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President Obama Meets With Central American Presidents; National Guard Troops Heading to Border; Many Say Ray Rice Needs Harsher Punishment

Aired July 25, 2014 - 9:30   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: But, it also shows a majority of Americans see these children as refugees rather than illegal immigrants and they are willing to allow them to live in their towns. We have full coverage for you. Michelle Kosinski is at the White House. Rosa Flores is in New York. Michelle, I want to start with you. Talk about this summit. It is closed to the media, but what do you expect?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: We expect to hear from them as they leave the meeting, so we are hoping they'll give us a lot of detail. But what we know is that President Obama really wants to put the pressure on these leaders of these three Central American countries in particular for them to do more within their own countries to try to stop the tide of these immigrants, especially unaccompanied children, at our border.

Now, the U.S. has helped a lot with that and is continuing to help and, as the White House says, is exploring various ideas for working within those countries. Even possibly setting up a process to allow at least some of these children to apply for refugee status. And that application and processing could be done within those countries. We know that is just an idea out there. So we are waiting to see if maybe that takes on a fuller form during these meetings, Carol.

COSTELLO: So, Rosa, what are the Central American presidents expected to ask of Mr. Obama today? I know you sat down with the wife of one of the presidents.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, they are hoping to give a unified message and probably the president of Guatamala said it best in an interview with our friends and colleagues with CNN en Espanol. He mentioned they want to present their short term solution and their long term solution. The short term, they're saying, is they want to let the Obama administration know what their countries are doing right now to deal with the crisis. First of all, they are prosecuting coyotes they say. They are running campaigns discouraging people to leave that country, and also they want to highlight what their first ladies are doing. I spoke with the first lady of Honduras. Here is what she had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

ANA GARCIA CARIAS, FIRST LADY OF HONDURAS (via translator): The instruction from Juan Orlando, our president, is to always find the best interest of our children. The United States has its laws and we understand that according to these laws minors are not deported immediately, but rather a process begins for them to be deported.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

FLORES: And when it comes to the long term solution, what they are hoping to talk to the Obama administration about is a five to ten year plan to tackle the root of the issue they say, and they say that that is violence, Carol. So they are hoping to tackle transnational crime, human smuggling and also drug trafficking.

COSTELLO: How do they plan to battle that? Are they going to ask the United States for money?

FLORES: They have not disclosed exactly what they are going to ask the United States for. I can tell you from being on the ground that some of these countries, and specifically Honduras where I have been at, they are already activating their military. So I was in San Pedro Sula, the murder capital of the world, and the military has already infiltrated certain communities because not even local police could go into some of these streets because of the dangers. So I know that they are mobilizing some of the resources within their countries. We don't know exactly what they are going to ask the United States for.

COSTELLEO: Alright, I want to bring in Ed Lavandera to this conversation because you cover all things Texas. I know that Governor Perry has deployed some National Guard troops along the border. The president is sending the team to kind of study this. What are you hearing about this, Ed?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is a really controversial idea. There are many people, many political leaders and sheriff's deputies along the Southern Texas border who don't necessarily like the idea, but it as an idea that has a great deal of support, especially among Republican leaders here in the state of Texas. Now its interesting, Governor Perry made this announcement earlier this week about sending 1,000 Texas National Guard soldiers down to South Texas to help back up the Border Patrol agents that are overwhelmed with the number of people coming across. But, they are not there yet and it is going to take some time. We are told that the Texas Guard is still in the process of identifying the units and the soldiers that will be deployed. It will be about a month before they get down there.

COSTELL: What sort of powers will they have, Ed?

LAVANDERA: This is the interesting thing. I think what a lot of people worry about down there is that they don't necessarily want these soldiers being the ones that are taking these migrants into custody, but what Governor Perry says he would like to see is the soldiers backing up the Border Patrol, freeing them up so that they can do, basically I think in some people's words baby sitting the kids and the mother and children that are coming across the border. So the Border Patrol agents can go off and do the work that they need to do and that these Guard troops would back them up essentially.

COSTELLO: So Michelle, how likely is it that the president might decide to send National Guard troops there, too? KOSINSKI: We are not really sure as to what this will turn out to be.

However, the fact that they are doing an assessment and the president himself said after meeting with Governor Perry down in Texas that he was open to the idea and says it might be a possibility. Of course, it is controversial as spelled out. But if Congress doesn't approve the amount of spending that the president has asked for to do some of these remedial actions down there, then National Guard might be good way to kind of step up that border security piece that many on both sides see as could use some extra help, Carol.

COSTELLO. Alright, Michelle Kosinski, Rosa Flores, Ed Lavandera many thanks to all of you. In the next hour a Texas Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar joins me to weight in on the border crisis. That will come your way 10:40 eastern time. Still to come in the NEWSROOM, NFL running back Ray Rice gets a whopping, wait for it, two game suspension for knocking his wife unconscious. Unbelievable. And I'm not the only one upset about this. Andy Scholes will join us live with more next.

(COMMERICAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: I don't know about you, but the NFL's decision to suspend Ray Rice for just two games for knocking his fiance unconscious made me angry.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

COSTELLO (voice-over): As sports.mic so aptly puts it, the NFL believes smoking weed is eight times worse than beating a woman unconscious. I'm not the only one upset over Roger Goodell's brand of justice. Even Tiki Barber tweeted "We're handing (ph) on this Ray Rice two game suspension. Roger Goodell needs to explain this, even though it probably won't quell the outrage." With me now CNN sports star, Andy Scholes, CNN legal analyst Sonny Hostin, and CNN entertainment correspondent and former NFL sideline reporter Michelle Turner. Welcome to all of you.

MICHELLE TURNER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Carol.

COSTELLO: Thanks for being here. So, Andy, I want to start with you because the online outrage has been astounding. People are very angry, and that includes lots and lots of men.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: As they should be, Carol. Female audience for the NFL has definitely gained a lot of steam over the last few years. Who are the true loyal fans who are die hard with their teams? It is mainly males and that's why I think the men outrage has been so much because men know what players get suspended for traditionally. Its for an illegal hit, its for smoking pot. Like, you know, Ndamukong Suh. He got suspended 5 games for stomping on a player. And by only suspending Ray Rice for two games, the NFL is basically saying smoking weed or illegal hit on the field is a worse crime than basically an uppercut punch to a woman. Which is just outrageous.

COSTELLO: It like insane. Michelle, when you heard about this what went through your mind?

TURNER: Huh? That is what went through my mind like, seriously, you think about it. Andy is right. If you get popped in the NFL for steroids you get a minimum of four games, you know I think this actually lends to a hypocritical situation for Roger Goodell.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

TURNER (voice-over): He doesn't come out looking good here because remember, too when Ben Roethlisberger was accused of sexual assault, not arrested, not charged, he was suspended for six games. It was then reduced to four games. But on the outset, Roger Goodell wanted to present himself as the man with the iron fist.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

TURNER (on camera): That he ruled the NFL and that he was a disciplinarian. This pales in comparison. But I think, Carol, I think that they were trying to look at the total situation. He married her afterwards, she stood by him, they went into counseling. It was a first offense , but when you are dealing in the legal area, okay, you kind of take that into account. But I think on the NFL side he needed to come down and come down hard on this situation.

COSTELLO: And Sonny, here is what makes me really sad. Janay, who is now Ray Rice's wife, right? At the time she tweeted on the Baltimore Ravens feed she was sorry that she played a part in this incident. That she was sorry. That's disturbing.

SONNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It really is disturbing. I prosecuted domestic violence cases. What is fascinating to me about this is this is the classic domestic violence case. You have a very serious, in legal terms, aggravated assault. We are talking about the fact that he knocked her out cold, knocked her out cold and then there is video evidence of seeing him drag her out almost like a carpet out of the elevator unconscious. A case like that would certainly go to trial. That kind of fact pattern would result in jail time, prison time. So I am really, really not surprised at her reaction because you see that with victims of domestic assault. Quite frankly, Carol, it is almost very difficult to prosecute these cases because these women, a lot of times, stand by their men. They do not want to testify. The two parties have made up. But, I can tell you that those that commit these kinds of acts of domestic violence generally are recidivists. They do it again and again and again.

COSTELLO: You can say this was, might have been a first time offense, but normally in domestic violence cases it isn't a first time offense.

(CROSSTALK)

TURNER: Carol, can I just say too. I'm not discounting anything he did because I thought it was disgusting and made me want to puke looking at that video of him dragging her out like a lifeless dog out of that elevator. I think that she put out that statement because what we learned in this story was that she said she attacked him first and she was fighting him first so she felt like she had a part in it. Now, having said that, he is a thick, big man. Obviously we saw she doesn't have an impact on him if she strikes him, but he definitely has one on her.

COSTELLO: You are absolutely right about that. I would tell you a story but I won't, but you are right about that. Andy, Goodell isn't the only football guy to appear clueless about this because Rice's coach called him a heck of a guy right after this incident occurred.

SCHOLES: We saw the reaction to this when it came out. It was 99 percent outrage and 1 percent of the people out there were on board with the two game suspension. That 1 percent was Roger Goodell's office and the Baltimore Ravens. Ray Rice's teammates were saying that , you know, he is a good guy, this was an out of character incident for him. And his coach, John Harbaugh, he said this was basically a learning experience. This is what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

JOHN HARBAUGH, COACH OF BALTIMORE RAVENS: There are consequences when you make a mistake like that. I stand behind Ray. He is a heck of a guy. He has done everything right since. He makes a mistake, right? He's going to have to pay a consequence. I think that's good for kids to understand that it works that way. That's how it works. That's how it should be.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

SCHOLES: Now, I understand Harbaugh saying what he's saying. You know, its his player. I think he should have prefaced it by saying what he did was outrageous, horrible and should never happen again. And he didn't. He basically just came out and said what he said what he said there.

COSTELLO: You know what I wonder, Sonny? What does Roger Goodell, I don't know if he has daughters in his life. Does Goodell have daughters? Andy, do you know?

SCHOLES: I think he does have one.

COSTELLO: He does. So what is he telling his daughters about domestic violence and what you should do if you are female and some man hits you in the face and knocks you unconscious?

HOSTIN: Yes, well, I mean the message is very clear that domestic violence doesn't seem to be that important to the NFL. And I think that is a very distressful type of message. A two game suspension just is inappropriate. And I also want to mention that the charges weren't dropped here. A lot of people were saying the charges were dropped because he was arrested for this. They were not dropped.

He entered into what's called sort of a pretrial intervention program and part of the program is counseling and that sort of thing. And so, you know, he was arrested and charged with a crime for this. And I think that it speaks volumes that the NFL only gave him a two-game suspension. What does that tell women in our world? What does that say to victims

of domestic violence? What does that say to his wife, to Ray Rice's wife, that she is just not that important.

COSTELLO: Andy Scholes, Sunny Hostin, Nischelle Turner, thanks to all of you.

I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: While violence rages between Israel and Hamas, at least in some places there is peace or at least a wish for peace. In San Antonio last night, people of many different faiths, gathered for a candlelight vigil. Remembering all who have died in the conflict.

And online images like these have taken over. They're part of an online campaign that absolutely exploded on social media. Jews and Arab refusing to be enemies. It was started by Abraham Gutman and Dania Darwish. They both join me now. They're both students at Hunter College in New York.

Welcome.

DANIA DARWISH, CO-CREATOR, #JEWSANDARABSREFUSETOBEENEMIES: Thank you.

ABRAHAM GUTMAN, CO-CREATOR, #JEWSANDARABSREFUSETOBEENEMIESAMID: Thank you for having us.

COSTELLO: Thanks. So Dania, how did this -- how was this idea born?

DARWISH: Both Abraham and I have social media accounts and we would sign into Facebook, Twitter, and we'd find a lot of hate, stereotypes and misinformation about other people's political ideas. So what we wanted to do is we wanted to create a countermovement, a movement of peace in which people can defuse the tension, you know, talk about these issues properly so --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: And the pictures, Abraham, are really powerful. I hope we can put some more up so people can see them. Was it difficult to find people to take part?

GUTMAN: At the beginning, yes, definitely, yes. A lot of people told us that they like our campaign, that they like the page. We got a lot of messages saying thank you for doing this. A lot of people didn't want their face associated with it. And I think every word that comes to the Middle East debate is so loaded, there's so much background, everyone had its own narrative, its own viewpoint. So many people thought that even this could be too much or seem insensitive so some. But as it progress, as more people, we definitely got many, many, many photos which are amazing and heartwarming to see.

COSTELLO: It is -- these images are heartwarming, Dania, but, you know, cynics might say, like myself, in the end, will they really do much?

DARWISH: Well, at the end of the day, we're just students. We're not diplomats, and there is a limited power in the hashtag that we have created, but we need to create dissent that criticized people who support violence, support the continuation of the occupation. It's just important to have that movement even though our hashtag is certainly limited.

COSTELLO: So Abraham, Dania says we're just students. So when you look at the adults trying to handle the situation, what would you like to tell them?

GUTMAN: I think I tell them that in our eyes, the people kind of spoke. I'm, you know, I'm Israeli, I know a lot of people in Israel are going tomorrow at Saturday night to march the streets of Tel Aviv to say no. To say we want a ceasefire. We're done living as part of a conflict, and we got a few responses from various politicians, government officials, diplomats, they're saying kind of like, you know, this initiative is a good thing.

But we want more than that. We have a role as citizens to go to vote every four years and between those years we can trying to affect public opinion. We want our politicians, we want our leaders to hear us and to act. We want this conflict to be a part of our past.

COSTELLO: Well, Abraham Gutman, Dania Darwish, thank you so much for sharing with us this morning. We appreciate it.

GUTMAN: Thank you for having us.

DARWISH: Thank you for having us.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM. People in the Netherlands bracing for another somber arrival today. Another plane carrying the remains of Dutch citizens killed in the downing of Flight 17.

We'll take you live to the Netherlands next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: People in the Netherlands still in mourning. Today they are receiving dozens more of the victims from Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. Still more coffins are expected to arrive tomorrow from Ukraine. This as Dutch and Australian officials send police to secure the crash site.

Nick Paton Walsh is live in Ukraine.

How many more planes are expected to take off?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We saw two today, bringing the total of coffins that have left here for the Netherlands to 188, and we expect 30 to 40 more coffins to depart on one plane early tomorrow. A somber scene, though, at Kharkiv Airport. Both the Dutch and Australian foreign minister flying in to show respect to the departed here, going back to the Netherlands, and to Dutch foreign minister telling me they wouldn't rest until all the remains still left to the crash site because it isn't clear quite how many bodies in total were on the train that left there and now past into those coffins going back to the Netherlands.

They would not rest until the people behind this were behind bars, he said. And his Australian counterpart, Julie Bishop, also told me they hope that monitors, the OSCE, would negotiate with the separatists and allow access to that crash site for those police now coming here. Some of them Australians perhaps even armed. A real sense of determination from the Netherlands and Australia to get answers, to get the wreckage, to get the human remains -- I'm sorry to say it -- that could still be there.

But here in Kharkiv while that part of the operation seems to be coming to an end tomorrow with the last coffins going back to the Netherlands. There's still a real sense of loss and I'm standing in a square where behind me, we're far enough away not to see the faces of those lost, everyone trying to retain some privacy for them. But there are people in their prime candles here left at night. And a real sense of -- just normal Ukrainians walking up to these pictures, walking around them and I think sharing in the grief that many people around the world have for the simple fact that these simple 298 people, many of them holiday makers, were shot out of the sky -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Nick Paton Walsh, reporting live from Ukraine.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

We begin this hour in the Middle East. Overnight violent clashes broke out on the West Bank. One person killed, 200 others wounded as thousands of Palestinian protesters faced off again the Israeli military.

Trying to put a halt to the violence, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Kerry expected to speak out later this afternoon, outlining a plan to halt the bloodshed at least for a little while.