[Costello:] The police shootings in Tulsa and Charlotte have prompted swift and very different responses from Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Clinton, who admitted not a lot is known yet about what happened in these incidents, called for communities and police to respect one another while working together on reform. For his part, Donald Trump raised eyebrows by calling for what many believe was a broader use of stop and frisk. That policy used by the New York City Police Department and other police forces to reduce crime was declared unconstitutional by a New York federal judge three years ago who said it violated the rights of minorities. This morning, Trump seemed to qualify his comments.
[Donald Trump , Presidential Nominee:] I was really referring to Chicago with stop and frisk.
[Unidentified Male:] OK.
[Trump:] They asked me about Chicago, and I was talking about stop and frisk for Chicago and where you had 3,000 shootings so far this year. Three thousand from January 1st. And, obviously, you can't let the system go the way it's going, but I suggested stop and frisk. And some people think that's a great idea and some people probably don't like it. But when you have 3,000 people shot and so many people dying, I mean it's worse than some of the places we're hearing about, like Afghanistan, you know, the war-torn nations.
[Unidentified Male:] Yes.
[Trump:] And I mean this it's more dangerous.
[Costello:] OK, that part about Afghanistan is not true, but let's discuss stop and frisk, shall we? Lynn Sweet is the Washington bureau chief for "The Chicago Sun Times, and Jason Johnson is the politics editor for theroot.com. Lynn, you are from Chicago. Well-versed in Chicago. Mr. Trump said he has suggested he didn't say to who but he suggested that stop and frisk would work in the city of Chicago. Would it?
[Lynn Sweet, Washington Bureau Chief, "chicago Sun-times":] He doesn't know what he's talking about in that he has never visited any of the neighborhoods in Chicago. He has no relationships with law enforcement community in Chicago. As it happens, by coincidence, tonight, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who has been trying to solve this horrible crime situation in Chicago, is giving a major address on it with some more ideas that he has. So there's no possible way that donned Trump is putting out a solution. Stop and frisk is three words. Carol, it takes more than that to try and figure out why Chicago is having the trouble it's having with these this very serious problem of shootings. And that's my point I'd like to make.
[Costello:] Right, well let's let's
[Sweet:] Donald Trump can come to Chicago, as Hillary Clinton has, and go into neighborhoods and try and figure out that there might not just be one answer to this problem.
[Costello:] Well, Donald Trump went on and he expounded on "Fox and Friends" this morning. He said stop and frisk is, police can walk down the streets, Jason, and they can stop people who look suspicious, who they suspect have a gun, frisk them. If they have the gun, they can take away the gun. And, you know, there's a problem with gun violence in the city of Chicago. So why wouldn't that work, Jason?
[Jason Johnson, Politics Editor, Theroot.com:] Well, it's unconstitutional, Carol. I mean if it's unconstitutional at one place, it's unconstitutional somewhere else. And also this idea that your the problems with stop and frisk aren't just that it ends up being abusive to minorities, but it actually I've always thought it's somewhat dangerous for the police as well. You're asking police to basically consistently confront people, men and women on a regular basis, under the suspicion that they may have committed a crime or may have a weapon. It's provocative. It's incendiary. I think it's counter to basic police work. And think about what we just saw happening right now. In Charlotte, in North Carolina, that was a situation where people saw somebody with a gun. He had a right to have that gun. And that man was still shot in an open carry state. So it's a bad idea, but I'm not surprised because the use of Chicago at this point has become sort of a dog whistle for racial problems in the black community and that's why you hear a lot of candidates referring to it. He didn't really care about policy, he just wanted to mention Chicago.
[Costello:] On the other hand, Hillary
[Sweet:] Well, we have invited. Yes, please go on. I'm sorry.
[Costello:] Yes. No, no, I know you have invited Donald Trump to Chicago. So has the very famous rapper that I talked with. And so far Donald Trump hasn't taken him up on his invitation. I wanted to talk a little bit about Hillary Clinton because she admitted that she doesn't have all the answers, right, but she said she fell back on, you know, we have to come up with some national policy for how police handle these situations and she said there needs to be better community policing. But we've all heard those solutions before, Lynn.
[Sweet:] This is a hard one because you can't criticize openly President Barack Obama in saying that this is happening on your watch. After the Ferguson shootings, Carol, as you know, Barack Obama's Justice Department started a lot of study of nationally of what to do. They had a police commission that they formed. Hillary Clinton said back in July that the problem was that the local police departments are not practicing what the best recommendations are to prevent this. So I think this is a harder needle for Hillary Clinton to thread because she doesn't want to say that the Obama Justice Department has been studying this. They do police studies ever since Ferguson and you still have this problem. She doesn't want to go against the president in saying that they haven't solved the problem.
[Costello:] Right.
[Sweet:] By the way, Obama says it's our job to start the work even if we can't finish it.
[Costello:] And yet these problems persist. I want to go I want to talk about the birther controversy just one more time because Donald Trump sat down with a local reporter in Columbus, Ohio, and that reporter asked Donald Trump what me him change his mind about the birther thing, what made him say that President Obama was born in the United States. And Donald Trump answered that question. Let's listen.
[Donald Trump , Presidential Nominee:] Well, I just want to get on with, you know, we want to get on with the campaign. A lot of people were asking me questions and, you know, we want to talk about jobs, we want to talk about the military, we want to talk about ISIS and how you get rid of ISIS. We wanted to really talk about bringing jobs back to this area because you've been decimated. So we really want to get just back on to the subject of jobs, military, taking care of our vets, et cetera.
[Costello:] So, Jason, he says he just wants to move on, you know, and it sounds as if it was all about political expediency and is Donald Trump sounding more and more like a politician as time winds down to Election Day?
[Johnson:] Yes. And as time winds down to the debate next week, Carol. Here's the thing. As somebody who had his time wasted at this ridiculous bait and switch press conference that Donald Trump had as an advertisement for his hotel last week when he was supposedly going to end birtherism, all I can say is this, he probably still believes that President Obama wasn't born in the United States. It's a ridiculous question. It's this insane Scooby Doo logic that somehow people figured out that Barack Obama fooled everybody, was born in another country, but the mainstream media hasn't figured it out yet. The fact of the matter is, Donald Trump, this is one of many different things that he says references to Chicago, birtherism, that he uses to appeal to a certain segment of the population that's always been hostile to having an African-American president, and he's not going to deny it. And even if he does publicly deny it somewhat, like he did at the press conference, it's like Marshawn Lynch, he's just saying it so he doesn't get fined. He doesn't really change his mind on the issue. So birtherism's still going to be there.
[Costello:] All right, I have to leave it there. Jason Johnson, Lynn Sweet, thanks to both of you. The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM after a break.