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Chicago Officer Who Killed Teen in Court Today; Affluenza Teen and Mother Captures in Mexico; Trump Sharpens Attacks on Bill Clinton and Other Rivals; Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired December 29, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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


[10:00:03] ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS: So again Davis says they aren't making any allegations against Peyton Manning, but he still was included in an hour-long documentary about doping in sports. Manning has vehemently denied ever taking human growth hormone.

And, Poppy, Charlie Sly, the man Davis mentioned, has recanted his statement but Davis said she still believes everything that he said during the hours he was being secretly recorded.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: All right. We'll be following it. Andy Scholes, thank you very much.

The next hour of NEWSROOM begins right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

HARLOW: 10:00 a.m. Eastern, good morning, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow, in today for my friend, Carol Costello, thank you so much for being with me.

Moments ago the Chicago police officer who shot and killed teenager Laquan McDonald arrived in court for his second appearance. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nothing to say? You couldn't wait to shoot a black man. You couldn't wait to shoot an unarmed black man.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on, people. Make a hole, man.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who cares about him? Who cares about him? Like the holes he made in that boy? Like the holes he made in that boy? What are you talking about?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Keep moving. Keep moving. Make a hole.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let him through.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Like the 16 holes he put in that boy?

(END VIDEO CLIP) HARLOW: Officer Jason Van Dyke is expected to plead not guilty this hour to six separate counts of first-degree murder.

In 2014, Van Dyke shot McDonald 16 times in just seconds, this after dispatch called for someone with a taser to respond.

Our Rosa Flores has been following the story from the beginning. She joins me outside the courtroom.

We saw what it was like when he walked in. What happens now?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Poppy, that was exactly what we were expecting. Like I mentioned before, we've seen this in the past. Every single time that he either enters court or leaves court, he is greeted by protesters, who usually scream at him and pound on his vehicle.

For my producer who was actually with that pack of people, he tells me that he overheard people even calling him blue-eyed devil. Again, we've seen it, I've actually been sitting in the courtroom, in the overflow room, right next to Van Dyke, about a few feet away, and I've heard people sitting behind me calling names.

I'm not sure if he's able to hear because it's in a courtroom setting. But even inside the courtroom, in the overflow room, while he has to wait for a judge, people give him that sort of treatment.

Again, he's facing scrutiny on the streets. He's also facing scrutiny inside the courtroom.

Poppy, like you mentioned, he is facing six counts of first-degree murder and one count of official misconduct, all related to the shooting and killing of Laquan McDonald, who's the black teen here from Chicago who was shot 16 times in 15 seconds.

Now his attorney did speak briefly to the media before entering the courtroom today. He's expected to plead not guilty on behalf of -- on behalf of his client. Now in the past he's been very clear that Jason Van Dyke acted in self-defense that day, that he used proper force in the shooting and killing of Laquan McDonald. But again he's expected to be arraigned here shortly at 9:30 local.

And, Poppy, one of the other big different things about this particular proceeding is that we actually have cameras inside the courtroom. That's usually not the case in Illinois. Cameras are never allowed inside courtrooms. Today we have that privilege to actually see this proceeding inside the courtroom.

HARLOW: And we will carry it for our viewers live as soon as it begins.

Rosa, thank you so much.

I do want to continue this conversation from a legal perspective with Areva Martin. She's an attorney and a legal affairs commentator. She's also a civil rights attorney. Thank you for being with me.

AREVA MARTIN, ATTORNEY AND LEGAL AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: Good to see you, Poppy.

HARLOW: Good to see you, too. We know that he's facing six counts of first-degree murder. If he is convicted on all, what kind of sentence are we talking about?

MARTIN: We're talking about life in jail, in prison, in state prison, in the state of Illinois. These are very, very serious charges that have been brought against him. And as we've watched this play out in the media over the last couple of weeks, and particularly months, we know that the city of Chicago is not only definitely calling for him to be convicted of murder, to be incarcerated for life, but also calling for a change in leadership in the city.

We've watched those protesters also call for the mayor of Chicago to resign over the handling of this entire case.

HARLOW: Right. And to be really clear, it's unlikely that we'll see that, knowing Rahm Emanuel for who he is, and also the fact that the process just isn't in place in the city of Chicago to oust a mayor like that. But we'll watch.

[10:05:01] Given the publicity, given the protests, those calls for the mayor to step down, how does that, Areva, play into all of this? I mean, I know a trial is supposed to be tried simply on the facts. But when you're looking at the context of this in Chicago, how do you think this affects it?

MARTIN: We should expect to see his attorneys, the defense attorneys for Van Dyke, to file several motions, one of them being a request to change the venue. Often in these high-profile trials defense attorneys will file motions asking that the trial be moved to a new venue, a venue where jurors don't have as much information, haven't watched the case be played out in the media as much as it's been in Chicago.

We've watched it on a national level but on a local level this has been a part of the news daily. So the defense attorneys will argue before the judge that they're not going to be able to get a fair trial. They're not going to be able to find impartial jurors because of the level of media coverage of the case.

HARLOW: But the Freddie Gray --

MARTIN: So we should watch as those motions are filed.

HARLOW: But the officers -- defense attorneys for the officers in the Freddie Gray case in Baltimore asked for that. They didn't get a change of venue. How likely is a change of venue?

MARTIN: It's very difficult. Particularly given the climate that we live in. Today almost all of these cases are played out in the media. So it's going to be very difficult even if you move this trial from Chicago, if you moved it to a smaller city in Illinois, you still have the issue of the national media and 24-hour news cycle.

HARLOW: Right.

MARTIN: And we saw in Baltimore the judge rejected that request from the defense counsel. But we should expect to see that motion not likely to succeed but a common motion to be filed in cases like this.

HARLOW: All right. Areva Martin, thank you so much for the perspective. I appreciate it.

MARTIN: Good to see you, Poppy.

HARLOW: Good to see you, too.

You can run, but you can't hide. That is the lesson the so-called affluenza teen, Ethan Couch, is learning today after being tracked down by the FBI, by U.S. Marshals, capturing him in Mexico. The 18- year-old fugitive was detained along with his mother in the vacation spot of Puerto Vallarta. Officials have been searching for the duo for several weeks. This is after Couch violated the terms of his probation.

He made headlines after getting just probation for killing these four people when he was driving drunk. Couch's defense attorney claimed his family's wealth and privilege meant that he never learned limits or accountability.

Our justice correspondent Evan Perez has more.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Poppy, the U.S. Marshal Service was tracking a cell phone and in recent days they alerted the Mexican authorities that they had tracked down Ethan Couch. Police in the Pacific Coast region near Puerto Vallarta moved in yesterday to make the arrest and they found the 18-year-old fugitive with his mother.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PEREZ (voice-over): Breaking overnight, the so called affluenza teen Ethan Couch captured in Mexico. The Jalisco state prosecutor's office releasing this photo to ABC News showing Couch with noticeably darker hair, mustache, and a beard. The manhunt ending when Mexican authorities nabbed the 18-year-old along with his mother, Tonya, nearly 1,000 miles from their hometown in Tarrant County, Texas, detaining them both near the popular beach resort town of Puerto Vallarta.

The mother and son duo on the lam for more than two weeks, leading U.S. Marshals on a massive manhunt. Couch went missing earlier this month and officers issued a warrant for his arrest after this video surfaced on social media appearing to show Couch playing beer pong at a party, a violation of his probation. At the time of his conviction, violating probation meant up to 10 years in prison.

Shortly after Couch vanished Texas authorities placed his mother Tonya on a missing persons list as well, believing she might be helping her son.

SHERIFF DEE ANDERSON, TARRANT COUNTY, TEXAS: Our hope is that they will both be locked up for some time.

PEREZ: Couch first made headlines two years ago after only receiving 10 years probation in a drunk driving crash that killed four people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had over 180 years of life taken. And two of those were my wife and daughter.

PEREZ: Couch's defense attorney argued that he suffered affluenza, meaning his wealthy upbringing was to blame for his behavior.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PEREZ: And, Poppy, Mexican authorities are expected to turn Couch over to the U.S. Marshals for his return back to the United States. And that could happen as soon as later today.

HARLOW: All right, Evan Perez, thank you so much for that.

Let's talk more about this from a legal perspective. CNN legal analyst, criminal defense attorney, Joey Jackson, back with me.

Here's what a lot of people want to know. All right. He's going to get extradited, one would assume.

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes.

HARLOW: To the United States. Comes back here, then the legal process plays out. Does he go right into jail or does he get more time at home?

JACKSON: No, I don't think there'll be much more time at home or in beaches or in Mexico or any other place. What will happen is he'll go before the judge, he'll be detained initially and then there'll be a hearing because we afford a hearing so that people can have an opportunity to be heard. His defense lawyers, I'm sure, Poppy, will want the opportunity to have him, you know, get a second opportunity. This was a mistake. He was a young person. He was on the run. He was scared.

[10:10:08] HARLOW: He was now allowed to leave the country, correct?

JACKSON: No, he was not. But he did. And so there's a lot of explaining to do. And remember, whenever you run -- it started of course with the video which we saw which shows potentially there was beer there, they were playing beer pong. Now that's something that's a violation because he was not supposed to be around alcohol, but it's explainable. But now that you leave the country, it demonstrates a consciousness of guilt and pretty much reinforces that you were doing which we see there, playing beer pong.

And so I think there are two issues that he has to overcome, number one the video, number two the actual violation of it. And we should also remember that the judge has a number of options. It will not be the original judge who sentenced him to probation because that judge has since retired. She opted not to run for reelection. It will be another judge. And judges have a wide degree of discretion in terms of giving you another opportunity or saying, you know what? You got an opportunity the first time. You got a gift. You didn't take advantage of it. This time you're going to pay the price and you're going to jail.

HARLOW: I think --

JACKSON: That's what the prosecutor's role.

HARLOW: So many people around the world that saw the story were stunned that he could take four lives, have three times the legal limit of alcohol in his system when he crashed into them.

JACKSON: Yes.

HARLOW: And just get probation. Is there any chance he will be retired for that initiate crime or not in the cards?

JACKSON: The answer is no. That's been litigated, it's been adjudicated. And you know, juvenile court, there are many tenets in our justice system. One is punishment.

HARLOW: Right.

JACKSON: One is deterrent. The other is rehabilitation. When you're a juvenile, the main focus is not so much on punishment or deterrence, it's on the rehabilitation. Remember he was 16 at the time. He'll be 19 in April. Now he's an adult. So the prosecution is going to want to refer him to adult court so that he could be punished accordingly.

The fact is, as you mentioned, there was a real feeling that there was a miscarriage of justice here. These people are dead. They have families. I mean, victims. Horrific. And as a 16-year-old he was dealt with by saying, you know what, we get it, we understand, we're not happy about it but I'm going to give you that opportunity. He blew that opportunity. Now he really has to pay the price. And so I would look for the judge to impose a very steep jail sentence not only as it relates him.

HARLOW: Right.

JACKSON: But let's not forget about the mother.

HARLOW: The mother who went with him.

JACKSON: Exactly. And you could make the argument that, did his mother go with him or did he go with his mother?

HARLOW: Yes.

JACKSON: So was she the one --

HARLOW: (INAUDIBLE). JACKSON: Exactly. Who aided, assisted, abetted him in fleeing the

country? Did she harbor a fugitive? Did she hinder prosecution? So she's in a world of trouble, you know, along with him.

HARLOW: Remember those four lives lost in this. And two other people seriously wounded, one as you said with brain injuries.

JACKSON: This is serious.

HARLOW: Joey, thank you.

JACKSON: Thank you, Poppy.

HARLOW: As always.

Coming up next, to politics. Donald Trump unleashing on both sides of the aisle. Why former President Bill Clinton and now GOP contender Chris Christie are the latest to be attacked by Donald Trump.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:16:18] HARLOW: Well, Donald Trump just tweeting this morning that he is ready to drop big money on this campaign saying, quote, "My campaign for president is $35 million under budget. I have spent very little and I'm in first place. Now I will spend big in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina."

For now, where Donald Trump is sharpening his attacks, well, he's doing it on someone who's not even running against him. But his presence looms large.

I'm talking about the former president Bill Clinton who makes his first campaign trip to the state of New Hampshire this week. Trump sharply criticizing team Clinton tweeting, "If Hillary thinks she can unleash her husband with his terrible record of women abuse while playing the women's card on me, she is wrong."

This morning Trump went on the "Today" show and he detailed what he meant by that abuse.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There was certainly a lot of abuse of women, and you look at whether it's Monica Lewinsky or Paula Jones or many of them, and that certainly will be fair game.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: With me now to talk about all of it, CNN political commentator and contributing editor for the Atlantic, Peter Beinart. Errol Louis is with us also, political anchor for New York 1 and a CNN political commentator. And Christine Romans is with us as well to jump in the conversation in just a moment.

Errol, to you, the Clinton campaign says that Hillary Clinton will not be bullied or distracted -- they put this out there -- by the personal attacks on her husband. What does this all mean in terms of Bill Clinton as he emerges on the stage? And what does it mean in terms of strategically how Hillary Clinton uses him?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I doubt that the Clintons will even lose half a step. After what happened in the late 1990s, with the impeachment, all of the press, it is the biggest story literally in the world for months and months and months. I don't think there's going to be anything they can throw at the Clintons that they're not already ready for and prepared to respond to.

So I -- and frankly I'm not sure the voters want to hear too much about this. So I think that what they'll do is sort of take the issue and then do a quick pivot and talk about women's issues.

HARLOW: Right.

LOUIS: This is what Hillary Clinton has done time and time again about women's wages, about how the majority of the people making minimum wage in this country and why the minimum wage needs to rise. Pay equity legislation, pay equity rulings, on and on.

HARLOW: Sure.

LOUIS: I think that's where the conversation will end up fairly quickly.

HARLOW: Peter, to you. It's interesting because Donald Trump is also taking aim -- hard aim at someone who's not polling anywhere near him, Chris Christie. Looking at New Hampshire, lashing out at the paper, the "Union Leader," that endorsed him. Here's what he told a rally in the state last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Tremendous downgrade, either nine or 11, downgrades at the bonds. It's number 50 out of 50 in terms of economic development and in terms of the economy. It's like one of the worst in the country for jobs. It's a disaster. You have Obama -- I don't call it a hug. I call it a hug mentally. It was like -- it was unbelievable. He was like a little boy, oh, I'm with the president. Remember he flew in the helicopter and he was all excited to be in the helicopter?

So what else happened? The George Washington Bridge. People in New Jersey want to throw him out of office. They said, why isn't he running New Jersey? We're a disaster state. We're going to hell. And our governor is up in New Hampshire every single day having town hall meetings.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: To be clear about bridgegate, it has not been found that Christie knew of anything. Some of his gubernatorial aides have been found to have known things. Christie is a distant third to Trump in New Hampshire. What's with the strategy?

PETER BEINART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: There is some sense that Christie has been rising. You know, it's not only Trump. Jeb Bush has also been recently going after Christie.

[10:20:03] I think if you look at the big stories of the last couple of months in the Republican primary, story number one is Carson's collapse, two is Cruz's rise, and three perhaps is the fact that Christie has come back from the dead in New Hampshire. He's clustered up with a bunch of candidates for third place.

What will be fascinating to see how he responds to Trump, right? Because Christie's MO is a tough guy. Right?

HARLOW: Right.

BEINART: You know, after -- if Donald Trump weren't in the race, he would be the guy with the big personality in this race. So it will be fascinating to see now that Christie has the chance to go after Trump.

HARLOW: The two of them, head-to-head.

BEINART: Right. So get your popcorn ready, right? Chris Christie and Donald Trump, my goodness.

HARLOW: Christie will not be allowed, I don't think, as a traditional politician to go anywhere near where Donald Trump has, Errol, do you think, in terms of just what he tweets, what he says?

LOUIS: Oh, no. I think what we've got is shaping up to be something that was predicted a long ago, which is that in a field with 14 candidates, 13 at this point I guess, you've got people in different lanes. And representing the sort of traditional government lane, if it's Chris Christie running for that position to then take on Trump later in the process, all he needs at this point is to be everybody's second choice, everybody's third choice even, and then to start to build some support and then go into the southern primaries and go into some of the other later contests and really take it to Trump. I think that's -- Trump is already sensing and hence the attacks.

HARLOW: All right. Christine Romans, come into this conversation because I was fascinated by what happened, this tweet storm by Donald Trump last night.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Wait, Donald Trump tweets?

HARLOW: Wait. About raising wages.

ROMANS: I know.

HARLOW: About raising wages, taking on Bernie Sanders.

ROMANS: Yes.

HARLOW: Here's what he said. He tweeted, because, you know, he's engaged in this back-and-forth with Sanders. He tweeted, "Strange but I see wacko Bernie Sanders' allies coming over to me because I'm lowering taxes while he will double and triple them. A disaster." Can you walk us through the facts? ROMANS: So the facts here are that Donald Trump -- Donald Trump said

on November 10th at the Republican -- at the Republican debate that wages were too high, the minimum wage was too high. He said it's not appropriate to raise the minimum wage. It's appropriate to grow the economy and grow better paying jobs. This is exactly what he said back on November 10th.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Taxes too high, wages too high. We're not going to be able to compete against the world. I hate to say it, but we have to leave it the way it is. People have to go out. They have to work really hard. And they have to get into that upper stratum. But we cannot do this if we are going to compete with the rest of the world. We just can't do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: He's saying we just can't do it, we just can't raise the minimum wage. Bernie Sanders has been saying raise the minimum wage.

HARLOW: Right.

ROMANS: There are too many people who are working paycheck-to- paycheck. And states have been raising the minimum wage. So Donald Trump is now fighting with Bernie Sanders over this raise the wage idea. And he's trying to thread the needle here. Here's what Donald Trump said via Twitter, he said, "Wages in this country are too low." We just heard him say wages are too high. But he said wages are too low. "Good jobs are too few and people have lost their faith in our leaders. We need smart and strong leadership."

Now he says his tax cuts, his immigration reform, his corporate tax plan, his tax policies would help everyone and raise wages overall.

HARLOW: Can you -- and feel free to weigh in on this, guys, too. Aren't they in a sense going after a similar voter with this in different parties? And what I mean is that middle-aged working man or woman --

ROMANS: Paycheck-to-paycheck.

HARLOW: -- who feels like we have not seen our median wages go up in a decade in this country. And we need someone who's going to do something about it.

BEINART: But there is a difference. Bernie Sanders' voters are much younger than Donald Trump's voters. So both are economically struggling, it's true. But with the Trump voters you have on top of that a lot of the cultural resentment about the demographic changes that are taking place in the country.

The Bernie Sanders people don't care about that. That's why they focus their unhappiness about their economic struggles. And they are economically struggling. Younger people more than older people actually. But they focus their resentment on Wall Street. HARLOW: But often older people have families to support.

LOUIS: Well, absolutely. But if you're a single mother, you're working in, say, a fast food restaurant, minimum wage in, say, Iowa, $7.25. If Bernie Sanders comes along and says, by law, I will more than double that, that gets a certain kind of appeal.

ROMANS: Yes.

HARLOW: By the way, he can't do that without Congress.

ROMANS: No, but Donald Trump -- but Donald Trump is saying, you want to work your way out of that job into the upper stratum. That's what he said in that debate. And does that play with paycheck-to-paycheck Republicans who survey after survey has shown even in the last election, red states are voting to raise the minimum wage. They just felt as if the deck was stacked too far against them. An hour of their work was worth more than $7.25.

HARLOW: Yes.

ROMANS: Does that play for Donald Trump? Can he convince people that he can create a lot of well-paying jobs and that you don't need to raise the minimum wage?

I mean, the minimum wage issue, it's very popular. I mean, maybe not to $15 an hour.

HARLOW: Right.

ROMANS: But a lot of people think that -- people who have not always approved of raising the minimum wage think that raising it to $10.10 is not a bad idea.

HARLOW: Yes. It's sort of -- been this sort of sea change here.

ROMANS: Yes.

HARLOW: And with the Democrats, wages are -- in the economy is issue number one and jobs, with Republicans it's terror. So we'll be watching. Interesting tweet battles constantly going on.

ROMANS: Sure is.

HARLOW: Thank you all.

BEINART: Thank you.

LOUIS: Thanks.

[10:25:01] HARLOW: I appreciate it. Christine Romans, Errol Louis, Peter Beinart.

Still to come, from the war on terror to the refugee crisis across Europe, it was quite a year filled with tremendous challenges. Up next, why did the State Department list a big achievement in the civil war in Syria? We'll talk about why that's raising eyebrows, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Good morning, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow, in today for Carol Costello. 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time. Thank you so much for joining me.

We have breaking news just into us here at CNN. An ISIS leader linked to the Paris terror attack we now know was killed in a Christmas eve airstrike. This is according to officials. The target had direct ties to the ringleader of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who you're looking at on the screen.

To be clear, this is not the person who was killed. The perp who was killed has direct ties to this Paris terror attack ringleader. The coalition says a man by the name of Charaffe al Mouadan was planning more attacks.

Now that 2016 is right around the corner, the State Department is giving itself a pat on the back for this year's achievements. According to the spokesman, John Kirby, those wins include, quote, "Bringing peace and security to Syria." That headline posted by Kirby online yesterday certainly raised some eyebrows. Slate.com writes, "If you're thinking of Syria, the country embroiled in a brutal, deadly civil war that's witnessing atrocities committed by ISIS and the regime like forcing a mass exodus of ordinary Syrians you're thinking of the right country."

In an op-ed, Secretary of State John Kerry warns in a very different tone, "The obstacles --