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Man Being Shot by Police in Baton Rouge Caught on Cell Phone Camera; Donald Trump Criticizes Hillary Clinton in North Carolina Speech. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired July 06, 2016 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] REP. XAVIER BECERRA, (D) CALIFORNIA: Did she try to lie about it? No. No. The FBI has told us that. Did she make some mistakes? Absolutely. Will she make sure she doesn't do that again? She has already said that.

And so let's make sure we put this all in context. We don't want to find ourselves in a situation where we might disclose information that's classified. And so that's what's important here, and that's why the lessons have to be learned. But to try to take this beyond that, now your becoming partisan in trying to say there is more to it than what the nonpartisan, independent investigators at the FBI discovered.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Representative Becerra, thank you for making the case this morning on NEW DAY as always. Appreciate it.

BECERRA: You got it.

CUOMO: There is a lot going on in the news this morning. There is outrage over another deadly officer-involved shooting that was caught on video. We have it for you. Let's get to it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN breaking news.

CUOMO: Good morning and welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Wednesday, July 6th, 8:00 in the east. And we do have this breaking news. Another deadly police involved shooting. Outrage, protests. Why? Here's the situation, a 37 year old black man dead after being shot repeatedly by Baton Rouge police officers who already had him pinned down.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: So this deadly encounter was captured on cell phone video and now the chilling video has gone viral online. And the community and his family are demanding answers. So let's get right to Polo Sandoval who has all the breaking details. What have you learned, Polo?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We have been doing some digging and learned this is at least the third deadly officer involving shooting to happen in east Bator Rough Parish this year so far. As for the video, as you mentioned, it is considered graphic. However, it will be crucial for the investigation. And that video also fueling that call for answers on the ground.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: Hundreds of protesters taking to the streets in Baton Rouge after this graphic video circulated on social media of a deadly encounter between the police and a man at a convenience star. According to police two officers were spotted to an anonymous call just after midnight on Tuesday. The caller said a man selling CDs outside of the store threatened him with a gun. The officers attempted to subdue 37-year-old Alton Sterling. The store owner says one officer used a Taser but Sterling remained on his feet. Sterling is then tackled by an officer over the hood of a car. As officers wrestled to restrain Sterling, someone yells --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's got a gun!

SANDOVAL: Sterling was then shot several times at point blank range.

(GUNSHOTS)

ABDUL MUFLAHI, STORE OWNER, KNEW STERLING: I was actually maybe two, three feet away when it happened.

SANDOVAL: The store owner says while Sterling lay in the parking lot he saw officers pull a gun from his pocket. Sterling's family now demanding answers.

MIGNON CHAMBERS, ALTON STERLING'S SISTER: I really want to know more about what happened about the whole situation, because my brother didn't deserve it. He didn't deserve it at all.

SANDOVAL: CNN affiliate, WAFB reports that the officers in question were wearing body cameras but they apparently fell off in the altercation. Baton Rouge police have placed the officers on administrative leave.

CAPTAIN L'JEAN MCKNEELY, SPOKESMAN, BATON ROUGE POLICE DEPARTMENT: This is an ongoing investigation. We are going to review the video and review the audio. We have witnesses, nonbiased witnesses here. We're going to bring them down to our station and interview them.

SANDOVAL: The coroner ruling that Sterling died of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back.

MUFLAHI: God bless his soul. It could have been handled differently, much differently on both sides. It could have been handled differently.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: And CNN has had an opportunity to speak to the owner of that convenience store where this all played out. He says he had known Sterling for several years and had given him permission to sell CDs there outside of that business, and ultimately, though, that interview, one of several that will be part of this crucial mountain of evidence, Alisyn, that will have to process. Meanwhile, there is a local congressman now calling for the Justice Department to join in or at least start an investigation of their own. CAMEROTA: Absolutely, this is just a start. Polo, thank you for all

of that reporting.

Family members of Alton Sterling want answers of course from authorities. We want to bring in Alton Sterling's aunt Sandra Sterling. She is on the phone with us from Baton Rouge. We also want to talk to Michael McClanahan. He's the president of the Baton Rouge NAACP. Thanks to both of you for being here. Sandra, we are so sorry for your loss this morning. I want to play for people who have missed it and who may just be waking up this video of what happened to your nephew. We want to warn everyone, it is very disturbing, it is very graphic. Sandra, have you seen this video?

SANDRA STERLING, ALTON STERLING'S AUNT: Yes, I saw it. I saw it.

[08:05:00] CAMEROTA: Sandra, what have you learned about what happened to your nephew?

STERLING: The only thing I've learned so far, which I just recently learned when the new video came to surface of how me nephew was, what really happened. When I first got to the scene, they didn't tell me anything about how he was killed or he got shot.

CAMEROTA: And so what did you then think when you saw this video for the first time?

STERLING: When I saw this video, I was so disturbed. I was hurt. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing and hearing. It was horrible. It should never happen to anybody that way.

CAMEROTA: He was outside this store selling CDs as he had for years. So what do you think went wrong on Monday night?

STERLING: I think what went wrong, I was told that they had been harassing him all day. That night, the store owner told him that he was harassing him, and he got ready to leave. And once he got ready to leave those same two officers came back after they got this alleged call, which we still haven't heard about who called or what the call was about. That confrontation happened then. It happened so fast. It's horrible.

CAMEROTA: We understand, or at least the police have said that there was an anonymous person that called 911 and said there was a guy selling CDs, who we believe to be your nephew, who had threatened him with a gun. Did your nephew have a gun?

STERLING: No, my nephew would never have a gun because of his situation.

CAMEROTA: Meaning what? What does that mean?

STERLING: Meaning he was kind of in a little trouble with the law. He would never have a gun. He was on probation. He was taken off. But in the state of Louisiana, he cannot carry a weapon because of his previous incident. He cannot carry a weapon.

CAMEROTA: And his previous incident, does he have a history of violence?

STERLING: No, he don't have a history of violence, no, no. He was like a gentle giant. No, he don't have a history of violence.

CAMEROTA: Can you tell us what his previous incident with the law was?

STERLING: I can tell you this about that. It is public record in Louisiana, but it was something so minor it's not worth even saying over the phone.

CAMEROTA: So when you see the video, what does it say to you about what happened?

STERLING: To me, there is no justice. He didn't even have a chance. He didn't even have a chance. There's no justice there, because had that person not came out and brought that cell phone video, we would still be in the blind today because the officers said that during the struggle, which I didn't see a struggle, the officers' body cams fell off of them, both of them.

CAMEROTA: Mr. McClanahan, I want to ask you about that. These officers did have body cams on them but the police say that they fell off during the struggle so they didn't provide any video. What do you think of that?

MICHAEL MCCLANAHAN, PRESIDENT, BATON ROUGE, BRANCH OF NAACP: Well, you know, we have body cameras that were designed to be placed on officers in their line of duty. They are there to be worn and they are there to be stationed no matter what goes on during the officer's line of duty, during his shift. How ironic that not only one come off but both of them came off. It doesn't look like there was too much of a struggle to me during the encounter.

It speaks of the lawlessness and what I would like to call the ignorance of the police officers to think people nowadays will fall for the old okie-doke.

CAMEROTA: That video that everybody is seeing now that has gone viral is a cell phone video of a witness. The audio is particularly disturbing on the video, as if the video and pictures aren't bad enough. The audio, you can hear the witness just screaming. I'll play a short version of it for you so that everybody can hear what the witness' impressions were.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gun!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Well, after that, actually that the witnesses screamed because they realized what they have just seen. But what you just heard Mr. McClanahan is the officer saying, "Gun, gun!" They felt, it sounds like, that all ton Alton Sterling had a gun on him. [08:10:02] MCCLANAHAN: Officers are trained. They are properly

trained. They know how to get a person's gun if he has one without killing him. They are trained to do this. With the proper training, officers know how to get a gun, a weapon off of a person.

But what the video shows, two things, that camera videos from common, ordinary citizens are crucial in today's time. And number two, that the police officers live and operate in an environment of lawlessness. Not all of them. I would say on epercent of officers operate in an environment of lawlessness. Nothing that they did, absolutely nothing they did today was lawful, nothing.

CAMEROTA: Sandra, we can imagine how devastated you and all of your family is, and we know that you are going to be speaking out publicly this morning in the next hour. What do you want to see to the community?

STERLING: First, I want to tell the community, let's do this peacefully. I want to say do it peacefully, because back then, my nephew was gone. He will never come back. What we want to do is we want to fight that this will never happen again, not in Baton Rouge, nowhere. It should never happen again.

CAMEROTA: Sandra, we hear your message of calling for peaceful protests and we will obviously be watching what happens this morning and as the facts of this situation unfold. Again, we are so sorry for your loss. Thank you for joining us this morning on NEW DAY.

STERLING: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Chris?

CUOMO: All right, we now have our other top story, the Clinton e-mail investigation is over after the FBI said there is no ground to prosecute, over legally but far from over politically. Trump is all over this, saying it was a rigged result, that Hillary Clinton bribed Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and then he also a fit in some praise for Saddam Hussein. Sara Murray has more in North Carolina.

SARA MURRAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, you guys. Donald Trump spoke for more than an hour last night, and you could tell he wanted to focus on hammering Hillary Clinton, focus on the idea that the system is rigged in his favor. But he just couldn't stop himself from veering off on a couple of tangents, including complimenting Saddam Hussein.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: She lied.

MURRAY: Donald Trump touching down in the stormy tar heel state to land a searing attack against Hillary Clinton.

TRUMP: Stupidity is not a reason you are going to be innocent, OK. It is not a reason.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Today is the best evidence ever that we have seen that our system is absolutely, totally rigged.

MURRAY: Trump attempting to cast Clinton as a corrupt politician, all after FBI Director James Comey said he won't recommend charges against Clinton for using private e-mail servers while offering pointed criticism.

JAMES COMEY, FBI DIRECTOR: There is evidence that they were extremely careless.

MURRAY: Trump leapt at the chance to pile on.

TRUMP: She said vast amounts of classified information, including information classified as top secret. She was extremely careless and, frankly, I say grossly incompetent. She will be such a lousy president, folks.

MURRAY: Trump even suggesting Clinton may have bribed her way to this outcome.

TRUMP: She said today that we may consider the attorney general to go forward. That's like a bribe, isn't it? Isn't that sort of a bribe?

MURRAY: That's after a "New York Times" story, not Clinton, herself, cited unnamed Democrats, saying Clinton may decide to keep Loretta Lynch as attorney general. But Trump didn't stop with Clinton. As she campaigned alongside President Obama, Trump took aim at Obama's penchant for golf.

TRUMP: Golf, golf, more, more, learning how to chip, learning how to hit the drive.

MURRAY: The acronym he uses to describe ISIS.

TRUMP: He says "ISIL." He says "ISIL." And it's almost like he does it to make people upset.

MURRAY: And his demeanor in the White House.

TRUMP: We have a person in the White House that's having a lot of fun, a lot of fun. I watched him today. It is like a carnival act.

MURRAY: But even as Trump tried to stay on the offensive, he again set off controversy by offering his accolades to former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, a man who maintained a vice grip on power in part by financing terrorism, torturing opponents, and targeting minorities.

TRUMP: We shouldn't have destabilized. Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, right. He was a bad guy, really bad guy. But, you know what he did well, he killed terrorists. He did that so good.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MURRAY: Now, Trump's comments about Saddam Hussein were made even more awkward by the fact that he was campaigning alongside Bob Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

[08:15:02] Overnight, though, Donald Trump tried to turn the attention back on Hillary Clinton and he took to Twitter to do that, tweeting out a number of things, including, "I don't think the voters will forget the rigged system that allowed crooked Hillary to get away with, quote, "murder." Come November 8th, she is out." Back to you guys.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, Sara, thank you for that.

Well, Donald Trump on the attack days before the Republican National Convention. So what can we expect in Cleveland? We'll talk to the Republican National Committee, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The attorney general is sitting there saying, you know, if I get Hillary off the hook, I'm going to have four more years or eight more years. But, if she loses, I'm out of a job. It's a bribe. It's a disgrace. It's a disgrace.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: That's right, Donald Trump says Hillary Clinton bribed the attorney general to get out of the e-mail scandal. This comes after FBI Director James Comey revealed the results of the investigation into the private e-mail using there is not a legitimate basis to prosecute.

Let's discuss the state of play on the e-mail scandal and what else is going on in this race with the Chief Strategist and Communication Director for the Republican National Committee, Mr. Sean Spicer.

Sean, I know you are very busy. Thank you for making time for "New Day" this morning.

SEAN SPICER, CHIEF STRATEGIST AND COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR FOR THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: Good morning Chris, thank you for having me.

CUOMO: So, Sean, do you want to own the allegation from your presumptive nominee that Hillary Clinton got off from the e-mail situation because she bribed the attorney general?

[08:20:13] SPICER: Here is what I do know. The evidence that Director Comey laid out yesterday was the definition of gross negligence. It is the textbook definition of gross negligence. He laid it all out and then he came to a conclusion that I don't know how he came to. He literally -- yesterday was an indictment on Hillary Clinton's judgment and it was an indictment on Hillary Clinton's fitness to be president. To put it in terms that everyone would understand, imagine getting an A in every class and then having someone say, but you're not going to graduate. It doesn't add up. And so, I don't know how you can explain a situation where the attorney general has a private meeting with the former president, her husband on one day, she gets special treatment the next day to go into the FBI on a Saturday morning of a three-day holiday weekend.

And then Tuesday morning after that, they announced, hey, despite all of this overwhelming evidence, despite the fact that we admit that she lied, that there was classified information on her server, despite the fact that she set that server up for the intent of evading detection, that we're not going to come to the conclusion of this. Despite the fact that there are hundreds, if not dozens, if not hundreds of people that have worked for the government that have been prosecuted for lesser crimes. I don't understand how you -- how he came to that conclusion. And I do think for the average American looking at this system, they have to think something is weird about it.

CUOMO: Well, two points. One, as Comey laid out and I think you probably hear more from him whether or not he gets dragged on to Capitol Hill to discuss it or not, is very rarely, almost never has this statute been prosecuted on the basis of even gross negligence which he didn't say yesterday, right? He said extreme carelessness were all drawing inferences about what he meant to say was a wink, was it is not.

But it's almost always done on the basis of intent and it's almost always prosecuted when someone then lies to the FBI. And now, those are important distinguishing in characteristics. The other point is, I don't hear you saying the word bribe. You don't like certain things about this but you are not calling it a bribe. Your presumptive nominee did, should he have?

SPICER: That's up to him to decide. I'm only going to go with what I know and the facts are laid out. I wouldn't be ...

CUOMO: Or shouldn't he be going with that, Sean? Do you want your presumptive nominee going beyond the facts and coming up with something that is a very charged statement?

SPICER: Right. And I think that he has every right to decide how he wants to present the contrast with Hillary Clinton and make the case that he wants to make. And I'll stick with the case that I'm comfortable making and the way I want to present it.

And the way I want to present it, is to say the mere -- when Hillary Clinton didn't just have a Gmail account or a Yahoo account that she was using on the site, she literally set up an entire e-mail system, put in multiple servers to evade detection, to make sure that she could communicate privately outside the rules and regulations that she actually signed a form to abide by.

So, I believe that intent was very clear from the beginning. Anybody can see it. The reason she set this up was actually to -- with this explicit intent to avoid detection. That's why it was set up.

It wasn't like somebody sat around and said, hey, I have a Gmail account, can you send this to me once in a while or hey, I'm going to -- blind copy my Gmail account so I can respond with the state department e-mails then? They literally set up this private server. She was warned multiple times about not abiding by the rules and the concerns that people had on security measures. And she disavowed each time.

Hillary Clinton has a set of rules for her and a set of rules for every other American. And what the FBI director laid out yesterday was clear that she knew what she was doing was wrong. She was reckless and she knows there was a culture at the state department of an unrecognizable importance of national security.

And this is a person who wants to be president of the United States, commander in chief, overseer of the national security, who want and who will be getting daily briefings. Who will see the most sensitive intelligence and who has now been told by the director of the FBI that they had blatant disregard for maintaining that security.

CUOMO: There's no question that well, it may not be a crime, it certainly can be seen as a political crime and it's going to be play out in the election.

On the other side of the ledger, where is the party's stance on the e- mail over the weekend by Donald Trump with the Star of David in the referenced image? And on what he just said about Saddam Hussein, which kind of seemed like a compliment for him being good at killing people, specifically terrorists?

SPICER: Well, with respect to the e-mail that you were referencing, I think the social media director of the campaign has answered that. It was not -- it was done rather sloppily in terms of the intent was not to be disparaging or anything. But they chose an image that wasn't proper. They took it down and corrected it. And it was a mistake and it won't happen again.

CUOMO: Never apologized though ...

[08:25:04] SPICER: Hold on, hold on. I think he basically said it was a mistake. When you get into exact wording, it's not for me to decide. But I think that the bigger point that I look at when you look at a guy like Donald Trump is in 1995 -- excuse me, in 1985, 30 years ago when he wasn't running for anything. And when that the liberals said they controlled Palm Beach County said that blacks and Jews and other minorities weren't allowed in any of the elite clubs, Donald Trump went down, bought a club, Mar-a-Lago and said, "My club is open to everybody. I don't care what color of your skin is, I don't care what religion you belong to. I want to open a club that is available to everybody."

So, you look at the character of an individual and the actions that they took, well before he was running for president of the United States. Well, before he was in the public spotlight that he is today. And those actions speak volumes for the -- who the man is and the kind of person that he is and the kind of actions that he would take as president and the way he would lead. And I think that that's what is important, not whether someone made a misstep on Twitter. But the actions and the kind of person he is. And this goes back 30 years as I said.

So, when it comes to the character of who he is, the type of person and the way he'd govern, the way he believes in looking at individuals, he is someone who has shown over the course of three decades that he is -- looks at people not because of the color of their skin or their religion, as equals, as all as people, not as part of a group.

And so, you know, when you have a group of liberal elites down in Palm Beach that were deciding to be racist and anti-Semitic, it was Donald Trump that came to the rescue and said, I will fight tooth and nail for everybody to be a part of the club that I want to be down here.

CUOMO: That was a, that was a very effective defense of his character and a shot at the liberal elite at the same time. Sean Spicer with the twofer.

SPICER: Well, thank you.

CUOMO: We're 11 days away from the RNC convention. We're still waiting on that speaker list. I know that you say Trump's going to put it out. We will see you soon. Thank you for being on the show this morning.

SPICER: You bet. Looking forward to seeing you in Cleveland, Chris.

CUOMO: All right. Alisyn.

[08:26:55] CAMEROTA: OK, Chris. Well, the Clinton campaign bracing for any political impact from the FBI's findings. Can President Obama help Clinton move past this? David Axlerod is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)