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At This Hour

News of Brown Blood in Car Not Going Over Well in Ferguson; Critics: Ron Klain a Mistake as Ebola Czar; Monica Lewinsky Joins Twitter; CNN's Kate Bolduan Discovers Her Roots

Aired October 20, 2014 - 11:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: New revelations about the shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown. "The New York Times" is reporting FBI forensic tests reveal that Brown's blood was found in Officer Darren Wilson's police cruiser and on his gun and on his uniform.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: These findings could back up Officer Wilson's account of the story that Brown tried to grab his gun during that incident in August.

The news is not going over well with everyone in Ferguson, Missouri. Some activists say the information was leaked to the "Times" in an effort to justify Brown's killing and convince the grand jury not to file charges against Officer Wilson.

Our Sara Sidner joins us now from Ferguson.

We know this is his first account. We've been waiting to hear his side of the story. I'm curious to hear how that news is being received in that community.

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what's interesting here is this is the first time we're hearing about forensic evidence from a federal source, according to "The New York Times." However, it's not the first time that we've heard his side of the story because during the first week, this is the story police basically put out to the media and the population and they sort of went through. So this isn't the first time protesters have heard this story. However, it is the first time they're hearing about forensic evidence. And here's where the dispute is -- everyone agrees that something happened at the police car, that something went down, whether there was a struggle or not. What is different here is who the aggressor was. The police say the aggressor was Michael Brown who tried to go for Officer Wilson's gun and that's what we've been hearing from Officer Wilson in this case. But the other witnesses there and the friend of Michael Brown's, Dorian Johnson, has said repeatedly that actually the aggressor was Officer Wilson who rammed his door into them, who opened the door and hit them and then they turned around and reacted. So there's a lot of discrepancy between what we're hearing from those who are close to Michael Brown and from the police.

But certainly this has heightened things here in Ferguson. People very worried about what is going to happen. Both people hoping there's going to be indictment and others hoping there is not going to be an indictment. Certainly it's brought out more crowds in the evening when the protests tend to get bigger -- Michaela?

BERMAN: Sara, help me understand the forensic evidence and why it would help one side or another?

SIDNER: Well, look, if the forensic evidence -- forensic evidence tends not to lie, right? Witness testimony tends to be all over the place. A lot of times with witness testimony there are differences in what people saw, there are differences in what people say. So the forensic evidence is going to be very key to this case -- John?

BERMAN: All right, Sara Sidner for us in Ferguson, thanks so much, appreciate you being with us.

Ahead for us @THISHOUR, he has not yet even started and already his critics say his appointment was a mistake. We're talking about the Ebola czar. Is this politics? Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ, (R), TEXAS: We don't need another White House political operative, which is what Mr. Klain has been. What we need is presidential leadership. The person who needs to be on top of this is the president of the United States, standing up and leading and treating it as a public health emergency.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: The new Ebola czar, Ron Klain, gets to work and that's how he's being greeted by some people in Washington. There are some critics like Senator Ted Cruz who say President Obama should have picked someone with medical experience or public health experience.

PEREIRA: He doesn't want to be called a czar. He wants to be called an Ebola response coordinator.

BERMAN: Good luck with that.

PEREIRA: Yeah. The White House said they didn't want an Ebola expert, they wanted an implementation expert.

Joining us, CNN political commentator, Sally Kohn; and Doug Heye, who served as deputy chief of staff to former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

I was thinking about this, Sally. He hasn't unloaded his briefcase --

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: -- and already the haters going to hate. Is this really that much of a surprise that no matter what choice --

(LAUGHTER)

SALLY KOHN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: With less than three weeks to the election, no, it's not a surprise at all.

PEREIRA: Even beyond that. Whatever the president chooses there will always be somebody who says "wait, this was too political."

KOHN: Let's put this in context. Republicans introduced a bill to ban Obama from appointing czars. They thought he was appointing too many of them. Then suddenly, when he's not appointing a czar around Ebola, they're clamoring for a czar. It is, again, the symptom of "he's darned if he does and darned if he doesn't" and, boy, do I wish I could use stronger language for that on air.

(LAUGHTER)

PEREIRA: Not here, not now.

DOUG HEYE, FORMER DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF FOR ERIC CANTOR: Clearly he's being an implementation expert, but really being a political expert. And this is a political problem for the president and he's acting politically. Nobody questions Ron Klain's qualifications for this, but the president wants him to do? He wants him to act politically because he's down in the polls and in key Senate races like my home state in North Carolina. This is a political problem and people hear he's not a doctor and he's political, those aren't great terms for American voters.

BERMAN: There's politics with a big "P" and a small "P." There's politics that deal with campaigns then there's the politics of Washington and what goes on inside government. You've been inside government. Doesn't it help sometimes to have a guy who knows how to operate and knows how to get things done? There are plenty of doctors around.

HEYE: Sure. But you know we were talking before the show. There are ways you can do both. I think a great pick would have been former Senator Bill Frist, who has a lot of experience in health care obviously but also health care in Africa, and how hospitals work and don't work. And no Republican and probably no Democrat would have criticized a pick like this. But this is purely a critical inside pick because the president has a political inside problem.

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: Go ahead.

KOHN: Well, look, I think he picked someone who's an implementation expert. If he picked on someone who was going to overrule the doctors on the ground, Republicans would have criticized him for that. It's a bait-and-switch thing. The larger problem here is we need -- this is a public health issue. It is not a crisis. More people have been successfully treated in this country than not and we haven't had any new outbreaks since we've been stepping up care.

But what's important here is this is being constantly politicized. We need to make decisions about trusting the doctors, trusting our public health experts, and not constantly second guessing everything and gaming it up for politics, which is all that's happening. That's dangerous.

PEREIRA: Real quick, just because we can, you know, let's talk about the Twitter sphere.

BERMAN: The newest member of Twitter.

PEREIRA: Did you hear the newest news with the Twitter handle? Monica Lewinsky?

HEYE: When I saw she logged on Twitter for the first time, she had a thousand followers. I checked 10 minutes ago, she 10,000. She's growing faster than Ebola and is probably more of a threat to the Republicans. I welcome her.

(LAUGHTER)

KOHN: Wow.

(CROSSTALK)

KOHN: That is the best Monica Lewinsky on Twitter joke you'll hear all day. And if you didn't think it was a lowest common denominator form, Twitter, now we will prove it.

BERMAN: Does it matter politically at all? It we've heard from her already in "Vanity Fair," she's going to be out there in public. Does it make a difference?

KOHN: I think it will be interesting to see how she engages, in truth. People know, anyone, any public figure out there speaking their mind on Twitter knows the kind of hate and vitriol they get. It's especially true for women. What is she going to do with it? We'll see.

BERMAN: Doug Heye, sally Kohn, great to have you with us.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: We have a big political moment coming up on CNN tomorrow night. Jake Tapper will moderate a debate at 7:00 between Florida's current Governor Rick Scott and former Governor Charlie Crist. Sometimes these debates get interesting in a battle about things like fans but Jake is so icy cool, no fans.

(LAUGHTER)

PEREIRA: We've learned a lot about him recently in our "Roots" special, which is a perfect time to tell you that we have another special coming up after the break. Who am I? Where did I come from? Finding out my family history has been a challenge for me. But CNN gave all of us here a chance to discover our roots. Ahead, what our colleague, Kate Bolduan, discovered about her family.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: We've been sent on the coolest assignment. For the past week, several of us here at CNN have been sharing our journeys to discover our works.

BERMAN: And today we have "New Day" co-anchor, Kate Bolduan, who traces her roots to the land of palm trees to Belgium. This is her story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CO-ANCHOR, NEW DAY: I know nothing about my family. I'm sure my grandmothers will be horrified when I say that, but I literally wrote so many different stories about where my family came from, when they came over. It seems more important, actually, now having these answers and being able to fill out that family tree now that we're about to start our family.

So to start the search through my family tree I sat down with ancestry.com historian, Michelle Erkenbrock.

MICHELLE ERKENBROCK, HISTORIAN, ANCESTRY.COM: We're going to talk about your grandmother's mother on your mom's side.

BOLDUAN: OK, my grandmother's --

ERKENBROCK: Yes, she was the first generation to come into America from Belgium.

BOLDUAN: Felicie Rusill Flood (ph) died in 1981, just two years before I was born.

This is Felicie Flood, 5585 Ottawa River -- I think that's my grandmother's address.

ERKENBROCK: Are you serious?

BOLDUAN: Is my grandmother living at my great grandmother's home?

Wow. That's amazing. First line of this I've already learned so much.

ERKENBROCK: The next thing we'll look at is her father's name was Leon. And he came over in 1912. So the date on 1912. So the date on this document is February 1912.

BOLDUAN: There he is, right there in the manifest.

ERKENBROCK: Yes.

BOLDUAN: This is the vessel that they came over?

ERKENBROCK: Yes. And this is the picture.

BOLDUAN: And he was 28 when he did that?

ERKENBROCK: Yes.

BOLDUAN: With just that start of my family tree in hand, we, of course, had to take the journey overseas, 3700 miles to Liege, Belgium, where my great, great grandfather and great, great grandmother lived before leaving everything behind for America.

Thanks so much. I'm very excited to get started.

First stop, the Liege state archives where this historian, Elon von Weinberge (ph), found everything from marriage records to baptismal records dating farther back than I could have ever imagined.

ELON VON WEINBERGE (ph), HISTORIAN: I will show you another tree that I made for you. I will show you this.

BOLDUAN: Are you knocking my iPad tree?

VON WEINBERGE (ph): No.

(LAUGHTER)

This is Felicie born in 1910.

BOLDUAN: That is my great grandmother?

VON WEINBERGE (ph): Yes. And it goes from left to right, young to old.

BOLDUAN: Oh, my goodness. Really?

VON WEINBERGE (ph): Yes. This is the oldest one.

BOLDUAN: He died in 1625 --

VON WEINBERGE (ph): 1625. And he had a son in 1596.

BOLDUAN: I know you've told me this but it's still amazing.

My oldest-known relative baptized in 1596.

That's two greats, three greats, four greats, five greats, six greats, seven greats, eight greats.

VON WEINBERGE (ph): Eight. Yeah.

BOLDUAN: Before landing in Belgium, I also discovered what my ancestors did for a living.

ERKENBROCK: Can you make out the occupation?

BOLDUAN: Oh, wow. It does say he was a glass blower.

ERKENBROCK: So he left behind his wife and is headed to Columbus, Ohio.

BOLDUAN: And they even found a street where the family was known to have lived.

So we came to this street. It still exists. And you've already made my connection.

VON WEINBERGE (ph): Yes. And a well-known family living there, the house next to the pharmacy, and there was a famous glass factory. It was up the stairs, 50 meters away.

BOLDUAN: The house right next to the pharmacy?

VON WEINBERGE (ph): Yes. And number 26 is where they were living and the glass factory was on a small street up there.

BOLDUAN: Let's have a look.

And with a little more investigating, we learned that the glass factory was only recently closed and torn down.

VON WEINBERGE (ph): Ten years ago, the factory was still here.

BOLDUAN: We've been able to see where my family is, we've been able to see where my family lived, maybe the street that they lived on and the factory that they worked in.

The biggest lingering question, though, is what was behind the huge decision, after so many generations, to take that leap of faith, get on these ships and travel all the way across the ocean to start a new life in America?

So we headed north to Antwerp.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the start of the Trans Atlantic voyage.

BOLDUAN: The very beginning I guess.

Lucifer Hand (ph) showed me the place from where my ancestors set sail on the Red Star line.

How much would a ticket cost?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In money today, between 500 and 100,000 Euros. For a one-way ticket in third class. So that corresponded to 65 days of work for a factory worker like your family.

BOLDUAN: A huge commitment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

BOLDUAN: I knew my great, great grandfather, Leon, traveled to America in February 1912 but there's more.

ERKENBROCK: In April of that same year, the "Titanic" sank.

BOLDUAN: April of that same year?

ERKENBROCK: Yes. A few months after, one of the most catastrophic, nautical events in our history still to this day, Leon puts his pregnant wife and 2-year-old daughter on the boat.

BOLDUAN: You stop it right now. I'm mad at Leon right now.

(LAUGHTER)

I can't imagine.

ERKENBROCK: They are right here.

BOLDUAN: I mean, I can't even imagine if I wasn't pregnant right now what that would be like.

One of the big questions that I've had as I come here, why did people want to go to America? So they headed to Antwerp.

There's not one reason. Everyone went for a certain reason. I think the main reason is that they were all looking for a better picture, trying to build a better life.

BOLDUAN: I think that's what I'm learning is that's what they were trying to do, to begin that American dream. And it all began right here.

I had no idea what our family went through to get on the boat even before they started the voyage. It makes me proud. It's a humbling experience and it makes me really, really proud to call them my family.

Having learned more than I ever thought possible, I left Belgium to continue following my family's trip to America, eventually taking me to Ohio and the Toledo Museum of Art to try my hand at the family business of glass blowing, the profession that we believe is what brought my family to America in the first place.

Let's do a red mix or pink mix and I'll make it for my baby.

Glass technician, Mike Stevens, walked me through the not-so-easy task of making a simple glass flower.

You're working immediately with it.

MIKE STEVENS, GLASS TECHNICIAN: Yes. This is called a punti. This is stainless steel.

BOLDUAN: Punti?

STEVENS: Punti, P-U-N-T-I.

BOLDUAN: OK.

STEVENS: It's a stainless steel rod. You hold it -- perfect. Are you sure you haven't done this before?

(LAUGHTER)

This furnace is 2,150 degrees. BOLDUAN: 2,150 degrees? That's hot. Oh, my gosh, that is so

unbelievably hot.

STEVENS: Every movement you make as an effect on the glass.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. I cannot believe I'm playing with glass like this.

And just minutes later --

STEVENS: There it is.

BOLDUAN: Oh, my gosh, I could do this all day. This is really fun.

After following their lives from Belgium all the way to Ohio, I finally got to meet my great, great grandparents, laid to rest here at St. Joseph's cemetery outside Columbus.

She should be right over here. There she is, Louise Labhaye. It's nice to meet her after this long journey with a 2-year-old and six months pregnant.

Now let's find my great, great grandfather. Leon, 1885 to 1947. This is really, really cool to finally meet them. That's about all you can say.

And since I was in Ohio, there was one last stop hi to make.

Hi, grandma.

GRANDMOTHER OF KATE BOLDUAN: Good morning.

BOLDUAN: To tell my mom and grandmother everything that I had uncovered.

Let me show you this family tree. They put this together for me in Belgium and this blew my mind how far back they could read for us.

MOTHER OF KATE BOLDUAN: Oh, my gosh.

BOLDUAN: All the way back to 1625.

MOTHER OF KATE BOLDUAN: 1625?

GRANDMOTHER OF KATE BOLDUAN: 1625?

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

And my grandmother knew her grandfather, Leon, was a glass blower.

GRANDMOTHER OF KATE BOLDUAN: This is your grandfather -- your great, grandfather blowing glass.

BOLDUAN: Really?

GRANDMOTHER OF KATE BOLDUAN: Yep. There it is. BOLDUAN: It looks like out of a movie set. They stand on these

pedestals.

GRANDMOTHER OF KATE BOLDUAN: He did. He wore a circle in his teeth. He had to have them pulled. So he got false teeth and he would take them out and put them in his pocket.

(LAUGHTER)

BOLDUAN: Are you serious?

And it turns out my great grandmother, Felicie, who sailed to the United States when she was 2 years old was just as strong of a woman as I had hoped.

What was she like?

GRANDMOTHER OF KATE BOLDUAN: Every one of them that knew her adored her.

BOLDUAN: There wasn't anything that she didn't think she could concur?

GRANDMOTHER OF KATE BOLDUAN: No.

BOLDUAN: She was like wonder woman and worked full time until she retired?

GRANDMOTHER OF KATE BOLDUAN: Yeah.

BOLDUAN: I love this photo.

It's a family trait I hope to pass on to my own daughter.

Gertrudes? That could be on the baby name list.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PEREIRA: She looks like her great, great grandmother. So beautiful. We should point out, as you expected, Kate is expanding her own family roots.

BERMAN: She's planning "Roots the Sequels." She had a baby Celia Eve and they started by on "New Day" today and she was simply gorgeous.

PEREIRA: Maybe she'll learn how to be a glass blower.

BERMAN: I think it's inevitable. I think it's in the genes.

PEREIRA: Don't forget to watch with special presentation Tuesday night, 9:00 p.m. eastern that I'll be hosting along with Anderson Cooper, all of the amazing journeys our CNN anchors have learned about their ancestors and, of course, about themselves.

BERMAN: It will be a chance to see all of them at once. Tweet us if you like mine the best.

PEREIRA: See what happened there? It's a competition.

BERMAN: It's not a competition but hopefully you'll like mine best.

PEREIRA: That's it for us @THISHOUR. I'm Michaela Pereira.

PEREIRA: And I'm John Berman.

"LEGAL VIEW" with Ashleigh Banfield starts right now.