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Prosecutors Set to Drop Charges against Alec Baldwin for Movie Set Shooting after Receiving New Evidence; Law Enforcement Says Louisville, Kentucky, Bank Gunman Left Extensive Notes Regarding Planned Mass Shooting; New York State Education Officials Vote to Prohibit Public Schools from Using or Displaying Indigenous Team Names, Logos, or Mascots; Smartmatic Suing Fox And Trump Allies For $2.7 Billion In Defamation Suit; Biden Facing Pressure To Negotiate On Debt Limit To Prevent Crisis. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired April 21, 2023 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

ALEC BALDWIN, ACTOR: The trigger wasn't pulled. I didn't pull the trigger.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You didn't pull the trigger?

BALDWIN: No, no, no, no, no. I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them, never.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone.

HARLOW: It's Friday.

LEMON: It's Friday.

HARLOW: It's 8:00 a.m.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: It's 8:00 a.m.

HARLOW: Eastern.

LEMON: It's Friday. It's 8:00 a.m. Kaitlan is off. Poppy and I are here.

But this is when people who are involved in any kind of litigation, they tell you trust the process, trust the process, because things looked bleak for a long time for Alec Baldwin.

HARLOW: For Alec Baldwin.

LEMON: And now it seems to be coming around. We'll see. Not quite over yet, but according to our Joey Jackson, he says --

HARLOW: Let's do it.

LEMON: This close to -- this is vindication.

HARLOW: Yes, we're talking about Alec Baldwin being adamant, as you just heard, that he did not pull the trigger. And just hours from now a prosecutor is set to drop charges against him for the deadly shooting on the "Rust" movie set. Coming up the new evidence that came to light.

LEMON: Plus, plus, we are now learning that the mass shooter who killed five workers at a bank in Louisville apparently wanted to show how easy it was for a mentally ill person to buy an assault rifle in America.

HARLOW: And the legal nightmare is not over for FOX News. Smartmatic is demanding an even bigger payout than Dominion's historic $787 million settlement for spreading election lies. Coming up Smartmatic's lawyer joins us live.

But let's begin with President Biden, who is getting ready to officially announced he's running for reelection. Sources tell CNN his team is planning to release a campaign style video announcement on Tuesday. Tuesday is the four-year anniversary of when Biden entered the 2020 race. We're told the timing could change, but the decision to run again is a done deal.

A new poll from the Associated Press shows only 47 percent of Democrats want Biden to run again, though it's an improvement, a big one, from January when that number was only 37 percent of Democrats. And more than 80 percent of Dems say they would either definitely or probably support Biden in the general election if he's a nominee.

LEMON: We'll continue on with that story. And now we want to talk about new details this morning in the shooting at Louisville, Kentucky bank, that was earlier this month. You will recall that the gunman was killed by police after fatally shooting five of his coworkers and leaving a rookie officer in critical condition. Law enforcement sources now say he left behind extensive notes revealing part of his goal on that day.

CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez here with us now. Omar, what are you learning? He was trying to prove some point here?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's what two law enforcement sources are telling CNN, that there were extensive notes left, one of which was found on his body after he was killed in a shootout with police, and these notes show that at least part of the motivation here was to show how easy it was in the United States for someone dealing with a serious mental illness to get an assault weapon. And we know this gun was purchased legally about a week before the shooting actually unfolded.

Now, we've reached out to the family attorney on this latest update. We haven't heard back, but the family has said they are testing him for CTE, which sometimes sums could be loss of impulse control aggression, though it's not just limited to CTE. And all of its circling around the question on multiple fronts people are trying to answer, why.

HARLOW: We have an update on the officer Nickolas Wilt who was shot in the head.

JIMENEZ: Yes. Well, for starters, he is in critical but stable condition, meaning that his vital signs are good, which is obviously a good thing. But earlier this week he was diagnosed with pneumonia while he's continuing to recover, so he's been transferred to a new hospital, a specialist to deal with that diagnosis, according to the Louisville Metro Police Foundation. And he remains the only patient who was hospitalized and survived the shooting to still be in the hospital. So obviously everybody monitoring his condition pretty closely.

HARLOW: Omar, thank you for the reporting very much.

LEMON: Thanks a lot, Omar.

In just hours, prosecutors in New Mexico are set to drop all charges against Alec Baldwin in the 2021 deadly "Rust" film set shooting. A source familiar with the investigation tells CNN that prosecutors made the decision after new evidence showed somebody modified the gun. The source says that leaves open the possibility that Baldwin didn't pull the trigger, something he has repeatedly claimed, including during an interview with our very own Chloe Melas. And Chloe joins us now. Also with her is Scott Coscia. He is a freelance stunt coordinator and armorer. We appreciate both of you joining us. Good morning.

Chloe, I'm going to start with you. There's something that he has been claiming since the very beginning. Tell us about this new evidence, though.

CHLOE MELAS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: Yes, I want you to listen to what Alec Baldwin told me and he also spoke to George Stephanopoulos at ABC and said the same thing, maintaining just that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEC BALDWIN, ACTOR: I never once said, never, that the gun went off in my hand automatically. I always said I pulled the hammer back. And I pulled it back as far as I could. I never took a gun and pointed at somebody and click the thing.

I let go of the hammer of the gun and the gun goes off. I let go of the hammer the gun, the gun goes off.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: At the moment --

BALDWIN: That was the moment the gun went off. Yes, that was the moment going on.

[08:05:02]

STEPHANOPOULOS: It wasn't in the script for the trigger to be pulled.

BALDWIN: Well, the trigger wasn't pulled. I didn't pull the trigger.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you never pulled the trigger?

BALDWIN: No, no, no, no, no. I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them, never.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MELAS: So this is a fascinating development, because let's go back to the FBI report, right? The FBI does a forensics report, made headlines everywhere. They said absolutely not. The only way that this prop gun could have fired a round would be if someone pulled the trigger, right. But with this new information, a source telling me, that the D.A. has that shows that the gun was modified, which could potentially mean that the FBI report could be wrong, that the gun could have fired just like Alec said. He pulled the hammer back and it went off.

Now, that doesn't answer the fact as to why was the gun modified? Who modified the gun? How did live rounds get on set? And the big question that I want to know is now that we are seeing the dismissal of charges pending further investigation by the New Mexico D.A., could we see charges against anybody else?

HARLOW: Such a good question. Let's bring Scott into this conversation as well. I didn't even know what a -- what is it called -- a hammer is. But this is what Alec Baldwin kept saying that he just pulled back the hammer and released the hammer, never pulled the trigger. Is there any world in which a modified gun could discharge with just that being done?

SCOTT COSCIA, FREELANCE STUNT COORDINATOR AND ARMORER: Absolutely. So modern firearms have safeties built in so if you pull the hammer back and release it, it won't fire. This gun is modified. So I don't -- I haven't looked at the gun, and again, I'm not a gunsmith. I'm an armorer and stunt coordinator and former police officer. You, in theory, old school guns, you could pull the hammer back a slight amount and then have it strike the firing pin, strike the primer, and then the gun could discharge.

So if this is, in fact, modified, I tend -- I don't know for sure, but his story is plausible in in my in my experience and expertise.

LEMON: How is -- the question is, we've been asking all along, though, Scott, how does a hot gun get on a set? How does live -- how do live rounds get into a gun on a movie set?

COSCIA: So two equations here. First of all, the live rounds. I always say they should never be live around and blanks on the same zip code, let alone the same movie set. It's my understanding that they the armorer, because they found fingerprints on live rounds of hers at the scene, she knew they were live rounds. It's not hard to tell -- if you know what you're doing, and she supposedly had some experience, it's not hard to tell the difference between a live round and a blank. So production should have been shut down or anything with firearms should have been shut down immediately, and inventory should have been done of every single round on that set.

Now, there are practices that are used by certain armorers, and I do not agree with it, they used unmodified weapons, which blows my mind, because it using a modified weapon prevents things like this from happening. These modified weapons, most of them you cannot even put a live round in. And if you did somehow get a live round into that chamber, you pull the trigger and the gun basically blows up in your hand is what would happen. There's kind of a plate which gives you kind of some back pressure. So this easily could have prevented, and I don't know why a live gun with live gun or live round was used on this set. It blows my mind.

MELAS: I also just want to point out something. This is such a momentous legal victory as of right now, although pending further investigation, by Alec Baldwin's legal team, because I just want to point out the charges were brought were brought at the end of January, and less than two-and-a-half months you're seeing a dismissal, this coming after the special prosecutor Andrea Reeb criticized him, saying that he was a big city, big shot attorney, and here he now got her to be removed from the case, had the firearm enhancement dropped, right, so reducing Alec's potential prison time from five years to 18 months. Same for him and Gutierrez-Reed, the armorer, and now you're seeing this dismissal.

So this is a big moment for them, and clearly they have been working for 18 months towards this.

LEMON: And then the prosecutor, the former prosecutor in an email saying, can I help you out, right, because this would help with my reelection --

MELAS: She was running for House of Representatives in the state of New Mexico, and there is a law there that says you cannot be a special prosecutor and be in the House of Representatives. You cannot hold both jobs. So she was disqualified. And then she called him a big shot attorney. But you know what, clearly, you might need a big shot attorney, right?

LEMON: Scott Coscia, thank you, Chloe Melas, thank you, as always. Appreciate it.

MELAS: Thank you.

HARLOW: New York state education officials have voted to prohibit public schools from using or displaying indigenous team names, logos, or mascots.

[08:10:01]

Schools must eliminate the imagery by the start of the 2024-2025 school year or risk penalties like losing state aid. This has gotten a lot of attention. Polo Sandoval is following all of it. This decision is getting mixed reaction across New York state. What is at the core of it? Why?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Poppy, Don, it's even dividing some communities, too. The National Congress of American Indians actually tracks some of the numbers, and they say that there are still about 50 school systems throughout New York state that use such mascots, in fact, spent some time in one of them on Long Island yesterday. They're defending their so called chief mascot, saying that it celebrates the rich history of their community and saying that these new policies, it's an overreach of the state. So expect a possible legal fight there.

As for some of these native groups, they say they've been an a legal fight of their own going all the way back to 1950.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

SANDOVAL: For some, they are a source of school pride. But for tribal nations. They're the reason behind a decades long battle. And this week, a win. New York state education officials voted unanimously to ban their public schools from using indigenous team names, logos, and mascots. They have until the fall of 2024 to eliminate such imagery or risk losing state funding.

BRYAN POLITE, CHAIRMAN, SHINNECOCK NATION: It's long overdue. I mean, this latest push is just the newest push, but we've had community members fighting for these changes over the last several decades.

SANDOVAL: Bryan Polite is chairman of New York's Shinnecock Nation. Chiefs, Warriors, Indians -- Polite joins the National Congress of American Indians in calling such mascots inappropriate stereotypes that dehumanize native people.

POLITE: A lot of these mascots and logos are Hollywood depictions on what they think native Americans should look like. And other times it's sensitive items and cultural references that we don't want paraded around on the football field ban.

SANDOVAL: Then it's likely to affect schools throughout New York, prompting some pushback. Long Island's Massapequa public schools out with this letter this week, defending their chief mascot as historic, and informing parents that they are investigating all options with legal counsel. Also on long island, Patrick Pizzarelli, who leads Nassau County's interscholastic sports. He predicts future funding issues if athletic departments are forced to pay for rebranding their programs, uniforms, even their sporting venues.

PATRICK PIZZARELLI, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NASSAU COUNTY PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION: I understand, and I get it, OK? But you've got to give these districts of money. You can't just expect them to do it. And maybe even more time. Right now by the end of 25, I believe, is supposed to at least be started. And I'm not sure it has to be done by then. But you've got to help them, because you don't want to hurt other kids to fix the problem.

SANDOVAL: The head of the Tonawanda City schools near Buffalo also bracing for the cost of compliance.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're a district that's going to comply, and we're going to do very good work working with our stakeholders, our community, again, most importantly, the students in determining what our next steps are.

SANDOVAL: Renaming won't be necessary for schools that bear the name of an indigenous tribe. Educators are also still allowed to use indigenous imagery in their curriculum.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

SANDOVAL (on camera): We should mention there are potential exceptions here. The new regulations do say that some schools can keep their mascots if they enter into an agreement with the tribe that's recognized by the federal government. Poppy and Don, we looked, haven't identified any yet. But look, we just heard from Chairman Polite just now, saying he understands that there are some school systems that may see this as respecting some of their culture, some of their communities. But he says, look, there are ways to do this. Attend some of the community events that they invite the public to be involved in some other programs. There are so many ways that doesn't necessarily mean parading some of their figures onto the football field.

HARLOW: I'm glad you covered this. Thank you.

LEMON: Thank you very much, Polo, I appreciate it well.

This week, FOX News paid a historic price for spreading lies about the 2020 election, and now a second company is demanding even more money than Dominion's $787 million settlement. The top lawyer from Smartmatic is going to join us live as a company pursues a multi- billion dollar lawsuit against FOX.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: So, this is the number that made historic headlines this week. Look at that, $787,500,000, the cost of airing a lie. That is the amount that Fox News will pay Dominion voting systems in a settlement that was struck on Tuesday. But Dominion isn't the only company suing Fox for spreading lies related to the 2020 election. Smartmatic, another voting machine company, is suing Fox and other defendants for $2.7 billion. In a statement after the Dominion settlement was announced a lawyer for Smartmatic said, "Dominion's litigation exposed some of the misconduct and damage caused by Fox's disinformation campaign. Smartmatic will expose the rest." Fox's response via statement was quote, "Smartmatic's damages claim our implausible claims -- are implausible, disconnected from reality and on its face intended to chill First Amendment freedoms." So, joining us now and attorney for Smartmatic Eric Connolly. Thank you for joining us, Mr. Connolly, we appreciate it.

ERIC CONNOLLY, SMARTMATIC ATTORNEY: Good morning, thank you for having me here.

LEMON: So, before we have our conversation, I think it's important to hear some of what the folks at Fox were saying about Smartmatic. Let's play and then we'll talk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNEY POWELL, FORMER TRUMP'S ATTORNEY (via telephone): To Dominion machines run the Smartmatic software and -- or parts of the key code of it. And that is what allows them to manipulate the votes in any way the operators choose to manipulate them.

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER TRUMP'S ATTORNEY: The software that they use is done by a company called Smartmatic. It's a company that was founded by Chavez and by Chavez, two allies and still own it. It's been used to cheat in elections in South America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So, Eric, I understand that you are -- you find your -- why you're laughing?

CONNOLLY: All that is absolutely false, there's not a shred of truth to that. It's pretty crazy actually, just hear that.

LEMON: OK, so, then Smartmatic has accused Fox, Attorney Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and host Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro, of intentionally lying about Smartmatic. How do you prove that this was intentional?

CONNOLLY: Well, you can start with the fact that that's inherently impossible. Everything they just said was quite not had happened and they know what didn't happen. So, we've been doing this for a long time. And there has not been one shred of evidence not one shred of evidence to support anything that they were publishing. That's it was all just lies and they knew it was lies when it came out.

[08:20:08]

LEMON: Do you believe the Dominion settlement has made your case even stronger?

CONNOLLY: I don't know if the Dominion settlement is particularly relevant to where our cases going. Dominion was a company that operated largely in North America. And I think the damages that they were recovering is reflective of some of the damages that they suffered in the United States and in North America, as well as the reputational harm throughout the country. Smartmatic is a Global company. We operate in the United States, but we operate globally and we're actually, the only company that can compete globally for election business everywhere. So, the Dominion damages and where you look at the Dominion settlement, that's a starting point for analyzing, kind of where the case can go. But our damages are on a global scale, not just limited to the United States.

LEMON: OK, so let's talk about that, because your lawsuit against Fox and the other defendants' substantially more than the amount of the Dominion has been seeking. I think Dominion their valuation was about 80 million. I'm not exactly sure what your valuation is, I couldn't find, but you -- the $250,000 per year in revenue. $250,000 billion per year in revenue, million, right? Correct? For you, so, why?

CONNOLLY: So, they are -- sorry about that.

LEMON: So, then why then is Smartmatic entitled to $2.7 billion, if it's $250 million per year in revenue?

CONNOLLY: So, a couple of things to keep in consideration, we are looking for recovery of the enterprise value loss. Our company was worth over $3 billion before this disinformation campaign came along. And now, we are obviously worth significantly less. So, the recovery we are looking for is to be reflective of the value of our company that we lost as a result of this information. And whenever you're measuring these types of damages, you have to look at it at the total opportunities that we've lost.

And the opportunities that we lost, and this is what we are experiencing day after day, it's global. We are suffering these consequences in Asia, we are suffering these consequences in Africa, we are suffering these consequences in South America and in Europe. So, when you take into consideration damages, you look at the overall damage done to us globally. And then you look at how it impacted our enterprise value. And that's where our experts come out.

LEMON: Specifically, what was damaged globally? How so? Is it reputational?

CONNOLLY: Absolutely. So, Smartmatic, before this disinformation had a global reputation as being the Election Technology Company that you go to. If you want a secure, reliable and accurate voting process. They have a perfect audit trail; they process over 6 billion votes. And they've never had a security issue once, not one time. Now, their reputation globally, is a company that has rigged elections. Just imagine what that does.

If you are an election technology company, your reputation is everything to you. And that fundamental shift in the narrative of who Smartmatic is, has cost them contracts with committees, it has cost them the opportunity to even bid on contracts with countries. So, this is essentially undermining what this family built for 20 years. I don't know how you can really put a dollar amount on that.

LEMON: You said that you wouldn't accept anything less than what Dominion got, $787 million. Why do you say that?

CONNOLLY: The decision ultimately is up to the families down in terms of what they want to do, my job as their lawyers simply give them guidance and advice on this. I don't know how I could look at them and tell them that they should accept less when the damages that they suffered were global and were so significantly more.

LEMON: In the Dominion settlement with Fox there was no requirement for Fox to make an apology nor a retraction? Would you walk away from an offer from Fox, if it didn't include an on-air retraction or apology because as I understand, you told my colleague Jake Tapper, you want a retraction and you want an apology? Would you walk away from an offer that didn't include those? CONNOLLY: Whenever you think about the settlement, if that's where these kinds of cases go. You have to think about whether the company is going to be in this business for the long term. Smartmatic is in this business for the long term. Their reputation has been injured. And if you don't have a retraction, if you don't have an apology, it is so much more difficult for them to get back to where they were previously. They don't want to exit the election business, this is what they've spent their lives doing. So, I think when you're talking about a settlement if you go down that road, I think you need to have something in there that will help them publicly get back the messaging that they wanted to be on, which is we are the company you go to, for secure, accurate and reliable voting.

LEMON: If there is a settlement, you would get to decide in some way, what a retraction or an apology would look like on air. What would that look like to you at this point?

[08:25:17]

CONNOLLY: Too soon for me to tell what that would look like. That would be part of any negotiations. We do and we're, we're not close to that.

LEMON: All right, Eric Connolly, thank you so much. I appreciate you joining us here on CNN.

CONNOLLY: Thank you very much. Appreciate your time.

LEMON: OK.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: It was really, really interesting.

LEMON: Yes, because in a settlement, they get to decide some of the languages and say, we would like you to say this on the air. We would like you to say it as this many times in that many times when they get to negotiate.

HARLOW: Yes, but your question was right. Are you willing to walk away?

LEMON: Are you going to walk away. So --

HARLOW: Or this thing goes to trial, by the way.

LEMON: Or it goes to trial, but that mean, they are -- their evaluation according to him. A multibillion-dollar company --

HARLOW: Right.

LEMON: -- that wasn't the case with Dominion. So, they stand to make more money if they actually go to court and when. We ask -- we don't really talk about this attorney.

HARLOW: What?

LEMON: You know, law school graduate. We need to talk about Sullivan because --

HARLOW: New York Times versus Sullivan.

LEMON: New York Times versus Sullivan.

HARLOW: Yes.

LEMON: And what this means because there's a momentum to move towards trying to get rid of Sullivan to make it easy of changing the --

HARLOW: Of changing the actual balance for threshold.

LEMON: Yes.

HARLOW: I have a lot of thoughts on that.

LEMON: Yes.

HARLOW: We'll talk at brunch --

LEMON: Yes.

HARLOW: -- with our mint juleps.

LEMON: That's good our mint juleps in our spring wear.

HARLOW: A political standoff over the Nation's debt limit is threatening to take the economy. And now some Democrats are urging President Biden to negotiate as Republicans demand huge spending cuts Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin here in studio.

LEMON: Oh, wow.

HARLOW: We're so glad she's joining us. We'll see if she agrees with those Democrats, next.

LEMON: When did she sneak in?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)