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Three Dead in Las Vegas Strip Shooting Crash; Who's to Blame for Forced Spending Cuts?; Are Gay Rights the Same as Civil Rights?

Aired February 21, 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 talk show "Talk Back", hot topics, great guests and your comments. On tap, we're asking, "Who's to blame for forced spending cuts in Washington?" And "Are gay rights the same as civil rights?"

But first we must talk about what's going on in Las Vegas right now.

I just talked to the Las Vegas Police Department and it's unbelievable. Discussing things with us today: Maria Cardona, a CNN contributor and Democratic strategist; Roland Martin, our CNN political analyst; Rich Galen, a Republican strategist; and Amy Kremer, Tea Party Express chairwoman. Thanks to all of you for joining us.

Before we begin our discussion, I'd like to talk a little bit more about what's happening in Las Vegas right now. Las Vegas Boulevard remains closed down because of a rolling shoot out earlier this morning. It all started around 4:20 a.m. Las Vegas time.

Apparently some men in a black Range Rover sports vehicle began shooting at a Maserati. This apparently started in front of a casino and then both cars proceeded to drive down Las Vegas Boulevard. The people in the black Range Rover shooting into the Maserati. Now other cars were involved in this mess. And we understand that the -- the driver of the Maserati has been killed.

During the course of this rolling shootout, somebody ran into a taxi. That taxi exploded into flames. Two people were killed, the taxi driver and the passenger in that car. So Las Vegas police have confirmed that three people are dead.

The men responsible for the shooting in this black Range Rover are still at large. They escaped, so police are asking for your help in finding this vehicle. Let's listen to -- WKLAS, our affiliate out in Las Vegas, the chopper reporter. Because he describes what went down extremely well.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MALE REPORTER: Just unbelievable here as we continue to kind of piece together exactly what happened. And obviously metro police they're continuing to trying to kind of piece things together themselves, but once again, our live pictures here from Chopper Eight showing you the horrific nature, the fiery end to this horrible accident involving a Maserati and another unnamed vehicle that was actually shooting at the Maserati in exchange of gun fire.

Once again, as we were mentioning, the passenger of that Maserati was shot and killed right before the car actually crashed. There is the Maserati right here on northbound Las Vegas Boulevard, just slightly north of Flamingo. There is the taxi cab that caught fire and literally exploded upon impact, killing two people inside that vehicle, and then we have numerous other cars involving two more in the intersection and then a pickup truck actually just outside the shot.

I'm going to pull out real quick here and show you the closure parameter here over at Interstate 15. This is going to be I-15 and that's where traffic is just starting to back up as everybody has to be diverted on to literally the northbound I-15. Whether you like it or not, this is going to be your detour. Northbound I-15, use Harmon, use Tropicana, use Spring Mount or the DI super arterial to avoid this area. It will be shut down probably at least until about noon today if not later. Guys?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Yes, he's right about that, because Las Vegas Boulevard still closed today. And I just want to talk about this because, you know, we see this kind of thing go down in Hollywood movies, and this is -- this is real life. This is what really happens, people actually die in these kinds of incidents. You know, when people shoot guns at of cars and cars explode, people die. And it happened in such a popular area, because I'm sure all of you have been to Valley's or the Bellagio and that's where this terrible thing ended.

So I guess, I just want to get your thoughts on this -- more evidence of gun violence in our nation, Roland.

ROLAND MARTIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, this speaks to exactly what I've always said with this ridiculous debate we're having. It's one dimensional. And so what we're dealing with now is folks, you have anger issues, you have folks of conflict resolution, and so whether or not you're talking about on the strip in Las Vegas or you're talking about in New Orleans, in Chicago, stand your ground was happening in Florida, the guy at the gas station, the music is too loud.

We have an epidemic in this country of Americans who choose to resolve conflicts with a gun. That to me is a fundamental problem we have, and passing a law is not going to solve that.

COSTELLO: And Rich, Vice President Joe Biden is in Connecticut right now. He's talking about gun control measures that the President wants to put into place. At the same time, the NRA has bought a number of ads in newspapers across the country attacking Democratic lawmakers who support gun control measures. It seem like we're all talking around the problem and yet real life just keeps on happening.

RICH GALEN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, I mean, I agree with what Roland said. I'm not -- we have no idea what happened in this case. So I mean, we cannot -- we can't make much reference if these guys didn't have guns, who knows what the -- what the precipitated cause was and they might have you know run them into a light stand. Who knows what would have happened if they didn't have guns?

But I think it is -- it is important to note that while almost all of the gun violence happens with handguns, the conversation seems to be centered largely around long guns, especially semi-automatic weapons, and that's rarely the case. It happens now and again, obviously, and it did in Connecticut.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: Well, I do -- I do think.

GALEN: But in this kind of incidents it's almost always a handgun.

COSTELLO: I do think we're having a surface discussion about guns in the country, there's no depth to it. So I do agree with you. We're not getting at the underlying problem. Maria.

MARIA CARDONA, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, I completely agree. Look, we have to look at this in a much more comprehensive and holistic manner. And I agree with Roland we have to look at how we as a society are dealing with conflict resolution.

But I also believe that part of that conflict resolution is engraved in so many Americans' brains that they can do this with guns, and the reason they believe they can do this with guns is because so many people who should not have access to guns have access to guns. People who are crazy, people who are mentally imbalanced, people who are just evil and criminal.

And I do think that while the proposals that are in Congress right now in terms of background checks or even the assault weapons ban is not going to solve everything, it can start to get to one part of the problem which is trying to make sure that these guns are kept out of the hands of people who should not have them.

And I think the more this happens, the more this kind of discussion is going to take place, and the more we have to deal with the reality.

COSTELLO: And Amy, I know that the NRA wants to take guns out of the equation, but these crimes are perpetrated with guns. How can you take guns completely out of the equation and say it's about everything else but not guns?

AMY KREMER, CHAIRWOMAN, TEA PARTY EXPRESS: Well, Carol, I think the keyword there is crime. These people are criminals that are committing these acts, the majority of them, and criminals are going to get guns no matter what laws you pass. You know, the Newtown shooting happened with him going and stealing guns, those guns didn't belong to him.

But you know, you can pass all the laws you want, but you look at the violence we see in video games, in movies, it's all around us. We do need to have a deeper discussion about it. But passing a law is not going to solve this problem.

MARTIN: Hey Carol - Carol, we also need to expand this. We can't just say well, it's -- here's what happens, this is the false narrative. Well ,the people who are doing it they are criminals. Talk about what happens when you have domestic violence situations, talk about what happens when somebody bumps into somebody else, all of a sudden you disrespect me, I pull a gun out.

All of these cases are not just about a question of crime. What I'm trying to say it goes so much deeper to that. It is somehow deeply embedded in the psyche of Americans when it comes to the love affair with guns, why we have to have them, why we need them. And so that's why I've just been so angry with this discussion since Newtown, because it has been so one dimensional and folks are unafraid for some reason to connect Newtown with Chicago to Florida to New Orleans to other cities, and say how do we address what is an epidemic in America, not just a law.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: And again -- just an update for our viewers about what -- hold on, folks. Just an update about what's happened in Las Vegas, the rolling shootout on Las Vegas Boulevard. Police confirmed three people are dead, and the shooter who was driving a black Range Rover sport is still at large somewhere.

But you can see the aftermath of this rolling shootout down Las Vegas Boulevard. That shooter in this black Range Rover sport shooting into a Maserati, the Maserati driver is dead. There were ensuing traffic accidents, a taxi exploded into flames, the taxi driver and the passenger dead.

After a quick break, we'll talk about our next question, "Who's to blame for forced spending cuts in Washington?" We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: "Talk Back": "Who's to blame for forced spending cuts?" You know, sequestration. It is exhausting. Imagine playing the blame game day after day after day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: I'm not really willing to discuss it in the framework that he's made up himself. I mean, for goodness sakes, it was his proposal. He proposed the sequester. It was his idea. He signed it into law and now he's going to tell us that oh it's our fault.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: "He" as in President Obama, but does Senator Paul realized that according to "The Atlantic", the Senate has not passed major legislation in 952 days? Allow me to let that sink in; 952 days of nothing much. Seriously. Who really cares who's to blame? In eight days, if Congress doesn't act, $1.2 trillion worth of spending cuts will begin and, according to the Congressional Budget Office, if that happens, 750,000 jobs will be lost over the next seven months and the economy will slow again, and won't that be fun?

As for the President, he's sitting down with local news anchors to urge Congress to act while his men continue to play that exhausting blame game.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAN PFEIFFER, SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA: We can't do anything without the House Republicans doing something. And their view is these cuts should happen. They have made a political decision that these automatic cuts should go into effect, which means that there are Americans working today who will lose their jobs. That's a choice they're making.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Whatever, just do something. So the "Talk Back" question today: "Who's to blame for forced spending cuts?" You know, as in sequestration.

And I'm going to Amy Kremer first, because as you know, some people would blame the Tea Party for this, what do you say?

KREMER: No, Carol. It's not -- you can't blame the Tea Party. I think there's enough blame to go around. As Senator Paul said, it did originate with the President and the White House, but guess what; the House and the Senate both agreed to it and passed it.

The bottom line is contrary to what everybody believes. The Tea Party Movement knows that the spending started under President Bush and it has accelerated over the past four or five years. Our government is out of control and we have to rein in the spending.

And what is horrible is that the Department of Defense and all these departments knew this was coming and they did nothing about it. They sat back and thought Washington will figure it out at the last hour.

Well, you know what; it's $85 billion. When you're overspending $1.6 trillion a year, let the cuts happen. It's not even really cutting. All it does is slows the rate of growth. We have got to rein in the spending. It's our biggest threat to national security.

MARTIN: Amy, where are the Tea Party rallies on Capitol Hill, then? Are Tea Party folks mobilizing across the country like they were during the first term of the President?

First of all, I agree with you. I don't believe defense somehow should be off the table, but the question is, is the Tea Party, are they rallying in Virginia? Are they rallying in these states where these defense jobs are? Don't just say it on television, mobilize your people to say to Republicans in Congress they can have them.

KREMER: That's the whole thing.

MARTIN: Make it happen.

KREMER: The media doesn't cover us the way they used to because we're no longer out in the streets. We're engaging, it's 2.0, and we're lobbying our officials in every way that we can. We're actively engaged.

MARTIN: Take to the streets.

KREMER: What's that?

MARTIN: Take it to the streets. The media is going to cover you when you take it to the streets.

KREMER: Roland, you know what, having a rally, all it does is give a visual for the media to show. That's not really effecting change. The real change happens outside of a rally.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: Maria, Amy has a point. She has a point, right?

CARDONA: Yes -- yes. So I agree with a lot of what Amy said, except for House Republicans didn't just agree to it, Speaker Boehner is on the record with a Power Point talking about sequestration, about how he wants to use it to get what he wants out of this administration.

And we have a poll out today, a "USA Today"/Pew Research poll out today that says that if the spending cuts go through and middle class families who will be the ones most devastated by this start feeling this, 50 percent of Americans will blame Republicans; less than a third will blame this President.

And that is the quandary that Republicans find themselves in. And also, in that same poll and we've seen it again and again and again, majorities of Americans agree with the way this President wants to approach the debt and the deficit issue, and that is in a balanced way.

Yes, we need spending cuts and yes, we need to reduce all of the government spending that Amy is talking about. But we can't just do it by cutting. Majorities of Americans agree that the richest Americans still need to put more revenue on the table and that's why this President is focused on that.

COSTELLO: What I'm wondering through all of this, Rich, is why we're still arguing over the same thing. Like, should it be balanced, shouldn't, you know, we raise taxes or -- she would just do -- like we've been arguing about this for like, what? Five years now?

GALEN: Probably for 270 years, since 1789. I wrote a column about this the other day and I got a lot of thoughtful responses from readers of Mullings about how this was going to affect them individually. And they were very -- individual people are going to be harmed by this. It's nice to be able to sit back and think lofty thoughts, but the fact is that almost everybody -- almost everybody gets something from the federal government in terms of services that cost money or money that costs money. And members of Congress and the President and everybody and the people that receive it are all to blame because nobody wants to give up on whatever thing is most crucial to them in their lives.

(CROSSTALK)

GALEN: But I do know that we're not going to get out of this without everybody saying, OK, here's what I'll throw into the pot. Let's see what you got.

COSTELLO: Well, I'll keep all my digits crossed.

All right. What are our Facebook friends saying about this? Guys, I got to go to our friends, now.

This from Ariel, "Tea Party Republicans are blame. If all these workers are laid off and fired how do we make up for those lost income taxes and sales taxes without their income." Come on now.

This from Jim, "Sequestration was Obama's idea so he could get out of budget talks and go on the campaign trail."

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

Next "Talk Back" question: "Are gay rights civil rights?"

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: "Talk Back" question: "Are gay rights the same as civil rights?" It's a controversy that's intensified with this brand new ad from the Respect for Marriage Coalition promoting same-sex marriage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't want to be told we can't marry the person we love. That's why a growing majority of Americans believe it's time to allow marriage for gay and lesbian couples.

LAURA BUSH, FORMER FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: When couples are committed they ought to have the same rights that everyone has.

COLIN POWELL, FORMER U.S. STATE SECRETARY: Allowing them to live together under the protection of law seems to me is the way we should be moving in this country.

DICK CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Freedom means freedom for everyone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: That montage of prominent Republicans giving clout to what some see as a liberal agenda. But hold on, Laura Bush now asking to be removed from the ad, saying the group never got her permission. It just shows how sensitive this topic is.

And although President Obama linked Selma and the civil rights march to gay rights in his inaugural speech, others are uncomfortable with that. Like a Birmingham City Councilwoman Lashunda Scales. According to the "Birmingham News", Scales felt a display about lesbian families at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute was inappropriate saying, quote, "Homosexuality is a choice. I didn't choose to be black. I came here black. That's the difference. I know there's a difference between a choice and being black."

Scales later wrote that her statement was taken out of context. She does not condone mistreatment of any group and that to minimize one kind of struggle for another is not wise.

But the question remains, are gay rights, the same as civil rights. L.Z. Granderson, our CNN contributor, is joining us now because L.Z., you've written extensively on this issue. So I'll ask you the question, are gay rights the same as civil rights?

L.Z. GRANDERSON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Absolutely. I think that people sometimes get it confused. I don't think that it's equal to the civil rights movement. I think there are different movements. But this idea of what are civil rights isn't something born in the USA. We've been discussing did this -- the modernized world has been discussing what exactly civil rights for many, many years.

In fact in Britain, Catholics who were fighting for their civil right because they were discriminated against legally in Great Britain. So this notion of what is civil right is not just U.S. it's not just types with the civil rights movement.

COSTELLO: Roland, do you agree?

MARTIN: I think the question is wrong. It's not the question -- is gay rights civil rights -- is the gay rights movement the same as the black civil rights movement? That is the distinction. So we have African-Americans and Jim Crowe who couldn't vote, who couldn't stay in restaurants, but if you were white and gay, you could.

Now, look at folks with disabilities. That was determined as a portion taken from the Civil Rights Act. Women's rights, and became Title Nine comes out of the Civil Rights Act. And so again, a women's movement, a disabilities movement, a gay movement, a black movement, those are different movements, but the umbrella actually comes under civil rights. That's the distinction.

COSTELLO: Some people, Amy, want to say gay rights are human rights, not civil rights, what do you say?

KREMER: You know, Carol, the Tea Party movement we don't get involved in the social issues. If you look back to 2010, when we drove the message about the economy, we won big. When we started going into these social issues in 2012, with the Republican Party driving the messaging, we lost. We need to stick to what affects all of us, and that's the economy.

But the 14th amendment gives all equal rights. So when we're talking about gay marriage and the other issues, the federal government doesn't need to be involved in that decision. That -- gay marriage and marriage in general need to be something that is the church decides. The government shouldn't be involved in this.

But at the end of the day, that's why the 10th amendment is there, to put it back in states' rights. No one has a constitutional right to marriage. We're all created equal under the 14th amendment.

COSTELLO: OK, L.Z., the beginning part of the Amy's answer and you were smiling, why?

GRANDERSON: Well, only because once the Tea Party got into power, we saw a significant spike in the number pieces of legislation dealing with abortion, which is a social issue. So I don't think necessarily it's all about the money. I think there's definitely a tie in with social issues as well.

And as far as the statement she made about the church being the decider, you know, there are people who don't go to church and don't believe in God and they're able to marry. It's not just about the church, whether to grant you the ability to get married. The marriage is a legal, binding document that binds together possessions and binds together finances. It's a contract. And so that's not something that the church actually hands out. It's what the government -- so, yes, the government should be involved in that conversation.

COSTELLO: OK, I wish we could talk about this more but sadly we're out of time. So I want to thank my guests, Maria Cardona, Roland Martin, L.Z. Granderson, Rich Galen and Amy Kremer. Thank you so much for being with me.

CARDONA: Thanks, Carol.

KREMER: Thanks for having us.

COSTELLO: Thank you so much for being here. I do want to get to our Facebook friends to see what they think about this question: "Are gay rights civil rights?"

This from Christopher, "Marriage is a civil right. Just because the African-American community had a civil rights movement it doesn't mean that they now own the term 'civil rights'."

This from Diana, "As an African-American woman, I'm offended that they're considered the same."

Please continue the conversation, Facebook.com/CarolCNN or tweet me @CarolCNN. Thank you so much for joining me today.

CNN NEWSROOM continues right now with Christine Romans.

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