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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Emory University Reports Shooting On Campus; Trump Says, Will Meet With Russia's Putin In Alaska Next Friday; DOJ Says It Wants to Release Epstein Grand Jury Exhibits; Police: Suspect Dead After Shooting At Emory University; Veteran NASA Astronaut Jim Lovell Dies At 97. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired August 08, 2025 - 18:00   ET

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

STEVE MOORE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CONTRIBUTOR: 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, 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 its 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 a fact right now.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN HOST: No. Again, we are 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.

Welcome to The Lead. I'm Phil Mattingly in for Jake Tapper, and we begin with major breaking news. An active shooter reported on the Emory University campus in Atlanta. The university at around 5:00 P.M. Eastern Time sending out alert saying, run, hide, fight, avoid the area. You are looking at live pictures above the scene where we've been watching a massive police presence outside of a CVS.

I want to go straight to CNN's Josh Campbell. Josh, you've been with me throughout the course of the last 40 minutes or so, watching this aerial footage, watching this play out. There's a significant limited amount to what we actually know here. But what have you been seeing? What are you learning?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes. You know, these helicopter shots and or affiliate shots whenever these incidents first happen can be quite telling. You and I have seen this evolution of this shift in posture by law enforcement since we first started reporting on this incident. What we saw initially were officers there rushing, they were running, trying to get into some type of position. That has now eased over the course of the last 20 minutes or so. We still see a large law enforcement presence there that responded after reports of shots fired near the CVS that's right there near Emory University in Atlanta. But it appears that the emergent phase of whatever it took place here has now been resolved.

We're still waiting to hear about any potential victims. We do know that our colleagues at affiliate WSB were reporting that one of the local hospitals was on standby to receive an injured officer. Of course, you know, you and I, Phil, have covered so many of these types of shootings that we, you know, know and our audience knows now that even hospitals are now a critical part in initial active shooter response, where they will get an initial alert from law enforcement that an incident is underway, be on standby, have personnel ready, just in case you need to receive victims here. We're learning that at least one officer is being transported for apparently some type of injury.

We don't know any information yet about this potential gunman here or shooter, I should say. Authorities are still obviously investigating. We have this large presence there that is actually on the scene. One thing I think it's worth pointing out is one thing we're not seeing in these shots now, and we haven't since we first came up, is, you know, oftentimes in these incidents, you'll see ambulances that are brought in and staged nearby just in case that they're needed. We're not seeing that here.

I'll note with one particular caveat, and that is that oftentimes in these situations, these active shooters are often over in seconds or even minutes. And so it is quite possible that if there were, you know, injuries that you had ambulances rushing in doing what's called a hot load, where, you know, you put the patient in and you go oftentimes, even if there's someone who's injured, they may be transported by law enforcement as well if the situation warrants.

So, I don't want to say that -- I don't want to overindex on that that we're not seeing ambulances there right now, but that is something that we often see in situations where there is some type of a large number of casualties. You see the fire department apparatus there just standing by, just in case. Again, this is a protocol now, whenever you have an incident like this, various agencies, first responders will get to the scene just in case they are needed.

We have not yet received an all-clear from the university. They're the ones who first sent out on social media to their followers in the community that an active shooter situation was underway. They advised people to run, hide, or fight. Again, that is a typical protocol we see as well, getting that information out, getting that alert out. And so we're at this point now where. We did see some people being brought out, escorted out from that building by law enforcement in groups of one or two at a time.

And so, again, it appears the emergent phase is over.

[18:05:00]

We're still waiting for the specific details on what exactly occurred.

Final point I'll note is that as we've been looking at the scene just kind of to the top of the screen from where we're seeing here, there appears to be some type of a white vehicle that's parked outside of the CVS that they have completely opened up, law enforcement, where you have the doors, you have the trunk, you have the hood. It's unclear how that may be applicable to this situation, but that it was something that they certainly checked out that vehicle and going through it. And now you see law enforcement here kind of staged nearby.

So, again, a lot of unanswered questions right now. It appears the emergent phase is over. But, again, as always, for those in the community there in the university community, that doesn't mean you relax. You wait for that final all-clear from law enforcement, which has not yet come. Phil?

MATTINGLY: Yes, it's a really important point. It has not come yet. We are going off of what we've been seeing in this aerial footage, and to Josh's great point, you know, the evolution that we've kind of watched play out of this scene over the course of the last 45 minutes or so.

Josh, our colleague, Devon Sayers, who's on the ground there, was talking about how he'd seen multiple different county law enforcement officials or law enforcement officials representing I think DeKalb County, I think Atlanta P.D., maybe Fulton County as well. The FBI now saying it's coordinating with the local partners? What is the federal role here in a moment like this?

CAMPBELL: Yes. So, in a situation like this, whenever you have an active shooter, multiple agencies will respond. Regardless of what patch they wear on their uniform or the badge that they wear, they're going to get there to the scene. Again, the goal is to try to stop any potential loss of life that might be underway. And that has become standard now where you see all these agencies respond, sometimes even self-deploying themselves without even being asked, that, look, we're going to come and we're going to help.

To the point about the FBI, obviously the FBI has a large presence there in Atlanta, you know, some large field office with a lot of resources. And even if this doesn't turn out to be some type of federal jurisdiction or Federal nexus, I mean, shootings occur all the time that don't involve any type of federal prosecution or investigation, the FBI still has a host of resources that they can make available, specifically what they call their ERT. These are the forensic teams that will respond. They can help try to map out forensically what has happened here, if there are, for example, shell casings that are spent from a firearm as a shooting takes place, they will want to mark each and every one of those. The crime scene would be photographed. And so, again, those are resources that they bring in.

And then final point I note is, Phil, we're waiting to get a video cleared. We did get some bystander video where you can hear multiple shots, multiple shots. And they seem to come in two separate categories. First, you have kind of this slow, methodical shooting and then rapid fire shooting after that. It's unclear if that was someone perhaps returning fire on the suspect. But, again, you know, we do know just based on just some of the bystanders and witnesses and they're video, it does appear there were multiple shots fired. Again, we're just unclear right now on what that means and how many victims.

MATTINGLY: All right. Josh Campbell, standby for that. And as we get more information, of course, as always, raise your hand.

I do want to bring back in Steve Moore, former FBI supervisor special agent, Juliette Kayyem former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security. And I do want to also note that just about five, six minutes ago, we've been talking about a social media post from Emory that had initially said, talked about this active shooter at an Emory Atlanta campus, at an Emory Point CVS. The CVS is what we've more or less been focused on over the course of the last 45 minutes or so on your screen, just about five or six minutes ago, again posted, avoid the area, continue to shelter in place, police on scene. There has not been an all clear that has been given. There has been a significant, I think, easing and posture compared to when we initially jumped on the story last hour.

But, Juliette, to you, first, what's your assessment of what we're seeing right now?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, again we're waiting for official word. I want to just talk about the nature of universities and the cities that they live in. I live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, because this will explain sort of where Emory is in the context of a CVS nearby. Emory's in a commercial area in Georgia. So, the intersection of the alert system at a university and college is tied to the alert system of any community that's surrounding it. That's for obvious reasons. If there's an active shooter on campus, you want the community to know because they're just across the street and vice versa.

So, while Emory may have been the alert system, it does not -- it tells us nothing. And I think the pictures may be telling us something different about whether we have another higher education active shooter case. So, that's the first thing, just that these systems rightfully are intersected because of the nexus between what, you know, what we traditionally call town and gown, right, between and any threat that may come from one or the other.

[18:10:06]

The second, as I've been saying, is this is just the world we live in and it's the responsibility of people reporting on it and us, all of us here to say it's telling us nothing about the consequences. It's scary, but the way these alert systems work and the way active shooter protocols work is that there really is no gray area. It's either on or off. Now, maybe we could get better at that, but when a police department and when surrounding areas get word that there is an active shooter, and that may be one witness, two witnesses, multiple tweets, who knows? They are going to surge and they're going to surge because time is not on their side. They have got to do a show of force, and the number one goal is to eliminate the threat, period. You're not worried -- honestly, you're not worried about victims at that stage. You got to eliminate the threat. So, the surge of the police and the law enforcement surrounding areas is what they train for until there's a determination, and we're still waiting for it, that the threat has been eliminated. So, that's just giving context to a world, unfortunately, a particularly American world that has dealt with too many active shooters on campuses or actually throughout the United States.

MATTINGLY: Yes, and it's really, really important context. Again, I read the new post on social media. Just to make clear, we still don't, we don't know what's going on. And I think Juliette's point is invaluable in terms of how these systems work beyond the off. Until there's an off, there isn't an off. But for right now, what we're seeing on screen tells us some things, not everything. There has been no official off at this point in time.

And, Steve Moore, to that point, you know, again, we've been watching and trying to figure out the posture of law enforcement that we've seen, the vehicles that have come in and out the distance that the kind of massive law enforcement presence is from the building. Again, the building at the center of your screen, on the left side of your screen, the aerial shot is the CVS that, that the Emory posts on social media had identified as a location of an active shooter. The posture of law enforcement has shifted pretty dramatically over the course of the last 45 minutes to an hour.

But in terms of how -- you know, to Juliette's point, the surge, the operation side, what is the process if and hopefully this is the case where things might not be as bad as they may have appeared initially?

MOORE: Well, what you want to do is do exactly what you were asking about, tie up all the loose ends, explain everything that witnesses saw. Make sure that even if you have a suspect in custody, that they are the only suspect, that there is no threat to the community that exists at this time. And part of the deal is when you arrive, you saw a group of policemen walking back a few minutes ago, that's just not a casual thing where they're taking a stroll. They were in a position, they were in an assigned position as part of a potential active shooter response. Now, they are coming back. So, what they're doing is pulling groups in as they can release them.

But you don't want to let everybody leave the scene because, you know, it appears to me that it's possible that above this CVS, say, is a residential apartment building or something like that. If one witness said they saw somebody running into that building with something in their hand, then you're going to need dozens and dozens and dozens of officers to go through that building and ensure that that was either somebody who was running because they were afraid and you can verify who it was, or you can verify that there is no threat and the people there are safe.

Again, not saying that happened, I'm just saying that you're going to need potentially a lot of manpower to ensure that this is over. And sometimes the more grainy the picture gets, the more confused or vague the situation is, the more officers you need to run down every possibility.

And they haven't been released, obviously. You see all the vehicles there. They will start, if they haven't already. They'll start releasing several groups at a time. But it tells me that they are not absolutely finished with their investigation yet, at least their exigent investigation. And they haven't -- aren't ready to release the scene and release the officers.

MATTINGLY: Steve Moore, Juliette Kayyem, incredibly important context, letting everybody know what's happening.

[18:15:01]

Again, we are going to keep a very close eye on this as it continues to play out because we're also following even more breaking news. This news out of the White House, President Trump just announced when and where he will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Let's get straight to CNN Anchor and Chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins. Kaitlan?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Phil. It's kind of remarkable to just see how fast all of this has come together. I mean, you obviously have covered the White House. You know how long it takes typically to plan presidential travel, especially a major summit like this one, but this is how quickly this has come together.

In about 48 hours, the president has just announced that in the highly anticipated meeting, he says, quote, between myself, as President of the United States in America, and President Vladimir Putin of Russia, he says it'll take place next Friday, August 15th, 2025, in the great state of Alaska.

Now that had not been on our bingo card of where we were looking at the locations that we had been hearing from whether it was the Kremlin or officials at the White House. They'd been looking at some locations, Phil, in the Middle East. Obviously, it's very difficult for Putin to go to Europe because of the ICC arrest that is out for him after he invaded Ukraine. And so this seems to be where they had settled.

I had heard some White House officials talking about maybe they could just come to Washington, but, clearly, Alaska seems to be this middle meeting place point that they are going to decide. And the real question, of course, is between now and one week from now, when this sit-down is going to happen, is what tangibles the White House is looking to get from Russia.

Obviously, the president has made clear that he wants this war to be brought to an end. It is something that he has sought to do since he retook office, Phil. And so the question is whether or not Putin is prepared to give that to him and what that's going to look like. What we have heard from experts so far is Putin's demands are still there when it comes to Ukrainian territory, no NATO membership for Ukraine. And so what that looks like and how that shakes out over the next seven days is going to be a critical question. But there is no doubt that this is going to be one of the highest stake meetings of Donald Trump's second term so far.

MATTINGLY: Kaitlan, you asked such a critical question yesterday that I think, you know, may have, at least from a peripheral perspective, unlock some things as these negotiations have been going on fast and furious about the necessity of meeting with President Zelenskyy, if it existed, in a trilateral kind of way that had been presented or at least discussed behind closed doors in the meeting. What is our sense right now of White House communications with Ukrainian officials where this all shakes out on that side of things?

COLLINS: You know, Trump has spoken to Zelenskyy quite often lately. They spoke back-to-back earlier this week. I think what stood out with that question yesterday was whether or not a meeting with Putin and Zelenskyy would be conditioned upon Trump agreeing to sit down with Putin and Trump answering so quickly to me that, no, that that, in his view, was not a requirement for Putin to also sit down with Zelenskyy.

Because, initially, after Steve Witkoff, his envoy got back from meeting with Putin, the idea floating around the White House when we first got word that this meeting between Trump and Putin could happen rather quickly, was that meeting would go forth in the potentially a trilateral summit with Trump, Putin and Zelenskyy al; together. Putin threw cold water on that the next day saying that conditions have to be met for him to meet with Zelenskyy and they're just not there yet.

So, whether or not that happens and if Zelenskyy is in Alaska still remains to be seen if Trump himself wants to meet with him directly around that summit. That is a key question going forward of what this is going to look like and how this summit is going to shape out. And, obviously, there are going to be so many questions and parallels looking back to the summit between Trump and Putin in Helsinki.

Now, this will be the first time they have come face-to-face since Russia invaded Ukraine and the dynamic has completely changed there. And also Trump himself, what he's been saying about Putin has completely changed. When he took office, he wouldn't even say that it was Russia that started the war. He was heavily critical of Zelenskyy. I was in the Oval Office that day when he and J.D. Vance essentially dressed him down and said he wasn't thankful enough for U.S. aid. Obviously, in recent weeks, that tone has shifted where he had been saying he was going to put secondary sanctions in place on Russia. Obviously, here it is today, that was the deadline for the president.

And so there are a lot of key things that, that are going to hang in the balance of the next seven days and questions about whether or not there is a real change in the outcome of this war after that meeting that they're going to have in Alaska next Friday.

MATTINGLY: It's -- I mean this is just remarkable how fast this has all played out. I think the last meeting truly between Putin and a U.S. president was Geneva. I believe we were both there between President Biden and President Putin in 2021, I believe, before obviously the invasion of Ukraine.

Kaitlan Collins, as always, I really appreciated, chief White House correspondent. And, obviously, don't miss Kaitlan on her show, The Source with Kaitlan Collins. That's tonight and every night at 9:00 Eastern on CNN.

I want to bring in former deputy Pentagon Press Secretary under President Biden Sabrina Singh and retired Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt.

General Kimmitt, I want to start with you. This is a -- I'm not surprised by an awful lot these days, but the speed with which this happened, but also the location in Alaska, what's your kind of big picture sense of things right now?

[18:20:09]

MARK KIMMITT, RETIRED U.S. ARMY BRIDGADIER GENERAL: Well, first of all, I think Alaska is halfway between geographic --

MATTINGLY: It's really just that simple.

KIMMITT: Yes, it's probably that simple. He can't go to Europe, so he probably went to Alaska. It's fast, but it is not, in my mind, unusual. We've been negotiating with Putin for months and months. We've had General Kellogg and his team in there almost continuously trying to work with them. We saw Steve Witkoff working with President Putin and nothing seems to work.

Putin is only going to talk to somebody he sees as a peer and he sees President Trump as a peer. And I think that President Trump said this is an opportunity to get the ceasefire I've always wanted. I'm not the slightest bit optimistic about what we're going to see, but it's good that they're talking.

MATTINGLY: What's your sense?

SABRINA SINGH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: I mean, I'm shocked that it's actually being held, that this meeting is being held in the United States. I think that's giving incredible deference to someone that invaded a sovereign country. This is a war of choice that Putin started back in 2022. So, I thought, you know, a meeting in the Middle East or somewhere outside of the United States would make much more sense.

And, of course, for it to come together so quickly, I mean, you know, how White Houses work, certainly under the administration I served, these meetings take a lot of choreography and I think, you know. Putin has showed that he's willing and has been able to move the chess pieces on the board in his favor, and he's been able to get this administration to cater to a lot of his demands.

And then on fact, and, you know, holding it in Alaska, I think, is just even more proof of the fact that Putin really is holding the cards here.

MATTINGLY: Do you agree with that?

KIMMITT: Well, first of all it's probably ironic that Alaska used to be Russian territory, so there's a little bit of symbolism there. But to my mind, they've been preparing for this meeting ever since General Kellogg showed up and started the negotiation. There is nothing new that will be discussed that hasn't already been discussed at the negotiating table. It's just the people that will be sitting and talking to each other that is now different.

I don't think there's anything new on offer. Kaitlan said it exactly right. Do we think Putin's war aims have changed? And, candidly, has Zelenskyy's war aims changed? And those are so far apart. President Trump may think that he can bring that together, and I wish him luck and we should all wish him luck. But if you take a look at the blood and treasure that has been spent by both Russia and by Ukraine, I don't think this is going to make a significant breakthrough while they're talking.

MATTINGLY: Yes. Sabrina, it's the most important point and the most salient point right now, and our colleague, Fred Pleitgen, who's in Moscow just earlier, I think right around 5:00 P.M. when we first started the show, made the point, the red lines from Putin's perspective have not changed, right? They are the same that they have been. I can't imagine for any number of reasons blood and treasure being the primary one, as General Kimmitt points out that, President Zelenskyy has a lot of room here, nor should he, to be frank, given how this actually started. What is the way to thread the needle here?

SINGH: Well, I think it's going to be very tough and for this administration that came in with the promise on day one that they would end this war. It's proving to be very difficult time and time again. I think to push back on some of my colleagues' comments here is that Ukraine has showed in good faith that it's been willing to come to the ca the table and negotiate and being willing to negotiate on ceasefires. I mean, this administration has put up a 30-day ceasefire, long-term negotiation plans, you know, taking over some of the mineable exports coming out of Ukraine. And the Ukrainians have been willing to negotiate not only with this administration but showing good faith in these ceasefire negotiations.

So, I agree that I don't think Vladimir Putin has changed his end goals. He's going to continue this war. Russia's continuing to make gains on the battlefield. In fact, their summer offensive has been quite successful, and they're showing aerial power and dominance when it comes to overwhelming Ukrainian cities.

So, I think it is a good thing that these two leaders are meeting. But will it yield the results that ultimately President Trump wants, I don't think it will.

MATTINGLY: Can you explain? You've cited general Kellogg a couple of times. There's the Witkoff side of this. There's -- the dynamics is you understand them as somebody with a lot of experience in how these things work within this administration, which is not necessarily going down the normal path of things, as the last 48 hours have played out, but the other stuff hasn't worked. The other options and pathways haven't worked. So, maybe, you know, hopefully on some level, but how is it working? What's your sense of this?

KIMMITT: With a little bit of self-promotion, I wrote an article for The Wall Street Journal three months after the war started. And I said, this war is going to be a long and bloody slog. I don't think I've changed my opinion since that time. I think there's a lot of fighting left to do. I can't believe President Zelenskyy. He may be willing to negotiate the timing and the location of a ceasefire, but I don't think he can turn to the wives and children of the hundreds of thousands of wounded and killed in Ukraine and say, we're going to give up the Donbas.

[18:25:06]

We're not going to act for reparations. We're not going to join NATO. I just don't think he -- that is in his head, and I don't think that's in his soul. And correspondingly, I don't think President Putin is going to move significantly.

We may get a ceasefire out of this. That would be a good thing. We got a ceasefire out of Gaza between the Israelis and Hamas. But has anything really changed?

MATTINGLY: Yes. Sabrina, last one before I let you guys go. There is understandable skepticism about the president's approach to President Putin based on first term, based on kind of the pendulum swinging back and forth in terms of his views over the last six months, but he also has a lot of experience here, at least a lot more experience than he did in that first term summit. And I wonder, do you think it's possible he learned lessons, that he has a better opportunity to end up holding the cards than Putin does compared to the first term?

SINGH: Well, I'd hope there are some lessons learned, and I think you saw the president did acknowledge a few weeks ago, maybe it was even last week when he said, you know, President Putin doesn't seem serious about ending this war. So, I think there's an acknowledgement of President Putin's end goals. But at the end of the day, President Trump is going to be sitting across from one of the most sophisticated intelligence officers in the entire world, who is very good at manipulation. And so he has to have -- you know, be very prepared you know, go in with, you know, his set of talking points, but also not cater to what Putin wants. And I fear that we see that time and again more from this administration.

MATTINGLY: Yes, we'll see how this plays out. This is a remarkable last 48 hours to get to this point. Much more to come on that, for sure.

Sabrina, General Kimmitt, thank you very much. I appreciate you guys coming in.

Let's go down to CNN Chief International Security Correspondent Nick Paton Walsh in Kyiv. Nick, we now know this meeting is taking place in Alaska, meaning Trump will we welcome Putin to the United States. How do you have any sense of how this is being interpreted where you are in Ukraine?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, net news of that just breaking here, frankly, although for much the day, the notion of this meeting has been touted by Russian state media as imminent.

Look, Ukrainians are going to be hearing this with, I think, a lot of anxiety because we have in the past seen American and Russian officials in the Gulf meet and hammer out permutations potentially what a deal might look like without Ukraine at the table. Ukraine has now increasingly become part of the diplomacy and indeed offered a trilateral meeting in Istanbul that Putin rejected back in May.

So, I think there will be concerns that they may essentially be presented with something they have to go along with. President Trump was clear that he felt Zelenskyy had the capacity to push through a deal that maybe wasn't very popular through parliament, through other parts of Ukraine's political elite here. And remember too now, we are beginning to hear some indications of what some of the first permutations of a potential deal might look like, and they evolve something that will be, frankly, politically pretty toxic to President Zelenskyy and pretty unpopular.

Ukraine in the past has said it doesn't want to cede territory at all to Russia, unsurprisingly. They have been invaded for the last 3.5 months for the second time. But the permutation we are hearing of possibly suggests the Donetsk region and Luhansk being given over to Russia. Now that's kind of half of Putin's territorial war goal. But at the moment, Russian forces are close to encircling two important towns in Donetsk and Ukraine holds two others, Slovyansk and Kramatorks, pretty comprehensively.

You would essentially be asking Ukrainian forces to pull out of territory that they have invested thousands of lives in defending. That's going to be a very hard sell here and it's also going to come with the sole win potentially of a ceasefire. Trump suggested swapping territories. It's hard to quite see what obviously Russia could pull out of, maybe parts of Sumy and near Kharkiv, where they've just come over the border establishing what Putin has tried to call a buffer zone. So, potentially, that might be in the offing.

But the ceasefire is the most complex part of this, potentially. You know, we've seen energy infrastructure ceasefires not really be adhered to already this year. Putin's offered two very short, very unilateral ceasefires in the past few months as well. And Ukrainians will deeply mistrust the idea that Russian guns will permanently fall silent. They've seen this movie before, concessions, diplomacy, an agreement to stop fighting Russia regroups, and launches exactly what it wants all over again. So, there'll be great anxiety as people begin to towards Friday here. Phil?

MATTINGLY: And understandably so. Nick Paton Walsh in Kyiv, thanks so much. Well, we'll stay on top of this breaking news out of the White House of the Trump-Putin meeting happening next Friday. We're also watching the breaking news out of Atlanta, Georgia, where Emory University has reported a shooting on campus.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:30:00]

MATTINGLY: We are back with the breaking news in our National Lead, Emory University in Atlanta reports a shooting on campus. We now have brand new video from someone who lives near the scene. He tells CNN he heard about 30 gunshots, which you can hear in this video when he was working from home today. Take a listen.

Now, at first he thought it was construction, but he said as he kept hearing them, became suspicious and started filming.

I want to go straight to CNN's Ryan Young and Atlanta near the scene on the phone for us. Ryan, what are we seeing right now?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Phil, I've been trying to work my way over to the scene for the last two hours or so. Look, this call came in around 4:50, somewhere at near Emory course, near the CDC as well. And it was a call of an active shooter, a man dressed in black with a long rifle, shooting several times.

At my vantage point, which we can't show you right now, I'm seeing police actively talk to witnesses who are here on the scene describing what happened.

[18:35:05]

You can see some of them using their arms to replicate what looks like a weapon shooting toward their building. Also, to give you the distress about what's happening here, there are a lot of parents who are trying to pick up their kids in the nearby area. They've been trying to get to this area to pick up their kids from a nearby daycare. They have not been able to reach them just yet.

But on top of that, you have FBI agents, ATF agents, all the local surrounding SWAT teams that are here on scene. We do believe an officer has been shot in this, a DeKalb County officer was shot, and we're still trying to confirm the reports of the suspect also being taken down, shot. We're not sure what that condition is right now.

Now, they still cordoned off much of the scene here. We're talking about more than two miles of the area that are on lockdown right now, several different agency helicopters above our head, EMS all over the place, hospitals both put on alert, especially the level one trauma center, Grady Hospital, which is about seven miles away from here.

All this going on as we speak, as I try to figure out exactly what happened. But around 4:50 is when the initial call came in of a man dressed in black with a long rifle and maybe more weapons firing in different directions. And you heard those shots, 30 of them. And throughout the Atlanta area, people are talking about how many shots were fired. So you understand the seriousness of this, and that's why the SWAT teams are here, the ATF here, the FBI still investigating.

We're told a news conference most likely in the next 30 minutes or so. We're going to rally back to that point so we can get the latest information for you, Phil. But we wanted to break this to you now about the scene currently with active shutdown of the Emory area, especially around the CDC.

MATTINGLY: And we deeply appreciate the hustle, Ryan, you and your team getting over there. Please keep us posted as we learn more about a potential news conference or anything else you're learning. Ryan Young for us.

We are going to stay on the breaking news out of Atlanta. I do want to note the Emory X account that had been posting about this throughout the course of the last several hours, saying the newest update just moments ago, police emergency continues in the Emory Atlanta campus at Emory Point, avoid the area shelter in place has been lifted. So, it has been in shelter in place for the area. We've talked to at least one individual who was in the nearby Emory Hospital sheltering in place. Now, the alerts saying shelter in place has been lifted.

We'll continue to await more information, as Ryan noted the potential for a news conference soon. We'll certainly go to Ryan if that comes while we're here and keep in touch with Ryan throughout the course of the coming hours as we continue to follow that breaking news.

Plus, 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 that actually include and how soon could we see it? We'll try to explain, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:40:00]

MATTINGLY: New in our Law and Justice Lead, today, the Justice Department wants to release grand jury exhibits in the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell cases, in addition to transcripts with, quote, appropriate redactions of victim-related and other personal identifying information.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz and a former District Attorney for Westchester County Mimi Rocah are here to explain what exactly this means. And that's actually where I wanted to start with you, Katelyn. Because this filing from Attorney General Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Blanche, the latest in what seems to have been a rolling series of these, what exactly could grand jury exhibits entail?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Phil, it could be photos, it could be recordings, it could be emails, communications. It's the documents and the record that the prosecutors would've shown to the grand jury as they're trying to get the grand jury to vote on the indictment. We also know there was testimony before this grand jury. That was what the Justice Department had already been in court asking to unseal. Now, they're saying, yes, the evidence too.

Now, couple points on this. One, some of this evidence may overlap and is very likely to overlap what was coming out publicly at the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, and the indictment is just standing up those charges that then went to trial. So, we might not see much that would be new here if it were to be released by the judge. It's also not the full Epstein files. This is just about the criminal case against Ghislaine Maxwell where she was convicted for sex trafficking of minors.

There is one thing the Justice Department wrote in their filing, though, today explaining to the judge why they wanted these exhibits out there. They said they're going to do some redactions to protect victims, but there may be names in these exhibits that aren't also in the grand jury transcripts where an FBI agent and a police agent were speaking to the grand jury.

I don't know what that means or who those names could be, but everybody is paying very close attention to what might be revealed in these if a judge were to decide, yes, let's let them out.

MATTINGLY: Yes, no question about that. Mimi, I don't mean to be cynical, although it's probably justified these days. What -- is this like a genuine effort to get a bunch of things that people haven't seen and haven't seen the light of day up to this point, or do you feel like this is kind of a rolling effort to keep pushing this further away from the White House?

MIMI ROCAH, ADJUNCT PROFESSOR, FORDHAM LAW: The latter. And the reason I think that is, first of all, any exhibits that are in the grand jury that are admitted into the grand jury are also in the FBI files that the Justice Department controls. So, if they really wanted to release whatever these additional exhibits are, they could do so by releasing those files, or I shouldn't say everyone, but the majority of them. You know, because most things that you put in the grand jury are also gotten, say, by the FBI. Even if you issue a subpoena, the FBI is the agent -- the agent is often the one who receives that evidence. So, there is some disconnect here going on that that the idea that these are exhibits that don't exist -- these are items that don't exist anywhere else.

[18:45:07]

And to Katelyn's point, putting aside whether they exist somewhere else or not, we've said this before, and I'll say it again, the grand jury in this case was focused on indicting, where else or not, we've said this before, and I'll say where else or not, we've said this before, and I'll say it again, the grand jury in this case was focused on indicting, seeking indictments for Maxwell and Epstein.

That is what the testimony is going to be about. That's what these exhibits are going to be about. Could some unnamed third parties, you know, come up? I mean, we already know those names. We know who else was hanging out

with him. It's not going to provide us real more information, only interviews with witnesses that didn't make it into the testimony, search warrants that they did at his house. I mean, those are some of the things that we haven't seen. And that's not a complete list. But this is just, window dressing, in my opinion.

MATTINGLY: Just screaming into the void. They're trying to play you right now for people who actually think this is genuine.

Mimi, I do want to ask before I let you go, the Justice Department subpoenaed New York Attorney General Letitia James as part of a criminal investigation. They're seeking information about her investigations into the Trump Organization and the NRA.

James, obviously, longtime adversary of the president, her office won that civil fraud suit against the president in 2022. What do you think comes of this?

ROCAH: That's a very good question, because subpoenaing a prosecutor's office and the people in the office, remember, this isn't just James. I mean, these are the prosecutors who worked on the case. Are they being targeted as well in the way that they targeted the January 6th prosecutors?

You still have to go to a grand jury and ask a grand jury of peers to bring charges, if that's what you're going to do. And, you know, these are serious criminal civil rights statutes that are used in very serious and important circumstances, like when a law enforcement officer, you know, physically and unjustly abuses someone to start bringing investigations against prosecutors and possibly their whole office for cases that they did is really a misuse of those statutes. And you don't have to like the case that James brought or like her or like anything about how she conducted herself. That's -- that doesn't make it a criminal offense. This is really, again, a politicalization of the DOJ by Ed Martin, one of the most political people on earth.

MATTINGLY: Katelyn Polantz, Mimi Rocah, my appreciation for your expertise knows no bounds. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.

Our teams are on the ground at Emory University in Atlanta, where a shooting has been reported. We're expecting an update from officials shortly. We'll continue to monitor the latest. Stay with us.

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[18:51:36]

MATTINGLY: We now have an update on the breaking news in our national lead is the shooting was reported at Emory University campus in Atlanta.

I want to go straight to CNN's Josh Campbell.

What more are we learning? JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I feel a critical

update we just got from police there in Atlanta. The gunman, the shooter here is deceased. That information again coming from law enforcement after they responded to this active shooter situation there near Emory University.

We're also learning that one law enforcement officer was injured. We heard earlier from our affiliate WSB that one of the local hospitals was on standby to receive an injured officer. Police there now confirming one officer injured. We do not know that officers status at this time or the nature of that injury. This officer's condition. We're waiting for additional information there.

Police also saying that this incident involved one, one suspect, one shooter. That's always a question. Obviously, when these happen, was there anyone else? That appears that they're saying one shooter and again one officer now injured.

Now, the shelter in place there has been lifted. But obviously, a lot of work still left to be done for officers, particularly trying to interview anyone who was in and around that area that actually saw what took place. Obviously, trying to identify who this person is and then work to determine a possible motive.

With the suspect deceased, obviously, they can't be interviewed, so they'll have to try to dig into this person's past to try to get a sense of why this may have occurred. And we've seen in so many of these incidents, they have various tools to do so. Going through that person's life, talking to people that they may have known in their orbit again, to try to get a sense of what they're dealing with here.

But again, the news here, the shooter is deceased. One officer injured, Phil.

MATTINGLY: I want to bring back in Ryan Young, who's been hustling around the scene in Atlanta trying to learn more about what's going on. What more do we know? I know we're waiting for a press conference of some sort. What are your sources? What are people around you saying?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A hundred percent. This is what happened. We're right next to where the press conference is going to happen. We hustled to this point. I can tell you, around 4:50, I got a call from a source saying we had to get down here because they had an active shooter.

We were near the scene by the CVS and we could see them interviewing people, and they were describing what it looked like to have that long weapon pointed back toward the CDC. As the gunshots were being fired.

We know social media has a blur of video that has sounds of more than 30 shots, so they understood what was going on. And from what I've been described as the officer who was shot actively engaged the shooter, we know the shooter has been taken down. There was officers from the FBI, the ATF, the U.S. Marshals Office, DeKalb police, Atlanta police all swarmed this area. And the SWAT teams are still on active standby around the area as they

talk to people who saw this. And of course, they're asking people for video who were involved in this. The people who work at the CVS -- at the CVS, they were actually describing what it was like to have that man standing in front. Apparently, he was dressed in black. He may have had a mask on. And that's what we heard one person talking about.

Phil, the last time I talked to you as well, they are parents in the area who are trying to get to their kids, who are in nearby daycares, who are terrified by what happened here. Luckily, we know none of those kids have been injured so far from the parents that I talked to who were near the scene.

Of course, they're going to have to do a general assessment about if anyone else was injured while these shots were being fired. We're told in the next 15 minutes or so that we should have this news conference. I'm actually looking at some of the officials from the police department.

So, Phil, hopefully, to get some more of that information as it becomes more available.

[18:55:01]

MATTINGLY: Josh Campbell for us, Ryan Young, who's been hustling all over Atlanta on this story, please keep us posted as you learn more. Both of you. Thank you both very much.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: Veteran NASA astronaut Jim Lovell has died at 97. He was the commander of Apollo 13, the 1970 moon mission that was crippled by an oxygen tank explosion. Lovell delivered the news to mission control, saying, quote, Houston, we've had a problem here. The crew managed to loop around the moon and return to Earth safely.

You've heard this story because Tom Hanks played him in the movie "Apollo 13". Lovell had a cameo actually right at the end, dressed as an officer right there, shaking the astronauts' hands to welcome them home.

Jim Lovell also flew on "Apollo 8", the first manned mission to orbit the moon at the end of 1968, and he flew in space twice during the Project Gemini program in the mid '60s, including the longest flight of the program two weeks on Gemini 7.

He commanded Gemini 12, the last flight in that series. His companion on that flight, Buzz Aldrin, who went on to walk on the moon.

Now, even though Jim Lovell never left his footprints on the moon, he was a true American hero. He died Thursday in Lake Forest, Illinois.

Well, coming up Sunday on "STATE OF THE UNION", independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. That's Sunday morning at 9:00 Eastern and again at noon here on CNN. You can, of course, follow the show on X @TheLeadCNN.

Have you ever missed an episode of THE LEAD? You can listen to the show wherever you get your podcasts.

Erin Burnett starts right now.