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New Day

Is Racism on College Campuses Widespread?; New Video of Tsarnaev Shown in Court; Yesterday's Apple Watch Reveal

Aired March 10, 2015 - 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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ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: An already heated battle between the White House and Republicans growing more tense with a letter from 47 GOP senators to Iran's leaders warning against any nuclear deal. The White House accusing Republicans of siding with Iranian hard-liners calling efforts to detail nuclear negotiations a rush to war. Those nuclear talks are set to resume Sunday in Switzerland.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Hillary Clinton appears ready to address the controversy over her e-mails. Sources say it will come at a press conference in the next several days. Clinton is expected to say she did use a classified government e-mail system at the State Department, but could not use it with her Blackberry because the system was too antiquated.

Meantime, the White House says the president and Mrs. Clinton did exchange e-mails on her private account during her tenure at the State Department, but he did not know how her e-mail was set up.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: The co-creator of "The Simpsons" has died. Sam Simon passed away at his Los Angeles home Sunday following a long battle with cancer. His storied career spanned four decades getting a start as a newspaper cartoonist and going on to work for shows like "Cheers" and "The George Carlin Show." Sam Simon won nine prime time Emmy awards. He was just 59 years old.

CAMEROTA: Thanks so much, Michaela. That racist video shaking up the University of Oklahoma's campus and raising a lot of tough questions, how widespread is racism like this?

Let's discuss it with Tim Wise. He's an anti-racism writer and activist. He is the author of six books including "Colorblind: The Rise of Post Racial Politicos and the Retreat from Racial Equity," and Marc Lamont Hill is a CNN political commentator, the host of "Huff Post Live" and a professor at Moore Health College.

Gentlemen, thanks so much for being here. I know that you have both seen this video of this racist chant out of Oklahoma University. Marc, let me start with you. Do you believe that this is an outlier? Is this a small bunch of bad apples or is something more widespread going on, on campuses?

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: There's absolutely something more widespread on campuses. I've done studies and I've looked at the research of other folks like Sean Harper and those who have done work on campuses around the country and what they find is that students talk about black students in particular talk about micro aggressions on campus.

They talk about racial interactions that leave them feeling like the campus doesn't like or love or support black people. And there are students around the country who say that they're called the "n" word or treated in improper fashion by white students.

The problem is oftentimes unless black people have a videotape or white people get caught on tape saying this stuff, we don't believe it. We dismiss it. In the same way there are other Eric Garners or Michael Browns in the country, there are other OUs and other chants around the country.

CAMEROTA: Well, my goodness, Marc, it is such a sickening eye opener. Tim, I want to talk to you about this because we had on one of the black students who is part of the head of a Small Black Alliance at the University of Oklahoma, and she talked about this very thing.

She said that it's not as overt, obviously, as that racist video that we saw. However, she's often chosen last to be part of a group. She's often asked to leave a party. It's just unbelievable that these things are happening. Do you agree with Marc?

TIM WISE, ANTI-RACISM WRITER, ACTIVIST: Absolutely. You know, there was a study a few years ago by scholars, Joe Fagan and Leslie Picca, where they had 626 students who they recruited to keep track of for like I think a 12-week period how many racial incidents they themselves heard just in their own social circle.

Whether it was comments, jokes, or racial performances of some kind up to but not excluding things like black face and things of that nature, and what the found was that, just these 626 kids, even when you excluded the incidents that were sort of margin calls where it wasn't definitely racism.

You still had each of those kids had been able to see in 12 weeks, you know, dozens of cases every week, hundreds of cases over the 12 weeks. Now that's just 626 kids. Extrapolate that out over the universe of American colleges and we're talking about thousands of times a year that white folks are making racist comments, doing racist things on college campuses because there's very little accountability.

I applaud the president of the University of Oklahoma for his very strong statement on this matter, but I think schools will have to get serious about enforcing their mission statements.

I looked at the university's mission statement, and it says that the purpose of the University of Oklahoma is to educate students for service to the state and society.

You cannot be of service to this multicultural society holding these kinds of bigoted views. Universities will have to get real not just clamping down on fraternities and sororities but clamping down on students whose actions violate the very purpose for which the schools exist.

CAMEROTA: Marc, is there something about the culture of a fraternity, it's so exclusive that it engenders discrimination?

HILL: Well, I think there's something about the culture of fraternities that encourage the kind of group think mentality where, you know, three or four people in the room may not have wanted to sing the song, but there's something seductive about white supremacy and there is something seductive about white privilege and that allows them to do that.

I think that's part of the culture of fraternity, but I don't think it's just about that. I think this is less about fraternity culture and more about whiteness. What happens when a group of students feel comfortable singing a long like that, which is a ritual of that fraternity, when there's no one around they feel comfortable.

That's what gives people anxiety. What are white people doing when they don't think black people can hear them? I'm not saying all white people do that, but that's a fear that emerges.

And then finally the other piece of that is these students go on to become judges, doctors, engineers, policymakers. And we don't know what they did in their fraternities in college, but we do know that same mentality may seep into the way they operate in the world and they may have an impact on the everyday live realities of black people that's what's really scary about this.

CAMEROTA: Tim, you're nodding along as though you agree with everything that Marc just said about white people. I want to bring up one more thing and that's this talented high school senior was being recruited, football player, being recruited to play football at Oklahoma University. He is now rejecting that. He says these are uneducated people. He doesn't want to be around them. Is that the answer?

WISE: Well, I mean, that might be a good move for him personally, but the problem is just about anywhere else he goes to play college ball, these kinds of things are going to exist. We can't just react.

We have to have a pro-active approach beginning in K through 12 so that students like those who were caught on video are exposed to difference, are exposed to principles of equity and justice and inclusion from the time they're children so by the time they get to college they're less likely to do this.

When they do it there will be more folks prepared to call them out like, thankfully, the person who took the videotape and made it public.

CAMEROTA: Tim Wise, Marc Lamont Hill, thanks so much for the great discussion obviously just a starting point. We want to know what you think about this. Please tweet us at NEW DAY or go to facebook.com/newday. We'd love to read your thoughts -- Chris.

CUOMO: Alisyn, there is new video from the Boston marathon bombing. Jurors are seeing surveillance video of the Boston bombing suspect after the blast. How will it impact the outcome of the case? Some 4,000 hours of police work on display.

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CUOMO: Important and powerful testimony in the Boston bombing trial. More importantly, evidence. Surveillance footage is being put in by the prosecution of the suspect before and immediately after the deadly blast.

Let's break it down with Joey Jackson, HLN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney, and Mel Robbins, CNN commentator and legal analyst. Good to have both of you here. First, before we begin here with what the video is, and there are two pieces in particular, can we talk, Joey, about the police work?

Have you heard of anything so exacting before? They looked at 4,000 hours of video from all these different stores, different people to make this case? What now seems so obvious and plain as day, but how hard it was to make this case?

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: The answer is, yes. When you're up against the federal government you're talking about the A-plus team. The federal government does its work, they do due diligence. When you get into that courtroom, you'd better be prepared just like in this case.

I think the prosecution's strategy along with the FBI what they've done, I call it triangulation and here is why. What they've done is put in compelling evidence, real people who have real life impact of this. I wanted to paint my toe nails. I wanted to see my foot in the sand. I'll no longer be able to do that and why, because of him.

That's one thing. Number two, you mentioned it, Chris. The work that they did in determining what he did after. You're getting milk? You're buying milk and being callus?

And then, three, in the triangulation picture, when you look at it, you put the fact that you look at the actions that he engaged in and the callousness with his tweets and he's radicalized, you have a cold- blooded killer.

CUOMO: Let's look before and after, OK, here we have -- you're going to see him coming into shadow in a second. Here he is. They're showing him in the immediate moments after. He's running away.

Now we get to the next one. They're all looking at the first explosion, right, my God, what happened. There he is and then we're going to see him flee again. Again, they place him at the scene. They know it's him had. That's very important.

And then there's what Joey was referring to, Mel, which was this is the guy after this. Not only did they use the moments before, Mel, to show he had plenty of time to change his mind and didn't, but look how casual, what he does afterwards, buying milk and exchanging it.

How powerful to the jury? What will be its impact on what they really care about which is sentencing?

MEL ROBBINS, CNN COMMENTATOR/LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, Chris, Joey, good morning. This is not only callous, it is chilling. And what's interesting about this case is we've talked a lot about the death penalty phase and just like the defense is focused on it, this tells us all that the prosecution knows full well what is at stake here, and that is whether or not he is sentenced to the death penalty, Chris.

So you take into account these videos not only showing that he's running away, showing how callous he is, showing that he's buying milk, but keep in mind that he goes on to kill Shawn Collier, the police officer of from MIT.

And then I think the most damning piece of evidence against the defense is his own words, not only the tweets, Chris and Joey, but, more importantly, that note that he scrawled in pen on the side of the boat, Chris.

CUOMO: Let's talk about the tweets here because they are putting two accounts up for here for just different reasons. Here is the first one, goes by the screen name, Dzhokhar. They will spend their money and then will be defeated. Who is the "they"? What's the intentionality?

JACKSON: You know, the intention is to show he was radicalized and he had an agenda. Now we all know and Mel, Chris, we know this that the defense is going to say my brother made me do it. It's as a result of the brother, the influence that he had on me. I don't have a mind of my own.

When you examine the Twitter accounts that the prosecution is bringing to bear, it is clear that he had an agenda. He had a mind of his own and certainly as a result of this he had a message and that's the focus here.

CUOMO: Mel, here is the second one. Listen to Anwar Al-Awlaki. You will gain an unbelievable amount of knowledge, again, they traced this to his account and its impact.

ROBBINS: Yes, he's not talking about his brother and, you know, listen to my brother. He is basically owning his point of view. What I think is really interesting, you guys, because of this evidence, not only these tweets but also the video after the fact and the note, unless he takes the stand and recants or comes up with some sort of direct it testimony to that jury, I think this is really difficult evidence to overcome in the death penalty phase.

CUOMO: All right, let's discuss that because that's the last big point. They didn't go straight to sentencing here even though the guy admits it. Why, Mel?

ROBBINS: Well, the reason why is because the prosecution has the burden of proof in this case and they've decided they don't want to let him get away with this terrorist act and only be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. They're going for the death sentence. And so they know if they put on their case, if they prove this beyond a reasonable doubt, before the sentencing phase that means this jury, Chris, hears compelling testimony. They get the triangulation effect. They understand that this is not -- absolutely not.

No, I think there's something very profound when that jury hears evidence and on 30 counts they say guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. This is not just some sort of shooting. This was a terrorist act where they targeted innocent people and the impact was not only the people dying but hundreds of people injured, Chris and Joey.

CUOMO: Absolutely. Joey, we have to leave it on that. Mel Robbins, Joey Jackson, thank you very much. We'll keep following the trial. We'll see how it impacts the jury as they build up to the ultimate question of what the penalty should be for the crime committed -- Mich.

PEREIRA: All right, a big announcement yesterday from an Apple, finally unveiling its Apple Watch. You're going to have to wait, he though, to get yours. We'll tell you when it will be available and why you might be extra interested if you watch "Game of Thrones."

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PEREIRA: All right. Time for CNN Money now, chief business correspondent, Christine Romans, is here with details about me maybe needing to do some watch shopping, you think?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: The cost is up to $17,000. They're calling it the hottest wearable in tech right now. You still have to wait a few weeks to get one if you want. The Apple Watch will be available online on April 24th.

There are three models ranging in price from 349 bucks to the eye popping $17,000. You'll need to pair it with an iPhone 5 or iPhone 6. Apple also has a new deal to stream HBO to viewers, stream HBO even if they don't have a cable subscription. It's called HBO now. It costs $14.99 a month. It's only available on Apple devices starting in April. It will likely expand, though, to other platforms in the coming months.

New estimates show Obamacare will cost less than the government projected. The Congressional Budget Office puts the cost at $506 billion over the next five years. That's 29 percent lower than the initial estimate in 2010. Why? The reasons for the decline include slower growth in health care spending and low enrollment -- Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: OK, there you go. Thanks so much, Christine. Great to see you.

Well, the White House slamming Republican senators over their letter to Iran's leaders, but Republicans say their voices need to be heard before it's too late. We'll debate the letter.

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