tv Andrea Mitchell Reports MSNBC August 12, 2013 1:00pm-2:00pm EDT
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right now on "andrea mitchell reports," we are following two developing stories at this hour. new york could this be the end of stop and frisk? a federal judge rules it crime fighting tactic violates the constitutional rights of minorities. it is the key element of mayor bloomberg's law enforcement legacy. we are going to hear from him live any moment. redrawing the lines in the drug war. attorney general, eric holder, will talk about his plans for low level non-violent drug offenders. we are going to bring you that announcement and what this shift in policy means for the criminal justice system as well. good day to you, i'm peter alexander in for an dree that
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mitchell. we are going to hear from mayor bloomberg and get his reaction of the judge's ruling. we want to get to pete williams joining us from the news room. a judge made the ruling on the controversial stop and frisk tactics. what exactly was that ruling? what did we learn today? >> she's not ordered the city to stop doing the program. she ordered them to change how they do it. she said it's racially profiling the people they stop. the majority of the folks they stop are either latino or african-american. she says it's simply racial profiling. it's over representing people and you can't do that. it's not looking at suspicious paper, it's not random. it is profiling. she wants to look at the program to make sure the city makes changes, gather more data in
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selected precincts to wear body cameras when they do stop and frisks so courts can get a better idea of how it works. itis not a finding that the entire program is unconstitutional and the city has to stop it, it's instead an order to change it. peter, i would be surprised if the city doesn't appeal. >> give us a sense. what is the expected reaction aside from the appeal by the mayor and commissioner ray kelly. we expect to hear from both of them. they long insists the policies, the stop and frisk tactics correlate to the drops the new york city area has seen in crime. >> the judge says her mission is not to look at whether it's effective, but whether it's constitutional. she has references that seem to think she's skeptical about the effectiveness. that's not the issue. she says it's whether it's constitutional. how strongly they defended it, it would be stunning if they
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didn't appeal it. the next is go to court of appeals and get the full panel to look at it. depending on how it goes, it could wind up before the u.s. supreme court. >> interesting as there's a mayoral race going on in that city. i want to bring you in for a second topic. the headline from the justice department coming out as we speak. eric holder speaking before the bar association in san francisco. he's going to announce new sentences for non-violent drug offenders. what will we hear from him? >> the government doesn't do the sentencing. it's the courts. congress, over the years has been reluctant to change the laws on mandatory minimums. they are still on the books. they tend to get mostly used in drug cases. roughly half of the inmates in prison are there on a drug offense. what holder says is he wants to focus federal resources more on the dangerous offenders and the serious crimes. he's instructing prosecutors to change the way they charge the
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crimes when the cases involve low level offender who is have no violent past and who are not connected with some organization like a drug cartel or a gang or some organized crime unit. in those cases, write the charges so they won't trigger the mandatory minimums. that will allow, first of all, better use of scarce resources. he notes federal prisons are 140% of their capacity and much of the overcrowding has to do with drug offenses. >> i want to get more on that topic, if we can. since 1980, the figures show 1.57 million americans behind bars in this country. there's been an 800% rise in the number of inmates across america in that 30 plus year period. it's an issue they hope to accomplish fixes to, isn't it? >> yes. you are talking the total incarceration levelslocal,
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state and federal prisons. the u.s. leads the world in incarceratio incarcerations. the trend has been coming down. he's, in essence, riding the trend and hoping for support in congress. what he's announcing is strictly an executive action. he's hoping it will help to lead to broader consensus in congress. he notes there's beginning to be some republican support for this. we have heard pushback from law enforcement people saying just having the law, the mandatory minimums on the book with the realistic chance of using them helps to get pleas, helps to negotiate pleas. there's always the question about what percent of the prison population is the low level offenders. that is a kind of a hard number to nail down. people who are opposing mandatory minimums say it's
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roughly half of the drug offenders. a quarter of the federal prison population, they believe, are non-violent offenders who should not be serving these sentences. >> pete williams, thank you very much for your help on those headlines now. joining me now is co-host of "the cycle." hees been reporting on inequalities in the criminal justice system for "presumed guilty." joe an reid is managing editor of grio.com. young minority males. last year, the nypd conducted 532,000 searches on residents 85% of them minorities, 89 of them innocent. this is a law that legalized the idea of presumed guilty.
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does that resolve that? >> it shows a review of the facts from 2004 to 2012 that the nypd presuming guilty or suspicious, this many hundreds of thousands of people was not constitutional because it violates equal treatment, the racial disparity and separate from that, it violates the fourth amendment law about what it takes to stop someone. when you are under a stop like this, a stop and frisk under this policy, under the law, that means you, as an individual, should feel free to walk away. you are only there in a voluntary capacity. that is the legal requirement before you get into race for this kind of stop, which is under a supreme court opinion called terry. most people in new york and the judge found today in this ruling, that it doesn't seem to go down that way and feel voluntari voluntarily. for most people, it's not fair.
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in fact, one more statistic while running through the numbers is whites stopped under this program actually were found more often to have weapons or contraband than minorities yet this program, as you explicated shows minorities being the targets. >> she said this is not ordering an end to the stop and frisk, it's to fix it, alleviate the issues that exist there. minorities were stopped at a rate almost double their share of the population. the city leaders argued it works. what should it look like? what should a stop and frisk program look like going forwards? >> i think for most african-american communities, it should end. this is going to become an issue in the mayoral election where some candidates say they would end the practice. others like christine quinn say they would continue and modify it. new york city experienced a drop in crime. it's a fact.
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new york city experienced a drop in crime when it was not stop and frisk but policing. there's data to show it works as well as, if not better, than stop and frisk. it doesn't have the effect of fraying relationships between the police and communities. what the nypd said is they need to do stop and frisk because it's minority communities that are experiencing crime. rather than trooeating minoriti as victims of crime, you treat them as suspects, you have destroyed the relationship between the officers and the people they are protecting and serving. new york city has another model, another way. it's in their history. ray kelly was police chief when they were doing community policing. it can be done. >> can i add a point? >> go ahead. >> they address that. hey, are we just going into high crime areas which do involve
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minority populations. even when you control for those variables, those who served within this policy to be weak indicators of the guns they are supposed to be looking for as for whether it stops the program, this is how i would put it. this is a long, 200-page opinion, i have read the majority of it, but not all of it. i would say this ruling ends stop and frisk as we know it. it certainly does that. it says it program is unconstitution unconstitutional violating the bill of rights. does that mean it ends all policing that involves stops? obviously not. that's why you have the body cameras to try to make sure when police are stopping people, which is never going to cease, that program works constitutionally. it's fair to say the policy of mayor bloomberg and ray kelly that's divided new york into two cities, that policy, as we know
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it, stops today. >> joe ann, i know you brought up some politicians making the rounds to be the next mayor, can you give us a better sense of where they stand? >> you have two candidates who have come down opposed to stop and frisk. thompson is a complicated figure. he wasn't always opposed. then you have christine quinn, the front-runner, saying she's in favor of keeping form of stop and frisk and modifying it. she's the bloomberg extension candidate in terms of this policy. anthony weiner is a gray area. he's doing media availability today. i wouldn't be surprised if this came up and he was pinned down to whether he would stop stop and frisk. >> thank you very much to both of you. if a prominent politician makes a stop in iowa, it's
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almost impossible not to connect the dots no matter how many years or months the hawkeye voters weigh in. we don't know what day that will take place. joining me for the daily fix, chris cillizza co-host of "in play" and jonathan martin, just back from iowa stumping, if you will. thanks to both of you. i want to put up the sound we heard for those who missed the event. as we said this morning, if you build it, he will come. if you put up a summit, they will come. here is what folks missed over the weekend. >> don't agree with the establishment republicans that we have to change our policies to be more like democrats but we need to change our tactics to be more like they are. >> pressure, let me tell you, this administration has both their hands in your pocket.
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they want to take everything you have and the money you have in your wallet is worth less and less and less every day. >> we have been saying over and over again the people rising up and saying look, career politicians in both parties have let us down. we need to get back to the constitution and the principles that made this country strong. >> chris, let's start where we left off. your impression of ted cruz and his dad rafael. the apple doesn't fall far from the tree in terms of the president. what is the role they will play in republican circles over the next few years in primary states? >> i think ted cruz is thinking of running for president. he was born in canada, but to an american citizen. i have written a lot about it. it is a gray area in terms of his ability to run. my guess is he would be able to. he believes he would be able to.
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you know, look, i would say, if you want to go through everybody who has been through iowa, i refer to jonathan. he's just been there. scott walker, rand paul, all the political names, rick santorum. ted cruz has the best reception. it fits that iowa grass roots republican activist best. washington isn't working. barack obama is leading the country in the wrong direction. i'm a guy not willing to go along to get along. his message, i don't think there's a question really does resound there. >> another man whose message resounds there, when you consider the fact it was last year that rick santorum won the iowa caucuses, he made the headlines attacking the romney campaign, crediting president obama where he described it, at least making an effort to do the same. he's hardly a moderate. how does the party expand its base when see the more
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conservative candidates? >> taking more of an economic populous approach, you don't retreat on conservatism, but appeal to more working class americans by reaching out to them. the challenge, of course, is policy and ultimately that's where it gets tough for some in a working class americans where polling shows like government programs to a certain degree. as far as santorum in iowa goes, he did it the old fashioned way in 2012. all 99 counties, he courted voter by voter and it paid off for him in the caucuses. the challenge he has is politics is changing. both parties, activists are always looking for what's next. it moves so fast. go ahead, please. >> i want to get in, not for a
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lightning round, but flip to the democrats. the headline you were first to report was the trip made by the vice president heading off to the annual steak fry to take place next month. what is the message from the vp when he heads to the iowa crowd? >> there is no bigger event on the democratic calendar than the steak fry that takes place ever fall south of des moines. the message from joe biden is don't forget about me. i am still looking at 2016. he is not ruled out. i think certainly, if hillary clinton decides not to run, he very much wants to give it a long look. by going there and seeing all the democratic activists, i think he is trying to remind them that he may do this yet. he's run twice before. he has a lot of relationships in iowa from two campaigns going back '87 and '88. his doing this is no accident.
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>> chris, as you note in one of your blogs, you note in the fix that hillary clinton's absence created a vacuum in the hawkeye state for joe biden. >> bring up 2016, the only question anyone wants to talk about is what's hillary going to do? hillary clinton is not someone -- joe biden is going there to say i'm here. i may run. hillary clinton can never go to iowa to explore the possibility of running. she has to decide i'm in or out. she can't do what the other candidates can do, which means for the next 18 months or so until she makes up her mind, i have no inside information. she's not going to make up her mind before the midterms. the business that these states have built around hosting candidates who want to run for candidate, all the slots have to be filled. joe biden says i'm the vice president of the united states. if hillary doesn't run, i'm
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going to. amy klobuchar is going to iowa. there is an industry around picking presidents in these early states, peter, without hillary clinton in that industry, all these other folks are going to take advantage of that vacuum. >> a few hundred thousand for the speech. send her to iowa, it gets more tricky. thanks, appreciate it. >> thank you. coming up, we are going martha's vineyard where the president is enjoying rest and relaxation between strategy on his fall agenda. take a look at the photo we got from the white house with the briefing between susan rice. apparently the dress code is athletic gear. a weekend break with time on the greens. it appears he needs work with his short game. yep, a little bit of that. still doesn't help. we'll be right back. what are you doing? oh, hey.
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what's the source of his resentment toward the united states? >> my view and i think the view of many i talk to, he resents being an old kgb guy. he resents russia is no longer the mayor power. >> that was new york senator chuck schumer. the rift between putin and president obama grows every day that edward snowden walks freely within russia's borders.
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chr christen welker joins us. this is a working vacation. susan rice and the president in workout gear. the white house is making sure this is seen as a working vacation right now, aren't they? >> they absolutely are. the optics are important for the white house, of course, because there are so many issues right now. anything from egypt to syria that the president needs to be focusing on. that's why we are getting some of these pictures of the president today being briefed by susan rice. we got a different optic yesterday, the president on the golf course. when the president travels, the office of the presidency goes with him. we were reminded of that this weekend. the ongoing debate really caught up with him. we saw that play out on the sunday talk shows. president obama on friday announced new transparency
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measures for his surveillance program. that was a big topic of debate this weekend. republicans traditionally have been supportive of the surveillance program. this weekend, a new line of attacks started to emerge. congressman mcpaul said that president obama is potentially going to water down the surveillance program with these new tactics that he proposed. he said the president hasn't done a good enough job of explaining the surveillance program to the american people. that's the root of the problem, the new steps are nothing more than window dressing. you had democrats who exprelsse concerns about privacy rights. >> we heard on the challenge that is exist in the president's proposal regarding surveillance. i want to talk about the topic of russia. we heard from john mccain where he said the comments about him being like a kid in the back of a classroom showed the lack of
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respect for vladimir putin. what are the reactions we are hearing from officials to the kinds of critical comments they were been hearing over the last couple days? >> reporter: i don't think they are surprised. this falls in line with the larger republican critique of president obama that he's not tough enough on the world stage. that was the point senator john mccain was making this weekend that representative peter king was making, for example. of course the white house's response is that the president has been tough on a number of foreign policy issues. look at the fact he took down osama bin laden. however, this is an issue, peter, that continues to dog this president, of course, snowden was offered temporary asylum in russia. these are things that are going to overshadow the goals president obama mapped out for his second term, including immigration reform, which right now seems like a huge up hill batter.
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peter? >> thank you. >> thank you, peter. despite the possibility of security forces dispersing the entrenched protesters. thousands hunkered down in two separate sit-in sites in cairo. more than 250 people have been killed since morsi was removed from power by the military on july 3rd. meanwhile, american embassies in egypt and 17 other countries across the middle east and africa reopened sunday. that terror threat, linked with al qaeda triggered the decision to shut the embassies a week ago. the u.s. embassy in yemen remains closed. peace of mind is important when you're running a successful business. so we provide it services you can rely on.
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developing right now on msnbc, that's attorney general, eric holder at the annual meeting of the american bar association speaking out on the topic of efforts to change the way prosecutors file charges for some drug crimes. let's take a listen to the attorney general. >> legalizing the effect on communities largely poor and of color and apply inappropriately they are counter productive. this is why i have mandated a modification of the justice department's charging policy so low level, nonviolent drug offenders will no longer be charged with offenses that impose mandatory minimum sentences. [ applause ] they now will be charged with offenses for which the acomp anying offenses are better
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suited to their individual conduct rather than prison terms more appropriate for violent criminals or drug king pens. reserving it for serious, violent drug traffickers. while making the expenditure smarter and more productive. we have seen that this approach has bipartisan support in congress where a number of senators including dick durbin, patrick leahy and rand paul which i think is promising legislation aimed at giving federal judges discretion to applying minimums to drug offenders. it will save our country billions of dollars while keeping us more safe. the president and i look forward to working with members of both parties to refine and advance these proposals. secondly, the department has now updated its framework for
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considering compassionate release for inmates facing extraordinary circumstances who pose no threat to the public. in late april, the bureau of prison expanded the criteria for inmates seeking compassionate release for medical reasons. today, additional expansions to the policy including revised for elderly inmates who did not commit violent crimes and served significant portions of their sentences. of course, as our primary responsibility, we must ensure the american public is protected from anyone who may pose a danger to the community. considering the applications of non-violent offenders through a careful review process that allows judges to consider whether release is warranted is a fair thing to do. it's the smart thing to do as well because it will enable us to use our limited resources to house those who pose the greatest threat. finally, my colleagues and i are taking steps to identify and
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share best practices for enhancing the use of diversion programs such as drug treatment and community service. it's affective alternatives to incarceration. we are working alongside the judiciary to meet safety impairtives and avoiding incarcerati incarceration. in south dakota, a program prevents at risk young people from getting involved in the federal prison system, improving lives, saving taxpayer resources and keeping communities safer. this is the kind of proven innovation that policymakers and state and tribal leaders should imlate. >> listening to attorney general, eric holder. the primary headlines including efforts to create sentences for non-violent drug offenders in the words of the attorney general quote smarter and tougher. those remarks following other
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headlines about the effort to focus on punishment and rehabilitation for those behind bars. there's another headline, that's president obama in florida over the weekend telling u.s. service members the progress to fulfill veterans affairs, ending the backlog for disability claims by 2015 is promising but still short of the ultimate goal. >> the last time i was with ya, i pledged to cut the backlog, slash the wait times and deliver your benefits sooner. i'm going to be honest with you. it has not moved as fast as i wanted. >> joining me now tom tarantino. tom, nice to visit with you. thanks for coming in. >> thanks for having me. >> before we talk about the changes, i want to demonstrate the problems and show the numbers. itis down from a few months ago, there's a backlog of 500,000 claims for veterans.
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780,000 total claims pending right now. it's some progress. is that sufficient? >> no. unfortunately, it isn't. what we have seen since spring is the v.a. put in renewed effort from the white house, from the v.a., the veterans community and pressure from the american people to produce and produce rapidly. the reality is if we are going to get to backlog zero, we have to keep it for over 120 weeks. it's going to be rough. while we are doing better, going down from 70% to 65% isn't the end game. >> you are talking doing better. what is working? what efforts are making good progress at this point? >> it's an interesting combination of things it v.a. had been working on like a digital process, bringing everything into the computer age and new initiatives as response to public pressure, things like clearing out the 2-year-old claims, mandatory overtime, looking at private medical evidence and having things simple things like opening up
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compensation and claim examinations after work hours so they don't have to take time off work, they can make their appointments. >> you can see some of the people, the faces of those individuals affected by this. right now, that's from your tumbler page. this past spring, they show how long they have been waiting for benefits. timing here is critical for a variety of topics. among them, suicides among veterans. the number by some counts 22 veteran suicides per day. what's being done to battle back on that challenge? >> this is probably one of the toughest issues that this community faces. there is going to be no magic bullet to solving the suicide problem. it's not just about suicide. suicide isn't the problem, it's the end result of a string of failures in the medical community and the health care community. in the transition services from going warrior to citizen.
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to solve that we have to fix the disability claims backlog, make sure they can translate their skills, make sure they know they have benefits. this transition from a warrior to a citizen is smooth and veterans don't end up in a place where they have to take their own lives. >> is it possible there are so many claims there's better awareness that more claims means more people are at least entering the system in some form? >> part of that is the good news story. iraq and afghanistan veterans, 54% of us use the v.a. it's higher than any other c confli conflict. it's because of the high survival rate on the battlefield. the v.a. is doing a better job. it's about telling stories. we have been -- we published the weight we carry. a website where veterans tell their stories about the backlog and the wait they have to get their stories out there. we hear numbers like 500,000
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it's not statistics it's lives. >> are you satisfied with how the obama administration is going? >> the administration has been active behind the scenes. i know the president pays attention to this. i'm paid to know that. it's my job. what i want to see is the president telling that veteran in the middle of the country waiting a year for benefits not only does he have their back but there's light at the end of the tunnel. it's important the president spoke out. we need to see him use the profile and talk about it. this whole month we are going around to congressional districts around the country and putting faces and putting faces to numbers where we are talking to members of congress in their home districts. >> we appreciate you putting faces to the statistics. thank you. >> thank you. we have breaking news. jurors in the whitey bulger
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trial have reached a verdict. this is the fifth day of deliberations in that racketeering trial. the 83-year-old, james whitey bulger is charged with participating in at least 19 murders from the 1970s and '80s. he fled boston in 1984 and was captured in santa monica, california in 2011. there is a verdict in the case of whitey bulger. we will bring the verdict when it happens. you are watching "andrea mitchell reports" here on msnbc. (announcer) scottrade knows our clients trade and invest their own way. with scottrade's smart text, i can quickly understand my charts, and spend more time trading. their quick trade bar lets my account follow me online so i can react in real-time. plus, my local scottrade office is there to help. because they know i don't trade like everybody. i trade like me. i'm with scottrade. (announcer) scottrade. voted "best investment services company."
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the 50e 70s and 80s. he fled in 2011. we are expecting the verdict to be read in a couple minutes. we will let you know as soon as we have more information on that. right now, on a separate topic, here is michael bloomberg, the mayor of new york city responding to a judge's findings on the topics of stop and frisk. take a listen. >> another record low of shootings and homicides this year because our police officers follow the law and follow the crime. they fight crime wherever crime is occurring. they don't worry if their work doesn't match up to a census chart. as a result, today we have fewer guns, fewer shootings and fewer homicides. in fact, murders are 50% below the level they were 12 years ago when we came into office, something no one thought possible back then.
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stop, question, frisk, which the supreme court of the united states found to be constitutional is an important part of that record of success. it's taken some 8,000 guns off the streets over the past decade and 80,000 other weapons. as guns continue to flow on to our streets from other states, we have to take every constitution step to keep them out and to keep them from being used to kill innocent people. today, we have the lowest percentage of teenagers carrying guns of any major city across our country. the possibility of being stopped acts as a vital deterrent, which is critically important by product of stop, question and frisk. the fact that fewer guns are on the streets show that our efforts have been successful.
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there's no question the stop, question, frisk saved countless lives and we know most of those lives saved, based on the statistics have been black and hispanic young men. it's worth remembering as recently as 1990, new york city averaged six murders a day. today, it's driven down to less than one murder a day. think about what that change really means. if murder rates over the last 11 years had been the same as the previous 11 years, more than 7,300 people alive today would be dead. stop, question, frisk, has helped us prevent those and other crimes from occurring. it's not only saved lives, it's helped reduce incarceration rates by 30%. even as incarceration rates in the rest of the nation have gone up. that's why people adrosz country and around the world have come
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to learn about how the nypd has been so successful and how we have driven crime down to record lows. we are the poster child that everybody wants to follow. throughout the trial that just concluded, the judge made it clear she was not at all interested in the crime reductions here or how we achieve them. in fact, nowhere in her 195 page decision does she mention the cuts in crime or the number of lives that have been saved. >> you have been listening to new york city mayor michael broomberg pushing back at the ruling of a new york state judge that stop and frisk violated rights of new yorkers. michael bloomberg is joined by the police commissioner, ray kelly. over the last 12 years he's been in office, the murder rate each year has gone down by 50% saying fewer guns, fewer shootings and
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again, getting back to our breaking news today, jurors in the whitey bulger trial have reached a verdict on this, the fifth day of deliberations in that racketeering trial. we want to get to nbc's kristen dahlgren. she's outside the courtroom in boston. kristen, any sense of when we will hear this verdict read? >> reporter: well, the courtroom is being filled in right now, peter. we have some of whitey bulger's family members there. they're still waiting for the defendant to get into that courtroom. also, a lot of the victims' families are there. we have a producer inside. forgive me if i keep checking my phone here. we're waiting for any word from inside that courtroom of what the verdict is. this jury had the case for 32 1/2 hours, but they had a lot to consider. 32-count racketeering indictment, that included 19 murders and more than a dozen acts of extortion, drug
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trafficking among other charges. a lot for them to consider. they deliberated now for five days. after 35 days of trial, they heard from 72 witnesses. so this has been going on for some time. at times it got heated in the courtroom. 83-year-old whitey bulger now being brought back into the courtroom. so we're waiting to hear the verdict. we'll continue to keep an eye on things and get back to you as soon as we know anything. >> all right, kristen. thank you very much. we'll check in with you as we await the verdict in the whitey bulger trial. we move on to one significant topic today we didn't want to miss. it's that iconic photo you may remember that's gone on to represent the end of an era. this is the famous kiss in new york's times square, the day world war ii officially ended. this wednesday veterans are going to gather in times square to remember a day that is part of the legacy of the greatest generation. spirit of '45 campaign spokesman
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jerry yellen is joining me now. pleasure to be with you. >> thank you for having me. >> we thank you for your service. you flew the last combat mission in world war ii almost exactly 68 years ago. i think it was august 14th of that year. give us a sense of why it's so important we remember on this day. >> well, we were a nation of 16 million people that served in world war ii. we had a profound mission to end the war of tyranny over japan. we did that. then we came home. it seems now 68 years later that are people don't remember what we do. it's up to us to tell the young people of this country what unity of america was all about. >> and that's exactly what you're doing through the spirit of '45 campaign, pushing for a renewed effort for the spirit of national service. give us a sense of what the message is to the next generation about the value in
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national service. >> well, i think in 1940 president roosevelt made a speech called the four freedoms speech. those four freedoms are the basis of our country. the freedom of worship, the freedom of expression, the freedom from war, and the freedom from fear. those four freedoms are not p f prevalent in our world today. the young people have to know that. there aren't too many of my generation left to talk. fortunately, i can do that. >> jerry, give us a sense. can there ever be a next greatest generation? what was so unique to your generation, and will there be another? >> there will be another. it wasn't the baby boomers, children of our -- our children who did these things. they took advantage pretty much of a free life. but the young people today who instantly communicate across the world have the ability to change the world. it's those young people that we're interested in.
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>> if you can, give me a sense of what we can anticipate will take place on wednesday. i know you took part in a ceremony at the world war ii memorial in washington. what was that like, and what will we look forward to taking place on wednesday? >> yesterday was a big day. senator lautenberg was the last man standing from world war ii serving in congress. susan collins, who's the senator from maine, senator inouye and senator lautenberg led the charge to get the second sunday in august passed not as a holiday but as a day of remembrance. there was another nurse in the photograph that we just showed, edith shane was kissed by a nurse, but another nurse, glo a gloria, in the background, will be in times square. i've been married for 44 years, but i'm going to do the kiss
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with her and replay that. >> no one said you weren't a smart man. a pleasure to visit with you. we appreciate your efforts to renew the spirit of national service. thanks for your time. >> thank you so much, peter. >> that's going to do it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." i'm peter alexander in for andrea mitchell. thomas roberts has a look at what's next on "news nation." >> good to see you. coming up, more on that breaking news, the latest you were talking about. as we know now in boston, jurors there have reached a verdict against whitey bulger. we'll find out what that is hopefully in this hour. plus, who other developing stories. first, more on attorney general eric holder's plan to produce sentencing guidelines for nonviolent drug offenders that critics say hit minorities the hardest. also, new reaction from new york mayor michael bloomberg a after a federal judge finds the city's stop and frisk law unconstitutional. it's all up next on "news nation. "
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hi, everybody. good to have you with us. i'm thomas roberts in for tamron hall today. the news nation is following news. after five days of deliberations, a boston jury has reached a verdict in the federal racketeering trial of infamous mob boss whitey bulger. he faces life in prison if found guilty of 19 counts of murder and dozens of other charges. nbc's kristen dahlgren is live in boston. when will we know the details? >> reporter: well, thomas, whitey bulger is now back in the courtroom. the judge has the lawyers at a side bar right now. we're waiting. lawyers inside say it's so quiet you can actually hear the sketch artist's pencil moving. everybody really just waiting and anticipating this after five days of deliberations. the jury had the case for about 32 1/2 hours. that came after a lengthy, lengthy trial. you mentioned all of those counts that they had to go over. 32 count racketeering indictment, including those 19 counts of murder.
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