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Ceasefire Largely Holding Between Israel And Islamic Jihad; WaPo: Accused Military Document Leaker, Jack Teixeira Fixated On Guns, Envisioned Race War; Border Cities See Smaller Than Expected Migrant Surge; Biden Draws Sharp Contrast With Trump At Howard Commencement; Inside The Lab Revolutionizing How We Produce Electricity. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired May 13, 2023 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:01:03]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

We're going to start the hour in the Middle East where a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad just recently went into effect; however, the attacks did not completely stop when they were supposed to.

A CNN producer on the ground says these rockets were fired toward Israel from Gaza after the agreed upon time. The Israeli military also continued blaring warning sirens amid the incoming fire.

[VIDEO CLIP PLAYS]

ACOSTA: For days now, we've seen attacks like that one. This is an Israeli airstrike on Gaza, where at least 33 people have been killed over the past few days since Wednesday. Palestinian forces have fired over 1,200 rockets toward Israel in response, killing two people, one of them a Palestinian man working in Israel.

CNN's Ben Wedeman joins us now from Jerusalem.

Ben, what more do we know about this ceasefire? I know when we spoke with you a couple of hours ago, it looked like maybe it was starting to hold? What more can you tell us?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, basically, for about a half hour after it was supposed to go into effect, Jim, there were continued volleys of rockets out of Gaza and Israeli airstrikes.

Now, just in the last hour, the Israeli military said there was another airstrike on Gaza, but largely it does seem to be holding. We are getting pictures of people in Gaza celebrating.

This is a conflict that went on for five days, fairly intense strikes and counterstrikes. Now, what we understand from the agreement worked out by Egyptian mediators who have been really working around the clock to try to get the warring sides to agree on this, that they've agreed on a ceasing of the fire, stopping targeting civilians, and targeting civilian homes.

Now, Islamic Jihad initially was demanding an end to assassinations by the Israelis of senior officials within the organization. They wanted the Israelis to turn over the body of Khader Adnan who was a member of the political wing of Islamic Jihad, who last week died in an Israeli prison from a hunger strike.

Islamic Jihad also wanted the Israelis to cancel what is known as the Flag March on Jerusalem Day, next Thursday, where extreme Israeli nationalist marched through Palestinian parts of the Old City of Jerusalem, a real flashpoint in recent years.

So Islamic Jihad certainly didn't get what it wanted, but it does represent a cessation of the hostilities, but as we've seen, this has been happening every year for the last three years and calm may be restored, but it is unlikely to last -- Jim.

ACOSTA: All right, we have certainly seen this movie before. All right, Ben Wedeman, thank you very much.

Joining us now is former State Department Middle East negotiator, Aaron David Miller. He is also a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment.

Aaron, as Ben was saying, the ceasefire seems to be holding for now after that initial barrage around the deadline, but he doesn't sound very optimistic. And I suppose if past is prologue, we should not be very optimistic that this is going to last very long.

How do see this playing out?

AARON DAVID MILLER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: First, I was just going to say, Jim, the past is prologue. You know, since the Israelis disengaged from Gaza in 2005, this is the 15th, I guess what you could describe as significant military operation, the third in the last 10 months against Palestine-Islamic Jihad.

[18:05:00]

So the reality is this is not to trivialize it because a lot of innocent people died, one Israeli and one Gazan who had been working in Israel, 10 children, and at least 25 Palestinian civilians. But this is, frankly a wash, rinse, and repeat. This cycle has been ongoing and there is absolutely no evidence that it is going to end.

The most significant thing, Jim, about this, I think, is the fact that it is probably over for now, is that Hamas, an organization that controls Gaza, and has a stockpile repository of high-trajectory weapons that are much more lethal, much more precise, with much greater range shows, willfully, to stay out of this.

And I think the Israelis base their calculation on assassinating now six Palestine Islamic Jihad commanders on the assumption that Hamas, for its own reasons, needs quiet in Gaza, it needs Palestinian 17,000 of them to work in Israel, they send back and come back with substantial amount of funds and infrastructure. So I think that's something at least to pocket.

Is it in the good news category? Put it this way, it could have been a lot worse had Hamas chosen to involve itself?

ACOSTA: Well, and we were just showing our viewers a few moments ago, this very dramatic footage of this building, just being absolutely flattened by the Israelis in just the last 24 or 36 hours, that sort of thing.

Do those kinds of strikes have the ability to really suppress what is going on if the ceasefire does not hold? Or is this -- are we entering into another one of those cycles of violence that just might become very, very dangerous for that part of the world?

MILLER: I think Ben pointed out that this has been a yearly occurrence. And as I mentioned, 15 operations since 2005. They're occurring with greater frequency, it seems to me.

No, I think you probably will get a temporary respite out of this. How long the last is unclear. But it's part of the broader problems, Jim.

Israelis and Palestinians literally are in a strategic cul-de-sac, and frankly, there is no way out.

Leaders on neither side are willing or able to do what is necessary to begin a serious process of negotiation. The Israeli occupation is now 57 years old. Hamas is plotting and planning and wants to take over the Palestinian Authority. And most of the world, the international community, I don't think there's a single nation that sits in the UN that is prepared to make the redemption of a Israeli-Palestinian peace process, including the Biden administration, the central feature of its foreign policy.

So I suspect that the situation will get worse before it gets worse and what Ben referred to Jerusalem Day, next Thursday, is just another possibility of an explosion, this time, around the very volatile issue of overlapping sacred space on Haram al Sharif Temple Mount, around which so much of this conflict has been centered.

ACOSTA: All right, Aaron David Miller, always great to get your insights. Thanks so much for joining us this evening. We appreciate it.

MILLER: Take care, Jim.

ACOSTA: All right, you too. And we're getting a disturbing new look tonight at the 21-year-old National Guard member accused of leaking dozens of highly classified military documents on the chat platform, Discord.

"The Washington Post" has reviewed previously unseen video and chat logs and other information that seemed to suggest Jack Teixeira was fixated on guns and preparing for some sort of race war. We want to warn you, our viewers they're at home right now. This video includes racist language and gunshots. You may find this disturbing take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JACK TEIXEIRA, ACCUSED DOCUMENT LEAKER: Jews scam, [bleep] rape, and I mag dump.

(GUNSHOTS.)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Mag dump, he said just there in that video is a reference to shooting a full magazine of bullets. Jack Teixeira was arrested at his home in Massachusetts last month and charged with two counts under the Espionage Act.

I want to bring in Samuel Oakford, visual forensics reporter with "The Washington Post" and CNN national security analyst, Juliette Kayyem.

Samuel, let me go to you first. How did "The Washington Post" get access to this information? And what have you learned in this video? What does it show us?

SAMUEL OAKFORD, VISUAL FORENSICS REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Thank you, Jim. This reporting came out of our existing investigation into the leak.

Initially, we were focused in large part on the material itself, as were other reporters trying to learn as much as we could about the classified material that Teixeira id alleged to have leaked.

[18:10:00]

We wanted to shed more light on what Teixeira was like in his offline world and to that point, we were able to obtain the video that you just saw, along with other visual material that is newly published in chat logs that show the degree to which he employed racist, anti- Semitic, and conspiratorial language in real life.

ACOSTA: And Samuel, filings by federal prosecutors say that when he was arrested, if I'm not mistaken, Teixeira had a stockpile of rifles, shotguns, and pistols along with a helmet gas mask, night vision goggles. What more do you know about that?

OAKFORD: We know that Teixeira along with other members of this Discord community he was in were very interested in guns. In his case, he had access to a large number of guns.

We see them in some of the videos that we've obtained of shooting them at a nearby gun range. He seemed to be very interested in acquiring guns and according to a close friend who we spoke with, this was in the context, possibly of preparing or getting ready for a possible you know, race war, as he might put it, or any kind of threat that certain groups posed to him.

JIM And Juliette, seeing that video, it is so disturbing and hearing this information, does this change your perception of just what kind of threat Jack Teixeira actually posed? I mean, I guess it also begs the question as to whether there might have been a different motivation in all of this, if this kind of thinking was going around in the back of his mind there.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes. So from the beginning, the narrative that he was just a hapless kid trying, trying to impress his friends never rang right to me, and I was actually on your show, I was just looking in April saying I'm not buying it. I'm just not buying it, not anymore.

The idea that these guys that this is all that's behind it, and I really -- I just spent some time with "The Washington Post" story. What they are essentially doing is taking the time to look at how these guys hide themselves from the hate that they know will be condemned by their employers, maybe even by their group and friends.

And so what this means then is that the military has a huge problem in terms of its security clearance. How did he get through? How was this not caught? Do they have the capacity to look at this kind of information?

But also, that the idea of a lone wolf, we just have to stop using that term. I mean, I looked at what "The Washington Post" came up with. These guys are a pack, and they are planning the kinds of attacks against America that you wouldn't expect from anyone, let alone someone in the military.

ACOSTA: And Juliette, this comes one week after what we saw in Allen, Texas, where the gunman there was espousing neo-Nazi White supremacist views.

Just today, President Biden was giving a commencement address at Howard University, he was warning the country that this battle against White supremacy, dangerous White supremacists is not over in this country, it is very much ongoing. What about this threat posed by people with these kinds of views? Violent White supremacist views?

KAYYEM: So yes, it's the most prevalent -- I mean, I came into counterterrorism when we were worried about foreign terrorists who were embracing Islamic Jihad violence, so that's long gone. The biggest threat to not just the public in terms of gun issues, but the biggest threat to our democracy right now is the justification that is animating the right wing, that they can -- that they will be displaced and therefore, violence is justified as a means to protect themselves.

That's what displacement or replacement theory is all about. It is the justification of violence. And you know, I'm very careful on air in terms of, you know, not connecting lines that aren't there. But if there's any legacy that Donald Trump and the movement brought to our democracy, the strongest Donald Trump legacy, it would be this idea of violence entering our democratic space -- our military, our sense of protection, our voting -- and that, that has to be shamed, isolated, arrested, all the things that we're doing, not because it's Democrats versus Republicans, but because it's Americans versus those who would be insurrectionists. That's the way we have to perceive it.

ACOSTA: Yes, absolutely, you know, that kind of thinking represents a very clear threat to the country.

All right, Juliette Kayyem, Samuel Oakford, thank you so much for the reporting over at "The Washington Post" on this very illuminating work. We really appreciate it. thanks so much.

We should note, Teixeira's lawyer has declined to comment to "The Washington Post" and he remains in federal custody. He has not entered a plea and we will bring you any more on this as it comes in.

Thanks to both. We appreciate it.

Coming up: Officials in border facilities say they so far are not seeing the surge in migrants they expected after Title 42 expired. So what happened? More on what may be happening, just ahead.

Plus, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis still has not announced he is running for president, but it sure sounds like it, it sure looks like it. The latest cultural war he is wading into.

And later, could the same energy the sun uses to power our electrical grid, could that be used in that respect? We will have details on that ahead. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:19:50]

ACOSTA: So far so good apparently along the US-Mexico border. Some border communities say they have yet to see the massive surge in migrants many were expecting, that's despite the end of Title 42, the pandemic-era policy that allowed for the quick expulsion of migrants at the border.

Long lines of people waiting to enter the US have tapered off dramatically, we're told.

[18:20:11]

The Biden administration is vowing tougher consequences for migrants who tried to enter the country illegally. US officials fear the situation could still become a crisis with tens of thousands reportedly waiting in northern Mexico to cross into the US. Let's go to El Paso, Texas right now with CNN's Polo Sandoval.

Polo, how are things shaping up at this hour?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, and the other question, too, Jim is what could potentially be a factor here in terms of the numbers, at least keeping them from the chaotic numbers that were expected on behalf of federal authorities, we need to be clear, and one of the possibilities and in speaking to folks at a shelter that we're right in front of here, which is the shelter that actually take sense of these migrants after they are processed and released by federal authorities is that perhaps that message from the Biden administration may be resonating among some people there in Mexico. So they could right now still be weighing their options in terms of

whether or not they cross, contributing to the numbers, but still, they are staggering, nonetheless, about 9,000 people, roughly, is their daily encounter number. The concern here is that number could go up to up to 14,000. That's according to a senior level CBP official that's cited in some recently filed federal court documents.

But also, make no mistake that the Border Patrol facilities themselves, the ones that process all of these individuals, they are certainly at or well over capacity with the average daily custody number at well over 23,000 people.

So yes, inside of this shelter, or rather inside of these processing facilities, they are certainly already overcrowded, but it is more of that rate of detention. So, I think there's going to be multiple factors when you talk to people here on the ground. One of them is the rate of release, exactly how many people are released here in El Paso and other border communities versus those that are sent back south of the border, that will be one of the biggest determining, or I should say, determining factors that may potentially change some of those numbers in the future -- Jim.

ACOSTA: All right, Polo Sandoval, thanks for staying on top of it for us. We appreciate it.

Our next guest is the mayor of McAllen, Texas along the US-Mexico border, Mayor Javier Villalobos. Thank you so much for joining us.

How is the migrant situation shaping up for you and your community? You know, we've just heard from Polo Sandoval. We're hearing from officials that so far, the surge is not as big as what was expected. Of course, that could change in the coming days. We can't predict what might happen.

But what are you seeing on your own end? Is that what you're seeing in McAllen?

MAYOR JAVIER VILLALOBOS (R), MCALLEN, TEXAS: Certainly, actually, what happened is there was an uptick right before the expiration of Title 42 and that caused us great concern just waiting for the expiration.

Subsequent to the expiration, it has not been as bad fortunately. But we know that the Mexican officials and the Mexican NGOs had been advising as we have on this side about the different ramifications of Title 8 once the expiration of 42 occurred.

And I think hopefully the immigrants all are heeding the advice. So we are, of course, we're concerned because we still know about the numbers in Reynosa, we are near Reynosa and the numbers that are coming from different areas. But as of right now, we are within capacity, and we're logistically doing well.

ACOSTA: And I want to share some video of the shelter you have set up in a local park. At last check, you had about 1,200 migrants, that's not even half capacity, is that right? VILLALOBOS: You know, we had a capacity of about 2,000 and we did ramp

it up to about 5,000 just in case. Years ago, Catholic Charities was able to process and send everybody out pretty orderly. We got to a point where we had to open up that park, the San Dumas Park, which is about 10 miles from McAllen and we never shut it down.

So we've always been ready. As a matter of fact, this has been ongoing even though the numbers are not what they are. We still have a couple of hundred every day. So, we've never shut down our facilities and we just ramped up to 5,000, just in case.

ACOSTA: And we talked to a father who's running a church charity in one of our previous hours this afternoon, and he was talking about some of the people who are coming in, some of the migrants who are coming in, where they're coming from. He said they're largely coming in from Venezuela.

Mayor, I'm just wondering what your folks are encountering. Are they encountering a lot of folks coming from Venezuela? And I mean, what are some of the life stories that you're hearing from folks as to why they would make this desperate trek for so many miles to get to this country?

VILLALOBOS: You know what? We don't take a position as to whether they are legal or illegal and as a matter of fact, we don't even ask. So I mean, we just try to assist, doing something that hopefully we know that the Rio Grande Valley is not a summer destination, what we do, we just try to speed up the process and to get them out and keep our community safe.

[18:25:02]

And one of the issues we had before used to be COVID, where people had to be quarantined and sometimes, we would get backlogged. We're backlogged a little bit. Well, we don't have COVID anymore, but we do have and that is the issue, a lot of Venezuelans now do not have the financial resources as prior immigrants used to. And so, that is kind of it.

They used to buy their own plane tickets or bus tickets and we may start out with an issue there. We're fortunate that we do very well with our federal, state, county officials. As a matter of fact, just earlier, two buses left that San Dumas facility going up north.

Our destination is McAllen, the Rio Grande Valley is not the destination.

ACOSTA: And what are your greatest needs right now, if you were to, you know, communicate to officials here in Washington, hopefully some of them are watching, what would you tell them that you need?

VILLALOBOS: You know what we need is for them to sit down and work some kind of plan. We always talk about comprehensive immigration and my position is it doesn't have to be comprehensive. It doesn't have to be durable, but you can start chipping away, take care of DACA, take care of the guest worker program. A lot of these individuals, some of these immigrants could be very

productive. We know we need workers. Let's do something in Washington, because right here, right here, we don't have a problem. What we're starting to see and we said a long time ago, it's going to be up north.

Look at Washington, DC. Look at Chicago. Look at the mayors of New York. They're having issues. Here, they don't stay, they just pass through. So it's not us. It's Washington.

ACOSTA: All right, Mayor Javier Villalobos, thank you very much for your time. We'll see if they're listening here in the nation's capital. We appreciate your time.

All right, coming up, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is leaning into the culture wars as he doubles down on his fight with Disney. Is that going to be a winning message nationwide and in places like Iowa? We'll discuss that next. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:31:14]

ACOSTA: President Biden gave the commencement address at Howard University earlier today. During his address, the President spoke to a theme that motivated him to run for the White House. And that was the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia almost six years ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Something I never thought I would ever see in America, accompanied by Klansmen and white supremacists, merging from dark rooms and remote fields and the anonymity of the internet, confronting decent Americans of all backgrounds, standing in their way into the bright light of day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: All right. Joining us to talk about all this, Republican strategists Shermichael Singleton and Molly Jong-Fast Molly Jong-Fast, special correspondent for Vanity Fair. They're both joining us now.

Guys, thanks so much.

Molly, let's talk about Biden's address, battling hate, white supremacy are sure to be a theme of his reelection campaign. And based on current events, these issues are still with us. We were just showing this video that The Washington Post obtained at the top of the hour where this man who's been accused of leaking classified documents was spewing all kinds of white supremacist hatred at a gun range. And you had what happened in Allen, Texas last week and so on. I mean, this issue is likely to be one that we're going to be focusing on in this upcoming campaign.

MOLLY JONG-FAST, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT, VANITY FAIR: Yes, and I would say a lot of people on the MAGA side are very offended by this. And I think they should be more offended by the actual white nationalism and racism we're seeing. And I feel like calling it out is not what's offensive. What's offensive is doing it.

And we had - we did see a Charlottesville rally. We've seen a lot of really horrible hate crimes. We've seen a lot of racism, we've seen huge increases and I think that Biden's right. And I also think most Americans are very unhappy with it and they don't like it and they don't - and they want it to stop. And I think Biden has a really good point here. And we've seen that this is actually something that most Americans agree with.

ACOSTA: And Shermichael, I mean, Alabama's Republican senator, Tommy Tuberville, kind of stumbled on some of this, this past week. He's trying to walk back some comments that he made an interview with an Alabama radio station this week. He was asked if he believes white nationalists should be allowed in the military. He responded, I call them Americans and his office tried to walk that back. But I mean, how much damage does this do to the Republican Party to have a senator talking about this kind of stuff? Saying these sorts of things.

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Yes. I don't think it does a lot of damage. I mean, remember his comments when Donald Trump was running for re-election and he was talking about reparations. I mean, there's a consistent pattern from the senator. I think you have to also consider his state.

So I don't think there'll be a lot of repercussions. I think it may turn off some people of color as many other racial tropes do from the Republican Party, generally speaking. But I think something that's more urgent here, Jim, is that we have to figure out a way to weed these types of individuals out of the military.

And the military has this interview process where they ask a ton of questions. But maybe we do need to have an in depth online investigatory process. I remember when I was a presidential appointee, the FBI takes eight or nine months to go through your background check. Maybe we need something similar for individuals seeking to join our armed services.

ACOSTA: And Molly, speaking of the upcoming 2024 presidential race, Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, still hasn't officially announced that he's running for president, but he's acting like a potential candidate, obviously. Here he is last night in Peoria, Illinois, speaking to state Republicans and doubling down on Disney. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R) FLORIDA: It is wrong to teach a school child that they may have been born in the wrong body or that their gender is a choice. That is inappropriate.

[18:35:01]

And in Florida, we've made sure that is not happening in our schools. And when we said that was inappropriate, we got blowback from the left, from the corporate media. We even got challenged by Disney, who said that this was somehow wrong. And they had been very powerful in Florida for a long time, they'd gotten everything they wanted. But they don't run the state of Florida, we run the state of Florida and we are going to do what's right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: I can't believe I get to ask this question. But how is that playing in Peoria? I mean, it was in Peoria.

JONG-FAST: I guess people in Peoria don't like Disney, but the larger problem here is that Ron DeSantis is not running in a Republican primary against Mickey Mouse. He's not running against the Disney Corporation. He's running against Donald J. Trump, who has gotten - who was basically wiping the floor with him poll wise.

So I mean, DeSantis has like run this sort of baffling campaign. He's run to the right of Trump. So he's alienated everyone who would be maybe to the left of Trump and Trump is pretty far right. Now he has this sort of weird death match with Disney, which happens to be one of the largest employers in the state. I mean, good luck to him. I don't think this gets him anywhere in the primaries.

ACOSTA: Yes. Shermichael, I mean, what do you think of this thing with DeSantis and Disney? I mean, you've heard so many Republicans say this isn't working.

SINGLETON: Yes.

ACOSTA: Please stop. And he's doubling down. He's doing it again.

SINGLETON: Yes. Well, look at this in two ways. Molly's right that Trump is doing better than DeSantis in the polls. However, when you compare DeSantis to Biden versus Trump to Biden, DeSantis fares way better against the President than Donald Trump does. So that's one thing Republicans have to consider.

The second thing is, Jim, a lot of Republicans in the base do like this idea of taking it to the corporate entities. These entities that are adopting ideals that they believe is not in the interest of the country. They're moving in the wrong direction.

Now, as a conservative, I strongly believe that government has no business in private corporation allow the consumers and the general public to dictate what they're spending what they want and don't want. But I do understand the politics behind it. And I think it's a bit smart on DeSantis part.

ACOSTA: All right. Interesting. And, Molly, let's turn to - I know you've been focusing a lot on what's happening in the States. Let's turn to another issue that's going to motivate a lot of voters in the months ahead. That is abortion. It did in the midterms. It's - it did in 2020, it's likely going to happen again in 2024.

Today, in North Carolina, Democratic Governor Roy Cooper took to the stage to veto a controversial bill that would ban most abortions after 12 weeks. Molly, Republicans have a supermajority in the state legislature. They're likely to override this veto. Is that a good idea for the Republican Party nationally?

JONG-FAST: Well, it's so interesting with abortion because Republicans have caught the car. They're the dog that caught the car. They were they were doing so much better on abortion when Roe was the land - was the law of the land.

But as soon as Roe got overturned, you had all these horror stories of women having miscarriages and being unable to be treated, the stories of the young teenage girls who got raped, who needed to be driven to different states.

I mean, this is just a nightmare for Republicans. And the polling, by the way, what has really convinced Americans that abortion as health care is taking it away. So the polling on this has never been - Americans have never been more pro choice than they are right now. And part of that is because we used to live in a pro choice country.

I mean, for 50 years, women had the right to end a pregnancy. And there were restrictions and a lot of people believe that there should be restrictions. But ultimately, you have doctors afraid to treat. And I think what's going to happen and again, we saw this in the midterms, we saw this in 2020, we saw this in 2018. I mean, obviously, that was a little bit before.

But we are seeing women who are really furious and I think we're going to see more of that. And then again, Republicans have these other state laws like these child labor laws, and also these no fault - trying to end no fault divorces, which is another thing that I think is going to hurt them.

ACOSTA: What do you think, Shermichael, do you want to see state lawmakers on the - in the Republican Party going after abortion, the way they are in North Carolina right now? Or might that continue to supercharge the Democratic base?

SINGLETON: Oh, it's a political idea. I'm a strategist, I look at data and metrics, metrics and methodologies. And remember Wisconsin with Janet Protesiewicz ...

ACOSTA: Right.

SINGLETON: ... she won and we activated college voters at levels we haven't seen ever in that particular state, it activated women, suburban women, groups that once upon a time voted Republican. When you look at the modeling on this particular issue, you're talking about activating women across the demographic board.

Republicans do not fare well on this.

[18:39:54]

And it's why, Jim, when Donald Trump was asked that question the other night with Kaitlan Collins, he danced around it. He did not want to specifically address it because he knows the data does not look bright for Republicans on this particular issue. Molly's right, we should have left it alone, but now we haven't and now we're going to pay the consequences.

ACOSTA: All right. Shermichael Singleton, Jong-Fast, thanks to both of you. I really appreciate the time.

SINGLETON: Thanks, Jim.

ACOSTA: All right. Coming up, police say a Texas woman traveled to another state seeking an abortion when she came back this man, her boyfriend allegedly killed her. More on this disturbing case next. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:44:43]

ACOSTA: A Texas man is charged with murder accused of choking and shooting his girlfriend. The possible motive, police said, she traveled to another state to get an abortion.

CNN's Isabel Rosales joins us now.

Isabel, what more can you tell us about this very disturbing case?

[18:45:00]

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Jim, this all unfolded on Wednesday where Dallas Police were answering a 911 call. So they rushed to the parking lot of a gas station and there on the ground, they found 26 year old Gabriella Gonzalez shot and killed.

So according to court documents, they went through the surveillance video and then they saw Harold Thompson and Gonzalez walking shortly before that fatal shooting. They saw at one point Thompson attempting to put Gonzalez into a chokehold. And when she shrugged that off, the court documents indicate that he pulled out a gun, shot Gonzalez in the head. And then when she fell to the ground, continued to shoot at her. She's a mother of three.

This is - what else the court documents indicated an arrest warrant saying further investigation revealed that Gonzalez went to Colorado to get an abortion and return the night before. It is believed that the suspect was the father of the child. The suspect did not want the complainant to get an abortion.

Now, Texas is arguably one of the most aggressive abortion restrictions in the nation. Colorado is totally on the opposite side, one of the most permissive states in order to get access to abortion care. We continue to, Jim, go through the court documents here and it says that during the shooting, Thompson actually had an active warrant against him for family violence strangulation, this due to a March incident that happened while Gonzalez, it says there in the court documents, was pregnant with his child. That is what he told police. Gonzalez during that March incident told police that this has been a

repetitive history of violence that Thompson had beaten her up on multiple occasions. He has been charged with two offenses, murder and also assault of a household member. Right now, he has been denied bond by a judge and he is expected to have a public defender, Jim.

ACOSTA: All right. Isabel Rosales, thanks so much.

Still to come, is a major breakthrough in clean energy on the horizon inside the lab, trying to harness the same power the sun uses. You're live with the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:51:36]

ACOSTA: Tomorrow on CNN, see how streaming services changed the music industry in a new original episode of the CNN Original Series: The 2010s. Here's a preview.

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ESTE HAIM, MUSICIAN: I was best friends with Kesha and I heard TikTok for the first time and I was like, I'm probably never going to see you again once this comes out.

I instantly knew it was going to be a hit and the video was totally Kesha, fun, irreverent. That was Kesha. That was quintessentially her.

BENNY BLANCO, PRODUCER AND SONGWRITER: 2010 was so insane. One time me and Kesha were like, let's write a song, and then she's like - we went and got fully drunk, rode the subway. All - everyone got tattoos and then we came back and we're like, I guess we'll write a song.

AMANDA PETRUSICH, WRITER, THE NEW YORKER: This is when we saw pop music and EDM, which is electronic dance music, kind of meet and merge in a particularly compelling way.

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ACOSTA: All right. A new episode of the 2010s premieres tomorrow at 9 pm Eastern right here on CNN.

Scientists in California have made a major breakthrough in powering electric grids that involves the same clean energy that fuels the sun.

CNN's Bill Weir has a behind the scenes look.

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BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Inside this building, some very smart people built a star on Earth. Not the Hollywood kind. That`s easy.

No, the burning ball of gas in the sky kind. One of the hardest things human humans have ever tried. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAMMY MA, LEAD, INERTIAL FUSION ENERGY INITIATIVE: I was at the airport when my boss called me and I burst into tears.

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WEIR (voice over): Tammy Ma is among the scientists who have been chasing nuclear fusion for generations.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Countdown for a shot. On my mark, three, two, one, mark.

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WEIR (voice over): And in the middle of a December night, they did it.

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WEIR (On camera): And you only need a tiny little bit of fuel?

MA: That`s right, yes.

WEIR: (Inaudible) ...

MA: Because our little pellet that sits right in the middle, you can`t even see on this target, is just two millimeters in diameter.

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WEIR (voice over): That target includes an abundant isotope found in seawater and goes into a chamber about the size of a beach ball in the '60s, but is now a round room, 30 feet across with 192 massive lasers aimed at the center.

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MA: They`re big laser beams, about 40 by 40 centimeters.

WEIR (on camera): Wow.

MA: Each one alone is one of the most energetic in the world. Every time we do a shot, it`s a

Thousand times the power of the entire U.S. Electrical grid.

WEIR: Wow.

MA: But your lights don`t flicker at home when we take a shot. So we`re doing is taking a huge amount of energy and compressing it down, just in 10 nanoseconds.

WEIR: Right.

MA: So it`s about $14 of electricity.

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WEIR: The National Ignition Facility then amplifies all that concentrated energy on the target, and if they get it just right, more energy comes out than went in, with no risk of nuclear meltdown or radioactive waste.

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MA: In a fusion power plant, you would shoot the same target over and over at about 10 times a second, dropping a target in and shooting it with laser.

WEIR (on camera): So you`d need a target loader, like a machine gun or something, right?

MA: We need a target loader, exactly.

So there`s still many, many technology jumps that we need to make, but that`s what makes it so exciting, right?

JENNIFER GRANHOLM, U.S. ENERGY SECRETARY: A lot of people were saying you've invested all this money, it's time to pull the plug because you guys haven't achieved ignition.

[18:55:00]

WEIR: Right.

GRANHOLM: I mean, it's called the National Ignition Facility, right? And ...

WEIR: At some point, you are better.

GRANHOLM: ... at some point, you better ignite, yes, exactly.

I mean, it's really hard to replicate the process that's happening on the sun, on Earth. It's just really hard. And so, when that happened in December, what it said is that this is actually possible. So, it's no longer a question of whether. It's just a question of when that fusion is actually possible. Now, let's get to work.

WEIR: Well, conventional wisdom and the International Energy Agency tells us it'll be decades before anybody is really plugging anything into fusion electricity, there was a startup called Helion, which says they have a reactor that can fire plasma rings at a million miles an hour, and will demonstrate electricity by next year. And in fact, in a first of a kind, power purchase agreement, Microsoft has already bought fusion electricity from Helion for the year 2028. The future is coming fast.

Bill Weir, CNN, in Northern California.

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ACOSTA: All right. Coming up, President Zelenskyy is giving a preview of Ukraine's much anticipated counter offensive saying it will start soon. What that could look like next. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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