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CNN Tonight

Police Release Bodycam Video Of Nashville School Shooting; Poll Finds Patriotism, Religion Less Important To Americans; Acting Head Of FAA Links Cause Of Runway Close Calls To Pandemic; Concern Grows Over How A.I. Is Influencing Politics; A Reddit Community Showcases And Fawns Over Penmanship. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired March 28, 2023 - 23:00   ET

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

[23:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Police in Nashville releasing dramatic bodycam video of officers arriving at the scene, searching for and confronting, then killing the shooter. This was after the shooter opened fire at a private Christian elementary school, killing three children and three adults. Police say they don't know the motive, but they also say the attack was -- quote -- "calculated and planned."

I want to bring in CNN's Tom Foreman. He's at the magic wall for us to explain what we'll see in this bodycam video, which many of you, we want to warn you, may find disturbing. Also, we're joined by Ed Davis, the former Boston police commissioner, and CNN law enforcement analyst Michael Fanone, a former D.C. Metropolitan police officer. Gentlemen, thank you very much for being here.

Tom, let me start with you. You've been covering school shootings since before Columbine. So, tell us what you see in this video.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What you see most of all is what looks like a textbook handling of things here and that they start off from the very beginning, calm and focused and purposeful in everything they do.

We see Officer Rex Engelberg (ph) show up here. He is getting information from people. He has his weapon ready. He's approaching the building. And as he calls out to other officers to come and join him and get ready, it is clear he's not going to wait around about 20 seconds from the time he reaches the doors until he goes in. Listen to what he does here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN (voice-over): All the way down this hall is the fellowship hall. At the end of this hall is fellowship hall. They just said they heard gunshots down there, and then upstairs (INAUDIBLE).

UNKNOWN (voice-over): Let's go! I need three!

UNKNOWN (voice-over): One more! One more! UNKNOWN (voice-over): Let's go!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Just incredible. I mean -- Michael, I just want to bring you in. When you hear that, just to me, it's so viscerally powerful to hear that they know that this is a life and death situation and they're just going -- they're just, you know, storming in.

MICHAEL FANONE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST, FORMER D.C. METROPOLITAN POLICE OFFICER: Yeah. I mean, I think these officers demonstrated what the American police officers capable of when he or she is given the right equipment, the right training, uh, and has the appropriate mindset.

It's clear that these officers, um, they acted methodically and deliberately in everything they did from the time they arrived all the way up until they identified and neutralized the threat.

CAMEROTA: And so bravely also. Commissioner, do you agree that this is a textbook example of what should be done?

ED DAVIS, FORMER BOSTON POLICE COMMISSIONER: I do. And courage, I think, is the one thing that we haven't heard until you just mentioned it, Alisyn. It's just an incredibly amount of fortitude it takes to literally charge a position with military-style weapons involved. These officers are walking into hell, and they're doing it calmly and methodically, and exactly by their training.

So, I can't say enough about how well this was executed. Um, they communicated well. They move from place to place clearing rooms as is the plan. And then when they heard gunfire, they moved immediately to the sound of gunfire and took immediate action. It saved lives and, uh, this is textbook.

CAMEROTA: So, let's hear that next part of it, Tom. Let's talk -- let's -- show us the part where they're going methodically classroom to classroom.

FOREMAN: If you look at them when they first get inside here, and they're going through the bottom floor, that is the description exactly right there. They're methodical. They're calm. You would think that they were performing some kind of a drill because they show none of that unease when they're encountering exactly what Ed made referenced to their -- there are mortal threats in this building, but they're going about it quickly and smoothly. Listen now.

UNKNOWN (voice-over): Door, door. With me, with me.

UNKNOWN (voice-over): Hold the door.

UNKNOWN (voice-over): Next.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Michael, I don't think I've ever seen that before. I've always heard that they go classroom to classroom and have to clear each classroom, but I've never seen them say, here's a bathroom, look in the bathroom, clear, and then move on to the next one. Just seeing it again is very powerful, and I can't help but think about how they didn't do that in Uvalde.

[23:05:03]

FANONE: Yeah. I mean, it's the complete opposite end of the spectrum. But these officers did what they were trained to do. The training is to immediately enter the structure, identify, locate the threat, and neutralize the threat.

And you can see that prior to them hearing gunshots, they're going in room to room trying to find the suspect. Once they hear gunshots, they begin bypassing rooms, responding directly to the threat, and then neutralizing that threat.

Um, again, that is the training and that is what is expected of police officers here in America.

CAMEROTA: Commissioner, again, as I've said, I find this so satisfying, I guess, to see because they're doing, you know, God's work. I mean, they're trying to save these children and it's such a great example of police work. I think that all Americans should see what our local police and obviously our FBI, etcetera, have to do every single day.

But at the same time, does it make you at all anxious that we're showing this? Does this a giveaway kind of a handbook? Does it give away clues or do you think it's a deterrent?

DAVIS: I think it's a deterrent. I think that this type of professional response is something that needs to be seen. Police were initially hesitant to have body cameras and there have been terrible things shown on police body cameras. But this is an example of getting the word out as to exactly what police officers are facing when they get a call like this.

And I think that over the course of a year, the police in the United States do much better, an impressive job. If we can document that on video and get that out to the community, people will see exactly what they're getting from the -- from the police department.

So, I think this is a positive step. And kudos to the chief for getting this out so quickly. You know, a lot of places, uh, lawyers get involved in it and they want to hide everything. This is one of these things that we really need to be transparent to vote to regain the trust of the American people. This goes a long way towards that happening.

CAMEROTA: Uh-hmm. Okay, Tom, so this next part is -- is arguably even the more intense, the most intense part. So, show us what we're about to say.

FOREMAN: Absolutely. And what you see here is the lesson in high school. I was outside Columbine when what was happening inside was happening. After Columbine, the lesson was don't sit around, move to the gunfire, take an action. Listen to what happens here as they charge at the stairs and you hear gunfire, and there is no hesitation. They're moving directly toward the shooter.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN (voice-over): Run! Run!

(GUNFIRES)

UNKNOWN (voice-over): (INAUDIBLE).

(GUNFIRES)

UNKNOWN (voice-over): (INAUDIBLE).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Hmm. Mike, obviously, not all of us are built of that stock. Not all of us can run towards the danger. You are built like that. What is that moment like?

FANONE: I mean, I said many times, uh, especially with regard to my own experiences, uh, you never rise to the occasion, so to speak. You fall back on your training. It's apparent that these officers were well trained, but that they also possessed what you called courage. The commissioner called bravery, uh, I would refer to as the warrior's mindset. Um, they knew that they had a job to do, and they completed that task.

And to touch on what you were saying with the commissioner earlier, uh, I couldn't agree more. It is more than just appropriate. It's what needed right now. People need to understand what police officers do on a daily basis so that we can sleep safely and securely in our beds each night.

This is part of the drop. It's brutal and it's gruesome at times, but people need to understand what officers do, and they need to be commended when they perform exceptionally like these officers.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. Commissioner, how much training goes into what we just saw? The orchestration of that, the choreography, how much did they train for that moment?

DAVIS: The training goes on every year, year after year. And I had a policy of bringing officers in who were involved in combat situations and interviewing each one of them in the two police departments where I was the police chief.

And, uh, and -- and every one of them said to me at some point, the threat happened and then we just respond to the way we were trained to.

[23:10:02]

And it saved lives. And so, the training, whether it's on the range or whether it's tactical training, uh, of room clearing, the techniques that you saw here, communicating, shoot and move, um, going to the sound of the gunfire and neutralizing the threat, those are things that have to be done over and over and over again so it becomes part of your physical reaction to these terrible threats.

But, you know, the sights, the sounds, the smells of incidents like this don't get translated completely in a video. It's much worse when the adrenaline is pumping. And I think that -- that -- that this training is necessary. You see it happening over and over again.

CAMEROTA: I'm so glad you point that out because, obviously, they're seeing unthinkable things that were not showing, but that they are forced to have to, um, metabolize somehow while they're doing all this.

Tom, go ahead. Your final thoughts?

FOREMAN: The last thing I want to point out is when you watch all this video continuously, from the time they come in the door until the time the shooter is down, is about two minutes and 15 seconds. That's a pretty amazing response time in situations like this because we've seen many where it hasn't been anywhere near that.

CAMEROTA: Yeah. We applaud them. Such an amazing bit of video that they've shared with us. Michael, commissioner, Tom, thank you all very much.

FANONE: Thank you.

DAVIS: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: A new poll suggests that Americans are backing away from the values that wants to find us. Things like patriotism, religion, community involvement, and having children. So, what defines us now?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: A new poll shows Americans are shifting away from values that wants to find us. Let's bring in pollster Frank Luntz, awesome comedian, Princeton fellow Maysoon Zayid, the always interesting Evan Siegfried, our favorite former tennis pro Patrick McEnroe, and Gideon Lichfield of "Wired."

Guys, stand by because I want to talk to Frank, pollster first, about what this means. Frank, what do you mean that we're shifting away from our treasured values?

FRANK LUNTZ, POLLSTER AND COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGIST: Well, this is a wakeup call that the anger and frustration, anxiety, every negative connotation you can imagine now exists and it's affecting our attitudes towards patriotism, our attitudes towards faith, towards family, towards freedom. And I thought this was impossible. But Alisyn, what we've been -- what we've been hearing for the last three, four years in our focus groups is really intensity. And it's not just anger, it's a lack of civility, it's a lack of decency. We don't focus on communication. We need to focus on comprehension. We need to focus on what we all need to learn rather than what we need to say.

I think that that's one of the problems that we have in politics right now. And I blame the Republicans. I blame the democrats. Frankly, I blame the media as well. I blame all of us. I'll take responsibility for it. We have lost the ability to listen. We've lost the ability to learn.

And this poll shows is that we are not facing a critical point or a crisis point. It is upon us right now. And unless we get our act together, and I'm cleaning up my language for CNN, unless we get our act together, we are -- we are headed down a path that we may not be able to recover from politically, economically, socially, culturally.

As a country, we are so divided. Please, those people watching us right now, listen up. Our country is changing and not in a good way.

CAMEROTA: I'm afraid it is not our viewers because they're also wonderful. But anyway, um, I just want to dive into it a little bit more. So, this is a "Wall Street Journal" poll, Frank, and you -- we put up the one that in 1998, patriotism and religion were two values that were very important to the respondents. Seventy percent for patriotism. Now, it's 38%. Sixty-two percent for religion. Now, it's 39%.

Then values that were very important to people in 1998, having children was at 59%. Now, it's 30%. Community involvement, 47% down to 27%.

And so, here's one that has gone in the opposite direction, Frank. Values that are very important to you. Money. In 1998, 31% said that was very important. Now, it's 43%.

So, what has caused this shift, Frank?

LUNTZ: Well, part of it is the politicians. I do want to do something right here. This doesn't matter if you're unhappy. This doesn't matter if your family is broken. If your faith in the future, if your faith in faith doesn't matter.

So, I wasn't thinking about this until now. This is irrelevant. We need to stop focusing on this and start focusing on the things that really matter.

I'm teaching right now in (INAUDIBLE), I'm teaching right now at Radley College, and it really truly matters to these students. The environment that's around them: Climate, immigration, fairness, justice. Doesn't matter whether you're Republican or Democrat.

The problem is too many of their parents and grandparents judge people based on their politics, based on their attitudes towards issues, and were not paying attention to what really matters: love, respect, decency, civility.

And Alisyn, I'm interested in what your panel says about this. I don't see any candidate right now who is speaking up for this. In fact, I see partisanship. I see ideological warfare. I see people still trying to get the advantage over each other.

There's an app right now, it is called facts, and it does engage in this kind of communication. It focuses on the truth.

[23:20:02]

And I say to everyone on the panel, if we don't reassert our passionate, relentless pursuit of the truth, they were not going to make it as a country. We're not going to make it as a society. And all -- and I don't want to repeat myself, but we see these things in our focus groups every time. People just light into each other. We got to stop. We got to stop right now.

CAMEROTA: Um, Frank, stand by if you would. Let me bring in the panel now. So, Patrick --

PATRICK MCENROE, FORMER PROFESSIONAL TENNIS PLAYER: Hmm.

CAMEROTA: -- it is disheartening. But, I mean, I think that -- I don't know. I think that maybe it's not as bleak as "The Wall Street Journal" is, um, you know, spelling it out as. But here's one that is bleak, tolerance for others. In 2019, they said 80% -- is that possible in 2019? That's how we felt? And now, in just a few short years later, 58%. Your thoughts?

MCENROE: Well, first of all, I'm glad Frank didn't tear up a hundred.

CAMEROTA: Me, too. Me, too.

MCENROE: It was just a single. So, that was the good part.

CAMEROTA: That made me feel better. I agree.

MCENROE: But, I mean, he is spot on with so many of his comments. But, you know, I think back to when we are all similar age, when we were kids, you know, we used to watch certain -- you know, the one show that we watch. We do things together.

And I think the splintered nature of not only the politicians, which is certainly a huge part of this, but what's available -- think of our kids now and all the options they have. I mean, there are so many different things they can do. There are so many different shows.

So, I feel like people are trying to just put you in your little box. You know, the box has gotten smaller for all these different things, whether it's politics, whether it's television, entertainment. And so, it's just -- it is kind of like becoming just what it is. It's hard to get away from it because everyone is like -- it is focus groups. Frank talks about (INAUDIBLE). He just focused (ph) groups on certain groups of people and this is what it has sort of become. But I think I'm not as pessimistic as this. I still think there's a lot of good things. And I think the biggest thing that Frank said is to listen. Listen to other people. So, I'm ready to listen now.

CAMEROTA: Yes. And people need to stop listening with their mouths, which is what people do get in.

(LAUGHTER)

GIDEON LICHFIELD, GLOBAL EDITOR DIRECTOR, WIRED: Yes, they listen with their mouths. So, speaking of listening with one's mouth, I want to -- I'm not -- I don't want to second guess Frank Luntz, the master -- the master of public opinion. But I've seen opinion polls misused a lot in many different countries. And it's very easy to tell a story with a poll by picking certain questions. And these questions tell a pretty dispiriting story to be sure.

But I want to point out, you know, first of all, I think you could ask questions about other things. What do people -- how important is friendship to people? Has that gone up? I's be curious to know. I don't know the answer. How important is caring for the environment to people? That might show a shift in a different direction. Again, I don't know the answer.

But when you pick questions like this, you're almost designed to show the country falling apart, and also to show certain values, which are more associated with the right and the left in many of these cases, declining. Then should you be surprised?

I also want to say one more thing. Frank said money is not important. When you look at that poll, before the question about which of these values are less important to people or more important, there is a whole series of questions on the pole about economics, about how optimistic people feel about the future, and they are a litany of concern, of anxiety.

People are saying they're not confident that they will be better off. They're not confident their finances are improving. I think 21% said that they feel their kids will be better off than they are. Seventy- eight percent said they won't be. And that has been part of the narrative of economic insecurity this country has been in for a long time.

(CROSSTALK)

LICHFIELD: So, of course, money is important. It is important to say (INAUDIBLE). Great move, Frank. (INAUDIBLE) the flag, do what you want, but I'm not entirely convinced.

CAMEROTA: We will have Frank weigh on this in a second. But let me go to Maysoon. Maysoon, so, your thoughts?

MAYSOON ZAYID, COMEDIAN: So, my thoughts are you can't have religion and you can't have kids without money. You can have faith. Faith is free. Organized religion is extremely expensive and having children is extremely expensive. So, the idea that we can be close to these things and ignore money, I hope he tapes that dollar back --

(LAUGHTER)

-- and sends it to me --

(LAUGHTER)

-- because it is expensive being disabled in American. It is expensive having kids. I tried to adopt. It was so expensive. All I could afford was a cat. That's it. Beyonce. That's all I have. So, I think that we need to look at this and first go -- people like me aren't polled. I'm closer to religion than ever. It's Ramadan. I'm hungry. I remember. I know what's happening.

But also, I think that these things getting away from them isn't necessarily bad. And I think community has completely been redefined. Community is now online.

When I'm hanging out with my community, it's not Cliffside Park, New Jersey, which I love --

CAMEROTA: New Jersey girl.

CAMEROTA: -- Jersey ruled, but my community is, you know, disabled people worldwide, Palestinians worldwide, people who wear way too much makeup for a new show worldwide.

(LAUGHTER)

[23:25:00]

And so, is community disappearing or is it defined differently?

CAMEROTA: Great point.

EVAN SIEGFRIED, PRESIDENT, SOMM CONSULTING: Well, to get to Gideon's point on economics, when -- if we go back to the 90s, the dollar went a lot longer further for everybody. And now, more and more Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and cost of living is skyrocketing. And that's a huge problem.

And at the same time, we've seen both political and cultural shifts where in culture, the TV's dad in the 90s was Bob Saget. Now, it's Logan Roy. Now, we also have the Kardashians. What are they chasing after? Money. So, those are the values we are imparting to many in our generations, the younger millennials and Gen Z.

And then on the political side, we've seen since the 1990s the left and the right elect further and further more extreme bomb throwers who refused to compromise and think it's the dirtiest word. Last month, we had Marjorie Taylor Greene calling to have a great national divorce. And, you know --

CAMEROTA: Joe Biden is hardly a left wing --

SIEGFRIED: No, he's not when -- I think enough of the country was so sick and tired of Donald Trump and just literally tired of the drama that they voted for Joe Biden. And at the same time, tonight, we had a Fox News host come out and say that trans people are the natural enemy of Christianity and tried to paint the brush that because of the shooter in Nashville was being trans, that all trans people are responsible.

And that is violent and dangerous rhetoric that does divide us. It's wrong because the shooter in Sandy Hook had was on the autism spectrum. That doesn't mean everybody with autism all of a sudden is a threat. It's wrong. It divides us.

But also, those online communities you talk about, there are plenty of online communities where they get together and they echo chamber --

ZAYID: Absolutely.

SIEGFRIED: -- these horrible divisive ideas.

CAMEROTA: Yeah. Frank, can you tape that dollar bill together and send it to Maysoon?

(LAUGHTER)

ZAYID: Please. Thank you.

(LAUGHTER)

LUNTZ: I do not want to tape it together but I want to emphasize one point that one of your panelists made, which is that so many parents now think their kids are going to have a worse quality of life. That has been a problem now for about 10 years, but it has never been this bad. We've never had a situation when so many people think that the next generation is going to have it worse than this generation.

That is a major definition of the American dream. That is a major component in the anxiety that people have right now, the genuine fear. And unless we address that, I will tell you that people were making more money over the past couple of years, but everything in life is costing them even more.

And they started to come to realize that money itself doesn't buy happiness. It doesn't buy success. That in the end, a happy family and a community that works together and actually -- however you define it, if you feel part of a community and you're satisfied with your family, then all these other issues don't matter as much. But if you're making more money and you have less of that soul, less of that ethos about America, that's what matters most.

So, yeah, this is a wakeup call to everyone that things are still getting worse in this country. And God forbid, if we have the same 2024 that we had in 2020, politicians need to listen, not just listen to each other, but listen to the American people, learn from the American people, and then lead. In the end, that's what matters.

CAMEROTA: And love is the answer.

(LAUGHTER)

UNKNOWN: Absolutely.

CAMEROTA: I think we can all agree.

UNKNOWN: (INAUDIBLE).

CAMEROTA: Very good. Frank, thank you very much. Great to see you.

LUNTZ: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: The acting head of the Federal Aviation Administration has an interesting theory on what might be causing that string of near collisions of commercial flights. He links it to the pandemic, but something else also. We'll talk about that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: I like that Maysoon is (INAUDIBLE).

(LAUGHTER)

That is fantastic. All right, now to this, close calls on runways putting airplane passengers at risk. Today, the FAA's acting administrator had an interesting explanation. Nolen says -- quote -- "Air travel is coming back in a big way since the pandemic, but the long layoff, coupled with the increased technical nature of our systems, might have caused some professionals to lose some of that muscle memory. On top of that, we're contending with the loss of experience, as the pandemic forced many seasoned professionals into retirement."

Data from the Bureau of Transportation shows that after dipping at the beginning of COVID, the pandemic, airline passengers bounced back by mid- 2021. But despite the return of passengers, the data shows a different story for airline jobs. Airline employment is still struggling to get back to pre-pandemic levels.

My panel is back with me. Maysoon, is the FAA basically throwing pilots under the plane here by saying like they just don't know how to operate, the new systems have gotten rusty, their muscle memory has gone?

ZAYID: Not only are they throwing pilots under the plane, they are terrifying touring people like me. Like I don't need their muscle memory gone, I need them to be sharp, and like everybody is wilding out on planes right now. But also, nobody is talking about the fact that there's no such thing as a scheduled flight anymore.

Like I know I'm supposed to feel bad for the pilots, they're tired, my life is in their hands, but what I really feel bad about is going to Newark airport and just living there. (LAUGHTER)

Flight schedules are just suggested. They're not real. And this pandemic excuse, oh, my God, it's what I tell my mom when I don't want to do stuff. I'm so behind, it is the pandemic.

(LAUGHTER)

I'm catching up from the pandemic. You're not catching up from the pandemic.

CAMEROTA: You're not going to take that from pilots, basically.

ZAYID: I'll take anything pilots wants me to take. I sit very quietly on airplanes and I am not disruptive.

[23:35:01]

CAMEROTA: That's good. Excellent. Me, too, because I'm scared some of the time. So, I don't like -- I like Maysoon, I don't like the idea that our pilots have forgotten how to fly some of these systems.

SIEGFRIED: The pandemic excuse now doesn't hold water because we've had vaccines for two years, and that has enabled us to get back to pretty much more normal life. But at the same time, let's look at the infrastructure, which the acting chief of FAA kind of hinted at but did not go there, which is we have an aging infrastructure.

We aren't having advanced supercomputers and airport traffic control -- air traffic control and in planes themselves that can coordinate and say, oh, there's another plane there. They actually have to take little tiles and move them around and some --

CAMEROTA: No.

SIEGFRIED: Yes.

ZAYID: No, no, no.

SIEGFRIED: That's still there.

ZAYID: No. come on.

SIEGFRIED: It's still there. It's terrifying.

ZAYID: No, that's --

CAMEROTA: They're doing it with Legos? The air traffic controllers are doing battleship --

SIEGFRIED: It's literally a little battleship.

LICHFIELD: That was an airplane. They don't do that.

(LAUGHTER)

ZAYID: My God.

SIEGFRIED: We do need to upgrade the infrastructure that can better deal with stuff in the 21st century.

CAMEROTA: We heard that. We definitely learned that after the Southwest meltdown.

MCENROE: Well, as you know, Alisyn, I -- my homework for the show is exhaustive. Okay?

(LAUGHTER)

So, when I went through, there are some of the numbers on this one where they said 20 to 25% of the airline employees, pilots, air traffic control people, flight attendants had left during the pandemic.

Why haven't they all come back? I'll give it three guesses. The first two don't count. What Frank luntz was talking about. It's about the money. I'm on a flight a couple of weeks ago when I had to miss the show, which was devastating to me --

CAMEROTA: And me.

MCENROE: -- in California. And I'm on a flight to Palm Springs, which is only one nonstop flight a day. We got off the flight. A small plane. People are packed in. The flight attendants say, can you please leave quickly because we're turning around, we're going right back. I said, you guys are going right back to New York, the same crew? That used to be you take a long cross-country flight, you'd be offered a day or two, you get to relax.

They turned right around and came back and this is what they're trying to squeeze everything, the employees, us, talking about the dollars and more flights, and these people got to get their act together and not make it all about the green.

CAMEROTA: Gideon?

LICHFIELD: You know, I mean, hearing everything that you're saying, I think these numbers are actually a good thing, a sign that things are going remarkably well. I mean, considering all of the, you know, the losses of jobs, the stresses, the angry passengers, everything else, the fact that we're anything that's actually relatively small uptick in the number of serious near misses, I mean, we don't want one of those serious near misses that turn into an actual collision, obviously.

But if -- I was looking at the FAA data, and I think the numbers that they're talking about as seeing this uptick recently is the most serious incidents. But if you look at the data on all incidents that counters incidents which, you know, amount to a good few dozen a month, the numbers have actually slightly declined in the last six months.

CAMEROTA: Really? Because they look bad. The ones that we video of -- (CROSSTALK)

LICHFIELD: It's true, like one bad incident like that, and you look -- but all I'm saying is I'm very glad that Nolen is, you know, calling attention to this and having summit about it, I think that's responsible, but I don't think we should all freak out. It's certainly not good from --

ZAYID: We should freak out. Near miss in a plane if they don't miss --

UNKNOWN: I don't want to be sitting in a plane freaking out.

UNKNOWN: That's why they have bourbon on the plane.

CAMEROTA: That's right.

UNKNOWN: You have to pay.

ZAYID: But also --

CAMEROTA: Very quickly.

ZAYID: Yeah, just really quickly. Why are we not better at this? It's American exceptionalism. A year later, we didn't know everyone was getting wind fly after being trapped in their houses. We should be ahead of this curb.

CAMEROTA: Thank you.

ZAYID: We should not be behind it. And no near misses when I'm flying, please.

CAMEROTA: Agreed with all of that. Thank you very much. Panel, stay with me. When we come back, does ChatGPT have a political bias? And how much of what it gives you is flat out wrong? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: ChatGPT has only been around for a few months and already both the left and the right are angry with it and calling it biased. We need to examine how this new technology blurs the line between truth and fiction.

My panel and I are joined now by Sheryll Cashin, the Carmack Waterhouse professor of law, civil rights, and social justice at Georgetown Law School. Professor, thanks so much for being here. Tell us about this experiment that you did with ChatGPT involving the history of slavery.

SHERYLL CASHIN, CARMACK WATERHOUSE PROFESSOR OF LAW, GEORGETOWN LAW SCHOOL: Right. So, 35 states in the country have adopted or introduced legislation to ban the teaching of race -- history about race, right? And so, I wanted to -- my fear was that students who denied, uh, truth and that kind of creep will probably fall back on the internet.

So, I just asked the ChatGPT a simple question. Simple to me. Um, which of the delegates at the constitutional convention oppose slavery? And ChatGPT basically made up an answer. Right? They said that several delegates, many delegates spoke out against slavery, um, but they weren't able to abolish it.

And in fact, that was so far from the truth. The debate at the convention was really about how much we're going to accommodate slavery. Not one delegate there proposed that it be abolished.

[23:45:00]

And so what ChatGPT did was it mouth, um, something very similar to the things that Ron DeSantis and others have said about the framers, suggesting that they favored freedom for all and that they set the stage for abolition when in fact it took 80 years and a civil war before we were able to accomplish that.

CAMEROTA: And so, professor, where is ChatGPT getting its information?

CASHIN: So, it -- it -- as I understand it from reading about it in the newspapers, it minds data that's given to it. It looked at thousands and thousands and thousands of patterns, um, words that are out there, and it predicts the kinds of words that the prompt -- the person who wrote the prompt would want to hear. Right?

So, I asked, who at the founding spoke against slavery? It mounts back to me, uh, this very tale about the delegates actually wanting abolition, um, but not being able to accomplish it. Uh, and this is this -- I think it's pretty dangerous because ChatGPT can't tell truth from fiction. It's not intelligent in this sense. It just gathers information and spits out what it thinks, frankly, um, I may want to hear.

And the thing that's particularly dangerous is because it's written in nice pros and it's written with confidence, it seems as if it knows what it's talking about, right? So, the person who reads it might think it's true. I happen to be a scholar and read two books and knew that it didn't know what it was talking about. But it also could be manipulated pretty well to put out untruths.

CAMEROTA: Yeah. This is an excellent cautionary tale, this experiment. Professor, stand by if you would. I want to bring in my panel. So, Gideon, maybe humans are better than robots after all. I mean, this is what she described. As she says, she knows better. Most of us don't. And so, we can't really rely on ChatGPT. We see it time and again.

LICHFIELD: Well, I want to say one sentence that I want everybody to remember. That would really help if people remember it. ChatGPT is not trained on the truth. It is trained on the internet. The internet is full of stuff that people -- some of which is true. Some of which is stuff that people want to be true. It contains all of the biases and the anger and all of the stuff that we humans have put on to it. And so, that's -- that's one point.

The second point is someone used in what I thought was a really good metaphor to understand what a model like ChatGPT is. It's like, you know, when you take an image, a picture of something, and then you compress the image, you make a jpeg. But you keep on compressing it and compressing it. It gets grainer and grainer messier and messier. ChatGPT is like this incredibly compressed image of the internet.

So, even whatever information or it's not even really information that it's taken. What it takes from the internet is sequences of words. And it says what is the word that is most statistically likely to follow the preceding word, and that's how it creates patterns. And then it takes those patterns and compresses them. It produces this very grainy picture of what is there.

So, to go and then ask it who was against slavery in the constitutional convention, you shouldn't really expect it to produce a good answer. The problem is, of course, as the professor says, a lot of people expected to, but we really need to understand just how limited it is in being able to translate anything into anything that might be called reliable.

MCENROE: Sounds to me like some political operatives. I mean, it's just -- you put the -- getting the information from human beings. They are putting the information in the internet. I mean, my Twitter feed, let's see, I've got tennis on it, what a surprise, I've got news, I've got music like my Instagram feed, figures out I like music, I like the Beatles, so guess what comes up? The Beatles comes up again. I mean, this is what it is.

And so, human beings are going to affect what ChatGPT is, right, based on exactly what they're putting they're giving them the information, and I understand that they're starting to write all the -- they're going to use them in the political world now to just write their media reports and just put it out there.

ZAYID: That is such a bad idea.

MCENROE: Yeah, this is what's happening.

ZAYID: That's such a bad idea. The text in the emails that we get already, I spend like half the day trying to unsubscribe, and now they're going to let a robot do it like they're already robots. Robots will kill us. I'm not even convinced that Gideon is not one.

(LAUGHTER)

But like the idea of introducing this --

LICHFIELD: I do.

MCENROE: He's not. He's real. He's real.

CAMEROTA: (INAUDIBLE).

ZAYID: That's what he wants you to think and that's what ChatGPT wants. I want nothing to do with any of that. I'm not lying it, predict what I'm going to say. I'm not going to play with it. But the idea that politicians would use it to court us?

CAMEROTA: We'll see, Maysoon. I mean, I feel like I'm going to ask you back in a year. We'll see if you can avoid ChatGPT because it seems so ubiquitous. I owe you one. We have to get to penmanship, okay? So, we're going to talk about Penmanship Porn, and I'm serious, when we come back.

[23:50:02]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Okay, let's talk Penmanship Porn. Penmanship Porn is a community on Reddit where people can fawn over beautiful examples of penmanship and watch other people's writing.

I'm back with my panel. Okay, so first, let's put up one of our panelists' penmanship and let's all judge it. Okay, this is -- okay, so this is clearly a psychopath --

(LAUGHTER)

-- who has written this. This right here is Evan's. Yes?

SIEGFRIED: Yep.

CAMEROTA: It's totally legible. I can read it. It looks great. Okay, now, let's look at the next example. Let's look at the next example. Okay, that's pretty.

UNKNOWN: That's pretty nice.

CAMEROTA: That's pretty amazing. First of all, you signed it.

[23:55:00]

So, we've seen it. That's yours?

ZAYID: I signed it.

CAMEROTA: Okay, nice.

ZAYID: This is me and I just want to say this is proof that I'm better than mediocre white men because I have cerebral palsy. Resting position of my hands is like a kangaroo. I still wrote better.

CAMEROTA: How did you do that? Cerebral palsy? How did you -- is it hard to write and sign?

ZAYID: It's hard, but the thing is I knew about Penmanship Porn, and I wanted my writing to reflect the fact that I vibrate --

(LAUGHTER)

-- because I thought it would help me do better. Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Evan, you have eight seconds to respond.

SIEGFRIED: Well, my penmanship, I was just trying to promote abstinence --

(LAUGHTER)

-- but --

CAMEROTA: That is so --

SIEGFRIED: My therapist is going to get a lot of (INAUDIBLE).

UNKNOWN: No way to follow up on this.

CAMEROTA: Yeah. Okay, one more thing. I just have to show one more thing. Patrick, yours is a cocktail napkin.

MCENROE: Well, listen.

CAMEROTA: Well, I mean, what does that tell us?

MCENROE: I mean, the hotel room, you can't even get stationery. I used a napkin. That's all I could get.

CAMEROTA: If that doesn't say Penmanship Porn, I don't know what does.

(LAUGHTER)

Thank you all. Okay, get in very quickly.

UNKNOWN: Look at Gideon.

CAMEROTA: Gideon.

UNKNOWN: That was clean.

CAMEROTA: That was Gideon's right there?

UNKNOWN: Yeah. It was clean.

LICHFIELD: Mine was also a cocktail napkin.

CAMEROTA: Okay. Oh, wow.

ZAYID: That's nice.

CAMEROTA: Maybe you are a robot, Gideon.

ZAYID: Yeah, he's a robot.

CAMEROTA: Alright, guys, thank you very much. Great to have you all here tonight.

Before we go, tomorrow on "CNN This Morning," Republican Senator Mike Rounds joins to talk about today's big banking hearing in the Senate and if there's any possibility of gun reform in the wake of the Nashville shooting. Tune in for "CNN This Morning" starting at 6:00 a.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

Thanks so much for watching. Our coverage continues now.

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