NBC "Meet the Press" - Transcript: Trayvon Martin and Detroit Economics

Interview

DAVID GREGORY:
This Sunday… The president seeks to ignite a new conversation about race in America.

TAPE - President Obama:
"Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago."

DAVID GREGORY:
The president's deeply personal remarks about the after effects of the George Zimmerman trial add to the debate about stand your ground laws, racial profiling and the plight of African American boys in the criminal justice system and our society.

TAPE - President Obama:
"If Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk? (out here) and do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting Mr. Zimmerman who had followed him in a car because he felt threatened."

DAVID GREGORY:
This morning a special discussion about race relations and the impact of the president's remarks on the black community and beyond.
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With us: the president of the national urban league, Marc Morial; chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Congresswoman Marcia Fudge; author and PBS host Tavis Smiley; former chairman of the RNC Michael Steele; and Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree.

Plus ...

The remarkable financial collapse of a major American city ... Detroit files for bankruptcy ... What's next for its residents - including thousands of city employees and retirees - and what does it say about the plight of America's cities in this fragile economic recovery?

We'll hear from the current and former governors of the state: the man now in office - Republican Rick Snyder and his predecessor: Democrat Jennifer Granholm. Plus insights and analysis from David Brooks of the New York Times and NBC's Chuck Todd.

ANNOUNCER: From NBC News in Washington, the world's longest running television program, this is MEET THE PRESS with David Gregory.

DAVID GREGORY:
What a unique moment Friday was for this presidency, for any presidency. And, Congresswoman, I wanna start with you. Describe the impact of the president coming out at the White House speaking about race in such a personal and, frankly, off-the-cuff way.

MARCIA FUDGE:
I was very proud, quite frankly. I think that it was timely, but more importantly I think that he could feel the anger that was going around across this country. And he felt that he needed to respond in a way that I think took a lot of courage.

For him to basically say that we have a situation where a young man is basically convicted of his own murder, that someone can hunt you down and then say, "I'm afraid," and kill you; he made it clear that Trayvon Martin had rights as well. And he made it clear as well that African American men, for history, for a very, very long time, have had to deal with this problem.

DAVID GREGORY:
You know, as I talked to people inside the White House, there was a sense that he wanted to provide context--

MARCIA FUDGE:
Absolutely.

DAVID GREGORY:
--for this debate. And I think it's important for people who may have missed the comments to hear a little bit more from the president on Friday, again, comparing himself to Trayvon Martin. I want to show a portion of that.

TAPE -- PRESIDENT OBAMA:
"When Trayvon Martin was first shot I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago. And when you think about why, in the African American community at least, there's a lot of pain around what happened here, I think it's important to recognize that the African American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn't go away."

DAVID GREGORY:
A history that doesn't go away. And yet, Tavis Smiley, you were critical of the president. You said on Twitter, "His comments were as weak as pre-sweetened Kool-Aid. He took too long to show up and express outrage."

TAVIS SMILEY:
I appreciate and applaud the fact that the president did finally show up. But this town has been spinning a story that's not altogether true. He did not walk to the podium for an impromptu address to the nation; he was pushed to that podium. A week of protest outside the White House, pressure building on him inside the White House pushed him to that podium. So I'm glad he finally arrived.

But when he left the podium, he still had not answered the most important question, that Keynesian question, where do we go from here? That question this morning remains unanswered, at least from the perspective of the president. And the bottom line is this is not Libya, this is America. On this issue, you cannot lead from behind.

What's lacking in this moment is moral leadership. The country is begging for it, they are craving it. And I disagree with the president respectfully that politicians, elected officials, can't occupy this space on race. Lincoln did, Truman did, Johnson did; President Obama did. He's the right person in the right place, at the right time. But he has to step into his moment. I don't want him to be like Bill Clinton, when he's out of office, regretting that he didn't move on Rwanda. I don't the president to look back, David, and realize that he didn't do as much as he could have in this critical moment.

DAVID GREGORY:
To Tavis' point, Professor, there has been criticism. It's been building over the course of the week. Janet Langhart Cohen wrote in the Washington Post, journalist and author, on Tuesday that he had imposed himself in this silence about race.

And she wrote this: "During this period of self-imposed silence, we have watched our criminal laws become radicalized, our race criminalized. Blacks continue to be faced with punishing unfairness and inequalities, soaring rates of unemployment, discriminatory drug laws, disproportionate prison sentences, unequal access to health care and healthy food, unfair stop-and-frisk policies, and accidental shootings of unarmed black men by the police; even more are treated with indifference of contempt. We're told to stop complaining, to get over it, no one cares." Tavis' argument that this has not been part of this president's agenda.

CHARLES OGLETREE:
I disagree with Tavis in a profound way. President Obama's been talking about race and doing things for race for a long time, and the reality is that he walked to the podium. He wasn't pushed to the podium, he walked to the podium.

He's been trying to have this conversation and this was the event, the criminal justice system, that pushed him over the level. And what he said about Trayvon was a continuation of what he said when he was shot in February of 2012. I think that what he said, and if you read his statement, his whole statement, he said, "Let's have a conversation on race. Let's convene that. Let's talk about, you know, we've made some progress as a society, but we still have a long way to go."

And I think that what he said and what he did and what he represents to us is a sense-- people keep making him as if he's the black president. He's the president who happens to be black, and he can do whatever he can do for all of us, but not simply focus on one issue.

MARC MORIAL:
David, what the president did is open the door--

CHARLES OGLETREE:
Yes.

MARC MORIAL:
--to begin a conversation. One speech can't outline every single action step that needs to be taken. And I think the president agonized. It's not difficult to be a "carry the burdens of history" in a nation with so much history. But what he did I think is start the process and sort of sanction, if you will, the need for there to be a discussion, and action, steps.

And I expect that there will be more. Because one thing is certain: The emotional is caught in the response: The vigils of yesterday; the civil rights continuation march on August 24th; the Urban League conference that will take this week in Philadelphia. This conversation at the grassroots level, at the community level, within boardrooms and suites also has just begun.
And I think what I hope it leads to, and what I hope we will see is not only a discussion that started and ends quickly, but a discussion that will lead to serious action steps by the nation.

MICHAEL STEELE:
But that's the key piece, the discussion that starts and ends quickly. I hearken back to the gun debate, and the president bootstrapped the gun argument with his initial comments the day of the jury verdict in a way that was disconnected. And if you look at the momentum behind that discussion, coming off of Sandy Hook, and the raw emotion from the American people saying, "We want something done here. Let's move on this."

What happened? The discussion dissipated. Then this was something that the president came out again and heralded, but then let the steam fall out of it. So my concern on this is it's great to step to the podium-- I tend to agree with Tavis. It's great to step to the podium to be in that moment, but then it's not so much leading but continuing to inspired the conversation so that it doesn't die on the vine--

MARC MORIAL:
But I--

MICHAEL STEELE:
--that it does get life of its own. Because this is a conversation, quite honestly, folks, we need to have first.

MARC MORIAL:
But, look, it is the president must lead. But the president needs cohorts, he needs--

CHARLES OGLETREE:
Well, that's where we come in.

TAVIS SMILEY:
He has that --

MARC MORIAL:
Tavis, let me make my point because my point is that in order to move a piece of legislation, in order to move action steps, the president can in fact lead. And the president is also in an environment of continuing obstruction, that you know well, that report on.

TAVIS SMILEY:
Respectfully, Marc, nobody's argued that he has been up against a headwind. The obstructionism is real. But with all due respect to my friend, Charles Ogletree, the professor's wrong about this. I would ask you, lay on the table right now the evidence of how the president has been trying, Tree, to have a conversation about race--

CHARLES OGLETREE:
I'm talking about action, Tavis, not just a conversation.

TAVIS SMILEY:
I don't think that we have a litany here of things, of moments, where he's tried to have the conversation. To the contrary, respectfully, he's tried to avoid the conversation. Number one. Number two, when he says a politician can't have an impact on this, yes, he gives a wonderful speech, but he basically kicks it back to the community, to community leaders, to business leaders, to celebrities and athletes, and that's real, but the president can't absolve himself from it. Number two. And finally, number three, I don't know how the president argued that he doesn't believe that he can have a role in leading us in a moral conversation. This is not a political issue, this is a moral issue. I don't know how he obviously can't lead us in a conversation on this, but he can on gay marriage? He can on a litany of other--

DAVID GREGORY:
What is this --

TAVIS SMILEY:
--but not race?

DAVID GREGORY:
Professor--

CHARLES OGLETREE:
He can on race.

DAVID GREGORY:
Okay, but what is this, in particular? I mean, the president spoke about wringing bias from our lives. These are intimate conversations between blacks and whites that are very difficult to have in a big public setting. But I think when you start boiling it down, it is the question that I thought he was asking, which is: What is the "this" ? There's no federal program that can deal with this. So how does he lead and on what does he lead.

CHARLES OGLETREE:
There is no federal program that would lead on this. But for me-- he gave a State of the Union address this past year, he talked about the idea that we have to do something about guns, and he talked very candidly about that. He talked about Gabby Giffords, he talked about all the victims. He says, "We want a vote. We simply want a vote." And that was him saying, "I want this to happen," and there was a vote, and it failed, right? So he's been pushing that issue on and on again.

In terms of what he's done for the community, it's very obvious when you look the things that make a big difference. He's been pushing a jobs plan from the beginning, without success. He believes in that. And I think that the reality is that we are expecting all these things from Barack Obama as if he is the man who can do it. There is a congressional role, there is a judicial role.

TAVIS SMILEY:
We agree on that, though.

CHARLES OGLETREE:
And there's not just him. There's more that needs to be done.

MARCIA FUDGE:
Professor, let me just see if I can help put some of this in context as well. You look at what has happened in 2013. We've got obviously the Trayvon Martin that everybody's talking about. This is happening to black boys across this country every day. You look at the fact that we have a Supreme Court that just gutted the Voting Rights Act.

CHARLES OGLETREE:
Right.

MARCIA FUDGE:
And they're trying to do the same thing with affirmative action. You look at a House of Representatives who, just last week, took food stamps out of the farm bill. You look at this past week where they have decided to block Title 1.

We are being attacked from so many sides that you have to at some point decide where you can have the most impact. Now, I think that the president said what he believed. He tried to make people understand that this is not just about some kid with a hoodie. But I think also we have to look at the fact that there is a broader discussion that we need to have. Yes, we need to have a discussion on race, but we also need to have a discussion on how we are treating poor and minority people in this country.

DAVID GREGORY:
How about the particular issue of the law that seemed to loom so large over this situation, and that is the Stand Your Ground law. In Florida, 21 other states they have a law that really redefined the concept of what we consider to be self-defense. The attorney general was in Florida this week and he spoke about it in a way that the president echoed later. Here's what the attorney general said.

TAPE - ATTORNEY GEN. HOLDER:
It's time to question laws that senselessly expand the concept of self-defense and sow dangerous conflict in our neighborhoods. // These laws try to fix something that was never broken. There has always been a legal defense for using deadly force if - and the "if" is important - no safe retreat is available."

DAVID GREGORY:
Now, Michael Steele, some Republicans have immediately politicized this into the gun debate and said-- when I say "politicized," I'm not making a judgment. But they are putting this into the gun argument about the ability to defend one's--

MICHAEL STEELE:
Right.

DAVID GREGORY:
--self. In this particular case, you had the police officers who told George Zimmerman, "Don't pursue this young man."

MICHAEL STEELE:
That's right.

DAVID GREGORY:
"Don't do that." He gets back into his car, he says he feels a threat, and he follows him --

MICHAEL STEELE:
Anyway.

DAVID GREGORY:
That's what the attorney general, what the president's talking about.

MICHAEL STEELE:
Well, and that's what the facts tell us. But the question now becomes is this a proper role for the federal to go into or--

DAVID GREGORY:
Versus the states?

MICHAEL STEELE:
Versus the states. To go into all 21 states now and tell them how to change their laws or to remake their laws? No. I mean, this is something that's going to have to get worked out state by state. You have 21 states, other states out there as well, so it's not just Florida.
So when we start this conversation, you have people talking about, "Well, I'm going to boycott Florida. I'm not going to perform there, I'm not going to go there." Well, you're not going to go to the 21 other states? There's got to be some level of consistency, number one. Number two, on the political side of it, again, the facts of the Trayvon Martin case, this was not brought into it. This was not the underlying argument that was made. The defense backed off that--

MARC MORIAL:
Yes.

MICHAEL STEELE:
--as a defense. My understanding--

MARC MORIAL:
However -- there was a jury instruction, and people have missed the fact that the jury instruction was cited by one of the jurors--

MICHAEL STEELE:
As the reason --

MARC MORIAL
--as the reason for the acquittal. So it was an issue in the case. And these Stand Your Ground laws, what's striking about them is how they got on the books. They got on the books because of an effort by the N.R.A., in conjunction with A.L.E.C., to introduce them and pass them in states across the nation. It is the role of the nation's chief justice--

TAVIS SMILEY:
And this --

MARC MORIAL:
--so who is the attorney general--

MICHAEL STEELE:
But, Marc, do you know who's used the Stand Your Ground law in Florida the most is African Americans.

CHARLES OGLETREE:
In fact, Michael, it's not just in Florida--

MICHAEL STEELE:
But that doesn't mean--

CHARLES OGLETREE:
The reality is that another group pushed Stand Your Ground, but African Americans have been using it around the country--

TAVIS SMILEY:
The hypocrisy-- since Marc mentioned the N.R.A. The hypocrisy of the N.R.A. is on full display here. We have not as yet heard, and I predict that you will never hear the N.R.A. say that if Trayvon Martin had had a gun, he'd still be alive.

CHARLES OGLETREE:
I think they will say that

TAVIS SMILEY
They haven't said it as yet, Tree

CHARLES OGLETREE
Let's put that out there.

TAVIS SMILEY
It's out there --

CHARLES OGLETREE:
Let's put it right here.

MARC MORIAL:
The most important thing is that the Stand Your Ground law is one of the things that has incited and ignited, I believe, this movement across the nation which I think, David, is the beginning of a new civil rights movement to challenge these issues, because of what the congresswoman has said. The landscape has changed. The Voting Rights Act decision by the Supreme Court, which was striking in its superficiality; the Trayvon Martin incident; and everything from the police officers not arresting George Zimmerman at the very beginning, to the need for a special prosecutor, to the fact that the special prosecutor herself did not participate in trying the case; to the composition of the jury; to the way in which the case was tried; all the way to the verdict strikes people as just mountains of evidence--

TAVIS SMILEY:
But Marc--

DAVID GREGORY:
Let me-- well, let me ask this, Professor-the attorney general is looking at this as a potential civil rights violation against George Zimmerman. I heard the president, to me, sort of lower expectations--

TAVIS SMILEY:
Exactly. Exactly.

DAVID GREGORY:
--for that being made. On what basis?

The reality is that this is not a federal issue, it's a state issue, and states have moved forward and talked about Stand Your Ground and a lot of other issues as well. And I think he's saying the federal government can't do anything. We can be behind it. Rodney King, it was the state that started, didn't do well, and then the federal government came in. And a lot of these cases of people being assassinated, people being killed, being beaten, the federal government is there and responsive to that, but not the--

TAVIS SMILEY:
And I think, David, that's what the protestors-- and I celebrate them. I applaud the efforts in these 100 cities yesterday. But I think what they missed is what you've just astutely pointed out. The president basically said to us, without saying to us, "This ain't goin' no further. You can march and protest and rally--"

MARC MORIAL:
I don't think-- The mistake that people make is to prejudge an investigation before it takes place.

DAVID GREGORY:
Well, the attorney general will decide. But the president did seem to--

MARCIA FUDGE:
But I understand about the Stand Your Ground laws. But there are some things we can do. We at the Congressional Black Caucus, have put in place, at least dropped over the last couple of weeks, racial profiling laws because that's what this law is. I don't care what they say it was; that is what it was. And so if we start to do some things from the congressional perspective, maybe they can help. But let me just say this: I don't care how many laws you put in place, you cannot legislate about prejudice or bias or racism. You cannot do it. And so all we can do is the best we can.

MICHAEL STEELE:
But that goes to Tavis' point about the morality of the question.

DAVID GREGORY:
Can I put something else on the table that goes to the racial profiling debate, that is provocative. It was from Bill Cohen in the Washington Post, his column on Monday. I'll put it up on the screen and get your reaction to it-- Richard Cohen, excuse me.

"Where is the politician," he writes, "who will own up to the painful complexity of the problem and acknowledge the widespread fear of crime committed by young black males? This does not mean that wild racism has disappeared and some judgments are not the product of invidious stereotyping. It does mean though that the public knows young black males commit a disproportionate amount of crime. "In New York City, blacks make up a quarter of the population yet they represent 78% of all shooting suspects, almost all of them young men." And, Tavis, the president made a point--

TAVIS SMILEY:
He got that.

DAVID GREGORY:
--of acknowledging that.

TAVIS SMILEY:
He acknowledged that, number one. Number two, most blacks are killed by other African Americans and most whites are killed by other whites and I'm sick and tired of having this debate as if there's something unusual about that. You kill people in the communities where you live and work and rob. That's how this works, number one.

But with all due respect to Marc and Tree, all I'm saying is this: This is not a chronos moment, this is a kairos moment. The president, again, is the right person at the right place at the right time to do more. I am not a part of that "anything is enough" generation. I want the president to step in this moment, as Cohen just pointed out, and lead us in a complex conversation about these very difficult issues. I don't want him to shrink from the calling of this moment historically. And we are going to regret this later on.

MARC MORIAL:
Tavis in three years we found something we agree on.

MARCIA FUDGE:
But back to your point about New York City, one of the reasons that African American men tend to make up a disproportionate number is because of profiling. You've got two kids on a street, in New York in particular with their "stop and frisk" policies, they're going to pick up the black kid. Not to say that the white kid wasn't committing a crime, but the black kid gets in the system and never gets out. Or they decide, "You know, but he's from a good family. Let's put him in a diversion program," but the black kid gets a record. Profiling has a lot to do with those numbers as well, and they are skewed based on the perception that black kids--

MARC MORIAL:
But one thing that's going to have to be on the table is the economic opportunities jobs. And the obstructionism about summer jobs, jobs plans, jobs training that's taken place in this nation after the recession, when this unemployment rate is so high. It can't be done with a law enforcement approach alone. It has to be done with an economic opportunity approach. So I hope that this conversation is going to confront the very challenging issue of economic opportunity.

DAVID GREGORY:
I'm struck, going back to the president's notable 2008 speech as a candidate, the extent to which he was saying in advance, "I, as a black man, even if I become president, can only do so much." Because he talked about the country being stuck on race. This is what else he said back in 2008.

(BARACK OBAMA ON VIDEO)
"Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own."

DAVID GREGORY:
I want to wind this up, Professor Ogletree, by asking you was that self-imposed sense of limitation appropriate? And did he go beyond it--

CHARLES OGLETREE:
It was--

DAVID GREGORY:
--on Friday?

CHARLES OGLETREE:
--appropriate and I think he's gone beyond it. Trayvon Martin will be with us in eternity; that's what he's done. The president has moved Trayvon Martin up to be a symbol of racial profiling in America, and I think whether he's here or not, we're going to be debating that and discussing that. And I think we're going to have the real conversation about race going forward.

TAVIS SMILEY:
As long as he stands his ground and leads us into a moral conversation about --

DAVID GREGORY:
But is this the wrong issue? Is it wrong to inject race into the Martin case, Michael Steele, as some conservatives and others have argued, that this is the wrong moment?

MICHAEL STEELE:
I think it's not the wrong moment to inject race, I think race is a part of it, as the congresswoman noted, is an underlying theme or feeling, that particularly the African American community takes away from that. And it has to be addressed, you just can't leave it on the table because you don't believe it's there.

DAVID GREGORY:
Alright, I realize this only scratches the surface, but it was still a good conversation, I appreciate you all being here very much. Marc Morial, former mayor of New York City, you're gonna stick around --

MARC MORIAL:
You just elevated me (LAUGHTER)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

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