This is CBS, I On the World. I'm John Batchel. I welcome Professor Richard Epstein.

He's at the Kivitas Institute at the University of Texas, the Senior Research Fellow.

He is also at the Lawrence H. Tish Professor of Law at NYU as director of the Classical Liberal Institute.

Professor, a very good new year to you.

We plunge into a story that confuses me because it's about what I see with my eyes and

reject as reasoning that the alleged shooter of a man named Brian Thompson, a United Health executive,

shooting in the back by a man alleged by Luigi Mangio,

is not first-degree murder and is not, in fact, an act of terror.

That's what I see.

But it is now a contentious issue, as I understand it, because there is a

detail about murder trials. Will it be the state prosecuting Mangione, or will it be the

federal government prosecuting Mangione? That's as far as the case has taken me so far, but there's some concern that the

Biden Department of Justice is looking to put the state first and the federal second, or not

at all, and the anticipation by the Biden administration is that this will preclude the Trump Department of Justice from putting the

federal case first and the state case would go away. Now, this is all very confusing to me. Can you

help me understand why this suddenly becomes what looks to be a controversy? Good evening to you.

Sure. Well, the first question to ask is why did

this man Manjoni decide to kill Mr. Thompson in New York City? Allegedly. Allegedly is only the

word used by lawyers. Everybody else has seen the tape and they know that this is in fact a fact.

And indeed, using the word allegedly in front of it makes it appear as though there's

some real deep uncertainty about the situation, as if the only evidence you had was circumstantial

about what was going on. And that's part of the different disinformation campaign that's trying to be

...