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Manhunt for Cop Killer; Joe Biden Presidential Run; President Obama Speech on Reducing Greenhouse Gases. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired August 03, 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: That is it for me. I'll be back at 5:00 p.m. Eastern on "The Situation Room." The news continues right now.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Any moment now, President Barack Obama will be stepping up to the podium any moment here at the White House because he will be making a massive announcement, basically selling unveiling this clean power plan which is being hailed as the strongest action ever on climate change by a U.S. president. But we should also point out it's already being met with fiery political opposition that could change the rhetoric in the race for the White House. We're keeping an eye close on that and as soon as we see the president, we'll bring it to you live.

So, let's talk about this frantic manhunt right now happening here for this cop killer who has just been added to Tennessee's most wanted list. These are pictures out of Memphis, Tennessee, where a police officer is dead. Officer Sean Bolton shot and killed after he stumbled onto a small time drug deal, murdered for less than 2 grams of marijuana. That's the officer. This is the suspected killer here. This man is still on the run. Take a good, long look at his face. He is considered armed and very dangerous. Police are so desperate to find this 29-year-old by the name of Tremaine Wilbourn, they are now offering a bounty for information leading to his capture.

And CNN can now play you this disturbing audio. This was recorded in the moments after this officer and, might I add, Marine Corps veteran, was shot and killed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RADIO: 487 Summer Lane. 487 Summer Lane. He's shot. He's shot.

DISPATCH: Officer is shot? (INAUDIBLE) second shooting (ph) now advising there is an officer down in front of their location. No additional at this time

DISPATCH: 3-3-6-Delta, you are on the scene with 3-6-4 Delta?

RADIO: (INAUDIBLE) it was a traffic stop. Tennessee (INAUDIBLE). There was a subject (INAUDIBLE). He was armed. The subject bolted out. It was a traffic stop. DISPATCH: Checking, you are advising that the officer is down or the suspect?

RADIO: Call the ambulance (INAUDIBLE). Call the ambulance!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Nick Valencia, let me just bring you in. Can you just tell us what you know as far as the circumstances of this car being pulled over, this drug deal and the driver of this car who, by the way, is talking to police?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Just a short time ago, Brooke, my producer, Devon Sayers, spoke to the attorney for that driver who says that his client was instrumental in leading police to the arrest warrant for 29-year-old Tremaine Wilbourn.

What we understand is on Saturday night, shortly after 9:00 p.m., Officer Bolton saw a car parked illegally. He put his spotlight on the car, approached the vehicle. That's when the passenger, the man that you're looking at there on your TV screen, according to police, gets out of the car. Their struggle ensues between an officer and Wilbourn and that's when Officer Bolton is shot multiple times. Now, there were witnesses to this. A resident in the area head the gunshots, ran to the scene and tried to use the officer's radio to phone in to dispatch, but it was simply too late. The officer was pronounced dead at the hospital, Brooke.

BALDWIN: We know that the officer is the third Memphis police officer to be killed in four years. The 19th across the country this year. And I can only imagine in the community there in Memphis, it is - just really resonated among folks there.

VALENCIA: It is a sobering number. Three police officers killed in the line of duty in the last four years in Memphis. It's a number that was not lost on Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong, who took the chance on Saturday night to address the public and he was visibly emotional.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DIRECTOR TONEY ARMSTRONG, MEMPHIS POLICE SERVICES: As a community we say so often there's a theme that black lives matter regardless of race, creed, color, economic status, what profession that person holds, all lives matter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VALENCIA: We can tell you that the U.S. Marshal Service has now joined the manhunt for 29-year-old Tremaine Wilbourn. He's also been added to Tennessee's list of most wanted there, top 10 there. A $10,000 reward, Brooke, being offered for the capture of this man that you're looking at there on your screen.

Brooke.

BALDWIN: Nick Valencia, thank you so much.

VALENCIA: You bet.

BALDWIN: I want to stay on this because police departments across this country, they are rallying around the Memphis PD and, of course, the family of this fallen officer, Officer Sean Bolton, who served his country in Iraq as a Marine and back here at home as a police officer.

Let me bring in his friend, Officer Stephen Clements, who has known Sean for more than a decade. You have lived together. You served as an engineer officer in Iraq at the very same time.

[14:05:01] So, Stephen, thank you so much for your service and I am so sorry about the loss of your friend.

STEPHEN CLEMENTS, FRIEND OF SLAIN MEMPHIS OFFICER SEAN BOLTON: Well, thank you for the opportunity to honor his memory. I appreciate that.

BALDWIN: Let's just begin with honoring him by - you tell me, tell me about him. Tell me what brought you so close. And why did he want to be an officer?

CLEMENTS: Well, Sean - he was really just a very impressive human being and everything that we should want out of a police officer because, as a - as a person, he was gifted and he used his gifts to try to take care of others. For instance, when his long - even longer time friend unfortunately passed away, they were so close that his friend's mother was basically a second mother to him. And to make sure she was getting care of, he brought her in. He looked after her. He made sure she was going to be all right. And he's just such a generous guy.

And as an officer, you couldn't ask for something - you couldn't ask for someone better. I mean not only did he know the law, he was fiercely intelligent. But he had the disposition to where he wasn't out to be a confrontational, he wasn't out to throw someone in prison or give them the ticket or ruin their life through legal action through some small thing. The important thing to him was, if he had to have an encounter with a suspect was, if he could, let them go with nobody coming out the worse for wear, as long as they understood why what they were doing was wrong and not to do it again, he would do that. You absolutely had to give him no other option for any sort of physical - for the encounter to get physical.

BALDWIN: That's - that's the thing, that fact that you all would have these conversations, you know, as he, you know, worked the streets in Memphis and given all these officer-involved stories that we have been telling on a national level really the better part of the last year, you have very frank conversations about, you know, being killed in the line of duty, issues of excessive force. He's the officer who would rather give a warning than a ticket, I hear?

CLEMENTS: Yes, absolutely. And when it comes to the other stories that have made national headlines about police brutality or excessive use of force, he was never quick to condemn either the officer or the suspect because he wanted all the facts to come out. He was incredibly fair in that regard.

BALDWIN: Before becoming an officer, as we mentioned, he served in Iraq. Did he ever talk to you about the dangers of duty in Anbar province versus on the streets in Memphis?

CLEMENTS: Well, when I served in Baghdad and, like you mentioned, he got to serve in the southwest of the country in al Anbar, where there was quite a bit of violence. I did the math one time and he and I were seven times less likely to die a violent death in Iraq, in an active combat zone, than we were in the city of Memphis, where we lived. So - where other people from other parents of the country were over there and afraid daily that something awful was going to happen to them, we actually had a small measure of comfort in knowing that the numbers were on our side.

BALDWIN: Stephen Clements, thank you for your time. Again, I'm so sorry.

CLEMENTS: Thank you. Thank you for your condolences.

BALDWIN: Appreciate it.

Three days away from the very first Republican debate and a new poll finds Donald Trump widening his already big lead over his party rivals. This is a nationwide survey of Republican voters by Monmouth University. And you can see the top there with that massive number of 26 percent. You have Donald Trump, more than double the support for Jeb Bush, who is in second place with 12 percent. Scott Walker just below him at 11. Every else there, single digits.

Even more impressive, Donald Trump's lead spans the party's internal demographics. He received 35 percent from Tea Partiers. That is more than double the support for Scott Walker or Ted Cruz. He also leads the field among Republican men and Republican women, though the lead for much - women, I should point out, is much smaller. And he's winning across the board when it comes to ideology, leading among Republicans who describe themselves as either very conservative, somewhat conservative or moderate to liberal.

And with much of the political world sort of transfixed on Donald Trump, we have to talk Dems. Hillary Clinton working to solidify her standing with Democrats. Vice President Joe Biden has been overshadowed in recent months, but Biden's political allies just got a big boost. A former top adviser to Biden's son Beau, a consultant by the name of Josh Alcorn says he's joining now this draft Biden group that's raising cash for a potential Joe Biden candidacy. Beau Biden, you may recall, recently lost his battle to brain cancer just two months ago. And since then, the vice president has been out of the political spotlight.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny, however, reports that Joe Biden has not ruled out a White House run and Democrats tell Jeff the vice president could wait past August to make this final decision. Obviously the big question, will that be too late?

[14:10:03] Let me talk about the prospects for a potential Biden campaign. I have Peter Beinart with me. He's with me for a little reality check. And you've written - I know you - I've read a piece of yours about Joe Biden - a potential Biden/Clinton matchup last year. But before I even get into that, the real question is, time wise, does he have the time, can raise the cash to really give Hillary Clinton a decent battle?

PETER BEINART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it's pretty unlikely, not unless some scandal really caused her a lot more trouble than it is now.

BALDWIN: Unlikely?

BEINART: I think that - the problem is that a lot of the Obama political operation has already gone to Hillary. He's missed that opportunity. A lot of big donors. And also oppositions to Hillary from the left has really coalesced around Bernie Sanders. So I think he's a less viable political candidate than he would have been had he gotten in a year ago, even six months ago.

BALDWIN: You don't think those folks who joined team Hillary would turn around and say I'm joining team Joe Biden?

BEINART: I don't think so. You know, I think that people - she's obviously the front-runner. So - and now her front-runner status has really gathered steam. It was less clear a year ago. It seems to me you'd have to be pretty daring to leave Hillary for Biden at this point.

BALDWIN: You talked though in your piece that I read from some point last year. You really pointed out sort of Hillary Clinton's hawkishness and how they really sort of are so far separate on that spectrum when it comes to foreign policy, going back to Bosnia, you talk about Libya, you talk about, you know, the raid and Osama bin Laden and how that totally differ and how that would potentially be healthy for America to publicly debate this. Can you just quickly outline their real differences when it comes to foreign policy?

BEINART: Right. They're on opposite ends of the spectrum on foreign policy in the Democratic Party. Hillary supported the surge in Afghanistan. Obama - Biden reportedly opposed it. Hillary wanted to arm the rebels in Syria. Biden didn't. Hillary supported the Libya military intervention. Biden didn't. Hillary supported the raid on Osama bin Laden. Biden didn't. I think that will be a very useful valuable debate. With Bernie Sanders you're finding a debate on domestic, economic policy between Hillary and people to her left, but we don't really see in the Democratic presidential campaign right now much of a debate on foreign policy. Biden would create that debate.

BALDWIN: Do you think, though, with Bernie Sanders - I mean he is drawing surprisingly large crowds. He's inching higher in the polls. Is - is - is - how he's been doing, do you think that that is widening her potential weakness?

BEINART: I think it's showing that there is a space for someone to her left. The interesting thing is, though, while Sanders is attacking her from the left on economic policy, on policies towards Wall Street, for instance, he's not really drawing a contrast on foreign policy. It's not really where he stands out in terms of his persona.

What will be interesting about Biden would be that he would draw the foreign policy contrast. I don't think he would win. I think Hillary's still the overwhelming front-runner, but I think it's a good debate for the Democratic Party to have to air these differences inside the party.

BALDWIN: OK, so you say unlikely. Peter Beinart, thank you so much.

BEINART: Thank you.

BALDWIN: I appreciate it.

Next, Homeland Security warning now that drones could be used by terrorists. And this comes after another airliner has a close call with one of these things in America's busiest of air spaces. We have that for you.

Almost in moments now, live pictures from the White House. We're watching and waiting for the president to make a massive announcement, really sell one of his biggest initiatives of his entire presidency. But there is definitely a fight brewing and it involves your energy bill. We'll talk economics, coming up.

Also, breaking news, the verdict reached in the sentencing phase of the trial of James Holmes, the man convicted of that movie theater shooting a couple of summers ago in Colorado. Life or death? The verdict may be ready any moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Here we go. Straight to the White House. The president of the United States unveiling his major climate change plan. Let's listen in.

[14:14:45] BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Have been doing, not just on this issue, but on generally making sure that we've got clean air, clean water, a great future for our kids.

I want to thank all of the members of Congress who are here as well, who have been fighting this issue and sometimes, you know, at great odds with others, but are willing to -- take on what is going to be one of the key challenges of our lifetimes and future generations. I want to thank our -- our surgeon general, you know, who's just been doing outstanding work and is helping to make the connection between this critical issue and the health of our families.

You know, over the past six and a half years, we take on some of the toughest challenges of our time, from rebuilding our economy after a devastating recession to ending our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and bringing almost all of our troops home to strengthening our security through tough and principled diplomacy.

But I am convinced that no challenges poses a greater threat to our future and future generations than a changing climate. And that's what brings us here today. And not everyone here is a scientist.

(LAUGHTER)

But some of you are among the best scientists in the world. And what you and your colleagues have been showing us for years now is that human activities are changing the climate in dangerous ways. Levels of carbon dioxide which heats up our atmosphere are higher than they've been in 800,000 years. 2014 was the planet's warmest year on record. And we've been setting a lot of records in terms of warmest years over the last decade. One year doesn't make a trend, but 14 of the 15 warmest years on record have fallen within the first 15 years of this century.

Climate change is no longer just about the future that we're predicting for our children or our grandchildren. It's about the reality that we're living with every day, right now.

The Pentagon says that climate changes poses immediate risks to our national security. While we can't say any single weather event is entirely caused by climate change, we've seen stronger storms, deeper droughts, longer wildfire seasons. Charleston and Miami now flood at high tide. Shrinking icecaps forced National Geographic to make the biggest change in its atlas since the Soviet Union broke apart.

Over the past three decades, nationwide asthma rates have more than doubled, and climate change puts those Americans at greater risk of landing in the hospital. As one of America's governors has said, we're the first generation to feel the impact of climate change, and the last generation that can do something about it.

And that's why I committed the United States to leading the world on this challenge, because I believe there is such a thing as being too late. Most of the issues that I deal with, and I deal with some tough issues that cross my desk. By definition, I don't deal with issues if they're easy to solve, because somebody else has already solved them.

And some of them are grim. Some of them are heartbreaking. Some of them are hard. Some of them are frustrating. But most of the time, the issues we deal with are ones that are temporally bound and we can anticipate things getting better if we just kind of plug away at it, even incrementally.

But this is one of those rare issues, because of its magnitude, because of its scope, that if we don't get it right, we may not be able to reverse and we may not be able to adapt sufficiently. There is such a thing as being too late when it comes to climate change.

(APPLAUSE)

Now that doesn't -- that shouldn't make us hopeless. It's not as if there's nothing we can do about it. We can take action. Over the past several years, America has been working to use less dirty energy, more clean energy, waste less energy throughout our economy. [14:20:00] We set new fuel economy standards that mean our cars

will go twice as far on a gallon of gas by the middle of the next decade. Combined with lower gas prices, these standards are on pace to save drivers an average of $700 at the pump this year.

We doubled that on our investment in renewable energy. We're generating three times as much wind power, 20 times as much solar power as we did in 2008. These steps are making a difference.

Over the past decade, even as our economy has continued to grow, the United States has cut our total carbon pollution more than any other nation on Earth. That's the good news.

(APPLAUSE)

But I am here to say that if we want to protect our economy and our security and our children's health, we're going to have to do more. The science tells us we have to do more. It has been our focus these past six years, and it's particularly going to be our focus this month.

In Nevada, later in August, I'll talk about the extraordinary progress we've made in generating clean energy and the jobs that come with it and how we can boost that even further.

I'll also be the first American president to visit the Alaskan Arctic, where our fellow Americans have already seen their communities devastated by melting ice and rising oceans, the impact on marine life.

We're going to talk about what the world needs to do together to prevent the worst impacts of climate change before it's too late.

And today, we're here to announce America's Clean Power Plan, a plan two years in the making and the single most important step America has ever taken in the fight against global climate change.

(APPLAUSE)

Right now, our power plants are the source of about a third of America's carbon pollution. That's more than our cars, our airplanes and our homes generate combined. That pollution contributes to climate change, which degrades the air our kids breathe.

But there have never been federal limits on the amount of carbon that power plants can dump into the air. Think about that. We limit the amount of toxic chemicals, like mercury and sulfur and arsenic, in our air an water, and we're better off for it. But existing power plants can still dump unlimited amounts of harmful carbon pollution into the air.

For the sake of our kids and the health and safety of all Americans, that has to change. For the sake of the planet, that has to change.

So two years ago, I directed Gina and the the environmental protection agency to take on this challenge. And today, after working with states and cities and power companies, the EPA is setting the first-ever nationwide standards to end the limitless of carbon pollution from power plants.

(APPLAUSE)

Here's how it works. Over the next few years, each state will have the chance to put together its own plan for reducing emissions, because every state has a different energy mix. Some generate more of their power from renewables, some from natural gas or nuclear or coal.

This plan reflects the fact that not everybody's starting in the same place. So we're giving states the time and the flexibility they need to cut pollution in a way that works for them. And we'll reward the states that take action sooner instead of later, because time is not on our side here.

As states work to meet their targets, they can build on the progress that our communities and businesses are already making. A lot of power companies have already begun modernizing their plants, reducing their emissions and, by the way, creating new jobs in the process.

Nearly a dozen of states have set up their own market-based programs to reduce carbon pollution, about half of our states have set energy efficiency targets, more than 35 have set renewable-energy targets, over 1,000 mayors have signed an agreement to cut carbon pollution in their cities, and last week, 13 of our biggest companies, including UPS and Walmart and GM made bold new commitments to cut their emissions and deploy more clean energy.

[14:25:18] So the idea of setting standards and cutting carbon pollution is not new. It's not radical. What is new is that starting today, Washington is starting to catch up with the vision of the rest of the country. And by setting these standards, we can actually speed up our transition to a cleaner, safer future. With this clean power plan, by 2030, carbon pollution from our power plants will be 32 percent lower than it was a decade ago.

And the nerdier way to say that is that we'll be keeping 870 million tons of carbon dioxide pollution out of our atmosphere.

(APPLAUSE)

The simpler, layman's way of saying that is that it's like cutting every ounce of emission due to electricity from 108 million American homes, or its the equivalent of taking 166 million cars off the road. By 2030, we will reduce premature deaths from power plant emissions by nearly 90 percent, and thanks to this plan, there will be 90,000 fewer asthma attacks among our children each year.

(APPLAUSE)

And by combining this with greater investment in our booming clean energy sector and smarter investments in energy efficiency and by working with the world to achieve a climate agreement by the end of this year, we can do more to slow and maybe even eventually stop the carbon pollution that's doing so much harm to our climate.

So this is the right thing to do. I want to thank again Gina and her team for doing it the right way. Over the longest engagement process in EPA history, they fielded more than 4 million public comments. They worked with states. They worked with power companies and environmental groups and faith groups and people across our country to make sure that what we were doing was realistic and achievable, but still ambitious.

And some of those people are with us here today. So Tanya Brown. Tanya, wave. Go ahead.

There's Tanya.

(APPLAUSE)

Tanya Brown has joined up with moms across America to spread the word about the dangers climate change posed to the health of our children, including Tanya's daughter, Sanay (ph). There's Sanay (ph) right there.

(LAUGHTER)

Dr. Sumita Khatri has spent her career researching the health impacts of pollution at the Cleveland Clinic and helping families whose lives are impacted every single day. Doctor, thank you.

(APPLAUSE) Sister Joan Marie Steadman has helped rally Catholic women across American to take on climate. Sister, thank you so much for your leadership.

(APPLAUSE)

And she's got a pretty important guy on her side.

(LAUGHTER)

As Pope Francis made clear in his encyclical this summer, taking a stand against climate change is a moral obligation, and Sister Steadman is living up to that obligation every single day.

Now, let's be clear. There will be critics of what we're trying to do. There will be cynics who say it cannot be done. Long before the details of this clean power plan were decided, the special interests and their allies in Congress were already mobilizing to oppose it with everything they've got.

They will claim that this plan will cost you money, even though this plan, the analysis shows, will ultimately save the average American nearly $85 a year on their energy bills.

They'll claim we need to slash our investments in clean energy. It's a waste of money. Even though they're happy to spend billions of dollars a year in subsidizing oil companies.

They'll claim this plan will kill jobs, even though our transition to a cleaner energy economy has the solar industry, to just name one example, creating jobs 10 times faster than the rest of the economy.

They'll claim this plan is a war on coal to scare up votes even as they ignore my plan to actually invest in revitalizing coal country and supporting healthcare and retirement for coal miners and their families and retraining those workers for better paying jobs and healthier jobs.