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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
U.S. Military Helicopter Goes Missing In Nepal; Mother And Daughter Reunited After 49 Years; Chris Christie Talks About Iraq, Bridge Gate; Picasso Painting Sets Record at Auction. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired May 12, 2015 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[20:00:16] ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. We begin tonight with breaking news in Madison, Wisconsin, where protesters again have taken to the streets to the rallying call that's reverberated throughout the country time and time again, black lives matter.
And Madison, this become the latest American city to ask for justice for a young man dead at the hands of the police officer. The family of Tony Robinson today called for peaceful protest after it was announced that the police officer who shot and killed the unarmed biracial teenager would not face charges in his death.
Robinson's uncle today said not to forget this was a 19-year-old young man whose life was cut short before he had the chance to realize his potential.
Now, in a moment, I'll speak with his mom in her first interview since today's announcement. That announcement, the officer who killed Tony Robinsons, Officer Matt Kenny of the Madison police department will not face charges.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ISMAEL OZANNE, DANE COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: I conclude that this tragic and unfortunate death was the result of a lawful use of deadly police force, and that no charges should be brought against Officer Kenny in the death of Tony Robinson, Jr.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Now, Tony Robinson's family says they are conducting their own investigation. And his mom says they plan to file a civil lawsuit. They said no doubt about it. They will do that. We are going to hear more from here, as I said, in a moment. But first the details of the case and the night that led to Tony Robinson's death just two months ago.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was the night of March 6th when Madison police got a call about a man yelling and jumping in front of cars. Dispatch identifies the man as Tony Robinson. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Apparently tony hit one of his friends. No
weapons seen.
ELAM: Four minutes later, the dispatcher says he has another call about the same person at a residence.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tried to strangle another patron.
ELAM: Thirty seconds later, a police officer says --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shots fired, shots fired.
ELAM: We now know that yelling came from Officer Matt Kenny, a 12- year veteran of the Madison police department who responds to the call. Police say Kenny heard some commotion inside the apartment and entered and was hit in the head by Robinson, giving the officer a concussion.
According to the district attorney, a toxicology report showed Robinson had THC or marijuana as well as mushrooms and xanax in his blood.
CHIEF MICHAEL KOVAL, MADISON POLICE: The officer did draw his revolver and subsequently shot the subject.
ELAM: Kenny has used deadly force before. In 2007, he shot and killed a white man, but was exonerated of any wrongdoing.
While there are similarities to Ferguson, both drawing protests, there are also stark differences in Madison. Unlike Ferguson where there was release evidence of Mike Brown's alleged criminal behavior, Madison's police chief and mayor in the hours after Robinson's death refuse to speak about the young man's pas interactions with law enforcement.
MAYOR PAUL SOGLIN, MADISON, WISCONSIN: The fact that Tony was involved in any kind of transgression in the past has nothing to do with this present tragedy.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: And Stephanie Elam joins me now from Madison.
So, at the press conference, the D.A., he took a lot of time presenting the evidence, but also detailing his own background before announcing charges.
ELAM: Definitely, Anderson. I was there in the room as he was explaining how he felt about this and how, in some ways, it was personal for him. He talked about the fact he is a biracial man and that he has a black mother from Alabama who still worries about his safety despite the fact that he is the first black person to become the chief prosecutor in any county in Wisconsin.
He was profusely sweating throughout the press conference well. Although, it did seem to quell a bit when he start to talked about the law and less about the fact that he understands the relationship between enforcement and young black men in this country is nuanced at the least.
COOPER: And in terms of the size of protests you are seeing at this point, how are they?
ELAM: There were protesters here. And right outside of where the D.A. held his press conference, there were people standing out there with sign. You see people marching. But you do see people coming together peacefully. They are listening. They are talking. They are marching. But it is a very different tone than what we've seen in say, Baltimore, what we saw together in Ferguson, Anderson.
COOPER: All right, Stephanie Elam, I appreciate the update.
For Tony Robinson's mother there has been no such thing as easy day since March 6th, of course. For two months, she's been mourning her son and waiting to hear if the police officer who killed him would be charged. Today, the answer came., he will not.
Tony's mother, Andrea Irwin, joins me in her first interview since the decision was announced.
Andrea, I cannot even imagine how difficult today has been for you. This decision by the district attorney to not press charges against Officer Kenny, what is your reaction?
[20:05:05] ANDREA IRWIN, TONY ROBINSON'S MOTHER: As I sat listening to him, we almost kind of hope that he is going to change his decision. I was pretty much assure that he was going to not indict. The things that we heard, a lot of it is not accurate. It is missing information. So I actually can't stay in the room. I'm heartbroken and I'm angry. I'm more than upset. I'm almost something I can't even describe right now.
COOPER: What in particular angers you?
IRWIN: The way that things were spoken about my son. There was a lot of lack of information, the fact that his friends were the ones that called and the fact that, you know, they are trying to say that all of the things that Matt Kenny claims happened, they said within a 20 second time frame when we were told were premature. It was an 18 second time frame and things do not add up and with the investigation that we've had done. It is just -- it was extremely upsetting. Just the things that we know to make it look as if it is a justifiable homicide and it wasn't.
COOPER: You don't believe that the investigation conducted by the D.A.'s office was fair?
IRWIN: No. And they did the investigation within two weeks. In a two-week time frame the investigation was completed and handed into the D.A. I think they missed a lot of things. I know they missed a lot of things. And a lot of the story where Matt Kenny is -- his side of his story was contradicted from when we first heard his supposed statement. COOPER: Do you plan on filing a civil lawsuit against the Madison
police department?
IRWIN: Absolutely. The things that have taken place since my son passed and the things done to my family, to me, is -- they've gone above and beyond to try to make sure they kicked me when I'm down. They have done a smear campaign against my child and against me since this all began. Releasing things that were not even true against my son, knowing that it wasn't -- wasn't involving my son. You know, he's a junior. It has been a disgusting -- disgusting view of my own city and things that I never, never imagine would happen to a person who just lost their child.
COOPER: For the people who have protested and may want to continue protesting in Madison, what is your message to them?
IRWIN: You know, we need to make sure that our voice is heard. They have pushed and pushed and are speaking on violence and continue asking when we're going to be violent and the only people that have been violent is the police. I would hope that everyone in Madison that does want to protest, make sure, you know, you can have aggression without violence and you can have protests without riots. We can stand up and say that we are done with this injustice without destroying ourselves or our own city. And if we don't say something or make sure we stand up for ourselves, this will happen again. It has been proven. It is happening all over the country but it will happen here.
COOPER: Andrea Irwin, I'm sorry for your loss and I appreciate you talking to us tonight. Thank you.
IRWIN: Thank you.
COOPER: Joining me now CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Sunny Hostin, also former NYPD detective Harry Houck.
Sunny, were you surprised by the decision of the prosecutor?
SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I can't say that I was surprised, because although he is the first African-American D.A. in Madison, in all of Wisconsin, actually, if you look at his record over the past five years, he has investigated seven police officer shootings, and found all of the officers involved to have used appropriate force, justified in the use of deadly force. And so I'm not surprised at the result.
COOPER: Are you reading that as being that he's unfairly pro-police or reading that as those shootings were all justifiable?
HOSTIN: Well, I think it is possible to read it both ways. But my point is that he does seem to have a history of investigating these cases and finding all of the time that the officers' use of force was justified. What I did think was surprising, quite frankly, was the hey he outlined all of the evidence. I had never seen that before Marilyn Mosby did. Maybe it is the Mosby effect.
[20:10:03] COOPER: Do you think this is kind of a new way people that prosecutors are going to go about this?
HOSTIN: I really do. I think that there is this -- people are leaning toward transparency, they are leaning towards outlining their decisions, they are leaning and away from using grand juries, these secret proceedings and rather giving the public their reasoning. And I think that is a positive step.
HARRY HOUCK, FORMER NEW YORK POLICE DETECTIVE: And that is the procedure in Wisconsin any way, you know.
HOSTIN: But it is a positive step.
HOUCK: And people say it is a great step.
COOPER: And you weren't surprised by -- ?
HOUCK: I wasn't surprised at all. I mean, and the fact that he's exonerated seven police officers on the shootings, I mean, so you are assuming that some of those shootings were bad, based on what?
HOSTIN: It is unusual, Harry, you have to admit, for that many officers to be involved in one jurisdiction, in fatal shootings. And it is also unusual that this particular officer was involved in two fatal shootings and exonerated now in both.
HOUCK: I don't know the statistics and the first shooting that occurred with him. But the fact that is, you know, this shooting here, and I saw it from just based on what I was reading --
COOPER: And the fact there was xanax, mushrooms --
HOUCK: Right.
COOPER: -- and marijuana in his system, I mean, unarmed, does the presence of drugs, when you are responding officer, one of them the caller said he was tweaking which made it sound as if perhaps he was meth, they didn't find out in his system at all. When you hear that as a responding officer tat drugs are involve, does that ratchet something up?
HOUCK: I mean, exactly. You are thinking super human strength there. Some of the guys that are on some of these drugs have almost super human strength and they can fight and officer off and you can injured on --
COOPER: But marijuana isn't.
HOUCK: Marijuana isn't but mushrooms are. And apparently, that mix of drugs that he had in his body, probably all worked together that created him to turn into some kind of a maniac --
HOSTIN: You know what, Harry, let's take a step back. I'm so tired of people accusing young African-American men of being super heroes, of having this incredible strength. That is not --
HOUCK: And I'm talking the drugs, the attack. The drugs can very well do that.
(CROSSTALK)
HOSTIN: Using deadly force right away.
HOUCK: His own friends called and said he was dangerous.
COOPER: There was a report that he had allegedly struck a friend of his. But you are saying that we've heard this before.
HOSTIN: We have heard this narrative before. Have you this super human --
(CROSSTALK)
HOSTIN: I've been around people on drugs, yes. And guess what, they don't sprout super hero capes and are able to fly.
HOUCK: Have you fought someone like that.
HOSTIN: Absolutely.
HOUCK: No, you haven't.
HOSTIN: Absolutely I have.
HOUCK: And you fought somebody? I have.
HOSTIN: I have.
HOUCK: And their strength is unbelievable.
HOSTIN: And the bottom line, though, is when you talk about the officer-involved shootings I don't understand why we are not re- training our police officers to be able to de-escalate situations. They always seem to involve --
HOUCK: This was a violent situation. He had to go into that room --
HOSTIN: And this was an unarmed person.
HOUCK: Right. And as you know as a former district attorney, you know that you don't have to have -- the other person doesn't have to be armed for the officer to shoot. All right, you have to do is feel that your life is in danger, Anderson. So the fact is, you know, automatically, you know, now when we have any white police officer shoot a black man, it is going to be murder.
HOSTIN: Any police officer.
HOUCK: No we're talking white officers here. That is what this whole argument is about.
(CROSSTALK)
HOSTIN: They need to learn how to de-escalate. HOUCK: You can't de-escalate somebody that is acting like a monster.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: One at a time.
HOSTIN: This police officer had no idea.
HOUCK: You're making excuses for bad behavior.
HOSTIN: I'm not making excuses. What I'm trying to explain is the attitude is the problem that we see with officers on the street --
COOPER: But Sunny, can -- I mean, this occurred, whether you believe the family 18 seconds or 20 seconds.
HOSTIN: He fired seven shots in three seconds --
COOPER: Can't something be deescalated if something is moving in that quickly?
HOSTIN: Absolutely.
HOUCK: No, it can.
HOSTIN: Absolutely.
HOUCK: She is not --
COOPER: You say yes. Harry, you say?
HOUCK: I can tell you from experience she's never faced anybody and have to make a 20 second decision --
HOSTIN: No. I haven't. But I've investigated.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: -- where police have been able to escalate a very violent --
HOUCK: If they had a chance, yes, Anderson.
HOSTIN: Absolutely.
HOUCK: If you have a chance. But he heard somebody screaming up there and heard him yelling up there. He thought somebody was being hurt up there. That police officer should get a medal, not what happened. That office should get a medal for not waiting for back-up and going up there and figuring himself -- say to himself, somebody --
HOSTIN: A medal for shooting an unarmed -- I don't think it is appropriate to give someone a medal for shooting an unarmed young man on drugs. Bottom line is we need to retrain our police force. We need to have body cameras on the police officers. And these police officers could have waited and called for back-up.
[20:15:09] HOUCK: I agree 100 percent.
HOSTIN: That could have provided a de-escalation.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Both agree on the body cams and we will leave it on that.
(LAUGHTER)
COOPER: Sunny Hostin, Harry Houck, thank you.
A quick reminder, be sure you set your DVR. You can watch AC360 any time you want.
Just ahead, we have breaking news from Nepal where another major earthquake has killed dozens of people and brought new misery to the already quake devastated region.
Also, a U.S. military helicopter that was helping with relief efforts in Nepal, it has gone missing, six marines were on board. We have the latest on the research for them.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:19:00] COOPER: More breaking news tonight. A powerful earthquake has unleashed a new round of devastation in Nepal as well as India. At least, 68 people have now died. More than a thousand are now injured from this new quake. The death toll is expected to rise. This, of course, comes as over two weeks after the mammoth quake that killed more than 8,000 people in the region. Today, it was well, same story, as frightened people rushed into the streets. Many only recently begun returning to their homes. A slam slide about 30 miles north of Katmandu was caught on video by a Red Cross team. Large aftershocks shook the region all day. This obviously a huge setback for recovery efforts that went underway. Today a U.S. military helicopter that was supporting those effort that went missing carrying six marines.
In a moment I'll talk to chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto about the search for them. But first, our Will Ripley joins me now from Nepal.
What is it like there on the ground right now, Will?
WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: People are just waking up and they are seeing the devastation like this, five-storey where lost -- once a five-storey building now a pile behind me. A lot of these buildings that were weakened by the first quake, Anderson, they collapsed when this large aftershock hit earlier. And then even since we arrived we felt two aftershocks, one really chilled everybody overnight, woke people up. It was scary. You can see what people are going through here, worrying if the ground is going to shake again.
COOPER: And in terms of relief, I mean, has it been getting to people who need it? RIPLEY: The planes are getting in much more easily. It took us
relative of short amount of time to get on the ground here versus the days that it took crews after the first earthquake. Cell phones are working. But a lot of these hard hit areas, you have to helicopter the supplies and the personnel and because the roads are closed. It is really a difficult process. It is dangerous terrain and only specially trained pilots can get in there and so it is very slow.
COOPER: You also have a lot of people sleeping outside. What happens when monsoon season begins?
RIPLEY: That is the real worry here. We walk just a couple of blocks down the street and we met with a family overnight that they ran out during one of the aftershocks and were jilted away. And they told us, they are sleeping in essentially a motorcycle garage. But they have friends that don't even have tents, that are just sleeping out in the open, another people sleeping in cars. And when the rain start to come, that is really going to complicate the situation here because local authorities haven't even come up with a firm plan yet for building shelters for people. It is going to be a difficult situation. It is a hard situation now and it is going to get a lot worse when the monsoons start.
COOPER: Well Will, I'm glad you were there. Thanks for reporting for us tonight.
And as I said there were six marines on board that U.S. military helicopter that went missing today in Nepal. Jim Scuitto joins me with the latest on the search for that.
Do we know where or why it went missing?
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is what we know. It was in a remote part of a Nepal. It stopped to drop supplies in one village. The villages there said, hey, there is another village nearby. So they went to that village and that is when contact was lost.
Now, there is hope in the U.S. military that this was a landing rather than a crash. There was a nearby Nepalese army helicopter who heard a radio transmission saying they had a fuel problem. And then others in the area reported seeing sightings of the helicopter on the ground. So the hope is, and day is just breaking there and the search allowed to continue in the next hour, the hope is that they will be able to find them in that time and will not a crash and the pilot took a decision to go down at that point and kind of get through the night and sort out the problems in the morning.
COOPER: And I understand the search did have to be suspended overnight and they should be back in the air searching by now, right?
SCIUTTO: That's right. They should be up just about an hour, an hour and a half ago, they would be up in the air. We also know this. We know the Nepalese army units were marching closer to the sight and try to get a closer look. And just to be clear, in the country, the U.S. air force also has a para-rescue unit that could be, if they are found and if they are in a remote location, you can't to get to by vehicle for instance, they could be parachuted in and then help get them out, climb them out, in fact, with ropes et cetera, if need be. But there is optimism and hope in the U.S. military tonight. They don't know for sure, but there is hope that they were able to land safely.
COOPER: Let's hold on to that hope.
Jim Sciutto, appreciate it.
Coming up, a woman meets the daughter she taught was dead. Forty nine years after she was told her baby died right after she gave birth. Imagine that. She never see n the death certificate. And now dozens of other women are wondering if the same thing happened to them at that same hospital all those years ago.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:27:20] COOPER: Welcome back. It is a reunion story unlike any you've heard before. A woman who told her newborn baby died finds out 49 years later that her daughter is actually alive. When they were finally able to meet it was joyous to say the least. Incredible reunion.
The back story is incredibly troubling, however. Now dozens of other women are asking if the same thing could have happened to them many years ago at a St. Louis hospital.
Gary Tuchman has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For almost half century, Zella Jackson Price has mourned a baby girl who a nurse told her died hours after she gave birth to her.
ZELLA JACKSON PRICE, GAVE BIRTH AT HOSPITAL: Diane was born November 25th, 1965.
TUCHMAN: Diane. The name Zella Jackson game to her daughter, who was born in St. Louis (INAUDIBLE). It closed down in 1979 and it is now the site of a senior apartment complex. Zella says never she received a birth certificate or death certificate, it was like Dianne never existed.
Did an of the nurse or doctors say to you, would you like to see Dianne. She just passed away, but would you like to see her?
PRICE: No, they did not do that.
TUCHMAN: Never said that?
PRICE: Never.
TUCHMAN: Across the country in Eugene, Oregon, a woman born the very same day who had been adopted, always wondering why her birth mother had given her away. Melanie Gilmore lost her hearing from an illness when she was a child, found a piece paper many years ago that said her birth mother's name was Zella Jackson.
Her adopted mother had previously told Melanie her birth mother passed away. Melanie and her daughter tell us what happened after her adoptive mother got very sick in the 1980s.
MELANIE GILMORE, ADOPTED AS INFANT: Before she died she was afraid to tell me that my mom was alive and told her that I forgive you and I love you.
TUCHMAN: And a search would begin. And as Melanie closed in on her 50th birthday this year, her children investigated using facebook and sent this text to Zella Jackson-Price.
PRICE: And I know you do not know me, but my mother was adopted when she was born. She said that her mother's name is Zella Jackson.
TUCHMAN: Zella's daughter did not die. Melanie Gilmore is Dianne, Zella's daughter. A DNA test has now proven it. Melanie's children surprised her by setting them up with a video call so Melanie and Zella could see each other for the first time since the day Melanie was born.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're telling you the truth. We found your mother.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mom, mom, mom, mom.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God, I'm shaking. Oh, my God, mom.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's OK.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We found your mom.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's OK.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's your mom.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mommy.
(CROSSTALK)
TUCHMAN: And then Melanie flew to St. Louis to meet her mother in person.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh!
TUCHMAN: And when you hugged her, tell me the feeling you had?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, baby, it was warm. I didn't want to let her go. You know, and she is so precious.
TUCHMAN: Homer G. Phillips Hospital was St. Louis's only hospital for African-Americans until the mid 1950s, and continued to serve the black community until it closed. It has a proud history. But what happened to this mother and daughter has raised some deeply unsettling questions, questions that are being asked by many other families. This is the mother of Daneen Antoinette Washington.
BRENDA STEWART: As she was born, June the 24th, 1964.
TUCHMAN: The mother of Marreesa Ann Barry says her daughter was born on.
LEATRICE BARRY: June 26th, 1963.
TUCHMAN: Both babies born at Homer G. Phillips Hospital. These two mothers and at least 70 others who gave birth between 1955 and 1972 have now come forward to say they were also told by nurses their children died, but they were not given death certificates and not allowed to see their babies afterwards.
STEWART: They told me my daughter had died after I delivered her, and I really felt that she had not died because I heard her cry and I also seen her move.
BARRY: I heard her cry. And then they -- I looked up and they said here is your baby and they were standing at the foot of the bed with the baby wrapped up, and we have got to take and -- and put her on the machine and they were gone.
TUCHMAN: Did you ever see her again?
BARRY: No. Never.
STEWART: The nurse told me that I was too young to have a baby, that my parents didn't need to have another mouth to feed.
TUCHMAN: An attorney is now investigating, asking the city to release records from the former city owned hospital. The common theory as to what may have happened here?
Why do you think they lied to you at the hospital?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because there were black families that wanted to have children and couldn't have children, so they marketed those children to the families that didn't have them.
DR. MARY TILLMAN, WORKED AT HOMER G. PHILLIPS HOSPITAL: I was associated with Homer Phillips hospital from 1960 through 1979 when it closed.
TUCHMAN: Dr. Mary A.T. Tillman is an accomplished physician, practicing for 51 years. Now retired, she specialized in pediatrics, and says most if not all of the hospital bosses from that time period are now dead. But as a young doctor, she never had any inkling whatsoever of what's being alleged.
If the baby died after child birth, if the mother was still in the hospital, you would tell the mother, you would not leave it to the nurse to tell the mother?
TILLMAN: No. TUCHMAN: That would not be the right thing to do.
TILLMAN: That would not be what I did.
TUCHMAN: And you would offer the mother a chance to hold her baby.
TILLMAN: That's right.
TUCHMAN: You would never say you can't see your baby?
TILLMAN: No. Not at all.
TUCHMAN: The city of St. Louis tells CNN it will give all hospital records it's able to recover to the St. Louis Police Department. Dozens of women who were told their babies died are now dreaming of an outcome like Zella and Melanie's.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm really happy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That is my baby. That is my child.
TUCHMAN: It's your child.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, yes.
TUCHMAN: You became a mother again at the age of 76 years old.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At the age of 76, I got a new baby.
TUCHMAN: That should go in the Guinness Book of World Records.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It should go in the Guinness Book of Records, and I'm registered at Dillard's and Macy's.
TUCHMAN: You're serious.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For a baby shower.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She wears a size 12.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: That is an unbelievable story, Gary. Gary Tuchman joins me now. The mom and daughter, what are their plans now that they are back in each other's lives?
TUCHMAN: Well, the daughter Melanie and her son (ph) recently separated from her husband, which made the following decision much easier. She has made the decision, she spent almost all of her life in Oregon, she's taken one of her two daughters and she is moving to St. Louis to be close to the mother she just discovered, Zella. And when I say close, I mean close, she is moving into Zella's house. She was supposed to be with her mother in 1965. She was born, it took until 2015, but they will soon live in the same house. Zella by the way has five children, so this is her sixth child, so Melanie has five brothers and sisters. She turns 50 the day before Thanksgiving, Anderson, so you can imagine what the festivities will be in that house come Thanksgiving.
COOPER: What a reunion. Gary, thanks so much for that story. Just ahead, Jake Tapper's exclusive interview with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who is back in New Hampshire today. The Iraq war, bridge gate, Christie's presidential campaign plans, they covered it all.
[20:35:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: In the last 24 hours, Florida governor and potential presidential candidate Jeb Bush has taken a pounding over his remarks about the Iraq war. Here is what he hold Fox News' Megyn Kelly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MEGYN KELLY, FOX NEWS: On the subject of Iraq, obviously very controversial, knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion?
JEB BUSH, FORMER FLORIDA GOVERNOR: I would have. And so would have Hillary Clinton, just to remind everybody, and so would have almost everybody that was confronted with the intelligence they got.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Today he walked those comments back, as they say, saying that he misunderstood the question. But he stopped short of flat out saying he would not have authorized the invasion knowing what we now know. Hours later, one of his presumptive opponents, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who was in New Hampshire today, took a jab at Governor Bush when asked about Iraq in an exclusive interview with CNN's Jake Tapper. It was Christie's first public trip since his former aides were indicted for their alleged involvement in what's called bridge gate, a scheme to shut down lanes on a major bridge into New Jersey as payback against a mayor who didn't endorse Mr. Christie's re-election.
Jake joins me now from New Hampshire. So you sat down with the governor today, but Iraq was just one of the things you touched on.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: That is right, Anderson. We talked about bridge gate, we talked about immigration reform. But it was perhaps the question I asked him about a different candidate being asked a different question that elicited the sharpest and most interesting response.
[20:40:00]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) TAPPER: I want to ask you about another one of your possible competitors, Jeb Bush. He was asked the question about knowing then what we know now, about the war in Iraq, would he have made the same decision, Jeb Bush, that his brother made. Let me ask you the question. Knowing then what we know now, no WMD in Iraq, et cetera, was that the right decision to go to war?
CHRISTIE: No. It wasn't. I think President Bush made the best decision he could at the time. Given that his intelligence community was telling him there was WMD and there were other threats right there in Iraq. But I don't think you can honestly say that if we knew then that there was no WMD, that the country should have gone to war. So my answer would be no.
TAPPER: You were essentially cleared by the U.S. attorney on the whole bridge gate thing, but I do want to ask you, because there did seem to be some sense of acceptability of retaliation. Did this cause you at all to think, well, maybe I did set a wrong tone at all?
CHRISTIE: No. Obviously I did spend time thinking about that, Jake, because it is an obvious question. But no, I really don't think so.
I'm accountable for what happened, and I said that before, because I'm the governor and it happened on my watch. But you can't be responsible for the bad acts of some people who wind up in your employ.
TAPPER: There are significant questions about whether or not for instance there should be a path to citizenship. The 12 million or so undocumented immigrants in this country, should they have the ability to become citizens, or would you think it's okay to have a second tier status, what Hillary Clinton called second class status?
CHRISTIE: Listen, let's talk about Secretary Clinton for a second. You know, the pandering that is going on by Secretary Clinton is really the kind of thing that disgusts people about American politics. The fact is that all of a sudden, she has had this epiphany, that she wants to go to the left of President Obama. I didn't know there was room to the left of President Obama on an issue like this, but that's apparently where she's headed. And I'll give a thoughtful, complete answer on immigration if I'm a candidate for president of the United States. But let me say this, what she's doing right now, is typical of the type of pandering that people do when all they're trying to do is tell people what they think they want to hear to get their vote. And then, you know, if they get power, they'll do differently. We need people to start telling the truth about this issue. Let's have an adult conversation about this, Jake, and let's not have politicians like Hillary Clinton running around the country and pandering.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Pretty strong stuff there, Jake. We also, we talked about Iraq in the intro. We saw Governor Christie there taking a stance on the Iraq war. How much of that was aimed at drawing the line between him and Jeb Bush, do you think? TAPPER: Well, if you listen to the full comments that he gave me in
the interview, he said two things that seemed very specifically aimed at Jeb Bush. One of them was you asked me a question, so I'm going to give you a direct answer, because that is what I do. I think we should be looking forward, but here is my answer. And that was I think a way of saying, look, I'm going to give you the answer, I don't know what Jeb Bush was doing when he fumbled around with the question, but here is my actual answer. No, we shouldn't have gone to war in Iraq knowing then what we know now. And the second was, he said I think we need to have a foreign policy that looks to the future, not to the past, also I think a veiled reference to Jeb Bush, and probably also to Hillary Clinton, Anderson.
COOPER: Fascinating interview, Jake Tapper. Jake, thanks for being on. I appreciate it. Up next tonight, art for the record books. This is incredible. The jaw-dropping price tag at auction for this Picasso masterpiece. Guess how much this cost? We'll tell you ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:47:30]
COOPER: A Pablo Picasso masterpiece has smashed the record for the most expensive art work ever sold at auction. The 1955 oil painting "The Women of Algiers" fetched, wait for it, almost $180 million. The auction was in New York last night, and it was not the only record set at the auction.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: It started at $100 million. And after just 11 minutes of bidding, this Picasso became the most expensive painting ever sold at auction.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At Christie's, $160 million, it's yours.
COOPER: The total cost with fees -- almost $180 million to an anonymous buyer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It comes as no surprise that this picture by a genius of 20th century painting, the Mozart if you like of 20th century painting, in my mind, Picasso, should sell for $180 million. It's a wonderful, wonderful work.
COOPER: "The Women of Algiers" was painted by Picasso on Valentine's Day in 1955, in honor of his friend and rival Henri Matisse, and last been sold in 1997 for $39 million.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is a masterpiece for the artist, a benchmark for the artist.
COOPER: Also breaking records, Alberto Giacometti's Pointing Man sculpture, which fetched $141 million, the most ever for a sculpture at auction.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At $126 million, for the Pointing Man. COOPER: But this type of lavish spending on art is nothing new. With
an economy that's rebounded, mega-rich buyers have deemed art a good investment. Last year, Elaine Wynn from the Wynn Casino paid $142 million for this Francis Bacon painting, "Three Studies of Lucian Freud." And in 2012, Edvard Munch's "The Scream" sold for $120 million. Then there are private sales. Earlier this year, this Paul Gauguin painting sold for nearly $300 million. So you might be asking, what does one do with a $180 million painting? Well, for the 1 percent of the 1 percent, it comes with some pretty big bragging rights, at least until the next auction.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Want to dig deeper into what's going on in the art market. Jerry Saltz is a senior art critic for "New York" magazine. He joins me tonight.
So Jerry, $179 million for this painting by Picasso. It looks like a beautiful painting to me, but is that a crazy price?
JERRY SALTZ, NEW YORK MAGAZINE: Oh, it is a crazy price. And it is a beautiful painting. So there is a paradox right there, the first of about 50 that happened in 11 minutes and 37 seconds.
[20:50:00]
That's about 4,800 seconds, that you see beauty, value, trophy paintings all kind of smashing together.
Listen, in 1997 this painting sold to a Saudi collector for $31 million. That collector kept it in private in an apartment in London, and so it is one of the great masterpieces ever of Picasso certainly and has never been on public view. That is the other paradox. All this work they are applauding and happy about, it is disappearing forever.
COOPER: That's one of the things you wrote about. You went to see it, almost reluctantly, given the circumstances, but because this may be the last time anyone can see it until it is sold again, and who knows when or if that will be.
SALTZ: I totally agree. Although I wrote about this -- this brilliant woman who was taking me around, Sara Freedlander (ph), said to me, when I worried about that, she said, don't worry, it will be back again soon. That is what people are doing now.
COOPER: People are flipping these paintings, basically?
SALTZ: Yes. And that is where it gets tricky with this global market, because now that the Picasso price is up and those other 29 records that were set, all the other people that want that work and all the other people that own it are going to now start to converge on the market. In the planet of 6 billion people, you only have to find one person that will go that extra million dollars higher. I think auctions are nasty pieces of work. COOPER: When paintings are this expensive, though, and again, this is
something you've written about, can museums even compete? Because obviously the benefit of the museum buying something is it's open to the public, the public gets to enjoy this, along with, you know, large segments of the population.
SALTZ: Boy, am I on that page with you. That to me is the real No. 1 issue, because museums can't possibly compete with these kind of people. It is not -- not remotely. A million dollars might be a year acquisition budget. You're talking about tens, twenties, now hundreds, 200s will be next, and so a lot of this work. Again, the market is fine. Money is good. Art and money have slept with each other since they met, but museums, anybody watching this, you are probably the odd person out.
COOPER: Jerry Saltz, I enjoy your writing, thank you for being with us.
SALTZ: Thank you. I love the show.
COOPER: Coming up, if that didn't make you smile or maybe get upset or gnash your teeth, something to make you smile at the end of a long night. The Ridiculist is just ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:56:45]
COOPER: Time for the Ridiculist, and tonight we're aiding gray haired posers around the world. Here is what's going on. The European arm of Amazon reports an 80 percent jump in sales of gray and silver hair dye. That's right, according to Amazon, no longer something to hide, gray hair has emerged as the latest beauty trend. And that is a quote.
So who started this style frenzy, you ask? Well, let's be honest, it could only be someone with incredibly lustrous gray hair, someone so dapper, with such global star power, someone whose hair matches perfectly with his chiseled face, someone whose hair screams, yes, it is really me, just take a deep breath and everything will be okay. And I think we all know there is only one person who fits that description. Seriously? George Clooney? Clooney, that's it? All right. Fine. Fine.
Amazon says George Clooney has the dream hair of countless men in Europe. Big deal. Put Clooney and me side by side. We're like twins. I'm sort of much paler, though. Seriously, which one -- I'm like a newt compared to him. Which one was in "Ocean's 11?" I can't tell from that picture. Was that the guy on the left? Perhaps. And just as a quick aside, contrary to popular belief, I haven't always had gray hair. This is a picture from early in my career, back when I was covering Watergate and I was also a roadie for Flock of Seagulls.
No, my hair now is not a wig, it is not a toupee and it's not spray-on hair. I don't even think it's gray. I think it is silver.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I can't believe it. I've seen the commercial, and I just couldn't believe it, and it really looks great. My wife has got herself a new guy now. And I'll tell you, I'm really impressed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: That looks good, actually. Now is probably a good time to mention that you should not consider this segment to be an endorsement of spray-on hair, not in the least. But back to George Clooney and his perfect hair, but it's not only George Clooney. I don't want to brag, but there are other silverfoxes, if I can use that term, other icons of American pop culture who I've been compared to over the years. Movie legend Clint Eastwood, for example. I get mistaken for him all the time, which I'm very happy about. Especially when I'm in my gym clothes, for some reason, bench pressing punks. Look at us. You can't tell the difference, really. Same suave hair. Same wild eyes. Same sort of distracted smile. Neither of us stay in touch with Mitt Romney, by the way. Thank you. Thank you very much.
And then of course there is Dick Van Dyke. That is who I get compared to, also? Listen, I should be so lucky. Look at that hair on Mr. Van Dyke, or if I can, I will call him Dick. If anyone is my spirit animal, it's Dick Van Dyke. Every morning, I start my day with a couple of reruns of "Diagnosis Murder" and a song from "Mary Poppins."
And then we naturally arrive here, my doppelganger, I know one is me and one is Abe Vigoda. Ouch. I should have approved these pictures beforehand. I just cannot tell which. Is it me, or is it Abe Vigoda? It is the hair. It is just too similar. And yes, in answer to your tweets, Abe Vigoda is still alive. I just Googled him. He is 94 years old. God bless him. 94, I should be so lucky.
So that's not (ph) the headline. I digress. Here, this gray hair trend is not going away, and we at CNN are nothing if not up to speed on the trends, believe you me. So I invite you this fall to tune into our remake of "The Golden Girls." That's me in the role of Dorothy. John King is Rose. Wolf Blitzer, of course, is Sofia, and Gary Tuchman playing frankly quite a bit against type as Blanche.
(LAUGHTER)
COOPER: Gary Tuchman is now "Blanched." As of you people burring silver hair dye from Amazon, be sure to rinse thoroughly on the "Ridiculist".
All right. That does it for us. We'll see you again 11:00 P.M. Eastern in another edition of 360. The CNN Special Report: The O.J. Trial Drama of the Century starts now.
