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At This Hour

Police Seek Punishment of NFL Team; Republican Staffer Resigning over Malia, Sasha Comments; UVA President Cancels Speech about Rape Culture; Is Cyber Monday Living Up to Hype?

Aired December 01, 2014 - 11:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Protests over Ferguson have gone all the way to the NFL. Did you see this? Players for the St. Louis Rams entered the field before yesterday's game with their arms in the air repeating the "Hands up, don't shoot" gesture that protesters in Ferguson have been using. Well, that angered some of the members of the St. Louis Police Departments.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: The officers want these players punished for the gesture and they want a public apology from the NFL.

Our Rachel Nichols is back with us.

Rachel, I don't think this apology is coming any time soon.

RACHEL NICHOLS, CNN HOST, "UNGUARDED": No, it is not. In fact, the NFL has released a statement saying not only do they not intend to discipline these players as asked by this police association but look at what they say. They say they respect and understand the concerns of all individuals who have expressed views on this tragic situation." Basically, "Leave us out of it, we're OK with anyone who wants to have a discussion on this." Which is what we tend to like in this country. You know, free speech and all.

PEREIRA: It's weird how we like that.

The business manager for the St. Louis Police Officer's Association spoke to us at CNN. I want to play this and get your reaction. This is Jeff Roorda, take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF ROORDA, BUSINESS MANAGER, ST. LOUIS POLICE OFFICER'S ASSOCIATION (voice-over): Let's not diminish what the show of hands meant. It's accusing a brother police officer of executing a young man in cold blood. So let's not diminish it. But I've got a call into the Rams executives. I'd like to talk to them. We're glad to sit down and talk to these players and find out what their real intentions were and we're glad to talk to the league but I'll tell you, not only are St. Louis police officers mad but friends in law enforcement from across the country were calling me last night that were offended.

(END VIDEO CLIP) PEREIRA: What's your reaction, Rachel? What do we know about Mr. Roorda?

NICHOLS: It's interesting. It's not surprising to me that he spearheaded the police association criticizing this gesture asking for an apology. He has a track record here. He is somebody who is a former police officer himself, he was fired from the police force for filing a false report against a suspect and then subsequently firing a false -- filing a false report against his own police commissioner. He is now in the local state legislature and recently this year sponsored a billing asking that police officers who shoot people on the job, their names should not be released to the public.

So it does not surprise me that somebody who has these views has a problem with football players who are acting in solidarity with protesters who, honestly, aren't just protesting the grand jury decision, they're protesting -- these protests around the world and the country have been part of a larger discussion about police involvement in minority communities and this is someone who has a track record basically on the other side of that issue. So it doesn't surprise me he's the one leading the charge against the Rams players.

BERMAN: There is a discussion not just in football but all sports leagues right now. We heard from Ben Watson, the tight end, who wrote a very thoughtful introspective piece about what this means from him. Are you hearing from other athletes discussing this? We saw tweet that first day.

NICHOLS: Of course. It's a huge topic of conversation not only with NFL locker rooms, NBA locker rooms. We heard Lebron James comment on this saying he thinks about his son.

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: These are young black men.

NICHOLS: Absolutely. And how people may see them if they don't know they're Lebron James' kids. It's important for athletes to talk about this no matter what they think on either side of an issue. Sports is where we come together in this country. We are an increasingly fractured society. We don't have national discussions in a lot of places. We're all split on politics, we're split on which television shows we watch but we come together to watch football. That's where the ratings are the highest and if football is where we have to have this conversation, that's where we should have it.

PEREIRA: It will be really interesting to see where this goes now.

Rachel, thanks so much for bringing this to us. We appreciate it.

BERMAN: Ahead for us @THISHOUR, did a Republican staffer go too far when she said the Obama girls need to show a little class and respect their position? She also talked about what they were wearing. We'll talk about the backlash just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PEREIRA: Harsh criticism of President Obama's daughters has cost a senior Republican staffer her job. Elizabeth Lauten's comments that Malia and Sasha Obama should, quote, "Try showing a little class," well, as you can imagine, that caused a firestorm of criticism on social media over the weekend. Lauten took to Facebook to scold the teenagers for the way they were dressing, how they looked at each other during Wednesday's turkey pardoning ceremony which they attended with their father.

BERMAN: The very solemn, I might add, state event, the turkey pardoning ceremony, which requires immense decorum.

PEREIRA: Decorum.

BERMAN: Part of her quote says, "Dress like you deserve respect, not a spot at the bar." Let that sink in. "Certainly don't make faces during televised public events." Lauten tells CNN she will resign as communications director for Congressman Steven Fincher --

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: Communications director. Sorry. I want to underline that.

BERMAN: I want to bring in Brian Settler, host of CNN's "Reliable Sources."

Brian, people like to say there's an unspoken rule that you don't criticize the children of politicians. It's not unspoken.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: We say it all the time on both sides of the aisle here. Kids are off limits in politics. That's almost always the case here.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN HOST, RELIABLE SOURCES: Because they didn't choose to run for office. Their parents did. Sasha and Malia didn't choose to live in the White House. I'm sure there's some days they wish they didn't.

(LAUGHTER)

PEREIRA: Maybe turkey pardoning day was among them. I don't know how any of us would have reacted to being there with our parents.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: We were joking about the fact that it looked like they were having a good time. That is a far cry from what this communications director posted on her Facebook page.

PEREIRA: Absolutely.

STELTER: And, to your point, Michaela, the fact that this person, her job is to do pr, to speak to the public and the press underlined how awkward this was. PEREIRA: One of the things that we have all -- everybody has sort of

come out and said this is unacceptable what she said, has the GOP responded, though?

STELTER: There has been some response and I was interested in what Sean Spicer, the head of the RNC, the Republican National Committee's P.R. operation said yesterday. He rebuked what Elizabeth Lauten said and he also said this, and we can put it up on the screen. "While the comments were inappropriate and sensitive, the mainstream media's coverage of this story is appalling. In over 20 years of politics, I have never seen one of the countless inappropriate comments by Democrats covered to a fraction by this."

Sean and I have debated about this, whether Republicans who say foolish things get more attention than Democrats.

PEREIRA: So it's our fault?

STELTER: Sometimes he's right, sometimes he's wrong. I think in this case, this was about a slow news cycle. There was a void of stuff to talk about over the weekend, it got a lot of attention on line on Twitter and Facebook and spread to the mainstream news media. That has a lot to do with it.

I think there's something to be said for the fact that this was a relatively obscure woman. This wasn't John Boehner's chief of staff or something.

BERMAN: That's the thing here. Without getting into political relativism over who can say what and who gets criticized for saying what, it's not like John Boehner was saying this. It's not like Mitch McConnell was saying this. It's the communications director for a congressman most people, many people outside of Tennessee haven't heard of.

STELTER: I mispronounced his name the first time I said it over the weekend. The Facebook post she put up on Thanksgiving was barely noticed until an African-American website, The Root, noticed it and went viral.

(CROSSTALK)

STELTER: It doesn't explain away the comments. It puts it into context.

PEREIRA: But there's context and there's context. The fact is, we're talking about this in a time where there is an active effort to counter cyber bullying and that's essentially what this comes down to. These are two teenaged girls, this is a woman, I don't know how old she is but she's a grown-up who takes to Facebook, which is generally a medium of the younger generation, and is setting quite a terrible example by essentially just being mean.

STELTER: Right. And then she said, in her apology, "After many hours of prayer," she concluded it was wrong, and she took it back and apologized. (CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: How was that received?

STELTER: I don't want to be disrespectful about her religious believes but I'm not sure there were hours of prayer necessary to know it was wrong.

PEREIRA: Your gut should tell you.

STELTER: Yeah. Something about that. You're gut should tell you. And to me it's striking taking away Sasha and Malia, it's striking how natural it is on the right to criticize the parents, to criticize the Obamas the way she did, to go after them so naturally, as if it just flows off the fingers. It shows how polarized we are in this last two years of the Obama administration.

BERMAN: She essentially said they don't respect the office.

STELTER: The office, or the nation. And then from there, it is pretty easy to go that one step further and talk about the daughters in a way that was very inappropriate.

BERMAN: Well, now this communications director, who never probably had an impact nationally before, has resigned.

STELTER: I will predict she'll get work somewhere else in the coming years. That's almost always how it works out, right?

BERMAN: Brian Stelter, great to have you here with us. Appreciate it.

STELTER: Thank you.

PEREIRA: Ahead here, the University of Virginia is accused of having a rape culture. The president of the university was expected to address allegations that her school mishandled reports of sexual assault. So why did she cancel?

BERMAN: Plus, more details are here but -- more deals, I should say, are here, but is Cyber Monday living up to the hype? So much hype. We'll have a look at the best deals -- you've been waiting for this -- from amazon.com. We'll go to a warehouse and what people are buying right this minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: It's safe to say a lot of people were hoping to hear from UVA's president today speaking about the sexual assault scandal her school is in the midst of right now.

BERMAN: The president of the University of Virginia, Theresa Sullivan, was scheduled to speak at the National Press Club in Washington, but that speech canceled. Announced on the press club's website.

Let's go to our senior Washington correspondent, Joe Johns.

Joe, what's the school saying about the speech that's not happening?

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Hey, John and Michaela. The university's official explanation is that President Theresa Sullivan is cancelling her appearance at the national press conference to stay on campus and communicate, essentially, with the stakeholders most affected by the controversy. The spokesman at the school put out a statement, here it is, saying, "During this extraordinary time President Sullivan's energies are best focused on the campus grounds where she can speak directly to and hear directly from the university community, participate in the healing process and work to find answers to the many questions that deserve attention."

Also it's clear the university is still working in crisis mode at this point. They have both a public relations problem as well as potential legal concerns. Neither of those necessarily would be served by an appearance at the press club right now. Anything she might say publicly could just fire up another news cycle and a rehashing of the stories from last week, not to mention more public pronouncements, no matter what she says while she has multiple investigations going on could turn out to be seen as counterproductive legally.

John and Michaela?

PEREIRA: Reading between the lines of what that statement is saying. Joe, bring us up to date on the investigation any headway being made there?

JOHNS: Not a lot to say. We have to point out that the allegation of a gang rain, that police investigation continues. Charlottesville police have asked the community for help, but otherwise they've remained mum on the case. The Virginia state attorney general and the U.S. district attorney taking wider looks at the university and its practices. It could be some time before we get results on that. And as you know, all fraternity and sorority activities have been suspended on campus until the second week of January so things will be quiet as we head into the full bore of the holiday season.

BERMAN: Quiet because we're not going to hear from the president of the University of Virginia today. We'll have to wait and see when she decides to speak more in public.

Joe Johns, thanks very much.

PEREIRA: Hey, John, what day is it today?

BERMAN: It's Cyber Monday, I am told.

PEREIRA: You clever fellow.

BERMAN: Cyber Monday. If you're a robot, it means you're supposed to get presents.

PEREIRA: You're working extra hard if you're a robot today on Cyber Monday. Are the deals as good as they're supposed to be? We'll live at a

warehouse to see what people are buying the most.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: Almost 127 million of you and I think -- we should include ourselves -- are planning to shop online for Cyber Monday. But the number is actually down from last year because -- maybe it's because Cyber Monday has become cyber every day, spreading out the love over several days.

Are there hot deals to be found, John?

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: Our Stephanie Elam joins us now from ground zero of Cyber Monday. She's at the Amazon warehouse in San Bernardino, California. We're also joined by Brett Larson who will tell you the single best deal on earth today.

First, Stephanie, where it's all happening, all going on where you are right now.

PEREIRA: In San Bern.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You guys, I love efficiency. They take efficiency to the next level at this Amazon plant in San Bernardino. It's the size of 28 football fields. This one and all of them have 15 million products inside. This is one of five in California. One of 100 in the world. And today is their busiest day. Last year, this was their busiest sales day. Today will top that number.

I want to show you how these things work here because these shelves, they look like they make no sense whatsoever. I want to show you right here, we've got just an example, a coffee pot, baby food, a compressor, all of these things together randomly. A cherry pitter is right here.

Let's talk to Elaine. She's a picker and she knows.

Elaine, how do you know where to get everything?

UNIDENTIFIED AMAZON.COM EMPLOYEE: It shoots into our scanners, our scanners tell us the location and description of the item, we grab it and put it on the tote for the next location.

ELAM: It's easy for you to find this?

UNIDENTIFIED AMAZON.COM EMPLOYEE: Yes.

ELAM: How quickly can you go between a couple of the items?

UNIDENTIFIED AMAZON.COM EMPLOYEE: It takes less than a minute.

ELAM: Amazing. That's what Elaine is doing here today to show you how the shelves. Look and how crazy it is. You can see how big everything is here, too. This is a massive space.

This is Scott Stanzel (ph) and he's with Amazon as well.

Explain, because I'm not doing a great job of explaining it myself. Why is it so random on the shelves?

SCOTT STANZEL (ph), AMAZON EMPLOYEE: We want to make the most of the space that we have. We have hundreds of millions of products to store on our shelves. So that's why we put things at random because we can fit a lot of different things on the shelves right next to each other. If we had all of the same thing, we wouldn't be using our shelf space efficiently.

ELAM: During the holidays you guys ramp up. How many people do you guys have here all the time?

STANZEL (ph): All year round in this facility in San Bernardino, we have 2,000 full-time associates. But at this time of year, nationwide we're hiring 80,000 additional seasonal employees to help us get the holiday orders out the door faster. We'll have thousands of additional people at a facility like this.

ELAM: How many orders are you actually shipping out?

STANZEL (ph): Well, people are finding great deals at Amazon/CyberMonday. Last year, 426 items per second.

ELAM: Per second they are being shipped out. That's amazing. Scott was showing us now that things are getting busy here. Scott just told me there are eight miles of conveyance in this facility alone. It's fantastic to see.

PEREIRA: Steph Elam --

(CROSSTALK)

ELAM: John and Michaela, I should do some shopping for you guys.

PEREIRA: I'm going to e-mail you my list. You're right at the heart of it. That's impressive. Also, the amazing camera moves.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: Tell Marty he did a great job with the shoot.

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: That was crazy. Here in studio with us.

We'll get back to you in a second, Steph.

That was impressive.

STELTER: I want to go for a ride in one of the bins on the conveyor belt.

PEREIRA: We're talking about Cyber Monday today but they are talking about the orders being lower. I would assume it's because Cyber Monday isn't significant anymore because every day is essentially cyber day.

STELTER: It's not the thing where it used to be where you're getting into work and you can do online shopping when your boss is not looking. That's not the case anymore. We have our Smartphones so we can shop when we're on the go. A lot of people saw the deals start last Monday that were rolled out and here's the deal that's going to come on Friday and Monday. I think it was a bit of information overload that led to lethargy.

BERMAN: We're talking about nostalgia for Cyber Monday. It's like 10 minutes old. How can you have nostalgia?

STELTER: This is how technology moves. It moves that quick that something five years old is now nostalgic.

BERMAN: What is the single, best deal, Bret Larson? If I want to save money on, what should I save money on?

STELTER: You should definitely save money on TVs. And I found a 4K Ultra H.D. TV under $999. 10,000 movies will be discounted. Leap Frog toys will be discounted.

Everybody is in on it. Open your e-mail and you will see everyone from Joanne's Fabric to Peet's Coffee. There is definitely deals to be had. Galaxy tabs are on sale through Radio Shack. There's some sales to be had.

I think today is no longer going to be the landmark day.

(CROSSTALK)

STELTER: This is it. I think it's going to sort of flow through until you get down to that last -- like this is the last day that you can order it for it to arrive on time day, we're going to see these deals continue.

PEREIRA: Don't worry, folks. Plenty of time to part with your hard- earned money.

Stephanie Elam, we tip our hat to you. That was an impressive live shot.

Brett Larson, really cool to have you here with us.

That is incredible. Look at all of those packages.

Yours is in there somewhere, John Berman.

BERMAN: There it is, the coal, in a very small box.

(LAUGHTER) There it is. It's all happening.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: All right, guys.

PEREIRA: Impressive system.

BERMAN: That is all for us @THISHOUR. I'm John Berman.

PEREIRA: And I'm Michaela Pereira.

"LEGAL VIEW" starts right about now.