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NBA Commissioner Responds to Players: "I Hear You"; March on Washington Underway At Lincoln Memorial; Athletes Fight for Social Justice after Jacob Blake Shooting. Aired 11:30a-12pET

Aired August 28, 2020 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

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KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: NBA commissioner Adam Silver is now responding to calls by league employees for more action. Amid reports that the league could resume its playoff games tomorrow. In a letter obtained by a reporter for the athletic and stadium, Silver writes this in part and I'll read for you.

"I understand that some of you feel the league should be doing more. I hear you. Please know I'm focused on ensuring that we as a league are affecting real change both within our organization and in communities across the country."

Silver's response comes after the NBA playoffs were postponed again last night as players chose to not take the court in order to use their platform and voice to speak out against racial injustice and clearly, this protest moment has become something much bigger than the Milwaukee Bucks, than baseball and basketball or any other sports or any - anyone athlete.

Joining me right now is former NBA star and Wisconsin native, Caron Butler. Caron, thank you very much. What are you thinking today about the moment - the boycott and how it's really reverberated through pretty much all professional sports?

CARON BUTLER, FORMER NBA PLAYER FROM WISCONSIN: Thanks for having me on this platform. I think that the players and also employees of the association has done a remarkable job of standing you know aside of one another. When you think about over 200 employees today that stood in solidarity with the players and to their stride.

And I just thought that was remarkable and it's putting a lot of pressure on the board of governance to reach out to the resources, whether it's legislation, whether it's you know anyone in your pool of resources to just challenge them to do more in his respective communities.

Because you look across the board, you have over 30 NBA teams, you have 30 NBA cities and the relationships are strong, they're powerful and you have to maximize those things and we're putting the burden on the athletes too much. So always answer these questions and rightfully so because we're from

these communities and we want to be you know move the needle and social justice in all these different areas and when we see a universal wrong, we need help from people from different walks of life to stand aside and say, this isn't right.

So that's what you're seeing right now happening in the association and I'm just so proud of my brother's, whether it's employees in the NBA or whether it's the brothers that play or perform at a high level. Standing in solidarity, it means a lot.

BOLDUAN: The WNBA, we're learning is resuming play tonight. Do you - what really got attention was when everyone decided to walk off the court, right? It wasn't just wearing - wearing something, it was we're not going to play. Do you - does that diminish the impact? Do you wish that, I don't know, the WNBA or the Bucks or any of the teams would hold out longer to get the point across.

BUTLER: This is what I felt. Initially, I knew that the Milwaukee Bucks was impacted a little bit more than everyone else. That's my own state. I'm from Wisconsin. Clearly in Kenosha, Wisconsin where the incident happened with Jacob Blake and I saw the leadership of Milwaukee Bucks just saying that this cannot go on in this moment.

Whether we hold out a game, whether we hold out a week, whether we hold out a month, right now isn't the time to play basketball. So I give a ton of respect to those guys.

[11:35:00]

And let's face it, back in December, I took those Bucks players and entire organization to to Racine correctional facility where they heard stories of inmates,

where they heard the stories you know people speaking on police brutality before one of the biggest games of their career, playing against the Los Angeles Lakers.

And I feel like that really impacted the decision. Lieutenant Governor Barnes was there also and he reached out to the Bucks prior to their game where they boycotted and I'm so glad that they took their leadership and now the call to action is next.

BOLDUAN: Something Jacob Blake's dad was on CNN and speaking on one of our earlier shows today. There's something that he said about his son, I wanted to ask you about. He said, he's a human being. He's not an animal. He's a human but my son has not been afforded the rights of a human. He has not been treated like a human and he also said that Jacob Blake's kids are asking their grandfather, why did they shoot my Daddy in the back.

I wanted to ask you about that because you have written a lot about growing up as a black man, the tough road from the street to the NBA. That was in your book. You have children. What do you think about what Jacob Blake's father saying today?

BUTLER: You know what, an arrest should not turn into a death sentence and when you have a police encounter because there is a police encounter in a black-brown, Latinx community every 30 seconds in the United States of America.

It should not lead to lethal force. That should not be the first engagement and I feel like the contract between grassroot black and brown community and law enforcement as of now has been broke. It really has. And people are terrified. People are on defense and I think that that needs to be addressed immediately because it's going to be more instances, it's going to be more situations and unless it gets addressed from top all the way to grassroot and these elected officials are getting out there and saying that this is priority number one, we're going to continue to have these situation. We're going to continue to have these conversations and we do not want to continue to have that recycled result.

BOLDUAN: I know my control room is going to be mad at me because we're over time but I do want to ask you, when Jared Kushner said on TV that the NBA stars were boycotting, they're lucky that they can afford to take a day off. What do you want to say to that?

BUTLER: I mean it's not anything of convenience for being afforded to take the day off. They're standing on the right side of justice. And I think that as collectives, people from all walks of life, all different shades of colors, we have to stand on the right side of justice.

In the past we've seen people standing, just watch the show and not say anything and that is not no longer OK so for him to say that, that irresponsible statement and he should be ashamed of himself for speaking of that magnitude.

BOLDUAN: Caron Butler, thank you for coming on. Thank you for your voice.

BUTLER: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Thank you. President Trump, he took the stage of the Republican Convention and attacked Joe Biden by name 40 times but did not in that 70 minute speech, mention the name of Jacob Blake at all. Why?

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TRUMP: Thank you very much.

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BOLDUAN: The Republican National Convention is in the books. President Trump speaking at length about his law and order campaign message, saying that he stands with police in the wake of nationwide protests. He didn't acknowledge though at all why these protests are happening.

The shooting of so many black men at the hands of police. Let's talk about that speech tonight, what it means today. Here with me now is former Republican Congresswoman, Mia Love. It's good to see you. Thanks for coming in. The president's loud -

MIA LOVE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: - to bring about law and order but his silence on the issue at the heart of these protests. If that's a campaign strategy, are you OK with it? What do you think of it?

LOVE: Well, I you said last night and or the day before last night and I'll say it again. I think that it's important to recognize that there is a young man who is in a hospital bed, completely paralyzed. It would have been nice to mention that.

However with the Republican National Convention, we talked about some of the people that were out there. You've got Jack Brewer, Tim Scott that actually made a case for black Americans voting for Donald Trump. They actually - Tim made sure that he let Americans know that Democrats preferred the issue versus a solution because he tried to work on police reform and he couldn't get Democrats to the table to work with him on that.

So it was really interesting, the way that they had other people kind of address the American people on those issues. I do believe it would have been a leadership move for the president to actually address and acknowledge what is going on.

BOLDUAN: I would argue that Tim Scott's powerful speech is quite a different message than what we heard from Donald Trump basically throughout his 70 minutes, last night. No question.

[11:45:00]

How do you square the President not talking about Jacob Blake or George Floyd and social justice but also saying last night he's done more for the African-American community than any other president since Abraham Lincoln?

LOVE: Well, like I said, if it were my preference, I would have had advised him to mention it, to acknowledge it because I think it's worthy of acknowledgement and some of the communities out there, that he has to speak to all communities who are looking for leadership and saying look, I want you to see us and recognize what is going on.

In terms of his touting what he's done for black Americans, I think that what he is referring to is obviously the first time funding permanently HBCUs and also the criminal justice reform that he's put into law and black Americans that want school choice and different things like that.

So I think that that's what he's addressing but there's a lot, there's a lot more that we can do.

BOLDUAN: I've often heard, I've heard you say, you've been very clear that you've never been one to be all in for Donald Trump. You've spoken out about his tone and personality especially. Did you hear anything last night that indicates to you that the president is reaching out to anyone, anyone like you, who's not all in for him?

LOVE: That is a great question and what I can tell you is that I have renewed faith in the Republican Party because of the people that I saw at the convention. People like Tim Scott, Jack Brewer, Lee Zeldin, Elise Stefanik. People that - some of the suburban women. You had every day Americans that were talking about what has happened to them and how the president has helped them or how Republican policies has helped them.

You heard from pro-life groups it. I even spoke to my dad who feels the same way I do, very frustrated, really would have preferred not to go to the polls and then he called me the day before yesterday and said if I give my vote to Donald Trump, it'll be because of the women and the men that were speaking at convention.

BOLDUAN: But what I hearing, you like everyone almost may be except Donald Trump.

LOVE: I'm not - no, no, no. I think that we need to ask more of our leaders and that includes Joe Biden. I think that there's a lot of explaining that has to happen in terms of his policies and the things that he has done while in office for 47 years.

I think that we need to do everything we can to make sure that we are not accepting the bottom of the barrel. We need to accept - we need to expect more from our leaders so that's what I'm asking. I'm saying just rise to the occasion, do a little bit more because what is - what we're seeing from the people that are wanting to be president is just not enough.

BOLDUAN: And yet it is a choice between two people, come this November.

LOVE: Yet it is a choice.

BOLDUAN: Congresswoman, thank you for coming in. I appreciate your time. Coming up for us, Hurricane Laura devastates parts of Louisiana. We're going to take you live to the ground, next.

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BOLDUAN: This just into CNN. We're now learning the water level in one coastal parish in Louisiana topped 17 feet due to the hurricane this week. That is the highest level on record there. One mayor has described the last 24 hours as out of a bad science fiction novel, as they now start to pick up the pieces. CNN's Martin Savidge is in Lake Charles. He's joining me now. Martin, what do you see in there today?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know the damage here is significantly. It would be expected. It's just how widespread it is and it looks very much like you would see with a tornado and of course you would know that the tornado is more geographically narrow but this, this is just everywhere.

This is just part of the commercial district we're in. That building in the far background there that's crushed, that's a restaurant and then maybe if just to the left of me over here, you might see, that is the remnants of a cell phone tower.

So it shows you how communications been impacted as well and the neighbor here which is an insurance business ironically enough, it's been devastated and if I walk a little bit further, you'll understand the reason why it's been devastated. This is a broadcast tower that tumbled down in the midst of the storm. Anybody who knows those, those are really tall things but it was no match for the power of Laura.

And then we've got some drone footage I want to show you. This is of a tall highrise building in downtown Lake Charles and look at that. I mean the windows are broken out all over the place on that thing and this is a clear example why they warn people do not do what they call vertical evacuation. In other words seek to go to high up into a building because the wind field off it high above the street is actually even worse and that building just bore the brunt of it.

It just looks like something out of you know, kind of an apocalyptic movie. There's no electricity in the entire city. City's got 78,000 people and also there's no running water, the mayor says. The electricity is going to take a long time. It's not something where just the power lines fell off the pole. The poles are down on the ground. The transformers are destroyed.

So the basic infrastructure for electricity has been wiped out. We've got heavy weather moving in. That's only going to make it worse for many people who are here, their roofs have been ripped off and the tarps haven't been handed out yet.

So the misery is going to continue which is why the mayor is saying to people look, you can come back but look and leave because this city cannot support all those people who try to come back at least not now. Kate.

BOLDUAN: Very real, tough picture. Thank you so much Martin, for your coverage. I really appreciate it. So when the pandemic, the coronavirus first hit, pet adoptions skyrocketed and that is when CNN hero Sherry Franklin jumped into action.

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SHERRI FRANKLIN, CNN HERO: When we got the shelter-in-place order for the Covid-19, we moved 86 dogs into foster homes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good morning everyone.

FRANKLIN: We are having meet and greets virtually so that new adopters can meet their dogs before they can actually touch them.

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It's really been so heartwarming to actually see the first time, the new adopter actually gets to meet their dog in person. It's a great time if you've been thinking about adopting a dog, it's nice to be able to wake up and not focus on the bad news.

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BOLDUAN: For more you can visit CNNheroes.com. We'll be back.

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