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Classified Pentagon Documents Leaked; Texas Judge Overrules FDA on Abortion Drug; Mass Shooting in Kentucky. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired April 10, 2023 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:41]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: Hello. I'm Abby Phillip in Washington.

And we begin today with another deadly mass shooting, this one at a bank in Louisville, Kentucky. Police say four people are now dead and eight are wounded. They say the shooter is also dead. And in a video recorded near the bank, you can hear the shots being fired as police begin arriving on the scene.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(GUNSHOTS)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: The gunman began firing just as the bank was getting ready to open, and police say that they believe he was a former employee. Two officers were wounded in an exchange of gunfire, and one of them remains in critical condition right now.

A witness says that he spoke to an employee who was sheltering inside of the bank.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She's at the bank at this building. Their protocol is to get into the vault. Me and her have had that conversation several times. Hit the panic button. Go to the vault.

Don't fight. Don't do anything. Lock yourself up, hide, and let it go.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Kentucky's Governor Andy Beshear arrived at the scene this morning.

And he revealed that two of the people that were killed were close friends of his.

CNN's Shimon Prokupecz is following these developments.

So, Shimon, what is the latest that we are hearing about what transpired this morning?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Right.

So, right now, what we are told by authorities is that this gunman had some connection to the bank. Whether it's a former employee or a current employee, it's not entirely clear. Obviously, right now, everything points to some kind of workplace or some kind of relationship that this individual had with the bank.

And so authorities are trying to figure out what led up to this, sort of that motivation, the key, days into this, hours into this, the days before, what possibly happened that caused such a violent act.

We know this happened around 8:30 this morning, before the bank was open for business. And just three minutes, Abby, that's how long it took the police to get there. And, still, it was not enough time to save lives. However, police saying this could have been far worse. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL HUMPHREY, LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY, METRO POLICE DEPUTY CHIEF: Within three minutes of being dispatched, officers arrived on scene and encountered the suspect almost immediately still firing gunshots. Officers exchanged gunshots with that suspect.

And, ultimately, the suspect did die at the scene. We're trying to confirm if that suspect died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound or was killed by officers at this time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PROKUPECZ: And, Abby, two officers were also shot. One of those officers is in critical condition. There are several others that are at the hospital, and, of course, just this trauma now left behind for this community, yet another community dealing with a mass shooting.

We have also learned that the weapon here used, according to sources, was an AR-15-style weapon. Of course, we're all now familiar with this style weapon, as it seems to be a common theme here, a common weapon used in many of the mass shootings.

But there's still a lot that we need to learn here, obviously, about the shooter, the motivation, what led up to this, what people knew about what was going on in this individual's life.

PHILLIP: Lots and lots of questions remain. Shimon, thank you very much for that.

And let's get more on this shooting with Steve Moore, who's a CNN law enforcement contributor and retired FBI supervisory special agent, and also Cheryl Dorsey, a retired Los Angeles Police Department sergeant.

So, thank you both for being here.

The police, as you heard Shimon say, remarkably fast, arrived on the scene within three minutes. They still were not able to save the four lives that were taken here. Steve Moore, when you hear that, what does that say to you about the

lethality of the weapon -- we know it was an AR-15 -- and just what law enforcement is dealing with, with these kinds of incidents that are now becoming all too common?

STEVE MOORE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CONTRIBUTOR: Well, law enforcement is dealing with a weapon that can that can overcome their body armor most the time.

This also speaks to the fact that the shooter was more than just well- armed. He was well-trained. Doesn't matter how lethal the AR-15 is if you don't know how to shoot it. The shooter, obviously was practiced. That's a big deal.

[13:05:09]

And it's just -- it's just becoming -- I mean, a three-minute response is tremendous. But one of the things we have learned is that that's from the point of dispatch. The shooter calls had to be made. So, on average, one person dies per minute when an active shooter is unchallenged.

PHILLIP: And, Sergeant Dorsey, one of the things that we don't yet know is whether there was any kind of security or law enforcement presence at the scene of this bank.

What we do know is that the gunmen apparently had a connection to the bank. Perhaps he was a current or a former employee. In that kind of environment, how does that complicate the response to an incident like this at a venue like this that I think many people would think banks are pretty well-guarded?

But, clearly, this gunman was able to get through and caused several casualties here.

CHERYL DORSEY, RETIRED LAPD POLICE SERGEANT: Well, one assumes that all banks have security on scene, not necessarily.

And so we're -- it's very difficult to be proactive. We're reactionary in these kinds of instances. And so I'm just going to say this. We have to advocate for ourselves. It's nice to be nice. And I say that because I have responded to a mass shooter incident on LAPD where the shooter went in the workplace with insider knowledge from cubicle to cubicle.

And he said, when he encountered one person: "You were nice to me. I'm going to let you live."

So it's nice to be nice, because you never know what someone is going through. You don't know what their proclivity towards violence might be in the workplace. They have insider knowledge. And so that too makes it very difficult to overcome.

And so treat people kindly, because you never know when it may come back and be helpful in saving your own life. PHILLIP: Well, that is a very sobering a kind of assessment of the

situation, that people who are dealing with disgruntled colleagues could face being massacred, potentially, at their workplace.

But, Steve Moore, it does -- all of this raises some questions here. I mean, we are sitting here two weeks to the day since the Covenant Elementary School shooting. And just a few minutes ago, President Biden released a statement calling on Congress to act on gun reform.

As someone in the law enforcement community, you just talked about these bullets that can pierce body armor. What do you think should be next to prevent these kinds of things from happening again?

MOORE: Well, if by some magic wand, we were able to just stop the manufacture and sale of AR-15s to civilians at this moment, you still have to deal with the fact that up -- as much as 100 million of them of .223 rifles that caliber rifle, might be in civilian ownership in the United States right now.

So what we're going to see is a society that's more and more hardened, more and more -- you're not going to just walk into buildings anymore. And I think everybody, all the viewers have seen this, that you can't just walk into business places. You have to be buzzed in; 30, 40 years ago, you didn't wear I.D.s around your neck, these lanyards.

We're going to have to -- we're going to see this, because, even if we acted today decisively on AR-15-type rifles, you're not going to stop these shootings in the short term. So we have to do something to protect the people in the meantime.

PHILLIP: Sergeant Dorsey, I wonder if you could also weigh in on that.

Do you agree with that assessment that, even if Congress were to act today, that wouldn't necessarily make things safer in the near term?

DORSEY: The horse is out of the barn.

I mean, there are so many people out there who are already armed who shouldn't be. Ammunition is in their possession. And so these red flag laws and reporting family members, friends, we always find out after the fact that there was a red flag. This person did say something. There was an indicator, but those who knew this person intimately thought, eh, maybe it wasn't a big deal, or maybe they didn't mean it, and they don't report it.

It's imperative, if you see something, if you know something, you absolutely have to say something. Err on the caution of offending a friend or family member, inconveniencing them.It would be better to have them talked to you by local authorities, have guns removed from them temporarily, rather than have a loss of life to the magnitude that we saw today.

PHILLIP: And, Steve, as you're look -- as we are waiting for more information about what happened in this case. We need to know a lot more about this shooter and what was behind this. [13:10:00]

But does this kind of event -- and perhaps it was a workplace event from someone who might have worked at a place like a bank. Does that surprise you in any way? What are you looking for when it comes to the profile of who this shooter might be?

MOORE: Well, unfortunately, we're having a lot of data to go into our into our intelligence space right now.

Each shooting teaches us something more about what we're looking for. And, as Cheryl said, you really need to start enforcing and enacting the red flag laws, which will help us in the short term, until the long-term solution can take effect.

And so, yes, I mean, you break it down into random shootings, people just walking into malls, people walking into schools, and this is less random, because it's a -- it appears to be a workplace-type violence shooting.

I was kind of surprised that, in a bank, you can have that level of casualty, because banks are -- tend to be secured for the customers and for the employees. It also speaks a little bit about the hazards of the law enforcement responding. As we saw in Nashville, it was picture-perfect, textbook response to an active shooter.

But what you didn't see is, sometimes, the person fires back accurately, and those first officers arriving take those rounds.

PHILLIP: Yes.

MOORE: And this is just sobering moment.

PHILLIP: It's incredibly dangerous for law enforcement as well. And there is one officer who we know at this moment is in critical condition.

But thank you both for your expertise, Sergeant Dorsey and Steve Moore, for that conversation.

And, right now, the Biden administration is gearing up for a fight on a different matter, after a federal judge in Texas suspended the FDA's two-decade-old approval of the popular abortion drug mifepristone. The Justice Department now says it is quickly appealing that ruling. And it would impact tens of millions of women if it is upheld.

Now, banning the drug even in states where abortion is legal is what is potentially on the horizon here. It is also important to note that the drug, mifepristone, isn't just used for abortion. Women also use it to safely manage miscarriages. And the judge's ruling could essentially ban that option for them as well.

So, some Democrats, including New York's Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are calling on the administration to simply ignore the Trump-appointed judge's ruling. Now, the White House has pushed back on that idea. But, just this

morning, a Republican lawmaker, South Carolina's Nancy Mace, says that she actually agrees with her Democratic colleague. Watch that moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY MACE (R-SC): This is an FDA-approved drug. I support the usage of FDA-approved drugs, even if we might disagree. It's not up to us to decide as legislators or even as the court system that -- whether or not this is the right drug to use or not, number one.

So I agree with ignoring it at this point.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: And joining us now is former federal prosecutor Jennifer Rodgers, and also Margaret Talev, the senior contributor for Axios.

Jennifer, I want to start there.

The Biden administration, they came out yesterday and actually kind of walked back to health and human services secretary's comments, saying, everything was on the table. And, by everything, he meant including ignoring this ruling.

So what do you think? I mean, is there a legal basis for ignoring this ruling? Or is there a possibility, as some have raised, that it could set a dangerous precedent?

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I think the Biden administration needs to work within our system and not ignore the ruling. I mean, I don't think we want the chaos of a presidential administration just ignoring rulings from judges.

We had that happen, effectively, after the 2020 election, when the former president lost 60 plus lawsuits, ignored that precedent, effectively, and we had January 6. So I don't think they should ignore the ruling.

But there are things both within the judiciary and outside that they can do in order to try to get this drug back in the hands of doctors to use it for patients that need it. And I think that's what they should be focused on doing.

PHILLIP: Yes.

And, to your point, I mean, this is just the beginning of the legal process here. There's still an appellate process that needs to play out as well. And we have to see how that will go. And it could all go all the way to the Supreme Court.

So, Margaret, I do wonder, do you -- does it surprise you, first of all, to hear Nancy Mace, a kind of front-line battleground lawmaker, taking a position that actually is more aggressive, more aggressive than even the White House is willing to take right now?

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think Nancy Mace been a pretty interesting political figure.

[13:15:00]

We kind of saw her segue from her hanging on to support of the former president when she thought she needed to in her reelection campaign last year to this position. I think she knows her district and she is -- if you are an abortion rights supporter, like, this is the position that makes sense for you to, I think, take in terms of your brand.

But here's the reality. After the Dobbs ruling last year, I think in the states, where abortion rights shrank, surgical abortion rights, what all the advocates said was, we will try to create a patchwork by making medication available through the mail.

And what this really does, it really flips it on its head, not only would make it very difficult, if this stood, impossible to get the medication for that kind of a medication abortion in those states, but in states where abortion is very legal and a highly protected right, right now.

And so that's what's complicated about this. It's also what makes the judge's ruling pretty vulnerable on appeal, maybe even before the Supreme Court. So I think it is on a collision course with the Supreme Court. It may never actually get that far. And Biden and his administration do have these other options to slow-walk it, to challenge it.

They don't have to outright ignore it. When you look at it as a political issue, though, a lot of Republicans really concerned, not just Nancy Mace, a lot of Republicans really concerned about what this does, because it is those medication abortions, in particular, that are so popular with the American public.

PHILLIP: Right.

TALEV: Even if a person doesn't intend to do that, having the right to do it is widely supported.

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, as a political matter, that becomes a huge issue.

Jennifer, we're just getting some information into CNN in these last few moments. We're learning that the Justice Department is actually now seeking clarification from the federal judge on how exactly the FDA should comply with this ruling, partly because now we have conflicting -- we have conflicting rulings.

We have that judge in Texas, a judge in Washington. It seems like they are not sure what to do next. So what do you make of that?

RODGERS: Well, it suggests that they don't intend to ignore the ruling, which I think is the right call.

Listen, their immediate interest is in extending the stay. Judge Kacsmaryk gave them a seven-day stay, which expires midnight Friday night. They need to make sure that they have a stay for this, so that mifepristone isn't pulled from the shelves while this litigation is playing out. So that's going to be their main goal. So they may ask him for an additional stay. They have asked the Fifth Circuit for a stay.

If they need to go to the Supreme Court because the Fifth Circuit and Judge Kacsmaryk don't extend, then they will do that. That's their primary goal. But I think that's right. If there's a conflict between two judges, you do need to know what to do. You don't want to have the FDA, I think, out of compliance with a federal judge's order.

So I think they're doing the right thing here. Aggressively appeal. Work outside the judicial system where necessary to try to make this problem get fixed. It should get fixed by the Fifth Circuit, but I'm not sure that it will. So I think they're doing the right thing.

PHILLIP: And, Margaret, the Republicans are -- seem to be pretty quiet about this, by and large. What do you expect politically as we go forward here?

Now I think we seem to be in a new phase of this fight now, where I think, perhaps, the activist wing of the Republican Party is pushing forward and the ones who are on the ballot seem to be saying, hold on. We don't know how this is going to play out. What do you think?

TALEV: The current leader of the Republican Party is former President Donald J. Trump, and you don't see him out there banging the drums in celebration of this ruling, even though it is a ruling by one of his judges, someone who's very aligned with the movement, the anti- abortion movement.

Look at this polling from Ipsos. And CNN has its own polling also. This was earlier this year. Two-thirds of Americans support access to medication abortions. That's half of Republicans. It's two-thirds of independents. And it's more than eight in 10 Democrats. That tells you why this is volatile.

It is the version of abortion that more Americans are comfortable with, take a pill early on. And the ability to claw back, for one judge to claw back a 23-year-old policy that allows this medication, and to claw it back in a way that impacts handle -- safe handling of miscarriages, as well as abortion, that is -- that is something that many Republicans are concerned may go too far in the public eye, as well as legally.

So I think that's why you're not hearing a lot of talk about it right now.

PHILLIP: And this is just the beginning, both on the legal front and on the political front.

Jennifer Rodgers and Margaret Talev, thank you both very much.

And still ahead for us: new questions about who exactly leaked classified information and U.S. intelligence documents. What we know about the contents and how some key American allies are now making changes because of that leak. [13:20:01]

Plus: The Dalai Lama has apologized after a disturbing new video surfaced showing him kissing a child on the lips. The explanation we are now getting from his office.

And could at least one of the black lawmakers expelled in the Tennessee Statehouse be right back in the seat that he lost just a few days ago? We will tell you when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIP: The Justice Department has opened an investigation after highly classified Pentagon documents were leaked online.

Now, pictures of the documents they began appearing online weeks ago, but they weren't discovered immediately. These documents contain a lot of sensitive intelligence, including Ukrainian troop numbers and weaknesses as they gear up for a major counteroffensive against Russia.

But other documents reveal how the U.S. has been eavesdropping on both its adversaries and its allies, including Israel and South Korea.

[13:25:00]

CNN's Oren Liebermann is over at the Pentagon for us.

Oren, so what do we know about the investigation so far? And what is the Pentagon saying today?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: About the -- at this point, we don't know too much about the criminal investigation led by the Department of Justice, other than the Defense Department referred this matter to DOJ when they learned of this leak.

So it's the Department of Justice that will look at the criminal aspects of this. Who leaked it? How was it leaked? When? And what was the purpose behind this? That's the criminal part of this.

The Defense Department, meanwhile, has been doing its own review, along with the interagency, to figure out how best to shore up this sort of very sensitive, highly classified information to make sure it doesn't continue leaking.

CNN has reviewed 53 pages that were leaked. But it still remains very possible that there are other documents out there that have been leaked, and simply haven't been discovered, or that could be leaked in the future. So that's part of what the Defense Department is doing to try to lock in on this and make sure that this specific leak doesn't continues.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was briefed on this last week on April 6, and, according to the Pentagon, he remains deeply involved with senior Pentagon leaders about how to make sure this doesn't happen again. Meanwhile, the Pentagon has also been in touch with other allies and

partners because of the damage this has caused. And, for that, let's look at what's in these documents. Part of it is about the war in Ukraine with detailed assessments of battlefield updates, as well as Ukraine's military capabilities and its air defenses. It is worth noting that some of this is a bit dated. The documents are dated from late February to early March.

But this sort of information, especially at this level of granularity, is still very important, and very -- frankly, very critical to somebody like Russia, who would be interested in learning whatever they can from these documents that come from the highest levels of the Pentagon.

It's also damaging from another perspective that you mentioned. And that is, it shows U.S. spying, not only on Russia, for example, its adversary, but also the intel U.S. is gathering on countries like Israel and South Korea, some of its closest allies. Israel, for its art, has essentially dismissed this and said this wasn't too serious or damaging in terms of the relationship.

But South Korea had a different sort of reaction, saying they were looking for an explanation from the U.S. So you get a sense there, Abby, of how critical this is, first for the U.S. to get a handle on it and make sure it doesn't happen again, but also for the U.S. to smooth over the relationships with all these countries.

PHILLIP: Yes, absolutely. That's probably going to be something that's going to be ongoing for some time.

Oren Liebermann at the Pentagon, thank you very much.

And let's get a sense of the fallout from this document that we were just discussing.

Joining us now is Cedric Leighton. He's a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and a CNN military analyst.

So, Colonel Leighton, when you look at the scope of a leak like this, in the midst of an ongoing, very hot war between Ukraine and Russia, what is the most concerning to you about what might have been revealed?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Look, Abby, I think the big thing here is the fact that we're in a hot war, like you mentioned. The Ukraine war is one in which the U.S. is providing a lot of support to the Ukrainians. NATO countries are doing the same kind of thing.

And it really boils down to the sensitivity of the operations involved. In some ways, I would compare it to the Snowden leak, not in terms of volume. The Snowden leak was much more voluminous. But the types of information that this leak it deals with, that becomes a really important piece of this, because it is so sensitive, and it deals not only with adversaries like Russia, but also close allies like Japan -- like South Korea and Israel. PHILLIP: And, on that front, I mean, the spying of the U.S. on

others, including our allies, should anybody be particularly surprised that that is happening?

Do you think that there will be real consequences, not just what they're saying publicly, but consequences behind the scenes about that information being revealed?

LEIGHTON: I think, particularly, in the case of the South Koreans, they might be less willing to share information with us. And that's going to be critical, because we depend a lot on South Korean intelligence to watch North Korea, for example, and there could be fallout in that particular area.

And it could very much weaken our ability to have first warning of, let's say, a missile launch from North Korea or something like that. So these things become important in ways that we don't always connect immediately. And it could, I think, have a major impact on that relationship.

PHILLIP: And the documents seem to be -- seem to have been printed. They were crumpled up and photographed in another location.

How surprising is it you that our -- is it to you that these sensitive documents could have been basically walked out of a secure location, perhaps walked out of the Pentagon itself?

LEIGHTON: Yes, that was my first suspicion when I heard of this, the manner in which these documents appeared, like you said, crumpled-up paper that probably had been in somebody's coat pocket or pants pocket, then spread out to be photographed.

So it looks to me like this is an inside job, somebody who may have worked at the Pentagon, may have worked at some other federal facility.

[13:30:00]