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Boston Bombing Jury Deliberates; FBI Investigates South Carolina Death; Obama Links Climate Change and Public Health; Mike Rowe at PBR. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired April 08, 2015 - 09:30   ET

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


ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The short answer given by the judge is that really it can be either and it's up to the jury to determine that.

And, Carol, I think a lot of people expected that the jury would come back pretty quickly on this one.

[09:30:03] It isn't to say that one day of deliberations is long by any stretch, but you did have the defense starting out in this case saying it was him. a lot of people saying, hey, doesn't that mean that guilt is a foregone conclusion? Isn't this something of a formality some people might say? Well, no, there are still 30 counts that the jury has to address. They've got to look at the language for each of these counts. They've got to establish that the government met their burden of proof on each of these accounts. And you can see, from that question alone, that the jury is certainly trying to understand fully the legal language and it seems like they're trying to go through each of these counts and see that the case is there and has been made, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: I'm looking at the counts right now, and some of them are worded in a very complicated way. So it's not like, do you find him innocent or guilty of murder? It's much more complicated than that, correct?

FIELD: Yes, it absolutely is. Look, you've got three counts that are conspiracy, you've got 27 counts that are these so-called substantive counts. That can mean that it is the defendant who carried them out or simply that he was involved in them. All of these counts have language pertaining to aiding and abetting. And you'll know that that's a really big part of this case because you've got these two brothers who the prosecution said carried out these crimes together. You have the defense who's saying, oh, but, really, it was Tamerlan's idea and Dzhokhar followed. In this phase of the case, the verdict phase of the case, Carol. What matters is whether the defendant was involved in each of these acts, whether he aided and abetted, whether he conspired, whether he had some involvement. He didn't necessarily have to carry out any of these things alone. So there is language here that the jury does need to fully understand.

That coupled with, you know, the 96 witnesses that they heard from. So they're going to want to review a lot of this testimony. There are hundreds of pieces of evidence that they have access to. And also, carol, we've all been out here for weeks talking about what's going on in that courtroom. It's a case of certainly national interest, if not international interest. The jury has been following very strict instructions not to talk about this case even with each other. So when they went behind those closed doors for deliberations yesterday, it was the first time they've had to sort of digest this, break it down with one other, share their impressions, ask their questions. And then they've got to get through all 32 pages of the verdict form, which they'll have to return to the judge, in order for us to come to a verdict in this case.

COSTELLO: All right, Alexandra Field, we'll check back. Alexandra Field reporting live from Boston this morning.

In the meantime, another jury is trying to decide the fate of former NFL star Aaron Hernandez. The former New England Patriots player is charged with first degree murder for the 2013 killing of Odin Lloyd. Among the evidence being weighed, testimony by Patriots owner, Robert Kraft, as well as surveillance footage from Hernandez's home security system. Jurors could come back with a verdict as early as today.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, an African-American man is shot and killed. A cop charged in his murder. Right now a rally is growing outside of city hall in North Charleston, South Carolina. We'll take you there, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:36:04] COSTELLO: A South Carolina police officer is behind bars this morning after a routine traffic stop ends in the shooting death of an apparently unarmed black man. Thirty-three-year-old Michael Slager is facing murder charges after cell phone video appears to show him firing eight bullets at Walter Scott as Scott is running away. I want to warn you, the video is disturbing.

(VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right. Let's talk about this. I'm joined by CNN political commentator and host of "Huff Post Live" Marc Lamont Hill and CNN commentator and fellow at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, L.Z. Granderson.

Welcome to both of you.

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Thank you.

L.Z. GRANDERSON, CNN COMMENTATOR: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Marc, would we be here now, at this place, if that cell phone video did not exist?

HILL: Of course not. People die all the time at the hands of police. This is the 300th death by an American citizen by the hands of police this year. In South Carolina there have been numerous complaints about -- in this town there have been numerous complaints about police violence, about excessive force, and the police are always exonerated. Whenever a person, but particularly a black person is killed by law

enforcement and there's no videotape, the police officer somehow magically says the person was aggressive, the person didn't have their hands up, the person had a weapon, even if we magically don't find a weapon. They then trot out the person's mug shot. They talk about their child support. They talk about what they did in third grade. They do whatever they can do to make this person seem like a demon. And even when excessive force is clearly used, we find a way to exonerate the officer.

Videotape is the only thing that gives us a fighting chance. And as we learned in the case of Eric Garner, videotape doesn't mean full -- in a full proof manner that it will still work. Black witness doesn't matter.

COSTELLO: L.Z., I know you're a tad angry, actually you're more than a tad angry, at what you call hypocrisy surrounding police shootings in Ferguson, New York, and Cleveland. Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who's a -- that's one of the people you're mad at because he accused the president, the attorney general and New York's mayor of stirring up intense anti-police hatred and said that, in most occasions, officers are justified in their actions. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: If you commit a lot of crime, you're going to tend to have more interactions 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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK. So do you think Mayor Giuliani will talk about this South Carolina case, L.Z.?

GRANDERSON: Of course not. Absolutely and of course not. You know, when have you seen him actually come out and say, I've made a mistake with anything in terms of both his policies as mayor and since he's run for president and since he's now become a conservative commentator? He's not come out and said, I was wrong or, you know, maybe I wasn't as clear or perhaps I misspoke. He doesn't apologize. He keeps barreling forward ahead.

You know, the thing that I find most offensive about what's happening right now in South Carolina is this notion that this was this one particular cop who made one bad decision. When in the police report, you know, he says that several police officers tried to administer CPR to save the man's life and then the video comes out and we don't see anything like that. We just see them kind of mulling around standing over his body as he's dying. So to tell us that this was one police officer who made one bad mistake, meanwhile other responding police officers don't try to save this man's life, tells us there's a lot more going on than what's been stated.

COSTELLO: Although in fairness, the police chief came out. He immediately charged this cop with murder. He was in tears in talking about it with the press, Marc. So the police chief appears to care.

[09:39:56] HILL: I don't know if he cares or not. He's doing his job. If a black person shoots somebody on the street, they arrest him and charge him with murder. This guy was caught on tape shooting someone, tampering with evidence, covering up a scene and lying. Of course he did it. We should not be celebrating a police chief for doing his job. If we want to celebrate somebody, celebrate the people -- as Rosa Clemente (ph) recently said, celebrate the people on August 9th who came through Ferguson. Celebrate black lives matter. Celebrate the sustained protests for the last three months that make this a national conversation. I'm not going to reward a police chief for arresting somebody who got caught on tape shooting somebody.

COSTELLO: On the other hand, there are protests today --

GRANDERSON: Especially when you know --

COSTELLO: Oh, go ahead, L.Z.

GRANDERSON: Well, I was going to say, especially when you know that the police officer, he filed his report. This didn't happen yesterday. The video became public yesterday.

HILL: Right.

GRANDERSON: So this is an incident that already happened a couple of days prior and so the police department already had its investigation and had already decided that they believed their brother. And then the video came out and then they were forced to go back and readjust things. I want to know how many people this man has arrested prior to this video that may have been suspect and needs to be reinvestigated. I want to know how many people this guy may have dealt with in a violent manner.

HILL: Framed.

GRANDERSON: That the victim says that this was -- this was problematic and they just went forward with what he had to say.

COSTELLO: Well, we're digging deep on the answers to all of those questions. On the other hand, there are protests already planned for today in North Charleston and a councilwoman appeared on "New Day" and said, you know, this is just stirring things up. We're doing things the right way. Listen to what she had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DOROTHY WILLIAMS, NORTH CHARLESTON CITY COUNCILWOMAN: Believe it or not, the community is very calm because it happened, that he got arrested and charged so quickly. And they are very content with that. Now we have a few people that's trying to stir it up by having some march this morning just to get their name out there for no reason, but the neighborhood and everyone is so happy that this police officer is in jail.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So the police officer's in jail. The FBI is involved. The Department of Justice Civil Rights Division is involved, right? So what more needs to be done? Why are they protesting, Marc?

HILL: Well, there's two things. One, these things only -- again, we're only here because there's a videotape. And we only get indictments, we only get arrests in the case of Sanford, Florida, in the case of Ferguson, Missouri, when we keep a national spotlight on this. So we need to keep marching, we need to keep protesting to make sure that nothing underhanded happens here. Again, as L.Z. said, we've known about this for a while now. We just got in it for at least a few days now. We've gotten the charges yesterday. We want to make sure that they continue to move according -- with deliberate speed so to speak.

The other piece of this, though, is that we're not marching to get cops arrested for killing black people. Our fight, our struggle, the struggle of black lives matter. The struggle of black activists all around this world is not to get cops arrested when they murder us, it's to stop them from murdering us. It's to stop the institutional power, it's to stop the structural power that allows us to happen and the white supremacist impulse that allows people to normalizes black death. I don't want black people to die any more. That's why I'm marching.

COSTELLO: All right, Marc Lamont Hill, L.Z. Granderson, I have to leave it there. Thanks so much, as usual.

I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:46:29] COSTELLO: The president says the government has got to do better to protect Americans from climate change. That's not the only warning from Mr. Obama. During a one-on-one interview with CNN chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the president cautioned about what could happen if the Supreme Court guts a key provision of Obamacare.

Sanjay joins me now from the White House with more. Good morning.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. He talked a lot about his own experience with climate change. It was interesting. I started off asking him about the science relating climate change to public health. And that was one of the key issues. He's sort of reframing in some ways the whole discussion around climate change and global warming as a public health one -- what is the impact on public health. He says he was in Los Angeles in 1979 starting college. The air quality was so bad there, but there were measures taken, put in place, that improved air quality. And he said he saw asthma rates and respiratory diseases go down.

So the question is, if they make some of those changes more nationwide, could we have improvements in some of these, particularly these respiratory diseases. It's one of the things he's focused on, but this is a larger plan -- control carbon emissions. Possibly improve people's health. It could take decades to see some of that improvement but that was his strong focus yesterday, Carol.

COSTELLO: Yes, you also talked, though, about Obamacare and what could happen if the U.S. Supreme Court knocks down a key provision in that law. What did the president say?

GUPTA: You know, I was trying to figure it out, I think, Carol, if there was a Plan B. As you know, the case basically says states that do not have state-based exchanges, which are a lot of states out there that don't have state-based exchanges. If this is struck down, those people would lose their subsidies. They would not be able to get money to help pay for their health care insurance anymore. I said, well, what if that happens? Is there a Plan B? Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If you read the statute, it's pretty straightforward and it's pretty clear. So I'm not anticipating the Supreme Court would make such a bad decision. If The Supreme Court made a ruling that said the folks who have federal exchanges don't get the tax credits, what you would end up seeing is millions of people losing their health insurance. And the truth is that there aren't that many options available if, in fact, they don't have tax credits, they can't afford to get health insurance that's being provided out there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: So really no Plan B in terms of another plan to help take care of those people if they lose those subsidies. But I'll tell you, Carol, he was very bullish on the fact he thought the Supreme Court was going to rule in favor of the Affordable Care Act. He was talking about the provisions, the way he read them, and he didn't seem all that concerned that the decision would go the other way.

COSTELLO: We'll see. I have to ask you about the setting because that was kind of -- it looked like a swanky some place in some hospital somewhere.

GUPTA: It was funny; we were sitting in the simulation area and there were these monitors up around us. You can see them in the pictures. And I couldn't help but notice on one of the monitors that the heart rate was accelerated and the person who was being monitored was hyperventilating. And I thought is this supposed to be me as I'm talking to the president or what?

But I think they wanted a medical-looking setting for this public health issue.

COSTELLO: Well, they achieved that goal. Sanjay Gupta, thanks as always. I appreciate it.

From the White House to a candidate who wants to move in. Just one day after he officially threw his hat in the ring for 2016, Republican Seantor Rand Paul will be on CNN's "THE SITUATION ROOM" with Wolf Blitzer.

[09:50:03] That's today, 5:00 Eastern.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Mike Rowe is back in the saddle tomorrow night. And I mean that quite literally. It is the season premiere of "SOMEBODY'S GOTTA DO IT". And that means Mike Rowe's got to wrangle a bull.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE ROWE, CNN HOST, "SOMEBODY'S GOTTA DO IT" (voice-over): Every once in a while in life, you get a piece of advice that's utterly, brain-bustingly crazy. Like this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Try to touch him. You got to get your hand on it. I know that sounds terrible, but the closer you are, the safer you are. If he gets on top of you and try to root you around, maybe just curl up and scream for Mom or something.

ROWE: Now, that advice I can probably follow. And since I survived the first round, why not try it again?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want you to be aggressive now.

ROWE: I mean really, what could possibly go wrong?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's getting ready. He's belting on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Be ready. Keep watching. Be ready.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here we go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on, Mike. Come on, Mike.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: Don't mean to laugh at you but I'm laughing at you.

ROWE (on-camera): It's OK. It's OK.

COSTELLO: That was a pathetic attempt at stopping the bull from hurting --

ROWE: It was terrible. And it only got worse as the day went on.

COSTELLO: No truly, before the bull came out, you looked really scared.

ROWE: Well, I was. There is not a terrible amount of information that comes my way prior to the shooting of these segments.

[09:55:04] And the prep for this was something along the lines of you're going to meet some cowboys and do some stuff. And there was a brief conversation about actually riding the bull, which was quickly dismissed as insane. But then we determined that it would be good for me to determine how to run from one, which I spent most of the day doing. And I'm a better man for it.

COSTELLO: Seriously though, it is scary. Because I spent some of my childhood on a farm and I've been charged by a bull, but not that kind of bull.

ROWE: You're a fascinating woman.

COSTELLO: Aren't I?

ROWE: What kind of bull exactly were you charged by?

COSTELLO: Just like a heifer. Nothing like --

ROWE: So those guys -- Frank, Jesse and Cody are their names. And they literally are the unsung heroes of PBR. They -- I mean, every day, day after day after day, pound for pound, I think they're the toughest guys I've met. They get trampled every day. Gored. They keep coming back.

COSTELLO: Why do they do it?

ROWE: Well, partly it's a job. Mostly it's because they love it. They actually are in on some sort of cosmic joke or awareness. They know what they do allows this whole thing to work. And when you hear the professional bull riders talk about them, it's extraordinary. I mean, they literally save their lives about once a week.

But in a weird turn, what's happening right now is after we did this ridiculously risky, frightening thing, something happened that happens to me again and again and again. We're just putting bulls in pens, a relatively simple task. Each one of those locks has a spring-loaded iron catch. And you should really not put your hand where the catch goes. So naturally I did and the end of my little finger exploded. It broke it. This is at, like, 10:00 in the morning.

The point of the story is when you break your finger and lose your nail at a PBR event, there's no one to complain to at all. It's so annoying. I showed my hand to Frank all bloody and messy. He holds up his hand. Same hand. Half his finger is missing. OK, and he says, yes, that looked like it hurt. I'll give you a call when this one grows back.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: So dry your tears, little boy, and get out of my way.

ROWE: Don't whine about your boo-boo to a cowboy. They're not impressed.

COSTELLO: Mike Rowe, thanks for stopping by. Really appreciate it. You can catch the season premiere of "SOMEBODY'S GOTTA DO IT" tomorrow night 9:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM after a break.

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