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Jacob Blake's Father and Attorney for Jacob Blake's Family Interviewed on Aftermath of Jacob Blake being Shot in the Back Seven Times by Police; Trump Fear Monger in Pitch for 4 More Years; Soon: Teen Charged in Kenosha Deadly Shootings to Appear ion Court. Aired 8- 8:30a ET

Aired August 28, 2020 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

JACOB BLAKE SR., FATHER OF JACOB BLAKE: The thing that made him smile was the Milwaukee Bucks. That made him smile. And I'm from Chicago, but now I am truly a Milwaukee Bucks fan, because they reached out to my son, sent him a jersey that was signed by the whole organization. But that made him smile, and he didn't -- I'm not going to tell him about anything that could hurt the chances of him recovering.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Of course.

BLAKE: Nothing, no setbacks.

CAMEROTA: Of course.

BLAKE: I looked him in the eye, and I have been sick on several occasions, and he's always been there with his father. And we always set goals, and I said -- I said no setbacks, baby. No setbacks. And he said, I got you, pops. And he just kept telling me how much he loved me. And -- excuse me, he made my -- he made -- he made me come back to reality. Once I saw him -- I hadn't seen him, so once I saw him, I felt -- I can't even describe how I felt.

CAMEROTA: You're doing a really good job of describing what these moments have been like and how much strength it must be taking for you and the rest of your family. Have you heard anything from the White House? Has President Trump tried to reach out to your family?

BLAKE: That's a negative.

CAMEROTA: President Trump didn't mention Jacob Blake's name last night in his speech. Did you want him to?

BLAKE: Well, if I have to tell you or want you to do something, and you don't want to do it, there's no need for me to mention it, because then it's not coming from your heart. I talked to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for an hour on the phone. And when President Biden was talking to me, and I mentioned the story to him about when I was eight-years- old, he said that was you? I said, yes, that was me. And he said, well, that makes me old. I said, well, you said it, not me.

(LAUGHTER)

BLAKE: And then Vice President Harris was -- they were so comforting that you almost forgot how the situation was really playing out. They relieved some -- they made Jacob's mother stop being nervous for like 40, 50 minutes, and she's so nervous and so worried. And I don't think people understand the worry of a mother. That's her baby.

CAMEROTA: Of course, yes.

Mr. Crump, OK, we're just, we're wrestling with the technical details. Mr. Blake, you were just saying --

BLAKE: My phone keeps ringing, I'm sorry, it just keeps ringing. It's not that I'm not trying not to be on the call.

CAMEROTA: I totally understand. I understand that. I noticed you're skipping ahead in time. I noticed that you're skipping ahead to November and referring to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as president and vice president. Is that intentional, Mr. Blake?

BLAKE: Well, I'm not retarded, so yes, it's intentional.

CAMEROTA: Got it. And can you just share with us -- share with us, if you can, what they said that was so comforting?

BLAKE: It was like I was speaking to my uncle and one of my sisters, literally. Literally. Just like my - see, Ben Crump has got to be one of the most calming people I've ever spoken to. And his team is so diverse. And it's -- the whole situation is calming with the right people talking to you. And it was like I was talking to family members, and it's been like I'm talking to family members. And I appreciate everything that they have done and everything that they're doing, because they keep my son in mind.

[08:05:00]

And President Biden kept telling me his own issues with his family, that he identifies with what I'm going through. I didn't have to keep telling him. He knew. It felt like he knew. Vice President Harris, it felt like they knew what was going on. And they didn't act like they were in a hurry to go anywhere. They spent time with us. And the tears that came from his mother in this talk with the Bidens, that was important.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

What has the boycott from -- by the NBA meant to your family, Mr. Blake? Or do you need to get that?

BLAKE: Yes. My daughter, 1020, can you send her up? Yes?

CAMEROTA: Hey, Mr. Blake, if you need to go with your family, absolutely. Just let me know. But I'm just, I'm so -- it's so important to talk to you. So just let me know if you need to take a break or anything. But what happened this week with all of the athletes and the sports teams and the NBA boycott, what did that mean to your family?

BLAKE: Being an ex-athlete myself, I understand the sacrifices that those young men made, and I understand that it's playoff time and they're making these sacrifices. It meant --

CAMEROTA: Mr. Crump, while we're experiencing these little cutouts, but Mr. Crump, just quickly, what did that mean? Such high praise from Mr. Blake about your presence in their life. And how can you still be calm after the laundry list of names that you have spelled out of all of these cases that you've covered?

BENJAMIN CRUMP, ATTORNEY FOR JACOB BLAKE'S FAMILY: Yes, ma'am. Alisyn, most of the time when people experience a traumatic incident like this, what they want to know is will you help them? Can you reassure them that we will move forward and preserve the legacy of their loved one? In this situation, his parents are faithful people, they're holding out so much hope that a miracle is going to happen and that he's going to walk again, and we really want that to happen.

But what my legal team is doing is preparing for if that doesn't happen, he has to be taken care of for the rest of his life. When you hear the injuries that he has experienced, he can't control his bowels. He has no male function of his male organs. He has his colon gone. Most of his intestine is gone. He had been shot in his kidney, two holes in his stomach. His vertebrae had been shattered. There are bullet fragments around his spinal cord. That's why they keep having to have all of these surgeries to try to stabilize it.

And the reality is, we have to make sure Mr. Blake and Ms. Julia are prepared to deal with Ms. Julia's only son in this world that she's now going to have to take care of him again as if he was a baby for the rest of his life. And as Mr. Blake said, his grandsons -- I was so grateful to LeBron James and all of those talking about they have sons. And we have to remember these children, eight-years-old, five- years-old, and three-years-old, Alisyn. You just have to think of your children and say, what would it be if that was me, and how would my children live with it? That's what Mr. Blake is dealing with. How is his grandchildren going to live with this psychological scar of their father being paralyzed by the people who are supposed to protect and serve them.

CAMEROTA: Mr. Blake, what's the answer to that? Have you let yourself think about the future in those kinds of ways?

BLAKE: I can't let go of thinking about the future because my grandchildren are the future. I've done pretty much everything that I came here to do. My grandchildren are the future. They're the future of my family. So if you don't take into account their psychological wellness and the wellness of the whole situation going down that role, it's a long way to go down that road, you know? Educationally, socially, there's a lot of things that we have to make sure that they're OK for.

[08:05:00]

Ben's not telling you a lie. Ben's telling you what's going on right now. My son's psychological well-being is going to be important. He's going to have to fight a fight of his life every day. His fight will never end because of seven shots. Not seven shots because my son did something aggressive to anyone. It was the over-aggressiveness of a Caucasian police officer with seven shots out of his weapon that has caused this whole incident. We are against the violence and burning and looting, but it was started by seven shots.

CRUMP: Amen.

BLAKE: We didn't breathe life into the violence. We didn't cause the violence. So for it to seem like it's our community and all we do is violence, well, you have to go back to the cause.

CRUMP: Yes.

BLAKE: The cause of that violence happened with those seven shots.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Go ahead, Mr. Crump.

CRUMP: Yes. Alisyn, the family, we were watching, and we heard Vice President Pence say about the violence in Kenosha, and from the protesters chanting Black Lives Matter, but you have to remember, Alisyn, it was white men who shot somebody in the back. It was white men who killed black people. We haven't been violent to anybody, but they keep trying to frame this narrative that, oh, if you are marching and saying Black Lives Matter, you are violent. And we -- where we're not doing anything to kill anybody. They're killing our children.

CAMEROTA: Mr. Blake and Mr. Crump, I know that you're both going to Washington, Mr. Blake, you're in Washington and you're there for the anniversary of the MLK march. And does your family have a history in civil rights and in marching? What's your message? What do you hope to do today?

BLAKE: My father was there for the first march in Washington. He walked from Selma to Montgomery. He went across that Edmund Pettus, and he marched for open housing in Evanston, Illinois. He built two churches before he got his last assignment at Ebenezer AME Church in Evanston, Illinois. They built a building named after the Robertsons and my father, his name is on the building there on Emerson Street in Evanston. His name is on another building at Maple and Emerson that he built, the only one of its kind in Illinois. S yes, I'd say -- I'd say my family has a history of civil rights, definitely.

CAMEROTA: I'd say you do. I'd say that you have a significant history.

And, Mr. Crump, last, we have got to go, but just tell us what you're hoping to -- what message you're hoping to bring today.

CRUMP: We want to have more justice society where George Floyd has the opportunity to breathe, where Breonna Taylor has the opportunity to sleep in peace, where Ahmaud Arbery has an opportunity to run free, and Jacob Blake Jr. has an opportunity to celebrate his little boy's birthday parties without being shot seven times in the back. That is our hope for America, that our children, too, get to have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

BLAKE: Amen.

CAMEROTA: Mr. Blake, thank you for talking. We're praying for your son, and I can't imagine him being in better hands than in your family's hands. You all have been role models in terms of how you speak about this and what you're calling for, and we just really appreciate your time. And obviously we'll be following Jacob's progress along with you. So thank you for talking, and Mr. Crump, thank you very much.

CRUMP: Thank you, alisyn.

BLAKE: Thank you, alisyn.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: That was really moving to hear a father say of a son he's a human being, he's not an animal. He's a human, but my son has not been afforded the rights of a human being. You can hear the pain in a father's voice right there, and a grandfather's voice who says his grandchildren are asking him, papa, why did they shoot daddy in the back seven times?

CAMEROTA: He made that point so well, that his son is a father, a father of those three boys, three, five, and eight, who were in the car. And then the lasting impact, obviously the trauma that those boys are already dealing with and will carry.

[08:15:10]

But, you know, I mean, I just can't -- I can't imagine somebody more measured, more sort of prayerful and thoughtful than talking to them -- to Mr. Blake right there. Like how can they already be at that point? And he's so well said, they have dealt with this their whole lives.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: But he also talked about a conversation he had with former Vice President Biden saying Biden seemed like an uncle to him. So, we're going to have much more on this. We're going to speak to the Biden campaign for this reaction to this really moving interview in just a moment.

Also, what they thought about the last night of the Republican convention and we'll also have the mayor of Kenosha, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: We just heard from Jacob Blake Sr., the father of Jacob Blake Jr. who is lying in a hospital bed this morning, paralyzed from the waist down after being shot in the back seven times by police. We still don't know much about the investigation into what happened.

The father told us that he has spoken to former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris. He said he's spoken to them for an hour and so the former vice president talked to him like he was an uncle.

Joining me now is Kate Bedingfield. She's the deputy campaign manager and communications director of Joe Biden's campaign.

Kate, thanks so much for being with us.

I want to talk about the convention in just a minute, first though --

KATE BEDINGFIELD, DEPUTY CAMPAIGN MANAGER & COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR FOR JOE BIDEN'S CAMPAIGN: Thanks for having me.

BERMAN: We just heard from Jacob Blake Sr. He told us about the conversation he had with the vice president.

[08:20:03]

What have you heard from the vice president about that conversation and what it meant to him?

BEDINGFIELD: Well, he was incredibly moved by it. I mean, he heard what a lot of your audience just heard from Mr. Blake. I mean, they talked about what it's like to grapple with grief.

Obviously, the vice president hasn't experienced exactly what the Blake family is living through, but he's certainly experienced grief and hardship in his life, with his family. And so, they talked about finding purpose in grief. And, you know, the vice president told the Blake family that they have been an inspiration to everybody in the way that they have handled this.

You know, he was incredibly moved by Jacob Blake's mother coming out and saying that, you know, the violence that we are seeing around these protests that they don't represent her son and that they don't represent her family. He was incredibly moved by that and just really found the entire conversation to be inspirational, which now your audience has all heard as well.

BERMAN: And Jacob Blake Sr. just had that very same message. He said that violence on the streets is not going to help heal his son. It won't bring back George Floyd. He won't bring back Trayvon Martin. It was a message against violence on the street there.

How important is that message this morning?

BEDINGFIELD: It's very important. It's very important. It's something that Vice President Biden has consistently said, you know, he said in the wake of George Floyd's murder, earlier this summer, and he said it again this week, that, you know, that violence that destroys communities, that overtakes the reason for the protest is not good. It is not just. It does not further the cause.

And so, it's an incredibly important message but I think it's also important to look at, you know, you have President Donald Trump trying to stoke division. You don't hear him condemning, for example, those affiliated with white militias who have been involved in the violence. You hear him doing nothing but throwing fuel on the fire, trying to inflame tensions.

You had one of his closest advisers, Kellyanne Conway, say a couple of days ago that the more violence, the more anarchy, the more chaos, the more clear it is, the better it is for the American people to understand the choice they have.

So, a president who is rooting for violence, who is trying to inflame violence in a time when this country is grappling with significant, massive, important change, that's not leadership, that's not leadership. All that's doing is hurting people and preventing us from rooting out systemic racism, from rooting out systemic inequality in our society and moving this country forward.

BERMAN: So, we have heard the vice president speak out against the violence. We have heard the vice president say he's against defunding police.

Nevertheless, the president leaned into a much different message yet and there is a question about what's true and I just laid out there what has happened, what might be effective.

And you are hearing from some, Democrats, Republicans also, but some Democrats, who are concerned that the message over the last four days from the president might be effective or might have been effective.

"Politico" did an interview with Paul Soglin, the former mayor of Madison, Wisconsin. He said: There's no doubt about it, he's talking about some of the violence we're seeing, is playing into Trump's hands. There are significant number of undecided voters who are not ideological and they can move easily from Republican to the Democratic column and back again. They are in effect the people who decide elections and they're very distraught about both the horrendous carnage created by police officers in murdering African-Americans and for the safety of their communities.

What's your take on that concern?

BEDINGFIELD: Well, I would say there's a pretty fundamental flaw with Donald Trump trying to make the argument that people are not going to be safe in Joe Biden's America while pointing to things that are happening in Donald Trump's America. He is the president. He is -- it is on him to provide leadership, to bring people together.

We've seen nothing but -- since the day he took the oath of office, we have seen nothing but division. We have seen nothing but hateful rhetoric in these moments, this summer where the country has been grappling with the difficulty of rooting out systemic racism. You know, we've seen Donald Trump besmirch George Floyd. We have seen Trump tear gas peaceful protesters in order to do a photo-op in front of a church.

He has had the opportunity to lead. He has chosen not to, and not just -- not just chosen not just to lead, he's chosen to inflame tensions and makes things worst because he believes it's better for his politics. That's not leadership, that's not presidential.

And I think Americans are looking for a President Joe Biden will be an American president. He will be a president for the people who voted for him, but he will also be a president for the people who didn't vote for him.

I think that is an incredibly fundamental difference between the way that Donald Trump views this office and the way that Joe Biden will view the office.

[08:25:01]

ROMANS: Right. We're short on time. I want to get two questions in very quickly.

The president used language on coronavirus last night which sounded very familiar. So I want to play something the vice president said about a month ago and something the president said last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: And it seems like our war time president surrendered, waved the right flag -- white flag, and left the battlefield.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Joe Biden's plan is not a solution to the virus, but rather it's a surrender to the virus.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Why do you think the president used that very same surrender language, very quickly?

BEDINGFIELD: Well, I think the question we should be asking ourselves why Donald Trump spent an hour last night talking about Joe Biden 41 times and only dedicated 11 percent of his speech to tackling the coronavirus. You had him addressing a group of people with -- who are not socially distant, most of them without masks, showing incredibly irresponsible behavior.

And, unfortunately, that's part and parcel of the way he's approached this crisis from the outset. Had he shown leadership at the beginning, had he been aggressive about encouraging people to wear masks, about taking this virus seriously, then we wouldn't be in this situation we are now where 180,000 Americans are dead because of this virus.

So, I think people are looking at how badly this has progressed across the course of the spring and summer. They are looking at Donald Trump. They are seeing that he hasn't put in place any comprehensive, federal, serious plan to get this virus under control. And they are incredibly frustrated by it.

Joe Biden by contrast has -- you know, back in January had an op-ed saying we need to prepare for this virus to come to our shores.

BERMAN: I have to let you go --

BEDINGFIELD: So, he has been aggressive about putting in place --

BERMAN: I'm sorry, I have to let you go. The campaign said yesterday that he would be visiting battleground states. Can you tell us the first visit planned at this point?

BEDINGFIELD: I don't have any news I can make on that right now. We are obviously looking at what we are going to be able to do for the fall that is consistent with public health guidance that does not put anybody in jeopardy.

Again, you saw 1,500 people on the White House lawn last night who were not socially distant, who weren't wearing masks. First and foremost, our plan is to ensure that we are always keeping the safety of the community that we're visiting in mind.

So I would expect that we'll have news on travel and coming events in the weeks to come.

BERMAN: Kate Bedingfield, we appreciate your time. Thanks for being with us.

BEDINGFIELD: Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

CAMEROTA: OK. The 17-year-old charged with killing two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, will appear in court for first time this morning. Illinois teenager Kyle Rittenhouse had an interest in law enforcement and affinity for guns. This is according to police and social media profiles.

Before the violence, a self-styled militia group had encouraged armed citizens to take to the streets of Kenosha.

Joining us is the mayor of Kenosha, John Antaramian.

Mr. Mayor, thank you very much for being here.

I know you just listened to the interview that we did with Jacob Blake's father, Jacob Blake Sr., and they have one burning question for you. How is it possible in your community that an unarmed black man with his three kids in the car is shot seven times, when on Tuesday night, a heavily armed 17-year-old with an AR-15 can waltz right by police officers -- the Kenosha law enforcement as people are pointing and screaming at him and saying that guy just shot two people? How does that work?

MAYOR JOHN ANTARAMIAN, KENOSHA, WI: It doesn't work, and what we have been trying to deal with on this whole issue is to make sure people understand -- let me start with the first part of your question with Mr. Blake.

I cannot give you any information on the Blake shooting. Basically, the city -- once the incident occurs immediately turns it over to the attorney general's office. And so, the attorney general then takes over the investigation and will come out with the information. At that point in time, it will go to the D.A.

As far as the militia person, there is -- from my perspective, I do not want militia in my city, I do not need them here and it's not appropriate. And we will be looking to make sure that does not occur in the future and we are going to also follow-up as to why it occurred in the first place.

CAMEROTA: So do you still have confidence in the sheriff?

ANTARAMIAN: Sheriff -- I have confidence in the sheriff and the police chief that they're going to do their jobs and get things done correctly.

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: But they didn't. I mean, Mr. Mayor, sorry to interrupt, but they didn't. On Tuesday night, they didn't. And so, how can you have confidence when we saw the bedlam that happened in your community on Tuesday night?

ANTARAMIAN: Well, the bedlam in the community happened because of a lot of violence that was going on at the time.

And so, before I cast judgment on those individuals, I need to make sure I have all of the information of how this is occurring and what occurred.

At the present time, what we're trying to do is just calm things down, get people in place that are going to make sure that things don't happen again. And move forward on that basis.

So, we will constantly be looking at our operations, how we change them.

CAMEROTA: Yeah.

ANTARAMIAN: We have been able to get more support from the National Guard, which has made things a lot easier for us.