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Family of Man Killed By Police in Colorado Springs Call for Independent Probe; Dale Earnhardt Jr. Survives Fiery Plane Crash; President Trump Set to Meet with National Security Advisors to Review U.S.-Taliban Peace Plan in Afghanistan. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired August 16, 2019 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:13] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: All right, good morning, everyone. It is the top of the hour this Friday morning. I'm Poppy Harlow in New York. Jim Sciutto is off and we do begin with breaking news.

A major scare right here in New York City this morning as suspicious packages, multiple suspicious packages had been found in two different locations in Manhattan. Sources say police have evacuated a very busy transit station after two rice cookers were discovered inside the Fulton Street subway complex. By the way, that is huge. That is in Lower Manhattan. It is right near the tip of Manhattan. It has just been renovated. It is massive. Thousands and thousands of commuters go through there every morning to get to work.

The third device was discovered near a garbage can. A bomb squad has since deemed at least two of those three devices safe, meaning they're not armed with explosives.

Our Polo Sandoval joins us now. Also with me is CNN law enforcement analyst James Gagliano.

So, Polo, you're downtown, you're near Fulton Street where these two devices were found. The other one I believe is at 17th Street and 6th Avenue, that's just about 20 blocks north of where you are.

OK, I can't hear you, Polo. I'm sorry about that. We'll fix it.

James Gagliano, you're with us. What are your thoughts?

JAMES GAGLIANO, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, my immediate thoughts are thank goodness that (INAUDIBLE) so when police arrived on the scene they arrived in a (INAUDIBLE). Pressure cooker devices have a history (INAUDIBLE).

HARLOW: James, I'm so sorry, I'm having a hard time hearing you, too. Let's fix that. Let me get back to Polo.

Polo, you're at Fulton Street in Lower Manhattan. Two devices found there. What can you tell us?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Poppy. Let's try this again. Off in the distance you might be able to see what is actually the subway stop. It was evacuated earlier this morning. It was at about 7:30 East Coast time when investigators got that call about two suspicious items in the subway complex itself. Upon a closer look they were able to determine that they were not pressure cookers as they were initially told, but they were in fact rice cookers.

Bomb squad taking a look at that in just a few moments, determining that they were not explosives. So now the main focus may perhaps shift just north of where we are in the Chelsea neighborhood where a third rice cooker that's very similar to the photograph that was tweeted by New York City police officials early this morning is now being investigated. Again, that is north of where we are.

Here, though, in downtown New York, that's certainly causing quite a scare this morning before those devices were determined not to be explosive. There were various trains that had to be evacuated. I was speaking to some construction crews that had to be -- asked to be evacuated off their scaffolding not long after we arrived here. So really this gives you a sense of what it was like for a Friday morning.

It was extremely busy for authorities as they were investigating these two devices. And now it seems that some of the employees that work just beyond the police signs are actually being allowed in. So it could be a matter of time before this scene is clear but as we mentioned at the top, Poppy, the focus now turns to that third rice cooker that was located I'm told at 16th Street and 7th Avenue.

HARLOW: OK.

SANDOVAL: Near a garbage can investigated by police there.

Poppy, back to you.

HARLOW: OK. All right, Polo, great reporting. Before you go, I mean, I used to live right down by there, that is one of the busiest transit hubs in all of New York City. Can you just give me a sense of how New Yorkers are feeling this morning, what are they saying as they were evacuated?

SANDOVAL: They're frustrated more than anything. Having spoken to many of them, Poppy, really was -- there was really no sense of chaos, there was no sense of panic. But it was really just people were trying to get to work. It certainly does speak to many of the people down here that they were more focused about getting to work early this morning and speaking to police officials to try to get there in the morning. And so I think that's what we're seeing right now.

Just off-camera here, I'm seeing dozens of people who are still watching and waiting for hopefully these police lines to be taken down so they can get to work this morning.

HARLOW: OK, Polo, thank you very much. We appreciate you being there.

We're going to get back to James Gagliano for some analyst in just a little bit when we get that technical glitch fixed. But let me move on now to other news.

Israel this morning says that the Michigan congresswoman who they first blocked from coming to Israel, Rashida Tlaib, can go, she can travel to the West Bank but only for a family visit to visit her 90- year-old grandmother. She asked for that permission on humanitarian grounds in this letter overnight and she promised not to talk about boycotting Israel during that visit.

[09:05:00] Now her request came after Israel yesterday you'll remember denied permission for her and her fellow Congresswoman Ilhan Omar from Minnesota to make this trip. In just a few days President Trump pressured Israeli leaders to keep the two congresswomen out, tweeting yesterday morning it would show, quote, "great weakness," if they were allowed to visit.

My colleague Oren Liebermann is back with me this morning live from Jerusalem.

And, Oren, yesterday we talked about the politics of all of this. Netanyahu up for election in a month here and the 2010 law that allows Israel to bar them from coming in.

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I believe that law was actually passed somewhat more recently, although it had come up in a few controversial iterations that hadn't gotten through. Regardless, now that Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has been granted permission under humanitarian reasons to come visit her family in her central West Bank village, it seems like she will not be coming after all, based on a statement she just made on Twitter. So that is the latest twist to the story.

And I'll read you these two tweets about 30 minutes ago, she said, "What I wanted gave the Palestinian people hope, that someone will finally speak the truth about the inhumane conditions. I can't allow the state of Israel to take away that life by humiliating me and use my love for my sity," her grandmother, "to bow down to their oppressive and racist policies, Silencing me and treating me like a criminal is not what she," her grandmother, "wants from me. It would kill a piece of me. I have decided that visiting my grandmother under these oppressive conditions stands against everything I believe in. Fighting against racism, oppression and injustice."

So after being allowed in for humanitarian reasons it seems like Congresswomen Tlaib has decided not to come she says given the restrictions that Israel placed against her and on this visit. Her family in the West Bank whom we spoke with a short time ago including her uncle urged her not to come unless it was as a fully welcomed respected U.S. congresswoman.

Here's what he had to say to us earlier.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GHASSAN TLAIB, REPRESENTATIVE TLAIB'S UNCLE (through translator): We are against the conditional visit of Rashida to Palestine. Rashida has the right to visit Palestine as a Palestinian, regardless of being a congresswoman, as any citizen with a U.S. passport has the right to come and visit their family without any conditions or pressure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIEBERMANN: So now it's a question of where does this story go from here. It seems Tlaib may have a final decision, she will not be coming but we will certainly still be monitoring how this goes. We also have not seen yet a reaction from President Donald Trump on Israel's decision to allow her to visit even if it is just under humanitarian condition. It seems it was that tweet that left Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu very little wiggle room here. He has never publicly gone against Trump and he wasn't about to start doing it now, but again another turn here with this announcement just moments ago that Tlaib will not be coming after being granted permission earlier today.

HARLOW: OK. Oren, I appreciate all that reporting from Jerusalem.

Let's talk about this more broadly, CNN political commentator David Swerdlick joins me now, along with our political analyst Seung Ming Kim.

Good morning to you both. And Seung, let me begin with you. I mean, look, you even have the pro-Israel group AIPAC, which frequently sides with the Trump administration on this stuff, opposing the president's support for Israel barring Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib from going.

What should we draw from that?

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, let's look -- step back a little bit and we know that the president and the Republican Party writ large has been trying to prop up Congresswoman Omar and Congresswoman Tlaib and some of the other liberal Democratic freshmen for some time as part of the Squad. And we saw that most vividly when the president said last month or tweeted last month in a very clearly racist comment that these two women -- these two congresswomen and others should go back to their home country even though they are U.S. citizens.

And now the president has also and the Republican Party has been trying to stir these divisions and kind of highlight these divisions within the Democratic Party when it comes to Israel for a very long time and we've seen a lot of these contentious fights particularly within the House Democratic caucus about what Congresswoman Omar and Congresswoman Tlaib have said on the issue.

But what's interesting here, and then you kind of hit it with the AIPAC point, is that by the president going as far as he is and advocating and supporting Israel blocking these two congresswomen from entering the country it is again unifying the Democratic Party on this issue. And what we're being told is that what the president is doing here is that they are giving the Democratic Party a pretty solid ground to stand and say, you know, lawmakers should not be blocked from the United States just based solely on free speech.

And you're hearing that consternation too from Republican lawmakers and Marco Rubio has been out there tweeting and saying --

HARLOW: So let's -- let's read that.

KIM: And saying that's wrong. Yes.

HARLOW: Yes. Let's read that from Marco Rubio because I think the whole context of it, David, especially given how outspoken he's been on the anti-BDS movement, the op-eds he's written over the past six months. Here's what Marco Rubio writes. "I disagree 100 percent with Representatives Tlaib and Omar in Israel and I'm the author of the anti-BDS bill that we passed in the Senate but denying them entry to Israel is a mistake. Being blocked is what they really hoped for all along in order to bolster their attacks against the Jewish state."

Is he right? Does he make an important point that the president should consider here?

DAVID SWERDLICK, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. I think the Senator Rubio is right there, Poppy, and I think that this issue in the last 24 hours has put the Israeli government and President Trump on one side of the issue at least for the present tense, and members of Congress in both parties as well as you and Seung Min said, members of Jewish-American organizations across the political spectrum from J Street to AIPAC on the other side of the issue at least for the moment because people are looking at this and saying as Senator Rubio did that even though he disagrees with Congresswoman Tlaib and Congresswoman Omar on the BDS movement, he disagrees with them on how to move forward with the Israel-Palestinian peace process, clearly there are major divisions, he does not agree that two sitting members of the U.S. Congress, a co-equal branch of government, should be denied the right to take a fully accredited trip, not just on humanitarian grounds, to Israel, particularly when you look at the fact that these are high profile members of Congress and they are -- you know, they're not, you know, bureaucrats or private citizens. They are elected officials here for our government.

HARLOW: But clearly, David, the administration, the president has made a political calculation in this and has thought, does this help me, does this help my base, et cetera. Is there something that you believe he's missing there on that front?

SWERDLICK: Well, President Trump specifically and Republicans in general have made an issue about hugging tight to the policies of the Israeli government under Prime Minister Netanyahu, and I think that has actually been marginally successful for them in general terms. In this case, though, it strikes me that it might be -- have a slight surprise to both the White House and maybe to some in the Israeli government that there was such a swift unanimity of response again here from Democrats and Republicans and from the range of Jewish American organizations.

Again, just in the last hour John had on former Senator Leiberman who is considered one of the staunchest supporters of Israel saying, no, look.

HARLOW: Yes. SWERDLICK: If you want to be a strong U.S.-Israel partnership, if

Israel wants to look strong and Democratic in this case, you don't tell members of Congress they can't come, you invite them in and try and work on the issue from there. And I think that's where we are, although this is obviously changing rather quickly.

HARLOW: Yes.

SWERDLICK: The fact that Congresswoman Tlaib said now that she won't accept the humanitarian visa suggest to me that she's going to proceed on the basis of a member of Congress and a Palestinian American leader, rather than as a private citizen with a grandmother over there.

HARLOW: Yes, that was an interesting reversal because she had sent a note last night asking for the --

SWERDLICK: Right.

HARLOW: The admission on those grounds saying I won't talk about these things and now this morning she sees it differently.

Thank you both. I'm sorry, tight on time because of that breaking news. David Swerdlick, Seung Min Kim, have a nice weekend.

SWERDLICK: Thanks, Poppy.

HARLOW: This news, the family of a 19-year-old man killed by police in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is demanding an independent investigation this morning into his death. Newly released body cam video shows De'Von Bailey being shot in the back, there he is, as he ran away from police. The officers were responding to a report of an armed robbery.

Before we play this video, I just want to warn you it's very hard to watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So we got a report of two people of similar descriptions possibly having a gun, all right? So don't reach for your waist. We're going to just check and make sure that you don't have a weapon, all right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hands up, hands up. Get your hands up. Get your hands up. Get your hands up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: You can also hear officers calling for a medical kit in this video if you watch a little more of it. You hear that? And you hear him moaning as well. The officers did find a gun on his him.

Scott McLean is in Denver. Scott, what is the family saying this morning? SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Poppy. De'Von Bailey's family

is focused on burying him today. His funeral is set for today. His father Greg, though, doesn't want to make this into a race issue. He sees this as a larger issue with the justice system and how something like this could happen. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREG BAILEY, FATHER OF DE'VON BAILEY: I have a lot of questions like, how is it justifiable to shoot a man in his back that is causing no threat? What is the protocol? Shooting someone is not a protocol.

DELISHA SEARCY, MOTHER OF DE'VON BAILEY: I would say how could you? How could you just shoot him like an animal in the street? How could you? How dare you take my son away from me? You didn't even give him an opportunity. You deprived him of justice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Now, initially, the local sheriff's office which investigated this described it as pretty cut and dry, a suspect reached for his gun, he was shot by police, simple. It was not so simple, though, when a local newspaper uncovered surveillance footage that showed DeVon Bailey running away from police before he fell to the ground.

And the body camera adds clarity, it does not end the controversy, though. Police had initially gotten a 911 call about an armed robbery of two suspects. When they got there, they found their two suspects as you see there on the video. I want to show the slow motion video though again, it is disturbing, though.

Just before police go to search Bailey or just as they're going to search him, he takes off. There's only three seconds between when he takes off and when those first shots are fired. But in that time, police yell, hands up, three separate times. Now, police when they release the video, went to great lengths to illustrate the fact that Bailey's hands were not up, they weren't even at his side where you might expect them to be if someone is running as fast as they can, they were down by his waistband.

His lawyers, Bailey's lawyers say, look, he was just trying to keep his shorts up, police obviously believe something different. One more thing, the question here is, can police shoot somebody just to prevent them from getting away? The Supreme Court ruled no, they can't. But they can though if there's an imminent threat to police or someone else.

That's the question that's going to have to be answered here by the district attorney's office that says it'll take the next three or four months to decide whether charges are warranted --

HARLOW: Yes --

MCLEAN: Or whether this was justified, Poppy. HARLOW: That's a really important question to answer, thank you very

much, Scott McLean this morning for us. Still to come, we are minutes away from the opening bell in what has been a very rocky week on Wall Street. Will news out of China this morning boost markets? You see futures higher there, Dow up 202 points before the open, we'll see what happens.

And NASCAR star Dale Earnhardt Junior and his family survive that fiery plane crash. We'll take you live there to Tennessee with the latest. Plus, this weekend marks the 50th anniversary of Woodstock, legendary musician and activist Carlos Santana performed at that very festival. Look at those images, he'll join me live in studio, don't miss that ahead.

[09:20:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: All right, welcome back. President Trump is expected to meet today with top national security advisors at his Bedminster Resort to review a U.S.-Taliban peace plan in Afghanistan. The plan is expected to formalize a significant withdrawal of U.S. forces, taking that number down from about 15,000 troops to 8,000 or 9,000.

In return, the Taliban would commit to counter-terrorism efforts in Afghanistan. Critics argue that if agreed to, it would be a betrayal to the Afghan government mainly due to the Taliban's refusal to agree not to fire on the Afghan people or the Afghan military. With me now to talk about that and a lot more this morning is Congressman Mike Quigley of Illinois.

He of course sits on the Intelligence and Appropriations Committee, and we're going to get to a lot this morning, Congressman. But let me just begin with that and the fundamental question of after so many years, 17 years, is it the right move by the Trump administration to draw down significantly in Afghanistan and agree to this peace agreement with the Taliban? Is that something you would do?

REP. MIKE QUIGLEY (D-IL): I think the American public is long tired of the extraordinary length of the war in Afghanistan and the American involvement in this. The question will be how sound is this agreement? How effective is it? How easily enforceable will it be after the fact and the final analysis? Americans want us out of there, and it can't go on forever.

HARLOW: Let's turn the page to Israel and what is happening now with Israel blocking the entrance of Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib to Israel. They then granted Congresswoman Tlaib of Michigan the right to go on a humanitarian visit to visit her grandmother in the West Bank, but not to speak about the sanctions, et cetera, BDS.

We heard the president right ahead of Israel making this announcement yesterday, say it would show great weakness if Israel were to allow them in. And he has in many ways tried to make them and their peers in the squad, if you will, the face of the Democratic Party. What do you make of Israel's move and the president getting involved in this way? QUIGLEY: I think the great weakness is for two of the world's great

democracies to be involved in such activities. When I first got to Congress, Republican leader Eric Cantor and Democratic leader Steny Hoyer were echoing through their caucuses that when Israel becomes a partisan issue in Congress, Israel loses.

This is an incredibly important relationship, and I support -- I support Israel. But this is really in effect maybe a short-term benefit to Mr. Netanyahu and Israel. But clearly, a long-term negative impact to both countries. It reflects poorly upon both of us and the rest of the world. It's unnecessary and we get back I believe most members of Congress will be talking about it in a negative way.

HARLOW: So, it is -- it is something Israel is legally allowed to do, right? I mean, there was a law passed in March of 2017, allows anyone who expresses support for the BDS movement not to be in, not to be allowed to enter Israel. So, that is their right. But I wonder if you agree with Republican Senator Marco Rubio who writes being blocked is, quote, "what they really hoped for all along in order to bolster their attacks against the Jewish state." Do you believe that, that was the hope of your Democratic peers in the house?

[09:25:00] QUIGLEY: I have no idea what my peers might have been expecting about this. The fact that they were planning on going, I take them at their word. And I think it's a cynical, you know, view of what their plans were to go to Israel. The bottom line is, when I travel to Israel several times, I was welcome to discuss Israeli policies and U.S. policies openly --

HARLOW: Yes --

QUIGLEY: Once and all, and I think both countries agree that's the right thing to do. I'd like to know what Mr. Rubio thought if a member of the Knesset, one of them comes to the United States and their president or Mr. Netanyahu called President Trump and said, we don't want them to come to the United States and we ban them, what they would think.

It's just a horrible idea for any democracy to limit debate and dissent. You know, I probably would disagree and vote on the other side of my two colleagues, but that's part of what this country is all about.

HARLOW: Well, you remember when Mr. Netanyahu came to this country not that long ago, right, in the Obama administration and addressed that joint session of Congress. So, the question becomes what now? And we will see, but I know I have limited time with you, and I would like to ask you about guns because the "Chicago Tribune's" latest numbers in Chicago which you represent show that 309 people have been killed by homicide in Chicago, most of that gun violence.

There have been a lot of promises made that when you guys come back from recess, something is going to change. Mitch McConnell says it'll be front and center, background checks, red flag laws. Should Americans hold their breath? Is something different now? QUIGLEY: You know, after Sandy Hook, my cynicism went to its limit,

after the massacre of extraordinary innocence there, and nothing was done. It's depressing to say the least. If Mitch McConnell was serious, he would have done something by now. I'd like to think that we'll -- they'll take up the measures of the house already passed dealing with background checks.

But let's look at it this way, bottom line is when you have a gun that's designed for a theater of war, and it has a hundred round magazine, you're not protecting your home, you're not hunting deer, you're hunting people. It's that common sense look, that gun control legislation that ought to be front and center.

HARLOW: But you're saying, you don't think it will, you think nothing will be different?

QUIGLEY: It's hard to imagine, we've been talking about this since Columbine, the opportunities were there, I'm going to be there. If Mr. McConnell is serious at all, we'll be there to move forward. It's just hard to imagine him doing anything when there's been inactivity and cynicism to say the least, disaster after disaster.

And as you just mentioned, in my own city, we have mass shootings virtually every weekend, five, six, up to 700 people have died a year in these shootings. And we have strong legislation here in the state of Chicago, but obviously, our residents can go across the street to a gun shop in the suburbs --

HARLOW: Yes --

QUIGLEY: Or most commonly in Northwest, Indiana and buy assault weapons. After Orlando, I went to a gun show in Indiana, and that weekend after, they were raffling off an assault weapon for a dollar. Obviously, things have to change.

HARLOW: Look, I've spent a lot of time in Chicago, I've been there reporting on this epidemic in the emergency rooms with the doctors in the Summer where you know those numbers go way up in what they're facing every day. It is -- it is a national tragedy. Congressman, thank you very much for being here to talk about that and more this morning.

QUIGLEY: Thank you.

HARLOW: All right, we're a few minutes away from the opening bell on Wall Street. It has been a wild and volatile week, you have futures up right now, will a new move by China calm some of those fears? That's next.

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[09:30:00]