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Search Continues for Two Escaped Prisoners; GOP Presidential Candidates Asked About Confederate Flag; Interview with Charleston Mayor Joe Riley; Obama Uses "N" Word Discussing Race. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired June 22, 2015 - 08:00   ET

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


[08:00:02] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We begin with CNN's Sara Ganim. She is at the site of the latest surge of police activity. Tell us what you are seeing there, Sara.

SARA GANIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. Overnight state police, tactical units, also all-terrain vehicles setting up perimeter here focusing their search on the area called Owl's Head. It's about 30 miles due west of the prison where the inmates escaped from. And we're learning new details about the lead that brought them here this morning. I just got off the phone a little while ago with the Franklin County district attorney who told me that a witness who was checking on an unoccupied cabin allegedly saw someone run off into the woods. He said the cabin was obviously burglarized.

And based on that the search was concentrated in this area, called the Mountain View area, near a road called Wolf Pond Road. The district attorney told me this, he said, quote, "I think that law enforcement here feel this is potentially at least one of the people, the person that was seen running out of the backdoor of the cabin into the field.

Now, the search area here is in a pretty rural area, Alisyn. It's in the Adirondacks in upstate New York. So there's a lot of unoccupied homes, a lot of vacation homes, trails, hiking trails, the kinds of things that police have been focusing their search on throughout this two weeks, more than two week stretch while they have been looking for these two escaped inmates.

And while that search continues here and in other places, the investigation continues as well. We're learning over the weekend that a 57-year-old corrections officer who worked on the block was a guard on the block where those two inmates were housed, he has been placed on paid administrative leave after it was learned that he received a painting that one of the inmates made behind bars. We also know that other paintings were made, one of them given to the prison seamstress who has already been charged with helping the two inmates escape. But this man's attorney tells me 100 percent he did not know about the plan to escape and is cooperating with police. They searched his home over the weekend. He has not yet been charged. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Let's hope some of these searches lead to getting these two guys. Thank you for that.

Now to Charleston, South Carolina, and the church at the center of that deadly has massacre. That church reopened its doors Sunday with message of unity and love. This as we learn more about the suspected shooter's past and his link to a racist online manifesto. Let's get right to CNN's Alina Machado. She's live in Charleston for us. What have we learned over the weekend?

ALINA MACHADO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, the focus here in Charleston all weekend has been on remembrance and healing even though that racist manifesto surfaced after it was posted on a website registered to Dylann Roof.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MACHADO: Lone wolf mass murderer Dylann Roof behind bars this morning awaiting his bail hearing for murder charges set for October.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is your age?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's 21.

MACHADO: This as investigators are looking into a 2,000-word racist manifesto on a website registered to the suspect written before Roof killed nine people during a bible study inside Charleston, South Carolina historic Emanuel AME church. The author writing he became fixated on the idea of, quote, "black on white crime" after Trayvon Martin's death. His online search led him to the online propaganda of the Council of Conservative Citizens. There he found, quote, "pages upon pages of these brutal black on white murders." It's not clear what incidents he was referring to. The manifesto continues, quote, "Someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess it has to be me."

MAYOR JOE RILEY, CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA: We have got to use this heartbreak in the most positive way, how we can be better. How we can do more.

MACHADO: In Charleston Sunday, marchers joined hands to form a unity chain in memory of the nine victims. On Sunday morning church bells rang throughout the historic city. Inside the Emanuel AME church, the theme was healing, not hate.

REV. DR. NORVEL GOFF, SR., SEVENTH DISTRICT AME CHURCH: We as a group of people can come together and pray and work out things that needs to be worked out to make out our community and our state a better place.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MACHADO: The funeral for reverend Clementa Pinckney is expected to take place here in Charleston on Friday. Funeral arrangements for the other victims of the massacre are expected at some point in the coming days. Meanwhile, it's worth noting that the Council of Conservative Citizens is condemning the killings, but they're still standing by the inflammation content on their website, Michaela.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All of this, as you said, as those funerals begin this week. We'll be watching that. Alina, thank you so much.

Now, in the wake of the Charleston church massacre many people are pushing for the Confederate flag that is flying over South Carolina's capitol to be taken down for good. CNN's Ana Cabrera is covering that part of the story for us live in Columbia, South Carolina. Ana?

[08:05:06] ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Michaela. You can see that flag over my right shoulder. While it is so calm today, it is not waving, it is there next to the Confederate war memorial.

Now, this is where it ended up after a heating debate back in 2000 that ultimately ended with the bigger Confederate flag that used to be on the capitol dome being removed. But now after this Charleston church shooting and some new images appearing showing the suspect Dylann Roof holding a Confederate flag in one hand and a gun in the other hand, there are even louder calls now to get rid of the flag all together from this property.

In fact, there was a huge rally here at the state capitol over the weekend. Some 1,500 people turned out protesting the flag saying it represents slavery and segregation and really does promote racism and hatred.

And now the 2016 presidential candidates are also feeling some pressure to take a stance on this issue. South Carolina is home to the first in the nation, or, rather, first in the south presidential contest, so we have heard from like Democratic Hillary Clinton come out and call for the flag to be removed. On the Republican side it's been a bit more dodgy. Jeb Bush has said the flag belongs in a museum, but a lot of the other candidates have sort of danced around offering an opinion, instead saying it's going to up to the state to decide this issue. I want you to listen to what a couple of candidates had to say on the Sunday shows this weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICK SANTORUM, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think the opinion of people here in South Carolina and having them work through this difficulty is much more important than --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is your opinion?

MIKE HUCKABEE, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: For those running for president, everyone is being baited with the question as if somehow it has anything to do whatsoever with running for president. My position is it most certainly does not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Here is the bottom line. For the flag to be removed, it's going to require state legislative action, and right now the legislature is not even in session. We have heard from one Republican lawmaker who says he plans to sponsor some legislation in January when lawmakers return to try to have the flag removed. For now, though, the governor is calling on everybody to be patient on the issue, saying the state needs time to heal. Chris?

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Time to heal could be code for the pressure to get rid of the flag to calm down as well. Thank you very much for that.

The main headline coming out of this horrible massacre in Charleston has been the role of love. We have seen the worst and we have certainly now seen the best. The city, of course, is still reeling from the loss of nine of their own. But they're moving forward, and it's how they're doing it that is really becoming a model for who we should all be as a community.

A big leader there is Mayor Joseph Riley. He's been running things in Charleston for 40 years and he joins us now. Mayor, you have had to be a leader under the worst of seconds. Let me ask you, what about this situation, as horrible as it is on its own, in your time there since 1975, have you ever experienced anything like the reaction out of this type of horrible killing like what you're seeing now?

MAYOR JOSEPH RILEY, CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA: Well, we've never had a horrible event like this, Chris, and the reaction is so heartwarming. It is love overcoming hate. And, you know, right here in front of the church yesterday and the hot sun, thousands of people black and white were together while they were praying inside, 15,000 walking on our bridge holding hands in unity black and white together. Churches all over -- my church, Catholic church after church yesterday. And after I had been here, they came and prayed the rosary here, each denomination doing something else.

The absolute pure, unbounded overflowing of grief and heartache, people have been crying their eyes out. Black people, white people, Hispanic people, Asian people, this horrific act, there was fonts of love. But that awful man thought he was going to divide. He had the most opposite effect. This community has been never more close together, and the racial love and interracial connections has never been stronger.

We had a hurricane 25 years ago, and people responded similarly. When you're down you can do one thing. You can just stay down or you can get up and fight. And here they're getting up and they're loving and they say no to hate and yes to love.

CUOMO: It's an interesting contrast in that example, mayor. A hurricane is an act of God, OK. This was the opposite of an act of God that took place in God's house. And ordinarily, when there is a killing of this nature, which is not foreign to the south and not foreign to the country, frankly, there's a period of intense anger and outrage after it about attacking the ideas that spawned it.

[08:10:07] This time the transition to overcoming the anger with love seems so fast. To what do you attribute that?

RILEY: You know, Chris, each event was different. There's nothing quite like this in a sanctuary where they were praying and studying the bible. But we worked over the years during my time as mayor building connections and bonds of love, and working in every neighborhood. Our police in neighborhoods are friends. Kids hug police officers in neighborhoods. We attacked affordable housing in every neighborhood. We opened the doors to include African-American people in the governance of our city on boards and commissions and working in the city and affirmative action issues and minority business opportunities and what we did, and taking care of the homeless, and just having a continued message of openness so that there isn't a part of our community that feels alienated. There's not people that feel they haven't been, you know, looked after or, not that we don't have plenty to do, but we have 180 neighborhood councils.

This is not a huge city, and every neighborhood is connected. People come to see me whenever. So we work hard to build these bridges, and I think, you know, disasters catch you where you are. If it's infrastructure issue, or if it's this kind of issue catch you where you are. And I think the community and the work the citizens have done, where we were, was we had a foundation so that the response would be love and heartache and not violence.

CUOMO: There there's no question that inclusion is the order of the day. And you're saying you were set up for that to be an immediate part of the response, and that's great. And now one of the manifestations of why it happened, people are saying, well, let's save the politics for after the healing. I think that's a copout. Where all this healing is going on and all this love, literally waving above you is this flag, or as was said to me this weekend, "that damned flag." You know from your time there, not just as mayor but before, the flag was reintroduced when the civil rights laws started coming up. That's when the battle flag came back. You know what it represents. The polls being what they are, you know what it means to people, especially black people. Is it time for the flag to go if you really want to move forward?

RILEY: Most certainly. The flag should be gone. It should have been gone before. It should be in a museum. You know, it once was above the capitol, U.S. flag, state flag, Confederate battle flag. I led a march, walked from here, right, here, started right about here, 110 miles to Columbia four days, black and white people together, and we got the flag removed from atop the capitol.

Unfortunately, the legislature and their effort to comprise then put a smaller flag in front of the capitol. But as I wrote yesterday or said yesterday and said so many times, the trouble with that is that this flag, as you mentioned, was appropriated as a symbol of resistance to civil rights progress in the '60s. So it's not just the flag of the history or fallen soldiers. It's a flag, you see emblems on hats of bigots like that. And the flag needs to be removed from the state capitol, put in a museum, a part of history, so we can move on.

CUOMO: Mayor, thank you very much for being an example of everything that is right in leadership in a time of crisis. We wish you the best. We will stay on this story, and we'll do our best to show the healing.

RILEY: Thank you, Chris. Thank you. And your dad was a wonderful example to me.

CUOMO: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I appreciate it. All the best to you down there. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: All right, Chris.

The Supreme Court expected any time now to issue critical rulings on Obamacare and same-sex marriage. Justices debating which states are eligible for federal subsidies through the Affordable Care Act, and their decision could mean a loss of health care coverage for millions of low and middle income families. The high court also deciding whether gay couples have the constitutional right to marry, and if states should be required to recognize same-sex marriages from other states.

PEREIRA: Sad news to report from a White House executive chef. Walter Scheib has been found down along a hiking trail in New Mexico. Officials say the 61-year-old's remains were found along a hiking trail in the mountains in the Taos area where he disappeared last week. Now, detectives have not yet determined a cause of death.

[08:15:00] Mr. Scheib was with the White House for 11 years, cooking exclusively for the Clinton and Bush administrations.

CUOMO: All right. So, from terrible news to good news, Jordan Spieth is the 2015 U.S. Open winner. Just context: not only is he only 21, but he has won the last two big majors in golf. Almost never happens in the same year.

So, part of the story is also how Dustin Johnson lost it. Spieth double bogeyed, two over par on the 17th hole. Look like about a three-shot lead too young couldn't handle the moment. But then he birdied 18, to take a one stroke advantage.

Dustin Johnson then needed the 12-foot putt to win the championship. All right? So, he's got 12 feet to win. And what does he do?

Leave it is short! That's OK. He's only 4 foot away from bringing it -- oh! That's when the pants pinch, my friends. That's where the pants pinch.

At 21, Spieth becomes the youngest open champ since Bobby Jones in 1923.

PEREIRA: Congratulations. Fantastic.

CUOMO: The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

CAMEROTA: Yes, got it. All right. That's a great story.

Well, in the wake of the church massacre in Charleston, some people say it is time for the Confederate flag to come down. We continue that conversation right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [08:20:00] CAMEROTA: New this morning, President Obama makes bold statements about racism on a radio show and he uses what some consider offensive language to do so. What do his statements mean to Charleston and the debate over the Confederate flag?

Let's talk about this with Bakari Sellers. He's a former South Carolina state representative and attorney.

Mr. Sellers, thanks for being here.

BAKARI SELLERS, FORMER SOUTHCAROLINA STATE REPRESENTATIVE/ATTORNEY: Thank you for having me, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: I want to get to the president's interview. This was just released. He sat down for a radio interview with Marc Maron on his radio show. And it's notable for several reasons. First, he speaks very candidly about racism, and he uses the N-word to do so.

So, listen to this.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

MARC MARON, RADIO HOST: Racism.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Racism, we are not cured of.

MARON: Clearly.

OBAMA: And it's not just a matter of it not being polite to say nigger in public. That's not the measure of whether racism still exists or not. It's not just a matter of overt discrimination. We have to -- societies don't overnight completely erase everything that happened 200 to 300 years prior.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: What are your thoughts on what he says there?

SELLERS: Well, I thought the president was correct. He didn't mince terms.

We're talking about racism being more than just a passive use of a derogatory term. We're talking about constitutional and systemic racism. I think that people fail to realize the long shadow that slavery, Jim Crow, segregation and oppression have in this country.

We're just slightly over 50 years away since the 16th Street bombing where the four little girls were killed. We're just not even 50 years away from the assassination of Martin Luther King from Robert F. Kennedy, from the Orangeburg massacre.

And so, when you think about these things, you understand in this country we made progress but we still got a ways to go.

CAMEROTA: And yet, I mean, this is all being said by the country's first black president. You know, you take many steps forward and steps back. I mean, it is a complicated relationship that we have with racism in this country, but what did you think about the president using the N-word? I mean, was it just for shock value?

SELLERS: Well, no, I think that he was being honest in his assessment. I mean, to be completely honest, I don't really care about those people who use this term just passively, in some sense of just having their own racist dialogue. This conversation has to be much bigger than that. This conversation has to be much deeper than that.

And, yes, it's complex, and yes, it's difficult, but the president hit at the heart of the matter. This is not just about verbiage. But this is about action. It's about the fact that my good friend Clementa Pinckney will be lying in the state capitol, but 30 yards away, you have the Confederate flag flying in front of the state house. This isn't about just the n-word or anything else. This is all about these symbols, all of this language and the symbols and things that are much deeper than that.

CAMEROTA: We just had a guest on, Pat Hines. He's the chairman of the South Carolina League of the South. They say they believe in the Confederate flag. They believe it flying they believe in it flying at the state capitol because they believe that it honors their forefathers who lost their lives in the civil war.

Let me play for you his justification.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAT HINES, CHAIRMAN, SOUTH CAROLINA LEAGUE OF THE SOUTH: Well, we don't think that it's a symbol of hate, number one. We don't hate anyone. If you see any of our literature, we don't preach hate about anyone. We support the well-being and independence of the Southern people. That's where our nationalism comes in. We don't focus on deriding anybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Mr. Sellers, what about that? That they believe that it's honoring their forbearers who fought the fight?

SELLERS: Well, I want the gentleman to know that I'm a part of the, quote-unquote, "Southern people". I completely understand wanting to honor individuals.

I want to honor those nine people who died in that shooting on Wednesday. I mean, I want to honor Henry Smith and Samuel Hammond and Delano Middleton. I want to honor Medgar Evers and Emmett Till. I want to honor Martin, Malcolm, and Rosa, and all of these people as well.

We can't have these symbols of divisiveness. In fact, that flag was put up as a resistance to civil rights progress. It's not as if the flag was put in the late 1800s or the beginning of the 1900s. No. It was put up during the middle in resistance to the progress we were making as a country.

I mean, this flag is more than just something that flies at the hint of the slightest wind. This flag, every time you pass it, every time you take a deep breath under the auspices of it, it reopens those old wounds. It's hard to make progress educationally, socially, economically when we're still dealing with the issues from the '40s, '50, and '60s. It's just tough.

CAMEROTA: Mr. Sellers, do you suggest because it flies at the state capitol that somehow influenced this depraved gunman to believing his own message somehow?

[08:25:06] SELLERS: Well, I'm not -- and I've said this before. I'm not under any illusion. The flag didn't reload that .45 five times. The flag didn't have him sit in the bible study for an hour, but the flag did give him a banner under which to justify his actions. That's a problem.

I hope the country recognizes that's a problem. When all the cameras leave, when this story passes or there is another news break for something else, we will still be in South Carolina toiling in the vineyards every day so this back-breaking institutional and systemic racism that has developed and morphed into the generations of poverty are alleviated.

We're going to be fighting the same battles. One of the battles, the first battle on the forefront is the battle to take the flag down.

CAMEROTA: Mr. Bakari Sellers, thank you. Thanks for having this conversation this morning.

SELLERS: Thank you for having the conversation.

CAMEROTA: We want to know your take. Please tweet us using #NewDayCNN, or post your comment on Facebook.com/NewDay. We would love to read your comments.

Let's get over to Chris.

CUOMO: So, the federal government is backing Pope Francis' position on global warming. An EPA administrator helped craft the pontiff's unprecedented encyclical on climate change. She's going to be live on NEW DAY, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)