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Obama Gives News Conference; Obama Says Graham Wrong on DNI; Female DNA on Boston Bomb Fragments; Inside a Suspect's Brain; Kevin Spacey Visits Boston.

Aired April 30, 2013 - 11:30   ET

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


BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We want to see how we can deepen that, how we can improve that, and maintain that economic dialogue over a long period of time.

That doesn't meant that we're not going to be talking about security. I think that in my first conversation with the president, he indicated to me that he very much continues to be concerned about how we can work together to deal with trans-national drug cartels.

We've made great strides in the cooperation and coordination between our two governments over the last several years. But my suspicion is that things can be improved.

And some of the issues that he's talking about really had to do with refinements and improvements in terms of how Mexican authorities work with each other, how they coordinate more effectively, and it has less to do with how they're dealing with us, per se.

So I'm not gonna yet judge how this will alter the relationship between the United States and Mexico until I've heard directly from them to see what exactly are they trying to accomplish. But overall what I can say is that my impression is, is that the new president is serious about reform. He's already made some tough decisions. I think he's gonna make more that will prove the economy and security of Mexican citizens. And that will improve the bilateral relationship, as well.

And I don't want to leave out that we're also gonna be talking to, during my visit to Costa Rica, presidents of Central American countries, many of whom are struggling with both economic issues and security issues, but are important partners for us. Because I think the vision here is that we want to make sure that our hemisphere is more effectively integrated to improve the economy and security of all people. That's good for the United States. That will enhance our economy. That can improve our energy independence. There're a whole range of opportunities, and -- and that's gonna be the purpose of this trip

And I'm sure that those of you who will have the chance to travel with me will -- will have a chance to discuss this further.

All right? Thank you very much, everybody! Thank you, guys.

(END LIVE FEED) WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: So there he is the president -- hold on.

(BEGIN LIVE FEED)

QUESTION: Jason Collins? You wanna say anything about?

OBAMA: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

I'll say something about Jason Collins. I had the chance to -- to talk to him yesterday. He -- he seems like a terrific young man. And, you know, I told him I couldn't be prouder. You know, one of the extraordinary measures of progress that we've seen in this country has been the recognition that the LGBT community deserves full equality, not just partial equality, not just tolerance, but a recognition that they're fully a part of the American family.

And, you know, given the importance of sports in our society for an individual who -- who's excelled at the highest levels in one of the major sports go ahead and say, "This is who I am. I'm proud of it. I'm still a great competitor. I'm still seven-foot tall and can bang (ph) with Shaq.

(LAUGHTER)

And -- and, you know, deliver a hard foul"

(LAUGHTER)

And, you know, for -- for I think a lot of young people out there who, you know, are -- are -- are, you know, gay or lesbian who are struggling with these issues to see a role model like that, who's unafraid, I think it's a great thing. And I think America should be proud that this is just one more step in this ongoing recognition that we treat everybody fairly. And everybody's part of a -- part of a family. And we judge people on the basis of their character and their performance, and not their sexual orientation. So I'm very proud of him.

All right?

(END LIVE FEED)

BLITZER: There you saw the president go back to the podium to praise Jason Collins, a center for the Washington Wizards. He is now a free agent, 34 years old, a Stanford grad that came out in "Sports Illustrates" he is gay. It is very interesting to see if this center gets picked up by another one of the NBA teams or if he stays with the Washington Wizards. But from the president, on down, he is getting widespread praise for his decision to announce and to let everyone that he is gay and he is an active basketball player, a center. As I said, played this year for the Washington Wizards.

The president made lots of news here at this news conference. And it was a news conference. The president announcing, for example, on Gitmo, he hasn't given up on shutting down the Guantanamo Bay Prison Camp. He wants to go back to Congress and get back on that. He says the Russians have been very cooperative with the United States as far as the investigation of the Boston bombings. As far as Syria is concerned, if, in fact, the Syrian military used chemical weapons against his own people, he reiterates that would be a game changer. He says it would result in a range of options that would be reviewed, a spectrum of options. No one really believes U.S. troops are going to be sent on the ground in Syria.

As far as political questions are concerned, he did acknowledge when reporter, Jonathan Carl (ph), of ABC News, asked him if the juice was running out because he failed to deliver an expanded background checks, part of the gun legislation. He said, "Maybe I should just pack up and go home." He joked about that. He said, "Rumors of my demise may be exaggerated." Then he explained why he is going to go forward on comprehensive immigration reform. He's confident that historic legislation would be passed.

Gloria Borger, you watched it all. Jessica Yellin watched it all.

First, some thoughts from you, Gloria. What did you think?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: I think on closing Gitmo, he was asked about the hunger strike there. It was important I think and surprising that the president came out right away and said I'm going to go back at this. If you remember, Wolf, this was a retractable problem. He promised when first elected he would close it, and he hasn't been able to do that. The fact he's going to go back at it again, saying he's looking for allies to help him out with this, was interesting to me.

One other thing that was interesting to me was that he was very careful, when talking about the Russians, not to talk about the fact when the FBI went back to the Russians on Tsarnaev and asked for more information about him -- this was when they were investigating him -- that they were effectively stonewalled and did not get the information, say, about sources that they were looking for, but now the president decided to focus instead on the fact he's talked to Putin. They were working with them on this very closely. And he admitted, quite openly, I thought, to the suspicions that still remain between the U.S. intelligence services and the Russian intelligence services.

On health care, Wolf, the president defended health care. He said it's taking effect. He didn't give one ounce when asked about Max Baucus, senator from Montana, retiring, saying it was going to be a train wreck. He took issue with that.

I think what you saw was the president very careful on weapons on mass destruction saying, I've got to make sure I've got the facts. It was very clear he wasn't going to be pushed on the question of red line until he understood exactly what he was looking at and the context of the information he was getting -- Wolf?

BANFIELD: Yes. He was very precise in his wording on that so-called red line and game changer as far as Syria and chemical weapons are concerned. He said, the U.S. didn't even know who was using these others than the fact they may have been used.

Jessica Yellin, you were there. You asked an important question of Boston, the investigation. The president said he supports the director of national intelligence, Mr. Clapper, who wants to have a full review of what happened and didn't happen, to make sure important lessons are addressed. He did go after Senator Graham for the comments he made. He said Mr. Graham is not right on this issue. The president did not back off at all when he defended the FBI and the entire investigation.

JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: You're right, Wolf. The president was unwavering in his support of FBI and the DHS and U.S. agencies in the lead up to the Boston bombing. He has, and the administration, broadly, has maintained that they've done -- the information sharing has been excellent and that there are some things, some times, when you just can't catch a terrorist act before it happens. So he sort of repeated a thing we've heard from him before, suggesting that he didn't say it quite explicitly, that Senator Graham is pushing this issue too hard. We heard it after Senator Graham attacked him over the Benghazi incident. Senator Graham is up for reelection. Perhaps there's a political back and forth over this issue is the intimation there.

More broadly, Wolf, the president did confirm that the DNI Clapper is doing the intelligence review. He views that as just standard procedure, not a sign that there's something amiss or something a failure, we should see that as a sign of a failure.

On the Syria question, it was worth noted briefly but worth underscoring, that he said it is a game changer if they determine they have used chemical weapons. Now he's redefining what game changer means, or telling us we don't understand, to him, what it means. It does not necessarily mean military action. It means that he is to assess what the next moves are. He wouldn't even explicitly state what his options would be if he believes that red line has been crossed. We'll now have to go back and press to find out what will happen if the red line is crossed. How is the game changed?

I point out the president did come out -- did not make an opening statement. He simply said he is holding the Q and A to satisfy Ed Henry. I'll tell what that was about. As the head of the White House Correspondents Association, Ed has pressed for more access for the press, more opportunities to question the president. There's been some complaints the president has not made himself available enough to answer question. He's saying it is part of his ongoing charm offensive. He's made an effort to sit down and talk with Republicans in the Senate. He's had a series of dinners, not just with Republicans, but now with women Senators as well. And it seems now he's trying to make himself more available. Certainly, the press would welcome it. He said, in his first term, he meant to make more outreach like this, but was so busy with the financial crisis he couldn't, so perhaps he's trying to make up for it in the second term -- Wolf?

BLITZER: Maybe he'll invite the White House Press Corp out to dinner at some point. (LAUGHTER)

As part of that charm offensive. We'll see if that goes on.

Jessica, thank you very much.

I will point out one additional note. The president did say Russian intelligence did alert the U.S. to the older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and his mother. He used the word "and his mother" as potential sympathizers with the radical terrorist movements. That, according to the president. Much more on this story coming up.

I'll be back in about 20 minutes with more live coverage. 5:00 eastern, I'll be in "The Situation Room" with continuing coverage of what the president said. We're following up on all of that.

Our special coverage here in the CNN NEWSROOM will continue after a short break with Ashleigh Banfield.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield reporting live in Boston.

Just moments ago, President Obama strongly defended the FBI's handling of the information from Russia about one of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings. At the news conference, the president said the FBI did its job in questioning Tamerlan Tsarnaev a couple of years before the attack. He also rejected the criticism from Republican Senator Lindsey Graham that the intelligence wasn't shared among the agencies. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: Now what Director Clapper is doing is standard procedure around here, which is, when an event like this happens, we want to go back and review every step that was taken, we want to leave no stone unturned, we want to see if there was additional protocols and procedures that could be put in place that would further improve and enhance our ability to detect a potential attack. And we won't know that until that review is completed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: And the president also remarked on the fact that the inspector general of the overall intelligence community, 17 different agencies in this country, will be leading a review into whether the information was shared the right way by the government before the bombing.

All of that news just happening, and all of it as the search for answers in the attacks has led investigators all the way around the world and also once more to the neighboring state of Rhode Island. As we speak, the agents there are believed to be comparing the DNA from the dead suspect's wife to a fragment found on the pressure cooker bombs. Katherine Russell married Tamerlan Tsarnaev in June of 2010. She insists, through her lawyer, that she knew of the Tsarnaev brother's alleged scheme.

CNN's Susan Candiotti joins me live in Boston with more on that.

Susan, the curiosity is whether they're serious about Katherine Russell given the fact there is such potential for this DNA evidence to really mean nothing at it.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. We're one step at a time. Now that they know there's female DNA on the pressure cooker the next step is does it match the widow, does it match the store clerk that sold it to them? Does it match anyone at all? What does that mean? It doesn't necessarily mean that just because, for example, the widow's DNA was the match up, she helped putting the bomb together. She may simply have touched the pressure cooker. But it may mean something more. That is why the FBI has been spending so much time talking with the widow, simply to find out what she knows about a broad range of issues. We know, even today, we saw federal agents over at her lawyer's office. We believe she may be there too.

BANFIELD: And bringing out a lot of evidence.

CANDIOTTI: We hope.

BANFIELD: Susan Candiotti, thank you for getting that inside information.

And also, Susan just mentioned that if the female's DNA that was reportedly found on the bomb fragment, if that's a match to Tamerlan Tsarnaev's wife, so what? What does that tell us?

I put that question to renowned forensic scientist, Lawrence Kobilinsky, of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

Larry, you and I have covered many trials where we have seen a scenario like this play out.

LARRY KOBILINSKY, FORENSIC SCIENTIST, JOHN JAY COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE: Ashleigh, you are 100 percent right. Although there may be a relative low probability, it is possible that there is an indirect transfer so if, in fact, the bombing touched his wife and transferred her DNA onto the pressure cooker, that might explain the results.

Also, remember that there's a report that there is a fingerprint also found on a bomb fragment. So there's going to be an intensive investigation. You've got to be able to compare that evidentiary information with a suspect. And of course, we have a suspect, Katherine Russell. Obviously, what happens when there is no match? Then where do we go? The fingerprint might be something we can check against a database. It might be extremely important information. We finally have a lead. But there also may be other information we haven't learned about yet. There may be somebody else's genetic profile on another fragment that hasn't been reported.

BANFIELD: Well, it will be fascinating to find out if there's any match at all. Of course, there is that potential for all of the DNA that was actually at the bombing site itself. More on that. I hope you'll join us as we dig deeper. As the investigators do this kind of work, they're also trying very hard to get inside the heads of the crime suspects. In this particular case, they may literally want to do that, literally, physically examine Tamerlan Tsarnaev's brain. You know that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a boxer, a two-time New England Golden Glove champion. You may not know boxer and football players and soldiers have CTE, repeated blows to the head.

One of the foremost experts in the field. Dr. Robert Stern, a neurology professor at the Boston University, and is the co-founder of the study of traumatic encephalopathy.

We have heard about this condition, CTE, how it affects athletes who have had repeated blows to the brain and how it can be fairly lethal. We haven't heard much how CTE can cause someone to be potentially violent. What do you know about this?

DR. ROBERT STERN, NEUROLOGY PROFESSOR, BOSTON UNIVERSITY: We know some of the early symptoms, changes in behavior, impulsivity, explosivity, rage, changes in mood. We don't think that it can cause a huge change in the way someone views the world that they will then start this long process of a well-planned kind of egregious act like Tamerlan did.

BANFIELD: If it was someone who had a proclivity already to certain beliefs, could CTE have been a tipping point? Everybody wants to know the why. Is this something that could lead investigators to why a motive was created from somebody who might have been on the verge of becoming very radicalized?

STERN: He's been in boxing for a long time, had been boxing. So this disease starts early. It progresses as someone gets older. We don't know when symptoms begin. But the reality is that it's not going to be that brain damage or brain disease caused this egregious act.

BANFIELD: Appreciate the insight. We'll be looking into this more. Clearly, we don't know what the answer will be, whether there will be an investigation because the body's not claimed yet. It can't be released to the public. Has to be released to the family and filings made publicly. It will be interesting to see if we can do this kind of examination.

Thank you for joining us. Appreciate that, in our truncated version of the program due to the president.

STERN: All right. Thank you.

George Zimmerman back in court, right now, in fact. The judge has an important question for Mr. Zimmerman. The answer to the question could change everything, everything in the murder trial. Coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: No doubt watching a lot of the coverage here from Boylston Street and the nerve center of where a lot of the "remembering the victims" has been because of this site behind me. It attracts hundreds and hundreds of people every day. Not usually the caliber of the guest I'm about to introduce you to -- Kevin spacey.

We're going to wing this. I saw you over my shoulders seconds ago. I did read about you.

Kevin Spacey needs no introduction.

You've come and you have met with people at this rehabilitation center, bombing victims and met with some of the responders, Boston police. Give me a run-through, how you've been navigating through this since you've been here?

KEVIN SPACEY, ACTOR: Well, you know, the truth is I guess like everyone else in the world I've been glued to the television and reading about the unbelievably tragic events here. Last week I was, you know, in Baltimore, about to start the series I'm doing again I was like I can't -- I can't spend another second watching this and not get on a plane and just come to Boston. Shot a couple of movies here. I love this city. Got here Sunday and spent the day at Spaling (ph), and I met all of the staff and a number of those who had been -- their lives had been altered forever. And the spirit, the comradery, the love that you feel, and the kind of extraordinary ability that they are showing to want to come back and run the race again and get over it and walk again, you know, I met Adrienne, the extraordinary young dancer who lost her leg, who is going to dance again. Roseanne, remarkable woman from the north end and all of their friends.

BANFIELD: Were they surprises to have you walk in and say, I'm Kevin Spacey, I came to say hello.

SPACEY: I'm not a doctor, I'm not a first responder, I'm not a psychologist. If people know me by movies and by walking into their hospital rooms or place of work, as yesterday, we went to Boston hospital met all of the doctors and nurses and surgeons who did an extraordinary job or the 4th Precinct or the place where the SWAT guys are yesterday.

BANFIELD: The Boston Police, the 4th Precinct, it was unannounced, a big surprise to them.

SPACEY: Yes. I mean -- I wasn't planning on doing any interviews while here. But you caught me.

BANFIELD: A big surprise to us.

SPACEY: I spent the morning with the Boston Athletic Association who run the marathon. They've been isolated over the last 14 days and having a tough time sort of knowing how to respond and how to deal with it. So we all had this like hour and a half conversation today in their boardroom just about allowing themselves to not feel like they always have to be strong and the best thing they can do is do their job and get ready for next year. Because I suspect there's going to be a lot of people coming from around the world to be a part of the marathon and be here to cheer it on. If my being here brings a smile to someone's face, that's enough. BANFIELD: It did. I was looking around you, as you were behind me, so many people did a double take and seeing you wear your "Boston Strong" shirt.

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: And they were smiling.

You know, I've got to be honest, Kevin, as we've been here for days, typically what people are doing behind me is crying. They're overwhelmed by the things they're seeing here, the memorials and shoes and signatures and messages from other countries even. So it is nice to try to bring the positive.