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Still No Answers Amid More Reported Drone Sightings; New L.A. County D.A. Speaks Out Ahead Of Key Hearing In Menendez Brothers Case; Trump Speaks At Mar-A-Lago. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired December 16, 2024 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:00]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ACHOR: -- speculate as to whether these are drones or UFOs or stars or just, you know, planes coming in for a landing at DCA.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Right. I think it's actually really shocking that -- that we don't have a better grasp on that. And I think that's --

ACOSTA: That's right.

BROWN: -- trying a spotlight on that. So perhaps in the end this will be a good thing.

ACOSTA: Let's hope.

BROWN: We're going to dive more into it. Thank you, Jim.

ACOSTA: Sounds good. You got it.

BROWN: Well, and also, you know, seek -- seeking out drones. Drones reported near one of the U.S. Air Force's biggest bases as people across multiple states are on edge. And they're wondering why they still don't have the answers about these mysterious sightings.

Plus, the incoming Los Angeles County district attorney speaking out about the Menendez brothers case. He is our guest this hour. What he is saying about the brothers re sentencing plea.

And then later, he's a dog with an important job, detecting explosives at a major airport with his super sensitive nose, Argo is gearing up for a busy holiday season. He and his handler will join us.

Hello, everyone. I'm Pamela Brown in Washington. And you're in the CNN Newsroom.

And we begin the hour with questions. I was just talking about it there with Jim Acosta. What does the federal government know about these drone sightings that we don't? The question has been hanging over New Jersey and several other states where reports of drone sightings have been pouring in. And it's not just backyard stargazers voicing concerns. Here in Ohio, drone activity forced Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to close its airspace for almost four hours. This is one of the country's most critical Air Force bases. Here's a recording of air traffic controllers obtained by the military news website, "The War Zone," discussing the UAS Unmanned Aircraft System.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Med Flight at Patterson Tower use extreme caution for heavy UAS movement on the base. Security forces is handling the situation. All aircraft use extreme caution. Patterson Class Delta is now closed for heavy UAS activity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Federal officials say the drones don't appear to pose a threat, but also they don't know the source of them. Since there have been so few answers, various theories fill this void. They include legal aircraft misidentified as drones, the U.S. government being responsible, or a foreign government that is fine, other possibilities, hobbyists or pranksters and even UFOs.

Joining us now is CNN senior law enforcement analyst Andrew McCabe. Polo Sandoval is in New York. Andy, to kick it off with you here, you know, the FBI has come out and said, look, it's gotten 5,000 tips. Less than 100 have actually led to investigative steps because they -- they were able to use technology and other methods to rule out other, the other -- the others as manned aircraft and so forth. But, you know, what is your take on all of this? Is it conceivable the federal government really doesn't have the most basic information on some of these drones?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Pam, not only is it conceivable, I think it's likely. I think one of the reasons we're hearing very little from the federal government is that they don't really know very much about the, you know, the -- the volume of drone use across these different states. And that's not exclusively their fault.

The way that the operator system is set up by the FAA, which is the government entity that's responsible for managing the skies, essentially, and an entity I should say we've heard really nothing from during the course of this issue. These drone operators really, as long as they're not straying into restricted airspace, they can pretty much run these things at night or during the day any way they'd like. There's very few rules. They don't have to file flight plans. They don't have to identify themselves.

They're supposed to go online and take a proficiency test and maintain some proof of passing that test. But these are not things that are enforced day to day. So just your average drone in the sky, non- commercial use, lower than 400 feet in the air, it's -- it is overwhelmingly likely the government has no idea who' -- who is flying those devices at that time.

BROWN: How concerning do you find that?

MCCABE: You know, I think it's concerning, but we have to think about, like, if we want a more comprehensive understanding of what's happening all over the skies, then we're going to have to give entities like DHS and the FBI additional legal authority and -- and resources in order to do that. You know, the FBI -- FBI activity is predicated on investigations. And investigations start when you have actual information to indicate there's been a violation of federal criminal law or there's a national security threat.

So without, and clearly the government has told us they don't have that sort of information here. So if you want the FBI to get involved and start essentially surveilling the skies and the people who are using them, then they're going to need additional authority, we'll need additional regulation.

[11:05:07]

And I think all of these things are sensitive questions now, particularly in a period where we've just had an election in which candidates who advocated for smaller government, less regulation, less government spending, specifically less FBI activity, one overwhelmingly.

So it's one of these be careful what you wish for sort of issues. Right now we're looking at the opposite side of this. People are wanting more from government, a better understanding, better policing of the skies. And I think they're just not in a position to do that well.

BROWN: Polo, I want to bring you in on this because there was this incident at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio I mentioned earlier. How significant is that the airspace was closed for almost four hours?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is significant, given the nature of that facility to Pamela. Now, to bring our viewers up to speed, it's still unclear whether or not this weekend incident in Ohio may have anything to do with the drones that were first detected over New Jersey four weeks ago today, we need to remind our viewers about that as well.

But nonetheless, it certainly underscores the disruptive potential of these drone sightings. Where we know about what happened at Wright- Patterson Air Force Base, which is about 20 miles northwest of Dayton, Ohio. There were some small drone aircraft that were reported there. And because of that airspace had to be closed late Friday night into Saturday as a precaution as they investigated.

Eventually, officials there at that base were able to deter -- determine that this -- there was no sort of threat for any of the roughly, you know, over 35,000 personnel that either live or work at the facility. But it is a critical facility for the Air Force doing some research on this do understand that there they conduct research and development for Air Force weapons. Also, it is home to a recon team as well. So it certainly would be a concern there. And it's not just military airspace, Pamela, a separate incident that took place in -- in Boston actually highlights the potential for civilian airspace where there were two individuals that were arrested for flying a drone dangerously close to Logan Airport, one of the busiest airports in the nation. So there is certainly that concern as these reports continue to come in and many people getting few to no answers.

BROWN: I want to go back to you, Andy, because you know, one hand we started off this conversation like that it's likely that the FBI authorities don't even have the most basic information on some of these drones. And you laid out some of the reasons why, right? There needs to be --

MCCABE: Sure.

BROWN: -- you know, more -- more done on the policy front to give them the ability to be able to track these drones. But then how then on the other side can they be so certain? How can they come out and just say, well, there's no evidence these, you know, have our public safety threat or have a foreign nexus? I just don't understand that. Help me square that.

MCCABE: Yes, you know, and this is a little bit about how the intelligence community talks about threats. They are reluctant to identify or -- or judge a particular threat until they have evidence of it, right? So it's a very evidence based process. And so what they're essentially telling us right now is we have no evidence that there's foreign involvement behind these drones, or we have no evidence that these drones pose some sort of a public safety threat.

And while as -- as members of the public, we can understand that, but we can jump to the conclusion that, well, clearly if there are people who are operating these things in restricted airspace around airports like Boston and -- and Wright-Patterson, that seems like a public safety threat and possibly a national security threat.

So I think what we're seeing is the -- the -- the Delta, the difference between our perceptions and our kind of logic and the way the intelligence community assesses a threat, which is to say there's no indication of it, there's no evidence of it, there's nothing to support it. They're not going to come out and say, you know, look out, look out. There's a real problem here.

I think what Polo referred to is really important. And in some ways protecting the airports should be the easier part of this problem to solve because those airports, most airports are -- are in some sort of restricted airspace. And the technology that the government does have to identify the signal that's operating a drone and possibly geolocate the person who is sending that signal, though, that's the environment in which that technology works well, clearly defined space, pre- positioned.

You're looking for things that come into that space from the outside. Simply taking technology like that, let's say, to the state of New Jersey and saying, find out who's running all these drones, it's a much harder application. So likely what they should be doing is really focusing on protecting those -- those locations of restricted airspace and then kind of building out from there.

[11:10:02]

BROWN: Polo, to bring you back in. I mean, this is a moment of rare bipartisan agreement. Lawmakers from both parties are angry about the lack of transparency here. What is the White House saying?

SANDOVAL: Lack of transparency, Pamela, but also the lack of acknowledgment of the concerns on the ground by many New Jersey lawmakers. We've heard from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers there. I want you to hear, though, what the DHS secretary said over the weekend. And he specifically basically laid out what his department knows thus far about it not just being airplanes but also actually being drones that have been spotted.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Some of those drone sightings are in fact drones. Some are manned aircraft that are commonly mistaken for drones.

It is our job to be vigilant in the federal government with our state and local partners on behalf of the American public. And we can assure their safety by reason of that vigilance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: But then you also hear from a Democratic lawmaker in Connecticut like Richard Blumenthal today who says that that kind of assurance is still falls flat given the lack of information that those so many people in the affected areas that are still wondering, is it that the government is not telling them everything or is it that the government doesn't know everything that it should and really they don't know what's worse.

BROWN: Yes. Key questions. All right, Polo and Andy, thank you so much.

And still ahead this hour on this Monday, new details and the possible resentencing of the Menendez brothers. I will be speaking live with the newly elected district attorney who has taken over the case to find out if he thinks the brother should be resentenced like his predecessor did.

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[11:16:15]

BROWN: Los Angeles County's top prosecutor has only been on the job a few weeks, but he's already diving headfirst into the case that has recaptured the nation's attention. That's the case of Erik and Lyle Menendez and their push to get out of prison. Newly minted District Attorney Nathan Hochman sounded defeated, soundly defeated, we should say. Incumbent George Gascon last month after his predecessor recommended re sentencing and even clemency nearly 30 years after the brothers were sentenced to life in prison for the murder of their parents. Hochman's office is now preparing for a key hearing set for the end of January that could determine the brother's fate. Nathan Hochman joins us now. Thank you for your time this morning.

So you've had a little bit of time, a few weeks to review new evidence in this case that the defense lawyers say point to abuse by the boys' father as well as court documents from the previous trials in the 90s you said you wanted to go through. Given what you've reviewed so far, where do you stand today on supporting the resentencing of the brothers?

NATHAN HOCHMAN, LOS ANGELES COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: So, Pamela, the Menendez case is on three different tracks. The first track is a habeas track. That's the track where they filed a motion in May of 2023. And they said basically that there's new evidence that should compel a new trial. That track is basically set for a new response from us and doesn't have a hearing date after that.

The second track is clemency. Clemency is a petition that they've made directly to Governor Newsom at any time from taking office in 2019 until today, Governor Newsom could grant that clemency petition and release the Menendez brothers. The third track is resentencing. That's a somewhat unique California statute that says that not only are we going to look back at the offense that the Menendez brothers committed, but we're also going to look at rehabilitation and see if, effectively these folks are in danger of (inaudible).

That's where I'm involved in reviewing thousands of pages of prison files, confidential up until now, and now I have access to them. We're reviewing the trial transcripts of the first and the second trial to see exactly what evidence was presented concerning sexual abuse and the Menendez brothers fear of immediate harm at the time they shot their parents.

I'm also speaking to prosecutors. I will be speaking to defense counsel. I will be inviting any member, any victim, family member that would like to speak to me directly and the voluminous exhibits. Only after we've done this rigorous fact and law review will I be able to opine and -- and come down with position in the resentencing.

BROWN: All right, so you're saying you want to wait till you see it all, but -- but how compelling is the evidence you've seen so far to support, you know, their case that they were sexually abused by their father?

HOCHMAN: Again, there are thousands, well, dealing with the sexual abuse, we're going through, again, all the trial transcripts. We're going to go through the seven days of testimony that Erik Menendez gave in the second trial. We're going to go through all the defense witnesses that he presented in connection with the sexual abuse to understand really what happened as best we can back in 1989, August 20th of 1989, when they shot their parents.

But we're also going through the rehabilitation records. It's very important for resentencing to understand whether or not the brothers have been rehabilitated over the past 30 plus years, that they've been in prison. So it's that combination and collection of reviews that ultimately result in a resentencing decision.

BROWN: Yes. And your predecessor, as you know, believed that they had been engaging in that rehabilitation. That was one of the reasons why he supported resentencing. He said he also supported Governor Newsom giving clemency to them. I just want to talk about a potential trial. You had said in this interview with Deadline that one key aspect for you would be whether there was an immediate threat to their lives. Do you think there's sufficient evidence to support that so far from what you've seen?

[11:20:15]

HOCHMAN: And that's what we're going to do and continue to do that review. It's a very intensive review. You have to look at each aspect of what was presented at trial in the days leading up to the shooting and ultimately what happened during the shooting itself to understand what was going on in the Menendez brothers minds at that time. That's the crucial time.

But as importantly, you have to look at the rehabilitation evidence for resentencing. But let me give you a quick hypothetical. Let's say that this all gets presented to the judge, and the judge were to grant a resentencing, turning a life without the possibility of parole into a life with the possibility of parole sentence. It then goes to California's parole board. A two member parole board will review the situation to see if the Menendez's are actually suitable for parole.

Let's hypothetically assume that they are. Then it goes to Governor Newsom's desk. He has 120 days to review it. He can either agree with the parole board's decision, send it back for a full parole board review, or deny the parole, as he did, for instance, with Sirhan Sirhan, a parole, where for the first time in 2022, after 40 years, a parole board granted Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of Robert F. Kennedy, parole. And in that case, the governor came in and reversed it and granted parole. So ultimately, if this proceeds on a parole tract for resentencing, Governor Newsom will have the final word.

BROWN: And what do you think he should do?

HOCHMAN: That's what we're evaluating. But I don't want to pre -- yeah, I don't want to predetermine what my ultimate decision will because we have not figured -- finished that evaluation. I haven't had a chance to speak to defense counsel and the victim family members. We're still reviewing the trial transcripts. There are thousands of pages of trial transcripts and the prison records.

So it would be a disservice to the Menendez brothers, to the victim family members and for the public, for me to speculate on what position I'm ultimately going to take. But I will be taking a position before the January 30th hearing.

BROWN: Just can you give us a better timeline of -- of when that position will be made clear and when you're going to respond to the trial request? HOCHMAN: We'll respond in writing prior to the January 30th trial -- January 30th hearing. The exact timing of that response, I don't have at this point.

BROWN: OK, very quickly, before we go, do you see a scenario where there are different outcomes for each brother?

HOCHMAN: Different outcomes for each brother is certainly a possibility. The law requires you to look at the individual culpability and the individual rehabilitation for each brother and as it affects, by the way, the killing of each parent. So you have to do this, not just this sort of simple analysis, this deep and complex analysis with respect to each brother, with respect to each killing, with respect to each rehabilitation. And that's why you have to have the facts and the law before you make that decision.

BROWN: All right, Nathan Hochman, thank you so much. We're going to go live now to Mar-a-Lago where President elect Trump is speaking.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT: But it's very flat and there's nothing to stop a bullet but a body. There's no protection, no nothing. And it's -- what's happening there is far worse than people are reporting for both sides. So we're going to do our best and we've been doing our best and we'll see what happens.

But since the election, I've been working every day to put the world at ease a little bit, to get rid of the wars. We had no wars when I left office and now it's the whole world is blowing up. But there's great optimism and you saw that by Softbank. Starting on day one, we'll implement a rapid series of bold reforms to restore our nation to full prosperity. We're going to go full prosperity and to build the greatest economy the world has ever seen, just as we had just a short time ago.

We had it in my turn. We had the greatest economy that the world had seen. We were blowing away everybody. Our country was doubling up on China, doubling up on everybody, and everybody knows it. And then we had to slow it down with COVID unfortunately at the end. But even then I gave it back with a substantial increase of -- of the stock market, bigger than it was pre-COVID. So it was pretty amazing.

Already preparations are underway to slash massive numbers of job killing regulations, eliminating 10-old regulations for every new one. You put a new regulation on, you have to get rid of 10 and we'll be able to do it. And that was about the percentage we had. We cut more regulations than any president has ever cut by far, actually by approximately five times.

Some of those regulations unfortunately were put back on, but we'll catch up very quickly. We'll catch up with it. One of the things I'd like to ask the Biden administration, as you probably heard that, there are two events that took place. We're talking about a friendly takeover, a friendly transition, as they like to say. This is a friendly transition and it is. But there are two events that took place that I think are very terrible.

[11:25:26]

One is that if people don't come back to work, come back into the office, they're going to be dismissed. And somebody in the Biden administration gave a five year waiver of that so that for five years people don't have to come back into the office. And involved 49,000 people. For five years they don't have to go. They -- they just signed this thing. It's ridiculous.

So it was like a gift to a union and we're going to obviously be in court to stop. But the other thing is really terrible. We spent a tremendous amount of money on building the wall. The wall was designed specifically by the border patrol because it's very hard to climb. They need to have see through. They need it to be steel because you can't cut. It's very powerful steel. It's very hard steel. It's a special type of steel, but very, very hard to cut.

Inside the steel, as you know, we pour concrete and that's a grade 10 concrete, which is a very strong concrete, very as though you were building about a 60-storey building. It's very powerful concrete. They've made tremendous technology advances in the word concrete. Who would think that? But I know that from the construction industry. Today what you can do with concrete is -- is incredible. So we have a very strong concrete.

And then we have a rebar. We put rebar inside the concrete and the rebar likewise is very hard to cut. So it's a very expensive process, very expensive wall. And then we put a anti-climb plate on the top. You saw that. And I didn't like the look of it. But then when I watched, we had people testing, we had mountain climbers actually testing and they were not able to get over the anti-climb plate. So I said all right, I guess we're going to put it on that plate on top, which I never loved the look of it, but it works so unbelievably well, you have to do it.

So we -- we spent a lot of money on building it and we have hundreds of miles to that we put up. A lot of people don't realize but we did 571 miles of wall. That's why we had such good records in addition to the fact that Mexico helped us with their -- with their military, they kept people out, and they were actually very good under the past leader.

But now we had -- we ordered an additional 200 miles of wall. It's very expensive, and now it's about double the price of what it would have been six years ago. And the administration is trying to sell it for 5 cents on the dollar, knowing that we're getting ready to put it up. And what they're doing is really an act, it's almost -- it's almost a criminal act.

They know we're going to use it, and if we don't have it, we're going to have to rebuild it. And it'll cost double what it cost years ago, and that's hundreds of millions of dollars because you're talking about a lot of -- a lot of wall. I built much more than I said I was going to build. But then after it was built, I said, you know, we can do some more because it's sort of like water people flow through, and that will pretty much really take care of it.

And what happened is they just --

BROWN: All right, you're listening to President-elect Trump speaking there at Mar-a-Lago. You heard him, Kristen Holmes, talk about the transition with the Biden administration. He said it's been a friendly transition so far. One sticking point, though, he said, is about federal employees and what will happen if they don't come back to work.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and this is something we've heard him talk extensively about. We've heard Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy and their government agency cutting to government efficiency. Their group talk a lot about. And this is about essentially the difference between work from home and coming into the office. And one of the things that we just heard Trump talking about was saying that if these government employees don't come back to work again, this is the difference between work from home and working in the office, that they will be terminated.

And this is something that we have heard from government employees that they are nervous about. They have set up their lives with the system that they can work from home much of the time. We also have heard about it from the Trump people that they believe that this has taken away from government efficiency, that they think that people should be in the office every single day. And this is going to be a huge change.

I mean, one of the things that we're talking about here is people who have set up an entire life working from home in various agencies. It's not just one agency, it's across the government. So this is going to be a very striking difference in how they're actually going to enforce this. And quickly seems a little bit off. We're not sure what that's going to look like because it's going to be very difficult to do this, especially the way that they're saying Elon Musk is saying, the way that Donald Trump is saying they're going to do this, terminate these jobs immediately.

BROWN: Yes. Some federal workers actually move states, right?

HOLMES: Right.

BROWN: So they still work for the agency, but they're in a different state. And it's not so easy to just fire a government employee who's been working government --

[11:30:04]

HOLMES: Right.

BROWN: -- for years and years on end.

HOLMES: Exactly.

BROWN: He also talked about the wall.

HOLMES: Right.

BROWN: And it seems.