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Erin Burnett Outfront
Trump Ally Bannon Vows To Go "Medieval" As He Goes On Trial; Georgia DA Subpoenas GOP Rep. Hice In Trump Election Probe; Now: Uvalde School Board Meeting Amid Outrage Over Shooting Response; Emotions High As Parkland Gunman's Death Penalty Trial Begins; Nearly $300K Raised For Doctor Under Fire For 10-Year-Old's Abortion; Global Heat Records Outpacing Cool Records 10 To 1 This Year. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired July 18, 2022 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[19:00:22]
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next, Bannon threatens to go, quote, medieval as his trial for contempt of Congress begins. What is his end game and will he ever appear before the January 6th committee?
Plus, parents of the victims in the Uvalde school shooting demanding accountability at a school board meeting happening right now, after the new body cam video and the scathing report shows officers failing to respond.
And the doctor who performed an abortion on a 10-year-old who was raped refusing to back down despite being a target of anti-abortion activists and a previous kidnapping threat against her own daughter.
Let's go OUTFRONT.
Good evening, everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan, in for Erin Burnett. Going, quote, medieval, that's Steve Bannon.
Bannon is defiant on his podcast.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE BANNON, FORMER TRUMP AIDE: Pray for our enemies, okay? Because we're going medieval on these people. We're going to savage our enemies, so pray for them. Who needs prayers? Not MAGA, not war room, and certainly not Steven K. Bannon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: After leaving court today, Bannon spoke briefly to reporters. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BANNON: Look, it was a very good first day. It was a long day for jury selection.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BOLDUAN: And so it goes. Now Bannon faces two criminal charges for his failure to comply with a House January 6th investigation. It's been ten months since he received a subpoena from the committee. The case is a major test of how much power Congress really has when a witness defies a subpoena.
Bannon, one of the biggest purveyors of Trump's election lies was a key figure in the lead-up to January 6th. Days before the election, Bannon was already privately outlining Trump's plan win or lose. In his words then, Trump is just going to declare victory and Bannon has never wavered from that message.
Here he is on December 29, 2020, long after the votes have been counted.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BANNON: We're here for reality. Trump won a massive landslide on the 3rd of November.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: According to reporters, Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, Bannon convinced Trump to return to D.C. from Mar-a-Lago for that Stop the Steal rally. He also spoke to Trump twice on January 5th.
One of those calls minutes before he said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BANNON: All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. Just understand this. All hell is going to break lose tomorrow.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: And now, the question is will he ever testify before the insurrection committee and will he be spending time behind wars in the meantime? Sara Murray is OUTFRONT live in Washington with much more on this.
Sara, Bannon's trial began today. What really happened?
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, basically, it took all day. They were asking a pool of jurors if they had binge watched these congressional hearings, if they already had their view of whether Steve Bannon is guilty. Even though it did take all day, they managed to seat a full pool of jurors, 22. They'll whittle it down from there beginning tomorrow.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MURRAY (voice-over): A trial Steve Bannon hoped to avoid.
BANNON: This is going to be the misdemeanor from hell.
MURRAY: The judge meticulously asking potential jurors today if they have watched the January 6th committee hearings during a slow-moving process to find 22 impartial jurors. Bannon was charged with two counts of criminal contempt of Congress after defying a subpoena for documents and testimony from the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. The Trump ally pleaded not guilty.
BANNON: I'm never going to back down.
MURRAY: And hammered the committee.
BANNON: Their ratings stink and they can't compete with the trial of Bannon.
MURRAY: House investigators wanted to know about Bannon's communications with Trump in the run-up to January 6th. His inflammatory comments the day before the insurrection --
BANNON: All hell is going to break loose. It's not going to happen like you think it's going to happen. Okay? It's going to be quite extraordinarily different. All I can say is strap in.
MURRAY: As well as his communications with extremist groups like the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and Three Percenters. Since that subpoena, new revelations about Bannon's political activity as new audio shows Trump would declare victory regardless of the outcome.
BANNON: What Trump is going to do is declare victory. He's going to declare victory. That doesn't mean he's the winner. He's just going to say he's the winner.
REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-IL): Steve Bannon is an agent of chaos. Steve Bannon in his own words believes you have to basically burn the system down to rebuild it and fix it.
MURRAY: Staring down jail time if convicted, Bannon made an 11th hour offer to the committee to testify publicly.
BANNON: I think it would have been more productive if we were on Capitol Hill with open mics addressing the nation with exactly all this nonsense.
[19:05:04]
This show trial they have been putting up on Capitol Hill.
MURRAY: But the move didn't stop his trial, which is shaping up to be a key test of the committee's subpoena power as it negotiates to bring in additional witnesses.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MURRAY (on camera): Now, we should get into the opening arguments pretty quickly starting tomorrow morning. From there we're expecting it to be a relatively short trial because the judge has limited the kinds of defenses Bannon can put forward. Of course, the big thing we're waiting to see is whether Bannon takes the stand to testify in his own defense -- Kate. BOLDUAN: Stand by on that one. It's good to see you, Sara. Thank you
very much.
OUTFRONT with me now, Norm Eisen who served as counsel to House Democrats during Trump's first impeachment trial. He also served as the Obama White House ethics czar.
David Urban is here, Republican strategist and former Trump campaign senior advisor.
And Katelyn Polantz, our senior reporter on crime and justice. She was inside the courtroom today for that marathon start of Bannon's trial.
Thanks for being here, guys.
David, you know Bannon. You've known him for a long time. What do you think his end game is here?
DAVID URBAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think his end game is to try to stay out of jail, Kate. As you heard Sara say, that's going to be tough in this instance because Judge Nichols, who is a Trump appointee, has really limited the burden of proof for the government. The government only needs to prove that Steve Bannon deliberately and intentionally defied a subpoena. So it's basically the lowest standard of proof necessary to send Steve to jail.
So I think his end game should be to stay out of game. Norm can comment on it but it's going to be pretty tough for Steve to stay out.
BOLDUAN: Norm, how much does this trial matter in the grand scheme of things related to January 6th? It's obviously wrapped up in it. It's all about it, except it's not.
NORM EISEN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Kate, it matters because the principle of the January 6th hearings is that nobody in America is above the law. That's true if you attack a lawful election and disrupt a peaceful transition of power, and it's true if, as Steve Bannon did, you defy a lawful subpoena.
Part of the reason, every once in a while my friend David and I do agree, part of the reason that this is such a tough case for Bannon is you can't just not show up. And that's what he did. He failed to appear. He didn't do what we call on the Hill the accommodation process, the negotiations, the back and forth that spared Trump's former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, from being prosecuted by DOJ because he tried.
So I think that principle not above the law is at stake and, of course, it's a lesson to everybody who may want to defy this 1/6 committee as it continues its work that there can be consequences in court.
BOLDUAN: That may be the biggest impact of this, if that's the direction that this goes, that message that it does send clearly.
Katelyn, as I mentioned, you were in the courtroom today. How did Bannon react to what was going on inside?
KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, Bannon was there the entire time, as is his right as the defendant in this case. He listened quite intently. He really was paying attention, he was looking jurors in the eye as they were speaking, as they were answering questions from the judge and the lawyers.
One of the things that was striking is it was a really big courtroom, but he is only a few feet away from the people that are going to try his case, are going to weigh the facts, the peers, the jury of peers that he has to face.
One of the things that repeatedly came up was that a lot of these people, they are people who live in D.C. They're very aware of what happened on January 6th. Some of them have followed headlines about Bannon, read a little about the case but not gotten into much detail about them.
And many of them have been watching house select committee hearings, many mentioned Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony but not hearing Bannon being mentioned. Some of them understood that if you get a subpoena, that is something you have to comply with in a lot of situations, but they were asked repeatedly if they could be impartial jurors. They were quizzed extensively by the judge and it was handled very delicately and they were able to arrive at a pool of 22.
So, as Sara said, we are going to get this trial going tomorrow morning.
BOLDUAN: David, when you think about -- go ahead, David.
URBAN: Apparently you see Steve Bannon, this was the voir dire process, Steve comes out and declares victory. We had a great day today, you know?
BOLDUAN: That's exactly what I was going to ask you, though.
URBAN: He is definitely not fearful.
BOLDUAN: This is Steve Bannon -- this is Steve Bannon, right? This is a man who, you know, damn the facts, he says what he likes to say. He loves a show. He talked about ratings, all the time, just like akin to Trump.
You know how he is and what he likes to do. I was actually going to ask you if you think that he is afraid of what's going to be playing out?
[19:10:00]
URBAN: Look, again, I don't think anybody wants to end up going to jail and being convicted, but I don't think Steve Bannon left that courtroom today afraid. You know, he is a -- he is a damn the torpedoes full speed ahead kind of guy.
Come what may, he is not going to prevail in this case I don't believe, just because the threshold is pretty low. The judge has really limited what the government has to prove, much to Steve's chagrin. So it will be appealed I'm sure for a long time.
But it will be a victory. Steve will claim victory. No matter win, lose or draw, Steve will claim victory. He'll be on the show -- he'll be out decrying the show trial.
You heard in the previous segment there, Steve talked five minutes about the January 6th hearings and not much about his case. He said look, I wish we had witnesses presented there and the same kind of things you hear on his talk show. I think he thinks he's winning no matter what.
BOLDUAN: At least that's what he's going to try to say.
Katelyn, what are you learning about Bannon's legal strategy?
POLANTZ: Right. So, Kate, going into this there has been some press that his lawyer basically threw up his hands at a hearing and said what defenses are left to us? But in the questioning today his defense team did make clear there are some areas that they feel like they'll be able to make a defense.
They always say you can fight the facts or the law. It looks like he may have the defenses on both sides. As far as the facts, one area of defense that he may have is trying to contest that this was a hard deadline for the subpoena when he didn't show up, that it was more of a movable date.
And then the other one is that perhaps the congressional subpoena power isn't as powerful as a court subpoena or an administrative subpoena. But the one thing that was closed down today, one strategy that his team had tried was they had tried to say you're not going to be able to seat a jury. That's not going to be the case here.
He is going to be able to find a jury that is impartial that can weigh this trial.
BOLDUAN: That's a good point.
Norm, really quickly looking ahead to the January 6th committee hearing, Congressman Adam Kinzinger, he now says this next hearing, the way he put it, is, will open people's eyes in a big way.
Do you think they could present something, some fact at this coming hearing that will be a game-changer like Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony was?
EISEN: Well, Kate, if past is prologue, in every hearing, they have had blockbuster new evidence. Cassidy Hutchinson was the most devastating. But all seven have been powerful. We know we're likely to hear from Sarah Matthews, another White House staffer, probably from others.
So, yes, I'm assuming that they are. They're going to go to the question of Trump's intent on January 6th, his violent intent. And I think we are going to get more evidence.
BOLDUAN: We'll see. It's good to see you all. Thank you so much.
OUTFRONT for us next, a Georgia district attorney and a new subpoena for another Trump ally. Is the Georgia criminal investigation getting closer to Trump himself now?
Plus, a special school board meeting in Uvalde, Texas, is under way after new body cam video unveils what unfolded inside the school after police arrived. Angry parents tonight demanding action.
And a deadly heat wave is shattering records and so far being blamed for taking the lives of more than 1,000 people. And tonight, extreme heat warnings are in effect for millions of Americans.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:17:07]
BOLDUAN: Tonight, a major escalation in the Fulton County district attorney's probe into team Trump's efforts to overturn the election in Georgia. A new court filing reveals that Republican Congressman Jody Hice was issued a subpoena to appear before a grand jury this week.
But Hice is trying to move the proceedings from state court to federal court. The congressman is as loyal as they come to President Trump.
Hice voted to overturn the election on January 6th and repeatedly pushed and repeated the baseless claims that the election was stolen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JODY HICE (R-GA): Not for one second am I convinced that Joe Biden won the state of Georgia. The outcome of this past election is not a true reflection of the voice of the people of the United States. And so this is our constitutional right and at this point our constitutional duty to stand up and object.
I don't believe, not for one moment, that Georgia is blue but for election irregularities and fraudulent activity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: The subpoena news comes just days after Yahoo!'s Michael Isikoff first reported that Fulton county D.A. Fani Willis sent target letters to multiple Georgia Republicans and warned that they could be indicted, which led to Donald Trump's former White House attorney Ty Cobb telling OUTFRONT this, that the Georgia case under the control of the Fulton County district attorney appears to pose a serious threat of indictment to the former president.
Michael Isikoff is OUTFRONT.
It's good to see you, Michael. You are deeply sourced on this. What does the Jody Hice subpoena and how he's fighting it tell you about this investigation? MICHAEL ISIKOFF, CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT, YAHOO NEWS: Well,
first and foremost, it's yet more evidence of how much more aggressive Fani Willis is in pursuing Trump and the Trump campaign in this investigation than any other prosecutor out there, and obviously, I'm referring there to the Department of Justice in Washington.
I mean, in just the last, you know, week and a half, she has subpoenaed Rudy Giuliani, Lindsey Graham, John Eastman. She sent target letters to the chairman of the Georgia Republican Party and to the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor for their role in the fake electors scheme. And now she's going after a sitting Georgia congressman, Jodi Hice.
We don't know for sure, based on the public record, what it is that prompted this subpoena, but we do know this, that on December 21st, 2020, Hice went to Washington, had a meeting with Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, and others to discuss the fake elector scheme and whether those fake electors, which had been selected on December 14th, could be used to pressure Mike Pence to disregard the actual vote total in Georgia and other states and substitute electors for Donald Trump.
BOLDUAN: Michael, as you're mentioning, Willis seems to be moving faster than the Justice Department here at a pretty fast clip.
[19:20:06]
What impact could that have?
ISIKOFF: Well, I mean, there are -- you know, there are legal consequences and then there are obviously political consequences. Just talking about the politics for a moment, clearly, Willis seems to be not terribly concerned with how this is going to play politically because in sending a target letter to a statewide office holder, statewide office candidate from the Republican Party, she's an elected Democrat.
And by the way, a candidate for lieutenant governor, who's running against a close ally of hers, Charlie Bailey, who used to work with her in the Fulton County district attorney's office, and Willis recently co-sponsored a fund-raiser for him. So this has big political consequences in Georgia.
It's like -- "The Journal Constitution" reported today this has jolted the state wide races down there with some people saying this is a political move by Willis to hurt Trump Republicans and others saying, look, she's just doing her job, pursuing evidence of criminal acts in her jurisdiction.
BOLDUAN: We'll see how aggressive she's pushing has any impact on how fast or if the DOJ even speeds up what they're doing, how fast she's moving.
It's good to see you, Michael. Thank you.
ISIKOFF: Sure, any time. BOLDUAN: OUTFRONT next, disturbing new details are emerging about the
gunman who police say opened fire at an Indiana mall killing three people. Why police say he went to such great lengths to try to cover his tracks.
Plus, emotions are running very high in an extremely rare trial. The jury will decide whether the gunman in the Parkland school shooting will be put to death.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:25:49]
BOLDUAN: We're looking live right now at pictures out of Uvalde, Texas, where parents and family members are attending a special school board meeting about security plans for the next school year, which is approaching fast, and relatives of the 19 students and two teachers murdered. They are demanding answers tonight about the security failures that allowed the gunman to enter their school, including questions about whether the classroom door was ever locked or if it operated correctly, if they knew it.
Here is what a relative of Uziyah Garcia just said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIIFED MALE: We had people telling you all that the doors didn't lock and y'all didn't do a damn thing about it. Why?
UNIDENTIIFED MALE: Answer, why?
UNIDENTIIFED MALE: The expectation is those doors to be locked. Absolutely, yes.
UNIDENTIIFED MALE: Y'all knew that they didn't.
UNIDENTIIFED MALE: I was not aware that that lock was not working.
UNIDENTIIFED MALE: Okay. So then you run -- you're the superintendent. You're top dog, correct?
UNIDENTIIFED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIIFED MALE: So you should know what's going on in your schools?
UNIDENTIIFED MALE: Correct.
UNIDENTIIFED MALE: Why don't you?
UNIDENTIIFED MALE: I did not know that it was working or not working at that time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: This comes as a new report details the chaotic and confusing response by the 376 law enforcement officers that ended up on the scene that day.
Rosa Flores is OUTFRONT. A warning, some of the video you're about to see may be disturbing.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): New body cam video.
POLICE OFFICER: Shots fired! Get inside!
FLORES: Offering a new perspective of law enforcement's failed response to the Uvalde school shooting.
POLICE OFFICER: What are we doing here?
FLORES: Officers, sounding unsure what to do about 20 minutes after the first shots, as they wait for backup. For the first time, we see School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo hunkered down with other officers in a hallway.
PETE ARREDONDO, SCHOOL DISTRICT POLICE CHIEF: Let me know if there's any kids in there or anything.
FLORES: He tries to speak to the gunman who had already fired his first shots more than 30 minutes before.
ARRENDONDO: This can be peaceful. Could you tell me your name? Anything I can know please?
FLORES: Moments later, another body camera reveals a 911 dispatcher relaying to officers a chilling call from a student inside a classroom.
911 DISPATCH: We do have a child on the line saying he is in a room full of victims at this moment.
FLORES: Remember Chief Arredondo did not have his police radio in the hallway, telling "The Texas Tribune" he was unaware of the dispatch report.
Six minutes later, he's seen trying keys to open an adjacent door, none of which appear to work. Minutes later, more gunfire. But the police posture is again to hunker down, as Arredondo attempts to speak to the gunman.
ARREDONDO: Sir, if you can hear me, please put your firearm down, sir. We don't want anybody else hurt.
POLICE OFFICER: We got kids in --
POLICE OFFICER: I know, I know.
POLICE OFFICER: That's what we're doing, we're trying to get him out.
FLORES: The videos released by the Uvalde mayor just as the Texas house committee released its damning interim report Sunday on the law enforcement response, calling it chaotic, lackadaisical, without any person obviously in charge.
In that report, Arredondo offers this as part of an explanation to the committee. When there's a threat, you have to visibly be able to see the threat. You have to have a target before you engage your firearm. Getting fired at through the wall, coming from a blind wall, I had no idea what was on the other side of that wall. I never got to physically see the threat or the shooter.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were cowards, not chickens.
FLORES: The report angering Uvalde residents and victims' families.
Jesus Rizo who says he's like an uncle to Jacklyn Cazares releasing this video of the two while telling CNN he wants accountability at the top.
JESUS RIZO, FAMILY FRIEND OF JACKLYN CAZARES: They stood there as people bled out. They stood there as they took their final breath.
FLORES: Uvalde's mayor announcing shortly after the report came out the acting chief of the Uvalde police department was put on administrative leave.
DON MCLAUGHLIN, UVALDE MAYOR: Do I still think there's a cover-up?
[19:30:01]
Well, let me put it this way. This has been the worst professionally run investigation that -- I mean I've never seen anything of this magnitude.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FLORES: Now, we just learned from the Texas Department of Public Safety that the ongoing criminal -- and the keyword here is criminal -- the ongoing criminal investigation includes examining the actions of law enforcement on that day.
Now, that is the first time that we've heard this, and of course after looking at that video, it's the inaction that might get police in trouble. I am just outside that school board meeting that Kate was just talking about. I just stepped out moments ago. I can tell you that it's heated. It's very emotional, with some of the parents asking -- demanding, quite frankly, the school board not just to fire Pete Arredondo as police chief but also get rid of the superintendent -- Kate.
BOLDUAN: Rosa, thank you very much for that.
We're going to continue watching that school meeting that's going on.
OUTFRONT with me now is Republican Texas State Representative Dustin Burrows, the chair of the committee investigating the Uvalde school shooting.
Representative, thank you so much for being here. Systemic failures and egregiously poor decision-making. That is how
you've described what was found after the hours, the documents, the hours, the interviews, everything that you have looked at for this interim report. What do you want to see happen now from here?
DUSTIN BURROWS (R), TEXAS STATE REPRESENTATIVE: Let me put it this way. I think that morning the people of Uvalde had a false sense of security. They believed they had systems in place at the school level, at the law enforcement level that would have stopped this attack.
I worry that those same systems and that same sense of false security exists not only throughout the state but the country in a lot of our school districts. This report has now been submitted to the Texas legislature, to the Texas house specifically, so that the committee is looking at policy changes and recommendations can have a basic set of facts and look at all the different failures they talk about and figure out what we need to do from here.
BOLDUAN: Yeah, that is a big discussion that needs to be happening. But even before those big policy discussions occur, as we speak, as we mentioned, a special school board meeting is under way where parents and family members of the students are pressing the school board about the failures that allowed the gunman to enter the school. I mean, a relative of one of the children killed in this attack is demanding that Pete Arredondo be fired after this report came out, after seeing these videos. I want to play for you a little bit of what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRETT CROSS, RELATIVE OF VICTIM UZIYAH GARCIA: If he's not fired by noon tomorrow, then I want your resignation and every single one of you board members because you all do not give a damn about our children or us. Stand with us or against us, because we ain't going nowhere.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: You can hear their anger. You can feel, understandably feel the rage. And, look, we know that the job that you were tasked with here was to get the facts, not to necessarily decide who should keep or lose their jobs.
But you are an elected official, of course. We are talking about state employees. If people don't lose jobs over something as horrible as this, has the state failed these families?
BURROWS; Let me put it this way. I feel for the families and understand their demand for accountability. What you're seeing happening right now, and I obviously cannot watch it, is exactly what's supposed to work. People are looking to the school board, who they elect at a school board level, to put pressure and demand what they want to see happen. I'll be very interested to see what happens at the end of this school board meeting.
BOLDUAN: After everything that you've seen, after everything that you've learned, what questions still remain for you? BURROWS: I think the biggest question is trying to figure out which
officer knew what when. We know now there's almost 380 different law enforcement officers on the scene that day. What we do not know and what we don't really have the capability of knowing, I don't think we'll know for some period of time is going through each of that and figuring out who knew what when so we could look at the standards and the expectations and judge whether or not they met them or not.
Clearly, some of the officers on the scene knew there was people in that room either being killed or dying and had a duty and responsibility to do something and do more than they did. Others, however, did not have that information or had false information. We laid that out in the report.
And so I think you've got to go through and explain that incrementally for everybody that was out there.
BOLDUAN: As unsatisfying as everything is, nothing to satisfy families or really bring them closure. The work that you and the committee did is a very first step in trying to get that accountability and justice for these families.
Thank you for coming on, Representative Burrows, I really appreciate it.
BURROWS: Thank you for having me.
BOLDUAN: Really appreciate it.
[19:35:00]
Also tonight, disturbing new details are coming out about the gunman who police say opened fire at an Indiana mall killing people before a, quote-unquote, Good Samaritan shot and killed him. Police identified the gunman as 20-year-old Jonathan Sapirman. And police suggest that he may have gone to great lengths to try to cover his tracks.
A SWAT team searching his apartment found a laptop and can of butane in a high temperature oven that was still on. The FBI is going to try to analyze that laptop at Quantico. Officials are trying to extract data now from his cell phone that was found in a toilet in a restroom at the mall. Police say surveillance video that is too graphic to release shows the gunman rapidly shooting 24 rounds toward the food court that was filled with dozens of people but within moments was confronted by 22-year-old Elisjsha Dicken.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES ISON, GREENWOOD POLICE CHIEF: I will say his actions were nothing short of heroic. He engaged the gunman from quite a distance with a handgun. Many more people would have died last night if not for a responsible armed citizen that took action very quickly within the first two minutes of this shooting.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BOLDUAN: Tragically, three people did die in the shooting. They have been identified as 30-year-old Victor Gomez, 56-year-old Pedro Pineda and his wife, Rosa Mirian Rivera de Pineda, who was 37 years old.
OUTFRONT for us next, the Parkland, Florida high school gunman who killed 17 people, he is now on trial once again, a trial the likes of which this country has never seen because no other gunman who has killed so many people has ever faced the jury.
Plus, despite the attacks the doctor who performed the abortion on a 10-year-old rape victim is standing firm. What she is saying tonight.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:40:33]
BOLDUAN: Tonight, an emotional start to the sentencing trial for the man behind the 2018 mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Seventeen innocent people losing their lives, 17 others were injured.
The jury now facing one question, whether Nikolas Cruz gets life mind bars or the death penalty.
Leyla Santiago is OUTFRONT.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LEYLA SANTIAGO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Tears were wiped. Disbelief could not be masked. Closed eyes and deep breaths, some even forced to leave the courtroom to escape the horror of their reality. Family members of the Parkland shooting victims hearing in some cases for the first time the harrowing and graphic details of how their loved ones died.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Peter Wang was shot 13 times.
SANTIAGO: Twenty-three-year-old Nikolas Cruz pled guilty in October to killing 14 students and three staff members on Valentine's Day in 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Now a jury must decide his fate, life in prison with no parole or the death penalty.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 2:21.33 the massacre begins.
SANTIAGO: Prosecutors began the penalty phase, laying out how it unfolded minute by minute, walking jurors through every detail.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The defendant fires through the glass window and shatters it, and fires into classrooms.
SANTIAGO: It was an emotional day for both the families of the victims and survivors, reliving agonizing moments. A teacher's frantic 911 call.
DISPATCHER: 911, what's your emergency?
SANTIAGO: Students trying to hide from the gunman.
The gunman, who sat in the courtroom covering his face for much of the testimony, had to listen as prosecutors recounted word for word from a video he made bragging about how he was going to kill 20 people just days before the shooting.
TONY MONTALTO, FATHER OF MURDERED STUDENT, GINA MONTALTO: This is the worst thing that can happen to a family, having a child murdered at school.
SANTIAGO: Tony Montalto's 15-year-old daughter, Gina, described as kind and compassionate by her father was killed that fateful day.
MONTALTO: I think we want to make sure he gets a fair trial. Then we expect that once things are presented, he should have every chance that he gave my beautiful daughter, Gina, and the others that day. He had no problem being the judge, the jury and the executioner.
SANTIAGO: He and other loved ones will have the opportunity to make statements in court during the trial.
MONTALTO: It should be listened to, because really we're going to spend much too long talking about the actions of this convicted killer. And not nearly enough time talking about the victims and who they were and why this is such a tragedy that they were taken from us.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BOLDUAN: And Leyla is here with us now. Leyla, it's been more than four years since that shooting. You were in this courtroom all day. It is clear it is so painful still for these families.
SANTIAGO: Oh, yeah. The heartache, the pain, the agony. That was palpable in that courtroom. Clearly, something that four years is not going to take away from them. When they listened to the audio of the cell phone video that was shown, they could hear the gunshots. They heard a male voice begging for help.
They heard the wails in the background and that was too much, devastating for some. I watched as one woman who was listening to that starts shaking and covering her ears. She was a family member who had to be escorted. They also showed another video in which family members begged the court to shut it off and that actually became part of the argument from the defense for a mistrial. That was a motion that the judge denied. This, by the way, this trial, expected to last could be until October.
BOLDUAN: God. And the families will have to live through this the whole time as they have been living through it for more than four years.
It's good to see you, Leyla. Thank you very much for being there.
OUTFRONT for us next, the doctor who performed an abortion on a 10- year-old is speaking out, despite attacks against her and a previous kidnapping threat against her own daughter. That's coming up. Plus, the heat wave gripping the U.S. and Europe is becoming extremely
dangerous. Temperatures so hot one UPS driver was caught on video collapsing from the heat.
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[19:48:50]
BOLDUAN: Doctors across the country are rallying around a doctor in Indiana who performed an abortion for a 10-year-old rape victim. Nearly $300,000 has been donated to a GoFundMe campaign to cover legal fees and security for Dr. Caitlin Bernard. She's been the subject of threats and a target of the far right after treating the Ohio girl who was forced to cross state lines because of Ohio's six-week ban on abortions.
Alexandra Field is OUTFRONT.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dr. Caitlin Bernard, the physician who provided an abortion in Indiana for a 10-year-old victim from Ohio --
DR. CAITIN BERNARD, PROVIDED ABORTION SERVICES FOR 10-YEAR-OLD RAPE VICTIM: There are many people who live in places where there's no abortion care.
FIELD: Now at the center of a national firestorm, but she and her family have been the target of threats before. "The Guardian" first reports that in a 2021 court case considering abortion restrictions in Indiana, Dr. Bernard testified she had stopped performing first trimester abortions in South Bend in 2020 because of kidnapping threats made against her daughter.
Her spokesperson confirming the report and adding the fact that Dr. Bernard continues to provide critical reproductive care even after she has received these threats just shows the depth of her compassion and commitment as a physician.
[19:50:06]
Anti-abortion activists in an organization with ties to Justice Amy Coney Barrett before she was nominated to the Supreme Court have even published some of the doctor's personal information online. But earlier this month, Dr. Bernard spoke to CNN about continuing to provide abortion care for people living in states where they can no longer get it.
BERNARD: You know, these laws are created without any consideration for medical necessity, for, you know, created by lawmakers and not by doctors. An abortion is health care and needs to stay in that area.
FIELD: She is now the target of investigation into the Indiana attorney general into whether she properly reported providing an information for the 10-year-old rape victim who travelled to Indianapolis after Ohio banned abortions around six weeks. That investigation continues, despite public filings showing Dr. Bernard did report the procedure to the Indiana department of health within the required time frame.
The controversy over the case erupting after conservative media and certain lawmakers doubted the rape had happened until the rape suspect confessed to the crime. In a statement, Planned Parenthood said these lawmakers are using a 10-year-old's strategy as an excuse to intimidate providers and scare them out of providing health care. Their cruelty knows no limits.
The organization says it's committed to providing security for Dr. Bernard and helping cover her legal fees.
DR. TRACEY WILKINSON, FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE OF DR. CAITLIN BERNARD: Dr. Bernard is amazingly strong, and she has been a fierce advocate of reproductive health for years. This is not new for her. It's not a new space for her. But this last week is the first time I have been nervous for her safety.
FIELD: Dr. Tracey Wilkinson, a pediatrician, authored a piece on what she calls the chilling effect of abortion bans on medicine for "The New York Times". Its title "Dr. Caitlin Bernard was meant to write this with me before she was attacked for doing her job."
WILKINSON: I've heard from physicians all over Indiana, all over the country, that are terrified they could be the next Dr. Bernard. And that is not something anybody wishes on anybody.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BOLDUAN: So, Alex, what is next?
FIELD: So, her attorney has sent a letter to Indiana's attorney general's office, a cease and desist letter. We spoke to that office. They say they'll review any correspondence if and when they receive. But they maintain no false or misleading statements have been made.
As for Dr. Bernard, she is also speaking out on Twitter, thanking her supporters, and saying she will not back down. She says that she and her colleagues will continue to provide health care ethically, lovingly, and bravely each and every day.
BOLDUAN: All right. We'll see what happens next. Good to see you, Alex. Thank you.
All right. OUTFRONT for us next, runways melting, train tracks buckling, and more than a thousand people have lost their lives because of a heat wave that's gripping Europe and the United States.
We'll be right back.
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[19:56:58] BOLDUAN: Tonight, a fierce and deadly heat wave is shattering records. In the U.S. around 60 million people are under heat advisories or excessive heat warnings. I'm going to show you.
We're going to look at the moment a UPS driver actually collapsed from the heat in Arizona while doing deliveries. Temperatures there are 108 degrees today. I do want to note that UPS is telling us that the driver is okay and doing well now.
In Europe, London temperatures were reaching historic levels at this point. They're expected to see 104 degrees tomorrow. In France, 24,000 people were forced to evacuate battling heat and wildfires. Authorities are warning of a heat apocalypse, as they're describing now. Heat is blamed for more than 1,000 deaths in Spain and Portugal, as fires are raging there as well.
Across the globe, 188 all-time heat records were broken this year so far, 92 of those in the United States.
I want to bring in meteorologist Tom Sater for more on this.
So, Tom, tens of millions of people are under advisories tonight and it's about to hit the Northeast. What should people be preparing for?
TOM SATER, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, it looks like more of the enduring hit. It's the warmest summer so far on record for Austin, Houston, San Antonio, records today in Austin and Dallas and Denver.
Look at our planet. We are not only heating up, we're on fire. We have scorched more than twice as much acreage this year than the ten-year average in the U.S. it's winter in South America, and they're on fire, burning in the Amazon. And they're at 80s and 90s.
It's typically warm in Africa, but it's moving northward. The temperatures they've experienced today but mainly tomorrow, computer models years ago said, maybe it'll happen in 20 to 25 years. Never before temperatures expected tomorrow than we've seen in all of the 20th century or the 21st.
In the U.S., it's 105 in Rapid City right now. Same temperatures it is in Las Vegas. We've got advisories border to border. Again, it's going to expand and move east ward. You're talking about the storms on the periphery. Had a few in D.C. up toward New York City. In fact, had some water rescues as well. Triple digits will remain in this forecast.
ERCOT, the power supply company in Texas has broken a demand record for power 25 times and did it again today. They can only supply 80,000 megawatts and they're up to 78,000. Something is going to happen soon.
More of the triple digits, Kate, in the areas of the desert southwest and across and moving eastward. It's expanding. It's growing.
BOLDUAN: It sure is. I mean, Europe broke a lot of records today. There doesn't seem to be any end in sight, though, for them. SATER: Well, they're going to break more tomorrow. Tomorrow is the
hottest day. I mean, they've got a dome of high pressure too. You can see how clear the skies are and it's baking.
Look at the drought. You think we're in a mega drought? We are. But if you look at winter and spring, before the summer months, if it's dry like this, extreme drought in France right now.
So, the fire threat has been going on. Over 73 fires in Portugal alone. They've got more in Spain and France. They're burning out of control in Siberia because the Russian army typically fights them is Ukraine. Poland usually helps them but they said forget it, you're on your own.
All-time temperature records will be hit tomorrow. Unprecedented, for England, for Wales, and Scotland. They hit 92 in Dublin. That's never happened before.
They were at 97 in Birmingham, England. The Royal Air Force shut down the runway today because it was melting today. Rail tracks are now being diverted; 105 in Paris tomorrow. 100 in London, Kate.
It all ties in with our CO2 output. Goes hand in hand.
BOLDUAN: Absolutely.
It's good to see you, Tom. Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for being with us tonight.
"AC360" starts now.
