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CNN NEWSROOM

Grieving Mom Reaches out to the Parkers; Protest At Ukraine's Parliament Turns Violent; Controversial Moments at Last Night's VMAs. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired August 31, 2015 - 09:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


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[09:33:35] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: We now have new details for the funeral arrangements of Adam Ward, one of the two young journalists murdered on the air last week. Later today his family will receive friends in the auditorium of his high school alma mater. And tomorrow morning there will be a celebration of his life. His family is asking well-wishers to come decked out in the colors of his beloved schools, Salem High and Virginia Tech.

The parents of Adam's colleagues, slain reporter Alison Parker, are proving tireless in their campaign for tougher gun control laws. Barbara and Andy Parker spoke to CNN about the self-described crusade that is the new focus of their lives.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARBARA PARKER, ALISON PARKER'S MOTHER: We cannot be intimidated. We cannot be pushed aside. We cannot be pushed aside. We cannot be told that this fight has been fought before and that we're just one more grieving family trying to do something. Because I -- I have looked in the camera on other interviews and -- and I've said, if you were a parent, if you're a mother, if you have children, can you look your child in the eye and say, we are willing to allow you to be collateral damage in order to keep what some people perceive as their constitutional rights? And if we as a society -- if we as a society are willing to do accept that, what kind of society are we?

ANDY PARKER, ALISON PARKER'S FATHER: And -- and now we're passionate about a new mission. And, you know, this -- that's the -- you know, it's -- that's the only thing that's giving me strength right now to go to take on this cause because, you know, I know that somewhere she'd be looking down and saying, you go dad! You're -- you're -- you're -- this is -- this is what she would want me to do.

[09:35:22] B. PARKER: I -- I can just -- I can see out --

A. PARKER: This is her fight.

B. BARKER: It is her fight. And I can see Alison sitting there going --

A. PARKER: Yes. B. PARKER: Because that's what she'd do. It's like, good job, mom and dad.

A. PARKER: And -- and, you know, the -- I'm -- I'm --

B. PARKER: And that's -- we'd be there for her. There are people out there whose minds we will never change. They are the people that are unimportant in this fight. The people who are important in this fight are the silent majority who feel the way we do that some kind of gun control measures are necessary.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: The Parkers have also been hearing from other parents who have lost their children to gun violence. One message in the form of an open letter in "The New York Daily News." It's from the mother of six-year-old Dylan Hockley. He was among the 20 school children shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary, along with six educators. She encourages the Parkers to consider pouring their hearts into the fight against gun violence. Quote, "please use your emotions, your love for your daughter, and the pain caused by the gaping hole in your life and focus them on to this issue. Once you've been touched by violence, saving the lives of others is the only way forward."

Nicole Hockley has waged her own fight as the managing director of the Sandy Hook Promise. She joins me now live.

Good morning.

NICOLE HOCKLEY, SANDY HOOK PROMISE: Good morning.

COSTELLO: As you listened to the Parkers, what goes through your mind?

HOCKLEY: I hear myself and so many others in their voice. They have now joined this club that no one wants to join, but sadly more people join every single day. And our voices are growing stronger, but that pain is still there and action needs to be taken.

COSTELLO: Action needs to be taken, but, you know, there's this sense out there that nothing's being done. Is that -- is that what we should think?

HOCKLEY: No, that's part of the problem. In crossing the United States and talking to different people on this issue, people who have been involved in it long before I joined it two and a half years ago, people who have joined since Sandy Hook, there's this overwhelming feeling that it's a hopeless issue and that people feel helpless to do anything about it. That's not true. There are always actions that you can take, whether you choose to (INAUDIBLE) change or electing political leaders who care about this issue or whether you want to do something in your community to prevent violence, training people how to recognize the signs of threats and at risk behaviors and intervene before someone hurts themselves or someone else. There's always some you can do, you just have to do it and not just sit on the sidelines.

COSTELLO: Yes, I just want to share some statistics with our viewers. This is according to the law center to prevent gun violence. And you're right, there has been some progress. Since Newtown, about the same number of laws, 64, have strengthened state gun regulations as those that have weakened them. That number is 70. And that's not including 38 newly enacted gun laws that have a minimal impact on gun violence, but that is movement.

Now, you notice from these statistics, these are all state actions. None of them took place at the federal level. And you heard Andy Parker, he is far from conciliatory. In fact, he wrote an op-ed in "The Washington Post" calling out Virginia lawmakers for not tightening gun control. He says one "had no problem cashing his check from the National Rifle Association during the 2014 election cycle. Shame on him." Says another has been a constant opponent of sensible gun reforms, such as expanded background checks during his nearly 20 years in the state senate. He's using very muscular language. Is that the right strategy?

HOCKLEY: It depends. At the moment his grief is still very raw and I remember that -- that -- that sense, that need to do something, that still lives with me every single day where we're all on the crusade together. I don't think that gun control is the sole answer here. Without a doubt, we need legislation to ensure that people who should not have access to firearms don't, but it's more about how can we prevent the violence before it happens. We, as a country, need to change our behaviors and our passive acceptance of this gun violence on a daily basis. If we change our behaviors, legislation has no choice but to follow. Legislation doesn't make a behavioral change. People make the behavioral change.

COSTELLO: Nicole Hockley, thank you so much for joining me this morning. I appreciate it.

Coming up in the NEWSROOM, a vote in Ukraine's parliament provokes a violent backlash on the streets. Take a look at that. Wow! We'll talk about that next.

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[09:44:23] COSTELLO: We want to take you right to the capital of Ukraine, where a massive demonstration outside of parliament has erupted in deadly violence. Look at that. CNN's Phil Black joins us from London to tell us more.

Hi, Phil.

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol.

Yes, what we're seeing here is really a very violent scene. You can see from the video there are huge crowds. You can hear a big explosion, smoke, and members of the security forces, injured, being dragged away. The country's interior minister tells us now that one of those national guardsmen was also killed by gunfire. A gunshot wound to the heart, he says. That's in addition to some 90 people injured in the blast, some of them critically.

[09:45:01] They say they've moved to arrest around 30 people including someone who threw one of the explosive devices and he said to be carrying more of those explosive devices.

This was all about a law that was being voted on in the country's parliament today. Those people protesting, they are supporters of the right wing Svoboda, or Freedom Party. They do not approve of the government making any sort of concessions to the separatists in the east of the country who have been fighting more than a year now for independence. But today parliament was considering a law that would grant those separatists regions in the east greater self-governance, greater autonomy. It's a key part of what's known as the Minsk Agreement, which was a peace plan agreed by all the parties back in February. There hasn't been a lot of peace in the east of the country. There's still daily violence there.

But this concession for greater self-governance is a key part of any plan going forward. It passed this first vote in the country's parliament. It's got a second vote coming up in just a few months or so. Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Phil Black, thanks so much. I appreciate it. I'll be right back.

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[09:50:29]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REBEL WILSON, ACTRESS: I know a lot of people have problems with the police. But I really hate police strippers. Yes. You guys know what I'm talking about. They come to your house. You think you're getting arrested, and you just get a lap dance that is usually uninspired!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK, that was Rebel Wilson delivering one of the most controversial moments at last night's annual MTV Music Video Awards (sic). The Australian comedian who stripped down while presenting the award for Best Hip Hop Video made light of the issues we're seeing in the headlines with police, and, boy, did she set the Twitter world on fire. Community organizer DeRay McKesson tweeting, "Police violence isn't a joke, as the deaths of Tamir Rice, Rekia Boyd, Freddie Gray, Mike Brown, and Mya Hall remind us."

Marc Malkin joins me on the phone from Los Angeles to talk about this. He's correspondent for E! News joins me. Welcome, Marc.

MARC MALKIN, E! NEWS CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Good morning.

COSTELOLO: Good morning. I have to say the reaction to Rebel Wilson's bit kind of surprised me.

MALKIN: You know, it's -- you could look at the entire show and probably within like every 15 minutes of the show there was another controversy. You know, the Rebel Wilson thing I think people thought, oh, my god, this is funny, she's talking about strippers. And then when you really took a good look at it, it was like, OK, this could offend a lot of people. And I think that happened a lot last night.

COSTELLO: Oh, it really, really did. Should we talk about the public feud that played out right in front of the cameras between -- well, first between Taylor Swift and Nicki Minaj, and they seemed to sort of mend fences, right? But then --

MALKIN: That was such a great moment. I have to tell you, you know, I was in the theater. I was smack dab in the center of the audience. I saw this all go down. It was so much fun. You know, there were rumors, I think it started in the morning, someone told me, oh, wait until you see Nicki's show. There's someone coming out at the end. And I was like, well, it's either going to be Taylor or Miley.

Obviously it was a Taylor. It was such a great moment. I ran over to Taylor after the performance and I said this was amazing. How did you guys do it? She goes it was just so much fun. The one thing she didn't know was that Nicki was going to be dropping to the floor and, you know, shaking her bum. She said they rehearsed it seven times and Nicki never did that, but when she did, she was just laughing.

COSTELLO: Oh my -- but then came this moment when Nicki Minaj lashed out at host Miley Cyrus over something she said a couple days ago. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICKI MINAJ, RAPPER/SINGER: Back to business of the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) that had a lot to say about me the other day in the press. Miley, what's good?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Oh, man. I wanted to hear what Miley Cyrus said back. Anyway --

MALKIN: I have to tell you, it was so uncomfortable in the audience. My husband and I looked at each other going what is going on? Are they going to just break out in a fight?

Now, what I've heard later on is that Nicki was trying to make a joke about the situation, and she was trying to sort of lighten the mood about it, but apparently Miley either didn't appreciate the joke or didn't know about the joke, and she was angry. I'm told she was backstage cursing up a storm. She was not happy about that.

COSTELLO: Well, just refresh our memories. What exactly did Miley Cyrus say about Nicki Minaj?

MALKIN: You know, this gets really confusing because there's a lot of feuds that went on and no one really know where they originated at this point, but basically what happened was Miley criticized Nicki for being, quote, unquote, "angry" about the VMAs when Nicki lashed out about it saying that if she was a different shape, a different color, that she'd be getting more nominations. And then Miley went on and said Nicki is not a nice person so she's not surprised that she said these things. So there is a feud brewing. I think the big question is going to be

now like was it scripted? Was it not? From what I understand, that little exchange was not scripted.

COSTELLO: OK, so perhaps the most -- well, I wouldn't say controversial, but surprising moment of the night came from Kanye West. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KANYE WEST, RAPPER/MUSICIAN: And, yes, as you probably could have guessed by this moment, I have decided in 2020 to run for president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:55:02] COSTELLO: This came after this rambling acceptance speech of the Michael Jackson Award. No one could tell if he was serious or not.

MALKIN: This was another one where, again, mouths dropped to the floor, heads were being scratched. We were all going what? What exactly is going on? We're like -- at the end, I was like is he happy he got this award because I really can't tell.

Now this whole "I'm going to run for president in 2020", I think half the world thinks he was joking. Half the world thinks he's serious. I put on my Instagram right away, I think him and Miley should run as a team in 2020. I think that would be the ultimate campaign.

COSTELLO: No, I thought he was going to run with Taylor Swift, but perhaps I'm wrong there.

MALKIN: You know, listen, we've seen Donald Trump, we've seen what he's been doing. I wouldn't be surprised if Kanye West says you know what? I'm going to run for president. You know, it would be an interesting 2020.

COSTELLO: Yes, it would. And you're right, Marc, nothing would surprise me anymore on the political front.

Thanks so much. Marc Malkin, correspondent for E! News, joining me live.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM after a break.

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