Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Obama Visits Cleveland; Tsarnaev Trial Continues as Friend Testifies; Breaking Hostage Situation Out of Tunisia. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired March 18, 2015 - 09:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:32:15] BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and thanks so much for joining me. I'm Brianna Keilar.

And despite the ongoing controversy over her e-mails, Hillary Clinton still has a sizeable lead over other possible Democratic contenders at the race for the White House. According to a new CNN/ORC poll just out this morning, Democrats overwhelmingly pick Clinton as their nominee. She's got nearly a 50 percent lead over Vice President Joe Biden. Senator Elizabeth Warren a distant third there with 10 percent.

It's much tighter, though, when you start looking at Republicans who may get in this race. You have Jeb Bush on the top of the pack, 16 percent. Close behind, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. You have Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, as well as former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.

Today, President Obama travels to Cleveland, Ohio, where he will deliver a speech on middle class economics. And his visit comes one day after House Republicans unveiled a new budget proposal that aims to cut more than $5 trillion in government spending over the next 10 years. The proposal would also try and balance the budget within the next decade. But according to the president, the Republican strategy would hurt middle class Americans. This is what he told reporters on Tuesday. He said, "it's not a budget that reflects the future. It's not a budget that reflects growth. It's not a budget that is going to help ensure that middle class families are able to maintain security and stability and that people who are trying to get into the middle class are going to have the rungs on the ladder to get into the middle class."

Let's bring in now Dan Moulthrop, he is the CEO of the City Club in Cleveland, where the president will be speaking in a few hours.

So, Dan, thank you so much for joining us. And tell us what you're hoping to hear from the president today.

DAN MOULTHROP, CEO, CITY CLUB OF CLEVELAND: Brianna, it's great to see you. Thank you so much for your interest and for in -- for inviting us.

We are hoping to basically -- I mean, here's the thing, he's the president and we want to hear what's on his mind. The City Club of Cleveland has welcomed presidents, Reagan, and we've had George H.W. Bush in several times, but when he was a vice president and a presidential candidate, and we also -- and we've had Clinton and George W. Bush. And we have a tradition of really strong engagement. And so, you know, whatever is on the president's mind, that's what our community and our audience and our membership wants to hear about and wants to talk to him about.

But the best part of the City Club program for me personally is the Q&A. And there's always a Q&A. An unscripted -- live, unscripted Q&A with the audience. So it's really not about what I want to hear from the president, but what our members want to ask him. And that's going to be a very exciting part in the second half of the program.

KEILAR: What do you think is on the mind of folks there in Cleveland? What do you think in that Q&A session they'll be asking the president?

[09:35:04] MOULTHROP: You know, we have a highly engaged audience who really -- they pay a lot of attention. And boy have they been paying attention over the last four or five days since we announced this on Friday. And, you know, I think that the economy is huge here. It's a really big issue. Cleveland was out of the recession slower than most other regions and Cleveland was in the recession.

You know, there was a recession back in 2001 that Cleveland really never came out of. Where the president is speaking today is the same -- virtually the same location that he spoke in 2008 just before he was elected on that Sunday evening. And in the intervening years, he -- there's a brand-new convention center and that's somewhat symbolic of the economic growth that our city has received -- has undergone and the transformation of the city. I mean there are cranes in the sky now where there weren't for, you know, five, six, seven years.

So people really care deeply about the economy. They're going to be asking, I'm sure, about jobs, about manufacturing. We're still a very strong manufacturing town. They're going to be asking about, I'm sure, you know, the things that come up all the time at the City Club have to do with education and the articulation of work force development needs all the way through the P16 (ph) continuum. Those are the sorts of things we talk about a lot in Cleveland and in Ohio and I'm sure they're likely to come up here.

KEILAR: And I'm sure -- I am sure they are as well, Dan. He has talked about the House Republican plan, what he sees as a failure to invest in education, in infrastructure and research, among other things. So no doubt he'll be bringing that message to Cleveland as well. Looking forward to seeing the Q&A. Dan Moulthrop for us from Cleveland. Thanks so much for joining us.

MOULTHROP: Thank you so much, Brianna. Have a great day.

KEILAR: All right, you, too.

A once rising star in the Republican Party, one of the youngest members to be elected to Congress, is stepping down. Illinois Congressman Aaron Schock is resigning amid a growing scandal over questionable spending and political donations. Among the accusations against Schock, using taxpayer money to fund lavish trips, travel that he regularly documents on his Instagram account. Schock came under scrutiny last month after it made headlines that he decorated his office like "Downton Abbey." That's right, that TV show. Well, the grand total, $40,000 to do that, which Schock says he paid back to the government.

The biggest spending issue, though, and this might surprise you, it has to do with mileage reimbursements for a car that was paid for by his campaign account. Namely that he received reimbursements for tens of thousands of miles that it appears he didn't drive. The congressman is also accused of improperly benefitting from a real estate deal with a political donor.

Despite huge hurdles, officials say progress has been made in those Iran nuclear talks. John Kerry and Iran's foreign minister resuming talks in Switzerland today in an effort to reach a deal. Officials say negotiations over technical issues are improving, but one of the biggest sticking points continues to be sanctions. The deadline for an agreement is March 31st.

And still to come, a close friend of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev tells jurors the Boston bombing defendant was one of the, quote, "realest" people that he ever met, but why did he lend his gun to him? We have that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:41:54] KEILAR: You're looking at some live pictures that we want to bring you. Let's bring those up. This is of the Tunisian parliament in a museum complex there that has been evacuated.

So what this is, is, according to reports, eight people have been killed. We understand that from Tunisian officials that two men wearing military garb opened fire in a museum near the parliament. This is the Bardo National Museum where these shots were fired, where we understand that a hostage situation is still ongoing. And you can just see the chaos here and really the concern is these people are running away from danger in the capital of Tunis.

So at this point this hostage situation is ongoing and we are going to certainly continue to follow this. But bottom line here, eight people killed. These are early reports coming in from Tunisian officials. And these are brand-new pictures coming in of people shocked by this situation.

Tunisia key in the region. This is the nation where the Arab Spring started. It's been dealing with Islamism threats. And we understand from Tunisian officials, they say they believe that the attackers are Islamists. We'll continue to follow this story and bring you details as we get them.

The prosecution in the Boston Marathon bombing trial may rest its case against defendant Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as soon as next week. Testimony today is expected to focus on key evidence from the fierce gun fight between the Tsarnaev brothers and police that happened three days after the marathon attack. Prosecutors say the gun that the brothers used in that shootout was given to Dzhokhar by this man, Stephen Silva. He took the stand for the prosecution yesterday.

And joining me now, we have CNN commentator and legal analyst Mel Robbins. We also have HLN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney Joey Jackson.

So let's start with you, Joey. Yesterday the jury heard from Stephen Silva. This was someone who was a very close friend of Tsarnaev. He's actually in prison on drug and weapons charges. He is cooperating with prosecutors. What did jurors, do you think -- how did they look at the testimony that he gave?

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, in evaluating that, obviously he testified in beige prison garb and so you could look at that and you could say, as skeptical minds might, that you have an incentive to lie. Skeptical minds might also say that in light of the fact that he has a plea agreement with the government for leniency and to the extent that he testifies truthfully, you know, he will get leniency on his sentence.

At the same time you can make the argument that birds of a feather flock together. He's a criminal. He has some intimate knowledge as to the defendant in this case. They grew up together. They went to high school together. And who better to know what that defendant was thinking, what was on his mind and the type of person he was than the individual who grew up with him. And so, you know, depending upon how you flip the argument, Brianna, you could certainly make the case that he's a credible witness, knows the defendant and has something compelling to tell that jury.

KEILAR: This is another interesting point from this, Mel.

[09:45:01] Silva testified that Dzhokhar's brother Tamerlan was very strict, very opinionated. Is this testimony that helps the defense's case that Dzhokhar was manipulated by his older brother? Or do you think that the jury might simultaneously say, OK, this is Dzhokhar's friend and he's still trying to look out for him?

ROBBINS: You know, Brianna, you zeroed in on the exact thing that I was thinking, which is during cross examination, so you've got this friend from high school who's serving a federal sentence on heroin distribution and gun charges testify for the prosecution. But on cross examination the defense attorneys were able to get a very key piece of information out. They got this guy to admit, I would consider Tsarnaev one of my best friends. He then went on to say that Tsarnaev told him, you don't want to meet my brother. He's very strict, he's very opinionated, and you're not Muslim so he's going to give you grief about it.

He also went on to testify that he and Tsarnaev were, quote, typical teenagers. Well, I don't think typical teenagers are serving federal sentences, but he went on to say that when they were growing up, Tsarnaev was a quiet kid. He was not a violent kid. That they did typical things like jumping off cliffs into the Charles River. And so those are key elements that you're going to see the defense hammer home later on during the sentencing phase of this case, Brianna.

JACKSON: Just something to add to that, Brianna, quickly, and that's this. The reality is the prosecution is going to flip that in the following way. Because someone holds opinions or may be opinionated doesn't mean that that opinion should be controlling you. No. 2, simply because it was someone else's idea, the criminal law, Mel will agree, doesn't excuse two people acting in concert because it was his idea, not mine. And, finally, coercion certainly could be used as a defense but that's not this case. There was no gun held to, you know, Tsarnaev's head at the time that he was committing this. In fact, we've all seen the video that he seems to be acting alone.

ROBBINS: In fact, Joey, in fact, to the prosecution's side, Brianna and Joey, they're going to say, hey, several months before this happened, here you've got Tsarnaev asking his friend to loan him a gun with an obliterated serial number. And that's the gun that they actually used to kill Sean Collier, the MIT police officer. So that testimony goes towards the prosecution in saying he was planning this. He was getting a gun.

KEILAR: Guys, sorry to scoot out of this. We have some breaking news. We're going to find out, I think, what the defense is going to say as we do expect this to really move on when the prosecutors may rest their case as soon as next week. Mel, Joey, thanks to both of you. Really appreciate it.

And we want to update you on the breaking news out of Tunisia. We're getting reports that eight people are dead after an attack near the country's parliament building.

I want to bring in CNN's Atika Shubert. Atika, we have certainly some new pictures in. We're getting a little better sense of what the scene there is like.

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. You can see in that video that's actually been coming in, the panic as tourists are brought into the museum to safety. The museum surrounded now by security forces. It does appear to be an ongoing hostage situation inside, although reports that some hostages have just been released in the last few minutes.

What we understand is that there are two gunmen, at least two gunmen, armed with automatic weapons, AK-47s inside the museum complex. The museum is also attached to parliament, so it's possible they came in through parliament, ended up in the museum. We know from the Interior Ministry that at least eight people have been killed, a number of them believed to be foreign tourists. We're trying to get the nationalities of those tourists at the moment. What we do know from the Italian Foreign Ministry is that there were a number of Italian tourists inside and some Italian tourists have been injured in this attack.

Now in terms of who is responsible for this attack, the spokesperson for the Interior Ministry said that the people carrying out the attack were, quote, "Islamists'. Now we don't know exactly which group. We're still trying to follow the lines of investigation on that. There is, however, an interesting note that the group Ansar al-Sharia, which is an extremist group in Tunisia, is one of the main contributors to foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq. And in fact Tunisia have the most fighters fighting with groups like ISIS in Syria, more 3,000 fighters there currently. So it's something definitely to keep watch of as this situation continues to unfold, Brianna.

KEILAR: And you can just see in these pictures what look to be tourists who were there in this museum which, correct me if I'm wrong, is attached to parliament and many of them are just winded and so fearful as they're running away from the threat.

So tell me, Atika, we believe these are pictures of the folks coming into the museum.

[09:50:06] Do you know exactly where they are and can you give us a sense of where they might be running from?

SHUBERT: Sure. The entire complex is actually the Bardo National Museum where you see those pictures. And it's connected to Tunisia's parliament by a hallway and a courtyard. So we're not quite clear yet where the shooting started. But at some point when the gunfire erupted, a number of tourists who were outside, were ushered into the museum for safety. Those are some of the pictures you are seeing now.

But we also know as the situation unfolded, the gunmen ended up in the museum, killing at least eight people and taking a number of hostages. So right now the focus of the attack seems to be the museum. And Tunisian security has surrounded the area but particularly the museum to try to secure the safety of the hostages inside.

It is still ongoing. It's still very fluid. So this could move. But the focus of the attack appears to be that complex between parliament and the Bardo Museum, Brianna.

KEILAR: And this Bardo Musuem, this is a jewel there in the capital of Tunis. Right? This is a main museum in a big city. Or if we were to see a beautiful museums here in Washington, D.C., that's what we're talking about. And it makes you wonder if maybe the fact that we understand from Tunisian officials that these gunmen were wearing military garb, if perhaps that was really key to them getting in here, right?

SHUBERT: That's right. The reports are that they were wearing camouflage. Some reports saying they were disguised as soldiers. We don't know exactly yet but they were wearing some sort of camouflage uniform when they came in.

We don't know if they were specifically targeting parliament or the museum. But you're absolutely right. The museum is filled with archaeological finds. This is a part of the world that has tremendous archaeological treasures. And in fact, in some of the video, you can see the sort of beautiful mosaics arcs the museum there.

And it is a magnet for tourists, and this is a particularly shocking and sad development because Tunisia was considered to be a stable part of this part of North Africa, of the sort of Magreb, as it's called. And it was considered to be a success story of the Arab Spring. It has a revolution that overthrew its autocratic leader. It had a successful peaceful election. But at the same time, when all of that was lifted up, there was this developing strain of radical -- of political radical Islam. And it is feared that this could be -- that members of that extremist group might have carried out this attack. This is what has been said by the Interior Minister. We're waiting to see if anyone claims responsibility for this though, Brianna.

KEILAR: Sure, and so that's one of the issues, Atika, right? Is there has been Tunisian playing this key role in the 2010 Arab Spring, as really the igniter of it, the beginning of the Arab Spring. And Tunisia has been dealing with an Islamist threat, but it tends to be more right outside of Tunis, outside of the capital.

So the question -- and this is still very much ongoing. We believe this is an ongoing hostage situation at this point. But in the days and weeks to come, won't the key be trying to figure out if this is a one-off attack or if this is part of the broader Islamist threat that Tunisia is facing?

SHUBERT: That's exactly what investigators will be looking at. They'll be looking to see who the gunmen are attached to. Are they, for example, related to al Qaeda and the Islamic Magreb, which is a threat across the region and Algeria in particular. Or, for example, are they related to foreign fighters that have been returning from Syria and Iraq?

I don't think you can underestimate the influence of ISIS in the region. In fact, there have been a number of propaganda videos put out by ISIS featuring Tunisian fighters. This could, for example, be in response to one of those calls for action from ISIS. We don't know at this point. But this is what investigators will be looking at, Brianna.

KEILAR: All right. Ongoing hostage situation there in Tunis, in the capital of Tunisia. Atika Shubert, thank you. We'll continue to follow this and we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICH GRIMM, REITRED FIREFIGHTER: My first jump in 1980, we're over this cornfield in Ohio. And it was out of a little Cessna 182. So I was in the plane and there was an older gentleman in front of me. And so when they opened the door and he climbed out on the stret (ph), to hold on. As he led go, I was in mass panic. I was so scared. I was just thinking this was the stupidest thing in the world. And I was holding on with a death grip. He was, like, go, go, go. And I just let go and closed my eyes and a big old round World War II parachute opened up and then I looked down and I was, like, wow. This is pretty cool.

My name is Rich Grimm. I'm a retired firefighter from Ontario, California. Now I jump out of airplanes. As you get older, and running into burning buildings starts getting a little more painful, so I started thinking about changing gears and retiring from the fire department and starting a full-time sky diving center.

Most fire departments have a retirement system. When I turned age 50, after 31 years, I received a pension. It allowed us to pursue our dreams. Pursue my dream, not my wife's dream, let's say.

During my fireman career I was sky diving recreationally as a hobby. And I realized that maybe I could turn this crazy hobby into a full- time business. And then when I retired in 2010, we started a full- time sky diving center for first timers and experienced sky divers in Oceanside, California. And then we do these once a year exotic sky dive trips somewhere cool in the world. It just kind of snowballed, so it's one of those things I just kind of -- no pun intended -- fell into.

[10:00:05] We're here in Costa Rica. This is one of our yearly trips. And I'm way too young to be this old; I'm not going to go move into some senior citizen gated community. I want to be out there, jumping out of airplanes as along as I can and having fun. So it's a pretty good retirment gig.

(END VIDEO CLIP)