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Interview with California Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez; Ferguson Protests Continue; Terror Rampage

Aired December 02, 2014 - 15:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Brooke Baldwin.

We begin with the emotional outburst from Michael Brown's stepfather on the night the world learned the officer who killed Brown would not be indicted. What Louis Head screamed was no doubt controversial, but now Ferguson police are trying to determine if it was criminal.

They are looking now into whether Head, who is married to Brown's mother, should be charged with inciting a riot over his blowup, which "The New York Times" recorded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LOUIS HEAD, HUSBAND OF LESLEY MCSPADDEN: Burn this mother (EXPLETIVE DELETED) down. Burn this bitch down. Burn this bitch down. Burn this bitch down.

(SHOUTING)

(CROSSTALK)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Let me stress, there are no charges against Louis Head, at least at this point in time.

But let me bring in HLN host and former prosecutor Nancy Grace.

Nancy Grace with your legal hat on, can you please, ma'am, just explain to me the legal definition of inciting a riot and how one would prove it?

NANCY GRACE, HOST, "NANCY GRACE": I absolutely can.

And I would like to point out that in all of my years as a lawyer, my whole career devoted to the prosecution of crime, I have never once prosecuted inciting a riot. Number one, it's a misdemeanor, which is 12 months or less behind bars.

Number two, you want to tell me that a jury would actually allow somebody to burn the American flag and stomp on it and get away with that, but this guy who says "Burn this bitch down" is going to go to jail?

Yes. OK, I don't think so. But let's look at the statute. The statute for inciting a riot in that jurisdiction is when six or more people gather together and they reach an agreement, which is a legal term, and that while still assembled, they carry out violence, contrary to the laws of that jurisdiction.

The problem here is there is no agreement. For instance, what if I say, hey, I'm going to buy your car and you go, OK? We don't have an agreement. Which car am I talking about? How much am I going to pay you? Is that OK with you?

BALDWIN: All the details are missing. You're not connecting the dots.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Bottom line, you can't prove it.

BALDWIN: So then, all right, on that notion, here you have Louis -- you have Mr. Head saying eight different times, burn this bleep down, then you have, as we have seen, you know, fires and looting of businesses, et cetera.

How would one, if one were to try because apparently they are, then connect the dots, because -- between words and the actions of others?

GRACE: Well, that is like mind control. If we had the ability of mind control, FDR probably would've said, OK, kill Hitler and it would have happened just like that. This is...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: We don't have mind control, Nancy Grace. So?

GRACE: No, we don't. We don't.

And that is what they are suggesting that this suspect, this would-be target has, that he can say "Burn this city down, burn this bitch down," and that somehow everybody goes, oh, you're talking about the beauty supply, the liquor store, the drugstore?

It's unprovable. And another thing that's concerning me is just because the lieutenant governor goes on the radio and calls for inciting a riot charges, he should be telling the district attorney, not blabbing about it on the radio.

BALDWIN: Hmm. Hmm. I guess, like, gosh, I don't even know where to go next when I'm hearing you loud and clear and I'm kind of wondering, you know, you hear from Michael Brown's own mother. She said that this was, indeed, a totally just emotional response.

Who ultimately would prove this? Why even -- if you think of the optics, this is -- we're dealing with the victim's family. Have you ever heard of a case in which one wanted to go after the victim's family for trying to incite a riot?

GRACE: No, I haven't. Again, I have never even considered inciting a riot as a charge. It's

a misdemeanor. Not only that. It's dragging the Ferguson debacle out even no matter how you look at it, which side of the fence you're on. And the discussion of charging him with inciting a riot is ridiculous because, legally, it's unprovable, that by his words, burn this B-I-T- C-H down, that he specifically instructed six or more people to burn a liquor store, a beauty supply company, a grocery store.

It's unfathomable. It cannot be proved. And the discussion of it, I find, to be incendiary.

BALDWIN: Well, let's end it. Nancy Grace, thank you. We watch you each and every night on HLN.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Mark my words, no prosecution.

BALDWIN: Thank you. Nancy, appreciate you coming on.

Let me move on, though, and tell you it's been 116 days, 116, after Michael Brown was shot and killed. Protesters are still hitting the streets. Police tell our Missouri affiliate KPLR that about 300 young people walked out of two high schools near Ferguson. This is today. They're calling for change. President Obama's promising change, vowing Monday to end racial profiling.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What I tried to describe the people is why this time will be different, and part of the reason this time will be different is because the president of the United States is deeply invested in making sure that this time is different.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: All of this begs the question. Under the first African- American president, are race relations in America any better? I don't know if you have seen this Chris Rock interview. This is phenomenal.

Let me just quote part of this. Chris Rock, comedian Chris Rock, in this "New York" magazine piece, this is what he says. Quoting part of it: "Here's the thing. When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, it's all nonsense. There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they're not as crazy." You can hear his voice.

"To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before" -- the words of comedian Chris Rock.

With me now, CNN political commentators Marc Lamont Hill and Ben Ferguson.

Great to see both of you. BEN FERGUSON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Good afternoon.

BALDWIN: And, Marc, let me just kick this to you first. What is your reaction to Chris Rock's words there?

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I love Chris Rock and I think he's on point here. Obviously, as a comedian, he's being a bit glib.

There's a little more nuance to how we think about, you know, race and structures of power. But his point is a good one here.

(CROSSTALK)

HILL: The measure of racial progress will be the extent to which white supremacy is eliminated. It's not the extent to which black people will behave better. It's not the extent to which black people will like white people more and white people will like black people more. That's immaterial.

It's the core substantive issues that play out in the social world. And that's what I want to see. So right now, under Obama, black people still are at the top of every measure of social misery. We're at the bottom of every measure of social prosperity. Race relations won't be good until race realities are better.

BALDWIN: Ben Ferguson, your turn.

FERGUSON: Yes, this is the sad thing we're dealing with. I thought it was going to get better under Barack Obama and I don't think it is, because I think yesterday has proved that he's still willing to go into a room and look at things as only being a race issue, instead of being a leader and taking race out of issues.

You have to look at what he did to the police officers yesterday. He threw them under the bus all over the country. And if anything here, he's implying that somehow the police cannot be trusted. I mean, what are you going to do? Segregate communities and say only African- American police officers can actually police African-Americans?

BALDWIN: No, no, no.

FERGUSON: But my point is this. When you see the president do what he did yesterday, it's not helping race relations. It's hurting it and dividing us by actually taking a part of what Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson make a living off of, which is race-baiting.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: The notion that he said ending racial profiling, though, Marc, is it up to the president to do this?

HILL: I think it's appropriate for the president to step in and do something about racial profiling. Obviously, this needs to be resolved on a state level. Again, there are substantive, fundamental issues we need to think about in terms of how community relations work with police, the role police play in our communities. We have to think about laws that enable racial profiling. We have to

think about policies that allow racial animus to play out. There are a range of things we can do. Then we need to get to the psychology of white supremacy here. Again, the phenomenon shouldn't be called driving while black. The phenomenon should be called patrolling while racist.

We continue to focus on the wrong thing here. That's what we need to do. And to Ben's point here...

(CROSSTALK)

FERGUSON: How does the president fix that?

(CROSSTALK)

HILL: I think what the president has to do is enable and create an environment for dialogue, but also for responsible, sound policy.

And you can't have responsible, sound policy that plays out in a racial front by taking race out. Ben, the problem -- the problem, Ben, is that you continue to want to say that we need to take race out of the conversation, when the conversation clearly plays out on racial terms.

(CROSSTALK)

FERGUSON: The problem here is this, though. This is the core of what irks me the most about this issue.

The entire conversation around Ferguson is implying that officer Wilson, who had never had a complaint against anybody in African- American community, white community, Asian community, Hispanic community against him as cop for years. Year after year after year, he had a perfect record.

You're implying that when he had an interaction with a young man that had made a lot of bad choices that morning, he had used drugs, he robbed a store, he slammed a guy into a shelf, he mouthed off to a cop, that race was involved in that, when, in fact, it may have just been you had a situation where a young man made a bunch of bad decisions, you had a police officer that was attacked, and he saved his life.

That could have nothing to do with race. But you want it to be about race.

(CROSSTALK)

HILL: Ben, let me point to an example. Ben, a few weeks ago, we were talking, maybe a month or two ago, we were talking about the gentleman who beheaded someone at work. And Ben said that we must call this terrorism.

I say, well, it's an isolated bad act. Why should we call it terrorism? He said you can't just look at the individual act. You have to look at the context. You have to look at the other people who have been hurt. You have to look at the broader geopolitical context. You have to invoke all this context.

Let's do the same thing when it comes to this. When people die on the street at the hands of law enforcement, they're almost always black, not always, but almost disproportionately black.

(CROSSTALK)

FERGUSON: That's not true. Statistically, it's not true.

HILL: No, they are disproportionately black. Every study shows that they are disproportionately black. Black people are over-represented at deaths at the hands of law enforcement and vigilante and security forces.

That is simply a fact. There are many other facts we could look to, to look to explain why we talk about this as a racial issue. There is clearly a long and deep history of racial animus between police and communities. And, no, it doesn't mean, to your other point, Ben, that somehow only black people can police black people.

But do you ever notice when you go to an all white town, they don't have an all-black police force? When you go to an all-white town, they don't have a black mayor and black councilmen and black aldermen? There's something...

(CROSSTALK)

FERGUSON: What do you want to do?

BALDWIN: Final thought.

(CROSSTALK)

FERGUSON: How would Barack Obama fix that through the president of the United States of America dealing with race issues? Again, you're trying to...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: I think Marc's already sort of answered your question.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: I think Marc's already touched on that.

(CROSSTALK)

FERGUSON: The point is, though, is the president of the United States of America's job is to not -- and this is looking at yesterday. He has a phone, it rings from the African-American civil rights leader and they say we must do something now, we must do something now, and he says, OK, fine, let's have a meeting.

When you come out of that meeting, do the police officers in the community, are they safer now than they were yesterday? The answer is probably not. It's more about the theatrics of this than it is about the reality of actually getting something done on the streets. And that's the problem.

BALDWIN: I think we can all agree that hopefully it's less about words. Hopefully, it's about actions. No matter what side of this you fall on, we all want to feel safer and the notion of eradicating racism out of this entire conversation, I think, is probably improbable.

But I appreciate both of you being on. And most importantly, I'm really impressed that Marc remembered something that Ben said from a month ago. I appreciate both of you listening to one another.

Marc Lamont Hill and Ben Ferguson, thank you, both, very much.

HILL: Thanks for having us.

BALDWIN: Just ahead here on CNN, a source tells us a woman close to the leader of ISIS has been captured. But in the middle of a war, who questions her? How does that happen?

Plus, a terror group attacks a quarry. They divide them by religion. One group goes free, another is killed in cold blood. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: We are getting horrific details about a massacre at a quarry on the Kenya/Somalia border. Gunmen from al Qaeda-linked terror group Al-Shabab have killed 36 workers there, but only after separating them by religion, slaughtering only the non-Muslims.

For more on this, we're joined by Nima Elbagir, who is live in London.

What happened, Nima?

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we understand that it was the early hours of Tuesday morning and the attackers came into the camp while the mine workers were in their beds. They woke them up and they pointed guns at their heads, marched them into the quarry and then, as you said, proceeded to separate them, asked who could recite the Shahada, one of the basic tenets the Islamic faith.

Those who couldn't were executed on the spot. Some survivors have told us some of them were even beheaded. This really has become Al- Shabab's M.O. We saw that in the bus attack last week when they targeted people going back home for the Christmas holidays to rural parts of Kenya.

It seems to be about making this as much about Christians vs. Muslims in this border struggle that they have within East Africa and their desire to set up an Islamic caliphate and spread that influence across the continent, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Nima, when I think of Al-Shabab, I think of that mall attack in Nairobi from this past year. And then I know semi-recently there was a U.S. airstrike that killed the leader of Al-Shabab. But you tell me. It doesn't appear that that slowed the group's attacks. Why?

ELBAGIR: The expectation was, we were hearing that from sources in the Pentagon, that they should be disarray, that the emir of Al- Shabab, Godane, was going to be killed and then that would mean that they would be rethinking their entire strategy, especially after losing the territorial footprint in Somalia.

But it seems like what they have done is they have ramped up those high-impact attacks like Westgate. They have really regrouped and gone for high-impact attacks, as we're seeing now. It does seem to be a tipping point though in Kenya. The Kenyan president has dismissed his interior minister, he dismissed -- he accepted the resignation, I should say, of the chief inspector of police.

People are hoping finally this might mean they're safe. But Al-Shabab have shown they can move across that border with impunity and that the U.S. strikes, the recent Kenyan government moves, none of that seems to be stemming the tide of violence, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Incredibly gruesome, these pictures that are coming in. Nima Elbagir, thank you so much.

Republicans in Congress were furious with the president for going it alone on immigration. Finally, they had a chance to vent today at the man who will put the president's policies into action. Coming up, we will talk live to a Democratic congresswoman about what she thinks about their reaction.

And before Michael Brown was killed, another case infuriating many, many people, a black victim, a white police officer, and now a grand jury deciding whether that case goes to trial.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Angry House Republicans are charging again today that the president is breaking the law. They say his executive order stemming deportations violates America's immigration statuses and thus, they say, they will take action.

Precisely what action, they're either not disclosing or they still don't know themselves. Here's House Speaker John Boehner.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: This is a serious breach of our Constitution. It's a serious threat to our system of government. And, frankly, we have limited options and limited abilities to deal with it directly.

But that's why we're continuing to talk to our members. We have not made decisions about how we're going to proceed. But we are, in fact, going to proceed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So you heard him. They will proceed. They will do something. In the meantime, maybe they're just venting. They vented this morning at Jeh Johnson, the president's chief of homeland security, who contended over and over that, no, President Obama, did not cross lines or blur laws in the executive order last month that stems deportations of otherwise law-abiding immigrants who entered this country illegally.

So, to Washington we go to a Democrat who was in on that hearing. She's the second-ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, Loretta Sanchez of California.

Congresswoman, great to have you on.

REP. LORETTA SANCHEZ (D), CALIFORNIA: Thank you, Brooke. Great to be here.

BALDWIN: So we have just gotten word of what looks to be this emerging plan, a challenge to the president on immigration, no impeachment, no formal censure. That's been floated.

We're also hearing maybe they want to tinker with some funding, maybe debate a resolution declaring the president is breaking the law.

Congresswoman Sanchez, what would you say to that?

SANCHEZ: I would hope that the Republicans would come to the table and start working on a reform with us to pass a law.

The president did not change the law. The current law exists. What he did was say, you know, there are -- there are limited resources, and I want to use those resources on getting the bad guys out of our country first. And for those who have families, real family ties to this country, we're not going to go after you. That's all he said.

He didn't do much more than that. So he didn't change the law. He just prioritized what he wants to do. And he's allowed to do that.

BALDWIN: You know what? On that point, speaking of changing the law, I want everyone to hear this. Roll it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JASON CHAFFETZ (R), UTAH: What do you say to someone who believes the president took action to change the law?

JEH JOHNSON, U.S. SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: We did not change the law. We acted within the law.

CHAFFETZ: Can you play the clip? This is from November 25. This is the president in Nevada talking about this.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But what you're not paying attention to is the fact that I just took an action to change the law. CHAFFETZ: So you say he didn't change the law, but the president says

he changed the law.

JOHNSON: He acted within existing law. He acted within our existing legal authority. Listen, I have been a lawyer 30 years. Somebody plays me an eight-word excerpt from a broader speech, I know to be suspicious.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: OK.

So you hear the eight-word excerpt. You see the suspicion on Jeh Johnson's face. But, I mean, it does sound clear as day. The president told the law -- he told the crowd that he changed the law. Was he misspeaking there?

SANCHEZ: Well, I will tell you one thing about Jeh Johnson, OK? I worked with him. Besides Homeland Security, I'm also number two on the Armed Services Committee for the Democrats.

He was over at the Department of Defense. He was their chief lawyer. He is an incredibly great lawyer, Secretary Johnson. And we approached him and we said, there are things within the law, we believe, that the president can do. When I say we, I mean, the Hispanic Caucus, who has always been the champion for immigrants in this country.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Congresswoman, let me just stop you there, because the question isn't about Jeh Johnson. It's about the president. Was he misspeaking?

SANCHEZ: Well, again, I don't know, and I wasn't there to understand what the discourse was before that, just as Secretary Johnson said.

But I will tell you this. Secretary Johnson is a great lawyer, and he does not cross the law. You know, we have pushed him and we pushed him, and where he could not go against the law, he certainly did not. All of this that the president's doing was constructed -- the chief architect of it is Secretary Johnson.

And I have a lot of faith in his abilities to stay within the law.

BALDWIN: OK. All right.

Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, thank you for your time today in Washington. I appreciate it.

SANCHEZ: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Could history repeat itself in New York this week? The grand jury is deciding the fate of a police officer accused of killing this man. Now New York is waiting and watching, hoping the violence the nation saw in Ferguson doesn't hit this city.

And can Lebanon be trusted in the war against ISIS? We have learned their forces may have captured a valuable target in that fight. How well will they work with the United States to beat that terrorist group?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)