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Iran Nuclear Deal Hits Snag Ahead of Deadline; 2 Men Dressed as Women Crash NSA Gate; Learning More about Germanwings Co-pilot; "The Daily Show's" Jon Stewart Replacement Named. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired March 30, 2015 - 14:30   ET

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

JOSEPH CIRINCIONI, PRESIDENT, PLOUGHSHARES FUND GLOBAL SECURITY FOUNDATION & AUTHOR: We don't want them while they are frozen in this program to be doing research and putting brand-new, much more efficient centrifuges in. Iran has agreed to that in principle but how exactly do you do it? That's what we're negotiating.

Plus, once you shrink the number of centrifuges -- and it looks like we're going to get cuts of two-thirds of their centrifuges that are going to be ripped out -- you also want reduce the supply of uranium gas. They have about 8,000 kilograms. You want to shrink that to about a tenth or less. How do you do that? Do you ship it out of the country? Do you dilute it? Do you turn it into fuel? Those details are being negotiated.

[14:00:29] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Joe, on the note of shipping it out of the country, I was hearing about the potential of sending this stuff to, of all places, Russia.

CIRINCIONI: Yeah.

BALDWIN: Can you comment on that, A? And, B, who would actually oversee that?

CIRINCIONI: That's our preferred option. We would like it out of the country. Russia would turn it into fuel. Iran doesn't have the ability to turn it into fuel currently, and then bring it back where you can't use it for a bomb in that form. And all of this would be overseen by the IAEA.

One of the things we're clearest on is that we are likely to get from this deal one of the most intrusive inspection regimes ever put in for any agreement of this type. All of this would be supervised by international inspectors. We would track the uranium from the time if comes out of the mine, until the time it goes out of those gas cylinders. If it leaves the country and then comes back, we have to be sure that Iran is not sneaking out or breaking out or trying to creep out of this deal once we make it.

BALDWIN: I hear you on the inspectors but a word that you used a second ago, that being "cheat." I know you written about this notion if Iran cheats, has anyone thought about them cheating in, say, the next decade?

CIRINCIONI: Oh, yeah. That's exactly the concern. This is not about trust. The national security adviser, Susan Rice, says it's distrust and verify. So we don't trust the Iranians to do any of this. That's why we need the inspections. We're going to build in a freeze for about 10 years. After that time, their limitations will slowly come off. But even then, you're going to keep those inspections on and even then you keep the ban on them ever turning any of this into a nuclear program. And in the course of that, we will be able to add other instructions, other agreements, maybe other arrangements that can convince Iran that they can never build a bomb.

BALDWIN: Here's what I'm wondering, kind of just bigger picture because we've been covering what's happening in the Middle East, most recently, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, et cetera. So you have these new talks. This has been happening more or less in a bubble. But I was wondering if we could broaden this out. Iran and the U.S. have such different interests. I'm wondering if any of what has been happening in the Middle East, vis a vis, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, is that affecting what is happening around the negotiating table regarding nuclear talks?

CIRINCIONI: Yeah, it most certainly is.

BALDWIN: It is?

CIRINCIONI: Many of the regional politics in here involve the conflict between the Sunni Arab states, which tend to be our allies, like Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, and this Persian Shia state of Iran. These people are rivals. So the Saudis, for example, object to the Iranian nuclear program, but more, they object to the growing influence of Iran in the region. So as this warfare starts to develop, you are starting to see this potentially turn into a Sunni/Shia war that could ripple through the region. If that war explodes in the next couple of months, that could sink this entire deal.

BALDWIN: Deadline in a day. We know they are talking into the night. Joe Cirincioni, we may have to chat this time tomorrow.

Appreciate it, sir, very much.

CIRINCIONI: Every one is playing brinksmanship. It will go down to the final hour.

Thank you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: I have no doubt.

Thank you very much.

Back here in the United States, this bizarre scene outside of the National Security Agency headquarters in Maryland this morning. Two men disguised as women successfully rammed through this main gate. This is Ft. Meade. NSA police opened fire. One person was killed before they could reach the second gate. The other man is in the hospital.

CNN's national correspondent, Suzanne Malveaux, is live outside of Ft. Meade, Maryland, at the NSA.

What happened, Suzanne?

[14:54:17] SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is such a bizarre story, Brooke. We're on the west side of the NSA headquarters. It happened on the east side. A place like this, super secret, so they are not going to let you get a close-up view. But if you look at the aerials, a bird's-eye view, you get a sense of what happened here.

The FBI is taking the lead on the investigation. They put out several statements but we also had a chance to talk to somebody, an emergency responder on the ground, who described what happened. He told me this way. He said, essentially it was after 9:00, two men in a Ford Escape, they were in this vehicle and they approached one of the outer perimeter barriers. They went ramming through it. Both of these men had wigs on. They went ramming through the first barrier. They hit an officer. That is when the officers, NSA officers jumped out, opened fire, started shooting. They shot one man dead immediately and they shot the other one in the chest. Their vehicle crashed into one of the police cars.

If you take a look at the video, the first man, the man who instantly died on the scene, his body was under a white tarp for several hours this morning. You could see what was a black object on the ground, which was one of the wigs. The other man was taken to the hospital, the University of Maryland, Baltimore Trauma Center. The officer was taken to the same place as well with a wound to the hand.

You have to ask yourself, what happened here, why did this happen? Investigators, so far, say they are ruling out a few things. They are ruling out terrorism. They don't think this was terrorism. They are not sure if this was nefarious in any way. They don't have a motive as of yet. They did find some illegal drugs in the car but that's about as far as we go in terms of how to piece this whole thing together.

BALDWIN: Illegal drugs, dressed women, wigs. Do we know how close they actually got to the NSA itself?

MALVEAUX: So this is a huge complex and the NSA is inside the Ft. Meade military installation here. You've got about 11,000 military employees working here, 29,000 civilians, about 6,000 who actually live on the facility itself. They got through the first barrier. That was the outer-most barrier. They were heading towards the second when they were stopped. If they had gotten through the second barrier, that would have been a different story. They would have gotten much closer to that building. They were not close at that point, so they were stopped at the immediate security check. And there are multiple, multiple layers of security here. So, as you can imagine, though, a lot of concern because there's a lot of super secret and military stuff that goes on here and they acted very, very quickly -- Brooke?

BALDWIN: To your word, "bizarre."

Suzanne Malveaux, thank you very much.

Coming up, let me show you a picture. Do you know who this man is? Answer, Trevor Noah. Not necessarily a household name here in the United States, at least not yet, but he will be. He's been tapped now to host "The Daily Show." Why Comedy Central chose him.

Plus, what the ex-girlfriend of the co-pilot accused of crashing the plane into the French Alps is now saying about his behavior more than a year ago. More on that. Stay with me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:41:54] BALDWIN: As investigators are working to piece together what may have cause a Germanwings co-pilot to deliberately crash a jetliner into the French mountainside, we are learning new disturbing details from a woman claiming to be the ex-girlfriend of Andreas Lubitz. She told the German newspaper "Bild" that Andreas Lubitz was a very trouble man and that she had become scared of what he might do.

CNN's senior international correspondent, Fred Pleitgen, has more on Lubitz's alleged dark side -- Fred?

FRED PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, as this investigation moves forward, the investigators are trying to find out what might have driven the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, to direct that plane and crash it into the side of that mountain in France. They are trying to find out more about his private life as well.

Now, one German publication, called the "Bild" newspaper, has come out and claims that it spoke to an ex-girlfriend of Andreas Lubitz. She claims she was together with him for about five months in the past year and she describes him as someone who was a very sensitive person, someone who needed a lot of attention, someone who, quite frankly, at times could be quite flattering as well, who gave her flowers. She claims that she was a flight attendant at Germanwings and, therefore, worked with him on many occasions. But she also says that this was someone who also had a very dark side to him as well. She says very often he would get angry. At times, he locked himself into the bathroom. She said he was someone, for instance, would have bad dreams, would wake up in the middle of the night. She says that ultimately the reason why they split up was that she was beginning to become afraid of him because she said it became more and more clear to her that he had psychological problems that she wasn't sure he really had under control anymore.

So all of this, Brooke, is very important to the investigation going forward as they try to find out what sort of mental condition Andreas Lubitz might have had and what role that played in bringing that plane down in southern France -- Brooke?

BALDWIN: Fred Pleitgen, thank you very much.

And we'll have much more on what officials call his suicidal tendencies coming up in a few minutes.

Also ahead, this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my god!

(SHOUTING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[14:44:05] BALDWIN: Absolutely frightening video. This firefighter falling through the roof of a home and then this massive fireball erupting. We will show you what happened moments before and after this terrifying plunge.

And Trevor Noah, ladies and gentlemen. Have you ever heard of him? Neither have a lot of Americans. He's the guy getting the gig. He's replacing Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show." What's his style? We'll talk about him, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: "The Daily Show's" Jon Stewart has not signed off yet, but Comedy Central has already cast his replacement. South African comic, Trevor Noah, will take over the anchor desk. The 30-year-old comedian had just joined the cast last December as a special correspondent.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TREVOR NOAH, COMEDIAN & NEW HOST, THE DAILY SHOW: I was so happy when I got here and I saw people that looked like they were from South Africa. I felt at home. I greeted them in the street. Like, hey, (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE). They were like, (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).

(LAUGHTER)

I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. No. I didn't know this but apparently I'm Mexican.

(LAUGHTER)

Don't spank a child. Spanking is for playing. You can spank a monkey, spank a monkey.

(LAUGHTER)

Spanky, spanky. Spanky, spank, monkey, spanky, spanky, yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

Spank a monkey. Don't spank a child.

(LAUGHTER)

Beatings.

(LAUGHTER) That's what happened. Those kids got beatings for no reason. It was always these cases, teachers walking into the classroom, losing their minds. Ladies, did you do your homework? No, ma'am. Then you are going to get a beating.

(LAUGHTER)

Yeah, a beating for you.

(LAUGHTER)

But because it's after school, everybody's getting one!

(LAUGHTER)

You're getting a beating. You're getting a beating. You're getting a beating! Everyone is getting a beating.

(LAUGHTER)

You're getting a beating!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[14:50:08] BALDWIN: All right. Funny dude.

After getting the news, Noah tweeted, quote, "No one can replace Jon Stewart. But together with the amazing team at "The Daily Show," we'll continue to make this the best damn news show."

Joining me is Robyn Curnow; and David Meyer who made a documentary about the South African comic, Trevor Noah, "The Racist." That's the name of this film.

You know, I have tons and tons of questions for you, David.

But first you, Robyn, your perspective. You're South African. Tell me about this guy. Is he a huge star back home? What's his style? What's his background?

ROBYN CURNOW, CNN SOUTH AFRICAN CORRESPONDENT: Well, he is a huge star back home, unlike the rest of America, which is Googling Trevor at the moment. South Africans know exactly who he is. Remember, it's a tiny industry, comedy in South Africa. He has come out of a very small pool. So this is a huge leap for him in terms of what his style is, I think.

He's South African. I'm South African. Many of us have a pretty incorrect sense of humor. South Africans are tough, quite brutal. You can hear him making jokes about beating kids at school. It's an inward-looking understanding of racism, particularly very much part of South Africans and the way they communicate with each other every day. So he's completely built on that. So his style is very focused on the fact that he's mixed race, the issues around being black, about being white, about South Africa.

Just take a listen. I think we've got a sound bite.

BALDWIN: We do.

CURNOW: He very blankly and brutally describes his parents' relationship. Take a listen to this, Brooke.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NOAH: This world is awkward for me growing up because I grew up with a mixed family. Me being the mixed one in the family.

(LAUGHTER)

My mother is a black woman, born in South Africa. That's one of the languages of the Tulsa (ph). A black woman. And then my father is Swiss. But they didn't care, you know. They were mavericks, fighting the system. My mom was arrested for being with my dad. She would get fined and thrown into prison for the weekend, but still she'd come back because she was like, whoo, I don't care. I don't care. Whoo.

(LAUGHTER)

Come tell me what you love. I want a white man. Whoo.

(LAUGHTER)

She's crazy, my mom. She's crazy. And my dad was also like -- well, you know, how the Swiss like chocolate, so he was like --

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CURNOW: So the big question is, how does that kind of humor, this sort of humor, the sort of pushing really the edge of things, transform into a "Daily Show" in America. Will the audiences get it? I don't know.

BALDWIN: Political incorrectness, I can't imagine. I mean, no, seriously.

David, to you. We were talking during the commercial break and you said you were getting your degree at USC at the film school and you happened upon this young man, you love comedy, so you did an entire film on him. And before we get into that and more of what you know of him, when you heard that "The Daily Show" was going to him, that's a risk. Were you surprised? .

DAVID PAUL MEYER, FILMMAKER: I mean, it's extremely exciting. It blew my mind. I might have shed a tear of two this morning.

BALDWIN: Ah.

MEYER: I'm just so happy for Trevor. It's just amazing. And, you know, I'm just so -- everything that he's done up to this point, I mean, in terms of how known he is, he's been working really hard. He tours all over the world, has toured all over the U.S. It just seems like this is the next step. I think it's really exciting. I think he's really going to excite the audiences once they start watching him.

BALDWIN: Here's the "but." I can just hear from critics saying, when you watch "The Daily Show," and Jon Stewart is superb at pointing out politics and the hypocrisy and sometimes members of the media all the while, and how can a South African with a very different life experience and view of politics succeed at doing that?

MEYER: Well, I think there are some experiences that can be shared and what really drew me at least in terms of talking about the documentary, South Africa, apartheid, they only had democracy for 15 years when I started doing the documentary in 2008, 2009, so there was still a lot of racial tension there and I think you can find some similar themes here in or country.

And what I think is going to be refreshing for people, at least it was for me in making the film, the comedy scene is so fresh in South Africa. A black community, it would be mostly a black audience, et cetera. Trevor is the one comic that I saw in South Africa that brought together a diverse group of people in terms of how they viewed politics and race and he has a way to speak to all of them and get them to talk about stuff. And that's not like a small thing to be able to get a group --

[14:55:16] BALDWIN: That's pretty powerful.

MEYER: -- of people in a country with the scars of apartheid -- with the wounds of apartheid so fresh, still be able to do that. It's awesome. That's what I think is going to be cool to see, you know, in action on "The Daily Show".

BALDWIN: Again, if you want to see the film, it's Trevor Noah, "Racist." That's the film you did at USC, David Paul Meyer. Who woulda thunk?

MEYER: You laugh but it's true. Sorry to correct you, but I'm a poor indie filmmaker. You have to get the name right.

(LAUGHTER)

MEYER: You laugh, but it's true. And it's on Netflix. It's there. Just stream online.

BALDWIN: Forgive me.

MEYER: Yeah, no problem.

BALDWIN: I apologize.

And, Robyn Curnow, thank you very, very much.

Coming up next, this video is just gut-wrenching. You see this firefighter battling this fire and falls through. Look at this. This charred rooftop is engulfed in flames. See what happened next. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my god.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)