Good evening, CNN has learned the President Biden's announcement to run for a second term now may be days away. He will run a source telling CNN it's no longer helpful or necessary to not just say the obvious. The exact day, however, is still being debated. Already, the oldest person to serve the President would be weeks away from his 82nd birthday should he win a second term.
Advisors tell CNN the decision to announce comes at a time with the campaign fields it needs to energize voters about the President's policies and a second term. Phil Mattingly, our chief White House correspondent joins me. So no date has been said. Not finalized.
I think it's probably the best way to frame things. But Advisors have made clear and have been privately meeting and planning to announce on Tuesday of next week. And the reason that that's important and it would be through a campaign video, it's not going to be a major rally. But an official start to things, a launch that we have long expected, long been told was coming.
We've never really had a firm timeline on that. That seems to be shifting pretty clearly. That day on Tuesday is four years to the day from when the President launched his 2020 campaign, the campaign where he defeated Donald Trump, the campaign, which he framed as a battle for the soul of the nation, a battle that the President and his team very clearly believe is still ongoing. And that is a big driver of why the President has long been pushing towards seeking reelection.
And one thing when you talk to officials, they may clear behind the scenes, Anderson, there has been an intensive effort underway for several months to build the infrastructure of the likely campaign. There have been significant number of interviews with staffers, there have been regular meetings between the President and senior team, the President and the First Lady planning for this moment. And they've very much been moving in this direction. The question has always been, when?
And there's been a lot of questions as to why the President who said late last year they expected to make a decision early this year, waited this long. AIDS has been very clear. They feel very comfortable about where they are. No clear challenges that they're worried about on the Democratic side of things.
Very happy to let the Republican primary in its nascent kind of place right now continue to play out. But especially with calling donors to Washington late next week, making very clear that the moment is now to start moving to build towards what they know will be a hard fought campaign. Yeah, I feel the last campaign that he had was in the middle of COVID, which lessened the events that then candidate Biden held. Any idea how sort of the tone and tenor of this campaign?
You know, it's interesting because when you talk to officials, well, they don't want to focus on the fact that he's currently the oldest President in U.S. history, that if he wins reelection by the time he's done, he would be 86 years old. They recognize that it is an issue. Their view of it though, is that it is not the prevailing issue for voters.
It's not something that is a deciding issue for voters. And that the President has proven up to this point is that experience matters and experience gets results. Now, they've made clear. Well, at least kind of the first year of this campaign, 2023, off of to some degree what President Obama did back in 2011.
It's not going to be a full-on blitz every single day to swing states traveling in the like. It's going to be a build into 2024. There will be a lot of testing on messages, testing on data operations and campaign operations. But what you've seen Anderson over these first three or four months of this year, it's a pretty good model of what you're going to see in the months ahead.
The President has a legislative agenda that's been enacted, a agenda that is currently being implemented right now. You've seen him out in the country, including to a number of swing states talking about specific elements of that agenda that they feel like are underscoring what they've accomplished up to this point and can continue to accomplish. That's going to be a key component of the months ahead. But they're very cognizant of the fact this is going to be a very intense, very tough campaign in 2024.
It will certainly be building toward that. Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you for stepping out from Stuart Stevens, former Republican political consultant, senior political correspondent, and anchor Abby Phillip, senior contributor and Biden biographer Evan Osnose, and on the phone, senior political commentator David Axelotta, former senior president Obama. Everybody know about how this decision process has been unfolded?
Well, they've been working on it quietly behind the scenes for a long time. Some of the people that the President trusts most, this has been a pretty major sideline for them. Yeah, this doesn't come obviously as a shock. He's been saying signaling in every possible way that he intended to run.
And what you saw was him taking his time with it. Partly that's his nature. He doesn't rush into decisions. But there was also an element going on here that this advisor said there is no reason for us to race out of the gates here.
Because after all, he was sort of in the office of the presidency. You get a pretty big dividend. You're getting as much attention as you want. Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, he's watching the beginning of a pretty tough primary fight for the GOP.
He's sort of letting that play out, letting that occupy a bit of the headlines. Meanwhile, Donald Trump, of course, is in legal trouble of a whole range of types. Ron DeSantis is having some political challenges that people wouldn't anticipate a few weeks ago. So if you're Joe Biden, you're traveling the world, you're in Washington working on legislative issues.
And I'm going to ask this from his perspective. Abby, you obviously can't separate the president's age from the campaign. He's older than Ronald Reagan was when he left office. Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, look, this is going to be an unmistakable part of just who Joe Biden is. It is today. But it also was when he ran for president the first time in 2020 when he was running in a field of all candidates who were younger than him on the Democratic side, some of whom explicitly made his age an issue. So there's clearly a desire in the American public and even in the Democratic electorate to see a changing of the guard, a generational change.
But that has been something that Biden and his aides are cognizant of. They also see evidence based on the results of the 2020 election and the 2022 midterms that voters are willing to put that aside, even in the short term, if they feel like the alternative is a much bigger problem for them. If they are looking at an alternative to Biden and to the Democratic party at large, that they think is too extreme, that they don't think is heading in the direction that they want the country to go in. When you look at the polls in 2022, Biden was facing a worsening economy.
People who felt like the country was on the wrong track and approval rating in the low 40s. And still, there was no Republican wave. And I think that's not to say that this is going to be in any way, shape or form or walk in the park. But his advisers, I think, believe that what that means is that there is a path that does not rely on Biden suddenly convincing Americans that he is a sprite 50-year-old.
He's never going to be that. He's always going to be as old as he is. But it's about who and what he's running against. David, if you were running the Biden campaign, what would be your biggest concern right now?
Well, the things that I can't control, the economy and whether we see the recession that some have predicted but hasn't arrived would be one. Obviously any kind of health issue for the president or stumble is problematic because Abby said he's going to be the same agency. He's not. He's going to be older as time goes on.
And so most things, you have to be cognizant of that and try and guard against those things. But Anderson, I have to say, running a campaign that is a billion dollar impressive, stupid statements, knows, and is very complex. It takes a lot of organization. It takes a lot of money.
It takes time to raise that money. So on the one hand, there wasn't any pressure for internationality. Those are not a primary challenge. The Republicans are kind of hurting themselves right now.
But on the other hand, he needs to get going here in terms of doing the organizational things are necessary to run a very tough and competitive campaign in 2024. And as much as anything has provoked him to make the announcement. Stewart, I'm wondering what do you think of the timing and also what impacts if any it has on the Republican field so far for the nomination? Yeah, well, look, Anderson, let me just say I like being on a panel with David and a lot more than being a campaign against him because the last time he ran a great campaign and they won.
You know, I've never sat in election night and said, well, I thought that we started too early. You usually want more time in the campaign. And the one thing that every campaign has exactly the same amount of time. So it's how you use that time.
So I think it's a smart. I've been very impressed with the whole operation that Biden ran. They reinvented campaigning really and reinvented the convention. They did a good job.
You know, I think Donald Trump is going to be the nominee. I think Ron DeSantis is proving to be smaller than life. You know, the model for big state Republican governors, if you think about it, they get elected president, Reagan Bush, they're positive, they're optimistic, they're expansive. And Ron DeSantis is clearly not having fun at this and say what you will about Donald Trump.
The guy enjoys the fight. People go to his rallies because it's a spectacle. And there was a question whether or not if he was indicted, it would hurt him or help him. I was always up in the impression that it would almost force people to be for Donald Trump in the Republican Party to prove that he was being victimized here, otherwise they were validating the big state.
So I think this has a potential to shake up to be an unusually long matchup between incumbent president and Donald Trump. The president has shown some weakness with left leaning voters, especially younger voters in recent polls. I don't know how big a concern that is for them at this stage. Does he need to make a ground there?
Does that matter? Yeah, I mean, look, I think young voters absolutely matter. If you look at the Wisconsin state Supreme Court referendum just a few weeks back, even if you look at the 2022 midterms, younger voters are voting on issues that really matter to them. It's on reproductive rights, on abortion, on guns, on the environment.
And when they come out, they can make the difference in close races. But at the same time, what you see from the Biden White House is the window into how they view this. They spent really the first two years trying to make good on as many promises as they could, whether it's on student loans, whether it's on funding for, you know, HBCUs, whether it's on a whole host of issues, the legislative agenda. And then the last several months, three or four months, they've been moving to the center.
So I think that what they see here is that they have tried to offer to the base, promises kept to a certain degree, whether that will hold until next year, we will see. But they know that they now have to reinforce the middle and for Joe Biden, that's going to be trying to stop the bleeding for Democrats among white working class voters and keep the suburban strongholds for Democrats in the last several cycles as strong as they possibly can. Evan, how much do you think the first lady had on this decision? She's at the core of this.
There's no way that he was going to go forward without a sense that not only that she was willing to go into another election, but that she thought he could do it. You know, Anderson, I'm reminded of the fact that the most important thing and effect for him to do now is to, in order to address the age issue, is to show vigor. You know, that's the thing that people saw when they looked at him on that state of the union address night. That's what the conversation was about for the day's effort.
Frankly, people were a little surprised that they saw as much sort of cutting for us from him in that moment. He's going to have to do this a lot on the campaign trail. And that's a lot of opportunities people are going to be looking for any office who need a big. This is a chance for him to show that bigger.
David, can Kennedy Biden get away with the campaign that he had before or does he need to do more big events or now that he's president? Can he be just be presidential and do it at his own pace? Well, look, I don't think there's ever going to be a campaign like the campaign before where one could basically go back to the last century where people basically ran their campaign from their front porch or in this case the basement. He's going to have to be out there, but he will probably be out there more as president of the United States pushing his agenda than as I've already seen in Canada.
And the one thing I think he could be effective doing is that that's what President Obama did from 2000 to 2011 and 2012, largely pushing an economic agenda that spoke to the voters who Abby was referring to. So I think I can do that as well. One point on young voters and progressives, I think that one of their goals was to block those voters down to the point where you avoid a serious primary challenge. He has been able to do that.
I don't anticipate that he's going to have a serious challenge. And in terms of rallying those border, I think Republicans are doing a pretty good job about pushing an extreme agenda on abortion on the gun issue. These are the kinds of things that are going to galvanize younger voters and they're unlikely to be galvanized in favor of the Republicans at this course and speak. Stewart, I'm sorry, go ahead.
Anderson, just to add real quickly what he's saying, I mean, I think Biden is going to benefit from the fact that obviously he's not running a primary, but the Republicans are. And for every action, there is a reaction as the Republican Party moves further and further to the right in order for each candidate to try to get through that primary, that's doing Biden's work for him and allowing him to lock down democratic base voters without him having to do a whole lot. And Stewart, you don't see any scenario where it's not where his opponent is not Donald Trump? Well, sure.
I mean, Donald Trump could lose this. But think about that if he loses. What's he going to do the next day? If Ron DeSantis wins or somebody else wins?
Donald Trump is going to wake up and do everything he can to make sure whoever did win doesn't get elected president of the United States. Donald Trump is suddenly going to start acting like a normal politician. So I think it's just a box that the Republicans are in. And if I was Ron DeSantis and I was advising him, I'd say, man, wait, you'll be 48 years old and four years run then.
Not against Donald Trump. No, no. Everyone, thank you. Appreciate it.
Good discussion. More presidential politics ahead. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis likely to enter the race as well. But can you get past his own stumbles after a bad week for a candidacy that officially hasn't even begun?
Also tonight, new information about notes left behind by the mass shooter of murdered five people at Louisville Bank last week and left a young police officer in critical but stable condition. Again, the breaking news tonight's source of Telceon and the president of Biden is perhaps days away from announcing that he will run for second term. The decision would come ahead of an expected entry on the Republican side. Of course, someone that's George Stevens mentioned earlier who many Republicans had hoped could defeat the former president for the nomination Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, even some of his supporters though have been alarmed by setbacks he's had recently seen in just a dean has more than that.
I said I'm not going to sit back and try to skirt issues. I'm going on offense. I'm going to take the bull by the horns. I'm going to go in there and we're not going to leave anything left to chance.
But as DeSantis nears an official entrance to the 2024 race, he said a rough stretch with potential allies expressing concern about his policy stances and others questioning his approach to wooing GOP lawmakers to back his not yet announced candidacy. DeSantis's recent move to sign a six week abortion ban during a late night private ceremony after returning from out of state travel prompting concern from top GOP donors including billionaire Ken Langone who told the Washington Post he wants the Florida governor to moderate his stance on the issue and to quote be a little more conciliatory. Some of DeSantis's political rivals also criticizing his action on abortion. Of course that's a horrible position to be and it's upsetting a lot of folks because a lot of Republicans are realizing it's going to hurt our message and hurt our ability to win.
DeSantis also visited Washington this week where he met with Republican lawmakers seeking to build support for an expected campaign. He's got a lot of factors to consider and one of them is his constituent the former president Donald J. But former president Donald Trump and his team were one step ahead planning a separate dinner at Mar-a-Lago with lawmakers and locking down support from several members of the Florida GOP delegation. The push by Trump part of an effort to target the Florida governor on a number of fronts including going after DeSantis on the airwaves with ads from a Trump-aligned super PAC.
DeSantis has his dirty fingers all over senior entitlements. Other rivals are calling out DeSantis for threatening additional action in his year-long feud with Disney. I don't think Ron DeSantis is conservative based on his actions towards Disney. I mean you know where we headed here now that if you express disagreement in this country the government is allowed to punish you.
To me that's what I always thought liberals did. Greetings from the free state of Florida. But DeSantis remains on message drawing big crowds in South Carolina on Wednesday. Florida shows that leadership really matters.
Results matter and I think if you look at our results they are second to none. In New Hampshire the governor headlined a dinner for the state Republican party that broke fundraising records. We cannot get distracted and we cannot afford to lose because freedom is hanging in the balance. And while he eyes a likely June announcement DeSantis boasts a massive war chest of cash and the super PAC batting him is raising big money as it builds out a ground game and launched a new act this week.
From should fight Democrats not lie about Governor DeSantis. What happened to Donald Trump? And just getting joins us now what kind of financial support is DeSantis expect to have if and when he announces? Well it's growing Anderson he's got this super PAC that is aligned with him and it's called Never Back Down and they have several goals.
One of them is for him to break all fundraising records when the day that he announces so they are trying to have events in early states they're really trying to build that support and raise a lot of money in the lead up to whenever he may potentially get in that race. But not just that it's not just the money. It's also expanding their ground operations. We're talking about people that would do things like knocking on doors, phone banking, really the strategy to get delegates in these key states.
We're really trying to build this apparatus that it is waiting for him as soon as he gets in. And one more thing Anderson I did reach out to Governor DeSantis's political team has spoke and told me I asked them about just the events of the last week what they made of them. And here's what they said. They said it's unsurprising that establishment Republicans, Democrats in the media have teamed up to smear Governor DeSantis.
He's been fighting back against their woke nonsense for years and is just getting started. And that's what they told me this evening. Anderson. They're saying just getting appreciated.
Thanks Joining us with her perspective seen in political commentator Kristin Solt de Sanderson, Republican strategist and pollster. Can you tell you on seems like I mean the sense seems to have gone all in obviously this fight with Walt Disney. Is that a wise move politically? I mean what does a win look like for him on that issue and what's the cost of that?
Well last weekend Donald Trump made a statement that he said the old Republican party is dead and he called out a number of issues, things like Social Security reform, immigration, and said the old Republican party doesn't exist anymore. And on those issues he's right. But I do think that there is an interesting gamble going on here about whether Republicans actually want to see government go after business. In my polling I've seen that when you give Republican voters a choice about would you rather see government punished businesses that are trying to be too quote unquote woke or would you rather see businesses as long as they're not breaking the law they kind of should be able to do what they want.
And by a sizable margin Republicans still do say I think the free market should kind of be allowed to do what it wants. And so it is a little bit of a dangerous gamble. Now with Inter-Republican primary if you can harness those most hardcore supporters the ones who might be the most upset at say at Disney that can benefit you but that assumes that those voters are not already in Donald Trump's camp and that's a tough math that Ron DeSantis has to figure out. And what about on abortion we saw Governor DeSantis signing you know late at night the six weeks ban which has raised concerns about GOP donors so that Governor Sinun know they're commenting obviously he is in his own.
What is the Republican strategy when it comes to abortion right now? Well it's always been the case that you know Republican donors have tended to be a little more socially moderate than sort of your rank and file Republican voters. So it doesn't surprise me that a lot of Republican donors are getting quite nervous. And a lot of the data that I've seen suggests that a six week ban is a little bit past or where even some Republicans feel comfortable that something like a 15 week lie in the sand which is what Florida had prior to the events of the last couple of weeks is one that builds a much broader consensus that gets more folks from the middle to come along.
And so again this is an opportunity where Ron DeSantis could have said look in Florida we were a state that was a big winner instead he's tried to put himself to the right of Donald Trump and it remains to be seen can you actually peel voters off from Donald Trump's right flank. That's certainly what someone like DeSantis is going to try but it's not yet clear to me whether that will succeed. Chris and Solte Anderson appreciate it. Thank you.
Tonight on CNN Prong Tom, I'm Ian Meister and here from Senator John Fetterman in a brand new emotional interview about his battle depression while he says he wasn't the Senator Pennsylvania deserved and the moment he knew he needed to check in to a hospital. Again that's seen on Prong Tom, Pamela Brown at the top of the hour. Here is more breaking news tonight as suspect is Justin apprehended for the North Carolina shooting that left a six year old girl and her parents wounded all reportedly because a basketball rolled into a yard. The latest on the arrest in the family's condition next.
More breaking news now as suspect is in custody after poorly shooting a six year old and her parents after a basketball rolled into his yard. This comes obviously following three other incidents where young people were shot for seemingly innocent mistakes. She is dying on Gallagern joins us now from Gaston County, North Carolina. What's the latest on the story?
Anderson that alleged shooter Robert Singletary was arrested in Florida this evening according to Gaston County officials Anderson they say that he turned himself in and he'll borrow County Florida. He did not have any identification on him at the time and I took him about an hour to figure out exactly who he was right now. He is in custody. I just spoke with a mother of that little girl who was shot.
She says that she is glad and relieved that he's been caught. Why did she shoot my daddy and me? An incomprehensible question from a six year old, Kenzie White stitches in her cheek from where doctors had to remove bullet fragments which is riding her bike while other kids played basketball when gunshots rang out in her North Carolina neighborhood. It was rapid as he was running across his yard.
He had his arm out stretching. He was like, pow pow pow pow pow. Witnesses say when a basketball rolled into Robert Singletary's yard. He began yelling and cursing at the kids which neighbors say wasn't unusual but what happened next when the father of one of the kids playing basketball came to talk to Singletary was.
The guy was standing on his porch and the dad that had had words with him about you know, saying stuff to kids. He had a sorry, walking back down the street and he started the shooter just started running across the yard shooting, dis shooting. That man surprisingly got away unharmed but then neighbors say that Singletary started walking in the direction of the other kids and parents on the street and began shooting. He started shooting with my daughter standing right there beside him and several other kids around me.
Kensley's father ran to protect his daughter. He looked at my husband in the face and he said I'm okay. Kensley and her father were both shot while trying to run away. A bullet grazed Kensley's mother's arm.
She had a big fragment of a bullet in her cheek. According to a man who lived at the same house, Singletary's girlfriend rented a room there and the 24 year old suspect began staying with her a few weeks ago. I don't have too much interaction with him. I had no idea anything like this was going to go on.
Neighbor said Singletary was often yelling at kids about playing in the yard. He acted like he just hated children. According to police, Singletary was arrested on assault and kidnapping charges in December, accused of hitting a girlfriend in the head with a mini sledgehammer. He has not entered a plea.
CNN has contacted his attorney. Gaston County's police chief put out a statement letting the people of Gaston County know this sort of violence will not stand. They let all the kids sign it. This incident on the heels of a week already plagued by several gun violence tragedies leaving a community in utter fear.
It's very scary. Very scary. I know that's just not how is the family doing tonight? You know Anderson, they're dealing with a lot obviously.
There's the trauma of the situation itself. But Jamie White, the father, he's still in the hospital and according to his mother and his wife, he's dealing with extensive injuries. He has injuries to his liver, his lung, his ribs and his abdomen. They say that he has a long road to recovery again.
Still in the hospital tonight, as far as that six year old little girl, Kinsey, Kinsey, they say that she's traumatized, but she also wants to go back to school. She wants to see her friends. And mostly at the moment, she and her three siblings are worried about their father's health. They did tell me earlier today before Singletary was caught that she was afraid to come home.
That was something that other neighbors in the neighborhood also told me Anderson that they've been afraid to sleep because he was out there again, relief in that community tonight knowing that at least down in Florida, he's in court. Now, I'm Daniel Gelleter. Appreciate it. You're gonna be watching this video of The Murdered Five People at a Louisville Bank last week.
You know information tonight about the 25 year old Matt Schuder, The Murdered Five People at a Louisville Bank last week where he was employed. Police say he bought the AR-15 style rifle he used a week earlier at a local gunshot and 26 year old police officer had only graduated from the police academy ten days earlier. Officer Nicholas Wilt was one of two officers on the scene. He was shot in the head.
According to a report today by the Louisville Metro Police Foundation, he remains in critical but stable condition. He is also now fighting pneumonia. He was partnered that day with the training officer whose body camera footage was released by police. We're gonna show you some of that footage revealing the moments.
Both officers arrived at the scene and how quickly they came under fire from the shooter. you will hear shots and that's disturbing. Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, stop, stop right here. From the east side of the present.
And reporting now from CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez. What have you learned about the shooter's legislative? Well, for starters, two law enforcement sources are telling CNN that the shooter left extensive notes, one of which was found on the shooter's body after he was killed in a shootout with police. And the notes show that at least part of the motivation here was to show how easy it is in the United States for someone going through a mental health crisis or something serious of that nature to get an assault weapon.
And we know that this shooter purchased the AR-15 used here legally about a week before the shooting actually unfolded. Now, we've reached out to the family's attorney. We haven't heard back on that front, but we have heard previously that the family is trying to test the body for CTE. We know some symptoms associated include problems with impulse control, also some suicidal thoughts.
Well, it's not just limited to CT, but those are some of those. Wait, so he said the shooter had said that part of the reason he did the shooting was to show people how easy it is for somebody with a mental health issue to get a weapon. Yeah. And the family has this justification for part of the issue.
At least that's what these sources are telling us, that these notes are giving an indication that that's what he was trying to do to essentially try and make a point. And we know Kentucky in particular has one of the least restrictive gun laws in the entire country. You don't have to show much to actually go in and get an AR-15. And even in some parts of the country, they have red flag laws where if you're showing signs of potentially hurting yourself or others, someone could step in, take your weapon or stop you from purchasing it, it's not even clear that that would have helped here, because this family knew he had mental health problems.
But even they have admitted they never thought he would take it to a level like this. And in the 911 call, his mother said, well, I know he doesn't have a gun, obviously he did at that point. More in minutes, appreciate it. Joining us now are Sandy and Loni Phillips, founders of survivors empowered, works to support survivors of violence and reduce violence.
They started the organization after Sandy's daughter, and Jessica and 11 others were murdered in the mass shooting in a movie theater in Northern Colorado in 2012. Sandy, Loni, it's good to have you on. I wonder what your reaction was to this note allegedly left by the shooter. Well, Anderson, it reminds us very much about what the killer, in our case, had admitted.
He knew that he had told his psychiatrist that he wanted to kill people. And he also admitted during the trial that he wanted to be able to test the waters when he went out to buy his first weapon. So he went out to buy his first weapon. It was so easy.
It emboldened him to go ahead and get everything else that he wanted to get to commit the crime. He saw it as a sign that he was supposed to move forward with his plan. So this kind of thing in America is happening all too often. And it is so much easier to get a weapon in this country than it is to get mental health services.
Loni, do you think the shooter admitting that this was a goal of his to prove how easy it was for him to purchase a gun? I mean, I don't know if that makes no sense that he would kill people in order to make that point. Clearly, according to a family, he has mental health issues. Do you think it makes, does it change?
Have you ever heard of anything like this? No, this is the first. But it was his attempt to make something count of his suicide. Like, he chose to go out this way to make a point.
I guess he thought, well, maybe this will make a difference. So it's a shame that these people had to die because his brain couldn't figure out how to do it any other way. So this just shows that we always hear, well, it's a mental health, it's a mental health. You know, yeah, he was troubled.
But it was like our guy was troubled. That went through the trial. That we found out that he could have been stopped in so many ways that our lives were so lax that he just went forward. And this person that did this awful thing had just proven a point.
It's easy for anybody that's even adjudicated to get a gun. Even if he hadn't bought it legally, there's so many ways for him to get it illegally. And sadly, we've made it so easy to do in America that it will continue until we have national federal laws to protect us from this happening again in our neighborhoods. Well, Sandy, also, you know, we've seen now the number of shootings just this past week involving, you know, people, teenagers making innocent mistakes, ringing the wrong doorbell by accident, opening up the wrong car door by accident, driving down, you know, a driveway and backing out, realizing you've made a mistake.
And you know, you hear this stuff about well, a good person with a gun, you know, can stop a bad person. I mean, I'm sure some people would have looked at the people who own the guns who shot these kids and said, oh, they look like a good person with a gun, and that person has every right type of gun. But I mean, it's stunning to see how quick people are to use their weapon when they have it. So yeah, we've done a really good job in America bringing up the fear factor that the other is going to get you or the other will come to your door and rape and pillage your family.
We've done a really, really good job of that. And we've allowed the extremists on the far right to do that. So people are at the point where if they own a weapon, they're almost anxious to be able to use it and not to defend themselves, but to literally use lethal means for somebody knocking on the wrong door or pulling into the wrong driveway. That could have been stopped so easily, he only said to that kid, you know, what address are you looking for and why are you here?
And it could have been cleared up in a moment. And the kid could have said, I'm here to get my brother, well, your brothers aren't here. What address are you looking for? He could have told him the address and the man could have simply said, well, you're on the wrong street.
And it would have been over. And yet we're so anxious in this country to pull a gun, intimidate others, fire that gun and take another life. Anderson, this gun is becoming arson for guns for the rest of the world. I mean, for 400 million guns, 393 million people.
So the truth is, and it's supported by all the data, the more guns, the more guns, the more guns, the more. Sandy, I appreciate your time tonight. Thank you so much. Up next, we are just getting new details as to why prosecutors have decided to drop criminal charges against actor Alec Baldwin in the fatal shooting on the Rust movie set, details ahead.
Up next, there is more breaking news on a court hearing scheduled for tomorrow in New Mexico where criminal charges will be dropped against actor Alec Baldwin in the 2021 fatal shooting with cinematographer on the Western film Rust. Sources say it has to do with new evidence, and we're now from CNN entertainment reporter Chloe Milas. So my only question is, am I being charged with something? Alec Baldwin soon will no longer be accused after New Mexico prosecutors plan to file a motion dismissing involuntary manslaughter charges against the actor, a move they call, quote, temporary, pending further investigation.
Baldwin reacted on Instagram posting a photo of his wife, saying quote, I owe everything I have to this woman and to you, Luke, his attorney. You were in the room when the lady was calling the gun. Baldwin admitted to holding the gun that fired a bullet, killing Helena Hutchins, the cinematographer on Baldwin's film Rust, but told police he did not know he was handed a loaded gun. Baldwin resumes filming on Rust this week with production move to Montana.
This was Baldwin last year. Someone is responsible for what happened, and I can't say who that is, but I know it's not me. The dismissal is a win for Baldwin's legal team, which challenged the motives and politics of one of the original prosecutors. It doesn't matter if he's a liberal Democrat and I'm a conservative Republican.
My job's always been to prosecute crime. In February, Baldwin's lawyers filed a motion to remove special prosecutor Andrea Reeve, who at the time of the investigation was running for state representative in New Mexico. In an email later revealed in The New York Times, Reeve suggested being involved in the case quote, might help in my campaign. Both Reeve and the district attorney who hired her ultimately recuse themselves.
Their replacements dropped the charges against Baldwin. His attorney's saying they quote, encourage a proper investigation into the facts and circumstances of this tragic accident. Is there live ammo left, Captain Buck? No.
The film's weapons handler, Hannah Gutierrez Reed, is now the sole defendant in the case, facing 18 months for involuntary manslaughter. Her attorney says she will plead not guilty and that Gutierrez Reed quote, has been emotional about the tragedy that has committed no crime. Are we really supposed to feel bad about you, Mr. Baldwin?
Helena Hutchins' husband has been a vocal critic of Baldwin, saying he should face charges. The idea that the person holding the gun causing it to discharge is not responsible is absurd to me. But now, justice for Helena Hutchins moves forward without a start defendant. And she was great at her job and she died.
And that hurts me every day. Going lost joins me now, along with me now, I'm seeing an illegal analyst Joey Jackson, a criminal defense attorney. What were you learning about the new evidence? Well, so the district attorney, obviously, for many, this comes as a shock.
But for Alec Baldwin's legal team, they have been aggressively trying to poke holes in these charges, because a criminal trial is still set to take place with Hanagutira's Reed early this summer with the armor. Yes, the armor in her charges still stand. So what we know from a source is that the gun was modified and they have new evidence now, the DA, that they need to look into. And in their statement that they just released, they said that they have more interviews to do.
But that Baldwin isn't totally out of the woods just yet, that although they are dismissing the charges, it's for now before they wrap up a few more interviews. Joey, does that make sense to you? It makes no sense whatsoever. A lot of things don't make sense for you.
I mean, for the prosecutors to say that. The prosecutors to say that. It cases dismissed, or it's not dismissed. If you're refiling, you contemplate that, and you amend the charges, you refile, you move forward.
And what's troubling to me is that now they're learning new evidence about the modification of a gun. You have several months to investigate. When you prosecute people, you change and affect their lives. And this is not about all fan about.
Like, this is about a fan of justice and doing what's right and what's not right. So to your point, Joey, let's back up and look at the special prosecutor, Andrea Reeb. She stepped down. And this was after Alec Baldwin's legal team filed a motion saying that she actually was holding two jobs at the same time that technically under New Mexico law, she couldn't.
And the New York Times producing in a story this email that she sent saying that she thought that the case against Alec Baldwin would actually help her campaign. So if you're wondering maybe why this evidence about the gun is just coming out now, well, maybe the motives potentially were not down. These prosecutors just seem like they're over their head. I think cases have to be not about politics.
And will it win me an election? They have to be about whether someone did something wrong. And when you have a gun that's modified, and it would affect the upper ability of it, that becomes a problem. And I also want to say that Alec Baldwin, when I sat down with him in August, he has maintained with me with George Stephanopoulos that he did not pull the trigger, right?
So if a gun was modified, were they going to in trial show how the gun could have potentially gone off? But that does not answer the question about how live bullets got to the set. That goes to the issue of recklessness, by the way. And if you can establish that, you can establish your case, it needs to be dismissed.
That's what happened. So Jackson, appreciate the collating losses, well, thank you so much, we'll be right back. Just minutes after the most powerful rocket ever built took off in South Texas, it exploded mid-air, and Elon Musk's attempt to eventually develop a rocket vessel that contains tomorrow's SpaceX's starship inaugural test flight, and it just two and a half minutes after takeoff. The rocket had no crew members on board at tumblebout of control in what SpaceX called a rapid unplanned disassembly.
SpaceX also said it learned a tremendous amount from the test and called it quite a show. The effort comes after years of explosive tests, regulatory hurdles in public hyping from Musk. News continues. Let's hand it over to Pamela Brown, and see you number one, Tom.
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