Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Joyce Mitchell's Lawyer Speaks; Manhunt Continues; White Ex- NAACP Leader Speaks; Trump Running for President. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired June 16, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00] BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: For our viewers in North American, "Newsroom" with Brooke Baldwin starts right now.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Top of the hour. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Today with begin with salacious new details about this prison break that has really an entire state on edge and authorities wondering now if the fugitives' trail is official cold. Two killers, who broke out of a New York prison, are still on the run. Here we are nearly 11 days after they tunneled their way out. We are now learning David Sweat and Richard Matt may have planned to murder the husband of Joyce Mitchell, the prison employee charged with helping them escape. Investigators now looking into the possibility that the threat of violence to Mitchell's husband or perhaps to even Mitchell herself may have forced her to cooperate with them.

CNN's Alexandra Field is in West Plattsburgh, New York. I understand you just spoke with her lawyer. What did that person share with you?

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, you know, for days this prison seamstress was voluntarily going to police, telling them everything that she seemed to know about the escape plan and the role that she was intending to play in it. But she's behind bars now. She is charged and she has taken on an attorney, as you point out. He says she is remorseful but that she has not spoken to investigators ever since he took on the case. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN JOHNSTON, JOYCE MITCHELL'S ATTORNEY: Well, I'm on my way to a deposition.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just -- could you tell us how -- how your client is holding up, Ms. Mitchell?

JOHNSTON: Well, as I said -- I mean I haven't talked to her today, but as of late yesterday, she was pretty distraught.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you could elaborate on that.

JOHNSTON: Well, she --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean she had a visitor today, her husband, correct?

JOHNSTON: That is correct. And -- UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you explain -- can you explain how that -- that visit went? What did they discuss?

JOHNSTON: I don't know. I don't know.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.

JOHNSTON: I don't know. All I know is that he says that he's standing by her. So, that's what he told me when I spoke to him. I don't know anything more about their conversation than that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And she will be transferred to another jail?

JOHNSTON: That's what I was told by the sheriff late morning today.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you know where?

JOHNSTON: May be happening now. I don't know.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there anything you can tell us about Lyle, why Lyle has an attorney or what's going on there?

JOHNSTON: Yes. As soon as I realized he had a lawyer, we sort of stopped talking pretty much.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you know anything about this alleged plan to possibly harm Lyle?

JOHNSTON: I don't know very much about it other than I believe it's specious -- a specious plan -- argument. So, that's about all I can tell you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FIELD: All right, you just heard the attorney say it was -- you just head the attorney say it was a specious plan, a false plan. You also heard him say that Lyle Mitchell is standing by his wife, Joyce Mitchell. And, in fact, Brooke, I spoke to the Clinton County sheriff. He tells me that Lyle Mitchell is the first visitor that Joyce Mitchell has received over at Clinton County Jail. He was there this morning. They spent an hour talking to each other. The sheriff says that she seemed comforted by the visit, that he appeared to be supportive of her. And this is particularly interesting, Brooke, because, as you know, investigators have been looking at him. They have spoken to him. They have wondered if he had any hand in the escape plan. He also worked in the tailor shop along with his wife. But so far he has not faced any charges. He has, however, now taken on an attorney to represent him.

BALDWIN: An hour-long visit. I bet they had quite a bit to brief one another on. Alexandra Field, thank you so much.

Let's talk to Mike Bouchard. He's a former ATF assistant director and the task force commander during the D.C. sniper case.

So, Mike, welcome back to you. I mean, listen, there's a lot I want to get to, but when I think of the D.C. sniper case, I mean I know that you all must have gotten hundreds upon hundreds of tips there. How are these investigators combing through all these different tips? Again, we're hearing, by the way, the trail has gone cold. How would they determined that, a, and, b, how do you sift through the tips to find out what's really credible?

MIKE BOUCHARD, FORMER ATF ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Well, as the tips come through, they -- they -- the investigators are going to put some of their most experienced people screening the tips and they're going to triage those tips as they come in, much like an emergency room does. A tip where someone says, hey, my dog was barking at something last night will get a lower priority versus one that, hey, I saw two people running through my backyard last night. So the investigators are going to weed through those, prioritize them, follow up on every one of them and report back and see if there's any links between the leads that can show any patterns.

BALDWIN: How do they know it's gone cold?

BOUCHARD: I don't think the trail is ever going to go cold. They're going to find these guys. It's just a matter of time. They're probably laying low somewhere even if they did get out of the area. They're smart. You know, these guys have been through the system before. They know how to play the system. So they're probably just going to lay low for a little while. But eventually they always get caught, they always screw up and do something wrong.

BALDWIN: You know, we talked a lot about Joyce Mitchell, this woman who's now behind bars, who got a visit from her husband today and apparently how she was supposed to have provided this getaway car and to meet at this nearby power plant once they broke out through the manhole. We've now heard from the sheriff who's saying, you know what, my gut instinct is, she wasn't necessarily plan A. Do you think they had plan A, B and C before perhaps she was plan D and do you think it's possible she showed up at that power plant location and they weren't there?

[14:05:20] BOUCHARD: Well, this was obviously a well-planned escape and they had put a lot of time and effort into this thing. So I would think that they would have a plan B or maybe she was plan B, that they just went along to tell her to try and play along with this, whatever their scam with her was and they actually had other people --

BALDWIN: Why would they do that, by the way? Why would they bother doing that?

BOUCHARD: I don't know. It's just -- they may have just tried to use her as a distraction. They may have come up, you know, exited somewhere else saying I'm going to come up through this manhole. They may have come out somewhere else. Or they may have just been trying to see if she would play along with them. I'm not really sure.

BALDWIN: Huh. Huh. We know that Richard Matt's former accomplice told CNN, his words, this guy is a master manipulator, has amazing street smarts, he's cunning. But how -- how would Joyce Mitchell then be so totally manipulated, not just to help them get out, but -- but potentially, as we're learning now, be willing to go in on a plot to murder her own husband?

BOUCHARD: Well, they're con men and they're very manipulative. They're in prison for a -- for a reason. They're bad people and they deserve to be in prison. But when they get to people, they try and -- they can read people very well. They have a lot of time on their hands. They can pick apart people's weaknesses. They can spot a weak spot in a person and play on that, build up some confidence. And if they can get something to blackmail that person, they'll then use that to get additional benefits for themselves.

BALDWIN: You know we -- you've mentioned how, obviously, this is an incredibly -- it was an incredibly elaborate escape plan but so many people I've talked to up until now, what, we're almost in day 11, in which a lot of times these plots are phenomenal up until the fence of the prison, but they don't entirely plan beyond the fence. This would indicate this was incredibly well-planned out. Where else would investigators be looking?

BOUCHARD: Well, they're going to be looking for any of the family ties that these guys have, past criminal associates who might be on the outside, some of the other people they've done business with or associated with, people who have come and visited them in the jail, people who have called them before in the jail. So they're going to be following up on all those people as potential leads to where these guys might be.

BALDWIN: Huh. Huh. Michael Bouchard, thank you so much.

BOUCHARD: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, the NAACP leader breaks her silence after resigning over questions about her race. Hear how she responds to being white. She talks about her childhood and whether she deceived everyone. We'll discuss that.

Also, a biker breaks down in tears after his release in that Texas gang shootout. We'll speak with him live about what's been going on these last couple of weeks behind bars.

And quite possibly the most entertaining announcement speech of all time, Donald Trump is now officially running for president, in addition to reminding us he's really, really, really rich. He let loose on everything from ISIS to stupidity to his new Republican opponents. We'll marinate on that.

You're watching CNN. Stay with me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:12:23] BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

One day now after she stepped down, the NAACP chapter president accused of faking her race opens up. But Rachel Dolezal did not apologize for pretending to be black, as her white parents say. Instead, she stuck with her story, saying she has seen herself as African-American actually ever since she was a little girl. She spoke this morning with NBC's Matt Lauer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATT LAUER, HOST, NBC'S "TODAY" SHOW: Are you an African-American woman?

RACHEL DOLEZAL, EX-NAACP LEADER: I identify as black.

LAUER: You identify as black. Let me put a picture up of you in your early 20s, though. And when you see this picture, is this an African- American woman or is that a Caucasian woman?

DOLEZAL: That's not in my early 20s, but --

LAUER: That's a little younger, I guess, yes?

DOLEZAL: Yes, I think I was 16 in that picture.

LAUER: Is she a Caucasian woman or an African-American woman?

DOLEZAL: I would say that visibly she would be identified as white by the people who see her.

LAUER: But at the time, were you identifying yourself as African- American?

DOLEZAL: In that picture, during that time, no.

LAUER: When did it start?

DOLEZAL: I would say about five years old.

LAUER: You began identifying yourself as African-American?

DOLEZAL: I -- I was drawing self-portraits with the brown crayon instead of the peach crayon and the black, you know, black curly hair and, you know, yes, that was -- that was how I was portraying myself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: But, again, is Dolezal lying? Her parents just talked to CNN about what they remember of her childhood drawings.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUTHANNE DOLEZAL, MOTHER OF EX-NAACP LEADER: She did not ever refer to herself or draw pictures or anything that indicated she thought of herself as black. It was disturbing because the false statements continue. And as much as we're concerned with Rachel's identity issues, we are also concerned with her integrity issues.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: I have CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin with me, Michael Skolnik, the editor-in-chief of "Global Grind," and political director for media mogul Russell Simmons. OK, you two. You just heard, you know, Rachel talking on the "Today"

show about how -- the crayons, the brown crayons versus the peach crayons when she was as young as five. Obviously her parents call BS on that. But she says she identifies as black. Is that OK?

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I'm so confused by this woman. I don't think that it's OK. I do believe that race can be very fluid, especially for someone that is multiracial, like myself. I'm Puerto Rican, Jewish and African-American, and so race has often been very fluid for me in terms of identity. What do you identify with most? Do you identify with all of the races?

[14:15:04] But I think that when you speak about this woman, she seems to identify as black when it is a benefit to her. I mean if her parents are saying that she didn't identify as being black as a child, we know that she sued Howard University for discrimination as a white woman.

BALDWIN: Right.

HOSTIN: And so just a few years before now, she identified clearly as white. And so I'm troubled by the fact that she now says she identifies as black because being black is a culture, it is identity, it is a race. And to sort of suggest that you can just become black is something that I'm uncomfortable with.

BALDWIN: If she had explained it -- and I want to come back, by the way, to the Howard, you know, suit, versus the hate crime allegations because, you know, I want your legal hat on for that and where that goes.

HOSTIN: Sure.

BALDWIN: But if she had said, listen, there have been a lot of conversations, means (ph), et cetera, comparing, let's say, the Bruce Jenner, the Caitlyn Jenner, believe -- you know, identifying more as a woman than a man, identifying more as an African-American woman than a white woman, had she explained herself differently or perhaps owned up to misrepresenting herself, is there anything she could have said this morning that would make, you know, folks sort of say, OK, we get it?

MICHAEL SKOLNIK, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, GLOBALGRIND.COM: I don't think there's an explanation for white privilege except that white privilege you have the benefit, as Sunny just said, to actually, you know, pick and choose when and what you want to be for your own convenience. This woman chose to be black for her own convenience. And not a convenience to say climbing up a social ladder, but in this sense it seems like a convenience of acceptance. She was someone who was looking for acceptance. And in this group, in Spokane, Washington, she said she was black and they accepted her on face value that she was black. For black people in this country --

BALDWIN: She would say she's made a difference. She'd helped the community.

SKOLNICK: Certainly, certainly, but she also took the space, right, of a black woman who could have been a leader of that organization as pretending to be that. Black people in this country don't have that convenience. In fact, for most black people in the history of this country who passed, it was illegal to pass as a white person. You were actually put in jail if you tried to pass. And for black people, passing was about survival. It wasn't about acceptance. She's using this for convenience, and that, to me, is deeply troubling.

HOSTIN: And I think she may also be using it to get ahead because perhaps she wouldn't have become a professor of Africana studies without pretending to be black. Perhaps she wouldn't have been the, you know, president of the NAACP in Spokane, Washington, if she hadn't pretended to be black. And that's troubling.

BALDWIN: How would she have been received if she said, hey, I am a blonde white woman but I really am passionate about African-American cultural issues. I want to help. I would either like to be the leader of the Spokane NAACP --

HOSTIN: Sure.

BALDWIN: Or help the community. How would she have been received as a white woman?

HOSTIN: And I think that is a terrific question.

SKOLNIK: Yes.

HOSTIN: Especially for someone like Michael Skolnik.

BALDWIN: Michael -- Michael Skolnik.

HOSTIN: But, let me just say, when I am on the ground in Ferguson, when I am on the ground in Baltimore, the first face I see in Stanford, Florida, Ferguson, Baltimore, is Michael Skolnik.

BALDWIN: This guy. This guy.

HOSTIN: He is certainly an integral part of what I've been calling sort of the new civil rights movement. He's been an integral part of Black Lives Matter. And Michael is not black. He's embraced by the black community. I often call him the honorary brother on the ground. And I think when you look at the history of the NAACP, it was founded by many white people. It was founded by white women. And she would have been embraced.

SKOLNIK: I think it's -- I thank you for your kind words, but I also think --

BALDWIN: That was really sweet.

SKOLNIK: But I also think that it's important that I'm still not going to be stopped by the police. I'm still not going to be, you know, stopped and frisked. I'm still not going to be walking into a restaurant, people grab their purse as I walk into that restaurant. You know, for -- I'm an ally and even more than an ally I try to be an accomplice. And I think it's important for white people in this country to see this story and to recognize we have to be allies, especially in times like this.

So when you see a woman coopting, pretending to be something that she is not and taking space of leadership, of black leadership, where it's -- where we need -- it's white people to uplift black leadership in this country and follow black leadership and the young black leaders in Ferguson and New York and Baltimore who are doing the work on the ground, it is our job not to take their place, not to pretend to be them, but to support them and to respect their struggle and never pretend to understand their struggle because, as white people, we don't have those problems.

BALDWIN: Michael Skolnik, ladies and gentlemen, Sunny Hostin, there we go. Thank you two very much. I really appreciate it. Great conversation.

Just ahead here on CNN, breaking news. Tropical Storm Bill making landfall right now. Folks across Texas on high alert. We will take you there.

Also, love him, hate him, Donald Trump, he is officially in it to win it. He is running for president. Hear the greatest hits, shall we say, from his speech. Forty-five minutes worth of zingers and why he says building a wall may be one answer to America's problem.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:23:54] BALDWIN: It is officially -- it's -- he hasn't actually filed the paperwork. He has 30 days to do so. But you're about to hear, he says it's official. Donald Trump is the "he" I'm referring to. He is the man who made the term "you're fired" a celebrity catch- phrase. He is running for the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am officially running for president of the United States.

All of these politicians that I'm running against now, they don't have a clue. They can't lead us.

You look at Bus. It took him five days to answer the question on Iraq.

And I'm the one that made all of the right predictions about Iraq. How the hell can you vote for this guy?

We have losers. We have people that don't have it. Our president doesn't have a clue. He's a bad negotiator.

I would repeal and replace the big lie Obamacare. I would build a great wall and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me.

Rebuild the country's infrastructure. Nobody can do that like me. I will stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Nobody would be tougher on ISIS than Donald Trump. Nobody.

[14:25:07] I don't need anybody's money. I'm using my own money. I'm not using the lobbyists. I'm not using donors. I don't care. I'm really rich. I'll show you that in a second (ph).

I'm not doing that to brag because, you know what, I don't have to brag. I don't have to. I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created. I tell you that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The real estate mogul and creator of the highly popular reality TV competition "Celebrity Apprentice" made his announcement just this morning at New York's Trump Tower. After decades of flirting with the idea, Trump is clearly going all in. Joining me now, our CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger and Republican strategist and senior director at the Blackrock Group Lisa Boothe.

LISA BOOTHE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Hi, Brooke.

BALDWIN: So, ladies, welcome to both of you.

And, Gloria, to you.

I mean, when I was watching that, it's like you think of this big hunk of red meat and he's like dangle, dangle, dangle. Is that what that is to the base?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, he, look, he's a reality TV star.

BALDWIN: Yes.

BORGER: OK. This was the presidential announcement of a reality TV star who does not lack for self-esteem, shall we say, right? OK.

BALDWIN: Quite confident, that Donald Trump.

BORGER: This is a man who has a 57 percent unfavorable rating in his own party. He is not popular. Nobody --

BALDWIN: He's still polling above the Chris Christies and the John Kasichs of the world, by the way.

BORGER: Fine, but his unfavorable is very high. He is a -- it's a huge field of candidates, which is why he's getting a little sliver of the vote because, just look at him, people are like, yes, I agree with you. I didn't like Obamacare. I didn't like this.

But Donald Trump is not a serious presidential candidate. I have to tell you that, Brooke. This is not good for the Republican Party because -- precisely because he's doing that little sliver in the polls. He could get up there on the stage in the first debate.

BALDWIN: I want to get to that, and especially I'm going to ask Jake Tapper, because we know he's moderating it.

BORGER: Yes.

BALDWIN: I want to ask him about -- what the harder questions he wants to ask of Donald Trump.

But, Lisa, to you. I mean when you're watching him -- and it was like 40 minutes this morning, you know, from ISIS, to building walls, to how really, really rich he is, to China, yada, yada, yada. I mean that was all where Donald Trump went today. And I was hearing from S.E. Cupp earlier and she was saying she actually got a head's up of some of the excerpts from his speech and she said, really, for the most part, he did not stick to the script.

BOOTHE: Well, that doesn't surprise me. Look, The Donald is very entertaining and we saw that earlier today. And, you know, the -- I like the show "The Apprentice." And, you know, like I commend Donald Trump on his business acumen and his ability and his successes -- successes as a business executive.

However, he's been flirting with a presidential run for 20 years now. And, look, we're facing some big problems as a country and Republicans need a serious candidate that can help provide some solutions to solve some of those problems. And my biggest concern, which is something that Gloria picked up on, is the fact that the Republicans do have a very crowded primary field right now and so my concern is because he has such high name recognition, because of shows like "The Apprentice" and "Celebrity Apprentice," that he's going to distract voters from some of these more serious contenders.

BALDWIN: Let me get to that, Gloria, because if you, you know, picture with me the stage and all of these podiums smooshed on the stage, because there's going to be many of them. And, you know, we were just talking yesterday with the rollout with Jeb Bush. Jeb!, right? And he was just telling Dana Bash, he's more of an introvert --

BORGER: Right.

BALDWIN: And we were wondering how that would work on a big debate state with other big personalities. You know, enter Donald Trump, one of those big personalities. And so what are some of his strengths and what are some of his weaknesses?

BORGER: Look, he's a larger than life character because he's in show business. I mean this is not serious business we saw today. This was show business. And that's what he does and that's what he's good at and he's been on television a lot. And so on a stage with a bunch of other people, particularly sort of serious policy wants and all the rest, he can -- he can zap a lot of the air out of that room and people could turn to him and say they like him for five minutes, OK?

BALDWIN: OK. OK.

BORGER: So that's not good for the Republican Party because they didn't want a clown car. You know, they wanted a serious debate. And once you put Donald Trump in there, it's --

BALDWIN: Muddies the water a little bit for the others?

BORGER: Well, it sort of changes the whole formula right now.

BALDWIN: So then how do you -- if you're a Jeb Bush or a Marco Rubio or a Scott Walker -- whoever else --

BORGER: I don't think you pay much attention -- you try to pay as little attention to him as you can.

BALDWIN: Yes.

BORGER: And if you're Democrats talking about him, you raise the birther issues and everything else. We seem to have forgotten all of that, that happened not too long ago.

BOOTHE: But -- but I also think --

BALDWIN: I mean that's the b-word (ph).

Go ahead, Lisa.

BOOTHE: Well, I also think, Brooke, there is this concern that he might distract voters from some of these more serious contenders.

BORGER: Right.

BOOTHE: But, look, I think when push comes to shove and it gets down to actually having to be serious about what a presidential campaign entails and the level of organization that it entails as well, I don't think we're going to see him in the field for very long.

BALDWIN: OK.

BORGER: How about, I'm really rich, as a bumper sticker.

BALDWIN: Really, really, really, really rich.

[14:30:00] BORGER: We're very rich. That -- hey, I tell you what --

BOOTHE: Hey, I commend him on his business acumen.

BORGER: One really (ph).

BALDWIN: Oh, Lisa Boothe and Gloria Borger, ladies, thank you very much.

BOOTHE: Thank you.

BALDWIN: And make sure you catch Jake Tapper's interview with Donald Trump himself. That is this Sunday, "STATE OF THE UNION," 9:00 a.m. and noon Eastern.