CNN "State of the Union with Candy Crowley" - Transcript: Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement
Interview
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CROWLEY: In 2012 Julian Castro became the first Hispanic- American to deliver the keynote address for the Democratic National Convention. And that same year his brother Joaquin was elected to congress.
With me now Julian Castro, who is secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and the recently re-elected congressman, Joaquin Castro and just to state the obvious, you two are twins.
JULIAN CASTRO, HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT SECRETARY: That is true. We are. Although we used to look more alike than we do now.
CROWLEY: Than you do now. Yes. That's what personality will do for you as you grow older, right.
So, you're both Democrats. You're twins. Do you have identical political views?
JULIAN CASTRO: I wouldn't say they're identical. Obviously like any two people there are hardly any people that agree 100 percent of the time. So --
REP. JOAQUIN CASTRO, D-TEXAS: We're very similar. Yes. You know, once in a while we will find ourselves debating an issue and --
JULIAN CASTRO: I always let him win so that's --
CROWLEY: So your biggest disagreement politically?
JOAQUIN CASTRO: What do you think the biggest one has been?
JULIAN CASTRO: I don't know if I would describe it as a big disagreement. I think just as issues as they come up when we're talking about them, we see them a little bit differently.
JOAQUIN CASTRO: About strategy, about tactics, things like that. Usually in terms of where we want to go on an issue is pretty similar.
CROWLEY: I wanted to ask you because you're both Hispanic- Americans. We have seen these protests over minority treatment and this is in this case meant Black-American, African-Americans by police. I want to play you just -- play you just a portion of an interview the president gave on this that -- the whole interview is airing tomorrow. Here is a little of what he said.
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OBAMA: When you're dealing with something as deeply rooted as racism or bias in any society, vigilance but you have to recognize that it's going to take some time and you just have to be steady so that don't give up when we don't get all the way there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CROWLEY: So the president saying, look, you have to have some patience and saying we also have to note the progress. I wanted to ask you as Hispanic Americans, do you think that community has similar problems? Is there a brown on blue problem, as well?
JULIAN CASTRO: I believe communities of color, particularly in our urban centers, do have trust issues with the police oftentimes. However, I wouldn't say that -- I think that there's clearly been a stronger issue, a more acute issue in the African-American community when you look at the statistics of how many unarmed African-American men and boys are getting killed or getting injured or shot by police officers, and that doesn't speak to any one particular case, but I wouldn't say those are identical. However, they do have similar trust issues, and the statistics and the anecdotes you hear in our cities bear that out.
CROWLEY: You obviously spent a lot of time in San Antonio, both of you. Do you feel a sense of tension between Hispanic communities and police?
JOAQUIN CASTRO: There are a lot of the same concerns that you see in African-American communities, but I think it's also evident over the years that nobody -- no community is immune from troubles with the police. In San Antonio right now, for example, there's a case going on where a white student was shot and killed by a campus police officer. And yesterday marked the year anniversary, and that case still has not been presented to a grand jury. So it's mostly communities of color, especially African Americans, but I think nobody is immune, and particularly younger folks tend to have run-ins with police.
CROWLEY: Is there a federal solution?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well --
CROWLEY: Or part of a solution?
JOAQUIN CASTRO: I think what we've seen come out of this really is three things. A retraining of police so that they are better able to handle these situations. Body cameras, which are not a panacea, but are a positive and a strong step. And 84 percent of Americans support making sure that we have body cameras there, and then also changing the grand jury system.
JULIAN CASTRO: The president took a strong step, I believe, and Attorney General Holder in making clear that the federal government is pursuing investigations in Ferguson and in Staten Island with respect to Eric Garner, but also that we're going to look at this in the larger context of the relationship between communities of color and the police. The funding for body cameras for local jurisdictions is a very good first start.
JOAQUIN CASTRO: And also dealing with racial profiling is another thing that the president has spoken about.
CROWLEY: I wanted to ask you as well about immigration, because you all are from Texas, and I believe your governor-elect is one of those leading the charge, he filed suit against the president for failing to enforce U.S. laws, in this case specifically immigration law. Your reaction.
JULIAN CASTRO: It's very clear on the law, the merits, that that lawsuit will not stand up. I expect that it's not going -- the Texas -- that the attorney general, now governor, soon to be governor, will find that that lawsuit does not have merit. The president, by taking that executive action, is very clearly trying to address a broken immigration system, and take a strong first step to fix it, focusing on felons, not families, ensuring that we do everything we can to secure the border, and also give folks who have been here oftentimes for many years the opportunity to pay back taxes, to stay here with their family, to get right by the law as he has said. But what Congress can do and what Attorney General Abbott, soon to be Governor Abbott, should do is to advocate passing a bill, passing legislation so that we can have comprehensive immigration reform. The Senate has already done it. And now it's time for the House to do the same.
JOAQUIN CASTRO: In fact, as a member of Congress I'm hopeful that the Republican Senate and the Republican House will pass their own version of immigration reform --
CROWLEY: But you don't think that will happen, either one of you.
JOAQUIN CASTRO: Even if I vote against it, I hope they will pass their version, because I think what you could have is something akin to the 1990s, where you have a Republican Congress, a Democratic president. They pass their version of a bill, and that starts a negotiation with the White House, where Democratic members of Congress can be supportive of the president, but you have a two-way negotiation going on.
CROWLEY: Mr. Secretary, I have to take advantage of your being here to ask you, the former Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke said recently he had trouble refinancing his home loan. He thinks, and I think a lot of other people think, that the criteria has shifted from letting too many people get mortgages to being way too restrictive. Do you agree with that?
JULIAN CASTRO: I agree with that. A few years ago it was too easy to get a home loan. And now it's too difficult. So what we need to do is we need to make sure that since the pendulum has swung from one extreme to the other, that we get the right balance, that we have the right safe guards in place. That hard working Americans who are ready and responsible to own a home, can get a home loan. There are statistics right now that show that about 1.2 million folks could access good credit and responsibly pay on a home loan, but they're getting locked out of the system. At HUD, we want to do what we can to change that.
CROWLEY: And finally I have to ask since this is a family dynasty show, which one of you do you think will want to make a run at the presidency first?
JOAQUIN CASTRO: It's definitely not me. I'm in Congress. I'll leave the question for him.
JULIAN CASTRO: I think both of us doubt that that's ever going to happen, but both of us also are enjoying the roles that we do have, and it's been neat being twins, and as anybody who is a twin knows, it's a very unique relationship. So we feel like we're having the time of our lives getting to be here and do good work on behalf of the American people.
JOAQUIN CASTRO: And we'll see what the future brings.
CROWLEY: OK, thank you all so much. Never say never in politics. Thank you so much for being here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Candy.
CROWLEY: Joaquin and Julian Castro. We appreciate it. We'll be right back.
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