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Christie Takes Oath Amid Scandal; 85 Richest People Equals Poorest 3.5 Billion; The Real "Wolf Of Wall Street" Speaks Out; One Dead, One In Custody After Purdue Shooting; Study: 40 Plus Percent Of Minority Men Arrested By 23; Student: I Was Suspended For Doing Porn Film

Aired January 21, 2014 - 14:30   ET

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

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GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: So help me God.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Congratulations.

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BROOOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Friends in New Jersey. Governor Chris Christie takes the oath for a second term in office. How is this for a question? What are the chances Christie completes the full term? Keep in mind, Chris Christie has huge ambitions. Should he run for the White House and win, he would be inaugurated three years from yesterday. That's best case scenario for Christie. Worst case is he gets drummed out of Trenton in scandal.

Take a look at this year, rotten news for Chris Christie, a poll shortly released after noon today, the question, would Christie make a good president? The 35 percent answered yes. That is down double digits, folks, down 15 percentage points from November when that scandal involving alleged political payback erupted in Christie's backyard.

Let me show you some other numbers. Separate national poll also new finds nearly six in ten Americans, 58 percent there, do not believe Christie, that he didn't know his aides were plotting those traffic jams last summer apparently to punish an enemy. That said, no mention of scandal in the governor's speech today, here are some of the high points.

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CHRISTIE: Suburbanites and city dwellers, African-Americans and Latinos, women and men, doctors and teachers, factory workers and tradesmen, Republicans and Democrats and independents, together they have demanded that we stay the course. They have helped set. Let's be different than our neighbors. Let's put more money in the pockets of our middle class by not taking it out of their pockets in the first place. We have to be willing to personally reach out a helping hand to a neighbor or a friend suffering from drug addiction or depression or the dignity stripping loss of a job. Every person, no matter what challenge they are facing in their lives, must believe that they have inside of them all of the God-given ability needed to be happy. And they will not believe that if all they hear from us is that life is unfair and that only government can fix that unfairness.

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BALDWIN: So that is part of his speech today, but again, these polls reflecting damage from the scandal. They are eye-popping. Here's another one, 50 percent of those questioned by Quinnipiac University say the scandal hurts Christie, and now he loses a head-on match with Hillary Clinton by eight points, whereas before the scandal it was pretty much a dead heat. We will talk much more about this next hour with CNN's Jake Tapper from snowy Trenton, New Jersey.

The gap between the ultra rich and the poor, it is widening. Financial experts say even though the world economy is on the rise, only a select few are reaping those benefits. A new report says that the 85 richest people on earth are actually as wealthy as the sum total of 3.5 billion people. Translation, that's half the world, 3.5 billion.

CNN's business correspondent, Alison Kosik, is live from the New York Stock Exchange, yikes.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and it's worth repeating again, 85 richest Americans, just 85, own about half of the world's wealth, half. That's amazing. This really makes that gap between the haves and have nots that much clearer. You know, some analysts, Brooke, they go so far as to say it could threaten the world's political and economic systems because they say it leads to bigger social tensions.

Kind of already seeing a little of that here in the U.S., you look at the fast-food strikes that have really been heating up across the country. People are clearly upset. There's a recent Gallup poll that shows only about 30 percent of Americans out there are actually satisfied with the way income is distributed, meaning almost three quarters are dissatisfied.

You know one of the big issues here, the biggest issue is that too many people don't have jobs and a big part of the problem is many of the jobs that are out there are low wage jobs so most of the income gains, Brooke, are going to the richest Americans.

BALDWIN: This income gap is something the president has talked a lot about recently in his speeches. But then let me just push back because on the flip side, if you ask Bill and Melinda Gates about global wealth, they paint a different picture. And their Annual Gates Foundation letter, the couple has said that there are half as many poor people in the world as there were back in 1990, and that the idea that the world is getting worse is false. Are they missing something in the report that you and I are seeing? KOSIK: Well, they're kind of saying that and they are kind of sort of hedging, I guess you could say. In this letter, Gates really doesn't deny that there's still a lot of bad news, but he says, look, things are getting better. His letter looks to debunk one big myth, that poor countries are doomed to stay poor. He says, you know what, this isn't true.

He says the percentage of very poor people has actually dropped by almost half since 1990, although here he goes hedging, he says he acknowledges that not all the poor countries are thriving. He also goes on to say that incomes are getting better even though they're not where they should be.

His point is look, if you read the news every day, it's easy to get the impression that the world is getting worse. He doesn't deny that things are still bad, but he does acknowledge that things are improving -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK, Alison, thank you.

One man who knows a lot about the pursuit of wealth is Jordan Belfort, and his life story is now the Oscar-nominated movie, the basis for "The Wolf of Wall Street." And Belfort's real life was every bit as out of control as it looks when played by Leonardo Dicaprio.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is all this legal?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely not. We were making more money than we know what to do with.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We don't work for you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have my money. Technically you do work for me.

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BALDWIN: Jordan Belfort sat down talking exclusively to Piers Morgan. Here is what some of what he had to say.

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JORDAN BELFORT, AUTHOR, "THE WOLF OF WALL STREET": What seems amazing at first becomes common place after a while. You don't lose your soul all at once. You lose it a little bit at a time incrementally. You know, when I lost my ethical way, it's like these tiny imperceptible steps over the line. Before you know it, you're doing things you thought you'd never do and it seems perfectly OK.

PIERS MORGAN, HOST, CNN'S "PIERS MORGAN LIVE": How much time did you spend with Leo Dicaprio?

BELFORT: I spent a lot -- countless hours, you know, hundreds of hours. MORGAN: Hundreds of hours?

BELFORT: Yes, 100-plus hours.

MORGAN: How did you find him when you were just interacting with each other?

BELFORT: Either by telephone, in my house or his hours or out somewhere -- one thing I don't think people realize about Leo is his excellence is not -- he strives for it. He works really, really hard. I think he was so determined to suck every bit of information from me, stuff that wasn't in the book. What was on my mind? You don't realize how much he's looking at you. When I saw it on screen, I was like my God. It was mind boggling to see.

MORGAN: I can tell already, the voice is pretty well perfect.

BELFORT: It's amazing.

MORGAN: You don't look massively dissimilar in your younger days to how he is in the movie. So when you watch the movie, what did you feel about the reality because only you would know really.

BELFORT: You know, it was shocking. I saw the movie with my fiancee the first time. We were speechless afterwards.

MORGAN: In a good or bad way?

BELFORT: In a good way. I guess listen, for me, it's different than the way the audience sees it. The audience is speechless because it's sensory overload. For me, it was trying to -- you know, I've come to terms with my old life. I wrote this book and it was a cathartic experience for me. But to see it on film like that with someone that did such a good job, I felt myself sweating at certain points when some of the cocaine was being snorted. I got sympathetic reactions.

MORGAN: How do you feel about these people --

BELFORT: I think it's awful.

MORGAN: Losing a lot of money. In some cases, having their lives completely turned upside down.

BELFORT: I think it's terrible.

MORGAN: On a human level, have you ever met any of them? Have you ever met one of your victims?

BELFORT: I have not.

MORGAN: Why not?

BELFORT: No one has sought me out.

MORGAN: Why haven't you sought them out?

BELFORT: You know, I don't want to intrude on anybody's life and you know --

MORGAN: Come on, that's a copout.

BELFORT: No, it's not. I don't think it's appropriate to seek them out.

MORGAN: Wouldn't it be part of yourself-redemption to track some of these people down? We know what they're saying about you. If you actually called them up and just said, I actually would like to talk to you, I would like to apologize personally to what happened.

BELFORT: I never really considered it before. But I think a better way for me is over the next 15 years as I go around the world and continue to speak and do my stuff, all the money that flows in, I think actions speak louder than words.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Belfort also told Piers that 95 percent of his business was legitimate, but that the other 5 percent was in his words, destructive, disgusting and poisoned everything else.

And now update on our breaking news out of West Lafayette, Indiana, on the school shooting that has been reported at Purdue University. These are aerial pictures from our affiliates. Here's the news. We have now learned from this news conference that one person is dead. One suspect is in custody. The victim is a male.

According to the university, they have gotten the all clear. They had been told to shelter in place. That Electrical Engineering Building where we now know the shooting took place, that is still a crime scene. Folks there are told to shelter in place. Much more on what's happening there at Purdue University at the top of the next hour.

Coming up, a new study suggests 50 percent of black men in America are arrested before they turn 23. And same goes for 40 percent of white men. We'll discuss what this says about our justice system, about race and growing up as a man in America.

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BALDWIN: A new study finds if a man is black, the chances are nearly 50/50 that he's been arrested. And if he is white, the chances are less likely, but still substantially good that he has been under arrest as well, these findings coming to us today from these researchers at the University of South Carolina and the University of Albany.

They analyze some information from about 9,000 young people surveyed between 1997 to 2008 and this is what they found. They specifically found by the time these men turned 23, 49 percent of blacks, 44 percent of Hispanics, and 38% of whites had been arrested. And this includes any crime, except minor traffic offenses. That was the only caveat.

So let's talk about this, have a broader discussion, CNN's political commentator, Marc Lamont Hill and editor for cnn.com's opinion section, Brian Monroe. Gentlemen, welcome. Nice to see both of you.

From both of you off the top, Marc to you first and then Brian, just reacting to this because the numbers that jumped out at me, you know, is that the percentage of white men, pretty close to that of black men who have been arrested.

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, part of the problem is that we live in a country that is just committed, obsessed even with mass incarceration. We just celebrated MLK day yesterday. When he died, there were about 280,000 people in American prisons. Right now, there are more than 2.5 million.

We have a nation that is obsessed with incarcerating people, one in a 100 American adults incarcerated right now. That's because we arrest too much. We investigate too much. We prosecute too much. Men are often the primary targets for this, but increasingly women because men arouse reasonable suspicion just by being male, because we imagine them to be violent. We imagine them to be threats. For black and brown men, that's especially heightened.

BALDWIN: I want to get back to that issue of men and why men specifically. But Brian, we know that President Obama he talked. There was a very lengthy article written in the "New Yorker" and actually made note of how different races are treated by police. Let me just quote this part, "Middle class kids don't get locked up for smoking pot and poor kids do."

He goes on "And African-American kids and Latino kids are more likely to be poor and less likely to have the resources and the support to avoid unduly harsh penalties." I was wondering, once these young people try getting jobs, Brian, it has to be pretty difficult. I mean, is an arrest ever fully wiped off your record?

BYRON MONROE, CNN DIGITAL OPINION EDITOR: It depends on the jurisdictions, but you can go through and have certain things expunged. But even through that process, there's always a lingering piece of paper somewhere that shows that you were arrested. I'm worried, not just for the overall numbers. But you draw down deeper, you see that one in three African-American boys are arrested before they turn 18, compared to one in five white boys.

Either way, it's bad. Look, I've got a 12-year-old son and now I've got to think about, in addition to teaching him how to tie his tie and how to fill out a resume, I have to teach him what to do in that 50/50 chance that he could be pulled over or arrested walking down the street for maybe nothing, and handcuffs put on him. That is a fundamental scarring impact on a young boy.

BALDWIN: It has to be fundamental, catastrophic, Marc Lamont Hill. You go around and talk to a lot of young people, but the notion, slapping cuffs on a 12, 13, 14-year-old, that has to stay with you forever.

HILL: Absolutely. We often criminalize young people at an early age. We actually prepare them for the very thing that we're worried about. If you go into a school and you see school discipline handled by the teacher or discipline, you'd get a suspension. Now you argue with the teacher and you get carried out in handcuffs and arrested for disorderly conduct.

So at a very early age, you're prepared for that. We criminalize young people at such an early age that it no doubt leads to this stuff. Let's be clear here. It doesn't happen everywhere equally. I thought at Columbia University. I taught at Temple University. If I went to any of those schools at night, do you know how many kids I could arrest for disorderly conduct, public drunkenness?

BALDWIN: I don't want to know.

HILL: Exactly. But we don't look there. We're looking in particular places that's very particular people get arrested.

MONROE: If you look at what it sets up for the exchange between young boys and police officers, which could be -- I wasn't going to say a great relationship, but it could be OK. Now every time a young boy sees a cop, there's an adversarial tension there and it doesn't have to be. I think that too many police officers trying to do their jobs are too quick to arrest, when other things could happen.

I saw a video of a cop in Texas who instead of going out and sort of being a presence, he pulled out a football and started playing catch with the kid. That's the kind of police presence we need at a young age so that kids learn not to fear the cop, but to respect them.

BALDWIN: We heard about that as well, but at the same time, I kind of wondered if that video went viral simply because that is what the police officer was doing as opposed to what so many other police officers have been accused of doing in this country. Marc Lamont Hill and Bryan Monroe, thank you very much.

And 18-year-old high school student says he was kicked out of school for starring in a pornographic movie. The school says that is not the reason they suspended him. We have more on that.

Plus, months and months here after this autistic teenager goes missing, wondering off from school, we now know what happened to Avonte Oquendo. That's coming up.

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BALDWIN: A Florida high school student who says he was suspended from school for his role in a pornography film is now being allowed back to class. He is 18-year-old Robert Marucci. He told CNN affiliate, WKMG, that he turned to porn to help his family pay the bills. He makes absolutely no apologies for what he did.

The Coco High School senior says once other students found out, he became the target of bullies and feels the school simply wanted him gone. By the way, his mother knows what he did and supports him.

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MELISSA LIEB, ROBERT MARUCCI'S MOTHER: I think he's the most awesome person in the world. He was the man of the house when I couldn't be. I don't think that this is anybody's business except for my son's. The children at this school found it and she didn't do anything to stop it except for suspend my son. He was expelled due to his explicit adult lifestyle career.

ROBERT MARUCCI, SUSPENDED FROM SCHOOL: I didn't make any threats to anybody. I believe I handled every situation very maturely. I feel like I've been treated unfairly and this is unjust.

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BALDWIN: But, Bravard County Schools tells CNN that Marucci was sent home last week after school officials received a credible threat that could be a concern to the safety of the school. They deny he was expelled because of his work in the adult entertainment industry.

Sunny Hostin, CNN legal analyst, joining me now. Let's reserve any kind of moral judgment. I'm going to toss that out the window. We're talking legal here. This young man is 18 years of age. His job off school grounds. Mom says it's OK. Is what he did legal?

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, you know, I think what's really interesting about this case is that before, you used to have to misbehave in school to get into trouble, to get expelled. But now with social media, Brooke, and all of the sort of entanglements between what you do at home and what you do in school, when the two meet, sometimes schools can expel you for behavior off campus.

But it has to have a direct impact on the school and the way the school runs, the school's activities. And so that really is the question here. I mean, the school, of course, is now saying this had nothing to do with his adult film making off campus. This had everything to do with some kind of threat.

And to be sure, if a student makes a threat or is doing something illegal, that student can be expelled. But this case just reminds us that there is sort of that line between being off campus and on campus, is now kind of blurry. My understanding is that he was allowed back to the school.

BALDWIN: Yes.

HOSTIN: So I suspect that the school sort of jumped the gun, acted very quickly, and then spoke to a lawyer and the lawyer said wait a minute, is there a school code of conduct, and did he violate that conduct? And if there isn't that school code of conduct that he violated, what are you expelling him for? What kind of off campus behavior are you expelling him for?

It seems like perhaps they didn't really have a good reason and he's now back in school. But it's really something that lawyers have been dealing with quite a bit, because I think in large part because of what we're seeing with bullying and social media and all of that online stuff, kind of interesting.

BALDWIN: Interesting. Sunny Hostin, thank you. Coming up, the woman you see here. She says she was molested as a child by her teacher. She confronts that teacher on the phone, posts this whole conversation online. This is raw, this is emotional. You can feel her frustration and contempt. More of this conversation coming up.

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BALDWIN: From an outlawed star to unsurfable Hawaii waves, let's get straight to it. "CNN Pop."

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BALDWIN (voice-over): Time for some applause from China? The communist country lifting the gag on Lady Gaga, the provocative singer blacklisted three years ago for quote, "damaging the nation's cultural security." Now she's back albeit a censored version.

Saying bye-bye to the extra points, don't let Charlie Brown fool you. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell says kickers rarely miss and blocks almost never happen. So a brand-new NFL scoring system is being considered as Goodell looks at ways to add a little more drama to the game.

Here's a riddle for you. How do you know the waves are big in Hawaii? Answer -- when they're too big for the big wave surfers. Tomorrow, the biggest swell in a decade, waves 40 to 50 feet high, so high the big waves surf contest postponed. Sorry, dudes. Catch it another day. That's today's "CNN Pop."

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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: Breaking news, just about the top of the hour. I'm Brooke Baldwin. We are just learning about this news out of Texas. Three bodies, a man and two children were found in a home at the Fort Hood army base. Investigators are not releasing a lot of information right now, but they do say there is no more threat. We are working to get more information for you, and as soon as we do, we'll bring it to you here on CNN.

Also breaking at this hour, one person, a male has been killed in a shooting at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. These are pictures from the scene just a little while ago. And video specifically there -- look at those people. One of them believed to be the suspect here, appears to be handcuffs, walked away here.

This is what we know. This is the only person in custody. Students at Purdue University, they were sent text messages. They were told to shelter in place. Again, a male has been shot and killed. The shooting apparently happened inside the Electrical Engineering Building on campus. But let's get some more information.

Jean Casarez joins me now, our legal correspondent in New York. Jean, I know police just held this news conference.