainly, the words that he used on the campaign trail are about calling Saudi Arabia a pariah, saying that the current government had little social redeeming value. And it may only come down to watching whether or not they shake hands, because we saw the White House earlier saying that they were -- because of COVID-19 protocols and new variants, you wouldn't be seeing President Biden shake as many hands when he's here on the ground in the Middle East.

Of course, just a few moments on Air Force One, you saw some fist bumps, he did shake hands with two of the officials getting him to the prime ministers. But, obviously, a big question from reporters has been whether or not that means he will not be shaking the crown prince's hand when he gets to Saudi Arabia.

SCIUTTO: Notable too to have political division here in the U.S. as the U.S. president visits and political division certainly in Israel with another -- yet another election coming up soon.

Kaitlan Collins, Wolf Blitzer in Jerusalem, thanks so much.

HARLOW: Thank you both. Thanks to all of you for joining us. We'll see you back here tomorrow morning. I'm Poppy Harlow.

SCIUTTO: And I am Jim Sciutto.

At This Hour with Kate Bolduan starts right after a short break.

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KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I am Kate Bolduan.

What you are looking at right here are live pictures from Jerusalem. President Biden is in the midst of his first trip to Israel as president. And as you can see, he has arrived here at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem for a very important moment during his visit. He is going to be laying a wreath at the Hall of remembrance. He's meeting with Holocaust survivors as well. We are going to be bringing you these moments as they play out. We are watching this altogether as he is standing there with the leaders of Israel.

The president's four-day trip to the Middle East is also going to include visits to the West Bank and Saudi Arabia, all of this, very important four-day trip, all of it fraught with some peril, all of it coming at a time that Joe Biden is visiting this region, visiting Israel for the first time in six years, a region that has much changed in the six years since he has visited.

Joining me right now is CNN Wolf Blitzer and Kaitlan Collins. They are watching this with me. They are live in Jerusalem.

Wolf, we are going to watch this together, an important moment for any American president, and, frankly, any human is to visit Yad Vashem when you arrive, when you get to Israel. What does this moment mean for this president?

BLITZER: I think it means a lot for President Biden, because he's been very involved over many, many years with dealing with the Holocaust, whether in Washington at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum or when he comes to Israel and goes to Yad Vashem.

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