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In the Arena
Boy's Brutal Killing Rallies Syrians; Syria's Brutal Crackdown; When Reality Stars Collide
Aired May 31, 2011 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ELIOT SPITZER, CNN HOST: Good evening, welcome to the program. I'm Eliot Spitzer.
Day after day in country after country, we witness young people taking to the streets of the Arab world demanding a government that listens to their voices. Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, hundreds of thousands of people with dreams of democracy.
In Syria tonight, those dreams have a name. He is 13 years old at the end of April. He attended a demonstration with his father. He was separated from his dad in the chaos and then arrested.
Now we know that Hamza Ali al-Khateeb is dead. Pictures of his body are disturbing. Just days ago his family received his remains. It appeared the 13-year-old had been tortured. He was mutilated. Many of the pictures we've received are just too graphic to broadcast.
CNN made repeated attempts to reach the Syrian authorities for comment without success.
Hamza's murder has brought Syrians into the streets. Even children have joined the protests. All of them with a single purpose. The overthrow of Bashar al-Assad.
We'll have more on dramatic developments in Syria and the strongest words yet from Washington in just a moment.
But first, a look at the other stories we're covering tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SPITZER: What do Robert E. Lee and Sarah Palin have in common? They both went to Gettysburg. One of them lost, the other may have just begun to fight.
And housing prices keep falling. In some places they haven't been this low since the 1960s. E.D. Hill asks, is the American dream being dragged down with them?
Then Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona. He deported 25,000 illegal immigrants, and now he wants to take his Wild West show to Washington.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP) SPITZER: For more now on the murder and mutilation of 13-year- old Hamza Ali al-Khateeb, I'm joined by CNN's Arwa Damon. None of our reporters can tell the story from inside Syria. It is simply too dangerous that government refuses to allow it.
Arwa is in Beirut.
Arwa, what has been the response of the protesters in Syria to these reports of this heinous torture of a 13-year-old boy?
ARWA DAMON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Eliot, what we did hear from a prominent Syrian activist who is in Damascus, Razan Zaitouneh, she said that first of all she firmly believes the report the video that we're seeing to be authentic. And she believes that the Syrian regime deliberately released the boy's body back to his family to send a chilling message.
The message being that the regime had absolutely no red lines when it came to how it was going to be handling these voices of dissent. No matter what the age, whether or not the individual in question was a child or an adult.
However, if the regime's intent was to terrorize people off the streets, it appears to have caused the opposite effect. We saw numerous demonstrations across the country with people chanting their support for the 13-year-old child vowing that Hamza's blood would not have been spilt in vain.
And Eliot, we even saw children taking to the streets despite the fact that the very same fate could be awaiting them.
SPITZER: On the other hand, there is also this pseudo amnesty that Assad has issued. And what do we know about the parameters of it, what it really means, and is anybody taking that seriously?
DAMON: This is not exactly an amnesty or general pardon in the sense that many would understand it. We are not expecting to see any sort of a mass release of detainees from prison, although it is intended to apply to anyone who was detained up until today. Basically up until Tuesday.
According the decree that was published on the Syrian/Arab news agency this basically is more of a reduction in sentence. A death sentence reduced to life in prison, a life in prison sentence, depending on what the crime was being reduced to, for example, 20 years of hard labor.
And so this move is really being greeted with much skepticism, especially amongst activists who are really just viewing it as another move by the regime to try to maintain their credibility. Not amongst the opposition per se, but more amongst their own loyalists.
SPITZER: All right, Arwa. Thanks so much for that report.
DAMON: Thank you.
SPITZER: At the State Department today, Secretary Hillary Clinton had strong words about Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad.
Senior State Department producer Elise Labott was there and joins me now.
ELISE LABOTT, CNN SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT PRODUCER: Eliot, I asked Secretary Clinton about this young boy today. And she was visibly shaken when she talked about him. Used his full name, Hamza al-Khateeb.
And she -- here's what she had to say. Let's take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON, SECRETARY OF STATE: I too was very concerned by the reports about the young boy. In fact, I think what that symbolizes for many Syrians is the total collapse of any effort by the Syrian government to work with and listen to their own people.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
LABOTT: So, Eliot, I asked Secretary Clinton if this action meant that the Syrian regime had really lost all legitimacy. She said that every day that goes by, the government is becoming more untenable. And she said she hopes that this young boy will not die in vain. She hopes the government will end the brutality and move towards democracy.
Really the strongest comments I've heard from anybody in this administration about the future of this regime.
SPITZER: You know, Elise, there obviously is the frustration. I think it is impossible for anybody who has seen the video, seen the pictures of what is almost a medieval act of torture not to respond that way.
But I guess the question for the State Department is what will happen next with respect to U.S. policy? Is there a tangible, definitive next step that the secretary indicated will follow because of this heinous behavior?
LABOTT: Well, the next step is to go to the U.N. Security Council and the U.S. is really pushing for a strong condemnation of the regime. But the question is, what is that going to do? It's not calling for any sanctions. They're having a lot of problems with the Russians and the Chinese isn't signing up to this condemnation.
So it's really not clear what leverage, what influence the U.S. has in terms of cracking down on the regime and getting it to end the brutality of its people -- Eliot.
SPITZER: All right. Thank you, Elise.
All right, we turn now to one of the wisest minds in the Arab world. Fouad Ajami is the director of Middle Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University. And full disclosure, he was my professor 30 years ago, back my freshman year at Princeton. Professor Ajami, thank you for joining us.
FOUAD AJAMI, DIRECTOR, MIDDLE EAST STUDIES, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: Thank you very much for having me.
SPITZER: Your wisdom was evident even back then.
AJAMI: Thank you very much.
SPITZER: This is mortifying, factually. The question I have for you, will this fundamentally change the internal dynamics within Syria?
AJAMI: I don't think so, Eliot. I think this is really -- this regime is a very strange beast. It's a very strange regime. It rests on a minority community, the Alawis of Syria. They're a mountain people. They have come down to the city. They've joined the army. They're the intelligence bearers of the regime.
They are Bashar (INAUDIBLE) community and they are committed to him. There will not be defections. There will not be a crack in the regime the way that we have -- we have witnessed in Libya.
This is a very strange regime. It's a regime at war with its population. And the Alawis is 10 to 11 percent of the population, have managed to capture state power. They will fight to keep this regime.
SPITZER: Now Bashar Assad, the son, for a few years had managed to fool the West, apparently, into we believe that somehow he was a voice of reform. Does this rip that mask off and finally make it clear he is no such thing?
AJAMI: Well, absolutely. But remember, I mean, this is -- this story has a trail. The trail is that in the year 2000 when Hafez Assad died and he installed his son -- I mean, imagine a country being handed over from father to son. He installed his second son because his first son who was supposed to be heir, died in a car accident.
So he brought this ophthalmologist from London who loved the music of Phil Collins, who faked, if you will, that he is at one with the modern world, and he designated him as his successor. Eleven years later we can see the myth of Bashar al-Assad as a reformer. He is as cruel and may even be even more cold-blooded than his late father.
SPITZER: And when you compare him to Gadhafi in this game of comparisons perhaps is meaningless other than the fact that to the extent you were seeking some sort of symmetry, some sort of consistency in U.S. policy, Gadhafi to Assad, they begin to look very similar these days.
AJAMI: Well, they look very similar, but let's remember one thing about Bashar al-Assad and the Syria regime. When you take a look at Syria, it's centrally located. And even though it's a poorer country than Libya -- it has no oil -- nevertheless, it has convinced the rest of the world that Syria is a major player.
Take a look at the Arabs. The Arabs broke with Gadhafi. They think he's a brigand. He calls himself the king of the kings of Africa. He turned his back on them, but the Arabs are very, very committed to the Syrian regime. This is a much more centrally placed regime in the game of nations than is the Gadhafi regime.
SPITZER: Well, that goes right to my next question. We the United States, we were hesitant to move even with respect to Gadhafi and Libya until we had the facade or the imprimatur of the Arab nations themselves saying, yes, we want to unseat Gadhafi.
Will there be that sort of unity? Or will there be any uniformed purpose among Arab leaders turning on Assad? And I hear you're saying no.
AJAMI: You will bring me back, I hope, and this -- there is no chance that the Arab states will single out the Syrian regime and say this is a brutal regime. They don't like Bashar. They don't trust Bashar al-Assad. They favored his own father because he was a more widely player, but they will not break with Bashar the way they broke with Moammar Gadhafi.
SPITZER: Well, in that case, can the United States and should the United States act in unison with NATO nations perhaps without the imprimatur, the support of Arab leaders, who must look at the brutality of Assad and say he is on a par with Gadhafi?
AJAMI: To be honest with you, I don't see -- I don't see American policy going in that direction.
Go back to May 19 when the famous speech that President Obama gave at the State Department about the Arab spring but also about the Israeli-Palestinian --
SPITZER: The famous or infamous. But we'll come back to that.
AJAMI: Exactly, exactly. But when you go back to that speech, he basically said we had a mandate in Libya, we don't have a mandate in Syria. He drew a line about where American power can be used and where American power can't be used.
And let's remember that even on Libya, President Obama's half in, not fully in, let alone on Syria.
SPITZER: Well, look, the Libyan debacle, the quagmire stalemate obviously is problematic in and of itself. But the question of looking for consistency when you read the speech he gave on May 19, when you read the speech he gave when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in terms of the legitimacy of force, one would think applying those standards to Assad and Syria, it is a perfect example of a legitimate use of force to unseat a leader, who as you say is at war with its population.
AJAMI: Well, the right to protect is one of the great issues in our world. But President Obama is very, very timid, if you will. I mean that's one word. But very, very careful about the use of American power.
We haven't even recalled our ambassador from Damascus. And we keep saying, we keep saying, even President Obama says Bashar has a choice. He can either lead the process of reform or get out of the way. And imagine in a bunker in the world where Bashar al-Assad lives with his brother and his brother-in-law and his gang, and the intelligence bearers around him, this is just idle talk.
SPITZER: Well, there have been so many false starts. There have been so many that the big speech that Assad pretended to give two or three weeks ago in which he was going to lay out reform of course amounted to nothing. The amnesty -- the so-called amnesty, it's hard to figure out what it is, is that meaningful at all? To whom is he appealing doing this?
AJAMI: Eliot, part of the whole cult of totalitarian regime is that the ruler can both grant life and he can also kill. So this is Bashar al-Assad showing the Syrian people, I master of your universe.
Remember, there were only six million Syrians when Hafez Assad, the father, was president. Now there are 22 million Syrians. Sixteen million people have known no other president than Hafez Assad and his son Bashar. So the message is we have the power to grant pardon and we have the power to kill children.
SPITZER: And the capacity to use that power seems unabated, unlimited by any sense of moral dictate.
The children -- the images of children marching in the street. Of course we have no idea how widespread that might be. Does that crystallize -- in other nations, you had Tahrir Square. You had -- even in Tunisia, you had some popular uprising that seemed crystallized. Does that happen in Assad where fear is still the dominant emotion?
AJAMI: I think -- I think the young people are not afraid. And this is what's mystifying Bashar al-Assad.
Look, I kill people. Why aren't you afraid of me as your elders were afraid of my father? I think the barrier of fear has been broken. And you have a standoff between the regime that cannot be overthrown yet and a population that can't be sent back to their homes and back to the fear.
SPITZER: So does this stalemate in brutality continue? And do the bodies pile up and the images of children being mutilated continue to pour forth with no resolution?
AJAMI: I think I wish there was another verdict one can issue. I mean look, this man has rounded up tens of -- there are at least, you hear 10,000 people have been rounded up as prisoners. A thousand people or more have been killed. People are fleeing to Jordan, they're fleeing to Lebanon, and yet the regime does not blink, and yet the regime does not crack.
SPITZER: Well, then let's come back to the lesson to be taken from where the United States has intervened and where not. We see Mubarak having been pushed out, the punitive ally. We see Gadhafi standing up to our force, and as you say, a muted American response, letting the French take the lead. And we see no response of any magnitude in Syria.
AJAMI: Yes.
SPITZER: So what does the leadership in Saudi Arabia or Bahrain take from this in terms of understanding the use of U.S. power?
AJAMI: Well, I'm afraid there may be a terrible lesson, which is that people who are vulnerable to our judgment, such as the ruler in Tunisia and the ruler in Egypt, are easier to overthrow than people who are not vulnerable to our judgment such as Gadhafi and such as the ruler in Syria.
So I think there are things that in the world that don't really lend themselves to American power. We have to admit that and we have to face that. And this Syrian debacle, the Syrian massacre, the Syrian slaughter, the standoff between a killer regime and its population is evident of that.
SPITZER: So if you were to receive a phone call from the president and he said, Professor Ajami, give me -- tell me what we do with Syria, would say, this is a situation where we simply can't determine the outcome? Or would you say, Mr. President, damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead, we must stand up for the lessons that you're trying to teach in Libya and intervene for the cause of morality?
AJAMI: Well, if that was President Bush, he would call me. President Obama is not going to call me. I'm not --
SPITZER: Take my premise for a moment. If you've got the call, what would you say?
AJAMI: I think I really honestly don't know what the issue is. I think we have to separate ourselves from this regime. We have to shed the illusion that this regime is going to reform. And we have to take away from the regime one argument, which is the regime always frightens us by saying we're a secular dictatorship.
The alternative to us is the Muslim Brotherhood. We have to say we are willing to face the alternative. It takes that courageous first step. They are willing to face the alternative.
SPITZER: We need to be willing to sacrifice some degree of uncertainty and risk.
AJAMI: Absolutely.
SPITZER: And understand that is what the world will look like otherwise we have tyrants and villains as our allies.
AJAMI: That's about it.
SPITZER: All right. Professor Ajami, as always, thank you so much. And yes, we'll have you back whenever you can. Thank you, sir.
Coming up, Jeffrey Toobin is here to talk politics.
Jeff, you're looking at the Republicans jockeying for the party's nomination. What is going on there?
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Sarah Palin is here in New York having dinner tonight with Donald Trump. They're discussing their shared psychological condition. Attention-getting deficit disorder.
And later tonight -- you know, Sarah Palin was at the battlefield yesterday -- we may hear her Gettysburg tweet.
SPITZER: All right, Jeff. I've never heard that psychological interpretation. Attention deficit disorder --
TOOBIN: No, attention-getting deficit disorder.
SPITZER: Yes, attention-getting -- all right. You're two steps ahead of me in this psychology. But as always, interesting. Can't wait for the conversation. And you'll be joined by Rick Lazio. Looking forward to that. We'll be right back.
But first a quick look at Sarah Palin out on the town here in New York tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What do you think of Donald Trump donating to Democrats?
SARAH PALIN (R), FORMER ALASKA GOVERNOR: I think I'll go change his mind right now and make sure that he's contributing to constitutional conservatives. OK?
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: At this very moment, there's a rare harmonic convergence happening right here in Manhattan. Sarah Palin is about to share a pizza with none other than Donald Trump.
Trump who briefly flirted with the Republican presidential run of his own is the latest stop on Palin's One Nation tour, adding him to a list of national monuments that includes the Lincoln Memorial, the Gettysburg battlefield, and the Liberty Bell.
Donald Trump and Sarah Palin, I would love to be a fly on that wall. And I don't know why we think they're eating pizza. Sounds like not exactly their choice of food.
Joining me now is one of my favorite contributors, CNN senior analyst Jeffrey Toobin, and Rick Lazio, a former Republican congressman, a good friend of the show, and also a great personal friend.
So, Rick, let me start with you.
RICK LAZIO (R), FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: Yes.
SPITZER: Roger Ailes, none other than perhaps the most powerful person in the Republican Party, has been dumping all over Sarah Palin. And you now have this remarkable event of Palin and Trump who suck up all the energy from the Republican Party going off to have dinner.
Meanwhile, you've got Huntsman, you've got Romney, you've got Pawlenty -- serious candidates -- wandering aimlessly with no cameras following them. Is this good for the Republican Party?
LAZIO: You know it's -- we're talking about it, right? So I guess it's a success for both of them. You've got two master showmen. You've got Donald Trump who fanned the flames, teased the media, and was in the headlines for weeks. And Sarah Palin that was out of the spotlight for a while but is back in.
I think for the candidates who are -- like maybe Pawlenty or like Michele Bachmann who were in respectively Iowa and New Hampshire over the last couple of days, it does tend to suck some of the oxygen away from them.
I think when Romney is sufficiently -- has sufficient standing now when he makes his announcement in New Hampshire. That will get its own --
SPITZER: Look, I think that's an important distinction between candidates who already have some stature and candidates who are not yet defined.
LAZIO: Right.
SPITZER: But Jeff, what does it mean when you have Palin and Trump who -- we together had a conversation with Donald Trump on this show a couple of weeks ago, he refused to answer any serious questions, take any positions. Neither Palin nor Trump has been willing to define herself or himself.
What does that mean about the ability to manipulate the politics at the moment?
TOOBIN: It means it's better to be famous than anything else. I mean they're both really famous and they got a lot of support.
I mean, you know, Sarah Palin, for all her eccentricity, is still at about 10 percent in the polls. Now that doesn't sound like much except when you consider that the leading candidate who is Romney by and large is only about 17 percent in the polls. So you know she remains very -- or somewhat popular among the slice of the Republican electorate that votes in primaries.
And so until she decides whether she's running or not, she's going to suck up a lot of the oxygen. SPITZER: Look, you may be right. We are perhaps playing her game. Here we are talking about her. Shame on us would be one response.
But, Rick, is this going to succeed in rebranding her? Many people think that's what she wanted to do, get rid of the negatives. Is it going to work?
LAZIO: Well, she's got an important movie coming out that, I think, in part is an effort to reposition --
(CROSSTALK)
SPITZER: Important to whom?
LAZIO: Well, to her.
SPITZER: Right.
LAZIO: In terms of her repositioning. It attempts to tell a much more sympathetic story about Sarah Palin. And frankly, she has got an interesting story. She's an interesting person. That's why people like her. She's looking for ways to connect directly with the people as opposed to going through the media, which is -- which is a real challenge.
But she does understand, which Jeff was saying, the nature of contemporary politics, which is a celebrity political culture.
SPITZER: But let me --
TOOBIN: And also this rebranding business, is there one person who thinks poorly of Sarah Palin now that she's gone to Gettysburg, now that she's riding around in a bus is going to think differently of her? I can't imagine this spectacle changing one person's opinion of her.
SPITZER: That's my question.
Rick, try to defend maybe the thinking of the Republican leadership in not having tried to push her back at this point. Her negatives are 60 percent. Very high for somebody who wants to be president.
LAZIO: Right.
SPITZER: Even within -- among independents, they're at 62 percent. The swing votes, the --
LAZIO: And she can read the polls. Right.
SPITZER: Right. And so explain the logic of how -- you've been a very successful politician. How does she begin to appeal --
LAZIO: (INAUDIBLE)
SPITZER: None of us always. But how does she begin to appeal to those middle independent swing voters without whom she can't win?
LAZIO: Yes, you're absolutely right. The swing voters are the key -- part of the electorate right now. And she's having real difficulty of reaching out to suburban voters and swing voters, soft Democrats and independents.
Her appeal, which is an intense appeal is to that part of the Republican base that is really attracted to her populism. Her appeal is strong. She's got an intensity to her appeal that will be very helpful. So Republican leadership to the extent they can control these things. They don't really want to turn her off. They want to re-channel her so that she is seen as somebody who is going to contribute to what they think will be a winning majority.
TOOBIN: Republican leadership? Who do you have in mind?
SPITZER: Roger Ailes.
(CROSSTALK)
TOOBIN: Who could possibly tell you? But Roger Ailes, he's -- if she was a serious candidate and was a possibly running for president, he would take her off the air. She's a FOX News analyst. He took off Rick Santorum, he took off Newt Gingrich when they became clearly candidates.
He hasn't taken her off because she's just making a spectacle of herself. She's not running for president.
SPITZER: To just -- I wanted to be clear. I'm about to quote some words that are not Roger Ailes' words but were attributed to him by some in an article. And this is somebody who's quoting Roger Ailes. He -- Roger Ailes thinks the election of Obama is a disaster. He thinks Palin is an idiot. He thinks she's stupid.
He helped boost her up, people like Sarah Palin haven't elevated the conservative movement. So Roger Ailes, if these quotations are true and that they were in -- I tend to forget -- "New York" magazine --
(CROSSTALK)
TOOBIN: No, it was "Rolling Stone."
SPITZER: "Rolling Stone." "Rolling Stone." Well, that's the question. So to whom will the Republican leadership turn and when to say, all right, now silly season is over, we do need somebody of a stature to stand up to President Obama who can say in the past month Osama bin Laden gone.
LAZIO: Yes.
SPITZER: We have a foreign policy. We stand for something.
LAZIO: Right. I think the establishment to the extent they can control anything can put pressure on the candidates to be substantive. To talk about their policies, what they stand for. Not just make a media appearances and play the cat and mouse for the media, and do all the cute things that actually attract attention in the short run.
But who's going to have the credibility and the standing to be a serious challenger to President Obama next year. They don't have the ability to pull a Sarah Palin or anybody else out of the race. What they do have, I think, is the ability to help focus people's attention on what they should be looking for in mounting a credible challenge.
TOOBIN: And also I think it's important, if you want to run for president, run for president. Mitt Romney is running for president, Tim Pawlenty is running for president, Newt Gingrich is running for president. That's it so far, for all the talk.
And I think, you know, we have to give them credit for actually making the effort and taking -- and taking on the challenge of saying, I am going to be the person, not an endless discussion of, are they running, are they not running? And I think ultimately that will benefit them. And I think either Romney or Pawlenty is actually going to be the nominee because they are running.
LAZIO: And you see what happens when people are brushed out of this. So when Trump was finally smoked out to sort of take some policy positions, that was the beginning of the turn for him. And he never came back from that so it's an interesting point.
TOOBIN: And Romney and Pawlenty, whatever else you think -- they've been governors, they know the issues, they'll be able to talk about Libya and health care. They've got problems on both. But the fact is, they are -- they are serious people running as serious candidates.
SPITZER: Jeff, I'm with you. Not to disagree with Rick, but I'm with you absolutely. I would add John Huntsman to that list. I think there are serious candidates in the Republican Party who stand for serious propositions about public policy, who have governed, who are willing, in fact, cherish the opportunity to answer the questions.
And I think Sarah Palin is sucking the oxygen right now, which is why I think the Republican leadership must be frustrated.
LAZIO: Well, I think they'll let it play out. She can make the case and she can appeal to a broader part of the population, can prove that she can attract those swing voters, that she can talk about serious policy, then, you know, she'll be a player.
SPITZER: All right. We will see. All right.
TOOBIN: Don't hold your breath.
LAZIO: I am.
SPITZER: All right.
LAZIO: I'm just saying.
(LAUGHTER)
SPITZER: Jeff Toobin, Rick Lazio, thanks. Always great fun to talk to you guys.
When we come back, is Washington ready for Arizona's anti- immigration sheriff, Joe Arpaio. It may be high noon on the Potomac. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: Arizona is at the front lines of this country's immigration debate, and no man is more central to that than Sheriff Joe Arpaio who has been both praised and attacked for sometimes controversial and always outspoken views. He joins me now from Phoenix.
Sheriff, thanks so much for coming on the show.
SHERIFF JOE ARPAIO, MARICOPA COUNTY, ARIZONA: Thanks, Eliot.
SPITZER: My pleasure. Well, here I see an odd convergence between some of your views and President Obama's views. Tell me if I'm wrong about this. You have been very outspoken in support of a law that permits criminal sanctions to be brought against employers who employ illegal immigrants. And the president has been ramping up their investigations of employers at the same time. So do you agree with the president on that fact? On that mechanism for approaching this?
ARPAIO: Yes, but we have state laws. We're the only agency in force on the employer sanction laws. We raided 46 businesses, locked up over 500 people. The majority have false identification, so we are doing our part in that aspect. And I'm glad that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of our state. I think that's an important ruling.
SPITZER: Well, look, the Supreme Court just so everybody understands, ruled that an Arizona law that requires employers to use the e-verification system is, in fact, constitutional. And so, I guess, congratulations. The law you certainly were pushing for has been deemed constitutional. But let me ask you about your enforcement because as I understand it, you obviously, and as you just said rounded up many of the workers. Have you brought charges against any of the employers who are employing the illegal immigrants?
ARPAIO: Well, Eliot, the state laws, it's a civil law. It's very weak. We need a stronger state law, and I hope the legislature will pass or increase the sanctions, at least make it a criminal offense. But in the meantime, I'm not stopping. We still go into the workplace. We still arrest illegal aliens, and we've also brought to justice three or four employers. But it's very difficult with the current law that we have here in Arizona.
SPITZER: No, but I guess the point I'm trying to zero in on just a little bit is some people see a fundamental inequity. They think it's easy and I think to a certain extent they're right. Look, I've been in law enforcement, as well. It's easy to go after the folks at the bottom of the totem pole. There are 11 million illegal immigrants, undocumented immigrants here in the United States. Finding them, rounding them up is easy and the Obama administration, I think has deported something like 400,000 people, way up over President Bush. It's much more difficult to go after the employers who are taking advantage of them. So why don't you focus more of your energy on the employers because if the employers don't hire them, then the influx will stop?
ARPAIO: Well, the last I heard stealing people's I.D. is very serious. So we are arresting those workers that are here illegally. As far as the employers, we need stronger laws, state laws, to enforce. So I hope that the president says he's going after employers. Let's see how many have been brought to justice. Instead of talking about it, I want to see the facts, the action.
SPITZER: Well, look, sheriff, I'm with you. Where people talk, let's check to see what the records are. I think the numbers in terms of deportations for the Obama administration are pretty strict and pretty remarkable. But here's the thing, if an employer has hired an illegal worker, an illegal immigrant, an undocumented worker, they're falsifying immigration forms. The I-9s are not going to be accurate. They're going to be submitting information that they know is false to IRS. They're not paying the taxes. Have you done the audits of the employers to see if you can make those cases?
ARPAIO: Once again, we don't have subpoena powers under this civil law, which is you lose your license the second time around. So we need tougher laws. But in the meantime, I'm still raiding businesses and still locking up those here illegally, working in the businesses with false identification. That's still a serious violation. I understand what you're talking about. We need stronger state laws.
SPITZER: Well, look, I think most folks probably understand you and I have differing views about how the best -- what the best mechanism is to resolve the immigration issue. Maybe fundamentally different views on many issues. But I guess I'm looking for some sense of balance. When you go in and you arrest the workers, have you also arrest the employer for falsifying his payroll, falsifying his tax returns? Do you audit those tax returns? Do you seize that stuff? You have a search warrant. You can go and seize the workers. You can seize with a search warrant those wage records. Why don't you seize those and then go after that employer who's the one who's benefiting financially and taking advantage of these workers?
ARPAIO: Well, that's somewhat in the federal jurisdiction. We deal with the ICE, IRS. When we come up with that information, we turn it over to ICE. Once again, we need stronger state laws to enforce what you're talking about. But in the meantime, I'm going to say it again, we're still doing our job and getting rid of those that are here working illegally because we have a 10 percent, you know, unemployment. So at least I'm making vacancies for those U.S. citizens, those who are here legally. So I'm doing something for the economy if nothing else.
SPITZER: Look, I think, you know, I disagree with some of your tactics, but I'm mystified that when you go in and arrest the workers you have search warrants, you could get those employment records, you have all sorts of false filings against the business leaders of your city and your town. They may be powerful, but sheriff, I'd say to you, if you really believe what you're doing, you should be taking those documents, doing that audit, arresting those employers. They may be rich, powerful and politically important, but they're the ones who are committing a crime at least as bad by not paying their taxes and unknowingly employing people who are here illegally. So my challenge for you is why don't you do that?
ARPAIO: That's an IRS problem.
SPITZER: No, no, no.
ARPAIO: I'm not the IRS.
SPITZER: But you've been saying you have the enforcement power at a state level. Look, I was a state A.G. I know what the powers are.
ARPAIO: No, I don't.
SPITZER: I know what sheriffs can do. You have that capacity to do it, Sheriff.
ARPAIO: No.
SPITZER: So I challenge you to do that. The easy thing -- and I don't say this to disparage you. The easy thing is to arrest the workers. The harder thing is to make the case against the employers who are taking advantage of them. So my challenge to you is why don't you do that?
ARPAIO: It's not easy to arrest the workers. We don't just knock a door down. We do a lot of research. It takes six months. We do deal with the economic security. We deal with social security. We don't just go in there. Believe me, Eliot, I would love to lock up all the employers, believe me.
SPITZER: Have you checked to see the way and the methods they use to determine whether or not their employees, in fact, are citizens, whether they have the documentation, the I-9s, whether they in fact even fill out the necessary withholding forms, and when they don't, go after them for false filings, tax fraud, the whole raft of crimes that necessarily accompany hiring and employing those illegal workers? Have you done that?
ARPAIO: I'm going to tell you again -- I'm going to tell you again, we work closely with the federal government. ICE and IRS, and we turn over the records because we don't have the subpoena powers right now under the state law.
SPITZER: But Sheriff, when you go in with a search warrant, you seize those records, you can make those cases. I'll tell you, I'll do you a favor. You and I are going to talk after the show at some point. ARPAIO: OK.
SPITZER: I'll give you a little free legal advice. You can make those cases and my challenge to you, sir, is if you want to be serious about this, don't just go after the low-hanging fruit. Go after the employers.
ARPAIO: We don't do that. We did grab -- we did grab -- I agree with you. We did go after employers. I'm talking about the civil violation. The other violations you're talking about we do enlist the help of the federal government. What else do you want me to do?
SPITZER: Make the cases yourself.
ARPAIO: I'm doing my part.
SPITZER: All right. Sheriff Arpaio, I appreciate you coming on the show. We'll talk a whole lot more about this. I look forward to it.
ARPAIO: All right.
SPITZER: Thank you, sir.
ARPAIO: Thank you.
SPITZER: All right. E.D. Hill is here tonight.
E.D., you're looking at the falling reality and the impossibility, perhaps, of the American dream. What's this all about?
E.D. HILL, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, yes, as Sheriff Arpaio was talking about, 10 percent unemployment in Arizona and a lot of folks that can't make their mortgage payments now. They don't have jobs. Instead, they're being foreclosed or sometimes just walking away from houses. At times though, it's gotten even worse than that. And it turns out that today we've gotten new information that shows that just as we might have been hoping things were starting to turn around a little bit, it's gotten a whole lot worse.
We have a man with amazing wisdom about this. And he's going to join us right after this.
SPITZER: All right, E.D., thanks so much. Interesting conversation. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HILL: It's June 1st tomorrow, and for many Americans, that means the monthly mortgage payment is due. Now, homeownership has traditionally been a source of pride and a way to build wealth. But just when it looked like the housing market was pulling out of its nosedive comes news it's gotten even worse. What's driving the cycle of few jobs, hard to get mortgages and plummeting home values?
Perhaps the best person to explain all of this joins me now, former labor secretary and the author of this book "Aftershock," Robert Reich.
Thank you very much for being with us.
ROBERT REICH, FORMER SECRETARY OF LABOR: Good evening, E.D.
HILL: You know, I have been looking at the latest numbers that came out today. And everybody was waiting for the second shoe to drop, and it did. We got the Case-Shiller number. It tracks the real estate value. And as folks take a look at this graphic that we have for them, it shows you exactly what has happened since 2006. Values down almost 33 percent. We have hit a double-dip. How did it get this bad?
REICH: E.D., it's partly a cascading effect because you see as people can't pay their mortgages and banks foreclose and these mortgages go into default, that means that more and more properties are available on the market. There are more and more empty homes. There are more and people that have to sell. And that pushes down the value of everybody else's property. And as other people's property becomes less and less valuable, more and more of them find themselves under water with homes that are worth less than they paid for them and actually that they owe more on their homes than their homes are worth.
HILL: Yes.
REICH: So they default or they walk away from their homes. And you see how it just has a multiplier effect. That's exactly what's happening. Thirty-three percent drop from 2006. That's worse and a bigger drop than we had during the Great Depression. Then houses fell about 31 percent. This is really a record drop in housing values and it's all because of this cascade that I've described.
HILL: To your point about the banks coming in and foreclosing, if you take a look at this number of the homes for sale, 28 percent had been in foreclosure. So 2011, 28 percent of the homes that are out there for sale right now are foreclosure. And I understand that the banks have a whole lot more. So in essence, the banks continue driving down the value of the assets they have, and the assets that they have lent money on.
REICH: That's essentially what's happening, E.D. And remember, many of these banks are the same big banks the taxpayers bailed out. They're doing very well in other parts of their business right now. They are sitting very pretty. CEOs of big banks on Wall Street are doing marvelously well. The bonus season was one of the best bonus seasons ever.
But meanwhile, look at what's happening to American homeowners. I mean, what we should have done and it's easy to say Monday morning quarterback, but I'll tell you, I said it at the time. What we should have done when we gave those big banks the bailout, we should have said you've got to reorganize and renegotiate loans that are going sour.
HILL: You are absolutely right. And why wasn't there anybody in Washington to put that string and attach it to the money that was given to these banks? I cannot figure that out. Because yes, the fat cats got fatter and the rest of America seemed to be put in an even deeper hole. That's where we are right now.
You know, a decreasing number of Americans own their own homes. And what I find interesting is that even people who can afford to buy now are opting to rent. And that seems to be changing the fundamental make-up of America.
REICH: Well, basically because the American dream, which used to include owning your home has turned for so many people into a nightmare. And that has scared off many, many other homeowners. Some people are waiting on the margins because they see home prices are going down. They want to buy when the market hits bottom and the market has not hit bottom yet. So they're holding off buying homes and that is putting further downward pressure on homeownership.
I'll tell you, E.D., the easiest way out of this, the simplest way out of this is to allow people to declare personal bankruptcy on and including their primary residence. Now, if you did that, right now they can't do that, if you did that, that would give homeowners who are in default or in danger of default much more bargaining leverage with their banks. And their original lenders in terms of renegotiating, because those lenders know that if that house is under bankruptcy, they are going to get only a small percentage back of what they otherwise could get back. They'd do much better to renegotiate that loan.
HILL: But you know, what we've got to do is fundamentally we've got to find a way to stop this cycle. We don't have employment. People can't get the loans. They can't buy the houses. People who can't sell the houses find that the values keep dropping. They can't walk away now because they'd owe money on it. And it's just this vicious cycle.
You know, I looked at the money that was sort of thrown at the American problem. We had the tax credits. We had tax credits for first-time homebuyers. We had all sorts of stimulus bills. And it seems like you can hire all the census workers, IRS workers, and people out there to pave roadways, but at the end of the day, they head home and we haven't created sustainable jobs. How do we do that?
REICH: Well, E.D., instead of worrying about the budget deficit five or 10 years from now, instead of worrying about all of these projected out-year deficits, and they are big, we ought to worry about them. But right now, Washington needs to do something about jobs and wages and homeownership. I mean, this is the big crisis facing people. And you start with, for example, my idea on allowing people to declare personal bankruptcy on their homes, but you can extend beyond that. I mean, exempt the first $20,000 of income from payroll taxes for a year. That would give people cash right in their pockets and also create an incentive for people to hire, for employers to hire.
HILL: Absolutely.
REICH: You could have a new -- E.D., how about a new WPA to hire the long term unemployed? Get them back to work, get them paying taxes. I mean, there are innumerable things that could be done but Washington right now is paralyzed doing absolutely nothing.
HILL: Well, I hope they listen because you just laid out a couple of very good ideas. You've got to get money to companies so they have an incentive to hire. You've got to get money to people so they've got the incentive and the ability to spend. And something has to stop here. Fundamentally it's just got to stop. And we have to figure out a new way forward.
Robert Reich, thank you very much for sharing your experience and your wisdom. I appreciate it.
REICH: Thanks, E.D.
HILL: His book is called "Aftershock."
Coming up, Japan's nuclear disaster may be out of the headlines, but it is definitely not over. Eliot has the latest on this catastrophe. It refuses to go away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: It's the nuclear crisis that won't go away. Crippled after the March 11th earthquake and tsunami, Japan's Fukushima power plant continues to struggle with the meltdown. A short time ago, I spoke with Professor Michio Kaku, author of the book "Physics of the Future" and he had some scary news about Fukushima.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHIO KAKU, PROFESSOR OF THEORETICAL PHYSICS, CUNY: Last week, there was this enormous bombshell dropped by the government. They finally admitted there was 100 percent core melt in unit one, possibly in units two and three. All these reassuring, soothing words mean nothing. One hundred percent core melt. What stopped the reactor accident in time was the sudden influx of sea water. If they didn't put that sea water in at the right moment, we would have lost northern Japan. That's how close we came to a national worldwide tragedy.
SPITZER: OK. I just want to make sure people understand. One hundred percent core melt means what?
KAKU: It means that the core uranium, which is 100 tons measuring about 12 feet tall is now basically a bowl of granola -- granola with cream on it. That's what it looks like.
SPITZER: Explain this to me. It melted down into this mess.
KAKU: It melted down and crumbled into this mess.
SPITZER: Right.
KAKU: There's nothing recognizable in the core. If you were to take a TV camera down there and photograph it, it's like a pile of splintered granola with cream. That's what it looks like. SPITZER: And so that whole time when people were saying, when some people were saying we had a meltdown and the government was saying no, no, no meltdown. It was a meltdown.
KAKU: It was a meltdown, 100 percent core melt. And what prevented the reactor from simply going out of control and exploding was the fact that they dumped sea water into the cores, stopping the accident, and this is not in any textbook.
SPITZER: Right.
KAKU: No textbook says as a last ditch measure dump sea water to stop three simultaneous meltdowns.
SPITZER: OK. So it stopped the meltdown because the water simply absorbed the heat and dissipated it, but the downside risk was the sea water then went back into the ocean dissipated and the radio activity will spread around.
KAKU: The problem is you have all this salt, you have all this radioactive water and the Chinese and the Koreans have protested because of the fact that they were dumping radioactive sea water into the ocean. Radioactive levels began to soar. People were concerned about plant life, about seafood. It created a huge mess. And it's still going on. Realizing that school children right now are going to be exposed to 20 times the level that an atomic worker is going to be exposed. This is so bad that one of the advisers of the prime minister quit. He quit in protest and said that I'm not going to let my children be exposed to 20 times the radiation of what an atomic worker would be.
SPITZER: OK, I want to go back. What would have happened if the sea water had not gone in?
KAKU: Then you would have had a breach of containment. That is all this melted uranium would have plunged on to the floor, probably caused a steam explosion, hydrogen gas explosion, blew the lid off the whole thing and then you would have had Chernobyl. Three simultaneous Chernobyls, raging cores with maybe 25 percent of the core vaporized and turning into dust particles and basically wiping out northern Japan as an area that can be habited.
SPITZER: So we came close?
KAKU: We came very close. Right.
SPITZER: Did they know this at the time?
KAKU: They didn't even know how close it was. There was an argument between the utility and the government. The government said, you know, damn the torpedoes.
SPITZER: Right.
KAKU: Put in sea water. And the utility said, no, no, no, no, we can salvage it. SPITZER: They were trying to preserve their investment.
KAKU: They were trying to preserve their investment, even as there was 100 percent core melt. They were saying it's salvageable, don't put sea water in.
SPITZER: Now some people have said that what also helped preserve this was that the containment vessel itself was not breached in any significant way. Is that right?
KAKU: Now we realize that there's partial breachment of one, maybe two containment vessels. In other words, radiation is still coming out and we have this mystery where is the radiation coming from.
SPITZER: Right, right.
KAKU: It's coming from a breach of containment. It's leaking through cracks in the containment and melted holes. We now know there was a breach of containment. It did not create a steam explosion, thank God, because they put sea water in time. But radiation, the multi-uranium leaked out.
SPITZER: OK. Now, the next concern is typhoon season. What are the hazards? What are the risks we're facing now?
KAKU: Yes, we're entering typhoon season. And remember that we have three very damaged reactors that are still in freefall. The earliest estimate is now early next year they'll finally stabilize the three reactors --
SPITZER: In terms of temperature, you mean.
KAKU: In terms of temperatures, go into cold shutdown.
SPITZER: Right.
KAKU: They can't go into cold shutdown now. So that means that where there's a tipping point, a typhoon could tip it over and the accident can start up all over again. So it's a ticking time bomb. It looks stable only because it's ticking away. However, a typhoon, a small earthquake, a pipe break, and their accident starts up all over again because of the damage which is now known to be much more severe than we previously thought.
SPITZER: So not to revisit, but at the time when many of us were covering Fukushima and there were people either saying, oh, you're making more of it than you deserve to. The fact of the matter is it was even worse than we thought it was.
KAKU: That's right. It was even worse than the worst imagination of the media. Media was speculating maybe five percent, 10 percent core melt.
SPITZER: Right. KAKU: No one ever suspected that we had three simultaneous core meltdowns, 100 percent core damage and that sea water of all things stopped a tragedy from taking place. The media if anything, we now realize downplayed the real impact of the accident.
SPITZER: All right. Professor Kaku, thank you for all of that good news. All right. Thanks for coming by.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: Thanks so much for joining us IN THE ARENA. Good night from New York.
"PIERS MORGAN TONIGHT" starts right now.
