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American Morning
Sound-off: Julianne Malveaux, Ann Coulter
Aired January 11, 2002 - 08:46 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Our "Sound Off" this morning, a war of words between American Airlines and a Secret Service agent, a member of the president's security team who was kicked off a flight on Christmas Day. Lawyers for the agent, Walied Shater, says their client was removed because he's Arab-American.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN RELMAN, ATTORNEY FOR SHATER: Sure and simple, this is a case of discrimination. He was treated in a demeaning manner, as you've heard, a humiliating manner, a rude manner.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: But American Airlines has a very different view.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DON CARTY, CEO, AMERICAN AIRLINES: This agent was not behaving appropriately, and our captain simply was not going to let an angry man with a gun on his airplane, and I back that completely, and I will back any employee makes the same kind of decision for safety and security decision. Period. End of story.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: Joining us now to sound off on this controversy from Washington, syndicated columnist Julianne Malveaux. Here in New York, constitut --
JULIANNE MALVEAUX, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Hi, Paula.
ZAHN: Good morning. Here in New York, constitutional lawyer Ann Coulter. Good Friday to you as well, Ann. All right. You both have heard the arguments from American Airlines and the attorney representing this Secret Service agent. Who do you believe, Ann?
ANN COULTER, CONSTITUTIONAL LAWYER: It's not a question of who I believe since, like many frequent travelers, I find the airlines not only somewhat incredible, but insane these days. Even on his version of the facts, I think it's outrageous, and he should be fired from his position as a Secret Service officer.
He was trying to carry a gun on an airline. The idea that he was treated any worse than the thousands of passengers who have been evacuated from airports, had their flights canceled, delayed, people being patted down, strip-searched, the congressman this week, 70-year- old congressman from Michigan has to strip to his underwear, and they weren't trying to carry guns on the airplane.
So this guy had his flight delayed for a day, and he accuses the airlines of profiling him because he is an Arab? Unfortunately, that is not what the airlines are doing.
(CROSSTALK)
ZAHN: Julianne, do you think it should occur to the special agent he was going to have some problems getting this gun on board?
MALVEAUX: Well, there is a procedure --
ZAHN: No matter what his status is?
MALVEAUX: No, there's a procedure for taking a gun on board. There's some forms that have to be filled out. I've traveled with members of police forces, and they do have -- it is a complicated procedure. The form has to be filled out.
He filled out the form. He was taken off a prior flight. Everybody was taken off a prior flight, delayed, that they did not have another form for him to fill out, which he should have done, so he had to cross out things on the form.
Long story short, he and the pilot were going at each other for 75 minutes. Three minutes, he could have called the White House and verified his identity. Ann Coulter is so wrong when she suggests this man should be fired. If anybody gets fired, it ought to be this racist pilot who -- if this man is good enough to guard the president of the United States certainly he ought to be good enough to fly on American Airlines.
ZAHN: All right, so Julianne, essentially what you are telling us this morning, you believe the only reason this happened to him was not because of some screw up with paperwork, this happened to him because he was an Arab-American. That's what you're saying, right?
MALVEAUX: I believe that, I believe that firmly because, Paula, I believe that this could have been cleared up in three minutes. I think -- I think both men's egos got on the line, quite frankly, but I think it could have been cleared up in three minutes had the pilot simply made the phone call.
In the "Washington Post" story of this, there is some reporting about a flight attendant saw a book in Arabic. What does that have to do with anything? You can't carry a book in Arabic if you are a United States citizen? It seems to me that there is a whole lot of overreacting going on here, and this man had the identification and had filled out the proper forms. You got an egomaniacal pilot, and a defensive Secret Service agent and race played a difference here.
ZAHN: Why don't you address the question of how you completely remove this man's ethnicity from the equation here? You don't think that had anything to do with what happened to him? You are saying it was just because he was carrying a gun?
COULTER: Unfortunately, it doesn't. Would that it were so, and in answer to Julianne's question, the reason a book like "The Crusades Through Arab Eyes" and the fact that this passenger was an Arab, in addition to the fact that he had a loaded gun, might raise suspicions is that for 20 years every terrorist attack on a commercial airline has been committed by Arabs, and so that is what we're looking for now.
Unfortunately, the airlines don't realize that we're in a war with al Qaeda right now. I mean, if you're up against the mob, you don't stop a little Chinese men. We're looking for Arab men. We are looking for Muslims. We know that's what the next terrorist will be, and it's preposterous for airlines to be wasting everyone's time --
ZAHN: All right.
(CROSSTALK)
ZAHN: You know what I want to do -- we're not going to solve this here this morning. I need a quick yes-no -- hang on, hang on, hang on. I need a quick yes or no from both of you. Want to moving on quickly to the Enron investigation. In the end will someone from the White House take a fall -- Ann Coulter.
COULTER: Oh, absolutely not. I think it's kind of funny that the complaint about Enron has been how big donations buy influence with the government. Well, apparently they didn't buy much influence here. They're bankrupt.
ZAHN: Okay. Julianne, some closing thoughts?
MALVEAUX: Someone is going to take a fall -- absolutely. Someone is going to take a fall. This is corruption, high corruption. Thousands of Americans have lost their pensions because of dirty dealing from a company that gave John Ashcroft $57,000, the Republicans, how much money --
ZAHN: All right.
MALVEAUX: Someone is going to roll.
ZAHN: All right, but 70 percent of all senators, we should note too, according the "Wall Street Journal," also took money from Enron.
(CROSSTALK)
We got to go. Thank you both, Julianne, Ann Coulter, appreciate your time this morning.
MALVEAUX: Thanks, Paula. Bye, Ann.
COULTER: Thanks. Bye.
ZAHN: Bye.
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