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First of All with Victor Blackwell

The Major Role Navajo Nation Could Play In 2024 Race; Who Is Still "Undecided"?; Inside The Search For Elusive Undecided Or Hesitant Voters; Beyonce Endorses Kamala Harris At Texas Rally; Group Fights To Elevate Issue Of Black Maternal Health; Biden Formally Apologizes For Indian Boarding Schools; FBI Surges To Help Investigate Crimes Against Indigenous Communities. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired October 26, 2024 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: A story you likely have not seen anywhere else. Seven people killed. This was in a dot collapse, and now historic and isolated community is reeling. I'll speak to two survivors about what they witnessed and their call for justice. All right, let's start the show.

Well, first of all, if you're an undecided voter, first how, right? How are you at this point, still undecided? But all these rallies and the speeches and the television ads and the mailers that everybody is being inundated with those are for you, and there's more still coming over the next 10 days.

Now, next week is when we'll see Vice President Harris, former President Donald Trump. They're going to focus on this so-called closing message. The latest CNN poll shows the race right now straight up, even 47 each. So both campaigns are searching for something that really seems hard to find the people who are undecided.

As the New York Times reported this week, "Both campaigns are digging through troves of data to find these crucial Americans, and they both think that many are younger, Black or Latino. Now, maybe you are one of those undecided voters. You haven't decided on a candidate, or maybe you haven't decided whether you're even going to vote. Vice President Harris is trying to reach those voters with a focus on reproductive rights.

Beyonce and Kelly Roman, let's not forget Kelly, because Kelly was there too. They backed her up at a rally in Houston last night. She's also focusing more on Trump's authoritarian rhetoric.

Harris will speak Tuesday at the site where Trump gave his infamous January 6 speech. The former President started his day in Texas yesterday, hammering home his anti-immigration message, and he wrapped up in Michigan, which starts early voting today.

So which messages are working and who are they reaching? Here with us now are leaders of groups doing their own work to reach voters. Edward Ahmed Mitchell is National Deputy Director of the Council on American- Islamic Relations, also a graduate of Morehouse here in Atlanta. Leslie Palomino is the Georgia Director for Poder Latinx. And Jennifer Lee is the Policy Director for the group Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta.

Thank you all for being here. And I start with the first question, are there still significant numbers of undecided voters? Are there?

JENNIFER LEE, POLICY DIRECTOR, ASIAN AMERICANS ADVANCING JUSTICE- ATLANTA: So what I would say is, what we've seen is, as a nonpartisan organization, the biggest challenge is not being undecided, but is getting people to come out to vote. Groups like Asian Americans who have traditionally not felt like they've been seen or heard or included as part of the process, our message to Asian American voters is to say your vote really matters in this election, and it is significant whether or not you come out and vote. And that message has been working.

We've seen this fast-growing community that has traditionally lagged behind in their participation really increase their participation on elections.

BLACKWELL: You know, it's interesting. I've had this conversation before that the campaigns, and it's not exclusive to one or the other, they don't do a good job of reaching out and engaging Asian American voters. Has that changed this cycle, especially with Kamala Harris at the top of one ticket.

LEE: We've really seen that improve. I think even 5, 10, years ago, in Georgia and all across the country, a lot of Asian American voters felt ignored. We've talked to voters at the doors that said, "No one's ever come here before."

And so when we do our outreach, it's really important to do that to all communities, to do that in a language that they prefer, and we've seen that really make a difference.

BLACKWELL: Leslie, there was this really interesting finding in the new CNN poll out this weekend, and I want to bring this to you, a little more than half of Harris's supporters say that their vote is more for her than against Trump. So just 54% say they're voting for her. When you look at Trump's voters, nearly three-quarters are voting for him versus against Harris. Is the indecision of these undecided voters? Is it issue and policy-focused, or is it on personality and character?

LESLIE PALOMINO, GEORGIA DIRECTOR, PODER LATINX: Thank you so much for that question. When it comes to Latino voters in the state of Georgia. We make up more than 435,000 eligible voters in our state. And with the Latino vote, we are not on monolith. We are very diverse with our political experiences, religion, and culture, and that really plays a factor.

BLACKWELL: Edward, you were my first guest on my first show. The show turns one next week.

EDWARD AHMED MITCHELL, NATIONAL DEP. DIRECTOR, COUNCIL ON AMERICAN- ISLAMIC RELATIONS: Congratulations.

BLACKWELL: Thank you very much. And what we were talking about, this was right after October 7th, just a few weeks into the war, and there were so many Arab American voters who were just starting to express their displeasure with the administration's support for Israel. And we've seen over the year during the primaries, so many withhold the vote from then-President Biden. But now the question is, are they still withholding the vote and their support for Kamala Harris?

[08:05:16]

MITCHELL: Many of them yes. So the poll that we conducted about a month ago show that the presidential race among Muslim voters, not really a race between Harris and Trump. It's a race between Harris and Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate.

We had 29% voting for Harris, 29% for Stein, 11% for Trump, and then a lot undecided. And so Gaza is the top issue for the American-Muslim community across the board, whether you're black Muslim, Arab-Muslim, that is the top issue is stopping what our community views as a genocide, and they feel that neither major party candidate has laid out a plan to do that, and that's why third-party candidates are polling so well.

Our focus is not on telling people who to vote for. That's not we do. It's making sure they don't become disillusioned and say, I don't want to vote for anyone. I'm just so upset about seeing children being killed every day, and I don't want to be involved at all. We want to make sure you turn out to vote no matter who you're voting for.

BLACKWELL: And so Jill Stein could be in some of these states. I don't like to call any candidate a spoiler. Some have used that language, but she could be the difference between a Harris victory or a loss in a state, not so much a Trump win, because 29/29 split between those two in some states, that could be pretty sizable.

MITCHELL: Yes. Look. There are 2.5 million eligible Muslim voters, and many of them are in swing states like Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. So those states, because the narrow margin victory, it is quite possible the Muslim community voting for or against a candidate could influence the result of that race, and that is why I think you see Vice President Harris belatedly making more concerted effort to try to address the concerns of Muslim voters. You can see Donald Trump reaching out to Muslim voters, trying to meet with them, and Jill Stein and other third parties have been doing that consistently.

So I think there's a recognition that the American-Muslim community has a big role to play in this election. The question is, are any candidates willing to say what they need to say about the genocide in Gaza to get their vote?

BLACKWELL: Jennifer, it seems like it's really been much longer, but the Vice President has only been at the top of the ticket for like 14 weeks, right? So it's a really short campaign for at the top. Has her taking over or now being the nominee, has that shifted voters from off the sidelines to engage, or pulled realigned their potential alliances anyway that they wouldn't have been in certain positions had Biden still been the top of the ticket?

LEE: I think we've certainly seen some more excitement from some voters, particularly women voters, I think that are more excited than they were prior. But I think there's still a lot of disillusionment, as was said earlier. At this point, there's just been a lot of fatigue, I think. And again, our job is, of course, to make sure that people understand that they have the agency to not get tired right before Election Day, and to really continue growing in the influence that the Asian American Pacific Islander community has. In Georgia, they now make up 4% of the population, and that, again, is a significant, small, but significant group that can really decide the results of an election.

BLACKWELL: Well, you consider how close it was, fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020, 4% is sizable. Leslie to you, I have Mike Madrid on who is a veteran strategist, Latino analyst, who has his new book out the Latino Century in which he questions the distinctions between the two approaches from the campaigns Donald Trump has changed from Latinos for Trump to Latino Americans for Trump, the branding of it.

The Harris campaign, has hombres con Harris and Latinos con Harris, and the way in which rhetorically they approach the Latino community, he says it's problematic for Democrats. You talk about the community not being a monolith. There are Latinos who have been obviously in this country for many generations. Is it problematic? And some of these voters are still trying to decide how the campaigns are reaching them?

PALOMINO: Yes. Thank you for that question in our work at what a Latinx when we're doing vote, non-partisan voter registration. We were able to also see a surge of Latino voters who were interested to register to vote and how the campaigns decide to reach our community. It's important that they are listening to what our concerns are at the end of the day, which it's not just, you know, immigration. It's health care, it's access to good paying jobs, paid leave.

[08:10:01]

BLACKWELL: Yes. Across the board, the economy still number one, regardless of demographic, regardless of region. We're seeing the economic concerns still at the top. All right. Edward Leslie, Jennifer, thank you all for coming in.

Let's get to a quick update on the breaking news out of Iran. Israel carried out a series of airstrikes and retaliation for Iran's attack on Israel at the start of the month. CNN's Chief Global Affairs correspondent, Matthew Chance is in Jerusalem.

Israel says these were targeted strikes. What's the concern that Iran might still respond and ratchet this up?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think there's some concern about that, except that certainly because Iran has said that it reserves the right to do that, and it's condemned these Israeli strikes as a violation of international law. But you know, at the same time, it's tried to convey the Iranian regime a sense of normality inside the country. Schools have been accepting students back into classrooms. The sports ministry, for instance, has announced that sporting events will continue as as normal.

And so there is a hope that, because these strikes were relatively limited to military targets and didn't appear to cause kind of like really deep, widespread damage, then you know that might mean that the Iranians can avoid sort of getting into a further tit for tat cycle of strike and retaliation that would drag both countries, Iran and Israel, into a much more kind of difficult war.

Certainly, that seems to be the intention on the part of the Israelis. They could have gone for a much broader set of targets to involve fuel infrastructure, energy infrastructure, like oil facilities and nuclear research facilities. They didn't do that. They focused narrowly in on missile production facilities and air defense sites, partly because this is a symbolic message, partly because they say they wanted to show that they would retaliate and could degrade Iranian air defenses for the future.

BLACKWELL: Matthew Chance in Jerusalem for us. Thanks so much. We'll stay on top of what comes next throughout the day on CNN.

There is an historic community in mourning. It deserves more of our attention. Seven people were killed in the dot collapse. This was on Georgia, Sapelo Island. The families say this could and should have been avoided. Two survivors who lost the family member are here to share what they saw.

Plus, it's never too late to apologize. The move by President Biden long overdue.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE BIDEN, USA PRESIDENT: But the federal government has never, never formally apologized for what happened. Until today, I formally apologize.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:17:31]

BLACKWELL: you know, we are 10 days out from a contentious election, and there is a lot happening in the Middle East. We're covering it all, and we should be, but this dock collapse tragedy on Georgia, Sapelo Island deserves our attention too. This impacts a community that feels it's been ignored for decades, and the families there are saying this tragedy happened because of their concerns of not being heard. So we are going to share what they're saying, what they saw, what happened.

First, the important history. Sapelo Island is home to what historians believe is one of the last surviving Gullah Geechee communities. The Gullah people are descendants of Africans brought to coastal plantations in 1802 as slaves. For decades, that community has been fighting to preserve their culture and their property, fighting with city officials over zoning laws impacting their land.

The hog hammock community on Sapelo Island is also isolated. It's only accessible by boat, and one week ago, dozens of people were on the island for an annual cultural day festival. Georgia officials say as many as 40 people were on the gangway last Saturday afternoon when it collapsed. There's video of the chaotic aftermath, and I have to warn you, this is both hard to watch and for people who are listening on radio, it's hard to listen to as well.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Please, please, please, God. Oh my God. Oh my God, oh my God.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: Seven people died. Their names were Queen Welch, Carlotta, McIntosh, William Johnson Jr., Cynthia Gibbs, Jacqueline Cruz, Carter, Charles Houston, and Isaiah Thomas. Now, Isaiah Thomas was Regina Brinson's Uncle and Katrina Alexander's brother. They survived the collapse, and they're with us now, along with their attorney, Ben Crump.

First, thank you for being with me, and I am so sorry that this -- this happened to you. Let me start Regina with you. You and your uncle, Isaiah, you were helping your friend, Ms. Carlotta. She was on a walker, I think it was a seated walker, and your uncle was in the front. You were in the back helping. Tell me, when did you realize on this gangway that something was going wrong?

REGINA BRINSON, SURVIVED DOCK COLLAPSE: I looked up and I said, Oh my god. What is happening in the crack came right across the -- my feet, right across my feet in the front.

[08:20:11]

BLACKWELL: Now you heard this crack. And then what happened?

BRINSON: And all of a sudden, I -- the walker was just (inaudible) the river. Oh my God, and I fell into the river. Everyone just fell into the river. And I just -- it happened so quick, but the currents took several of us out farther into her we were -- we were nowhere near the fair at that time, and when I -- we -- the currents took us out into the river. I saw my uncle, and I asked him, I said, Uncle Bob. I said, Uncle Bob my hand, and when he grabbed my hand -- so my shirt ain't pulling water and pulling me under the water, kept pulling me under the water, and I said to myself, oh my god, I'm going to -- I'm going to die today. And it's like God spoke to me and say, You're going to have to release your uncle or you're going to die? And I had to take each finger one by one and peel it off of my shirt. Then I rose back to the top.

My uncle said, I was like (inaudible) so what did I do? BLACKWELL: We're having a bit of an audio issue with you. So Attorney

Crump let me come to you. I mean, these were seven people all over the age of 70 who died here. As we know, Ms. Carlotta was using a walker when this collapsed. Tell us what happened here. I understand you want a federal investigation, not just a state investigation. Continue the story.

BEN CRUMP, ATTORNEY FOR SOME DOCK COLLAPSE SURVIVORS, VICTIMS' FAMILIES: You know, Victor, we don't understand why the death of these black senior citizens are being swept under the rug. We continue in our communities to ask, where is the federal investigation? Where is the outrage over this tragedy? Where are the resources, the mental health counselors? It's almost as if, when you think about this situation, these senior citizens try to teach young black people about the history of the Sapelo Island and importance of remembering our African heritage.

Well, when they were tragically killed, it's so ironic that they're being marginalized as well and forgotten about, and so we are demanding a federal investigation. It's heartbreaking when you hear Regina and Katrina and the other victims talk about how when they went in that water. Her uncle was trying to grab on to her, and she had to make the decision that she had to release him, or both of them would die. And now she is haunted by the image of his face going down in the water. I mean, the psychological trauma the PTSD is on a whole different level but yet, you're not hearing about this on the front pages as if their lives didn't matter, but these black seeing citizens lives did matter.

Georgia is a battleground state. Black people are watching to see if you really care when you say black lives and black culture matter.

BLACKWELL: You know, I remember how much coverage and it certainly deserved it when the Baltimore bridge collapsed and six people died. Seven people have died here, and we have not heard nearly as much about this gangway collapse as we should. I mean, when you hear the stories from Regina specifically, and she says that there was a moment where she was just up on the shore and she was just lying there because she couldn't move. She turned over and just started coughing up brown water. And continues to have these nightmares about what more she could have done to save her uncle Isaiah. What do you tell her? What -- what are these stories you're hearing? Obviously, we're having a technical issue with their shot, but talk about those conversations.

CRUMP: You know, Victor, one of the things many of them have is survivors guilt. And I continued to tell Regina, she was a hero. When Ms. Carlotta, who was 93 years young, everybody talks about how much life she had, how fights, how she danced, how she tried to educate people about life and culture in our community. They went back. They had already made it to the fair. They went back to help Ms. Carlotta, who was on a walker, hurting her uncle. And so it was heroes. And then when she was in the water, Regina was trying to help her uncle survive. She was the hero. She was trying to help, but because they didn't make it, she feels a certain sense of guilt, as many of those individuals were.

[08:25:34]

And we were talking to Ms. Rockington, who was the leader. She broke both her ankles, and she's in the hospital and not unable to walk in intensive care. And she continues when we talk to her to say, what could I have done to help those friends of mine? Because they were all friends too. It says heartbreaking.

Pearl Davis talks about how they went on the bus together and then leaving that after that evening, after the tragedy, how many empty seats there were on the bus and she knew those were her friends. And her friends were dead, and nobody was calling them.

BLACKWELL: Seven people lost their lives. So many more, as you would describe, some of them injured. But look at these faces, and I read their names, remember their names. This county -- the county this area, for a very long time, has felt forgotten. We cannot, even in this tragedy, continue to forget or dismiss them. Ben Crump, thanks so much. And I thanks to Regina Brinson and Katrina Alexander for being with us. We had a bit of a technical issue, but we will continue to follow their stories.

All right, let's turn to politics now. Beyonce working to get voters in formation. See what I did there. Now I will talk about the focus on reproductive rights at the Harris rally, I will have no more puns for you this morning. Why my next guest says that black maternal health specifically needs to be elevated in this race.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:31:35]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Sorry to Chicago, but Houston pulled off what the DNC this summer could not an actual appearance by Beyonce.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEYONCE, AMERICAN SINGER-SONGWRITER: I'm not here as a celebrity. I'm not here as a politician. I'm here as a mother, a mother who cares deeply about the world. My children and all of our children live in a world where we have the freedom to control our bodies, a world where we're not divided.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Beyonce and Kelly Rowland's appearance got the attention, but the focus for Harris last night was on reproductive rights.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: One in three American women lives in a state with a Trump abortion ban. Many of these bans are causing care to be denied until a woman is at death's door. And let us agree, one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree. The government should not be telling her what to do with her body.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Now, there are disparities in who's impacted consistently in the Vice President's message is the story of Amber Nicole Thurman, her family blames Georgia's abortion ban for her death. And Harris's most recent ad on the impact of Roe versus Wade being overturned features the story of a black couple Andrea and Caesar.

Now, those stories are framed in the context of abortion rights. But should improving black maternal health be the issue that's front and center?

Let's talk about this with Dr. Regina Davis Moss. She's the president and CEO of the National Black Women's Reproductive Justice group In Our Own Voice. Doctor, good to have you. Maternal health is more than just abortion care. I want to just start here with the framework of how we have the conversation.

Is maternal care holistically enough of the conversation? Are we having the right conversations around these round tables and these panels?

DR. REGINA DAVIS MOSS, PRESIDENT AND CEO,IN OUR OWN VOICE: No, we're not, because maternal care is only one piece of this puzzle. If we really want to address the staggeringly high black maternal mortality rates, we need to talk about things like access to contraception. We need to talk about the implicit bias, the inadequate health care system, the things that we have been sounding the alarm bell on for over 30 years.

This is, unfortunately, what happens. We talk about these things. Because, you know what, black women are usually an early indicator of something that is happening larger in our society, and certainly when there's a breakdown in our system, in this case, it's our health care system.

So in order to really address this issue, we're going to have to talk about things like, what happens when I go into the doctor's office and they don't listen to me, and when it reaches a crisis situation, and then I'm nearly at the brink of death, and then someone says, oh, let's rush in. But no one talks about we talk about we talk about death, but we don't even talk about the morbidity and the other things that happen when we have those near misses.

BLACKWELL: The disparity really is stark. Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy related causes than white women. That's, according to the CDC. 80 percent of the deaths are the pregnancy related deaths are preventable, according to the CDC.

[08:35:05]

The nuances here are important and is there a reason you expect we're not hearing those nuances? Because Amber Thurman story is someone who was having difficulties at the end of her pregnancy. She was not seeking an abortion, but she was having a difficult -- she was having emergency so what -- why aren't we seeing these nuances? MOSS: Well, and you're right, it's actually 84 percent that's even higher, which is deeply troubling, but I think it's because, as I said, those things like implicit bias that happens in the clinical encounter, where there's an assumption about whether or not I've gone to the doctor or I have, am I'm going to am I going to be combative? Or, frankly, it's, you know, our health care system. If I go to the doctor and I'm treated badly, what incentive do I have to come back?

And I want to dispel this myth, right? Because I don't want people to think that this is just one type of person. I have studied this. I'm a degree. I have economic means. I did everything I was supposed to do, and even I was in a situation where I had a emergency C section, my son was in the NICU.

So what people need to understand is this is systemic, and that it's not a one size fits all, but it does require us to have an honest conversation about what is happening and to not, you know, look at this as some issue where it's just a certain group of people because and what we're all disproportionately harmed by this issue, and then, unfortunately, because it's now reached crisis, you know, levels we're seeing this happen because of the abortion restrictions have exacerbated this issue, and white women and other women are having this concern, and so now we're seeing a need to pay attention to this. But as I've said, we have been talking about this for decades.

BLACKWELL: Dr. Regina Davis Moss, thank you so much, and I know you'll continue to talk about it for the next 10 days during this election cycle and beyond. I appreciate your time this morning.

MOSS: Thanks so much for having me.

BLACKWELL: Certainly. An often overlooked community, getting a visit from Tim Walz today and President Biden just addressed them yesterday. Native Americans in Arizona have a big role in this election, but they have not gotten the proportionate attention. We'll talk about why that's changing, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:42:05]

BLACKWELL: President Biden traveled to Arizona to deliver a message that was long overdue, speaking from the Gila River Indian Community, President Biden apologized yesterday for the government's role in running what's known as Indian boarding schools. Now more than 150 years, we're talking up to 1969. 18,000 Native American children were taken from their homes and forced to assimilate.

The schools were designed to wipe out native culture and language and identity, and often those measures were deadly. Nearly a thousand. 973 children died under the harsh conditions at these schools.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: One of the most horrific chapters in American history, should be ashamed, a chapter that most Americans don't know about. The vast majority don't even know about it. For those who went through this period, it was too painful to speak of for a nation, it was too shameful to acknowledge. But just because history is silent doesn't mean it didn't take place. It did take place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Now this was Biden's first visit to Indian country as president, and the first time a sitting president visited tribal land since President Obama in 2014. President Biden's margin for victory in Arizona was very tight in 2020. He won the state by a little more than 10,000 votes.

Now, keep that in mind when you also consider where vice presidential nominee Tim Walz will be today. Window Rock, Arizona, that's the capital of the Navajo Nation. It's known as Chine. They're the largest tribe in Arizona, with about 131,000 members, according to the census, a turning out voters there could swing the race in the battleground state, and that would make a major impact on the race to 270 electoral votes.

According to CNN latest poll of polls looking at likely voters in Arizona, there's no clear leader right now. The state is a toss-up. Both parties seem to recognize that there was a strong presence of both Democrats and Republicans. Just last month at the annual Navajo Nation parade in Window Rock.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Myron Lizer, former vice president of the Navajo Nation, Yamauchi, our communities are strong, but we've been left behind. Rising prices and broken promises have hurt our families the most, but you will not be forgotten.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: With us now is Chris Deschene. He is a former candidate for political office in Arizona, a U.S. Marine veteran and Kamala Harris supporter. Chris, thank you for being with me.

So first, let me come to you with what you think the governor needs to say when he is at Window Rock today, to those undecided Native American voters and to those who might be leaning toward former President Trump, what's the case he should make?

[08:45:00]

CHRIS DESCHENE (D) RAN FOR ARIZONA SECRETARY OF STATE IN 2010: Good morning, and thank you for having me. Fundamentally with the Navajo Nation, we have a lot of values that center on the family. We also have issues that are tied to our economy. So these generally conservative type values are important.

But the main thing that is going to resonate is the fact that he has, or he will be, showing up in person, and that speaks volumes in terms of presence. It shows that an elected leader does care and will be able to speak to the character in terms of the types of leadership that come and will work with Indian Country.

BLACKWELL: You talk about showing up in person. Let me ask you about President Biden's decision to come to Arizona into Indian country. It's his first visit as President, right? There were more than 500 of these schools across 38 states, but he chose his first visit as President a week and a half out from an election to come to a battleground state, the first time the Indian country to apologize. Was that appearance more electoral college math, or was that more contrition? Was it political primarily?

DESCHENE: So President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris during this administration has been very supportive of tribes in regards to the bipartisan infrastructure law and Inflation Reduction Act, those laws on itself have provided resources for tribes, like dollars, program funding, grants and available programs.

And those two by themselves have brought tremendous resources, which show that this administration cares. And so his arrival Indian Country is consistent with all the support that tribes have been, have been receiving from this administration.

BLACKWELL: Yes, I think it's fair to ask if this timing, this decision of a specific location, he could have gone to Oklahoma, Montana, Oregon, other states, he chose Arizona 11 days out. You talked about the economic issue. The -- there's a poll from Harvard at the height of inflation during the Biden administration, the recent hike, that found that more than two-thirds of Native Americans said that this -- the inflation caused serious financial problems more than any other demographic here.

Do you think the Vice President will pay a price with Native American voters for the impact of inflation during her time as vice president?

DESCHENE: No, I don't believe so. And the reason being is what Harvard probably doesn't recognize is that in Indian country, the measure of poverty, the measure of indigent families working to survive. These reservations generally are remote. They're distant, and they're far from the mainstream in terms of costs. So the costs were already high, and often they're food deserts, as an example. So you don't have, you know, the resources, groceries that folks are talking about.

Now, granted, there are high costs everywhere, and we're working to address that, but Indian country had already been suffering these issues. So again, it goes back to a leader coming to the tribe like ours and showing that we care we want to work with you. You can trust us and believe us that we we're going to take all these issues into consideration.

BLACKWELL: All right, Chris Deschene. Thank you so much for being with me, and of course, we'll all be watching what Governor Walz says today at Window Rock.

A group of Americans that faces some of the highest rates of violence in the nation, finally getting the attention the federal government inside the FBI's Operation Not Forgotten, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:53:37]

BLACKWELL: Federal law enforcement authorities are focusing on a demographic that says it is overlooked and underserved. Operation Not Forgotten is a partnership between the FBI and the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs that investigates violent crimes and missing person cases in indigenous communities.

CNN's Josh Campbell is here with more. Josh.

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Victor, we're getting new information about this large scale surge of FBI resources to tribal lands across the country, deemed Operation Not Forgotten. The Bureau says that between June and September, there were nine children who were rescued from abuse and neglect, over 40 arrests, as well as 11 criminal indictments.

This operation comes amid a soaring number of incidents of violence impacting Native Americans, as well as a mounting case load of unsolved investigations.

Now I rode along with an FBI agent on tribal lands. He spoke about the difficult nature of the work and what drives him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got to be able to learn the land. You got to be able to learn the cultural norms. And our number one challenge is access for certain crimes out here, it'll be some sort of family on family crime, and they may not want the individual to go to jail.

CAMPBELL: But to you, this is more than just data.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is more than just data. These are individuals, and these are individuals that are either in pain or missing or in trouble.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMPBELL: Now there are many barriers to solving these cases. For example, Victims' advocates say that police agencies on these tribal lands simply do not have enough resources.

[08:55:04]

One victim advocate described that oftentimes victims have to travel long distances, sometimes over 200 miles, to the local police substation, and then when they get there, sometimes the officers are not there. They're out on the reservation solving other types of crimes.

Now we're also hearing from victim advocates that a lot of police agencies don't have adequate representation, which can be a barrier to get victims to actually open up. And then finally, police departments themselves on tribal lands are saying that these cases simply do not get enough attention.

One police chief on a reservation told me that it's hard to get the public to come forward and to help solve a crime they didn't know the crime occurred. Victor.

BLACKWELL: Thank you, Josh and thank you for joining me today. I'll see you back here next Saturday at 8:00 a.m. Eastern. Smerconish is up next after the break.

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