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Pence Calls Tweet Trump Sent Minutes Into Capitol Riot "Reckless"; Midterm Results Complicate GOP Leadership Elections In Congress; Cruz: McConnell Would "Rather Be Leader Than Have A Republican Majority; Study: "Huge" Spike Of Kids With Suicidal Thoughts In ERs; TSA: Added Training Needed After Man Gets Box Cutters Past Security; NTSB Investigating Dallas Mid-Air Collision, As Victims Are Named. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired November 14, 2022 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And I said, it doesn't take courage to break the law. It takes courage to uphold the law.

The president's words were reckless. It was clear he decided to be part of the problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Doug Heye is a Republican strategist and former communications director for the RNC.

Doug, that's interesting to hear from former Vice President Pence. We don't often hear him as candid or as emotional as that.

DOUG HEYE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST & FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: Yes, it's striking. We haven't heard anything like this. What we now need to see is, OK, what comes next from this?

There have been a lot of Republicans grumbling privately, some publicly about Trump and his impact on the elections over the past week.

The "what next" question is where Republicans need to decide, is it going to be the continuation of Donald Trump as the leading figure in the party or will they turn in another direction, whether that's Ron DeSantis or Mike Pence or whomever that may be?

Saying these are good and proper things, but you have to have actions afterwards.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Independent of a run, do you think just Pence, talking this way about the former president, hurts former President Trump as he launches this third run? HEYE: It certainly is a distraction for Trump. Trump is one who takes

a lot of distractions and tries to avoid them. He's actually very skillful at that.

But he'll use this most likely, it he addresses it, to lash out a Pence. We know anybody who crosses Donald Trump, whether real or made up, is somebody that Donald Trump is then going to be personally very critical of and insulting and all the juvenile comments that we get from Trump.

Sometimes racist, of course, whether that's about Mitch McConnell's wife, Elaine Chao, or someone else.

So we know what Donald Trump does. And clearly, Pence had to factor that in before he decided to say this.

CAMEROTA: Doug, we still don't know who will control the House. It looks like it will be Republicans. Votes still being counted. States still being called.

We don't know, who will be the next speaker. Kevin McCarthy is very interested.

Today, Congressman Andy Biggs, of Arizona, it sounds like he might be a contender to compete with Kevin McCarthy.

Here is what he told CNN:

"We need to have a real discussion about whether Kevin McCarthy should be the speaker. I think we should have a very frank discussion internally about where we're going to be going forward."

Do you think Kevin McCarthy will become the next speaker?

HEYE: I think it's more likely that it's Kevin than anyone else. He certainly has more votes and more support than anyone.

One thing I heard yesterday from a member of Congress, who is on the longer list of people who might be speaker if it's not Kevin McCarthy, he shut down any conversation, didn't even want to broach the very topic.

So Kevin will have a lot of people whipping for him to try and get there.

But obviously, the party has some decisions to make. We need to decide if we're going to continue to be the MyPillow party or a Republican Party that's about conservative ideals and being a check and balance on the Biden administration.

I'd sure say that Kevin has a whole lot better chance of being speaker than Andy Biggs does.

BLACKWELL: All right, Control Room, I need an update on this. Do we have the Ted Cruz sound or can I just read this? All right.

So Ted Cruz, on his "Verdict with Ted Cruz" podcast, said this about Mitch McConnell:

"Mitch would rather be leader than have a Republican majority. If there's a Republican who can win, who is not going to support Mitch, the truth of the matter is, he'd rather the Democrat win."

Your reaction to that, and people who, in the Senate, are saying maybe there should be a challenge to McConnell?

Rick Scott, the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, whose job it was to get a Republican majority -- not there -- says a lot of people have asked him to run.

Do you think there's a real challenge to McConnell?

HEYE: I'm not sure how many people would qualify as a lot. It's certainly clear that McConnell has a majority of his conference.

And I would tell anybody who is thinking about challenging Mitch McConnell, you've got three facts in life, death, taxes, and you ain't beating Mitch McConnell. He'll be re-elected party leader for sure.

CAMEROTA: Back to the House for a second. If it's not Andy Biggs who would offer a true competitive race against Kevin McCarthy, does anybody stand a chance at beating Kevin McCarthy?

HEYE: Certainly, you can't beat somebody with nobody. What we're seeing is there are not a lot of people who are lining up right now to challenge Kevin. I think we'll hear more today and then tomorrow when Republicans meet.

Even if we have a real clear sense of what's going to happen on January 3rd when the House has its vote, I can tell you, having been on the floor for a contentious speaker vote, there are a lot of surprises, even if you know what the outcome is going to be.

A member's name may be called and they're not there. They're hiding in their office or somewhere else, because they want to see what machinations are happening. People may vote for Donald Trump.

Getting to 218 is a tough lift. But right now, nobody is better suited and better positioned for that than Kevin McCarthy.

BLACKWELL: And then the question is, what happens after, if he gets it with a slim majority, what does that look like? You were working for Eric Cantor in the Boehner days when the Tea Party, before the Freedom Cause, made it tough for him to corral votes.

[14:35:09]

Doug Heye, good to have you. Thank you.

HEYE: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Republican Governor Charlie Baker of Massachusetts is also speaking out about the future for Republicans and Trumpism. He shared his thoughts in a sit-down with CNN's Jake Tapper. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. CHARLIE BAKER (R-MA): I think about social media. I don't disagree with anything you just said.

I think about social media, and I think that we've seen two effects of it in recent years. One, January 6th. That is a president putting out lies on social media, people responding on social media, Twitter, Facebook, all sort of --

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR, "THE LEAD": Finding each other, too.

BAKER: You can't underestimate the power of being able to find each other and create isolated little groups of people who are bent a certain way with respect to how they think about society and rules and wars and all the rest.

As isolated individuals out there, that's one thing, but when they all find each other, that's different.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: You can watch more of Jake's exclusive interview with Governor Baker today at 4:00 p.m. Eastern on "THE LEAD."

Former Vice President Mike Pence joins Jake for a live CNN town hall. That's on Wednesday, 9:00 p.m. Eastern, only on CNN.

CAMEROTA: There's also this troubling new study, which finds a huge increase in children going to the emergency room with suicidal thoughts. One of the study's authors is going to explain these findings next.

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[14:41:08]

CAMEROTA: A five-year study finds a huge increase in the number of children going to the E.R. with suicidal thoughts. Researchers say the record highs started even before the pandemic.

Hospitalizations for suicidal thoughts jumped nearly 60 percent between the fall of 2019 and the fall of 2020. Some of the cases involved children as young as 5 years old.

Joining us now is one of the co-authors of the study, Dr. Audrey Brewer. She's an advanced general pediatrics and primary care physician at Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago.

Dr. Brewer, thanks so much for being here.

There's so much that's shocking in this study. Can we just start with the 5-year-olds. So 5-year-olds having suicidal thoughts, what's that look like? What do they say to the doctors when they go to the emergency room?

DR. AUDREY BREWER, ADVANCED GENERAL PEDIATRICS & PRIMARY CARE PHYSICIAN, LURIE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: Thank you so much for having me.

I think, like you mentioned, just thinking about 5-year-olds coming in with thoughts of wanting to kill themselves or thoughts of death. It's very concerning when we think about that.

Kids are coming in for various different reasons or concerns, and things they've said, whether to their parents or other caregivers or even someone at school.

So it's really quite striking just to see -- obviously the number of kids of all ages that are coming in.

CAMEROTA: Doctor, I know you don't have all the answers to what's at the root of this, but if this is before the pandemic, if you started looking at this in 2017 and noticed this exponential growth since then, what is the cause of this? What do you think is the cause of this?

BREWER: It's hard to really know for sure.

I think that's where we really need to start putting a lot of money into research to understand, what are some of the reasons for why kids are struggling so much, and why they're presenting to emergency departments with thoughts of wanting to hurt themselves, wanting to kill themselves?

I would say 00 and I've said this a lot -- it's definitely multifactorial for sure, leading to a lot of these concerns amongst kids in terms of illness.

So we can think about different social factors, whether it's related to living conditions, poverty, what we're calling at Lurie Children's -- it encompasses so many different things that are really causing these mental health concerns among our children.

CAMEROTA: How much of the blame do you think is social media? There's always been poverty, of course, for children. There's always been challenging situations within a family.

But social media has ramped up obviously over the past five years. Have you been able to have any -- find any causal effect?

BREWER: So, unfortunately, with our study, we weren't able to look at that. Social media, I definitely think it's likely a potential factor.

I mean, I think there are positive things about social media, but there are things that are not so positive regarding social media use.

So I think it is important to study this further to see any correlations between social media use and mental health outcomes for sure. I definitely think that social media is, like I said, a big component to what we're seeing in terms of mental health.

But like I mentioned, there's positive things and they're related to social media use as well that we need to look at.

CAMEROTA: Here are some of your findings. This was conducted at Illinois hospitals, this study, between the years 2016 and 2021.

E.R. visits by children aged 5 to 19 with suicidal thoughts, a 59 percent increase from 2016 through 2021. As we said, hospitalizations for suicidal thoughts, 57 percent increase between the fall of 2019 and fall of 2020.

What are parents to do? What are the warning signs for all the parents out there who this obviously terrifies, what can they do about this?

[14:45:05]

BREWER: Well, first, I think it's important to look at what's going on with the kids at home. Also how the kids are feeling in school.

And then in terms of thinking about how parents can talk to their kids about mental health, because it can be quite challenging.

And if a parent isn't feeling comfortable about having these conversations, of course, external pediatricians like myself and others, we're definitely here to be able to provide resources and counseling support to our families that are struggling and they don't know necessarily how to approach talking to their kids.

But I also think, as parents, it's definitely important to sort of validate your kids' concerns. Oftentimes, kids are looking for their parents to listen. Often, we don't do that enough.

I think it's important to really normalize what's going on with our kids and to not put stigmas behind it.

And also just thinking about ways that we can support our families and thinking about relational health and focusing in on encouraging the parent-child relationship.

So building positive relationships, help kids to thrive as well as helping families to thrive. So providing different resources for families is definitely important.

CAMEROTA: Dr. Audrey Brewer, thank you very much for sharing your findings with us.

And if you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or mental health matters, please call the new Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. The number is 988, 988. Visit the Web site, 988lifeline.org.

BLACKWELL: The TSA is implementing additional training for security officers across the country and admitting that mistakes were made after someone got through a checkpoint with two box cutters. We have new details for you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:51:14]

CAMEROTA: We all know box cutters are not allowed on flights, so how did TSA agents in Cincinnati allow a passenger with two box cutters past security?

This unidentified man was taken into custody after reportedly threatening passengers during the Florida-bound flight. TSA now admits screening mistakes were made and more training is needed to remind agents of proper procedures.

BLACKWELL: CNN's aviation correspondent, Pete Muntean, is at Reagan National Airport.

So, Pete, what does this mean going forward?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Victor, the big question here is how these box cutters got through TSA in the first place and made it onto this Frontier Airlines flight.

The TSA tells me it's reviewing this at the highest levels of the agency.

But what's so interesting here is that TSA says it failed on some of its own procedures. The TSA says it is now reviewing the security footage from the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport at the security checkpoint there.

The TSA says this unidentified man came to the security checkpoint with two book bags, put them through the screening equipment, but it did not catch these two box cutters.

Then -- and this is where it gets interesting, Victor and Alisyn -- the man had his bookbags screened physically by the TSA workers at the airport.

They were able to find one of the box cutters but returned the box cutter to this man. They're typically supposed to throw it out. The TSA also admits the second box cutter simply was not discovered.

I want you to listen now to the passengers on board this Frontier Airlines flight who described a terrifying scene as this man began threatening people with a knife on board.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When he went to go to the bathroom, the passenger in the window seat looked at me and said, hey, like, he has a knife, and he told me that he was threatening to stab people. We need to go say something.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: This is a pretty big lapse in security here, Victor and Alisyn. The TSA says the individual security officers involved in this will be pulled from the line and put into remedial training.

Regionally, they're doing more training on the equipment used, the screening equipment at these airports.

And nationwide, the TSA is issuing a bulletin to all of its workers to heighten their vigilance, especially as we go into the Thanksgiving travel rush only a few days away now -- Victor and Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: They take my hair conditioner, but they let him keep the box cutters in his carryon? Wow.

BLACKWELL: I mean, we don't really know what's in your hair conditioner.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: They certainly treat it like it's a lethal weapon.

BLACKWELL: Pete Muntean, thank you very much.

National transportation investigators are looking into a fatal mid-air collision of two World War II airplanes. This happened during a Veterans Day show in Dallas on Saturday.

CAMEROTA: Today, we're learning the identities of all six people killed.

CNN's Ed Lavandera is in Dallas.

What a tragedy, Ed.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely horrifying. I'm standing just across the road, in the distance was the airstrip where these planes were coming, and that's the crash site just beyond my shoulder here.

Just a few hours ago, crew were at that scene removing the last pieces of the wreckage from the air flight area there just a short while ago.

And this comes as the Commemorative Air Force has officially released the six names of the victims. The group says that all of the victims were members of its group.

They were flying several people inside the B-17 Flying Fortress bomber. These are all World War II-era aircraft. And a P-63 King Cobra. The P-63 was the smaller plane you see colliding with the tail end of that B-17 bomber.

And there were thousands of people here along near this small airport south of downtown Dallas watching this air show. So many people recording this.

[14:55:07]

NTSB investigators say they're relying heavily on all of those witnesses around here, asking them to give them any video that might offer some clues as to why exactly this tragedy unfolded here at this air show.

Investigators say there are no black boxes on these aircrafts, so they are relying on those videos from the public.

As well as the air traffic control radio communication recordings, as well as trying to talk with other pilots that were up in the air at the time to try to figure out how this horrible sight unfolded.

CAMEROTA: OK. Ed Lavandera, thank you very much for the update.

BLACKWELL: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says he plans to donate the majority of his wealth to charity. And he weighs in on the state of the economy. CNN's exclusive interview is ahead.

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