Return to Transcripts main page

@THISHOUR WITH BERMAN AND MICHAELA

Jailed SC Officer Facing Murder Charges; Russian Hackers Hit the White House; American Soldier Killed by Afghan Solider with Machine Gun; Obama Says Government Must Protect Americans' Health from Climate Change. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired April 8, 2015 - 11:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:32:52] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We'll take you now to a shocking story out of South Carolina. A white North Charleston police officer is jailed AT THIS HOUR and facing murder charges. There is graphic, disturbing video that shows him shooting an apparently unarmed black man, Walter Scott, as that man, Walter Scott, is running away.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Officer Michael Slager says he used a taser and that Scott tried to take that taser. That's kind of what happened before this altercation. But the video doesn't appear to support that story. The video, taken by a man walking to work, will be key in this case. Has been key in trying to figure out what happened here. It sure seems damning. But is there more than to it than meets the eye?

Let's discuss this with Tom Verni, a former detective with NYPD.

Great to see you. Thank you for coming in.

TOM VERNI, FORMER NYPD DETECTIVE: Good morning.

BOLDUAN: We want to take a step by step approach looking at the video with your critical eye, what's police protocol when it comes to something like this. We'll go tandem for this. This is video. This is the beginning of the video. You see it here. This is when the shots rang out. He falls. The officer walks over. The man was running away. He gets however many steps away and then he fires seven shots. A pause, an eighth shot. What is police protocol when it comes to something like this on its most basic?

VERNI: In most places you cannot shoot a fleeing felon. There are some places where you can shoot a fleeing felon or in some circumstances let's say someone is running from you and they are firing a gun over their shoulder at you, it makes sense that you would attempt to use --

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: It appears he's unarmed.

VERNI: Right. We don't have that here. At the beginning of the video, it looked like there may have been a taser barb there. It looks as if the taser had been fired as well possibly. There's a taser bash here. Whether he shot him with the taser and he ran at that point, which some people do. Some people you can shoot them with a taser and they are still active. We are not aware of Mr. Scott being armed in any way. He's running away. Why he was not chased by the officer --

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: He doesn't look like an imminent threat to the community.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: It doesn't look like a threat to you?

VERNI: It doesn't look like a threat at this point. We don't know what led us to this point. That part is missing. That part does not look like a threat.

[11:35:08] BERMAN: There's a couple other things we want to look at. After he's shot a number of times in the back, the officer, Michael Slager, goes up to Walter Scott, who is on the ground right there, out of frame, and doesn't check if he's OK. He puts handcuffs on this man, shot multiple times.

VERNI: Actually, I hate to say it, if there was anything done right in this incident, that was probably the only thing that was done correct from what I can tell. That's not uncommon.

BERMAN: You have to do that?

VERNI: Because I don't know if he's armed or not. He may have a weapon on him I'm not aware of. Initially, I'm going to go over to him and cuff him just to make sure he can't get to that weapon.

BERMAN: That's why you have it here to lay it out.

(CROSSTALK)

VERNI: That is not unusual.

BERMAN: What may be unusual --

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: -- is this, yeah. This is a big part of this case here. You can see the officer, Michael Slager, dropping something right there. He picked it up previously.

BOLDUAN: He had gone back to pick this object up. Obviously, it's been affected. We slow it down and show it. He goes over, drops it. And then eventually picks it back up and puts it onto his pack or onto his waist.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: Everyone is assuming that's the taser. Everyone is also kind of pointing the finger that that means cover-up. Is there any protocol that you would go pick something up, which was now a crime scene, if you will?

VERNI: If there was a weapon that Mr. Scott had used or had in his possession that had dropped and the crime scene is not secured and there are other people coming into the crime scene, you may want to secure the weapon in that incident.

BERMAN: That's a stretch though. I mean --

BOLDUAN: Right. Right.

VERNI: We're not seeing that. If that is a taser and he goes back and picks it up --

BOLDUAN: Does that look like a taser to you?

VERNI: It's hard to tell.

(CROSSTALK)

VERNI: We're assuming that it is because we don't know what else may have dropped back at that point. Since they were arguing that a taser was being fought with or fought over, we're making the assumption that's what the object is.

BERMAN: Either it's a cover-up in this case or a man is tainting a crime scene, dropping something near a guy that has been shot, which would be a bad idea. That's the most innocent explanation.

VERNI: It's going to be hard for him to articulate why he shot him as he was running away. If in accordance with that he had an epiphany, oh, my god, I think I just did something wrong and goes back to get the taser to come back and drop by the body to corroborate we were fighting over the taser, yeah, it adds insult to injury.

BOLDUAN: What's the most glaring thing in all of this? The last image if you will is him checking the pulse. We don't see him administering emergency medical care to this point. It seems like a long time before emergency help was offered. What's the most glaring thing, from your experience as an officer, as a detective, that sticks out in this video? All of it?

VERNI: The whole thing is disturbing. I'll be the first one to articulate on behalf of the police when they do something correct. In this case, it's hard for me to come to his defense because I don't see anything that is defensible in this case. It's disturbing from beginning to end, unfortunately. And my regrets to the Scott family as well.

BERMAN: Appreciate you being here to help us understand it.

BOLDUAN: Thank you.

VERNI: Any time.

BOLDUAN: Ahead for us AT THIS HOUR, it's called one of the most sophisticated cyberattacks ever launched against the United States. Russian hackers hitting the White House. How did they do it? Seems almost simple. What did they get?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:41:46] BOLDUAN: The cybersecurity breach at the White House raises a whole lot of questions, including how did it happen, and how do they prevent it from happening ever again?

BERMAN: We want to bring in CNN national security analyst and former assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Julia Kayyem.

Julia, what does it mean when we say the White House has been hacked? Not just that. We say Russia hacked the White House. What do we mean by that and how concerned should we be?

JULIA KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: We should be pretty concerned. There's different systems within the White House, both the classified and the unclassified. So what the Russians were able to get into was the unclassified. At least that's what we know right now. How they got in, we believe, at this stage is through a back door, which was called the State Department. The State Department has been suffering a number of what we call phishing expeditions by the Russians and somehow penetrated into the White House system.

BOLDUAN: Julia, some of the information that the hackers were able to access included the president's nonpublic schedule. Maybe not classified, but clearly still sensitive in knowing the president's movements that aren't released to the public. There's a whole lot of that. If they can access that part of the system, what else can they have access to? What's the range of possibility here?

KAYYEM: The unclassified world is big in terms of the president's schedule. Of course his movement -- his movement includes his family's movement. What the White House doesn't release every day is, of course, he's spending time with the girls or has a private dinner at home. Those are just things that, as the first lady, you just don't want exposed to the public. And then there will be any e-mail communications -- we don't know if they've been hacked -- that were not in the classified space. I keep making this distinction because it's important. A cyber network or a computer network has many different systems, backup systems, and so the classified and unclassified are separated because most stuff is not going to be classified. It will be, "We're going to this meeting and talking about the labor numbers and we're talking about the environment." It's still relevant. It's still important. There's a reason why we should be concerned because it shows that the Russians are incredibly sophisticated and, more importantly, incredibly aggressive.

BERMAN: Let's talk about that.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: Let's talk about sophisticated, Julia. I understand this is being called one of the most sophisticated attacks ever but it was done by what seems like one of the most primitive methods right now. It's a phishing expedition. For those who don't know what that is, you send a hoax e-mail and get someone to open it and then a whole world of hurt comes out on you. That's how mom and pop, that's how people down the street get hit by viruses or identity theft. It's not supposed to happen to the White House, is it?

KAYYEM: Right. And obviously these systems are only as safe as their weakest link. So what we think happened is it's called sphere phishing. Someone pretended to be an employee in the State Department and asked for access or got access into the State Department system, and somehow that was able to get the Russians in. This is why it's sophisticated. They didn't get caught during this process. We're constantly assessing all this stuff. They then penetrate into the White House system. It's as basic as what a lot of us might encounter when someone says, can I have your Social Security number because I have an uncle in Kenya who has money for you. So that means we have to be sophisticated in our defenses. And sometimes sophistication is not technological know-how. It's just being smart. Don't give your identification. Change your password. All of those things.

[11:45:26] BERMAN: All right. Julia, good to know. Raises a lot of questions of what's going on in the government right now.

BOLDUAN: Evan Perez raises a really important question. He says behind the scenes is the conversation, do they call Russia out publicly, do they shame them and say we know.

BERMAN: The reason you don't do that sometimes is because you're doing it, too.

(LAUGHTER)

BOLDUAN: That's true.

BERMAN: We'll see what happens.

BOLDUAN: Coming up, ahead for us AT THIS HOUR, an American soldier has been killed, shot with a machine gun by an Afghan soldier. Why and how did it happen? More details coming out.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: A U.S. servicemember has been killed in what appears to be an insider attack in Afghanistan. Defense officials say an Afghan soldier opened fire on U.S. troops as they were guarding a U.S. delegation in Jalalabad. A senior U.S. official had just held a meeting with a regional governor at his compound when the gunfire erupted.

BERMAN: Other U.S. troops were also injured in this attack. They belong to a NATO-led mission to train and support Afghan troops.

Joining us now is CNN military analyst, Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona.

Colonel, this is one of the so-called green-on-blue attacks that have been such a problem in Afghanistan. They haven't happened for a while but plaguing the U.S. And NATO mission there. Is there anything you can do to keep this from happening? If the U.S. troops are there to train the Afghan forces, and it's one of the Afghan guys who opens fire, how do you stop that?

[11:50:25] LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: It's almost impossible. These incidents have really come down over the last few months and few years because we're not actually in a combat role right now. But as you said, the training mission is working with the Afghans daily. It's important to underscore that we still have young men and women at risk over there. Just because they're not in a combat role doesn't mean they're not in a combat zone.

I don't know how you stop this, John. We've pressured the Afghans to better vet their troops. That's helped somewhat. But it only takes one guy with a weapon to cause this kind of damage. Unfortunately, very, very difficult toll defend against.

BOLDUAN: Very difficult to defend against but still in each case -- I think it was at its height in 2012. There were the most of these green-on-blue attacks. But in every case, everyone wonders, why did this happen, what is the motivation? Is there any rhyme or reason? There isn't, I'm sure, no motivation that anyone could fathom for this. But is there any reason that ever comes out what is behind these green-on-blue attacks to try to better understand how to combat it going forward?

FRANCONA: It's usually the individual has some problem with either the United States or his own personal life and he decides to strike out. And what better way to strike out than go after an American? Usually, we find that it's some sort of personal problem that that individual is undergoing. As I said, very, very hard to detect and defend against.

BERMAN: Quickly, Colonel, we understand the United States is speeding up its delivery of weapons to the Saudis and their fight in Yemen right now against the Houthi rebels now running that country. What do you make of that? Is the U.S. getting more and more involved here?

FRANCONA: They have been -- we have been involved in the background. We're coming a little more overt about it. This is something we need to do. Yemen represents a real critical assault on the interests of Saudi Arabia. But more importantly, it affects our interests as well. Remember, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the most effective of the al Qaeda organizations, is headquartered there, and now it's running around unchecked in the country. The Yemenis are focused on their own internal squabbles between the Houthies and the remnants of the al Hadi government. So al Qaeda is running taking more territory, becoming stronger and breaking into prisons. This is a real problem for us.

BERMAN: Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona, always great to have you with us. Thanks so much, sir.

Ahead for us, the president says the government has got to do better to protect Americans from climate change. He spoke one-on-one with our Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Sanjay joins us right after the break. BOLDUAN: And an important programming note, be sure to tune in or DVR

"The Situation Room" today. Wolf Blitzer will have the first interview with now presidential candidate, Rand Paul, since he announced that he is in. That's today at 5:00 p.m. eastern only on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:57:05] BERMAN: President Obama says your health could be at risk because of climate change. He sat down with our Dr. Sanjay Gupta to talk about all of it.

BOLDUAN: And Sanjay is here with us to talk about all of it.

Sanjay, what exactly did the president say? What is the impact that the environment can have on our health?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, he sort of broadly reframed the conversation around climate change and global warming and really contextualizing it with public health, saying there can be impacts specifically on all sorts of health problems, primarily breathing sorts of problems. I'll tell you, he talked about this in a pretty personal way, dating back to when he started college in 1979 at Occidental College. He went there for two years before transferring to Columbia. But it was around that time of his life, he started discussing this issue. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When I first went to college in Los Angeles in 1979, the air was so bad that you couldn't go running outside. And you'd have air quality alerts and people who had respiratory problems or were vulnerable had to stay inside. We took action and the air is a lot better. And the incident of asthma and other respiratory diseases went down. The same is true when it comes to climate change.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: So he's making somewhat of a personal story. His daughter, Malia, also suffers from asthma. But he believes there's a correlation between rising temperatures and many of these public health problems, again, specifically respiratory problems. It's not a cause-and-effect relationship yet. We don't know. That takes decades to define that. But he says we need to act now, reduce carbon emissions.

BERMAN: And normally, when people talk to the president about health issues, Sanjay, it's usually about Obamacare. And the Supreme Court weighing another case that could derail aspects of his law.

GUPTA: I asked him about that as well. It's obviously a big issue for him. This Supreme Court challenge is ongoing. I will tell you that he appeared very confident, not very worried that this is going to be a problem. At stake here is this idea that states that did not set up the state-based exchange, their own exchanges, it's possible they could no longer be eligible for subsidies. So people in those states would lose their health care subsidies, their health care insurance, if this particular statute was overturned. He didn't seem worried about that. He said, look, I think it's going to turn our way. I asked him if he had a plan "B." And he said he didn't have a plan "B." He said he doesn't expect it to be overturned. If it was overturned, millions of people would lose their health insurance and that would be a huge fundamental derailing of this act.

BOLDUAN: Sanjay, always great to see you and great to see you at the White House position. It's a beautiful setting right there behind you.

GUPTA: Yes. You know it well.

(LAUGHTER)

BOLDUAN: Exactly.

Great to see you, Sanjay. Thank you so much.

[12:00:05] GUPTA: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: And thanks to all of you. Thanks for joining us AT THIS HOUR.

BERMAN: "LEGAL VIEW" with Ashleigh Banfield starts now.