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New Day

NYC Mayor Faces Criticism after Cops are Killed; Chris Cuomo's Journey to Find his Roots

Aired December 22, 2014 - 08:30   ET

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

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: What he should be talking to him about is, hey, take care of yourself in the streets, son, because your chance of being killed by a police officer is minuscule, your chance of being killed by another black is monumental. The mayor - the mayor --

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: You know what's behind his statement, though, Mr. Mayor? You understand what he was saying. He wasn't saying, a cop is going to kill you. He was reflecting what you know is a cultural observation of a lot of families out there, which is, if you've got a black kid, you've got to be careful in how you train them to be around cops because cops may not give them the same benefits of the doubt that they do to a white kid.

GIULIANI: Well -

CUOMO: You know that many people feel that other than Mayor De Blasio.

GIULIANI: Yes, and I - and what I'm saying is, over the last two to three months, the hate speech about police officers has created a propaganda that police officers are racist. That is not true. Main problem is crime in the black community.

When I was the mayor, I sent police officers to where these police officers were killed, not because I'm anti-black. By no means am I anti-black. I sent them there because there were tremendous numbers of crimes there. And I sent police officers to the southern part of Brooklyn because Italian kids were stealing cars in the southern part of Brooklyn. I reacted to crime. When you start doing this stuff that the mayor is doing, that the president is doing, that the attorney general is doing, they are - they are perpetuating a myth that there is systemic police brutality. There is systemic crime. There is occasional police brutality.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: What do you think the president has done? I know that you've said that you think that he has been part of this propaganda. I mean what has he said?

GIULIANI: The president has shown absolutely no - he's shown absolutely no respect for the police. All the president has done is see one side of this dispute. And if they would spend -- I heard Alveda King on television this morning. If they would spend as much time talking about improving education, if Mayor de Blasio would stop blocking charter schools, start supporting vouchers so there's better education for black children, if they would start talking about work fair and more work, if they would start talking about the responsibilities of fatherhood, now we're starting to talk about the real problem.

The police problem is a reaction of that. And maybe these two police officers, Ramos and Liu, should be made heroes of the black community. I mean they were there trying to save black lives. They were moved from one precinct to another because there was more black crime in that precinct than the other one. The children of black parents in this city are being saved by our police officers. And during the time I was mayor, and I don't mind saying this, I saved more black lives than any mayor in the history of this city because I was not afraid to police according to statistics and not to what Al Sharpton would try to sell you as black propaganda.

CAMEROTA: So then how do you explain the protests that we've seen across this city and elsewhere where they think that police are using excessive force -

GIULIANI: Because they're being -

CAMEROTA: And they think that police are treating people in communities of color differently?

GIULIANI: It's the same way that people are more afraid of flying on an airplane than driving in a car, because you create the impression that when there's one big airplane crash that, oh, my God, airplane crashes, airplane crashes, airplane crashes. But people are not afraid of driving in a car and they have a much greater chance of dying in a car. Now, if I were a black father and I had a son, there's less than a 1 percent chance that my son is going to be harmed by the police, there's a 92 percent chance that my son's going to be harmed by another black.

CUOMO: They would argue the chance should be zero. That the idea that it's systemic, that it's widespread, that's an over extension of it.

GIULIANI: Well, Chris, how could it be -

CUOMO: The idea that the Mike Brown case was the right case to hang this cause on may, you know, be an arguable assumption. But the idea that blacks are at risk when it comes to the culture of policing, that's not new and you know that there's a lot of statistical support for it. You don't want to ignore that problem.

GIULIANI: You don't want to ignore the problem. You want to do everything you can about the problem. But you don't want to do it disproportionately to what the real problem is. I mean if you -- to reduce the significant amount of crime in Fort Greene, those police officers wouldn't have been in Fort Greene.

CUOMO: Right, but they don't have to be abusive.

GIULIANI: Right.

CUOMO: They don't have to overdue stop and frisk. Those are the issues. GIULIANI: And all of that has - and all of that's gone down.

CUOMO: Right. But that's a legitimate issue. You don't want to say it doesn't exist if the real problem is that blacks kill each other.

GIULIANI: It is - but it's like this. Here's a highway that has 2 percent of the accidents. Here's a highway that has 92 percent of the accidents. The president, the attorney general and de Blasio was spending all their time on the 2 percent highway and they're spending no time on the 92 percent highway. They're never talking about it. They're never talking about the police officers who save black lives, which far outweigh police officers who abuse anyone. And by the way, both cases you mentioned, great sympathy for their families. But both those men were committing crimes. These police --

CAMEROTA: But minor, low level. I mean low level crimes. In the case of Eric Garner, he was selling individual cigarettes. He doesn't pay for his life - with his life for that.

GIULIANI: But a minor crime -- he wasn't killed because of the cigarette. He was killed because he resisted arrest. It's like going up -- you're driving 95 miles an hour and the police stop you. And the police officer says, please give me your license and registration. You tell him, go to hell. What does the police officer do, walk away?

CUOMO: No, you're going to have a bad situation.

GIULIANI: You're going to have a bad - he's going to drag you out of the car. Who knows what's going to happen. When two guys start doing that, who knows what's going to happen. You could be dead. You're not dead because you were driving 95 miles an hour. You're dead because somebody never taught you that you should comply with what police officers tell you to do.

CUOMO: But you know what the pushback was on you. When you said the real problem is that blacks kill blacks. Well, whites kill whites too, right? The numbers are fairly proportional. But it sounded like you were --

GIULIANI: Oooh.

CUOMO: Well, you have like 90 something - you have high 80s with the blacks. You have lower 80s with the whites killing whites.

GIULIANI: Right. Right.

CUOMO: It just seemed to be a distraction from the -

GIULIANI: A distraction?

CUOMO: From the real issue -

GIULIANI: No.

CUOMO: Which is just whether or not we do as well as we should with our culture of policing. GIULIANI: Look, Chris, Chris, it's just the opposite. It isn't a real

issue. The thing driving --

CUOMO: But that's not why police -- this is what I don't understand. Help me understand this. You're saying blacks are committing a lot of crimes in their areas and that's why you have to have police there.

GIULIANI: You got it.

CUOMO: But that's not why you would have bad situations between blacks and cops. Doesn't mean that that's license for cops to be excessive in force.

GIULIANI: But they're not. They're not. Cops aren't excessive in force.

CUOMO: Sometimes they are.

GIULIANI: Sometimes. That - that is a minor --

CUOMO: So that's not, they're not. It's sometimes.

GIULIANI: That is a minor - that is a minor situation. Look, I had a - I had a black kill a Hasidic Jew in New York City and had tremendous problems in the Hasidic community. I've had cops kill Italians. I've had cops kill mafia members. That happens in policing. If you commit a lot of crime, you're going to tend to have more interaction with the police and you're going to tend to have more situations that get out of control.

Most of these situations are justified. Most of these situations, the police officers are acting because we are dealing with people with significant, violent records who act in a way that put the police officer's life in jeopardy. So, I mean, let's give the police a break. I mean this has been three months of anti-police hatred, rhetoric, anger. I don't hold the mayor responsible for this death, but three weeks ago, four weeks ago, I'm telling people, a cop is going to get shot here. All this stuff that Sharpton is saying, all this stuff the mayor is saying, all this stuff Holder is saying. I know - I know law enforcement better than I know somewhere. Somebody, somewhere is going to shoot a cop, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia. I mean - and I think -

CUOMO: You still have - you -

GIULIANI: And I think we're yelling it in the streets and the mayor was allowing them to take the streets. When I was the mayor, nobody took my streets. Sorry.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

CUOMO: You have to have the discussion. You just have to have it the right way.

GIULIANI: You got it.

CAMEROTA: Mayor Rudy Giuliani, thanks so much for coming in today. Nice to see you.

GIULIANI: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: All right, an unforgettable journey for Chris as he travels to Italy to retrace his roots. The surprising things he found along the way. And why there are men standing on him.

CUOMO: The mayor was talking about Italians one way, but we're going to show a little different side of Italians when we go into my past. That's my cousin, by the way. He's very light.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: This year, some of CNN's anchors got the opportunity to set out on a journey to discover their roots. Chris, you found lots of impressive relatives beyond your brother and father, the governors.

CUOMO: You know, it's true. The family's very proud of the governors. Don't get me wrong. But they're not the source of the pride in my family. Those who came here first and those who were left behind, they fought the big fight that allowed the Cuomo family to enjoy the opportunities that we get here in the new world. But I'll tell you, I thought I knew what I was getting into and even I was surprised. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO (voice-over): How did I wind up here? That's what I was thinking clutching a pole slathered in pig fat with men climbing over me in a place I'd never heard of in Italy. But the mystery about my family that led me here was even more surprising, especially since I thought I knew the whole story.

MARIO CUOMO, CHRIS CUOMO'S FATHER: Here we are, at this convention, to remind ourselves where we come from.

C. CUOMO: For many, my lineage will come as no surprise. That's my pop, Mario Cuomo, former governor of New York.

M. CUOMO: We speak for ethnics who want to add their culture to the magnificent mosaic that is America.

C. CUOMO: He spoke for years about his Italian heritage and the struggle to make it here that led to not one but two men holding the highest seat in the greatest state.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Cuomo family.

ANDREW CUOMO, CHRIS CUOMO'S BROTHER: We come into the chamber. We're not Democrats. We're not Republicans. We're New Yorkers. And we're working for New York.

C. CUOMO: That's Andrew, my brother, the governor of New York today.

I knew it all cold about who we are and how the Cuomos got here, et cetera, or so I thought. Turns out, I was right about my mom's family down in Cichilia (ph), Italy. But my father's side had a big, fat mystery. It is true that he was a first generation American and he grew up sleeping in the basement of this grocery store in South Jamaica, Queens. And my grandparents did come to this country, working like dog, suffering bigotry, all to build a better life, a legacy thanks to my great grandparents. Now that's where the mystery begins.

C. CUOMO (on camera): So let's talk about something interesting, like me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Perfect.

C. CUOMO: What do we know?

C. CUOMO (voice-over): The folks at ancestry.com uncovered that the story of how the Cuomos came here -

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In digging more --

C. CUOMO: Is very different from what I'd heard.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is the first document of the Cuomos.

C. CUOMO (on camera): This is very cool.

C. CUOMO (voice-over): Looking back at records from a century ago in the U.S., in these tiny Italian villages, we found a trail that no one had ever followed, Dinoto Cuomo (ph), he came first. For months, he dug ditches and saved and barrowed to send for his love and wife, my great grandmother. Her name was Germana Castaldo (ph). Or was it?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The family is right here. And she's listed as Germana Castanza (ph). This is the death of Germana. So she's Gema Castanza (ph), Maria Delia (ph) and Germana Castaldo.

C. CUOMO (on camera): It doesn't sound good, I have to tell you.

C. CUOMO (voice-over): Who was she? Where'd she come from? And why did she keep changing her name? The story I'd grown up with about who she was and how she became to be my bisnonna, my great grandmother, was all wrong, fugazi, fake.

There would be only one way to figure out the real deal.

C. CUOMO (on camera): So you believe I need to go to this place and see if I can track the roots further?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Absolutely.

C. CUOMO: I'm just the man for the task.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think you can handle it.

C. CUOMO (voice-over): My great grandmother's life had to begin in Italy, so did our journey of discovery. When I told my wife I had to go to the Italian country on assignment, she wasn't buying it, so I brought her along with my oldest, Bella, to hunt for some answers to where my blood comes from.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe this would have been the church.

C. CUOMO: Kind of cool, too. The latest generation of Cuomos looking the for the earliest. The last document we found was key. My great grandmother's birth was in a tiny and unknown place called Cava de' Tirreni, high above the Tyrrhenian Sea. Turns out she was born here in 1869, but the question is to whom? The good news is that her name is all over this place. Costaldo. Turns out back in the day, the Costaldo family ruled here. So maybe we're not peasant stock after all, royalty, baby. Word spread that I was here tracking down my roots and a local historian came around to help, but what he had to offer took the story in a very different direction.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A cliff hanger.

C. CUOMO (on camera): I was like watching it, I was like what, what is the cliff hanger?

ROMANS: What's going to happen?

C. CUOMO: Then I realized oh, yeah, I wrote this. You know, look, surprises are good. This is sad, though. There's a sad part of this story coming up here, but ultimately winds up having a good ending. You know, a lot of people had it very hard back then. So, when we come back, you'll get to see what I figured out about my bisnonna, my great grandmother, and how it led us all here today for better or worse.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

C. CUOMO: Left you with a little bit of a cliff hanger there in the "ROOTS," you know, story telling. But here's the deal. We thought maybe we're royalty, you know, because the family that ruled in that area. Not so much. Here's the real answer.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

C. CUOMO (voice-over): Far from the gilded center of the city, he took us down a lonely side street.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): In this street, in one of these doorways, there was an orphanage. There was a woman took in the orphans, the children that were abandoned, and took care of them before someone adopted them.

C. CUOMO (on camera): So, this is the sad part of the story. This is the street, this is where my great grandmother was given up for adoption. We're told that basically babies were just left on the ground, there was a knock on the door, and then people would take off. Why? It was a rich town, maybe it was somebody who was very wealthy who had had an indiscretion. Maybe it was someone who just didn't want a baby. Either way, she would be given the name Castaldo because that was the ruling family in this area, so it doesn't really mean she came from that family. It just means that it was a common name. But this is where her life began, where some woman she didn't know wound up taking care of her and later on in life, she'd wind up marrying the man who would bring the Cuomos to America.

C. CUOMO (voice-over): But that led us to the next part of the mystery, their wedding. Church records pointed us to another Italian village I'd never heard of, where I had much deeper roots than I would have ever imagined. The tiny Italian city of Sant'Arsenio.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

C. CUOMO (on camera): Okay, so we don't even have to guess about it. This is Nicola, he's the deputy mayor here in Sant'Arsenio, and he says he has documents that prove that my great grandparents were married right here in this church.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

C. CUOMO: So 1890.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

C. CUOMO: So, they were married in this place and the names - --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

C. CUOMO: Germana Castaldo, now, that's my great grandmother's name, but remember, she used more than one.

C. CUOMO (voice-over): So, what about all those other names my bisnonna used? Gema (ph), Dalia (ph). No, she wasn't a criminal. The writing was literally on the wall.

C. CUOMO (on camera): Alright, so we have another piece to the puzzle. Dominic (ph) and I, we meet on the plane on the way over. He says, where are you going? I say, Sant'Arsenio. He goes, hey, I live in Sant'Arsenio when I'm not in Jersey City. He then asked why I'm coming. I say, well, I'm trying to trace my great grandmother, the Cuomo family, the whole thing. He says he knows something about it, takes me to this plaque. What do you know, my friend?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My dad once told me that the Dalia family was from Sant'Arsenio, immigrated to Jersey City.

C. CUOMO: Dalia is part of the family that the Cuomos were also a part of, and there are some of that family who are in Jersey City.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right. It all ties back to Sant'Arsenio, a town that only has 2,700 residents today.

C. CUOMO: Had you ever heard of any connection to the Cuomos?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's rumor of a connection to the Cuomos going back.

C. CUOMO (voice-over): But what was that connection? Who was this Dalia? Why was he up on that wall, and why was my great grandmother using his name? That part of the mystery would have to wait. Our little investigation wasn't the only thing going on in Sant'Arsenio. When they heard we had roots here, we got conscripted into the man testing that is part of a festival weekend and the townspeople had big plans for me.

C. CUOMO (on camera): All right, so this is the festival, the solemn festival in honor of San Rocco. And look at this. At the events participating will be Chris Cuomo directly from CNN, but participating in what?

C. CUOMO (voice-over): We had an amazing time with these beautiful people, some of whom could be mi cugini, cousins. We played games, drank some wine, maybe too much. The next thing I knew, I was staring at this.

C. CUOMO (on camera): So, here's how this works. The is like the main event of this festival, where they climb this pole that's like 45 feet high, okay? It takes four of them. The pole is greased with like this pig grease soap stuff. So I'm going to be the first guy, and I'm going to hold on.

C. CUOMO (voice-over): The good news is, they now say I'm a real member of the village. The bad news is, I loved that shirt and I smelled like feet for a while. For all we had learned, though, we still had one last stop, the coast.

C. CUOMO (on camera): The Cuomos left their tiny villages up in the hills and came down to the Tyrrhenian Sea. But, when they looked out, they didn't just see open water. They saw their future, America.

C. CUOMO (voice-over): My great grandfather, Donato (ph), became what's now known as a bird of passage, someone who traveled to the new world to make his fortune. Some fortune, though. The $16 voyage was more than he had to his name, but he and his mysterious bride would make it to the new world, and their progeny would lead to the man talking to you now.

What about the other names and parts of the family we learned about? Remember Dominic and what he told us about the Dalias? Turns out Francesco Dalia was my great grandmother's adoptive father. The Dalias would make it big in the new world, too, and you guessed it, Jersey City. They sent a big chunk of that money home to Sant'Arsenio. Oh, and my team on that greased pole? They went on to win the competition without me. And my family left Italy with a new understanding of who we are, and remember for the Cuomos, famiglia e tutto. Family is everything.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: That's great.

C. CUOMO (on camera): Feel like you know me now? CAMEROTA: Yes, and I feel like I long for Italy. What a great visit you had, so exciting.

C. CUOMO: It was great, it's always great to learn about your family. Let me hear you say the word the right way.

ROMANS: Fugazi.

CAMEROTA: Fugazi.

C. CUOMO: There it is. That's not fugazi. All right, let's get you to the "NEWSROOM" with Randi Kaye. It begins right after the break. See how easy it was?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)