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Three Officers Killed, Three Injured In Baton Rouge Attack; Keeping Cleveland Safe For the RNC; Security Scare In Turkey's Capital After Failed Coup; Ex-Air Commander, 26 Others Accused Of Leading Uprising. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired July 18, 2016 - 05:30   ET

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

[05:30:00] RUSSEL HONORE, U.S. ARMY (RET.), AUTHOR, "LEADERSHIP IN THE NEW NORMAL": You send a couple forward, see what the situation is, and develop the situation.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: How will that manifest itself in policing, in your opinion?

HONORE: It's going to slow it down, you know. Normally if there's something in the community, the police go right in because they're job is to save lives and to take care of business. This introduction of these long guns and their availability up on the street -- and what makes this more confusing, Chris, is this idea of open carry. How stupid is that?

CUOMO: Well, it's not stupid according to the people who vote it in.

HONORE: It's stupid in retrospect.

CUOMO: Well, you know, you have it here and you have it in Ohio, also.

HONORE: In retrospect, it's stupid.

CUOMO: Why?

HONORE: In a democracy for us -- I've lived nine and one-half years overseas, spent 37 years in the military. No country I went to, even in war zones, people are walking around willy-nilly carrying a gun. The good guy with the gun concept is kind of backwards. It's ill- conceived as a tagline. It has ended up being what people believe is a right. This idea of guns anywhere, anytime is bad and it has not shown to have an appreciable difference with any of these incidents. So we're exposing the cops --

CUOMO: Although, you hear that every time, though, General, is that if more people had weapons when you have a mass shooting there'd be a better percentage chance that the shooter would be taken out sooner.

HONORE: And there's no doubt on that. That's made up, that's T.V.- type stuff, you know, and we've got to --

CUOMO: Those who are in favor of being able to carry their guns more easily say that there's no data because you don't allow us to do it. If we're allowed to do it more often, like in Ohio and in Louisiana the numbers might be different.

HONORE: We've got the most liberal gun laws in the country. If you're over 17 years old you can carry a gun here openly and you're a non-felon, so we've got guns everywhere. What it has done is made our police less safe. So we talk about making our police safer, a way to do it is to seek out and find ways to have these zones and to talk down --

CUOMO: You don't see these zones as bait to mad men? That's the argument, right, that when you have a gun-free zone that means oh, I can go there. There are no guns and I can be even more violent successfully.

HONORE: We will never control the madmen. We've got to use intelligence in communities, in families and try to seek them out. Those are lone individuals, hard to stop, but when we do engage them the police, who are brave as heck, will have to develop that situation. It's going to take more response time for them to develop the situation as opposed to running in full bore every time something happens.

CUOMO: So that's what's in the hand that we're discussing right now.

HONORE: Right.

CUOMO: What about what's in the heart because if you look at the crime stats you have more police killed this year at this time by a lot than you had last year --

HONORE: Yes, sir.

CUOMO: -- and that's a troubling statistic. But, you know, the numbers are like 31 now versus 17 -- it's 72 percent -- but those are the numbers. You have in the thirties now versus in the teens and that goes to what is in somebody's heart. Where is the leadership on that? How do you deal with that dynamic because even here, the president said it himself, killing the police is an absolute wrong, period.

And yet, every time that there's violence against police there's pushback to this other context. Well, what about -- why do you think this happened? It's not just out of nowhere. How do you balance these voices or do you not balance them? Do you just separate them?

HONORE: I think we've got to compartmentalize this for what it is. These are individuals acting in the -- with some mental disorder and some type of ideology, but we can't treat all our citizens -- there isn't a boogeyman under every bush because if that is the perception we're leaving our police we're going to be in an awful place in this democracy. So we can't overplay how many -- I mean, we're standing out here now in front of police headquarters. America's going to work today so we should --

CUOMO: Although, they're wearing tactical gear this morning --

HONORE: Yes, absolutely. CUOMO: -- which I think is response to the situation. The sheriff's deputies had their vests, had their long guns, had their covers on. Understandable, given what just happened.

HONORE: Absolutely, and I think we need to embrace our police and we've got to take better care of our police. You know, police in Baton Rouge, starting off as a rookie, he makes less than $15 an hour. That means as soon as he starts to work he's got to get an overtime job to support himself, so he's coming to work stressed.

We've got to take better care of them. We need to give them some martial arts training and embrace our police. If this is an important job, let's treat it instead of becoming more and more of a dangerous job. How do we embrace and take care of our police and take care of their families if one of them lose their life, God forbid?

Right now, we have a federal program that provides $350,000 to help take care of those families. Chris, it's taken three to five years for them to claim that money from the federal government. The very federal government -- the Congress, who will give all kind of eloquent speeches this week about how we need to take care of the police and those families left waiting three to five years applying for those grants.

[05:35:00] We need to turn that and do like the military. In two or three months that family is taken care of. So, out of this ugliness I think we need to get our communities to see something, say something. That is a proven method for stopping a lot of these events. But the nation is steady. We shouldn't overreact. At the same time, I think when we see events like the convention that's going on this week, the police are going to be big time on edge because of this open territory. This is not --

CUOMO: Right, it's a complicated --

HONORE: It's a conflicting concept. While it's a right, it's conflicting. As you've got a right to curse all over the place, too, but we don't do it.

CUOMO: We try not to, right. General Honore, thank you for helping us through these times. As you say, the secret and the solution is always to be together.

HONORE: Together.

CUOMO: Thank you very much.

HONORE: And bless those families.

CUOMO: Absolutely, absolutely, and many families hurting today in this country, especially after what happened to these policemen. We're going to take a break. When we come back we'll take you back to Cleveland. Yes, we had technical difficulties, it happens on live television but we're up and ready to go now. You see the CNN Grill in Cleveland. That's where Alisyn is with the latest on the impact of what happened here in Baton Rouge and what's to come in the convention, next.

[05:36:20] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:40:00] CUOMO: Baton Rouge, six offers shot at by one murdered, three killed. How is that going to reverberate across the country? Well, we know what it's doing in terms of the national dialogue, but specific to the Republican National Convention in Ohio, it's going to affect safety concerns.

There's an open carry law in Ohio which has police there on edge about what that means for protests in and around the convention center. Martin Savidge, CNN correspondent, took a look at the concerns and the response from those on the ground.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In Cleveland, high security and high anxiety as new fears circulate that the police and security forces sent to guard the RNC could be targeted themselves. More than 50,000 people are expected for the Republican National Convention, a tempting target for terror.

Add to that, Trump's already polarizing campaign that's had violence at his rallies, the angry demonstrations against recent police shootings, and the shootings of officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, and you get the picture. Even so, city officials say they are ready.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have planned, we have what-if'd, we have table topped this from day one to yesterday.

SAVIDGE: With the convention set to begin, the head of the police union told me he's anxious. Security rules ban people from bringing more than 70 different items into the event area during the RNC, from axes to tennis balls, but not guns.

Ohio is an open carry state, meaning you can holster your handgun or sling your rifle over your shoulder and it's perfectly legal. One group, the New Black Panthers, no friends to police, say they plan to do just that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Although that's legal for them to do, it's absolutely irresponsible for them to do, or anybody.

SAVIDGE: That's just problem one. As many as 4,000 military troops have been deployed, but on top of that Cleveland has said it needs about 3,000 police officers. It doesn't have them, so to secure the RNC it's temporarily hiring roughly 2,500 cops from around the country and some departments are backing out.

Greensboro, North Carolina was sending 50 officers, then changed its mind. In an internal memo obtained by cleveland.com, Greensboro's deputy chief noted "a lack of confidence in the City of Cleveland and their preparedness for the RNC." To try and reassure residents and visitors, Cleveland's police chief has taken to social media saying "Our officers have undergone hours of training relative to many subjects." He didn't give details. The post did reveal one new weapon in the city's security arsenal,

hardly sounding like a curtain of steel, 300 bicycles. But documents obtained by CNN show Cleveland's been on a $20 million security shopping spree. Motorcycles, horse trailers, flexible handcuffs, water packs, rain ponchos, even 20,000 boxed lunches and the refrigerators to store them. And 2,000 sets of riot gear.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They ordered without measuring anybody, which caused problems once it got here.

SAVIDGE: This is the main element. Problems such as the riot gear wouldn't fit over officers' bulletproof vests. A local company's been busy as cops come in seeking last-minute alterations. How many of these have you done?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's probably right around between 50 and 60.

SAVIDGE: Making sure their riot gear and body armor fits sounds like a good idea. Martin Savidge, CNN, Cleveland

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Our thanks to Martin Savidge and obviously everybody's hoping that the RNC, the National Convention, is a non-event from a security perspective. But there's no question that what happened in Dallas, what happened here in Baton Rouge, and what's going on around the country in terms of the dialogue on policing is going to have a big effect on both national political conventions.

We're going to take a break. When we come back we'll take you to Cleveland and we'll get some inside scoop on how the man who wants to be president will deal with what happened here in Baton Rouge and elsewhere. Stay with us.

[05:44:15] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:48:00] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to NEW DAY, everyone. I'm Alisyn Camerota here in Cleveland where the Republican National Convention begins in earnest in just a few hours. And we are in the middle of an old-fashioned thunderstorm here so forgive us for some satellite interruptions.

But we do want to talk about all of the news from around the country and how it's affecting the convention here, particularly the police shootings in Baton Rouge and Dallas. They have changed the tone of this convention. Trump now casting himself as the law and order candidate. So let's talk about all of this with our panel. I want to bring them in right now.

We have CNN political analyst and host of The David Gregory Show Podcast, David Gregory. CNN political commentator and political anchor of "Time Warner Cable News", Errol Lewis. And, "CNN POLITICS" executive editor, Mark Preston. Guys, thanks so much for your patience.

OK, so let's talk about the murders of the police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge. How have they changed the message and the tone here, David?

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, this is a really troubled time, there's no question about it, and presidential campaigns definitely try to react to the atmospheric surrounding of a political convention or even the backdrop of the campaign. And this is a very serious issue. These are hard issues.

Both candidates, in a way, want to bring order to America. But what you see in Donald Trump is a law and order candidate is a strongman candidate, whether it's violence against the police, whether it's racial tension, whether what's going on in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, you know -- he argues that a failure of American leadership has created this huge vacuum and that he, uniquely, is the one who could be able to fix this without outlining any specifics.

I think on the racial tension in the country -- the violence against the police -- he is certainly supporting the police, as is Hillary Clinton. I think he's lacking a certain bit of context and a bit of compassion around how we deal with some of the very difficult issues of race that some of these police shootings have brought up. And I think that, so far, has been a missed opportunity for him and is a big tonal difference from what we're hearing from Hillary Clinton.

CAMEROTA: Let me read to you one of Donald Trump's latest tweets about this subject. He says "We grieve for the officers killed in Baton Rouge today. How many law enforcement and people have to die because of a lack of leadership in our country? We demand law and order." I know that Twitter is not there for specifics, Errol, but has he talked about what he means by more law and order?

[05:50:00] ERROL LEWIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No, he has not, and it's an important question, as a matter of fact, because the reality is you cannot sit behind the big desk in the Oval Office and dictate policy to 17,000 plus law enforcement agencies scattered around the country.

They have independent governance, they have different policies, they have populations that want law and order in different kinds of ways. What law and order means in New York City is very different from what it might mean, say, in a rural community, so we actually need to know this.

And I have to say, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are sort of guilty of the same thing. I mean, Hillary Clinton talks about well, we need training, we need standards for all 17,000 departments. Well, you know, how are you going to do that, you know? You have some financial incentives that come out of Washington but that's not really going to get the job done and so we've seen lots and lots of discussion about this.

It's a federalism question. What's the role of the state and the localities in relationship to Washington? It's a law and order question. It's a race question, as David correctly points out. It's a really complex kind of a situation. Not only Twitter is bad for that, conventions where you've got 30,000 screaming people who are trying to be partisan that's the one part of the system where you're supposed to be partisan, are also not a good place to try and sort this out.

CAMEROTA: Look, these are complicated things. It's very hard to figure out how to mend all of this. Hillary Clinton put out her own statement. Mark, I'll read it to you. She says "There's no justification for violence, for hate, for attacks on men and women who put their lives on the line every day in service of our families and communities. We must not turn our backs on each other. We must not be indifferent to each other." Good message but, again, where are the specifics in what she would do?

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Yes, no specifics, but certainly trying to offer a measure of inclusion, right. Where Donald Trump says I'm the law and order candidate, it's really black and white for me, you know, it's very linear, Hillary Clinton's saying let us be a uniter.

And it's interesting. We saw Barack Obama yesterday, as well, come out and say let us tone down the rhetoric. Let us come together as a nation. He would say that on the eve of the Republican Convention, where the rhetoric has been aptly described here, is going to be very heated.

And let's not forget we're protected by thousands of police officers right outside these doors right now who are probably looking for some kind of message themselves from Hillary Clinton and from Barack Obama about how you solve this problem which, in many ways, is not solvable in just a convention. And it's --

GREGORY: And beyond the specifics of what you do, you know -- we have our chief in Dallas who is saying that we ask too much of the police to deal with society's ills, so that's its own difficulty. But you have a kind of tearing of the social fabric of the country at a time when politics is in a very weakened position to solve it.

We have very unpopular candidates with extremely high negatives. A feeling in the country that the country's really headed on the wrong track. A certain level of confusion about what role American should be playing overseas to confront these threats.

So this is avery difficult time and it requires leadership. In many ways, leadership even beyond specifics about how to move people and how to unite people, and we're going to begin to see that here over the next couple of weeks.

CAMEROTA: But I think that you're right, that in an anti-government era, a feel of anti-establishment, a feeling of government has done us wrong, well, the police became on arm of that and if you're angry at government you become angry at the police, and then it all becomes this sort of violent stew.

PRESTON: Right, so look. I talked to a big-city mayor. I won't give away his name because we had a very frank conversation right after Orlando. And this big-city mayor, a Democrat, was extremely frustrated at Washington. Extremely frustrated at the senators and the congressmen who immediately went out and went on T.V. and said we need to come together, we need to fix things. These are police departments, and these are mayors, and these are local officials that get no help from Washington, D.C. They get unfunded mandates that they have to be the ones who go out and be on the front line to protect our communities.

At the same time, you have all these folks back in Washington, whether they're Democrats or Republicans, dictating what needs to be done and not giving the money, not giving the resources, and quite frankly, not giving the support.

CAMEROTA: Panel, thank you very much for all of your insights. Thanks for your patience with us this morning. We want to tell you all watching "NEW DAY" we'll be live starting at 5:00 a.m. Eastern all week, so an hour earlier, for the Republican National Convention here in Cleveland, so keep it tuned here.

Also, there is breaking news to tell you about in Turkey where there is a security scare after the failed military coup over the weekend. So let's get to CNN international diplomatic editor, Nic Robertson. He is live in Ankara with the breaking details -- Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, Alisyn, just in the last few minutes there were special forces, troops, and police pulling their weapons, running through the traffic here, pulling people from vehicles.

The security forces are on a hair trigger. The reason why, just next to me here, is the main court in the center of Ankara and just about two hours ago the 27 men that the government accuses of leading the coup here were brought in there. They had three officers escorting each of them. Their hands were flexicuffed behind their backs.

[05:55:00] One of them is a four-star military general. He is very well-decorated, even served with NATO in Afghanistan. We saw pictures of him yesterday. His face appeared beaten, his ear was bandaged, his arms had severe bruising. And we're told in the courtroom today he had appeared as if he'd been even more beaten.

These are the men the government considers led the coup. The Parliament is going to be deciding after a session discussion whether or not they will face the death penalty, so tensions here are still high. The government is mostly in control of the country but they are still worried that there are elements of a coup what is out there.

I'll give you a couple of numbers here. One-hundred and three admirals and general arrested. We've just heard in the last hour 8,777 members of the interior ministry have been removed. Close to 3,000 Army officers removed. Well over 2,000 judges around the country removed, as well. The numbers are big. The first of them are on trial right now -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Oh, Nic, those numbers are staggering. Thank you for the update. We will check back in with you throughout the program. Up next, we will head back to Chris, who is Baton Rouge live for us. And that, of course, is where the deadly ambush of police officers has shaken this country. So, what leaders are going to do to keep officers safe, we explore that next.

[05:56:30] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:59:40] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

CUOMO: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is NEW DAY. It is Monday, July 18th, just about 5:00 a.m. local time here, 6:00 a.m. where Alisyn Camerota is in Cleveland at the site of the Republican National Convention, of course.

What happened here in Baton Rouge playing out in Cleveland, as well, and we'll be with Alisyn for that part of the story in just a moment.