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Georgia Voting Rights Clash; Toxic Blaze in Iraq; BLM Activist Endorses Clinton. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired October 25, 2016 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:33:12] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks you so much for joining me.

Donald Trump hammering allegations that if he loses, the election would be rigged. Civil rights activists say they are concerned about the electoral process, but it has to do with voter suppression. They say that's what's happening in Georgia right now. This was the only precinct that was open last week for early voting. A single precinct to serve a county with 900,000 people. Minorities, by the way, account for 43 percent of the population in Gwinnett County.

This is happening against the backdrop of Georgia possibly turning blue. The traditionally red state is right now polling as a statistical tie.

With me now to talk about this is Kristen Clark. She's with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a nonprofit organization that has brought the majority of the pending voter rights cases in the state of Georgia.

Welcome, Kristen.

KRISTEN CLARK, PRES. & EXECUTIVE DIR., LAWYERS COMMITTEE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS UNDER LAW: Thank you.

COSTELLO: You've called Georgia ground zero for voter suppression. Why?

CLARK: You know, Georgia, when we think about the voter suppression that's playing out across the country right now, you know, we see the voting discrimination at every level, at the local level, at the state level. You just talked about Gwinnett County. This is the most racially diverse county in the southeastern section of the United States. And it is unfathomable that they had one precinct location open for early voting. Voters endured long wait times of several hours waiting to cast ballots. They are preparing to add three additional locations and will add five more. But why they waited for this fiasco unfold to do the right thing by voters, I think, you know, raises into question --

[09:35:01] COSTELLO: Well, Kristen, might they just have underestimated the amount of people showing up for early voting? Could it be as simple as that?

CLARK: The thing is, when we take a step back and look at what's happening around Georgia, we see a pattern. In Hancock County, Georgia, officials have undertaken an effort to purge legitimately registered African-Americans from the voter rolls. The sheriff's office will go to people's homes and issue summonses to them and tell them that you are being called down to provide proof of your continued eligibility to vote.

Let's move over to Macon Bibb County, Georgia. This is a place where officials moved a polling site from a majority black school to the local sheriff's office. The community said that this will have a chilling effect on the electorate and officials refused to move the polling site to another location. We were able to --

COSTELLO: But, wait a minute. Going back to that, like the secretary of state in Georgia would probably say, well, that gymnasium was under construction. We needed another place for people to vote, so we moved it to the sheriff's office.

CLARK: At the end of the day, we were able to work with the community and reverse the bad conduct there and that polling site is now at a black church. So officials, when you look --

COSTELLO: Well, just going back to this because, you know, we've invited Mr. Kemp (ph) to be on my show and we didn't hear back from his office. But in published reports he says, you know, we -- if -- like you weren't afraid that you'd committed any crime, what difference does it make if you vote in the sheriff's office? Who cares? We needed a facility, it was available and we provided that for voters.

CLARK: This tactic of moving polling sites to locations deemed hostile by minority voters is one that has been used throughout history and one that we're continuing to see today in 2016. Jack Kemp himself is behind a lot of the problems that we're seeing in Georgia. His office has refused to process 42,000 voter registration applications by -- he imposed an exact match requirement, unless every letter, every character, every number on a voter registration application matched information in a state's database, they refused to process the forms. We sued and now Mr. Kemp is, indeed, putting many of those people onto the rolls. But when we look across Georgia, whether at the local level, at the state level, what we see is that in 2016 voter suppression and voting discrimination are alive and well.

COSTELLO: And just a final question. Mr. Trump continues to say that the system is rigged. The system is rigged against him. With all the talk of voter suppression in states like Georgia, do we have a problem with the way we elect officials in the United States of America?

CLARK: There is no conspiracy to rig elections. We have 8,000 different counties across our country that all independently conduct elections. You have officials from both parties that provide checks and balances. If we want to talk about what's broken about American democracy, we have to talk about voting discrimination and voter suppression. Those problems are real. They're not confined to just Georgia. We're seeing these issues in Texas. We're seeing these issues in North Carolina. If we want to make our democracy a better place, that's where we should focus the public dialogue.

COSTELLO: And just a final note, because I do want to get Mr. Kemp's side of things in. He was on quite the Twitter storm recently. He wrote of the ACLU's lawsuit filed against Georgia's -- filed against him, right, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against Georgia's Republican secretary of state, which would be Brian Kemp, Brian Kemp tweeted this, quote, "in a desperate last-minute attempt at relevance, the ACLU is spoon feeding the liberal media exactly what it wants." In other words, he's intimating that the media wants minorities to vote in droves to elect Hillary Clinton. Is that what he means?

CLARK: You know, the ACLU, my organization, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, we are committed to one thing, making sure that all eligible Americans can participate in our democracy. And the barriers and rules that Mr. Kemp and that local election officials throw up to make it harder for African-Americans and other minority voters to participate are grossly unfair and incredibly un-American. It's 2016. We need to be working towards a democracy where everyone can freely cast a ballot.

COSTELLO: OK. All right, thank you so much, Kristen Clark, for being with me this morning.

I'm hurrying you through because we have breaking news to share with our viewers. This is Donald Trump. He's speaking at his golf course in Doral, Florida,

that's in Miami. And he spoke moments ago about Obamacare. Let's listen.

[09:40:01] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: About jobs. This election is going to be about Obamacare. It's going to be about jobs. It's going to be about a lot of things, but Obamacare is just blowing up and even the White House, our president, announced 25 or 26 percent.

That number is so wrong. That is such a phony number. You're talking about 60, 70, 80 percent in increases, not 25 percent. And I think what he wanted to do, because it was blowing up all over the country, the numbers came out in Texas where it's 60 percent increases and other places, other states. One state's going to be 92 percent, I understand. So I think they wanted to put out -- pretty sad when you put out a 25 or 26 percent increase and that's supposed to be to keep it down.

Obamacare has to be repealed and replaced and it has to be replaced with something much less expensive for the people and, otherwise, this country's in even bigger trouble than anybody thought. So we're going to repeal and replace Obamacare.

And I can say, all of my employees are having a tremendous problem with Obamacare. You folks, this is another group, is that a correct statement? I mean you look at what they're going through, what they're going through with their health care is horrible because of Obamacare. So we'll repeal it and replace it.

But this is about jobs. And we have thousands of employees in Florida --

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COSTELLO: All right, we're going to break away with this. I was just making sure with my EP, Michelle, that the people assembled behind Donald Trump are his employees in Miami. We'll cover this much more after a break. I'll be right back.

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[09:45:39] COSTELLO: The U.S. coalition to defeat ISIS will meet in France today to talk about what's next for Mosul. And while the push to retake the Iraqi city has gone more quickly than expected, ISIS is not letting go without a fight. The terror group is outnumbered and it's setting traps to go off long after the terrorists leave. ISIS has laid IEDs, set fire to oil fields and is now setting fire to a sulfur facility, sending hundreds of people to the hospital.

CNN's senior international correspondent Arwa Damon joins me live from Erbil with more on this.

Hi, Arwa.

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol.

And, yes, it is fairly dramatic when it comes to this kind of a development. And it is not only impacting the battlefield, but also the civilian population.

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DAMON (voice-over): It could almost be waves rippling against a shoreline on another planet. Neon streams catching the light. But this hauntingly beautiful scenery is toxic. The yellow rock formations are raw sulfur, crumbling and melting under intense heat. It may look volcanic, but this is manmade.

DAMON (on camera): When ISIS withdrew from this sulfur factory, they placed explosives inside what was a massive mountain of sulfur, as well as placing explosives over an expanse of around 4.5 kilometers of this factory, sending toxic poisonous fumes into the air.

DAMON (voice-over): Hundreds of people living in the area had to seek medical attention for trouble breathing, burning eyes and choking. Hospitals ran out of oxygen.

DAMON (on camera): I have no idea how the vast majority of these workers out here are able to deal with the smell and the burning in one's eyes without having proper protection. Most people out here don't have gas masks on, but they are working tirelessly to try to bring this under control.

DAMON (voice-over): Across this other worldly landscape, there are bulldozers, firefighters trying to stifle the flames with loads of dirt. This is a battlefield that has no rules or boundaries.

DAMON (on camera): And this is just one of the many ways that ISIS is trying to use whatever it possibly can to try to not only impede the advance of the security forces toward Mosul, but also in doing so cause maximum damage and maximum impact on the civilian population.

DAMON (voice-over): If this is a sign of the lengths ISIS will go to out here, it's terrifying to imagine what it plans for Mosul itself.

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DAMON: And, Carol, of course, Mosul itself is a city that still has a population of upwards of 1.2 million people living in it. So you can just imagine what a similar attack would result in those kinds of toxic fumes or worse would do to that population.

COSTELLO: Unbelievable. Thank you. Arwa Damon reporting live from inside Iraq.

We'll be right back.

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[09:53:28] COSTELLO: Hillary Clinton's camp is working hard to energize young African-Americans to vote clinton. It hasn't been easy. Many young people feel disenfranchise with both candidates. Enter rapper Jay Z, husband of Beyonce. He was a strong supporter of President Obama. Remember?

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JAY Z, RAPPER: If you're having (INAUDIBLE), sir, I've got 99 problems but (INAUDIBLE) ain't one. I got the rap patrol on the (INAUDIBLE) patrol, (INAUDIBLE).

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COSTELLO: Yes, he can attract a crowd, right? And now Jay Z is trying to do the same thing for Hillary Clinton performing in Cleveland the Friday before Election Day in an effort to mobilize young voters.

Let's talk about that and more. With me now is Brittany Packnett, a prominent Black Lives Matter activist who has been slow to endorse Clinton.

Welcome.

BRITTANY PACKNETT, ACTIVIST AND EDUCATOR: Hi. Thank you for having me.

COSTELLO: Thank you so much for being here.

It's been an agonizing decision for you. You serve on the Ferguson Commission. As in Ferguson, Missouri. So it's taken you a long time to come around to Hillary Clinton. But why do it now?

PACKNETT: I don't know if agonizing is the word. I think I prefer thoughtful. I recognize my vote as one that is incredibly valuable, not only a vote that people died to secure, but also one that represents more than just my interest. That has to do with my community. That has to do with young people in my community. And so I wanted to ensure that the conversations I was having about how I would use my vote and my public support were, a, really thoughtful and prayerful for me, but also, b, that were attached to real accountability.

Friday was my third time personally meeting with Secretary Clinton. And the kinds of conversations we've had open police violence, criminal justice, education, and what's happening in communities of color have continued to evolve over that time. And so that's why I made the decision.

[09:55:17] COSTELLO: Many Black Lives Matter activists are loathe to support Clinton because of her husband's 1994 crime bill which put thousands of African-Americans behind bars. What do you tell the people who follow you?

PACKNETT: You know, a couple of things. One, I think that that's an important conversation. Secretary Clinton herself, former President Clinton, both of them have not denied the damage that that has done and I think that has been because we've put pressure on that conversation and ensured that it was at the forefront. The second thing I would remind us though is that the real work begins on November 9. You know in our -- in my last conversation with her last Friday, we talked about accountability. We talked about all of the work that needs to be done in the first 100 days for sure and thereafter. And that's going to involve us continuing to be engaged and holding her accountable on those issues that are important to us. But in order to hold her accountable, we have to put the right person in the White House on November 8th.

COSTELLO: The mothers of people who were shot by police, Trayvon Martin's mother for example, Michael Brown's mother, they've long supported Secretary Clinton for president. But younger African- Americans do not, even those who are passionate about the Black Lives movement and care deeply about police brutality. So why the split among older African-Americans and younger?

PACKNETT: You know, we have a great deal of respect for the mothers. I spoke to Sandra Band's mother just last week and she was providing a lot of encouragement and insight from her perspective and honestly the reason why we got out there in the first place was because at the very least we didn't have to deal with the same kind of tragedy that these mothers and fathers are dealing with, with their dead children and family members. And so, at the very least, they shouldn't have to fight for ourselves.

But everyone has to make a decision for their own and we really have to wrestle with how we hold our elected officials accountable. So the timing of this is a conversation we can have for a long time, but at the end of the day, Secretary Clinton needs to enter that White House so that we can continue to work on a positive path forward.

COSTELLO: So do you think that many people within the African-American community, and I'm speaking specifically about younger African- Americans, will they cast their vote for Clinton or against Trump?

PACKNETT: I'm certainly hoping that they do both. I'm certainly hoping that they recognize that the rhetoric of Donald Trump, specifically around hell being in the African-American community, around this law and order rhetoric that's really a nonstarter for us is something that they recognize as too dangerous to ever enter the Oval Office. But I also hope that they look at Hillary Clinton's record, on her work with young people, on her mobilizing voters down in Texas and Arkansas, around issues of juvenile justice and recognize that this is someone we can hold accountable as we move forward. And that it won't certainly require our engagement and she expect us to hold her accountable. But at least let's put someone in the White House that's ready to move on our issues.

COSTELLO: Brittany Packnett, thank you so much for joining me this morning.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM after a break.

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