tv CNN News Central CNN December 1, 2023 11:00am-12:01pm PST
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intense fighting back underway in gaza. could another temporary truce be on the way? cnn has learned that israel and hamas are continuing to negotiate actively negotiating the release of more hostages. the latest on that. plus former president trump's attorneys are in a fulton county courtroom right now defending their client for the first time as they try to have his charges in the georgia election subversion case thrown out. and kicked out of congress. an historic move the house e expels george santos. he's calling his ouster dangerous. we're following these danger developing stories and many more.
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we start this hour with a return to war. israel and hamas back to fighting after a week-long truce. now this video shows the iron dome intercepting the first rocketing targeting israel since the truce ended this was near tel aviv. in gaza, israeli air stieks hit the south. israel ice military dropped leaflets drking palestinians to evacuate the area which was described as a fighting zone. in the the meantime, essential supplies, food, water, and more have stopped entering gaza. still the humanitarian leaders insist on being hopeful because negotiations for another truce have not stopped. in fact, officials believe one may restart today. the truce, 110 hostages were released for 240 palestinian prisoners and hundreds of trucks of aid were allowed into gaza. let's take you to the region now with jeremy diamond.
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he's live for us. bring us up to speed. we saw more intercept stopping rockets coming from gaza. >> reporter: within minutes of that truce ending this morning at 7:00 a.m. local time, there were already bombs being dropped on the gaza strip. fighting once again renewed between israel and hamas. and indeed, several barrages -- and that was a very loud explosion that just hit in the background of our shot. not exactly sure where that was, but that was very loud. it's setting off car alarms. but we have been listening from our position here today to the fight ing once again resuming. those sounds of war that we have been hearing for peek weekss now, but over the last week have effectively stopped because of the pause in fighting that has led to the release of so many hostages. i want to see if there's
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anything to see behind me. to be clear, the military is not only renewing its military campaign inside of gaza, but also pushing further south. we know they are striking rafah as well as unis, two key cities in the southern part of the gaza strip. and amid all of this, the military has begun dropping leaflets there to residents there's a new map that has divided gaza into hundreds of numbered districts effectively giving them the opportunity to evacuate some of those areas if they carry out mill the tear operations in that area. we can already tell from today, from the strikes carried out in southern gaza, just in one hospital reporting at least 30 people killed in a strike and all of this, hundreds injured in the gaza strip, the campaign carried out in southern israel. amid all this, there's those
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negotiations to try to are new that truce that's on going. the hostage negotiations over israel's ability to release hostages are ongoing. the question is can hamas actually continue to come up with more women and children. they have indicated that they do not have that ability anymore. and beyond that, there's the possibility of moving the negotiations towards men as well as israeli soldiers. >> jeremy diamond, thank you so much for the update. we want to go to jerusalem . >> reporter: just as jeremy was saying, there's been intense bombardment, particularly in the rafah areas, but also in the north as well. what we're seeing is i spent the
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entire afternoon looking at video shot by cameramen we have of just body bags in front of the hospitals, medics try to save a 2-year-old girl who basically dies on the operating table. according to the health ministry in gaza, the death toll since this morning has reached more than 175 with hundreds of others wounded. now the israelis have dropped leaflets on the area telling people around a the city to move further south right on the egyptian boarder. there are more than a million people taking shelter in the schools. the israelis also published a map showing sort of dozens of
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little districts in the southern part of gaza. it includes a qr code, which people can check and see where might be safe at any given moment. the problem in gaza is that many people don't have functioning cell phones at the moment, so they can't really access that sort of thing. we're hearing from the u.n. and others that the situation is increasingly desperate. we heard from one doctor in one of the hospitals in gaza saying even though over the seven days of the truce, some supplies, some medical supplies got in. it's only about 1% of what they really need. in addition to treating the wound ed that, there are thousands of people who are still getting medical treatment. so the situation, bad as it was
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during the truce s now getting dra mat you cannily worse for the people of gaza. >> let's talk with two experts. we have bob bear and a director for syria and lebanon on the national security council at the white house. bob, you have the "new york times" reporting. it's really a bomb shell here that israel had a 40-page hamas battle plan more than a year before the october 7th attacks. there was a name for what they were calling this operation that hamas seemed to be planning, but officials didn't take it seriously. here's part of the piece. it says underpinning all these failures was a single fatally inaccurate belief that hamas lacked the capability to attack and would not dare to do so. that belief was so engrained in the government, officials said, they disregarded growing evidence to the contrary. what did you make about this
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revelation? >> well, this is fairly typical of an intelligence service to underestimate the enemy. when they lose touch with the enemy, they lose touch with their capabilities. what they can get away with,s their capabilities, their abilities to use drones and so on. it's just like we did with al qaeda in the '90s. we just couldn't believe they were going to run airplanes into american buildings, even though there were a lot of warnings going back to 1993. so this is typical. and someone is going to pay the cost for this in israeli intelligence. you can count on it. >> no doubt. you have a minority voice coming from the israeli apparatus. there was someone who was saying not so fast. this is not just aspirational and we need to be treating this more carefully. this document, what did you think? >> as bob said, when you have a
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situation where the intelligence services reprioritize d threats which is what they did, the u.s. intelligence does the same thing. they identify the key priorities and threats and move resources around to go after those th threats. that is what the intelligence did. but then when you have this one person waving their hand, their flag, and you have this disconnect with the enemy and being overly confident and relying on a security system that they had built in 2014 to have an underground tunnel and be aboveground wall and machine guns that are motion activated, they rely too much on that. i would say that they had this disconnect that didn't take this threat very seriously, but they also really reprioritized their resources and their military as well. >> i think it might also be alarming when people read this to see that hamas had actually done a dry run.
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so we want to in a way compare it to our reference point, which is 9/11. but they were actually seeing hamas do some things. inside the israeli intelligence apparatus, it's being flagged, but there's disagreement about whether or not this looks exactly like this jericho wall plan that they had come upon. i know it's easy to look at this with hindsight, but to you, how does that stand out? >> well, the israeli military is used to fighting conventional wars. they do very good at it but when they see hamas practicing on pair gliders and flying drones, it looks like a pickup baseball team and how could it possibly be a threat to the rest of it. it's always in hindsight these things look different. just like 9/11 did. and again, i go back to the
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israelis have lost touch with the the palestinians in gaza. it's typical. we have the same problem in vietnam in the '60s. we lost touch with the enemy. and they have just gotten better and better and better and they planned these. don't forget they did not talk about this a attack on the 7th of october. it wasn't picked up in intercepts. so this general planning, people dismissed it, but the actual movement of people on the 7th of october, they did in complete darkness. >> that's a good point. there's pressure on israel right now, as we are looking at it concentrating now on southern gaza. pressure to reduce civilian deaths. you have israel directing pal stun yans to evacuate in the south, which is where they were directed to go when israel began in the north. you say the u.s. understands israel''s need to go after
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targets. tell us what you mean. >> sure. israel has a few goals here. they have to continue releasing the hostages that hamas has. they have around 140 remaining. they also need to defeat hamas. they need to defeat the military capabilities and their governing capabilities to ensure hamas never poses a threat to israel again. they need to send this message the of deterrence to ensure the proxies in the region know not to pursue similar attacks. and that's something that the u.s. supports and something that they are sympathetic to, but they have been very clear, especially this week. i have been impress ed with how the public the government has been in sharing the consequence that they are using to press israel on. john kir said they have told the israeli government they don't separations in the south until and unless they can account for all the internally displaced palestinians. and also you saw secretary blinken say that they want to ensure that any continued
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aggression avoids civilian casualties and makes sure no targets like hospitals, energy supplies and water supplies are targeted. so they are trying to send this message, hey, we are with you in the need to defeat hamas. but we need to make sure that not just for moral reasons, but as strategy toer sure they build a secure state and they don't incite violence. you need to limit the casualties. that's important. so i'm hopeful we'll see more targeted a attacks. >> do these short-term tactics they are taking satisfy the long-term goals. big questions there. thank you so much. bob, thank you to you as well. coming up, former president trump's legal team right now is
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so right now, donald trump's defense lurs are making arguments for the first time in the election subversion case against the former president and his co-defendants. attorneys are saying the case should be thrown out on first amendment grounds. >> trump is dealing with a serious blow on a separate matter, but a court ruled the former president can be sued over january 6th buzz there's a lot of lawsuits. let's talk about this now. we have cnn's nick valencia outside the courthouse in atlanta. and here in washington, we have senior crime and justice reporter katelyn polantz and local legal analyst carey co cordaro. what are we hearing from trump's attorneys? >> reporter: he's a high profile criminal defense attorney here. what he's arguing is that when
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president trump started peddling conspiracy theories and making plame clinton campaigns of voter fraud after his 2020 presidential election loss, at their core, it was political speech and protected by the first amendment. in a legal filing on monday, he said that this kind of speech should not be countered by a prosecution from the district attorney's office here. the state responded saying while it sounds good to allege this is a political persecution, this is at a its core about laws that were broken and crimes that were committed. a judge has indicated that he's not going to issue a ruling from the bench. he's not issued a ruling so we should expect a written ruling in the coming days. >> nick, thank you so much. >> it strike mess in this case that the judge already ruled against that first amendment for two of trump's co-defendants. does it surprise you his attorneys are trying this? >> it doesn't surprise me they
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are arguing it, but it does preview what the likely outcome is, which is the that the former president's first amendment claims are not going to be persuasive. a lot of what might be doing on here is the former president's team is trying to establish a record for as many different tricky constitutional legal issues that they can to preserve them for awe peel and potentially drag things out. >> four people in this case have flipped and are going to be testifying against trump. do you think we're going to see anymore of that as we get closer to the trial date? >> we may. those conversations between defendants and the prosecutors take placeen on an on going basis. each has to look at their own potential likelihood of actually being found guilty and the various aspects of their life and whether or not they want to fight that. so each defendant is going to
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have to make a decision that's right for them. >> walk us through the details of the appellate court that trump did you want have presidential power to do as he pleases. >> these are lawsuits that have gone to the appeals court. and what the a appeals court in washington, d.c. decided today was something that everybody has been waiting on. eight different cases, maybe more, have been wait ing for ths decision. it's that donald trump can be sued, even though he was president at the time. and what they said today is they were drawing the line. they were saying there are things you do when you're president and say as president that are a part of the presidency. and then there are things even if you're a president, if you're running for reelection, those can be part of your campaign. you don't have immunity when you're saying and doing those things like cutting ads, appearing in fundraisers, giving speeches at rallies paid for by campaign or political entities. they didn't weigh in in this
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case today to say whether the january 6th speech that donald trump made is going to be not protected or protected under the presidency. that's something that they are going to get to fight over later. but they were very clear in writing this when he asked outside the functions of his office, he does not continue to enjoy immunity when he accounts in a private kaft. he's subject to civil suits like private citizen. something that we have seen before in the mix son administration and now the appeals court defining the presidency is more. >> it's not protected free speech. just to be clear about that. so it does have are tremendous protections, but also there's some things that are not protected. >> there's a lot of bids that donald trump had has in the cooker that he's trying to get before the supreme court in these lawsuits, potentially in
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his criminal case in washington, d.c. but in this situation, these cases are going to be on ice. the lawsuits trying to hold them accountable for january 6th, but before it goes to the supreme court, it could now, the court is saying, you have a little bit more opportunity to go back and decide the facts about what happened on january 6th. there could be more evidence gathering around that. and trump's spokesman provide the statement saying the facts are showing that january 6th he was acting on behalf of the american people. they are going to keep litigating that. >> notably, trump made a similar immunity claim. over election subversion. that was in front of the judge. still waiting on that decision. do you think the civil matter might impact the criminal one? >> i think it will be determined independently. and the georgia case being
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criminal and these cases being civil on the federal side, i think the former president wants to claim these were official acts. but they are just saying in this particular decision that just came out, it's not necessarily that he does or does not have immunity, but the case can go forward. so it's actually not making the decision on the merits of these particular civil suits. those cases could still go forward. what the court is saying they are not going to dismiss it at this early stage. >> he could appeal on other grounds. >> he can continue to pursue it. this is the d.c. court of appeals. so he can potentially take this to the supreme court. this is all part of a strategy. these are tricky issues. it's an unusual situation with a former president. in all of these case, his lawyers are going to take every opportunity to take these cases as high as they can. >> every time the appeals court speaks, other judges, other lawyers will be listening whether it's on criminal or civil. >> thank you all so much.
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still plen ty more news to come. the sheriff of a white town in mississippi making major reforms after former deputies call themselves the goon squad tried to cover up a beat up. and former congressman george santos out of a job, expelled in an historic vote. republicans extremely narrow majority getting slimmer. we're going to break down what that means for their agenda.
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diamond for the latest. tell us what you have been experiencing. >> reporter: while we were on air with you guys in the beginning of the hour, we heard very large explosions. then shortly after that, as soon as we got off the air, we had sirens sounding above us. and we actually saw the rockets coming from the northern part of the gaza strip and heading towards the town, which is where we are now. there were at least a dozen interception ises that we heard. rocks being fired from the northern part of gaza strip and several loud interceptions from the iron dome system overhead. what's really significant about this is that it comes after a week-long pause in fighting between israel and hamas. the military experts have long worned this would give time for hamas to regroup and resume many of its operations targeting israeli cities. and what's also interesting is that it came from the very
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northern part of the gaza strip. one of those rockets that we saw came from near the town in the northeastern most city in the gaza strip. so even after nearly two months of fighting, nearly two months of bombardment, several weeks of ground operation focused on the northern part of the gaza strip. hamas or another militant group still has the ability to fire rockets from several of these areas in the northern post part of the strip. which is really remarkable when you consider the fact that israeli officials for weeks now have been saying that they are in control of the northern part of the gaza strip. yet clearly, palestinian militants still having the ability to fire rockets from their same areas. >> such a good point. thank you for that report. from the developments overseas to big news here in the nation's capitol, the historic vote makes ousted congressman
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george santos the sixth lawmaker ever to be expelled from the chamber. the house overwhelmingly voted 311-114 to remove santos. the em the battled congressman telling cnn before after the final vote, quote, to hell with this place. i want to bring in political commentator scott jennings and secupp. the argument from some republicans that this sets a dangerous precedent moving forward, do you agree? >> not really. he hadn't been convicted of a crime yet, but in the house, there's an ethics committee. it's a bipartisan committee. and part of a member of congress due process when you're in the house is the ethics committee. and what i was listening to was the republican cochair, the ethics committee, the minute the report was finished running down to the floor to file a motion to
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expel. so i think if you're going to have an ethics committee and respect that process and have any kind of institutional integrity, this was the right vote and i'm glad it was cast today. he's going to have his day in court. if he wants to run again, he can put his name back on the ballot. i suspect he's not going to do this. but this was a good one for republican branding and also for the integrity of the house. >> nothing seems out of the realm of the possibility for george santos. you have been arguing that precedent or not, the standard needs to change in the house. i am wondering from your persp perspective, some of the arguments that santos made about the process with this ethics committee report being put together. did you have any concern about that report being politicized in any way? >> no. and let's take what george santos says with a grain of
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salt. george santos is comparing himself to mary mag delint. so his version of the truth and his spin on how he's a victim in all of this should be discarded. the precedent should not be that this should be a force to be expelled from the house. like just like you and i that at our place of business, we have standards. we have to uphold. those are ethical standards, but we're not allowed to embarrass our employer. those are all fireable offenses. we get fired for cause. that should not be different in the people's house. just because you're elected to congress doesn't mean you get to stay there indefinitely no matter what you do. and i think having two dozen criminal charges and a really scathing ethics report should be
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a really easy call that this guy was an embarrassment and a clown and a fraud and the third district of new york deserves better. >> given sort of what s.e. laid out there that any of the three of us would likely be fire d fo some of the things that santos is accused of, a lot of those republicans that voted to expel him are supporting former president trump's bid for the white house. and he's someone that's facing 90 plus charges, some of them federal. he has civil suits related to sexual assault. what do you make of that de disp disparity. >> first of all, if you're in the u.s. house of representatives, you live under a different ethical regime than donald trump lives under. hooesz going to have his day in court. and we'll see what he'll do.
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but i think for the house itself, and the idea that this institution is held in pro low esteem by the american people, using the ethics committee process to clean it up and react to something that clearly needed to be dealt with is good for the institution. you bring up the presidency and we'll have to cross that bridge when we get there. a lot of republicans are going to have to cross that bridge the with their constituents and also with the american people. >> s.e., when it comes to the sort of dynamic within the party, i'm wondering how much of this you ascribe to the fact that many of those that supported this resolution toex pelt him were fellow republicans who flipped biden districts in the last midterm election. how much of this for them is purely about survival and is actually about ethics. >> i think a lot of it is about survival, but i have also talked
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to a number of republican lawmakers who are embarrassed by george santos. the stories were ridiculous and absurd. it looked really bad. now the expulsion of george santos is a lot of things. it's one, a check on integrity in the house. two, it's a shot across the bow to democrats dealing with bob menendez. and it takes away a talking point that some democrat cans use against reallies. but one thing it is not is a panacea for all the problems inside the republican house today. those problems still persist. getting an agenda through is going to be just as hard without george santos as it was with him. >> s.e. kup, scott jennings, appreciate you all joining us on ans i torque day. >> thank you. right now, world leaders are
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this morning blunt words from the head of the u.n. to kick off the cop 28 climate change conference. >> we cannot save the burning planet with fossil fuels. >> the world meteorological organization says 2023 is on track to be the warmest year on record. about 2. degrees fahrenheit than before the industrial revolution. the group says it's close to possibly endangering humanity.
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chief lclimate correspondent bil weir is with us. what does it say about the leaders of the two biggest polluters, china and the u.s., they are not even going to be at this event. >> reporter: yes, it's leaving us a sour taste in the mouths of a lot of people in the rest of the world, especially when you look at the biggest makers of this problem. this is the 28th global trust exercise as 8 billion try to come up with a way to take on biggest challenge ever. it's a question of fairnd'. they are expected to taper off within the next couple years and start flattening their curve, but they are still putting a lot of coal online. the united states is second these days, but thanks to shift ing away from coal, we managed to flatten the curve a bit. we have a couple different scenarios of taking it down. india is number three. they are growing. and they still keep grow ing as their population comes into the
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middle class with a place with over a billion people. what's deceiving is per capita. americans per capita footprint is twice as big as somebody from china. four times a as big as somebody from india. when you look at the historical emis emissions, imagine these are mountains of carbon being built by people through time, this is most of the world. there's russia's there's the eu's. there's india. here's the united states. the biggest historic emitter. now china just started much later, but is much bigger these days. if you take this into account, what would be fair is for europe to decarbon news by 90% in the next 7 years. for the united states, almost 70%, which is not going to happen. right now, we're coming down maybe 4% a year. so the the call at this cop 28 is for rapid decarbonization, but it's being hosted by a pet
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ro state. ceo has been charged with using this to try to further their interest, expand fossil fuel production around the world, a conflict of swres, many say. but at the same time, he's resisting that, pushing back. they set up the first loss and damage fund on the first day. the uae is kicking in $30 billion total, much more than the united states, which so far has pledged $17.5 million. >> so if they keep going like they are going, you spell it out there. they need to make huge adjustments, but they are making tiny corrections. what does it look like when they hit a point of no return? >> this is the big worry. the difference between 1.5 and 2 degrees celsius is a few coral reeves left and having none. it means having no mountain glaciers. it means the collapse of the sheathes at both ends of the world, which means sea level
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rise. right now, we're on track to hit about 3 degrees celsius of warming. that's 5 degreeses fahrenheit. not good for anybody. so even if 1.5 is no longer alive because we diterred so long as a species, every tenth of a degree counts. and really matters. it could be the great barrier reef you're saving by doing this. until the big oil majors step up on meetings like this and say, here are all the reserves we found that were not going to exploit. we're going to keep having the same krgs. >> so much at stake. thank you for walking us through it. we appreciate it. >> you bet. officials in qatar are warning that israeli military operations in gaza are accocomplicating the chances of returning to a truce. it comes as sources tell us the truce talks between israel and hamas are still happening. so what is the latest there? we'll have more.
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a county in mississippi is announcing reforms after deputies pleaded guilty to state and federal charges for bursting into a home last january and torturing and tasing two black men for hours. calling themselves the goon squad, the former deputies are all white and they're now awaiting sentencing for their crimes. the sheriff, though, has just been re-elected, and he's trying to turn the page. but many in the community say he is the source of the problem. cnn's ryan young has been following this story from the beginning. there are other horrifying details about what happened that night.
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>> reporter: absolutely, boris. we've been talking about this story for months now. as you can understand, we wanted to talk to sheriff brian bailey for quite some time, but this active investigation was ongoing. we also talked to the two victims, who told us the horrifying details of what they went through. these two men were innocent. they were never charged with a crime. they were brutalized. brian bailey calls the men who used to work for him criminals. >> i had a group of thugs wearing badges that went out and committed a home invasion against two innocent men. everything they did was outside the scope of their duty. >> reporter: the sheriff speaking about his department's so-called goon squad. in january, five sheriff's deputies and one police officer from a neighboring department forced their way into a home in rankin county. that night, one deputy sent a text message asking, are you all available for a mission? eddie parker and michael jenkins were inside. the two black men were tortured,
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tased, and say they were sexually assaulted for two hours. at one point, a deputy put a gun inside jenkins' mouth, shooting him. then, according to court documents, the goon squad tried to cover it up. jenkins told cnn about the pain he still suffers. did anyone from the department ever reach out to you and apologize? have they ever asked for anything at all? >> no. >> basically, i'd like to apologize to them. i apologized to them on camera. i have seen them one time in person. >> reporter: it's first time the victims had been offered a face-to-face meeting. >> i'm sorry for what happened to them, but, again, that was not a deputy sheriff that did that. that was a criminal. >> reporter: bailey won re-election earlier this month. he ran unopposed. now the community is grappling with questions about leadership. >> i know brian bailey's heart. he's law enforcement all the way, and he loves jesus all the way. he's still in because they want
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him in. >> reporter: despite his election victory, the rankin county naacp has been collecting signatures calling for his resignation. >> we want law enforcement officers to be held accountable, to be punished for these kinds of behaviors. >> reporter: jenkins and parker claim the deputy called them the n-word and used other racial slurs during the beating. in a county that's majority white but neighbors jackson, one of america's blackest cities, bailey doesn't want his deputies' actions to reflect on him. >> there's good and bad, right and wrong. i don't care what color you are. >> reporter: the sheriff said there were new efforts within the department to retrain deputies. every taser use is logged, and deputies recently received civil rights training. the naacp doesn't think that's enough. >> the only way that we'll be able to get the truth to the people there is to remove sheriff bailey from office.
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>> reporter: with a pending federal sentencing of his form e deputies casting a shadow over the department, residents we spoke with still have questions about the future of law enforcement in rankin county. >> i still have a lot of support within the community asking me not to resign. they want me to stay here. they believe in this department. >> reporter: boris, we should be clear, the sentencing for those deputies who pled guilty doesn't happen until next year sometime, obviously an open wound for the community. you think about those two men who were inside that house, and they took us in that house to tell us about their ordeal, they believe the sheriff failed because of his leadership. at the same time, the sheriff said he had no idea this goon squad was operating. there are other people calling for further investigation into this department. but as you can understand, those wounds are going to take quite some time to heal. it's so disgusting some of the things we read in the indictment. boris? >> ryan young, thank you. coming up, lawyers for
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