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New Day

No Charges in the Tamir Rice Case; Unemployment Filings Fall; Jimmy Carter Film on CNN. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired December 31, 2020 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Samaria Rice, and Jonathan Abady, he's the attorney for the Rice family.

Thanks so much to both of you for joining this morning.

JONATHAN ABADY, TAMIR RICE FAMILY ATTORNEY: Thanks for having us.

SAMARIA RICE, MOTHER OF TAMIR RICE AND FOUNDER, TAMIR RICE FOUNDATION: You're welcome. Thanks.

SCIUTTO: Ms. Rice, let me begin with you, if I can.

I can only imagine the pain is still raw these seven years later. To see this decision from the Justice Department, this dismissal here, how are you doing? How do you receive that news?

RICE: I'm not doing too well because, you know, I'm -- I still have other children that's looking at me and it's not a good feeling, you know? Very distraughted. Look -- confused. I don't understand how it wasn't enough -- enough evidence when my son was assassinated on, you know, on camera.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

RICE: And the camera was crystal clear for everybody across the nation and other countries to see it, too. I can't understand how this administration has not seen it.

SCIUTTO: What are the conversations like you have with your three other children now, how do you talk to them about this? I imagine those are painful conversations.

RICE: It's very painful because their brother is a public figure and they don't quite understand that. So I just have to let them know they have to be careful and alert and be aware of their surroundings. That's really all I can do, you know? The children are traumatized, just as well as I am. And we're going to be forever traumatized. But we're dealing with it day by day. It's not easy.

SCIUTTO: I'm sure you carry it with you every day.

Mr. Abady, I want to ask you, and I'm going to read from the DOJ statement on this as they decided not to charge. An officer is permitted to use deadly force where he reasonably believes that the suspect posed an imminent threat of serious physical harm either to the officer or to others.

Reasonably believe, imminent threat, serious physical harm. He was a 12-year-old carrying a toy gun.

The other claim the Justice Department made was that the video was too grainy. I mean we've seen this video many times. Explain the legal standard that allows that.

ABADY: I don't think there is a legal standard that permits and justifies the conclusion of the Justice Department, but I might add that the Justice Department was clearly at war over this. They were -- they were complete divided. This was -- this is an example of political intervention by main justice.

I mean just to step back, this is the shooting and killing of a 12- year-old child by a Cleveland police officer. It's an atrocity. It's a crime. We're not supposed to be living in a policed state. We're supposed to be living in a society governed by the rule of law. And in a society governed by the rule of law, when people are engaged in illegal or criminal activity, they're to be held accountable, even if they're police officers, and maybe even more so if they're police officers.

This was a massive miscarriage of justice and I think it's difficult to overstate the degree to which we have a profound sense of disappointment in this result and in this contorted, unjustifiable legal reasoning that they've presented. The sense of dismay for us is overwhelming, of anger and of moral outrage.

This -- this was a homicide by a 12-year-old child. It's completely unreasonable. It was completely unnecessary. It was totally unjustified.

There is a video. The idea that the video is too grainy to discern what happened -- happened in this case is preposterous. Anybody who looks at this video, the whole world has been able to look at this video, they've looked at it and it's obvious. When the police arrived on the scene, Tamir was not brandishing a weapon.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

ABADY: He had nothing in his hands. He was not threatening an officer. He wasn't threatening anyone. There was no one else there. And the idea that if you look at this video in less than two seconds, in little more than one and a half seconds, in one and a half seconds this officer exited the car and shot to kill.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

ABADY: And shot him in the chest and killed him. And that is -- there -- there -- if that is considered reasonable by the Department of Justice, that's insane. No one wants to live in a society where the police are authorized to do that. And what I would suggest here is there's a very uncomfortable

animating reality in this case that's very uncomfortable for many of us to confront, but it's inescapable that race played a role in this. There is no way that a white child in an affluent Cleveland suburb would have been subjected to this type of treatment.

[08:35:06]

This kind of overaggressive policing where the police are basically military occupants in communities is reserved for communities of color. And it's completely unacceptable.

And two career prosecutors in the Department of Justice recognized this and two career supervisors recognized this and wanted this case to be presented to a grand jury and they were thwarted by main justice, by political appointees from the Trump administration.

SCIUTTO: Interesting. Interesting that there was internal division over this.

Ms. Rice, Tamir would be 18.

RICE: Yes.

SCIUTTO: He would be 18 today.

RICE: Yes, he turned -- he turned -- he turned 18 June 25th of this year. Yes. And this was his graduating year of 2020. Yes.

SCIUTTO: Have you seen any progress during the year since 2014? I mean in the year, for instance, of George Floyd. Here's another black man killed by police on tape, right?

RICE: Absolutely not.

SCIUTTO: They're charged, though. They're charged.

RICE: Right. Yes, absolutely not. There has not been no change. There has not been no change. It seems like it has escalated more and with all of these recent shootings and things like that. So I don't -- I have not seen no change.

But maybe a few policy changes, but they're still not holding up to their end of the bargain. I still see police officers turning off their cameras and stuff like that. It's -- it's -- we really are living in an unjust society. And, you know, I just don't know what to say. But I do know that Timothy Loehmann needs to be indicted on perjury charges for the murder of my son from the state of Ohio. So that's --

SCIUTTO: There is a new, of course, president coming in January 20th, President-elect Biden. There was an attempt following George Floyd in Congress to pass some police reforms. It failed. I just wonder what words you have for President-elect Biden and to incoming members of Congress, some of them newly elected, on your feelings about a need for action. RICE: Definitely a need for action. And I hope that him, Biden and

Kamala Harris, I hope that they come in and do what they say they're going to do and not just be selling us a bunch of smoke. So I hope that they come in and do what they say they're going to do.

SCIUTTO: Well --

ABADY: I mean --

RICE: And the people need to hold them accountable for it.

SCIUTTO: Samaria Rice, thank you so much for coming on. As a parent, I can only imagine the lasting pain you and your family are going through and those conversations with your other children.

Jonathan Abady, too, thanks to you for helping explain the law behind this. We wish you both the best of luck as we go into the new year.

ABADY: Thank you for having us.

RICE: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:42:43]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, we do have some breaking news right now.

New unemployment claims fell in the holiday week as uncertainty remains around the stimulus checks.

CNN's Christine Romans joins us now with all the breaking details.

What are the numbers?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You know, they fell but they're still terrifyingly high here. And they underscore just how important it was to get money to people and extend those unemployment benefits. And 787,000 first-time unemployment filings. Think of that. For the very first time, 787,000 people filed for unemployment benefits. And you can see any one of these vehicles for the past 41 weeks would have been a record pre-pandemic. So every week over and over again illustrating the crisis in the American jobs market.

And 5.2 million people are continuing to get claims. That means that they've already -- they're already on the rolls and they've been on the rolls for at least a couple of weeks. That's a huge number of people. And, overall, 19.5 million people are receiving some sort of jobless check. Now, this is for the last week. So, right, that would have been

Christmas week. The holiday could have distorted this a little bit. Also, there was all this uncertainty about whether there would be more relief for people in terms of those stimulus checks and unemployment benefits.

But this is just more evidence that it was right to extend those unemployment benefits in this most recent relief bill, this relief law. It was right to give people that extra money and just have some sort of a salve here as we wait for the -- the job market to heal sometime next year when viruses and the -- or the vaccine can kill this virus so we can get back to work like normal, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Christine, thank you very much for bringing us the new numbers and giving us all that context.

ROMANS: You're welcome.

CAMEROTA: OK, when you think President Jimmy Carter, do you think rock and roll? Well, maybe you should. You're about to see our 39th president in a whole new light.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:48:22]

CAMEROTA: President Nixon hosted Elvis at the White House. Bill Clinton famously played the saxophone on MTV. But America's real rock and roll president was Jimmy Carter? An all-new CNN film chronicles Carter's close connection with some of rock's biggest stars.

Here's a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY CARTER, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: When Willie Nelson wrote his autobiography, he confessed that he smoked pot in the White House one night when he was spending the night with me. And he says that his companion that shared the pot with him was one of the servants at the White House. That is not exactly true, it actually was one of my sons, which he didn't want to, you know, categorize as a pot smoker like him.

There were some people who didn't like my being deeply involved with Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan and disreputable, you know, 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)

CAMEROTA: What a story.

Joining us now is Mary Wharton, the director and executive producer of "Jimmy Carter: Rock and Roll President."

Mary, wow. I mean who knew that Jimmy Carter was so cool?

MARY WHARTON, DIRECTOR, "JIMMY CARTER: ROCK AND ROLL PRESIDENT": Right?

CAMEROTA: I mean, you did, but tell us about his long passion really for music and rock and roll.

[08:50:00]

WHARTON: Well, I mean, he was passionate for all kinds of music starting from his days as a sailor in the Navy. He was -- he was obsessed with collecting classical music recordings. And then he was a big fan of jazz and used to go to jazz clubs in Greenwich Village with his wife, Rosalynn. And, you know, when rock and roll came along, the Beatles and, you know, everything that followed, he was really from a different generation from the baby boomers. He was older than that generation. And so it was sort of the young people's music. But he was just a great appreciator and a very astute listener when it came to music. And so he saw something, you know, that he could connect with in this new music that came along and, you know, he just has a great appreciation for all forms of music.

SCIUTTO: It so runs counter, Mary, to the sort of Boy Scout, right, impression I think many people have of Jimmy Carter looking back. But here's a guy, I mean he's laughing there about how Willie Nelson smoked pot with his son in the White House on a visit.

You also tell the story about how, if it hadn't been for a bottle of scotch and a late night visit from Gregg Allman of the Allman Brothers, he might never have been elected. Tell us that story.

WHARTON: Well, what was so great is that, you know, Carter, always the truth teller, was sort of like, I don't really remember a whole bottle of scotch, you know, I typically wasn't that big of a drinker. But it was basically an after party when Bob Dylan played in Atlanta on his tour in 1974. Carter was governor at the time and his sons were big fans of Dylan. And he invited Dylan and the band to come to the governor's mansion after the concert for a southern breakfast. And he also invited Gregg Allman and the Allman Brothers who were working on an album at the time and showed up to the party late after everyone else had gone home.

And Gregg arrived to find Carter sitting on the front porch of the governor's mansion and they shared a drink and became fast friends. And they were great friends until, you know, Gregg's death a few years ago.

And Carter, to this day, says that his two best friends in the world are Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan. And --

SCIUTTO: Wow.

WHARTON: Pretty cool.

SCIUTTO: I mean those are icons. I mean we're not talking about small players here. I mean we're talking -- the Allman Brothers.

CAMEROTA: I want to say that. Yes, why -- why can't I say that? Yes.

SCIUTTO: We're talking about Bob Dylan.

CAMEROTA: And, so, Mary, I mean, now that we see him in this context, how do you think these musicians and music and rock and roll influenced Jimmy Carter's politics or his policies?

WHARTON: Well, I think that -- I think they did a lot, actually. You know, one of the sort of campaign promises that Carter made when he was running for president was to -- to issue pardons to all of the -- the Vietnam veterans who had left to avoid the draft. Sorry, not the veterans, but the draft dodgers. And that was something that was important to Gregg Allman, actually.

And on his first day in office, when he invited Gregg Allman to come have dinner with him at the White House, he had a ceremony that day where he issued, you know -- it's not a pardon, I'm -- I can't -- I'm blanking on the correct word of what he -- but basically he said that all of the people who had left the country to avoid the draft were welcome to come home.

And I think that was a great gesture towards, you know, the younger generation who were against the war in the first place and it was a -- it was an important, you know, sort of policy that he enacted as a result of his friendship with Gregg Allman.

And, you know, I think that just in a general way that music has always had a certain amount of -- of sort of color blindness and has been, you know, done wonders to bring the races together in America. And -- and that was another reason why Jimmy Carter was so -- such a fan of music like jazz and -- and rock and roll was that he saw how it brought people together.

[08:55:10]

And he was a great, you know, connector and a great humanist. And so he saw the power that music had in that regard.

SCIUTTO: Yes. I wish it was still unifying now. Like so many things in politics at least it's become so tribal, even the music has.

WHARTON: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Well, listen, a fantastic, fantastic project here. Thanks so much for joining us.

All of you can watch the CNN film "Jimmy Carter: Rock and Roll President." It premieres Sunday night, 9:00 Eastern Time, only here on CNN.

CAMEROTA: OK. And, also, remember, you can spend New Year's Eve live with Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen from Times Square. It begins tonight at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. Mariah Carey, Pitbull, Patti Labelle, Gloria Gaynor. Happy New Year, everyone.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Thanks so much for spending it with us this year.

SCIUTTO: We made it. We made it.

CAMEROTA: We made it.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Just 15 more hours.

SCIUTTO: Only 15. It will go fast.

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