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Biden Addresses Inflation, Now Hitting 30-Year High, As He Touts Infrastructure Deal; Black Cop Breaks Silence On Former Police Chief's Racist Actions; "Rust" Crew Member Sues Alec Baldwin, Key Figures In Shooting Probe; DOJ Intends To Make Example Out Of QAnon Shaman, Asking For Four-Plus Year Sentence. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired November 11, 2021 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Yes. Hard to know when the next Travis Scott concert will ever happen and if it will.

Rosa Flores, thank you very much for all of that.

Well, just in time for the holidays, inflation hits a 30-year high. What President Biden can actually do to stem the surging prices. That's next.

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VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: President Biden will sign the bipartisan infrastructure bill on Monday surrounded by lawmakers from both parties.

[14:35:04]

And while touting legislation yesterday in Baltimore, he acknowledged the growing inflation problem.

Consumer prices are up more than 6 percent from a year ago. That's the highest spike in 30 years.

Now, we're just weeks away from Thanksgiving, and the cost of grocery staples, eggs, milk, meat, all going up.

CAMEROTA: CNN senior White House correspondent, Phil Mattingly, is with us, along with CNN economic and political commentator, Catherine Rampell.

Great to see both of you.

Catherine, how did inflation get so bad so fast? And has the White House, in your opinion, been slow on the uptake about all this?

CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN ECONOMIC & POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: The reason prices are up -- and it's relatively broad-based price increases by the way -- is mostly because of the pandemic.

We have global supply chain issues, driven by global labor shortages. Hard to get workers on the floor to manufacture the stuff we buy, take it out of warehouses, put it on retail shelfs, etc.

It's also due to pent-up demand, also resulting from the pandemic. And that demand is even being more directed towards goods, towards stuff, and away from services. Because services remain somewhat risky, things like travel or dining out.

So people are trying to buy more stuff at exactly the same time that the pipeline through which that stuff must go through is more fragile. So you have shortages and you have price spikes.

Now, the White House has been saying for some time they expect this to be transitory. That echoes the languages of the Fed as well as many other economists.

"Transitory" is a squishy word. It's meant to imply this is driven by temporary factors that will eventually unwind themselves. It isn't some sort of spiraling, self-sustaining inflationary cycle, which is absolutely what we don't want.

But I think that comes off sometimes as a little tone deaf because it sounds like it's going to be brief and this has been going on for a long time.

It sounds like, don't worry about it, it's just transitory, which is not really the message they want to convey.

I think Biden now has been modifying some of his language to acknowledge that, yes, it is painful. Even if it goes away eventually, it is painful now, it creates uncertainty now, and we're not trying to dismiss your concerns.

BLACKWELL: I want to talk about the rhetoric and the policy.

Phil, let me come to you.

First, on the president backing away from the transitory, it's just temporary rhetoric in Baltimore.

And do they have a better appreciation for just how hard this is hitting families, these prices going up, gas prices, food?

We've got the list. We can put the graphic back up.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Victor, I think what you saw yesterday is something that the White House has been moving towards, over the course of the last several weeks, a recognition that "transitory" isn't going to fly.

"Temporary" certainly isn't believable to Americans who are paying these prices on a regular basis.

And not only do they need to say, oh, it's going to go away soon, they need to empathize with it and say they're working on it.

I think you saw that in full court from President Biden last night. Not just waiting to get to it later in his remarks, addressing it right out of the gate.

That was intentional. There's a very real recognition of both the political problem that this brings, unquestionably, a year out from the midterms, but also on the policy side as well.

The Biden administration wants to pass the second part of their domestic agenda, that $2 trillion economic and climate proposal.

And they know that inflation being out there immediately gives a message to Republicans, given the scale and scope of that proposal.

The proposal is paid for. The proposal broadly would increase productivity, which over a 10-year period, will help inflationary pressures.

But that's problematic, particularly when you have a Senator like Joe Manchin, from West Virginia, who has made inflation one of his primary concerns, as he tweeted after the report came out yesterday.

So trying to address it, understanding it's real, recognizing that people are feeling it is a key part, at least of the communications strategy we've seen from the White House, which, guys, is a shift.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Let me read that tweet we have up from Senator Joe Manchin:

"By all accounts, the threat posed by record inflation to the American people is not transitory and is instead getting worse. From the grocery store to the gas pump, Americans know the inflation tax is real. And D.C. can no longer ignore the economic pain Americans feel every day."

Catherine, do you think this threatens the Build Back Better plan?

RAMPELL: I think, rhetorically, it could. But as a matter of economics, probably this piece of legislation won't have a big effect on inflation one way or the other.

Biden, for his part, argues it will reduce inflation. I think he's overpromising. His critics are saying it will increase inflation. There are elements in it that could do either or both of those things.

For example, if you build more housing, over time, that would reduce inflationary pressures on housing prices.

On the other hand, if you have Buy-American provisions, that could raise prices for some of the things the government buys, et cetera.

[14:40:01]

So, you know, I think, either way, I don't think it will have a big effect. It will play a much larger effect in terms of the political rhetoric around this legislation.

And even though, again, whatever effect it has, it won't be felt for a while, probably won't be particularly significant, and has very little to do with the reason why we're seeing price hikes in the here and now.

CAMEROTA: OK, Catherine Rampell, Phil Mattingly, thank you both for all of those explanations.

OK, a then-police chief was caught on camera putting a KKK note on one of his black officer's jackets. That officer is now speaking out for the very first time.

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OFC. KEITH POOL, SHEFFIELD LAKE POLICE DEPARTMENT: It was offensive and humiliating, beyond anything I've ever experienced in my entire career, in my life.

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BLACKWELL: We'll have more from that officer just ahead.

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[14:45:33]

CAMEROTA: This just into CNN. The Ohio police officer who was targeted by his own police chief in a racist incident is now speaking out publicly for the first time.

In a video that went viral this summer, you'll remember that you can see the former Sheffield Lake police chief, Anthony Campo, place a KKK sign on the police officer's jacket.

BLACKWELL: Later, he put on a makeshift KKK hat.

At a press conference today, we learned the officer's name. This is the first time we're hearing this. His name is Keith Pool.

And he described how much this incident hurt him.

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POOL: Even when I -- we watch it now, I'm in disbelief that this has happened to me.

Chief Campo thought putting the words Ku Klux Klan sign on my rain jacket and then wearing the Ku Klux Klan hat was something of a joke.

Even worse, he told other officers to go look at what he did.

It was offensive and humiliating, beyond anything I've ever experienced in my entire career, in my life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: CNN's Athena Jones is here with more.

This is awful. To think you go to your workplace and they place this on your jacket and parade around in a hat, that that would be funny in some way.

ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is. It's a shocking incidence of a racist workplace harassment, coming from this officer's own police chief, targeting this one officer who, at the time, was the only black officer in this police department.

We saw some of his reaction there. We can now tell you his attorneys are bringing what's called a discrimination charge in Ohio's Office of Civil Rights.

This is the Office of Civil Rights Commission. That's where you bring discrimination charges because of this incident with this police chief, Anthony Campo, and this KKK sign.

This officer -- on this video, you can't hear the audio. There's no audio included. But Officer Pool, in this press conference told, reporters what he was feeling and how he responded. His exact words were, "Are you serious?"

He said what else can you say to a police chief who does something so heinous and so awful to the first black officer ever in that department.

Here is more of what Officer Pool had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POOL: This was not the chief's first time doing something racist and offensive to me or other employees. It was just the first time it got caught on video.

And the city failure to turn over the public records documenting his misconduct makes me feel they want to protect the ex-chief.

This didn't happen out of nowhere. It wasn't Chief Campo's first time doing something racist.

And it never should have gotten to the point that Chief Campo felt comfortable making a joke about the Ku Klux Klan in our workplace.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: So you heard Officer Pool say this was not the first time this former police chief had done this sort of thing.

This is the second part of what his attorneys are doing. They're calling on the city of Sheffield, calling on the Ohio Supreme Court to mandate that the city of Sheffield Lake release records about this past misconduct.

One example is this former chief would use a computer program to put officer's faces on different images. He put the face of the only Latino officer in the department on a bottle of hot sauce.

This is something they clearly see as a pattern. And they want to make sure these records are released and that the city of Sheffield Lake does what it's supposed to do here.

CAMEROTA: Just how horrible. How brave of Officer Pool to come forward. It's obviously hard for him.

JONES: And he's still there. He's still there but he says things are much better. But, clearly, he was hurt by this.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

Athena Jones, thanks so much.

[14:49:38]

A crew member from the film "Rust" is suing Alec Baldwin and other key figures involved in last month's fatal set shooting. What he's accusing him of, that's next.

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CAMEROTA: OK. Now to today's "Two to Four Things," legal edition. The Justice Department says it intends to make an example out of the so- called QAnon shaman. Also, known as the Moronic Minotaur -- by me.

Officials are seeking a four-plus year sentence for his role in the insurrection. That would be the harshest yet for one of the rioters.

You, of course, will remember him. He is the one who is shirtless and wearing the headdress on the Senate floor.

BLACKWELL: How long have you been holding onto that Moronic Minotaur?

CAMEROTA: Oh, I've been saying that since it's happened, yes.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

CAMEROTA: I think I popularized it.

BLACKWELL: Prosecutors call him the literal flag-bearer among the mob. They hope a harsh sentence will defer future attacks on the government. A federal judge is expected to sentence him next week.

A crew member on the set of "Rust" has filed a lawsuit against Alec Baldwin and several others at the center of the shooting that killed Halyna Hutchins.

[14:55:06]

Serge Svetnoy was the chief lighting technician on the set. He claims the bullet nearly hit him but he was hit, he says, by materials from the blast.

CAMEROTA: The lawsuit alleges that Svetnoy's severe emotional distress is the result of negligence by Alec Baldwin, assistant director, David Halls, armorer, Hannah Gutierrez Reed, and others involved in this production. CNN has not heard back from their representatives. But on Wednesday, an attorney for the armorer said he believes his client has been framed.

BLACKWELL: A federal judge has given final approval of a $626 million settlement for victims of the Flint water crisis. Tens of thousands of people exposed to lead and other contaminants beginning in 2014 are expected to be compensated.

CAMEROTA: Nearly 80 percent of that will go to people who were 18 or younger at the time of the height of this crisis. That's because exposure to lead and toxins at a young age can lead to neurological disorders and learning conditions.

Critics, including the former Flint mayor, said the settlement does not go far enough.

BLACKWELL: Yes. And you think, tens of thousands of people exposed to this, $626 million. The mayor saying it doesn't go far enough.

We also know there are other Flint, Michigan's, out there. You spoke with a gentleman in Benton Harbor who says they're going through the same thing still.

CAMEROTA: It's been lasting for three years and we're not paying enough attention to all of this.

But can we go back to the Moronic Minotaur for a second?

BLACKWELL: Yes, of course.

CAMEROTA: I think that's really a little harsh for him.

BLACKWELL: Really?

CAMEROTA: Why would he be getting the harshest sentence? He's not one of the people who injured one of the officers. Somebody was just sentenced who injured one of the officers, and he got 40 months.

How can you make the Moronic Minotaur get more than somebody that hurt a police officer?

BLACKWELL: I think you make a good point. We also are still going through these hundreds of cases. So it's not as if this will be the top line here. So we'll find out.

CAMEROTA: Yes. They also said that the Minotaur did spread a heck of a lot of misinformation.

BLACKWELL: You're just going to call him the Minotaur from here on out?

CAMEROTA: Always.

BLACKWELL: OK. All right. CAMEROTA: Meanwhile, President Trump yet again attempting to block his records from the January 6th committee. His last-ditch effort. Time is running out. That's next.

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