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CNN International: Trump Team, Prosecutors Spar In 1st Hearing Since Immunity Ruling; Trump Gives Econ Speech At New York Economic Club; U.S. Accuses RT Employees Of Election Influence Scheme; 2 Students, 2 Teachers Killed, 14-Year-Old In Custody; Hunter Biden Offers To Plead Guilty In Tax Trial Without Deal. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired September 05, 2024 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:34]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: It's 8:00 p.m. in London, 10:00 p.m. in Moscow, 3:00 p.m. here in Washington.

I'm Jim Sciutto. Thanks so much for joining me today on CNN NEWSROOM.

And let's get right to the news.

We begin with the first court hearing on Donald Trump's January 6 indictment since the Supreme Court granted the former president partial immunity, it was progress sort of.

District Judge Tanya Chutkan did not finalize a schedule for next steps in the case, acknowledging the outstanding legal questions from the court's immunity ruling may make setting a trial date, quote, an exercise in futility. But she did signal the upcoming presidential election where ballots go out in some states as early as tomorrow will not impact her thinking saying clearly, quote, this court is not concerned with the electoral schedule.

CNN's Jessica Schneider, with me for more.

So, Jessica, futile now to talk about a trial date, but did they make any progress towards getting to that point?

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: It looks like any trial date will be well-off, Jim, and it's because this federal judge, Tanya Chutkan, she needs to deal with these very heavy immunity issues, first. And the initial question is, how is she going to deal with those immunity issues? The prosecutors, they want to be able to submit a brief arguing why their superseding indictment that they filed a week ago is within the parameters of what the Supreme Court put forward in its July 1st decision.

Trump's attorneys, however, they want to go much more piecemeal, of course, much more slowly. They want to deal with individual immunity issues piece-by-piece. They're telling the judge, we want to argue that all of the communications with Vice President Mike Pence, those never should have been presented to the grand jury. Those shouldn't have any bearing on this latest its indictment and we think the fact that he's even still mentioned in there should make you dismiss the indictments.

So there are a lot of very small but important legal, technical issues that this judge has to deal with first. And basically, despite the fact that this was about an hour and 15 minute hearing, we didn't come to or see any conclusions from the judge. She did say that she would issue some sort of scheduling order about how she will proceed with this case. It could come as soon as today, probably within the next several days for sure.

She is going to tell both parties how to proceed here, how to argue it. I mean, she laid it out. She said she had as to deal with this overriding immunity issue first, this is what she said. She said we all know that whatever my decision on immunity is, it's going to be appealed. But she said there needs to be some forward motion in this case and immunity is the linchpin here.

So that's where she has to start. She has to find out if this superseding indictment that cut out several pages of the original indictment, if that now comports with what the Supreme Court said, the special counsel could charge in this case because remember, the Supreme Court said that you can't -- that a former president is immune for official acts. They can't be charged for those official acts. But then there's some gray area about other official acts that prosecutors actually might be able to charge.

So there's a lot of minutiae here, Jim, that this trial level judge has to deal with now.

SCIUTTO: So, Trump's attorneys are attempting at least to get this case thrown out on several different grounds. Can you briefly explain their arguments and how the judge responded to them?

SCHNEIDER: Yeah. They're throwing a lot at it and ill kind of lay out the big too. I mean, the first one is they say that the grand jury -- remember, this was actually a different grand jury that handed up the first indictment.

They're saying that this latest grand jury that handed up this indictment and that was issued a week ago, they say that that grand jury actually heard evidence that should have been within the scope of immunity. So they say that this whole indictment should be wiped out because the federal grand jury shouldn't have heard a lot of the evidence. So that's one argument.

The second argument they're making, they were actually successful with down in Florida. They will once again make the argument that Jack Smith, the special counsel in this case, was unlawfully appointed, that it violates the Constitution. It is a very far off argument. It was successful in Florida.

However, Judge Chutkan has already told Trump's team, its likely not going to be successful here because there is binding precedent from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that says the special counsel can be appointed by the attorney general.

[15:05:03] And there's precedent dating all the way back to Watergate.

So it's likely they won't succeed, but there's still going to press that and argument.

SCIUTTO: Jessica Schneider, thanks so much.

All right. Let's talk more with Jeff Swartz, former federal judge, law professor at Thomas Cooley Law School.

Jeff, good to have you. So --

JEFF SWARTZ, FORMER FEDERAL JUDGE: Nice to see you, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Some fiery exchanges in that hearing, particularly between the judge and Trump's attorneys. Did that give you a sense of where the judge is likely to go with some of these questions?

SWARTZ: I think what I what I gather from that was that she doesn't want to hear about the election. She doesn't want to hear about stalling. She doesn't want to hear about 19 or 2026. She doesn't want to hear any of that.

She wants to move forward with the case. She's made it clear she's not going to follow Aileen Cannon down Aileen's rabbit hole and she doesn't really even want to hear it. She's also got a case, the immunity issue that they're talking about with the grand jury has two basic three basic prongs.

The first one is -- deals with Mark Meadows and Mark Meadows has testimony working for the president as the chief-of-staff, but he's also handling things for the campaign. So Mark Meadows was wearing two hats and I think that that's going nowhere. It didn't go anywhere in Atlanta or in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals when Meadows appealed his -- his indictment.

The second prong is what happened on January 6. They're going to claim that Trump had immunity because he was the president of the United States. He was speaking to citizens and he was setting forth his -- his thought process as to how to protect the vote and protect the people who voted totally. And I don't think that's going to go anywhere either.

The third is a little bit different. And that is the idea that Pence is a vice president and therefore it was immune. There is, in fact, within the immunity case itself, what we call head note 34 and that is that the Supreme Court made it abundantly clear that Pence wears two hats.

SCIUTTO: Right.

SWARTZ: He is in Article One officer as the president of the Senate, and when Trump was talking to him about what he does in the Senate as the president of the Senate, that is not subject to immunity, and it is not privileged. And they've already decided this issue. It's right there in the immunity case. So I don't know what everybody's talking about that that's an issue. It's really not. It will be easy for Chutkan to answer.

SCIUTTO: Okay. If you can, how do you respond to the defense team's argument that the whole appointment of Jack Smith was illegitimate?

SWARTZ: Well, the idea that Aileen Cannon put out there is it dealt with the Appropriations Clause and it dealt with the power to make appointments. This has been dealt with by the D.C. Circuit and several other circuits that basically say no, he's a special prosecutor. He is an employee of the DOJ, and that the attorney general has the right to make appointments for the attorneys that worked for him.

And there is an open ended appropriation from Congress to pay for that. So, therefore, it is all been taken care of.

This -- her order was basically something that someone from the Federalist Society would write in a brief.

SCIUTTO: Right.

SWARTZ: It's basically what she did.

SCIUTTO: And, listen, I mean, it would -- it would blow up a lot of precedent giving them, a lot of special counsels over the last several decades going back to Watergate.

Before we go, I mean, listen, lets just stipulate in these terms that this is pretty remarkable that were three-and-a-half years out, more than January 6, and still dealing with basic questions for a whole host of reasons.

Where does this go? I mean, there will be no trial before the election. If Trump is elected --

SWARTZ: No.

SCIUTTO: -- all this goes away. If Trump loses, this would go forward, but when?

SWARTZ: I would anticipate that Chutkan is going to move the case forward. You might even see a trial date set in this matter in the near future or sometime after the election, possibly even after the inauguration, so that if Trump loses, okay, he goes to trial. If he wins, she knows he's going to end this.

So I think that that's somewhere where she's going to set, in January or February of next year is what we're looking at.

SCIUTTO: Yeah.

SWARTZ: But things are going to move forward as far as motions and discovery and everything else. And I think that's about where we're going to be. It won't be in December. I don't think she'll do anything until after the inauguration as far as the trial goes.

[15:10:02]

That's what I think.

SCIUTTO: Bottom line is, it's just amazing. The wheels of justice not moving very quickly.

Jeff Swartz, thanks so much.

SWARTZ: Yeah.

SCIUTTO: All right. Another topic, high tariffs, slashing federal regulations, a crackdown on waste, fraud and abuse spearheaded by Elon Musk. Those are some of the key tenets of Donald Trump's economic plan as he rolled out today at the Economic Club of New York.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I will create a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms, need to do it. Can't go on the way we are now.

And Elon, because he's not very busy, has agreed to head that task force.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: All right. With me now, CNN's business editor-at-large, Richard Quest.

Tackling waste, fraud, and abuse has been the white whale in Washington for 1,000 years, right? Of course, I'm going to be the one who does it.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR AT LARGE: Yeah.

SCIUTTO: Very basic question, how successful was Trump at that -- in his first term in office? He had four years as president.

QUEST: He rolled back an enormous number of regulations. The rules that he is very proud of no new rule could be added unless one was taken away, which was a very good way to proceed but it wasn't uniformly followed.

And the bulk of the rules and regulations and government restrictions related to things like clean water, clean air, the EPA, the drilling on government lands and things like that. Now, that's a political issue that those who likened versus those who don't.

So yes, he has experience, but this is a different league here. He said to tell you, you know, he says, the entire federal government, couple of million employees, trillion or so budget, and he's going to put Elon Musk in charge of that.

I owe -- the two big issues and problems here, number one, how is Mr. Musk to find the time to run a commission that's going to be looking into this? He can't -- he can be a titular head of it. Fair enough. But then you're not going to get his engagement.

And the second thing, remember one crucial point, Jim, government has roles and responsibilities, conflict of interests, different priorities in the private sector. You cannot, note I say, cannot run government as a private company.

SCIUTTO: Well, there's also the issue where Trump seems to want to run the federal government as a partisan operation, right, putting in partisan folks and inputs and position that used to be or have been through time meant to be nonpartisan. I do want to ask you about big picture economic issues, specifically tariffs, because tariffs are so central to his planning.

QUEST: Yeah.

SCIUTTO: Yesterday, Goldman Sachs analysts predicted that Harris's policies would boost the U.S. economy while Trump's would hurt GDP, due largely to tariffs and his promise for mass deportations.

Tell us why they believe those policies would hurt the U.S. economy.

QUEST: OK. I've looked into -- I've got the report on my desk and I've read a chunk of it so far. It's a basic economic tenet. If you're going to restrict immigration legal and/or otherwise, you're going to reduce the number of people available to work in fields in California or roads or whatever it is elsewhere in the country. So immediately, you're going to have a bottleneck and you're going to have an employment issue.

Secondly, if you put 20 percent tariffs on imported goods across the board, who pays for that? This is -- this is standard economics. This is not revolutionary stuff, by the way. And it's going -- and if you look for example, at the Petersons report on the 2017 tariffs, they suggest that actually middle-class America paid a high price for those types.

Which by the way, proving that we are evenhanded here, you know, notably, Biden did not remove those tariffs.

SCIUTTO: Right. Yeah.

QUEST: It's quite funny at the time, when those terrorists were introduced, Democrats screamed murder that they were going to destroy the economy. Democrats come into the White House and they don't take them away.

SCIUTTO: Yeah.

QUEST: And in fact, Harris has also got tariffs.

SCIUTTO: Yep. It's one of the -- another -- you know, one of the few bipartisan policies one being tariffs. Let me ask you this though, just adding to your questions about fundamental economics here and the president's -- the former president's description of them. He claimed that foreign tariff income, which doesn't exist, would somehow pay for childcare.

QUEST: The numbers according to that Goldman report, and the Peterson report, and a whole load of reports, they say the 2017 tariffs have not paid for themselves.

[15:15:05]

In other words economic growth has not made up for the diff -- the loss of economic growth is greater than the money brought in by the tariffs. And there is little, well, as that'll doubt there will be some of -- you find somebody. By and large, 20 percent tariffs will be more costly than any gains that are made.

The reality I- , the reality is the Goldman report has taken individual bits of both sides and say, if you do this, our model show this will happen. This is Wall Street saying it.

SCIUTTO: Right.

QUEST: You know, and as much arguably, Goldman has a good percentage of Democrats supporters if you look historically. And it's a difficult one. It really is tricky.

SCIUTTO: Yeah, but they also got to make money for their clients, right? So they have to ask these questions, right? Because folks are going to be investing money based on these policies or losing perhaps money. I mean, it's going to impact their businesses.

QUEST: Yeah, absolutely.

SCIUTTO: That's why they raise reasonable questions about income and tariffs.

QUEST: Which is fascinating how both -- the both parties have got tariffs as part of their agenda, something that when I started would have been unthinkable able to have that sort of philosophy. But now, does your policy, tariffs.

SCIUTTO: Mercantilism. Richard Quest --

QUEST: Oh, nice.

SCIUTTO: -- thanks so much. Drag that out of my like eighth grade history class.

Be sure to stick around in next hour for more expert economic analysis on "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS".

Still ahead this hour, inside the Kremlin's plan to interfere with the 2024 U.S. presidential election. The new details linking Russia to a U.S. media company with ties to right-wing social media stars. That's next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: The Biden administration has formally accused Russia of a sustained effort to meddle in the 2024 U.S. election. U.S. officials say Moscow is using Kremlin-run media and other online platforms to target U.S. voters with disinformation.

[15:20:05]

The Justice Department is accusing Russian state media company, RT, of funding a Tennessee company with ties to right-wing social media stars of pushing Russian propaganda with their help.

CNN's Zach Cohen joins me now.

Remarkable here because, of course, Russian interference in U.S. elections is familiar. It's happened before 2020, 2016, most notably, but this one seems to enlist with or without their knowledge. I suppose U.S. persons to help in that effort.

Can you explain what the DOJ is charging here?

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yeah, Jim, the details of this alleged operation that the Justice Department did announce charges against two Russian -- two Russian citizens yesterday. It does kind of give you a sense of how the Russian government and the Kremlin has -- how much they've learned about the U.S. media ecosystem over the last just four years. Like you mentioned, this was part of a sweeping announcement of actions from the Justice Department yesterday and part of it did come from this alleged operation that was run by two Russian nationals.

And these two Russian nationals enlisted the help of Americans and of this American Tennessee-based media company that we've independently identified as Tenet Media, and Tenet Media is connected to a series of right-wing social media stars with millions and millions of subscribers on both YouTube and other social media platforms. And the goal of this was really to use this U.S.-based platform, U.S.-based media company, to amplify pro-Russian narratives.

That includes pro-Donald Trump narratives. We know from the intelligence community's announcements just in the last few weeks that Russia once again favors or is assessed to favor Donald Trump in the upcoming 2024 election. They alleged that the Russian, Russian intelligence community and Russian operatives are once again seeking to influence American opinion and try to drive a pro-Trump narrative from seemingly dubious news sources. They're setting up fake websites, setting up fake websites that are designed to appear as legitimate to sort of trick Americans into thinking that fake news is real news.

And again, these arrests but now yesterday are part of that broader operation. But it is more sophisticated than what we've seen the U.S. Justice Department announced charges in connection with before. And again, the Biden administration taking a series of actions, including sanctioning several entities tied to the broader influence operation they say is ongoing and also seizing 32 Internet domains that they say were being used as part of this push to push fake news, anti-Ukraine news, anti-Kamala Harris and Joe Biden news in favor of that ultimate goal of trying to put Donald Trump back in the White House.

Now, it's worth noting, Jim, that Vladimir Putin, just today said the exact opposite. He said that Russia actually favors kamala Harris, mocking her laugh and sort of a tongue in cheek Vladimir Putin kind of way, and as we know, you can't take what Vladimir Putin says on face value. That's according to what U.S. officials have said consistently since 2016 and beyond. But again, you're seeing this play out in real- time and play out in a very public way.

SCIUTTO: Yeah, follow what the disinformation targets to get a sense of who actually Russia wants to weaken, who Russia wants to help.

Zach Cohen, thanks so much.

So to Zach's point, one day after this accusation from the Biden administration, here's the Russian president stirring the pot, praising Kamala Harris.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): As I said, our favorite, if you can call it, that, was the current president, Mr. Biden. But he was removed from the race and he recommended all his supporters to endorse Ms. Harris. Well, that is what we will do, too. We will support her.

And also, she laughs so expressively and infectiously, that it means that she is doing well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: White House national security spokesman John Kirby responded to those comments, telling Putin to just stop talking about the U.S. election.

Joining me now, adjunct professor at Georgetown, CNN contributor, Jill Doherty.

Jill, good to have you.

We should know, Putin went on to -- he went on to criticize Trump, saying the former president, quote, placed so many restrictions and sanctions on Russia like no other president has ever introduced before him, it almost sounds what Trump said, like Trump's says, Trump says there's no has been tougher on Russia than me.

You and I know the record. You know, Trump's frequent praise for Putin, strong leader, et cetera. His denial of Russian interference in the 2016 election, standing next to Putin in Helsinki and taking his word over the word of the U.S. intelligence committee -- community. So I wonder what you think Putin is trying to achieve here. Is he -- is he trolling?

JILL DOHERTY, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Oh, there's no question. This is classic Putin trolling and I looked at the video from that meeting. It's a meeting out in the far eastern Russia and the entire room exploded in laughter. You can see the anchor, the woman next to him, and she's laughing, too.

This is a big, you know, ha-ha. It's a snide. But I think what he's doing is, you can -- you can -- as you said, it's almost quoting what Donald Trump has said.

SCIUTTO: Yeah.

DOHERTY: And it's quoting some of the, you know, propaganda that's out there, especially kind of making front of her infectious, expressive laughing, Kamala Harris, and the restrictions that Trump had.

[15:25:10]

It is -- you know, this is another way of kind of messing with people? And this is what Trump likes to do. And, Jim, I would say that if you look at some of the response and I know we'll get into this with the RT response, a lot of Russian trolling and propaganda right now is making fun. You know, snide little comments, et cetera.

So, it's all part of the playbook.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you this. It strikes me that one difference going back to Russian interference in the 2016 election is just how open the -- or just how much commonality there is, right, between talking points you hear from Russia and from actors inside this country, right? I wonder, you know, what Russia has learned over the last eight years. And one thing that they've learned that they've got some advocates in the U.S. -- U.S. voices who echo Kremlin propaganda.

DOHERTY: They do. And that said, sometimes they -- people deliberately echo Russian talking points. Sometimes they don't know that they're quoting Russian talking points.

I mean, this is really kind of right now the world of disinformation, propaganda is really kind of a swirling mess its very, very difficult to pin down where something starts and where it ends up. Much of it is kind of the same.

And I would say, you know, big picture, what Russia has done more successfully this time is analyzed. How do Americans talk to each other? What are the issues? What are the hot-button issues that Americans start -- fights over, you know, increasing the divisions among Americans? And then they amplify that.

So that's part of it. And also, Russian propaganda does not at this point and this is very big right now -- it does not have to be consistent. There doesn't have to be a consistent message or a strategy. They can throw everything out there that is called, you know, the fire hose of disinformation. And it is.

It can be a whole bunch of stuff, some of itself contradictory, but ultimately confusing people and really almost de-politicizing people, making people just say, oh, I don't know, I give up.

SCIUTTO: Right. No, if -- they muddy the waters. So there is no truth, right, to some degree. You know, it's interesting. When you go back to 2016, the primary focus in response to this sort of thing seemed to be security. We need better security to prevent these kinds of intrusions, et cetera.

But it strikes me that -- I mean, as important as security is, that its really about education and information, is it not? I mean, you could put up all the barriers in the world, but if you have willing participants, including in this country willing to soak it up and believe it, it's about smarts more than it is about putting more locks on the doors.

DOHERTY: I would agree because I don't think it can put the locks on the doors anymore and look at some of the techniques. I mean, the Justice Department is alleging a lot of very interesting detail. And one of them is that the Russians are using more A.I., artificial intelligence, creating fake websites, fake websites that look like news, but they actually aren't, imitating Fox News, imitating "The Washington Post", et cetera, imitating Americans.

So if you don't know that those are the techniques, then you could very easily begin to be pulled into that world. That's why I do think that education, knowing how it's done, is really more important than trying to whack a mole, will go after all this. Pretty much impossible.

SCIUTTO: Goodness. Jill Doherty, thanks so much. I'm sure we'll be talking about again as we get closer to the election.

Still to come this hour, what we're learning about the latest, just the latest tragic school shooting here in this country. We'll be on the ground again in Winder, Georgia, as they struggle to understand this kind of violence. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:32:41]

SCIUTTO: Welcome back.

A community in this country is once again mourning the lives of students and teachers who went to school, but didn't come home. Two 14-year-old students and two teachers were killed in yesterdays mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia. There they are.

The shooter, a 14-year-old boy himself, has now been charged with 14 counts of felony murder, four counts. Rather, he used an AR-platform style weapon, so familiar, after leaving his algebra class. One of his classmates told CNN about the moment he then returned.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LYELA SAYARATH, APALACHEE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT: The moment that it happened, he was at the door and I knew there were looking for him already, but he was at the door and they almost let him in until they backed up, and then he turned away. And that's when you hear the first rounds of fire.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Amazingly, local law enforcement officials interviewed Colt Gray last year after the FBI then received a tip about a threat to school to shoot up a middle-school on the chat platform Discord. They closed that investigation after they found they couldn't substantiate the threat.

CNN's Nick Valencia, he's in Winder, Georgia.

Nick, Georgia is one of 24 states that do not have secure storage laws for guns. Do we know how this shooter got this gun?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's the big question.

We know that his father, as of last year, had hunting rifles in the home. We know that because the FBI put on a statement saying that this individual, when he was then 13, was interviewed by law enforcement officials because there were anonymous tips that he may have been posting threats online. He denied that he was the one behind those threats, and at the time, there was no probable cause according to police, to take him into custody, but it's that incident, Jim, that's being drawn back into focus because of what happened here yesterday.

We are talking to survivors of the shooting, people that knew the victims as well. And I want to bring in Isiah Hooks. He's on the defensive and offensive line here in the football team. He was one of the players for Coach A, as he's beloved called, affectionately called here.

Isiah, thank you so much for taking the time with CNN.

Talk to me about Coach A and what he meant to you.

ISIAH HOCKS, APALACHEE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT: I mean, Coach A, he was a really good guy. I met him last year and he was mostly additionally push us in that right direction to where we could learn to really be who we were going to be to access to become greater as a team, and as like as a whole.

[15:35:12]

VALENCIA: He meant a lot to you. I mean, you saw it sounds like every morning and yesterday you had said good morning to him.

HOCKS: Yeah, as usually, I always use always say let's make today a good day which I got from my siblings my sister, especially.

VALENCIA: That was the last thing that you told Coach A.

HOCKS: Yeah. Just have a good day is what I usually always say, but to find out that today wasn't a good day and to see all these people that are hurting right now, knowing that his family's hurting, that a good guy that helped make us who we were in helped us learn that we have this sometimes go pass what we usually do to become better as players in it's not sit back as much.

VALENCIA: What I'm hearing is that Coach A was somebody that you would turn to when things like this happen, when you needed somebody to give answers to, sort of explain the unexplainable and that person is now gone. That person is no longer here among the other victims.

I mean, that's hard, man. That's hard to hear.

HOCKS: Yes, sir. It really is having somebody that really because I get confused a lot because learning like a lot of stuff I used to usually be a lot more confused one, but usually you would try and help out with even moves that we can use on the line in just somebody that could help was just the best part and something that could help understand where you're coming from in a whole situation like this.

VALENCIA: We really appreciate you taking the time with us. We know that this is a difficult day for you. And if there's any final thoughts or anything that you'd like to say that we have you. Now's your chance.

HOCKS: I mean, I'll just say look out for everybody and this community just really just needs time to heal because of how far -- because I've been here a while. I grew up around this school because my siblings that have gone here and going from seeing a happy place, just seeing this it's horrible. This is how much its all change from this one action.

VALENCIA: Isiah Hocks, thank you so much for taking the time with CNN. Really appreciate you.

It's clear looking at people in their eyes hear what they're going through and trying to make sense of something that has become so common in America, certainly common for this journalist who has covered countless incidents like this -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: I hear you, Nick, and another child -- so many children have to suffer through it.

Well, sadly, not a lot being done to prevent the next mass shooting in this country. While they do come to seem inevitable, our next guest believes they are in fact preventable.

Jillian Peterson founded the Violence Project, studying the lives of mass shooters and why they come to pull the trigger.

Jillian, thanks for the work you do. We appreciate you joining us today.

JILLIAN PETERSON, PSYCHOLOGIST: Thanks so much for having me.

SCIUTTO: First, let's start with the profile, if we can. You've been researching mass shooters for several years now, speaking to shooters themselves as well as family members and friends to get a better sense. I know that Scott Galloway, he used this phrase, that the most

dangerous person in the world is a broke, alone, young male.

I wonder what you found, what patterns have you found with mass shooters?

PETERSON: Yeah, we see this really common pathway when it comes, particularly to school mass shooters. They tend to be young students of that school, usually 15 or 16 in this case 14, a bit younger, isolated, disconnected, often actively suicidal.

Many of them see themselves in previous shooters that came before them. They study other shooters and like in this case, they tend to leak their plans. They tell other people. They post things social media. There's lots of warning signs that we see in retrospect.

And then school mass shooters typically take guns from parents or family members because they're not old enough to purchase them themselves.

SCIUTTO: So this is the thing though, because in this case, there were warning signs to the point where law enforcement officials interviewed this child last year, as well as his father. But they said there was no probable cause to arrest at the time. I wonder was this in your view and obvious red flag missed, and I say red flag because, of course, you have these red flag laws that are described as a way forward here, or does it show the difficulty of relying on red flag laws, right?

Because what you just described exists a lot, an isolated kid in pain, you know, who goes through a bad period. I mean, obviously, there are degrees of this, but can you identify that in advanced to the point where you can pick someone up put them away, or at least take their gun away. Or is that just harder to do than we imagined?

[15:40:01]

PETERSON: This is complicated, and I think the answer to your question, I have multiple answers. So I would say yes, this was a clear red flag. If somebody is posting on social media that they are planning a school shooting, posting pictures of guns, that is a very clear red flag. Even if they say they're joking in, you have to intervene no matter what.

The problem is enforcement are not necessarily the people to intervene.

SCIUTTO: Right.

PETERSON: There's only so much that they can do because of crime actually hasn't been committed. So what we need in our schools is systems that can sort of wrap around these kids. What do they need? What's the intervention? How do we give them hope?

How do we make sure they're not suicidal? How do we connect them to the school and make sure we have long-term follow-up? And that's what I think was really missing in this case, is that follow-up piece.

SCIUTTO: Yeah. I mean who failed, I guess is the question here because so law enforcement does the interview but does it have enough evidence to charge or arrest.

You have the parents involved who said, yeah, I got guns in the house, but the kid doesn't have access to the guns. But then you have the other ingredient and we don't know yet how he got the weapon, is that it's just really darn easy to get a weapon, right? I mean, what is the failure or is it multiple failures in a case like this?

PETERSON: It's multiple failures in a case like this, its impossible to point your finger and say it was this one person.

What we see here is really a system failure where as this was investigated, it was determined nothing could be done. There was nobody to direct him to, no follow-up, and especially he when he moved from eighth grade to ninth grade and switches schools, oftentimes we see the records and the communication are lost there. And so what we really need to be doing is building these communication systems, these multi-disciplinary teams to make sure kids aren't slipping through the cracks like this.

SCIUTTO: Well, Jillian, I appreciate the work you're doing because it's -- you know, I can't count the number of school shootings I've had to cover and I'm sure in your -- the work you do and I know friends who've been through this and its so on and yet the country just seems to have decided were going to live with it.

But we appreciate the work you're doing and we hope to have you back as you continue to do it.

Coming up next, Secretary of State Antony Blinken is on the ground in Port-au-Prince to press for elections there as Haiti continues the struggle with gang violence.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:45:27]

SCIUTTO: We got breaking news out of Hunter Biden's California courtroom. The president's son has offered to plead guilty without a deal to nine tax offenses. This on what was to be day one of his federal tax evasion trial in California. The plea proceeding now underway.

CNN's Evan Perez is outside the courthouse.

So, earlier today, Biden had offered to resolve the case with a plea where he maintained his innocence, but won't accept punishment. Now this seems to be a standard plea. Can you explain?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, no, it's not actually a standard playing because he's trying to do a deal where he does not make an agreement or negotiation with the federal prosecutors. And so, that's why in court right now, prosecutors are still raising some objections to this because as you pointed out, what we began today with Hunter Biden's lawyers asking for is what's known as an Alford plea, where he would maintain his innocence, where he would proclaim his innocence, but accept whatever punishment came from these -- from these charges.

And part of that obviously would require for the judge to approve it. But judge, the prosecutors objected to it. There's a number of reasons including the fact that the Justice Department generally does not allow for Alford pleas. And one of the things prosecutors said today was simply put, Hunter Biden should just plead guilty to these crimes. That's what he should do.

Well, after a short break in court today, what we heard from the Hunter Biden team is a change of tactic and what they're asking for is some kind something called an open play, where he essentially says, I'm pleading guilty to these crimes up, but I want to do it if the judge without the agreement of the federal prosecutors.

One advantage for that, Jim, would be that he could try to present some mitigating evidence in some circumstances for why he should get some leniency from the court, something that, of course, he might not be able to get if he made a deal with prosecutors. Prosecutors so held a very, very hard line on Hunter Biden, as you remember, he was put on trial earlier this year in Wilmington, Delaware, on federal gun charges she was found guilty in that case, and look, what Hunter Biden's trying to do is walk out of this courthouse without having to go through the expense, millions of dollars spent on a five-week, potentially five-week trial.

Jim, one thing I should note, there's about 120 prospective jurors that have been sitting around here for several hours. I just saw them in the cafeteria, in the courthouse. They're waiting to see what the judge decides to do in this case -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: So, not an Alford plea, not a standard plea, but an open plea. We'll see what happens next.

Evan Perez outside the courthouse. Thanks so much.

PEREZ: Quite a bit of courtroom drama for one day, right?

SCIUTTO: Yeah, I hear you, maybe more.

We will be right back.

PEREZ: Yeah.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:50:18]

SCIUTTO: Welcome back.

Secretary Blinken arrived in Haiti earlier today, showing U.S. support for the country during just a tumultuous period of gang violence, and as well to push for elections there. Blinken's visit, the first by an American secretary of state, nearly a decade, comes a day after the Haitian government extended a state of emergency for the entire country due to ongoing and deadly gang violence. Haiti has not held election since 2016 which government officials have blamed on the growing presence of those gangs.

Joining me now from Port-au-Prince is Martin Dickler. He is the country director for CARE in Haiti.

Martin, thanks so much for joining us.

MARTIN DICKLER, COUNTRY DIRECTOR, CARE HAITI: Thank you for having me.

SCIUTTO: So, first, we've heard such tumultuous reports from the ground there, including from our own reporters. Can you describe the situation there now?

DICKLER: Yes. Haiti is rapidly descending to acute hunger situation. We have a large scale displacement of people fleeing Port-a-Prince, the capital city, the health care system is on the brink of collapse and the situation remains volatile. The population continues to feel the acute in impacts of this crisis.

Women and girls are disproportionately affected by this. There has been a rapid increase of gender-based violence in March. It was a four-fold increase in that.

And the health system, as I mentioned, is becoming a dysfunctional, only one-quarter of health facilities in the country are operating at this time.

SCIUTTO: I know that through the years, there have been -- there's been some skepticism about the U.S. role in Haiti. I wonder what you hope comes out of Secretary Blinken's visit. Is it welcomed there and do folks have confidence that the U.S. can help deliver peace?

DICKLER: We are very grateful for Secretary Blinken's visit. You know, U.S. leadership is critical to helping Haitians improve their situation. What Haitians want and need is stability and safety. And although humanitarian assistance continues to be carried out, what is really needed is increased and more sustainable and flexible humanitarian assistance from the U.S. and other members of the international community.

SCIUTTO: What is the most urgent need there? And would an international peacekeeping force or stabilization force make a difference in your view?

DICKLER: Well, the most urgent need is to meet the crisis of food insecurity. You know, half the population is facing hunger on a daily basis. And what is really needed is increased humanitarian assistance to face these historical levels of food insecurity and people fleeing violence. Haitians are very resilient. But if safety and stability can be secured, an increased, that will allow for the Haitian people to be able to recover from the crisis and for a humanitarian responders such as care and the local partners be worked with to be able to respond further. And reach more people and more areas of the country.

SCIUTTO: Are you able to? Because I imagined delivering that aid to those people who need it the most for groups such as yours is not easy and might very well be dangerous.

DICKLER: No, that is very true. I mean, the lack of movement of people and goods because many roads and routes in the country are blocked, is a major problem.

As I mentioned before, there's a large scale displacement of people fleeing the Haiti, fleeing the capital city for the countryside and the other areas of the country.

However, we do have teams in place in many of the major regions of the country and working together with local responders and many members of our teams are also members of the communities were able to reach a lot of people.

This -- this goal does not go without difficulties for our team. Several of them actually were separated from their families, from their children for several months during the latest crisis. But nevertheless, people in Haiti are extremely resilient. And the members of our team, all humanitarian responders in the country are extremely committed and dedicated to their work.

SCIUTTO: Well, Martin Dickler, we appreciate the work that you do, that CARE does there, and we wish you safety in the coming days and weeks as he goes through this. Thanks so much for joining.

DICKLER: Thank you very much.

[15:55:01]

SCIUTTO: And thanks so much to all of you for joining me today. I'm Jim Sciutto in Washington.

And "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS" is up next.