CNN "CNN Newsroom" - TRANSCRIPT Winter Storm Brings Ice, Sleet, Snow To Southern & Central U.S.; Video Contradict Initial Police Report On Tyre Nichols Death; New Video: Trump Deposition In NY Attorney General's Civil Probe. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Interview

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BLACKWELL: The White House says that President Biden will meet this Thursday with some members of the Congressional Black Caucus to talk about police reform. New York Congresswoman Yvette Clarke will be there. She is the first vice chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and she was one of the many co-sponsors of the George Floyd justice and policing act through the House. It stalled in the Senate.

Congresswoman, thank you for your time. You'll be at this meeting. What do you want to tell the president and what do you want to hear from him?

REP. YVETTE CLARKE, (D-NY): We'd like to tell the president that it's time for action that we need a full court at full court press with -- working with the Senate and the House to pass the George Floyd Policing and Accountability Act, that we need to maximize on his executive order, make sure that data is being collected as he is asked for officers across this nation who have been charged with misconduct.

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There are many ways that we need to bake accountability into policing practices across this nation. And we can't relent. Until we achieve these goals, lives are at stake. This has been happening in communities of color, in black communities for far too long centuries now, and there is no excuse for inaction.

CAMEROTA: The last time around with George Floyd Policing Act -- Justice in Policing Act, qualified immunity was a sticking point. So, has that been resolved? What's the answer there?

CLARKE: Well, you know, I think that we have to continue to talk. There's no reason for us to stall everything that we can accomplish around protecting our citizens from rogue cops that believe in the inhumanity of others in brutality as a way of exerting their authority. So, you know, qualified immunity is something that we're still very concerned about because of the lack of accountability. However, there are many of the provisions that need to also be examined, and we need to move this legislation forward.

BLACKWELL: I want you to listen to Republican Congressman Jim Jordan about what he sees as the limits of legislation. Watch.

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BLACKWELL: There was training for the Memphis Police Department, Congress approved funding for body cams to make it potentially less likely that things like this would happen because officers, they would be aware that there would be cameras, this happened in a residential neighborhood, so what about Jordan's point that some of this you cannot legislate away?

CLARKE: Yes, absolutely right. But we can hold people accountable. We can make examples of individuals who are rogue cops so that they know from the outset that this is not tolerated anywhere in the United States of America and its territories. So, I don't think we throw in the towel and say, you know, there's nothing we can do to prevent brutality within our civil society. It's a similar argument that we hear around gun violence prevention, right? At the end of the day, lives are at stake, we've got to put everything on the table, and accountability needs to be front and center.

CAMEROTA: But you know, this is -- as I was just talking to Van Turner of the NAACP, this is so much bigger we now know than just rogue cops. There were EMTs who kept walking away -- repeatedly away from Tyre Nichols, instead of rendering aid. There was a fire lieutenant, there were ambulance drivers, there were all sorts of people who didn't intervene, and it's just hard to know what that mindset, that kind of collective mindset was about.

CLARKE: It's dehumanization. And at the end of the day, they're all professionals paid by the tax dollars of the citizenry of this nation, and we have to hold them accountable. When we fail to hold people accountable, we're implicitly sending a signal that it's OK to dehumanize individuals, that you -- we are not going to hold you to the highest standards of your professions as public servants. We can't afford that. And we've got to move forward to hope everyone in this scenario and future scenarios God unfortunately, hoping that they don't occur, but we've got to hold them accountable.

CAMEROTA: Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, thank you very much for being here.

CLARKE: Thank you.

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