>> award-winning singer and songwriter tracy chapman will take the stage at this weekend's [ singing ] >> won multiple awards for his cover o of that song nominated for best country solo performance. this would be only the third time that tracy chapman has performed on camera for 15 years. thank you for watching news night. laura coates live starts right now. the chilling words of the michigan mass shooter's mother. tonight, on laura coates.

jennifer crumbley, the mother of the teenager who shot four classmates to death in 2021 and the worst school shooting in michigan's history took the stand. she is charged with involuntary manslaughter testing the limits of who might be found responsible for a mass shooting and her testimony today was shocking. >> i have asked myself if i would have done anything differently and i wouldn't have. >> if you could change what happened, would you? >> oh absolutely. i wish he would have killed us instead. >> imagine a mother saying that she wishes her own son would have killed her and his father saying if given the chance, she wouldn't have done anything differently. meanwhile, her defense attorney indicating that she and her client don't necessarily meet eye to eye or see eye to eye about how to handle the rest of

the case. specifically who should testify. she told the judge, to speak more with crumbley and tonight, take an in-depth look. the question, should a parent be held responsible for the crimes of their child. i'm so glad you are both here today. we have been waiting for the moment she would take the stand. they announced the trial has been happening. and lo and behold, she did testify. and elliot, she was asked about the weapon. a very important moment about who purchased it. and what did she do. she talked about her husband. listen to this. >> are guns your thing? >> not really. >> do you have awareness about guns in your home? >> i do. >> who is responsible for storing the guns. >> my husband is. >> explain why he is responsible for that role. >> i just didn't feel

comfortable. being in charge of that. it was more his thing so i let him handle that. i didn't feel comfortable putting the lock thing on it. >> so, she is explaining talking about it wasn't her thing. it was her husband. what was the logic in that? >> i wouldn't feel comfortable putting on the lock thing? the code was 000 to the lock on the firearm. there was negligence all around in this house. what she is trying to do is point the finger at her husband who is also charged with manslaughter here as well. >> a different trial. that is important. >> a different trial. there would have been a little bit of this. and they had different strategies and so on. but i think she is trying to minimize her own liability saying this was on him. he was the one that messed up. >> this goes back to the school. remember, this was a school shooting. the school officials are a part of this.

even if they are the elephants in the room. there is a conversation happening on the stand. whether she knew about troubles in school and what she didn't tell them when she was called in school about having bought a gun. >> no question. but here's the reality. there is a picture that he draws that is ethan crumbley. it has the gun on it. it has blood on it and other words on it. your school officials, why would you if you are not school officials from a defense perspective, why would you not make increase with respect to gun? you go and grab a knapp sack. you have every opportunity to evaluate the knapp sack, instead, you giver it back. so there is blame all the way around. and then, the narrative of the meeting itself. in terms of the meeting they were having, what meeting when james the husband and the mother jennifer comes to the meeting she described it as a very matter of fact meeting.

>> it wasn't the urgency. >> exactly. it is not described as i'm not going to take my son out of school. that issue, right, seems to be misplaced in terms of what the school suggesting she refused to take her son out of school. that wasn't the case at all. so i think certainly, the school had responsibility. last point. and that is that apparently, he was troubled also. ethan crumbley. and he was of course saying the school and the teachers were saying listen, he is having a rough time. he is sleeping in class. his assignment is not being done. guess who they didn't convey that to? the parents. and so therefore, i think the school certainly has an obligation as well to be forthcoming with the parents. let them know what is happening with their children so that they could have taken preventive steps. >> counterpoint. i would say. the school has to be forthcoming but that is not the problem here. when the day comes that the school is sued and they will be sued for a lot of money now.

they may be able to get out of it. but all of that will come up. there is a pattern and a chain of negligence. let's take that drawing that the parents were aware of and show that said what was it, there will be blood on the ground at the school. all the comments he made to his mother about violence and so on. >> let's talk about that. because i want to make sure everyone knows what you are talking about. there was a peek inside the diary. i want help, but my parents don't listen to me. so i can't get any help. my parents haven't listened to me about help or a therapist. another one says i want help, but my parents don't listen. so i can't get any help. i have zero help for my mental problems and it is causing me to shoot up the f-ing school. he writes. maybe they haven't seen it? that is their case. >> my brother joey jackson will

probably say while his parents were not made aware, these were his private diary. there is one instance where he calls husband mother and says i'm scared of our barn. there are voices and people talking to me out in the barn. >> he claims it is haunted. put that in context. he claimed it is haunted and she said that is a whole schtick. >> the reality is that the house that they had was actually built if 1920. and there were indications because the house was built in 1920, they have this thing where it would be haunted. the mother would play tricks and turn off the circuit breaker so when you look at something and you give it context, not in isolation, it presents a bigger picture. as it relates to the journal itself. should parents just rummage through their children's things? the reality is we give children. yes. in some respects. in some respects they should. but we give children privacy so

they could develop and grow and do what they have to do. you showed the journal entries. the reality is that is relevant to the extent that the parents would have knowledge as to that. if they don't, that's a problem. we are not here for a referendum of mother of the year. we are here to determine whether she has criminal culpability that would rise to the issue of whether she is responsible for his death. further more, you don't charge ethan crumbley as an adult which they did. but then you say he is a child and the parents should have responsibility over him. there is a disconnect. we want to deter gun violence but we don't want to misplace blame. school has a responsibility here big time. the father has the responsibility here big time. don't put people in jail because you want to eliminate second amendment issues. but people in jail because they are criminally responsible. >> let's get back to the barn and the voices. and it was fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me. fool me eight or nine times you are liable for manslaughter.

there was a pattern of conduct along the way where they kept missing the signals. from him saying he was hearing voices. it happened again add again and again. they brushed off all the concerns. >> shouldn't that point be, could the approximate cause or linked in some way. the idea of hearing the voices or the haunted house. anding that direct cause link that can say it was close in time. that is what they are saying as the defense. that this is something that happened all the time. what is your response? >> i will say 100%, we were talking about this before this. this is a challenging case to prosecute. for all the reasons we are talking about here. now you can get there and i think what you are doing is, you would identify a pattern of behavior by the parents. and, being negligent with number one, how they scored and safeguarded the firearm. number two, ignored statements from him about his desire to carry out acts of violence. number three, brushing off statements made directly to them about his desire to carry

out the acts of violence. >> it might be the shooter himself corroborateing the statements who is on the witness list to testify on behalf or in the defense's case. it will come up whether or not he asked his parents for help. it is quite a gamble if they are completely sure his response will be i didn't actually ask them. it was in my diary. it is a hell of a chance to take. >> apparently, they are from his discussions with the psychiatrist or what have you. there is information that would suggest the parents were not aware of him actually looking and seeking help. >> listen to the sound byte.

listen to this. >> were you aware of this? >> no. >> do you remember any time where he came and talked to you and said anything about hearing voices? >> no. >> do you recall there being a time when he asked you to go to a doctor or get help and you said no? >> no. >> and therein lies the issue. an important part of this case is notice. to what extent were the parents on notice as to any tendencies he might have. not only his mental proclivities but any violence. here is a student with no disciplinary record in school. school described him as potentially sad. remember the context also, the time of covid right? covid, 2020 march. this happened november, 2021. there was a lot of carryover and depression. when the mother indicated she was concerned about him, she was concerned about him that he might exact violence upon himself. he doesn't have any violent history as it relates to other students. killing birds, maybe. but the reality is that if the

parents were not aware, what would they be anticipated to do? >> on the day that the shooting happens. she texts him. says i love you. looking for you, he doesn't respond. she writes back, ethan, don't do it. now, what she says is that don't do it was i don't want you to kill yourself. either she was negligent in preventing his suicide on school shooting. she was aware because the don't do it, she knew that he had a firearm and she knew he was going to use it to do something and still did nothing about it. this whole idea she was blissfully ignorant. >> no indication in school he bullied anybody. the only issues were internal as to him.

we are talking about their ability of foreseewant as it relates to murder. >> he is googling how to procure ammunition. his mother says ha, ha, lol, jut don't get caught. >> she addressed that. unless the mother is looking at what he is googling how would the mother know? >> just don't get caught next time? >> parents have a tremendous responsibility but the realities are that the responsibility has to stop somewhere. if a parent is not fully aware as to what their children's activities are, they should not be held accountable for the furred their children engages in. and i just think. >> let me tell you something. the jury deliberating these points thinking about this in a community where many of the students go hunting before school. many are gun owners in terms of the people who would be in the community. parents being questioned. this is why this trial is so

historic and we will continue to cover it. thank you both so much. >> prosecuted. >> there is a bromance happening in the studio right now have. here is some more of jennifer crumbley defending herself today in court. listen. >> are you a failure as a parent? >> i don't think i'm a failure as a parent. but at that time, i guess i didn't see. i felt bad that ethan was sad at those things. i feel like i failed somewhere. >> did you have reason to know your son was a danger to anyone else? >> no. as a parent, you spend your whole life trying to protect your child from other dangers. you never would think you have to protect your child from harming somebody else. >> my next guest, megan stack,

thinks that jennifer crumbley is being villainized. it is what is this mother really guilty of. megan, we were talking with the lawyers about the legal implications of it. but societily, this was a big question many people are asking. it is historic. it is the first time that a parent has been charged with this sort of crime on behalf of a school shooter's conduct. and you say there is a lot of questions you have. about why she is being charged. why. >> because i really studied the legal case against her and i looked at the evidence very carefully over a period of a long time. i have just been very interested in this case since i first, i still remember when we first saw the mug shots and they had sort of gone on the lam. there was a sense of fugitive parents. when i looked at what the case needed to be proven, i looked at the actual evidence, i just don't really see if i were on

the jury, i don't see the moment when i'm supposed to be convinced they knew there was a possibility or a real imminent possibility that he would start attacking his schoolmates. what i did notice was there was a huge amount of innuendo in the case. we heard about her affairs, that she loves horses. that she maybe likes the horses more than her son. she was sneaking away to meet her boyfriend at costco in the parking lot. everything that seemed today be suggestive of somebody we shouldn't like, i think all of those details are true and i don't think we have to like her. but i think we have to ask can we move this case? because this is a very serious case. we are talking about 15 years in prison. we are talking about an unprecedented attempt to charge parents. and by the way, the parents of somebody who was charged

himself as an adult. i still feel that the general effort is to make us not like her. make us think that she is guilty and she was a bad mom and neglectful. all of that may be true. i'm not here to defend jennifer crumbley as a person, as a mother. i don't feel like we know that much about their family life. i feel like we have little pieces and i think that we are being encouraged to imagine this whole narrative around those pieces which may or may not be true. >> let me ask you, the motivation. it is historic, but it follows a long line of mass shootings. and, you have opined whether this was in reaction to that frustration. and that there is somebody who was a shooter, alive to be held accountable. now you have a parent who also can be held to account. is this reactive in that way?

>> yeah. if you look at shootings across the country, there is so much fatigue and fear. and when the shootings happen, it just so devastating to the fabric of the community and there is so much anger and people want to find somebody to blame and i think it is not just somebody to blame. it is as many people to blame as possible. civil lawsuits. whoever you can prosecute. you want to prosecute. once you prosecute somebody, you want to put them for the longest sentence possible. and i think that is a very natural human impulse. i think when you have been wronged as a community, of course you want some kind of justice and reparation. and i think nationally, the same thing is happening. we are all exhausted by these shootings. there is not a single american who is beside themselves on

some level with dread. you want to do something. grab onto something. i think this case is under that umbrella of just looking for something that we can do. they acutely feel it as members of the community. the article is so well written and thoughtful. thank you so much. >> thank you so much. next, what the campaigns are doing behind the scenes. the unusual thing about nevada. and i pronounced it correctly. and why joe biden is not following the obama play book.

i have told this to the press to anybody who would hear it. i'm not going anywhere. >> nikki haley vowing to stay in the race, but her path to the white house is difficult. we have political commentator karen. here at the magic wall to peel back the curtain and take us behind the scenes on the campaign trail. this play book. >> yes, let's take a look at what's coming up. now remember, i want you to remember something. we have some contests coming up. nevada, south carolina, super tuesday. delegates. it is about the delegates. trump has a pretty big lead. desantis and vivek ramaswamy because they dropped out, those delegates can basically, desantis could say i want my delegates to go to trump.

they can. they can choose another path. the point is trump already has the majority of the delegates. so let's take a look at nevada. at nevada, we have two contests next week. >> why are there two different ones? >> i'm so glad you asked. with 26 delegates at stake, what happened after 2020, the democratic governor of nevada said let's just do a primary. let's make it vote by mail. but the republican party said no. we want to do a caucus. and each party gets to demanding their own rules to select their candidate. so even though the state is going to run a primary, and nikki haley appears on that primary, there are no delegates at stake. >> so voters could vote on february 6th for nikki haley but it would mean nothing to her in the overaliquant? >> correct. she might tout how many people voted for her. but it doesn't get her in that magic delegate count. president trump who has

participated in the caucus goes, leaves it with all 26 delegates. then we go to south carolina. 50 delegates at stake. south carolina is proportionate. that means the vote you get is about the proportion of delegates. you heard nikki haley on that clip right there talking about how she wants to close that gap. that is a big gap. if she can't close it, that means the gap between she and donald trump for the delegates gets wider. >> so if this were to stay as it is, he gets 58%. but she wouldn't get much closer than he is. >> he is already starting ahead and he will continue to just widen that gap. and the big kahuna, super tuesday, march 8. the biggest of the big of all the contests is california. another change that the state republican party made just last summer. instead of doing propotional

allocation, it is a winner take all. trump wanted that. who does that favor? donald trump. it is a big expensive state. donald trump is favored to win it. it makes it much harder than nikki haley to catch up. >> if he takes california, he he gets to the other states as well, he is well ahead. how does that play for biden? how are they looking at this entirety of this game? >> biden announced today, he is going back to more traditional model. these are the key states president biden won in 2020. they are actually instead of creating a separate infrastructure, president biden will rely on the state party. they have been building up the state parties through the dnc

the last several years. if we look at this map, think about what is going on in 2022. these are states that know how to win. they have worked with the communities. the progressive groups in their state. they know how to win. that should be an advantage for president biden. because it means he is not actually starting from scratch. add he is staffing up. this is so important to go behind the scenes. so helpful. stay with us. we have a lot more to talk about. because joe biden was in one of those battleground states that karen pointed out today. the state of michigan. now he won it narrowly back in 2020. but is he at risk of losing it now? donald trump possibly in 2024. we'll talk about it next.

president biden basking in the glow of the high profile endorsement he received from the united auto worker's union. >> we now have in large part because of you, and organized labor, the strongest economy in the whole world. inflation coming down. we created 800,000 manufacturing jobs. guess what, man? we don't taste that good. >> the president is putting the economy front and center in his first campaign stop in the critical battleground state of

michigan. the question is are there other factors that might make michigan problematic for president biden's reelection? karen finney is back from the magic wall along with congressman joe walsh. let's get right to the point here. as to why michigan is so important. why do you think he made the stop here? >> he has to stress the economy. there is muslim vote in michigan that is not happy with him. there is young vote in michigan. that is not happy with his foreign policy. i love him getting out there and aggressively talking about the economy. i love the way he talks.

>> he has that blue collar background and he is so good when he is walking around talking to folks. michigan is critical. with e have a strong democratic governor there. we have a strong argument to make there to voters. aside from some of the other issues. so again, got to go out there and push the positives to try to reclaim this. they have to rebuild some bridges because we are in a situation where some in the muslim american community have said, you know what? we survived four years of bush? of trump? we can survive more.

>> congresswoman debbie dingle who knows michigan better than anyone she says. she had a very candid conversation with president biden about that rebilling of the bridges. and that he has an eroding support among some muslim voters and i'm just wondering, you think that message has been received by him or do you think he believes, oh, time will just heal all wounds. >> i'm afraid it is the latter. i hope it is the former. to karen's point, he ought to address it. >> how do you do that? >> i would love to see president biden in front of an intimate audience of muslim american voters in michigan talking about this. i think biden is so much stronger off the cuff and with people directly. it was a good position for him

with the general electorate. >> what is the statement he could make that would be effective? what would resonate? making sure people felt heard in terms of what their concerns have been. i did see debbie on the air. and the calls they are getting from family members in the gaza strip. and hearing the stories firsthand from people and perhaps to explain to them, kind of the nuances of the binds he is in. he can only do so much with israel. and he has started to press the case more. >> this is a tough issue for him. because this issue divides the democratic coalition. and i don't think he should run

from it. i think he has to go right at it. >> if he thinks it is tough, imagine the people in gaza. right? who are dealing with the issue every day. and those in israel as well hoping to have more than lip service from other nations, from within, from negotiations and beyond. but this is a crucial issue politically. the polls tell us that it really is crunch time. we are 200 what, 70 something days away from the election. and look at this poll that is out right now. it shows that trump is narrowly ahead of president biden in a matchup. i wonder if that spells trouble that is pretty constant? >> i hadn't thought about that. what is interesting is most republican voters believe trump can beat biden. that kind of takes away nikki haley's strongest argument. though he is up three or four points on biden, he is up on biden so he can make the claim

that he can still beat him. >> meanwhile, you have another poll with haley saying she is sticking it out. it shows haley holds a very clear lead. over joe biden. does she have a shot based on that? >> this is the argument she is trying to make. >> if she calls you and asks for advice. >> conference me in. >> up next with the great recession, they are called

black swan events. the chaos in just a moment.

it is a wild world we live in. a former president facing multiple trials. major global conflicts around the entire world. ai chat bot telling people they want to be alive and they are in love with the users they are talking to. sounds like chaos, right? if you put it into perspective it seems very chaotic. several decades. an idea captured in memes like how millennials have lived through 9/11, multiple recessions, and a global pandemic all before turning 40. it really does beg the question. it seems maybe so small and random. like a single virus, a single city in china, how could that totally reshape everyday life for billions of people? maybe it doesn't have to impact

billions. maybe it could just impact you. have you ever laid in bed at night wondering what could have happened to you if a small thing that happen today you went a different way? bryan is a contributing writer at atlantic who talks about all of this in his brand new book. called "fluke. chance, chaos, and why everything we do matters." thank you for joining me. you can't talk about the black swan events. >> a black swan event is something highly unpredictable. extremely consequential. it is a rare event that changes our world. and we have engineered a world today. in the past, you might have had a pandemic but it wouldn't have up ended the entire world in a span our a few weeks.

or the suez canal boat. it just disrupts trade supply routes for weeks. and that is the world we built without enough resilience. the random accidents of life are becoming more consequence. >> and the acts of life are felt for longer. a butterfly effect or domino effect? >> it is part of chaos theory. >> you remember arab spring. a single guy lit himself on fire in central tunisia causing multiple governments to collapse and multiple wars that started as a result of this. the syrian civil war.

>> i think gwyneth paltrow had that one little sliding doors movie. if someone had not been the resistance or there to perpetuate it. >> that was yesterday, thank you for bringing it up. >> now you imagine you rewind 30 seconds and don't hit the snooze button. how much does your life change? some of it might change quite a lot. you might meet totally different people. some of it may not change that much. but the ripple effects can aggregate over our lives. one of the things difficult to imagine is we can't understand the alternative pathways. but both in society and in our own lives, chaos theory says that these things are diverting our trajectories all the time. we are just completely oblivious to it. >> i think about this thing all the time. i really do. if one small thing had changed.

in terms of romance. it is such a hyperconnected world we live in, that this can't be coincidental. it is all part of something different. >> this is something i talk about called narrative bias. the human brain is prone to detecting patterns. so when ever there is no story, we invent one. and we are really seduced by them. people like you who will say, hold on, let's look at the facts. the problem is you are competing against someone telling a really good story. so qanon for example is totally bogus but a good story. a story that sounds compelling to people. they latch onto it. a lot of people who are as all of us are, prone to story telling. it is an uphill battle. unfair fight. and debunking conspiracy

theories, when there are things that happen, we want to invent reasons for them. this idea that everything happens for a reason is part of conspiratorial thinking. >> i'm fascinated by this. this is really a compelling read. i put these things together. your book goes into ai. i'm not going to spoil that for people. bryan, thank you very much for being with us today. we'll be right back.

i want to remember several

rights activist, radio icon, friend, and mentor, civil rights activist. joe the black eagle madison. his family announced he lost his hard fought battle of cancer. joe dedicated his life to fighting for all those who were undervalued, underestimated, and marginalized. although he is no longer with us, we hope you will join us in answering that call. in the fight against injustice. he was here on cnn speaking about america's civil rights and politics but he was not just talk. he went on a hunger strike for 73 days in 2021 over what he called a politically and morally wrong attack on voting rights. saying quote, just as food is essential for the existence of life, voting is essential for the exist tans of democracy.

he was known as the black eagle. tonight, my friends, the eagle is soaring higher than ever. and before we leave you tonight, a seat at the table. it is a phrase that we use to describe having your voice heard. knowing you are represented in the halls of power. but for black americans, 64 years ago today, the phrase took on a very literal meaning. being able to sit at the same lunch counters and the same tables as white customers. you know, on this day in 1960, four young black men politely sat down at the whites only lunch counter at woolworths in greensboro, north carolina. when they were asked to leave, they refused. that helped to spark a protest that lasted six months. and frankly helped to change america. one of those men, joseph mcneil wrote to sixth graders

attending a school that was named in his honor back in 2020. his wife was kind enough to share with us part of it. in it, he said, take courage. i was six years older than you are now when i began the sit-in in the woolworths, lunch counter in south carolina to protest the unfair treatment of african americans in this country. so here we go again. it is character building time and i know you are up to the challenge of incorporating your beliefs, wisdom, strength, and understanding to what is happening in the world today. i want to thank you all for watching. and now, to my seat at the table. while our coverage continues.

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