CBS: Face the Nation - Transcripts January 4, 2015: Schumer, Coons, Cummings

Interview

Below is a transcript from the January 4, 2015 edition of Face the Nation. Guests included Elijah Cummings, Chuck Schumer, Chris Coons, Newt Gingrich, Mark Updegrove, Gwen Ifill, David Ignatius, Susan Page and Dan Balz.

SCIHIEFFER: Today ON FACE THE NATION: the uneasy conversation about race as the new Congress prepares to convene.

Wenjian Liu, one of the New York police officers assassinated two weeks ago, is being laid to rest today. But a showdown is looming between New York cops and Mayor Bill de Blasio over handling of the case. What happens next? We will talk to New York's Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer.

Will the anger against police in the black community spread? We will talk to Maryland Democratic Congressman Elijah Cummings. We will get a Republican take from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. We will explore the controversy over the civil rights film "Selma" with the head of the LBJ Presidential Library, Mark Updegrove. And we will check in with Delaware Senator Chris Coons just back from Liberia with a report on what is right and what's wrong in the efforts to combat Ebola.

Plus, as always, an all-star panelist of analysts,because this is FACE THE NATION.

Good morning. Thousands of police officers from all over the country are gathering in Brooklyn for the funeral of Wenjian Liu, one of the police officers assassinated two weeks ago in the wake of the furor over the death of Eric Garner at the hands of the New York Police Department.

One of those attending the funeral is New York's Democratic Senator Charles Schumer. We spoke to him earlier.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCHIEFFER: Senator, as you and literally thousands of people from across the nation gather to honor officer Liu, hanging over all of it is this nasty situation that's developed between the mayor and New York Police Department.

We now understand that arrests are down 66 percent, traffic citations down 90 percent. Every category of arrest, the statistics show a dramatic drop. What is going on here and is this reaching a crisis state?

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: No, I don't think it is, Bob.

Let me first say, today is day to honor officer Liu and his family and the men and women of the police department. Liu signified the greatness of New York in a me, a poor immigrant, came from China, worked really hard in very difficult jobs, volunteered. He was a volunteer police officer for three years before he became a police officer.

And he, like the other police officers, do a great job making New York the safest city of the large cities in the country. Now, as for the divide, I think New Yorkers agree. We need a very strong police department that continues to keep crime down and we need good community-police relations.

They have started to talk to one another, both sides. That is going to continue. And I don't think the chasm is unbridgeable. If they continue talking to one another, I believe we can solve this problem.

SCHIEFFER: Well, former Mayor Giuliani said on this broadcast last week that all this -- the best step to resolve this would be -- the first thing is that Mayor de Blasio should apologize to the police. Do you believe that's the way to do it?

SCHUMER: Look, we're a few hours from officer Liu's funeral. I'm not going to get in to anything that takes away from honoring him today.

SCHIEFFER: Well, but -- I take your point, Senator Schumer. But this is a very serious situation, and people around the country are watching for some action. You're the senator from New York. Are you saying you're not going to take a position on this at all?

SCHUMER: No, I think that, again, having talked to people on both sides, I think that the chasm is not unbridgeable at all.

Commissioner Bratton has done a good job in Los Angeles in dealing with this issue well. He's dealing with the issue well here. And I think it can be solved.

SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, I will let it go at that.

Let's talk about the new Congress that is going to convene. We understand the first thing that Republicans are going to do is pass the Keystone pipeline legislation. The president hasn't said flatly that he's going to veto it, but it looks like it's headed that way. What do you see happening there?

SCHUMER: Well, look, our Republican colleagues say that this is a jobs bill. But that's really not true at all. By most estimates, it would create several thousand temporary construction jobs and only 35, 35 permanent jobs. Compare that to the number of jobs created in the economy last month, 300,000.

And so Democrats are dubious of this. But we're going to introduce amendments to make it more of a jobs bill. We're going to introduce an amendment to say that the steel used in the pipeline should be made in America, creating American jobs. We're going to introduce an amendment that says that the oil that is used in the pipeline should be used in America. Imagine building pipeline that ships Canadian oil across America to be exported to other countries from Texas?

That makes no sense at all in terms of American working people's interests. We're going to say that the oil should stay here. And finally we're going to introduce an amendment to add clean energy jobs. If you do things for wind and solar energy, you create tens of thousands of more jobs using clean energy.

Why create a very few jobs with the dirtiest of energy from tar sands, when you can create tens of thousands more clean jobs using wind and solar? And, you know, our Republican colleagues are doing what they always do. They're appeasing the few special interests, in this case oil companies and pipeline companies, not really doing what's good for the average American middle-class family in terms of creating jobs.

(CROSSTALK)

SCHUMER: So, I think, Bob, in conclusion, we will have enough votes to sustain a presidential veto.

SCHIEFFER: So, even if these amendments pass, you would still urge the president to veto this legislation?

SCHUMER: Well, yes.

I don't think -- these amendments will make it better, but certainly not good enough at this point in time. And I think there will be enough Democratic votes to sustain the president's veto.

SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, Senator, thank you for joining us this morning.

SCHUMER: We need a much different energy policy.

Yes. Thank you.

SCHIEFFER: All right. Thank you, sir.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHIEFFER: And we turn now to Maryland's Democratic Congressman Elijah Cummings.

Congressman, thank you for coming.

I must say, Senator Schumer seemed reluctant to talk about this whole question of this divide that seems to have developed between the police and people in the black community. But this is a very, very serious thing, which I know that senator would agree with that part.

But I'm going to ask you, do you see what's happening in New York, is that indicative of what the situation is around the country? Do you see that spreading from New York? Where do you see this going? Because it is an extremely complicated and a very difficult issue.

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D), MARYLAND: Let me first express my condolences to the Liu family. And I'm grateful for all that policemen do for us all over the country.

It is a national problem, no doubt about it. Keep in mind that these protests, Bob, took place all over, in every state, and even in London. People are feeling as if they -- justice is not meted out the same way everywhere. They look at these police tactics and they look at situations where deadly force has been used.

And they see African-American men in particular dying. One survey said that the 400 or so deaths from police officers with guns, that 96 percent of them were white officers killing African-Americans. That's a problem.

And so I think what we have to do is, we have to tone it down a little bit and try to create an atmosphere where police, community are working together to solve problems and bring some solutions to these problems. Keep in mind, Cincinnati had major problems a few years ago. And they sat down, they worked with the community, worked with police, and they were able to come up with some good solutions.

SCHIEFFER: I understand exactly what you're saying, but the fact is, police put their lives on the line every single day.

CUMMINGS: That's right. Bob, Bob...

SCHIEFFER: How do you combine an appreciation of that with getting to the root of what you see and what I see as some very real problems?

CUMMINGS: Bob, no doubt about it. They have a dangerous job. I have policemen in my family.

And there's little room for error. But I think what we have to make folks realize is that we -- police realize -- it's not an us against them. And the community must realize it's not an us against them. It's us working together. And so trust has to be established. And there are three things that we have really got to do.

We have got to look at tracking, first of all, to see how pervasive these problems are, training to make sure that police are properly trained to address issues. And there may be issues where excessive force should not be used. And then we have got to have accountability. All three of those things are so important.

But the police have to understand that they need the community and the community needs them. I practiced law for years, criminal law for years. I can tell you, Bob, you're not going to solve crime without the cooperation of the community.

And so we have got to show that it's a win-win situation. I say police and community, it's not about moving to common ground. We're beyond that. We have got to move to higher ground, because this has got to be a win-win for everybody.

SCHIEFFER: You have asked for congressional hearings. Will that really make a difference here? Everybody is always investigating something, and do we need congressional hearings?

CUMMINGS: Bob, I believe that we need to do it.

We investigated the Affordable Care Act a dozen hearings -- three dozen hearings. We need to look at this, because this is something that affects a very significant part of our population. We need to deal with this and we can deal with it, but we have got to sit down and say, OK, we have got to go in another direction, we have got to work together.

And so, no, I -- it will help. We need to -- right after Ferguson, I sent a letter, along with 130 leaders, asking the president to establish a task force, which he has now done, asking them to look at the idea of body cameras. He has endorsed that.

And so we're seeing movement already. I along, with Chairman, Ranking Member Thompson and other ranking members, have asked the speaker to pull together hearings, because the speaker has already said that he thinks it's not a bad idea. So, we -- I think it will be helpful.

SCHIEFFER: Well, I wish you the best on that.

CUMMINGS: I do too.

SCHIEFFER: Thank you very much, Congressman.

CUMMINGS: All right, thank you.

[BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT]

SCHIEFFER: Welcome back to FACE THE NATION. Delaware senator Chris Coons is the top Democrat on a key congressional subcommittee on African affairs, he is just back from Liberia where he went to assess U.S. efforts to control the Ebola epidemic.

Senator, I think everyone appreciates that you're doing what a subcommittee chairman ought to do and that is go where the most important thing -- you're on Foreign Relations; you could have gone to Paris or Rome or someplace like that on a junket. You went to Liberia because that's where we have all our, what, a couple of thousand --

(CROSSTALK)

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D), DEL.: -- 2,400 troops and --

SCHIEFFER: -- trying to work with this Ebola epidemic. Just give me a debrief here, what are we doing right on this, how is this thing going and is there anything we're doing wrong?

COONS: First of all, we've got some great news. Something about which all Americans can be, should be proud. I went to visit our 2,400 troops from the 101st Airborne Division and to see the work that they have done. They have done remarkable work, they and the doctors and nurses of the CDC and the Uniform Public Health Service have really turned the corner on the Ebola epidemic in Liberia.

But I'm calling for a change in strategy by the Pentagon. We can't declare mission accomplished and withdraw too early here. We can bring home a thousand or more of these troops now. They are currently bored because they have accomplished a lot of their mission of building infrastructure, building new Ebola treatment units all over the country, deploying new military testing labs all over the country and setting up a vital infrastructure.

The raging epidemic that threatened the whole country in September is now down to a few embers scattered across this country. But we need a new strategy to adapt to conditions on the ground.

Our troops should remain, some of them for the rest of the year, to help make sure that Liberians can transition our emergency Ebola treatment units into community level health clinics and transition our high-tech military mobile testing labs into Liberian-run local labs. So going forward this epidemic really is brought to an end in Liberia.

SCHIEFFER: I notice Congress, I guess in the last appropriation, did authorize $5 billion more to fight Ebola.

COONS: That's right.

SCHIEFFER: Are you saying we can spend less there and more in other places or how do you see this overall fight now?

COONS: First, that money was half for making sure that we are safe here at home, for investing in vaccine development, for investing in making sure we have got the equipment and the materials and the training at our hospitals and at our borders and in our country to make sure we're safe against any future flare-up of Ebola.

But second, the money we are spending in Liberia I'm saying we could spend more wisely. We could change our strategy and direction and I'll be sending a letter to the Secretary of Defense and sending a briefing memo to the president both tomorrow to call for this change in strategy. We can spend this money more wisely and make sure we get the job done.

SCHIEFFER: You went at some risk, did you go through the quarantine process?

Or how did all that work?

COONS: Yes, I was -- I am being tested twice a day, I'm self monitoring, I'm checking my own temperature; as long as you have no symptoms and no temperature, you can't infect others and I'm comfortable that I'm fully complying with the CDC protocols.

I also had a very safe itinerary I didn't go in to any hospitals where there were Ebola patients. I wasn't directly in touch with any Ebola patients. The real heroes here are the men and women, the missionaries, the volunteers, our troops who have gone in and who have spent a lot of time caring for and supporting those who care for Ebola victims.

SCHIEFFER: Senator, thank you very much. I think Americans appreciate what you have done here and we want to wish you the best on this.

COONS: Thank you.

SCHIEFFER: We'll keep an eye on it. All right. And we'll be right back with our panel.

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