Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

School Shooting at Florida State University Library; President to Announce Details of Executive Order on Immigration; Interview with Tony Blair; Buffalo Bracing for Another Round of Snow; Interview with Rep.Raul Labrador of Idaho

Aired November 20, 2014 - 08:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news, Florida State University under attack. A gunman opens fire at the school's main library, several people injured, before the gunman is killed by police. We're live with students who were in the path and the latest on who did it and why.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight President Obama unveils his plan to shield millions of illegal immigrants from deportation, setting up a major clash with Republicans. What do the polls say Americans want? We'll tell you.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Bracing for more. Upstate New York is buried under six feet of snow and the historic snowstorm not done yet. People trapped in their homes could see another 3 feet fall as freezing temperatures hold their grip across the country, any relief in sight?

CUOMO: Your NEW DAY continues right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Kate Bolduan and Michaela Pereira.

CUOMO: Good morning, welcome to NEW DAY. It's Thursday, November 20th, 8:00 in the east. Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota here with breaking news. Tallahassee police are giving the all clear after a gunman on the campus of Florida State University was killed, but not before wounding three students.

CAMEROTA: And this all happened as hundreds of students were studying late into the night for final exams. And we've learned the camp success open today but all classes and exams have been canceled.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VALENCIA: Breaking overnight.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you serious? Oh my god, are you OK?

VALENCIA: Moments of fear inside this Florida state university library. An FSU student captures it on cellphone video. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the Tallahassee police department and the

FSU police department. There has been a shooting in the library. Stay where you are.

VALENCIA: Just before 12:30 this morning an unidentified gunman opens fire in a crowded library.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you know of somebody who has a gun or if you have is be who has been shot call 191.

VALENCIA: One man is seen lying on the floor apparently shot in the leg as the librarian makes a frantic 911 cool. FSU Senior Sarah Evans shot the heart-pounding video and describes a chaotic screen.

SARAH EVANS, FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY STUDENT: I saw one of the employee kind of looking frantic, going crazy, and that's when I thought something was pretty wrong.

VALENCIA: The campus on lockdown as police swarm the building. Students warned to seek shelter immediately, stay away from doors and windows via the university's emergency alert system. As the ordeal unfolds photos flood Twitter that show police with assault rifles inside the library eventually leading the students to safety. At least three people are injured and transported to the hospital, one in critical condition. The shooter shot and killed in front of the library.

DAVID NORTHWAY, TALLAHASSEE POLICE DEPARTMENT: They gave the suspect commands and the suspect did not comply with the command and actually shot at one of the officers. They returned fire and the subject was killed.

VALENCIA: After a nearly three-hour ordeal, university officials assured the FSU community the situation --

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: Nick, if you can hear me, have officials talked about who the gunman is? What do we know about the identity of the gunman?

VALENCIA: Well, there are so many questions that are left unanswered. Principally is why someone would do this and who this person was. So far they haven't identified who the shooter was, not mentioned whether or not he was a student on campus. As you could see behind me, investigators are continuing to canvas this area where the shooting happened at Florida State's library. They say there's no longer a threat to the public, but those students that we spoke to that were witness to the shooting described the scene of about 30 to 45 minutes of pure havoc and chaos. You mentioned questions about that gunman. We're hoping to get those answers sometime in a press conference this afternoon. Tallahassee police department is slated to have a news conference at 3:00 p.m. eastern, just a few hours from now. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Of course, every time there's an incident everyone wants to know why, and generally that one question is the one that can never be answered we find. Nick Valencia, thanks so much for the update on this breaking news.

VALENCIA: You bet.

CUOMO: It's critical information beyond curiosity also because it goes to the continuing threat that may be there. They say there is none and that's great. But who it was, why were they a student, because they were in front of the library, could they not get in? These are important concerns to figure out going forward.

CAMEROTA: And also how to stop other incidents like this. Everyone wants to know what's behind it and why. But generally and particularly when the gunman is dead it's impossible.

PEREIRA: It's interesting the timing, too, of it, so late at night when students were there, studying, cramming for exams.

CUOMO: We'll get answers.

So another situation for you, Republicans have drawn a line in the sand in Washington, the president is about to jump right over it. Tonight he will announce that he's moving forward on immigration reform himself by executive order. That means without Congress. Republicans say they will retaliate if he does that, and in a big way. CNN's Michelle Kosinski live at the White House. Michelle, we had congressmen on. They're all saying give us more time, give us more time. Are you hearing anything about timing of this executive order? Will it go into effect immediately or is that one of the gray areas that we're going to have to see?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It's likely to take some period of time to implement. That's exactly what happened in 2012 when the president allowed some leeway for people who were brought here as children. But they're not giving an exact time line. What we know is that this executive action will be momentous. It's going to affect at least 3 million people, possibly as many as 5 million, and the details of course haven't been unveiled yet. But as details have leaked out, the president is getting pushback from both sides. They are some who feel that his acting alone doesn't go far enough, and then Republicans who think it goes way too far.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KOSINSKI: The president now ready to change the landscape for millions of undocumented immigrants in this country, and announcing his impending announcement on Facebook.

BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So what I'm going to be laying out is the things that I can do with my lawful authority as president to make the system work better even as I continue to work with Congress and encourage them to get a bipartisan, comprehensive bill that can solve the entire problem.

KOSINSKI: What his plan will do, according to sources, is not a path to citizenship but temporary renewable relief in the form of permission to stay without being deported and permission to work, expected to include parents of children who are American citizens or have legal status, so long as those parents have been in this country at least five years.

Also, it will likely expand those same allowances granted by the president in 2012 to people brought here illegally as children, known as dreamers. But, sources say, it is not expected to include parents of those dreamers, leaving some already to criticize it for not protecting families enough.

On the other side, Republicans furious.

REP. STEVE KING, (R) IOWA: We can announce that we're prepared to cut off any funding that would implement or enforce his unconstitutional act.

GOV. RICK PERRY, (R) TEXAS: If he goes through with this and sticks a finger in the eye of the American people with no thought about it other than, this is what I want to do and I'm going to do it, then I think he jeopardizes long-term the Democrats ever to get back in power again in Washington, D.C.

KOSINSKI: According to several recent polls, a majority of Americans would rather see immigrants given a chance at legality than be deported, though a "USA Today" poll shows slightly more people want the president to wait for Congress to vote on immigration reform than to act alone now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KOSINSKI: So we have heard Republicans threatening from lawsuits to shutting down the government, even impeachment, but the White House blames Republicans in Congress for failing to act, and the White House says it feels confident that this executive action has a strong basis in law. Chris?

CUOMO: Michelle, thank you very much. Of course we'll have to hear it for ourselves tonight and then the debate will continue. That happens here tonight 8:00 on CNN, complete coverage, Anderson Cooper will lead us off for it, you'll get to decide for yourself after that. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: OK, Chris, we are joined by someone who is no stranger to fighting over legislation, Tony Blair, former British prime minister of course. He's currently a Middle East quartet representative. Last night he was honored with the save the children global legacy award for his work in Africa. Welcome.

TONY BLAIR, FORMER BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Great to have you on NEW DAY.

BLAIR: It's very good of you to have me.

CAMEROTA: All right, so what do you think about the Battle Royale that is brewing in Washington, D.C., because the president is threatening tonight to go it alone with executive action outside of the bounds of Congress, and that is not sitting well with Congress?

BLAIR: I think I've got enough problems without dealing with your political problems.

(LAUGHTER)

BLAIR: By the way, in the U.K. right now the biggest single issue is probably immigration, go to France, biggest issue, immigration, go to Germany, biggest issue, immigration. It's a really tough question because you want to legitimize people who have been in your country for a long time. On the other hand you want rules and controls because there's a limit. So it is a really tough issue.

CAMEROTA: What is the answer to it?

BLAIR: Well, I think, I mean when I was dealing with it, I had this one mantra, and this has nothing to do with the president tonight and that's an issue for you. I always say you can have rules but not prejudice.

CUOMO: How do you deal with it from a leadership perspective? You've written a lot about this. The parliamentary system, while very similar, there's a lot more overtness to the, often hostility there. They'll literally get up and shout at you as you present what's going on. This is this patina, this faux politeness when the president speaks here. But in terms of how you deal with the parties when they are hostile to you and often in your case more than two parties, what did you learn in your time as prime minister?

BLAIR: On the really difficult decisions your responsibility is to do what you think is right. And you can't, you're not going to please people. When you decide, you divide, so the moment you put the decision in front of people, there are going to be people attacking it.

CUOMO: And how do you get them to work when they say they won't?

BLAIR: That's really tough. Look, you've got to try and do what you can to separate those who won't work with you whatever you do and those people who might be prepared to work with you. But then you've also got to take it out to public opinion. But an issue like immigration is a very raw emotional issue for people.

And by the way, these decisions are difficult. They're difficult either way, and I sympathize with the president and -- well, anyway, that's to say that's a matter for him and you guys and I don't have a vote in that.

PEREIRA: It's interesting you bring up what's going on around the world. It's interesting, I wonder how when you are in a position of leadership you cut through the noise, because there is so much of it, especially if you look at what's going on here in America. And you've dealt with this as well, as a leader, getting very quiet, trusting your gut, and leading without weighing, you know, letting either side sway you.

BLAIR: Right, and I think it's more difficult today because social media multiplies conventional media, and the result of it is you're taking decisions with a barrage of noise. PEREIRA: Sure.

BLAIR: A leader in Europe the other day said to me I've had 80,000 people on Twitter say this, and maybe I have to go that way. I was saying to him, what does that mean? Does it mean, that's 80,000 representing 80,000, or represent 8 million? It's very hard to work this out. So in the end, you know, I came to power after losing four elections, my party had lost four elections, and I wanted to please all of the people all of the time. And by the time I was through the responsibility ultimately is to do what you think is right on these big issues, and then the people can judge you and like it or not.

CAMEROTA: Another complicated issue we want to you weigh in on is what's going on in Israel, all of the violence in Jerusalem and obviously beyond. As a world leader, where do you start? This is such an intractable problem.

BLAIR: It is, and it was a horrific crime, the attack in the synagogue, just a disgusting and appalling thing to do. First you have to stabilize the situation. You've got try and get some calm, the absence of provocative actions on both sides. But where there's a vacuum in the Middle East peace process, this is what you get. So I hope in the near future we will have a re-launch of some form of political dialogue which brings the parties into negotiation with each other, and then you've got to change facts on the ground. We've got Gaza, been through the terrible situation there, Jerusalem, which is very tricky, West Bank. We need to start moving the economy, make sure the security corporation is in place and try and improve people's lives a little.

CUOMO: Do you believe that Israel should relax some of the restrictions on Gaza to allow for more commerce and more freedom of movement? I know there's two different sides to that issue, but what is your thought?

BLAIR: Yes, they should, provided we can put in place the right mechanisms that give security protection, the material coming in, which I think we can. But it's very important for people in Gaza still, thousands of families whose homes have been destroyed and they need housing. But you've got a big problem there, where you have Hamas in charge of Gaza and you know, they still have not come to terms with the fact that the state of Israel exists and is going to carry on existing.

CUOMO: Do you think it's more religious now than it's ever before, and if so, should there be religious leaders more involved on both sides?

BLAIR: That's a very good question. I think there is a religious dimension, there always has been. But when you're talking about the holy sites in Jerusalem, you need religious leaders involved and coming together and saying look, we've all got the right to worship here so let's do it in a respectful way.

PEREIRA: I was going to say, given your tremendous honor for your work in Africa, obviously Africa in many fashions has been making its way into our headlines here stateside, both with the battle against Ebola but also the situation with Boko Haram and the plight of those children. There are so many things we could ask you for your assessment on, but what is need in some of these areas? For example, when you look at a situation with Boko Haram, there's almost, it seems that the military is helpless, the leaders are not providing any insight on how they can stop the destruction and what they're doing to these children in villages. What is your sense of what can be done?

BLAIR: My sense is that you need to operate on this at two levels. You've got Boko Haram in Nigeria but you've got Al Shaabab in Somalia, you've got ISIS in Syria and Iraq, you get al Nusra in Syria, you've got these groups all over the world, frankly. It's a global problem. You have it in the far east. You have it in central Asia. So I think you have to do two things. You have to be prepared to fight them when they are committing these atrocities and destroying people's lives. But we also, and this is something my foundation, one is about Africa and the other is about interfaith relationships and how you counter religious extremism. In northern Nigeria and elsewhere and places like Pakistan you have millions of children, young children educated in madrasas formally and informally to a religiously extreme view of the world. Ten, 15 years later you shouldn't be surprised that some of those turn into extremists.

So one thing I think we have to put on the agenda globally is to say all education systems, it's should be your responsibility, there should be responsibility is on the environment. There should be responsible on governments to ensure that you promote religious tolerance and root our religious prejudice. And this should be a factor in international relationships.

I'd like to see the international forums and governments put this on the table and say come on, you know, there's no -- we can take all these security measures and we'll have to probably for a generation or more, but if you are educating young people to a warped view of the world, you're not teaching them science and technology, just teaching them one view of religion, you're going to have a problem.

CAMEROTA: Tell us about this event last night where you were honored by Save the Children.

BLAIR: This is a great thing about really about the work we've done in Africa over the past few years and also I've just come back from the Ebola countries in West Africa, I was there last week, where we're slowly getting on top of it, it's still a crisis situation and still a lot of urgency and speed necessary.

But, you know, apart from that, there's a bigger part from that, there's lots of African countries making progress and we should celebrate that as well as focus on the crisis.

CAMEROTA: It's good to know. Great message to end on.

BLAIR: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Prime Minister Tony Blair, great to you. Thanks so much.

BLAIR: Thank you very much.

CUOMO: Well done, sir.

BLAIR: Thank you.

CUOMO: Well done, sir, for your work around the world. Appreciate it and great to have you on the set.

Back to what's happening here at home in Buffalo, as you know, they've had an historic amount of snow and now they're bracing for 30 inches more. Two and a half feet are coming their way. People are trapped in their homes. It is hard for rescuers and first responders to get there already.

Let's get to the ground, meteorologist Jennifer Gray.

Jennifer, what do you see there now and what is expected to come?

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, Chris, right now, we're just getting some blowing snow. We have blue skies over us, blizzard-like conditions when we first came in early this morning and we're at the staging area. You can see these trucks that are moving out, they're continuing to haul off all of the snow. They already moved more than 5,000 tons to a different location because there's nowhere to put it.

People's cars are completely buried under the snow. We could get an additional two to three feet mainly south of where we are. We could pick up where we are south of Buffalo a little later today. We've been talking about all this snow, we're setting records, this is more than Buffalo has ever seen.

But the story is much bigger than that, because we are talking about people that have basically been trapped inside their homes because they can't get out. They can't clear the snow off of their driveway in time. You start worrying about people not getting the medical care they need, prescriptions, things like that.

Lot of the emergency crews haven't been able to get to people because a lot of the streets are not plowed, because you can't get to them, and the snow has been coming down at such an incredible rate it's been difficult for crews to get there.

Hopefully in the next day or two. We know temperature also warm up by Friday, and even more so on the weekend. But it's far from over, Chris.

CUOMO: Absolutely, and you're making the right point, even though you're a meteorologist, it's not just about the weather, it's about its impact on the people.

We'll check back in with you, Jennifer. Please stay as warm as you can.

CAMEROTA: Look at the pictures from the live shot, incredible.

Well, President Obama set to overhaul the U.S. immigration system, big changes that could allow millions living here illegally to stay. We'll hear what two Republicans with different views have to stay.

CUOMO: And crippling costs for college only makes sense of it's worth, right? I mean, isn't that why you for what happens afterward, or is it just about the experience? There's a new CNN film that says maybe you're not getting your money's worth. The director of "Ivory Tower" will tell us shocking truths he says he uncovered, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: President Obama has promised for years to act on immigration reform if Congress would not. And tonight, he says he's going to make good on that promise, announcing sweeping changes that he will enact on his own by executive order.

This is making Republicans furious. They are calling that move everything from ill-advised to illegal and they promise political payback.

How did we get into this situation and how do we get out of it?

Let's bring in GOP Congressman Raul Labrador from Idaho. He sits on the Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security, along with the House Judiciary Committee.

And Ms. Ana Navarro, CNN political commentator and Republican strategist.

Good to have you both.

Representative, let me start with you. Why are we in this situation? Why is this necessary? Why couldn't the Republicans just go to the president and say, leave us alone, we'll do something now. We'll get it done. Why are we here?

REP. RAUL LABRADOR (R), IDAHO: We have said that to the president. Chris, your introduction was false.

CUOMO: How?

LABRADOR: The president has been saying for years that he cannot do this action that he's going to do today. In fact, for the last three years, he has been telling the American people he doesn't have the authority. So, was he lying then or is he lying today, when he's saying he had the authority to do that?

CUOMO: First of all, lying isn't the right word. You may be saying he got it wrong at some point.

LABRADOR: No, no, he's been saying for three years he didn't have the authority to do this.

CUOMO: He didn't have the authority --

LABRADOR: He did it for political expediency, because he wanted to get reelected. CUOMO: Right.

LABRADOR: He wanted to assure the American people that he wouldn't do something like this. And as soon as we have an election, we've gone to him. We have told him that we could do immigration reform. I worked for a long time to get immigration reform done and he continued to work against us here in the House.

So, it's not true to say that he's been saying that he's going to do this and it's not true that Congress has not acted, because we have acted in the House. We have passed immigration bills in the House that he has been unwilling to work with us on.

CUOMO: You won't have a vote in a bill that the Senate passed over 500 days ago. The only point I want to make about the president said in terms of lying or not, there is logical consistency to his position about his authority with executive actions. He was saying he does not have the authority with an executive action to overrule congressional mandate.

There is no congressional mandate because you won't pass a bill.

LABRADOR: There is a congressional mandate. We said no. We said no to the Senate bill, Chris. It's not that we need to do what the president --

CUOMO: That's not the same thing.

LABRADOR: It's the same thing.

CUOMO: It's not negating something that you did, because you did nothing. You understand?

LABRADOR: The law says, no, we have done something. The law says that he needs to enforce the law. The law says if somebody's here illegally, you must be deported.

The law says that there's a process to become a legal resident of the United States and he's negating all of those things.

When the president is at his lowest authority is when the law says something and we have refused to change the law in the way that he wants to change it.

We tried to change the law. We passed high-tech immigration legislation. We passed other immigration bills, and Harry Reid in the Senate and the president in the White House refused to work with us on any of those bills.

So, it's not true that we haven't acted and it's not true that we have not told the American people what we are willing to do on immigration reform.

CUOMO: OK, I take your points, Congressman.

Ana, how do you see this situation in terms of why nothing has been done by many people's estimations of the problems that we're now dealing with.

ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Because everything is political. Frankly, the president has been making promises on immigration since he was candidate Barack Obama in 2007, promises that he had not delivered on because of political reasons. This last time, he was waiting until after the election.

But I say the same exact thing about my party, the Republican Party, we have not acted also because of politics. As Raul knows, it wasn't too long ago when the Republicans in Congress brought out standards, immigration standards with the hope that they were going to be able to come up with a comprehensive solution, and that ended up in nothing. They could not get the standards passed to get a comprehensive bill passed.

Raul is right, that there have been pieces passed but there has not been a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform, which is what we need to address a complex problem like this. Why didn't the Republicans do it? Because there were a lot of Republicans that were facing hard primaries.

So, politics has gotten in the way of policy for both parties and it's been used as a wedge issue, and enough is enough. There are so many people hurting out there.

And look, with or without this executive action, we still have a broken immigration system, and really, you know, folks need to get together and work on it, move on.

I understand that Republicans are angry. There is no legislature that likes to have their power usurped by the executive. I get that. But the problem is still there, and we owe it to this country to fix what is a longstanding problem that needs to be addressed, which is a broken immigration system that does not get solved by this temporary mandate.

CUOMO: Congressman, let me ask you this. If he does what we believe he's going to do tonight with his executive order, right?

LABRADOR: Yes.

CUOMO: You're going to have to figure out how you respond.

Now, there's a lot of anger and outrage and, you know what? Politically, maybe much of it is justified on the part of your party.

But talk about shutdowns and we're going to sue and we're not going to fund this. Do you think that's going to get you where you want to be or do you think you're better off passing your own bill and making the order ineffectual?

LABRADOR: I think we should do all of the above. We should leave all the cards on the table, do whatever is necessary to make sure this president and no future president does something like this, which I think is unprecedented. But at the same time I do believe we need to do immigration reform. Ana and I agree on this, that we have to do something. We have a broken immigration system.

As you know, Chris, I was an immigration lawyer for 15 years before I came to Congress. I know the depth of the immigration system. I know how bad it is. I know where we can fix it.

But the difference is that we can't just put a band-aid on it. The Senate bill did something that was the same thing as the Reagan bill, which is it granted amnesty today without really fixing our border problems.

We need to fix the border problems that we have today. We need to fix the interior enforcement problems that we have today. We have a guest worker program that doesn't work. We need to fix that.

We need to do all those things so when we fix the immigration system, and we do whatever we need to do with the 11 million people that are here, we don't have to have this discussion again ten years from now.

And that's the difference between the president's approach and my approach. In fact, I was trying to do that when I was in the House, when I was working in the House on a bipartisan bill and we started to get to a resolution of what Republicans and Democrats could do in the House. The White House called the Democrats and said stop working with the Republicans, because you're undermining the Senate bill.

The president has only wanted to pass the Senate bill, and then when he tells the American people that we haven't been willing to act, he's unwilling to tell the truth, which is that he has undermined and sabotaged every effort that we have made in the House to pass immigration reform.

CUOMO: Let's see what he says tonight and then we'll continue the debate from there. Certainly, it's one that's worth having and obviously has not been had enough because it hasn't led to any action.

I appreciate you, Congressman Raul Labrador, being on with us, very much.

And, Ana, you're family, always great to have you. Help us find a reasonable outcome here, if you can.

We'll see what he says tonight and we'll get back after it.

Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: All right, Chris.

Is college worth the cost? More and more graduates are spending more and more time hunting for jobs and trying to pay higher and higher student loan debt. We'll take a deeper look at that with the director of CNN's new film "Ivory Tower."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)