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Former Officers Plead Guilty To Torture-Related Charges; Today: Parkland School Massacre Will Be Reenacted, With Gunfire, As Part Of Lawsuit; Zoo: Bears In Viral Video Are Not Humans In Costumes. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired August 04, 2023 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

ADAM KINZINGER, (R) FORMER ILLINOIS CONGRESSMAN: January 6 was a symptom. That violence that day, that was a symptom. The problem was the rot that led up to it. That's what this indictment is focused on -- the president's actions prior to this day. That is the real rot in our democracy. We can sustain, as terrible as it is, a day of violence. What we can't sustain is systemic corruption in the system, and I hope that's what people take away from this.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Do you think people will take away -- take that away?

KINZINGER: I think eventually. I think right now, you're going to have people in --

MATTINGLY: What's your time window on eventually, though?

KINZINGER: I think probably when this -- when this -- whenever this trial happens, people are going to learn a lot more, and I think that's going to continue to change minds.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: You tweeted you were interested in this new polling that shows how Republicans feel if he gets convicted.

KINZINGER: Yes. If the president -- if the former president gets convicted, I think it's like 50 percent of Republicans say they wouldn't vote for him again.

This is to any senator that did not vote to remove Trump. You know, we voted to impeach him. It went to the Senate.

McConnell stands up and says, basically, there's a criminal system for this. But he's out of office. Let's give him a gold watch and let him go home.

And that's what all these senators were saying -- oh, he's done -- let's let him go home. He's not going to run again. Well, of course, he's running again. He's about to be the Republican nominee.

Had they removed him, like the majority of them wanted to in their hearts, the Republican Party would be fixed and we wouldn't be talking about any of this right now. HARLOW: Adam Kinzinger --

MATTINGLY: All right. Thanks, Adam -- appreciate it.

KINZINGER: You're welcome.

MATTINGLY: Well, there's a reenactment of a deadly school shooting that will bring gunfire to Parkland, Florida. That's all part of a lawsuit against the officer who is blamed for failing to stop it. Congressman Jared Moskowitz, who is from Parkland himself, will be up in a little bit.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:35:38]

HARLOW: Six former law enforcement officers who called themselves the "Goon Squad" -- they have pleaded guilty to federal charges related to torturing two Black men in Mississippi. The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of the State announced those pleas last night. The six white officers are accused of entering a home in January and torturing the men for two hours. Eventually, one of the officers shot one of the victims in the mouth.

Our Nick Valencia has been following all of this. Unbelievable, Nick. Tell us what you know.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is an unreal story -- unreal story, Poppy, to think that this happens in 2023.

And according to federal prosecutors, these white officers -- former white officers repeatedly tortured two Black men and planned on getting away with it by covering up the evidence and lying. According to federal prosecutors, this was organization. It was premeditated and, as I mentioned, covered up, all operating under the banner of the law.

And this federal complaint goes on to say that these former officers -- they had a name for themselves. And they called themselves the "Goon Squad" because of their willingness to use excessive force and to not report it.

Earlier -- or yesterday, I should say, speaking after these officers had entered a guilty plea to federal charges, Department of Justice officials called this a shameful betrayal of the oath of office.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAN LAMARCA, U.S. ATTORNEY FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF MISSISSIPPI: These defendants committed heinous acts of violence against handcuffed victims whom they terrorized under the color of law. These men sexually abused their victims, repeatedly tased them, tortured them, all under the authority of the badge which they disgraced.

(END VIDEO CLIP) VALENCIA: During the incident, which lasted two hours, these men were repeatedly beaten. One of them was shot in the mouth during a mock execution. They were doused with milk, with grease, alcohol, and then told to shower off evidence of the abuse so the officers could get their stories straight.

Listen to one of them described to CNN what he went through.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EDDIE PARKER, TORTURED BY MISSISSIPPI LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS: I crawled here to this spot and they started beating me here and tasing me. And you can see blood spots and all. There are my blood spots there. Justice is what it all -- what it all boils down to. I'm just like them, whether they in uniform or not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VALENCIA: These men have filed a lawsuit. The officers, meanwhile, are facing varying sentences. Some of them could spend life in prison when they're sentenced in November -- Poppy, Phil.

HARLOW: Nick, wow -- we appreciate your reporting on this.

VALENCIA: You bet.

MATTINGLY: Well, a reenactment of a deadly school shooting will bring gunfire back to Parkland, Florida -- all part of a lawsuit against the officer who blamed -- who is blamed for failing to stop it. Congressman Jared Moskowitz, who represents Parkland and is an alum of the school -- he's going to join us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:42:21]

MATTINGLY: In just a few hours, a reenactment of the Parkland school shooting will take place inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Ballistics experts will fire up to 139 shots as part of a civil lawsuit investigation against Scot Peterson, the then-school resource officer who remained outside as a shooter killed 17 people on Valentine's Day in 2018.

The plaintiffs, several of the victims' families, and a survivor, want to record the sound of the gunfire to show that Peterson would have heard the shots and known where they were coming from. Peterson's defense team has argued he didn't enter the building because he couldn't tell where the shots were coming from due to echoes.

Now, Peterson was found not guilty earlier this summer of criminal charges.

Before the reenactment, in just moments, a bipartisan congressional delegation will tour the building before it's demolished later this month. The building has been sealed since the massacre. Blood of the victims still stains the classroom floors, bullet holes mark the walls, and Valentine's Day gifts and cards are strewn about.

Our next guest, Democratic Congressman Jared Moskowitz, will lead that congressional tour with a Republican colleague. He's a graduate of Marjory Stoneman Douglas and he was a state representative for Parkland at the time of the tragedy, which spurred him to help push for anti-gun violence legislation.

Congressman, I appreciate your time. I want to start with you've been, I believe, inside the school. You're one of the few people that's actually been in. What should people expect when they walk in today? What are they going to see?

REP. JARED MOSKOWITZ (D-FL): Well, first of all, thanks for having me. Thanks for talking about this five years after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting at the building right behind me where I went to high school.

I mean, listen, what they're going to see is a unique experience -- a horrific experience. The building behind us is a time capsule. Other than the victims obviously no longer being there, the building is exactly as it was on February 15, the day after the shooting.

And so, we're going to be walking through that building -- a bipartisan delegation with law enforcement, with folks from the state attorney's office, folks from the school board, and with family members -- family members -- some of them going into the building for the first time.

And so, this is important. It's important for folks in Congress -- my colleagues -- to see what happens when a school shooting comes to your neighborhood and how it affects families. And so -- but it's going to be a very emotional day.

MATTINGLY: You invited every member of Congress to join you, Democrats and Republicans that are -- this is a bipartisan delegation that will be with you today. You've done this before as well. The last time you did this, in the months after, the most significant gun safety legislation in decades was enacted. It was signed into law by President Biden.

What do you hope this leads to?

[07:45:03]

MOSKOWITZ: Well look, today is about, again, just the visuals and walking with the parents and supporting them and supporting the community, and the emotional experience.

You know, I'm not naive. I'm not expecting we're going to walk out of the building and start working on legislation, but the idea is to continue to have the conversation. I mean, there's a lot we can do when it comes to school safety and gun violence prevention. There's not one thing that we have to do. And we have to find where we have common ground.

That bill that we passed -- the Marjory Stoneman Douglas School Safety Act after -- three weeks after the shooting in the Florida Legislature was a bipartisan piece of legislation. It did school safety. It did mental health. It did SROs.

It raised the age to 21 to buy a gun in Florida. Red flag laws. Hundreds of millions of dollars for school safety around the state. And so, it was a comprehensive piece of legislation.

I don't know that D.C. can -- is going to do that. But if we can continue to work on mitigation -- one thing after the next -- we can save a lot of lives.

MATTINGLY: You know, there will be family members of victims and survivors that will be touring or walking through the school today. I know you represent -- represented the district in the State House. You represent the district in Congress. I assume you're in regular contact with many of these individuals.

What do you hope they get from this experience? Closure? Clarity? Something for the civil case?

MOSKOWITZ: Oh, look, there's no closure. There's never closure, right? We don't move on, we move forward.

You know, these families visit their kids at a cemetery. Empty rooms in their house. They didn't get a high school graduation, didn't get a college graduation. There's no weddings. There's no grandkids. There's no future.

This is part of the experience. They relive this every day. They relive this every time there's a mass shooting in this country. They relive this every time there's a fake call into a school somewhere and a school gets evacuated.

But the parents and the students that were in this building that day that made it out -- I mean, they have dedicated their lives -- the parents have dedicated their lives. They've crisscrossed the country trying to make sure other families don't involuntarily become members of an exclusive club that no one wants to belong to, and that's sending your kid to school and them not coming home.

MATTINGLY: For those families, though, who have been doing that work -- I think so far this year, the U.S. has suffered more than 400 mass shootings. I think there were more school shootings last year -- 46 -- than any year since 1999.

Do they feel like they're making a difference, or does this just feel like a Sisyphean task for them?

MOSKOWITZ: No. Look, we're making progress. There's progress all the time. There's different laws being passed. There's more allies coming to the table. You see it as a rising issue in polling.

But listen, we're not going to solve this overnight. They recognize that. But they're going to continue. This is their cause. This is -- they do this in the memory of their kids. And they don't want other parents to have to go through what they have

gone through. They don't want other parents that they don't even know to have to experience this.

And so, look, we're making progress. We need to make more progress. We need to figure out where there's common ground where we can work together so that we can save -- whether your kid is at a grocery store, at a school, at a movie theater, at a mall, or just regular gun violence that happens every single solitary day in some neighborhoods. Too many kids are dying from this and we've got to figure out how we can come together.

MATTINGLY: Congressman, I do want to ask before I let you go on a different topic. You've mentioned your bipartisan work, both back in the state and here -- and in Washington. That work included working with Gov. Ron DeSantis at various points.

What's your perspective of his presidential campaign and how he's done up to this point?

MOSKOWITZ: Well look, if you look at that race for all the candidates, right -- I mean, it's Donald Trump. It's only Donald Trump. It's super clear that that's the case and that's what, at least, primary voters want according to the polling.

And so, I don't -- whether you're Tim Scott or Ron DeSantis, right now, I don't know that there's much that they can do.

I mean, Donald Trump has indictment-mentum. Every time he gets indicted his poll numbers go up. He raises another four, five, six million dollars.

And so right now, I think that race is frozen. And so, that's my assessment of where things are at. There's a debate coming up in August. That would have given the candidates a chance to contrast themselves with Donald Trump, but Trump's not even coming. He's not even -- you know, the idea that he's not going to be on stage for the first debate as the leading candidate is something I don't think we've seen before.

So everything that's happening right now across the aisle and the primaries is really a case of first impression. Donald Trump with a triple crown indictment is the leading candidate on the Republican side for president.

[07:50:00]

MATTINGLY: Yes. We're waiting to see about the debate stage with Trump.

I appreciate your time, sir. I know this is a very powerful and poignant day for you and the families. Congressman Jared Moskowitz, thank you.

MOSCOWITZ: Thank you.

HARLOW: Yes, quite a day for them.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

HARLOW: That's for sure.

So we're just minutes away from the Labor Department releasing the July jobs report. We're going to tell you what it says and what it means for the economy, ahead.

MATTINGLY: And despite its best efforts, a zoo in China still struggling to convince people like Poppy Harlow that these sun bears are, in fact, bears and not people --

HARLOW: I never said it wasn't a bear.

MATTINGLY: -- in costumes. The viral videos now are bringing attention to the endangered species.

HARLOW: Oh.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Favorite story. Viral video from the zoo in China sparking a worldwide debate, and a debate on this set. Officials from the zoo say this bear is not a human dressed in a bear costume contrary to popular belief on the world wide web.

CNN senior international correspondent Ivan Watson live in Hong Kong. Ivan, I was saying to the team I thought we did this story three days ago, and they're like Ivan has more reporting on it. What is going on? Why is the world obsessed with this bear?

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's a -- it's a very strange story, Poppy.

MATTINGLY: Yeah, there it is.

WATSON: Basically, the zoo --

MATTINGLY: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[07:55:00]

WATSON: The zoo had to deny that this bear that was filmed standing up was a person in a costume. And one of the, perhaps, silver linings to this may be environmentalists' hope it will wake people up to the fact that the world's smallest species of bear is on the endangered species list.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WATSON (voice-over): This video put a zoo in China in a bind. When Chinese social media exploded with claims this animal was human in a costume, the zoo decided to grin and bear it, issuing a statement in the voice of the animal saying, "I'm a sun bear" -- a message echoed by another zoo in the U.K. WATSON (on camera): Have you seen that video?

SIEW TE WONG, FOUNDER, BORNEAN SUN BEAR CONSERVATION CENTER: Yes, I've seen that video and I am very, very convinced -- 100 percent sure that it is a sun bear.

WATSON (voice-over): Siew Te Wong is a biologist and founder of the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Center.

WONG: This is a male. We've got Joe over here.

WATSON (on camera): And I think we can confidently say that that's a bear; not a human in a costume.

WONG: Yes, that is a bear.

WATSON (voice-over): This forest enclosure in Malaysian Borneo shelters 44 rescued sun bears.

WONG: They are the smallest bear in the world. They look very similar to people when they stand up.

WATSON (voice-over): Sun bears are also an endangered species. Their tropical forest habitat across Southeast Asia is shrinking.

WATSON (on camera): What does the future look like for the sun bears as species in the wild right now?

WONG: If the forest is not big now, if hunting and poaching still continues, the future is very bleak for the sun bear because they need much forest in order to survive.

WATSON (voice-over): Wong says there's an illegal market for sun bear claws, teeth, and organs used for traditional Asian medicine.

Now, the Chinese viral video is giving the world's smallest bear a moment in the sun. In recent days, attendance surged 30 percent at the zoo in Hangzhou. "It doesn't look human at all when you see it in person," this man says -- something to bear in mind the next time you're sent a viral video.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WATSON: So no more dad jokes here. The head of the zoo in question -- he says that in a single day they had more than 20,000 visitors, attributing it to this kind of controversy.

And meanwhile, the head of the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Center who I interviewed, who also happens to be a CNN Hero -- he's really hoping that people in Southeast Asia will vote up, and governments as well, to protect what's left of the sun bears' shrinking natural habitat.

HARLOW: That's the good that could come from this controversy is exactly to that point. Ivan, thank you very much.

MATTINGLY: I should note --

HARLOW: The control room said we don't have time to talk.

MATTINGLY: I know we don't have time to talk about it but this is what I also did reading about it after seeing the video. It's important information.

HARLOW: Tell me more.

MATTINGLY: My wife texted during the lead-in it's a human. And then after Ivan's piece said, "Wait, never mind -- definitely a bear." So there we go. We're here with the important information --

HARLOW: And now we all need to contribute to preserving them.

MATTINGLY: Well, let's not get -- OK.

HARLOW: I'm the generous one here.

MATTINGLY: All right. Moving on -- this much said I want to (PH) -- 38 House Democrats -- they are pushing for the former president's federal trial to be televised. We'll discuss the request and judge coming up next.

HARLOW: Also, a Trump-supporting lawyer just charged in the state of Michigan for conspiring to seize voting machines in that state after the 2020 election. Does that tie in at all to this latest indictment of Trump? We'll talk about it ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)