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President Obama Defends Health Care Reform; Chelsea Clinton's Future

Aired September 26, 2013 - 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: Top of the hour, I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Breaking just a short time ago, this Montana rapist is now out of jail after serving all of 31 days for a crime that the victim's family says ruined one teen's life. Cherice Moralez killed herself as the age of 16. When she was 14 years of age, Stacey Rambold, her teacher raped her.

But Judge Todd Baugh said at that August 26 sentencing that Morales was -- quote -- "as much in control" as the then 49-year-old Rambold. Baugh then sentenced Rambold to one month behind bars.

Now, as we have learned just this afternoon, he's out, and now on probation for the next 14 years. Two women's groups filed a complaint against this judge and Rambold's sentence is under appeal, but Cherice Morales' mother is hoping the higher courts will ultimately give her justice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AULIEA HANLON, MOTHER OF RAPE VICTIM: I haven't seen justice yet; 30 days isn't justice. We will see what happens. And apparently with the courts, anything can happen. But, hopefully, the Supreme Court will set it right, because, so far, I haven't seen any justice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Joining me now on the phone is Marian Bradley. She's the president of the Montana National Organization for Women, one of the groups that has gathered 140 signatures as part of this formal complaint against the judge.

So, Marian, welcome.

MARIAN BRADLEY, PRESIDENT, MONTANA NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Yes. Just first to you, now that we know this guy is out, will you, will your group be keeping some sort of eye on him somehow?

BRADLEY: I think, given the restrictions on his probation or parole, that the Department of Corrections will be busy enough to do that for us.

Apparently, he has a laundry list of things he can't do. So I think we can keep him at bay. I would be surprised if he makes it through until this appeal happens, because it's really tough, what is out there. But more importantly is removing the judge, filing an appeal.

The attorney general's office is filing an appeal. We as an organization, along with a number of other women's groups and women independently, are filing a brief at the Supreme Court to support the appeal and we will see where it takes us.

BALDWIN: Right, right, and you mentioned, you talk about this judge here. We know that there has been a lot of public animosity against this rapist. But the judge, you heard what the judge said about this at the time, 14-year-old victim, that she looked -- quote -- "older than her chronological age."

Do you think, Marian, that this case is somehow, this seemingly small, singular case out of Montana, has really cracked this issue open that no matter how a victim looks, she cannot consent to a relationship when she's 14?

BRADLEY: Absolutely.

She is not of age to give legal consent. In the state of Montana, legal consent like most states is the age of 16. She cannot give it, but we live in a society that blames victims. It's what you look like, what you do, how you talk, how you don't talk.

And it has opened up a national conversation, which is a good thing. I mean, it's so terrible, and I'm so sympathetic to Cherice's mom. She's a wonderful mom. But the conversation is even bigger than what we could even imagine.

BALDWIN: Yes. And we will follow up with the mom and see what happens in these higher courts as she's still waiting to see what justice looks like. Marian Bradley, thank you so much for hopping on the phone with me.

And now to this. You can sign up for Obamacare in just five days, but expect plenty of Washington bickering before Obamacare's health exchanges debut Tuesday. President Obama says Republicans trying to get rid of his health care plan are -- quote, unquote -- "irresponsible."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Said that these rates would come in real high and everybody's premiums would be sky high, and it turns out, lo and behold, actually, the prices came in lower than we expected. They said this would be a disaster in terms of jobs. There's no widespread evidence that the Affordable Care Act is hurting jobs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So the deadline, government is due to shut down Tuesday if Congress cannot reach a budget deal. House Speaker John Boehner said only Republicans are listening to the nation right now. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: The American people don't want the president's health care bill, and they don't want the government to shut down. Republicans are listening. We passed a bill last week that would do just what the American people have asked. It's time for the Senate to listen and pass the bill that we sent over there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The Obamacare health care exchanges will open Tuesday.

And we have all been watching this fight over Obamacare and the bill to keep the government running past the end of the month, but, alas, there's a bigger fight coming and very, very soon. It's the government's ability to borrow money and it could have a lasting impact on every single one of us.

Christine Romans explains why -- Christine.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, the shutdown may be more imminent, but the administration officials I'm speaking to are more concerned about the debt ceiling, which happens after that.

Why? Well, during a shutdown, mandatory spending wouldn't be affected. That means seniors, for example, could still get their Social Security payments. But that's not the case if the debt ceiling is not raised. There would be no spending once the government runs out of cash on hand. When day is that? October 17. That's the day when the U.S. will have less than $50 billion, maybe $30 billion on hand, and the government can't borrow any more money.

That means just like when your bank account is empty and you can't find any extra source of cash, the government will have to stop paying some of its bills, bills like our interest payments on some of our debt. Right? We wouldn't be able to pay interest to China on massive loans. What about Social Security? There could people who wouldn't get Social Security checks. Medicare and Medicaid, when the money runs out, how do you pay for that? And 110 million people are on one of those programs.

What could be worse here, what really could be worse here, is we don't know the reaction from the markets. How many hundreds of billions of dollars could we owe in borrowing costs if interest rates rise? We don't know until we get there, and by then, the damage is done -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Christine, thank you.

And House Republicans are revealing a new strategy in this whole debt ceiling fight. Their plan is this, to load up the bill to raise the nation's borrowing limit with their own agenda. And the conditions really amount to this laundry list. Let me just run down a few of them here. First, they want to delay Obamacare for a year, want to include some tax reform in there, approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline, and reform some entitlement programs.

We heard and we were playing some sound from the president today calling what the Republicans are doing here blackmail. And he says, you know, not mincing words, he will not be negotiating.

Let's get the Republican action. Amy Holmes anchors "The Hot List" at TheBlaze.com.

Amy, welcome back.

We just ran through some of the items...

AMY HOLMES, AUTHOR, "THE HOT LIST": Thanks for having me.

BALDWIN: ... the items on this wish list. You know the Democrats, the White House, they will oppose, oppose, oppose all of this. How many of these provisions do the Republicans realistically think they can pass along with the debt ceiling hike?

HOLMES: Well, you did have that bulleted list. I think that's sort of the maximal list.

But tying spending cuts to the debt ceiling fight is actually less controversial than you think. Bloomberg just came out with a poll today that found that 61 percent of Americans, they want to see some federal spending cuts if we're going to raise that debt ceiling. Only 28 percent of the public agrees with the president and the Democrats' position that it should be -- quote, unquote -- "a clean debt ceiling" raise without any types of reforms.

Moreover, there's another piece of polling data that I'm sure the president has his eye on, and that is the fact that his approval ratings are the lowest they have been in a year-and-a-half. CBS finds it at only 43 percent and when it comes to the economy, only 41 percent. So I think that debt ceiling negotiation is really an opportunity, actually, for the president to get on board with the American people and start to make some major reforms to out-of-control spending and a very unpopular health care law.

BALDWIN: But how much of that, to my question, how much of that do you think the Republicans really think will go through? And why do you think they're doing this?

HOLMES: Well, I think they're trying to hold the Democrats' feet to the fire on issues that are popular with the American public, again, reform or repeal of Obamacare, building that Keystone oil pipeline.

As far as entitlement reform goes, I would agree that that is a long shot. That takes a lot of negotiation about a lot of moving parts. But delaying Obamacare for a year, we saw that Joe Manchin, the Democratic senator from West Virginia today, said he think that's reasonable.

(CROSSTALK)

HOLMES: He says it's OK, absolutely. So what does that do? That means we turn our attention to Mark Pryor, the Democratic senator from Arkansas, Kay Hagan from North Carolina, Mark Begich from Alaska, these Democratic senators who are up for a very tough reelection battle. And if anything, it could actually give them the opportunity to vote in line with their constituents. They might actually welcome it.

BALDWIN: Amy Holmes with TheBlaze.com, Amy, thank you.

Coming up, two pilots under the microscope for what happened 30,000 feet in the air with 300 passengers on board. The pilots said they only had five hours' sleep over the course of two days. Now an investigation to find out if they were asleep at the controls at the same time. Think about that.

Plus, a mother of three sentenced to 20 years in jail. She fired a warning shot to scare off an abusive husband. Today, she learned she will get a new trial. We will tell you why.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: All right, got some breaking baseball news for you. Bud Selig, the commissioner for Major League Baseball, we have now learned will be retiring after next season.

He said two years ago that 2014 would be his last. And it will be. He is 79 years of age. He became acting commissioner back in 1992. He was named permanent commissioner in 1998. So let's talk about this.

Dan Levy, Bleacher Report's national lead writer, on the phone with me.

When just in the last couple years I have been talking baseball on the show, you think of the steroids scandal, you think of the home run records. I mean, when someone says, Dan, Bud Selig, what do you think?

DAN LEVY, BLEACHER REPORT: Well, first of all, this is going to be the longest retirement ever. That's the first thing I think. This is like a five-year retirement.

(LAUGHTER)

LEVY: It's funny because you have to look at Selig's legacy, and he's made it about drugs. And for better or worse, I think he's done more than any commissioner to clean up the game, although I hasten to say if it's enough.

But he's done as much as anyone in any sport to clean up the game, and then you go back to the other changes, the interleague play, adding the extra playoffs, which I think if he could choose a legacy, it would be expanding the playoffs. I think that may be 15 years from now what we remember him most for. BALDWIN: That's right. Wasn't it just this past year, I think you and I were talking, no one was inducted -- back to the drug issue, no one was inducted into the Hall of Fame.

LEVY: Right. I think, to me, that's a black eye on the game. I think it's a confusing time for people, not just for the commissioner's office, but for everyone in baseball, to figure out what this all means.

I think it's going to have to happen after Selig is gone. I think Selig taking himself away from the game could maybe start to get people to think, OK, is this going to be now the end of the steroid era? I think it's never going to end, but I think that will be the end of the conversation.

BALDWIN: Has there ever really not been a controversial commissioner, you think?

LEVY: Well, you know, I think that's the great thing about baseball in a way and I think that's why it's probably the hardest job, is because we care so much about the sport. Historically, for hundreds of years, we have cared about the sport of baseball.

And the drug issue is really because the records are sacred in that sport. And I think it's sort of a testament to Selig and to the position how seriously we take all that.

BALDWIN: All right, Dan Levy, Bleacher Report's national lead writer, thank you so much for hopping on the phone with me. We appreciate it. Breaking news, Bud Selig retiring 1st of 2015.

And now to this.

Falling asleep behind the wheel at 30,000 feet in the air. British aviation officials are investigating now whether these two pilots nodded off at the same time when the plane was on autopilot. Local reports began surfacing that while one pilot took a 20-minute nap, his co-pilot then also fell asleep.

The airline in question here says there is no proof this actually happened. But that hasn't stopped the British Pilots Association from speaking out today. Here's a statement that they released accusing the aviation authority of being -- quote -- "far too complacent about the levels of tiredness among British pilots and failing to acknowledge the scale of the under-reported problems."

So the man who covers all things aviation for us, Mr. Richard Quest, joining me from the studios there in New York.

So, I mean, first of all, if it's true, obviously, it's incredibly frightening, but really maybe the real question is, are pilots working too much?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think that is exactly the issue.

The whats and wherefores of this case are, to quote the CIA, ambiguous at best, and sources that I have spoken to, nobody can be sure what happened on that flight deck at that time. Anyway, British pilots are allowed to take a snooze in flight. It's known as in-seat resting. They're allowed to do this, provided the other one is flying the aircraft and it's no more than so long.

There are various rules of when you can in the flight and when you can't. The question of what happened here is one major issue. Much more important, the U.S. is looking at the number of hours pilots are flying, and has come up with some new tighter regulations. Some like them, some don't. The Europeans have looked at them. The pilots don't like them, and they say they're too lax.

But when, Brooke, you now have these flights, just think about it, from New York to Dubai, 16 hours, these mammoth, long, ultra-long flights. It's inevitable that pilots get tired and no amount of rest before the flight is going to cure that.

BALDWIN: I have been on a plane to London and saw the pilot come back to where we were sitting and just zip up and go to bed. But I'm going to presume that someone else was in there.

(CROSSTALK)

QUEST: That's rest. That's rest time. And of course that's built in to the actual flight itself. Nowadays, on many planes, the pilots have their own special bunks where they can go and sleep and they can sleep properly.

The core, trying to work out when a pilot should be sleeping, when he should be flying, when he should be on his rest, it is fiendishly complicated. It's all to do with the number of flights, the hours, the times, the red-eyes and everything. But the core issue remains, pilots say they're being asked to fly too much, and they're being asked to fly when they are fatigued. And on that question, we must all be concerned.

BALDWIN: Agree. Richard Quest, thank you.

Coming up next, a mother of three gets a new shot at freedom. She said she fired a warning shot toward an abusive husband in self- defense. Still, a jury sentenced her to 20 years in prison. Today, she found out she gets another trial to try to prove her innocence.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Breaking news today. A woman who fired a warning shot into a wall trying to scare off her husband during this domestic dispute is now getting a new trial.

She's Marissa Alexander. Here she is. She tried to use the stand your ground defense, but a jury didn't bite. Well, now an appellate court ordering this new trial, all on a technicality involving the original instructions to the jury.

And in our Gary Tuchman's original reporting, Marissa had said her husband choked her, pushed her in a tub. The NAACP had been all over the case, previously writing a letter to the trial judge. It released a statement just a short time ago saying this -- quote -- "This is a welcome development in a case that represents the double standards in our justice system."

So Jean Casarez, CNN legal correspondent, joining me now.

And how often do you hear about this, a new trial, first of all, and on a technicality?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It doesn't happen every day, no question.

I have got the opinion right here. And the court says -- and it was a jury instruction, because it's amazing, but they gave an instruction to the jury -- and, remember, this is Florida -- where they said that if you, the jury, believe that this woman's husband was about to perpetrate that aggravated battery, about to attack her, it's her burden to show beyond a reasonable doubt that he was about to attack her.

Well, that's not the law in Florida, because self-defense, you merely have to put on some evidence of self-defense and then the burden shifts back over to the prosecution, just like it did in the George Zimmerman case. And the prosecution must show beyond a reasonable doubt it was not self-defense.

It's really surprising the jury instruction was so wrong, but the court determined this was a fundamental flaw, a fundamental error because the jury could have acquitted her if they knew the burden was actually on the prosecution or they could have convicted her of a lesser included.

BALDWIN: So then, Jean, with the new trial, how -- we know how this could play out. I mean, do you see her getting 20 years for this?

CASAREZ: It could go either way. Or she could be convicted of that lesser included. Remember, this was a stand your ground case. The court upheld the lower court's decision on stand your ground because they said there was not a preponderance of the evidence here that she in fact needed to fire that shot.

It was a warning shot. It was in the air. Of course, the other side of that is that she actually just missed him and the shot seemed to go into the air. So they're deferring to the trial court on that. So it's a win for Angela Corey's district. Remember, this is Angela Corey's district, the district that was responsible for the prosecution of George Zimmerman, but, definitely, they will have to go back and retry this case again if they so choose.

BALDWIN: Jean Casarez, thank you.

He was a governor and a president, she a senator and secretary of state. Bill and Hillary Clinton have a long history of civil service. So it has to be a daughter Chelsea's blood, right?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHELSEA CLINTON, DAUGHTER OF BILL AND HILLARY CLINTON: ... answer, I guess, in that I'm deeply grateful for my life now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Chelsea Clinton and both her parents scheduled to speak in New York very, very shortly. We're looking for that picture.

Also, a child goes door to door as this fire rages warning neighbors, get out. Hear why he says he risked his life to try to save others.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Happening live in New York, any moment now, the Clinton family appearing on stage, all together, to close out a weeklong meeting of the CGI, the Clinton Global Initiative. No, they're not in office. They're not running for office, at least not currently. Yet, they are back in the spotlight, weighing in on some pretty important issues here.

And that includes Chelsea Clinton, who tells Piers Morgan how America should deal with home-grow terror, specifically young Americans being recruited by the Al-Shabab terror network. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PIERS MORGAN, HOST, "PIERS MORGAN LIVE": Is your mom running for president?

CLINTON: You will have to ask her that.

MORGAN: What?

CLINTON: You will have to ask her that?

MORGAN: OK. She's actually out in the back, so I might bring her out.

CLINTON: So we won't take it personally if you race out the back.

(LAUGHTER)

MORGAN: If I have do. I will do what it takes for CNN.

Have you ever thought about running for high office?

CLINTON: Well, there's people that have been asking me that question for as long as I can remember, literally, one of my earlier memories.

MORGAN: What is the truthful answer?

CLINTON: Well, the truthful answer is, thankfully, the truthful answer, I guess, in that I'm deeply grateful for my life now. I love my life. I love being able to do this work. I love that particularly through the Clinton Global Initiative University, we're able to connect with students like Peggy (ph) and help connect her to more resources that can help advance her work and help connect her to young students who want to emulate her work.

And I'm grateful that I live in a city and state and country where...

MORGAN: This is a brilliant politician's answer.

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

CLINTON: It's true.

MORGAN: This is what I mean. This is why you would be so perfect.

(LAUGHTER)

CLINTON: It's true.

MORGAN: You managed to talk for an entire minute without referring remotely to either yes or no.

(LAUGHTER)

CLINTON: Well, the answer is, I don't know. And that is the honest answer, because, right now, I am grateful for my life. I'm invigorated by my life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: How about that?

By the way, you can catch more with Piers' panel with Chelsea tonight 9:00 Eastern.

Hello, John Avlon.

John Avlon joining me, CNN political analyst and executive editor of The Daily Beast.

Gosh, she sure sounds a lot like -- just hearing her voice, a lot like Hillary Clinton. That was just -- that's all I could think when I was listening to that. But you know how the Clintons work when it comes to politics. They know how the media works. What's behind all these recent public appearances?

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: It's the most interesting post-presidency ever for a reason, because no post-presidency has the potential of another president in the same family.

This is unprecedented in American history. And as for Chelsea, you can tell she's the daughter of two very formidable politicians. She drank the same water at home. She knows the talking points. They know how to play the media very, very well. But they have also been able to translate their influence to positive good, at least in a -- potentially an interregnum between office. And that itself is interesting and purposeful.