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26-Year-Old Ivy League Grad Charged In Insurance CEO's Murder; Mangione Charged With Second-Degree Murder In CEO's Killing; Hegseth On Meetings With Senators "It's A Great Process"; Sen. Ernst Signals She's Growing More Likely To Support Hegseth; Key GOP Senators Appear To Be Falling In Line On Trump Picks; Hegseth Says His Comments About Women Have Been "Misconstrued." Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired December 10, 2024 - 12:00   ET

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

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DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Today on Inside Politics, Ivy League grant to cold blooded killer. We're getting new details about the investigation into a privileged young man charged with murdering one of the top business leaders in America, including how he was reported missing just weeks before the shooting.

Plus, vibe shift. Last week, Pete Hegseth's nomination was on life support, and today, once skeptical GOP senators appear to be rally behind Donald Trump's pick to run the Pentagon.

And I will speak with a former hostage who spent 51 days in Hamas captivity. Her husband remains a prisoner. She will share excruciating details about the treatment she endured and has a message for both President Biden and president-elect Trump.

I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

We do start with breaking news. And we want to show you new images just released by the Pennsylvania state police of 26-year-old Luigi Mangione sitting inside a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania yesterday. Just before police took him into custody, he appears to be eating a hash brown right before he was captured.

And at this hour, Mangione is behind bars in that Pennsylvania city. And in just over an hour, there will be an extradition hearing to determine when he will head to New York. He has been charged in New York with one count of second-degree murder and multiple other charges of illegal gun possession and forgery.

Mangione is part of a wealthy Baltimore family known for its philanthropy. He graduated from an elite Baltimore prep school and the University of Pennsylvania. Police are still piecing together a theory of why he may have gunned down the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. His family and friends say, they are stunned and distraught. Here's what his former roommate told CNN last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) R.J. MARTIN, LIVED WITH LUIGI MANGIONE, SUSPECT IN CEO KILLING: I'm beyond shock, it's unimaginable. You know, I was roommates with him, friends, hiked, went to yoga. He's -- you know, did his best to be athletic. And unfathomable, knowing the kind, you know, person that I saw and knew. I remember he said he had a back issue, and he was hoping to get stronger in Hawaii. So, he's always focused on trying.

When he first came, he went on a surf lesson with other members, and unfortunately, just a basic surf lesson, he was in bed for about a week. We had to get a different bed from that was more firm, and I know it was really traumatic and difficult. You know, when you're in the early 20s and you can't, you know, do some basic things, it can be really, really difficult.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: I want to bring in chief CNN law enforcement and intelligent analyst, John Miller, and retired FBI special agent Dan Brunner. Thank you so much to both of you for being here. John, I want to start with you, because you just obtained the NYPD intelligence report on the suspect. What can you tell us?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT & INTELLIGENT ANALYST: So, this is a report that the NYPD produced and then sent out to hundreds of law enforcement agencies across the country. These are law enforcement agencies who are wondering what can be gleaned from this incident.

Here's a couple of interesting findings of the report. Referring to the shooter, they say he appeared to view the targeted killing of the company's highest ranking representative as a symbolic takedown and a direct challenge to its alleged corruption and power games, asserting in his note, speaking of the manifesto that was found on his person when he was arrested, that he is, quote, the first to face it with such a brutal honesty.

Now that tells us a lot. But there is also a second finding in that intelligence report, which we should talk about. It is the NYPD's kind of analysis on what this may mean in the threat stream, the rhetoric may signal an elevated threat facing executives in the near term, with the shooting itself having the capability to inspire a variety of extremist and grievance-driven malicious actors to violence.

Now that is part of what we have seen since the shooting, which is even with the capture. You still have executives, CEOs, hedge fund chiefs, the heads of hospitals and healthcare companies looking to get security details, because they see this as potentially a rolling threat.

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Even today in lower Manhattan, there were posters of the COs of different -- CEOs of different countries -- companies in the style of kind of wanted flyers that are part of the reaction that is spilling out from this tragic killing and this very directed murder.

BASH: Gosh, that is so frightening. And speaking of frightening, you also got from one of your sources, some of what he wrote in, whether it was a document or a manifesto, you can describe how your sources are describing it. Can you share that with our viewers?

MILLER: Sure. This was a three-page handwritten document that was found when he was arrested among his belongings. But it says things like, frankly, these parasites simply had it coming, referring that is presumed to the CEO of UnitedHealth who he gunned down. But note that the parasites is in plural, was he going to strike others? He says, I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done.

You know, I spoke to FBI profilers like the retired special agent of the FBI, who was the renowned profiler, Mary Ellen O'Toole yesterday, who said, you know, these offender characteristics are this person who has, you know, put remorse and feelings about human beings aside, has anointed himself to be this singular human solution to this problem that it entails a bit of narcissism and some other qualities that they find in these shooters.

And yet his background, coming from a wealthy family, coming from a family who did business in the healthcare industry, really separates him out from the most often found profiles.

BASH: And Dan, I want to go to you. John just mentioned some of the extraordinary details of who this young man is and where he comes from. 26 wealthy Baltimore family, high school valedictorian, Ivy League graduate, avid reader, previously posted photos of himself traveling and weightlifting. And I want to play some of what he said in his valedictory speech from high school in 2016.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LUIGI MANGIONE, SUSPECT IN CEO KILLING: Great ideas, however, isn't enough to innovate. The class of 2016 inventiveness also stems from its incredible courage. The class of 2016 truly has the fearlessness to explore new things and the obvious ability to excel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: I mean, as an investigator, you look at his profile. You understand some of the reporting that John just gave us. You listen to that kind of speech. And the obvious question is, how did he get here?

DAN BRUNNER, RETIRED FBI SPECIAL AGENT: Well, Dana, the -- what John just said, is right on in the NYPD intelligence report. This is the hallmarks I've been speaking with other agents that I worked with in the domestic terrorism division. This is the hallmarks of somebody who believes in -- on their movement.

Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City conducted the bombing, and he was completely separated from the other people that died in the building. He understood that that was just, you know, a complex. And to the fact that he was targeting the federal agents in that building, he understands -- so, you know, Luigi was looking to kill the CEO because he wanted to begin the movement. And he was talking in the plural sense, these parasites. He believed, when individuals get so into their belief, they believe that they will begin the movement, they believe they will begin the onslaught. And unfortunately, we're seeing that online. We're seeing the posters targeting other CEOs. The conversation of, hey, it was, you know, OK, because of what they're doing. He believes in this movement. He believes in it. And when he shut down, when he disappeared a few weeks ago, he was just preparing. He was preparing for his attack. He was preparing for the things. It doesn't matter.

Ted Kaczynski is someone who he really idolized. He was a brilliant professor at Harvard. So, some of these people who are extremely intelligent, extremely brilliant, want to move forward a cause which they believe that only they can start the movement and start the fight against what the ideological belief.

And hopefully the FBI is also looking at this as a domestic terrorist attack. But unfortunately, there are no federal statutes to charge for domestic terrorist attacks. So that's something that a conversation that should be had.

BASH: Yeah. And you mentioned the fact that he receded from his friends and family kind of disappeared recently, but it was apparently more -- not just the past few weeks. It was the past several months. Six months, where he really began to retreat. Our reporting says, during the summer, Mangione appeared to stop posting online.

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Prompting worried messages from some of his friends. Nobody has heard from you in months, and apparently your family is looking for you. One user posted on X. I don't know if you were OK. Another posted. What does that tell you, Dan?

BRUNNER: I suspect that when investigators and NYPD and FBI look into the entire digital history and where he was. I suspect that they're going to find that he started preparing this mission. What he would believe it as is in this murder six months ago. I would say that that's when he started gathering, you know, your fake IDs, when he began learning how to build the gun.

And this is what is the FBI is terrified about. Is the lone wolf. If you are by yourself, you prepare for it. It's very difficult to detect these type of attacks. Director Wray from the FBI always said that this is the most difficult investigation for the FBI, because there isn't anybody else in his circle.

Oftentimes, if you have a larger amount of circles, you have somebody who may reveal some information, but he was a lone wolf. This is the -- you know, the poster child, the epitome of a lone wolf attack, and that's why it was difficult for him. But I suspect when they conduct the investigation, they'll find that he was preparing for this attack for the last six months.

BASH: And John, going back to what your sources were telling you was in the document found with him, the parasites, and you both noted that was plural, had It coming. That combined with the fact that he still had this incriminating evidence on him, the gun, other the fake IDs, other things. Does that suggest to your sources, to you, based on your experience, that he was on to a Next target?

MILLER: It certainly suggests that as a possibility, because Dana, as you intuit in the question, he got rid of the backpack in Central Park. He got rid of the burner phone. He got rid of the water and yes, at the time he was also throwing what turned out to be valuable forensic clues away. But why would he keep the gun and the driver's license, the very same one he used to check into the hostel in New York, where he knows they're on to him now.

Why would he keep those unless he was still in the operational mode, a gun that still had ammunition in it. He still had the silencer. Was there another target? And another thing about that note. That note basically starts off address to law enforcement as if he's no longer there to answer these questions.

This is a goodbye note, a resignation note that, yes, when I write this, or when this is found, I'll be in custody. Or is it that he's going to be dead? Is he expecting that he may be killed in the course of his next attack. Was he going to take his own life? All of these are questions you get where -- when you read this note because he could have just said it if he didn't expect to be, you know, not, not in a condition to do so.

BASH: And it just was making me think, as you were talking about the fact that so many times when we have examples of a lone wolf, somebody who has gone off the rails. They don't end up surviving. In this case, you do have the investigators able to actually ask those questions, so we don't just have those notes and clues to piece together.

Thank you both so much for your insight, your reporting, John. I'm sure I'll see you soon. Up next, back here in Washington, once skeptical GOP senators may be getting on board the Hegseth train. We've got the latest on Pete Hegseth's fight to be confirmed as defense secretary.

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BASH: Momentum may now be on the side of President-elect Trump's pick to run the Pentagon. Former Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth, Senator Joni Ernst, a pivotal Republican swing vote, signaled she's becoming more likely to support his nomination. Today, Hegseth is back on the Hill, sounding as optimistic as ever.

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PETE HEGSETH, TRUMP'S PICK FOR DEFENSE SECRETARY: It's a great process, and we are honored to be a part of it. We're just going to keep going. I would never speak for Senator Ernst. I appreciate the time. It was an amazing conversation. She's a wonderful combat vet, and I welcome all of her insight. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: CNN's Manu Raju is on Capitol Hill. Manu, does it feel to you in those hallways the way it feels down the street where we are about the momentum shift going towards him. We have a long way to go. The confirmation hearings could be determinative and will be, but right now.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. It definitely feels that way. In fact, it feels like Republicans, in most large part, are really falling in line behind Trump's more controversial picks. Remember, in order to get confirmed to the job in the new Republican led Senate, you can only afford to lose three Republican votes at most.

And right now, in virtual all these nominees, really, we're not hearing any raw opposition come out. Yes, there may be some concerns, particularly among Pete Hegseth, but still people not going on saying, they are opposed. The person, of course, we talked about there, Joni Ernst came out of her meeting with Pete Hegseth yesterday and said she would be supportive of him going through the process. She would not say explicitly if she was a yes.

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Now senators that I caught up with this morning. I asked them whether they were falling in line behind Donald Trump, and whether they had any concerns about any of these nominees.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Do you have any concerns like the Trump nominees right now?

SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): No, I don't. Look, a guy said, I know everybody is trying to get that gotcha question that, you know, kind of creates friction between a member and the president. I voted for every nomination that ultimately got voted on in President Trump's first term.

SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): This isn't just about doing our job of advice consent of the constitution. It's also about making sure that these nominees are properly vetted, so that there are no surprises later on.

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RAJU: And right now, Senator John Cornyn, you just heard from there. He's meeting with Pete Hegseth. I asked him about that meeting with Hegseth, whether he had any concerns about all these allegations of misconduct. He said, he had those same questions for Hegseth when they meet. But he also said, he's known Hegseth for some time. He sounded very positive about the nomination here.

So, this is one big reason why Dana, team Trump is focusing exclusively on getting Republicans in line. They're not even meeting with Democrats with these more controversial nominees. They want to get the GOP in line. At the moment, they appear to be succeeding. BASH: Yeah. That's definitely the ball game. Manu, thank you so much for that. And let's talk to some additional amazing reporters here at the table, CNN's David Chalian, NPR's Ayesha Rascoe, and Laura Barron- Lopez of the PBS NewsHour. David, thoughts?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: Yeah. I mean, listen, the Hegseth hearing now, I think has more weight to it than did before. Because what Joni Ernst did, starting last Friday, basically, when she actually said, he's going to face some tough questions at the hearing and he's going to go through this process. That was an indication, she wasn't trying to sort of kill this nomination the way Matt Gaetz's potential nomination was killed there before anything got started.

This was her getting on board with the notion that this would move forward, above that, there were going to be tough questions coming his way. I thought it was really interesting to hear him in the hallway there say, note her role in combat, given what he said about women in combat roles. The fact that he noted that, and then, of course, we saw some earlier comments from him today about trying to clean that up. I thought that was really intriguing, given Joni Ernst history.

I just want to make one other point here, Dana. Joni Ernst is what we say is in cycle, like you know right now. So, she's up in 2026. She's also a name that's been floated as a possible alternate defense secretary nominee. So, she has her own politics that she's dealing with here, which is why she's perhaps, you know, more susceptible to some of the Trump ally pressure that's coming her way.

BASH: Yeah. And yesterday, we showed a quote from an op-ed written by a potential primary challenger of hers back in Iowa, the attorney general. But you mentioned the combat question, because you mentioned that, I want to get to that. Let's go back to November 7. Pete Hegseth was on the podcast at Shawn Ryan Show. And this is what he said about women in combat roles.

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HEGSETH: I'm straight up just saying, we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn't made us more affected. Hasn't made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: OK. So, David just mentioned that Joni Ernst, this pivotal Republican Senator, is a combat veteran. They had a second meeting after the one that seemed to change her approach, at least publicly, late last week. They had one this week. Here's what she said after that meeting, followed by what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JONI ERNST (R-IA): He is very supportive of women in the military. It is one thing that we discuss.

HEGSETH: I also want an opportunity here to clarify comments that have been misconstrued, that I somehow don't support women in the military. Some of our greatest warriors, our best warriors out there are women who serve, raise their right hand to defend this country and love our nation. Want to defend that flag.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: I don't think anybody said that he doesn't support women in the military. The question is women in combat roles, which is, to David's point, obviously going to be one of the key questions at any confirmation.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. When the Democrats are going to press him on aggressively, and potentially Joni Ernst in the public sphere, along with these allegations. One thing from her statement, though yesterday that she put out that stood out to me was when she said, I want a fair hearing based on the truth, not anonymous sources.

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Clearly in reference to the 2017 sexual assault allegation, as well as these whistle blowers that have come forward about his report of his intoxication on the job when he worked for a veterans' group. You know that is kind of saying, essentially, we won't necessarily believe these allegations unless people put their name behind them, which again, if people decide to come forward, whether it's women who have -- like the woman in 2017, she can't come forward --

BASH: We just confirm that. Right.

BARRON-LOPEZ: -- NDA, but also whistle blowers, you know, may fear retaliation and attacks from Trump's orbit, because we have known that when people have come forward publicly in any capacity against the president-elect, that then they face threats, they face attacks.

And so, I think that's something to be watching here, does anyone come forward, especially as he goes to a hearing. And I think that's what some sources in Trump's orbit are concerned about, which is, if he reaches a confirmation hearing, do people start to come forward because they think that he's not qualified.

AYESHA RASCOE, NPR HOST, "WEEKEND EDITION SUNDAY" AND "UP FIRST": Well, and, you know, I think that -- you know, I thought that Senator Cornyn's statement about, we need to do some vetting. I mean, it shows that, obviously Trump has been much more organized this time around.

But in some ways, there has been a lack of discipline in the people that he's chosen. Because when you look at Pete Hegseth, and all this roll out, which is pretty disastrous, anyone would say, and then you have allegations of drinking problems.

And look Pete Hegseth can say, look, these are anonymous sources, what have you. But he's also saying, I'll give up drinking once I get the job, which is that a great like -- I mean, if I were hiring someone, they're like, I'll give up drinking. Then that's going to be a concern for me. Why not give it up now. What like, is this an issue? BASH: And again, those are all going to be questions. I want to go back to something that you said because, and that is about these "anonymous sources." It is so important to underscore that we don't know for sure if the woman who we're talking about here in 2017 is sort of chomping at the bit to come out in public. But what we do know is that she is under a non-disclosure agreement. So, even if she wanted to, she can't, so she has to be anonymous, basically by law.

One person who wasn't anonymous was Christine Blasey Ford. I'm kicking it back a little bit to the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearing. And the reason is because our amazing team here looked at some of what he said during his hearing and some of what Pete Hegseth is saying now. Listen to just on the politics of it, the similar defenses.

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HEGSETH: It's the anatomy of a smear. They take something and then they add anonymous sources and contortions and flat out lies. And then they try to -- try you in the media before you can get -- even get into the doors with senators.

BRETT KAVANAUGH, ASSOCIATE JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT: As no doubt was expected, if not planned, came a long series of false, last-minute smears, designed to scare me and drive me out of the process before any hearing occurred.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHALIAN: And what is the political lesson learned there? He is now Supreme Court justice. Brett Kavanaugh -- and he put -- he pushed back on that with the Trump team behind him, obviously very aggressively there and made his way to the bench with Republican support for him.

I would just note, there is -- so I agree -- we don't know what we don't know yet. If there is more information to come, and that includes somebody putting their name on something, that changes the calculus of where we are in this. That's why I think this hearing is going to be so important.

If there's no new information that comes at that point, you could see this being on a more glide path towards a nomination. If it does, I think that's a totally different equation. It is clear that the Trump team, and if you speak to them, they will say this to you privately. They could not give another scalp here, right?

That would -- that would set this whole transition. This is a major, you know, A.G., already Matt Gaetz gone. If that happened with the defense secretary now also, before it gets to a confirmation hearing, they were going to be on such a back foot to get through the remainder of this transition. That was a major concern, which is why I think you see a lot of this rallying around him at the moment.

BARRON-LOPEZ: And I think there's a little bit of concern of who they may go after next. If Hegseth were to fall, then the Trump team is worried about whether or not Gabbard or as well as RFK, Jr. -- RASCOE: But I think, do we also want to think about, or will senators

think about how Hegseth will be as a secretary of defense. Like, you know, unlike, I mean, it's clear that Hegseth has had issues with women. He's on his third wife and his own mother, even though she's disavowed now, called him out for abusing women.

BASH: But she said she followed up to say, well, she didn't really mean it.

RASCOE: Yeah.

BASH: All right. Thanks, everyone. Coming up. From the life of privilege to a jail cell. We have new details on the suspected CEO killers, influential and wealthy family, after a quick break.

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