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comcast business. powering possibilities. top of the hour now on cnn newsroom. good to have you. i'm victor black well. >> and i'm bianna golodryga.

any minute now the jury will return from lunch and receive instructions from the judge. >> just before the defense was getting ready to begin this morning, a judge dismissed a juror for discussing the case with people outside the jury. >> you have had some discussions with some folks not on the jury, which is going to require me to remove you from the jury. i'm not suggesting that you intentionally did anything wrong, but that in order to preserve the integrity of the process and in fairness to all the parties involved, we're going to replace you with one of the other jurors. >> cnn national correspondent diane gallagher is outside the courthouse there in walterboro for us. walk us through this final day of the closing arguments.

>> reporter: victor, right now we are waiting for court to return essentially so the judge can charge the jury. this is the moment that for the past nearly six weeks everybody in that courtroom has been waiting for. perhaps not the least, alex murdaugh. his defense attorney giving a closing argument that focused on what they characterize as a miserable law enforcement investigation, as well as trying to poke holes in the state's narrative and harnessing emotion. but both sides in the reply from the state and the defense harnessed that emotion in their last words to the jury. >> there are two words that justice demands in this case and those two words are not guilty. the oath you've taken in this case is to follow the law, to follow the constitution, and to hold the government to the burden of proof. it requires a verdict of not guilty. on behalf of alex, on behalf of

buster, on behalf of maggie and on behalf of my friend, paul, i respectfully request that you do not compound a family tragedy with another. thank you. >> what he did we took the stand is corroborated that he's a liar. he corroborated the fact he doesn't tell the truth. now they're trying to put us on trial for doing our job. think about that. blame everybody else. >> reporter: now, we are now back in session in court. the judge has asked the jury to come back in. what we anticipate to happen is the judge is basically going to charge the jury. he is going to give them instructions. each of these attorneys, again, trying to spend time today defining reasonable doubt as it most suits their case. we have the state essentially telling them, look, we can have reasonable doubt. that doesn't mean no doubt. circumstantial evidence is still evidence. remember, there is no direct

evidence in this case linking alex murdaugh, no smoking gun, no video, no eyewitnesses per se. there is, though, the defense pointing out again if you have reasonable doubt, you can't just convict somebody of murder because you're suspicious of them. >> diane gallagher, thanks so much. let's hand the last sentence to stephanie rawlings-blake, former defense attorney. let's start with the defense and your assessment of their closing? >> i thought the closing was, as was stated, very emotional, emotionally charging. it was the defense attorney's attempt to human ease murdaugh. it was his attempt to make them understand that as horrible as this double homicide is, if you convict someone when there's no physical evidence, when there's no eyewitness, that you are really exacerbating a horrible

situation. and i think that's why murdaugh took the stand, to give -- to humanize himself, to give himself a chance to create that reasonable doubt. >> we saw his defense attorney get emotional and nearly moved to tears. is that something that's commonplace that you've seen before? >> not at all. you know, we're under the mason-dixon line so we're in the south too. but that level of emotion and that folksy way both attorneys have taken in this case, it is uncommon to what i am used to. >> so there's one section of the hours of the defense, their closing arguments, there's one section that i want to play for you that gets to the motive that the state says that alex murdaugh had to kill his wife and son. here it is.

>> clouds are arising. his financial house of cards is about to collapse and he's about to be exposed. and because of that, he does what every rational person would do, go kill your wife and son. that is their theory of motive. >> what do you make of that moment, his saying that of course if the financial problems are here, the next thing anyone would do is kill their wife and son. your thoughts? >> i think the state kind of missed the mark when they tried to create a rational motive for an irrational person. if you've been with anyone, known anyone that's in the throes of addiction, they do irrational things. by trying to ascribe a rational motive to that, i think they missed the mark.

it really does not make sense, the motive that they're trying to hang this on. so, yeah, i thought the defense attorney made a good point there. >> did alex ultimately do himself any favors or more harm in your opinion by testifying? >> i think it was a very bold move. i think, again, he doesn't need to convince everyone, he just needs to convince one person that he was in fact telling the truth about the lies. so he took -- he took a big shot. i think he did it because of the big upside. and i think he did pretty well as far as i'm concerned, as far as connecting with people. that's what he needed to do. >> the defense attorney also ticked through some either missteps or oversights by s.l.e.d. and investigators there on the scene. also specifically the lack of evidence collection, handling

evidence. in your experience do juries prioritize those types of mistakes, or is it more about the narratives? >> they weigh all of the things. but when you have a big case like this and you have the defendant actually get on the stand, i think that will be weighed a lot more than the missteps that were made in this case. again, we know that there's no real physical evidence. this is all -- for the most part cir circumstantial. so murdaugh took the chance to tell his story and let that fill the gaps. >> stephanie rawlings-blake, thank you. the fbi has thwarted an alleged plot to kill jewish officials in michigan and arrested the man behind it. today michigan's attorney general confirmed that she was one of the targets. >> a court filing quoted a tweet from the suspect, jack carpenter

iii while he was in texas. i'm heading back to michigan, threatening to carry out the punishment of death to anyone who is jewish in the michigan government if they don't leave or confess. josh campbell is with us now. he's also a senior fellow researching extremism with the center for new american security. josh, you're learning more about what the suspect told investigators. tell us about that. >> yeah, guys, a law enforcement source tells me this didn't just come down to that tweet that you mentioned, which is how authorities were initially onto the suspect. but i'm told from a source that the suspect was interviewed by authorities after he was arrested and admitted to wanting to target jewish official it's in the state of michigan. he listed for investigators names that included the state's attorney general, dana nestle. i'll read you the tweet that she put up this morning. she said the fbi confirmed that i was the target of the heavily armed defendant in this matter. it is my sincere hope that the federal authorities take this offense just as seriously as my hate crimes and domestic

terrorism unit takes plots to murder elected officials. a source tells me the fbi doesn't have a database of the religions of politicians. and so after seeing this tweet, they reached out to the jewish community leaders in michigan to identify potential targets. that's what's called a duty to warn. when i was working counterterrorism investigations, if you came across evidence that pointed to someone potentially being in danger, it was incumbent on the fbi to reach out to those people. so that's what was happening. just to walk you through the timeline because this shows a lot of investigative work in a very short amount of time. on february 18th, court records tell us that the national operations center, they see the tweet where the suspect talked about targeting jewish officials in michigan. they reach out to the fbi's detroit division. they are able to glean an address looking at the identifiers of this account and get on to the suspect, jake

carpenter iii. the fbi goes and interviews his mom who says my son is in texas. this is interesting. the fbi gets a phone number of the suspect from the mom, calls at&t. the fbi requests an urgent emergency disclosure letter to at&t to ping the cell phone of that suspect. they need to immediately know where he is located. that information from at&t leads them to north texas where later that day he is arrested. again, he stands accused, charged with interstate threats. cnn is attempting to reach out to the public defender that is representing the suspect. but this is just the latest in a series of anti-semitic threats that we have been reporting on. it's interesting, the government accountability office just issued a new report saying that threats against -- from extremists between 2013 and 2021 increased over 350%. i'll show you here, this is a report from the anti-defamation league that was just released that indicated all of the extremist-related killings in the united states last year in

2022 were perpetrated by right-wing extremists, so it shows you just the nature of the threat. of course where i'm standing here in los angeles, there's a suspect who continues to be investigated for recently allegedly opening fire on two men here in l.a. because of their jewish clothing. so again, we see these incidents time and time again. this incident in michigan just the latest that certainly has the jewish community unsettled across the country and obviously law enforcement on alert for these types of incidents which aren't just academic. we're seeing these in realtime case after case, guys. >> i'll never forget that mom that you brought us who said she didn't want her kids to look too jewish when she sent them out because of the threats. josh campbell with the reporting, thank you so much. joining us now is steve moore, cnn law enforcement contributor and retired supervisory special agent. steve, i always wonder and i'm glad they do because this is how they're captured, why people tweet out these threats before they go about carrying them out. this man was heavily armed with

several weapons. without that tweet, would it have been likely possible to capture this man before he approached nestle? >> well, it depends on what they had, but generally, no, it's not going to be possible. what you find with white supremacists are that they want credit for what they're going to do. in one case that i worked where there was a mass shooting, the perpetrator actually made several calls beforehand to friends saying watch the news. so this is -- they're wanting some credit. sometimes, though, there are people we used to say barking dogs don't bite, who felt powerless to do anything about it so they spouted this garbage online, in letters, things like that, an it made them feel powerful when they weren't. but if somebody is actually armed and ready to do it, it boggles the mind that they would warn people.

>> thank goodness this was thwarted. oftentimes when we see cases like this, unfortunately it's followed by copy-cats or people wanting to follow suit. i can't believe i'm about to ask this, but are jewish politicians receipt now at a heightened threat of these types of attacks? should politicians that are jewish across the country be more alarmed today? >> i would love to tell you they weren't, but i can't. i wouldn't say that what we're looking at is a 10, 20, 30-fold increase in danger to them. it is, however, going to -- this case is going to appeal to some people buried in a cabin or in their mom's basement or wherever they are who have these ideologies swimming around in their head. and when they see somebody else do that or when they see somebody else begin to do it and get taken down, they say, you

know, if he can do it, i can do it. so that's your fear. much like school shootings, they breed each other. >> so we talked about this tweet being the catalyst for the arrest. twitter announced a new zero tolerance policy for wishing harm speeches they call it. prohibits users from expressing hopes that others may suffer death, illness, or physically harmful consequences. also threats to homes, shelters, infrastructure. is this going far enough? on one side of crse you don't want this online. on the other side of it, this is how they found this man. so what do you think about this new policy? >> well, i think if you keep people from saying things, expressing this desire to kill people, you knock down your chances of catching these people. think about this, if twitter had

instituted that policy, would this person have been able to say this? would the fbi have been able to get to it? and then you have the question of the first amendment. when you move your meter to the point that just wishing somebody harm is now something that you can be taken down for, i think what happens is you've just taken a huge chunk, unfortunately, of society and you've made it harder to enforce that. the other thing is when you let them speak, sometimes they speak themselves right into the fbi's custody. >> it's just an unfortunate moment in our current environment that we even have to have these conversations. steve moore, thank you so much. we appreciate it. there were two mid-flight emergencies yesterday alone. one involved a fire onboard a spirit airline flight. the other, severe turbulence on a lufthansa flight which sent multiple people to the hospital.

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it's only human to keep moving forward. well, this is horrifying. two mid-flight emergencies in the air yesterday. first a battery fire broke out in an overhead bin aboard a spirits airline flight. they were forced to make an emergency landing in jacksonville because of smoke in the cabin. the smoke was extinguished while in the air but several people were taken to the hospital. look at all the mess on the floor of this flight. several people had to go to hospitals in this germany-bound lufthansa flight. it forced an emergency landing near dulles airport. pete muntean has details for us. >> reporter: the faa is investigating this right now. german airline lufthansa flight 469 on its way from austin,

texas, to frankfurt in germany. not long into the flight the plane was at 37,000 feet mere memphis, tennessee, when the crew reported severe turbulence. it came on suddenly and without warning. look at the images from onboard the plane taken by a passenger. the plane just thrashed. you can see all the debris in the aisle there. that airbus a-330, a 200-ton airplane. it just gives you an idea of how bad the toss-around was by the turb turbulence. food service was going on, glassware was thrown to the ceiling. one passenger badly hurt. this plane had to divert outside washington, d.c. where first responders met the plane at the gate. seven people according to airport officials taken to local hospitals. this is not all that unlike another incident with turbulence that happened on a hawaiian airlines flight. 25 people hurt as that flight was descending to honolulu back

in december. turbulence is the top type of incident onboard commercial airliners. it is trying to get to the bottom of this. not exactly clear if the ntsb will investigate this, although the faa is on it. lufthansa, the airline involved here, said this happened in clear air, meaning its pilots could not see and avoid this. victor, bianna. >> we've both experienced severe turbulence. it is terrifying. our thanks to pete muntean. well, severe weather with a mix of tornados and damaging thunderstorms are threatening parts of the south. >> jennifer gray is tracking the storm system and she joins us with the latest. jen, what's going on? >> guys, we're already starting to see these storms firing up, especially west of dallas. that's going to be the area of concern over the next couple of hours. look at this, we have these showers streaming all the way to the east but they are only going to intensify as we get into the evening hours. we have a thunderstorm watch box just west of dallas right now for these storms that are firing

up. already seeing severe thunderstorms with small hail. hail is going to be a huge concern going into the evening, possibly even more so than tornados. we will see possible tornados and some of those will be strong, especially in those areas shaded in orange and red. but the hail threat, possibly baseball-sized hail will be possible. 10% chance of a tornado threat in that area with the black dash marks. and this is the greatest chance of that 2-inch or more hail in diameter. that's baseball-size hail we could see across this area as well. so incredibly dangerous scenario shaping up, especially across east texas and central texas and on into the mississippi river valley. huge flooding threat as well. we could see 3 to 6 inches of rain, widespread flooding through the mississippi river valley and ohio valleys where we could see 4 to 6 inches right there, that bull's-eye shaded in red. this is going to be an ongoing threat not only this evening but

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the annual conservative conference, known as cpac is happening now in maryland. it's typically a pilgrimage for republican leaders. many big names are skipping the event this year. >> including florida governor ron desantis. he will headline the club for growth's private donor retreat in florida. kristen holmes is live at cpac. is cpac losing its relevance? what are you hearing from attendees? kristen, can you hear us? >> doesn't look like it. >> maybe a little too loud in there for her to hear us. kristen? you got us? maybe not. >> yes, hi, i've got you guys, i'm sorry. i must have missed the intro there.

>> yeah, we got you. go ahead, take it. >> reporter: okay. so here we go. i have spoken to a lot of voters here on the ground republicans, and it's been very, very interesting. first of all, i just want to note one thing. this is a very trump centric event. it's not only that he's the keynote speaker tomorrow, but it seems to be almost completely branded by the maga movement. there are flags, there are trump 2024 bumper stickers. there are even people here who i have spoken to that don't believe that joe biden is the actual president. they believe trump's election denialism. many of the speakers here are trump supporters. we just heard from devin nunes who was talking about trump's truth social, his own social media platform. however, while we did speak to a number of rabid trump 2024 supporters, we spoke to several people who said that they weren't sold on trump 2024, that they actually wanted to hear from other potential 2024 hopefuls. now, as i believe you mentioned,

i didn't hear you, but they probably won't get that chance or they won't here at cpac because so many of these major names that are potential 2024 republican hopefuls are skipping this event. they're going to be at that private donor retreat in florida. and that includes florida governor ron desantis, former vice president mike pence, south carolina senator tim scott. but i do want to play for you what we heard from voters because this sentiment -- there's two sentiments. we heard it over and over and over again. take a listen. >> i think we're all a little disappointed about ron desantis. >> came here specifically for trump. we want trump 2024. we want the other republicans out there that might want to run against trump not to run against trump and endorse trump so we can have a gigantic maga movement. >> reporter: now, the other thing i want to point out here was that even the people who were diehard trump 2024, many of them refused to say anything negative about desantis.

they said they actually really liked him. many of them said that they wished that former president trump wouldn't attack him so much. what they said was that they believed he needed to wait his turn, be president -- or run for president later. but again, they said they liked him and they liked their policies. so very interesting talking to these republicans on the ground here. >> all right, kristen holmes, thank you. well, president biden just returned from a meeting with senate democrats, a source telling cnn that he urged them to stick together in the impending fight over raising the government's debt limit. but today reporters got maybe a little more insight into another looming decision. >> when will you reannounce your re-election, sir? >> when i announce it. >> reporter: manu raju joins us live from capitol hill. senators are also revealing that biden said he will not veto republican legislation to rescind a d.c. crime bill. tell us more about that. >> reporter: yeah, and that was a surprise. remember, republicans have the

ability and any member of congress to push forward legislation to rescind any d.c. law because congress has oversight over the district of columbia. under a power known as the congressional review act, a process that allows them to pull back on regulations that are recently enacted. the d.c. crime law has come under fierce assault from republicans and some democrats too, leery of looking soft on crime are siding with republicans on this measure. it's expected to go to joe biden's desk next week. biden has not said what he would do but behind closed doors he said he would let this essentially go into law and rescind d.c.'s crime law enraging a lot of democrats who say that d.c. should have the ability and right to make their own laws. i'm told biden did not explain his rationale. i asked him directly and he would not respond to my

questions as well. he was also asked about another major issue, the train disaster at east palestine, ohio, and whether or not he would actually go and visit the scene of this disaster. he did not exactly say. >> i have spoken with every official in ohio, democrat and republican, on a continuing basis, as in pennsylvania. i laid out what i think the answers: we will get together and we will be implementing an awful lot through the legislature here. >> reporter: so he's faced some criticism from republicans and even some democrats like joe manchin who earlier today told me that boiden should go to eas palestine, hoohio, and give som confidence to people on the ground that the federal government is all in on this effort. biden says his administration is all in to deal with the aftermath of that train disaster. he also told lawmakers behind closed doors today that he would support a bipartisan bill that

is moving forward to essentially push for more inspections and more guardrails on freight rail moving across this country. so it appears that that measure likely could pass the united states senate. still uncertain whether that train safety measure could pass the republican-led house. but biden not saying whether he will in fact visit the scene of that disaster. guys. >> manu raju, thank you. uga football star jalen carter turned himself into police last night over the crash that killed his teammate and a staffer. what he's saying about the charges that he's facing. that's next. lomita feed is 101 years old this year and counting. i'm bill lockwood, current caretaker and owner. lomiwhen covid hit,years oldwe had some challengesg. i'm bill lockwood, like a lot of businesses did.

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carolina. we've just learned that the jury in this case now has the case. they are beginning deliberating after six weeks of testimony. this, of course, is the alex murdaugh double murder trial. he is on trial for the murders of his wife and son. we are now on verdict watch. >> yeah. >> to see how long it will take. it will be some time. they have to read over the instructions once they get inside the room, but now we will wait to see if they determine that he indeed killed his wife, maggie, and his son, paul. >> four hours of closing arguments from the prosecutors, two hours for the defense. we'll see where the jury takes it. russian officials allege armed ukrainians crossed the border into russia's southern region there. putin blames the alleged raid on neo-nazis. the governor claims two civilians were killed and a child injured. cnn cannot independently verify the claims. kyiv dismissed them as russian provocation. also today u.s. secretary of

state antony blinken met with sergey lavrov. joining us now is the author of "all the president's men." putin, zelenskyy and the path of russia to ukraine. mikhail, you have been known as a criminologist and you have sources that remain there in the kremlin. it was interesting to see secretary of state blinken meet with foreign minister lavrov, their first meeting since the war began. i'm curious to get your insight into what leverage at all lavrov has over putin given that he didn't know until the last minute about the major assault? >> that's true. we say if anyone has any leverage on president putin, and definitely lavrov is not the case, is not the man to take any part in any decision-making, but even -- like all the bureaucrats who are not close to the army or

not close to the making any decisions concerning the war are outdated right now. they are not relevant. even like old members of russian government. and even, for example, the closest man to putin is now not really that influential as he used to be, because only those people who are involved in the war have actually some leverage on president putin. >> we just passed the one-year mark since this invasion started last february. and the war that russia is fighting is not the one that putin expected. he didn't expect ukraine to be that strong, that the west would stay together, that nato would coalesce around ukraine. how has the war thus far impacted how those around him view putin and his strength and his leadership? >> that's -- that's a very good question because according to

him and his inner circle, they do not view that as a defeat. on the contrary, they still think that the time is on their side and they have a lot of time. they strongly believe somehow that probably by the next november, the closer american elections are, the support of ukraine will probably fade away and americans will be tired of supporting ukraine, so that would be -- so they are ready to wait for the possibility to strike again. actually, the plan a that existed in putin's mind back last february is still there. there is no plan b. he's waiting for the moment to start the next offensive towards kyiv, unfortunately. so that's the way -- how they view the situation. >> so he's still all in. i'm just curious what those inside the kremlin are saying

when they see what's playing out in washington, where we're continuing to see an increasing number of republicans and even some democrats question the amount of support militarily, financially, that the united states is providing for ukraine, going to your point that putin thinks that time is on his side. do they view that as something that could benefit them knowing that you have a constant question of republicans asking when will this end, we're not writing a blank check? >> thes deat's definitely -- th the card putin was always using. he used to think of himself as -- all the western politicians come and go. they are getting re-elected or not re-elected every four or five years. he remains the same. his next presidential term is supposed to start in 2024. and he knows -- he thinks at least that he is going to stay in kremlin. and he loves that situation when he's not dependent on the

parliament and everyone is dependent on the opinion polls, public opinion. so he thinks that the west is very vulnerable and he knows that although most of russian business, most of russian elite were really scared a year ago and they expected a huge crisis, but it's not there and russia is not isolated as they expected to be isolated. we see that, that there is a huge outburst of oil supplies from the middle eastern countries like egypt or algeria. they are selling oil to european countries, but they are buying oil from russia and europeans are buying it. so putin has no problem with the economic isolation. his oil profits are still high. >> yeah, i think their gdp shrank just 2, 3%, compared to ukraine down 40% this past year

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college football superstar, jalen carter is back at the nfl combine according to reports. last night he turned himself in to authorities on charges he's facing in connection to the fatal crash that killed his teammate and one of his team's staffers. >> the star lineman who is projected to be a top pick in the nfl draft is charged with reckless driving and racing.

cnn's nick valencia is following this story for us. you have new video of an interaction between carter and police months prior to this incident. what does it show? >> we do, and we obtained this video earlier today through an open records request with the police department there in athens, and it is chilling. it shows that four months prior to his alleged involvement in the fatal crash that killed his teammate and a uga employee, jalen carter was ticketed for going 89 miles per hour in a 45 miles per hour zone. the incident happened on september 22nd, 2022, and in addition to getting a speeding ticket, he was also ticketed and given an ominous warning to slow down and tell his uga football teammates to do the the same. in this body cam video you can hear the ticketing officer tell carter that he had just pulled over two of his other teammates and the message needs to be sent to the football team to drive more carefully. >> slow down, dude. that's your brake.

making all kinds of news, right? that was reckless. all right? so when you're around your teammates, tell them to slow down. it is so easy to slow down. >> so the message from the police officer very clear there, slow down. we have reached out to the carter -- or to carter's representatives, but we have not yet heard back. >> nick valencia for us, thank you so much. >> you bet. the house ethics committee announced that it is opening an investigation into congressman george santos, who is under scrutiny for lies about his background and questions about his campaign finances. we'll have more on this ahead. is and effortlessly responds t to both of you. our smart slsleepers get 28 minutes more restful sleep per night. proven quality sleep. only from sleep numbmber.

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more signs of the deepening rift among the british royals, a spokesman for harry and megan say the prince and his wife have been asked to vacate frogmore cottage. >> that's the couple's official uk residence. buckingham palace is not commenting on the news. the duke and dutchess currently live in california. >> speaking of frogs, the state of utah is asking people who live there for help in managing an increasingly invasive species, the bullfrog. here's the proposal, eat them. >> ew. in utah it's now always bullfrog hunting season and you don't need a specific license to catch them. officials even provided a recipe for breaded bullfrog legs, victor. >> that's how i like them.

>> hfrog legs taste like chicke or fish or both. i've had frog legs in the past. there's just something about lake the visual and eating a frog. >> why is your face all balled up? >> i just can't. >> they get up to, what, two or three pounds, and apparently you can have the legs, and it's described in this recipe, there's like a meaty strip along the back that you can add into stew. >> you are selling that so well. what are you having for dinner? >> not that. i'm just saying these are options. these are options. i've never had frog legs. i'm a pescatarian, and it's an amph amphibian, so i can't -- >> he actually fwogoogled that. have at it folks in u.s. "the lead" with jake tapper starts right now. >> an agenda so important president biden felt he needed to go to capitol hill to discuss. "the lead" start