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Biden Pledges to Cut U.S. Carbon Emissions in Half by 2030; The Funeral of Daunte Wright. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired April 22, 2021 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:33:19]
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: President Biden made an historic pledge today at the White House virtual climate summit.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The United States sets out on the road to cut greenhouse gases in half, in half, by the end of this decade. That's where we're headed as a nation.
And that's what we can do if we take action to build an economy that's not only more prosperous but healthier, fairer, and cleaner for the entire planet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: This is a really ambitious plan. And as this crisis deepens, the Biden administration looks to reposition itself as a leader on climate change.
CNN chief White House correspondent, Kaitlan Collins, and CNN's chief climate correspondent, Bill Weir, are with us now.
Kaitlan, first to you.
What is President Biden's primary goal for, first, this summit?
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is a summit that's really kind of the first of its kind. It's all being held virtually so you're seeing different leaders beam in to talk about what their goals are.
So I think what you're seeing with that new goal that was set by President Biden this morning is they also want to set the tone for other nations.
And they want to be just as ambitious with those plans. They don't want them to commit and not follow through or not continue to build on that.
But the thing that they've struggled with, with that, is, of course, the U.S. is the one that kind of lacked on its commitment -- or not kind of, it did lack on its commitment over the last four years with Donald Trump in office.
Because, of course, he often took reverse policies or took complete opposite actions compared to what you saw the Obama administration commit itself to.
So I think that is part of what you're seeing with this today is not just setting this new goal for the United States but also trying to reassert that, yes, you can trust the United States to meet this goal.
[14:35:02]
Because, of course, that is something that President Biden's own aides have said they've struggled with.
CAMEROTA: Hey, Bill, the devil is in the details. How is the U.S. going to cut its emissions by 50 percent in about a decade?
BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: That is the multitrillion dollar question. And the Biden administration been scant on details when it comes to this. They're going to roll them out eventually.
But plenty of thinktanks and economists and environmental defense funds have laid out their plans.
And you basically start with the power sector. How we power our homes and businesses is a big chunk. And then transportation is the other big chunk. Those account for more than half of it.
So they say you go after power first so you're not filling up your new electric car with coal power, something that's clean and renewable. And that would mean new regulations, grid operators.
But of course, President Obama tried to come up with a clean power plan back in 2016. The Supreme Court held that up.
And rules that, you know, govern these big chunks of the economy are slow by design.
So how quickly he can get these things done is just as important as how vast it is.
CAMEROTA: But, I mean, Bill, you're steeped in this. Do you think it's realistic?
WEIR: Look, it's realistic in that we have the technology. There are plenty of amazing ideas out there.
And the way that the world came together to come up with a number of vaccines for COVID when everybody was rowing in the same direction, that's a scientific miracle that most people take for granted.
We could do the same thing here. The problem is human nature. The problem is that everything in our lives, plastics, everything, transportation, is tied to this hundred-year-old dirty fuel system.
And to, you know, roll it back and then come up with something new in such a quick amount of time, given the politics of a democracy, given the resistance that we're already hearing from some members of Congress, I wouldn't bet on it, but I would love to believe that it's possible.
CAMEROTA: Bill Weir and Kaitlan Collins, thank you very much for all of that news on the climate front.
And please join us for a special CNN town hall with U.S. special presidential envoy, John Kerry, and White House climate team members. They'll take questions and share their plan to combat climate change.
Dana Bash hosts "THE CLIMATE CRISIS." This is tomorrow night at 10:00 Eastern.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:41:07]
BLACKWELL: We're going back to the Shiloh Temple in Minneapolis. This is the Reverend Al Sharpton eulogizing Daunte Wright.
(APPLAUSE)
REVEREND AL SHARPTON, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST: To my brother, Aubrey, and sister, Katie, and to the whole family, and to those that have sat in that seat, families that are here that have sat in that seat know better than any of us how they feel.
I don't care how much settlement they may be given. You can never fill the hole in their heart that was caused for no reason. And that is why they're here.
Give those mothers, fathers, and uncles of victims that come today a big hand.
(CHEERING)
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: In the tradition of the black church, we take a text and a subject. And I didn't want to disrespect the bishop, so I went to the book of Isaiah.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, Rev.
SHARPTON: Today, they tell me this is grandma's birthday.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: I'm a little older than her, so I got to wear my reading glasses.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: Book of Isaiah, 59th chapter, 8th and the 9th verse says, "The way of peace, they know not. And there is no judgment in their goings. Therefore, it's judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us."
I want to use for a subject, no justice, no peace.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: In 1986, in a section of Brooklyn called Howard Beach, a young man named Michael Griffith was killed because they said that they didn't allow blacks in the neighborhood.
Some of us went out and marched. And during the march, one brother yelled -- I believe his name was Amawali (ph) -- "no justice, no peace." And it became the chant of our movement.
Some of us have made it popular, but it started there. But it really started in the Bible.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Preach, Rev.
SHARPTON: Because Isaiah said that those that practice injustice cannot practice peace. The absence of justice is the absence of peace.
And when we say that we're not talking about violence. Because there's a confusion in this country between peace and quiet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on, Reverend.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: Some of us are told to shut up and just be quiet. And you call that peace. But peace is the presence of justice.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: You can't tell us to shut up and suffer. We must speak up when there's an injustice.
[14:45:02]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
SHARPTON: I remember, as I was riding here, and I saw someone, and as I got out the car to meet the family, the ride to the church, heard a man say, "I've not seen a funeral procession like this since Prince in Minneapolis." I said, "Well, we came to bury the Prince of Brooklyn Center."
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: We come from all over the country --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All over. SHARPTON: -- because you hurt one of our princes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right.
SHARPTON: That's why we're in this temple with purple all over because it represents royalty. You thought he was just some kid with air freshener. He was a prince.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: And all of Minneapolis has stopped today to honor the prince of Brooklyn center.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: If you knew --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on, Reverend, now.
SHARPTON: -- who we were, if you understood that we were divine divisions that God made, if you understood that his mother and father broke the racial barrier lines --
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: -- and raised him in an interracial home that used to be against the law, but they defied the color barriers.
A black man and a white woman, they raised children to not hate nobody, and he was a prince of that raising.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: If you knew who he was.
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on, Rev.
SHARPTON: You have been caught with mistaken identity. You keep thinking that we are somebody we're not.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on, Rev.
SHARPTON: They tell our young folks to don't go to the streets and march when marching and protesting is a way of correcting the injustice Isaiah talked about.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: You can't go to church on Sunday and read this book that we call the Bible and not fight against oppression.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
SHARPTON: God is not on the side of the oppressor. (APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: God is on the side of the oppressed.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: For every pharaoh, there was a Moses.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: For every Nebuchadnezzar, there was a Daniel.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: For every Belshazzar, there were three Hebrew boys.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: For every Herod, there was a Jesus.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: We come in the tradition of what God's plans was. And when he oppresses us, we must stand up.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: That's why we're here.
Eleven months ago, we stood for George Floyd. And as the trial wound down, and the jury was about to get the verdict.
And the reason we got the jury we got and the verdict we got is God used a young brother, born and raised as a Muslim, but believing in the same God.
It don't matter how you approach God. And elected him, even after you tried to scandalize him --
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: -- the attorney general of the state of Minnesota.
(APPLAUSE)
(MUSIC)
SHARPTON: God doesn't use folk without letting you test them. Everybody that God calls, he lets you baptize them in fire.
They indicted Martin Luther King and only got him ready for what he did.
Every time you are under attack, you are just getting ready because God wouldn't test you if he wasn't going to graduate you.
(APPLAUSE)
14:49:58]
SHARPTON: And he was being tested and elected so that he was prepared to take the attacks when he stood up for George Floyd and was able, for the first time in the history of the state of Minnesota, to convict a white policeman for killing a black man --
(APPLAUSE)
(CHEERING)
SHARPTON: -- two murder convictions and one man's slaughter conviction!
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: God has turned the page in the state of Minnesota and we're never going back no more.
(CHEERING)
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: Yes, some of us have different tactics but all of us have the same goal.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Same goal.
SHARPTON: Talk about some of you all are civil rights and some of you all are street activists. We all street activists.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of us.
SHARPTON: And we all civil rights. All.
And some of us young and some of us old.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: But we all the same. They don't discriminate us because of age.
(SHOUTING)
SHARPTON: That's why, when I talked to brother, Aubrey, and I told him we will be there to do whatever he needs because we see this young man as royalty.
When Ben Crump called me the other night and told me that they were winding the trial down, you better come in, I had certain obligations and I had to fulfill them in New York, I couldn't get here when I wanted.
And I called one of my wealthy black friends. He said, "I will get you there." Someone on Twitter talking about why I'm on a private plane. Because I'm that kind of guy.
(CHEERING)
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: When George Floyd was killed, Tyler Perry sent his private plane to bring the Floyd family to Minneapolis.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: Robert Schmitt (ph) sent a private plane to bring Eric Garner's mom into -- into Minneapolis.
We ain't in the back of the bus no more.
(CHEERING)
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: I would have taken an "Apollo" rocket if it was available.
(LAUGHTER)
SHARPTON: Every crisis must be answered, though, with real change.
Yesterday the Attorney General Garland announced a study of the practices -- the practices in Minnesota, and that is going to lead to where it goes.
But now we are fighting for a federal law.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: Why a federal law? Because if we keep having to fight state by state, we'll never solve this.
(SHOUTING)
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: The generation before me, they boycotted in Montgomery against the segregation laws in Alabama. They boycotted the bus company.
In 1955, they started December 1st, and for a solid year, they wouldn't ride the bus. They said it was better to walk in dignity than to ride in shame.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: And they broke the backs of Alabama's segregation.
But Dr. King, Dr. Abernathy and Rosa Parks said we can't stop there. We have got to have federal law. And they went their way. Then some young students, the young folk of that day, they became
Freedom Riders and others did other things.
And it took nine years and they got the Civil Rights Act, federally, that made it against federal law, Congresswoman Omar, to discriminate.
Where we have gone from all of these abuses, from Oscar Grant and Amadulialo (ph) and others, all the way to Philando Castile right here in the Minneapolis area.
We struggled through all of that but we are going to now, in his name, in the name of Daunte, we are going to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act as federal law.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: We are going to make it against the law all over this country to keep bringing us to funerals for our young princes.
(APPLAUSE)
[14:55:09]
SHARPTON: This is not a Republican or Democratic thing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, no.
SHARPTON: Isaiah said it's about justice.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on.
SHARPTON: If you believe in justice, it's time for the federal government to reflect the will of the people.
You couldn't have a better picture than to have two people that cross the color line and raise children to be somebody, to stand up and embrace them.
You couldn't have had a better example than the Floyd family that wiped tears from their eyes and stood up with dignity, even as they watched them smear their brother, their uncle, their father.
We have always had to take the smearing -- Keith Ellison.
But behind every dark night, the sun will shine.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: I was talking to one of the relatives. And I said, "Well, why -- what are they trying to justify?" They said -- one said, "Well, they saw some air freshers in the back of his car."
Well, air freshers is to keep the bad odors out. Where we come today is the air fresheners for Minnesota. (APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right.
SHARPTON: We're trying to get the stench of police brutality out of the atmosphere.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: We're trying to get the stench of racism out of the atmosphere.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: We're trying to get the stench of racial profiling out of the atmosphere.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: We come to Minnesota as air fresheners because your air is too odorous for us to breathe. We can't breathe your stinking air no more.
(APPLAUSE)
(MUSIC)
SHARPTON: I know we have to get to the cemetery but let me tell you this. The time has come for America to stand up and bring a new day to where we don't have to explain to our children what to do with the police stop you.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: And it has come for a new day where we don't have to videotape when we see a badge but where we know they are there to serve and protect, not treat us like we have been convicted.
The time has come for police to understand they are not above the law. They are to enforce the law.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
SHARPTON: And if you can't live up to the badge, don't take the oath and put it on.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: When we put that badge on you, we expect you to act like somebody that is civilized and respectful.
(APPLAUSE)
(MUSIC)
SHARPTON: Some say, Reverend Al, police are human. Well, we knew that. Otherwise, we wouldn't have sent you through training. But we assume that when you come through that you were trained.
Trained people don't confuse guns from tasers.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: Trained people don't shoot men like Philando with a child in the backseat.
(APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: Trained people don't put knees on peoples' necks for nine minutes and 29 seconds.
(APPLAUSE)
(MUSIC)
SHARPTON: Trained people don't shoot 41 times.
(MUSIC)
SHARPTON: Amadulialo (ph).
(MUSIC)
SHARPTON: Trained people don't shoot at a young 12-year-old boy named Tamir Rice.
(MUSIC)
SHARPTON: You broke your training. Now we're going to send you to the corner.
(MUSIC)
SHARPTON: And you are getting your punishment at the corner of the newest jail that we can find.
(MUSIC)
(APPLAUSE)
(MUSIC)
SHARPTON: So as we celebrate this young man's life, 20 years old, not even reaching his mid-20s. His mother and father are heartbroken. His siblings heartbroken.
But they will be comforted knowing that because of this sacrifice that is going to change the laws of the land, children unborn is going to know his name.
[14:59:52]
Governors here, Congress people here, Senators here, for you, Daunte, because you were the prince that made us all come together. (APPLAUSE)
SHARPTON: They stopped traffic today all the way through Minneapolis.
(APPLAUSE)
