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Voters' Views on Impeachment Hearings?; California School Shooting. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired November 14, 2019 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:02]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will try to get any updated information out as soon as we can.

Thank you.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: A lot of information from that press conference from the L.A. County Sheriff's Department and other first responders, and some bad news, as we learned that a second student, a 14-year-old male, has also succumbed to the injuries that he suffered in the school shooting earlier today at Saugus High School.

My law enforcement panel is back with me.

Josh, first of all, as we all catch our breath hearing about another young person taken from this earth after another school shooting in the United States, what other information did you hear from the first responders, from the authorities that you think it's important for our viewers to understand in here?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, it's just chilling, the apparent planning that went into this.

Think about what we just heard from officials there. The subject had a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol. The firearm was empty. He expended all the rounds in that weapon, saving the last one for himself, which tells me that he was probably counting his shots as he chose his victims.

That is just chilling, that amount -- going in with that mentality.

TAPPER: Six-shooter, and he shot five people, and then shot himself.

CAMPBELL: Saved around for himself. That's right.

Obviously, what we don't know, there's still questions that I have. I want to know, were these victims chosen randomly? Or did he show up on that day trying to target someone?

Then the last thing that stands out is, there's a whole body of scholarship on this that looks at the motivation of some of these shooters, and how they look to anniversaries and particular dates. Learning today that today was the subject's birthday. We may not know, unless he had a manifesto of some sort or unless he recovers and is able to talk to law enforcement officers, what role that may have played, but still very chilling.

TAPPER: It's awful, just horrible news.

Juliette Kayyem, let me go to you.

What did you hear in that press conference, other than what Josh just talked about, that you think is important for our viewers to hear and to understand?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, FORMER DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY ASSISTANT SECRETARY: Well, I just think, obviously, murder-suicides are a unique kind of mass murder.

And so there's a big motivation question I have. They did mention not just the birthday, as Josh said, but that there's a girlfriend. These are the kinds of questions you're going to ask. Is this a response to something that happened?

The more important thing, though, is at 7:38, the police get the phone call. At 7:40, they are at the school. And by then, you already have two dead, presumably four or five more down, and then the suspect has killed himself.

You do not get response times like this in public safety. Two minutes is almost perfection. And still you're seeing what Josh described as sort of a perfectly executed murder-suicide, with the last bullet going to the suspect.

So, it just -- it raises the question again, or at least the discussion again. These students have no ability to respond to this gun violence. Even if you did the most perfect active shooter case, two minutes is really fast for police to get there.

And, then, secondly, obviously that's a lot of damage in a short period of time, so what President Clinton and others were talking about, about the issue of how does a 16-year-old who just turned 16 both not just -- not just get the weapon, but clearly know how to use it in a way that lets him be the last bullet?

That's my takeaways from a real tragedy that we will learn more, if it could have been avoided.

TAPPER: And just to clarify, the point you referred to as a murder- suicide, we have been told by law enforcement that he shot five people and then shot himself in the head, but that he is still alive as of now.

KAYYEM: Yes, sorry. Thank you.

TAPPER: So he did not -- he attempted suicide is what we can say.

KAYYEM: Yes.

James Gagliano, let me bring you in here.

As a -- you're a parent. I believe you're also a grandparent at this point. Are we -- and we don't know enough about Saugus High School to be specific, but are we as a society doing enough to protect our students? We have already talked about gun laws. And I'm sure we will continue to do so in the coming days and weeks.

But are we doing enough to keep schools safe? And what comes to my mind is, I know that I go through much more security when I go to a football game or when I go to a concert than I do when -- or than the average person does when they walk into a high school.

JAMES GAGLIANO, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yes, you're 100 percent right, Jake.

Look, I have got kids between 29 years old and 9 years old. So I have got kids in graduate school, and we talk about this all the time. And I dropped my 9-year-old off at elementary school this morning. There's a lot of things that we can look at.

I mean, look, schools have definitely started to harden themselves. And what do I mean by that? Single-point entry. Having an armed security guard. At the school where my daughter goes to, there's an armed sheriff's deputy there.

Again, it's not a panacea. This was an instance too, Jake, well, let's look at the weapon here, the Colt .45. I mean, I carried a 1911, which is a .45, while I was in the FBI. Generally speaking, there's seven rounds, maybe eight if there's one in the barrel.

[15:05:01]

So, this shooter did go in there, not with an extended magazine or anything, very carefully planned this, knowing how many rounds he had squeezed off before he tried to attempt to take his own life.

Last point, Jake, FBI just came out with an exhaustive report on lone wolf shooters. And from 1972 all the way to 2015, of all the shootings, 83 percent of the shooters have exhibited prior hostile or aggressive action; 96 percent of them either write a manifesto or a social media screed or put together a video.

And, Jake, this is the chilling one. One in four have somebody that has seen something they have done during the research, planning or preparation stage, and the people generally don't come forward. I think we're going to get a lot of those details, Jake, in the next couple of days.

TAPPER: And, James, just for the gun novices out there, or people who don't know anything about guns, when you hear that the shooter used a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol, do you know what that looks like?

Does it look like a handgun? What is it exactly?

GAGLIANO: Yes.

So they described it as a pistol, absolutely. I carried a 1911, a Colt 1911. The United States military has used that weapon for 74 years of its history. They have changed, I think, in 1985 or 1986 to a .9-millimeter.

Very reliable weapon. A lot of people use them for home defense. A lot of people use them for target practice. The general -- and, again, I'm speaking in generalities for the gun folks out there that will criticize me -- but, generally speaking, there's only seven rounds in the magazine.

One can be in the barrel. Now, they do make versions -- I think Glock and Sig Sauer -- that have double stack magazines, where maybe there could be 10, 12, 13 rounds. But this is generally a weapon that people carry because of the high stopping power.

The .45-caliber ACP round, which has great stopping power, it's not usually a weapon somebody carries if they want to carry a lot of rounds, Jake.

TAPPER: All right, James Gagliano, everyone, stick around.

I'm going to go now back to Santa Clarita, where see CNN's Nick Watt is. He joins me live.

Nick, what have you learned about the investigation into the suspected shooter?

NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this investigation has been very quick.

But, Jake, we have just learned from the FBI that they do not have a motivation yet, but they are working on it. Now, partly why this was so quick is that first responders who got to the scene were able to interview witnesses.

And, also, they watched surveillance video of this shooting take place. They saw this young man pull that pistol out of his backpack, shoot five other students, and then shoot himself in the head. So they got an I.D. on this guy pretty early.

But the irony is, they saw six injured people on the ground when they first got there, and they did not realize that among them was the shooter. He was taken to the hospital and we're told is in a grave condition. So it's unclear if investigators will ever be able to speak with him.

But we do know that the shooter's girlfriend and mother are in the sheriff's station as I speak being interviewed by investigators.

Now, we have also been told that there has been a lot of investigation of social media already. They have found two other alleged threats to the school that never took place, that didn't have any nexus to this guy. And we are also hearing a lot from students who were in there and who heard this happen.

TAPPER: OK, Nick Watt, thank you so much.

OK. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROOKLYN MORENO, STUDENT: And everyone thought it was a balloon. And it got really quiet. And then two more shots went.

And then everyone just started running out of school. My mom came running to the door that was I staying at the house I was staying at. And I just opened the door and ran to her and hugged her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATT: Now, when that initial I.D. came out, we were told that the suspect was 15 years old.

We have now learned that, in fact, today was that shooter's 16th birthday -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Nick Watt, thank you so much, a busy day.

We're going to have more on the breaking news on the school shooting.

And then we're going to take a look at the White House's response to the impeachment hearings.

Plus, I'm going to talk to the very newest 2020 presidential candidate. Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick will join us live.

And that's ahead as well. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:14:08]

TAPPER: And we're back with the politics lead and the impeachment hearings of President Trump and the Ukraine scandal.

President Trump insisting he knows nothing about a phone call that he reportedly had with the ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, in which Mr. Trump inquired about investigations into the Bidens. This is on July 26, just a day after that now infamous call with Ukraine's president, according to an aide to the head diplomat in Ukraine, Bill Taylor, a new conversation revealed yesterday in testimony by Bill Taylor.

CNN's Pamela Brown is at the White House for us.

And, Pamela, was the White House aware that this call even happened and then information about it would be brought to light?

PAMELA BROWN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, the White House was caught off-guard by this information.

Officials here were immediately put on the defensive, having to come up with pushback to it. And officials are saying that, if this aide who told Bill Taylor just last week was so concerned about that call between the president and Gordon Sondland, why did the aide just bring it up recently?

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Another thing officials here saying is this is just another example of hearsay. That's a common talking point we have been hearing from White House officials throughout this impeachment probe.

But the potential problem with that argument, Jake, is that that aide -- one of the aides who told Bill Taylor about this is going to be testifying on Capitol Hill tomorrow behind closed doors.

And then Gordon Sondland, the E.U. ambassador who took that call with the president, is going to be testifying in a public hearing next week. So this only raises the stakes for that hearing with Gordon Sondland.

Now, behind closed doors, according to the transcript, someone did address this phone call -- or talking to the president the day after the Zelensky call. And he said his conversation with Trump was non- substantive.

But, of course, now there's going to be a lot more questions about that phone call, Jake, with this renewed scrutiny. And it is only giving ammunition to Democrats, who are now saying that this information shows, in their view, that the information, the instructions were coming from the very top on what to do with Ukraine and these investigations the president wanted.

TAPPER: Yes, the whole idea that this testimony is secondhand only lasts as long as it's secondhand. And then you start to hear from people who heard it firsthand.

Pamela Brown, thank you so much.

BROWN: Yes.

TAPPER: Today, Republicans and Democrats are working overtime trying to put their partisan spins on the impeachment hearing.

CNN's Phil Mattingly is on Capitol Hill.

And, Phil, both sides really digging in? What are you hearing?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's almost as if they're in two different -- completely different universes, based on what they're saying after the hearing.

In fact, take a listen to the top Democrat and the top House Republican.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): I thought it was a successful day for truth, truth coming from the president's men. Devastating testimony corroborated evidence of bribery uncovered in the inquiry and that the president abused power. REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): After the hearing yesterday, I think the Democrats are really reeling back, that this is the best they have. They don't have something that's impeachable. And they continue just to drive something for political basis.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Now, Jake, you heard one key word from Speaker Pelosi. That's a bit of a shift there. She said the word bribery.

Bribery is specifically mentioned in the Constitution as an impeachable offense, essentially saying that she believes what the hearing showed yesterday makes the president at least more or less set up for at least one article of impeachment.

Democrats clearly moving in that direction. But I also think you need to recognize that both Democrats and Republicans were viewing this hearing from two very different perspectives. Democrats wanted to lay the groundwork, kind of set the table for the hearings to come, starting tomorrow with another hearing, all the hearings next week as well.

They believe they accomplished that goal. For Republicans, it was twofold, try and poke holes in the witness testimony that they had, but also keep their members together. Remember, all 188 Republicans voted against the House impeachment resolution last month.

They want to try and do that again if there is a House floor vote on impeachment. Republican aides I talked to, Jake, said they believe nothing they heard yesterday will change where their members are. We will see if that sustains in the weeks ahead.

TAPPER: All right, Phil Mattingly on Capitol Hill, thanks so much.

Let's discuss. We have with us Elliot Williams, a former Justice Department prosecutor, constitutional law professor Michael Gerhardt, and impeachment historian Jeffrey Engel.

Michael, let me start with you.

So, Republicans are honed in on the fact that none of the witnesses so far have ever spoken to the president ever, much less about this alleged impeachable offense.

But we're going to start to hear from individuals who have had conversations with the president, including Ambassador Sondland, and then the individual tomorrow who's going to testify behind closed doors who overheard a conversation between Sondland and the president.

Is that important, to go closer and to actually get firsthand information, as opposed to what Republicans are calling hearsay?

MICHAEL GERHARDT, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW PROFESSOR: I think all of it is important.

They're starting with people on the ground, so to speak, who are close to the facts, and particularly the implementation of a policy or an effort that was contrary to American policy.

At the same time, as you build that record with very reliable witnesses such as those yesterday, you're going to build a stronger case that there's a real significant need to hear from people closer to the president, who apparently do know things, like John Bolton and the chief of staff.

TAPPER: Mick Mulvaney, if he actually comes to testify.

Elliot, take a listen to Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of the president's most stalwart defenders and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): We're not going to let the president of the United States be tried based on an anonymous accusation. We're not going to let him be convicted in the Senate based on a bunch of hearsay.

You're basically going to destroy the presidency over time if you continue this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: What do you think?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, FORMER DEPUTY U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: There's a lot wrong with that.

Number one, when you start talking about anonymous, what they're doing is poking at the whistle-blower. That is incredibly dangerous. And let's say it again, Jake. We have said it on this show before. There is a federal statute protecting whistle-blowers against things like this, which out the names of people who -- and we want to incentivize, give people a reason to come forward and bring evidence and allegations of wrongdoing and so on.

So it's dangerous, what he's doing, when they start flirting with releasing this whistle-blower's name.

Again, piggybacking on Michael's point, when we see -- the use of the word hearsay is also a tricky one as well, because hearsay is still evidence. Now, it is itself less reliable than other forms of evidence. But that's why you corroborate it. You call other people.

[15:20:13]

You call Gordon Sondland. You call the individual who had heard -- who claims to have heard or they believe has heard -- overheard the phone call. But that's how evidence is built.

But the idea that the mere fact that it is hearsay means that it's -- cannot be brought in and cannot be considered, that's just not true. And that's not how trials or cases or evidence works at all. TAPPER: Or previous examples of scandal and oversight by the House, in which people now who are decrying whistle-blowers were defending whistle-blowers.

I mean, a lot of the Benghazi people were people that had secondhand information.

WILLIAMS: And one more big really quick point.

When we speak about hearsay, it's in the federal rules of evidence. It's what governs what happens in trials. Federal rules of evidence don't apply an impeachment trial. They just don't.

Congress sets the terms of how impeachment works.

Jeffrey, you're an impeachment historian.

Take a listen to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PELOSI: What President Trump has done on the record, in terms of acting to advantage his -- a foreign power to help him in his own election and the obstruction of information about that the cover-up makes what Nixon did look almost small.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: So, two points.

First of all, I think that Speaker Pelosi is saying that the accusation of President Trump that he is pushing a foreign power to help in his own election, that is the central question. And all the other stuff we're hearing about whistle-blowers and hearsay is almost noise, compared to, that is what Congress needs to find out.

But as an impeachment historian, is Speaker Pelosi right that this makes what Nixon did look almost small?

JEFFREY A. ENGEL, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: It does, for a very important reason, that it's dealing with a foreign power.

All the other impeachment that we have dealt with, whether it's Johnson in the 1860s or whether it's Nixon or whether it's Clinton, was about domestic affairs, it was about domestic politics.

This foreign power dealings is exactly what the founders were concerned about. When they went through at the Constitutional Convention the list of potential hypothetical reasons you might want to impeach a president, on top of their list was because -- if a president lies to get elected, or if a president deals with a foreign power, essentially placing the needs of himself or the foreign power above those of the American people.

That's exactly the language that was used by the people at the Constitutional Convention when they thought, what would be the reason you want to leave -- make a president leave office?

TAPPER: And do you -- when you hear the Republicans talking about other matters, such as Devin Nunes basically listing every conspiracy theory that we have read on Infowars and FOX News for the last year, reciting it in his opening statement, when you hear about, I demand to see the whistle-blower, I demand to have the whistle-blower testify, do you think none of it is relevant?

I mean, for instance, is it not reasonable to for Republicans to say we would like to meet the whistle-blower? He said or she said they had firsthand information?

GERHARDT: I think almost all of it's irrelevant.

The whistle-blower properly issued a report. And it's been corroborated by all the evidence we have seen so far. So it's as if somebody who reported a bank robbery happening, and the police show up, they find it in progress, and then say, we want to ask you about the person that gave the tip.

No, you got a crime happening right in front of you. There's a transcript, for example, from the president that shows he may have committed a very serious, impeachable offense, asking a foreign leader to intervene in our election.

TAPPER: And that's something for listeners at home and viewers at home to pay attention to, which is, the central question of all of this is, did President Trump abused his office by asking Ukraine to investigate and announce an investigation into his political rivals?

That's the central question.

Thanks to our political panel -- I mean our legal panel. Appreciate it.

Did the impeachment hearings change the minds of any voters? We're going to talk to voters in one of the states that could decide the 2020 election.

That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:28:54]

TAPPER: We're continuing to follow the breaking news out of California, where two students were killed in a school shooting.

But while we wait for new information from there, let's turn to our other top story, impeachment.

Washington politicos were glued to the first impeachment hearing. But how did the rest of the country watch? What did the public hear? Did what they hear changed their minds?

CNN's Kyung Lah went to the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona, Arizona being a potential swing state, to find out.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Rising in Phoenix...

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: About to begin this historic moment. This is true history unfolding.

LAH: ... the sentiment of a possible impeachment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When there's smoke, there's fire.

LAH: Amid the breakfast rush.

DAVID CRONIN, INDEPENDENT VOTER: I would just say it doesn't pass the sniff test. And I say that as a independent, middle-of-the-road guy who could vote for a Republican or a Democrat.

LAH: That middle ground, independents, make up about one-third of Arizona voters.

BOYCE O'BRIEN, REGISTERED REPUBLICAN: My entire life, I have voted Republican.

LAH (on camera): Every single time?

O'BRIEN: Every single time, up until the last election.

LAH (voice-over): Until Donald Trump, says Boyce O'Brien, watching to see if it's a party he will return to.

O'BRIEN: I'm so disappointed in the Republican Party. I -- it's embarrassing to me to even be

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