tv Anderson Cooper 360 CNN December 1, 2015 8:00pm-9:01pm PST
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charleston, south carolina tonight might think we have a ways to go as a nation. rosa parks passed away ten years ago at the age of 92. an american hero who wanted to be treated fairly. i am not sure what she would make of donald trump or laquan mcdonald. i don't think she would hesitate i don't think she would hesitate to tell us. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com good evening. thanks for joining us. breaking news in the shooting of a teenager on the streets of chicago. city police officer jason van dyke shot and killed laquan mcdonald in october of last year. he emptied his entire clip into mr. mcdonald. he was the only officer to fire even a single shot. the city and police union put out a statement about the shooting that later proved misleading. however, the only way to tell
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for sure was to look at the video you just saw, which only came out last week, and only after people went to court to get that released. officer van dyke was charged in the killing only last week. chicago's mayor and former white house chief of staff, rahm emanuel only took action with respect to the police department today, ask superintendent gary mccarthy for his resignation. 13 months after the shooting, illinois attorney general lisa madigan sent a letter to the u.s. attorney general loretta lynch, asking the justice department civil rights division to investigate the chicago police department itself. there's a lot to cover tonight, starting with the very long road to where we are now. cnn's ed lavendera has that. >> reporter: six seconds. that was the time it took for officer jason van dyke to leave his vehicle and open fire on laquan mcdonald, killing him on the spot. >> hands up. >> don't shoot. >> it is these six seconds that have rocked the city of chicago
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with protesters citing distrust and a lack of transparaphernalia sip within the chicago police department. the dash cam video released last week by order of a judge revealed some discrepancies regarding what happened the night mcdonald was killed, including the initial claim by police that the 17-year-old had lunged at officers. >> going at one of the officers. at that point, the officer defends himself. >> reporter: it's a claim the mcdonald family attorney says the video does not support. >> the video clearly shows laquan walking away. he was not threatening anybody. he certainly didn't lunge at the police officer. this was originally presented as an act of self-defense. >> reporter: the chicago police department initially claimed mcdonald was shot in the chest. an autopsy later revealed he was shot a total of 16 times, nine of which were in the back. another issue, there's an 86-minute gap in surveillance video from a local burger king. the police dash cam video shows mcdonald running through the restaurant's parking lot. the burger king manager alleges the surveillance video was reviewed by police, then they deleted it.
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erasing potentially pivotal evidence. the top prosecutor in chicago says the video was not tampered with, but the manager says in part, "i was just trying to help the police with their investigation, i didn't know they were going to delete it." former chicago police superintendent garry mccarthy quickly swatted down those allegations. >> it's absolutely not true, and i think the states attorney addressed that today. there were apparently technical difficulties, but in no way, shape, or form is there any evidence that anything was tampered with. >> reporter: but perhaps the darkest cloud of controversy continues to be how the chicago police department seemingly went to great lengths and cost to try to make sure the public would never see the video. first there was the $5 million settlement paid to the family. critics say that was in part to keep the video from ever being released. then the questions emerging about why the chicago police department continued to employ officer van dyke for a full year before pressing charges. van dyke had 20 complaints
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against him, ten of them were use of force. the police only suspended him without pay the day before the judge's deadline for the release of the dash cam video. >> i felt compelled in the interest of public safety to announce these state charges today. >> reporter: for some in chicago, that was too little too late. >> that was ed lavendera reporting. dissatisfaction with the chicago police department comes from not only excessive force incidents but people living where gangs run the streets. the other complaint is ineffective policing or outright neglect. they sense that their neighborhoods and children are being abandoned. so it's really a toxic combination, they say, of brutality and neglect. less than three weeks ago, 9-year-old tyshawn lee was buried. police say he was lured into an alley and shot again and again in the face and back, deliberately targeted, the victim of gang violence, a fourth grader. >> tyshawn was not in the wrong place. the murderer, the executioner,
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the assassin, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. tyshawn was doing what every child has a right to do, be a child. >> that is father michael pfleger, who has made stopping violence his mission. that mission and the larger problem is a focus of a new spike lee film called chi-raq which premiers tonight. father pfleger is here in connection with that. good to see him under any circumstances. also with us, political commentator charles bluff. you now have the illinois attorney general calling for a department of justice a investigation of the chicago police department. is that a good step? >> absolutely. there has to be a special prosecutor that comes in, goes back to the day laquan was killed. and say who knew about it, who covered it up? who didn't speak about it? who tried to push this under the rug? and everybody has an opinion, from the mayor on down to the
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cop on the scene to the chiefs at police headquarters. everybody has to be asking this. anybody who covered it up, anybody who tried to make this thing go away, if it wasn't a reporter who fought and fought and fought to have this videotape revealed we wouldn't be talking about it today. talking about it today. so anybody as part of that cover-up has to be accountable. >> and the request goes further because it includes the review boards, which the naacp has also called for a federal investigation of all review boards of police review boards in chicago. what they point to is a local university study that looked at 2002 to 2004. 10,000 complaints against the police. only 19 of 10,000 ever resulted in any kind of major action. over the last 30 years, we have one charge -- serious charge for police shooting. and that kind of piques your attention and says, okay, either all the citizens of chicago are
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falsely claiming that police are behaving in a way that's not appropriate or something is going wrong with the review process itself. >> and father, you believe there has been a cover up on this? >> i do. i believe there's been a cover-up. first of all, this man had 18 accusations against him for excessive force and racial comments. nothing was ever done. so it amazes me that a young black man on the street, the first comment is the officer felt threatened. what about the young black man on the street who sees an officer who has 18 counts against him feels threatened? nobody deals with that. i believe there's been a cover-up on this. >> charles, you were out there with protesters. what are your thoughts about this? >> a lot of people came over just to talk. they wanted to talk about not just what had happened recently with laquan, but also what happened over a long period of time. i talked to one older activist who talked about being a kid and having police officers coming into the neighborhood and one
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notorious officer would come in and just jump out and beat kids. i think this idea that there's a history in particular cities across the country, not just chicago, but chicago as its own particular kind of ethos. but this exists across the country. and we don't really address it until something flares up. that's a problem. the fact that we're getting rid of the police chief today because of video that was made over 400 days ago that nobody ever apparently wanted to ever be seen by anyone, and if a judge did not have the courage to honor that request, we would still have that same police chief in office. so i think we have to look more systematically and across the board at a lot of these cities, and say there's a problem. it's an endemic problem to the way we look at certain pockets of the population, and that we don't value somebody in the same way that we value other bodies. that is a bigger issue than just chicago.
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>> father, do you think the superintendent being asked to step down, will that make a difference? >> i think it's only a step. the body is sick of the police department. you can take off the head but you've still got the same sick body. we go into that whole community of blue code. you're talking about a police department that keeps talking about community's got to come forward, community's got to talk, community's got to be honest. even if you're afraid, tell the truth. >> report crimes that you see? >> yeah. nobody in the police department did. the other officers there on the scene. what about the supervisors. what about the supervisor over them? what about the police commander? so you've had a cover-up for 13 months but you want the community to come clean right away and say don't be afraid. you can't ask people to trust the system. unless we have courage to go deep into the whole culture of the police department, and deal with the real issues, nothing's going to change. we'll be right back here again.
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>> father, great to have you. thank you very much. more tonight on the breaking news, and a very different question relating to it, namely are the chicago police getting too much blame? that's what one former police detective thinks. later, donald trump not only sticking to his discredited 9/11 story but adding a new twist. details on that when we continue. if yand you're talking toevere rheumyour rheumatologiste me, about a biologic... this is humira. this is humira helping to relieve my pain
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with the illinois attorney general calling for a federal civil rights investigation into the chicago police department, we're talking about the resignation today of the police superintendent, garry mccarthy. it comes with the city's murder rate rising. in those neighborhoods, filled with people who want nothing more than to live in peace and raise their families like everybody else, the central fact of life has been turned upside down. instead of children burying parents, far too often it's parents burying kids. in a world of strong women, that strength is being tested to the breaking point. >> he was murdered april 4th, 2006. it's nine years for me and the
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pain has not went away. it's frustrating. because his case is unsolved and i see so many children being shot every single day. in chicago, 70% of the cases are not solved. i feel like they don't value our children's lives. nobody cares. it's not a national conversation. we don't want just conversation. we want action. >> i lost my son spencer august 2nd of this year. he was my only child. he was a good child. responsible. good young man. responsible. and it's a struggle every day for me. >> have they found the person who did it? >> no. and i call the detectives, and you get no answer. because the detective -- you're assigned to a detective. and the detective i had, he works nights. and when you call and call, you get no answer. when you finally do get someone, they take a message and say he's not in, he's on the street. no one calls back. no one calls back. it's no justice. and that's what i'm looking for today, for justice. >> they have to show that they care. just saying you care is not enough. just put more police officers.
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it's just not the answer. more has to be done. >> those are three moms i talked to recently in chicago, all of whom have lost their children. more has to be done, she said. a clear dissatisfaction with the police you heard there, but there are certainly different views about what mayor rahm emanuel did today and what's the best way to move forward with all this to try to keep chicago safe. keeping chicagoans safe from bad policing as well. cnn law enforcement analyst harry houke joins us. he's a veteran of the nypd. also van jones, a former senior adviser to president obama. you heard those moms in chicago. each of them have lost a child. they say putting more police officers on the streets isn't enough and that more has to be done. what also needs to happen in your opinion? >> well, first of all, i just want to say that rahm emanuel as mayor has to be asked tough questions. what did rahm emanuel know and when did he know it? >> about this video?
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>> with regard to the video. before we talk about the mothers, i want to say what did rahm emanuel know and when did he know it? if, in fact, he knew about this video and was a part of covering up in any way or knew about the cover-up, he can't lead this city anymore. i don't know if he shouldn't be asked to resign. >> you're saying rahm emanuel should resign if, in fact, he covered this up or knew about it. >> yes. if, in fact, rahm emanuel knew about this murder and knew about the cover-up, he should resign. we can't have a situation where a city is grieving this much and the leader possibly was involved in a cover-up so he could be re-elected. this is a very, very major crisis. those mothers are in a situation where they are crushed between street violence and unlawful police violence. and they deserve much, much better. i am tired of funerals either from street violence or police violence, but you need a mayor who cares. if this mayor knew, if rahm
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emanuel knew about this tape and he did not do anything until today, he should resign, period. >> the superintendent resigning, did he get thrown under the bus by rahm emanuel? >> listen, that is a classic kind of a scapegoating move. of course the superintendent should go away, but the question is what did rahm emanuel know and when did he know it? look, i served with rahm emanuel. i admire rahm emanuel. he did a great job for the president. he has tried to be a good mayor. but i'm going to tell you this. if, in fact, he knew there was a cover-up and if he knew that there was a cover-up happening maybe to keep from losing a re-election and he put his re-election over a murder, he does not deserve to be the mayor of chicago. he has to be investigated. those mothers are not alone. there are mothers across that city who could tell you the same story. the police either don't protect or they abuse. you have communities that are now feeling every single day that the police do a good job of punishing, a bad job of protecting. they can cover up their own crimes, but they can't solve crimes in the neighborhood. and this mayor may not be able
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to lead that. >> harry, i've got to say, you saw the police spokesman soon after that shooting coming out and saying the officer was, you know -- laquan mcdonald lunged at the officer. the video certainly doesn't bear that out at all. >> no. i mean, i spoke about this before also. i think that officer acted improperly in the laquan mcdonald shooting. that officer is going to pay the price. >> but the fact that this lasted for a year -- >> well, that's a question. i've investigated a lot of shootings like that. dozens of them. all right? two weeks, it should be over. >> when you worked for internal affairs? >> no, when i was a detective. when there were gunfight and they shot people. we would investigate those. two weeks, that case is over. you're not looking for a perp here on a case like that. so you know, it should be even a shorter period of time. the fact that this video took a year to come out, i'm sure that was not on the police department. because if that mayor wanted that video out, he would have told the commissioner or the
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superintendent mccarthy i want that video and i want it out to the people right away. so and i'm sure mccarthy would have done it. listen, mccarthy acquiesced to everything he wanted to do. i put full blame on what's going on in chicago, not only on mayor emanuel, but the mayors before them. this has been going on for a very long time. >> you believe the national guard should be called in? >> it's virtually a combat zone. if you probably got all the good people together in the inner parts of chicago and talked to them they would probably say yes, please bring something in so my children can go and play in the park again. we had a 9-year-old executed by a gang member. executing and setting this 9-year-old up. >> allegedly because his father was involved in a gang. >> listen, when you get to that type of crime and to that point in an inner city, nothing now has really got to be done. >> there are a number of solutions here, not just bringing in the national guard.
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i think more milt -- militarization might back fired. we need a better mix in cities across the country. i remember they used to have summer programs. i remember midnight basketball. i remember apprenticeships. all that stuff is gone. >> pfleger does that but that's through his church. it's one person. >> he's one guy. >> here's what i believe. i believe that we need to have a better mix of programs that give kids opportunities. give people a reason to put down the guns. african-americans have to continue to be outspoken as we have been against the street violence first. but when you have police violence and you have a mayor who may have covered it up to secure his own election, you don't have leadership. and that is the problem we have right now. you don't have a mayor that can be trusted. >> i've heard people say look, there weren't demonstrations when young african-american kids are being killed. there are, actually. >> that's not true. >> i'm saying there are actually demonstrations. they just don't get the coverage, and it happens so frequently -- >> anderson, thank you for
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saying that, anderson. >> it's sort of routine. >> it's a horrible background. you have this horrible background. it's a horrible background noise now for the media of vigil after vigil, for protest after protest, funeral after funeral. to say that african-americans don't care about all these street murders, it's not true. >> there are marches all the time. >> all the time. but. >> but they're not that big. >> i don't see marches all over the country because this 9-year-old kid was assassinated. >> listen, there have been -- >> i don't see bridges being blocked and i don't see streets being blocked and people out there every single night because this 9-year-old was assassinated. that is a problem. and the answer not only -- listen, you're not going to be able to bring jobs or make that neighborhood better until that crime rate is down. once that crime rate is down, like what happened here with rudy giuliani, the crime rate in new york city was so high, and i worked here then, that until we're able to enforce the law
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the way it should be did things change in new york city. >> van, just very quickly. >> listen, what i know for sure is that nothing stops a bullet like a job. there are a lot of communities where you have the jobs leave first and the drugs and the guns come later. the idea that the reason is this is not there is because you've got it actually in reverse. the reality is right now we have a situation, we have a major american city in full crisis. a cloud over a mayor and the investigation has to include him. you cannot have leadership. you're going to have a big problem in that city. >> van jones and harry houck. thank you. >> up next, donald trump given one more chance to back away from his discredited claim that he saw thousands of muslims in new jersey. you'll hear him take it to a new level. the pursuit of healthier. it begins from the second we're born. because, healthier doesn't happen all by itself. it needs to be earned every day. using wellness to keep away illness.
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visit pge.com/checkup and get started today. it's gotten squarer. over the years. brighter. bigger. it's gotten thinner. even curvier. but what's next? for all binge watchers. movie geeks. sports freaks. x1 from xfinity will change the way you experience tv. part of the donald trump story remains focused on new jersey 14 years ago. trump, you'll recall, says he saw muslims there, thousands and thousands of muslims in jersey city celebrating when the twin towers came down. then when challenged on it, he
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said he saw it on videotape. when no one anywhere could actually find that tape, he suggested the networks had erased it and he cited a "washington post" reporter story. when the reporter who is now at "the new york times" differed with trump's read on his story, trump mocked him and appeared to mock his disability, saying you've got to see this guy, and then made that gesture. trump said he did no such thing. you can take a look for yourself. which brings us to today. this afternoon, he went on hugh hewitt's radio show and offered a new twist. >> are you sticking with your jersey city estimate? >> oh yeah, sure. i will tell you that a article came out recently that was -- meaning we found it recently. i think it was on september 13th of obviously that very terrible year, and it was a story this in the post. i put it on
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twitter @realdonaldtrump, and i have another one @realdonaldtrump where curtis sliwa, you know, the guardian angels, he was doing a radio show and he talked about what was happening in new jersey and i've been called by hundreds of people, hugh. i've been called by literally hundreds of people, and also, you know, the twitter, which is so big between facebook and twitter, i have 10 million people. >> well, two new claims there. neither of which is true. we contacted curtis sliwa. he believes the opposite of what mr. trump is actually claiming. as for that "new york post" story, it wasn't an editorial, it was an opinion column written by a local professor at the time, whom we also contacted, he says he never claimed to have seen any celebrations firsthand. mr. segel told our producer that he thinks trump saw video of celebrations on the west bank and conflated it with new jersey. he went on to call donald trump a master of misdirection. joining us is hugh hewitt who conducted the interview. and is going to take part in the
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next republican debate. also, cnn political commentator amanda carpenter. and peter between -- binehart. a contributing editor for atlantic media and a senior fellow at the new american foundation. hugh, you were very clear later on during that interview that trump is off the mark in your opinion when it comes to what happened in new jersey on september 11. do you believe he's just confused, or is it something intentional? do you think he saw the video from gaza and is conflating it? >> i think he's conflating it. elizabeth loftus did a great ted talk on people who conflate memory and confuse memory. i said that to donald trump tonight. on the other hand, earlier today, rudy giuliani on this network said there were isolated incidents in new york, including a candy store incident that mayor giuliani recounted. i do believe donald trump remembers the west bank or gaza
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demonstration and that i'm surgeon hundreds of people have told him they saw the same thing because hundreds of people have told me they saw the same thing that i'm wrong. i don't think we should fact check memory, and i also think most of the american people have moved past this debate and want to talk about other things that i did in the interview. >> you wrote recently -- i want to get this right. you said that trump has "turned the terrorism debate into an extension of the immigration debate that powered his candidacy this summer." what do you mean by that? >> why is donald trump going on and on and on about this? it's not just that he's dishonest. it's that he's dishonest about something which is very, very important. what he's implicitly doing is questioning the loyalty of american muslims. he's also called for closing mosques. he's talked about registering muslims. he moved from demonizing mexicans in the summer to now demonizing muslims after the paris attack. we're seeing the number of attacks against mosques in the month of november is staggering. every two or three days now, another mosque is either threatened or shot up or vandalized, and it's the climate that people like him are creating. that's why this matters. >> amanda, what do you make of all this? two months away from the first primary voting and trump is still leading big.
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do you think people just do not care if he says something that isn't true? is it the hatred of the media, of political correctness, whatever you want to call it? >> i think we're witnessing a man that has an ego so big that he thinks he can construct his own reality. i mean, we have the ultimate reality tv candidate constructing his own reality. we're leaving ourselves the question, if a video aired and donald trump is the only one who saw it, did the video air? i mean, this is just ridiculous. donald trump has vast resources. it's on him to produce the video at this point. otherwise we just need to move on. but what this is really about is donald trump and his ego is so big and he thinks his memory is so perfect, no one can dare question it. and the only people that corroborate his story are people who won't go on the record, a friend of a friend of an uncle. we've all heard these conspiracy theory stories of someone who saw the same video donald trump did, but no one can produce the evidence. i mean, this is really verging on the edge of insanity. >> have you ever heard a cnn
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political candidate or interviewed a political candidate who refuses to say that they ever have gotten something wrong? or say maybe i did make a mistake, or maybe i did conflate -- i mean, no one likes to do it, but have you ever -- i mean, trump -- have you ever seen somebody who refuses to the degree that trump does? >> i don't know that anyone is as adept at donald trump at refusing to answer questions he doesn't want to answer. but i've had 85 interviews with republican candidates since the first debate and often they deflect and move along. anderson, you just said something that's the heart of this matter. people hate the media. that it. they hate me, they hate amanda, they hate peter, they hate you. they hate the media. so when donald trump is attacked by the media for conflating or getting details wrong, his numbers don't go down, they if anything tick up because they understand that in a metasense,
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it's not about being anti-arab americans, they understand about being anti-media. and there's a whole bunch of people that hate us. >> it's not all americans. we're talking about a very specific subset of the population that thinks the media has a left wing bias. those people are also -- we have a poll which came out a couple months ago that showed that only a minority -- >> there's a lot of people on the left who don't like the media for other reasons. >> the people donald trump is appealing to are people who have resentment against the media and also a lot of resentment against mexican immigrants and a lot of resentment against muslims. a poll came out showing only a minority of republicans in iowa think islam should be legal in the united states. this is the larger context. so yes, there's a lot of frustration with the media. the media is certainly far from perfect. but there's a paranoid bigoted strain that donald trump is tapping into here, which is very frightening. >> amanda, i want you to be able to respond to that. >> yeah, well, i don't like the idea of predicting the worst of donald trump as being representative of the entire democratic party -- >> republican party. >> yeah, sorry. excuse me, the republican party. i don't buy the polls at this point in time that show him as a
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frontrunner, primarily because i don't think he has organizing power to actually win an iowa caucus and take that state. >> that's interesting. do you think, then, that people are just kind of answering that poll saying, oh, yeah, trump just to stick it to -- >> yes, i do. i do not think that means he will take the early republican primary states. i mean, look at the organizational disaster that was the black pastor's press conference last week. i mean, he couldn't even roll out endorsements. he put out a press release claiming these people were going to endorse him. it fell apart. one of the only people that would stand next to him was one of his former reality tv prodigies. i mean, he doesn't have organizational power to pull this off. but at the same time, i think republican primary voters do want to say they support trump to stick it to the media. >> interesting. hugh, i'm looking forward to the debate. it's going to be awesome. i'm glad you're going to be asking questions. thank you all. obviously the debate right there
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is coming up december 15th, 9:00 p.m., tuesday here on cnn. up next, nearly 8,000 newly released hillary clinton e-mails get a looking over. republicans say that one of them shows they called it right on benghazi when we continue. some of these experimentse're notmay not work.il. but a few might shape the future. like turning algae into biofuel... ...new technology for capturing co2 emissions... ...and cars twice as efficient as the average car today. ideas exxonmobil scientists are working on to make energy go further... ...no matter how many tries it takes. energy lives here.
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the state department has released a new batch of hillary clinton's e-mails from her private server when she served as secretary of state. it's the largest set so far. 7,800 pages, mostly from 2012 to 2013. republicans, though, are focusing on one e-mail in particular that could be a big factor on the campaign trail. brianna keilar tonight explains. >> reporter: the e-mail was sent just hours after the attack in benghazi, from hillary clinton to diane reynolds, actually a pseudonym used by her daughter chelsea, telling her two officers were killed today in benghazi by an al qaeda-like group. in a public statement that night, clinton raised the possibility that inflammatory material posted on the internet, a reference to a video portraying the muslim prophet
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muhammad, was a precursor to the attack. five days later, ambassador suzanne rice expanded, when asked about the reports that libyan officials arrested suspects in the attacks. >> they're saying that some people involved were from outside the country, that there might have even been al qaeda ties. what's the latest information? >> what this began as was a spontaneous, not a premeditated response to what had transpired in cairo. >> reporter: republicans have seized upon clintons e-mails to claim she was covering up the cause of the benghazi attack for political reasons less than two months from president obama's re-election. >> you tell the american people one thing, you tell your family an entirely different story. you can live with the protest about a video. that won't hurt you. but a terrorist attack will. >> there is no doubt in my mind that we did the best we could with the information that we had at the time. >> reporter: the new e-mails
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also revealed behind-the-scenes insights into this moment from clinton's 2013 testimony. >> was it because of a protest or because of guys out for a walk one night two decided they'd go kill some americans. what difference at this point does it make? >> and e-mails newly released by the state department show denial among top clinton aides, that that controversial moment in her testimony was damaging. as congratulatory messages from clinton supporters poured in, longtime confidant mark penn aired this concern. i don't think the emotion in the hearing works to your advantage. looks more like they rattled you on something no one outside the crazy right blamed you for anyway. but a top aide dismissed the assessment, e-mailing the secretary, give me a break, you did not look rattled, you looked real. there's a difference. a big one. brianna keilar, cnn, washington. >> joining me now, cnn commentator jeffrey lorre. also former michigan governor, a clinton supporter. senior adviser to the pro-hillary clinton super pac
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correct the record. governor, i mean, how do you explain the discrepancy between what secretary clinton e-mailed her daughter and what she stated publicly? >> i explained it in the same way. all of the fact checkers who have looked at this explained it, which is that there were conflicting explanations. that night, that very night of the terrible tragedy, an al qaeda-like group took credit for it. the next day, they disavowed it. then, the cia had several different explanations. there wasn't a clear explanation that night or in the few days that followed about exactly what was responsible. it's understandable that the video, which had caused an attack on the cairo embassy, might have been one of the reasons. but this other group was taking credit for it as well. so there was a fog of war, and that's what the fact checkers, that's what the -- anybody who had looked at this has said, this is actually the same subject that was raised during the 11-hour testimony that she had in front of the benghazi
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committee. asked and answered. >> jeffrey, do you believe it's asked and answered? because i mean, republicans are certainly pointing to this and saying that it fit the obama administration narrative that it with u.s. linked to the video as opposed to a direct for report attack, which, you know, would show that al qaeda was not necessarily on their heels, certainly maybe not play into the obama administration narrative. >> right. i don't think it's been answered. and, you know, she's got a couple problems here. and i think the underlying problem that she has, i wrote a column back in august about this. way back in 1996 when she was first lady famously at the time, "the new york times" columnist, now the late william sapphire wrote a column accusing her of being -- and it's his words, not mine, a congenital liar and went through chapter and verse about how she had a tendency to be untruthful about things. she got a clean slate as
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secretary of state, and yet here we are again in an issue that revolves around her honesty. and as you may remember, anderson, there was a poll a couple months ago where people were asked to free associate their descriptions of her. and the first -- the top pick of respondents was liar and i think the second one was dishonest. so this is the problem that she's going to have. her second problem is fbi director comey, who's got a real reputation for independence. he's looking into this. if she's cleared, then i think this may help her a considerable degree because he's quite an independent person. if, on the other hand, he comes down the other way, she's going to have a problem. >> governor, i mean, this is obviously the knock that many conservatives and republicans make on hillary clinton and have for a long time, that she will say anything to get elected, that she sort of takes the temperature of politics, and there is an honesty problem.
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it's clearly not any new criticism of her. how do you respond? >> well, except that every time these issues have been raised -- i know jeffrey wrote this column about white water and travel gate. all of that has been proven to be false. she was not lying. in this particular case, glen kesler from "the washington post," who does the fact checking, he actually called marco rubio a two -- two pinocchio falsehood for making this exact same claim. i think it's somewhat ironic that jeffrey supports donald trump, who really is the congenital liar, who's received 11 pants on fire lying assessments from the fact checkers. and every day, even today, he got another one for saying that president obama is going to allow 250,000 syrian refugees in. and the bottom line is, i believe the people who are
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trying to get this right. there are independent sources who have rated these candidates. hillary clinton was not found to be lying in that. in fact, those who accuse her of lying were found to be lying. and donald trump is really, honestly, not worthy of running for president. given how dishonest he's been. >> jeffrey, to that point -- >> donald trump is not the director of the fbi. >> do republicans lose some credibility argument if donald trump is the nominee? doesn't hillary clinton have plenty to throw back at him if they were to face off next fall? >> oh, i mean, believe me, a trump-clinton campaign would be a joy to watch. there would be lots going on on both sides. once again, though, i would say that we get into these polls and favorability ratings and all of this kind of thing. when we get down to november of next year, the choice is going to be hillary clinton and somebody else, whether it's donald trump or whomever. i think at this point, it will be donald trump. even if it's not, this issue is not going to go away, no matter
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tonight a mystery in alaska's capital city. greg fisk, the mayor of juneau, is dead, he was found dead by his son just weeks after he took office. elected with two-thirds of the votes. a popular mayor with a lot of plans to make the city. tonight, family, friends, and colleagues are grieving and seeking answers. randi kaye has got the details. >> reporter: about 3:30 in the afternoon, the 911 call came in. mayor steven greg fisk of juneau, alaska, was dead. >> at about 3:34, we received a 911 call from a man and there was someone who appeared to be deceased inside. the officer were on scene in about four minutes. >> reporter: mysterious deaths like this one, let alone the mayor, rarely occur in this remote capital city of 32,000. a community tucked away on alaska's panhandle. often reached by boat and sea plane. the strange circumstances have many in town speculating about what happened. the detectives here are for now stumped.
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the mayor's son had gone to check on him monday afternoon after getting word that others in town were having trouble reaching him. after he looked inside the home where his father lived alone, neighbors said the son could be heard shouting. that's when he called 911. officers rushed to the scene, but the mayor was already dead. right now, there are more questions than answers. juneau police say they found no sign of forced entry, and they've also concluded that mayor fisk did not commit suicide. so what happened? some are already suggesting that the mayor was assaulted. the police are playing that down, though the chief did tell the juneau empire newspaper that assault is one of the possibilities out there. but that it also could have been a fall or something else. meanwhile, juneau's deputy mayor will take over his duties. she was a longtime friend of greg fisk, even taught his son when he was in the sixth grade. >> my husband and i are devastated. he was a wonderful person and a friend.
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and from the calls i've been receiving tonight, i'm not the only one who felt that he was a wonderful person and a good friend to juneau. >> a neighbor told us fisk was active and in good shape. he hiked and swam often. she said he had a great smile and was a great guy. greg fisk was elected mayor just about two months ago. he won with 66% of the vote over the incumbent mayor after running a very positive campaign. he was looking forward to diversifying juneau's economy and um proving the housing market and fixing a tight budget. but all of that is on hold as mystery now hangs over this town. >> it's just so devastating to have this happen. it's basically unbelievable. >> i understand there's some new information on this? >> the chief of police in juneau just shared some new information with our affiliate there in alaska. these are the key points. the mayor's body was found in the front room. he said there were injuries clearly on the body. he didn't say if they were head
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wounds, if he was showing injuries on the arms or the legs. he wouldn't really elaborate, but he did say they were injuries on the body. he said they could have caused naturally, maybe from a fall, maybe from a heart attack, maybe he hit his head, or maybe there was an assault. he hasn't officially ruled that out. he said he was not shot and he did say the autopsy will get underway in the next few days. so we should get some answers. they'll do the toxicology tests, although he said there wasn't any visible or obvious sign of drugs involved, but they will test the body, make sure there weren't any drugs involved and of course look closer at those wounds. >> thanks very much. just ahead, more american troops on their way to iraq to fight isis. we'll tell you who's getting the orders when we continue. believe it.
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that's why i switched from u-verse to xfinity. now i can download my dvr recordings and take them anywhere. ready or not, here i come! (whispers) now hide-and-seek time can also be catch-up-on-my-shows time. here i come! can't find you anywhere! don't settle for u-verse. x1 from xfinity will change the way you experience tv. there's a lot more happening. >> there will be more u.s. boots on the ground in iraq fighting
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isis. secretary of defense ash carter is sending a new special ops force to help kurdish and iraqi forces free hostages, gather intelligence and capture leaders. in indonesia, investigators say a faulty rutter system and pilot error caused the crash of airasia flight 8501 last december. december. the rudder had been suddenly getting worse. malfunctioning 23 times in the year before the plane crashed into the java sea, killing all 162 people onboard. mark zuckerberg and his wife are celebrating the birth of a new daughter in a big way. in her honor, the ceo of facebook will over his lifetime give away over 99% of his shares, currently worth $45 billion to charities. and lucky oregon pooch is frz home for the holidays. she was dognapped a year ago, but recently someone spotted the thief and the pup named pippen was rescued.
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as you can see, she and her family are ecstatic. i wonder what will be waiting for her under the tree? adorable. >> glad she's home. thanks very much. right now, a cnn special report the 360 team produced we're very proud of, inside the secret world of teens starts now. the following is a cnn special report. >> welcome to the cnn special report "being 13 -- inside the secret world of teens." cell phones and social media have revolutionized the way we lived, but how has plugging in changed the wkids are growing u? most of worried about fitting in, being liked, answering the ultimate question, am i cool? imagine middle school with social media, likes, follower, refweets. it's a scoreboard for a realtime 24/7 popularity competition. it's just one of the reasons why kids are hooked, living more and more of their lives online.
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