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At This Hour

10 of 17 Republican Candidates to Debate Thursday; Darren Wilson Speaks Out on Michael Brown Shooting; Controversy over Third Grader Handcuffed at School; Legionnaires Outbreak in South Bronx. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired August 04, 2015 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Who was Michael Brown as a person? Doesn't matter, says the former officer who shot and killed him. But Darren Wilson doesn't stop there. His new revelations about the shooting and the aftermath in Ferguson.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Cuffed in class. A third grader punished by a police officer, put in handcuffs. The reason behind it and why this is not the first time.

Hello, everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan.

BERMAN: I'm John Berman.

Countdown to the showdown. Forget the race for 2016. Let's talk about the race for Thursday, the first big Republican presidential debate. 17 candidates are running, but only 10 get debate invitations. So who will get the rose? That's a little bachelor reference.

BOLDUAN: Well played. The newest polls out this morning pretty much belong to Donald Trump. CNN's latest poll of polls shows him pulling away from the rest of the pack with a double digit lead over his closest rival, Jeb Bush. Bloomberg has Trump with a 2:1 advantage over Bush, and a new FOX poll has Trump at 26 percent, his best, his highest number so far. Altogether, it's pretty much guaranteed that that man will be center stage at Thursday's debate. Right now, it also looks though that Rick Perry and these other candidates, they will be watching, not debating, on that main stage.

Political reporter, Sara Murray, is here with more of a look at the polls and their impact.

We feel at this point, Sara, we're drowning in polls. Make sense of it all, please.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: It's been kind of a tidal wave of polls in the last 24 hours, but you got the main takeaway right here. We have Donald Trump with one in four Republican voters supporting him in a lot of these recent polls. Clearly, not a fringe candidate anymore. The guys surrounding him are what we expected, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, but it looks like Rick Perry is not going to make the stage. It looks like we'll get Chris Christie and John Kasich. That's a big blow to Perry. I think Perry was hoping this could be a big moment for him to land some punches, but the reality is his poll numbers have just been going the wrong way lately. So, you know, you'll have to see if Chris Christie or John Kasich have a big moment up against Trump.

BOLDUAN: We will see, we will see, and that's what all the anticipation is about right now.

Sara Murray, thank you so much.

We did get a little bit of a taste of what Thursday's debate might look like. Most of the candidates minus Donald Trump and Mike Huckabee --

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: And Jim Gilmore.

BOLDUAN: I'm sorry. The Jim Gilmore reference of the day. They also took part in a voter forum in New Hampshire last night, John Berman

BERMAN: They talked about from immigration and government spending to national security, though it did seem one of their favorite subjects, Hillary Clinton.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLY FIORINA, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE & FORMER CEO, HEWLETT- PACKARD: We talk a lot at election time, but somehow we never solve these festering problems.

JEB BUSH, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE & FORMER FLORIDA GOVERNOR: Protecting the homeland is the first duty of the president of the United States.

SCOTT WALKER, (R), WISCONSIN GOVERNOR & PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm a new fresh face versus a name from the past.

CHRIS CHRISTIE, (R), NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR & PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When folks approached me I was really honored but I looked in the mirror and said I'm not ready.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO, (R), FLORIDA & PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't support the legalization of marijuana.

JIM GILMORE, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: People have to balance their budgets, so should the government.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, (R), SOUTH CAROLINA & PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm fluent in Clinton speak. When he says, Bill says, "I didn't have sex with that woman," he did.

(LAUGHTER)

When she says, "I'll tell you about building the pipeline when I get to be president," it means she won't.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: We'll talk about that a little bit coming up.

I want to bring in our political commentator, Margaret Hoover; and also with us, former chief of staff of the Republican National Committee, Mike Shields, who is now president of the Congressional Leadership Fund.

Margaret, I want to talk about Jeb Bush a little bit. We look at this ocean of polls, dude is in second place, pretty far back --

MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: He was in second.

BERMAN: -- on Donald Trump right now. There are two schools of thought. One, that having Trump around helps him because he's not -- he doesn't have a big target on his back. But the other school of thought is, look, he's having a hard time gaining traction. And there are people who said there was some rust at this forum last night. He was talking about his father, which he should have a pat answer on and he didn't last night.

Let's listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: My dad is probably the most perfect man alive so it's very hard for me to be critical of him.

(LAUGHTER)

In fact, I got a T-shirt that says -- at the Jeb swag store -- that says I'm -- "My dad is the greatest man alive. If you don't like it, I will take you outside."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So, you know, again, we know what he's going for there, but he's been out of office for a long time. Does Jeb Bush need to raise his name?

HOOVER: He is going to have to raise his game, absolutely. It's not the first time we've seen it. We saw his stumbles over the Iraq war. We've seen a lot of double speak about some of the social issues. Not double speak but really saying one thing, correcting it a few days later. It's surprising he hasn't done that yet. I don't think Jeb stumbled last night. I think really what I would like to see as somebody who cares about the country and cares about good policy is people talking about how -- what policies are going to fix the day. What we're actually going to see is style win over substance, and that is going to be the name of the game in this debate and the next several debates because there's just no time for people to build out compelling policy solutions for the country, especially when they're lambasted with real fire brands like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee, who are trying to get attention by saying crazy stuff.

[11:05:15] BOLDUAN: If it is going to be -- almost out of necessity, it's really not a criticism of what the debates are like. When there are 10 people on the stage and you have to allow the people who's attacked to respond, Mike, it really is style over substance. So that then begs the question, what do these candidates do in your mind about the Donald Trump factor? Do they engage or do they ignore?

MIKE SHIELDS, PRESIDENT, CONGRESSIONAL LEADERSHIP FUND & FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: Well, I mean, to your point I think last night you saw a debate where they really were talking about issues. They were being asked about their policy positions. They were talking about entitlement reform, how to handle ISIS. Then you look at the coverage this morning and it's all there was no zingers, they didn't go after each other enough. In the past, we sort of have gotten upset when the candidates went after each other too much and didn't really talk about the issues. Now they're trying to do that, and it was, well, Donald Trump isn't there, so it was boring. I wish they were fighting each other, so I think --

BOLDUAN: We have not said that. That is not what we've said.

SHIELDS: What others have said. If you look at the coverage in the mainstream media, that's been a big theme in the coverage. Sort of a disappointment amongst a lot of reporters that they're looking for this sort of fight. And I think the other thing to point out is this is really a ratification of what Reince Priebus and the RNC have done with the debate set up. There a lot of candidates and we're talking about how are they going to get their policy proposals out. I agree with Margaret, it's going to be really hard in the amount of time they have and that's with 10 candidates on the stage. If you tried to put 17 candidates on the stage, it really would have gotten to the point where you couldn't hear anything in these debates.

BERMAN: I want to talk about the man who was literally going to be center stage. You're first in the polls, you get the center spot, and that's Trump by a lot right now. All the polls say he's way out in front. They also provide maybe some more encouraging news for him. You know, the number of those people who say they could never vote for him has gone down.

Margaret, I want you to take a look at this. In May to June, 59 percent of Republicans said they would never vote for Donald Trump. Now just 33 percent of people say they would never vote for Donald Trump. So he's clearly doing something to move that needle in the polls. I want to know, as a strategist, how you would tell Donald Trump to win this debate on Thursday.

HOOVER: Here is what Donald Trump needs to do. He needs to have affirmative statements about what he's going to do. I think he should be positive but, frankly, he doesn't really have to change too much about what he's been doing because what he's doing is riding a moment in the country. People increasingly feel alienated from their institutions, from politics. They feel like nobody is representing them. And they don't totally know why. And here comes who? An outsider who is speaking boldly, who is capturing their -- I think, the sense of insecurity people have with the economy and our politics. So Donald Trump is doing well by doing exactly what he does best.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: You want Trump to be --

(CROSSTALK)

HOOVER: He probably shouldn't do much different. Eventually he's going to have to put meat on the bones. Eventually people will want to know are you really for a single-payer tax system, health care system like in Canada? Are you really for raising taxes on the wealthy? And are you really for an intense protectionist economy? Those are things he's for, but nobody is asking him that yet.

BOLDUAN: He didn't show up at that forum last night, so those questions weren't posed then. That's what Thursday is going to be about, maybe really getting those answers.

But, Mike, a lot has been made of the debate structure and how it's ten on the main stage and the other candidates will have time before hand, a couple hours before that. If they don't make it on the debate stage, what then does the second tier candidate do after Thursday? Is that the death sentence that some have made it up to be if they don't make it on that main stage?

SHIELDS: No, not at all. And I think the fact there's a two-tier system here is again another great signal this was set up the right way, and give FOX and CNN credit for putting in a two-tier system. Newt Gingrich said over the weekend, I agree with them, you may have more time in the earlier debate to get your policy points across than being in such a huge crowd. There may be an opportunity in that first evening debate to really make a name for yourself. And I really believe if you look two or three debates down the road, you won't have the same 10 people on the stage. That means someone will have entered into the top tier. They're going to have momentum by having done that and there's going to be a lot of coverage for that campaign because they got into one of the later debates.

BOLDUAN: Good point.

BERMAN: Like the English Premiere League for soccer fans --

(LAUGHTER)

-- someone is going to rise, someone is going to fall.

Mike, thanks so much.

Margaret, great to have you here.

HOOVER: Thanks, guys.

BERMAN: Let's talk about the Democrats, shall we? No political giant running against Hillary Clinton yet, but who needs opponents when you have yourself? A giant spike in her negative. So what does Joe Biden think of all this?

[11:09:57] BOLDUAN: Plus, the former officer who shot Michael Brown, he is speaking out about what life is like now, how he can't find work. But it's his comments about Michael Brown and his family that are raising eyebrows right now.

And a child is put in handcuffs in the classroom by a deputy sheriff as punishment. That deputy is now being sued but according to the lawsuit this isn't the first time this has happened.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: New this morning, former Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson breaks his silence in a revealing new interview. The 29-year- old who shot and killed unarmed teenager, Michael Brown, tells "The New Yorker" he wanted to get back on the streets of Ferguson but was told he would be a liability. He says he can't get another police job anywhere despite being cleared of any wrongdoing in Brown's death.

BOLDUAN: He also tells "The New Yorker" that he ended up working in Ferguson because policing black neighborhoods would be a good way to advance his career. He says this as well, "If you go there and do three to five years, get your experience, you can kind of write your own ticket." And Wilson says he enjoyed his time on the force. He also is saying this, "I didn't want to work in a white area. I like the black community. I had fun there. There's people who will just crack you up."

CNN's Boris Sanchez is joining us, and Boris is taking a look at much more of this.

It's a long and revealing interview.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Certainly. He says quite a bit in there. One of the things you find out is he says he doesn't think about Michael Brown. He hasn't even read the Department of Justice report about the systemic racism in Ferguson. It's really interesting because he kind of -- the piece is meant to humanize him but, in a lot of ways, some of what he says brings up questions about his perspectives and his relations with the African-American community. At one point, he asks a fellow officer who helped train him for help in relating to some of the people in the community because he said he felt culture shock.

We'll take a look at what he said. He asked Mike McCarthy, "Mike, I don't know what I'm doing. This is a culture shock. Would you help me because you obviously have that connection, and you can relate to them? You may be white, but they respect you, so why can they respect you and not me?"

[11:15:26] Another thing Wilson says, as you mentioned, Kate, that he enjoyed policing in the African-American community because people there cracked him up. So he tries to paint this picture that he's not a racist. At the same time, he goes on to say other things that many, including Michael Brown's family, say kind of show that he has some prejudice. We'll go to the other full screen now. He's describing a blind mom in Ferguson apparently whose kids were running amok. He says they were causing trouble in the neighborhood. He said, "They ran all over the mom. They didn't respect her, so why would they respect me?" He then goes on to say, "They're so wrapped up in a different culture than -- what I'm trying to say is the right culture, the better one to pick from."

Now, the reporter wanted to find out if this was coded language, if this was somehow referring to race in kind of a subtle way. So the reporter pressed him. He said that Wilson struggled with an answer, going on to say, "Pre-gang culture where you're just running in the streets, not worried about working in the morning, just worried about your immediate gratification." And then he goes on to say, "It is the same younger culture that's everywhere in the inner cities."

Obviously, these quotes, the article, meant to humanize him, kind of bringing up more questions about his perspectives.

BOLDUAN: It sure seems like a lot of questions now. And why now, would he want to speak out?

Boris, thank you very, very much for that.

Coming up for us, it goes way beyond being sent to the principal's office. At one school, a third grader is put in handcuffs. It's caught on camera. Why this deputy did this, and the legal action that is now being brought against him.

BERMAN: Plus, stunning video of a newborn being rescued from a toilet. Oh, my goodness. See what happened and, amazingly, shockingly, why such discoveries in some places are common.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:20:41] BOLDUAN: AT THIS HOUR, outrage over disturbing video of an elementary school child shackled in a classroom and crying out in pain.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OFC. KEVIN SUMNER, KENTON COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: You can do what we've asked you to or you can --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT: Ow! It hurts!

SUMNER: Sit down in the chair like I have asked you to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: This is an 8-year-old boy being handcuffed, as you see, above the elbows. And this isn't the only child that this has happened to. A 9-year-old girl also faced the same punishment by the same person twice.

BERMAN: The ACLU is now suing Kenton County Sheriff's Deputy Kevin Sumner, who works as a resource officer for the Latonia Elementary School in Covington for handcuffing the two children.

Got a lot of questions about what we just saw there. The video is shocking.

Joining us is criminal defense attorney, Joey Jackson.

You know, before we get into the intricacies of the legal case, Joey, can you handcuff a kid?

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: You cannot, and particularly, in this jurisdiction, there's a policy about this. The Government Accounting Office conducted a study and it was talking about people with disabilities, you know, school children, how to deal with them.

BERMAN: This child has ADHD.

JACKSON: Exactly. And as a result of that, there were policies that were instituted. What it said is you cannot handcuff children unless they represent an imminent threat to you, and even if they represent an imminent threat, what happens is, if there are no other reasonable measures available, only then can you do it. You factor that into the fact that you talked about the child being 8 years old, 3.5 feet, 52 pounds, and it goes into whether it's reasonable, appropriate, and necessary.

BERMAN: Because this kid did take a swing. This kid did -- the ACLU --

BOLDUAN: The ACLU points it out in the lawsuit, but this officer's attorney to your point, the officer's attorney told a paper there that they were placing themselves and other people in danger of harm and that's what the book says to do. He says he has a defense. Does he have a defense here?

JACKSON: In the event the officer feels he's in imminent harm the policy clearly says you can do it, but it also says you cannot do it, Kate, to force compliance. And so what I think the other side ACLU is going to argue that he was saying, if you look at the video, are you going to behave now? Take them off. Are you going to behave now? That's compliance. Does the child represent an imminent danger? If so, protect yourself. Officers can a difficult job, sometimes kids can be unruly but did you go too far. And that's the issue here.

BERMAN: And the issue is the handcuffs are too big to put around the wrists, so they're around --

(CROSSTALK)

JACKSON: The biceps.

BERMAN: -- the biceps right there. So who is liable here? Is it just the officer or the school itself?

JACKSON: Well, what will happen is they're looking to do a number of things. What attorneys do when they sue is not only look for money, as this suit does, it looks for punitive damages to punish, so this doesn't happen, attorney's fees for actually moving forward with this complaint, but what it also does is it forces remedial measures to take place. Like what? Like following a policy that says not handcuffing children, like supervising and training officers to deal with children who have special needs. And apparently, you're dealing with children who have post-traumatic stress disorder --

BERMAN: ADHD.

JACKSON: ADHD, attention deficit disorder. So you need to deal with the underlying issues, and so the suit also looks to redress that. Because, of course, we know the American with Disabilities Act, you are required to impose reasonable accommodations, and sometimes people who have these behaviors, that's what they do, they engage in acts like this.

BOLDUAN: And now they have a lawsuit and video is disturbing for any parent, anybody looking at it. Not something you would expect to see happen in a classroom at your child's school.

BERMAN: At all.

BOLDUAN: Joey, thank you so much.

JACKSON: Pleasure, Kate. Have a good day.

BOLDUAN: Coming up, Hillary Clinton's popularity takes a hit. A new poll shows her losing ground with some key groups. So is this a good reason for Joe Biden to now throw his hat in the ring.

It's spread through the mist of air conditioning units, even showers, ventilation systems. Concern rising in New York City with an outbreak of Legionnaires' and it's spread.

Plus, shocking pictures of a baby found in a toilet. We'll tell you how she was saved, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:28:17] BOLDUAN: Happening now, an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease has taken more lives in New York City. Seven people have now died from the bacterial infection. More than 64 people have been hospitalized.

BERMAN: All the victims are from the south Bronx. Officials have traced the likely cause of the outbreak, the maintenance cooling towers, or I should say, the location of he outbreak, the maintenance cooling towers, which tested positive for the bacteria.

CNN medical analyst, Dr. Seema Yasmin, joins us now.

Seema, we hear about these outbreaks from time to time at hospitals or places like this. How do you catch, how do you get Legionnaires' disease.

DR. SEEMA YASMIN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: The most important thing to know is it's not spread from person to person, but it is spread through microscopic water droplets. This bug absolutely loves water. So often times, in outbreaks like this, we'll trace the source back to things like hot tubs, showers, faucets, air conditioning systems, and like in this outbreak now, to water cooling systems.

BOLDUAN: There also -- it appears that the country has seen an increase in Legionnaires' in recent years. What's attributed to that?

YASMIN: That's absolutely right. We've seen probably a tripling of cases in the last 10 years or so. Used to be we'd see about 1,000 to 2,000 cases a year. Now the CDC says we're seeing 8,000 to 18,000 cases every year. And they're saying it could be one of two things. One is that we're just catching the disease more. So now when somebody has pneumonia, we're not just saying you have a typical pneumonia. We're testing to find out what bug is causing it. But the second reason is we're seeing a booming population of older adults, and those are the people who are most at risk. People over the age of 55, people who smoke, people who already have a pre-existing lung disease, and also anyone with a weakened immune system.

[11:30:04] BERMAN: And how do you stop an outbreak like this? How do you get rid of it once it's around?

YASMIN: The most important thing you do is find the source of the outbreak.