Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Cities in Minnesota and Across U.S. Bracing for Jury Decision in Derek Chauvin Murder Trial; Saint Paul, Minnesota, Mayor Melvin Carter Interviewed on Precautions being Taken Ahead of Verdict in Derek Chauvin Murder Trial; Mass Shootings Taking Place at Alarming Rate in U.S. Over Last Month; GOP Lawmakers Call for Expulsion of Rep. Maxine Waters. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired April 19, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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


[08:00:00]

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: You have members of the National Guard on overpasses as lookouts just preparing for any eventuality as this trial ends up wrapping up. We know also there are additional precautions being taken here. The city's schools were moved to virtual learning on Wednesday out of an abundance of caution. They don't want students and parents in and around the downtown area, again, as these deliberations continue.

And then finally, we know this isn't happening here in Minneapolis. Many major cities are the country are preparing for potential unrest, depending on how this verdict goes, including some cities where police departments are canceling all leave, all vacation for their officers, to ensure they have all hands-on deck just in case there is unrest. Truly just a remarkable scene around this country as all eyes are on this trial and the eventual verdict that will come in the trial of this former officer, Derek Chauvin.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Josh, it strikes me this is televised, right. People are watching this. This will be a televised event. So that exact moment, do you have a sense of what that is going to look and feel like surrounding the courthouse and on the streets?

CAMPBELL: Absolutely. So when the jury starts their deliberation, they will be sequestered, so they will be cut off essentially from the outside world. And the way that process works is you have the deliberation in their private room. They can send questions to the judge, questions about process, questions about evidence, questions about the law. And we are hearing that we will get an update an advanced warning whenever those questions come in so that we can televise what the jury is actually asking. Of course, we won't see their faces, but we'll know what they're asking.

And then once with get to the moment where they have actually rendered a verdict and the judge is prepared to announce that, we expect to get one to two hours notice, and then that will be televised. We will see the moment when that is read is court. We will obviously get the reaction from the defendant, Derek Chauvin, and the world will be watching as well. But really, that is happening inside a lot of the processes in place, a lot happening outside as well as all these security precautions are put in place here around downtown, around the area. And then finally it's worth noting, it's not just this trial that this city is watching, but also 10 miles from here, the recent killing of Daunte Wright also has this area here on edge. And so just a remarkable scene here is just looking at these security precautions that are being put in place as this city prepares for this major verdict that could be coming at any time. We don't know how long those deliberations will take, but we'll certainly be watching.

BERMAN: Josh Campbell, thank you very much being there for us. We appreciate your reporting.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Let's now bring in the mayor of Saint Paul, Minnesota, Melvin Carter. Thank you so much for being with us. Will you just talk a little bit about how concerned you are about whether there will be violence if Derek Chauvin is not convicted?

MAYOR MELVIN CARTER, (D) SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA: My biggest concerns, and thanks for having me on this morning, my biggest concerns are making sure that everyone in our community knows that there is justice in our justice system for them, that the value of black and brown lives can be asserted and pointed within our criminal justice system, and that as members of our community are traumatized by, again, not just watching, re-watching the video of George Floyd's murder, not just all of the events of this trial, but the re-traumatization that we've experienced in the last week with the killing of Daunte Wright, that we have safe, healthy places and ways to process that trauma.

We're seeing an enormous amount of protests and amazing, powerful, peaceful protests of people who want just to say, want to tell the world, that those two men, in particular, should still be alive and that we have to have a justice system that's capable of valuing their lives. We know that there are also people like we saw last year who are coming to our community, who are in our community for the purpose of doing harm, and our law enforcement partners are working heavily to make sure that they don't get an opportunity to do what so many of them did last year. But this is a very complex thing that we have to do all of those at once.

KEILAR: You are bracing for this. What safety measures have you put in place?

CARTER: We're putting in place an enormous amount of safety measures. Our Saint Paul Police Department is working closely with other law enforcement departments across in the metropolitan area and state. We have engaged our Minnesota National Guard. We proactively requested our governor to activate our Minnesota National Guard just as we did during the insurrection activities around January 6th in the inauguration. And we, like I said, are working very heavily to engage those community partners that are helping our residents, helping our students, helping our families process healthily in healthy ways all of the trauma that we are being inundated with right now.

KEILAR: Whatever the outcome of this trial, this is going to be an inflection point, a clear one, one way or the other, when it comes to this country's reckoning with racial justice.

[08:05:00]

What are you expecting? And how are you viewing this as a historical moment?

CARTER: I'm viewing this as more than a trial for Derek Chauvin. We are all eyewitnesses. We all know what we saw, and nothing that happened in the trial changed any of that. And so when the entire world gets to see it that clearly, at some point this trial also becomes a trial of our criminal justice system, a trial of our court system, a trial to determine if this legal system that delivered us separate but equal, that has delivered us so many horrific decisions throughout the course of history, if this system is capable yet of valuing black and brown lives, we're going to see that. And we fully expect that if the answer, again, is no, that people will be frustrated. Our goal is to channel that frustration, that anger, that energy, into ways that are constructive to help us build a better future for our children and not in ways that are destructive.

KEILAR: Mayor, thank you so much for coming on at this important moment, really appreciate it.

CARTER: Thanks, for having me.

BERMAN: Obviously, this is a part of the largest crisis facing the United States. It's a crisis of multiple fronts. To be clear, not all of them are new. But they are all threatening our way of life, safety, freedom, mass shootings taking American lives at an alarming rate, at least 50 since March 16th. Racial injustice becoming more evident as protesters demand equality, long promised. Those cries also renewed in the face of police involved killings, with communities of color demanding justice.

KEILAR: So the coronavirus pandemic, which only got worse in the face of the politicization of commonsense public health measures like masking and vaccinations, all of those fueled by the longstanding threat from disinformation and lies, both from foreign countries trying to cause chaos in America, but also from politicians like former President Trump and his supporters and allies. And on top of that, a gridlocked Congress means that the cries of a hurting nation aren't being heard. These lawmakers are not the once suffering from the inaction. Everyday Americans are. They are the ones paying the price.

BERMAN: Case in point, Mayor Dennis Buckley of Beech Grove, Indiana, revealed his personal connection to one of the victims at the FedEx shooting, 19-year-old Samaria Blackwell. He said their families have been friends for decades.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR DENNIS BUCKLEY, BEECH GROVE, INDIANA: So this is kind of tough for me. She is one of our bright, young citizens who has been called home. I'm never going to question why, but she was. Now she is standing on the right happened of God looking down to all of us. And that is refreshing to me. I'm sorry.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Our Sara Sidner has been reporting on that aftermath for years now, speaking with people in local communities who bear the brunt of so much tragedy. And Sara joins us now. And Sara, we heard you asking what I think is such a poignant question, and it's dead on right here. You wonder if we have an empathy problem here in the United States. What do you mean, and what would empathy fix?

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Look, I think we do have an empathy problem in the United States. And empathy is sort of the stronger sympathy, stronger than sympathy. It's putting yourself in someone else's shoes. It's feeling their feelings and understanding them on a deeper level. And I think we just in this country are having a difficult time doing that. When you think an idea in your head is more important than human life, we have a problem. When you can't understand, or you are a police officer that looks at black people, that looks at someone else as a criminal force and not a human being, we have a problem. And if you think all police officers are rotten and you can't understand their stress, we have a problem.

We keep going around in circles and we keep seeing people being killed for the reasons that are just -- there is no reason for it. And I think empathy is really at a loss in this country and something that we certainly have to work on, especially with the next generation of children.

KEILAR: It's a very good point. And if you were to put yourself in other people's shoes, it's incredibly painful. There have been so many shootings. CNN is reporting at least 50 mass shootings that have taken place since March 16th, Sara. That is not including smaller shootings where communities, of course, are still deeply affected. How do you think we as a country already handle it?

SIDNER: Look, I think what we are seeing play out here is a massive mental health issue. We all sat back, and I know a lot of journalists and many others predicted that when coronavirus calm down and people started going back to their daily lives and people were gathering en masse at different places, that we were going to see this. And it was a sign that things are back.

[08:10:06]

Is that not awful, that things are back when mass shootings are back. The combination of things tells you a lot about what is going on in this country. The mental health issues that we keep seeing pop up in many of these mass shootings, but also the proliferation of guns. There is more than one for each and every citizen in this country.

And if you look at the mental health issue and then you couple that with that fact, you are going to have a problem. You're going to have a deadly problem. And we should also mention that in 2020, a lot of folks, we didn't see as many mass shootings. There weren't mass gatherings of people. But there were shootings. It was one of the deadliest year for gun violence in two decades, and people don't realize that. So we have a problem in this country that we keep talking about, but it is not being addressed. It is not being fixed. And Congress has to do something. If you talk to any family member who has gone through any kind of gun violence, whether it's street violence, whether it's violence by police, whether it's a mass shooting, you will hear them say, we must do something. But we have been hearing that for decades, and not a damn thing has been done about it and people keep dying.

KEILAR: So well put, Sara. Thank you so much, Sara Sidner.

That's really the question, right. Something has to be done. You are hearing that from victim's families. But nothing is done. So what is the thing? Something has to cause the tipping point, but what will that be?

BERMAN: I also have to say, when Sara framed it like that, framed it around empathy, it just struck a chord with me. My boys are reading "To Kill a Mockingbird" right now, and I'm going to misquote Harper Lee, but she talks about the need to walk a mile in someone else's shoes to really understand something. I will say, Sara does that in her reporting. She travels the country with empathy and reports with empathy and helps us understand these things that are going on in this country that sometimes are hard to.

KEILAR: And I think that's one of the most frustrating things, especially when you think about it from Sara's point of view covering that. You can see where there could be a solution when you are looking at it through that lens. And yet, here we are.

BERMAN: You can also see, just try. For God's sakes, try to find a solution. And sometimes that's not what we are doing either.

KEILAR: No, definitely not.

BERMAN: Up next, two words that have some Republican lawmakers calling for a congresswoman's expulsion. Plus what former President George W. Bush about people being surprised about his friendship with former first lady Michelle Obama.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:16:06]

KEILAR: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is calling for action against Democrat Maxine Waters. He is accusing her of inciting violence for remarks that she made on Saturday night when asked what protesters should do if Derek Chauvin is not convicted for murdering George Floyd.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MAXINE WATERS (D-CA): We've got to stay on the streets. We've got to get more active. We've got to get more confrontational. We've got to make sure that they know that we mean business.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KEILAR: Joining us now, chief strategist for the Bush-Cheney 2004

presidential campaign and the founder of Country over Party, Matthew Dowd is with us.

Matthew, thank you so much for lending your perspective here. I mean, certainly Waters should answer her words when everyone is on edge, but the irony here is just so -- the stench of it. Republicans like Kevin McCarthy who has repeatedly given cover to other Republicans who have called in such explicit terms for violence, I'm thinking Marjorie Taylor Greene. I'm thinking Donald Trump. The irony here is thick.

MATTHEW DOWD, FOUNDER, COUNTRY OVER PARTY: It's incredibly thick and so is the hypocrisy on this, and not the least to mention January 6th and what happened on January 6th and the number of Republicans that were -- in their words incited that.

I actually just listened to Maxine Waters, and of course, we all have to be cognizant of what we say. I don't think what she said in anyway should -- we should criticize her for. Of course, we should be more confrontational. That doesn't mean we should be more violent, but I was thinking about this as I was listening.

Emmett Till was killed in 1955, an all-white jury found the people that did it innocent. Then Medgar Evers, Jimmy Lee Jackson, so many of these folks that were guilty of killings and Civil Rights were then let off.

And the only thing that led to the Civil Rights legislation that finally passed in 1965 was nonviolent protest, and so I think that's where we're going to end up today.

The Republicans seem to me on the complete wrong side of history of this.

BERMAN: So, Matthew, Marjorie Taylor Greene, the aforementioned, shall we say, Marjorie Taylor Greene along with Paul Gosar and other people have apparently pulled their plans to launch this America First Caucus, this caucus which in the planning explicitly called for touting Angelo-Saxon values.

I actually couldn't believe this story when I first read it. I mean, you talk about saying the quiet part out loud. This was just laying it all out there. This is just -- this is who we are, see the whole world. Now, it's time to see.

What did you think when you first saw this?

DOWD: Well, when I first saw it, I thought, give them credit for being honest and transparent and in all seriousness, that is a huge base of the Republican Party today. I wouldn't say it's a segment. It is a majority of the Republican Party today.

They said it out loud or they proposed to say it out loud, obviously, got wholesale criticism because you can't say those things out loud even though we might believe those things in quiet. I think, John, the fundamental problem today in the Republican Party

today is there is a large segment of the Republican base that fundamentally does not believe that all men and women are created equal. They do not fundamentally believe that.

And because they don't believe that, then they can practice all these things, say all these things in the course of this, and the other problem with Marjorie Taylor Green and that other nut from Colorado is, there are no longer any guardrails to prevent this kind of thing from happening.

There used to be some guard rails where if some crazy person surfaced with some outlandish ideas, they would not be allowed into the tent. They would be excluded or they would be isolated.

We don't have those guard rails and we don't have those guard rails in a portion of the media, which repeats lies, which repeats a lot of these things, I'm thinking of Tucker Carlson in this.

[08:20:16]

DOWD: And so, without those guard rails, this is just becoming out in the wide and it is a huge tremendous problem for our democracy today if we have one political party that is captive to this interest.

KEILAR: President George W. Bush, who almost, you know feels like a relic of the Republican Party at this point has made headlines in recent years for his affection and his friendship with former First Lady Michelle Obama. This is what he had to say yesterday on CBS News.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And it shocked me. We got in the car and I think Barb or Jenna said, hey, you're trending. And the American people were so surprised that Michelle Obama and I --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They had a friendship.

BUSH: Could be friends. I think it's a problem that Americans are so polarized in their thinking that they can't imagine a George W. Bush and a Michelle Obama being friends.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Why do you think that Americans are shocked by their friendship?

DOWD: Well, I think we've come to a place that is incredibly tribalized. And George W. Bush today is, as your lead in said, I worked for them in both elections in the course of this. He is a relic.

George W. Bush, if he showed at a meeting of the R.N.C. or a meeting of CPAC would be booed today. He probably wouldn't even be invited. And I would hesitate to guess Ronald Reagan would be booed at those same meetings. Dwight Eisenhower would be booed at those meetings.

And so, we are in a time when the litmus test are in such a way that if you don't buy into the sort of crazy things of voter fraud or Donald Trump is the greatest President in history or whatever else that has become the elemental part of this, then you are isolated and you are put in and sort of cast out in this, the Republican Party today is in no, way, shape or form what it looked like 10, 12, 15 years ago. It's not the Republican Party anymore.

BERMAN: I have to say, Alberto Gonzales, who was former U.S. Attorney General, whom you worked with, Matthew, help get George W. Bush elected President, worked within Texas, Alberto Gonzales told me he didn't think George W. Bush could win a primary, a Republican Primary in Texas now, which is a shocking thing to think of given where we are and what Texas has been over the last many years.

Matthew, you know, Sharon Osbourne, changing subjects, has been one of the hosts of the show "The Talk." She was pushed out over controversial comments she made about race and the wake of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's interview with Oprah. She had this to say in her first TV appearance since leaving the show.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHARON OSBOURNE, FORMER HOST, "THE TALK": I'm a fighter. I'm doing just fine. What about the people that are cut from the knees down and they can't afford to go get lessons on what's politically correct and how to talk to people? What happens to them?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Who is Sharon Osbourne standing up for there exactly, Matthew? What is your reaction to that?

DOWD: I have no patience for Sharon Osbourne in this because -- and this whole idea of cancel culture or woke culture, it is as if you have to be taught to treat everybody with dignity and respect. And so, the idea that you might be criticized if you don't treat somebody with dignity and respect is some sort of cancel culture.

I would have thought Sharon Osbourne or anyone else in our country as you and me and Brianna have been, we were raised with the idea that you treat all people with respect and dignity, and the idea that that is now somehow some woke culture thing is amazing to me.

People ought to go back to the fundamental that they learned as children, which is again treat people with compassion and care and empathy and for some reason Sharon Osbourne thinks that that's problematic in today's culture.

BERMAN: Matthew Dowd, great having you with us. Thanks for getting up early. I appreciate it.

DOWD: My pleasure.

BERMAN: All right, Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib calls policing in America intentionally racist and beyond reform. Detroit Police Chief responds live, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:28:15]

BERMAN: Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib under fire after calling for quote, "no more policing, incarceration and militarization" in the wake of Daunte Wright's fatal encounter with police in Minnesota. Those who disagree with Representative Tlaib's comments include Senators Bernie Sanders and President Biden.

Joining me now is Detroit Police Chief James Craig. Chief, you describe Tlaib's comments as reckless and disgusting. Why?

CHIEF JAMES CRAIG, DETROIT POLICE: Absolutely. They are reckless and disgusting, particularly in this time that we are in today and there certainly has been an increase in assault on the men and women who serve across this country as recent as just early this morning.

Unprovoked, an individual came into a crime scene and began shooting at our officers, and so while we can't defensively say those comments are the reason, but the anti-police rhetoric is just too much.

I mean, even we think about Representative Waters when she makes statements, "Get more confrontational." What does that mean? But as it relates directly to Rashida Tlaib, this is about her putting attention to herself. That's exactly what it was designed to do.

It's not productive. She doesn't speak for the majority of Detroiters. The majority of Detroiters support this police department. They want effective and constitutional policing and to make statements like abolish policing, abolish incarceration certainly is counterproductive.

BERMAN: She clarified her remarks, some, after that initial statement on Twitter. Let me read you what she went on to say. "We continue to see death after death at the hands of police officers with no meaningful accountability. I understand that many are concerned about public safety, but it is clear that more investment in police incarceration and criminalization will not deliver that safety."

"Instead, we should be investing more resources into our community and tackle poverty, education inequities and to increase job opportunities. We should be extending the use of mental health and social work professionals to respond to disputes before they escalate."

[08:30:21]