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President Obama on Race; Confederate Flag Controversy; Manhunt. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired June 23, 2015 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:05]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: And we continue on, hour two. I'm Brooke Baldwin. This is CNN.

The hunt to find two killers could be nearing a showdown, the police closing in on what they are calling the most credible threat and clue here yet, a sighting and DNA evidence at an isolated cabin in Upstate New York, 20 miles, just 20 miles from the prison where they had escaped.

And now we have reason to believe that one of these killers could be on the run, could be barefoot, a source telling CNN that the pair was startled when they were busted in the cabin and left behind a pair of boots, all of this happening as the husband of the seamstress accused of helping them escape breaks his silence.

Here is part of that interview on NBC's "The Today Show."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LYLE MITCHELL, HUSBAND JOYCE MITCHELL: She didn't know if I loved her any more, she said. And they gave her a little attention, she said, and it just -- it went too far.

He tried to kiss her a couple of times. She said no. And she said that's when he started to threaten her a little bit on things. And she said, I have got something else to tell you. And I said, what's that? She said, their plan was, they wanted to kill you. I said, what? They wanted her to come pick them up.

MATT LAUER, CO-HOST, "THE TODAY SHOW": So she admitted to you at that moment that once these two escaped from Clinton and made their way to that manhole...

MITCHELL: Yes.

LAUER: ... that she was supposed to be the one to pick them up and drive them away?

MITCHELL: She told me that Matt wanted her to pick them up. And she said, well, I never leave nowheres without Lyle, never. And he said, well, I will give you some pills to give him to knock him out, and then we all -- and you come pick us up. She said, I am not doing that. She said, I love my husband. I am not hurting him, and then said, then I knew I was over my head.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: CNN's Sara Ganim is live in Owls Head, New York.

And let's begin with this notion of one of these two being barefoot. How do investigators know that?

SARA GANIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's right.

A law enforcement source that was briefed on the investigation told CNN's Deb Feyerick that these two had to leave in a hurry. This witness, we know, came up on the -- in an ATV upon his cabin to check on it and it was an unexpected visit.

And this law enforcement source told Deb Feyerick that they left behind personal belongings, including a pair of boots and provisions that they had brought along, presumably provisions to eat and other things that you would need if you were on the run.

Now, the key thing here, Brooke, about the boots is that this is incredibly rough, rugged, very thick terrain, thick woods. I just spoke to the sheriff a couple of minutes ago and I asked him, I said, if somebody was out there barefoot, could they make their way around without hurting themselves? And this is what he said. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN MULVERHILL, FRANKLIN COUNTY, NEW YORK, SHERIFF: I don't think you could navigate this terrain if you were barefoot. It's that thick. It's that dense. No, they have got something on their feet.

GANIM: What?

MULVERHILL: It would be very easy once you get wet feet to have your feet get blisters and really start -- start some real problems. And I think that's what these guys are running into. I really do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GANIM: Now, Brooke, just so you have an idea, law enforcement is navigating this as well. They have been bringing in all day truckloads of all-terrain vehicles, four-wheelers, so that they can navigate this. And they are properly equipped. So imagine someone who isn't -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Sara Ganim, thank you so much.

Let's talk to Sheriff Joseph Gerace. He assisted in the 2000 search of Bucky Phillips, who was a convicted murderer who escaped from a jail. This was outside of Buffalo, New York, back in 2006. And similar to this current situation with Ricky Matt and David Sweat, this guy managed to elude capture for months by breaking into unoccupied lodges and hunting camps.

So, the sheriff is with me now.

Sir, welcome.

SHERIFF JOSEPH GERACE, CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY, NEW YORK: Thank you.

BALDWIN: I mean, just reading all the details this morning about the search, you were very heavily involved and some years ago. There were a lot of similarities. How did this man manage to elude authorities for so long?

GERACE: Well, there are some similarities, heavily wooded area, this time of year. We're talking about ground searches that were very challenging. But what was different is, Phillips was not a murderer until well into this hunt. It was a five-month search. But he also taunted law enforcement. He left the area and came back to the area repeatedly. And it was a cat-and-mouse game for him.

BALDWIN: Hmm. Also a huge difference, Sheriff Gerace, is these two killers, from everything I know about them, everything CNN has been reporting, they are not outdoorsmen. And it sounds like this Bucky Phillips knew, more or less, what he was doing.

GERACE: He did well in the woods. He had help. That was another key difference.

Originally, he was not a violent criminal to speak of. He escaped from a minimum security jail in the neighboring county. He was on the run. People thought it was funny. He was like a folk hero in a sense to some. They had a local restaurant had a Bucky burger and they had, "Run, Bucky, Run" T-shirts. But then he shot a New York State Trooper in Elmira, New York, and everything changed.

[15:05:04]

BALDWIN: Yes.

GERACE: That trooper survived, but later he -- in the summer, he killed a state trooper and shot another one and seriously injured him.

So, it really escalated things at that point in time. But he left the area repeatedly and kept coming back.

BALDWIN: I mean, I was reading an article saying he was at one point -- he knew people in the area. He was couch-surfing, but he also breaking into cabins, he was stealing naps, he was stealing showers, he was stealing ATVs. And, Sheriff, was he actually in these cabins in which he would break into, turn on the TV and watch the news about him?

GERACE: We believe he did that.

We believe he was tuned to a channel where he could get the news and he was all about himself and we think that he did that. But he was able to survive with help from others and what he found in the cabins, nonperishable goods, firearms, which were plentiful to him. BALDWIN: In your experience, back in 2006, because we have talked so

much about this high-tech equipment, the thermal imaging, the helicopters, the dogs, how helpful, or not, was all of that in such a heavily wooded area?

GERACE: Well, the aerial surveillance is next to worthless in the heavily wooded portions of -- we're talking about hundreds, if not thousands of acres that were being searched, because you can't see through the canopy.

That's fantasy that some movie, television fantasies -- there is no electronics that penetrates that canopy of leaves. So they are good for open fields, but very difficult when he's in the deep woods. And the challenge was that he was heavily armed, so sending forces in there could be putting somebody's life at risk, because he -- they were sitting ducks. All the searchers were sitting ducks. He could take the high ground and start picking off searchers.

BALDWIN: So, how did you all finally catch him?

GERACE: That happened from a number of different things. He stole a car in a neighboring community in Warren, Pennsylvania. He was pursued there by deputy sheriffs. He bailed out of the car, stole another car, drove to New York State. New York State Troopers saw him going down a rural road, started to pursue. He ended up bailing out of that.

We had a multistate, multiagency dragnet, if you will. And there was tremendous sharing of information. We set up a rock-solid perimeter, used relentless aerial surveillance and kept him pinned in, and eventually he was spotted by a Warren County sheriff's deputy and taken into custody by the search team.

BALDWIN: So, final question, living through all of this and finally catching him, how do you think this thing ends, in your gut, with these two escaped killers?

GERACE: They will be caught and I think they will be caught relatively soon. And what's key, in my opinion, is that interagency cooperation. It doesn't matter if he's apprehended by a local village police officer, a sheriff's deputy, a state trooper, a U.S. Marshal. These two need to be apprehended by law enforcement.

BALDWIN: Sheriff Joseph Gerace, thank you. I appreciate your time.

(CROSSTALK)

GERACE: And, tonight, I should remind all of you, CNN is taking a deeper look inside the case. Do not miss our special report. It's called "The Great Prison Escape" 9:00 tonight Eastern time here on CNN.

Next on CNN, we could be on the watershed -- watershed moment for race, Wal-Mart getting rid of the Confederate Flag. Also learned last hour Amazon.com -- and South Carolina just voted to take up the issue of removing the flag entirely. But even if it comes down there, it's still all over some album covers and some TV shows. We will talk to Don Lemon about the artists who use it, the prevalency in pop culture.

And President Barack Obama sparking a national debate after he used the N-word in a recent interview. One of the men who knows the president best, his former body man and friend, Reggie Love, joins me to react ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:13:13]

BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

I can tell you that just in the last hour, South Carolina's House and Senate voted that they will debate if the Confederate Flag should be on state grounds. Right? They had to vote to debate it and then they will vote. All of this comes just one day after the governor and the state's U.S. senators called for its removal.

Plus, Mississippi and other Southern states are reconsidering their use of the Confederate symbol in the wake of South Carolina's call to action. So, as a state symbol, the Confederate Flag's days could be numbered. But what about the Confederate Flag in pop culture?

Music man Lynyrd Skynyrd uses it. So does the group Alabama. Even African-American musicians have appropriated it. This is an album cover we will show you here in a second for Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz. And listen to this lyric from "Accidental Racist." This is performed by LL Cool J and Brad Paisley.

(MUSIC)

BALDWIN: Don Lemon of "CNN TONIGHT" stature, Don Lemon is with me now.

By the way, side note. Did you see not only now has Wal-Mart yanked any Confederate Flag, anything?

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.

BALDWIN: Amazon.com has just said they will be doing the same. So, that's a big deal.

LEMON: Yes.

BALDWIN: This is businesses.

But I wanted to talk to you, Mr. Hip, about pop culture, because it's an important conversation, as we mentioned, all these different bands and some -- even, what is it, "New Slaves," Kanye West, when he was saying, listen, I'm taking it, it's my flag now, and he had the Confederate Flag on his jacket.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: Yes. Yes.

BALDWIN: Where do you draw the line on this issue of the Confederate Flag?

LEMON: Well, I think that's a discussion that we can have, and especially in pop culture. If people want to deal with it in the arts, I think you deal with it in the arts and you let people debate it.

[15:15:07]

I mean, listen, if -- who knows. The Confederate Flag may -- it may -- someone may create something that sells for millions of dollars like Andy Warhol did with the Campbell's Soup cans, what have you.

BALDWIN: Right. Jasper Johns actually...

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: So, let it live in that realm and let people debate it.

I'm not one to -- I'm not going to say that we should try to govern what is and what is not art, right, because someone -- one man's masterpiece is another man's piece of junk. So that's different than, should it be on the statehouse, I think.

BALDWIN: So, it's -- that's art and pop culture. It's one thing to be flying or waving around this flag. Then there are the issues of streets.

I think it was even Jon Stewart who mentioned it the other night, saying, listen, they are driving down the street to their church down streets that are named after prominent Confederate soldiers or their statues.

LEMON: Yes.

BALDWIN: Or, listen, we lived in Atlanta. I think of Stone Mountain and Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee right on the side of the mountain.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: Yes.

BALDWIN: You can't get rid of all of that.

LEMON: Yes.

So, a lot of my friends, some of whom are black, some of whom are white, went to Robert E. Lee High School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and they were the Rebels, right? They were the Lehigh Rebels, and that's just how it was back then.

I think that we evolve over time. And so you have to let evolution happen. You have to let people happen. And maybe it was OK back then, but it's not OK now. People are not happy with it. They don't want it. So, as a society, we should pick up these issues and debate them. And I think whether someone -- there is Robert E. Lee High School or whatever, that's a different story. We can talk about that. But, again, the focus should be the statehouse and whether this symbol of hate for many, whether it should hang or be flown there. And I don't even think, you know -- we were discussing it today among my group. It's not even a debate to me.

BALDWIN: Yes. It doesn't seem like it is at this point.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: It's not a debate. Everyone -- Mitt Romney said it back in 2012.

BALDWIN: Right.

LEMON: Or 2008. I forget when he said it.

BALDWIN: Then he tweeted over the weekend.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: ... agreed with him, right, right.

LEMON: I think John McCain said, I had been -- I had kind of lost my moral compass and I was maybe pandering a bit -- I'm paraphrasing here -- when it comes to that issue.

I think it's -- it's not even a debate. What is there to debate? There's no talking about it. It is time. It's a symbol of hate for a lot of people. And it didn't mean -- it doesn't mean, you know, oh, good old boys sitting around drinking mint juleps on the porch for all people. So you be a human being and consider that and move on.

BALDWIN: You bring up Robert E. Lee High School.

LEMON: Yes.

BALDWIN: You're from the South. I'm from Atlanta. I grew up on Rebel Valley View. We never had a street sign because guys around the neighborhood would steal it.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: My mom lives on Rebel Lane now.

BALDWIN: There you go. They would steal the sign.

LEMON: Oh, yes.

BALDWIN: It was like -- it was so Southern and so cool to have all of this.

LEMON: Yes.

BALDWIN: But, to me, this feels different. This feels like a watershed moment for the country.

LEMON: Yes. Yes. It is a watershed moment. And, as I said, it's just time.

And I know that for many people in the South, they are still fighting the Civil war. They still can't believe that the North actually won.

BALDWIN: Yes. Yes. That's a thing. It's a thing still.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: But that's not reality. It's over. It's over.

BALDWIN: Right.

LEMON: The Civil War has been fought and won and lost by one side.

BALDWIN: That doesn't mean you have to lose your Southern-ness or your identity.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: Hang it on your house.

BALDWIN: Yes.

LEMON: Display it on your property. Be proud.

I was discussing with someone -- they -- someone I know said, I'm concerned that there's going to be some kind of race war because people won't be able to express pride in being white or whatever.

BALDWIN: No.

LEMON: You can be as proud as you want.

BALDWIN: No.

LEMON: No one should be proud of being a bigot or a racist. But if you want to be proud to be white, black, Italian, Irish, Jewish, whatever it is, absolutely you should.

But no one should be proud of bigotry and hatred and racism. And that's what that symbol represents. It's time to take it down. It's time to remove it. It's time to stop reminding people, every time they go past that capitol, every time we show a capitol shot on television, that particular form of hatred.

BALDWIN: Especially with this funeral happening Friday, right.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: Stop waving it in people's faces.

BALDWIN: Thank you, my friend.

LEMON: You look great.

BALDWIN: Don Lemon, 10:00, "CNN TONIGHT." We will see you then, my friend. Thank you very much.

LEMON: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, President Obama, he stunned a lot of people when he said the N-word in that podcast interview.

So, next, we will get reaction from a man who was very close to the president for a number of years, Reggie Love, his so-called body man during the '08 campaign. We will talk to Reggie about what you haven't heard in that conversation.

Also, these two items that these escaped killers left behind in this hunting cabin in Upstate New York, how these personal effects could help investigators track them down coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:23:46]

BALDWIN: America's first black president is fearless, those words straight from President Barack Obama himself speaking in a podcast interview.

He offered arguably his most revealing comments on race since he became president. And while most notable, President Obama invoked the N-word, saying the country isn't cured of racism, he also spoke on how he feel liberated. Here he was.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I know what I'm doing, and I'm fearless.

MARC MARON, TALK SHOW HOST: For real? You're not pretending you're fearless?

OBAMA: Right. You're not pretending to be fearless.

MARON: That's exactly it, right.

OBAMA: Right. And when you get to that point?

MARON: Freedom.

OBAMA: And also part of that fearlessness is because you've screwed up enough times that you know that you know that...

MARON: Sure. It's all happened.

OBAMA: It's all happened. I've been through this.

MARON: Right.

OBAMA: I've screwed up.

MARON: Right.

OBAMA: I've been in the barrel tumbling down Niagara Falls.

MARON: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

OBAMA: And I emerged, and I lived. And that's always -- that's such a liberating feeling.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BALDWIN: I just spoke with someone who has had multiple conversations with the president on what it's like to be a black man in America, the president's former special assistant and body man and friend Reggie Love.

Here's part of our revealing discussion.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: When you knew him back in the day, did you feel like you saw that sense of fearlessness or that really has evolved over his presidency?

[15:25:07]

REGGIE LOVE, PRESIDENT OBAMA'S FORMER BODY MAN: Right.

Well, look, I think -- look, fearlessness is such an interesting word, because I think he's always sort of had the fire to do it. But I think, you know, you have been president and you have been president for almost seven years. I think your level of confidence in your ability to speak on it at this point in time is probably a little more -- it means a little bit more right now.

BALDWIN: When the president speaks, people listen. And so when the president sits down and uses the N-word in an interview, it's a big deal. I mean, this is a racial slur. I don't know how you feel about the word, but do you think the president should have used it?

LOVE: Look, I have read a lot about it the last couple of days.

And for me, I'm 33. I'm a little probably desensitized to it. I don't promote it, by any stretch of the imagination. And I think for the president to use it in the context in which he's trying to sort of add context and add sort of color to the point that he's trying to make, I think he's leader of the free world and I think he has the capability to do it.

I think some people believe -- and Marc Morial and Oprah have said the N-word doesn't have a place here in modern day time, but, look, people are using it. Look, I'm from -- I grew up in the South. I spent my summers in Charleston, South Carolina, every summer until I was probably the age of 12 years old.

I have heard it from people in the sense and they said -- it was endearing. I have heard it from people in the sense where they use it as a slur. And I'm just not -- I'm not overly sensitive to it because, you know, everyone has a different experience and everyone doesn't come from the same place that I come from. And so...

BALDWIN: So when critics say, Reggie, when critics say, the president using the N-word in this interview, it gives the word even more power, do you agree with that?

LOVE: If it were a powerless word, we wouldn't be having this conversation. So I don't think that -- I don't think that by him using it, it has somehow set us further back as a country or a culture.

BALDWIN: The president talked about trying on different personas as he struggled to understand what kind of African-American man he wanted to be.

Let me quote him in the interview. "I'm trying on a whole bunch of different outfits," the president said. "Here's how I should act. Here's what it means to be cool. Here's what it means to be a man."

Did you ever have conversations with the president about that sense of trying on different personas or even you as an African-American man growing up? Talk about the South.

LOVE: Yes. I definitely struggled with it.

Look, I write in my book I went to a school where I was like one of five African-Americans in the graduating class. And I did struggle with, you know, what did it mean to be a student in my school, what did it mean to be an African-American male in the South?

It's hard for other people who haven't grown up -- who didn't grow up. When they look at you, they don't see a black man. I think it's hard for other people to have that perspective where you walk down the street and, you know, a young woman clutches her purse or you walk into the store to, you know, buy a beverage and people ask you, do you play in NBA or whatever? Look...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: You had those conversations with the president?

LOVE: Yes.

BALDWIN: What was his advice to you?

LOVE: Well, look, there's no real advice for it, other than you just have to be patient. You have to be patient, because if I ever thought that today, in time, that, you know, things were tough for me racially, I would say that, look, rewind the clock.

What my parents and grandparents experienced in terms of sort of the racial divide was significantly tougher than what I have ever experienced.

BALDWIN: And that's what the president pointed out in the interview too. If people today think it's tough, look at what happened in the '50s, '60s, '70s.

LOVE: Yes.

BALDWIN: I have to ask you about the Confederate Flag issue. This whole notion of should it be removed, this has caused a wave of controversy as to whether or not South Carolina will yank the flag. How do you feel? How do you think President Obama would feel?

(CROSSTALK)

LOVE: You know, I have never had a conversation with him about the Confederate Flag.

It took, I don't know how long, until 2001 for them to take it off the state capitol. It's now been on the ground outside of the state capitol for, what, like almost 15 years now.

Look, I think, if they take it down, I think it would -- it is a good signal for the country, but, look, I think there will be people that will probably be offended on either side of it. I mean, the hope is that the flag is irrelevant. As a whole to me, I think it's how people are able to treat one another is really the main point. Like...

BALDWIN: It's the intangible that is more significant.

LOVE: Yes.

If, like, the flag comes down and people are still getting shot in churches, like, so what?

BALDWIN: With the church shooting, the president will be there. He will be delivering the eulogy for the reverend who -- who's gone. And talk about having open hearts and minds, what do you think the president's message will be, should be, to really the nation?

LOVE: You know, look, I think, you know, I'm sure that grief and remorse for such a tragic incident will be one of the main points of his eulogy. I don't know, you know, where he'll take it in terms of how do we move forward as a country. But, you know, I'm sure that, you know, as much as it is important for us to agree, it's important for us to heal. And I think that will be, you know, part of the message that he'll, you know, want to talk to the American people about and the people of South Carolina.

BALDWIN: Reggie Love, his book is "Power Forward: my presidential education."

Reggie Love, thank you so much for swinging by CNN today. I really appreciate it.