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Not Quite the Bourbon Summit; Speaker Boehner Tries to Hold GOP Together; Unique Perspective with St. Louis PD's Other Darren Wilson; Protesters Take to Streets Of New York; Intense Fighting Leaves Kobani in Ruins

Aired December 04, 2014 - 07:30   ET

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

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CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: There's much to do with politics this morning on several different big-story fronts so let's take to you the man who controls this circus, "Inside Politics," Mr. John King.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST, "INSIDE POLITICS": Controls the circus. I'm not sure I want that job, but I guess I got it.

CUOMO: You've got it. Where's your hat?

KING: Alisyn, Chris, good morning to you. A lot to discuss "Inside Politics," we'll frame our conversation this morning around two big meetings at the White House yesterday.

With me this morning to share their reporting and insights are Jonathan Martin of the "New York Times" and Lisa Lerer of "Bloomberg News."

Let's start first with the president's meeting with Mitch McConnell. He will be the Senate majority leader come January. Deliberately, a lot for these guys to talk about and a lot of business they could do. Deliberately, both sides not really telling us what happened yesterday.

Mitch McConnell telling our Ted Barrett when he came back to Capitol Hill from the meeting, we had a good conversation about a variety of different issues where we might possibly find common ground. This was not the bourbon summit, but I'm still hoping we will have it.

Lisa, they have to talk about, you know Republicans want to change Obamacare. They have to talk about Republicans are upset about the president's immigration policy, taxes, spending, and everything else. Any idea what actually happened in the room?

LISA LERER, "BLOOMBERG NEWS": They're being really mum what happened in the room, as you point out. But it's hard to see how much ground can be made here. I mean, there are incentives on both sides. Obama wants to burnish his legacy. McConnell has to show that Republicans can actually govern.

But policy wise, there's just not a lot of space to maneuver. Maybe something happens on trade, maybe taxes, although that feels a lot less likely. Immigration certainly seems like a no go.

So I'm just not sure given the background and all the built-up sort of personal stuff and political stuff over the past six, seven years, it just doesn't see how this, it's not clear how this becomes a very productive meeting.

JONATHAN MARTIN, "NEW YORK TIMES": At a public event here in Washington, Senator McConnell said that President Obama has butt- kicked in the election. That was the lead-in for this meeting, which may have made things a little bit awkward.

Both of these politicians are sort of professionals and they have a sort of wink-and-nod quality about them, they get the game. Probably did try to find some areas where they could get stuff done. It's in both of their interests to get stuff done.

KING: If they can just even create a better line of communication down the road. When things are ready to be done or deals ready to be made, if they at least develop a relationship.

MARTIN: That speaks to the challenge.

LERER: They have to get there.

MARTIN: This is their third-ever one-on-one meeting. Usually McConnell has dealt with Joe Biden. Obama and McConnell don't have much of a relationship.

LERER: And they have to get their individual caucuses in line. We saw a test case with the tax extenders this week. They could only extend them retroactively and then for what, three weeks until January? Maybe three weeks? It wasn't a good sign. That was because of Democrats in the Senate in part.

KING: That's because of Democrats. Now on the Republican side, you have the anger bubbling over, boiling over about the president's immigration actions and that's got both Leader McConnell and Speaker Boehner on short leash because they have conservative revolts in their own caucuses.

Interesting that into the discussion today, comes the "Washington Post," not known as a conservative editorial page by any means, the "Washington Post," the White House has been saying, the president did this, but so did Ronald Reagan, so did George H.W. Bush.

The "Washington Post" says this morning, this is not a game of gotcha. Facts matter, even in Washington and so do the numbers, under close scrutiny it's plain that the White House numbers are indefensible.

Meaning comparing it to George H.W. Bush, it is simply playing at the scale of Mr. Obama's move goes far beyond anything his predecessors attempted. Now the "Washington Post" is saying Republicans should be ashamed for not debating immigration in the House of Representatives.

But how much does this help the Republican case and how much is the "Washington Post" going to convince the Ted Cruzs and the Tea Party guys in the House to say stand up more to this president.

MARTIN: I don't think that they need any encouragement from the "Washington Post" to do that. Certainly you'll see Republicans up on Capitol Hill to say even the "Washington Post" kind of thing. You'll hear lots of that in the next few weeks.

The challenge for the Republicans will be how do they push back against the immigration issue without making themselves the issue? Of course, that's what John Boehner and McConnell are so worried about.

KING: All right, so Boehner wants to let them vote on a bill in the House that essentially says Mr. President, you don't have the authority and we're going on record saying you don't have the authority. Knowing full well the House will pass it and it will die because the Senate is still controlled by Democrats until January.

And then Speaker Boehner says we won't shut down the government, we'll get mad about this, but we're not going to -- listen to Ted Cruz, though. Nancy Pelosi's office calls him Speaker Cruz.

He went across the capitol to meet with mostly conservative Tea Party members yesterday. Listen to him after that meeting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: Doing what you promised doesn't mean as it so often does in Washington, sending a really stern letter and having a meaningless show vote. Why do you think people are so frustrated with Washington? Because they recognize there are a whole lot of politicians that say one thing at home and do something different here. Every single one of us keep your promise.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Standing there with some of John Boehner's conservative members, essentially saying Mr. Speaker, you're wrong. How much of this, how big of a problem is this? Is this just a small vocal opposition, or is this a big problem?

LERER: Well, I feel like we're watching "Fast and Furious 17" or whatever we've seen this movie many times before. It has new residents now. Everyone wants to see what happens in January when the Republicans are in control.

What we're watching is a fight for control of the Republican Party. This is Republican leadership trying to marshal control of their party and not just a dozen conservatives in the House or several dozen conservatives in the House.

It's the outside groups. It's Club for Growth. It's Heritage that drove the shutdown in 2013 and it's everyone is sort of watching to see whether Boehner will able to pull this off and what it means for January.

KING: Keep the genie in the bottle, I guess. MARTIN: They're going to try to pass all of the spending bills to fund the government through next year with the exception of the funding for the Homeland Security Department, which is responsible for the order on the immigration issue.

Two things, will President Obama sign a spending bill that doesn't include funding for DHS and in the spring, when they talk about that issue. The same topic comes up. You have the hardliners like Cruz out there, who are pushing back and folks like Boehner who don't want to make this too much of an issue to hurt themselves.

KING: The other big meeting at the White House yesterday, let's get to it quickly, Hillary Clinton was not on the president's schedule. They do meet from time to time. I want to show you a "Boston Herald" front page. Hillary Clinton was at Georgetown yesterday.

If you look closely, a lot of empty seats up in the balcony, Republicans are trying to make a big deal out of this, saying Hillary Clinton lost her charm. She can't even get students to come to her speech.

The meeting with the president is something they do, do occasionally. It probably makes the vice president a bit upset. Just swapping notes?

LERER: This is an extremely delicate and a bit strange moment for Hillary Clinton. She's most likely running for president. But she's not doing it yet and probably not for a couple of weeks. But she's being treated like a presidential candidate.

So she has to find a way to deal with the presidential level coverage while doing very little. Last week that meant there was a whole spate of stories about what she wasn't talking about, Keystone, NSA reform.

This week it meant there was a spate of stories about people not attending her event. It's a strange dynamic that she has to navigate.

KING: It will change relatively soon in the new word when we get the final word. That's what we're going to call it until we get the word from Hillary Clinton, the interregnum period.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: That's multisyllabic. All right, John, thanks so much. Great to see you.

Well, tensions are high between police departments and minority communities. One man who has experienced the vitriol firsthand is a St. Louis police officer who happens to share a name with the office another killed Michael Brown. Sergeant Darren Wilson joins us next to share his very unique perspective.

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CUOMO: Welcome back. We have a unique perspective for you when it comes to the cases we've been covering about potential excessive force, especially in Ferguson. His name is Sergeant Darren R. Wilson of the St. Louis police, the "r" matters. Because he was initially misidentified as the police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown. He's also, by the way, the president of the Ethical Society of Police.

So we have the sergeant with us, right now. That "r" saved you and the fact that the officer was identified as white. But let me ask you this, Sergeant, what was like to have your name out there, even briefly?

SGT. DARREN R. WILSON, ST. LOUIS POLICE OFFICER: It was interesting. The first few days surrounding it, my phone went off the hook. Also the social media sites, we have an organization esopin.com and a Facebook page. It got pretty busy with a lot of different comments and inquiries, friend requests, different ones chiming in on the situation.

CUOMO: Did it teach you anything that you weren't aware of before?

WILSON: As far as the name issue? Not necessarily, no.

CUOMO: But in terms of how people are and how they see the police actions?

WILSON: Absolutely. And that's what I was dovetailing into next. You learn that a lot of people pay attention to police, police in general and a lot of the issues. So to see that, that let us know, me know in our organization that there is a purpose for organizations like mine, and the ethical society of police, the national black police association.

As well to stay on top of these issues and continue to be that bridge, that gap between not only minority communities, although that's what we for the most part place emphasis on but just communities overall. Let them know there are varying perspectives on how we approach law enforcement.

CUOMO: Ethical is an important and interesting word when it comes to policing. Not just about getting away with what you do. It's about whether or not it's right and the best way to do it do you believe that Ferguson and now here on Staten Island, with Eric Garner, do you think that we saw ethical behavior by police officers in one or both of those cases?

WILSON: No, absolutely not. You, when you're talking about use of force, that's a very sensitive issue, all in all. And law enforcement you have continuum. You have a force continuum. That's one of things we practice here. It appears in both cases that cycle was broken. It went from you know, you hear the term zero to 60.

It appears in both cases that's what happened. Now was that the officer's initial intent? That's something that I don't think any of us can say. However, we didn't see the continuum maintained from zero to one to two in chronological or sequential order. It seems like several of the in-betweens were skip over and we reached a climax immediately.

CUOMO: Do you think that cops were given a break by prosecutors when they investigate these cases?

WILSON: We've experienced some similar situations here locally from my organizations perspective as well. It's sad to say that you see disparities in those courtesies discretions. I'll say discretions, on the way prosecutors approach law enforcement officers.

CUOMO: In your favor?

WILSON: Well, not necessarily. It depends on the personalities, we've seen in our organization, we've seen where it appears, we have a case here that we're watching as well, alongside the Ferguson incident where it seems like the black officers aren't getting the same leverages or courtesies that white officers get.

The same approaches from the prosecutors. It seems like the penalties and the punishment or the approaches are even stiffer when it comes to minority officers.

CUOMO: Are people right to feel that blacks are often the subject of fear of police officers? And are often treated with a different level of dignity than the white constituents of a community maybe?

WILSON: Absolutely. You definitely see differences in policing. You see disparities in the way law enforcement's approach in the communities, especially the minority communities.

CUOMO: I know it is not easy for you. It's a balancing. You're an African-American. But you're also a police officer and you're going to have loyalties here that are going to get complicated. But we appreciate your candor on this. It's a conversation we need to have in a very open and honest way.

WILSON: Absolutely. Thank you for having us.

CUOMO: You take care -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Chris, here's a story viewers need to see, the Syrian city of Kobani is under siege from ISIS, a CNN crew takes you inside one of the most dangerous places on earth. For a view from the front lines that you will only see here.

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CAMEROTA: Now to Syria and a gripping CNN exclusive. We take you inside the deadly fight for the city of Kobani. Our Nick Paton Walsh and his crew follow a female soldier and her Kurdish fighting force as they exchange fire with ISIS. Nick joins us live from inside the Turkish border overlooking Kobani. Nick, tell us --

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's remarkable after weeks of seeing that conflict from the hills opposite in Turkey is to see the scale of the devastation inside. People still trying to live there and some Kurdish female fighters and their colleagues trying to hold the front line where ISIS are literally within feet.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) WALSH (voice-over): From inside Kobani, the day's ferocity gets no respite at night. A prize so small, but so valued, the violence seems to swallow it hole, grinding its streets down to the bone. We're heading to the front line where nightly, daily, ISIS hoped to advance, with media, a Kurdish female fighter, also in air egalitarian world, this unit's commander.

Coalition air power did this, pushing ISIS back. They abandoned their dead as they retreat, the decaying smell haunts these front lines. Some call it Kobani grad after the city's sacrifice to make a point. A little left here, but a bull work of Kurdish defiants 20 meters from ISIS.

They think they see something in the rubble. Even after coalition support, desperately in need of better arms. This is the kind of exchanges that happen here hourly. Is literally meters to that side, shooting at this position that we've seen return fire as well.

This surely wasn't the death ISIS recruits were sold in their propaganda videos. Mortars are often used, so we pull back. Come on over against the wall. Media is 22 and has been within five meters of ISIS. Here, friends are made and lost. Her best friend, Reban, died saving others.

MEEDYA RAQQA, YFG KURDISH COMMENTATOR (through translator): There were very heavy clashes with is. We were outnumbered and out of ammunition. She herself was injured, but she advanced to help save the other injured with her. ISIS surrounded her because girls are very prized by them.

She then blew herself up and killed a lot of them with her. I was near her then her last words to me were "We will liberate our land with the last drop of blood in my body."

WALSH: The man brings tea. This is the polar opposite of ISIS' world view. They can't afford to stop the fight, even if that means there's little left to live on when they do.

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WALSH: You know, the estimate we've been getting before going in was the ISIS held about a third and we're on the retreat, it was clear inside from the position of that front line you saw, they probably have about half that city and that fight is in the balance every day.

And night, the gunfire we saw, the Kurds troubles, running out of ammunition, winter is come in, they need food and fuel, they feel isolated. The coalition had technology in the skies above them to assist them, but on the ground it is often young girls in their 20- something years holding that fight back with ISIS -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Nic, we can't imagine a better view of what's going on in Kobani than what you've just given us. Thanks so much for sharing that report.

CUOMO: We're going to be talking this morning about the nightmare for the family of Eric Garner as well. You know that the officer who choked him to death has not been indicted, but what does that mean to them?

What do they want to have happen going forward and how do they deal with the allegations that this is what happens when you resist the police. We have Eric Garner's family attorney coming up.

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