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Don Lemon Tonight

Alleged Audio Recording Surfaces Of Moment Michael Brown Was Shot; Orlando Jones Take On Ice Bucket Challenge Links To Ferguson Shooting; Does Obama Administration Have Strategy To Deal With ISIS?

Aired August 26, 2014 - 23:00   ET

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


DON LEMON, CNN HOST: This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon. It's 11:00 p.m. on the East Coast and 9:00 p.m. out West.

I want to tell you what is going on here. It is a tape that could break the case wide open. So I want you to listen to this. Again, closely. Are these the gunshots that killed Michael Brown? Captured in the background of a video chat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are pretty. You're so fine. Just going over some of your videos. How could I forget?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Plus, is race the root of the problem in Ferguson and in America? Sure we have a black president. But what has really changed? Do we have a white privilege problem?

And a shocking story to tell you about that I just reported, a 9-year- old girl with an Uzi accidentally kills her instructor at a shooting range. We're going get into all that tonight.

But we're going again with the audio that allegedly captures the gunshots that ended Michael Brown's life. CNN cannot independently verify the authenticity of the tape and has asked the FBI for a confirmation of their interview with the man who made the recordings.

And I want to bring in now Ben Crump. I want to get his reaction. He is an attorney for the family.

Ben, thank you for joining us this evening. What do you think, if this is indeed the video, what do you make of this video? How does this change or help or hurt your case?

BENJAMIN CRUMP, MICHAEL BROWN'S FAMILY ATTORNEY: Well, Don, I think it's consistent with what the witness have reported to have happen in the tragedy that claimed the life of Michael Brown that afternoon. They talked about it being multiple gunshots, and they talked about he stopped and then put his hands up. But then the officer kept shooting.

So I think this is very consistent with all the witness testimony that we have to date. We are still waiting to get the statement from the police officer. They still haven't given us anything officially, you know. They went and they released still photographs in the video from what happened, allegedly in this convenience store. But they still have not given the family any information about what the police officer version is, why he executed their son in broad daylight.

LEMON: OK, Ben. I want to play this video again, or the audio and then explain to our viewers what is going on here. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are pretty. You're so fine. Just going over some of your videos. How could I forget?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So a man says he captured the audio while talking to a friend on a chat. And he -- you can hear in that a series of gunshots. And then there is a pause. And then there is more gunfire. Experts are saying the pause is critical. Do you believe that?

CRUMP: I think certainly the pause shows contemplation. You know, when you have a three-second, four-second delay that gives you an opportunity to reflect on what you're going do. And so based on the witness accounts, he stopped, he turned around a, put his hands up. And then the officer just kept shooting.

So, you know, we are going to be able to put all of this information together to come to the truth of what happened on that tragic Saturday afternoon of August 9th that Michael Brown ended up dead on the sidewalk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are pretty. You're so fine. Just going over some of your videos. How could I forget?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: You know the other side is going to say this also corroborates their story that Michael charged the officer.

CRUMP: Don, Don, let me ask you this. You say the other side. Have you seen some evidence? Have you heard -- got some document that we don't have? Because we're waiting. The family is patiently waiting to have the police department release the report. We've been waiting very patiently now. And so, there is all this rumor and innuendo. The only evidence we have thus far is those witness statements that all say that Michael Brown put his hands up to surrender, and the police officers kept shooting. So right now we are speculating. Why don't you and everybody else in the media demand like the family is the police report?

LEMON: Well, Ben, when I say the other side, when I say the other side, I'm talking about remember the initial days when the chief of the Ferguson police department said there was a scuffle and that the officer and Michael Brown were in a scuffle. That's what I'm talking about. There were initial reports from the police department, but then beyond that since the investigation was taken over by St. Louis County, no one has given any statements except for the third party witness which I understand that you're not very happy with, the third party witness -- or not witness, or friend from the radio program.

CRUMP: A witness --

LEMON: It's not a witness. It was friend, right.

CRUMP: A person, a friend of his acquaintance who offered testimony where they say happened. What do you think a friend or an acquaintance of the shooter would say? You know, we have to look at who is offering this and how we're going to put it forward as a reliable source. It would be reliable when the police give us a report.

The thing you have to respect about the witnesses who have come forth so far, they have come forth and put their face and their statements up to the world to say this is me. This is what I saw. And I think that's appropriate because you get them. You get to say are they credible and this kind of thing. Until we have any witness that comes forward to support the police officer's version, then we have to wait for the police officer to give us the report which they have not.

And transparency still is the whole issue here, Don. This is what this is all about. Because the citizens of Ferguson and many people around the country don't trust that the police officer are going to be fair and give the information out fairly. We see the way they've been disseminating the information thus far. They have been extremely painful for Michael Brown's family.

LEMON: Do you believe there could be other recordings out there? We've heard from people they're afraid to come forward because they're afraid of police or that they just don't want to be a part of the media spectacle.

CRUMP: I think there are other witnesses out there, Don. And I think as many of the witnesses have said, they fear the retribution of the local law enforcement authorities once all the cameras go and all the crowds go that they have to live there. And they -- remember, this is a history that is going on, Don. This isn't the first young person of color in those communities that have been killed by the police. And every time they've seen it swept under the rug and the police actions are found to be justified.

So therefore they're waiting to see I believe if it's really going to be different this time. And I think that's why the citizens of Ferguson are crying out and standing up and protesting because they say is it going to be different this time, because we saw this happen in broad daylight with our own eyes. And that's what is different about Michael Brown. A lot of times it was in the dark of night. But this, there were so many people who witnessed this execution of this young man.

LEMON: And that's why I asked you if you thought there would be more out there. Because so far we have this one recording, so far, so far, and it's an alleged reporting. Thank you, Benjamin Crump. We thank you for joining us on CNN.

And to a lot of people it's absolutely clear that the shooting of Michael Brown is about race, and many others would vehemently disagree. I want to know what my next guests think about all of this.

Joining me now is Charles Ogletree Jesse Climenko professor of law at Harvard University. Right now it's just Charles. We'll get the other professor to come in.

So, thank you for coming. I want to talk to you about this. Do you have a reaction to this newly released recording?

CHARLES OGLETREE, JESSE CLIMENKO PROFESSOR OF LAW, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: I do. I think it tells a little bit more about what is going on. And I think all of us have to wait and see if it's really verifiable. I'm not sure that it is. It sounds a little fictitious to me. But I think that the evidence that we have seen that's been produced already about the number of shots fired, the bullets that hit Michael Brown, and what the lawyers who represent him, Ben Crump and Darryl Parks have found out so far. I think this is going to go a long way to having a civil case against the police officer. There should be a criminal case against the police officer. And I think that people will be able to look at when this gun was fired, how often it was fired. And he will at some point tell us what happened and we haven't heard it yet. We haven't heard anything yet. And I think that, Don, we all have to wait for the evidence to come forward. It hasn't come forward yet.

LEMON: I'm sorry for completely butchering your title. It's ban long two weeks here.

OGLETREE: That's fine. I'm fine with the title.

LEMON: At Harvard university. So my apologies when I screw up. I admit it. My apologies.

OGLETREE: Not a problem. Not a problem at all. This is a very serious case.

LEMON: Yes, you have compared the Michael Brown shooting and its aftermath to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and also to the murder of Emmett Till. I mean, such momentous events. Explain that.

OGLETREE: Well, all these have something to do with race. They're black men who are assassinated or killed by white men. And I think that has been in our history for a long time. And I think people aren't ignoring that. The people in Ferguson, Missouri are look agent this very closely and trying to find out what is happening. And I think their understanding that there has been two standards. The black community is the majority in Ferguson. And yet you see police brutality. You see police arrest. You see police people who are talking being victims of the police department. You see people who came out with these militaristic weapons as if they were fighting in Afghanistan or somewhere else.

LEMON: I want to get you to talk more about this. What did you make of the military-style police in the streets facing off?

OGLETREE: It was shocking. Don, let me just tell you, those are things that we thought we were going to have to use after 9/11, when we saw thousands of citizens, Black, White, Brown, male, female die in New York because of the use of these airplanes in killing people. And then the whole idea is that this will never happen again. These weapons, these militaristic devices were designed for wars. And we're not in a war. This is a community that is trying to --

LEMON: But devil's advocate here, the police will say we have to be able to protect ourselves. You have no idea what we're up against. What if a Boston happens or another Boston or a situation like that? What do we do?

OGLETREE: I think that's very understandable. But police across the country have been using weapons that have been very useful in taking down people who are involved in crimes. But the whole idea that you need these tanks, you need these guns, you need these vests, you need to look like you're fighting a war, we don't call that anything that's American. It's just contrary to what everything we believe in.

And I think we have to stop it. We have to make sure that communities, whether the police are black or white or Brown, women, or men, they don't need those kinds of weapons to order control the crime in the city. And I think that's the problem that everybody is seeing wow, here in Ferguson, this community that is overwhelm leg black, has few black police officers. And people are treated differently.

And I think this militaristic effort by the police is what they're given. I'm not blaming the police. I'm blaming the fact that they're getting this power, and it's a scary power that you can't even walk down your neighborhood. You can become a victim just because you're in the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong color, and you happen to be involved with the police.

LEMON: -- in a police state. We're getting a little far afield here as well, because I really want to talk to you about the notion of white privilege. You write about and talk about white privilege. What do you mean by that?

OGLETREE: Well, you know, it's very interesting. The whole idea that our country was designed with white privilege. And the whole idea that we were considered three-fifths of a person in the original declaration deciding how are you are going to treat people. We were not considered people. We were not considered whole people.

And you saw the Jim Crow laws. We couldn't go to restaurants. We couldn't go to hotels. We had to go to colored only drinking faucets as suppose to white only. And people say I wasn't born then. If you were white, you are benefitting from the fact you are white. That's not good, that's not bad.

LEMON: Hold on. When we come back, we're going to talk more that. We are going to continue with this notion of white privilege. We are going to be asking if there is medical evidence of white privilege as well. That we're going get into next. Plus, the tragic story of a 9-year-old girl who accidentally shot her

instructor at a gun range.

And dollars to donuts. Burger King's whopper of a deal for Canada's Tim Horton's, are they betting against America? That's the question.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Welcome back. I want to take a further look at the concept of white privilege in America and how it may even show up in health care. CNN's Jean Casarez has that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When it comes to medical care in this country, are white people better off than blacks? It's a complicated issue, but there is evidence that may be true.

OLUGBENGA G. OGEDEGBE, M.D., NEW YORK UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER: African-Americans have a greater burden of high blood pressure, strokes, diabetes, and kidney disease.

CASAREZ: Doctor Olugbenga Ogedegbe of New York University's Langone Medical Center says there is no genetic reason for these higher rates of disease. So he believes the answer lies elsewhere. The differences are apparent from birth. CDC statistics show black infants die more than twice as often as white infants. According to the CDC, the average white American lives four years longer than the average black American.

OGEDEGBE: If you look at physicians who take care of black patients compared to those who take care of white patients, there is huge difference in how the same provider will provide care for the black patients done for the white patients. And a lot of this has been physician bias. The problem is that it's unconscious. I don't think physicians are conscious of what they're doing. The issue is we need to study why this is so.

CASAREZ: The American Medical Association has numerous programs aiming to address racial disparities in medical care. And according to their Web site, zero tolerance towards racial or cultural disparities in care.

A recent article in VOX (ph) quoted a researcher from John Hopkins who said everyday racism like being snub order treated with suspicion can do real harm to the immune system.

Hypertension, which is your specialty. Where do you see the roots of that issue so that it's more predominant in African-Americans?

OGEDEGBE: If you look at the data, the higher socio-economic status, the lower the rate of blood pressure. People will live in zip codes that are deemed as poor areas tend to have high areas of hypertension regardless of race for that matter. But it turns out there are higher proportions of African Americans in those neighborhoods.

CASAREZ: But the key question for researchers, does it come down to race or like so much else in this country, does it come down to money?

What about an affluent African American?

OGEDEGBE: My explanation and my theory for that is that if you are affluent, you have access to care. If you are affluent, your social network is more (INAUDIBLE).

CASAREZ: Whether it's money or discrimination, causation or correlation, we can't say for sure. But with people's health in the balance, it is worth exploring.

Jean Casarez, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: All right. Let's talk about this now. Joined by Tim Wise, author of color-blind, Christopher Harris, executive director of UnhyphenatedAmerica.org and Professor Charles Ogletree is back with me now.

Chris, let's cut right to the chase. Is white privilege, the so- called white privilege so pervasive that it even comes down to your health, your basic health?

CHRISTOPHER HARRIS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, UNHYPHENATEDAMERICA.ORG: I have to reject that, Mr. Lemon that the whole idea of everything health related being due to white privilege. I can look at my own family. I mean, I come from a military family background. And my family's got excellent care. My father is a cancer survivor. He wouldn't be here today if it weren't for very diligent medical technicians. And I doubt very seriously that they were going to give him lesser care because of the color of his skin.

If anything, it's an economic factor. I was listening to the broadcast before. I mean, I put economics before race in this issue. Like economics comes before race in almost every issue.

LEMON: Tim, you believe a lot of people, particularly white people, are unaware of the day to day ways that they are fortunate to be black. Give us some examples and why do you believe that?

TIM WISE, AUTHOR, COLOR-BLIND: Well, I mean, I can give you literally books worth of example and I have written books on it. I think, you know, some of the most basic and I think we can think of this with regard to what has happened in Ferguson and just generally. To be white generally, and I think of this as a white person is to know that regardless of whether I'm involved in illegal activity, whether I'm shoplifting, whether I have drugs on me, not that I do, by the way. But if I did, knowing that I'm not going to be suspected of being up to no good, of being involved in illegal activity, places like New York where stop and frisk was happening overwhelmingly, black men being stopped, Latino men being stopped even though the vast majority of the stops were for things like suspicion of drug possession, very few people actually had drugs on them, whites were more likely to have drugs on them than blacks. And yet 90 percent of the searches were of black folks, so to know that police will not suspect you. To know you can go into a store and not be expected of shoplifting,

even though most shoplifters are white as supposed to people of color is a psychological advantage. On a day to day base circumstances it isn't always about money. It's about the psychological edge of having one less thing to worry about. It's very similar, by the way, to the way that able-bodied people have one less thing to think about. We don't have to worry about how we're going get in or out of a building the way that a person with a disability would have to think about. And I think that is, you know, this doesn't have to be a frightening topic. It's not about saying all white people are wealthy or affluent or powerful, that was never true. Even under segregation, there were millions of poor whites. But I don't think anyone would have said the fact that there were poor white people, even in the era of slavery, means there was no white privilege. The exceptions don't prove the rule.

LEMON: And Professor Ogletree, Megyn Kelly and Bill O'Reilly had a big argument last night about white privilege and whether or not it's real. What do you believe?

OGLETREE: It is real. And I think that Tim Wise has told the truth about what is happening. And I'm surprised a little bit at Chris. But the reality is that people who have the ability to pay can do better and there is the economic issue as well.

But if you look at health care, you look at education, you look at jobs, you look at housing, all across the board, there is a disparity based on race. And you can't ignore that. You can't pretend it doesn't exist. It happens everywhere, every time and in every kind of way. And I think that we have to deal with it in order to get past it. But we can't get past it unless we understand that people are treated differently. They've always been treated differently.

And it also has something to do with class as well. When you look at the issues of African American with money at Barney's and Macy's, this past year who were stopped by security within the store, who were these black men, they look at their skin first and their cash second. And they had money to pay for everything that they wanted to have there at that store. And I think that it makes a big difference that race still seems to be a line between the opportunities that people have and the opportunities that people don't have. And I think that Tim Wise has written about it, talked about it. And I think that Chris can learn something by reading Tim Wise's book about it.

LEMON: I'm going to let him respond to that but after this. So please stick with me.

Up next, how white and black see racial discrimination very differently.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: We're back here talking about something that makes a lot of people uncomfortable, right? How white and black American differ? And how they see racial discrimination? We're talking about white privilege. So back with me Tim Wise, Christopher Harris and also Professor Charles Ogletree.

So, why does it make so many people uncomfortable to talk about this, Tim?

WISE: Well, I think it's because when we hear the word privilege, we assume that the person talking about that is accusing people of being wealthy, because that's what we associate the word with. And I think that's a mistake. Is material advantage a part of white privilege and male privilege? Yes, of course, it's there. But the real issue like I was saying before is sort of the day to day advantage of knowing you're not going to trigger suspicion, or let's say when you're applying for a job, that you're going to be presumed competent until you prove otherwise.

We have about 10 years of studies, 15 years, which finds for instance, that people have a better chance of getting a job when they remind the interviewer of themselves, and who are the people generally doing the interviews, working in the hr departments? They're disproportionately white. They're disproportionately male. So that ends up giving an advantage, not because those folks are overtly racist, now I want to be clear about that, but because of what we know about subconscious and implicit race advise (ph), which gives whites an advantage even when we are not more qualified.

LEMON: That's tough for some people to hear.

WISE: I understand.

LEMON: Listen, I know as a male, I have privilege, right? I know that as someone who is in the position that I am in now, who happens to have a little pocket change that I'm in a position of privilege. What is so hard -- why is it so hard to admit that?

WISE: Yes. It shouldn't be. And I think that's the point. Any time, look, here is a really important way to think about it. Most every one of us has privilege in some areas. And maybe if we could own that and acknowledge that, we wouldn't have to get so uptight. Like, you know, the reality is white people can be privileged by race, but also disadvantaged because of their economic status or their gender or their sexuality. We're all a mixture of these things. And all I want us to do, and what I think Professor Ogletree would like is for every one of us, regardless of which position we're in where we're dominant to just acknowledge the unfair and unearned advantage so we can work greater equity. It's not about guilt. It's not about beating ourselves up. It's about saying we can do better. But we can't do better until we admit the problem.

LEMON: All right, let's take a look at some of the numbers here. If we take a look at this, this is a 2013 Pew poll asking Americans how much discrimination is there against African-Americans, 88 percent of blacks said there was a lot or some, where 41 percent of whites say at least some discrimination, but only 16 percent said there was a lot. So how do we explain this huge gap here, Chris?

HARRIS: I think that can be explained by just the lack of interaction by people. Let's be honest. People tend to associate with people who are like them. And so, you can be fairly ignorant about what is going on in people who are from different cultures. I mean, how many people -- I mean, here we have three black males and a white male. How many of us can talk about what the culture is in Asians, amongst Asians in America? Or how well can we talk about the culture amongst Hispanics? How often do you interact with people from different ethnicities?

LEMON: I have to say that I do every single day. And the people I work around do every single day. But here is what that means. We're also privileged in that we have a job and the opportunity to do that. Not many people -- not all people have jobs where they work with people from all over the world. And so, just by the fact that you have a job would lend the opportunity to be age to do that. And when you look at unemployment, especially among minorities and among African Americans, you don't always have the opportunity to do that, Professor.

HARRIS: Well, hang on a second. I have to interject and say as a military brat, I grew up in an entirely different environment than most people. I grew up and most of my classmates know I think different than a lot of other classmates, especially being as staunchly conservative as I am. But I grew up with a lot of other people from different ethnicities. I interacted with Black, White, Asian, you know, Polynesian, whatever like that, and guess what, we didn't really focus on that. And so, one of the things I found is the military itself as a community or as an environment that allows people to interact with people from different ethnicities. And what ends up happening more often than not is --

LEMON: But everybody is not in the military.

HARRIS: And everybody is not in military and that's correct. But, I mean, you have an opportunity to interact with other people there are people who live here in Washington, D.C. and they never leave southeast D.C. or whatever like that. There is opportunity to interact with other people.

LEMON: I've got run. I've got run. If you can do it in ten seconds.

WISE: One of the ways that we can get more interaction like what Chris is talking about is if we dealt with the two to three million race-based of housing discrimination every year so they can actually live where they might want to live and not only be able to stay in certain communities which is what housing discrimination and white privilege have brought us. We have a society with less interaction precisely because of that problem which I think all of us would like to see have something done about that.

LEMON: OK. Thank you, guys.

Up next, Orlando Jones, a successful writer, actor and producer, and yet another role garnering him the most attention is his rendition of the ALS ice bucket challenge. This is something you've got to see, Orlando Jones live next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) LEMON: Two-stories have been all over the muse in the last couple weeks. One of course, the unrest in Ferguson after the shooting of Michael Brown. The other videos of people around the world dumping ice water on themselves to spread awareness about ALS. And my next guest found a way to comment on both those stories and really to connect them.

Orlando Jones has made a name for himself in Hollywood as an actor, as a writer and a producer. His ice bucket challenge substitutes bullets for water. So more than two million people have seen it, Orlando Jones joins me now.

You know, I thought it was a brilliant idea, actually, because you were able to connect the two. I think you're bringing awareness of the situation that happened in Ferguson, and to violence in the culture. So this went viral. What message were you trying to send?

ORLANDO JONES, ACTOR, WRITER, PRODUCER: I think mostly that apathy, you know. We've had a lot of deaths. I think 17 kids died in Chicago. So for me, Michael Brown and all these people who are sort of leaving the planet unceremoniously under suspicious circumstances was something that I wanted to talk about. But mostly, that I haven't been outraged enough about those things. So I really kind of wanted to point the finger at myself and say I no longer want to live in a world where these type of things happen. And I wanted to really challenge myself to put my emotions aside and listen without prejudice and try and live without limits and reverse the really hateful situation that I think we see happening around the world and in this country right now today.

LEMON: So with these bullets, I was wonder as I saw you do this, what if these bullets go off.

JONES: I got those bullets from law enforcement, actually. Here in Wilmington, you know, a lot of the police force here, great guys, obviously. We work with them as I play a cop of the show "Sleepy Hollow." So, you know, I told them what I was going do. They thought it was great idea to bring awareness. And they obviously knew I wasn't bringing awareness to them. So they actually got me the 300 or 400 bullets I dumped my head.

LEMON: All right. OK.

Sp you say that you're a lifetime member of the NRA and an active special member of the Louisiana police force. The Ferguson police, you think -- what did you think of the response -- Ferguson police response to the protesters?

JONES: Well, look. Whenever you show up with tanks instead of tasers, you know, you're looking for an altercation. Generally, people show up with a bullhorn when they're looking to have a conversation, not a tank. So you know, having said that, there was looting. And I think these circumstances are always really difficult because emotions are running high. In this case, obviously, there have been cases like Jordan Davis and various other people here and abroad where people are dead and people want justice. But justice does not mean we trample due process. And justice certainly does not mean that we, you know, loot people's businesses and what have you.

So I can certainly understand the police's desire to maintain law and order. But by the same token, I can understand the black community, the community at large, the white community, because I don't think this is about color at all, outraged with yet another young teen being shot and not really having a clear answer as to why.

LEMON: I was just going to ask you. Do you think this is about race or you think it as more about aught authority and a disconnect between the community and the people who are supposed to protect and serve them?

JONES: You know, I'm not sure it's that great. For me personally, I don't think it's a disconnect between the police because there have been stories where police have saved people and they're protecting and serving. Those stories do exist. And people are grateful for them showing up and helping them. But in this particular case, no one knows what happened.

LEMON: Yes. When you save a life, it doesn't get as much attention as when someone takes a life.

I want to talk about the celebrities who have been speaking out about this that we were talking about. John Legend tweeted, he had some angry tweets. He said calling us animals has been the language to justify slavery, Jim Crow and all manner of injustice. Dehumanization and racism go together. Why do you think this struck such a cord, do you think, what happened in Ferguson?

JONES: I think on a lot of different levels. On one, to call that young man a thug without all the facts in the case is inappropriate. But it's also inappropriate to call for the cop's death. He has a family and certainly we do not know exactly what happened. But I think it strikes a chord because it feels like a copycat. We have seen this over and over and over again in multiple cities amount. In many of these cases it's been a young black male who unfortunately lost his life under circumstances that were unclear amount. In many of these case there's was no conviction. And some of these cases in fact people don't even talk about anymore.

So for me it was really about apathy. Because at the end of the day, where are we going to be a month from now? Are we just going to forget about Michael Brown? A year from now, will it no long better the case? We're not talking about a lot of the things that have gone down over the course of the last year. And the cases certainly haven't been resolved.

For me, it's a human rights issue. It always has been. And I think we are really talking about human rights and nothing else. It's certainly not political. And it's unfortunate that there is so much hate and derision around it all, and that we're not truly focused on the fact that someone lost their life. And everyone has a right to life, irrespective of what you think of them or how you feel about them. The right to life is essential.

LEMON: Besides from your fine acting, what I do admire from you is you say it like you mean it, like Wendy Williams says. You really don't hold back. And you got a lot of criticism for, you know, your bullet challenge, because people were -- some people were upset that you were equating the two things, or maybe that you were minimizing what happened in Ferguson. Do you really care about the echo chamber of social media and the criticism there?

JONES: Not at all, and for very specific reasons. I was pointing a finger at myself. And I believed that as a human wants to better himself I have every right to do that and I believe to challenge myself is key.

But let me say something that is really important to me. You know, people politicizing and the hate that sort of has come at me has in some ways been interesting because my entire campaign is about reversing the hate. It's really about finding a way that can have civil discourse so we can find solutions without pointing the finger at each other. To me that's extremely important. And the echo chamber really isn't interested in any of that. I see it as very much an us versus them. Us are the people who want to leave this world better than we found it, and them are the people who are OK with the status quo and spreading hate.

I truly believe that there are more of us than there are of them. And that we can make that change. But having said that, I truly believe the technology is now available to us so that police officers do not have to be in the street with a gun only as their only option when confronting a suspect that might be dangerous or might not be dangerous.

So for me, I think we need to use technology as a way to solve these problems, but we can't do that if we're not talking to each other.

LEMON: Thank you, Mr. Jones.

JONES: Thank you for having me, Don.

LEMON: I appreciate it.

When we come right back here, an American citizen killed for fighting ISIS in Syria. An expert says he was one of only many westerners fighting with the brutal terrorists. What is the White House doing to stop ISIS? We're going to get into that next.

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LEMON: Welcome back. We have new photographs tonight of Douglas McCain, the American citizen who was killed fighting for ISIS. These photos are from McCain's a facebook page. Family friend confirms that they show him.

So joining me now to talk about this, Kevin Madden is a CNN political commentator and executive VP for public affairs at JDA frontline, and also Hillary Rosen, CNN political commentator, and Ryan Lizza, CNN political commentator and a Washington correspondent for "the New Yorker."

It's good to have you on this evening, all of you.

Kevin, is the Obama administration have a strategy on ISIS, or are they just reacting to the events?

KEVIN MADDEN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, it doesn't seem that they do have a plan. I think that's one of the big frustrations that even supporters of President Obama have. You have folks up on Capitol Hill and supporters across the country that haven't really heard from the president what his end plan is when it comes to ISIS. Is it containment or is it elimination?

If it is containment, then we do see some of these strikes that are taking place right now with the existing authority in Iraq. But is that enough? And is it going to keep it from spreading into Syria?

And if it is elimination, can the president make a case that he can do it with airstrikes alone when he has said previously he doesn't believe we need to put American boots on the ground right now. So I think that is what is lacking is this comprehensive effort by the president and members of his administration to let the public know and even supporters and other folks up on Capitol Hill that they have a plan.

LEMON: Hey, Ryan, the phrase often used to describe the administration's foreign policy is leading from behind. You've heard it. First used in a New Yorker article that you wrote. So describe the approach and whether you think it worked.

RYAN LIZZA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, look, that was something that an administration official said about their Libya policy. It was used in one context. It's sort of taken on a life of its own as sort of blanket criticism of the Obama administration.

Look, I think what is going on now is a year ago, the administration was going to bomb Assad, right? And we all know the president was very reluctant to do that and decided not to. Now he is in a position where he might be bombing one of Assad's principle opponents. So it is a very confusing complex situation in Syria.

And you know, I think there are a couple of important questions before we start pushing for more air strikes. One, what is the authority that President Obama has to strike anywhere inside Syria when he was planning on attacking Assad's assets, he was going to go to Congress and ask for that authority. Will he do that if he decides to further escalate things against ISIS?

And number two, one of the principles since 9/11 in our counterterrorism strategy has been we do not allow Al Qaeda-like groups who are a threat to the United States to control territory, right? That was one of the core insights of the 9/11 report. And we've been pretty successful since then in clearing out terrorist havens. Of course, that has completely been reversed now in Iraq and Syria with ISIS, for the first time since 9/11.

LEMON: You know, I don't think I knew until tonight when I started doing research that you were the one that invented that leading from behind, the one that --

LIZZA: Well, I didn't invent it. But I quoted someone from the administration saying it.

LEMON: You coined that phrase.

LIZZA: And it took on a life of its own. If only I could get some, you know, nickel for every time it's been used since then.

LEMON: I'm sure they're saying oh, thank you very much, Ryan Lizza. So Hillary --

LIZZA: They were not happy with that.

LEMON: Hillary, secretary of defense Chuck Hagel has said that the U.S. needs to, quote, get ready if ISIS does present an immediate threat to the United States. I mean, should the administration be looking to contain them or to eliminate them?

HILLARY ROSEN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think what Secretary Hagel said was exactly the thing that we needed to hear, which is that they have started to believe much more directly that ISIS presents a national security threat to the United States, not just to their neighbors, which is, you know, over the last year been kind of the -- some of the conventional wisdom.

And as such, we've seen the president, you know, announced over the last few days. They have sent many more reconnaissance missions. I think the -- their goal has been containment. But, you know, whether or not it's actually possible to eliminate them is really a big question. And I don't think we want the president to come out and announce that his goal is to eliminate ISIS because to do that would raise the very issues that Ryan said. And Kevin raised concerns about, which is you can't necessarily do that with air strikes in those kinds of territories.

There are, you know, a lot of places to be hiding. And too, you have questionable authority from congress. So you know, the president is doing what he can do, which is assessing the threat, minimizing the external problem, and doing containment. How much farther we have to go is a big problem. And I think the decision about where you leave Assad ends up being the final block in this theory, which is if they get rid of Assad, you know, you empower ISIS. If you get rid of is, are you empowering Assad. Those are two tough things.

MADDEN: Just real quick, Don, too, one of the problems here again, this goes back to my earlier comment, there is such a lack of clarity coming from the administration. If you have Chuck Hagel saying that ISIS presents, and other members of the cabinet, by the way, saying that ISIS presents an imminent threat to the national security of America, you can't have containment as your policy. And so many others have said. He has said that and so many others. They said it creates an imminent threat right now. So you can't have containment as a policy.

If you have a threat that is going to be affecting the American people's national interests, you have to eliminate it. And that lack of clarity where the secretary of defense is saying one thing that is much more for boding than the president. We really do have a problem then of making the case to the American people that the actions that we're going to take, that the president may take will be enough.

ROSEN: But here is the problem is that the actions, there are no definitive actions that will be successful. There is no broad scale agreement. Could you go in and put the entire U.S. armed forces, you know, on getting rid of is? Maybe so. But is that what the American people want? Absolutely not.

LEMON: OK.

MADDEN: My main point is to underscore the political challenge.

ROSEN: -- lack of clarity president's fault make no sense.

LEMON: I've got run. I love you all you. Don't have to go home, but you got to get out of here. Thank you, guys. See you later. We'll be right back.

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LEMON: That is it for us tonight. I'm going to see you all here tomorrow night. And right now, Rosemary Church and Errol Bartlett are live. Take it away, guys.