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tv   Anderson Cooper 360  CNN  December 16, 2015 9:00pm-10:01pm PST

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>> ac 360 starts in just a moment. >> good evening, thanks for joining us. tonight, which republican presidential candidate has the national security know-how to be commander in kwheef? that was the focus of last night's cnn debate. more than 18 million people watched. now the reaction of viewer, fact checkers and our team of military and intelligence experts. first, breaking news out of the baltimore where protesters marched against what happened in a courthouse late today. eight months after the death in police custody of freddie gray, a hung jury in the trial of the first of six police officers charged. mr. gray's death sparked baltimore's worst rioting since the assassination of dr. martin luther king jr. this time, local state and county authorities appear to be
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taking great care to avoid a repeat. take me through what's happening. >> all four charges, there was a hung jury. and there were protests in the streets of baltimore. protesters who have ended up in the juvenile justice center here have surrounded me. one of the individuals arrested today ended up here and they are upset about that. it's a 16-year-old, another activist, a long-time activist here well known was also arre arrested and they're not sure about him. now they're trying to look out of their own. a mistrial. i think people are not entirely surprised by a trial. this city is divided, as is baltimore tonight. many expecting at least some of the charges that officer porter would have been found guilty of at least some of the charges
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like reckless endangerment and misconduct in office. they came down to this area demanding that they either produce or let them know how the 16-year-old is doing. anderson? >> miguel, do we know much about why there was a misfriel? >> the prosecution arguing that the injury happened in the van, not the famous video that we saw that happened in the van. the only person that knows what happened in that van is freddie gray himself, and he is not here. they split on officer porter's role in what they did or didn't do in getting him a seat belt. the jurors like much of the sfi
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are unable to come to a resolution about what happened in that van. officer porter tonight says -- told the "baltimore sun" that the process will go on and that he's ready for it, it seems, and that he now remains suspended without pay from the baltimore police department. >> we'll continue to check in with miguel and have more on that story and updates throughout the next two hours. now the commander-in-chief question, the focus on the cnn debate in las vegas. the third most watched primary debate in history. tonight, we begin with jim chute toe, keeping them honest. >> we have people across the country who are scared to death. >> reporter: in the wake of the largest terror attack on u.s. soil since 9/11, is the presidential candidates 6 with tough talk. still, their command of some of the defense topics was, well, up
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for debate. senator ted cruz said he would launch an indiscriminate campaign against isis known as carpet bombing. >> would you carpet bomb where there's lots of civilians? yes or no? >> you use air power directed and you have embedded special forces to direct the air power. >> reporter: but directed strikes, as he calls them, are the opposite of carpet bombing. >> we need a president -- >> reporter: the senator also blamed the obama administration for not identifying social media posts made by san bernardino shooter, tashfeen malik, before being granted a visa to the u.s. >> we didn't monitor the facebook posting of the female san bernardino terrorist, because the obama dhs thought it would be inappropriate. she made a public call to jihad and they didn't target it. >> reporter: while it's true
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that malik's social media trail was not reviewed during the visa process, her views on jihad would not have been found without a warrant, because they were expressed in private direct messages, not in public social media postings. >> we should be able to penetrate the internet. >> reporter: donald trump advocates shutting down parts of the internet to cut off isis' access to the web. >> are you open to closing parts of the internet? >> i would certainly be open to closing areas where we are at war with somebody. i sure as hell don't want to let people who want to kill us and kill our nation use our internet. yes, sir, i am. >> reporter: trump seemed stumped on a question about the nation's nuclear triad's capability to launch nuclear bombs from the air, land and sea. >> the three legs of the triad, though, do you have a priority? i want to go to senator rubio after that and ask him. >> i think, to me, nuclear is just the power, the devastation is very important to me. >> senator rubio, do you have a response? >> i do. first, let's explain to people at home what the triad is. maybe a lot of people haven't heard that terminology before.
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>> reporter: there was another sensitive moment during the debate when senator rubio seemed to imply that senator cruz had revealed classified details about government phone surveillance programs. we learned today that the chairman of the senate intelligence committee, senator richard burr, will not be investigating any statements from the republican debate. anderson? >> jim, thanks very much. perspective now on what voters expect in a candidate, or for that matter, commander in chief. joining us, "washington post" syndicated columnist and conservative, kathleen parker. also, carl bernstein, a "washington post" legend. and retired army lieutenant governor, mark hertling. you heard the report there. does it matter whether donald trump knows what the nuclear triad refers to? >> well, it kind of reminds people that they don't. and yes, it would be nice if they did know, in advance of using those terms in a public forum. there are lots of things people learn on the job, you know that,
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and you become presidential as you are the president. you learn how to do a lot of the job on the job. but if you're going to start throwing language around that, you should know what it does mean. i was grateful to marco rubio for explaining what the triad is. and i was touched that donald trump cares a great deal about the power of nuclear weapons. that was awesome. >> general hertling, when ted cruz uses the term "carpet bomb" or says he's going to find out if sand can glow in the dark, should that instill confidence or concern? >> it doesn't in me, anderson. and what i'll tell you, i listened to the pundits last night and today. it was an interesting debate, but i don't agree with any of them that any issue of national security was addressed adequately. that's what the debate was supposed to be about. and like michael smerconish last night, i was taking copious notes and trying to figure out what was going on. and i was alternating between being amused by trump talking about something he knew nothing about, the nuclear triad, which he will get that briefcase the
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first day of office, where he has all the nuclear codes. you had ted cruz talking about carpet bombing, where he obviously didn't know he was violating the laws of land warfare by doing that. i was not only amused, but embarrassed that we were continuing to talk tough instead of talking smart from our political candidates. and that our friends and some of our enemies all around the world are hearing this. not only isis, but russia and it has been reported today, prime minister cameron in the uk is making fun of one of our candidates. and finally, i was angered. you know, it's continuing the sound bites of every solution is to bomb more, send in forces, and we're talking about a generational issue in this fight against sipz. and yet, people are treating it like a very simple problem. it's just really unfortunate. >> carl, i want to play one particular exchange about the
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scale and the scope of u.s. military action against isis, this is between rand paul and chris christie. let's play this. >> if you're in favor of world war ii, you have your candidate. you know, here's the thing. my goodness, what we want in a leader is someone with judgment. not someone who is so reckless as to stand on the stage and say, yes, i'm jumping up and down. i'm going to shoot down russian planes. >> what reckless is calling assad a former. what reckless is is allowing russia to come into crimea and ukraine. what reckless is is inviting russia into syria to team with iran. that is reckless. and the reckless people are the folks in the white house right now. barack obama and hillary clinton are the reckless people. >> carl, what's interesting in the exchange, we saw many like it, because there really is this
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divide in the gop. you have the rand paul on one side, chris christie, you have rubio and cruz. >> i don't think rubio and cruz are too far apart in their bellicosity, actually. i think there was a recklessness that was astonishing to the whole debate. a bellicosity, an ignorance about real foreign policy and national security policy and history. we carpet bombed last in vietnam, didn't work. these strategies of going in on our own and boots on the ground to sacrifice an apocalyptic vision that isis would like us, to be invited in, to see our soldiers beheaded. this is real recklessness. and the generals, if you talk to the generals, you talk to the foreign policy experts in the national security community, they are horrified by this kind of talk. >> kathleen, were you surprised? cruz and rubio have -- sorry, trump and cruz have taken shots at each other out on the campaign trail in interviews, sometimes privately, out on the
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campaign trail, but on the stage, donald trump saying, oh, he's a good guy. i've gotten to know him over the last couple of days. >> yeah, they've discovered each other in some fresh way that we don't know about, but maybe that's just las vegas. it has that affect on people sometimes. but, you know, just to talk about trump for a minute, i can't imagine that anyone would feel comfortable with him as commander in chief. >> he's leading in the polls? >> well, i know that. but again, polls, i think it's very important that we keep polls in perspective. yes, he is leading. but a lot of the people who love him are not actually demographically the people who show up to vote. i've been talking to pollsters today. people have been in that business for a very long time and how they judge a poll today versus what's going to happen down the line. and there's a vast difference. we still have several more
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debates, before even iowa. so we don't know what those poll numbers actually mean. and remember when trump was talking to jeb bush. and he was saying, oh, yeah, you're the tough guy, jeb, and rolling his eyes and all of that. oh, jeb's got a little bit -- i don't know why i'm calling him "jeb." governor bush said, well, you can't just insult people, you can't become commander in chief if you're going to insult people all the way up. and trump said, all i know, jeb, i'm at 41 and you're at 3%. and jeb bush said, it doesn't matter. and of course, what he's saying is, it does not matter what your poll numbers are. what we're talking about is the character and temperament of the person who is in charge of the security of this country. and what the poll numbers say is not really relevant to the discussion about who's going to make the best commander in chief. and historically, when you talk
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about the importance of historical context, bush is a student. he has -- he does have the context more than some people who just don't take the time to pick up the books and read them. so i think that even though he didn't come across very well and even though his poll numbers are now still diving, you know, he is the more -- he's trying to make the point by attacking trump and pointing out his over the top commentary, that this is a serious, serious job and she's a serious, serious candidate. whether that plays out in a different way, i don't know. >> general hertling, the so-called commander in chief test is not only about what happens in the battle field, but also, here at home. i know you feel strongly about bowe bergdahl being brought into this campaign, particularly about what donald trump has been saying. >> indeed. and i think lindsey graham, senator graham got a little fired up about that in the undercard debate. and basically said, hey, as the president -- and i would even expand that and say, even as a candidate, you can't say those kind of things. and the reason why is, it's not just the verbocity and what's being say, but it affects the trial. i could see the lawyers coming up and saying, our client can't
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get a fair trial, because if there's anybody on the jury who's a trump supporter, they've heard donald trump say, the guy should be found guilty and executed. so it's something we in the military call command influence. and you can haven't it in a military trial. but, again, it goes back, again, to what i've said to you before, anderson. we in the military judge our leaders on three very distinct categories. character, presence, and intellect. and in each one of the candidates last night, i saw a lack in some of those areas. >> general hertling, carl bernstein, kathleen parker, thank you very much. coming up next, how the debate went down with a group of voters you may not have heard much about until now, and republicans who happen to be muslim. and what happens next in boston after prosecutors failed to get a conviction in the first case they brought. you like it spicy! get complete protection with the purple pill. the new leader in frequent heartburn. that's nexium level protection.
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one of the sharpest confrontations came early last night in las vegas. jeb bush taking aim at donald trump's planned moratorium on any and all non-american muslims entering the country. >> this is not a serious proposal.
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in fact, it will push the muslim world, arab world away from us at a time when we need to re-engage with them in order to be able to create a strategy to destroy isis. so donald, you know, is great at the one-liners. but he's a chaos candidate. and he'd be a chaos president. he would not be the commander in chief we need to keep our country safe. >> well, beyond alienating potential allies in the war on isis, there's also the risk of alienating conservative voters who might happen to be muslim. they've seen threats against their community as well as actual attacks on it ramped up recently and they vote. some watched the debate and spoke to our randi kaye. >> mr. trump? >> thank you. i began this journey -- [ audience booing ] >> reporter: that was the reaction when donald trump first appeared during the cnn republican debate. this group of mostly republican and independent muslim americans found little reason to cheer for him. >> radical, islamic terrorism came into effect even more son that it has been in the past. and we've opened up a very big discussion that needed to be opened up. >> reporter: a discussion those
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here believes puts them at risk. in fact, at this school in southern florida where we watched the debate, someone spray painted the words "f muslims" in bright, red letters on the wall. just days after trump's call to ban muslims from entering the u.s. >> it's the first time that muslims are fearing for their life, for their children. >> reporter: this woman says some of her muslim friends have been called terrorists and spit on in public. >> wherever there's anti-islamic rhetoric in the country, there's always a huge backlash. >> it's very easy for women who are described to be identified as muslims. puts a lot of attention on muslim women. so definitely there's an air of anxiety. >> reporter: during the debate, mr. trump once again defended his call to ban muslims, saying it's about safety and security, not religion. this group doesn't buy that.
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>> it gives isis propaganda. isis wants to make it seem like the west does not want muslims. that it is fighting a war against islam. and that they represent islam and therefore, they're the only refugee we have. >> reporter: this independent voter likes jeb bush and agrees with him that the u.s., instead, must engage the arab world in order to defeat isis. why is this election so important for the muslim community? >> because, unfortunately, the muslim country has been thrown in the middle, as a political tool. what is a cheap shot, like trump is doing, and saying things so he can look tough, like he's in a show business. but this is not show business. >> reporter: this group isn't only turned off by trump, but also by ted cruz and his idea to, quote, carpet bomb isis territories. watching this debate, was there anything that offended you? >> just the idea of like, we're just going to carpet bomb people. i think that's a very barbaric and primitive way to address a situation. >> reporter: does it make you angry watching this debate? >> yes, it does. because none of the candidates have talked about a diplomatic
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solution. all they're talking about, carpet bombing, killing the families of the terrorists. or just go after breaking the muslim community. and that is not a solution. >> reporter: this community is hopeful whatever the strategy is, it won't point the finger at them. randi kaye, cnn, ft. lauderdale, florida. >> digging deeper now with fareed zakaria, host of cnn's "fareed zakaria gps." i keep thinking back to george bush in the days after 9/11, visiting a mosque and making a point to say, we're not in a war against islam. there were real strategic reasons for saying that? >> absolutely. bush really understood at heart, this was a debate within the world of islam. that he needed to enlist the
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majority, the moderates, the arab states, you know, muslims in various communities, to speak out against radicals. to speak out against extremism. but it's also, you know, true that within the united states, when he fought the election in 2000, he had courted the muslim community in america quite aggressively. and you know, he had found that nobody knows, because we don't have good polling on this, but it appears he actually did better than gore, because, first of all, the whole idea of a muslim community in america, these are desperate people. there's some from pakistan, some from malaysia, some from egypt. they don't think of themselves as one, until all of this, really. in a weird way, trump has herded them into one space, where they would have ordinarily thought of a conservative businessman from malaysia, a professional from turkey would have parted themselves very different from a palestinian refugee on the other hand. >> and to paint an entire group of billions of people with a very broad brush, i mean, it can be a dangerous thing. i mean, just, from a strategic standpoint, it is, essentially, what opponents want? it is what groups like isis and al qaeda actually want. >> and they keep making this
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point. they talk about isis propaganda, isis talks about a gray zone. they see themselves as representing a kind of radical, in their view, pure version of islam. then there's the infidels and that gray zone of people in the middle. they're trying to make sure there's no gray zone. >> right. often it's the moderates that get attacked first by these groups, because they don't want there to be this gray zone. they want it to be black and white, them or us. >> and if you think about it right now, the war against isis, the vast majority of the people die rg muslim, but the vast majority of people who are fighting are muslim. the kurds, the turks, whoever is going out there, the sunni arabs, there are virtually no americans, christians, non-muslims in the fight. it's moderate muslims, trying to take on the radicals. and what we should be doing, it seems to me, is supporting those people, encouraging them and making them feel, no, you represent what we see as the world of islam, not isis. >> it was one of the points that lindsey graham made on the undercard debate, which is, what do you say to the king of jordan, who is an ally in this
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fight, you know, this offends huge numbers of people in jordan, you know, does the king of jordan not get allowed into the country? he's muslim? >> you know, part of the difficulty, i think the media is having is how to deal with a proposal that is, quite frankly, nonsensical. he begins by saying, it's a complete and total shutdown of all muslims, then he says, no, i don't mean american citizens. then somebody asks him about government officials. he says, no, we'll make an exception for that. and then someone asked about athletes. he said, we'd make an exception for that. first of all, it's not a complete and total shutdown. secondly, there's no way to figure out who's a muslim. the whole thing is so preposterous you almost feel like, i'm not going to take this seriously as a policy proposal. what it really is, is you're trying to push a button. you're trying to get at people's
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gut by playing with their fears. and that's the level at which trump is doing it. he doesn't even bother to defend the proposal. we have to do something. meaning, i just wanted to raise these fears and you can debate the policy proposals, if you want. >> fareed zakaria. just ahead, the battle between marco rubio and ted cruz heating up. the junior senator didn't attack front-runner donald trump much last night. instead, they saved their punches for each other. see what's at stake for them and what sets them apart. yes, we are twins. when i went on to ancestry, i just put in the name of my parents and my grandparents. i was getting all these leaves and i was going back generation after generation. you start to see documents and you see signatures of people that you've never met. i mean, you don't know these people, but you feel like you do. you get connected to them. i wish that i could get into a time machine and go back 100 years, 200 years and just meet these people. being on ancestry just made me feel like i belonged somewhere. discover your story. start searching for free now at ancestry.com.
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fresh from last night's debate in las vegas, marco rubio and ted cruz hit the campaign trail today, hoping to capitalize on their debate performances. the two rivals traded punches last night, repeatedly slamming each other's record in the senate, when cruz bashed rubio for co-sponsoring the gang of eight immigration reform bill, rubio hit back with this. >> as far as ted's record, i'm always puzzled by his attack on this issue. ted, you support legalizing people who are in this country illegally. ted cruz supported a 500% increase in the number of h-1v visas, the number of workers who are allowed into this country and ted supports doubling the number of green cards.
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>> i understand that marco wants to raise confusion. it is not accurate, what he just said, that i supported legalization. indeed, i led the fight against his legalization and amnesty bill. and you know, there was one commentator that put it this way, that for marco to suggest our record's the same, is like suggesting the fireman and the arsonist have the same record, because they're both at the scene of the fire. >> well, that's pretty much how it went all night between the two. their long-simmering feud now a full-on boil. both senators are similar in many ways, but very far apart on others. one thing they do have in common, their determination to be their party's alternative to donald trump. tom foreman takes a closer look. >> reporter: even in the fiery midst of the year's final gop debate, the fight between ted cruz and marco rubio stood out. >> marco knows what he's saying isn't true. >> it sounds like what he's outlining is not to lead at ul. >> reporter: in some ways, the clash might seem surprising. both are cuban americans, both 44, both conservative, both
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junior senators from southern states. but that's where the similarities end. >> isis and radical islamic terrorism will face no more determined foe than i will be. >> reporter: when cruz lit up phrases about bombing terrorists, rubio said the texasian undercut fundings for the very planes needed for the job. >> we are going to be left with the oldest and smallest air force we have ever had. >> reporter: when rubio railed about cruz's backed legislation to curb government data collection, cruz came right back. >> the meta data problem was a valuable tool we no longer have at our disposal. >> senator cruz? >> well, i would note that marco knows what he's saying isn't true. >> reporter: and on it went. on immigration, rubio punching, cruz countering. >> as far as ted's record, i'm always puzzled by his attack on this issue. ted, you support legalizing people who are in this country illegally. >> reporter: i understand that marco wants to raise confusion. it is not accurate, what he just said, they supported legalization. >> reporter: the two have decidedly different political
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styles. cruz is the go-it-alone crusader who's often seen as uncompromising, to a fault, and rubio tries to get along with the republican old guard, even as he presents himself as a reformer. but what really has them at odds right now is math. the whole party is looking to see who will emerge as the chief challenger to donald trump and these two men know only one person can have that job. tom foreman, cnn, washington. >> lots to talk about. joining me now, cnn political commentator, amanda carpenter. she's the former communications director for senator ted cruz. also, cnn political reporter, nia-malika henderson. amanda, you've got cruz and rubio head-to-head last night. if trump does falter, do you see this race as possibly coming down to the two of them? >> absolutely. i do think that. a lot of people have forecasted
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it would come down to them. it's really interesting. we've seen sort of the governor's fall as a collective class and the senators rise. and one of the reasons i think that is is because the senate has been the closest, most proximate place for someone to really fight against the obama agenda. while the governors want to look back and talk about their records, they weren't really in the middle of the fight. i do see a cruz/rubio primary happening, but for the life of me, i can't figure out why rubio is picking these fights right now with ted cruz, reminding the conservative base of what they view as his greatest sin with the gang of eight, rather than trying to take away support from jeb bush, chris christie, and the others in the so-called establishment lane. >> nia, the rubio factor, here's someone who many say has been effective debate after debate, and yet, he hasn't made really major stumbles so far. is this someone you can see the gop coalescing around? >> reporter: it's anybody's guess. i think the whole point now, right, is that donald trump will just implode. that, obviously, hasn't happened. in that group, where rubio is, you've got chris christie, who had a pretty good debate right now, hasn't been able to gain
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any traction nationally, but is doing well in new hampshire. and i thought jeb bush was all of a sudden much more relevant, at least on that debate stage. he certainly got a lot of money. perhaps he is able to camp out in new hampshire and gain some traction there. i think rubio's problem, he's great on that debate stage. but sort of the rubio surge has yet to happen, at least in polls. and if you talk to folks, his ground game certainly isn't as good as ted cruz's is. so you wonder where he starts to play. is it nevada. he does look a little strong in new hampshire. but he's got to figure out where he is able to make his stand. it really is, i think, all about the identity he's tried to carve out, which is to be everything to everybody. which is a really tough thing to do, to be a kind of bridge between sort of the tea party conservatives and the
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establishment as well. >> amanda, talk about the ground game. cruz seems to have been playing kind of a long, a long war strategy, a long game strategy. he's been, you know, campaigning a lot in the south. how strong of a ground game does he have? >> listen. he's known that this is probably going to be a longer race just due to the nature of having so many contestants in the field. you can't count on just winning iowa and getting slingshot moment that will take you through the three states. it's probably going to come down to the super tuesday. so he's been visiting a lot of places like georgia. he's got a strong support network in texas and the other southern states. he is prepared to go the distance through february, into the month of march, where i think other candidates are looking for momentum from the early states. we've seen the last two cycles. you can win iowa. that's great. it's a good start. it hasn't meant anything the two previous cycles. although, i think this is a little bit different. many people who have not been inclined to support cruz are coming his way, because they see cruz as a way of blunting trump's momentum. and he becomes a more practical alternative to donald trump. >> nia, i was talking to van jones last night.
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he was saying, as a democrat, the people that, the person that hillary clinton does not want to face up against is marco rubio. do you agree with that? >> that's right. and marco rubio very much aware of that notion among democrats. he sent out a note to that effect, to his supporters today, via e-mail, saying that he's the one the democrats fear. he does, i think, pose challenges for hillary clinton, almost in the same way that barack obama posed challenges for hillary clinton. he is young, he's a fresh face, he's a minority. that certainly helps him. you know, he is basically -- he would be sort of the dream candidate that would come out of the gop autopsy report, right? somebody who could expand the base of the party and perhaps appeal to latinos. what's interesting here, that appeal to latinos with his backing of immigration reform might be the big deal breaker among gop primary voters, and we saw that last night. that's going to be something that he's going to have to continue to explain and that ted cruz is really going to want to hit him on, as well as rand paul making immigration reform and illegal immigration a security issue. >> nia-malika henderson and amanda carpenter, thank you both. up next, more on our breaking news. a hung trial and a mistrial in the freddie gray case and more
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protests in baltimore tonight. and five others who are still waiting for their day in court. back to our breaking news. a hung jury and a mistrial for the first police officer charged in the death of freddie gray, who suffered a broken neck in police custody. we have an update on that and where this leads the case from the first officer standing trial and fife others awaiting their day in court. ♪ ♪ you may not even think about the energy that lights up your world. but we do.
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>> a hung jury for the first officer charged in the death of fredd freddie gray preside. baltimore on edge tonight. people took to the streets, along with an especially heavy police presence. gray's family is among those appealing for calm. so are baltimore authorities and so far, calm has prevailed. i want to check in with brian todd who is in baltimore for us tonight. what are you seeing where you are, brian? >> reporter: anderson, this has been a pivotal moment for the city and so far things have been pretty peaceful. this is an example of what you're seeing in the city of baltimore tonight. behind my, three unmarked police vans full of officers. police trying to maintain a visible presence here, but not an overbearing, not an overwhelming presence. they are, in several streets here, patrolling around kind of subtly, just walking the streets, and hanging around, waiting for any possible protests to happen. this is -- we're walking the route now where there was a protest march earlier tonight. it came up this way and came across the street over here to the baltimore juvenile justice center, where protesters were basically protesting against the
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arrest and detention of a 16-year-old young man, who was taken into custody after scuffling with sheriff's deputies. there was one other arrest of a protester for doing the same thing down around the city hall and the courthouse area. and that's really the extent of the clashes tonight, anderson. protesters have just broken up here a short time ago. this was a critical moment. mayor stephanie rawlings blake, police commissioner kevin davis had all appealed for calm. community leaders said they were going to be out tonight in some of the critical areas where we saw such violence back in april to appeal to people to stay calm, and grow wanted to protest, certainly you could be loud and passionate, but don't break the law and don't engage with police. and that is pretty much how it played out tonight, anderson. again, a pretty critical moment. people here not necessarily pleased with a mistrial, but kind of waiting to see what the next step is. >> legally, what is the next step from the d.a.? how closely are the protesters?
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and i assume protesters are watching that very closely? >> reporter: they are watching it very closely. the lead prosecutor, marilyn mosby, may make a decision as early as tomorrow on whether to re-try officer william porter. that's going to be kind of a critical phase here. because you have five other trials, of course, of baltimore city police officers aside from porter's case. porter's case was going to be critical. you've got another case, i believe, coming up in january, where officer cesar goodson, his trial may start in january. all of these tries will be playing out between now and march. so protesters and protest leaders are watching the next step very carefully. we don't hear of any planned protests for tomorrow, but these things are very dynamic. they're very spontaneous. maybe depending on what the
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prosecutor says tomorrow, about a possible re-trial of officer porter, you may see another protester's presence. >> brian todd, appreciate it. joinings now, two former federal prosecutors, jeffrey toobin and sunny hostin, and former nypd detective, harry houck. were you surprised by this, sunny? >> i wasn't surprised by this, actually. >> you said they had rushed the charges? >> i've been critical of the decision that the state's attorney made, only because we know that freddie gray was arrested on april 12th. he died on april 19th in the hospital. she announced her charges on may 1st, anderson. i have never, in my career, seen murder charges brought against six different defendants in under two weeks. you just simply cannot investigate and put a theory together for a trial that quickly. and so, i'm not surprised that this jury struggled with this case. and i think that we need to call it what it is. this really is a loss for the prosecution. prosecutors win about 95% of their cases. there's a 95% conviction rate. only 5% of cases end up in a
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hung jury. so this is a really big problem for the prosecution, especially because they say they needed porter's testimony for the next two trials. one is january 4th, which is the van driver, officer goodson. the next one is january 25th, which is sergeant white. so if you don't have that information, if you don't have that testimony, what do you do? and the public's confidence, i think, in the system, has been shaken, because of really prosecutorial immaturity. >> jeffrey, you have been saying all along, the case against porter wasn't very strong. >> yes. and you know, think about it. there was no witness to porter's behavior, except porter himself. and porter testified, and from all that i can tell, he was a credible witness. and he, by the prosecution's own acknowledgement, did call for help, for medical help at some point. now, the theory of the prosecution case was that he should have strapped him in, he should have strapped freddie gray into the fan and that he called too late. those are tough -- that's a tough basis on which to charge -- to convict a police officer with basically a good record. and the jury didn't do it. now, i think one of the key issues that we don't know the answer to is how the jury split. was it 11-1 for conviction? was it 11-1 for an acquittal?
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that could have a big impact on whether the prosecutor re-tries this case. but in any case, this is a very bad result for the prosecution. and i think all of these cases are in jeopardy now. >> and harry, obviously, this has an impact on all the other cases as well. >> sure, exactly. this is definitely a loss for the prosecution in this case. i never thought there was any evidence at all against police officer porter. you know, all the evidence i saw that was put forth in this case, regarding it, was statements that he had allegedly made. the statements he made were fine. he informed his sergeant that gray wanted to go to the hospital. there's no evidence to indicate whether or not, if he went to the hospital, at that time or at the hospital where he finally did, had anything to do with his death at all.
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would he have lived? there's no -- there's no medical examiner out there that's saying that he would have lived if he went to the hospital any earlier. >> right. >> so, you know, as a police officer, you're not -- you're not a doctor. you need -- you've got a little leeway there to be able to make a decision on whether or not somebody wants to go to the hospital or not. >> was it a mistake, sunny, to try porter first? or did they think this was the easiest one? >> my understanding is that they tried porter first, because they needed him to get to goodson, who is, i think, in their view, the most culpable, the van driver, and they needed porter's testimony to try to convict sergeant white. and so, they had to do it this way, once all of the trials were sort of separated, but the
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bottom line is, if the prosecution thought that he was the low-hanging fruit. if the prosecution thought that that was the easiest or least-culpable defendant, then you give that guy immunity. you don't try that guy. if you don't take a plea, you give the guy immunity and you try to get a conviction against the one that you think was the bad or was the worst. >> and i don't think the people of baltimore would rebel if five officers were prosecuted versus six. it just doesn't have a political or even a great moral significance, the difference between five and six. and the reason why prosecutors usually start with their best case is that it starts a cascade. if you convict one person, you can then usually get plea bargains with the rest of them. so the idea of starting with your weakest case, which has now led to this bad result for the prosecution, leaves them in a worse situation than if they've never charged them at all. >> what happens now? >> i think they've got to try the other cases, with the evidence they have. and sunny was talking to some of the lawyers involved here, and learned that the lawyers for porter are not ready? you know, the prosecution, when
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they want a retrial, they usually say, let's start on monday, the defense lawyers have other commitments. they're going to push this thing months down the road, which, you know, i think is just, again, bad news for the prosecution. >> i see them retrying the case. for me, this is a political prosecution. i don't think there's any evidence here at all, porter or at least the three officers that took him down, that are responsible for the death of freddie gray here, so, i think that they have to try him again, just for political reasons. >> i think the politics are -- i think harry's exactly right. >> and i think what's so interesting about it is, how can they make the decision so quickly to re-try porter. this is a case where you've got to go back to the office, you got to get the transcripts, you've got to try to interview jurors, you've got to have an executive meeting and figure out, can we win this case? if they announce tomorrow, quite frankly, they're charging officer porter, it's another example of prosecutorial indiscretion. >> jeff toobin, sunny, harry, thank you. just ahead, i'll talk to the family attorney about how the family is doing and what comes next, what they think about this development. we'll be right back.
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>> it's 9:00 p.m. here in new york. republicans try to capitalize on last night's debate. more than 18 million people watched. the focus, national security, stopping terror attacks, stopping isis. new developments tonight on all of those fronts. but first, how the two front-runners tried to turn their debate performance into a post debate bounce.
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let's start with jeff. donald trump's speech in arizona, almost like a self-declared victory lap. >> anderson, it certainly seems that way. if donald trump was subdued last night, he certainly was not today. he entered this rally in dramatic fashion. he was landing his airplane right in the front of a hangar. loud, loud music from the air force one sound track. not surprisingly here. so this is all part of his plan to, you know, if you say you're winning, you are winning, you keep winning. but boy, anderson, there was no specifics about policy. there was nothing really discussed that would, you know, change any voters' minds, if someone sort of came to him with an open mind and wasn't quite sure about him. he talked about how he's leading in the polls. he listed 13 separate online polls. he read from a sheet of paper, saying he won the debate last night. so donald trump is obsessed about these polls, about winning. the question is, if he ever does not win in one of the actual contests in iowa or new hampshire or south carolina,
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what will happen then? there was no talk about that today. it was a victory day for donald trump. >> you know, before the debate and the days before, he had said some critical things about ted cruz. he got kind of attacked or cautioned by rush limbaugh, mark levin, conservative radio for going after ted cruz. at the debate, he had the opportunity to repeat the things, he walked it back. did trump say anything about cruz today? >> he said very little about ted cruz. he embraced him a little bit more. he said, he's a very nice guy, and that's all he had to say about ted cruz. anderson, this is one of the most fascinating dynamics of the race here. ted cruz is a serious candidate. he's leading donald trump in iowa, most respected polls say he is growing nationally, but donald trump is not taking him on. it's the first time we've seen this happen in this campaign. so far, it's good for business for both of them, to sort of embrace one another.
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but i have to think that that will change coming in the new year, when ted cruz continues to ascend here. for today, at least, he did not talk about him at all. he seemed to relish going after jeb bush again. donald trump had more words for jeb bush. but for ted cruz, it's all happiness and hugs and light. we'll see if that keeps up. i'm not sure it will. >> happiness, hugs, and light. ted cruz spent more time last night squaring off with marco rubio than trump. for that, let's go to sunlen serfati in los angeles. did cruz address trump at all today? >> reporter: well, keeping in line with last night's debate, anderson, ted cruz said not a single bad word about donald trump today. it was all positive. and he really seemed to go out of his way to praise donald trump today, saying he's energized and happy that a lot of voters will potentially coming out to vote. this is a well-masked strategy by ted cruz here, making sure he doesn't alienate trump's supporters, wants to woo them over to his side, if they should come. and he seems for the most part reallyer