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Maya Angelou Remembered; VA Scandal Investigation Continues

Aired May 28, 2014 - 15:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: And we continue on with our breaking news here on CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Let's get right to it.

You have these now new shocking allegations of bullying and sexual harassment and dangerous delay in medical care for our service men and women at a veterans hospital here in the United States. CNN first broke this story wide open. For months and months, we have been investigating these claims that our troops are struggling to get the treatment they need and deserve right here at home.

And today's new inspector general report, this I.G. report may only scratch the surface of what is believed to be a widespread epidemic.

Chief Washington correspondent and host of "THE LEAD," Jake Tapper, is joining me now.

And, Jake, just parsing through -- and I know you have thoroughly -- this I.G. report, there are several headlines. Let's begin with the 1,700 veterans missing from these lists.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: That's right.

The Veterans Administration, Veterans Affairs inspector general put out this interim report to give information as soon as possible. It's not a finished report, but what they have concluded is that 1,700 veterans in the Phoenix VA system requested appointments for primary care physicians, primary care help, and just disappeared.

They were never put on any of the electronic wait lists. Other veterans were. These were not. The report sent out to settle two questions, one, did the facility's electronic wait list purposefully omit the names of veterans waiting for care and if so, at whose direction? And then the second question, were the deaths of any of these veterans, the 40 or so who died while on wait lists, were they -- those deaths related to delays in care?

There is not yet an answer, Brooke, for that second question. The inspector general says that they're looking at medical reports, they're looking at autopsies. They are exploring that, but they don't have the answer to that. But in terms of were there purposeful omissions, yes, 1,700.

And, in fact, one other thing in terms of the falsification of information. The Phoenix VA, according to the inspector general, reported to the national VA that the average wait time for veterans who seek a first appointment with a primary care physician, that the average time was 24 days.

Now it turns out, according to the inspector general's own review, that the average wait time was actually 115 days. So they reported 24 days wait, actually 115, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Awful.

So, in addition to that number, also from this report, we were reporting something like more than two dozen facilities under investigation. That number is now up to 42. And here is my question for you. How did you read this? Just quoting here. I.G. reports note the inspector's office found -- quote -- "numerous allegations daily of mismanagement, inappropriate hiring decisions, sexual harassment, bullying behavior."

Inappropriate hiring decisions? Do we know what that means?

TAPPER: Not right now. We will be talking to the chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee at the top of the hour, at 4:00 on my show, "THE LEAD." And we will delve more into that, but that's all it says.

It just -- the inspector general report notes that there are these other charges, as you say, sexual harassment, bullying, mismanagement. But it doesn't go into any more detail other than to say that they're going to look into those reports.

But we should note, Brooke, that a lot of people were -- a lot of politicians, a lot of public officials had been saying that they wanted to wait until facts came in before they made any announcements about personnel decisions that they thought should change.

BALDWIN: Right.

TAPPER: Today, after the release of this interim report, two Republicans who have until now not said that the VA secretary, former General Eric Shinseki, should step down, they are now calling for him to step down.

Those public officials are Senator John McCain of Arizona and Congressman Jeff Miller of Florida. He is the chairman of the House Foreign -- I'm sorry -- Veterans Affairs Committee, of course. So, this has changed the calculus somewhat, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Definitely. We will be watching the lead on "THE LEAD."

Jake Tapper, thank you.

As he mentioned, he will be talking live to Congressman Jeff Miller, the chair of the VA Committee, about the latest developments here coming up on "THE LEAD" in an hour.

Jake Tapper, much thanks to you. TAPPER: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Moving along, because we hope you saw this right here, the president's big speech at West Point up in New York this morning moving America off war footing and into an era where we are still fighting terror, but in different ways and in different parts of the world.

In the 32 months that remain in his term, the president said he will use force if needed. He will even use troops, but that will not be option number one. Here he was addressing the cadets directly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And I would betray my duty to you, and to the country we love, if I ever sent you into harm's way simply because I saw a problem somewhere in the world that needed to be fixed, or because I was worried about critics who think military intervention is the only way for America to avoid looking weak.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That was the president this morning.

Let me just quote him a few other instances here, just throw them at you quickly.

He said, "American isolation not an option," so said the president. He also said the U.S. still must lead. Another quote, "I believe in American exceptionalism, but what makes America exceptional is not flouting international norms, but rather affirming them."

And one more here. President Obama said, "Just because we have the best hammer" -- he's talking about the U.S. military here -- "Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail.

Let's talk about this with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, one of our hosts of CNN's "CROSSFIRE," and Sally Kohn, CNN political commentator.

So, nice to have both of you on. Welcome.

SALLY KOHN, CNN COMMENTATOR: Nice to see you both.

NEWT GINGRICH, CO-HOST, "CROSSFIRE": Good to be with you.

BALDWIN: All right, Newt Gingrich, you get the first shot at this, because lots of the critics of the president, including many in your party, say that he views America as this global power in decline.

You watched the speech. Do you believe that the speech reflects that belief on the part of the president?

GINGRICH: Well, we're going to be debating this on "CROSSFIRE" tonight.

But I think it's a disappointing speech. The president has a particular philosophy and a particular policy. And I think he could defend it. And I think that he might have a surprising amount of support in the country. The country is tired of being spread around the world. The country is tired of fighting.

But he tries to have it both ways. He says at one point, by virtually every measure, we're stronger than we have been. That's not true. It's just -- it's delusional to suggest that.

This is an administration which told us that al Qaeda has been defeated. It has been defeated so badly that they announced today a $5 billion multinational training program across all of North Africa and the Middle East, because the truth is al Qaeda has not been defeated.

And, again, we need honest talk. We need to have honest disagreements. The president says, if you don't agree with me, you are misinformed or partisan. Well, how do you have an honest dialogue with somebody who won't allow you to raise questions that might make their position hard to defend?

BALDWIN: OK.

Sally?

KOHN: I think you're quoting a previous president there.

But what this president has done is said that the only version of American strength is not military force. And the only people in this country, all of sick of war, especially wars that were misguided in the first place and certainly have gotten off track and have not made our country are the world any safer -- the only people who could have a problem with the speech the president gave today are Republicans who haven't met a war they don't like and who think the only version of American foreign policy strength abroad is military might, plain and simple, end of the story.

And, frankly, that is an unsustainable, immoral, unjust, and just wrong version of American power in the world.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Sounds like these are two perspectives. Hold on. Forgive me.

But let me just jump in, Newt, because I want to move on, because, listen, we can debate the initial interpretations. And we will be watching "CROSSFIRE."

But I want to get to this because the president talked about the awesome responsibility of leading a nation into war and never taking it lightly. Here he was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) OBAMA: Since World War II, some of our most costly mistakes came not from our restraint, but from our willingness to rush into military adventures -- without thinking through the consequences; without building international support and legitimacy for our action; without leveling with the American people about the sacrifice required.

Tough talk often draws headlines, but war rarely conforms to slogans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Newt, to you. I know I hear you say -- you used the adjective disappointing. But could Barack Obama not argue that a la Teddy Roosevelt, he is speaking softly, but carrying a big stick?

GINGRICH: Well, first of all, what he just said is factually almost impossible to defend, as is did -- is he repudiating Harry Truman, who decided, with the United Nations support, to defend South Korea?

Is he repudiating John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, who decided with a wide number of allies to try to stop communism in Vietnam? Is he repudiating what George H.W. Bush did with 58 different countries allied with us in kicking Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait?

Even in the place he dislikes most, Iraq, George W. Bush had a whole range of countries who were there as our allies. So, I don't understand this mythical view that Obama and others on the left have that these were adventures. These were serious problems dealt with in a serious way, sometimes at great human sacrifice.

And -- but his statements historically are nonsense. I don't think he is talking soft and carrying a big stick. He is weakening the Army, weakening the Air Force, weakening the Navy, weakening the Marine Corps. None of those things strike me as developing a bigger stick.

We will have the smallest Army since Pearl Harbor if we do what he wants. We have a Navy that is shrinking. We have an Air Force that is about to literally take an entire class of airplanes and put them out of service because we can't afford them. This is a president who wants a relatively weak America to be relatively uninvolved in any kind of military action, except as advisers.

BALDWIN: Go ahead, Sally,

KOHN: You see, what's problematic with that, Newt, is that, first of all, the notion that the president wants America to be weak, I heard you. In the first, you said that you accused the president of not wanting anyone to disagree with him.

Well, that would seem to me not allowing any vision of foreign policy other than your own. The president is articulating a very powerful and persuasive foreign policy argument for this moment in history, where a bigger military does not mean a better military, where a stronger America does not mean an America on constant war footing. Those things need not be coupled together, as Republicans have constantly argued that they should be.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Let me jump in quickly.

I talked to our national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto. He's in London. He was just in Ukraine. And I was asking him, because we heard the president talking today about leadership, but we also heard him talking about partnership around the world. And, frankly, Jim Sciutto said to me, listen, our allies are confused.

KOHN: You know, look, it is a complicated world, and this notion that, what, the president is responsible for -- and this is sort of the narrative that the Republicans would like to paint.

We have what is going on in Ukraine. We have what is going on in Africa. We have all of these places unraveling. And somehow this is the responsibility -- Syria, Iran is the responsibility of this mythical notion of American weakness?

At the same time, mind you, there are but a few Republicans who would legitimately, actually say,yes, let's go to war. They just want to rattle the saber. They just want to do whatever they can to criticize President Obama for saying whatever they're not saying. This is yet another attempt to criticize him sort of in rhetorical terms, without actually having any substantive disagreement with anything he's done, which has gotten results.

BALDWIN: OK.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Sally Kohn, Newt Gingrich, we have to let it go, because we know we want people to watch at 6:30 tonight, because this -- based upon this conversation, this is must-see TV with Stephanie Cutter to talk today of course on "CROSSFIRE," 6:30 Eastern on CNN.

Both of you, thank you very much.

KOHN: Nice to see you.

BALDWIN: Coming up, the killer who went on that rampage in California had a hatred, this vitriol towards women, and even viewed them as objects. A graduate student at UCSB is working to stop the sexual bullying of women with a special project -- what she has to say to help prevent future tragedies and how this all really pertains to us and our own personal responsibilities in everyday life.

Plus, she influenced everyone from President Obama to Oprah Winfrey to even Mike Tyson and was a personal hero of mine. Maya Angelou died this morning. And coming up next, we will talk with one of her friends who has known her for decades.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back, I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Want to talk now about the loss truly of a national treasure. Maya Angelou came from a childhood of hell while possessing a talent many would call a gift from God. Poet, activist, mother, Angelou died this morning before 8:00 at her home in North Carolina.

She had been suffering from heart problems and she was 86 years old. Abandoned as a child, Angelou grew up to have a life as varied as it was successful, streetcar conductor, dancer, Tony-nominated actress, bestselling author, film director, Grammy-winning voice artist, professor.

Even President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011, the nation's highest civilian honor. There she was. And right after his election as the first African-American president, Angelou, a child of the Jim Crow South, was jubilant. She spoke on CNN's "LARRY KING LIVE."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LARRY KING, FORMER HOST, "LARRY KING LIVE": What do the words mean to you, president-elect Obama?

MAYA ANGELOU, POET: I'm overwhelmed. I'm thrilled in the classic sense of that word. My whole body is moved like that. It's just amazing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Angelou was then asked to recite a poem to recognize the milestone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANGELOU: I do have "And Still I Rise." This is for all Americans. We don't have to apologize to try to defend ourselves when Europeans say, oh, what a shame you black people, oh, what a shame; you're so under-classed and so bad and people hate you so in your country.

Listen, "you may write me down in history with your bitter twisted lies. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I will rise." This is what we do. Americans, we rise.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Joining me now, Maya Angelou's longtime friend. She is Sonia Sanchez, who herself if a poet and has earned both the Robert Frost Medal for distinguished lifetime service to American poetry and the Langston Hughes poetry award.

Ms. Sanchez, it's an honor having you on.

SONIA SANCHEZ,POET: It's an honor being here, my dear sister.

BALDWIN: You go back with Maya Angelou to the '60s. Can you set the scene for me? How did you meet her?

I met sister Maya at many demonstrations. I met sister Maya at many readings when we were doing readings in New York City, where I lived and where she had come home to live also. I remember vividly seeing her with sister Louis Merryweather (ph), the two women very tall women who were jumping the barricades around the U.N. in protest.

If you had seen that, you would have been amazed, especially when you saw sister Maya also in all of her regal wonder sometimes any place, in her home, at her many parties, in her house, in New York City, on television, but there they were pounding.

And I knew her from that particular time, but I knew her also, as I said, at the many readings that we did. I knew her as friend. I knew her as teacher. I knew her as sister, friend. I knew her always as colleague. And I knew her also sometimes as the person who would correct me.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Would she?

SANCHEZ: And if she thought I was saying something that was not right.

BALDWIN: Well, if she is someone who jumps across a barrier --

SANCHEZ: And you --

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: -- it, also.

Say that again?

BALDWIN: No, I said just someone with I guess the moxie to hop across a barrier at the United Nations. Perhaps I'm not surprised that she would do that.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: Oh, yes, she would correct you.

BALDWIN: Yes.

SANCHEZ: Oh, she would correct you and said, you should really rethink that, Sonia, you know? And I would go home and rethink it, too.

This morning, when I got the call early this morning, that she had made a transition, I sat up in my bed and I said --

(SINGING)

SANCHEZ: Which means, how are you? How are you, sister Maya? And she replied --

(SINGING)

(singing): I am well, I am well, I am well. And then I could get up and begin the day and congressman down to the studio and begin a full day of interviews.

BALDWIN: We appreciate you giving us the time. But it's not just -- you were a friend for many years. She touched the lives of so many people who never had the honor of meeting her, including this iReporter, this young woman, a college student. And let me just play this. This is a student on what Maya Angelou meant for her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I remember the first time I picked up her book and I opened it and I read it, and I was shocked and amazed to see this woman whose life was so similar to mine, and she was just this -- this powerful force.

So, thank you, Maya Angelou, for making a -- a positive impact on my life, for teaching me to love myself, to never be silenced about things that are wrong that you see going on in the world, and just for having the courage to be you. I hope you rest in peace.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Here she was, this young woman with tears in her eyes.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: You know why? You know why you could listen to that?

Because this sister, sister Maya, she -- you know, I ask people how to tell you about a woman who carried the signature of black women and all women in her veins. That's what she did.

You could -- as she walked towards you, she carried the signature of women, of black women, of women in her veins, you know? She walked towards her intellect, kissing our eyes, my dear sister, because she was not just writing words.

You also had to deal with her intellect and her intelligence and her beauty, right? And she also searched within herself to document our bones. But before she began to document our bones, she documented her own bones. Oh, this is a woman called Maya, Maya, Maya, Maya Angelou.

BALDWIN: I could keep listening to you for the rest of the afternoon.

Sonia Sanchez, thank you. Thank you for your time.

SANCHEZ: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Wow.

Maya Angelou, how about that?

Coming up next now, we turn to tragedy, learning from tragedy. A UCSB graduate student wants to use what happened over the weekend near her school to educate people about the sexual bullying toward women and our responsibility here as society. She started a group, has specific solutions. We will talk to her live next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: In Elliot Rodger's deranged autobiography describing his life, the word girls appears 295 times, and never in a positive sense.

The 22-year-old who killed six young people in Isla Vista desperately wanted a woman to have sex with him. He also had a pathological hatred toward women and a twisted view of them as little more than objects. Thankfully, Rodger's sick views on women are rare, but the fact that women are objectified and can face brutal treatment from men on a daily basis, that is reality.

Emily Lindin is a graduate student at UCSB and the founder of the UnSlut Project, a group working to help stop the sexual bullying of women.

Emily, thanks for coming on.

EMILY LINDIN, FOUNDER, THE UNSLUT PROJECT: Hi, Brooke. Thank you for having me.

BALDWIN: Let's talk about sex, because in your op-ed, you point out that Rodger thought that -- quoting you -- "It is a reward to be earned, not a consensual activity between adults, and that women are prizes" and that, you know, there is this entire online community, this forum that buys into this.

LINDIN: I think it's really important to note that lots of conversations are emerging about gun control and mental health with relation to Elliot Rodger and his crime.

But misogyny is something that is so pervasive and persists in our society that people mistakenly think has been solved. And so even people who are not a part of the online community that Rodger participated in, even men who think of themselves as pro-equality, even feminist, still often harbor a lot of these assumptions about what sex is and what women are.

BALDWIN: And while we need to have those conversations, I think especially when it comes to mental illness, you point out that -- you point out that you that we all need to take responsibility here. How do you mean?

LINDIN: I mean that we all shape our culture.

It's easy to kind of shift the blame onto just Elliot Rodger and psychopaths who take out this type of violence and act upon their resentment and hatred toward women and others.

It is also easy to blame people who are openly and obviously misogynist and participate in these online communities.