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Sheriff's Deputy Shot in Cold Blood Execution Style; Was Texas Shooting Racially Motivated?; Anti-establishment Candidates Surge in Iowa; Kanye West's 2020 Presidential Contender?; Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired August 31, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:27] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

We begin with what police describe as a cold-blooded execution. Any minute now we're expecting this man, Shannon Miles, to appear in a courtroom. The 30-year-old is suspected of ambushing and gunning down Texas Deputy Darren Goforth. A ten-year veteran of the force and father of two. Goforth was shot multiple times while pumping gas into his patrol car on Friday.

Now it is important to point out, investigators are still searching for a motive but the county sheriff says he believes Goforth's death may be linked to Black Lives Matter.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERIFF RON HICKMAN, HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS: At any point with a rhetoric ramps up to a point where calculated, cold-blooded assassination of police officers happen, this rhetoric has gotten out of control. We've heard Black Lives Matter. All lives matter. Well, cops' lives matter, too. So why don't we just drop the qualifier and just say lives matter and take that to the bank.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: In the meantime, the victim's wife describes him as loyal and ethical and says Goforth was, quote, "an incredibly intricate blend of toughness and gentility."

Joining me now to talk about all of this, CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes and CNN legal analyst Paul Callan.

Thanks to you both for being with me this morning. Paul, I want to start with you. What will happen in the courtroom today?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, not likely a lot. There will be a decision on bail which will be just that he's remanded until trial because it's such a serious charge. We could hear one thing. Prosecutors have been very closed-mouth about evidence relating to motive here. Did the suspect say anything to anybody indicating that this was a targeted killing of a police officer? And it could be that they just don't have any evidence of this. It could also be that they reveal something at arraignment today. COSTELLO: Well, it's funny you bring that up because I wanted you

both to listen to something from Devon Anderson, this is the Harris County, Texas, district attorney. She said this over the weekend. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEVON ANDERSON, HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS, DISTRICT ATTORNEY: It is time for the silent majority in this country to support law enforcement. There are a few bad apples in every profession. That does not mean that there should be open warfare declared on law enforcement.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Doesn't that intimate, Paul, that she has some kind of evidence that this deputy was targeted?

CALLAN: Not necessarily. I mean, I think that common sense says to us when a police officer in uniform is shot in the back by someone, you know, who has maybe no other apparent motive, the guy -- the fact that he was in uniform, he's a cop, it's kind of strong suggestion that might have been part of the killing. I don't even think you need somebody to say something for a normal person to draw that inference.

COSTELLO: Right. We don't know much about this suspect, Tom Fuentes. We don't know if there's a connection between this deputy and this suspect. The suspect had a long criminal history but it wasn't particularly violent. What do you make of this?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, I think, Carol, I agree with what Paul said. Just common sense would tell you when an assassination takes place, the officer was not engaged in an enforcement operation trying to arrest somebody or a traffic stop or arrest an armed robbery or break up a family disturbance. Pumping gas and walking back to his police car when this happened.

So, you know, it would be sensible to say there must be some motive behind this and I think that the sheriff has been widely misquoted. He didn't say the movement -- the political organization Black Lives Matter is responsible. He said the rhetoric surrounding people who are saying things like that is partially responsible for the anti- police sentiment that's going on in this country.

And when you see protests over the weekend in St. Paul talking about frying pigs, frying bacon. when you hear the protests that took place in New York last fall where people were chanting, what do we want, dead cops, when do we want them, now, you know, we've got some borderline people. We know we have some sick people in our society of all races, but, you know, there are people out there that get inspired by that kind of stuff.

Words matter. Rhetoric and the public discourse matters, and it can inspire extra amount of violence against police officers.

COSTELLO: OK. So let's get into that just a bit because you're right, Tom, some have criticized the county sheriff for jumping to conclusions by linking Deputy Goforth's death to Black Lives Matter.

Earlier today activist DeRay McKesson spoke to CNN and says he believes the sheriff is unfairly placing blame.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[10:05:01] DERAY MCKESSON, FERGUSON PROTEST ORGANIZER: It's disappointing that Sheriff Hickman has continued with this prejudicial policing where he made these statements before any investigation is actually taken forth.

The only charge rhetoric of the movement has been about holding officers accountable, it's been about fair police contracts and independent investigators and body cameras. That is the only rhetoric of the movement. It has been specifically about ending violence.

Hickman's statements again are prejudicial. He has not conducted an investigation yet but he's accusing an entire group of people for a random act of violence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So, Tom, I know you said the sheriff wasn't accusing an entire group of people, but for the Black Lives Matters movement thinks the sheriff was definitely doing that. But, again, you're right, tensions do exist between many police forces --

FUENTES: If I could add to that.

COSTELLO: I just -- I just want to get into what happened in Minnesota because this is interesting and you brought this up. On Saturday those protesters held a march in Minnesota to raise awareness for the victims killed at the hands of police. And at one point, Tom, as you said, some demonstrators were heard chanting, "pigs in a blanket, fry them like bacon."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: Pigs in a blanket.

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: Fry them like bacon.

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: Pigs in a blanket.

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: Fry them like bacon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So pigs in a blanket, fry them like bacon. Tom, is that sort of rhetoric dangerous?

FUENTES: Absolutely it's dangerous, Carol. We have people in our society who it doesn't take much to put them over the edge to either assassinate a public figure or kill someone who belongs to a different race than they do or a different political organization. It doesn't take much for some people to get motivated to do something terrible, and that certainly is part of it.

If I could add one more thing, part of what concerns the police and many people is that the movement has made a saint out of Michael Brown who is an individual that committed three violent crimes in 10 minutes, including attacking a police officer twice, trying to take his gun away from that officer while punching him in the face and getting his hand shot and then turning around and charging at that officer another time.

And a small army of FBI agents and Department of Justice civil rights attorneys said that shooting was justified. So this continued rhetoric that Michael Brown is some saint and hero of the movement shouldn't be.

COSTELLO: OK. So joining me on the phone right now is Rashad Anthony Turner. He helped organize that protest you just heard in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Thank you so much for joining me.

RASHAD ANTHONY TURNER, PROTEST ORGANIZER: Hey, good morning. Thanks for having me.

COSTELLO: So what did protesters mean when they were chanting, "pigs in blanket, fry them up like bacon"?

TURNER: Well, first off, we want to send our condolences to the officer down in Houston that was killed. But nothing that we're doing is promoting violence. There's been an uproar over the rhetoric or what's called rhetoric by those who I would say in favor of white supremacy. But the problem with that is that we don't see the same uproar when every 28 hours a black body is killed. So we're out fighting for justice.

We had a peaceful protest and we really feel that, you know, trying to connect us to a random act of violence and just, you know, something crazy like that we feel just kind of -- it's taking away from our movement. You know, we're peaceful. That's what we're about. But we're tired of being killed. So we're going to use our voices and, you know, the words we use or the chants that we use might not be accepted by all people, but we know that we need to do that in order to get to where we're going.

COSTELLO: Right, Rashad, but why rhetoric like that? Because I interviewed a police officer's organization from Minnesota earlier this morning, David Titus, was the man's name. He says, "This is a chant we've heard across the nation, we interpret it, and we believe very strongly it is meant that, you know, it's meant to promote violence on police officers which is just absolutely outrageous.

Chants like this and words like this have consequences. So if police believe that, why use words like that in these protests? Is it really necessary?

TURNER: I mean, and I don't think that, you know, we need to be worried about, you know, what systems of oppression, systems like the police, you know, our police departments, especially not St. Paul Police Department. I mean, they're the most deadly police department in the state of Minnesota. So I think that there needs to be more attention paid to how we can reform our criminal justice system.

I mean, the climate in this country right now between police and black people and other communities of color is horrible. So I mean --

COSTELLO: I think, though, even police officers would say things are not perfect, and some police departments across the country are working to change that.

I want to bring in Tom Fuentes once again because he feels very strongly about language like this.

So, Tom, what would you like to say to Rashad?

FUENTES: Well, it's not just the language of it, but I think that many of the people that are criticizing the rhetoric, including members of the black community like Peggy Hubbard last weekend, are saying, wait a minute, we don't hear the same outcry for the black people that are being shot every day on the streets of Washington, D.C., Baltimore.

TURNER: Exactly.

[10:10:08] FUENTES: We don't -- we didn't hear any rhetoric when 9- year-old Jamyla Bolden was shot and killed sitting on her bed in Ferguson last week, doing her homework, and her mother was wounded. They're saying where is the outcry of that? And for these communities it's the police that are standing in between the people with guns and their children and members of the community that are killing other black people.

And what the police are asking for is give them some support, work out a reasonable method of working together to stop this violence because most of the victims are black, and they're not dying in droves at the hands of white police officers. They're dying in droves at the hands of other young black men on the streets of these communities carrying guns and using them.

TURNER: You see, you see, Tom. Tom, I think that you are an intelligent person to where, you know, the myth of black-on-black crime, I mean, when is the last time you reported on white-on-white crime? Right. So the idea that black-on-black crime is what we should be focusing on, I mean, every 28 hours a cop is killing one of us and that's the things that we try to focus on. So it's not about, you know, just --

FUENTES: OK.

TURNER: We need to focus on black-on-black crime, I mean, everybody should be just as upset when every 28 hours another black person is killed. We don't hear that same uproar from you guys, from other people who are pretty much in favor of the way things stand. I mean, if police departments really want to bring an end and change the climate, they can change policies. We can have criminal justice reform that, you know, is keeping us from getting killed every 28 hours. I mean, this is really about a black body is dying at the hands of white police officers every 28 hours.

FUENTES: OK.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: I just want to inject -- I just want to inject some facts into the conversation and we'll just parse these, right? So according to the National Law Enforcement Officers' Memorial Fund, there have been 18 firearms related deaths on law enforcement officers this year. That's actually down from the same period last year. And according to "The Washington Post," 24 unarmed black men have been shot and killed by police so far this year and to put that into perspective, that is about 1 every 9 days.

So, Tom, when you hear statistics like that, does it change your mind in any way?

FUENTES: No. There are some cases where a white police officer has been wrong in killing a black person, but some of these -- some of these statistics also are talking about an unarmed black person who jumps on a police officer, wrestles him. In the case -- you know, in some cases former football players, and the officers --

(CROSSTALK)

TURNER: And, Tom, Tom, that's --

FUENTES: All they have to do is -- all they have to do is comply. Don't attack the police and you won't be killed in most situations.

COSTELLO: Rashad, last word.

TURNER: And that's the thing, right? The narrative that the police officers spew every time they kill someone, it sounds the same. So I mean, to take a police officer's word, I mean, police are paid to lie. It's OK for them to lie. So we can't just live in an era now where the police are automatically right. I mean, we have to use our brain --

FUENTES: No, they're not paid -- they're not paid to lie. But you're right, each case should be investigated as a standalone investigation like the shooting of Michael Brown, and if the facts determine that the officer was correct in the judgment he made, then back that up. At least be fair and honest with that and then everybody else might be more fair and honest with their assessment.

So you're right, each case should be investigated, and if the officer behaved improperly, he should be prosecuted and we are seeing that in multiple prosecutions of police officers for excessive force, excessive deadly force in many of those cases, so we do see that. But what we're -- what most police officers are saying is look at both -- be fair.

COSTELLO: All right. I'll have to leave it there. Rashad Anthony Turner, Tom Fuentes, Paul Callan, thanks to all of you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, anti-establishment candidates on a tear with voters nationwide. What does that mean for insiders like Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush? Is a shake-up in order or has it already happened? We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:18:14] COSTELLO: Their names were not on anyone's political radar a year ago but now Donald Trump and Ben Carson are holding a commanding lead over their Republican rivals in Iowa, a state critical to any candidate's hopes for taking the White House.

CNN's Sara Murray joins me now to walk us through the numbers.

Good morning, Sara.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Yes, when you dig into this new "Des Moines Register" poll in Iowa, you really get a sense of the anti-establishment surge.

Let's start with the Republicans first. And if you take a look at Donald Trump's numbers, he is still on top of the field, he's drawing 23 percent support. But you see there Ben Carson nipping at his heels with 18 percent. If you combine the two of them together, you're talking about 4 in 10 likely Republican caucus goers supporting the outsider candidates.

You can see there, these more establishment guys, Scott Walker at 8 percent, Ted Cruz at 8 percent. They were hoping to cast themselves as the outsiders, not really being able to make that pitch in Iowa. You see Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio down at 6 percent.

The interesting thing is, we're sort of seeing this play out on the Democratic side as well. If you take a look at how the Democrats are doing in Iowa, you see Hillary Clinton is still on top of the pack. She is 37 percent, but this lead is quickly evaporating. Now Bernie Sanders is just seven points behind her with 30 percent support. Joe Biden at 14 percent support.

If you are Team Hillary and you're looking at these numbers, they're sort of a mental barrier there. It's the first time she's fallen below 50 percent support in this poll since the beginning of the year. That's certainly problematic for her.

I want to look back at Donald Trump because he is the one who's generating a lot of buzz, who shot to the top of the polls unexpectedly. The interesting thing in the latest poll about how Trump is doing really his favorability numbers. If you take a look, he's over 60 percent on the favorability side, 61 percent view him favorably now in August. Almost the entire reverse from when he in May, even before he announced, you see there, 27 percent viewed him favorably in May, 63 percent had an unfavorable view of him.

[10:20:07] Pretty remarkable how he's been able to turn that around -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Absolutely. So, Sara, stick around because I want to dig deeper into those poll numbers. But first, I want to talk about a man --

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: I don't think this is possible, but could he be the frontrunner about five years from now? I'm talking about Kanye West.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KANYE WEST, MUSICIAN: I don't know what I cannot lose after this. It don't matter, though, because it ain't about me. It's about ideas, bro. New ideas. People with ideas. People who believe in truth. And, yes, as you probably could have guessed by this moment, I have decided in 2020 to run for president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: So West's declaration on the VMA caused some to wonder. Politico said this on its Web site this morning, "It was not immediately clear if West was serious." And other political wonks took notice. The "Daily Beast" said, although West was likely joking, his candidacy would be far more polarizing and entertaining than Trump's. "The Hill" noted that West has jumped into the political pool before pledging his support for the Democratic ticket.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: Plus he did attend a Hillary Clinton fundraiser earlier this month with his wife, Kim Kardashian. They have the selfie to prove it.

Hey, anything is possible in this political landscape. A reality TV star leads the GOP pack and look at how the Russian President Vladimir Putin is selling himself on the world's stage. Flexing his muscles literally and figuratively. Yes, take that, Ukraine.

So let's kind of touch on that, and more substantive issues. Joining me now to talk about this, Larry Sabato, director for the University of Virginia Center for Politics, and Sara Murray is back with me.

Sara, I hope you're somewhere, I can't see you, but you're with me, I'm sure.

Larry, I am not taking West seriously, but he and Putin reinforce the cartoon nature of politics these days. Can any serious candidate with an actual agenda be successful?

LARRY SABATO, DIRECTOR, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA CENTER FOR POLITICS: Well, as far as Kanye West is concerned, maybe he'll unite the music world and invite Taylor Swift to be his vice presidential candidate. I don't know if that feud is still ongoing, but, Carol, obviously you were kidding as well.

COSTELLO: Yes.

SABATO: In no serious universe will Kanye West ever be president. Maybe in some bizarro parallel universe but not the one we live in. As far as what's happening, look, serious candidates with strong, well-prepared agendas will always be favored for the presidency, assuming they have enough financial backing. That's the key. And that's where celebrities come in because they have name I.D., they have loads of money. Most of them don't have a serious platform, but when you get one with a serious platform, then things can take off.

COSTELLO: Interesting. So, Sara, I will not ask you about Kanye West because I like you too much.

(LAUGHTER)

MURRAY: Appreciate that.

COSTELLO: It was funny, though. I want to talk about Bernie Sanders because he's polled within, what, seven points of Hillary Clinton in this Iowa poll. He's another outsider. He has an actual agenda. So can we compare his surge to, let's say, Donald Trump's who doesn't quite have his agenda down yet?

MURRAY: Yes, it is interesting. I think we are seeing this sort of anti-establishment moment, and that's what's fueling both sides of the ticket, interestingly enough. But I also think a lot of what we're seeing with Bernie Sanders is an anti-Hillary Clinton vote in a way that we're not seeing as much on the Republican side.

The Republicans have a lot of different options and for some reason Trump is still able to coalesce so much support, but on the Democratic side, the view is really that Clinton was going to harness this support and this should be a relatively simple run for her, and that is proving to not be the case, and we are already starting to hear comparisons to 2008 when a lot of people thought Hillary Clinton's got this in the bag, it's going to be no problem. She's not going to have any issue with Barack Obama. And we clearly saw that wasn't the case.

Now Team Hillary has spent a lot of time trying not to relive 2008. I'm sure these numbers are not making them feel very great at the moment, though.

COSTELLO: Is it fair to make those 2008 comparisons right at the moment, Larry?

SABATO: It's a little early for it. I understand why people are saying it. I do think there's another factor at work here that does tie the two parties together. Everything Sara said is absolutely accurate. But remember just a few months ago, Carol, what was everybody projecting for the 2016 race? Another Hillary -- another Clinton-Bush contest. Two different, you know, candidates, Hillary and Jeb, but look what's happened.

Hillary has fallen hard and Jeb Bush is tied for what, fourth or fifth? So things have changed dramatically and there has been a reaction against dynasty or oligarchy or plutocracy, whatever you want to call it. And that is a piece of this, too, that's rarely coming (INAUDIBLE).

[10:25:08] COSTELLO: Well, you know, the other thing, though, Sanders -- you know, he talks about the growing wage gap and it's clearly resonating with some constituents on the Democratic side. He came out against NAFTA and the Transpacific Partnership. He wants to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. He called for higher taxes and free tuitions for students attending public universities.

So, Sara, does that mean Hillary Clinton should take a sharper left turn?

MURRAY: Well, I think part of this is Bernie Sanders deciding I am going to rally the coalition to the left of Hillary Clinton and I think we've seen her sort of try to figure out how to win some of those voters back but I think there's another reality here, too, and if you look at the polling people just don't really believe that Hillary Clinton necessarily understands their problems and their concerns.

She's had a little bit of softness in those numbers, and I think that's an area where Bernie Sanders sort of sees an opening to say, look, I understand your problems. I'm not a Clinton, I'm not part of a dynasty, I'm just kind of like a regular guy and feels like he can speak to those issues maybe a little bit better than she can.

COSTELLO: Sara Murray, Larry Sabato, thanks very much. And Larry, thanks for commenting on Kanye West. I do appreciate it.

(LAUGHTER)

SABATO: OK.

COSTELLO: I like to put Larry on the spot like that.

Sometime today the State Department is due to release its largest collection of e-mails from Hillary Clinton's unsecured server. Today's release of more than 6,000 pages is sure to stoke the controversy that now hangs over her presidential bid. And there's no parsing of words from former Vice President Dick Cheney. He calls Hillary Clinton's handling of the e-mail sloppy and unprofessional.

He sat down with CNN's Jamie Gangel to publicize his new book "Exceptional: Why the World Needs Powerful America," co-written with his daughter Liz Cheney. Here's part of wide-ranging interview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: I found it surprising that somebody as high-ranking as the secretary of state, is dealing with classified and sensitive information all the time, would think that it was OK to have a private server in your home where you put, you know, information and so forth, where you send e-mails.

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: So how would you describe her handling her e-mails that way, in a word?

CHENEY: Well, I think it was sloppy and unprofessional. That it reflects a lack of understanding about how easy it is for adversaries to tap into communications, to get involved, for example, obviously in reading e-mail as we know is now very extensive. The Chinese recently picked up the files of everybody who is currently working for the federal government. Now, the situation, it strikes me maybe she went into it ignorant but I find that hard to believe, she's an intelligent woman, she spent a lot of time in the White House.

You should not operate in the way she did, and I've got to believe it was not consistent with the U.S. State Department personnel. It certainly wasn't consistent apparently with the way we handle classified information in the federal government.

GANGEL: She should have known better.

CHENEY: I think she should have known better.

GANGEL: You think the Russians and the Chinese have her e-mails?

CHENEY: They've got my personnel records. How can they not have her e-mails?

GANGEL: Do you think this undermines or disqualifies her candidacy?

CHENEY: I think there's a very real possibility of that.

GANGEL: I know you're not in the business of giving the Democratic Party advice, but what do you think of Joe Biden and do you think he should get into the race?

CHENEY: I'd love to see Joe get in the race.

GANGEL: Because?

CHENEY: Go for it, Joe. He's tried twice before. He obviously is interested. I think there's a lot of support for him in the Democratic Party. I think it would stir things up. They're short candidates on their side so, you know, I'd urge Joe to have a shot at it.

GANGEL: Who do you think is a more formidable candidate, Biden or Clinton?

CHENEY: There was this notion that Hillary sort of -- had inherited the nomination, that nobody could really challenge her for the nomination. I think that's now pretty well gone by the boards because of her problems, and I think that's why there's potential support out there. So she does have some opposition now, and my bet is Joe is going to run.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: And you can watch all of Jamie Gangel's interview with Dick Cheney tomorrow night on "ANDERSON COOPER 360." That begins 8:00 p.m. Eastern.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Alaska's beauty is a sobering backdrop for President Obama's urgent message on global warning. But that's not the only controversy waiting for him.

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