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American Morning

Political High Stakes; Riots Rage on

Aired November 08, 2005 - 08:31   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Look at that shot. That's beautiful. See the globe there. This is our view out of our cafeteria. Not joking.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It's an apparition of some kind, a ghostly glow there.

S. O'BRIEN: It's Pretty.

M. O'BRIEN: What is that? Or is that just a reflection of a fluorescent light? I'm not sure which.

S. O'BRIEN: Oh, for God's sake, fluorescent, whatever. I was trying to say it's a lovely day. Thank you for making it technical.

M. O'BRIEN: Did I ruin your fun again. I'm so sorry.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: I think he needs more coffee.

M. O'BRIEN: I do.

S. O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. What's going on?

M. O'BRIEN: It's good to have you back.

S. O'BRIEN: Election Day. Are you going to vote?

M. O'BRIEN: Sorry. Not registered yet.

S. O'BRIEN: Right, because you're new.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, so...

S. O'BRIEN: You should get that together.

M. O'BRIEN: I don't think my vote would have much to do with the impact on how that mayoral election is going to go here in New York, you know. It's just not a one vote contest, is it?

S. O'BRIEN: Bloomberg was winning until Miles voted, and then the whole thing swung the opposite direction. Obviously, there is lots at stake. And believe it or not, lots of it at stake for President Bush. The president is clearly keeping track of a number of races, and that's because they could hint at the future of the Republican Party.

AMERICAN MORNING's Kelly Wallace is following that story for us this morning. She's in the newsroom.

Hey, Kelly, good morning.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad. You're exactly right. You know, Republicans and Democrats will be watching these results very, very closely, to see if there's any impact of the president's declining popularity, and what this could all mean for elections next year in 2006. In Virginia, you have a very, very close, between the Democratic Lieutenant Governor Tim Kaine, and also the Republican candidate Jerry Kilgore, who is the state's former attorney general, this race very tight. So Kilgore brought in President Bush last night for some last-minute get-out-the-vote help. And the significance here is Kilgore did not appear with President Bush at an event in the state last month, a move that was seen as perhaps Kilgore thinking he needed to distance himself a bit from President Bush's problems.

But this election-eve visit by the President means that the president could get some of the credit or the blame for what happens in a state that went Republican in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. The other gubernatorial race, governor's race, to focus on, New Jersey, and this has been a nasty one. This one between two multimillionaires, Democratic candidate Senator Jon Corzine, and the Republican Doug Forrester. Also President Bush in a way a factor in this race. Corzine has at least tried to make him a factor, in advertisements linking Forrester to President Bush.

Right, the polls, again, showing it very close. Corzine with a slight lead. Soledad, though, this is a Democratic state, a Democratic stronghold, so if Corzine loses this one, doesn't eke out a victory, it will be seen as a big upset.

S. O'BRIEN: Boy, and a race that has gotten really, really ugly. Let's talk about Governor Schwarzenegger in California. He's not on the ballot, he's not up for re-election, but he's got these four ballot initiatives that people will vote on. And let's say they don't pass, what does that indicate for his future?

WALLACE: Well, it's a big political test, and it could mean a stinging defeat for him, because, Soledad, He's been pushing for this special election that's going cost the state, I believe, something like $50 million, and a lot of people are saying, is this money well spent? Some of these initiatives running from things like restricting state spending to converging issues such as redistricting, and also the issue of union dues. Could public issue of union dues. Could public unions with public employees use their dues for political campaigns without their consent?

Right now, Soledad, the ballot initiatives appear to be trailing, and so if Schwarzenegger loses these, this comes on top of sagging approval ratings, declining popularity, and people now openly questioning whether this man, this man who kind of sailed to the political sunset, you can say, could actually win re-election next year.

S. O'BRIEN: Politics in California can be very, very ugly, which I guess is true around the nation. We'll see how it ends up today, won't we?

WALLACE: Yes, we will.

S. O'BRIEN: We'll talk about it tomorrow. Thanks, Kelly.

WALLACE: Sure.

(NEWSBREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT)

M. O'BRIEN: A warning to Americans traveling in France: Stay alert. The warning comes as rioting and arson rage on all throughout the country, spills over the borders a little bit, too. Nearly 1,200 cars burned overnight in France, and now the government is giving local officials permission to impose curfews.

Marie Brenner is a writer-at-large for "Vanity Fair." for Years she's been writing about racial and religious troubles in France. She joins us now.

Marie, good to have you with us. You say this is a watershed moment. Explain what you mean.

MARIE BRENNER, WRITER-AT-LARGE, "VANITY FAIR"": Well, the story seems to be coming out of nowhere for the American audience but this is a clear case of idle hands make the devil's workshop.

France is at a historic moment right now because in these suburbs where these violence is occurring, you have a population that is furious. They haven't been able to get jobs. The percentages are 60 percent in some places.

M. O'BRIEN: 60 percent unemployment?

BRENNER: Among the men. And the French have had a long-standing history of willful blindness to the problems in their areas. And many people are very concerned.

M. O'BRIEN: Is this at all analogous to what we saw in this country in the '50s and the '60s, the civil rights movement and the riots, ultimately?

BRENNER: It's closer in -- and I think it takes the shape of the Los Angeles riots. That you have an angry, angry population. When you visit these projects in Grenie (ph) or Argentile (ph), it's extraordinary. You feel you are not in France. You feel that you are in a wholly other country. They are of France, but not in it. And it's years -- in fact, the French even have a term. They call them "out there." They call these areas "out there."

M. O'BRIEN: And these are places in many cases where it's reported police don't even go? Is that true?

BRENNER: They call them the zones of no entry, and there are over 50 of them in France. The police are terrified to go in. And the French have not ever instituted politics of community policing as we have in America, or they have in Germany, to deal with these problems. So that they won't even go in, or they'll send in a commando presence.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, let's connect that to what we face here in the war on terror. Moussaoui (ph), the so-called 20th hijacker.

BRENNER: Who's a product of those areas.

M. O'BRIEN: A product of these very areas. So you don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand that this would sort of create anti-American and a Islamist kind of view of the world that could lead to terror?

BRENNER: And it's in the very nature of the difference between the French system and the American system. America is a messy democracy. We are a melting pot. The French liberty, equality, fraternity has to do with everyone being equal. So there is no affirmative action. There has been no effective strategy to assimilate this population into the French working middle class.

M. O'BRIEN: And not only is the strategy perhaps flawed, but the short-term tactics have been questionable or perhaps inconsistent. The interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, kind of played the bad cop in all this. Has called them scum and louts and rabble. They should all be cleaned off with powerhoses. All kinds of -- you know, the kind of rhetoric which really inflames passion. Do you think that's inappropriate at this time?

BRENNER: He's had a lot of criticism in France. He's the law and order minister, and he's very, very ambitious. Now the French government has closed ranks behind him. But there was absolute -- he -- there are many people in France who believe that he made the riots worse by this heavy-handed commando approach. Again, it's a failure to understand a community. They are French citizens, second generation.

M. O'BRIEN: Is this going to spread across Europe?

BRENNER: That is the fear. All of France is holding its breath right now, and I would venture to say Europe, as well.

M. O'BRIEN: Marie Brenner is with "Vanity Fair." She writes at length about these issues. Thank you for your time.

BRENNER: Thank you for having me.

M. O'BRIEN: Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Ahead this morning, we told you about taser cam on Monday. Well, will tasers be any safer if a camera records just what the gun's pointing out? We'll take a look at that, coming up next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Welcome, everybody.

You'll remember yesterday, we told you about the taser cam. This is a little addition you can clip onto the back of the taser and roll tape to see exactly what your taser is pointing at. Will it make the taser any safer?

Tom Smith is the co-founder and the CEO of Taser, joining us this morning with a little demo. You're scaring me, because you're holding your taser, I know, sort of perfectly off to the side...

TOM SMITH, CO-FOUNDER/CEO, TASER: Not loaded.

S. O'BRIEN: Good. Glad. Very glad to hear that. Why did you feel the need to put a camera on the back of the taser?

SMITH: Well, we've always been about accountability. Every time pulls the trigger, records the date and time. And this is kind of the next level, so that people have started to question how or when or where it's being used. So now you're actually going to get video so the command staff and the community can see what that individual was doing right before they get tasered.

S. O'BRIEN: So it's a direct response to some of the criticism you've gotten. Because, I mean, as you well know, there have been children who have been tasered because of behavioral issues sometimes. I think there was a 14-year-old boy went into cardiac arrest in Chicago. Is this sort of a direct response to those stories coming out and concerns about safety?

SMITH: Well, it certainly is a response to that. It's, again, for people that have questioned this device. It's going to now give them the ability to see what that person was doing. Because unfortunately, the stories don't always match between the suspect and the officer. And I think it's going to answer a lot of questions. I don't know necessarily will address safety, but we will address accountability in its use.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, this yellow taser you have, you've outfitted it with a camera. Can you show me how the camera works?

SMITH: Sure, it mounts into the bottom of the device, which one of the nice features is that every system that we have out there is retro-fittable to this. And it simply snaps into the bottom of the unit and then it has a built-in infrared system with a video camera and it records both audio as well as video.

S. O'BRIEN: So this is where, like, the camera is right there.

SMITH: That's correct. It's mounted right in front.

S. O'BRIEN: Now this is cabled and hooked to your computer, only for the purposes of your demonstration?

SMITH: Correct. Just so we could get live streaming video. But it will up -- over an hour of video any time it's used, or turned on. So you don't even have to pull the trigger. S. O'BRIEN: Oh. So just turning it on is enough to activate the video?

SMITH: That's correct.

S. O'BRIEN: Can you override it? I mean, because, you know -- for example, as you know, in police officers cars now there's a camera mounted so you can sort of see what happened in any kind of altercation or scenario. Has to be pointed the right direction, obviously. And sometimes you can override it. Is that possible to do?

SMITH: Well, if you didn't download it. Let's say you use it and then you record another hour of film, it will obviously overlay it.

S. O'BRIEN: You can't shut it off while you're using your taser?

SMITH: No. Because otherwise the device is not going to work. So you will record what it's pointing at, which is the whole intent. You will see the suspect, you will see them get hit, and it will be recording while the device is running.

S. O'BRIEN: You know, the taser hurts. I mean, we've got some pictures of Rick Sanchez. I didn't want to taser anybody today. Not my thing. But we've got some pictures of Rick Sanchez, our colleague here at CNN. Let's listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: ... about to receive 50,000 volts of electricity. Do it.

Oh, god! Oh! It hurts!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

S. O'BRIEN: I'm sorry. It's kind of -- well. Aye, aye, aye, it hurts! I mean, obviously, it hurts. Are you trying to protect the victim there, the Rick Sanchez there? Are you trying to protect the police officers by having this available?

SMITH: Both. We're saving lives and reducing injuries, because as you can see, you can do it from a distance. You don't have to put yourself in harm's way. So that's how, if you look at where it's being used in major cities, we're reducing injuries to suspects by 50 percent, officers by 70 percent, and we're saving lives. Just yesterday, used in San Jose to save three hostages.

S. O'BRIEN: I know that they're selling the mini-taser -- we did a story on that the other day -- for consumer use, like stick it in your handbag if you so wanted. Is that going to have a camera, too, or no?

SMITH: It will. Again, it's retro-fittable. And we've been out there with a citizen version for 11 years. Again, that's how we really got started, was trying to provide an alternative for somebody to defend themselves.

S. O'BRIEN: Your stock is struggling a little bit. I don't have to tell the CEO. Do you think this will turn things around for you? Do you think this is exactly what people want in a taser as opposed to just having some the problems that the tasers had.

SMITH: I think it's one piece to the puzzle. I know that we're every going to have one point in time where we'll say that was it. You know, we still have safety concerns. We still have activists groups. We still have education for the communities for people to understand this. I mean, we've revolutionized the way law enforcement is done, both domestically and internationally, and unfortunately sometimes revolution takes time for people to understand it, but this is certainly a step in the right direction.

S. O'BRIEN: Thomas Smith is the CEO and cofounder of Taser. Thank you for coming in and showing it to us and not tasering anybody.

SMITH: Thank you for having me.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's get right back to Miles.

It was going to be me.

And with that in mind, can we see Rick Sanchez one more time?

SMITH: No, we cannot. I'll show you at the break.

M. O'BRIEN: We can't do it one more quickly.

S. O'BRIEN: Aye yi yi, he said -- it hurts.

M. O'BRIEN: They don't have it.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, well, we'll show it to you later, just for your entertainment.

All right, still to come on the program, is your car a magnet for thieves? Andy has the list of America' most stolen cars. He's "Minding Your Business," next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: You know, this is one of those claims you don't see in the ads too often -- the most stolen car of 2005.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Well, in a way, it would be a good thing. I mean, it would show that people really like your vehicle.

M. O'BRIEN: Oh, it's a hot car! It's so hot, it becomes hot!

SERWER: So hot, it's stolen. Every 25 seconds, did you know that, a car is stolen in the United States. That's 1.24 million. "Gone in 60 Seconds," is the movie, Nicolas Cage. It's actually down a little bit from last year. We're going to go from the bottom to the top of the most-stolen cars in America last year.

You can see here a lot of Japanese vehicles here, and a lot of older models. These have locks that aren't as good as some of the newer models. This is kind of what You can see there. Six out of 10 are foreign cars. And we're counting up to number one, which is the 1995 Honda Civic.

M. O'BRIEN: A 10-year-old civic?

SERWER: Honda Civic.

M. O'BRIEN: I'm sorry, that's a lame thief.

SERWER: You thought it was going to be a Corvette? You thought it was going to be cool?

M. O'BRIEN: A Lamborghini, an Escalade.

SERWER: Well, it probably something doesn't have the most sophisticated lock. There are a lot of them out there. People like Honda Civics. They last a long time.

M. O'BRIEN: And thieves are feeling the pinch at the pump, too.

SERWER: Yes, they're thinking mileage, very good point. Yes, I don't see any Yukons on here. You're safe, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: No, the Yukon XL, I'm safe. Park it anywhere. Please, take it, please.

SERWER: No one's going to take that.

I want to do another car story here, and this involves Lamborghini as a matter of fact. How hot is the Chinese market and how upscale is it going? Well, get this, Lamborghini is opening up a showroom in Shanghai. There they are putting the sign up. These cars go for $330,000. There is a young lady getting out of the Murcielago after going to a test ride. She looks delighted. Hey, that's a beautiful vehicle there. They're models there. Yes, they're surrounding the car with models, presumably to help sell them, but you need a lot of cash to buy one of those.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, if you get the car, you get the models, isn't that how it goes?

SERWER: I don't think so.

M. O'BRIEN: So it is presumed.

SERWER: I don't know what kind of mileage these things get, and I don't know how often they're stolen, but you know, I guess they're going to sell a bunch of them.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, it's no Honda Civic, we know that.

SERWER: True. It costs about $300,000 more, doesn't it? M. O'BRIEN: About 30 Civics, 40 Civics. All right, thank you very much, Andy Serwer.

SERWER: You're welcome.

M. O'BRIEN: Always a pleasure -- Soledad.

SERWER: Likewise.

S. O'BRIEN: You saw that picture, you can't get out of that gracefully.

SERWER: The Murcielago?

S. O'BRIEN: Soledad, you could do it. I bet you could do it, Soledad!

(CROSSTALK)

S. O'BRIEN: This is as good as it gets. She's got the knees together. I'm in a skirt, and they're taking a picture. It's just not -- that's why she is laughing about that, you realize. It has nothing to do with the car. It's like, oh, my God, am I flashing the world?

SERWER: She says, how am I going to pay for this?

S. O'BRIEN: That's her second thought.

SERWER: Yes, right.

S. O'BRIEN: A short break. Coming up this morning, much more on breaking news out of Iraq. A lawyer for one of Saddam Hussein's co- defendants has been killed in an ambush. We're going to bring you a live report from Baghdad just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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