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Report: Two Black Men Arrested at Starbucks Tell Their Story; Trump New 101, His Key Words and Patterns; U.S. Will Fight to Free Captives in North Korea Talks; Senator Duckworth First to Bring Baby to Senate Floor. Aired 3:30-4p ET
Aired April 19, 2018 - 15:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[15:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: The video of their disturbing arrest has been seen nearly 11 million times. Sparking outrage and calls for a national boycott of Starbucks.
Today the two black men who were handcuffed and removed from a Starbucks for not buying something are breaking their silence. Rashon Nelson and Dante Robinson say they went to a Starbucks for a business meeting but within minutes of arriving they were handcuffed by police and placed in the back of a squad car. Here is part of their interview from "Good Morning America."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RASHON NELSON, ARRESTED AT STARBUCKS: Initially as soon as they approached us, they just said we have to leave. There was no question of, you know, was there a problem here between you guys and the manager, you know, what happened?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When you were arrested did they tell you what you were being arrested for?
DANTE ROBINSON: No. Not at the time. He wasn't read any rights. Nothing. Just double locked, handcuffs behind our back and escorted out and put into a squad car. I want to make sure this situation doesn't happen again. What I want is for a young man or young men to not be traumatized by this and instead motivated, inspired.
[15:35:00] NELSON: This has been going on for years and everyone's blind to it, but they know what's going on, if you get what I mean. You know, just really taking those actions and putting them in their place and help people understand that it's not just a black people thing. This is a people thing. And that's exactly what we want to see out of this and that's true change. So, put action into place and stop using your words.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Not just a black people thing but a people thing. Solomon Jones is with me, radio host for Philadelphia's Praise 107.9. Solomon, thank you so much. I know this has been a huge, huge topic for you on your show. Thanks for joining me. SOLOMON JONES, RADIO HOST: Yes, it has. Thanks for having me,
Brooke.
BALDWIN: You got it. A lot jumped out at me listening to the interview this morning. Two minutes from when those guys sat down to when the manager called 911, two minutes.
JONES: Yes, Yes. It really just reminds me of so many other incidents that have turned out worse than this one, Tamir Rice, police officers pull up and in a matter of seconds, they shoot that little boy for playing with a toy gun. And in this case two minutes they show up and men say in the interview they didn't even know why the police were there. They were saying to themselves they can't be here for us because nobody's told us anything.
Suddenly there are six police officers surrounding them. It really is a case of racial profiling in a neighborhood that is a very rich neighborhood, a very white neighborhood where we've had problems with stop and frisk, where only 3 percent of the people in that neighborhood are black yet 67 percent of the people stopped by police in that neighborhood are black. This is an ongoing problem. Hopefully this is the beginning for solutions not only to this situation but as Dante Robinson said for many others like it.
BALDWIN: We know that the Starbucks CEO has met with these two men, called this reprehensible, they're shutting down 8,000 Starbucks stores for racial Starbucks training. Is that enough?
JONES: No. They need to be shutting down the stores now for racial training. We've seen other people where they were let into a rest room not buying anything and a black person behind them was not let into the rest room. I think in many places black people are profiled. Until such time we know this manager is gone and will never come back, until we know that the racial bias training has been done, until we know that black people have been promoted into positions of management where they can make decisions around who goes, who stays, who gets in the bathroom, et cetera, I will not be satisfied. I've been going to Starbucks for years, but I will be boycotting until such time that these conditions are met.
BALDWIN: You close your whole piece in the Philadelphia Daily News by writing until Starbucks commits to treating my brothers like whole persons, I will boycott every one of their stores. You talk about putting people of color in managerial positions. Starbucks touts its diversity, 66 percent of their workers are women and 43 percent are minorities. Is boycotting a company where a number of their workers are people of color, are women, is boycotting the most effective way to express your displeasure?
JONES: I think in a capitalistic society, boycotting is always the most effective way to express your displeasure because when you can hit a company's bottom line, then that is a message that goes beyond just words, beyond just protests. It affects the company, I think it's always effective. But let me say this. The way the systemic racism works is sort of like a chess game. No matter whether the piece is black or white, if it's a knight, it can only move in an l shape, a bishop can only move diagonally. If the only thing if they can do is work within a system, that is in itself racist. Starbucks needs to be having that training now because apparently it is not working to have just people in positions where they can only do what the company policies spoken and unspoken say that they can do.
BALDWIN: Solomon jones, thank you for your voice. Appreciate it.
JONES: Thank you so much for having me.
BALDWIN: Coming up next, President Trump threatens to walk out of his meeting with Kim Jong un if it doesn't go well, if it's not, his word, fruitful. This as North Korea purportedly makes a major concession before those talks. Also, any time the president speaks to reporters, it's always, shall we say, a surreal experience. Chris Cillizza, he's analyzing the patterns from a Trump news conference.
[15:40:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[15:45:00] DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There was no collusion and that's been so found as you know by the House Intelligence Committee. There's no collusion. There was no collusion with Russia, other than by the Democrats. But there has been no collusion. They won't find any collusion. It doesn't exist.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: The president addressing whether he plans to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller or his Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, repeating "no collusion" five times, despite the fact that the investigation is still very much active. But that wasn't even his record. Remember this?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: There has been no collusion, no collusion. They all say there's no collusion and there is no collusion. I can only say this, there was absolutely no collusion. It has been determined that there is no collusion. When they have no collusion and nobody's found any collusion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Chris, no collusion, no collusion, no collusion.
CHRIS CILLIZZA, CNN POLITICS REPORTER AND EDITOR AT LARGE: He's on message in that regard, Brooke.
BALDWIN: Yes, he is.
CILLIZZA: Let me show you. I went through and picked out some things. "no collusion" is a favorite of Donald Trump's but there a lots of others he repeats a lot. The first is hoax. He used that yesterday with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, hoax. No collusion. Reciprocal trade. Talks about it all the time. "very, very bad." That can be about almost anything. Let's go to the next slide because there's more that he sort of focuses on. He criticizes his foes all the time. Yesterday with Shinzo Abe, he talked about Hillary Clinton.
The election ended a long time ago. 460 plus days. He talked about the electoral college. He said Democrats would always win but I found a way. This is a one-on-one with Shinzo Abe. He always says this should have already been solved. Every past president and every past administration did a poor job. He always leaves things open ended. Well, we will have a meeting, maybe we won't have a meeting. We'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. Check this out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Unless they offer us a deal that we cannot refuse, I would not go back into TPP. We'll see what happens.
I hope you're going to tell that caravan not to get up to the border. I think they're doing that because as of 12 minutes ago, it was all being broken up. We'll see what happens.
So, we'll see what happens with the peace process.
I'm very disappointed with the attorney general, but we will see what happens. Something could happen with respect to the Paris accord. We'll see what happens.
As far as North Korea is concerned, I don't know. We'll see what happens.
We're looking at it with great care, great care. Believe me. We'll see what happens.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CILLIZZA: So, Brooke, will you ever have me back on the show?
BALDWIN: We'll see what happens. See what happens. There are videos on line, linguists analyzing his speech. It's sort of fascinating to look at.
CILLIZZA: He weirdly, Brooke, for someone who is so all over the place message-wise, he's incredibly on message about certain things. No collusion, electoral college, Democrats, we'll see what happens. It's like a mantra. And yet on other things he's all over the map.
BALDWIN: Totally. We'll see what happens. Chris, thank you so much.
President Trump's new national security adviser just raised the prospect of a walkout in the middle of the high-stakes talk with North Korea's leader Kim Jong un. It sheds some light on why the president said something similar.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: If I think that it's a meeting that is not going to be fruitful, we're not going to go. If the meeting when I'm there is not fruitful, I will respectfully leave the meeting.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: With me now CNN's chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour. Is it possible to say disrespectfully and walk out in the same sentence? Can that even happen? Is there diplomatic protocol for something like that?
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Look, Brooke, it would be incredibly unusual for that to happen at that level, two heads of state. It would be very, very unusual for a catastrophic sort of breakdown and a walkout, even if things are not successful.
[15:50:00] But I think what's clearly happening is that John Bolton, as you mentioned, who is in any event not one who particularly believes in the hard and arduous work of diplomacy and has, as you know, had a world view that includes, you know, regime change in North Korea and Iran using military force and all the rest of it, may not be disposed to the very hard work that it takes to have the kind of negotiation that will be required to get any deal between the United States and North Korea.
Just look at the Iran nuclear deal. That took two years of negotiations after months of secret talks, and that was kind of a smaller deal than the North Korean one will be because of course North Korea has nuclear weapons, Iran did not. And also, you have a problem whereby potentially the word denuclearization means two different things to the North Korean leadership and to the United States and the west. They are actually maybe both talking about significantly different things, about what exactly they hope to get out of this. And then finally president Trump is a business man who uses his art of the deal and his hardball negotiations to effect during his real estate deals. But when you have negotiations with heads of states who have a nuclear weapons program, there has to be a much more nuanced sort of relationship and it can't just be a zero-sum game.
In other words, for president Trump to win or for the west to win, it doesn't necessarily mean that North Korea must be shown to lose. So, a negotiation means that all sides can come out with a sort of win- win, even if it's not equal and the west gets what it wants, the other side must be made to believe that this is something that it can sell back home, that is palatable and actually can exist. So, you know, the setting up a scenario that if it's not going well, well, I'm tough guy and show that it's not going to work. Something that it can sell back home, that is palatable and actually can exist. So, you know, the setting up a scenario that if it's not going well, well, I'm tough guy and show that it's not going to work.
BALDWIN: All right. So, this meeting's supposed to happen May, June or maybe not at all so says the president. I have no segue. Let's talk sex and love in Shanghai. Roll the clip.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Today's mission is we want to find a beautiful dress for the date.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What's that?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The color.
AMANPOUR: OK. So, you think I have a good chance of getting a date?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, Yes.
AMANPOUR: I could open it more.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Unbutton.
AMANPOUR: There you go.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, no, no.
AMANPOUR: No?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Too --
AMANPOUR: This is too much? Your face, you look horrified.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
AMANPOUR: It is just a little button.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are good girl.
AMANPOUR: You're good girls?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I try to tell them to be bad girls.
AMANPOUR: Bad girls?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: girls, yes.
AMANPOUR: I'm a little bit shocked. They not only look young, they act young.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, yes.
AMANPOUR: They don't look like adult women, but they are well educated so work for the multinational company, very decent pay.
AMANPOUR: Really?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
AMANPOUR: They're very naive?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Unfortunately, yes.
AMANPOUR: Look. Here they come.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wow! Wow. That's gorgeous. AMANPOUR: want to ask you girls do you think about romantic and love,
satisfaction? Do you feel you're missing something?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, yes. Everyone told us study hard to go to a good university, get a very good job but no one tell us how to have a very good intimate relationship with the boys.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Christiane Amanpour! Living on the edge and unbuttoning -- Wow. What's the culture like there?
AMANPOUR: It's really kind of sad and the reality. Women have done so well in Shanghai, women in university, business, millionaires. In greater numbers than any other part of China and yet they have this big hole in their lives when it comes to knowing how to navigate the personal relationships. To the point that you saw I was with a dating coach teaching girls how to dress, but beyond that how to act, how to talk, how to, you know, just date a guy. And, of course, this in a culture where choosing your own partner is not normal. They have had arranged marriages forever in China.
By the way, the segue is China a huge role to play in the North Korea/U.S. talks.
BALDWIN: leave it to you with the segue of course. We'll not miss back to back episodes this Saturday night "Sex and Love" with Christiane Amanpour. Thank you so much. And we are now less than ten minutes from Jake's interview live interview with James Comey. Hear his response to the breaking new that is his former number two facing possible criminal charges. Do not go anywhere.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: An historic moment, moments ago on Capitol Hill. Illinois Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth arrived to cast a vote with her 10- day-old daughter by her side. The senate unanimously decided to allow working moms on the hill to bring newborns to work. Senator is the first to give birth while in office. As a senator and CNN congressional correspondent Sunlen Serfaty is with me and I understand you got a chance to get a question in with her as she was heading in with her beautiful baby girl.
SUNLEN Serfaty, CNN congressional correspondent: That's right, Brooke. This is certainly not only a big moment for Senator Duckworth but a big moment for the Senate as an institution. I think Senator Duckworth said it best herself saying essentially to her fellow senators, welcome to the 21st century which is certainly an acknowledgment that these longstanding Senate rules on the books did have to be updated. Today it was a first, she was allowed to her newborn on the floor to vote with her. There was a rule on the books, that was a rule that they voted to change and so myself along with a few other reporters did catch up with Senator Tammy Duckworth arriving on capitol hill with the 10-day-old baby. Here's a little of what she had to say.
[16:00:00] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How does it feel to be here?
SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH, (D), ILLINOIS: Great. About time.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How does it feel to be as a mom?
DUCKWORTH: I think it's historic, amazing. I want to thank any colleagues for the unanimous consent vote to do this. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She is young to be making history.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She is. Don't set expectations too high for her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SERFATY: And moments after that, she was welcomed on to the Senate floor to a round of applause from her fellow colleagues bringing that baby on the floor and cast her vote but, brook, she had worked behind the scenes for months with senators to make this rule change happen but not without hurdles. In fact, I heard from many senators that there was a lot of concern up here on Capitol Hill from her colleagues questioning would she be changing diapers on the floor? Would she -- would there be a dress code for the baby? Certainly, interesting that those concerns were still voiced as they made the rule change push. Brooke?
BALDWIN: Love how you said it, welcome to the 21st century. That does it for me. We'll send it to Jake Tapper, a special edition of "THE LEAD" starts right now.
