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Hundreds Feared Dead in Capsized River Cruise; TSA Chief Reassigned after Security Failures; Kerry to Undergo Surgery on Broken Leg; Poll: 57 Percent Say Clinton Not Honest, Trustworthy; Flash Floods Threaten Morning Commute; What's Behind Rise in Murder Rates? Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired June 02, 2015 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A desperate search is underway.

[05:58:52] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Rescuers scrambling to save survivors from a cruise ship that capsized in a storm.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The ship's captain and chief engineer have been taken into police custody.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A major security breach.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: TSA screeners didn't detect the fake weapons.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is it the technology that's failing or is it UNIDENTIFIED MALE: the screeners themselves?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Some say police are afraid to do their jobs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The reason that we've had these protests is because people want better policing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're identifying the spilled milk, but we're not talking about how to clean it up.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Good-bye Bruce, hello Caitlyn.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is a huge story.

CAITLYN JENNER, OLYMPIC MEDALIST: As soon as the "Vanity Fair" cover comes out, I'm free.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota and Michaela Pereira.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and welcome to your NEW DAY. It's Tuesday, June 2, 6 a.m. in the East, and we do have breaking news this morning.

Four hundred and fifty-eight people are in the water and at risk. Many are feared lost as rescuers battle darkness after a river cruise capsizes in China. What you're looking at right now is that man on the hull that is sticking out of the water, tapping it with a small hammer to see if there are survivors trapped inside. And they believe there are. We have other pictures you'll see of them starting to go to work with a blow torch to cut inside the hull.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Rescuers able to pull only a handful of victims so far from this sunken vessel. Among the survivors, the ship's captain and chief engineer, now in police custody.

Let's get right to the scene where CNN's David McKenzie is live for us in Jianli, China. What are you seeing, David?

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris and Alisyn, it's a desperate search right now for survivors. Underneath the hull of this river cruise, it's inverted in the water, and there are scores of people, in fact hundreds, mostly elderly, trapped inside.

You saw those dramatic scenes earlier of people tapping on the hull with a small hammer, seeing if anybody was on the inside trying to get out. They've managed to rescue a handful today, including a 65-year- old woman who was pulled out of the sea, and miraculously.

But, you know, the weather is terrible right now. It's raining heavily. There's a security cordon across this whole area. They wouldn't let us get any closer, but I can tell you, with all those missing and yet the captain and the chief engineer surviving, questions being asked exactly what happened. They have been put in custody.

It does seem, at the early stages, this might have been some kind of extreme weather event. Gusts of wind that potentially blew over this vessel and meant everyone was trapped inside as they were getting ready to go to bed on this pleasant river cruise, which turned out to be a nightmare.

Back to you.

CAMEROTA: Oh, David that's just terrible. Obviously, we will cover this all morning long and check back in with you for updates.

Another breaking story overnight. The acting director of the Transportation Security Administration reassigned after a scathing internal investigation revealed serious security breaches at dozens of airports across the country, where undercover investigators smuggled weapons and fake bombs past airport screeners.

CNN's Suzanne Malveaux is live at Reagan National Airport with more.

Good morning, Suzanne.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. You know, we've been through all of this. You remove your shoes, your jacket. They confiscate your water, sometimes the baby formula, all of this in the name of maintaining security at the airport. In the meantime, TSA, these tests show, failing miserably to detect

the real stuff, the dangerous stuff. That is why you had a shake-up from the very top overnight and also some changes on the ground at airports around the country.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX (voice-over): This morning an interim TSA administrator is stepping in, replacing the now former director, Melvin Carraway. Acting deputy director Mark Hatfield now at the post. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson reassigned Carraway amid alarming security questions about the TSA's effectiveness.

The Department of Homeland Security discovered TSA officers failed 95 percent of the time during undercover operations, the officers failing 67 out of 70 tests to detect mock explosives and weapons at airport security checkpoints.

CHAD WOLF, FORMER TSA OFFICIAL: These are anomalies that TSA screeners and/or their equipment should locate and at least flagged for an additional screening.

MALVEAUX: The department's red teams posed as passengers, attempting to pass through checkpoints with the mock weapons.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am putting a detonator into the plastic explosive.

MALVEAUX: Back in 2008, CNN was there for a similar covert operation. That time it was TSA testing its own officers. At the checkpoint, the tester is wanded and padded down right where the fake explosive device was concealed. But the screener missed it. It's not until the tester lifts up his shirt.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, I see it now.

MALVEAUX: In response to the troubling failures, Secretary Johnson said in a statement that he is immediately directing the TSA to revise its screening procedures, conduct training and re-evaluate their screening equipment.

REP. JOHN MICA (R), FLORIDA: This has grown completely out of control. It isn't doing the job we need to. What we need to do is be able to connect the dots, get intelligence information, go after people who pose a risk; and they can't do it with the current system.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: So Secretary Johnson is advising, and he is directing the TSA to take immediate steps, some measures including retraining some of these screeners here, taking another look at the supervisors to make sure that they are evaluated, they know what they are doing, as well. Take a look at this equipment, re-evaluate the screening technology, and also continue to do these tests, these random secret tests to make sure that they can detect these holes and possibly fix a lot of what's wrong -- Chris. CUOMO: First part seems easy; second part has proven very difficult.

Suzanne, thank you very much.

We are going to take you back to China as soon as we get new information. Again, there are some 450 people at risk in the waters after, according to the pilot of the ship, that they were attacked, they say, by a tornado. There's certainly bad weather going on in that part of the world right now, but why those people are in the water right now, people are searching for them at this moment. We'll get more to you as soon as we have it.

[06:05:20] We want to tell you, though, that Secretary of State John Kerry is back in Boston this morning, where he's set to have surgery on his broken leg after this cycling accident he had in the French Alps.

CNN's Elise Labott is live in Boston with the very latest -- Elise.

ELISE LABOTT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris.

Well, Secretary Kerry arrived here at Massachusetts General late last night. He was accompanied by his surgeon, Dr. Dennis Burke. They flew over on this C-17 military transport plane that was outfitted with a team of doctors and medical equipment.

Later this morning, Dr. Burke will set that broken femur that Secretary Kerry broke while he was bicycling during that accident.

But first, Secretary Kerry started the day calling in to that ISIS meeting in Paris, where he was on his trip to Europe and he missed. Now, Deputy Secretary Tony Blinken and special envoy to the ISIS coalition, John Allen, are sitting in for him. But Secretary Kerry wanted to dial in.

Aides say he is adamant that he wants to get back to work as soon as important. In particular, he wants to get back to those Iran nuclear negotiations. I think the State Department really trying to tamp down the idea that Secretary Kerry's injury would affect those negotiations. I'm not sure how realistic that is.

No one, of course, questions his determination to get back to work and resume his schedule. Obviously, very physically fit, as you see from those bicycling pictures. But it was a very serious injury. He's not a young man. And he had that previous injury with his hip replacement. So I think it's going to be a pretty steep road to recovery, despite his determination -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: A definite setback, no doubt. Elise, thanks so much for that.

Let's turn to politics now. A new CNN/ORC poll hot off the presses, it revealed that Hillary Clinton is hitting a speed bump on the road to the White House, and Jeb Bush also having issues shaking his family connections.

CNN senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny is here to break down the numbers. Tell us about them, Jeff.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

You're right. Hillary Clinton's shine has tarnished a little bit just two months after she entered the presidential race. Let's take a look at the numbers now.

More people have an unfavorable view of Clinton, 50 percent than at any time since 2001. And a growing number of people feel she does not inspire confidence. That's 50 percent compared to 42 percent only two months ago.

And now only 42 percent of people say she's honest and trustworthy. That is down from 50 percent in march. And only 40 percent of people say she cares about people like them. That is down from 53 percent in March.

So Alisyn, it appears some of those early controversies are causing perception problems for her. Certainly, bringing her back from those high approval ratings during her eight years out of politics.

But there are also some warning signs also for Jeb Bush. More than half the people in our new poll, 56 percent, say the Bush family name is not an attribute, and his connection to his brother and his father make him [SIC] less likely to support him.

Now this is so interesting. In the head-to-head matchups with Republicans, Hillary Clinton's margin is far tighter, or it's disappeared completely from only two months ago. She had a 14 percent edge over Marco Rubio in April; now only 3 points. Her 19-point advantage over Rand Paul is now just down to 1 point, essentially even. And her 17-point edge over Jeb Bush is now cut down to eight.

The reason? Independent voters are shifting. Men have moved toward the Republicans, and this is a very good reminder. We don't know what the general election will look like a year from now. But we almost certainly know this, Chris: It will be a close, close race in a very divided country -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Jeff. Thank you very much.

Let's get some perspective on these numbers. Let's bring in CNN political analyst and editor in chief of "The Daily Beast," John Avlon; and CNN political commentator, Tara Setmayer. Good to have both of you here.

So let's look at the headlines. Jeff was teeing it up there for us about this attrition of Hillary. Let's unpack that first. How do you see it?

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Look, she's had a rough, rough couple of weeks. There's been incoming about the foundation, about emails, Republicans getting some confidence hitting her on the trail. And she's had a hard time driving a positive message. And these Potemkin Village type press conferences haven't necessarily helped. She's got to play offense in a positive way. Presumably, that's what

she's going to do when she officially announces on Roosevelt Island. But she's had a tough cycle, and you're really seeing it not just with independents; suburban voters, there's a real loss there. And that should be the base of her support.

CAMEROTA: Tara, do you agree that the root of some of this problem is that she hasn't taken reporters' questions and been more accessible?

TARA SETMAYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, absolutely. Because she -- by not hearing from the candidate herself, people are left to believe what's reported on. She hasn't -- she hasn't come out and given anyone an explanation of -- as to what's going on. There's also a reason for that, too.

[06:10:09] Looking at these -- at these numbers you see how she's had a steady decline in all of these areas since last year. Last summer is really where she really kind of rolled back out again with her book tour. It was -- it was a quasi-campaign, listening tour through a book tour. And she didn't do very well. She performed terribly, actually. And it had -- she had to walk it back, and her handlers had to rethink, "Uh-oh, how are we going to re-introduce Hillary Clinton to the voting electorate?" Because the way they did it over the summer, she didn't perform very well.

CUOMO: I'll tell you. And you're also giving a little nod to what's working effectively now on the GOP side, which is this unrelentingly negative narrative on Hillary. I mean, she's been getting beaten up. She's not talking to the press.

SETMAYER: That's right. That's right.

CUOMO: The question is, are you finding someone strong enough to beat her on the other side?

AVLON: Right. That is a big question. And just -- you know, if I may, you know, the matchups are all getting closer here. What's interesting to me is that Rand Paul seems to be in the most competitive general election candidate against her.

CAMEROTA: Let's put that up for a second, because that is interesting. When you compare all of the GOP, the top GOP candidates to Hillary Clinton, look at this: Rand Paul is at 47 percent right now, whereas Hillary Clinton is only at 48 percent. I mean, they're neck and neck.

AVLON: That's neck and neck. And it doesn't make a lot of sense, because he's not top tier in the Republican candidates among primary voters right now. There's also a very deep gender gap with Rand Paul. His base of support is overwhelmingly men not women. You see that throughout the Republican field. That's a weakness Republicans are going to have to address, they cannot ignore. And it's not simply enough to beat up Hillary Clinton.

CUOMO: But tee it up, because it's an even bigger headline now. You were talking before the show. How big is his gap between men and women? And the big question with polls is you always pay for the numbers, but the question that you really pay for is why? What do you see in the numbers and what do you think is a possible explanation?

AVLON: Libertarians generally have had a big gender gap. They tend more male than female. But with Rand Paul it's really stark. However, you see it throughout the field. Scott Walker has a 14-point edge on Hillary Clinton among men in this poll. Hillary Clinton has a 20-point lead among women. So that gender gap is serious. The Republicans are going to have to address it. And the poll also shows that, if they over play their hand on Benghazi and a lot of these attacks, it will alienate the swing voters. Republicans need to be careful about that.

SETMAYER: If I can jump in here really quickly, something else -- something else that's interesting about Hillary Clinton is the fact -- is the number that says does she care about people like me? That is a very important metric. That is what lost the campaign for Mitt Romney.

During exit polling in 2012, public opinion strategies, they asked four questions about shared values, vision for the future, and do you care like me and strong leadership. And Mitt Romney won on three out of the four of those issues against Barack Obama.

The one that he was destroyed on was that he cares about people like me. It was 18 percent to 81 percent in favor of Barack Obama.

If Hillary Clinton does not connect with voters, they won't feel as though that she cares about them, they will not vote for her.

And also, the other aspect of this was the vision for the future. You know, who represents the future. Hillary Clinton is looked at as yesterday's news. She's very yesterday. And that is consistent with what Marco Rubio has been doing. And the way he's been running his campaign, the way he opened his campaign was that she's yesterday's news; he's the future. And having a vision for the future in this poll, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Scott Walker, they all polled over 50 percent considerably.

And that's -- so you see who Hillary Clinton was losing -- not but closing the gap against or running even with. It was all candidates on the Republican side that people felt had a stronger vision for the future, and I think that hurts her. Same thing with Bush. Jeb Bush has a similar problem.

CUOMO: Listening to Tara, Hillary Clinton should be polling at about four and a half percent right now. Why is she doing well at all?

SETMAYER: But she's got name recognition. Come on. Everyone knows who Hillary Clinton is.

AVLON: Jeb Bush has a ton of name recognition, as well. Look, the polls show, first of all, that the Bush association hurts Jeb a lot more.

CAMEROTA: Let's put that up. "Bush family connections make you more likely to vote for him" is 27 percent. Less likely to vote for him, 56 percent. No difference, 16 percent. So that's quite a big difference of less likely to vote for him.

AVLON: Yes.

SETMAYER: Because his brother left office, you know, polling in the low 30s, very unpopular. George W. Bush left, very unpopular. There was a financial crisis. People still have a bad taste in their mouth of eight years of George Bush. It's Bush fatigue.

Unlike Hillary, where Bill Clinton left office quite popular and remained so for many, many years. So she's still riding the wave, somewhat, of the popularity of Bill.

AVLON: Yes. The other fact there is also that Hillary is not just the second Clinton; she's the first woman. That's important.

The other thing about that future-past narrative, which a lot of candidates are trying to do, is that Hillary Clinton's strongest support is actually among young voters in this poll who presumably may not have any memories personally of the Clinton presidency.

And there are a lot of interesting dichotomies. Marco Rubio is trying to run not only as generational change but someone who can relate to the blue collars, the working class doing badly among voters making under 50,000, best among wealthier voters. So there's some interesting, you know, undercurrents in this poll.

CAMEROTA: Tara, let's end by looking at the latest poll numbers for the field of Republicans, because it's interesting to see who's up and who's down. So let me put these up.

[06:15:02] The Republicans' choice for nominee in 2016, at the top now is -- there you go -- is Rubio at 14 percent. What's interesting is he was at 11 percent in April. And then you see Jeb Bush, Mike Huckabee, Walker.

Let me just show you here Rand Paul, because that's interesting. He's down from 11 percent to 8 percent now over the course of a month or two. But yet he fares best against Hillary Clinton. So that's a bit of a mixed message, Tara.

SETMAYER: Well, fares best within one percentage point. I mean, but he's definitely closing a 19-point gap, which you guys pointed out earlier is very interesting.

But Rand Paul has also been very vocal in his opposition to NSA spying and civil -- civil rights issues and civil liberties issues. So he's been a lot more visible, a lot more vocal on issues whereas Hillary Clinton has been silent. She's been on a listening tour and not really talking.

But Marco Rubio also, the fact that he's actually declared, unlike Bush, which is still, you know, flirting with the idea. He's not an officially declared candidate, even though he's sucking up donors. And that's what they thought in the beginning anyway. But he's struggling, again, because he is not representing any fresh or new ideas.

And even in this poll, he -- 61 percent said that he was -- he represented the past. That these kind -- these metrics are the way people perceive these things. Not many people want to go backwards. They want to move forward. So that's going to be the challenge for Jeb Bush moving forward. How he's going to present himself as a fresh new forward-thinking candidate when he has family legacy and he's been out of the spotlight for eight years.

CUOMO: One thing is for sure that we see in here, Tara and John, is that there's a lot of appetite out there. The question is are they having the need get some fulfillment in who they see out there. Are they feeding the need? That's what we don't see yet.

CAMEROTA: Tara, John, thank you. Great to be with you.

All right onto this story. An American being held by Houthi rebels in Yemen is now free. Freelance journalist Casey Coombs arriving safely in Oman, where he was met by the U.S. ambassador/consular official. Houthi rebels still holding at least three other Americans in Yemen.

CUOMO: Also breaking overnight, a pilot is dead after a small plane crashes in California right after takeoff. The aircraft turning into a ball of flame on impact Monday night. Look at the pictures on your screen. In the San Francisco Bay Area is where this happened. The FAA says the pilot reported control problems before going down. Now, the unidentified victim was the only person on board.

CAMEROTA: Olympic gold medalist and reality TV star Bruce Jenner is transitioning to a woman and he is revealing her new look and his name as Caitlyn Jenner on the cover of "Vanity Fair." And it's shattering a Twitter record in the process. Jenner's new Twitter account, @Caitlyn_Jenner, now the fastest account to reach one million followers. Guinness World Records saying it happened in just four hours and three minutes, beating out President Obama, who did it in four and a half hours last month. Wow.

CUOMO: What's your reaction?

CAMEROTA: I think it's startling to see him as Caitlyn. It's fascinating. I want to see more. I think that it's all just sort of a brave new world, and we're along for the ride, because he/she has been so transparent about this. It's fascinating. What do you think?

CUOMO: Well, I think that the good side in this, because there's nothing good about people judging Bruce Jenner's private decisions. I mean, you know how I feel about this stuff. I mean, this is him. He's wanted to make it public. And by doing that, he has taken something and put it on its head.

People see transgender as fringe; there's something wrong with these people. They're a very small thing. Now you have a guy who I don't care how you feel about anything in the world, if you don't think Bruce Jenner is one of the best athletes to ever come out of America, you don't know anything about athleticism. So to have Bruce Jenner say, "This is who I am. This is what I am. Will you accept me now?" it really changes the entire dialogue about this in a way that nobody could have ever foreseen.

I just hope it doesn't come at too big a price for him personally. This is very difficult. This is very difficult, as we've learned.

CAMEROTA: We'll talk about all of this more in the program, and let us know how you feel. You can find us both on Twitter.

CUOMO: So here in the northeast, get ready for another round of severe storms and intense rain. That's not me saying it. That's Chad Everett Myers, the CNN meteorologist. He could have gone sunny. He decided to bring us this. I don't know.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: What I did is I took the Texas rain, and I spread it out. So that's OK, right? It's not raining in Texas any more.

CUOMO: A little bit for everybody. Shared pain.

MYERS: I'm the Robin Hood of weather. Four inches in Roosevelt Park. Fairfield, Connecticut, all the way up to three and a half, and it's still raining in some spots. Be careful out there. You're going to be driving around this morning. You may see some puddles. Some of them may be deeper than you think because it is still raining in places.

We still have flood watches in places, as well, from Boston down to almost New York City. The rain does spread itself out again. We get some showers today. They go away, and they come back again for Thursday and Friday, later on in this week.

Many of the heavier showers will be down south. Look, all the way down to the south, into the coast of Miami. You're going to see some very heavy rainfall at times. Here they come. Kind of there they go. Afternoon type showers. Hot across the south. Orlando all the way to 92 on Thursday. And 92 is a dream in Boston. Today, the high only 52.

Guys, back to you.

[06:20:19] CAMEROTA: Well, all right, Chad. Thanks so much for that forecast.

Well, several major American cities experiencing a spike in violent crimes. Gun violence and murders on the rise. What is behind this troubling trend?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Several American cities battling a spike in crime. Cities from New York to L.A. Seeing a surge in gun violence after nearly two decades of declining crime rates. Topping the list is Milwaukee, where homicides are up a staggering 180 percent from this time last year. This is according to the "Wall Street Journal," who crunched the numbers.

So joining us now is the Milwaukee County sheriff, David Clarke. Sheriff, thanks so much for being here.

SHERIFF DAVID CLARKE, MILWAUKEE COUNTY: My pleasure.

[06:25:00] CAMEROTA: Sheriff, Milwaukee's gun violence, up 180 -- homicides up 180 percent. To what do you attribute that?

CLARKE: This is a manifestation of these failed social engineering projects going on here in Milwaukee, masquerading as social justice and criminal reform. It's created a revolving door mechanism in the criminal justice system, where the police arrest dangerous career individuals -- career criminals, I should say, take them into custody, get them charged with offenses only have the criminal justice spit them back out to these neighborhoods to reoffend one again.

This has been a disaster for these struggling communities here in the Milwaukee area, and we're suffering as a result.

CAMEROTA: So, Sheriff, in other words, you attribute all of this to the fact that, what, prison sentences are too lenient; they're not long enough?

CLARKE: Right. Things like community corrections. These are all failed experiments. Deferred prosecutions, where they won't charge an individual thinking that, you know, some job training and some counselling is what will make these career individuals where criminal behavior is deeply ingrained inside of them, that it will turn them around. These things do not work. They haven't worked anywhere. Maybe in a limited capacity. But when you try them on a scale, they do not work.

And we're seeing the result of that. I've made it clear in Milwaukee for the last several years that this was going to -- this day was going to come, so here we are.

CAMEROTA: So in other words, you think that more incarcerations would be the answer. Because some people have suggested -- I mean, this week there's this theory that police, because of what happened in Ferguson and other places, where police were under the spotlight for excessive force, that in fact, they felt hamstrung and that police have backed off, basically, policing because of the federal oversight. Do you see that nexus?

CLARKE: Well, you know, there's been a constant barrage against the American police officer, but that's something recent. I think we're at a tipping point. It probably came sooner than I thought.

The fact is the police here and all across America, they haven't quit on their community. They wouldn't do that. They have too much honor and commitment. But what is lacking now is that proactive, that self- initiating policing, where officers take risks. Under the rule of law, they develop the reasonable suspicion. They approach an individual. They ask some questions. If they have that reasonable suspicion that they might being armed, they pat them down and conduct that investigation. But those are high-risk stops, we call them. Sometimes it can lead to

an officer's death, as it did in New York with Officer Brian Moore, who was engaged in that very same thing.

And so when they realize, the American police officer, that we don't have the backing of the political class who has not risen above the slime being -- being thrown around at us, they're going to back off on that sort of stuff and just answer the calls for service.

So if we want the American police officer to be assertive once again, because once you turn that engine off, cops are -- they run at high RPMs. They're hyper-vigilante. Their engine is constantly running all the time. Once you shut that engine down, it's very hard to restart.

CAMEROTA: But Sheriff, I mean...

CLARKE: It's just not worth taking the risk if you're going to lose your life or you're going to end up with some criminal indictment.

CAMEROTA: But are you seeing that in your department? I mean, you're the boss, obviously, of your sheriff's department. Are you seeing your deputies not trusting their gut anymore?

CLARKE: I'm seeing that all across the country. And I've been all across the country. I spent some time out in New York about a month or six weeks ago. And this is what the American police officer -- I spent a week in Washington, D.C., at the -- during police week. And while officers all across America came up to me, and that's what they say. "Sheriff, we don't know any more. We don't trust the political class. We don't know if it's worth to be very proactive, these high- risk stops and to engage in self-initiating policing. We'll just go to the calls for service that we get sent to, you know, until we feel we have this -- we know we have the backing of the community. Right now we do not having the backing of the political class."

CAMEROTA: And so, Sheriff, what's the answer? Because obviously, we have also seen on the flip side that there have been cases of excessive force, and there have been cases of bad police officers doing bad things. Even Milwaukee in 2011 was the subject of a Department of Justice oversight, because of a whole bunch of things like racial profiling, searches without probable cause, targeting minorities for harassment, excessive use of force.

So obviously, those are not things that engender good feeling in the community, but you do want police officers to be able to trust their gut. What is the fine balance here? What's the answer?

CLARKE: Well, first of all, some of the things you raise, and none of that's proven. Those things are thrown about. I want to see the data that suggests that any of that stuff is actually going on here.

First of all, we have too much involvement from the Department of Justice. We're trying to emasculate law enforcement officers, federalize these agencies that ties them up with reports inside station houses, instead of out in these communities, serving -- serving the people who need them the most.

One of the things that I think needs to happen here is for the political class all across the United States, who engaging this slime throwing for some cheap political points to back off, knock it off, let us go back to work. Keep an eye on us sure. I have no problem with that. I do that on a daily basis...