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The Lead with Jake Tapper
Trump: Will Meet Russia's Putin "Very Shortly"; New Lawsuit Filed Over WH Handling Of Epstein Files; Emory University Reports Shooting On Campus. Aired 5-6p ET
Aired August 08, 2025 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MIKE MASSIMINO, FORMER NASA ASTRONAUT: They are the only two mission patches from -- in the history of NASA that do not have the crew members names on them.
KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Yes, well --
MASSIMINO: My mission patches, which are behind me over my shoulder, they certainly have my name on them. I check to make sure there's the layer every time I look at them, but I think that kind of sums up -- that kind of sums up who he was as a leader, that it wasn't necessarily about him or even his crew, but about the whole team.
HUNT: Yes. Absolutely.
MASSIMINO: And I think that's symbolic of that. But yes, he was the right guy. He was the right guy for the job --
HUNT: Yes.
MASSIMINO: -- to be on these missions where, you know, it could happen. What happened to him could happen. It could have been worse. But I think that his demeanor was that's what's needed.
HUNT: It could have been. All right, Mike Massimino, thank you so much for sharing your reflections with us today. Really appreciate it. Thanks to our panel as well.
Don't go anywhere, "The Lead" with Jake Tapper starts right now.
[17:00:52]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Phil Mattingly in for Jake Tapper. We begin with breaking news in our world lead. President Donald Trump at the White House just moments ago saying that he will soon announce details of a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're going to be announcing later on we're going to have a meeting with Russia, start off with Russia and we'll announce a location. I think the location will be a very popular one for a lot of reasons.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: Now those comments come the same exact day that Trump's self-imposed deadline was set to expire. He told President Putin to come to the table to end the war in Ukraine, prepare to face punishing sanctions. We start things off with CNN's Kristen Holmes from the North Lawn, the White House.
Kristen, we are standing by for more details on this meeting that is supposed to be announced later today. But the president had a lot to say about the dynamics at that event. What else did he say?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Phil, one thing to note is that we know from the White House and from various U.S. officials there is a lot happening behind the scenes. And in terms of location, you heard President Trump mentioning there that they have been going back and forth with Russia for several days now trying to find a location that works for both sides. But I think the most fascinating thing, well, there's two parts of this that he said is he was asked about a plan that we had heard rumblings of, a plan that would Russia wanted that would have Ukraine cede some of its territory to Russia of course, as we know, Ukraine has not in any way they've said that they would not agree to anything in which they ceded territory. He did not say no, he -- when asked about this, if that was in a plan, instead, he kind of danced around it. He said that this is territory that they've fought over for three and a half years, that a lot of Russians have died and then he added a lot of Ukrainians have died.
And then he said, we're going to be looking to give some territories back to swap some territories and then he called it very complicated. Now, very complicated to say the least. This is incredibly complicated and there are a lot of sides and that have to buy into this. And we do know that the U.S. has been floating a deal that would have these kinds of ceding of territory to Russia to European allies, part of that being because they want European buy in on any plan before President Trump sits down with Vladimir Putin.
Now, the other thing I thought was interesting in this conversation was that he said that he believes that Vladimir Putin wants peace. Obviously, we've heard Trump say that several weeks ago, but the last several weeks since then, he has had nothing but really angry and frustrated comments when he was asked about Vladimir Putin. He was specifically asked again, do you still think he wants peace? And he said he didn't know, that he'd been disappointed by Putin. Now we are back on this Putin wants peace -- piece of all of this.
So, this is clearly still developing. We are told and President Trump said that he's going to make announcement about this meeting by the end of the day. We know they were aiming for next week, Friday, but of course, given security concerns, given logistics, it could slide to the week after. President Trump saying he wanted this to happen as soon as possible.
MATTINGLY: All right, Kristen Holmes for us at the White House. Very fluid situation, suspect we'll probably be coming back to you at some point in the hour.
Let's go now to CNN Senior International Correspondent Fred Pleitgen in Moscow.
Fred, what are you hearing from the Kremlin about this potential meeting?
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, the Russians are saying that they are really in the process of preparing this meeting and happened over the past couple of days. It really seems as though, Steve Witkoff's meeting with President Putin here in Moscow on August 6, on Wednesday certainly got a lot of things going here in the Kremlin. That also possibly paired, by the way, with some of that sanctions pressure or potential sanctions pressure that the Russians were feeling from the Trump administration.
One of the interesting things that we've seen today here, Phil is at the Russia -- as the Russians were saying that they were preparing for this meeting with President Trump, where, again, they also say they're not exactly sure when that meeting is going to be. They are saying that they're aiming for next week. They were also at the beginning saying that a summit venue had been agreed upon, but would be announced at a later date, but then sort of backed off from that as well.
At the same time as all of that was going on, Vladimir Putin of Russia was also having some high stakes calls with some of his main allies and some of those countries that have been put under pressure by the United States. In fact, today he spoke with Xi Jinping of China, the leader of China, where at the end of that conversation, the Russians said that Putin had briefed Xi Jinping on the talks that he had with Steve Witkoff and on the possible summit that he was going to have with President Trump as well.
[17:05:25]
And according to the Russian readout, Xi Jinping said that he was glad that the diplomatic process was now moving forward. Obviously, President Trump had also threatened the Chinese with secondary tariffs if they continue to buy Russian oil. And the Russians, of course, continue the conflict in Ukraine.
Also had a conversation, Vladimir Putin, with Narendra Modi of India as well. Of course, the president has been singling out India over the past couple of days for possible higher tariffs if they continue to buy Russian oil as well. The Russians and the Indians also saying that their bilateral relations, if anything, are going to be stronger than they were before. But of course also saying that diplomatic process between the U.S. and Russia extremely important.
So a lot of movement has been going on here in Russia. There certainly seems to be a lot of optimism on the part of the Russians. One thing that we do have to point out, though, and I think this is very important, is that a senior Kremlin aide was asked about the summit and what concessions the Russians were willing to make. And he said that the Russians had fundamentally not changed their stance as far as the Ukraine conflict is concerned. Of course, the Russians have been demanding territories from Ukraine, some of which are held by Russia right now, but some of which are also held by the Ukrainians, which means that they would have to get out of those territories.
It's unclear whether or not that is something that is in this possible proposal that has been floated. But certainly the Russians are saying that from their perspective, they are going at this exactly the same way that they had before. Territorial concessions on the part of the Ukrainians, Ukraine not in NATO. And then also, of course, Ukraine basically all but disarming. It's going to be very interesting to see whether the two and then obviously possibly three sides are going to come to some sort of agreement over that, Phil.
MATTINGLY: Yes, no question about it. Fred Pleitgen, for us in Moscow, thanks so much.
Let's turn now to CNN International Security Correspondent Nick Paton Walsh, who's in Kyiv.
Nick, President Trump talked about swapping territories. He wasn't specific, but that can't be what Ukrainian officials want to hear as this is all playing out like largely without them, it seems.
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, look, I mean, we're in a position where were a few months ago, where the bones of a deal are being hatched without Ukraine essentially in the room. One thing I am hearing over recent hours, and there have been reports in the media suggesting that one of the possible permutations of a deal would involve the Ukrainians ceding key towns in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Getting control of all of that is one of Putin's key war goals in exchange for a ceasefire, for an end to the violence. And I'm told by one European official that is mostly accurate. Obviously this is a constant series.
What I was told is a flurry of discussions, these plans will continue to change. Ceding territory is a really hard sell for President Zelenskyy. Obviously there have been thousands -- tens of thousands of Ukrainians who've died trying to fend off the Russian invasion. And particularly in Donetsk, there are three towns the Russians are getting increasing, two towns the Russians are increasingly close to encircling. But then two others, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, that they're nowhere near.
And so that idea would potentially involve a very high stakes Ukrainian withdrawal. Swapping territory President Trump suggested, well, that might potentially just mean the Russians get out of the little bits of northern Ukraine near Kharkiv and Sumy that they've stepped into, calling what they refer to those areas as buffer zones.
But look, it's going to be very hard for Zelenskyy to avoid long term political damage if indeed this is the deal he's forced to sign along to.
Trump was clear that he feels Zelenskyy's got all he has needed to push it through parliament or whatever needs to be done potentially here. But look, it's one important thing to remember as well that we've been in this position previously with the Russians where they've had deals signs and they've reneged and regrouped and invaded again. I think there'll be many Ukrainians deeply concerned here that we may see a repeat of that potentially if a ceasefire comes into place, if territory is given to the Russians by Ukraine voluntarily, Russia simply chooses to move in again.
One more important thing, Trump did suggest that India may have had a role in moving this all forwards. So we'll have to also see exactly what other kinds of diplomacy can put pressure on Moscow. Phil.
MATTINGLY: Yes, extremely important points and context as always. Nick Paton Walsh for us in Kyiv, thanks so much.
I want to bring in now CNN Global Affairs Analyst Kim Dozier.
Kim, just to take a step back for a minute, this is happening one very, very fast. I think really over the course of the last 48 hours, it seems like things have been going very fast. But the president's comments, the potential and now seemingly likelihood for an actual meeting, the president saying flat out his instinct is this has a real shot of a deal. What do you think big picture right now as we watch this play out?
[17:10:08]
KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: I think this is a very dangerous time for Ukraine because Russia was about to get some sort of sanctions put on it by Donald Trump, according to his threats. But the phone call and the meeting from Putin came just in time to set up a face to face and head off any sort of sanctions. And that also means that Trump is going to be in the room with one of the most convincing and skilled intelligence operators on the planet. And in the past, Putin has been very good at explaining in person his view of things and making it sound very reasonable to someone who doesn't have a history background in the area of why Russia's position is right and Ukraine's position is wrong. He's done it before, and now he's likely to lay out the demands as they are set by Russia right now before they'll agree to a ceasefire.
New elections in Ukraine, which would get rid of Zelenskyy's government, disarming the military, abandoning any chance of joining NATO, plus the territorial concessions that were talked about earlier.
MATTINGLY: One of the things that I wonder about is, you know, this is not President Trump of the first term in terms of his approach.
DOZIER: Yes.
MATTINGLY: And he's been through meetings in person, he's been through calls with President Putin. Obviously it's tough to understand where he is on a day to day basis sometimes with the Russian president. But do you think there are lessons learned that could give him an upper hand in a meeting with President Putin?
DOZIER: You know, as someone who's visited Ukraine this year and visited a lot of heartbroken and depressed people, I sure hope so. I hope that he's got more of Putin's number this time and understands that this is a shrewd negotiator who will just like any salesman, tell you what you want and need to hear and appeal to your vanity and ego while driving ultimately for their -- what everything -- everything that they want. Ukraine isn't at these talks. Originally going into this, it was going to be a three way talk. The fact that Zelenskyy isn't there, that's probably the most dangerous part of all.
MATTINGLY: Yes, that was actually my next question. Is it even plausible for this to be a real thing if Zelenskyy is not participating in some form of fashion?
DOZIER: If Trump can somehow get Putin to agree to three way talks where he would be treating Zelenskyy as an equal three presidents sitting together, that would be a fantastic win. Stay tuned. They'll probably meet in a place like the UAE or Saudi Arabia. Remember, there is an international arrest warrant for Putin for seizing Ukrainian children that's outstanding. That limits the places that he can go because some places, if he touches down, he could get arrested on spot.
MATTINGLY: Yes, that -- forgot about that. It's a very important point as well. A lot of complicating factors here.
Kim Dozier, as always, really appreciate your expertise. Thanks so much.
Well, the Justice Department today telling two federal judges it wants to release more information from the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell cases. But what could actually -- what could that actually include? And how soon could we see it? We'll explain next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[17:17:43]
MATTINGLY: In our law and justice lead, the Trump administration today is facing a new call to release information surrounding the Epstein files, this one in the form of a lawsuit. The nonprofit advocacy group Democracy Forward, a legal operation aligned with Democrats, first submitted Freedom of Information Act requests for senior administration officials' communications about Epstein. When the government did not fulfill those requests quickly, the group filed a lawsuit seeking to order the government to produce those requested documents.
Let's discuss now with Skye Perryman, the president and CEO of the group Democracy Forward. Really appreciate your time. Just explain to people what exactly are you asking for here? What are the records? Why do you believe they should be turned over?
SKYE PERRYMAN, PRESIDENT AND CEO, DEMOCRACY FORWARD: You know, we want to know what this administration is hiding and in particular, who has been involved in what appears to be a political cover up and political interference at the Department of Justice. So we have requested communications between Department of Justice officials and White House officials. We've requested internal communications at the Department of Justice that will show the discussions of this administration as they continue to not provide the American people the information that they promised that they would provide. So this is really about the cover-up and about seeking to understand what the administration is hiding.
MATTINGLY: Why would those communications with White House officials not be covered by executive privilege? And then with DOJ officials, maybe pre decisional or ongoing cases? What do you -- what defense do you think you'll see here?
PERRYMAN: Well, you know, we're not really seeking decisional and deep confidential investigative files. There's a lot of calls for those things. But we know that there is communications between folks at the Justice Department and maybe even people. One of the things that we've asked for that they have not fulfilled, they've not said they don't have any records of it, are communications between the White House Press Corps, the White House Press Office and the Department of Justice. What is the administration doing in order to continue to try to spin around the promises that it's made?
So those are the kinds of things that we've requested. We believe that they are fair requests. The government, of course, has not yet objected to them, but they have, you know, not denied having any of these records and also haven't fulfilled the expedited processing requests which they are really required to do under the law, given the exceptional media and public interest in this matter.
[17:20:03]
MATTINGLY: What's your sense of, and this is a little bit different from what this specific suit details, but the Justice Department --
PERRYMAN: Right.
MATTINGLY: -- going to federal judges wanting to release grand jury, I think today they said now they want to release grand jury exhibits as well, why is that not, in your mind, a good faith effort to bring things out into the public?
PERRYMAN: You know, I think that the Department of Justice knows as well as most lawyers know that it's hard to get grand jury materials released, that there are in many instances reasons that you don't want those released. But they're trying to act like they're seeking to be transparent with the American people when there are a range of things and transparency that they can provide, that they're not providing. So we don't believe that this is a good faith effort to level with the American people. We believe that it's gamesmanship and trying to find an excuse to look like that they are seeking to do something to be transparent when really they have some of the file -- some of the files and information right in front of them and that they could easily hand over and be transparent as they promised the American people they would do.
MATTINGLY: Can I ask big picture just because I've followed through various reporting a number of lawsuits that your group has either driven or been involved with, they have come fast and furious, matching the fast and furious, I think, executive actions in particular that we've seen from this administration, what's kind of the overarching strategy here? What are you trying to do? Is it kind of similar to what maybe Stephen Miller's America First Legal group we saw during the Biden administration? How are you modeling this?
PERRYMAN: You know, we want to make sure that the American people know that when the president of the United States or anyone that works in the federal government seeks to violate their rights, that there are going to be lawyers that are willing to stand up in court and defend them. This is actually not at all like what Stephen Miller did. Stephen Miller and their legal groups in the Biden administration filed cases in judge shopped areas, in single districts, trying to disrupt the entire federal system, trying to disrupt the ability of the government to work for people. What we are doing is filing cases across the country anywhere that communities need help. We are filing cases, for instance, to keep ICE out of houses of worship and churches. We're filing cases to keep public education funds in public schools, all of those types of things that affect individual Americans everyday life.
We want to make sure that people and communities know that there are lawyers that are willing to fight for them in court. Our team at Democracy Forward, of course, is so honored to do that alongside so many other lawyers in this country at this time.
MATTINGLY: It's certainly been a busy time. Very much appreciate your time. Skye Perryman, thanks so much.
PERRYMAN: Thanks for having me.
MATTINGLY: And up next, I'll speak live with the economic adviser who was in the Oval Office with President Trump yesterday. What does he think about the sweeping new tariffs now in place and how it could affect prices for your family?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[17:26:56]
MATTINGLY: We're following breaking news just in from Atlanta, an active shooter near the campus of Emory University. An ex post from Emory University, the Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response says this shooting is believed to be at a CVS. Want to get straight to CNN's Josh Campbell with what we know right now? I know it's not much, but Josh, what are we seeing right now?
JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. I mean, we can tell from what we're seeing on screen right now from our local affiliates. You have this massive law enforcement presence that is now on scene. You have officers there with their long guns out. Multiple police officers that are now responding. We don't have a lot of information right now about what specifically happened.
We do know, as you mentioned, that the university did push out that information to people that follow that account that are in the university community telling them about this incident, telling them to run, hide or fight, which, of course, is sadly, a mantra that so many of us have become accustomed to with the mass shooting incidents, where authorities will tell people that if you can get away from a suspected gunman, that's your first course of action, if you can hide, that is another option, and then as a last course, to actually engage in fight with whoever the gunman might be. So those words going out as a warning to the university community there.
Again, we're waiting to understand exactly what happened here as far as whether there were any victims, whether this was something that was potentially targeted or indiscriminate. Just very little information right now. And it's worth pointing out that as these often occur, these early stages, there's often this lack of information as authorities themselves try to figure out exactly what is happening. But we see there a massive response, multiple officers and looks like a medical unit as well, Phil.
MATTINGLY: Yes, that's actually what I want to ask you about. It's a really important point. This is just we do not know much of anything right now except for the X post and the pictures that you're seeing. But the pictures that you're seeing show a very, very significant law enforcement presence. Does that tell you anything, Josh?
CAMPBELL: Yes, it tells us that in this day and age, whenever the call goes out that there's some type of potential active shooter, that agencies from around the area, not just university police, but Atlanta police, likely the federal agents as well, would go. Again, the idea here being that you want to stop and neutralize a potential shooter before they can cause any additional harm. And so that is what we are so accustomed to seeing. What's interesting in some of this footage that we're seeing here now is that oftentimes, whenever we get these helicopter shots up over these incidents, you kind of see a kind of a relaxed presence from officers, because we know that oftentimes these incidents are over quickly, sometimes seconds, sometimes even minutes. But what we're seeing here, in some of these images, you can see officers still running, trying to get themselves into some type of position, potentially toward where this all went down.
So this is still very much a fluid situation for law enforcement as we watch and wait to see what exactly is about to occur.
Now, with the number officers that are there on scene, they have the amount of resources that they would need, it appears, if indeed they wanted to move them closer to the central point of wherever this happened. So that tells us that wherever this actually occurred, that's likely being handled by officers. But you know, we've seen in cases as well that if you have someone who opens fire and then flees, that then requires a lot of resources as well to try to bring that person into custody.
[17:30:20]
So a lot of possibilities right now. We still don't know whether this has been resolved, whether if there was indeed some type of active shooter, whether that person has been taken into custody or neutralized, or this is someone that officers are potentially still searching for. But as you point out there, a massive police response, Phil.
MATTINGLY: Yes. And to your point, the posture of the officers particularly, you know, we're -- we're using obviously a helicopter shot from one of our affiliates. They were showing pushed up a little bit further just a few moments ago, moving with purpose, I think very clearly to your point, not in a relaxed state whatsoever.
CAMPBELL: In the top of your --
MATTINGLY: Yes, go ahead, please.
CAMPBELL: I was going to say, as we just saw, we kind of went off screen, but you saw two officers in tactical gear running toward the top of your screen there. So as you mentioned, they're moving with a purpose right now as they try to understand what happened here. Sorry I interrupted you, Phil.
MATTINGLY: No, no, no. Please do, always. I think, again, we want to emphasize, we do not know the specifics of exactly what is happening. There is a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, from Emory University, talking about an active shooter. You obviously see the long, there's the post, from the Emory emergency active shooter on Emory Atlanta campus at Emory Point CVS, run, hide, fight, avoid the area.
As Josh noted, the run, hide, fight is often a repeated mantra, mantra phrase, warning, guidance, effort in moments like this, which are unfortunately all too common. Josh, the all-too-common part we talk about quite often, but I want to, behind the scenes, because of how often you've covered these incidents, what's happening right now, given what you're seeing in terms of communications, federal, state, local, behind the scenes?
CAMPBELL: Yes, so once that word goes out, again, the first step is to respond, and you have officers that are obviously doing that, but then they will establish --
MATTINGLY: Josh, real quick, I just want to tell people, what you just saw on your screen, I believe, was the CVS. You see the, there's a white car in front of it. This is, again, from a helicopter shot that is a CVS that we believe, at least according to the X post, that the shooting occurred, or was believed to have occurred, or the active shooter had, the shooting had taken place. Josh, sorry, I interrupted you. Just keep going.
CAMPBELL: Yes, no, and so you'll have this unified command structure because you have multiple agencies, and so whoever the on-scene commander is there, obviously, you know, would be taking the lead and sending out the directions to all these different agencies. We are hearing from our affiliate WSB that says that one of the nearby hospitals is on standby, they're saying, to receive a wounded officer, so we're waiting for additional details there. Again, that coming from our affiliate WSB, they're in that area, so obviously, in a situation like that, if we actually had a law enforcement officer who was involved and had potentially either exchanged gunfire or, you know, was initially hit by this person, obviously hoping for all the best. Right now, the local affiliate is just describing that officer's status as wounded. No additional information on any other possible victims or the status of the potential gunman at this point. Again, we've seen these incidents happen various different ways, how they conclude. Sometimes they are, indeed, safely taken into custody by police. Sometimes there is an exchange of gunfire. Sometimes the shooters end up taking their own life.
Those are the possibilities, but again, so soon right now, we're still waiting for updates from police. It's not surprising right now that they're not pushing that information out because their goal right now is on first securing that scene. They're getting the word out, letting people know to stay out of the area, to shelter, to run, hide, fight if they, indeed, encounter a suspected shooter. But their focus right now, obviously, trying to get this under control and understand exactly what happened.
MATTINGLY: Yes. We've been talking about this, and again, we want to make very clear to people, there is very little information right now. We're going off what we are seeing and the little information that we do have about the shooting. An X account tied to Emory University tweeting out that there was an active shooter near a CVS.
You were watching affiliate pictures of ours from helicopters above the scene. You see a massive law enforcement presence right there. When you move up a little bit, as they've been doing sporadically throughout the course of the last five or ten minutes, and you see the CVS, which is what was noted in the Emory post on social media where the active shooter had been located, there is a significant space between this law enforcement presence you're looking at right now and that CVS in terms of the actual vehicles themselves, personnel themselves as well.
Josh, we, and I'm going to keep doing this, and I know you will as well, being very cautious about what we actually know versus what we can see. What does that tell you about anything that's going on right now?
[17:34:58]
CAMPBELL: Yes, well, so, you know, in looking, again, we're going based on what this helicopter shot is telling us, which can often be illuminating in these situations. It appears that you have a number of officers that are now returning back to where those vehicles were. Again, when you and I spoke just minutes ago, we saw officers rushing toward the top of your screen there where we believe that CVS area is, and as I'm looking at that vehicle as well, it appears, again, it's hard to tell.
It looks like the back window of that vehicle. It might be some type of issue there. So, again, we don't know if that was actually involved here, but anyway, the posture of the police where it doesn't look like they are in an emergent phase as they were only minutes ago when we saw them rushing up, now they're coming back.
That is often a sign as we, you know, study their posture, and I can tell you, someone who works in law enforcement, that you don't assume that kind of posture unless a threat is over. But again, anyone watching in that area right now, you should listen to what authorities say. Don't assume it's all clear, but that's just some of the observations right now that we're seeing as we wait for our official word from the university, local law enforcement, that the situation has been resolved and we get more information.
MATTINGLY: Yes, and hopeful that it is resolved in the most positive way possible as we continue to wait to find out information if there were any casualties. Obviously, hearing from reports about a hospital being prepared to potentially take patients. Again, you see the gap between what we were just talking about, the very empty street in front of that CVS, but we also, as Josh astutely identified, the law enforcement officials who had been in a very proactive posture just moments ago, seem to not be that anymore.
We don't know exactly what that means right now. Josh, we report on this a lot, and I think we're always very cautious in kind of the fog of the immediate moment of what we report, what we know the information. From the law enforcement side of things, which is a life you also led, what are they doing right now in this moment of uncertainty, of confusion, of kind of reports flying around?
CAMPBELL: Yes, so the first key is communication. You want to ensure that everyone that is there, regardless of what agency, understands what's happening at the central point of where this took place. And again, you see this line of officers, you see some fire engine apparatus that are staged there, apparently just in case, but they want to ensure that everyone understands what's happening. And at the actual scene of where this took place, you'll have officers, if it has indeed been resolved, if someone is in custody, or, you know, there's been some other outcome with a potential gunman here, you're going to have investigators then working in to obviously identify who that person is.
This all comes after, you know, they would try to determine if there are any additional victims. They would, of course, if we're talking about this happening in or around a store, around a commercial center like that, they would want to do a sweep to ensure that there aren't any victims around. But again, this now will turn into an investigation, and if this is someone who has indeed been taken into custody and is alive, there would be a potential prosecution.
So once the emergent phase of this is over, where you have the threat that's been resolved, you have any potential victims, you can see there someone's being let out there. It looks like one of the bystanders by law enforcement, a couple of them, they're bringing them out now out of that building. Obviously, if you have a shelter-in- place situation, you want people to do just that, and then after it's an all clear, then you'll have law enforcement go in and try to ensure that everyone comes out safely.
But after all of this is over, if you do have a suspect that would then potentially face prosecution, this would -- that would rely on a methodical investigation. And so those are kind of the steps in order. First, you try to address the emergency, then you address any potential victims, and then, you know, obviously an investigative phase would come along with that as well, Phil.
MATTINGLY: Just to catch people up on where we are right now, you were looking live at a scene that was identified by an Emory University social media account as the location of an active shooting. We just moments ago saw law enforcement officers that seemed to be moving with a very engaged purpose start to not relax in any way, shape, or form, but certainly they did not -- they no longer have their guns drawn. They're no longer moving towards that CVS, which you see in the background of the screen.
What you are looking at is an ambulance. It appears to be a patient being loaded into that ambulance, which is being surrounded currently by law enforcement officials. We're going to continue to watch this play out. This has all been happening in real time. We have very limited information about what actually transpired. There's not been an all clear given yet. Certainly the posture of the law enforcement officials we've watched -- we've been watching over the course of the last 10 or 15 minutes has eased somewhat, but we are keeping an eye on an ambulance where a patient or somebody who's appeared to have been injured was either loaded in or is in the process of being loaded in right now.
Josh Campbell, stick with us right now. I want to bring in Steve Moore, former FBI Supervisory Special Agent. Steve, again, I'm going to keep caveating for people. There's just not a lot that we know right now, but from what you're seeing, what does that tell you about the scene?
[17:40:12]
STEVE MOORE, FORMER FBI SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT: Well, what it tells me right now is they're in a type of recovery phase because you've got people, you saw just two people just moments ago being led out. One of them in a white coat might have been a pharmacist, another employee.
And what happens is if you've got an active shooter in a building or a shooter of any kind, you're going to have people hunkering down, you're sheltering in place. And so what happens after the shooting, even there's a lot to do, even after you think you may have the shooter in custody or at least under some kind of control, you have to go room to room, place to place, aisle to aisle and start bringing people out safely.
Number one, you're afraid that there could be more than one shooter, more than one assailant. But two, and there's another person coming out right now, you're going to try to get these people out safely to try to ensure --
MATTINGLY: Real quick, I want to stop you real quick, Steve, on the point that you were just making. What we just watched is one person was led out of the CVS by a law enforcement official, as you noted, Steve. And then another group appeared to be led out as well. We're still watching the ambulance as that continues to play out.
Again, the white building you see in the back left of your screen is the CVS where the event or the warning about an active shooter taking place actually occurred. You're now seeing, again, more people walking out of that building. Steve, to your point, you know, the idea of this process that plays out over time as you watch people walk out, what is the interaction with law enforcement and individuals who may have been in there as something was playing out?
MOORE: Well, it's kind of dicey at times to tell you the honest truth, because when you're going in there, they've been told to run, hide, or fight. And so if they see somebody coming and they don't know immediately that it's a policeman, they could try to defend themselves. So you have to be very careful in communicating with them. At the same time, you might deal with people who are having a medical emergency because of a heart condition, because of wounds or whatever. You're having to deal with that.
It's all a very complicated issue right now. And just because you find somebody who might be wearing, say, a CVS red shirt on doesn't mean that they're an employee there. You have to check everybody. And so this is a long involved process, which is why even if they've got the person in custody, there's no all clear here. We don't know for sure everything that's going on.
So we are in a or they are in a phase where they are trying to control and understand the situation.
MATTINGLY: I just want to bring up from a picture moments ago that -- can we pull this up? It's video from moments ago. We've been watching kind of the law enforcement presence as it's played out. What you have been watching was the actual scene at the CVS. This is further back. A significant massing of law enforcement had taken place just probably half a block away from where that scene you were watching with the ambulances was actually playing out.
I asked Josh's question, Steve, and I want to pose it to you as well. The scale of the law enforcement presence that we've seen here, does that say anything? It just seems very, very significant.
MOORE: Well, it has to be these days, especially when you're talking about a college campus. Some of the statistics show that there's going to be one person shot and killed every minute for a prepared, armed, active shooter. So if you have somebody who is blasting through a college dorm, that's exactly the response you need.
So you don't know what you have, so you have to plan, obviously, for the worst. And that's what you're seeing there. And to me, that's a very adequate, very appropriate response.
MATTINGLY: Yes, there's -- you can't see it right now, but my eye keeps getting caught with, again, this is video from moments ago as we saw some people let out of the CVS. We've been watching this ambulance where it appeared that they were trying to load somebody into the ambulance. We don't know who any of these individuals are. We don't know much about what's actually happening here. And we want to be very cautious about drawing any conclusions or saying anything definitively without that information.
But Steve, there has been a car, you know, there are no cars around the CVS with the exception of that ambulance. There's been a car that looks somewhat like a Tesla with its hood popped open. It should be on the left side of your screen, depending on where the aerial view goes. Does that say anything? It just keeps catching my eye, and I'm trying to figure out what exactly it is, why it would be there.
[17:45:19]
MOORE: Well, you know, obviously, I'm kind of in the dark about this. However, when I was on a tactical team, you had cars that didn't necessarily look like police cars. And you had your tactical gear, including your weapons in the trunk. Well, the trunk of that Tesla is in the front. So it could have been a responding officer, maybe even an undercover officer or a surveillance officer. Who arrived and got their gear out of the front. That's just a blink on it, and I have no idea how accurate that is. But the officer arriving and getting stuff out of the front of a Tesla is certainly a possibility.
MATTINGLY: And again, I was also just trying to figure out what everything is. I appreciate contextually, and also continuing to emphasize the point of what we do and don't know at this point, the latter far more than the former.
Steve, I want you to stick around. I want to bring in Randy Gold, who was leaving a hospital nearby and heard people running from an active shooter. Randy, just to start with, where are you? Are you safe right now?
RANDY GOLD, WITNESS: We are sheltered in a radiology reading room at Emory Hospital.
MATTINGLY: And just kind of what -- have you been given any information at all about what's going on?
GOLD: The only information that we have right now is from the good people here at the radiology reading room are getting Emory text saying the hospital is on lockdown. I understand just from watching CNN while we're here, what's going on up the street at the CVS on Clifton Road. In the meantime, we're just sheltered in place.
MATTINGLY: What is your -- can you explain to people just kind of like what we've been watching, what we're looking at right now, the area? We know it's near the university, where it actually is, the community that's around it.
GOLD: So the shopping center where the CVS is located is about two blocks from the corner of Houston Mill Road and Clifton Road. And Emory Hospital is about another two or three blocks on the other side of that intersection. So right now we're probably five or six blocks down Clifton Road from where the incident took place.
MATTINGLY: How many people are you with right now? Is everybody OK?
GOLD: Well, the entire hospital is on lockdown. We've got five or six people here in this room. We were actually exiting the hospital. My father was just discharged. So we were rolling out of the elevator in a wheelchair. As soon as we turned towards the exit, people were running toward us. Doctors, nurses, the valet car parkers, everybody screaming that there's an active shooter. I think at that point, nobody really knew where that was. We sort of ducked into a hallway, pushed open a monitored door, and then ducked into the first office we could find.
MATTINGLY: When people were coming, I mean, first off, I'm sorry, that must have been a terrifying experience to play out in real time. Were people saying that they had seen something, that they had heard something? Were they going off of the text alerts and emergency alerts?
GOLD: They were going off of the Emory campus alerts. I don't think anybody had seen anything other than the scary idea that there's an active shooter nearby and nobody knew where he was.
MATTINGLY: Would you -- would this be the hospital that people, if they're, we've seen again an ambulance, and it looks like at least one injured individual brought out, perhaps more than that. Would this be in this area, would this be the hospital they'd be taken to?
GOLD: Well, he's five or six blocks away from Emory emergency room, so I would imagine it's closer than Grady, which is downtown, but I don't know where they would be taking him.
MATTINGLY: Yes, that's location, obviously very critical, as you point out. We really appreciate your time sharing the experience. We're sorry you're going through this, but please keep us posted if you hear anything at all, and best to you and everybody that you're with currently in the hospital. Thanks so much.
I want to turn now to CNN senior producer, Devon Sayers, who just arrived near the scene. Devin, what are you seeing?
DEVON SAYERS, CNN SENIOR PRODUCER: Good afternoon, Phil. I'm just here on the Emory campus on Clifton Road, working my way up to the CVS. Police and fire officials are still responding to this scene with lights and sirens. Here it's DeKalb County is the agency that should be in charge of this incident, but I'm seeing agencies from police, from Atlanta police and other agencies still responding.
Excuse me, I also see a couple of helicopters, including DeKalb police helicopter and Atlanta police helicopter circling the scene, but I'm still working my way up to the CVS. But it does seem to be a still intense situation as officers are responding.
[17:50:09]
MATTINGLY: Yes. And please do, one, stay safe, two, do what you got to do to do the job and tell us if you need to break free for a minute, but I do want to ask you, you know, it has appeared that the intensity of the moment, at least around where the location that had been identified by Emory, that CVS, had started to reside somewhat. You're saying it still looks very active in your eyes.
SAYERS: So I'm just kind of cresting the corner here at Houston and Clifton. I get a little bit of a better vantage point of the CVS. It does appear that the officers farther down -- the officers farther down the scene are in a calmer stance. I'd also say that the DeKalb County Fire Department is directly across the CVS, so the ambulances would have a very, very quick response time across the street, and as I think three of your other guests mentioned, there is a hospital less than three blocks away from this piece.
MATTINGLY: Well, what's your sense, we've been talking with law enforcement officials, our colleague Josh Campbell, just about the scale of the response that we've seen. Does it strike you as larger than normal? Is this exactly kind of in that area, what you would expect in one of these moments?
I think we may have lost, we lost Devon. I want to keep going with what we're watching right now. Again, we're watching, these are aerial pictures of the scene, the building that you see at the center of your screen. This is a higher up shot of that building, the CVS that had been identified by an Emory University account as the location of an active shooting. We've spoken with several of our reporters, several law enforcement officials.
I want to bring in now Juliette Kayyem, former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, and Juliette, and you always make this point better than anybody. There's a lot, and almost most of which we do not know right now about what's happening. This is a very fluid and real-time situation, but based on what you see, particularly from this vantage point, what strikes you? What sticks out?
JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, I want to make clear to viewers that these alert systems don't have on-off switches in the sense like, I mean, there's no gray areas. They either are or they aren't, and so what we're seeing are the consequences of the alert going out, but it gives no sense of scale. So it could have been that there was a shooting, maybe a limited shooting, in an area right near Emory.
Emory picks that up for obvious reasons because of the violence that occurs on campuses. Also, remember, you're in the environment of just two days ago. There was an active shooter, a shooting case far away from where we are right now, but in Georgia at the military facility, so law enforcement is leaning in.
So what we don't know at this stage, of course, is once that alert goes out, it's, you know, it is instinctive, right? Every law enforcement agency is going to surge because your fear is, of course, you have a significant active shooter and there's no way to tell now. The nature of social media and communications, obviously, is that people respond.
Looking at the pictures, just confirming what Josh says, there's not an incident command established. They may know that the numbers, if any, are limited, and then, you know, then basically you draw down. I can't confirm that, but you're not seeing a lot of ambulances and you're not seeing a command system or, you know, a command structure set up.
So this may be one of those situations where it's the triggering of the alert system for obvious reasons. I'm not criticizing it. For obvious reasons, if law enforcement has to surge, that's what we want them to do until they can essentially unwind it. Just looking online, this is the last day of summer schedule for Emory. So there are students on campus, but hopefully what we're seeing is reflected in what we will hear relatively soon from law enforcement.
MATTINGLY: You know, to that point, and again, the context you're providing is immensely helpful as always, but the kind of evolution of what we've been watching live in these aerial views was initially law enforcement officers in a very intense posture, moving towards guns out the CVS. That has eased, as obviously you can see on the screen now currently looking at that vehicle that I had flagged earlier for Steve Moore, trying to figure out the one vehicle, I think, other than the ambulance and the law enforcement vehicles anywhere near this.
[17:54:58]
Again, we don't know what it is or they certainly weren't paying much attention to it earlier. They're looking into it right now, but the kind of timeline for how you get information out, you know, to your point, we hope to hear soon that it's all clear. Hopefully, you know, everyone is fine in this situation, but how are law enforcement officials thinking through how quickly to get information out when you've got people, you know, five, six blocks away, all locked down?
KAYYEM: Well, they're going to want to ensure that, in fact, whatever had happened is now not happening, and then assess what is it that, in fact, happened. So we're going to give them a little bit of time for obvious reasons. The last thing you want is to say there's no fatalities and, in fact, there were fatalities, or you get the number wrong, which we've seen in the past.
But the surge of law enforcement tells us nothing of what the threat is. We are, you know, we're now in a world in which we're picking up lots and lots of information, but the outgoing alert, again, as I said, there's no gray area. The alert is either on, that there's an active shooter, or it's off. There's not -- we might think there's an active shooter, and what that means is that then, once the alert goes out, the protocols are, as we know, are surge the area and protect, and actually, the first thing is stop the threat. You don't even worry about whether people are hurt yet.
The protocols are for law enforcement is that you eliminate the threat, if there is one, and then you worry about others. And so what we're seeing, we saw that played out in real time, and then we'll see what the consequences of it are. But again, in a society like ours, we can debate why that is so, in which there is weaponry on the streets that gives no time to potential victims to run, and very little time for law enforcement to protect people. That is the, you know, large weaponry that kills a lot of people quickly.
The protocols now are, if you hear that active shooter alert, and you're law enforcement, and you're nearby, you are surging, and then you determine what it is. So this is the world we live in, and unfortunately, we're kind of used to it, and we can just hope very much that what we're seeing now, which is in these images, which is no incident command structure, not a lot of ambulances, and a, I would say, more casual pose by law enforcement, would suggest that the imminent threat is over, and they're not dealing with a lot of fatalities.
If you had a lot of people in that building who were hurt, we'd see 10, 12, 15 ambulances at this stage.
MATTINGLY: Yes, that's really important context, and we want to be very clear that there is no -- we don't know anything about an all clear. We're just trying to provide context for people as to why we, with the little information that we have, it's why we have people like Juliette come on and explain kind of what we're seeing, what it means, what it doesn't mean, perhaps more importantly. Again, what you're looking at right now on the right of your screen is kind of the map of the Emory University area.
That's CVS, which was identified by Emory as the location of an active shooter event. It's at the top, kind of at the northern part of the university. We were talking to somebody just a short while ago who was on lockdown inside Emory University Hospital. So about five or six blocks away from that CVS. On the left of your screen of the live aerial footage we've been covering, this is a now wider, further back shot where you see at the center of your screen is the building where that CVS was just a short while ago. There had been an ambulance there.
It appeared to be somebody was being loaded into the ambulance. You see the law enforcement presence for the most part is about a block and a half, a block away. It has been significant, and Juliette was just explaining why.
Steve Moore, I want to bring you back in in terms of kind of what we're seeing right now. To Juliette's point, it seems like a less tense posture. We don't know what that means or what that might entail. We did see people looking at that car. You and I were trying to figure out earlier right now. What does it look like to you?
MOORE: Well, I agree with Juliette, and by the way, that's a very good point about the response. This is -- there's no subtlety to an active shooter response. It's either on or off. And it was obviously here, definitely on. And that, again, is because you can't take chances. You don't -- you can't wait until you get there to know how serious it is.
But, yeah, that car, which were theorizing about before, the police officers were looking at it, opening doors, things like that. And then if you watch carefully, you saw one of the officers putting gloves on, surgical type gloves, which to means that it's potential evidence. And they are -- they don't want to get their fingerprints on the car. That was not a search, an exigent search, where they are wondering if there's somebody in that car, whether it's a threat, whether there was explosives in it, something like that, whatever it might be, just might be a bystander's car.
[18:00:10]
But the police were treating it as if it would be evidence in the future. And it seems to me that they've done a cursory visual on the interior and exterior of the car and what is relationship to the place and the event might be. We don't know. It doesn't look like it was very carefully parked and it looks like it's in likely a no parking zone. So that gives you some clues as to what it might be. But again, I'm just speculating and I don't want to take anybody to take this as fact right now.
MATTINGLY: No, it's again, we're going to keep repeating it over and over again what we do know and what we don't know. This is why we have experts to try and walk through what we're seeing. But we are still waiting for any additional word since the post on social media by Emory. Again, you see the law enforcement presence. This is more of a street view now. I want everyone to please stand by for just a moment.
