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Hillary Clinton and Rand Paul Sound Off; Masten: Playboy Bunnies Assaulted by Cosby; Questions of Race Surround Chokehold Death

Aired December 05, 2014 - 06:30   ET

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back.

We have possible presidential contenders for 2016 weighing in on the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases.

For more on what Hillary Clinton and Rand Paul had to say, let's get to senior political correspondent Brianna Keilar.

Good morning, Brianna. What do we know?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Chris.

As far as 2016, contenders, potential contenders I should say have gone, Rand Paul has really stood alone when it comes to the vocal comments on this grand jury decisions in both Ferguson and Staten Island. But Hillary Clinton changing that, speaking to a women's event in Boston, saying she backs federal reviews, in both police- involved deaths.

Here's more of what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: We have allowed our criminal justice system to get out of balance. And I personally hope that these tragedies give us the opportunity to come together as a nation to find our balance again.

SEN. RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: I first saw the video, I was horrified and still am horrified every time I see it. As you know, Eric Garner, is gasping for breath and saying, "I can't breathe," I just can't believe this goes on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: So, that was Rand Paul last night talking to Wolf Blitzer there. You see the two candidates, potential candidates. They have areas of agreement when it comes to criminal justice reform. But Hillary Clinton focused a lot more on the state of relations between police and the black community.

And you saw Rand Paul focusing more on sentencing, saying that sentences for drug offenses, minor offenses, they should be reduced. So, some agreement, but you certainly see some contrasts.

Rand Paul also saying taxes are to blame. The New York City cigarette tax more than $5 a pack. Of course, police were trying to arrest Eric Garner, because he was selling cigarettes tax-free.

So, you're seeing this contrast going on and no doubt we're going to see more of that as we head towards 2016 -- Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Brianna, thanks so much for that.

Let's talk now about some extreme weather, because heavy downpours are creating chaos in southern California. Mudslides and flooding reported in Riverside and San Diego Counties, emergency crews forced to rescue dozens of people stranded in their cars. California Highway Patrol says it has responded to 90 accidents in San Diego County in just one eight-hour stretch.

So, let's get right to meteorologist Indra Petersons who is keeping track of all of this for us.

How's it looking?

INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I want to give awe picture of yesterday's radar to give you an idea of what actually came through the region yesterday. It doesn't look like much, you can see one system training through the region, what you into he had to realize is that yesterday in San Diego, they got more rain in one day than they typically see in the entire month. Half of that came down in just one hour.

So, it doesn't seem like much, only talking about an inch and a half or so of rain, but again, that's what happens. It's nowhere to go when we talk about all this drought conditions, tall the rain clogged the drains very quickly.

Now, today, more rain is expected in through the region. But what we're looking at is the low spinning. So, it's different than the last system they just saw. You can actually notice it's staying farther to the north. The moisture source farther south. So, not that heavy rain for southern California, they have a little chance for showers today, it's going to be concentrated more to the north and that's we're going to be looking at, those flood threats today.

For the rest of us, a storm making its way through, yes, we have now in the map, but the bulk of this, it's going to be coming through the overnight hours, although in through Cleveland this morning, we do have a threat for some freezing rain. We're going to be watching that. Here's the good news, a warm front pushes through for the bulk of this will switch over to rain by the time we get to the weekend.

And I have to say it's good news, because really Friday and Saturday going to be pretty soggy, a big mess for the mid-Atlantic and Northeast. But not snow. I found out that kind of twist, right?

CAMEROTA: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: Great. Good work, Indra. Thanks so much.

PETERSONS: Sure.

CAMEROTA: Well, another victim comes forward to accuse Bill Cosby of sexual assault. This woman says that the entertainer drugged and raped her in a Chicago hotel. Why is she speaking out now? We'll find out when she sits down with me for this riveting one-on-one interview.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Bill Cosby's attorneys are firing back at Judy Huth. That's the woman who says that she was sexually assaulted by the comedian when she was just 15 years old. They claimed that Huth tried to extort money from the embattled star and are now suing her.

But Huth's story this week motivated this next woman to come forward. PJ Masten says she knows of many more Cosby victims who are still too afraid to speak out.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PJ MASTEN, ALLEGES BILL COSBY DRUGGED AND RAPED HER: I can name off 12 right now that I know of, 12 former bunnies that I know of, that are ashamed to come forward, frightened to come forward, married with families, don't want to come forward. But they were also drugged, and raped by Bill Cosby. Raped.

CAMEROTA: Twelve women that we've never seen before.

MASTEN: No.

CAMEROTA: That have not gone to the media yet.

MASTEN: No, no, nope, nope, nope.

We recently had a playboy bunny reunion and we also have blogs and Facebook pages that are restricted to only former playboy bunnies, when this hit the news, there was a lot of dialogue that went on on our Website with a lot of the girls. A couple of which -- private messaged me and said, he did me, too. It happened to me, too.

CAMEROTA (voice-over): PJ Masten says she wasn't going to come forward with her story until she heard about Judy Huth's lawsuit and the claim she was sexually assaulted at just 15 years old. Cosby's attorneys have filed a motion to have that suit dismissed.

MASTEN: You don't do that to a child. A 15-year-old girl is a child.

That's when I had to come forward. That was it for me. This man has to be held accountable. He's a serial rapist. He's been that way since the '60s.

CAMEROTA: In her 20s, PJ was a playboy bunny, working at club locations in New York, Chicago and L.A. The clubs were glamorous places and Bill Cosby, a friend of Hue Hefner's, was a popular fixture.

(on camera): When you say you were a bunny, that's a bit of a bygone era. What is a playboy bunny?

MASTEN: A playboy bunny is essential a server, we were waitresses in three-inch high heels, five-inch ears and little costumes with a tail.

CAMEROTA: How did you meet Bill Cosby?

MASTEN: Well, I started working for playboy in 1972 as a bunny in Great Gorge. Bill Cosby was a headliner there.

CAMEROTA (voice-over): PJ says Cosby invited her to lunch one afternoon in Chicago and took this photo with her.

MASTEN: He jumped behind the counter. He was flipping hot dogs and making hot dogs. He made me a hot dog. Everybody was in there laughing, it was a lot of fun.

Well, the next day, I got a phone call from him. He says, "PJ, why don't you come out to dinner with me tomorrow night." I said, "OK, I'll meet you." He said, "Well, meet me at the Whitehall Hotel."

CAMEROTA (on camera): And you're not suspicious that anything is going to happen.

MASTEN: Not at all. I went upstairs and there were four men in the room besides Mr. Cosby. They were watching sports. They were smoking cigars. There was liquor on the table. And they were playing cards.

CAMEROTA: Did he tell you who these men were?

MASTEN: He mentioned their names. You know, it's been so long. I don't recall who they were. But these were his friends.

So, he asked me, he says before we go out to dinner, would you like a cocktail? And I wasn't much of a drinker. I said, "Well, I'll have a little bit of Grand Marnier." He was behind me and he poured the Grand Marnier in the glass with some ice, so I took the glass and I drank it.

And the next thing I knew, it was 4:00 in the morning. I woke up in a bed. Naked. Bruised. He was laying next to me.

And I slithered out of the bed. My clothes were all over the floor. I grabbed my clothes. I got myself together. I went downstairs. I got in a cab and went home, and took a shower.

CAMEROTA: You don't remember anything from the point that you had the sip of the Grand Marnier to the point where you woke up naked in the bed?

MASTEN: I remember hurting really bad.

CAMEROTA: Your body --

MASTEN: My body was hurting.

CAMEROTA: What did you think? When you woke up -- let me stop you there. When you woke up and you say you were bruised.

MASTEN: I know I was raped. I knew I was raped. There were bruise marks all over me. I knew I was raped by him.

CAMEROTA (voice-over): PJ says a few days later she told her supervisor at Playboy what had happened.

MASTEN: And she said to me, "You know, that's Hef's best friend, right?" I said yes. She said, "Well, nobody is going to believe you. I suggest you keep your mouth shut."

CAMEROTA: PJ says she's been in therapy for many years, trying to heal from her emotional wounds.

(on camera): What do you want to have happen to Cosby now?

MASTEN: I want to see his career destroyed. I want to see him made out to be exactly what he is -- he was a role model for children with Fat Albert and all his TV shows and the Huxtables made him out to look like such a wonderful dad.

He is a serial rapist. And he has fooled everybody in this country and around the world for years. He's a serial rapist.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: Be sure to join us on Monday night at 9:00 p.m. Eastern for a CNN special report, "The Cosby Show: A Legend Under Fire". It will hosted by Don Lemon and me. Again, that's Monday night, at 9:00 p.m. on CNN.

So, PJ was fascinating to talk to.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Was her demeanor to come forward? How was her demeanor before the interview?

CAMEROTA: Once she made her decision, as you can tell, she said it as in strong language as we have heard. Once she decided, and again, she said she was motivated because 15, that was a tipping point for her. Hearing there was a 15-year-old at the time who is accusing him of this.

But again, she says, that in the bunny world, of which she was a part of in the '70s, that there are many, many more women according to her who want to come forward.

Let's just talk about the playboy bunny world for a second, because she educated me. There weren't playmates, there was no nudity. They were waitresses.

PEREIRA: Yes, they were servers. CAMEROTA: They were servers and there was a den mother who was taking care of them. They weren't supposed to be dating customers and clients, and they certainly weren't supposed to be raped.

PEREIRA: They were cocktail waitresses.

CAMEROTA: When she told her den mother, her den mother said, you zip it and you keep it quiet.

CUOMO: You know, I don't have a problem separating Dr. Huxtable from Bill Cosby.

PEREIRA: A lot of people do.

CUOMO: I know. That does seem to be part of the perception analysis here.

But what is interesting to me is if even some of these people are telling the truth, right, let's look at it as cynically as possible. Just some are, what did that require to cover that up for so long? What would motivate people to cover it up?

I know the easy answer is always money and influence, they're getting paid. But not everybody was on Cosby's payroll. So, it would make you wonder what was going on there, if people knew this.

CAMEROTA: Such a good question. There were people who protected him and it was a different culture.

PEREIRA: We're likely to hear from more of those people coming forward.

CUOMO: The hard thing is their proof is their word. And the question is, is that enough for other people?

CAMEROTA: Absolutely.

CUOMO: All right. We're also getting into the racial tensions that are escalating across the country this morning. As study after study shows that black men are treated, thought of, and even looked at differently. We're going to get into why and the question of whether an ingrained bias can ever be reversed. We have new information for you ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Charles Barkley has weighed in again on comments about the Ferguson protests this time, defending them against his co-host, Kenny Smith, particularly his comment that some Ferguson rioters were, quote, "scumbags".

Take a look at the latest iteration.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLES BARKLEY, RETIRED BASKETBALL PLAYER: Maybe I shouldn't have used the term scumbags, but it's irrelevant. Still there's no justification for what they did.

KENNY SMITH, RETIRED BASKETBALL PLAYER: We've all been angry, or upset and emotional environments. May have done things out of character. And that -- when you don't have a voice, sometimes this leads to that. So figure out a way, a solution to give people a voice, so they feel they can be heard other than burning down things and looting things.

BARKLEY: As a black man, if I would have came out and said all the cops suck, all the black people would have said, I love that damn Charles Barkley.

So, you're always in an awful, awkward situation. But listen, as my grandmother said, I'm going to judge everybody by their own merits, black and white, I'm going to be fair. And some people are going to agree with me, and some people going to kiss my (EXPLETIVE DELETED).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: No one can say it like Charles can. What's instructive here, that's a show about basketball. And yet, what's going on in the country has gotten so big, even there, it's part of the dialogue. It's conversations like that going on all over the country, especially with the new study that suggests that white police officers, often view black boys as older and more guilty, than their white counterparts, can that be true? And what does it mean if it does? How do you fix something like that?

Marc Lamont Hill, we have with us, CNN political commentator, and professor at Morehouse College. And Tara Setmayer, Republican strategist and contributor to the "Real News" on Blaze TV.

It's good to have both of you here.

Tara, let me ask you. What is your reaction to what just happened between Kenny and Sir Charles?

TARA SETMAYER, CONTRIBUTOR, "REAL NEWS" ON THE BLAZE TV: Charles Barkley, he's Charles Barkley. So, the way he expresses things, he does it in his own way.

But the root of what he's talking about is a valid point. And, often times, that difference of opinion within the black community is completely unaccepted. If you don't walk lock-step, then, you are excoriated, called every name in the book, trust me, I get it every day. Just read my Twitter feed.

But Charles Barkley, at least, is talking about some aspects of this case, that more reasonable people who are trying to be fair about what's happening, and not reacting in an emotional way are unable and unwilling to consider. And I think it needs to be considered.

Now, Kenny Smith, I think his response to Charles Barkley was a balanced response. It was reasonable. And if most people were reacting the way that Kenny Smith did to the difference of opinion, we'd get a lot farther along. CUOMO: Sure.

SETMAYER: But emotions have run so high that rational thought, logical thought and trying to find solutions have really gone out the window, and I think that's the sad byproduct of this.

CUOMO: Let's take one more bead on this, Marc, because what you do here for many African-Americans when they hear something like what Charles said, is he's acting like he doesn't know. He's acting like there's equal stakes here between the men who get excessive force used on them and the officers involved and that's naive.

Is that an informed position is that just a bias in and of itself.

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't want to call him naive. I don't want to call someone unreasonable, because they have an emotional response. Right now young children essentially or early teens are being killed in the street. And that's something that requires an emotional response. I don't think that an emotional response, an intellectual response, competing response, I think we can be emotional and smart about this.

And I think what makes people frustrated with Charles Barkley is that, not that he's naive, but that oftentimes, he's lacking some level of nuance in his analysis. Yes, there are good police officers, I have friends who are police officers, that's not the problem.

SETMAYER: Most, most.

HILL: The problem is that it's a systemic issue. And even though you can be a good individual person, if the police play a structural role in our communities that's problematic at the current moment and historically as well, that becomes a bigger challenge and that's what those studies that you refer to are talking about.

A police officer might be well-intentioned. I don't know what's in Darren Wilson's head, I've never run around calling Darren Wilson a rabid racist. I don't know what's in his head. I don't know what was in the officer who killed Eric Garner's head. I don't know.

But what I know is that if you see a black body in public space and that requires in your mind demands a greater response, a more intense response than does for white bodies --

CUOMO: Right.

HILL: -- that is a problem and the empirical data shows that.

CUOMO: So, what do you do about it? Why would that be true, what do you do about it? Could you say that's true because officers come across more people of color in their policing because they're in lower crime, they're in higher crime districts and, you know, that winds up meaning that they're in more minority districts? Do you think that's the explanation? And if so, is that acceptable?

SETMAYER: Well, we can't dismiss that. HILL: That's not the explanation.

SETMAYER: Well, we cannot dismiss that.

HILL: All right. So, take on that factor and I'll come to the reverse.

SETMAYER: Sure, this is the problem with this discussion. Because there are, it's multifaceted. There are definitely issues to be discussed about police brutality. The abuse of power. I mean, can you go from civil forfeiture, which is a problem, you know, that cuts across, black, white, yellow, green -- that's everyone -- to what's going on in high-crime neighborhoods, and in minority communities, why the crime rate is so high.

There's a criminologist in the University of Missouri, David Klinger, who came out and did a study over 10 years, there were 1,265 homicides in St. Louis, 90 percent of them were black, 90 percent of them were black on black.

CUOMO: But that's almost the same for whites, 86 percent of whites are killed by whites.

SETMAYER: That's correct.

CUOMO: So, I don't know how leading it is.

SETMAYER: No, no, no, but my point in that is, that what we talk about there's an epidemic or an open season on young black men being gunned down in the street because of rogue racist white officers, that's just not the case. Only 2 percent of the homicides in St. Louis over ten years were from cops. Not necessarily white cops.

So, this, we need to put it in perspective. There are issues that need to be resolved and each one of the aspects that we can address reasonably. I don't think that that's what's happening right now. When you see the crowds and masses of people, I think their anger is misplaced. And this is, to, for what what's happening.

CUOMO: So what's the question, Marc?

HILL: No, no, it's not the question, because right now, because right now as I understood the question we're talking about why police do this, and in the instances where it happens. We can always talk about black-on-black violence. We can talk about cancer. We can talk about cigarette smoke. We can talk about alcohol. We can talk about high cholesterol. All of these things kill black people.

But right now, we're talking about law enforcement, and oftentimes what happens is, we're asked to chase this ball, this red ball of black-on-black violence instead of staying on the issue for a moment.

And yes, Tara, there is a high rate of crime with black people in some neighborhoods, that's true. But that does not explain why police see 12-year-old boys and think they're 20. And yes, police encounter more black criminals, there are police officers who only encounter white criminals because they're in white neighborhoods, and guess what? And they still think black boys are older than they are and they still think that black men and women are more guilty than they are.

This is a deeper issue and there are -- and to answer your question, Chris, about why that is historically, is because historically, we've had scripts in our society about who and what black people are, they're less intelligent, they're more prone to violence, they're less moral, they're less reasonable, all of these things. And if that's what we consume in our society, when you see a black person, that's what you understand. It has to do with the movies we consume, the music that we listen to.

SETMAYER: You and I agree on that, Marc.

HILL: The kind of -- but it's not just that, because then rap music becomes the kind of scapegoat.

SETMAYER: Well, no, it's a contributing factor.

(CROSSTALK)

HILL: -- from the economy to the culture that we live in.

I'm not saying it's not a factor, but again, I don't want to chase the easy solution. Let's do --

CUOMO: Right. But you know what? Look, to Tara's point as we end this particular segment, and we're going to do a lot of them. We now have an opportunity to talk about things we often neglect. The question is, will we talk about them when the urgency is gone, when the exigency of these horrible outcomes is gone? But it is multifaceted.

Thank you for taking a look at it, Marc Lamont Hill.

Tara, it's good to have you on the show.

SETMAYER: Thank you.

CUOMO: Please come back, let's keep talking about it.

All right. Now, this discussion is for you. So, you've taken it in, what do you think? Message us on Facebook.com/NewDay or just tweet us directly.

This is one of the stories we're following, but there's a lot of news for you this morning. Let's get to it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PROTESTERS: No justice, no peace! No racist police!

CUOMO: This is very different than last night.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Even bigger protests in the wake of a grand jury decision not to indict a police officer in the death of Eric Garner. CUOMO: They are now walking down Hudson.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have to make a change because they're killing us off.

PROTESTERS: Hands up, don't shoot. Hands up, don't shoot.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were very much overly aggressive.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's people laying on the ground.

GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT: Race continues to play such an emotional, divisive part of life.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is not black-and-white issue. This is a national crisis.

(CHANTING)

CLINTON: We have allowed our criminal justice system to get out of balance.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's very clear that this was excessive force.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He gave no consideration to my son when he was choking him.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to NEW DAY. It's Friday, December 5th. I'm Alisyn Camerota, alongside Chris Cuomo.

Protestors taking to the streets for a second night. Thousands of demonstrators, across the country outraged over the grand jury's decision not to indict a white New York City police officer caught on tape, choking and killing an unarmed black man.

CUOMO: The demands are justice in the name of Eric Garner, they say the entire system needs to be changed. As New York's mayor makes a move to do just that, ordering retraining of tens of thousands of New York City police officers over three days.

Let's give you some complete coverage here, starting with Alexandra Field live in New York's Times Square right now.

Alexandra, good morning.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris.

You know that these protests have grown tremendously in terms of numbers. These are larger protests than the city has seen in a long time. Overnight, we saw demonstrations popping up in all areas of the city.