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Battle for Syria; Alleged Colorado Shooter Charged; Mitt Romney Visits Israel

Aired July 30, 2012 - 15:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hour two. Welcome. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Families are now reacting as the man accused of carrying out the massacre in a Colorado movie theater officially hears the charges against him, count them, 124 counts, including two dozen murder charges. We are going to talk about that here in just a moment.

But first to Syria. Syrian troops have entered the hornet's nest here. We have been talking about the commercial hub of this country, that being Aleppo. And so far, they have failed to wrest control of the city from the increasingly confident rebels.

In fact, take a look at this video here, because far from hunkering down and taking a pounding, you see them, the anti- government rebels attacked this military base. This is just north of Aleppo. They drove out the government forces and seized all kinds of weapons, including several tanks.

CNN's Ivan Watson is in Syria. He witnessed this battle overnight.

I spoke with him just a short time ago. Here is what he told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IVAN WATSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The army base was firing in all different directions with machine guns. It was firing big tanks outside hitting the neighboring villages, shooting anything.

And they called in artillery all the way from Aleppo, which was a couple miles down the road. But, in the end, the rebels captured the outpost, which was defended by at least a dozen tanks and armored personnel carriers, about 100 Syrian soldiers.

And, today, we went down to see the aftermath of the battle. The rebels were already -- they had carted away at least four tanks that they had captured and were taking away boxes and boxes of ammunition that they had captured.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Ivan Watson there for us near Aleppo.

The Syrian rebels are giving government forces here really a fight in Aleppo. It's not been since -- really it hasn't been this slaughter, this massacre that some had predicted, some had worried about, at least I should say not yet.

We have some gotten video. I know it's tough to look at this but some of this, it shows bodies of government soldiers there in the middle of these streets. We know the rebels have lost some fighters as well. But they are not rolling over.

In fact, we do have this, Syrian rebels pumping ground-to-air fire at a government helicopter. You see the chopper in the skies overhead. The rebels, they are making a stand so far in Aleppo.

I want to bring in Hala Gorani.

Just walk in because you and I have just talked so much about this map and the significance. And we were talking just Friday readying for this battle, right, this offensive that was to happen over the weekend.

HALA GORANI, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Sure.

BALDWIN: But so far, before we talk Aleppo, this is Anadan. This is that military base within the city that apparently the rebels have overtaken. That's significant.

GORANI: Right. And what Ivan Watson was reporting to us and on International, we have been covering this extensively as well, is that Anadan, this military -- this is the actual agglomeration, but that the military base itself is surrounded by villages unsympathetic to regime forces.

In other words, it was sort of not entirely surprising they were able to overrun this base.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: They allowed them in.

GORANI: The other thing is they did not get reinforcements from other troop buildups in Aleppo and in and around Aleppo. They were essentially -- they basically fighting for themselves without any kind of help or support from other regime forces in the area, which in itself is surprising, because if they had this organized offensive under way, you would expect more cooperation to happen between elements in this particular base and elsewhere in Aleppo province.

BALDWIN: Going to Aleppo nearby, Aleppo is this area, Salahuddin.

GORANI: Yes.

BALDWIN: And this thus far is rebel-held.

GORANI: Yes. Thus far, from what we understand, it is rebel- held and intense shelling is going on at least over the last 24 hours from the people I spoke with that have been able to enter Salahuddin according to what they have told me with help.

I have been speaking with some activists who have said they have come into Salahuddin, this particular neighborhood, which by the way is a low income neighborhood with people sympathetic to rebels. Elsewhere in Aleppo, you have to keep in mind the relationship with the revolution and the rebels is a lot more complex, not as straightforward as people sometimes think it is in Aleppo.

But as far as Salahuddin is concerned, yes, there are sympathies for the rebels and the rebels are holding it. These are not fighters that are coming in from the outside. A lot of them -- and I'm hearing their accents speaking Arabic -- they sound from Aleppo.

These guys are locals. That said, one last point I want to make is we are hearing increasing reports that jihadi fighters who are not Syrian and not even Arab are coming in to Syria to help with the fight against the regime. We're talking Chechens. We're talking in some cases Afghans.

This makes the situation a lot more complicated.

BALDWIN: Do you think though the situation could very well change in Aleppo where the government moves in and takes it? How likely is that?

GORANI: I think it's very likely. Look, this is the crown jewel along with Damascus. Damascus, Aleppo.

You can't lose Aleppo and keep control of the country. Right now they have Damascus. Those rebels that rebelled are under the regime control. As far as Aleppo, it's a lot more fluid. Anadan, this is where Ivan Watson is, of course, it is outside of Aleppo. But look how clear of a route they now have to the Turkish border.

This is all clear for the rebels to take in terms of smuggling in equipment, in terms of smuggling supplies and arms as well.

BALDWIN: OK. Hala Gorani, thank you.

And now this, a lot more news happening this hour. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Clash of the titans. Apple and Samsung in court battling it out over where Samsung ripped off designs of the iPhone and the iPad.

I'm Brooke Baldwin. The news is now.

MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's Iran that is the leading state sponsor of terrorism.

BALDWIN (voice-over): Mitt Romney gets forceful on Iran as one magazine causes quite a stir.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm really confident standing up in my Speedo suit.

BALDWIN: Plus, it's all the buzz in London. We will tell you why Speedo keeps their designs so secret.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: We have now learned 142 criminal counts here for this suspected movie theater gunman, James Holmes, that announced just this morning inside the courtroom.

We're just seeing these sketches coming in this afternoon, cameras not allowed inside for today's hearing in Colorado.

And, today, Holmes saying one single solitary word in court, answering simply and softly "Yes" in response to a question by the judge.

CNN's Ed Lavandera was inside that courtroom today.

And, Ed, 142 criminal counts, 142. Walk me through them.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, of the 142, 24 of those are first-degree murder charges; 116 of those are attempted murder charges and one each, one for possessing explosives and the other one is an enhancement because of the violence of this crime.

So, that's what they're facing. Interestingly, we asked one of the victims afterwards if they thought that that was enough. And we were told that the prosecutors said that this was a strategy to basically go after the amount of charges that they felt they could feasibly go after in a timely manner. That was a little bit of the strategy, the prosecution strategy behind why they filed these 142 charges today.

BALDWIN: Who was in court, Ed?

LAVANDERA: About half the courtroom -- they had seats for about 120 people or so. Half of that was news media. The other half was victims, survivors and victim family members who were invited to come. They sat off on the left side of the court.

There was also an overflow room full of people as well. Many of them spoke with us after about what it was like to be there in that room with James Holmes so close to him. This was for many people the first time they had seen this man since the shooting.

We spoke with a woman by the name of MaryEllen Hansen, who is aunt of Ashley Moser. She is the woman was wounded, has lost her -- she was pregnant and lost that child and her 6-year-old baby girl was also killed. That aunt spoke with us about what it was like being in there just a little while ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MARYELLEN HANSEN, RELATIVE OF VICTIMS: It was very important to come today to see him as who he was, and there was a lot of anger that anybody had the right to do something like that. And I just wanted to have the opportunity to really watch his gestures, to get a sense of the type of character he was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: Brooke, I also wanted to point out she had given us an update for Ashley Moser as well. As I mentioned just before, she's the woman who was pregnant, lost that child, we learned just a few days ago.

Her aunt also told us today that Ashley is paralyzed as a result of her wounds as well, so a tragic, horrible experience that that poor family is dealing with right now.

BALDWIN: Awful. Awful. I cannot begin to imagine.

Ed Lavandera, thank you from Colorado.

I do want to talk a little bit more about these charges that this man is facing, 142 counts; 24 of those are for first-degree murder. But he's only accused of killing 12 people. So this is all something that's called depraved indifference.

Let's talk to defense attorney Joey Jackson.

Joey, I just want you to explain this for me. Explain what exactly is depraved indifference and why does it mean that someone can be charged twice for the very same crime?

JOEY JACKSON, LEGAL ANALYST: Sure, Brooke.

What happens is, is that murder is what we call a specific intent crime. In order to establish it, you have to specifically intend -- the prosecution has to demonstrate that you intended the death. You intended to commit murder.

However, under depraved indifference, the argument becomes very different. It becomes not what you intended to do, but what your actions caused. You acted with such moral bankruptcy, you acted with such depravity, you acted with such inhumaneness that as a result of those actions it caused a death.

It's a big difference. The prosecution is allowed to charge multiple theories and different theories for the same crime. Brief analogy, DUI accident when you're drinking and driving, you blow into a tube. Per se, if you reach a certain limit, you're drunk.

However, if the tube is not working or it doesn't work properly, what happens is they can also get you and find you guilty because they see signs of your drunkenness. Same kind of concept. A prosecutor is allowed to pursue multiple theories.

BALDWIN: Got it. Let me ask you this because we had the news on Friday that apparently this suspected gunman had been a psychiatric patient at his university, University of Colorado. We learned he had then delivered this package to his psychiatrist apparently.

Would this be considered, Joey, protected communication or could this be evidence in the case?

JACKSON: It would.

Let me explain how this is going to happen. What happens is when you -- in the event you pursue, for example, an insanity defense, what you do is you put your state of mind at issue if you're a defendant.

Whenever you put your state of mind at issue, the privilege now has to fall. Why? Because now you have the prosecution that's attempting to rebut it and your mental status is at issue. How on earth could you have a trial if you -- only one side could see the evidence and the records relating to your mental state and the other side can't?

It's called opening the door. If the defense opens the door, although there's a privilege that concerns medical records, treatment and history, particularly as it relates to your psychiatric evaluation and history, that door is open, thereby allowing the prosecution to have all the records and for it to be freely admissible in front of the jury.

BALDWIN: So then presumably that means we would have some sort of competency hearing and that perhaps is one of the next steps here in this case.

Joey Jackson, thank you so much.

JACKSON: Pleasure.

BALDWIN: Knockoffs, and I'm not talking designer handbags here, but I'm talking about cell phones and tablets. Apple takes Samsung to court.

Plus, we're just getting in Olympic results, including the race with the so-called female with Michael Phelps. We're talking about Missy Franklin. That is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Spoiler alert. Spoiler alert. We're getting results in from this afternoon's Olympic events.

If you don't want to hear them, I'll pause for a minute. Pop your TV here on mute. Pausing for you. Reminder, you actually can't watch the Olympics live on television. I know so many of you are frustrated over that. The network airing it will be broadcasting the competition tonight in prime time.

Here I go. Just into us, Olympic rising star Missy Franklin gets the gold. She gets the gold medal in the 100-meter women's backstroke. Good for her. Also, American Matt Grevers wins gold in the men's 100-meter backstroke, while Ryan Lochte takes fourth in the men's 200-meter relay final.

Meantime, Japan is awarded men's gymnastics team silver after an appeal, edging the British team into the bronze. The men from China win gold. There you have it.

Unmute, because I want to talk about the battle for tech titans. It is underway in a California courtroom. In one corner, have Apple, the world's most valuable company. In the other corner, you have Samsung, Apple's upstart rival, maker of its own successful smartphone.

(FINANCIAL UPDATE)

BALDWIN: And now to something that definitely has political insiders talking to, the cover of "Newsweek," Mitt Romney's -- the quote, unquote -- "Wimp Factor." Have you seen this?

And, look, yes, to some, it looks like just a total publicity stunt, but there is a deeper conversation to be had here about Iran. Wolf Blitzer sat down with the Republican on what he would do about the Iranian nuclear threat.

We're going to talk to Wolf live from Israel.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has arrived in Poland now after a weekend visit to Israel.

Romney is meeting with top government officials and paying tribute to the Solidarity labor movement that's helped bring down communist rule. But it's Romney's remarks on Iran delivered in Jerusalem just yesterday that still have a lot of people talking.

And I want to bring in Wolf Blitzer , who is live in Jerusalem. He's going to be hosting "THE SITUATION ROOM" there in just about a half-hour.

So, Wolf, I know you talked to Mitt Romney. He said he would support any and all measures to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb and, in his words, no option should be excluded.

My question to you is how much of that speech yesterday, to the tough talk on Iran, how much was it really geared to a U.S. audience vs. an Israeli audience?

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST, "THE SITUATION ROOM": I think it was geared to both.

I think that he wanted to tell the people of Israel that if he were president of the United States, he would work with them to make sure that Iran didn't become a military nuclear power. At the same time, he was trying to speak to supporters and others back in the United States that he was firmly aligned with Israel on this very sensitive issue of Iran, and he would not let Iran become a nuclear power, would not have a nuclear weapon.

That's exactly, by the way, the same position that President Obama has. President Obama has said he will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon, that both of these candidates, they both insist that the U.S. policy should not be to contain a nuclear Iran, but to not let Iran become a nuclear power to begin with.

They both support sanctions. They both support extensive pressure. But both President Obama and Mitt Romney are saying, if all of that fails, they're not ruling out other options, including the military option.

So, on this sensitive issue, I don't see a whole lot of difference, at least publicly, verbally, between what President Obama is saying and what Mitt Romney is saying.

BALDWIN: OK. So, then, perhaps not as much political risk. And I want you to weigh in, but not as much political risk criticizing Iran, while standing on Israeli soil, A., and, B., we now know he's in Poland.

And I know you have been watching the sort of trajectory from London to Jerusalem now to Poland. And I'm just curious of what you think of perhaps this effort to bolster his foreign policy credentials?

BLITZER: He's trying. He got obviously in some trouble in London. Some of the comments he made about the Olympics, he got reprimanded by some British leaders, including the mayor and the prime minister, the mayor of London, the prime minister of Great Britain. That was awkward.

Here in Jerusalem, some of the things he's been saying about Jerusalem being Israel's capital, moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem -- he also this morning at a fund-raiser at the King David Hotel for wealthy American-Jewish supporters, basically, he said that -- he used the word of culture in describing the discrepancy between Israeli -- the Israeli GNP and the Palestinian Authority's GNP.

And the Palestinians are all very angry, calling his remarks racist and they're also very upset by what he was saying about Jerusalem, so not only Palestinians, but others in the Arab world, in the Muslim world, as well.

So that's an awkward situation for him as well. We will see what happens in Poland. But if his goal was to strengthen his national security credentials, he's gotten into trouble to a certain degree with the British because of the Olympic remarks and obviously to a certain degree with Palestinians and other Arabs because of what he's saying here.

BALDWIN: Yes. I do just want to point out, not only, Mr. Blitzer, are you talking -- have you talked to Mitt Romney. You also have been interviewing the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, and also Defense Minister Ehud Barak. We're going to hear all of that coming up I know on your show, in "THE SITUATION ROOM."

But I just want to play this. I know Ehud Barak had a -- had an interesting answer to you when you asked him about U.S.-Israeli relations under President Obama.

Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EHUD BARAK, ISRAELI DEFENSE MINISTER: I can see long years administration of both sides of political aisle deeply supporting the state of Israel and I believe that it reflects a profound feeling among the American people.

But I should tell you honestly that this administration under President Obama is doing in regard to our security more than anything that I can remember in the past.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: More than anything he can remember in the past. Were you surprised by that answer, Wolf?

BLITZER: It was really amazing when you think about it because the defense minister of Israel, Ehud Barak, and the president of Israel, Shimon Peres, in separate interviews earlier today in Jerusalem that I conducted with both of them, they both went out of their way.

They were effusive, enthusiastically praising President Obama for his support of Israel, both suggesting the U.S.-Israeli military-to- military relationship, the intelligence-community-to-intelligence- community relationship was as least as good, if not better, than it's ever been before. They really went out of their way to praise the president.

All of this will be music to the ears of the Obama campaign in Chicago, not so much to the Romney campaign in Boston, but that's what these two Israeli leaders said. Even as Mitt Romney was getting ready to leave Israel for Poland, both of them were sitting down with me and going out of their way to praise President Obama, rejecting this notion that some have suggested that he hasn't been supportive enough of Israel.

I didn't hear that from the president of Israel or the defense minister of Israel.

BALDWIN: Wow. Wolf Blitzer, we will look for all three of these interviews coming up in your show, live in Jerusalem here at the top of the hour. We appreciate it. Thank you. You probably would not link racecars to swimsuits, but that is precisely the innovation of the Speedo. Wait until you hear how they are keeping their ideas secret.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Sure, we noticed how fast Olympic swimmers are racing these days, but I'm sure you also noted those Speedos they are wearing. And, well, there is an incredible amount of technology that apparently goes into the creation of one of these swimsuits, so we take a look behind the scenes at where these famous swimsuits are made.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOSEPH SANTRY, RESEARCH MANAGER, SPEEDO AQUALAB: The Fastskin racing system is a system which is designed to work together to optimize the hydrodynamics of the swimmer.

So, FINA is the governing body for swimming and, where in 2009 and the Beijing 2008 Olympics, we had full coverage on athletes so they could wear a suit which was from their shoulders to their ankles, this time around, because the coverage has been reduced and we wanted to look at a overall holistic solution, we looked at the cap and the goggles together. And it's the first time any company has done this.

The main advantage of the new suit is the fabric. So we've got something called Hydro-K Zone compression fabric. And what this does is it allows us to add-in varying compression through the length of the fabric.

We work internationally with a whole host of experts, from CFD, which is computational fluid dynamics to really scanning, so the sorts of things you see in Hollywood films.

What I like to relate it to is a bit like a Formula One car, so where you see on a Formula One car, you've got a large aerodynamic spoiler at the front of the car. And what that does is sets up the flow across the whole of the car.

And what we realized, in swimming, we didn't have anything like that, so we had very bulbous goggles which actually caused a lot of drag. And this drag passes down the body of the swimmer and actually reduces the effects of the suit.

In this, the original sort of innovation stage for the project, we realized that a lot of the female swimmers had a very large bubble of hair on the back of their head. And it's just like having a massive water break in the water stopping you going forward.

So what we did was created an inner cap which would allow you to push your hair into the inner cap and create a very hydrodynamic form across the back of the head.

We need to keep the key innovations and key technologies we had developed in secret until their release. It allows us to keep a competitive edge against our competitors.

Aqualab, obviously, leads the swimming field in equipment and apparel, so we want to be the best equipment and apparel that any swimmer can buy.

It's a four-year process and it's roughly 55,000 man-hours of time spent on this with experts, externally and internally.

Speedo has been in swimming for 80-plus years. We've always had the best innovation at the Olympics. We've always put the most time and effort into those innovations and what we do differently, I guess, is we work very closely with all the athletes. It can really help us understand what the problems are facing swimmers and how we can improve equipment.

Ultimately, it's the athlete who wins the gold medal. It's their hours and hours of training in the pool and dedication to the sport which gets them on the podium. The goal for Speedo is to help them perform at their potential in the Olympic games and help them meet their goals.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: So much thought and innovation in a Speedo. Who knew? A reminder, you cannot watch Olympic events live on television, but they are indeed streaming online.

He will help you turn that idea into the next big thing. The man behind a website that knows the best innovations happens outside the boardroom in a sneak peek of "The Next List."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEN KAUFMAN, FOUNDER AND CEO, QUIRKY.COM: It's human nature to invent, right? It's human nature to try to make your life better. It's human nature to try to make the world around you a better place.

And what stops people is to actually do that and to execute on all those ideas is really freaking hard.

Good ideas shouldn't find their ways onto shelves because they're the ideas of people with the right look or circumstance. They should find their ways onto shelves because they are just great ideas. That's it. Plain and simple.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: First big gulps, now, baby milk. Why Michael Bloomberg's new health crusade involves hiding formula from new moms in the hospital.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: I don't know if you can hear the clock tick, tick, ticking away here, but there is a countdown here until this crackdown on, of all things, baby formula. Starting in little more than a month, the date is September 3rd, precisely, 27 New York city hospitals will be supporting this public campaign to keep new moms from feeding their baby formulas.

Here's how. These are guidelines from the administration of the New York mayor, Michael Bloomberg.

End distribution of free infant formula. It goes on -- restrict access to infant formula. That means, literally, keeping formula under lock-and-key. This is according to "The Village Voice."

Also, track formula distribution, which includes citing the reason for giving the formula in the first place and, finally, discourage mothers from bottle-feeding so staff will tell mother who have just given birth and would like some formula why they should be breast-feeding instead.

So, let's go to Catherine Connors. She's the director of blogs and social media at Babble.com. Catherine, welcome back to the show. Here's a question and I tell you. I put this one out to Twitter and I got some pretty colorful responses.

But my question initially is, does it bother you that this is coming from a man, albeit the mayor of New York City?

CATHERINE CONNORS, DIRECTOR OF BLOGS AND SOCIAL MEDIA, BABBLE.COM: A little bit. I mean, I think coming from a man just makes it feel, you know, pretty paternalistic.

I think, you know, to be frank, it is paternalistic. I think we should absolutely be doing everything we can to encourage breast- feeding. I totally agree with restricting the distribution of formula samples as a marketing tool in hospitals, but putting formula under lock and key, demanding medical reasons?

You know, it's a paternalistic program and, coming from a man, you know, makes it hard to ignore that.

BALDWIN: OK, now, let me point out here, you know, the other side of this, because there are benefits and you acknowledge this. I know that breastfeeding over formula, first of all, reduces the risk for ear infections, allergies, including asthma, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, reduces by 15 to 30 the risk of adult obesity.

So what about the women, though, who cannot bottle-feed, cannot also, you know, physically breast-feed? How then would this make them feel?

CONNORS: Well, I think that's really the core of the problem is that, you know, when you put such severe restrictions on the use of formula, when you put restrictions on the choice to formula feed, you're really, I think, going doing the road toward shaming it.

For mothers who struggle with post-partum depression, for mothers who have difficulty breast-feeding, for mothers who just want to make a choice to do something different, this really puts a lot of pressure on them and really has the potential to shame them. BALDWIN: You know, I'm not a mom, but I know that I have had -- of course, I have friends who are moms and I know that there is sort of sometimes a guilt associated with not being able to do that, so perhaps this would further exacerbate that sense of guilt.

Rhode Island, though, and Massachusetts, as I learned, have actually stopped giving out free formula at hospitals. That happened within like the last year or so, but tracking formula like medication and then having it under lock and key? Why?

CONNORS: I mean, obviously, you know, this program is intended to do everything possible to restrict the use of formula. And again, I think there are certain measures here that are important and that we should really be applauding.

Restricting, you know, eliminating the marketing of formula to moms is a very, very important move. However, I think when you turn formula into a medical issue, when you make it a matter of the discretion of the nurse, when you put it under lock and key, I mean, the messaging there is extraordinary.

Then you really are saying to women, you're not capable of making this choice for yourself. We don't trust you to make the right choice. Whether or not to breast-feed should be any given woman's personal choice.

BALDWIN: Final question, what if Mr. Bloomberg were a missus. What if the mayor were a woman? What would feel the same way? Would you feel the same way?

CONNORS: I actually think that if Mayor Bloomberg were a woman, this program would have been dealt with a more delicate hand. I don't think we would have seem the extreme measures like lock and key and medical reasons.

That said, I do think, as I said before, that the optics of this being the dictate of a man, of a male politician, do get it a certain flavor that's a little bit problematic.

BALDWIN: I would love to hear from you watching. Send me a Tweet. What do you think about this, if you're a mom or if you were in the hospital, @BrookeBCNN? I'd love to read your tweets.

And, Catherine Connors, thank you so much.

CONNORS: Thank you.

BALDWIN: We have just gotten word, Democrats are apparently considering an addition to their convention platform this year, an issue that is not only controversial but has never made an experience at a Democratic convention, ever.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Just in to us here at CNN, word of a possible addition at the Democratic convention this year. It's an issue that's never actually made the platform before.

I want to go to CNN political director Mark Preston for this and, Mark, what are we talking about?

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, Brooke, we're talking about same-sex marriage, which really has been the hot-button social issue that we've been talking about for a couple months, the reason being, of course, that President Obama came out recently and said that he supports same-sex marriage.

Well, Democrats were meeting this weekend and they were crafting what the platform was going to be at the Democratic national convention in Charlotte. One of the things that they have put into this draft language right now is that there would be an amendment in there or a notation anyway to acknowledge that they are supportive of same-sex marriage.

So, this is, in many ways, historic. It has to go through a couple more iterations before it makes its way to Charlotte, but this would be historic if the Democrats were, as a national party, to vote on and approve the idea of same-sex marriage, Brooke.

BALDWIN: So, if they then vote on and improve it, how, as we will be watching Charlotte and the DNC, how exactly will this materialize there?

PRESTON: Well, what will happen is, of course, we'll have the convention, which will start one day later. But it will start in September. I think it's on the fourth. And they will have to agree to the platform, so the whole convention will have to agree to the platform. There will be a vote and, of course, it will very likely go through.

But, you know, we put this very much through the presidential lens when we're talking about this, but there's more than President Obama on the ballot in November, Brooke, so even though this may be helpful to his election process, certainly with the Democratic base, this could potentially be hurtful to conservative Democrats who represent areas throughout the country where same-sex marriage is not necessarily embraced.

BALDWIN: Right.

PRESTON: So, again, we talk about it through the lens of the presidential race, but this is greater ramifications for Democrats all the way down the ballot.

BALDWIN: This is huge and, as you point out, it would be a first. Mark Preston from Washington. Mark, thank you.

Millions of dollars at stake, a huge bath salts and other synthetic drug bust by the feds in more than 100 cities. We'll talk with the father who lost his son to synthetic marijuana. It's a very emotional interview. Don't miss this. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: It is the fear that so many police officers wake up with, captured by dash-cam.

A gunman gets out of his car, fires right at an officer. This is Fortville, Indiana. Tried to pull him over for a broken taillight and you see this guy firing 12 rounds and then hopped back in his car and drove off.

The officer is recovering, but the dash-cam video also shows he didn't think he was going to make it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Help. Help.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, buddy. Hang in there. All right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm dying.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, you're not, buddy. You're not going to die.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Our Indianapolis affiliate, WISH TV, reports that the suspect here, James Lockhart, died later in the night after shooting at other officers.

And a tragic story to report this afternoon from the pro football world. Tampa, Florida, police say Tennessee Titans receiver O.J. Murdock has committed suicide. The Titans say Murdock missed last season with an Achilles injury and that he had not reported to training camp. Murdock was 25-years old.

And, you know, sometimes what we do on the show touches you just as much as it touches us. And this is the case of an interview I did on Friday with a man by the name of Lance Dyer. Just last March, his 14-year-old son Dakota became a victim of designer drugs, in this case, synthetic marijuana.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LANCE DYER, SYNTHETIC DRUG ACTIVIST: Dakota was contacted by two of his friends on social media, Facebook, and they had mentioned synthetic marijuana, what they were calling "legal weed," asked him to try it. Oh, we can hook you up with it. Dakota declined four times.

Finally, he said something about, well, maybe, and they said, we will hook you up with our man. On Friday the 9th, sometime between 6:00 and 7:30 that afternoon -- we live in downtown Bremen -- he jumped on his bicycle and road up to Walgreens, a local store that we have, to get a drink. I don't remember exactly what he went for, but it was not uncommon. He come back. He was in the house with me and his mother all night long. We watched normal TV programs. At 12:30, me and him were sitting on our kitchen counter, drinking a glass of milk and eating Chips Ahoy cookies, discussing the next day. We were going to our local sporting goods store to get him his body armor for spring practice.

I believe at the time the movie was called "Battleship" that had just come out. Him and some of his buddies wanted to go to it on Sunday. Everything was fine. Excuse me.

We, me and my wife, got up the next morning. We left. We had errands to run, certain things. We returned back home at exactly 12:10. We know that his last text message was at 11:46, so, sometime between the time we left home or maybe right prior to that, Dakota made a 14-year-old decision when he accepted it. He made an even worse decision when he smoked it.

Within a matter of hours, he went through a psychosis is what they call it, or psychotic episode. He took a handgun and took his own life. He was alive when he found him at 12:10.

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BALDWIN: Lance Dyer is trying to give back to the emergency workers who tried to save Dakota's life and honor his son's memory. He has started a program to turn these old mailboxes, like this one here, into drop boxes to get rid of designer drugs like the synthetic marijuana that ultimately killed his son, and any drugs, including old, unused prescription medicines, to keep them off the streets. They are welcome in those drop boxes, as well.

When I talked with Lance Dyer on Friday he had placed almost 400 drug drop boxes, but on Saturday, he wrote in to us after we talked to him just to let us know he had received hundreds of calls, e-mails, text messages just because of our interview.

More than 80 were requests for drop boxes. Still more came from companies and people who wanted to help expand the program and I just wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you. Thank you for watching and responding to such a good cause.

I'm Brooke Baldwin. Now, to Wolf Blitzer, live in Jerusalem. "The Situation Room" begins now.

BLITZER: Brooke, thanks very much.