Return to Transcripts main page

CNN This Morning

News Update on MSU Shooting; Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) is Interviewed about Nikki Haley's Run for President; Inflation Still Hot in January. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired February 14, 2023 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

QUESTION: I understand that police made contact with the suspect before he shot himself. Can you explain what that contact was and the timeframe before he shot himself?

CHRIS ROZMAN, INTERIM DEPUTY CHIEF, MSU DEPT. OF POLICE AND PUBLIC SAFETY: So, I don't have any additional information on the sequence of events when law enforcement contacted the suspect. There was a tip called in from an alert citizen that reported the suspect. That call was dispatched to resources that we had deployed in the field. We had so many police officers on campus as part of our unified command structure, we started deploying resources off campus in order to respond --

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: You have been listening to a press conference in East Lansing, Michigan. There you see the person who is in charge of the department of public safety there, and interim chief, Chris Rozman. And many folks are just giving emotional -- being emotional this morning. A little bit more emotional than we usually see in these situations but saying that Elissa Slotkin, who is a congresswoman there, and saying you should be outraged with this. Gretchen Whitmer this morning speaking. And the person who is in charge of hospital staff breaking down this morning. You could hear the governor saying behind him, you've got this. As well as Teresa Woodruff, who is the interim president of the university as well becoming emotional.

But basically, Kaitlan, what we found out is that the three people who died are students. The five who are in critical condition are students. And we found out the name of the gunman, 43-year-old Anthony Dwayne McRae.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, and this is such a close-knit community in East Lansing. I think that's why you saw so much of the emotion there and hearing that they are all students.

We also learned a lot, though, about the suspect in this, who we know died of that self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Let's talk about that more with CNN's chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller.

John, you were listening to it alongside with us. What stood out to you from what you heard?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, the fact that there is no association with the university, no known motive.

But what we do know about the encounter last night is, police put out the photo of the suspect that you're looking at right now. In one of those photos you can see what appears to be a pistol in his hand as he's coming in the door, which he seems to be putting away. In the next photo you see him moving closer. There was a third photo of him from behind. They put those out on Twitter and they urged the public, if you see this person, call.

The call comes in from someone who sees him walking. There's a state police unit that's on patrol that picks up that call. Resources from all over the county, state police and other departments were there outside the campus while they were focused inside the campus. They roll up on him. They ask to repeat the description. They say, black pants, jean jacket, backpack, red shoes. They approach him. He fits the description head to toe. And when they engage with him, he pulls out the weapon and shoots himself.

They separate him from the gun, start CPR. In a backpack, they find a second weapon and numerous magazines loaded with ammunition.

LEMON: Do we know what kind of weapons?

MILLER: We don't but -

LEMON: Because they said in the press conference -- they did not give the information at least. They probably know, but just didn't give the information.

MILLER: But we know two handguns. One in the backpack, one that he used on himself. We don't know which or both he used in the school shooting. But ATF will be tracing those weapons to their source.

What do we know about Anthony Dwayne McRae? He has a criminal record in and around Lansing, Michigan. A gun arrest that goes back to 2019. He was charged with a felony for possession of a loaded weapon in a car. That was pled down to a misdemeanor. We're still going through those records, but it appears he got probation.

And not being a convicted felon, it's possible that he could legally purchase firearms and get through a background check. But ATF will be going through, where do those guns come from, when were they purchased, by whom, how did he get them and so on.

LEMON: So, no connection to the university. So, the question is motive. And they did not talk about motive at this point. So, they still don't know.

MILLER: So, that's a blank. But the search warrant they conducted at that house on Howe (ph) Avenue in East Lansing is to get any weapons, any evidence, any computers, any phones, anything that they can get into and look for the planning process, possible indicators of motive and so on. So, there will be a lot unfolding today that may give them a richer picture, but that's not certain.

COLLINS: Yes. And they said it was a caller's -- someone who called in to tell them what they had seen, that actually is what led them to him. Said how - how vile that was.

MILLER: That's right. And -

LEMON: They released that - a photograph, right, and a caller's tip led to --

MILLER: When they tweeted out the picture, they started to get a lot of calls and sightings -

COLLINS: That's really good.

MILLER: Of people who weren't him, but fit the general description.

[08:35:02]

But this call was the golden ticket. It was the right call, right description and it turned out to be the right suspect.

LEMON: The White House this morning saying last night President Biden spoke with Governor Whitmer on the shooting at Michigan State. The FBI and additional law enforcement deployed to support local state response efforts there.

And you heard -- you saw the head of the Michigan FBI, Special Agent --

MILLER: That's right, Jim Tarasca. And the FBI will bring a lot of resources to this. You heard Deputy Chief Rozman say, we're working on the crime scene and the campus and so on, but the FBI and the state police are doing that deep dive into the suspect's background to see, you know, who is he, what can we learn about him and how do we connect him to this incident in terms of motive since there is a total lack of any relationship. Apparently, he never worked at the school, never taught at the school, never went to the school. So, why was he drawn to that school specifically and those two buildings and those victims?

COLLINS: Yes. A lot of big questions. And you mentioned Whitmer's call with Biden. She actually went to MSU. So, she knows this community so well, obviously. They live in East Lansing.

LEMON: And, remember, she was a part of a plot --

MILLER: When you think of the overarching drama here, Don, the governor was targeted by a plot of right-wing white supremacist who wanted to take her and her family hostage in the governor's mansion and they were from multiple states, and they met in online chat rooms. They're talking about the Oxford High School shooting where you had numerous - you had four children killed and seven more shot in a case where --

LEMON: (INAUDIBLE) -

MILLER: You had a troubled young man and even his parents were charged for negligence.

LEMON: Yes.

MILLER: So, I think what you're seeing is a lot of revisiting of all the trauma that's been going around the people who are supposed to work us through the trauma.

COLLINS: Yes.

LEMON: Yes, old wounds. And that's why so much emotion we noticed at this press conference.

COLLINS: Yes, the governor's mansion is based in East Lansing.

John Miller, really valuable insight into this. I know you'll be staying on top of this. So, we'll stay with you as well.

MILLER: Thanks.

LEMON: Thanks, John.

COLLINS: As we are tracking the developments that are coming out of the Michigan State University shooting, we're also learning new developments on the political front. Nikki Haley has now confirmed she will be running for president in 2024. We're going to talk with a congresswoman who represents her home district, actually, Nancy Mace. She's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:40:39]

COLLINS: Nikki Haley is in. The former South Carolina governor and Trump's ambassador to the United Nations is now running for president in 2024. So, who better to talk about all of this with than her fellow South Carolinian, Republican Congressman Nancy Mace, who represents Haley's home district, we should note.

Good morning, Congresswoman, and thank you for joining us on this.

You know, Nikki Haley endorsed you in your Republican primary. Are you going to endorse her in this Republican primary?

REP. NANCY MACE (R-SC): Oh, that's a great question. It looks like I may or may not have multiple constituents from South Carolina running. But I'll tell you this, Nikki Haley is a very good friend of mine. She's a mentor. She works harder than anybody that I know. And when I had my Republican primary last year with the former president coming after me vigorously, I was one of the only Republicans to beat him in a primary last year, she was one of the only people to return my call. And she was one of the only elected officials with as high a profile as she has two endorsed me, supported me, raised money for me and took that on with me. And so I have tremendous respect and gratitude and love for her. And I want to see, you know, how the field shakes out and see how it's set. But I will tell you, you know, I have great love for her and I'm

excited to see her enter the race. I've said this multiple times before, I believe Republicans need to have a woman on the ticket in one way or another. And I think she would be -- could be fantastic.

COLLINS: You know, she once said she wouldn't run for the Republican nomination if Trump was running. Obviously, he now is and she is running as well. Are you glad that she changed her mind?

MACE: I am. I am glad. And, in fact, I said to her personally, you know, a year ago that I hope that she would run no matter what because it's important for us.

I have a daughter. I want to see our daughters have someone to look up to who can be in the White House one day as a woman. I believe it's really important for us to take that step and to be the ones to elect a woman to be president.

So, from that perspective, I think it's exciting. She's more than qualified for the job. She's got experience on the global scale. She has experience in the executive side of things as a former governor, former U.N. ambassador. She's got all the qualifications to run for president.

COLLINS: And you mentioned that you may have multiple constituents in the race. That's because Senator Tim Scott, who is also from South Carolina, is taking the steps that you'd take if you're going to run for president. If he enters the race, though, do you think a big primary field is going to actually benefit former President Trump?

MACE: I think it could. And I'll tell you, South Carolina is the most important state in the Republican primary. And to see someone, you know, see some of the leadership coming out of South Carolina is exciting. But I do have concerns if there are too many people on the ballot by the time it gets to South Carolina that, you know, that lessens the chances of anyone else sort of coming out in this thing. And so that's a concern from my perspective about the number of people running. I'd like to see it small.

But, South Carolina is the first in the south. And, generally speaking, traditionally, for the last few decades, if you win South Carolina, you go on to win the nomination. So, the fight for the nomination will be in our state and I look forward to a vigorous series of debates and seeing the candidates that come out.

COLLINS: How many is too many, do you think?

MACE: I mean, I'm not a pundit here. I would say it would great if there were less than six. I don't think that's going to happen. But I think we'll see, you know, upwards of ten or a dozen potentially. But it will dwindle down by the time it gets to South Carolina. It should be less than ten.

COLLINS: OK. And, Congresswoman, you know, I know you have big questions about what we are seeing with the Biden administration's handling of these downed objects that we have seen following the downing of that Chinese spy balloon off the coast of your home state. Are you satisfied with how the White House has been handling this so far?

MACE: I - I'm not. I have more questions than I have answers. I thought the press conference yesterday was a little bungled. You know, we were told a week ago that they didn't shoot down the Chinese balloon over -- across the United States, they wanted to wait until it got to the Atlantic side and the Atlantic Ocean, and then yet this weekend we saw there were three other objects that were shot down over U.S. territory, over land.

[08:45:00]

And so, from that perspective, too, I have many questions.

But also, any suggestion that the administration doesn't know what these objects are or where they came from is just not - is simply not true. They're not going to shoot an object down from the sky without having eyes on it, without verifying what it is and where it came from.

And so we do have an unclassified briefing today with Congress. I'm looking forward to getting in a SCIF and getting the real answers to real questions that we can talk about in a classified setting.

COLLINS: And are you worried about the recovery of information from this? Because that's one thing they've pointed to. But CNN is now learning that the United States and Canada may not be able to recover the debris of these three objects. That would, obviously, prevent them from being able to find out what they were maybe looking for with those objects.

MACE: Certainly that's a concern. I'm glad they're out of U.S. and Canadian skies. But again, they're not going to shoot anything down that they've not already verified what it is. They have radar. They have satellite. They have other classified means to verify what is in our skies and potentially what it's doing.

I am concerned. I would like to see that debris collected. But again, they know what it is. They're just unwilling to share it with Congress yet.

COLLINS: They're using missiles to shoot these objects down. We actually learned that the one that they tried to shoot down over Lake Huron, they missed on the first one. They had to use a second missile. Are you comfortable with the U.S. military scrambling fighter jets, using missiles to down objects over U.S. airspace?

MACE: Well certainly it's concerning because we want to make sure that any debris that reaches the ground doesn't hurt civilians. But I'll tell you, we have jets that are scrambling all the time. We have jets in our U.S. airspace all the time. It's part of their job. It's part of their training exercises. So that, in my experience and knowledge, is not an anomaly. The anomaly is shooting these objects down after we were told a week ago that they wouldn't shoot them down over U.S. land because they were worried about civilians getting hurt. So, again, there's some mixed messaging and they could clarify what's

actually going on. And I wish that they would. I wish the secretary of defense would come out and also the president of the United States, potentially. If we shoot any more of these down, I'm worried about what the concerns that American citizens will have and the fear that we might be stoking by doing this without providing more information.

COLLINS: All right, Congresswoman Nancy Mace, thank you so much for weighing in on that very important presidential announcement from our home state, but also what's happening on Capitol Hill today.

MACE: Exciting. So exciting. Thank you.

COLLINS: Thank you.

LEMON: And this happening right now, a key inflation report has just been released. Our Christine Roman standing by to break down those numbers.

Hi, Christine.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:52:14]

LEMON: Let's talk money. This just in, a key inflation measure shows that some prices dropped in January.

Our chief business correspondent Christine Romans is here to talk about that.

So, what do the numbers say? Everyone's worried about inflation.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, inflation has been issue number one for American families for a year now. And we're seeing overall moderating inflation but still too high. I think these numbers tell you the Fed still has work do.

Over the past 12 months, consumer prices soaring 6.4 percent. A little bit hotter than economists had expected. And when you look at the month over month, that's the number a lot of people are watching this morning, up 0.5 percent. It is shelter and food and gas are the big reasons here.

When I show you the chart, you can see the peaking we've been talking about. Really important to show that. But it has been a slow peaking here. And, honestly, this is still an uncomfortable feeling number.

Gasoline prices up again. They had fallen in December. They were up in January. You can see that food prices are up double digits over the past year. Every family feels that. And shelter was the big driver of these numbers. Inside the numbers, look, if you go to the grocery store, in your shopping cart you are feeling inflation every day. Hotdogs, I call them hotdogs, the government calls them frankfurters, up 11 percent over the past year. Eggs up 70 percent. Now, wholesale egg prices have fallen in the past week and a half, so I'm hoping this is rearview mirror. Lettuce, a head of lettuce, up 17 percent over the past year.

LEMON: Wow.

ROMANS: Coffee up 13 percent.

LEMON: Oh.

ROMANS: And butter, I mean, those little sticks of butter in front of me here are like gold at the moment, you know, up almost 30 percent over the past year.

So, some of the things are just - are just feeling intractable here in family budgets. People trying to figure out how to shift around and buy other things. But, shelter, it's hard to switch shelter every month, right? You can try to drive less or you can try to carpool, you can try to manage gasoline prices, but shelter is a real problem there overall.

So I say, these numbers show, I think, the Fed still has work to do to slow the economy, to get inflation under control. Going in the right direction, really important, seven months in a row of that headline number, that 6.4 percent you see. Seven months in a row of that getting a little bit smaller every month, but still 6.4 percent doesn't feel great when you go to the grocery store or fill up -- you know, buy anything really.

COLLINS: Yes. And those are things people are buying every time they go to the grocery store. It's not like that's something they're buying once a month.

So, basically, the message seems to be long road to recovery, right?

ROMANS: Yes. And I think the Fed chief had told us this last week, that it is going to be a bumpy road and that, you know, inflation is starting to come down, but we have more work to do. And I think that's why it's sort of frustrating at this point, right, because we've seen these numbers every month get less bad, but when are they going to be good? You know, that's where -- we still haven't turned that corner yet -- quite yet.

[08:55:00]

So, the Fed still has more work to do. That means higher interest rates. Higher interest rates raise borrowing costs, as you all know. And so the family budget feels it either way, either in the higher cost for buying things or in the higher interest rates, you know, to finance their lifestyle. So, I'm cautiously optimistic that we are going in the right direction here and I'm really hoping that egg prices over the next couple of weeks reverse.

LEMON: I like that you say you're cautiously optimistic.

ROMANS: Yes.

LEMON: Because, remember, we had this whole discussion about talking ourselves into a recession.

ROMANS: Exactly.

LEMON: We don't want to do that. But I see - I see you've got the food there, but you have an interesting story about toilet paper and why its -

ROMANS: So, the toilet paper story is really fascinating. So, the downturn in the housing market has slowed building construction and has slowed some of these mills that make products - you know, like the tree products, the -- they also make paper products. So, because of the slowing in the housing market, you're actually seeing toilet paper prices go up. They're up 20 percent over the past year or so, toilet paper prices, because of the slowing housing market. Isn't it fascinating how the economy is so intertwined?

LEMON: It is.

COLLINS: wow.

LEMON: Yes. If you want that and paper towels come to my house, we're on that automatic renewal thing. I had to stop it because it's like way to --

COLLINS: You're overflowing.

LEMON: Overflowing.

COLLINS: You're the reason that the price is so high?

All right, all really important.

ROMANS: OK.

COLLINS: Christine Romans, you're the best.

ROMANS: Thank you.

LEMON: Thank you, everyone. We appreciate you joining us.

CNN "NEWSROOM" is going to start right after this quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)