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Parenting In Coronavirus Era: Working To Keep Children Safe And Stay Sane; Policing & Justice In 2020; GA Gov. Kemp Responds To Trump Tweeting Kemp Should Resign Over Election Outcome. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired December 30, 2020 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Many clearly believe there was a ball dropped early in the investigation, long before the blast -- Brooke?

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Martin, thank you. Martin Savidge in Nashville.

Breaking news out of Georgia, where the president has called on the governor to resign over Trump's false beliefs about voter fraud. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp is expected to speak soon. We'll listen in for what he has to say.

And something parents can relate to. We'll talk to a woman trying to walk the line between protecting her family during a pandemic and running her home. Stay here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: The coronavirus pandemic has affected parents all around the world, as they work to keep their children safe and stay sane.

Joining me is Kristen Howerton. She's author of the blog "Rage Against the Minivan."

Kristen, welcome.

KRISTEN HOWERTON, "RAGE AGAINST THE MINIVAN" BLOGGER: Thanks for having me.

As I read your recent op-ed in the "Times." I read it and I thought of so many parents who could relate.

[14:35:01]

First, tell me, how has the pandemic changed your relationship with your kids?

HOWERTON: My kids are teenagers, so they're old enough to go places, do things themselves. And as they've gotten older and shown me more responsibility, I have given them more freedoms.

At this stage in my life, they like to run around town by themselves, bike for friends' houses. They were really active, social kids.

With the pandemic I've had to pull them back and rein them in so much because, you know, I'm trying to be responsible. I have he, and I don't want them -- I'm ruining their social life, it feels like, and that doesn't feel like.

I don't want to run my house like a meets state or discourage this, but as an asthmatic, use I want to catch COVID and don't want my family responsible for given someone COVID. Talk about the story where you tailed your kids.

I think they have an empathy and understanding of the gravity. But at the same time they're watching most of their friends still living life like there's no pandemic.

You know, they have some friends that are being responsible. But the majority of their friends in our community are still hanging out, having slumber parties, doing what they did before.

So, you know, as we're watching that, I kind of -- I've loosened the reins when I feel bad and tightened them up when I feel like it's too much.

But one of the things I thought was the skate park. They're outside. When you're skating, you shouldn't be super close.

BALDWIN: Wearing their masks, you hoped?

HOWERTON: Wearing their masks, I hoped. So I told my boys, you can go to the skate park, but you have to leave the masks on. I need everyone else was not leaving their masks on. Social pressure of a 14-year-old boy at a skate park is a lot. It's a lot.

So I sent them off to the skate park. I'm sitting at home thinking I don't know if they're going to leave the masks on.

So I get in my car and check on them. That's not a mom I want to be, like the spying, lurking at the skate park.

But I pull to the curb, and lo and behold, they don't have their masks on. Apparently, they were made fun of for wearing them.

So I call them over to the car and become like the totally embarrassing mom who shows up and yells at her kids because they don't have the masks on.

I'm at that moment, I'm like, how did I get here? This is not who I want to be as a mom.

But you know, we're in difficult circumstances. I think every mother is taking choices that have a lot of cognitive dissonance.

BALDWIN: I can feel the moms and dads listening to you, being so real about you and nodding all along and relating to this internal monologue that you've had, that so many parents have had for so many months. I appreciate you putting it out there.

Kristen Howerton, thank you, thank you. Your blog is RageAgainsttheMinivan.com. We'll check it out.

Thank you.

Good luck, as we roll into 2021.

Thank you.

HOWERTON: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Breaking news out of Georgia. Governor Kemp is speaking right now, as President Trump calls for him to resign, after refusing to give credence to his baseless election fraud claims that are still happening. We have an update for you next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:40:19]

BALDWIN: We have two major developments on high-profile cases of deadly police shootings involving black Americans.

Louisville police seeking to fire two detectives connected to the killing of Breonna Taylor whose death set off a wave of protests across America this year.

And two Cleveland police officers will avoid federal criminal charges for their roles in the killing of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Ohio in 2014.

CNN's Sara Sidner looks at race and policing in 2020.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GEORGE FLOYD, DIED IN POLICE CUSTODY: I can't breathe.

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Those three words took the world's breath away.

In 2020, the killing of 46-year-old George Floyd pushed policing and race to the forefront of American consciousness.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the same bill from --

SIDNER: All moments leading to Floyd's death are captured on video, after he's accused of passing a counterfeit $20 bill.

FLOYD: I can't breathe.

SIDNER: Video of his death viewed by millions across the world.

UNIDENTIFIED NEWS ANCHOR: Breaking, overnight, protesters clashing with police in Minneapolis. BALDWIN: The mayor has just announced the four officers involved in

George Floyd's death are now, his words, "former employees."

SIDNER: Protests were spreading. Eventually becoming the largest civil rights protest the world has ever seen.

There were moments of solidarity

(CHEERING)

SIDNER: -- and moments of humility. The Minneapolis chief removing his cap as CNN connected him with Floyd's family for their very fires conversation.

[14:45:04]

MEDARIA ARRADONDO, CHIEF, MINNEAPOLIS POLICE DEPARTMENT: This is the Floyd family?

SIDNER: This is the Floyd family.

ARRADONDOR: To the Floyd family, being silent or not intervening, to me, you're complicit. I don't see a level of distinction any different.

SIDNER: But those moments of togetherness were broken apart by bouts of police brutality during the protests against it.

(SHOUTING)

SIDNER: Burning and looting by some who took part in protests and poor policing. One example playing out live on air.

UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: If you're just tuning in, you are watching or correspondent, Omar Jimenez, being arrested by state police in Minnesota.

SIDNER: As the protests for Floyd dinned in the streets, names of other black Americans killed by police were hoisted up in the crowd.

One in particular.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: In the breaking news this morning, questions around the country about how a block woman could be killed in her apartment by police, and no one charged in her death. Her name, as we know, was Breonna Taylor.

SIDNER: Police say they announced who they were before they entered the apartment, but her boyfriend disputes that.

KENNETH WALKER, FORMER BOYFRIEND OF BREONNA TAYLOR: There was a loud bang at the door. Nobody was responding. We were saying who is it?

SIDNER: He fired his legal weapon thinking it was an intruder. Police said they fired only after being fired upon.

All but one officer was charged. No one faced charges for killing Taylor.

DANIEL CAMERON, KENTUCKY ATTORNEY GENERAL: According to Kentucky law, the use of force was justified.

SIDNER: Across the world, people joined the chorus of voices pressing for charges against Louisville police officers in her case.

Two grand jurors sued to speak out, saying the Kentucky state attorney general lied to the public about the charges he sought.

UNIDENTIFIED GRAND JUROR: They said there were other possible charges that we considered, but nothing that we could make stick.

SIDNER: Taylor's family decided to fight in another way -- politically, alongside their attorney, Benjamin Crump, who had become synonymous with civil rights cases.

TAMIKA PALMER, BREONNA TAYLOR'S MOTHER: If we don't get out here and change the people in these positions, they are going to continue to kill us.

SIDNER: The Black Lives Matter movement suddenly became one of the sole focuses of a nation, as many Americans sheltered at home, because all of this unfolded as the pandemic began ravaging the country, particularly devastating the black community who were dying from COVID-19 at twice the rate of white Americans.

In Kenosha, Wisconsin, two shooting incidents caught America's attention. Jacob Blake was shot in the back by an officer trying to detain him, his children watching from the back of a van.

When police arrived on the scene for a domestic dispute, they later said he had a knife, and they recovered it from his van and there was worry that he might be kidnapping the children.

Blake's family and attorney baulked at the police story, insisting he would you say unarmed.

JULIA JACKSON, JACOB BLAKE'S MOTHER: Do justice on this level and examine your hearts. We need healing.

SIDNER: Instead, fires and fury exploded in the streets.

UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: The unrest here in Kenosha turning even more violent, even deadly overnight.

SIDNER: A white suspect shoots three people, two are killed, as protesters chase the alleged shooter, Kyle Rittenhouse.

UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: And as he's walking by with his hands up, but he has his gun there, police roll right by him.

SIDNER: Rittenhouse's attorney said it was self-defense. He now faces charges of murder and possessing an illegal weapon.

JACOB BLAKE SR., FATHER OF JACOB BLAKE JR: There's two justice systems. One for the white boy that walked down the streets and murdered those two people and blew that other man's arm off --

(SHOUTING)

BLAKE SR: -- and then there's a justice system for mine.

SIDNER: That same dynamic played out in Georgia.

First, in February, 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery chased down and gunned down while jogging. When police arrived, Arbery was lying face down in the road. Initially, police treat Arbery as the suspect and the white men who killed him as the victims.

Social media erupts when the initial video is posted. It takes 74 days before the men are charged and arrested.

MARCUS ARBERY SR, FATHER OF AHMAUD ARBERY: I want to see these people go to jail. They need the hardest crime they can get.

SIDNER: The men accused of taking his life said they thought they were chasing down a robber. One of the men recorded the killed.

But Arbery was simply jogging while black.

On June 12th, another man dies at the hands of police. And 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks was sleeping in his car, blocking a Wendy's drive-thru when police were called to the scene.

RAYSHARD BROOKS, KILLED WHILE IN POLICE CUSTODY: I can walk home.

SIDNER: For 40 minutes, his interaction with police is calm. But when police try to arrest Brooks, he fights back, appearing to try to use the officer' taser against the officers. While running away, he is shot and killed.

[14:50:09]

The shooting added fuel to ongoing nationwide protests against systemic racism and police brutality.

The police chief resigned. Criminal charges were sought against the two of the officers.

The cases, one after another, prompted calls of dismantling of police. But that idea doesn't stick.

(CHANTING)

SIDNER: What does get traction is defunding the police. At least a dozen cities plan to cut or did cut some police department funding to put it towards other community safety programs, including those involving mental health care.

In September, calls for a different approach to those in mental health crises exploded after this Rochester, New York, police bodycam video is released from a March incident.

Police are seen putting a spit hood on Daniel Prude, who said he had coronavirus. Prude was naked and clearly in distress.

He was later declared brain dead as a result of officers holding him down even after he vomited into the spit hood.

No one faced discipline until the video went public. The police chief was soon fired.

MAYOR LOVELY ANN WARREN (D-ROCHESTER, NY): We have a pervasive problem in the Rochester Police Department.

SIDNER: The demands for police reform only heightened as 2020 came to a close.

Police say they're under fire and under pressure as crime spikes in some cities while many black and brown Americans say in 2020 they faced two epidemics, coronavirus and racism, both disproportionately killing them.

(on camera): As the first female black vice president and the man who served under the very first black president are poised to take office in January, the black community, who played a major role in helping them get elected, are demanding concrete change, policy, not just words.

Sara Sidner, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Sara, thank you very much.

All the suspects criminally charged have pled not guilty or denied the allegations in those cases.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:56:35]

BALDWIN: This has definitely been a wild election year. But a new film looks back at the election of 1976 when Jimmy Carter used his long- standing support from musicians to get a little name recognition.

Here's a bit of "JIMMY CARTER, ROLL AND ROLL PRESIDENT."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY CARTER, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When he wrote his autobiography, he confessed he smoked pot in the White House one night when he was spending the night with me.

And he says that his companion who shared the pot with him was one of the servers at the White House. That is not exactly true. It actually was one of my sons, which he didn't want to categorize as a pot smoker like him. There were some people who didn't like me being deeply involved with

Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan and disreputable rock and rollers. But I didn't care about that because I was doing what I really believed.

And the response, I think, from the followers of those musicians was much more influential than a few people who thought that being associated with rock and roll and radical people was inappropriate for a president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Make sure you tune in to the film. It airs Sunday night at 9:00 right here on CNN.

This just in. Georgia's Republican Governor Brian Kemp responding to a tweet from President Trump calling for the governor to resign and adding this bold-faced lie. Quote, "He's an obstructionist that refuses to admit that we won Georgia, big."

CNN Correspondent, Ryan Nobles, is in Atlanta.

My goodness, how did the governor respond to that?

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, it was pretty clear that Brian Kemp did not want to spend his Wednesday afternoon responding to President Trump and the attacks he continues to levels against him, including today, going so far as to say the governor needs to resign because of the way he handled this election.

Kemp described the way Trump has handled this whole election was a distraction, a distraction to his efforts and the state's efforts to deal with coronavirus, and also a distraction from the upcoming Georgia Senate runoff, which Kemp said he is working very hard to help get Republican candidates elected.

Listen to how Kemp responded a few minutes ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. BRIAN KEMP (R-GA): I got to focus on the issues of the day in Georgia, not what someone else is tweeting.

That horse has left the barn in Georgia and it's head to do D.C. right now. The next vote is going to be there, not here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBLES: And Kemp made the point that the president has complained about all different sorts of things related to the Georgia election, including that there needed to be a hand recount, there needed to be things like a signature match audit.

These are things the state of Georgia has done. In some cases, they've done it multiple times. There have been three different recounts of the count in Georgia and Joe Biden won every time. And yesterday, the Georgia secretary of state's office completed an

audit of one of the counties that President Trump had specifically said was a problem related to the signature match system. They found that it was 99.9 percent accurate and that there was no fraud.

Keep in mind, the secretary of state is a Republican. So that's why Kemp is saying it's time to stop talking about this and it's time to focus on the election that's coming up on January 5th.

And when asked if it was a distraction, he said, of course, it's a distraction. And he's worried it could impact David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler -- Brooke?

BALDWIN: Ryan Nobles, thank you. Good to see you with the update in Atlanta.

That's it for me. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Tune in tomorrow night, New Year's Eve. I'll be on with some fun people.