Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Supreme Court Agrees To Hear Case Over TikTok Ban; New Details Of Shooter's Life As Police Seek Motive; Source: CIA Director Expected In Qatar As Early As Today To Push Gaza Ceasefire Deal; Researchers Teach Rats To Drive & Find They Enjoy It. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired December 18, 2024 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN CHIEF SUPREME COURT ANALYST: Now, when they wrote that, they also asked the Supreme Court to postpone the January 19th deadline, but the court didn't. The court said we're going to hear oral arguments and then maybe decide that.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: The timeline here is pretty tight.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Yes, it is.

KEILAR: So how quickly do you think that we could be seeing a decision by the court?

BISKUPIC: I think -- they've already signaled that they're going to go fast, but can they go fast enough to meet the January 19th deadline?

You know how the court acts. They usually take long -- months and months of briefing. They're going fast here. And there's a chance. I mean, the signal right now is that they want to be able to decide this by the 19th. Whether they will or not, we'll know.

And what might happen after oral arguments is we might get an order that actually postpones the effect of the law. on January 19th and says, you know, down the road we'll give you an answer.

And then, if they side with the federal government, the law could take effect, but not quite right on January 19th.

SANCHEZ: And the timing of this is so interesting, in part, because it's January 19th --

BISKUPIC: Right.

SANCHEZ: -- one day before Donald Trump is set to be inaugurated as president.

BISKUPIC: I know.

SANCHEZ: Trump, of course, has met recently with one of the key figures in TikTok's leadership. We'll see what happens.

BISKUPIC: Yes. SANCHEZ: Joan Biskupic, thank you so much.

BISKUPIC: All right. Thank you.

KEILAR: And when we come back, families in mourning after another mass shooting in the U.S. this week. But how can you spot warning signs before tragedy strikes? It's such an important question. We'll talk about it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:35:45]

KEILAR: A tight-knit community in Madison, Wisconsin, is mourning the victims of Mondays school shooting as investigators try to piece together how and why a 15-year-old girl opened fire at the Abundant Life Christian School, killing a teacher and a student and wounding six others.

The city's police chief says the biggest priority now is to determine the shooters motive.

SANCHEZ: According to "The Washington Post," court documents show the teen had a turbulent home life. Her parents were divorced and remarried multiple times.

And she, quote, "moved between their homes every two or three days." She was also enrolled in therapy, according to the newspaper. She died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

We're joined now by clinical psychologist, Dr. Jeff Gardere.

Dr. Gardere, thank you so much for being with us.

This shooter, obviously, as we learn more, appears to have had a difficult home life. Being the child of divorce isn't necessarily uncommon. Nevertheless, what do you see in the mental health of kids who have endured difficult home lives?

Obviously, the vast majority of them don't ultimately resort to violence.

DR. JEFF GARDERE, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: That is correct. And I think what we're seeing is many situations coming together that may have caused this horrible, horrible tragedy.

And quite often, it is not one singular or one piece of -- of some sort of an interaction or a problem. But all of those things converging, and that person not getting enough attention, and it just escalates and it goes on for some time not recognized.

KEILAR: And "The Washington Post" has reported an image of the shooter at a firing range. So at least, at some point, it appeared that she had access to weapons. We see that here. And obviously, a more controlled situation here at a firing range.

But what do you make of that? And the import of that?

GARDERE: Well, I think we've seen this over and over again. Certainly, being at a firing range, owning a gun and using that as sport, where you've been trained, where you know all of the safety protocols, is absolutely appropriate.

But when there is some sort of a perhaps severe mental health issue, as we see there may be here, or where there is some real instability in an individual's life -- I think one of the things that we've learned over and over again is their access to guns certainly can be a vulnerability.

And it certainly can exacerbate any issue because you're putting something that is so deadly in someone's hands who can't handle it or may use it, of course, as some sort of a weapon in response to a grievance or some other issue that they are experiencing around of violence.

SANCHEZ: One of the unique aspects to this case is that the shooter was a female, and typically the profile of a young shooter, especially a school shooter, is that of a male.

I wonder what you make of this seeming anomaly when you look at the broader picture and the history of school shooters.

GARDERE: Yes, absolutely. And interestingly enough, on your network, I've talked about Klebold and Harris and the Columbine shootings. And I think we've seen a pattern of more and more males being involved in these terrible situations.

But I think as we see now in our society, that young women are very much affected by many of the same issues as males are. So we can't be blind to the possibility that a female or some other person who is experiencing some of this turbulence will not act out because they are not a male.

So I think this opens our eyes as to the possibility that this can happen across the board with regard to gender and identity.

[13:39:59]

KEILAR: Dr. Gardere, the -- the FBI emphasizes that these kinds of events, it's not an issue of the shooter just one day waking up and snapping, and hear something like this happens, that this is something that can build over time. There are warning signs.

When -- when you think about this and you think about the warning signs, what do you think that people should know? And who are the people who should be looking out for those signs?

GARDERE: Right. Well, some of the things we should look at, whether there are any sharp changes in behavior where there's an escalation of grievances.

Where there is something that's called "leakage," where there are comments or jokes or threats about violent plans, if the person is becoming more and more depressed and isolated.

If they have access to guns and have some mental health issues that may put them more at a vulnerable stage in their lives.

And not to say that people with mental health issues are violent, because we see, most often, they're not.

But the people who really need to know about this are the teachers or the parents or the fellow students, so that if they see something, they can say something.

And certainly, as parents and school officials and counselors, psychologists, social workers, we want to be able to address someone who may be having some of these behavioral signs that I've talked about.

And let them know that help is out there for them. They don't have to suffer alone. And then eventually act out in some of these horrific ways.

KEILAR: Yes, important stuff to hear.

Dr. Jeff Gardere, thank you for that.

And now to some of the other headlines that we're watching.

GARDERE: Thank you.

KEILAR: The winds and dry conditions have triggered another red flag fire warning for parts of Los Angeles and Ventura Counties in California. The warning is going to continue until this evening.

And it comes just a week after the Franklin Fire forced evacuations and burned about 4,000 acres in the Malibu area. These current conditions have the potential for rapid fire spread and extreme fire behavior.

Also, another setback for the two NASA astronauts, who were only supposed to be in space for a week. Mission Controllers now say that Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore will not be able to come home until late March at the earliest.

Last we heard, the pair would return in February, but officials say the new timetable will give NASA and SpaceX teams time to complete processing on a new Dragon capsule. They have been up in space since early this summer.

SANCHEZ: It's that stock they're trying to build.

KEILAR: I don't think that's it, Boris.

(LAUGHTER)

SANCHEZ: So Honda and Nissan are now discussing a possible merger. The Japanese automakers issued a statement confirming they've been in talks on combining forces, though they offered no timetable for any such deal.

Honda and Nissan have fallen on hard times as of late and announced earlier this year that they would collaborate on battery and electric vehicle technology.

So CIA Director Bill Burns is expected to arrive in Qatar as early as today, sources tell CNN. Burns would be joining several U.S. officials in the Middle East pushing for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal.

KEILAR: Both Israeli and Hamas teams are there in Doha for indirect negotiations. Hamas expressing optimism, saying an agreement is possible but serious obstacles still remain. It seems like that is the case over and over.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond is in Jerusalem and filed this report.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, there is optimism in the air. Significant diplomatic activity in the region. And a clear sense of momentum towards a potential hostage and ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.

But will there actually be a deal? That is, indeed, the question, at this moment, because we are seeing a number of officials arriving in the Middle East to try and get this deal across the finish line.

The latest arrival in the region appears to be the CIA Director Bill Burns, who has been the top U.S. official in these negotiations for months now.

He often travels and arrives in the region at critical junctures in the process, and this does, indeed, appear to be one of those critical moments yet again, following visits by the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, last week. President Biden's top Middle East adviser, Brett McGurk, also in the region.

And of course, we've seen an Israeli delegation, Hamas delegation in both Cairo, as well as in Doha, Qatar.

And accompanying this flurry of diplomatic activity, you also have the rhetoric. We've heard optimism from the Americans, from the Israelis, from all sides, really, saying that they believe that we are closer than ever to a deal.

Hamas also joining that optimistic rhetoric yesterday in a statement saying that they believe a deal is, quote, "possible." A Hamas source also saying that the state of talks is, quote, "positive and optimistic."

But they are also offering a note of caution as so many others involved in the process are, as well. Hamas saying that a deal is possible as long as Israel does not continue to make additional last- minute demands in this process.

[13:45:01] And all sides are really urging caution, even as they are sounding an optimistic note, because we have seen so many times before, these two sides get very, very close to a potential agreement, but ultimately a deal not falling through.

But officials in the region believe that conditions are now at their ripest for an agreement to actually take place.

And there's no question that it is very much needed. As we are watching in Gaza over the last 24 hours, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 38 people have been killed, more than 200 have been injured.

And of course, the humanitarian conditions in Gaza certainly not improving. Much needed aid would get in if a ceasefire were to go in place.

And then, of course, there are those 100 hostages still held in the Gaza Strip, about half of whom Israel believes are still alive. Their fate, of course, also hanging in the balance.

Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: All right, Jeremy, thank you for that report.

And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:50:39]

KEILAR: Teaching a teenager how to drive a car, well, that can be hard enough. Imagine teaching a lab rat. I don't know, maybe it's easier. Maybe. I don't know. No, maybe not.

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: All right. Some researchers at the University of Richmond have taken on this task. And quite honestly, the results are pretty impressive.

Scientists there have been teaching rodents how to operate their very own rat mobiles, and they found that not only are they capable of driving, they seem to really like it.

SANCHEZ: They love it. The rodent you see here is driving an electric rat mobile. Not to be confused with the Batmobile, which, if you're familiar with the work of Batman, is more often driven erratically, if we're being honest.

Joining us now is the study's lead researcher, Kelly Lambert. She's a professor of behavioral neuroscience at the University of Richmond. And the author of the book "The Lab Rat Chronicles, A Neuroscientist Reveals Life Lessons from the Planet's Most Successful Mammals." Dr. Lambert, thank you so much for being with us.

You started this research several years ago, and you found that the rats enjoy driving. How can you tell?

KELLY LAMBERT, PROFESSOR OF BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND & AUTHOR: That's a good question. Yes, our original work, we showed that that animals or rats that we're in enriched environments learned to drive more readily.

But more often, more recently, we were -- I was intrigued by watching the rats, and they seemed to be excited with their rat behavior about approaching the car. They would just jump in the car.

And we recently gave them a preference test. They could walk to the Fruit Loop tree -- and our rats love Fruit Loops. That's the currency of our lab. Or they could take a longer path and drive to the Fruit Loop tree.

And more of them consistently went out of their way, walked to the car, or ran to the car, and then drove. So they took this longer path to the Fruit Loops tree.

So they're showing us with their behavior as they approach and take the long road so that they can actually drive. So it suggests that they do prefer to do this, and they do enjoy it.

KEILAR: Fruit Loops and a nice drive. Who can argue with that? And also the wheels that have been constructed for them are pretty great. So they must be appreciative for that.

But what -- tell us, there's a point to this, right? What are -- what are you hoping to extrapolate from all of this?

LAMBERT: Yes, my -- my lab is interested in how the brain changes as, throughout our lives, especially as we take on new tasks. And we saw this driving task as a complex task or skill that they would acquire.

And we were interested in how far we could push the rat behavior. They teach me something every day. They're very clever, surviving animals.

And so we want -- we're interested in how the brain changes through this. And also how training, just learning a new task changes our stress and coping.

And we've seen that going through the training process itself changes the stress hormone profiles.

But more recently, noticing that the rats seemed to enjoy this behavior, we're looking more systematically at the role of positive emotions and using a different paradigm in the lab to look at this.

I have introduced the term, "behavior-ceuticals," about how we can change our neurochemistry and neurophysiology through behavior, intentional behavior. And so we're interested in how positive emotions, extending our

anticipation, changes or sculpts the brain in beneficial ways. So the rats are kind of driving our research in different directions.

SANCHEZ: I see what you did there. Brilliant, Doctor.

(LAUGHTER)

SANCHEZ: Yes. All that from literally a rat in a plastic box with wheels and some wires. Though I've learned that you've updated the new rat mobile. Tell us about this new model.

LAMBERT: Well, I'm not sure what you've shown, but we're in our third version of the rat car, collaborating with a researcher, John McManus, at Randolph-Macon College. And we call it our Rodent-Operated Vehicle, our ROV.

[13:54:56]

And so we have learned, along with the rats, how to construct a car. That's an interesting question. Had to channel my inner rat about thinking about how it would approach the car and what the dashboard would look like, and how it would activate that lever.

So we're not looking at human factors engineering, but rat factors engineering to understand how they can readily engage with this car. So we went, you're correct, from a cereal container to this more sophisticated ROV.

KEILAR: It's awesome. It looks fun. I think it probably brings a lot of joy to the researchers because it's brought -- I can't even tell you --

SANCHEZ: You see them jumping up and down.

KEILAR: Boris has been so excited about this story for days, Dr. Lambert.

SANCHEZ: Yes. This has the potential to change --

LAMBERT: I love it.

SANCHEZ: -- the Uber experience as we know it altogether.

(LAUGHTER)

LAMBERT: Well, we've tried that. We're interested in the passenger versus the driver.

SANCHEZ: What?

LAMBERT: And we call that the Uber study. So we're working on that.

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: You leave no stone unturned. It's unbelievable. SANCHEZ: This is amazing.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: This is so much fun.

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: And it's also just so purposeful, too.

Thank you so much for joining us and telling us about your research, Dr. Lambert.

SANCHEZ: Five stars, Dr. Lambert. Thank you so much.

LAMBERT: You're welcome.

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: Would ride again, right?

SANCHEZ: Yes, absolutely.

KEILAR: Definitely.

SANCHEZ: Absolutely.

KEILAR: So stay with us. We are just minutes away from the Federal Reserve's announcement after its final meeting on interest rates for 2024. What they're telling us about the economy and inflation for next year. We'll have that ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)