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Brittany Maynard Ends Her Life; Rand Paul on the GOP Brand; Joran van der Sloot Stabbed in Prison in Peru; Minimum Wage Hikes on the Ballot; Branson: Virgin Galactic Project Goes On

Aired November 03, 2014 - 09:30   ET

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

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CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: On the Discovery Channel. He crossed between three buildings in a two part walk over Chicago. Wallenda reportedly earned two world records for his tight rope walk, one for the steepest incline, the other for the highest walk while blindfolded.

Mexico has freed a U.S. Marine reservist after holding him in prison for seven months. Sergeant Andrew Paul Tahmooressi was arrested in Tijuana back in March when customs agents found three firearms in his truck. The Marine, who served in Afghanistan, said he was being wrongly prosecuted and was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Brittany Maynard, the 29-year-old battling terminal brain cancer, ended her life at home this weekend with her loved ones by her side. Brittany's gut-wrenching, yet controversial decision went viral last month after she released a video explaining why she chose to die under Oregon's Death with Dignity Act. In a final message to supporters Maynard said, "it is the people who pause to appreciate life and give thanks who are happiest. We change our thoughts, we change our world. Love and peace to you all."

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COSTELLO (voice-over): It's a heartbreaking story. Brittany Maynard was 29 years old and married for just over a year when she found out she had brain cancer.

BRITTANY MAYNARD, DIAGNOSED WITH TERMINAL BRAIN CANCER: I was diagnosed this past new year's. We went away to the wine country for kind of a New Year's Eve celebration and by January 1, the following day, I was diagnosed with cancer and told I was terminally ill.

COSTELLO: Doctors told Maynard in April she had an aggressive brain tumor and gave her six months to live. Maynard quickly decided she didn't want her family to watch her dying in pain, so she and her husband moved from California to Oregon to take advantage of the state's Death with Dignity Law. Oregon is one of only five states with legal protections for terminally ill patients.

MAYNARD: It's in a safe spot and I know that it's there when I need it.

COSTELLO: Maynard qualified for physician assistance suicide in Oregon. She was able to obtain a prescription for lethal medication and to plan out how she wanted to live her final days.

MAYNARD: I will die upstairs in my bedroom that I share with my husband, with my mother and my husband by my side and pass peacefully with some music that I like in the background.

COSTELLO: Maynard says while she doesn't want to die, she wants to be able to end her life on her own terms.

MAYNARD: I can't even tell you the amount of relief that it provides me to know that I don't have to die the way that it's been described to me that my brain tumor would take me. (INAUDIBLE).

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COSTELLO: Millions of Americans head to the polls tomorrow for the midterm elections. The clock is ticking and time may be running out for the Democrats to, you know, have control, remain in control of the Senate. Republicans candidates are gaining ground in 10 states where Senate seats are up for grabs. That means the GOP could control both houses of Congress.

Even if that a happens, though, Senator Rand Paul says Republican success would be one part endorsement for the Republican Party and one part repudiation of President Obama. Paul says that's not enough for Republicans to win the presidency and here's why.

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SEN. RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: I think what's interesting about this is when I say the brand sucks and that we need to recognize it, is that certain segments of our population -- if I came up to you and you were an African-American young woman in a college, what are the chances you're going to say, oh, Republican, I want to join immediately? Our brand isn't so good. If I can get to that young person and talk about the issues, I think

Republicans have a chance. But our brand is so broken, we can't even break through, you know, the wall that's out there. This is the same with Hispanic voters, it's the same with young people in general. But I think there are a lot of avenues for Republicans to break through.

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COSTELLO: So, what are those avenues? Let's talk about that. CNN political commentator and Democratic strategist Donna Brazile is here, along with CNN political analyst and editor and chief for "The Daily Beast," John Avlon, and CNN political commentator and Republican strategist Ana Navarro.

Welcome to all of you.

DONNA BRAZILE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Hello. Good morning.

COSTELLO: Hello. Good morning.

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning, Carol.

ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: How are you, Carol?

COSTELLO: You guys should be energized. Tomorrow is a big election day.

BRAZILE: It's been tough.

COSTELLO: Yes, says Donna the Democrat, right?

AVLON: A big day.

BRAZILE: Enough (ph), right?

NAVARRO: We're wiped -- we're wiped out, girl. We are wiped out.

BRAZILE: Yes.

COSTELLO: I understand. So, Ana, I'll start with you. How can you say the Republican brand is completely broken when Republicans are poised to take over both houses of Congress?

NAVARRO: Well, I don't think he said it's completely broken. I think he said it's broken. I think, you know, we would be well served to heed his advice and to listen to his words. Frankly, Senator Paul is going to some places where Republicans usually don't go. And we should follow that example.

We should, go, speak now, not a few months before a presidential election, but start now and start early and sustain the outreach, building the bridges, doing listening tours, not just talking tours, with groups like African-Americans, like Latinos, like young people where he has a lot of popularity, like gays. You know, we cannot just be a party of straight, old, white men. That's not going to win a national election. And I think we should listen to what he's saying because he's showing that he can have some success and he's blazing a trail, frankly, for the rest of us to follow.

COSTELLO: Interesting.

And, John, couldn't you argue the Democratic brand sucks too? It can't even find an effective way to defeat an "I hate Obama" campaign.

AVLON: I mean, look, neither party's brand is in good shape right now because people are getting tired of the duopoly, frankly, and the polarization and hyper partisanship in our politics. And Rand Paul deserves a lot of credit for genuinely questioning Republican certainties and having the courage to say, look, we need to broaden the big tent, we need to reshuffle the coalition, and it's not simply about messaging, it's about policies, reaching out on prison reform, mandatory drug sentencing. That's one of the reasons he's got a lot of excitement around the perspective of a presidential campaign and a lot of younger voters paying attention.

The bigger question for Republicans that Rand Paul is starting to raise is, it's not just the box, it's the pizza, you know, that needs to be changed. It's the policies. And that's the root of the brand problem. And until they really genuinely open the tent and engage more libertarian outreach to independents and (INAUDIBLE) millennials, they're going to have a fundamental problem. And Rand Paul's got the courage to at least start begin that conversation openly.

COSTELLO: That's true because you're absolutely right, John, you need minorities and women to win the presidency.

I want you to take a look at this stat from Georgia. Let's roll it out because my memory's not that good. So the Democratic Senate candidate Nunn leads Perdue, the Republican candidate, with likely black voters by 85 percent to 6 percent. With whites, Perdue leads Nunn 68 percent to 25 percent. So, Donna, I know that you're a Democratic strategist, but I want you to play Republican strategist for me for just a second. If Ron Paul does run for president, how can he bridge that racial gap? Is he doing the right things now? What does he need to do in the future?

BRAZILE: I think any candidate who seeks to win the presidency got -- must understand that a good gumbo (ph) requires a roof (ph) to hold it all together. And that is, you have to reach out to voters, wherever they live, where they eat, where they play and where they pray. Senator Paul has been right on some issues like voting rights. He believes that people who have served their time should be able to regain their voting rights. He's been good on looking at our criminal justice laws that basically imprison people with non-violent offenses. I think on those issues, he might be able to capture a few votes.

But you know what, when you look at the larger picture and the larger brand that the Republican Party represents, it's a brand that alienates people of color. It's a brand that alienates most women in this country. It's a brand that doesn't empower people and I think Senator Paul and others will have to do a better job of reaching out to people that Ana Navarro understand will enlarge that tent and John Avalon said it's not just the box, it's what's inside the pizza. Well, if it's poison, nobody wants to eat it.

I've got to say one other thing, because everyone is blaming everything on President Obama. President Obama's numbers are bad. Ronald Reagan, even in the height of his presidency, saw losses in the Congress. So I don't blame everything on the president. I blame it on the political environment.

COSTELLO: Yes, and it's terrible.

Going back to Rand Paul for just a second and the type of political candidate he is, Ana, there are some analysts out there comparing him to the Obama in 2006, someone who can energize young people. He can be that kind of candidate. Do you agree with that?

NAVARRO: You know, there's aspects of Rand Paul that frankly I don't agree with and make me a little bit nervous. On foreign policy, I think he's been somewhat inconsistent and he needs to find a message and he needs to stick to that message. He needs to find a path, frankly, on what he stands for. Because he's been way too many places in too short a time.

But then he's got these redeeming qualities that just endear him to me. And I think he speaks truth to power and he says things that none other -- no other people are saying. And it's very refreshing. And he says it from a very genuine place. He does things like take a district vacation and go to Guatemala and serve poor people, do eye surgeries on poor people. He'll show up to places like Berkeley and speak to young people. He'll shows up to places like Howard University.

He will have the courage to go engage people in what might not be the most friendly, the most receptive of environments. But he understands that in order to have a conversation, first you have to show up and you have to listen. So I think he is very refreshing in certain aspects.

COSTELLO: All right, we'll leave it there. John Avlon, Donna Brazile, Ana Navarro, thanks to all of you.

I'm back in a minute.

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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

COSTELLO: All right, we have breaking news about Joran van der Sloot. You remember him. He was accused in the disappearance of Natalie Hollywood -- Natalie Holloway. And I apologize for that.

Anyway, he is in prison in Peru, in maximum security. He was convicted of another murder there. Well, we have word he has been stabbed twice and is seriously injured. This is according to his wife, to van der Sloot's wife. And, yes, he has a wife. She says he was stabbed in the waist and also in the shoulder and she has a bloody shirt to prove it.

That's about the extent of the information we have right now. So, again, Joran van der Sloot has been stabbed twice in prison and is supposedly seriously injured. If we get any more information about this, of course I will pass it along.

Let's talk about Election Day, because Election Day could be the day that minimum wage workers in four states could be getting a raise. On the ballot in Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska and South Dakota are measures that could hike the minimum wage starting in January. In Illinois, the vote is an advisory measure, not binding. CNN's chief business correspondent Christine Romans joins us now to break it all down.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hi Carol. And four of those states on your map there are solidly red states, and polls look like it's going to pass, the minimum wage increase. This has often been one of those over those -- really over the past 10 or 15 years, one of those things that's seen as a Democratic initiative, to raise the minimum wage. Although now you're seeing a much more broad-based support for it. In fact, our polling shows 71 percent of Americans support an increase in the minimum wage. You're going to see it on five states there. That Illinois -- Illinois's minimum wage increase would be to $10, but that's only an advisory -- an advisory ballot intiative.

COSTELLO: What's that mean?

ROMANS: Well, that means that voters are saying yes, we think the state should do this. We think that this should be done, giving their permission to do it.

COSTELLO: And then the legislature would still have to act?

ROMANS: And the legislature would still have to act. So look at Alaska, it'd be two steps, by 2016, to be $9.75. Arkansas right now is actually below the federal minimum wage. The federal minimum wage is $7.25. Arkansas up to $8.50 by 2017. You can see Nebraska would go up to $9 eventually and South Dakota $8.50.

It's interesting because some states have already done this and some cities have been doing it, and they've been raising it to $10, even $15 in some cases, depending on the city and depending on the industry. A lot of the labor economists and worker economists say, look, if you were to keep -- if it were to be exactly what it was in 1968, adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage would be above $10 an hour here. So you're getting less to live on on the minimum wage now than any time in the last 30 years. They think that's got to change.

COSTELLO: OK and I know you'll keep an eye on it.

ROMANS: I will.

COSTELLO: And you'll come back Wednesday and tell us what happens. Christine Romans, many thanks. I'll be right back.

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COSTELLO: Checking some top stories for you at 56 minutes past the hour.

NTSB investigators looking into the crash of Virgin Galactic Spaceship 2 are focusing on a system that helped slow the craft. Virgin Group founder Richard Branson tells CNN that, despite the co-pilot's death, the project will go on.

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RICHARD BRANSON, FOUNDER, VIRGIN GROUP: Yes, the risk is worth it. And as I say, Mike would have been the first to say that. I'm sure his parents and his wife and his sisters would not say that, but test pilots would say that because they know the risk they're taking.

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COSTELLO: The pilot survived the crash and is now talking with his family and doctors, but not yet with investigators.

Maine's governor says it could take several days for power to be restored after a rare early November snowstorm hit the state. More than 137,000 homes lost electricity. That's of last night. Now the storm dumped more than a foot of heavy, wet snow.

NASCAR brawl. Jeff Gordon confronted Brad Kozlowski at the end of last night's Sprint Cup race in Texas. Gordon's car had spun out of control. All of the punches seemed to be thrown by crew members. Wow.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM after a break.

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