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Crisis in Iraq; Remembering Robin Williams

Aired August 12, 2014 - 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: And we continue in our coverage on this Tuesday. Great to be with you. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

A dark end to a man who brought so much light into this world. We do have some new information, so I just have to give you a heads-up, a warning, as we're getting information from Marin County investigators in conflict, the details of Robin Williams' death are disturbing.

Investigators giving a graphic account of what his personal assistant found inside of Robin Williams' home. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. KEITH BOYD, MARIN COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE: Mr. Williams' personal assistant became concerned at approximately 11:45 a.m., when he failed to respond to knocks on his bedroom door.

At that time, the personal assistant was able to gain access to Mr. Williams' bedroom and entered the bedroom to find Mr. Williams clothed, in a seated it position, unresponsive with a belt secured around his neck with the other end of the belt wedged between the closed closet door and the door frame.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: We also, in listening to that news conference, learned that a small, bloody pocketknife was discovered near his body, his left wrist covered with superficial wounds.

Let's go straight to the Marin County Sheriff's Department, to our own Ted Rowlands, who is standing by, who was part of that news conference.

Ted, it was just horrendous to listen to these details. Gruesome part of the investigation. Tell me what else police said just a little while ago.

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, they really did paint a picture of what happened. At 10:30, the night before he was found, he was last seen by his wife. She went to sleep in another room. He at some point -- they don't know when -- then went into the room where he was later found.

At 10:30 the next morning she left the house thinking that he was still asleep. It wasn't until, as you mentioned, the personal assistant about a half-hour later was concerned because he wasn't responding to any messages, got into this room and found him in that position hanging using that belt.

The superficial wounds that were on his left wrist were caused by a small knife, according to the coroner's report. But the cause of death, preliminary cause of death was asphyxiation. The knife cuts didn't have anything to do with his death. They don't exactly what time he died. They will continue to research that.

But the heartbreaking details of what transpired was, quite frankly, shocking at this news conference. A lot of times, you just don't know what they are going to divulge in an ongoing investigation, but they really did lay it out there in detail.

BALDWIN: In his bedroom with a belt, superficial cuts to his wrist. They also mentioned that they weren't discussing whether or not he left a note. So that's still out there and also whether or not had he medication in his system. What did they say about a toxicology report, Ted?

ROWLANDS: Two to five weeks they are saying at this point for toxicology to see what indeed he had, if anything, in his system. They did mention also that he was seeking help for depression, severe depression. That was part of this equation and will be as this investigation goes on.

But I think just the overall feeling that I know we got here was just sadness to hear the details of what transpired in that room in his home with his wife in another room. It's just overwhelming.

BALDWIN: Incredibly overwhelming. Ted Rowlands, thank you so much.

With the overwhelming sense of his death, also just want to hear stories about this man today. The punchlines, yes, they are on pause today, comedians mourning one of the greats, their own, as they remember Robin Williams.

And that includes my next guest who wrote jokes for Robin Williams. He, Robin Williams, gave my next guest, Jeffrey Gurian, this autographed photo with a thank-you note. This goes all the way back from 1991. Gurian also recently interviewed the 63-year-old actor at the Stand Up for Heroes event. This was part of the New York Comedy Festival benefiting veterans.

Here they were.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBIN WILLIAMS, COMEDIAN: It's very humbling. It's great for me to be around to give to people who give so much and it's important to make sure that they are taken care of. And these programs are really important, on that level of all different types of programs that take care of guys that come back with different disabilities and to help them to get them the help they need.

JEFFREY GURIAN, COMEDIAN: It's an honor to meet these guys, right, who have sacrificed so much for the country.

WILLIAMS: I met guys in country and you meet them here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: And Jeffrey Gurian joins me now.

Jeffrey Gurian, nice to see you.

GURIAN: So nice to see you, too, Brooke. Thanks so much for having me on.

BALDWIN: I texted you immediately as soon as I heard last night. You have been crafting jokes and interviewing comedians for years and years and years.

GURIAN: More years than I want to admit.

BALDWIN: You have written for Milton Berle and Jerry Lewis. And names goes on and on and on. You brought the picture that you took off your wall in your apartment. But how far back do you go with Robin Williams?

I first met him through Jack Rollins probably the late '70s or early '80s. Jack was his manager, Woody Allen's manager, Billy Crystal's manager. And he was such a kind man and he took a liking to me for whatever reason and he arranged for me to meet with Robin and Billy at his office, because I used to live at his office. I couldn't believe that I ever knew a man like Jack Rollins.

BALDWIN: What was he like?

GURIAN: Jack or Robin?

(CROSSTALK)

GURIAN: He was larger than life always, just so fun and always on.

And our paths had crossed several times throughout the years, but it wasn't until 1991 -- I had written for the Friars roast for many years. And they were roasting Richard Pryor in 1991. And I had sent Robin some jokes and it looked like he wasn't going to do anything.

BALDWIN: OK.

GURIAN: And then I brought jokes with me that day to the event and I went up to the dais and I gave them to him. And he wound up doing -- his opening line was my joke about Richard Pryor.

I can't say it because you would lose your license.

BALDWIN: OK. We don't want to do that, Jeffrey Gurian.

GURIAN: No.

But he sent me a photo, signed photo that has been such a touching memento to me. It's been so important, especially now. He's -- you never see -- people pass away every day, but you don't see this kind of a response, a worldwide response. He was so much more than just a comedian and an actor. He was an icon and actually received the Icon Award from Comedy Central a couple of years ago.

BALDWIN: You were on SiriusXM Radio last night.

GURIAN: Last night with --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: And 9:00 at night until 1:00 in the morning because people kept calling in. Comedians kept calling in. What were they sharing with you?

GURIAN: Oh, it was amazing. People like David Steinberg and Louie Anderson and Tom Papa and --

BALDWIN: Gilbert Gottfried.

GURIAN: Gilbert Gottfried called in and Rick Overton, who was very close to him.

BALDWIN: What was the response?

GURIAN: People -- some people couldn't even speak.

There were people who wanted to say something that were so overwhelmed with grief that they couldn't even come on. But everyone had such wonderful things to say about him, how giving he was.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Can you tell me what stories that they told?

GURIAN: You know, I wish I could remember. They were all good.

No particular story stands out in my mind. Everyone went on about what a wonderful person he was. Even at the Stand Up for Heroes thing, when he showed up there, he was very grateful for people who did service to the country. He was a very helpful person.

He was just -- he emitted kindness and one of the things that I wanted to say was that he touched so many people in so many ways. His level of sensitivity was so tremendous, and I think in our society we need to learn to honor that more, because it's not only performers that are that sensitive. We are all that sensitive, but we're taught to look at it as a weakness instead of a strength. And I think it's important to honor that.

BALDWIN: What about from when -- you go way back, as you mentioned, late '70s, early '80s. You talk about first meeting him. You talk about writing the jokes. Can you tell me just one story from your experience with him?

GURIAN: Well, that story at the Friars roast. And then that was amazing to me that he opened up with my material because your opening line has got to be a killer. BALDWIN: It's got to be a zinger.

GURIAN: Yes, it's got to be amazing. And to use mine of all of the others that he must have had was a great honor to me. And, as I said, and then our paths would cross. We used to hang out at a place called Columbus Cafe at 69th and Columbus. I would see him there a lot.

It was the biggest celebrity hangout that Manhattan ever had. He would come by and he would just spread joy. He was always on. He was just on. That's the best way that I could explain it. His persona was larger than life. And I wish I knew him better and I wish I had seen him more often. He was just one of those very special people. And you can tell by the outpouring of emotion. You never see --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Everywhere.

GURIAN: You never see that. It's like President Obama made a statement, you know?

BALDWIN: I know. The secretary of defense made a statement.

(CROSSTALK)

GURIAN: The White House. He was -- it's incredible. There are really no words to explain the effect, the impact that he had on people all over the world, and it's just a shame that a person who brought joy to so many people could be in such a dark place. It could happen to anybody because --

BALDWIN: That's what we focus so much on with someone who studied suicide and so much depression last hour.

Jeffrey Gurian, thank you so much for joining me here.

GURIAN: Thank you.

BALDWIN: As we have to shine a light on, it can be treated, you can get help. Jeffrey, thank you.

GURIAN: Thank you so much for having me.

BALDWIN: We will have much more on the life and legacy of forward coming up this hour, including a closer look at some of his most memorable roles. From comedy to drama to voicing animated characters, to all kinds of improvisation, this man did it all. We will take a look back at some of his performances, including some you may not remember.

And we're also following a developing story out of Iraq. CNN is on the front lines of a humanitarian crisis, and hundreds of refugees are crossing the border trying to escape this militant group ISIS and possible execution.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: On this bridge, which leads from a Kurdish-controlled part of Syria, here into Iraqi Kurdistan, we have been watching a stream of desperate families carrying little more than the clothes on their backs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You are watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

You have these tens of thousands of desperate, hungry Iraqis. They are fleeing by boot, fleeing for their lives from that vicious terrorist army called ISIS. It's a staggering sight to witness. It's a sight you can only see here on CNN. We have been watching this play out all day long.

You have women, children, elderly, Christians, Muslims, a vast array of ethnic groups. We heard one man actually call it a "rainbow nation" trying to find safety, seek asylum from ISIS.

Let me just show you what is happening here. The flood of refugees streamed out of Sinjar in Northern Iraq when it came under threat from ISIS. Right? We have been talking so much about that mountain specifically and the tens of thousands of Yazidis on top.

To get to the relative safety of where they are today, they had to skirt fighting and they had to skirt ISIS is by crossing the border into Syria, trekking along the border and then pop back into Iraq. To be precise, this is Iraqi Kurdistan.

CNN's Ivan Watson arrived at the scene today and reports this flood of humanity began streaming across the river a couple of days ago. How many have crossed, how many have fled, that is unclear this point in time, but it's an astonishing story.

Here's Ivan Watson -- Ivan.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WATSON: Look at these people fleeing across borders to escape ISIS militants on this bridge, which leads from a Kurdish controlled part of Syria, here into Iraqi Kurdistan. We've been watching a stream of desperate families carrying little more than the cloths on their backs, walking. Some of these people have been on the move for days. Some of them have been camping. And now they're arriving here, in Iraqi Kurdistan, after fleeing their homes, in many cases in just a matter of minutes.

This stream of people, thousands every hour, has been continuing, I'm told, for days across this bridge and it's a part of a much larger wave of desperate people all across the north of Iraq who are fleeing ISIS militants, which appears to be carrying out a campaign of ethnic and sectarian cleansing. Because many of these people, I mean just look at the faces, look at the children here and what they're able to bring with them after they've been made instantly homeless. And these people, and we've seen it, will end up tonight sleeping on

roadsides, sleeping in ruined, abandoned buildings because there is simply no place else to go. The cash-strapped government of the Kurdish region of northern Iraq is trying to help some. There are some international organizations helping. But for the most part, this is a local project to help these people escape danger and come to a new place where there is no infrastructure and hardly any network of support for these people. And you can see how dazed they are when they come across the border and they have to find some place else to go.

These are not warriors. These are the elderly. These are children. These are mothers. These are fathers and husbands desperate to find some place where they can protect their families. This is a humanitarian crisis that is unfolding in front of our eyes here in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Ivan Watson, CNN, reporting from the Peskabor (ph) River between Iraqi Kurdistan and Syria.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Yesterday, we saw Ivan and his crew inside of that helicopter, right, dropping those diapers on top of the Sinjar Mountain. Here, we see him on the border, part of this exodus of all these refugees seeking asylum.

Let me just tell you quickly we do have word today from Twitter that President Obama having begun to dispatch up to 300 advisers to Iraq, military advisers, now is considering sending more military experts in there and that's chiefly to aid the Iraqis with the disaster there, as Ivan was just showing us in the northern part of the country.

Here with me now, Fareed Zakaria, "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS."

Just sitting and watching the phenomenal reporting from Ivan and crew, just your response to this desperate exodus?

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN WORLD AFFAIRS ANALYST: I think it's even more dramatic than that in a sense, Brooke.

It is the end of the multicultural Middle East. The Middle East actually used to be a place where Christians, Muslims, Jews for many, many centuries, Jews were very much part of our Arab countries. Baghdad was a third Jewish in the early 1940s. That's over.

What you're watching in Iraq is, first of all, remember, something like 600,000 Christians have already fled Iraq because of the Shiite sectarian government in place in Baghdad.

Now what you're witnessing is a kind of dramatic ramping up and horrific escalation of it. What you're seeing in Syria is the Christians leaving, the Armenians, Druze, these ancient communities that are really in some cases Christians from the time of the Bible. They are all leaving. And they are going to have to find some safe havens. Iraqi Kurdistan is proving to be one of the great safe havens. Probably Lebanon will be the other. But all of these other countries you're just seeing massive ethnic cleansing.

BALDWIN: So is it possible -- we will get to Nouri al-Maliki in just a second, but just given what you just said, is democracy even possible in Iraq or it even possible in some of these Arab nations where these dictators have been overthrown?

ZAKARIA: I think it's possible, but you will have to have a -- maybe there's a very tough learning process where you can't go broke, you can't go for a winner-take-all system.

You have to have some understanding that, if you're in charge, you think about in Egypt where the elected government tried to do a winner-take-all thing. Think of Iraq. One worries about what Syria will look like once the majority, if and when they do take control, because there is a kind of maximalist view. I have won. That means I get to oppress everybody else.

And until that changes -- and maybe that changes because sadly of these kinds of horrific incidents. Until that changes, it's going to be a weird kind of democracy.

BALDWIN: And the White House keeps calling for this inclusive government, but when you have these different sects and minorities leaving, it's almost like you are left with one.

Nouri al-Maliki, frankly, failed prime minister in Iraq, do you think he will go, do you think he will leave willingly?

ZAKARIA: I think he will leave. I don't think he will mount a military coup because there are many forces in Iraq that are very powerful in the Shia establishment like Ayatollah Sistani, the kind of supreme leader, if you will, of the Iraqi Shia.

And he's been very clear on the need for democracy. This would be essentially a return to a military dictatorship, which I think is very unlikely. He will probably try a legal challenge in court, which I would guess will not work.

But your point is actually very important, which is so even if he goes, the problem is the same, which is you have a Shiite majority and the guy succeeding him is from the same party. Is he going to be more inclusive?

BALDWIN: How do we know?

ZAKARIA: And in Iraq, you can't not be because the Sunnis aren't going to all leave. A lot of them have, but you still have 15, 20 percent of the country is Sunni. It may even be a little more. They have got to find a way to bring them in because otherwise all of the disaffected Sunnis are joining ISIS or supporting ISIS or in some ways being indifferent.

That's the backbone of this movement. It's only 20,000 people. Yes, they have got some arms because they have some of the stuff that we were giving to the moderates, the Iraqi government.

BALDWIN: They have Russian weaponry as well.

ZAKARIA: And they may have some of that. But the Iraqi army is 500,000, maybe a million if you include the internal security forces all trained by the Americans with massive amounts of American firepower. It shouldn't be difficult for a million people to defeat 20,000.

BALDWIN: Step up.

Fareed Zakaria, thank you. Good to see you in person.

Coming up, we will take you back and talk about Robin Williams and this iconic comedy club in Los Angeles. It's called The Laugh Factory. They have paid a special tribute to Robin Williams today with this billboard. "Robin Williams, rest in peace. Make God laugh," it reads. The owner of the club says 80 percent of comedians come from tragedy. So he has actually set up this couch and two nights a week comics meet with psychologists.

Where did he get this idea? Which comics have used it? Why is it so necessary in this field? We will ask him next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES LIPTON, HOST, "INSIDE THE ACTORS STUDIO": If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?

WILLIAMS: There is seating near the front.

(LAUGHTER)

WILLIAMS: The concert begins at 5:00. It will be Mozart, Elvis, and one of your choosing. Or just to nice, if heaven exists, to know that there is laughter. That would be a great thing, just to hear God goes, two Jews walk into a bar.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: He made people laugh, didn't he? He was very public, though, about his own personal battles.

It was no secret that he fought depression for some time, made more than a few trips to rehab for drug treatment. But as we all struggle to make sense of terrible tragedy, a lot of people are wondering how could the man who constantly made people laugh and smile be struggling with such deep and dark depression that it then ultimately caused him to take his own life?

CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins me from Atlanta. Sanjay, I was talking to a suicide researcher at the top of the last

hour from up here at Columbia and he was saying to me, Brooke, a lot of people are depressed, but it's a very select group who decides to finally take his or her life. What is that trigger? Why would someone do that?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I think it's such an important message because people do hear stories like this and they think it becomes almost preordained if someone has significant depression, that it will have some tragic sort of tale like this.

A couple of things. First of all, nothing I think can ever fully explain this. Let me just preface by saying that. I think searching for a complete explanation I think is a fruitless sort of task.

But keep in mind, we're talking about a brain disease here. This isn't something that is anecdotal. This is something that can be measured now in the brain like it never could be before. We know that there are changes that happen in someone who has depression.

Compound that with the fact that he had had heart surgery recently, that he had a genetic predisposition to this because of family history, he had addiction, all those sort of contribute to it.

But to your question, a combination at the time of helplessness, of hopelessness, of no light at the end of the tunnel, no feeling of power and an accumulation of several things. It's not usually some discrete thing that all of a sudden just pushes somebody over. It's an accumulation of a bunch of things with no sense that you can control it anymore.

That's the sad, sad, reality of it is just -- it just becomes overwhelming.

BALDWIN: We spent the entire last hour really talking about Robin Williams, but also raising awareness for suicide prevention and depression.

And I'm overwhelmed, quite honestly, by all of the tweets that I have been getting from people who feel so open because of this to talk about how they have been feeling. And for those people, Sanjay, what advice do you have? Because treatment is there. There are people you can call. But I can't imagine being in the thick of it and thinking, there's a light at the end of the tunnel.

GUPTA: We are better than ever at treating depression.

I mean, it's a difficult disease, but it's a disease of the brain. And I think that's an important first step. When you start to substitute the word depression or mental illness in general with diabetes, with cancer, with heart disease, you think about it completely differently.

And you feel almost like, you know, look, we can control this. We can do things to be proactive and treat this.