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New Bodycam Video Shows Chaos In Response To Uvalde Shooting; 3 People Dead, 2 Injured In Greenwood Mall Shooting; Uvalde Report Found "Systemic Failures" In Response To Shooting; Uvalde Report: Nobody Checked If Classroom Door Was Unlocked; Uvalde Report: Nearly 400 Officers From 20 Agencies Responded; Fulton County D.A. Subpoenas GOP Rep Jody Hice; Today: Criminal Contempt Trail Begins For Steve Bannon. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired July 18, 2022 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Hello, and welcome to Inside Politics. I'm Abby Phillip in Washington in for John King today. We have hours and hours of new footage from Uvalde, and a new report liens law enforcement for sitting and waiting as children and their teachers were slaughtered.

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ROLAND GUTIERREZ, (D) TEXAS STATE SENATE: We've been saying all along systemic failure, human error. Certainly, everything you could imagine happened on this day.

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PHILLIP: Plus, Steve Bannon walks into court for day one of his trial for contempt of Congress. And Senator Bernie Sanders says Joe Manchin is betraying his president and his party.

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SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): He didn't abruptly do anything. He has sabotaged the president's agenda. And the problem was that we continued to talk to Manchin like he was serious, he was not.

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PHILLIP: But we begin with a new body camera footage and an investigation report that shows the horrifying reality of systemic failures in response to the Uvalde school shooting. The video shows confusion over who was in charge at the scene, and shocking moments of inaction by law enforcement. Families, understandably, of the victims are angry and they are desperate. They are saying that they still aren't getting answers, and one father is now calling it a cover up.

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VINCENT SALAZAR, FATHER OF UVALDE SCHOOL SHOOTING VICTIM LAYLA SALAZAR: Everybody's throwing everybody under the bus. The only ones that ain't under the bus, it's because there was six feet in the ground now. And that's our children and the two teachers.

JESUS RIZO, FRIEND OF VICTIM JACKLYN JAYLEN CAZARES'S FAMILY: He could erect him, maybe not all of them were going to make it, but at least in their final moments, to hold their hand to comfort them, to let them know that they're there like them. But they did the total opposite of that. They stood there as people bled out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: And another reminder of the reality of gun violence in America. As the community in Uvalde, is still trying to get answers on that massacre. Another community outside of Indianapolis has been shattered by a mass shooting in a mall. I now want to go to Uvalde, where CNN's Rosa Flores is and has been covering the story. So, Rosa, give us the big takeaways from this report.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, Abby, these were vast, broad, catastrophic failures for multiple levels of law enforcement. And I want to show you also and tell you about this report at the same time, because I'm at the school. This is the door where that gunman entered.

And if you look beyond that, you can see that that the boarded windows are here. He actually fired shots before he entered the school. He entered the school at 11:33pm. That's where the failures begin. That door was unlocked. He walked in, then made a right. And according to this report, the door to room 111 was most likely unlocked.

And so, he started firing. And he entered that room within three minutes. There were 11 officers that arrived on scene, two of them with rifles. According to this report, and other reports, that was plenty of firepower to stop that gunman, but instead the officers retreated. And that's where the weight begins.

This report also states that Pete Arredondo, the police chief actually wrote the active shooter policy. He wrote himself in as the incident commander, but that he didn't take the role. He also wrote in that the administration office was going to be the incident command post. But he didn't go there. He stayed at the scene, and he didn't take command of the scene, according to this report. Then the failures even grow bigger from there.

It says that hundreds of police officers responded from multiple levels of law enforcement, local, state, federal, and all of these officers, according to this report, who had active shooter training did not act on the training. This says, Abby, that those officers should have questioned the fact that there was so much chaos, and that there wasn't command here, but those officers didn't. Again, that is part of the vast failure. Abby?

PHILLIP: Yes, absolutely. And that chaos and confusion that you're talking about. We have some body camera, video that shows a little bit of what that looked like. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But chief was making contact with him, right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, no one has made contact with him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do we doing here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you ever see one that's here on this side? Any of the kids or anyone else?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, we don't know anything about that. No kids.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:05:00]

PHILLIP: What are we doing here? You hear one of the officers say. What are we seeing in this video, Rosa?

FLORES: You know, there is a few important points about that Abby, because that shows some of the chaos that shows some of the confusion, some of the inaction but beyond that, according to the timeline, the shooter at some point begins shooting again.

Now, that's where the report and other law enforcement experts have said, that even if there was confusion by some of the officers who arrived after the first gunshots were fired. They should have acted on their training once that the shooter started firing his weapon again.

At that point, the scene transfers, if in their mind, they were thinking that this was a barricaded subject. Based on their training, they should have transferred over to an active shooter. And Abby, of course, we know that that did not happen.

PHILLIP: And Rosa there was a lot of conversation when this first emerged about the door - to the classroom that the shooter was in, and the report lays out and the body camera video shows, officers trying to use keys to open that door. The Uvalde school district chief Pete Arredondo, then tries to talk to the gunman. Listen to what he says.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE ARREDONDO, UVALDE SCHOOL DISTRICT POLICE CHIEF: Mr. Ramos, please respond.

CASSANDRA RAMOS, UVALDE SCHOOL GUNMAN: (Inaudible)

ARREDONDO: Can you hear us sir? Please don't hurt anyone. These are innocent children. Please put your firearm down. We don't want anybody else heard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Was the door locked? Was the door unlocked? Do they need the keys? What does the report say about all of that? FLORES: You know, Abby, it says that they didn't need the keys, that that door was most likely unlocked. And it goes on to say that door that you see behind me. So, this is where the shooter entered. And then this is where the law enforcement entered. So, there was law enforcement on this end of the door. And there was law enforcement on the other end. And in between there is where Pete Arredondo was trying those keys.

And in this report, it clearly states that there was crossfire, and they were telling Arredondo at that point in time that there was a "fatal funnel." And Arredondo kept on saying, expletive wait, expletive wait. Again, he just speaks to the volumes of the catastrophic failures that were happening here, while children were in those classrooms waiting to be saved.

PHILLIP: That waiting was so incredibly tragic. Rosa Flores, thanks for all your reporting on this story. And with me now is former assistant secretary of homeland security and CNN national security analyst, Juliette Kayyem, and retired Captain Ron Johnson from the Missouri State Highway Patrol.

Juliette, you heard all of the things that that Rosa just reported on. None of us can really forget that at the end of the day, there were kids in that classroom. They were calling 911. And just take a listen to this operator audio from giving a message to an officer who was on the scene at the Uvalde elementary.

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OPERATOR AUDIO: We do have a child on the line.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wait, what was that?

OPERATOR AUDIO: It's going to be room 12 - he is in the room full of victims at this moment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So, that message was conveyed to that scene, why didn't they act on it?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: They didn't have the right process in place. And the right process, we've now, all come to understand is the incident command system and you create literally an incident command post. The planning had it that it was going to be a particular room. You were going to have an incident commander. So, why does process matter in a crisis?

It matters so that you're not second guessing, who knows what? It's for communication. It is for intelligence gathering. What are different people hearing? And then, how do you want to essentially deploy your resources. So, I read the report yesterday to basically mean once they did not establish the basic foundation, the bones of how you would respond to an active shooter case, they could never redeem it. In other words, they could never get it back. They didn't know what was going on. They're getting different pieces of information. They think that he's a barricaded suspect, when it really is active shooter. And then, the sort of incomprehensible part of it after that incomprehensible part of it is, none of the other 200 plus law enforcement agents will question the process. They fall into chain of command, and they defer to who they think is an incident commander.

So, I heard a parent in the run up say, you know, it's still a cover up. And I my heart breaks, but I kind of want to say it's not a cover up, it's inexcusable. I mean, that's the problem. It's not. The expert, I think we know the explanation now. It is literally inexcusable.

[12:10:00]

PHILLIP: And Captain Johnson, you know, if you were an officer on that scene, what is the protocol for each individual officer making a decision about what they're going to do in a moment like that? They know a child, there are children in that room, injured calling 911.

CAPT. RON JOHNSON (RET.) MISSOURI STATE HIGHWAY PATROL: Well, we've learned from past incidents, that there needs to be an immediate response. And those first officers on the scene, if there's been prior training between law enforcement in the region, they create a team. If that's a team of six, a team of eight, team of 12, or for whatever it is, and they begin to go toward the incident and confronted immediately.

You know, command post is something that you would set up or something that's going to be more long term, but this is active, it's immediate. So, you immediately set up a team, and you go, and that's why training is important. So even if you had six officers, and let's say, a team of six from six different departments, they would still be verse on the same procedure, because they work together and on the same procedure and protocol, and they can enter that situation.

PHILLIP: And Juliette, you alluded to this, there were a total of 20 agencies that responded, including state and federal agencies. Eventually, the group that reached the classroom was a border patrol agency. What is supposed to happen? I mean, what - does it make sense to you that none of them would in the course of the over an hour that this was going on? Would have taken control of the situation if it seemed like the local authorities didn't have it under control?

KAYYEM: And that part does not make sense. There's a strong deference to local first responders. So, when the feds come in, they're going to defer almost inevitably to the locals, or at least the state. So, there's that deference aspect. But just as Ron was saying, part of the active shooter protocol is, don't think about it, because it's until you actually eliminate the threat. He's either captured or dead, you can't know what's going on.

So, you're not - there's not a lot of interplay, and they all should have been on that on, you know, basically following that policy. So once again, it's just, you know, from the initial moment when something is not triggered. That's where, you can't redeem it after that.

PHILLIP: And Captain, quickly, before we go. The report lays out that the Robb Elementary School had a "culture of non-compliance" with safety policies that required the doors to be kept locked. And that ended up being fatal, including that the room 111, where the shooter was, was known - the lock on that door was known to be faulty. All of this taken into consideration, is there anything that other school districts can learn about what went wrong here?

JOHNSON: Well, we have to learn that, not only our officers, and they need to be trained in protocol and procedures and the right people have to be in place. We have to make sure we're actually training our teachers and giving our teachers the tools. So, they can be successful, and so they can make sure their classrooms are safe.

We know our teachers, guide and teach our youth and are committed throughout this country to our young people. But we have to make sure they have the right tools. And they understand the importance of all those protocols.

PHILLIP: And according to the report, that faulty door was reported multiple times and was not ultimately fixed. Chief Johnson and Juliette Kayyem, thank you for being with us. And coming up next for us, a brand-new subpoena in Georgia. The Fulton County D.A wants some documents and testimony from a Trump ally and a sitting Republican congressman.

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[12:15:00]

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PHILLIP: And this just into CNN, sitting Republican Congressman Jody Hice, has now been subpoenaed. That subpoena is out of Georgia and the Fulton County district attorney's investigation into Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. CNN's Sara Murray is joining us now. So, Sara, what do we know about this new indictment, subpoena (crosstalk)?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is coming from a court filing. Yes, yes, this is coming from a court filing, and it was a subpoena from Fulton County district attorney to Congressman Jody Hice. She wanted him to appear before the grand jury she has there. It's investigating Donald Trump and his allies' efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

We see in this court filing that the congressman is trying to move this subpoena out of state court into federal court. We'll see if he plans to try to quash the subpoena from there. We reached out to his office and his attorney for comment. And we haven't heard back.

What we don't know from this subpoena is exactly what the district attorney wants to talk to the congressman about. You know, we know from public reporting and from the Congressman's tweets at the time that back in December of 2020. He was in a meeting with Donald Trump and Mike Pence, talking about sort of ways to get around the election results.

He tweeted that he would lead an objection to Georgia's electors on January 6. It may be something related to that. It may be something else that they've learned from another witness that led them to want to question their congressman. But either way, he's clearly at least trying to delay his possible testimony, if not to block it all together.

PHILLIP: And folks at home may remember him because he failed to unseat the Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. But also today, the first test of the January 6 committee's subpoena power in court. The test case former Trump strategist, Steve Bannon, he's charged with contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a subpoena. And a Trump appointed judge is hearing the trial. Sara, you're outside of the courthouse right now. What do we know about this judge's history with Bannon?

MURRAY: Well, you know, he's had a sort of a tough go. He's been very deliberate and listening to Bannon's concerns. But ultimately, Bannon tried to do things like delay the trial, the judge refused to do that. You know, Bannon wanted to argue that he had some kind of presidential executive privilege that prevented him from having to comply with a subpoena.

The judge blocked that. The judge has basically blocked most of the defenses that Steve Bannon wanted to bring up at trial. To the point where - at one point, Steve Bannon's attorney said, what's the point of even going to trial if we don't have any defenses. So, we're going to see how this pans out for Bannon.

[12:20:00]

And right now, we are in the jury selection process of the case. It's kind of slow going, but what they want to do is, they want to be very clear that they're picking jurors of course, who do not already have a predetermined view of Steve Bannon of this case. You know, they're asking jurors about how much of these House Select Committee hearings they're watching. So, we'll see how far they make it on that today. It's been slow going so far this morning, Abby?

PHILLIP: Thanks Sara, for that. Steve Bannon faces potentially as little as one month or as much as one year of imprisonment on these charges. Will be back with you. So, here to share their reporting and their expertise is CNN's Manu Raju and CNN's MJ Lee and Mario Parker from Bloomberg, and former federal prosecutor Shan Wu. Special welcome to Mario, welcome to the Inside Politics table.

But Shan, I do want to start with you. Steve Bannon is now going to be on trial. He's been trying to kind of push back on this, but it obviously hasn't been working. The judge even saying, he's not going to be able to call sitting, you know, Congressman in this trial. What are you expecting to see, as this unfolds, perhaps very quickly, over the course of the next few days?

SHAN WU, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Well, don't blink or you'll miss the trial. I think basically, it's really just a factual case for Bannon. I think what's interesting is whether or not, he'll choose to testify or not. There is little to be gained. Defense lawyers don't like their clients to testify. But he likes to have a platform. So, you might see him insist on taking the stand anyway, to try and make some political points for himself.

PHILLIP: Do you think the objective here is to try to get leniency? I mean, even Bannon's attorney said there's no defense for him not complying with the subpoena.

WU: I don't think it's to try to get leniency. I think he wants to be able to get up there and make his points, build his own following more. I don't think there's much real legal objective here. And, frankly, for him, it's not a huge amount of time he's looking at either so.

PHILLIP: It's not a huge amount of time, but time, nonetheless. Steve Bannon, I mean, we all know him as a Trump guy. But here is why the January 6 want - committee wanted to talk to him. Here the call logs. He - Trump had a phone call with Steve Bannon, 8:57am, it lasted for a few minutes. And then again at 9:46pm, that call also lasted for a couple of minutes. But here is what Steve Bannon said on his show, in the intervening time. Take a listen?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE BANNON, FORMER TRUMP CHIEF STRATEGIST: All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. Just understand this. All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. It's not going to happen like you think it's going to happen. OK. It's going to be quite extraordinarily different. And all I can say is strap in. The war room a posse, you've made this happen. And tomorrow, it's game day. So, strap in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Manu, at this point, does the committee still want to even talk to Steve Bannon? Or is this about the power of the subpoena?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's both, but they do want to talk to him for certain. Bennie Thompson, the chairman of committee told me last week that they are still trying to - they would like to talk to him. But just because he says he will comply with the subpoena and now belatedly in the run up to this trial, doesn't mean that they were simply going to bring him forward. They want to produce documents first.

They say, he's fully compliant with the subpoena before they would actually depose them. So, Bannon's offered to testify, in some ways seems to be an effort to try to stave off something serious in his trial, rather than actually come before this committee, but that is a key moment.

I mean, Donald Trump was speaking to Steve Bannon in the run up to January 6. What did he say in that phone call? And the claim that Bannon said that there's executive privilege, well, Bannon was not an employee of the White House at the time, either. So, a lot of questions. The January 6 committee says that he has raised, and he needs to come forward.

MJ LEE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And I think the power of the subpoena question that you just raised is a big one. I mean, we know that the January 6 committee is continuing to do its investigation. The members have made very clear that every day they're collecting more information, more people are coming forward. They're interviewing additional people.

And so, whatever ends up happening from this Bannon trial is potentially going to be very informative in terms of learning about what the power of that subpoena is right and sending potentially a message to other people who are contacted by the committee, subpoenaed by the committee. What could happen if you try to just outright avoid the subpoena and just ignore it altogether?

PHILLIP: Although it seems like there is always a possibility with Steve Bannon that this just becomes a total sideshow.

MARIO PARKER, NATIONAL POLITICS TEAM LEADER, BLOOMBERG: And that's exactly and you hinted upon it with Steve Bannon, he uses this bombastic language, we all know it. He referred to the January 6 subpoena as he's going to be medieval. All hell is going to break loose previously as well. So, for Steve Bannon, on the one hand, this helps his brand, right.

I think, we also have to remember that former President Donald Trump has been pretty upset that there has been no Republicans that are fighting on his behalf, right. Steve Bannon, of course, cast himself as this fighter for Maga, right. So, that's another thing.

[12:25:00]

PHILLIP: Yes. I wouldn't be surprised if what he wants to do is play that role privately or publicly on Trump's behalf. But coming up next for us. This week, the January 6 committee is back in primetime, with a promise of a minute-by-minute account of how little Donald Trump actually did to stop this each. Coming up.

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PHILLIP: This week the January 6 committee promises to "fill in the blanks" and reveal the extent to which then President Donald Trump did nothing as insurrectionists overran the Capitol.