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CNN Tonight

Tucker Carlson Out At Fox News; D.A. In Georgia Plans To Make Announcement This Summer On Charging Decision In Trump 2020 Election Probe; What Are 2024 Presidential Hopefuls' Achilles Heels?; Police Officer Who Shot And Killed Breonna Taylor Hired As A Deputy; Solving Crime In Chicago; Lizzo Performs With Drag Queens. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired April 24, 2023 - 22:00   ET

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

[22:00:00]

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN HOST: Hey, Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Hey Michael, thank you very much. And good evening, everyone. I'm Alisyn Camerota. Welcome to CNN Tonight.

In a sudden and stunning move, Tucker Carlson ousted from Fox. Was it the on-air election lies and conspiracy theories or was it the behind the scenes behavior that is just now coming to light because of a lawsuit by one of his own producers? We'll get into all of that.

Plus, what a Georgia D.A. says about the timing of possible indictments in the investigation of Donald Trump's efforts to overturn that state's election results in 2020.

And Michelle Obama has a thing or two to say about her return to the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I noticed that you went, back you went back to the White House recently. You haven't been back.

MICHELLE OBAMA, FORMER U.S. FIRST LADY: No, I wasn't invited.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: All right. But we start with the former top booker for Tucker Carlson's show who apparently has a heck of a story to tell. She's filed a lawsuit against Fox and revealed a lot of unsavory details about how his show is run. It all sounds like one toxic, misogynistic boys club. People regularly using the C-word around the office, many posters of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a plunging swimsuit adorning the walls. One of Tucker's producers reportedly liked to ask questions of Maria Bartiromo's sex life. This is all in addition to the mega defamation Dominion lawsuit that just cost Fox $787.5 million.

Tucker also apparently did not think his own bosses were very smart. He sent this text to one of his producers right after the network called Arizona for Biden. Quote, a combination of incompetent liberals and top leadership with too much pride to back down is what's happening.

We have so much to discuss with our panel. We have Josh Barro, the very serious host of The Very Serious Podcast, former Congressman Mondaire Jones, and two people who, like me, have years of experience inside Fox, whether they want to admit it or not, the wonderful Margaret Hoover and the delightful Frank Luntz. Guys, great have all of you here. Frank?

FRANK LUNTZ, POLLSTER AND COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGIST: I'm delightful.

CAMEROTA: You are delightful.

LUNTZ: And I put that in my resume.

CAMEROTA: Yes, that can go in your business card. Your thoughts when you heard the news about Tucker.

LUNTZ: I know from the research that I've done for almost every team network that nothing matters more than integrity and the truth. And it was impossible for Tucker Carlson to explain how. He says publicly how great Donald Trump is, and then in private, he's condemning him, slamming him, text after text after text.

CAMEROTA: But do you think the viewers knew that? They weren't exactly covering the Dominion lawsuit. So, do you think the viewers knew that, really? That's why you think he was fired?

LUNTZ: I don't know and I owe him. I really do. He changed my life.

CAMEROTA: How?

LUNTZ: By coming after me so incredibly harshly, night after night, 10 minutes, 15 minutes at a time, attempting to wreck my professional life. It got so bad that I left the country. And in that, I discovered how great London is to live. I discovered how awesome it is to teach across the globe. I discovered that politics didn't matter that much to me. And I discovered that his ratings didn't matter.

So, I'm actually grateful to him, and I feel sorry for him, because I believe he's been fired by every single news network, which is a record that you cannot ever beat.

CAMEROTA: Well, this is really a silver lining you have here. And that's really nice, Frank. I mean, it's nice that you've been able to see it in that light, that everything is a teachable moment. That's great.

But, Margaret, I think that hearing what may be an Abby Grossberg's lawsuit, maybe that's what's behind this, more than even the Dominion lawsuit? Hard to know, because we don't know everything that's in there but just that little bit that I read.

MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: We don't know everything. But what we do know is that if this were about his texts in the Dominion lawsuit, if this were about the shaming of Fox News as not being a legit news organization because he was promulgating lies, then Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro would be behind him on the way out. And I don't know, I haven't checked Twitter in the last five minutes, but last I did check, they still are happily employed there.

So, doesn't seem as though it is about the integrity of the news network and telling the truth to your viewers. As in all complex corporate firings, there are many issues at play and we have yet to learn.

CAMEROTA: Congressman, what is it -- I mean, look, we've talked about the things that were said, the falsehoods that were spread on Fox many nights. You're smiling.

MONDAIRE JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Including about me. I've had the privilege of being --

CAMEROTA: Is that right?

HOOVER: I bet they told the truth about you all the time.

JONES: Oh, not at all.

CAMEROTA: Do you feel as good about it as Frank does, the attacks?

LUNTZ: Join me in Europe. It's really cool there.

JONES: I love Europe. Look, leave it to Fox to finally reach the right outcome on something, but not for the right reasons, right?

[22:05:06]

It seems like the reason Tucker Carlson was let go was because of people like Rupert Murdoch were upset that he criticize them and that that came out in discovery in the Dominion lawsuit.

Again, shout out once again to Dominion. I think that Tucker Carlson is objectively one of, if not, the most pernicious forces on television, or I would say today. But as of Friday of last week, you know, The New York Times obviously famously did a profile of him and they called it white supremacy power hour. I don't think anyone, any single individual, with the exception of the Murdoch family perhaps has had more of an influence on in terms of enraging people who feel as though they are being replaced, in the case of one of the themes on his show, white replacement theory.

And, of course, through repeating the lie that the election was stolen, he contributed to what happened on January 6th. And it's just such a shame that Fox is not going to have to apologize for telling that significant lie.

CAMEROTA: Josh, how do you see it?

JOSH BARRO, HOST, VERY SERIOUS PODCAST: Well, I think there was a lot of talk last week, people oddly disappointed about this settlement payment, sort of viewing it as a capitulation they wanted. I think people had this vision that if this had gone to trial, if Fox lost, they would've been forced to apologize and everyone would've had to admit they're lying about this. And that's not how it, works even if you win a multibillion dollar judgment, you don't get to force the defendant to apologize.

CAMEROTA: Well, it happened with Gretchen Carlson. The reason some people thought that was going to happen was because Gretchen Carlson had reported $20 million settlement with Fox, and they had to apologize to her publicly.

BARRO: Well, you can negotiate for anything in a settlement. But the thing about the settlement is that the apology, and Dominion's CEO wrote about this, like is the apology worth anything, like, you know, a halfhearted qualified apology that people know is being made pursuant to a legal proceeding, does that help them actually restore their reputation at all? And it ends up being costly to Fox, including because they're being sued by various other parties. If they admit wrongdoing in this case, then they have to go defend themselves against Smartmatic.

And so I think there are reasons we didn't see the apology. But some people had this idea that this was like a parking ticket for Fox, it was a cost of doing business. This, first of all, is like half of Fox's profits from 2022. So, it's a really large amount of money. But also we're seeing here the sort of the domino effects from this, that this set off all of this internal dissension. I think it's very unlikely that Tucker would be fired this week if it were not for the lawsuit, even he's not being fired for matters in the lawsuit. It opened up this rift, caused disclosure of these communications.

By the way, a lot of the discovery in this lawsuit was under protective order. There were those redactions that we all saw, things we didn't get to see. They lifted some of the redactions, but not all of them. So, there are other things that Tucker may have said about Fox management or about other matters that are known to us but are known to Fox management. They saw that in discovery.

So, I think I suspect that this really is about his relationship to management. This harassment lawsuit brought by this employee, frankly, that is the sort of thing that feels like the cost of doing business. If you're going to pay out a nine-figure settlement to Dominion, you can pay seven figures and settle that lawsuit.

CAMEROTA: Well, hold on, go ahead.

HOOVER: Well, I was just asked to say, the thing I did not comment on and none of us have commented on is the thing you've led with, which is that there is this sexism allegation, this bravado, this misconduct allegation amongst all the men and the boys club that existed at Fox News. I did not even comment on that, because having formally worked there, and I know you formerly worked there, it just goes without saying.

BARRO: Yes. HOOVER: This is how Fox works. They are a sexist -- I mean, there is not a space for so the sort of the decency and respect of regular, normal women, unless you have your legs out and your high heels and all of the other things, I don't even want to go into it, but that's just how the place works. And so it feels eminently believable that this, on top of all the things you're talking about, Josh, is part of the mix.

LUNTZ: In the end, is that what happens internally? Because while this is all important and our relations and how we treat each other is essential. We call ourselves a news network. And in the end, can the people who are watching it trust and believe what they're being told?

And this -- you shouldn't roll your eyes, because this really matters. We talk about the dangers of democracy. I'm teaching now at West Point. I came here to be on this show. And these students are going to defend this democracy, they're going to defend this Constitution, are going to put their lives on the line and they have the right to the truth and you have the responsibility to tell the truth.

And if you're not doing that, you should not be on a news network, and that's the problem of Tucker. That's why we have to look people straight in the eye, because if you are so duplicitous and dishonest to say one thing and then tell your colleagues exactly the opposite --

CAMEROTA: Yes, we all agree. We all agree. But I will just tell you this, Frank, because I did a panel, a viewer panel with Fox viewers last week, and they all -- Tucker was appointment viewing for them.

[22:10:00]

He was the reason they watch Fox. And we checked back in with them today and they basically said that they blamed the network. They do still believe Tucker. They believe Tucker. His viewers often believe him.

LUNTZ: Then we have a problem.

JONES: Which employs other serial liars, right? So, if this were about disparaging the people who are being dishonest on Fox News, we'd see a lot more firings today, I think, than just Tucker Carlson. So, let's not give Fox too much credit.

CAMEROTA: Josh?

BARRO: Yes. No, I mean, I think that's right. And I think the one thing to -- you know, when we're talking about the internal politics there, it's a publicly traded corporation, but it's ultimately controlled by the Murdoch family. And so if you piss off Rupert Murdoch, he can fire you, even if it's not a good decision from a shareholder point of view.

I mean, this shows what a rough position Fox has comes out of in all of this because if you say they told these lies because they were trying to win the trust of their audience, and, by the way, I don't think the way you win the trust of the core Fox audiences by telling the truth. I think Tucker Carlson and others correctly diagnosed that a lot of the audience was flipping out about true things that they were learning in November of 2020.

LUNTZ: There are some things more important than ratings. There are some things more important than elections.

HOOVER: That's not what the Dominion deposition said.

LUNTZ: Look, we are in deep, deep trouble. And unless we hold all of us, which means this network, MSNBC, CNBC, everyone, if you are proven to be dishonest, you have to be held accountable.

HOOVER: Are you going to continue to go on Fox News then?

LUNTZ: Yes, because Brett Baier is honest. Neil Cavuto is honest. They have people there -- Dana Perino is honest.

BARRO: Even if it was the Cavuto network, it would be out of business. I mean, I think we saw this in this episode. The problem here is the consumer. There is demand for this product. And someone will offer it to them. And what the people at Fox were terrified of is that if it's not them, that's going to be Newsmax. And who knows where Tucker Carlson is going to land. I don't think we should assume that he's gone away just because he's off Fox's air. I think he could become an important cornerstone for some other conservative network that is willing to go to places that not everyone on Fox will go.

JONES: There's also reporting that Brett Baier is quite dishonest because of the Dominion discovery that came out as well. So, again, this is much deeper than Tucker Carlson.

LUNTZ: I reject that and I think we have to do this on an individual basis on every news network, so that those who have been shown to be wrong again and again should be held responsible.

HOOVER: The problem is we saw in a deposition and all the discovery from the Dominion case is that the tone comes from the top. It wasn't individual, this host, that host. It was coming from Suzanne Scott, the CEO of the network. It was coming from Rupert Murdoch, the owner of the corporation. This is in an endemic problem at that corporation.

And in that, quote/unquote, news network, that is not about individual hosts. And if there are some individual hosts who hue to the truth more than others, good for them, but they're still part of this rotten, cancerous media organization in this country, which is misinforming Americans on a daily basis, which I used to work at, and has gotten significantly worse in the last years.

LUNTZ: And the problem is we collect our news to affirm us rather than inform us.

CAMEROTA: Yes, yes.

LUNTZ: So, wer'e partially responsible for this ourselves. We have to get away from it.

JONES: Yes. I don't watch Fox News, so I agree.

CAMEROTA: So, you're good. Your conscience is clean right now.

All right, there is also other big media news today that we need to tell you about. CNN's CEO Chris Licht announcing that, quote, CNN and Don Lemon have parted ways. Licht says in a letter to the network, quote, Don will forever be a part of the CNN family, and we thank him for his contributions over the past 17 years. We wish him well and we'll be cheering him on for his future endeavors.

Okay. When we come back, the 2024 election, from Donald Trump's legal entanglements to the investigation to Hunter Biden, what will these mean for the presidential election? Our panel tells us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:15:00]

CAMEROTA: New developments tonight in one of the big legal cases surrounding former President Trump. In Georgia, Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis says she will announce this summer whether she'll bring charges against Trump or his allies for their attempts to overturn the 2020 Georgia presidential election results. According to a letter obtained by CNN, she plans to announce possible charges between July 11th and September 1st.

Meanwhile, jury selection is set to begin tomorrow in E. Jean Carroll's lawsuit against Donald Trump. She alleges that he raped her in a New York department store in the mid-1990s and then defamed her by denying the assault, saying she was not his type and suggesting that she made the allegations for book sales.

My panel is back with me. You know, Congressman, we don't talk enough about the E. Jean Carroll case. That's happening tomorrow. It's starting tomorrow. And that is obviously a very ugly case, the accusations, and if she can prove them, they're obviously old, it will be a challenge. But we've also learned that Donald Trump doesn't have to be there in the courtroom. It's his choice.

JONES: No, you don't have to be. For anyone other than Donald Trump, it would be a really high-profile fact in American news that a former president who is being accused in a civil lawsuit of rape. But when you have a guy who is so entangled with so many different lawsuits, and I think more prominently, existing indictments and pending indictments, like what is going to be happening in Fulton, potentially, it just gets lost in the conversation. And, you know, the person who is leading this lawsuit, Robbie Kaplan, she's a tremendous lawyer, and this is a very serious case.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely.

JONES: And I think we will be continued to be appalled by what comes out of it.

CAMEROTA: But to your point, I am going to have to do like a lightning round with this, because there are so many different cases coming up. And I also do want to get to what's happening in the investigation with Hunter Biden. So, there's so much, as you say, in the atmosphere that it is hard for like one particularly ugly case to really sink in, I think, for the viewers because it does all sort of start to blend together.

[22:20:01]

JONES: That was true of his presidency as well, by the way.

CAMEROTA: Yes, that is true, the chaos theory.

LUNTZ: I don't know why his numbers are going up.

CAMEROTA: Why?

LUNTZ: Because it looks like he's being persecuted. If you're on the Democratic side, it's because he did all these crimes and behaved badly. If you are a Republican, you look at it and you say it's all a conspiracy to bring him down. And every one of these investigations have caused Trump's numbers to improve. He's doing better now in the surveys than he has done than at any time in 2023. He's dominating the field. He's got a lead that we've not seen in five, six years over his Republican opponents. And I believe that it's so much due to the prosecutorial efforts and their horrific communication that's actually allowing Trump to say that he's a victim.

CAMEROTA: What do you mean horrific communication? What do you want them to say differently?

LUNTZ: Because when they went to Mar-a-Lago, and they went into his house, for five days, the Justice Department did not explain why that raid happened. So, for five whole days, Trump is allowed to say, I'm being victimized, when he was indicted.

HOOVER: Didn't Merrick Garland come out within 24 hours and give a press conference explaining the details for the raid? I think that's --

LUNTZ: No, he did not explain it, and that's the whole problem. And it happened -- one more time. It happened when he was indicted. He was indicted on Thursday, and then he went on Tuesday to actually face the indictment, it was unsealed. Why can't they provide the context, the specifics, because, otherwise, Trump is getting away with everything?

BARRO: Well, I mean, I think it's important to remember that these are actually legal proceedings. It doesn't just matter from a P.R. perspective how the go, I mean, especially the criminal proceedings. I have given opinions on the proceedings. I have not been thrilled with the way Alvin Bragg has handled this prosecution, in particular, he's not laid out the exact legal theory underlying what the crime is.

CAMEROTA: That's the one about the Stormy Daniels.

BARRO: Yes. And it's falsification of business records, but you have to have been doing that in order to hide some other crime. And he hasn't explained that, which he doesn't have to. But he also didn't have to give a press conference, which he did. And so if you are going to come out and give a press conference to explain you are doing this, you might want to explain exactly what is the legal theory with this sort of Rube Goldberg charge that you have.

However, what's going on in Georgia, that is -- I think there's a sense that this is sort of like, really, we're going to have the criminal prosecution of Trump over a hush money payment? The stuff in Georgia is over really core acts related to the efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

CAMEROTA: And people have heard that phone call.

BARRO: People have heard the phone call. They're aware of the behavior. And the behavior is seen as serious behavior, not a sort of sideline, a way to get him on the side. So, I think, yes, he can paint himself as a victim, although I would note, he can do that without being indicted. I think maybe the best political positioning for him here was when it is being investigated but not actually facing indictment.

But if Republicans want to go ahead and nominate someone who's going to be facing a criminal trial in Georgia, as a Democrat, I say, go right ahead.

HOOVER: Or the prosecution of the special counsel. Look, I think that you are completely right in identifying that there is an activist online base of the Republican Party that believes the more he is prosecuted, the more he is victimized, the more that is those people telling us who our candidate should be, and, by golly, they're not going to pick our candidate, we're going to pick our candidate, and our guy is Trump. I mean, that is the sort of part of the psychology that happens.

So, the more he is prosecuted because of the system and the rule of law that we have in this country, the more he ascends with that certain group of Republican voters, and I think that is also inversely related, or there is an inverse relationship to how he then is perceived by the general population and the regular voting public in a November election.

CAMEROTA: Yes. But the problem, the other option is not prosecuting him for the things that the D.A. has determined are not.

HOOVER: You have to do it. I'm just saying is the more popular you are with the base of the Republican Party that's going to be active in the primary, the less popular you will ultimately be with the general election public.

JONES: And apparently with the criminal legal system. It's not for a lack of explanation that Donald Trump is going up in the polls. Alvin Bragg actually, I think, has done a good job or a sufficient job of explaining the charges. It's just that people disagree with the merits of the legal arguments.

CAMEROTA: Okay.

JONES: And that's fine, that's a reasonable debate.

CAMEROTA: Okay. But I quickly want to get into also what's happening with the status of Hunter Biden investigation. So, he's not been charged with anything but his lawyers will meet with DOJ officials next week to get what sounds like a status report. And his lawyers are apparently being more aggressive now. They're taking a more aggressive tact, in that they are suing people who have made accusations against Hunter Biden. So, in other words, they're not just sitting and waiting to see like will charges be filed, they're taking their -- they're going on the offensive, basically. So, do any of you think that this will be an Achilles' heel for President Biden in this upcoming election?

BARRO: I think people see the Hunter Biden situation as sad, which it is. You know, I think that he is -- you know, he's clearly a man who has a lot of vices and who has behaved quite badly in a lot of ways.

[22:25:08]

And I think people look at this, and they look at it from the president's perspective, and I think they feel a little bit sorry for the president. And I think people, to some extent, admire the way the president has stood by his very problematic son.

So, I think, some of the stuff to be very serious trouble for Hunter Biden. He's under criminal investigation by the U.S. attorney in Delaware. I would not be surprised if he ends up being criminally charged. But I don't think people view this as a Biden family criminal enterprise. I think they view this as the president ne'er-do-well son up to something again.

LUNTZ: We just did research on this. And it was not mentioned once, not once, in an hour-and-a-half discussion with registered Democrats likely to vote in a primary. They're concerned about Joe Biden's age. They're not concerned about Hunter Biden. And you can't change that.

And it's not that they disagree with Joe Biden. They think he's been a good president, and they want to thank him for replacing what they had before, and they're afraid of losing. But they are saying that Joe Biden, at his age, at his presentation, at his health, they are so scared that he could possibly lose to a Republican. and that's why Joe asked to announce tomorrow, or within the next few days, that he's running because there're so many Democrats right now saying, should we be doing this?

CAMEROTA: Thank you. That's really good context. Sorry, we need to move on, guys.

Stick around, because this is important. A sheriff's office in Kentucky has hired the officer who fired the fatal bullet that killed Breonna Taylor in that botched raid. Taylor's mother said this decision is, quote, insane. The officer's lawyer says he still has the right to be part of the police force. So, we're going to discuss that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [22:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: The officer who fired the fatal shot in the 2020 botched raid that killed Breonna Taylor in her apartment has been hired by a sheriff's office in rural Kentucky. Breonna Taylor's mother says, she actually tells CNN, that she's angry, but not surprised.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAMIKA PALMER, BREONNA TAYLOR'S MOTHER: To think that another department would even want this guy to be a part of any department, for that matter, to know the things that he said about that night, how he couldn't even identify the person or what he was shooting at, and to hire this person into another department just angers me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: The panel is back along with CNN's chief law enforcement analyst John Miller. So, John, explain this. He was terminated by the Louisville Metro Police Department and then hired 50 miles away by the Carroll County Kentucky Sheriff's Department. Is it worth hiring somebody with this high profile and problematic a past?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, I think it's a real step by the sheriff because the sheriff has to know he's going to take heat for this hire. So, what he may be trying to do is what he says publicly, which is he thinks an experienced narcotics officer will help him with his drug problem in the county, or he may be trying to save the career of a police officer who's got almost no prospect of getting hired somewhere else.

CAMEROTA: And from what you know about the facts of the case, does he deserve a second chance?

MILLER: So, there are two schools of thought on that. One is he was part of the raid that killed an innocent woman who had committed no crime and was, you know, an emergency dispatcher studying to be an EMT and did not need to be shot by police.

The other school of thought is he had a warrant that laid out a case that was signed by a judge with a no-knock warrant saying there was dangerous people there. It's a male drug dealer. What he didn't know, Myles Cosgrove, this police officer, is that much of what was in that warrant was false.

This was a warrant that had been fabricated by two other detectives and a sergeant, the person who's supposed to catch fabrications, help build these lies to get the warrant by a judge because they wanted to hit that apartment because they thought that someone in there was part of this narcotics conspiracy.

Now, if you're the cop on the other side of that door and you have this warrant and you go banging through the door, and there's a debate as to whether they said police or not, but the first thing you're met with based on what you read in the warrant is gunfire, your partner is shot and you shoot back, you are going to do a lot of head scratching later when you find out the real story is not what was in the warrant that they handed you to execute and how this became of you.

You can't get Breonna Taylor back, but we live in a country where 250,000 people, according to Johns Hopkins, are killed in medical malpractice incidents every year. It's the third leading cause of death. Nobody takes a doctor's license away -- very, very rarely, and says you can never practice medicine again because your irresponsibility killed somebody.

So, the question is, does this police officer who went through this terrible experience and caused this terrible tragedy based on information he was given that was wrong, does he get the benefit of a second chance? Because he didn't wake up this morning saying I'm going to kill an innocent person.

CAMEROTA: Congressman?

MONDAIRE JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah. Look, I think any analogy that you mentioned about the physician, the person operating on a patient perhaps, you know, if it's just mere negligence, then no, you're probably not going to lose your license. But, you know, let me know if you disagree. You're shooting into the dark and not knowing who you're shooting at, what you're shooting at --

MILLER: Well, you know whoever it is that's shooting at you. And if you've ever been in a gun battle where bullets are coming your way, and then, a far more irresponsible police officer who's posted in the alley starts shooting sideways to the apartment --

JONES: Right.

MILLER: You're not able to tell in that instance at that moment where all these bullets are coming from. You know, my partner behind me is shot, bullets are coming from here, and I hear more gunfire that I don't know where it's coming from.

[22:30:01]

And you're going to react by trying to defend yourself. There are two figures up there. Everything is wrong here, Mondaire.

JONES: Yeah.

MILLER: Nothing --

JONES: I mean --

MILLER: -- nothing about this is right.

JONES: -- starting with the no knock warrant, right? I mean, well, you know, we have the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, that would have banned no knock warrants of the kind that ultimately contributed to the death of -- the murder of Breonna Taylor. MILLER: Yeah, and I've been on some no-knock warrants where the people

didn't knock and -- the people knocked and the people opened the door and shot them. I was at one of those with the U.S. Marshals the year before last in the Bronx. You know, this is a dangerous business.

We keep having this conversation in isolation. Breonna Taylor is a very bad story because an innocent woman died, her boyfriend was wounded. But this is the same town and the same police department where we just watched on live body camera, practically, police officers walked into a field of fire, where the circumstances were similar enough that someone was shooting at them, but they couldn't see where that person was, and they fired back until they took him down.

One police officer was shot in the head and the bullet that traversed his brain, who is still in critical condition, the other was grazed and stayed in the fight until he took down the gunman, who had already killed five people, and it's just the difference between circumstances that were bad on one day, and bad on another day, and worked on a bunch of days in between. It's volatile, dangerous business.

CAMEROTA: Let me quickly get --

MILLER: So, the question is, does this officer -- does this officer deserve any understanding? Or, I mean, when you kill somebody, are you just out?

UNKNOWN: What kind of (inaudible)?

MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I wonder if there isn't, of course, we believe in second chances especially if there are regrets or remorse is expressed and you -- and can move on. But nobody moves on, obviously, from the death of a child. Breonna Taylor's death, I wonder if you're a police officer that winds up, unfortunately, in that position, if your second chance shouldn't be as the next deputy police officer in the town over, right?

MILLER: Well, it's an hour away.

HOOVER: Right, but maybe your second chance is in another line of work. Maybe your second chance is doing something slightly different or -- it just -- it does -- you can understand how it feels like one might not earn back that second chance and we say (inaudible).

CAMEROTA: Or how hurtful it is to Breanna's mother. I mean, I didn't --

HOOVER: Well, or even to him, like there are second chances abound and there is a lot of things people can do in this world and --

(CROSSTALK)

JONES: How does this help policing with the community, when the community now that's going to be policed knows that someone on the force has been hired and was involved?

CAMEROTA: Quickly, Josh.

BARRO: Well, this officer was fired. I mean, if you are going to have an argument over whether his conduct in the line of duty was such that it was suitable for him to remain a police officer or not, it wasn't -- isn't the right question of whether he should have remained with the Louisville Metro PD? I mean, it seems the decision was reached in Louisville that his conduct was sufficiently bad that he needed to be removed from that police force.

MILLER: And he was fired and he sued to get his job back, and that did not prevail. But what the state didn't do was take away his certification. I mean, the answer here is really going to be for that sheriff, can he stand the heat of hiring this guy?

And for that community where he'll be policing, will they accept him? They are the ones who are going to decide whether he gets his second chance or not.

CAMEROTA: Friends, thank you all very much for that. Be sure to tune in at the top of the hour, some of our favorite reporters are going to be here to talk about the scoops that they are covering for tomorrow, including Matthew Chance. He's going to be here to explain what it's like to report from inside Russia. But first, how should we be tackling crime in Chicago? That's what Bill Maher is asking. We're going to discuss this, next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL MAHER, HOST, REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER: -- Chicago, like most of the shootings are young black men killing other young black man. Is that not, correct?

GLENN LOURY, PROFESSOR, BROWN UNIVERSITY: Yeah, that's correct.

MAHER: Okay, much more than what the cops do. Why doesn't anybody talk about that?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:40:00]

CAMEROTA: All right. Who can help bring down crime in Chicago? Whose responsibility is it? On HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" on our sister network, Maher floated a provocative suggestion.

(BEGIN VIDE CLIP)

MAHER: Chicago, like most of the shootings are young black men killing other young black men. Is that not, correct?

LOURY: Yeah, that's correct.

MAHER: Okay, much more than what the cops do. Why doesn't anybody talk about that? I mean, why aren't there, you know, a hundred giant black celebrities who would have the respect of those people saying, what are you doing to yourselves? Why are you killing each other?

(APPLAUSE)

MAHER: I mean, I have --

LOURY: This is no way to live. This dishonors our community. Come on, we're better than this.

MAHER: Right. I feel like it's never addressed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: My panel is back. John, give us a reality check on the status of crime and murders in Chicago before we start.

MILLER: So, New York City has 8.4 million people. We have 400 murders. Chicago has 2.9 million people and has 700 murders. So, you have to ask yourself, you know, why it is a city that is, you know, about a third the size of New York, have 43 percent more homicides? Theft is up, auto theft is up exponentially.

So, one of the things, you know, that we're seeing in Chicago is a lot of progressive criminal justice policies where you see repeat offenders because they're not going to jail in between crimes.

[22:44:58]

And the gun crime, you know, the gun crime is the worst problem. I mean, theft and auto theft are one thing, but the amount of homicides and shootings that don't result in deaths is a real -- it's something Chicago has not been able to get a handle on for the last decade.

JONES: It's something the country hasn't been able to get a handle on. I mean, here in New York City, we've got 70 percent or so of illegally -- of guns that have been an illegally possessed, actually come from out of state because of the lax gun laws that we have. I'd be curious to know how many of the guns that are illegally possessed in the city of Chicago come from outside the state of Illinois.

CAMEROTA: But what do you think about --

MILLER: The fact that --

(CROSSTALK)

MILLER: -- illegally possessed in Chicago come from a couple of gun stores just outside the city limits of Chicago.

CAMEROTA: (Inaudible).

JONES: You know what else is in Chicago?

CAMEROTA: What?

JONES: Destitution. Poor quality public schools. So, as we talk about the reasons for a crime that we see in Chicago, which is a very serious problem, let's not just describe it as the result of so-called progressive policies and the criminal --

CAMEROTA: Yeah. That story, but Bill Maher is trying to talk about solutions. I mean, what do you think about his idea?

JONES: Bill Maher is trying to be provocative. I mean, it's clear he doesn't talk to black people because black people do care about black- on-black crime. You know what else black people care about? Crimes generally. A white-on-white crime. White on black crime.

The difference between when police brutalize in many -- in several instances, black people that gets the entire public upset about it is because your taxpayer dollars are going towards that, right? I mean it shouldn't whether it's black on black crime or white on white crime or white on black crime, crime is a problem regardless and I don't quite understand his point of trying to make it about a black-on-black crime --

CAMEROTA: Because he was saying is that the most -- isn't that the responsible for the largest percentage in crime?

JONES: I'm saying it's crime generally that's the problem. I don't know why it matters what the color of your skin is and why it's like a special responsibility of black people to talk to other black people about crime when we should be solving for crime writ large regardless of the color of your skin.

BARRO: I mean, Chicago just had a mayoral election where the key issue in the race was crime. So, it seems from all the news coverage, I don't live in Chicago, but all the news coverage that I've seen about race suggests that crime is very much top of mind for people in Chicago, whether they are black, white, or Hispanic.

And so, you know, I think the idea that people are not paying attention to this or the black people are not paying attention to this I think is just incorrect. I think Chicago does have a particular crime problem where, I mean, again, you know, there's destitution in Chicago, there's also destitution in New York. New York manages to have a much lower crime rate than Chicago and that has been true for quite some time.

JONES: Sometimes you will know to listen to the mayor of the city.

BARRO: Yeah. New York is actually very safe as large cities go. It doesn't have that reputation. And so, you know, I think you saw pretty two quite flawed choices in that mayor's race where you had Paull Vallas who lost, who aligned himself with the police union, aligned himself with political forces that are just clearly too far to the right to run a campaign in Chicago.

And the idea, I mean, a big part of the problem in Chicago is that you have an undeclared strike by a large fraction of the police. I mean, there was the -- there were these essentially riots in downtown Chicago the other day and, you know, here we go again, the city is, you know, the city is in chaos.

But then you also have news reports about people saying, you know, I was (inaudible) on Michigan Avenue and you know, these people were assaulted and they were trying to flag down the Chicago police and the Chicago police just drove right by. And so, I don't know, you know, it's not clear to me that anybody has a clear plan about what you're going to do to both get staffing levels back up to where they need to be with Chicago police and then actually get police there to perform the job that they're being employed for.

I mean, there's clearly a lot of political disconnection between the police and the administration of the city and it's probably frankly going to get worse with the more left-wing mayor. But it's, you know, you can't just -- the police basically having a policy veto about being able to say I'm not going to do my job if I don't like who the mayor is.

CAMEROTA: Yeah.

BARRO: It's an untenable situation where I don't see a road map there about how we get back to a better situation.

CAMEROTA: Margaret, before I let you go, let me just play one more thing with Bill Maher who does talk here about some of the root causes as he sees it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAHER: It seems like, you know, a lot of times the solutions that come from the left seems symbolic. They don't seem like we're actually addressing what really needs to be done, is get kids learning, get them reading, get them able to have a job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Yeah, go ahead.

HOOVER: I'm going to defer to the police officer on my left for exactly how you fix the crime problem in Chicago. I've, you know, wondered about it for a long time, but the original question that, you know, started the segment was, Bill Maher saying why is nobody talking about it? And I think, you know, it depends I guess who you're listening to. If you turn on Fox News on any given night, particularly when there is a headline about Fox News, they're talking about crime in Chicago. I mean, that's what's happening over there.

CAMEROTA: When they are saying black celebrities --

HOOVER: But he's also -- he's saying black celebrities --

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: -- as though it's their responsibility to (inaudible).

HOOVER: Who's not talking about it? It's like white liberals in Los Angeles aren't really talking about it either.

[22:50:00] So, you know, I think, to both of your points, all of us should (inaudible) figuring out how to sick solve a crime problem in all of our cities and there -- you have all the solutions. So, I'm just going to defer to you.

MILLER: Look, short term solution, slam dunk, always works, if you are arresting people who are committing crimes and they are going to jail and prison, the crime is going to go down. We already proved that in New York City, and it's been replicated in other places.

Long term solution because that's not a perfect solution, although once you lower your crime, you also lower the jail population, lower the prison population. Long term solution is what (inaudible) is talking about which is, if you get to the root causes, but we keep whipsawing between the long-term solution where we're making short term investments and the short-term solution that we go in and out of, and we can't understand why this isn't working.

CAMEROTA: Thank you all very much for that great conversation. And a reminder, you can watch will "Real Time with Bill Maher" on Friday nights on HBO at 10:00 p.m. And then you can watch "Overtime" right here on CNN Friday nights at 11:30. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:55:00]

(VIDEO PLAYING)

CAMEROTA: Grammy winning singer Lizzo there making her stance on Tennessee's anti-drag show law crystal clear by inviting drag performers on stage at her Knoxville concert. She told the audience that she was warned against performing in Tennessee, but she decided not to cancel her concert so she could create a safe space for drag performers. Last month, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signe legislation banning, quote, "adult cabaret artists from performing in public and/or in the presence of children." The controversial bill listed male or female impersonators which was interpreted to mean drag queens.

All right, coming up, we have some of our favorite reporters here to talk about the stories they are working on for tomorrow. They're going to share their scoops with us next. Stick around.

Hello, Matthew, great to have you. Hi. Great to see you, (inaudible). Great to have you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:59:59]