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Hillary in Iowa; Chris Christie Embarks on Town Hall Tour; Oklahoma Volunteer Deputy Turns Himself In. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired April 14, 2015 - 11:00   ET

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


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[11:00:05] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. So whatever happened to this guy? New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, once a Republican front runner for president, now with a new plan to claw his way back into the race. His first big move just minutes away.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: His attorney calls it an accident. A 73- year-old volunteer deputy in Oklahoma, you see him right there, well, he's now charged with manslaughter after shooting and killing a man during an undercover operation. How did it and why did it happen? He just turned himself in.

BERMAN: And is the Iran nuclear deal in jeopardy because of congressional bipartisanship? Members of both parties near a breakthrough that could upend negotiations.

BOLDUAN: Hello, everybody. I'm Kate Bolduan.

BERMAN: Great to see you today. I'm John Berman.

So she has been to a gas station, done the fast, casual restaurant thing. Now today, at last, she will face actual voters. That's right. Hillary Clinton, she visited a Chipotle just outside Toledo. Unclear what is of a great consequence -- that she ordered a burrito bowl or that nobody actually recognized her.

BOLDUAN: John, you are too much. So there is that pit stop on her road trip, and now it's down to you could call it the real business at hand, meeting with Iowa voters. A few hours from now, Secretary Clinton is set to speak with a small group at a community college in Monticello, Iowa.

Senior political correspondent Brianna Keilar is there with much more. What are we looking for, Brianna?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Kate. Well, do you see this building behind me? If I were to tell you this is where someone is starting their presidential campaign, you might think really? This is a pretty small, unassuming building. This is the satellite campus of the Kirkwood Community College, so not even the main campus. This is a smaller facility.

And that is on purpose. It's supposed to go along with this theme of Hillary Clinton's that it's not about her, it's about people who are supporting her, it's about Americans. And she wants to help out, as she calls them, everyday Americans. And that's what her campaign is saying over and over again.

So this is the auto tech lab, inside is where she will be surrounded by not too many students and young people, some who as of today aren't old enough to vote but will be on Election Day. You mentioned that stop at Chipotle in Ohio as she's made this road trip from New York, having these little stops. She went and was not really recognized, was wearing her sunglasses. And I've actually talked to some Iowa activists about this. And they say that was kind of odd. Even some people involved in politics here, Democratic politics in Iowa, they say they were perplexed by the fact that she didn't take the opportunity to really glad hand and even just have little conversations with people in line.

They say she's here to connect. She needs to take full advantage of it. And they're also looking forward to hearing some substance. If she's asked questions that maybe aren't part of her talking points as she begins her campaign, they want to hear what she really thinks about the issues and they'll be paying very close attention, John and Kate.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. I don't fault someone walking around with sunglasses though. If I'm on a road trip, those sunglasses never leave my face. I know you feel the same way.

BERMAN: We know you like to travel in style. We know that about you.

BOLDUAN: Oh yes, obviously yes. Brianna, thanks so much. We'll looking for that big event. But first -- don't even call it a big event; it's actually quite a small event intentionally by the campaign.

BERMAN: But of large significance.

BOLDUAN: Thank you for finishing that for me.

Also happening right now in politics, a potential GOP candidate that we sure haven't seen much or heard from much recently, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie getting ready to talk politics and policy in New Hampshire, the first big event in a four-day visit to the critical primary state.

BERMAN: You're looking at live pictures right now. I'm old enough to remember when Chris Christie was a front runner for the Republican nomination but so much has happened, and if the polls are right, so much not good for the New Jersey Republican. The question now is what is his plan to turn it around?

Our national political reporter Peter Hamby joins us right now. Peter, we're about to see it. What's the idea here?

PETER HAMBY, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes, John, you're totally right. Remember this time last year or even a year and a half ago, Chris Christie was this larger than life figure who was going to save the Republican Party and then a succession of controversies happened in New Jersey so he went from the front runner, at least for the Republican establishment, to kind of someone that we have forgotten about.

What he's trying to do here is try to reframe himself, recalibrate, after a winter of self-inflicted wounds. Remember the vaccination comment, him dancing around in Dallas Cowboy owners suite with Jerry Jones, him saying sit down and shut up. And that's on top of Jeb Bush kind of raiding those establishment donors and pushing Christie out a little bit. So his calculation now is to kind of hunker down. His advisers and his supporters say he's going to try to be the John McCain of 2016.

[11:05:02] What that means is he's going to camp out in New Hampshire starting today and do town hall after town hall after town hall, and play to his strengths, which is engaging with voters, doing Q&A, just sort of living off the land.

The question, of course, can Chris Christie do that in the way John McCain did? John McCain was willing to hunker down, ride around in a bus, sleep in crappy hotels, and talk to voters every day because he had no money. Christie over time has kind of shown that he likes the spotlight. He likes going on "The Tonight Show" and he likes hanging out with famous people. Is he going to be the guy who can do John McCain thing in New Hampshire?

It starts today. He's calling it the "Tell It Like It Is" town hall tour. Really, the first time we've seen him in New Hampshire -- one of the first times, rather, we've seen him in New Hampshire this year. But this is important for him because with Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul announcing for president, he wants to remind people that he's still in the game. But still look for an announcement probably in late May or June from Chris Christie that he's running for president. John.

BERMAN: Interesting. "The Tell It Like It Is" tour. Sounds like a Straight Talk Express for political historians. Peter Hamby, thanks for being with us, Peter. Chris Christie set to begin to speak in just a few minutes.

Meanwhile, just minutes ago, the volunteer deputy charged with manslaughter in the Tulsa shooting turned himself in. 73-year-old Robert Bates says he accidentally pulled a gun instead of his taser during a sting operation and killed suspect Eric Harris. This is the video of the moment it happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(GUNSHOT)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

(EXPLETIVE DELETED)

(END VIDEO CLIP) BOLDUAN: Harris' attorney says that Bates didn't have enough training and shouldn't have even been taking part in the sting operation in the first place. A lot of accusations going back and forth.

Ed Lavandera is live in Tulsa where all of this happened. Ed, Harris' attorney is making some strong claims, saying that Bates essentially bought himself the chance to play cop through campaign donations and through other financial support for the sheriff's office. We just saw him turning himself in. What are you hearing on the ground?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, as we saw here just a few minutes ago, Robert Bates did arrive here at the sheriff's office in Tulsa to turn himself in. They're in the process of doing that as we speak. He's being charged with second-degree manslaughter, which faces punishment of up to four years.

But, as you mention, lots of questions swirling around his involvement in this undercover sting operation and what put him there. Sheriff's officials insist that Bates was not part of the front line of deputies that were working that operation, that he was supposed to be in the back in a support role, and it wasn't until Eric Harris started running that Bates was thrust into more of a front line position.

But the attorney for the family of Eric Harris has been very critical of just how this operation went down and very critical of Robert Bates and his relationship with the sheriff's department here. We do know -- sheriff's officials acknowledge that Mr. Bates has donated lots of money. Thousands -- we don't have an exact figure but thousands of dollars worth of equipment and other things here and cars to the sheriff's department. So he has an intimate relationship with the leadership at the sheriff's department, which by the way are still very much standing by him. They had asked prosecutors not to file the criminal charges and said that he was guilty of excusable homicide and should not be charged.

BERMAN: Ed Lavandera, thanks so much for that. We're going to check back in on that story in a bit because a lot of questions still there.

Ahead for us AT THIS HOUR, is it too little too late for Chris Christie? We will look at whether he missed his chance to be a factor in the 2016 presidential race.

BOLDUAN: Iraq's prime minister goes to Washington, making a big plea for help. That is coming up.

[11:09:00]

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BERMAN: Happening right now, New Jersey governor Chris Christie is, in his words, telling it like it is. But you might also call it telling it in a way that makes you remember when he was a Republican front runner.

BOLDUAN: That doesn't have the same ring to it.

BERMAN: Not really. He's at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, home of the nation's first presidential primary.

BOLDUAN: But Christie, he is not yet a candidate in the 2016 race for the White House at least. The most recent CNN poll of Republicans shows that he is tied for sixth place. You see him way down there with Marco Rubio. But those things change fast. So what is Chris Christie waiting for? Has the moment passed him by to win over his party?

Let's discuss and bring in political director David Chalian and senior political reporter Nia-Malika Henderson. It's great to see you guys both. We were both -- I don't know, were we joking this morning? Not really joking this morning --

BERMAN: We were having a serious and important conversation.

BOLDUAN: By saying where he's been? He's been missing in action. David.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: He has been laying low a little bit in terms of the national political campaign trail. He's been doing a ton of town halls all throughout New Jersey ,sticking to his day job, and obviously this is all after hitting a road block on the momentum that he was building after his re-election campaign back in 2013.

To answer your question, Kate, I don't think the moment passed him by. I think that this is still so early and you're going to see in this first significant New Hampshire swing, him doing the Chris Christie thing. He's going to do town halls. He's going to try to take that style that has worked for him in New Jersey and bring it now to that national campaign trail. And I think until we see him do town halls in 99 counties in Iowa all throughout New Hampshire and see the kind of response he's getting, I think it'd be too soon for us to say that his moment has already passed.

BERMAN: But Nia-Malika, what is his path to the nomination? And I'm not disagreeing with David Chalian, because I would never do that, but I do not think he goes through the 99 counties in Iowa. Does Chris Christie even campaign in that socially conservative state? What about South Carolina? Map out for me how he gets from where he is on the stage Saint Anselm College today to the Republican nomination in Ohio next summer?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes, that's a good question. He's been to Iowa many, many times. He was on something of a charm offensive earlier. He's been there probably over a dozen times.

But what you see in the polls is the more he visits, the lower his poll numbers go. So he's got a problem there in Iowa. It's a more conservative state. South Carolina as well. His big problem I think is also Jeb Bush. He had been -- Chris Christie, when he was sort of the favorite son of the establishment, that was his lane, and now he's got Jeb Bush to worry about.

[11:15:04] A lot of folks in that second tier group together, like -- people like Marco Rubio, are figuring out how to get to second place, embedding that -- their path to the nomination in some ways depends on whether or not Jeb Bush stumbles, whether his shock and awe campaign strategy that we've seen him roll out so far isn't shocking enough and doesn't really coalesce, doesn't have people coalescing around him.

I think on the one hand, it depends on what Jeb Bush does and it also depends on if he can sell that message to these conservative states, places like Iowa and then there's that big FEC primary with all those southern states and you wonder if Christie's bluster is going to sell in places like South Carolina.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: When you talk about that bluster and you talk about that performance, you talk about the "Tell It Like It Is" series, as it's been described. You also need to -- let's throw up that poll number again. He needs to deal with the problem with favorability. That's something that always has dogged him. In the latest "Washington Post"/ABC News poll, when you look at Republicans and Republican leading independents, his favorable rating is at 38 percent, his unfavorable rating is at 41 percent. That's a problem that he's going to have to deal with all along, don't you think, David?

CHALIAN: No doubt about it, Kate. I mean, if you look at the trend lines and CNNORC polling about Christie's favorable/unfavorables, I've never seen such a rapid reversal from where he was, I think when we first started testing that in about August 2012 to where he is now. So yes, he's going to have to address that. Listen, he's up here in New Hampshire this week because he wants to signal to donors, to potential supporters, maybe some key staffers. He's still really geared to do this. He's been laying low and he wants to indicate to folks that he's in this.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Nia-Malika, last question to you. Another big political event today. This one in Iowa, where Hillary Clinton will be holding a low-key event at a community college. Stylistically and substantively, I suppose, what do you expect to see from her today?

HENDERSON: It will probably -- it has to be different than what we have seen so far, which is low-key sort of SNL-worthy moments at Chipotle. This, I think, is the kind of setting they want to see her in. Again, low-key, she's going to be talking to voters. We haven't really seen her do that so far and Iowa voters expect those kind of intimate, cozy one-on-one with these candidates, so I think that's what we'll see. They are hoping that this makes us forget what was sort of a Scooby-Doo van and all those little laughable things that we've seen so far. I think they want to turn the page from that and have Hillary Clinton in a setting where she's really able to show off that she's intimate and likable.

BOLDUAN: Don't knock Scooby-Doo, though, Nia-Malika. I'm telling you. You're in trouble if you start knocking Scooby. David, Nia-Malika, it's great to see you. Thanks so much.

BERMAN: Ahead for us AT THIS HOUR, we have big questions this morning after a deadly shooting in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 73-year-old volunteer deputy has turned himself in, charged with manslaughter. Was he qualified to serve in the first place or is this just an issue of paying to play police officer?

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[11:21:40] BOLDUAN: We have breaking news coming out of Tulsa, Oklahoma. We want to take you just moments ago, Robert Bates, he's that volunteer deputy charged now with manslaughter in the shooting death of a man in Tulsa, Oklahoma, during a sting operation. He turned himself in moments ago. He and his attorney then spoke to cameras. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sir, can you talk about how this benevolence has somehow turned out to be something evil?

CORBIN BREWSTER, BATES' ATTORNEY: That's a surprising thing. They have taken the fact that this man has been good to the community and has been benevolent to the community and has been a great citizen for our town and made it something bad or sinister and that's the unfortunate thing. That's all we have. Thank you very much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: That was a fairly short statement from the attorney of Mr. Bates right there, who we now understand has been charged with manslaughter and turned himself in and I suppose was released by the fact that we saw him walking away. We'll find out more about that as we can.

The issues here, though, there are several. No. 1, how did he shoot a man when he intended to Tase him? And why was this volunteer deputy out there in a sting operation -

BOLDUAN: An undercover sting operation in the first place.

BERMAN: Yeah, with police in the first place? They said he had 300 hours of training. Critics, including the attorney for the man who was killed, Eric Harris, say this was a pay to play situation, were because of donations to the police force, he was allowed to go out and be a play cop.

Joining us now to talk about this, CNN legal analyst Danny Cevallos and former NYPD detective and law enforcement consultant, Tom Verni.

Tom, I was unaware that such a thing existed. These volunteer deputy officers that you can donate to a police force and with some number of hours of training, go out on operations like this. Is this an unusual thing?

TOM VERNI, LAW ENFORCEMENT AND SAFETY CONSULTANT: I was unaware of that myself. It's a little frightening to me. Here in New York, the NYPD has an auxiliary police force.

BERMAN: That does what? VERNI: It's 4,000 to 5,000 volunteers that volunteer their own time.

They go through a 14-week training, they're not armed with a firearm, they're not armed with a Taser, they're not armed with pepper spray. They do carry batons, which they can use in self-defense. They are outfitted with vests and that's only because two of them were assassinated in the West Village a few years back, which you might remember. They wear a uniform that's very much like a patrol officer's uniform. The only difference is it says "auxiliary" above the patch and the shield kind of looks like a Mayberry sheriff shield. Other than that, they are a support unit for the NYPD. They provide a uniform presence that the NYPD can no longer provide since they've lost 6,000 to 7,000 officers in the last decade.

BOLDUAN: It sounds like that kind of perimeter support, that presence support, it sounds like what they were going for here in Tulsa. That sounds like what Robert Bates had been involved with, in terms of his -- he had been in a hundred plus operations - more than a hundred operations -- in terms of being so involved. Does that role, if you will, play into this case? He's facing manslaughter, Danny. Does that seem appropriate and how does this fact that he's a volunteer deputy play into it?

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Apparently not under the local rules because the local rules in Tulsa for being a reserve deputy classify them in three categories: basic, intermediate and advanced. And Bates, in this case, was an advanced deputy, which means by their own words, he could do anything a regular sheriff's deputy or law enforcement officer could do. So at least under their rules, should he - Now we can talk about should he have been out there in this role? We can do at (INAUDIBLE) if we want to. But at least under their local rules, it appears that he was permitted to engage in any kind of operation that a regular duty police officer or sheriff's deputy was permitted to engage in.

[11:25:31] BERMAN: So legally speaking, he was a cop. Pure and simple.

CEVALLOS: Absolutely, he was a cop, pure and simple. And just because different localities have different rules, that's federalism. When it comes to state police power, that's one of the fundamental constitutional powers that localities have and to make their own rules about law enforcement. You'll have different needs in New York City as you would in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I think that this really does raise the question of to what degree do we hold even these reserve deputies to the same training standards that we hold our regular deputies? We have to balance money and by that I mean, yes, these reserve deputies don't get paid, they save a county a lot of money every year, but at what cost?

BOLDUAN: There's also a big question, and there are many questions, we're not even going to be able to get to all of it. If we could roll the video while I want to ask Tom about how this, about how this all went down. You have got a Taser. It was on the front of his vest, apparently. He has a handgun, which would be, you would assume, on his belt if you will. Right, Tom? In your experience, is it easy to confuse those two? Because they are saying this was a tragic accident. He meant to grab for his Taser, he grabbed his gun. VERNI: I guess someone could confuse the two. I don't see, in a

practical standpoint, how that would really be possible because the Taser and the firearm are generally in two different places. And that's for a purpose. That's to try to avoid that from happening. Plus, a Taser will have a safety on it that you have to take the safety off in order to use it.

BOLDUAN: Different from the safety --

VERNI: Right, where a firearm, you're just pulling it out of your waistband or out of your utility belt and then taking aim and firing it. So the mechanisms are different. They are in different places purposefully so they aren't confused. It's not like the Taser is right next to or on the outside of the firearm holster.

BOLDUAN: That's clearly going to be the argument that you're hearing from the Harris family.

CEVALLOS: And also, the kind of firearm, I don't know what it is yet, but that will make a difference, too, whether it's -- what action is it? Because if it's a revolver, it's a lot less easy to fire than a glock, which doesn't even have a safety button. Right?

VERNI: The revolvers that I used when I first came in were actually double action. There were no hammers for you to pull back and shoot. It was just a repeated - it was a heavier trigger pull than a glock.

BERMAN: It did seem like there was great deal of surprise by everyone involved when that happened. Who knows. Danny Cevallos, Tom, thanks so much for being with us. Really appreciate it.

BOLDUAN: This is all still happening as we speak. He just turned himself in. They just spoke to cameras. Now really, a lot of these big weighty questions are going to be asked in the court of law.

Ahead for us AT THIS HOUR, Iraq's prime minister is asking President Obama for help -- help in the billions of dollars kind of help -- as the two meet at the White House as we speak. We'll take you there live.

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