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New Day

Immigration Frustration: Next Steps; Hillary And Jeb Consider Presidential Pros and Cons; Rebuilding Relationships with Police; Struggling to Live Among Kobani's Ruins

Aired December 05, 2014 - 07:30   ET

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

JOHN KING, CNN HOST, "INSIDE POLITICS": -- pass several pieces through the House and a newly Republican Senate to try to challenge the president's policy?

MARGARET TALEV, "BLOOMBERG NEWS": I mean, you're seeing it play out now with Boehner and Mitch McConnell hoping to sort of minimize this. Keep it as a political fight and not as a fight that actually threatens a real shutdown.

Because as they game it out, as the establishment leaders game it out in both chambers, they don't win, right? It's looking like there will largely be keeping the government funded through next October.

We all know, anything can happen and what's so interesting about today is Abbott, of course, the attorney general of the incoming Texas governor, is not only joining the lawsuit, leading the lawsuit.

I mean, so President Obama had his bourbon meeting with Mitch McConnell and now I bet the president would rather climb down the chimney than get stuck with two hours with these guys.

KING: However, politically the president thinks this benefits him. He's doing policy -- his approval rating among Latinos has gone up. The Democrats think it benefits in the long term if Republicans keep fighting this. So we'll watch as the politics play out.

But the conservative base is now still furious, again, or still, I don't know what the right word is, with Speaker Boehner and Leader McConnell. So we'll see how this plays out.

And part of that is some Republicans are saying we're so mad at the president, don't invite him up to give up to Congress, don't invite him up to give his state of the union address. It seems a little petty. We do that in Washington every now and then.

But Speaker John Boehner was asked, would you not invite the president to address the nation from the House chamber and the speaker trying to show off his sense of humor says no way, he wants the president to come.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), HOUSE SPEAKER: The more the president talks about his ideas, the more unpopular he becomes. Why would I want to deprive him of that opportunity?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Now, it is funny and we like humor in politics, but did also to me is just a, one-sentence or two-sentence snapshot of how after the election, if you hoped of some sort of a circuit breaker, some sort of a reset button where they would say let's put the sniping aside and have a more civil, productive environment, forget about it.

TALEV: You've got Senator Cruz saying let's have a full-on fight. Let's fight it with every spending bill and they have Boehner, the voice of reason saying I don't want to fight about it, I want to embarrass the president at every turn publicly and trying to take advantage of every situation to make him look bad. There's no goodwill.

KING: From the White House perspective, they just think, it's been political ping-pong since the election.

JULIE PACE, "ASSOCIATED PRESS": They're going to be keep talking about things like tax reform and infrastructure spending and trade deals, areas where you might see some compromise. They know even on those areas where there's broad agreement with Republicans.

It's going to be really difficult to actually get something done when the atmosphere between Republicans and the White House remains so toxic.

KING: We just heard Michaela mention the Chris Christie story. A lot of Republicans are making their decision whether or not to jump in in 2016. Hillary Clinton is finalizing her decision. We all expect her to run. She tells top aides she's got a few things to check off on her list.

As we wait for candidates to jump in, let's hear perspective, first from Secretary Clinton and then from former President George W. Bush. This is Secretary Clinton yesterday, at an event in Boston. Reflecting on what she thinks is very important, critical from her experience for any president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: It is such a challenging job and you need people starting in your family, but going to your friends beyond a larger circle. Who will really be there for you and continue to treat you like a human being because you can easily lose touch with what's real. What's authentic, who you were before you raised your hand and were sworn in to office.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PACE: Well let's take this on for a second. Whether you like or dislike her politics and people watching view her through her own political prism. She does have eight years as first lady, a unique perspective and then in the Senate working from the other perspective of how this works and how stressful the job is. PACE: Yes. Both Hillary and Jeb probably have a better understanding of the presidency than anybody else could if you haven't actually had the job yourself. What think is so interesting about Clinton talking about the people that you surround yourselr with, your circle, is that when she ran for president in 2008, one of the problems she had is that she surrounded herself with too many people.

People with different interests, people in Bill's camp, people in her camp. There was a lot of in-fighting, a lot of leaks coming out of the campaign. That may be giving us interesting insight into how she's thinking about shaping her campaign. Shaping the people that she wants around her and knowing the importance of that group.

KING: And jump in, Margaret, but first let's bring George W. Bush into this. He's talking about his brother, Jeb. In an interview with Candy Crowley you can see this weekend, listen to George W. Bush, the former president, his dad was president as well. Jeb Bush has been through this twice, talking about how his view of the presidency and how Jeb would process that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FORMER GEORGE W. BUSH: When you're weighing the presidency, you think, do I fear success? In other words, can I handle it if I win? You know, on paper it seems like you know, a maybe easy task.

On the other hand when you start thinking about the implications of being president, some people go I'm not sure I could handle that and back off. The other thing about it is the fear of failure. Jeb doesn't, nor does he fear success by the way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Interesting little piece of brotherly love there. You know, can't fear failure or success.

TALEV: Like if you unpack Clinton and Bush camps in some sort of Freudian lens, it's fascinating, the brothers, first lady versus the senator versus the would-be president.

To me, Warren Buffett's decision to give Hillary Clinton money means she can say whatever she wants to about difficult it is. No doubt whatsoever what she's about to do.

KING: We'll find out early in the New Year. Margaret, Julie, thanks for coming in on a Friday. One of our big events in Washington next week, final episodes of the "Colbert Report" coming from Washington, D.C., that guy will be stop by to make an appearance on one of the final shows. We'll have a little fun for that.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. We'll miss that character. We'll miss that character. I don't know if we'll like the real Colbert so much.

KING: I'll miss David Letterman, too. So we'll see. Life is full of change and transitions. CAMEROTA: Thank you, John, for that beautiful profound thought on this Friday. Have a great weekend.

Make sure to watch John King and his "Inside Politics" panel break down all the best political news of the week, every Sunday at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time.

And President Obama is calling for sweeping changes to law enforcement so we will talk to one big-city police chief who is trying to train his officers to see their own bias.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Welcome back to NEW DAY. The recent events in New York and Ferguson have highlighted what many identify as a central issue in this country -- a fundamental lack of trust between police and some of the people they're supposed to serve and protect.

President Obama has organized a task force on policing, comprised of law enforcement, community leaders and representatives Department of Justice to try to tackle this problem.

Our next guest was at the White House when the president made this announcement. He's had to take on the task of rebuilding police/community relations in his own big city.

Commissioner Anthony Batts of the Baltimore, Maryland Police Department joins us this morning. Good morning, Commissioner.

COMMISSIONER ANTHONY BATTS, BALTIMORE POLICE DEPARTMENT: Good morning, Miss Alisyn. How are you doing today?

CAMEROTA: I'm doing well. Thanks so much for being on NEW DAY with us. So what's been the reaction in Baltimore to the grand jury decisions of the past couple of weeks?

BATTS: I think there's been a visceral reaction for the community, much like the rest of the nation. We've had protests that have been out, and a numb of the protests have been led by young people. Where our university town, we had a lot of major universities and you feel that there is a deep-rooted upheaval that has taken place.

CAMEROTA: When you watch the video, of Eric Garner's arrest and death, what do you think of the tactics that the NYPD was using?

BATTS: Well, I want to address the tactics because I don't have enough information. My good friend, Bill Bratton, think what you hear from him is that he is not tone-deaf to the issues and he's very much aware of the relationship he's trying to build.

He's brought in to address that situation, much like I've been brought in to address the situation of the public trust within the city of Baltimore. I've had the opportunity to do the same thing in the city of Long Beach, in the city of Oakland, in California.

CAMEROTA: I want to talk about some of the things that you've done because they seem to be exactly what police departments around the country are talking about right now. You say that you have had to train your officers to be aware of their own bias. Everyone has bias, of course. It's our blind spot. So how are you opening your officers' eyes to that?

BATTS: The first thing you have to start with is to understand that if crime is, if crime is down, but that community is no better off than what it was prior to you going in, then you haven't served the community.

Number two, you have to understand what your particular community wants from you. Communities change on a regular basis, based on demographics, so those expectations, you have to ask, you have to survey. You have to have an understanding.

Make sure that officers understand that they have, we all come with biases, to understand those biases, and how they can impact your ability to do your job. But I try to push on our officers and make them understand, I demand that you have a reverence for life.

You have a reverence for human life and we change our tactics to make sure we have, everyone goes home safe. And in the city of Baltimore, we've had a reduction in excessive force.

Almost 50 percent officer-involved shootings are down and 50 percent officer complaints are down. We haven't stopped our challenges, but we're moving in the right direction.

CAMEROTA: Those numbers are so admirable. Any police chief across the country would want the numbers that your department has, how have you changed your tactics to do that?

BATTS: Well, the training first of all, like I said number one, you have to understand that our job is to reestablish and affirm the public trust in the community what they want. Because we in fact do work for them and we have to meet their expectations and we have to teach officers to slow down.

You don't have to move in so quickly. We try to teach them to deescalate. We teach them a course called fair and impartial policing. We're bombarding them with a lot of different training, a lot of different changes going on in a short amount of time.

All of that training is great and good, but you need to have good supervision and good leadership to slow your officers down to give them the direction that they should be taking.

CAMEROTA: Commissioner, it's so interesting to hear you talk about this because what everybody has said in the Ferguson case and in the Staten Island case this week is it escalated so quickly. Somebody was dead so quickly in the space of sometimes 90 seconds, it changed the course of their lives and history in that way.

So the idea that they can get everyone involved in that incident, to slow it down, take a deep breath, and deescalate is exactly what people are looking for. One other point I want to make about your department.

Last year you saw a 300 percent increase in calls from the community into your crime stopper line. How did you get that community involvement in solving crime?

BATTS: I think we're really pushing to be transparent within our community. When we make mistakes, we go out front and we share with the community. We made these mistakes.

But more importantly we share with them how we're going to correct those mistakes and we're going to get better as an organization. I have no tolerance for scandals. I have no tolerance for the misconduct that's there.

And I think that my command staff is starting to echo the same things. I think the community is starting to understand that we take their needs seriously. And when they believe, when they feel that we take their needs seriously, they come out and support us.

The only way you're going to address crime in a systemic way, is to make sure that you have the cooperation and the partnership of your community. That you work in a way that they expect you to.

CAMEROTA: Do you have police officers who are from those neighborhoods?

BATTS: A lot of our officers are born and raised from the city of Baltimore especially the more tenured officers that are here. We're recently starting to get some officers that are coming in from New York, from Pennsylvania, from Delaware.

But our recruiting efforts are very heavily focused on the city of Baltimore. Because that's what the mayor wants, she wants the home- grown people that are here and we're building programs like our explorer scout program, our college cadet program to bring Baltimoreans into the police organization with diversity.

CAMEROTA: Very quickly commissioner, I know that you went to the White House. You've had these conversations -- you've been part of the conversations with President Obama. What are the president's ideas of change?

KING: Well, the interesting thing when I sat with the president on Monday is that he feels it deeply. He's taken this seriously. He's going to push this definitely.

I think -- much like myself where I grew up in south-central Los Angeles in California, I understand what it's like to come from an impoverished community and see the only point of government is law enforcement, which makes it so critical.

It was the fact that a police officer touched me in a different way, that I wear this uniform today. And I think what the president is saying and what I'm trying to get across is we can be a force that turns around a community to bring hope and to bring success and a vision of success for a community. CAMEROTA: Commissioner Anthony Batts, great to hear your inspirational record there. Nice to see you this morning. Let's go over to Chris.

BATTS: Thank you.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Alisyn, we want to take you to a city that is at the center of the war on ISIS and it is literally hanging on by a thread. Our cameras will give you an up-close look at what fighting is like on the ground in close, inside Kobani next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: We turn now to Syria and the desperate fight to live in Kobani. Our Nick Paton Walsh is one of the few western journalists reporting from there.

What is it like to try and survive there as a civilian, raise a family? Nick shows us what life is like for families and for children who still live there among the ruins.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Kobani feels haunted by those who are still alive in it, inhumane enough that the noise of coalition warplanes above is of strange comfort. The destruction so near complete, the fight is more now for victory alone, not for its spoils.

Here, they've even given up on hospitals. This, the last one flattened by a car bomb, the wounded now taken straight to the border.

(on camera): From the ground level you can see what months has done. It's impossible to imagine the city sustaining life any time in the near future, but still the fighting persists, the shelling almost constant, so much of it caused by crude homemade devices like this.

(voice-over): There are civilians here, those who refuse or cannot flee and children besieged, who cannot be protected from indiscriminate, constant shelling.

Yousef can list of their friends who left. They show us their only option, what they do when the blasts start. Their uncle taught them to hide like this. This couldn't be further from play time, though.

There are the remnants of lives enjoyed, but also of lives taken early. Alif walks us to a spot where, a week earlier, his young daughter was killed by a random mortar, the sort that is still falling.

Three to four mortars fell near us, he says. "The first we escaped from, the second we escaped from and then the third fell on us." "My daughter was 7 years old, 7 years old, and she died. God bless and help us."

He brought his six daughters and the 150 sheep they live off here, after ISIS attacked their nearby village. He could not leave the flock or the family car, and flee to safety in Turkey.

"She was 7 years old" he says, "she was so beautiful, small, and people who saw her felt the need to lift her up and down and play." He went to her grave the day before and sat there for 30 minutes.

It is the graveyard that tells you about the near future and the more distant one, a trench dug for the dead they expect next to those they have already buried, headstones from rubble, again, a morbid playground.

Too young to fathom the fight around them that will decide what kind of life survival here could leave them with. Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Kobani.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PEREIRA: Compelling and heartbreaking look. Our thanks to nick.

We turn now to a second straight night of protests in New York and across our country after police officer is cleared in the chokehold death of Eric Garner. The protest bigger, intense moments unfolding coast to coast. We'll take you live to the ground with the latest.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

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 all.

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

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

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATE: Is there there's a larger question of restoring a sense of common purpose.

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

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's a mature police officer who is motivated literally by serving the community.

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

(END VIDEOTAPE) CUOMO: Good morning. Welcome back to NEW DAY. It is Friday,

December 5th, just about 8:00 in the east. Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota here, sweeping changes, that's what's promise in the death of Eric Garner. Thousands hit the streets to protest the grand jury decision.