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G.O.P. Panicking that Trump Will Win; Can Police Departments Police Themselves; Muslim Taxi Driver Shot Calls Attack a Hate Crime. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired December 02, 2015 - 07:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:30:39] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump solidifying his place as the definitive front-runner in the G.O.P. field this morning. He's garnering 27 percent of the vote in this new national from Quinnipiac just out an hour and a half ago.

And according to the "New York Times," Trump's dominance is causing much of the Republican Party establishment to worry that he could get the nomination.

He to respond to all of this and more, House majority leader Kevin McCarthy.

Good morning, Kevin -- good morning, congressman, I should say. Forgive me.

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA), HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER: Call me Kevin. Oh, call me Kevin.

CAMEROTA: Great to see you this morning. Let's talk about this new Quinnipiac poll. It shows Donald Trump's dominance is not going anywhere. In fact, he's built on it over the past few weeks. He's gone up three points. Despite the various controversies that have cropped up over the past few weeks in terms of his exaggerations about say the refugee number, or about what happened on 9/11.

How do you explain it?

MCCARTHY: Well, he has those voters that support him will support him through and through. But I think you got to look at attributes. What attributes are people looking for? The one thing that Donald shows he does shows strength. He's an entrepreneur and he's willing to change Washington.

So the voters are looking for a lot of those attributes, but also in that poll, what I read a lot into, is the rise of Rubio and Senator Cruz. I think you're going to see those two continue to rise because they're fresh faces. They also beat a lot of those attributes that Donald has in the aspect. And I think this race is still a long way away from anybody winning it.

And as we know, between now and Christmas, there won't be that much change, but come January, there's going to be some really fast movement. And anybody who wants to be president has to lay out a very clear vision for America, of what the future holds but also this election is going to be a lot about the foreign policy and the strength of America around the world.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about a couple of the controversies that Donald Trump has caused over the past few weeks, particularly the stuff about what happened on 9/11 with people celebrating. That has been debunked.

Certainly in the numbers that he was talking about. He has exaggerated the number of refugees that he claims the U.S. will be bringing into the country, Syrian refugees in particular.

Are you comfortable with the campaign that he's running?

MCCARTHY: Look, he's running a campaign and each individual has to run their own. They run it from their own style. And one thing, if you watch what Donald Trump does, it is nothing conventional. But this is an unconventional year. So I would never try to predict what the voters want to see. But I just believe that this is not the end today. And I think of this poll --

CAMEROTA: But, congressman, it's beyond unconventional. I mean, people say that there are elements of it that are dishonest.

Are you personally comfortable with watching how his campaign is unfolding?

MCCARTHY: He has his name on the ballot for how he wants to run his campaign. I have not endorsed him. I have not endorsed anybody. But I think there's a lot of people out there that can be president and be a very good president. So you want to have that debate.

But I think what American voters are going to look for, they're going to look for who has a clear vision for the future. And that's going to make people look more difficult and to one point, hold them harder accountable of what they're saying. So I think come January, these polls will look different.

CAMEROTA: "The New York Times" has a report out in the past few hours about how uncomfortable Donald Trump's campaign is making the establishment Republicans. He has a whole host of party leaders who are talking about what they fear if Donald Trump becomes the nominee. And they fear that it will have a ripple effect and it will hurt congressional races and it will hurt Senate races and it will hurt local races.

Let me read you just one little portion. This is from the chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, Matt Borges, who says, "If he, meaning Trump, carries this message, meaning his inflammatory rhetoric, into the general election in Ohio, we will hand this election to Hillary Clinton and then try to salvage the rest of the ticket."

Do you share those concerns? MCCARTHY: You know, as a Republican, I believe in Reagan's 11th commandment. I'm not here to debate what's wrong with the Republican candidates because I will tell you from all those candidates, I think they would be a better president than what Hillary Clinton would be.

So I think what we need to see is what is the clear vision for where America is going to go and how are we going to bring America back and have the strength and economic drive of what we've seen in the past, of what we want to have.

[07:35:00] And regardless of whether somebody makes somebody uncomfortable, I think the American people want to see something shake up in Washington. So whoever is running, and that could be a Senator Rubio. They can shake things up as well.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about something that everyone on both sides of the aisle is interested in. And that is fighting ISIS and defeating them. As you know, Secretary Ash Carter has talked about sending up to 200 more special ops into Iraq to try to combat ISIS.

Are you comfortable with that plan?

MCCARTHY: Yes, I'd actually want to see a little more. I trust in our military leaders. I looked at the chairman of joint chiefs just yesterday in the hearing. He says we have not contained ISIS. We've got a lot further to go. I want to see a plan that doesn't contain them but defeats them.

And I think that's what you've seen come out of the House and the bills that we've had here, sending to the president. We want to see a strategy that actually defeats ISIS. And this is a start.

CAMEROTA: One of the bills that you're talking about is the Intelligence Authorization Act. You're trying to get more money devoted to gathering intelligence.

MCCARTHY: Well, intelligence as we watched from all the challenges, 9/11 and others, are the real gap or the vulnerabilities that America had. We just passed the intelligence authorization yesterday on the floor, in a bipartisan large vote, so there's a unique opportunity. But there's other things the House is working on.

I chair a task force of the chairman on counterterrorism and homeland security. We dealt with that refugee's bill. Just a couple weeks ago that was bipartisan. And now we're looking at the visa waiver program. Those gaps and vulnerabilities in that. You're going to see a bill rollout later this week and pass next week as well, make sure our homeland is safe.

CAMEROTA: Congressman, this isn't the first time that we've spoken to you since all the drama unfolded about the speakership.

MCCARTHY: Yes.

MCCARTHY: And I'm wondering how you feel today about how everything unfolded? Obviously, it was -- some of your comments were blamed in sort of derailing you, the comments made about Hillary Clinton and the Benghazi committee.

So how are you feeling today about what ended up happening?

MCCARTHY: I feel very good. Remember, I decided that I was not best for the speaker's position. And I think now you're going to find that became true. Look at everything that's moving on the floor. Speaker Ryan is one of my best friends. We work very closely together. He is the only member I called when I made the decision I was no longer going to run because he was giving my nominating speech.

I said, Paul, you are the person that can bring everybody together and he's proven that he had. And I think we've seen a structural change inside this house for the better. Look, timing is everything in politics. I didn't run with the idea that I had to be speaker. I ran with the idea that we have to change America.

And I believed by stepping back, you would actually putting the country first. And I think history will prove it. I just wish the whole country didn't have to watch me do it. I could have done it in another matter.

CAMEROTA: Congressman Kevin McCarthy, thanks so much for being on NEW DAY.

MCCARTHY: Thanks for having me.

CAMEROTA: Michaela?

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: You can call me, Michaela.

CAMEROTA: Oh, thank you.

PEREIRA: OK? I just want to make sure you knew that.

All right, we've got more news coming for you from Chicago. The shooting death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald last year now triggering major change in Chicago. Mayor Rahm Emanuel firing the city's top cop. The question is can the police police themselves. We'll examine that, ahead.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAHM EMANUEL, MAYOR OF CHICAGO: We will continue to take the necessary steps to build trust between the police and the residents and communities they serve. In order to bring the level of safety to our streets that every Chicagoan deserves, people must have confidence in our entire system.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: That was Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announcing the ouster of the city's top cop. He's also announced the formation of a new task force that will review accountability within the department. This all comes amid outrage over the shooting death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.

I want to discuss it with CNN law enforcement analyst and retired NYPD detective Harry Houck. Also here with us, CNN political commentator, Mr. Mark Lamont Hill.

Gentleman, it's nice to have you sit down beside each other. Maybe we can have some...

(CROSSTALK)

HARRY HOUCK, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: This is fancy.

PEREIRA: ...very fancy -- some conversations about sort of using Chicago as a backdrop of what's going on more nationally in a perspective there. When we think about all that's happened over, I guess, the past year, it would seem, Mark, that every step in the right direction with respect to accountability has come because of an outside force, whether it's been a journalist suing for video or, you know, civic and community leaders banding together, taking to the streets demanding action from their civic leaders.

Does the Laquan McDonald obviously point to you -- highlight a bigger problem about the police being able to police themselves?

MARK LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, absolutely. And I don't think it's particular to police. I think any organization, any institution --

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: Interesting.

HILL: Has a very difficult time self-regulating, self-policing. If I took a bunch of teachers and asked them to evaluate their own teaching practices, it would be very difficult unless I had an outside person watching them. It doesn't mean --

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: In effect most organizations don't do that.

HILL: Of course not, of course not. Only the police, not only the police, but the police are one of the few groups that only police themselves, only investigate themselves.

I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with individual police officers in terms of them rally the other character. I just think it's the nature of institutions. And the fact that every time we get an outside person, the reporter, as you mention, or a videotape, we suddenly find misconduct suggests that we're only going to find misconduct when outsiders are looking in. So let's just do it.

CAMEROTA: So, Harry, what about that point, because you even spoke to us in various cases about the idea of having, you know, internal investigations, we'll look at it, internal affairs will take a look at this and decide. That's still inside the department.

You can look at what happened in Colorado Springs with the Planned Parenthood shooting. We know that the rule of the law there in that state is that they have an outside agency come in and investigate, even if it was a warranted shooting. They will have an outside investigation, an outside agency come and investigate. Why wouldn't that be the norm for police station, for police departments?

[07:45:13] HOUCK: And there's no problem with that. But I don't think there's any evidence to indicate that the police officers can't police themselves. We had an internal affairs unit. You know, we've got a district attorney's office that can fairly investigate.

And we haven't -- I haven't seen any cases in the past recently where there's any indication that corruption on the internal affairs unit, OK. There might be allegations and assumptions but not any evidence.

PEREIRA: But you can understand why folks would say, look -- again, using Laquan McDonald as an example. It took a year for that video to be released. There was an election happening.

HOUCK: That's not the police department's fault here, OK. This is your mayor's fault. Mayor Emanuel was running for re-election. He did not want that video to be released. And the fact that if he wanted, if he was so concern, the mayor was so concern, he could have told that police commissioner I want that video out there and I want it out there now. And he did not do it.

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: But then the police --

HILL: Why wouldn't the police commissioner do the same thing, though? Why wouldn't the police commissioner be so concerned as to want the tape out? Also, there's the question of the "Burger King" video, right, and the allegations, right, that police went and deleted the video. These wouldn't be (INAUDIBLE)

(CROSSTALK)

HOUCK: Did you read the new news on that?

HILL: No, no, no, I'm just saying the...

HOUCK: Yes, so that's an allegation.

HILL: Just let me finish my thought here. Just let me finish my thought here.

PEREIRA: Let's have a civil conversation here.

HILL: My point is that these allegations raise one question of whether the police are doing a good job, but it also deteriorates the public trust in them. So even if the police were perfectly right and the police did everything right, the challenge still is the public doesn't trust them. So why not have -- as to your point, why not have an outside force do it.

HOUCK: Let's go back to that video. Why assume that the police erased the video? The investigation is now concluded on that video and they had checked it out. It was never erased. There's nothing wrong with that video.

PEREIRA: Where is it?

HOUCK: All right, so it's out there. It's out there. It was on the news yesterday, the video has been checked and that the video was not -- no indication that video has ever been tampered with. So how do you come out with an allegation like that, you know, against the police department and doing something like that? And it's just an assumption on your point -- their point.

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: Let's broaden out so that we can, again, using it as a backdrop, but looking at where the state of policing is nationally, we know that in this case, the attorney general for Chicago has requested the DOJ come in and do an investigation.

We've seen this time and time again. We've seen this in Ferguson. We saw it in New York and other cities, where the answer has turned to the feds. Is that what it's going to take in each and every one of these cases?

HILL: I think we need a few things. I think federal oversight is incredibly important, but we also need civilian review boards. We need people in their own communities to be in a relationship with these organizations and institutions.

That does two things -- one, it creates the kind of safeguards we want. But, two, it helps build public trust again. This isn't just about stopping the police from misconduct. It's also about engaging community differently because community won't engage police if they don't trust them.

PEREIRA: I want to bring up some numbers here, because it's really kind of startling when you look at what Chicago misconduct payments have been. Again, using this as an idea because we know it's not just Chicago. Chicago has paid out some $521 million from 2004 to 2014 in misconduct payments. Other cities have settled expensive lawsuits as well.

HILL: Look at Baltimore.

PEREIRA: You look at Baltimore, we know that. If that's not enough to compel reform -- if losing young lives isn't enough, is that --

HOUCK: These officers haven't been found guilty in the Baltimore case and they're already paying out. This is what cities do. They just throw money at people because they don't want to get involved in a --

PEREIRA: But that money could be going to other useful things. HOUCK: Right, exactly. So why did they pay that case off when that case isn't over yet. Those officers had not been found guilty of any misconduct as of yet or any crime as of yet. But the city go and pays it, all right, which I think plants the seed that the city or the police officer somehow were involved in misconduct for this case and should be.

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: (INAUDIBLE), I got to go.

(CROSSTALK)

HILL: Harry is talking about wrestling the idea that not every police case is a case of misconduct. I agree. My point is that some are. And this case in Chicago is an example of that. They also paid an early $5 million. So I'm saying, if we know that some of these cases are wrong, some of these cases smell bad, why not just had outside intervention and then we don't have anything to argue about.

PEREIRA: We're going to be talking about this for sometime, I'm sure.

Gentleman, thanks for joining me. Thank you for the conversation. You can get it on it by joining us on social media using the #NewDayCNN on Facebook or on Twitter.

Chris?

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Mick, so listen to this one. A guy gets in the cab, starts asking the Muslim driver about ISIS, then shoots him. Why isn't this getting the attention that it would if the roles were reverse. What's going on here? We'll take you through it.

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[07:53:26] CUOMO: A Muslim taxi driver is recovering after being shot in the back by a passenger on Thanksgiving Day. The driver says the passenger asked questions about the driver's ethnicity and then talked about ISIS and ISIS killing people and then shot him. When they arrive at the destination, the passenger said he was going inside for his wallet, but came back outside with a rifle and began firing.

Let's bring in Wasi Mohamed. He's the executive director of the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh, who visited the taxi driver at the hospital.

Now Wasi, one of the reasons that you are interested in this is not just your work with the Muslim community, but how you feel this is not being treated. Tell us.

WASIULLAH MOHAMED, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE ISLAMIC CENTER OF PITTSBURGH: Yes, I honestly believe that if this was maybe a different community, the response would have been different. This happened on a very, very early on Thanksgiving Day. And it actually took until after the story broke on Sunday for some real action to be taken. And I don't really think other communities have to wait and publicize any incident that happens before any real response, you know, is to occur.

CUOMO: What do you think happened here and why?

MOHAMED: I think it's very clear what happened. The cab driver was driving someone home, providing a service. The person turned the conversation into -- as soon as he realized like, you know, he had an accent, like are you this, are you that? Are you affiliated with ISIS? And went on a rant about hating ISIS and Muslims, and also like being very offensive to our prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.

And then after that he goes and gets a gun as the cab driver already left. You know, he already like -- he can't rob him anymore. He's not scaring anybody away. He already likes -- he's out of the cab. He then shoots. You know, this is very clear, this is religiously motivated. And I think it should be treated as such even though it is not yet.

[07:55:00] CUOMO: Now the driver is recovering. That's the good news.

MOHAMED: Yes.

CUOMO: You say that the police aren't doing enough and they're not doing it the right way by calling it a hate crime. What do you understand the status of the investigation to be?

MOHAMED: So one of the biggest issues here is communication. And we haven't been reached out to. However, though, the chief of police is willing to talk to me now. But we haven't been given an update. So we don't know the status of the investigation. We don't know what's been updated since then. And that's mainly the issue. The only reason they're now reaching out is because of media attention. And I believe they should have originally -- at least, you know, updated the victim on what's been going on, if not his community. And none of that has been happening so I wish I could tell you.

CUOMO: Well, with the victim's family, that's absolutely fair criticism. The officers involved, the police department should be involved with the victim of a shooting, no question about it.

But why the need to reach out to a community, when a black guy gets shot, you don't hear police contacting black leaders about it, you just deal with the victim specifically.

Why different treatment for Muslims?

MOHAMED: Yes, that's a fair question. And my understanding is how do I know that this is an isolated incident? As a community leader, I'm worried about public safety.

You know, was this like one individual deciding to take an active aggression or is this kind of a plan? I could see someone who thinks like, you know, Muslims drive cabs, let me plan this and fill this out.

If a hate group decides like let's tell our members to do this as a strategy, shouldn't we be at least informed. We have no reason to believe that this isn't that, especially the increasing Islamophobia in America. Why do we like this could be targeted, this could be planned. And somebody should explain to us, you know, what's happening in the situation. And should our community be right now on guard? But we haven't been informed. And that's the major issue.

CUOMO: Pittsburgh, thriving metropolis. What are you seeing there in terms of Muslim daily life? Do you believe that everything we're hearing about the Syrian refugees and ISIS and the Paris attacks, has it changed the mood?

MOHAMED: I think -- I believe a lot of things have changed the mood. And Islamophobia is definitely on the rise. I don't think blaming these events. I personally think of all the politicians fuming hateful Islamophobic rhetoric and this leading to more votes.

You know, I think that's actually changing the mood more than anything else. I think that it's shown in the 2008 and 2012 elections that upticks in Islamophobia are related to political -- for political reasons as what's it happens, not these events. These events are being used to increase it.

So, yes, my community particularly has seen much more harassment since these -- of events and speeches from politicians have occurred. And that is on an upswing. However, we still love the City of Pittsburgh and we believe that they can respond appropriately to this and change the story before this event is over.

CUOMO: There's another kind of pressure that's being put on the Muslim community also which is pressure to deny the acts of ISIS, to separate being Muslim from being what they are.

How do you feel that the community is doing in that regard?

MOHAMED: Yes, I think the community is doing extremely well, condemning all of these acts. There's long religious, theological and personal doctrines laid out why we disagree with them.

Personally, I have a problem with a lot of this happening, because I don't really see other groups getting up and apologizing when somebody within their community does a crime. Most terrorist attacks in the United States are white male Christians. And I don't expect their communities to condemn it. I know they condemn it. I know it's ridiculous, heinous crimes.

I am particularly offended that I -- they assume that our community like might be supportive unless we actively say something. That's just inhumane and that's part of the picture they're painting of Muslims as not being, you know -- American not being human and not having those basic moral values that go along with being American.

I think that's ridiculous and we shouldn't keep fueling it. And we obviously condemn all of this, in case you want to ask people in the future, that's the answer you're going to get. But I think it's important to kind of note that nobody else gets asked these questions. CUOMO: Wasi Mohamed, thank you for being on NEW DAY. We will stay on this story. Stay in touch with us about what you learn as well. Thank you.

MOHAMED: All right, thank you so much, Chris.

CUOMO: All right, there's a lot of news to tell you about this morning. Let's get right to it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald Trump is on top of this new national Quinnipiac poll with a double digit lead at the top of the Republican field.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They say that I have the most loyal people. You know, others, if you sneeze, they drop you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Chicago's top cop fired.

EMANUEL: He has become an issue rather than dealing with the issue.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The city doesn't have confidence in the city's leadership.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are a lot of questions in this room about you and your office.

EMANUEL: You'll make that judgment. I think I'm doing my job.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hundreds of U.S. special operations and support forces heading to dangerous ground in Iraq and Syria.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are we winning, Mr. Secretary?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will win.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are we winning now?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to win.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

CUOMO: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Wednesday, December 2nd, 8:00 in the east.

Donald Trump is going to like waking up today because the polls are showing what he wants to see. He is up and by a bigger margin than ever.