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Joe Biden: Helping or Hurting?; Is It Time to Revisit the Death Penalty?; Is It Wrong for a State to Embrace Pot Tourism?

Aired February 20, 2013 - 10:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our new half-hour show, "Talk Back": three hot topics, great guests, your comments on top.

Vice President Joe Biden gives unique advice about guns in an online forum. Abolishing the death penalty is our second topic. And a state embracing pot tourism.

Playing with us today: Michaelangelo Signorile, Sirius XM radio host; Patricia Murphy, founder and editor of Citizen Jane Politics; and John Avlon, a CNN Contributor and senior political columnist for "Newsweek" and "The Daily Beast"; and Ross Douthat, CNN contributor and op-ed columnist for "The New York Times". Welcome to all of you.

PATRICIA MURPHY, FOUNDER AND EDITOR CITIZEN JANE POLITICS: Hi Carol.

JOHN AVLON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Hi Carol.

COSTELLO: I'm glad you're all here. First question today: "Is Joe Biden helping or hurting President Obama's gun control efforts?"

Uncle Joe, there he goes again talking about guns in a way that might make gun rights folks roll their eyes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She asks do you believe that banning certain weapons and high capacity magazines will mean that law abiding citizens will then become more of a target to criminals as we will have no way to sufficiently protect ourselves?

JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Is this parent -- is this "Parents Magazine"?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is.

BIDEN: I have "Parents Magazine" in my home and I have never heard anybody in "Parents Magazine" ask these kinds of questions. If you want to protect yourself, get a double barrel shotgun. As I told my wife, we live in an area that's wooded and somewhat secluded. I said, "Jill, if there's ever a problem, just walk out on the balcony here, walk out, put that double barrel shotgun and fire two blasts outside the house."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Just make sure you don't hit anything unless you mean it. Oddly, the Vice President said these things in an online chat sponsored by "Parents Magazine". Wasn't it just last month Biden was dispensing this sage advice in the case of a natural disaster?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: A shotgun will keep you a lot safer. A double barrel shotgun than an assault weapon in somebody's hands who doesn't know how to use it, or even one who doesn't know how to use it. You know it's harder to use an assault weapon and hit something than it is a shotgun.

OK, so you want to keep people in an earthquake. Buy some shotgun shells.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: That earthquake thing just confused me. President Obama obviously, though, has confidence in Joe Biden. He put Biden in charge of his gun control tasks force and Biden has tried. He's unveiled a series of proposals that may or may not pass Congress. And he's certainly furthered the discussion.

Still, when Biden becomes Uncle Joe, does any of it matter?

Question: "Is Joe Biden helping or hurting Obama's gun control efforts?"

Ross?

ROSS DOUTHAT, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well this is -- this is the shtick, right? I mean, I don't think there's -- we talk about this as if it's Joe Biden going off the reservation or something. But this is the role Joe Biden is supposed to play in the White House. The President gets up and sort of acts very cerebral and high minded and tells you that 17 different studies show that his positions are correct and then Biden goes out and says, "God love you, just buy a shotgun".

You know, whether -- whether it's helping or hurting I don't know but I think it -- I think the White House. I don't think anybody in the White House is losing sleep over this strategy. I think this is sort of -- this is strategy at works.

COSTELLO: Well, Michaelangelo, some might say this is smart because Joe Biden is no longer talking about gun control but gun safety education, and he's embracing the shotgun in an apparent show that he's actually -- he just loves guns, just not certain kinds of guns.

MICHAELANGELO SIGNORILE, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Yes, look, the administration is trying to reach gun owners and gun advocates, people who are responsible gun owners. I talk to them all the time every day on my radio program. They agree largely with the administration's proposals. They want to hear more and -- and he's relating to them and saying, look, you can have a gun, you can protect yourself, you can go hunting. We're just talking about the kinds of guns that will allow people who are unstable to easily get guns and shoot a lot of people.

COSTELLO: Yes, but Patricia, when Joe Biden says things, oh, a shotgun will keep you safe in an earthquake, doesn't that make gun rights advocate kind of like roll their eyes and say oh he just reinforced everything we think of when we think of liberals with guns?

MURPHY: Well, you know, nobody has ever accused Joe Biden of being the most elegant messenger of any particular message that the White House is trying to roll out. But I actually think in this case he's helping the cause, and I think that's because he's giving a third way to think about guns when we're in the middle of this debate, and there is one side with the NRA that is saying this administration wants to take away your guns -- that is literally their message to their members.

Not a lot of their members really believe that, but they're looking for a way to agree with some of these more modest restrictions that the administration is try to propose. There's another side of the gun debate that wants obviously to restrict guns almost entirely particularly from on a state by state basis and in certain cities.

So I think that Joe Biden is actually giving us a third way to think about this and there needs to be a third way in this debate. Again, it's just Joe Biden being Joe Biden, but that's not always a bad thing.

COSTELLO: I think, John, maybe the next step -- Joe Biden will appear with a shotgun and fire it off in the air.

AVLON: I think that would be awesome.

COSTELLO: Oh geez.

AVLON: I think he should do that sooner rather than later. I mean, look, Joe Biden is a secret weapon for this administration for all the reasons pointed out. You know, so often in this debate we dumb it down and we demonize disagreements and we ignore the kind of commonsense way folks use guns.

People use guns differently in rural and urban areas. And what Joe Biden is talking about in this earthquake scenario or a zombie apocalypse scenario is self-defense. So the reality that shotguns will be just as effective, or may be more effective as an assault weapon, which has a high capacity for misuse and really has very little functional purpose other to kill as many people as quickly as possible.

So Joe Biden is doing a real service here by talking real to people and breaking through the stereotypes that only confuse the debates.

COSTELLO: Go ahead.

DOUTHAT: I mean, all that I'd say is that the political calculation, I think as everybody has said, is that the administration is trying to isolate the small number of Americans who own so-called assault -- assault weapons from the much larger number of Americans who might think about buying a shotgun in case of the zombie apocalypse.

The problem with that from a policy perspective is that a vanishingly small number of Americans own assault rifles, and if you're actually trying to do something about gun violence, in the past sort of assault weapons ban have been -- the last one we had was fairly ineffective, precisely because they are just a small fraction of, you know, of the pool of guns. Most gun crimes are committed with hand guns. Most mass gun crimes are committed -- you know there's a -- there's a wide variety of guns used.

So the politics -- the politics are effective. I think the policy is a little more dubious than maybe John is giving credit for.

AVLON: But as I think Ross would acknowledge, I mean, to some extent this ground is laid out by Justice Scalia in the Heller decision. Where he said, look, the Second Amendment has reasonable restrictions applied to it. It doesn't mean people have a right to own whatsoever gun and where ever they want at all times. And so this is really just a way of moving that ball forward to make people realize that that --

DOUTHAT: Yes.

AVLON: -- that argument that the Obama administration is coming for your guns, the fear mongering, is fundamentally false.

DOUTHAT: Yes.

COSTELLO: All right, we'll see what our Facebook friends have to say about this.

The question, again: "Is Joe Biden helping or hurting President Obama's gun control efforts?"

This from David, "Has Joe Biden ever helped anything? He helped himself to a British politician speech once. That's all I can recall."

This from Gladys, "I believe in our President's judgment, Carol, if the Vice President was not capable and able to help, he would not have been assigned to do the job."

Keep the conversation going Facebook.com/CarolCNN or tweet me @CarolCNN.

Next up, "Is it time we abolish the death penalty in America?"

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: "Talk Back": "Is it time to revisit the death penalty?"

With his death only a half-hour away, Warren Lee Hill, a twice convicted killer was granted a stay of execution. Hill shot his girlfriend 11 times and bludgeoned a fellow inmate to death, but he has an IQ of 70. To his lawyer, that makes all the difference.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BRIAN KAMMER, WARREN HILL'S ATTORNEY: There's now no dispute amongst any of the experts who have evaluated Mr. Hill over the last 22 years that he is mentally retarded.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: And as the Supreme Court has ruled, America must not execute mentally disabled people. Americans appear conflicted on the death penalty although a majority still favor it. The number of executions has gone way down since the 1990s, from 98 executions in 1980, or 1999 rather, to just 43 in 2011, many juries preferring to impose life without parole.

One reason perhaps in the past 40 years more than 140 people have been freed from death row with evidence of their innocence.

So the question this morning: "Is it time to revisit the death penalty?" Michaelangelo?

SIGNORILE: You know, this case is another example of how science and technology are showing us more and more how imprecise this kind of a decision is to kill somebody, put them to death, based on a verdict, based on some imprecise measure.

Obviously DNA evidence has done a lot in showing a lot of people have been innocent of crimes. but in this case. the doctors who didn't believe that Warren Hill was mentally retarded ten years ago, because of new science, because of new technology and new ways of measuring it, changed their opinion now.

Georgia has this law that says that, you know, you have to be very precise about how you decide somebody is mentally retarded, and it's very hard to meet their standard. These doctors changed their minds. The court did the right thing. I think we are getting as a society further and further to a point where we are going to abolish the death penalty.

COSTELLO: Well, this is a particularly difficult case, Patricia, and it's because, I mean, this man might have an IQ of 70 but he did hold a job, he served in the Navy, and he knew enough to kill a cellmate with an improvised weapon. So you can see why it's been such a difficult decision for the courts, right?

MURPHY: You can, and that's the problem with these death penalty cases, though, is that -- we were talking about some imprecise and now more precise ways to measure this, but there is also the emotion on the other side.

But I have to say that the emotion of having a man be on death row and nearly executed with 30 minutes left before you examine some of these issues is the wrong way to do it. It is so cruel to the families of the victims and it's cruel to the families of the people who are on death row. It does feel like we need a moratorium to just put a stop to everybody on death row marching toward an execution to start to examine these issues. This is not the first time that Georgia has thought about these issues, but how can you let it go until 30 minutes before a man is set to be killed? There were also questions about the legal injection process, there are questions about DNA evidence -- not in this case but in other cases. It feels like each state needs a moratorium to deal with this tough issues before you get so close to an execution.

COSTELLO: And John, Patricia may be right because juries seem loath to impose the death penalties these days.

AVLON: And that's a step towards being responsible with the ultimate power. You know, look, the Innocence Project, which uses DNA evidence to release people wrongly convicted, has released 18 people on death row, overturned those convictions because of new DNA evidence. That's 18 people too many.

I do think that the death penalty debates we've had in the past have raged. And while I think that penalty is probably for the psyche of a free society, it is important to impose in certain extraordinary circumstances but I think we need to be very judicious. And jumping in 30 minutes before an execution in 2013 is inexcusable. It is cruel and unusual.

COSTELLO: And I think -- I think (INAUDIBLE) is difficult because I used to cover courts, and when you sit in a courtroom and you hear testimony from these terrible evil people and there are evil people, you change your minds about the death penalty, and it's not so simple to say it's never right to kill anyone.

DOUTHAT: I think the difficulty with the death penalty is there are cases where to many people it feels unjust not to impose it. So if you have an absolute moratorium, then you are going to end up with a number of cases where life without parole feels like an insufficient sentence. It feels like there are cases where the penalty that the killer has to pay to society should be greater than that.

So I think you could argue that the overall trend is a positive one, right, that we as a society - obviously, we don't want to be doing it 30 minutes before the execution, but the trend of juries being warier about imposing the penalty, DNA evidence factoring in more and so on. That's a good trend. But as long as the United States remains a society where these things are decided democratically, there is going to be strong resistance, reasonably so, to outlaw the death penalty altogether.

COSTELLO: OK. We want to check in with Facebook friends. "Is it time to revisit the death penalty?"

This from Corey, "No, we need the death penalty not as a deterrent to crime but it's the ultimate punishment for horrible crimes. That's called justice, Carol."

This from Jason, "I think it time to revisit the death penalty. I don't trust federal or state government to dispense justice at all."

Keep the conversation going. Facebook.com/CarolCNN or tweet me @CarolCNN.

Next up, "Is it wrong for a state to embrace pot tourism?"

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Our last "Talk Back" question: "Is it wrong for a state to embrace pot tourism?"

We now have a new word you could add to your vocabulary; it's called "smurfing". No, it does not involve body surfing little blue people, as in the Smurfs. Smufing means going from legal pot shop to legal pot shop in Colorado for the purpose of accumulating marijuana to sell on the black market. Got that? That's a big no-no.

Legalizing recreational marijuana is one thing, but Colorado is coming up with these rules and regulations so that it can encourage people to come to Colorado to experience pot. They want pot tourism. The question for you this morning, is it right to encourage such a thing? You know, to embrace the Rocky Mountain High and mean it in a whole different way?

Who should I start with today? I think I'll start with Ross, not that you look like a pot smoker or anything.

DOUTHAT: Of course, no, you would never accuse me of that. I think that what we're seeing -- I mean, this is just federalism at work. We had this casino gambling where the only states that really had casino gambling were New Jersey with Atlantic City and Nevada was Las Vegas. And both have embraced gambling tourism. I mean, there's no question that both states were relying on the fact that they were outliers to draw people there.

So, if you are Colorado, you know, if you are one of the other states that have followed suit or will follow suit, I think it's pretty much inevitable. And I think in a way, you know, it does give us an opportunity to sort of see how this plays out. Right, I mean I'm skeptical of the merits of legalizing marijuana, but I think it will be useful in term of our debate to see what happens in Colorado, just as it's been useful to look at, for instance, the Dutch experience with legalizing prostitution to be able to say maybe we don't actually want to do that.

COSTELLO: Well, you know, I tend to think of the city of Detroit because it's on the verge of bankruptcy, right, which is sad. It doesn't have a tax base or anything, so maybe it should think about pot and urban farming already. There's plenty of land in the city of Detroit - John, you're shaking your head.

(CROSSTALK)

AVLON: I like the whole plan for Detroit's future, pot plan for Detroit's future. Look, this is a laboratory of democracy issue. States can innovate and then see what happens to their economies and what unintended consequences occur. I think you may see other states if there's a big tax revenue boost, which was part of the argument made by advocates embracing the same thing. Look, at the end of the day, some people will visit Colorado to buy pot, but there are a lot of other reasons to visit such a beautiful state and the vast majority of going to have nothing to do with pot.

COSTELLO: See, Michaelangelo, John says some people. But I'm thinking a lot people will do it.

SIGNORILE: Yes, I think there will be a lot of going there for sure. I do think that it is going to push other states to move in this direction, not just because of the revenue issue, but you're going to have a lot of issues with people going to Colorado, buying marijuana. I know the smurfing -- you can't buy too much and whatever -- but if your friend is a Colorado resident, the resident can get it. People can bring it home. You're going to have a lot of issues with people going back home, having marijuana. We're going to have a lot of ridiculous waste on arrests of people. I think other states are going to say, you know what, we're wasting a lot of money, Colorado is doing it, let's do it too. I think we're going to see this grow.

COSTELLO: I actually agree with Michaelangelo, Patricia. I think that this is just the first of many states who will say, "Let's just embrace it. If we can't fight it, let's embrace it. Let's make money off of it."

MURPHY: Well, left unsaid is that it's still a federal crime to sell marijuana. It just happens to be a federal crime that the (INAUDIBLE) is not prosecuting. They have told their agents we have a lot of other battles to fight, don't bother with the pot people.

And so I think, yes, we're going to start to see more and more states try and bring those into the sunlight at least regulation and legalization. If you know people are selling pot in your state, hello, it's Colorado. You can start to make revenue of it and you can bring it out into legal society and have regulations. There are regulations about how much you have to grow within your facility. They have inspectors. There is a way to make it as safe and legal as possible if it's going to be used anyway.

There is something kind of wrong in my mind. You know, Colorado from the beautiful mountains and skiing and the Denver Broncos and John Elway -- now truly it's only known for pot.

COSTELLO: What?

AVLON: Libertarian in action. Let's see what happens.

COSTELLO: OK. Well, you wouldn't have buttoned it up. Ross, I mean is there something wrong? Should Colorado be really fortunate?

DOUBTHAT: All I would say is that what you want in this system is the ability to have the laboratories of democracy, so to speak, do their work, but you also want to be able to walk things back. I think that's the difficulty that we have. We run experiments and they don't work, but then we aren't able to walk them back.

So I think for Coloradoans the important thing is see how this works, see what it means to have legal marijuana in your state. Don't be afraid to take a step back five years from now. There has to be some sort of somewhere in somewhere. I couldn't come up with it, I'm sorry.

COSTELLO: Well, actually, Patricia, you brought up the best point. Colorado doesn't entirely have its act together when it comes to the laws on the books regarding marijuana and how they are going to enforce them.

MURPHY: I think they do have their act together. I mean, they are one of the few states that does have their act together. You can sell it for this reason. And have to be going this way, we're going to have inspectors come look at it Every other state is just looking the other way and I think about Colorado actually is getting their arms around it.

COSTELLO: OK. So Michaelangelo.

SIGNORILE: Don't forget that we have Washington State as well, you have medical marijuana in a variety of other states, too. It is moving in that direction for sure.

COSTELLO: All right. Let's see what our Facebook friends say - first, I want to thank my guests, Michaelangelo Signorile, Sirius XM radio host; Patricia Murphy, founder and editor of Citizen Jane Politics and "Daily Beast" contributor; and John Avlon, CNN contributor and senior political columnist for Newsweek and the "Daily Beast"; and Ross Doubthat, CNN contributor and op-ed columnist for "The New York Times". I'm out of breath.

Thank you all for participating today. I appreciate it.

MURPHY: Thanks, Carol.

DOUTHAT: Thank you.

COSTELLO: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Checking our top stories now. A close call in Savannah, Georgia, the airport, as a Delta plane slides off the runway and ends up in the grass. Airport officials say the pilot apparently overcorrected. Passengers are OK. They safely exited the plane and were taken to the airport terminal on buses.

Jeep's Twitter account has been restored. Hackers had put a Cadillac logo and a description reading "Sold to Cadillac". The hacking appears to have been done by the same group who took over Burger King's Twitter account on Monday.

And remember this?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pardon me, would you have any Grey Poupon? (END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Get ready for this. Grey Poupon is re-launching its iconic "Pardon Me" ad to try to boost lagging sales in competition with other mustards. The new ad features a car chase, explosions and gets a prime time debut during this Sunday's Oscars.

I'm Carol Costello, thank you so much for joining me today.

CNN NEWSROOM continues right now with John Berman.