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Supreme Court Hears Arguments In Affirmative Action Cases; Musk Tweets, Then Deletes, Conspiracy Theory On Paul Pelosi Attack; WAPO: Flood Of Racist Posts In The Hours After Musk Takeover; Federal Charges Filed Against Suspect In Paul Pelosi Attack. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired October 31, 2022 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[14:32:47]
BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN HOST: Right now, the Supreme Court is hearing arguments as it decides the fate of affirmative action. Challengers in two cases say such policies violate equal protection principles by using race as a factor in college admissions.
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: They center around the University of North Carolina and Harvard. Both schools say banning affirmative action would have a negative impact on diversity at their campuses.
GOLODRYGA: CNN's Jessica Schneider is following this.
Jessica, are we hearing anything in these opening arguments to give us a sense of how the justices are leaning here?
JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: We are. We're seeing this really clear clash between the six conservative justices and the three liberal justices.
On the liberal side of things, the newest justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, has really been leading the questioning here, asking why colleges shouldn't be able to continue considering race when it comes to admissions?
And also saying that race for many students is core to their own identity.
But on the other side, conservatives here, many court watchers believe, are leaning toward potentially banning affirmative action, even though it's been a court precedent since 1978.
We've seen in the questioning from these justices they've been asking, why can't other race-neutral factors really be the core of admission decisions at universities around the country?
We saw this line of questioning most clearly from the Chief Justice John Roberts. He asked why schools needed this race element in their admissions policies.
And then he asked really when is enough enough? When would affirmative action be complete when colleges might achieve their diversity goal.
So here was his line of questioning.
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JOHN ROBERTS, CHIEF JUSTICE, U.S. SUPREME COURT (voice-over): I don't see how you can say that the program will ever end. Your position is that race matters because it's necessary for diversity, which is necessary for the sort of education you want.
It's not going to stop mattering at some particular point. You're always going to have to look at race because you say race matters to give us the necessary diversity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHNEIDER: And that time limit has actually been a focal point for many of these conservative justices. Not only the chief justice but also Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh.
What they're seizing on here is the last time -- one of the last times the Supreme Court affirmed affirmative action was back in 2003.
[14:35:00]
The justice at the time, who wrote the opinion, Sandra Day O'Connor, she said perhaps 25 years from that opinion affirmative action would no longer be necessary.
Well, this spring, when the opinion, the decision in this case is expected to come down, that would mark 20 years since that last decision.
So the justices here are seizing on that, indicating that they might be willing to put a time limit on affirmative action and might be willing to ban affirmative action in the coming years here.
But these arguments are still playing out. We heard arguments against the University of North Carolina. And right now, justices are still listening to arguments more than four hours in now in the Harvard case.
So, a lot is at stake here. This is a high-interest case. This court could potentially up end the affirmative action precedent that they put in place back in 1978 -- Bianna and Victor?
BLACKWELL: Some massive implications.
Jessica Schneider, there for us at the court, thank you.
GOLODRYGA: Well, historic drought along the Mississippi River is suffocating American's most important trade waterway. How this could impact you. That's straight ahead.
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[14:40:39]
GOLODRYGA: Elon Musk is giving credence to a fringe conspiracy theory about the violent attack on Paul Pelosi.
On Sunday, the new Twitter bosa tweeted a link to an article full of baseless claims about Pelosi and the attack. Musk later deleted it but not before it racked up thousands of likes and retweets.
CNN's senior media reporter, Oliver Darcy, joins us now.
So how is Twitter planning to address their new boss and some of his instinctive motives?
OLIVER DARCY, CNN SENIOR MEDIA REPORTER: Twitter is not commenting. No surprise there. They've been dark since Elon completed his purchase of the company last week.
But he is addressing this. First, he deleted this conspiracy tweet. And then he decided to address this basically by laughing it off.
He attacked "The New York Times" in a tweet basically saying -- I think we have it on screen.
Basically saying, "I never tweeted fake news because I've never linked to 'The New York Times.'" Not the most mature response.
(CROSSTALK)
DARCY: It was a sick burn --
BLACKWELL: Yes.
DARCY: -- from Elon on "The New York Times." But that's how they're addressing it. And he hasn't commented on it further since then.
BLACKWELL: So there's this concern, seriously here, that Twitter will be this place now where there will be -- it will become the cesspool he said he doesn't want it to become.
What are the larger concerns about the platform?
DARCY: Elon said, in a letter to advertisers last week, that he doesn't want Twitter becoming a hell scape, right?
But you saw, right after he completed his purchase of Twitter, people felt emboldened to come out and to basically violate the Twitter rules. So there was this surge in hate speech that occurred over the weekend.
A Twitter executive tweeted there were 50,000 tweets coming from 300 accounts using vulgar speech. And he basically said that we are still enforcing the current Twitter rules.
Elon Musk came out also and said there haven't been any changes to the Twitter rules yet and that he backed the current rules. So we'll see if they can tamp this down. But obviously, a big problem. And it will be interesting to see, when they do change the rules,
because IT seems that's going to happen, how they rein in this kind of hate speech on the platform.
GOLODRYGA: And we'll see what regulations may look like here in the U.S. We know the regulators in Europe have already responded to his tweet saying, "The bird is free and the bird has to follow our rules."
DARCY: Exactly. So we'll see if that also impacts on the U.S. Because are there going to be different rules for Europeans who use Twitter versus Americans?
It's a very complicated issue. It's a global company. People forget about that. They are bound by other countries who have more strict rules than here in the U.S.
BLACKWELL: All right. Oliver Darcy, thank you.
DARCY: Thank you.
GOLODRYGA: Well, just in time for Halloween, the Powerball jackpot -- you see this, Victor -- growing to $1 billion.
BLACKWELL: What's that got to do with Halloween?
GOLODRYGA: I don't know.
(LAUGHTER)
GOLODRYGA: Make somebody happy on Halloween night if they win.
(LAUGHTER)
GOLODRYGA: More on that ahead.
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[14:47:41]
GOLODRYGA: We're following breaking news out of San Francisco where federal charges against a suspect who was accused of tacking Paul Pelosi have just been filed.
BLACKWELL: CNN senior justice correspondent, Evan Perez, is back with us. Also with us, former deputy assistant attorney general, Harry Litman, and Ed Davis, police commissioner of Boston.
Evan, let's start with and the reporting.
What do you know about the charges?
EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Victor and Beanna, this is now two federal charges that have been filed against David DePape. He is charged with one count of assaulting family member of a U.S. official and attempted kidnapping of a U.S. government official.
Of course, that kidnapping is reference to Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives, who was not there during the attack.
But this -- these charges come with an affidavit from the FBI that really describes chilling detail of what went down on Friday morning about just before 2:30 in the morning, which is when this 911 call came in with an intruder in the home of Nancy and Paul Pelosi.
It describes the assailant coming into the bedroom where he was sleeping and then proceeds to say that he was looking for Nancy, looking for Nancy Pelosi.
It turns out, according to police who spoke to him afterwards, in a Mirandized interview, he said he was looking for Nancy Pelosi because she was the leader of the pack of lies of the Democratic Party.
That's according to this affidavit in this -- that has now been released by the Justice Department.
Again, we're looking at two federal charges. One of them an attempted kidnapping of the speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi. Second is the assault on her husband, Paul Pelosi.
He is still recovering but he did provide key interviews to the investigators, first in the ambulance when he was being taken to the hospital, and then subsequently this weekend where he described more fully everything that went down.
Also add, real quick, Victor and Bianna, another detail here is an important witness that emerged. This is a security guard that was sitting nearby, guarding their -- apparently, working at a property near the Pelosi home in San Francisco.
[14:50:05]
And he described seeing someone wearing all black, walking with a bag. It turns out, it appears, or at least according to the investigators,
that appears to have been the assailant before he entered the Pelosi home.
Again, chilling details in this affidavit that has been released as far as first two federal charges now been brought against David DePape -- Bianna, Victor?
GOLODRYGA: Yes, a lot more detail here.
Harry Litman, let me get you weigh in not only on the charges but the information we have just learned here, and that is in addition to the hammer and what we had known about the zip ties earlier this weekend.
Law enforcement searched his backpack and they found a roll of tape, white rope, another hammer, one pair of rubber and cloth gloves and a journal.
What does that tell new terms of where this investigation leads regarding the issue of premeditation?
HARRY LITMAN, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: What, sadly, we could have predicted from the other big piece of evidence they've gotten, which is looking on his social media.
So it's a standard kind of account of especially, not completely as it turns out, but especially extreme right-wing kind of terrorist, complaints leading with Nancy leading with Nancy Pelosi.
You could have known this in advance, as soon as you heard about the attack. What's so difficult is preventing it.
I want to say one quick things. It's commonplace for crimes to be both federal and state. This one, I think, will go federal because the more intense interest is the federal government.
This is a guy who was acting and this is what they'll be able to prove about the attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband, because of Nancy Pelosi, because of his identity. And the crime that Evan just referred to, 18 USC 1115, goes exactly to that.
BLACKWELL: Some of the details that are painting the picture of what police officers found when they arrived. Actually, even before they arrived.
Pelosi called 911 and spoke with the 911 operator. Said there's a male in the home. The male is going to wait for Pelosi's wife. Further conveyed he does not know who the male is. The male said his name is David.
Evan, you've got more. What do you have?
PEREZ: That's right. This is describing some of the activity that the 911 dispatcher was able to hear.
And, again, you know, he was quick thinking it appears in calling 911. Allowing the dispatcher to hear some of the interactions he was having with the assailant.
But also describing that obviously they already knew the address and the home. According to the affidavit from the FBI, he describes, he didn't know this person. Again, that's a key detail.
And it appears he was able to bring -- talk the assailant down to the first floor, which is where police answered and were able to come to the home within minutes.
You're talking about less than 10 minutes that the police are at the front door. They walk in and they see the assailant and Paul Pelosi holding a hammer.
It appears that, at that point, that the assailant goes and hits Paul Pelosi in the head with the hammer. That's when the police take action and detain him and begin doing the investigation at the scene.
All of this, of course, happening in front of the police officers who responded to that 911 call.
GOLODRYGA: Also, just more chilling information as far as what was premeditated here and what DePape planned to do had he found Nancy Pelosi in her home.
This speaks to a recorded interview he gave to the San Francisco Police Department on Friday evening.
And he stated that he was going to hold Nancy hostage and talk to her. If Nancy were to tell him the, quote, "truth," he would let her go. If she lied, he was going to break her kneecaps.
He expected her to lie. And then he also then explained that by breaking her kneecaps, she would then have to be wheeled into Congress, which would show members of Congress that there were consequences to these actions.
Ed Davis, how do you respond?
ED DAVIS, FORMER BOSTON POLICE COMMISSIONER: This is a terrifying account of a man that spent time thinking about this, prepared for it.
When I heard there were zip ties in his possession, I am not surprised that kidnapping or attempted kidnapping charge is put up there.
But this attack goes to the core of our democracy. It can't be just written off to some crazy person. What our leaders say matters.
It is a clear indication to me that this man has bought into the conspiracy theories and has decided to take action against our government in a very personal way, to an 82-year-old victim, and to a woman who is the speaker of the House of Representatives.
[14:55:10]
This cannot be understated. Protections need to be put in place for the people involved. There was a security guard nearby.
We really need to think about this for leaders in Congress. It's important to protect them as it is to protect a president of the United States.
BLACKWELL: Commissioner Davis, Harry Litman, Even Perez, all of you, stay with us.
Of course, as we're just getting the details of these two now federal charges against David DePape, the 42-year-old who assaulted allegedly Paul Pelosi and wanted to, according to these interviews, attack, kidnap the speaker of the House.
We've got more. Stay with us.
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