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Afghans Switching Loyalty From Taliban To ISIS; U.S. Ambassador: West "Chipping Away" at ISIS; Horrifying Video Of Alleged Gas Attack; Question about Reserve Deputies Training Files; New Video of Officer Taking Down Man with Cruiser; Republican Candidates Speak at Leadership Summit; Pot Fans Flock to Colorado for Festival. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired April 18, 2015 - 17:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:00:28] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Five o'clock Eastern, you're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Poppy Harlow in New York, and we begin with this across the Middle East this weekend, terrorist groups are militants, extremists, hell-bent on creating their own caliphate. They are making some gains in their goal to do exactly that. Take a look at this map from Syria where a branch of al Qaeda is now running in major city. The capital of the Northwest province. To Yemen, where a rebel movement pushed up, the president who has still not return, and in just today a new frontier.

This is Afghanistan where a suicide bomber on a motorcycle blew himself up on a crowded street killing 33 people wounding more than 100. ISIS had claimed responsibility saying one offshoot of that group went out to kill Afghan government workers who were trying to cash in their paychecks. If ISIS really is behind this suicide bombing, it would mark the first time the group has carried out an attack inside of Afghanistan. Analyst says, ISIS is growing in that country because people are switching their loyalty to ISIS from the Taliban.

Our Nick Paton Walsh found some Afghan men who made the switch.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Look closely at these men itching for a fight in the Bali south of Kabul. And you can just make out a new seismic tremor in the war here. The masks, the webbing, even the breathless clumsiness at altitude Afghanistan has seen before but not this. The flag of the Islamic State, ISIS. These men are Afghans and wanted to show our cameraman their allegiance to ISIS, an act that could get them killed by ISIS rivals, the Taliban, the big guns here.

(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

"We established contacts," he says with ISIS, through a friend who was in Helmand. He called us saying ISIS has come to Afghanistan, let's join them. We join and pledged allegiance. Our cameraman wasn't allowed to film the sat phones they say they use to talk to Iraq and Syria. They say there are religious students who watch back catalog propaganda and at night go into villages to recruit. We don't recruit ordinary people, he says. We only recruit people with a military background on the government on the Taliban. At the moment we have no leader, but talks are going on to choose one for us in Afghanistan.

(on camera): ISIS were only just beginning here but their timing is good. The Taliban are fractured, either fighting hard or thinking about talking peace in the young and the angry have only known war here might find ISIS' nihilism appealing. Even Washington has heard the threat that ISIS Daesh may pose in the vacuum ahead slowing the U.S. troop withdrawal.

ASHRAF GHANI, PRESIDENT OF AFGHANISTAN: It is critical that the word understand the terrible threat that the Daesh and its allied forces pose. From the west, the Daesh is already sending advanced guards to southern western Afghanistan to test our vulnerabilities.

WALSH: Yet whatever their strength in the swirling chaos of post America or Afghanistan, even those homemade flags portray a purpose in brutality ripe for blooming. Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Kabul.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Thank you for that reporting from Kabul. Let's talk about it with Bob Baer, former CIA operative and also Mubin Shaikh, former jihadist and a former counter-terrorism operative joins me now. Also, CNN's national security analyst Peter Bergen.

Peter, let me begin with you. When we look at what happened here, if indeed there's this switch going on between those some in Afghanistan pledging allegiance to ISIS rather than to Taliban, do you think we're looking at isolated cases or is this the beginning of a much bigger, much more dangerous movement?

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I think more the former Poppy at this point. If you look at Nick Paton Walsh's very interesting story, there were five recruits, ISIS recruits in the frame. So, that doesn't suggest some fast movement. We have had reports of an ISIS group in Helmand, in Southern Afghanistan. The leader of that group was a former commander of the Taliban. He was killed in a drone strike relatively recently. We're looking at maybe a couple hundred, 300, 400, that kind of number. And really, this is not ISIS plotting its flag in Afghanistan, Poppy. This is former members of the Taliban rerouting themselves as ISIS because that's the baddest dog on the block kind of thing. And, you know, they are trying to sort of differentiate themselves from the traditional Afghan Taliban. One final point on this. Mullah Omar disappeared and we haven't seen anything of him in the last 14 years. There's an occasional statement from him, but the leader of the Taliban hasn't shown his face or been very out there at all. And I think some of the younger members of the Taliban are saying what's going on? Let's affiliate ourselves with ISIS, which seems to be a much more formidable group than the Taliban itself.

[17:05:24] HARLOW: Bob, to you, if this is indeed an attack in Afghanistan carried out by an ISIS affiliated group, it would be the first by ISIS within Afghanistan. How likely do you think it is that Afghanistan goes the way of Iraq, for example, with large parts of the country falling to ISIS?

ROBERT BAER, FORMER CIA OPERATIVE: Well, I agree with Peter on most points. It's nothing we should worry about today, but it depends on the chaos in Afghanistan. If it turns out something like Yemen where there are a lot of war lords operating on their own, there's a lot of destruction and total chaos, you're going to see the idea of the Islamic State is to be very attractive to them. You have to look at the Islamic State through their eyes and it's a state, in fact, which controls nearly 20 million people in Syria and Iraq. It is also making headway of sorts in the Sinai against the Egyptian army, which is very well organized. As we have been talking about, they have some allegiance in Yemen and places like that. I think ultimately this is a movement, the Islamic State that's going to collapse, but in the meantime, if it continues to fight on a lot of battle fronts as it has in Ramada or in your -- right below Damascus, you're going to see a lot more adherence and you're going to see a lot more people claiming allegiance and killing people in the name of the Islamic State.

HARLOW: Mubin, what do you think ISIS is looking for? I mean, Bob points out ISIS controlling 20 million people. They clearly think of themselves as a state. They have a police force, right? They have, they collect taxes, revenue. What do you think their aim is within Afghanistan?

MUBIN SHAIKH, FORMER JIHADIST: Well, their aim is to -- I mean, what they are doing everywhere else is to have a monopoly on authority. I mean, the very fact that they claimed caliphate that plays on traditional classical islamic ideas of, you know, the Muslim state, it being run by some kind of the Islamic centric understanding, but even planting there or opening up branches, whether it's in Libya, whether it's in Tunisia or elsewhere, like Afghanistan or Pakistan even, they are just doing the same thing that they have been doing. Just asserting their authority as the sole interlocutor for Islam.

HARLOW: But if indeed they do have these aspirations within Afghanistan, how does this attack gain them movement? How does this gain them followers an adherence within Afghanistan?

SHAIKH: Well, in these contexts, it's all about who can hit the enemy. At the end of the day, as far as they are concerned, there's an occupying force and they need to get rid of this occupying force. And the one who does the more damage to it is the winner, so to speak. So, that's really the reason why.

HARLOW: Mubin Shaikh, Bob Baer, Peter Bergen, thank you very much. Stay with us. The panel will join us a little bit later in the hour.

Just ahead, the very mention of al Qaeda once made people sit up and take notice, but the terror group's dominance has quietly been dismantled some say as ISIS has proven, other argue to be more formidable on the world stage. We'll discuss the changing fortunes of the two groups, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:11:42] HARLOW: All right. We're back with our international security panel talking about ISIS and al Qaeda and how the two groups in their offshoots are making gains throughout the Middle East.

Joining me again, Peter Bergen, let me begin with you Peter Bergen. You just wrote this op-ed this week on CNN.com and you described al Qaeda as an organization that is, quote, "deteriorating." At the same time, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told our Erin Burnett a week ago that he sees al Qaeda as more of a threat than ISIS. Tell me why you think al Qaeda is deteriorating.

BERGEN: Well, on the op-ed I was trying to point out that the organization that attacked the United States on 9/11 is basically on life support. Almost all of its leaders are dead except the overall Ayman al-Zawahiri. But it hasn't conducted a successful attack in the west since the London attacks of 2005. It's only capable of, you know, kind of attacking inside Pakistan. But what the Defense Secretary Ash Carter may have been saying was that elements of al Qaeda and other parts of the world are a problem. And that includes al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula which is a group in Yemen that is obviously benefitting from the chaos there. Has tried to put bombs on planes. But my op-ed wasn't really addressing that point. It was addressing more of the core organization that attacked us on 9/11.

HARLOW: I want you to listen Mubin to this sound from U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power insisting that the west is chipping away at ISIS.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAMANTHA POWER, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: ISIL now controls 25 percent less territory than they did back then. So there will be back and forth and there will be incidents and ISIL is monstrous that they will gather headlines around the world. It's a time of turmoil, it's a fluid time, but particularly as it relates to ISIS, we're in a much stronger position than we were in a year ago. We're chipping away.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: As a counterterrorism analyst looking at this movement with your background as a former Jihadist, do you agree with that assessment?

SHAIKH: Well, I mean, they are chipping away at ISIS. And while, I mean, everyone understands you can't really win a war from the air. You have sure as heck kill a lot of people from the air. And that's what's being done. There's a part of the whole counter narrative really from the -- I guess, western institutional level. In order to dissuade people from joining the caliphate, you show them that no, they can't even hold ground. They can, you know, take cities as hostages, entire cities, but they really can't -- they don't have real authority. They can't hold on to the ground. So, I think this is the strategy here that the more pressure that's put on them, the more land they lose, the greater the argument that see, this is not a legitimate caliphate.

HARLOW: Well, at the same time Bob, when you talk about Ramadi being in focus this week, ISIS really on the brink of taking over possibly Ramadi, you had some U.S. military officials this week saying, look, even if Ramadi falls, it's not the end of the campaign here, it's not the end of the world. Senator John McCain came out responding to that saying that's absolutely the wrong assessment and saying, quote, "disregarding the strategic importance of Ramadi is a denial of reality and an insult to the families of hundreds of brave young Americans who were killed and wounded during the surge fighting to free Ramadi from the grip of al Qaeda." How important is Ramadi?

BAER: I think it's very important. And I hate to say it but I agree with McCain. The government, Baghdad is known for a long time that ISIS is preparing to take the city. In fact, they have infiltrated Ramadi for months now. They've had armed people on the ground. They've only been able to defend certain government centers.

And yet they couldn't protect this city. Secondly, the government in Baghdad has not won any legitimacy with the Sunni Arabs of Iraq. They may not particularly like the Islamic State, but in their view, the worse would be for the Shia militias, the Hastashabi (ph) as it's called, to move into a place like Ramadi where there would be reprisal killings. So, the Sunnis are really between Iraq and a hard place, and until we actually sit down with the parties involved and divide up Iraq like it should be in a federal system, this war is going to go on for a long time and Islamic State may lose ground, but it's not going to die easily.

[17:16:10] HARLOW: Turning our attention to Yemen, to you Peter Bergen, we saw AQAP which is, you would just mention it is increasingly powerful in terms of an offshoot of core al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, in Yemen taking over an airport outside of the capital of Sanaa. How much credence do you give to the progress made by them within Yemen?

BERGEN: Well, this thing waxes and wanes. I mean, it's a little bit like this discussion we just had about ISIS. I mean, if you go back to 2010, Poppy, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula controlled large chunks of Southern Yemen. Then as a result of Yemeni government pressure and also U.S. military action, there were really rolled back and there were really, you know, not doing particularly well about a year ago. Then of course sends as the Houthis, into this equation, they take over the north of the country and seize the capital and the government falls and chaos, which is something a situation that benefits al Qaeda, you know, is now reigning in Yemen. And so al Qaeda opportunistically is taking advantage of that. And you know, right now, we have a war of all against all in in Yemen. And how, who exactly is going to come out on top is not clear at all. I don't think al Qaeda is going to take over the country certainly, but they are capable of taking large chunks of territory in Southern Yemen as they have in the past.

HARLOW: All right. Mubin, Bob, Peter, thank you all very much. And we're going to stay on this topic and we're going to turn our attention after the break to Syria because with all of the turmoil in the region, some argue Syria has nearly been forgotten.

Next, we're going to show you the powerful video, an alarming video, that moved the U.N. Council to tears, it is prompting new calls for action.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:21:35] HARLOW: Imagine the population of Pittsburgh wiped out. That is how many Syrians have been killed since this civil war broke out in 2011. According to a Syrian opposition group, 310,000 deaths have been recorded so far. That is nearly double the number from a year ago and it represents more than one percent of Syria's entire population. According to the United Nations, more than 12 million Syrians, about the population of Moscow are in desperate need of immediate aid. 7.6 million roughly the size of Boston have fled their homes of those more than half are now in neighboring countries living as refugees. The toll keeps climbing horrifying video, reports to show the ghastly effects of a poison gas attack earlier this week.

Our Salma Abdelaziz has the story but first, I want to caution you these images are incredibly difficult to see.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the video that brought some in the U.N. Security Council to tears. This baby is wounded because of toxic gas a man with a trembling voice says. Moments later this entire family a mother, a father and three toddlers killed a Syrian doctor told council members in a chlorine gas attack. The poison packed in barrel bombs and allegedly dropped by the Syrian government on their home shown in this video in the town of Sermin on March 16th. CNN has not independently confirmed the attack. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Powers spoke to reporters following the closed-door meeting. "If there was a dry eye in the room," she says, "I didn't see it. It was -- it's just devastating to see the facts of what this regime is doing. So, people were visibly moved."

As diplomats wept in New York, activists say two more chlorine bombs struck the same area in the northern city of Idlib. Here a civil defense, a group of volunteer rescuers seen here carrying children away from the scene of Thursday's attack say this is part of a trend to regain control of Idlib. The city was recently captured by Islamist rebels. Backed by the al-Nusra Front, al Qaeda's affiliate in the country. In an interview Friday, President Bashar al-Assad denied the gas attack allegations calling them, quote, "an attempt to demonize the state." Last month, the Security Council adopted a resolution specifically banning the use of chlorine as a chemical weapon.

The testimony Thursday by a volunteer doctor asserted that chlorine gas is still killing people. Syria's civil defense urged a no-fly zone. Quote, "With every attack that goes unchecked, their red line is being turned into a green light for mass slaughter." More than 206 people, 20 of them civil defense workers, have been affected by the recent attacks, according to human rights watch. And the group says evidence the government is violating the global prohibition against chemical warfare is mounting. Syria's people now waiting for the horrors that moved the U.N. to tears to move them to action.

Salma Abdelaziz, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Let's bring in our panel to discuss. Former CIA operative Bob Baer is with us. Also former Jihadist and counterterrorism operative Mubin Shaikh joins me. And CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen. Guys, this is not the first time that we've heard these accusations, CNN first saw this video about reported sarin gas attack back in 2013.

Bob, to you first, what can the international community do that is not already being done that you think would be most effective? I mean, the U.S. was this close to airstrikes. What needs to be done now?

BAER: Well, Poppy, we need an international effort. The Russians continue to supply Bashar al Assad with advanced weapons, maybe even chlorine. You've got the Turks are supporting the Islamic group in this war. You've got the Jordanian supporting another set of groups. And what we're seeing is a conflict that if it continues to go on will remain a huge magnet for jihadists from all over the world. What we're going to see is they are going to be showing up in Syria fighting and one day, just they did in Afghanistan, they are going to be coming west and it's going to affect us. But this truly is a tragedy of incredible dimensions for a country like Syria to break up. And we need to sit down and start talking. And if we need to, divide that country up between the alawites, the Mubin regime and the Sunnis. I just don't see the borders of Syria ever coming back together. And the only way to fix this is diplomatically and by talking.

[17:26:18] HARLOW: Peter Bergen, do you agree with that assessment? That there has to be basically after the new lines drawn?

BERGEN: I mean, the problem about action on Syria is the fact that both the Russians and the Chinese will veto any effective action that the U.N. might take. So, you know, diplomatic talking isn't going to get us very far. We're in an unfortunate situation where the three people, the three groups that run Syria are al Qaeda, the local al Qaeda affiliate, ISIS and the government itself. And the defacto position of the United States appears to be now keeping Assad in power because he is actually as ghastly as he is from an American perspective, he's much better than an ISIS-run Syria or an al Qaeda- run Syria. And that is a very sad and hard fact. Now maybe if these chlorine attacks, which are not sarin gas attacks. I mean, sarin is a much more effective mass destruction weapon. Chlorine is readily ineffective. The mortality rate of chlorine gas attacks in World War I was relatively small, but it did of course produce the chemical weapons ban of 1925, which the Syrian regime is clearly been violently here. So maybe this changes the kind of calculous in the international community or in Washington. But we have seen in the past that the regime has done appalling things and nothing really has happened. HARLOW: Mubin, to you, when it comes to arming and backing, you know,

more moderate rebels right, fighting in Syria against the Assad regime, this was a point of contention in the administration. Do you do it? When do you do it? How much do you do it? You had Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state diverging from President Obama on that front. Looking at the state of things now, does that need to change the amount of U.S. support and arming of the rebels?

SHAIKH: Yes, it does need to change. I mean, there are some plans underway for some rebels to be trained. But this idea of moderate rebels, and I mean, what does that mean? I mean, are we, do we expect that the fighting that's been going on for four years is somehow going to produce a group of individual who are like the west? That's not going to be the case. You have religiously minded people who are fighting. I mean, the majority of Syria are Sunni Muslims. And many of them are religious minded, they are not necessarily Islamists or al Qaeda, but a lot of these groups cooperate with each other tactically on the ground because there hasn't been any help really for the past four years.

So as one, you know, U.S. trainer mentioned from D.C. that, I mean, the you know, the so-called secret here is that there are no model rebels they all have been killed off in the past few years. You can see the coordination between ISIS and Assad. Anywhere the rebels come in and take over, low and behold, there's ISIS on one side and Assad on the other side. We saw this in Yarmouk, the camp under siege by the Assad regime for so long and then suddenly ISIS comes in. So, we need to have a complete, we need to be realistic about who is doing what and who the Assad government is collaborating with.

HARLOW: Mubin Shaikh, Peter Bergen, Bob Baer, thank you all very much. I appreciate the discussion. It's one we'll continue to have on this show.

Coming up next, we're going to switch gears and talk about new documents that has just emerged in the case of the armed reserve deputy who shot and killed a suspect earlier this month. These documents shed some light on his training and his role within the department as a volunteer officer. We'll talk about it, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:33:02] HARLOW: CNN obtained law enforcement training records from the attorney for Robert Bates. He's a 73-year-old reserve deputy in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who fired his gun and killed a suspect by mistake when he meant to grab and use his Taser instead. This past week the "Tulsa World" newspaper raised questions about whether Bates' training records had been falsified, forged to make it look like he had more training than he actually did. The sheriff there denies the claims.

Joining us on the phone is Ed Lavandera, who has been on the story all week.

Ed, you've looked at the documents. What do they tell us?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These are documents that show that Bob Bates received firearms training and certification necessary to pass over the course of several years. He became a reserve deputy around 2007-2008. As you mentioned, the "Tulsa World" newspaper is questioning whether or not Bob Bates was properly trained and. Also allegations that the documentation to get that certification to work as a reserve deputy might have been falsified. That is the real question that is at the heart of all of this. Bob Bates' attorney is releasing these documents o to us as their way of trying to show that they believe that Bob Bates was properly trained, but in full capacity to work as a reserve deputy with the sheriffs department. As you might imagine, Poppy, we're going to get a great deal of reaction to this story as it continues to develop and people start taking a closer look at these documents. These are documents we have been asking for more than a week now from the Tulsa County Sheriffs Department. They say they couldn't release them because the case was under investigation, but there will be a great deal of scrutiny on these documents that have just been released. The question is whether or not these documents have been falsified just because we have them doesn't mean they have or haven't been falsified. So that's one of the questions we're going to be digging deeper into.

[17:35:20] HARLOW: Ed, the "Tulsa World" newspaper, which was the first to allege that the documents were forged to make it look like he had more experience than he had, they and the family are both questioning their legitimacy. Do we have reason to question that ourselves? Have they been cooperated by the sheriffs department? Anyone saying these are correct?

LAVANDERA: We have not heard from the sheriffs department yet. We do know that the Tulsa newspaper and the attorney for the Eric Harris family are looking at those documents now to verify all of that. But remember the "Tulsa World" newspaper says it has five sources that have come forward to tell them that these documents were falsified. We don't know if this is a complete and sole picture of all of the documents. We know it's not fully complete because the lawyers for Bob Bates did say that there are several years' worth of documents that are indeed missing, that they have been misplaced and it's not clear whether they will be able to find those documents. But even based on what we have seen so far, we do not know yet if it's a complete and full picture of every possible training document that was ever put into Bob Bates' file.

HARLOW: Ed, thank you so much for the reporting. We'll stay on this.

One thing we know is the sheriffs department is reviewing their entire volunteer officer program to see if it is being managed correctly.

Also this story. We have new information on what happened before a police officer used his cruiser to take down a man with a rifle.

Miguel Marquez walks us through video, as well as new questions about how Wal-Mart handled the incident.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Oh. Jesus Christ, man down.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Did this ever need to happen?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my god.

MARQUEZ: New video shows a prevention officer telling police officers on the scene the gun this man had just stolen had a safety lock on it and couldn't be fired.

UNIDENTIFIED WAL-MART LOST PREVENTION OFFICER: It's locked. He can't get the lock off. I'm positive. It's locked.

MARQUEZ: 10 seconds later.

(GUNFIRE)

UNIDENTIFIED WAL-MART LOST PREVENTION OFFICER: OK, never mind.

MARQUEZ: The Wal-Mart lost prevention officer wearing shorts and sandals listening to the radio has his young son along for the ride.

UNIDENTIFIED BOY: (INAUDIBLE)

MARQUEZ: Police finally yell at the employee, back off.

(SHOUTING)

MARQUEZ: Minutes earlier, Mario Valencia, mentally unstable, on a crime spree all morning, is handed a .30-.30 lever-action rifle by a Wal-Mart clerk who told police Valencia seemed normal. In the video you, can see him inspect the rifle closely appearing to work the lever and trigger. He then turns his attention to ammunition telling the clerk, "Don't do anything stupid, give me the ammo." The employee first resists, trying to buy time, but tells police she handed over ammunition because he was threatening to break the case and if glass got on the other boxes of ammo they could not be sold. She also told police it's Wal-Mart policy to give over items during a robbery. Wal- Mart says the store clerk acted appropriately, even alerting security to call police before handing over the ammo by dialing a code brown.

One 911 call makes clear the gravity of the situation. A Wal-Mart asset protection manager tells the operator Valencia was trying to load the rifle in the store.

(BEGIN AUDIO FEED)

WAL-MART CLERK: I have an armed customer in the sporting goods department.

911 OPERATOR: Is he threatening anyone?

WAL-MART CLERK: I'm trying to find out. He's loading the weapon in the sporting goods department at the moment.

911 OPERATOR: He's loading it?

(END AUDIO FEED) MARQUEZ: A photo of the rifle stolen by Valencia shows the cable lock still on wrapped through the lever once with enough slack that the lever could still be operated. Police said the lock appeared to be a handgun cable lock.

A Wal-Mart spokesperson insists the gun had the proper lock correctly installed in the store and either Valencia did something to it or the patrol car affected the lock.

The Wal-Mart lost prevention officer and son were witness to him being taken down by the patrol car.

UNIDENTIFIED BOY: (INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED WAL-MART LOST PREVENTION OFFICER: That guy just (EXPLETIVE DELETED)

MARQUEZ: Wal-Mart says it constantly reviews all its policies and procedures and this incident is being discussed right now.

Miguel Marquez, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[17:40:06] HARLOW: Miguel, thank you for that.

Still ahead in the newsroom, Republicans considering a White House run are in a Granite State of mind this weekend. Their pitch to voters in New Hampshire, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Now to battleground state of New Hampshire, and the biggest event so far in the 2016 election. A slew of GOP hopefuls just wrapped up their speeches at a leadership summit. The last to take the stage was Senator Ted Cruz who made a pitch for abolishing the IRS.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(APPLAUSE)

SEN. TED CRUZ, (R), TEXAS & PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There's nearly 90,000 employees at the IRS. We need to padlock that building, take every one of them and put them on our southern border.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

CRUZ: Now to our friends in the media, I say that somewhat tongue in cheek.

(LAUGHTER)

But think about it for a second. Imagine you had traveled thousands of miles through the blazing sun. You swim across the Rio Grand. The first thing you see is 90,000 IRS agents.

(LAUGHTER)

You'd turn around and go home too.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Cruz was one of two declared candidates to speak today. The other is Senator Rand Paul, who says Republicans should not dilute their conservatism to succeed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAND PAUL, (R), KENTUCKY & PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have a decision now. We need to find someone who is going to represent us, and be the leader of the Republican Party and make the country a better place. How are we going to get that? Some in our party say let's just dilute the message. Let's become Democrat light and then we'll get more votes. I couldn't disagree more. I think what we need to do is be boldly for what we are for.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[17:45:32] HARLOW: And all 19 GOP hopefuls spoke at the two-day event. On Monday, New Hampshire will play who host to Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton.

Switching gears here, the Mile High City is living up to its name, certainly today at the 420 Festival. A year after recreational marijuana was legalized in Colorado, pot fans from all over are flocking to that festival. We'll take you there live, next.

First, Dr. Sanjay Gupta selects six CNN viewers to join his Fit Nation team. They have eight months to get fit and prepare for a triathlon. Dr. Gupta caught up with one more of the participants, Erica Moore.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(SHOUTING)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For Fit Nation athlete, Erica Moore, her size was never a concern.

ERICA MOORE, FIT NATION ATHLETE: I have a lot of self-confidence. I have never been ashamed of my body or not ashamed of my weight.

GUPTA: But it was her first experience with swing dancing, which left her out of breath after just one song. She says that was a wakeup call.

MOORE: It was the first time I felt that this body was preventing me from doing and I didn't like that feeling.

GUPTA: Determined to get in shape, Moore joined our Fit Nation team back in January, ready to make a permanent change.

(on camera): This is new. You're meeting your Fit Nation teammates. You're starting this incredible journey. Dark moments at all? Are you concerned?

MOORE: I'm not. I feel so positive and hopeful. I think coming here has helped me realize that it's not some big dark unknown. It's a lot of little logical steps that add up to make big change.

GUPTA (voice-over): Since that day, she's taken to water like a fish.

MOORE: I just learned to swim in July.

GUPTA: Biking and running, even competing in several big races. In just a few weeks, we'll be back together in sunny California to put the team's new skills to the test.

MOORE: It's going to be really exciting.

GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:51:21] HARLOW: It's been over a year since Colorado legalized recreational marijuana. In February, the state reported $53 million in tax revenue from the sale of recreational pot. Pot dispensary owners are cashing in.

Our Ana Cabrera has the very tough assignment of being at the 420 festival.

(LAUGHTER)

-- today. The festival is free.

But I have no doubt that a lot of folks are bringing money to the festival -- Ana?

ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No doubt about. Some 50,000 people, Poppy, from all around the country are converging on Colorado, which many consider the cannabis capitol in the country. And they're celebrating recreational marijuana that is legal here in Colorado, one of 23 states have some form of marijuana that has been legalized. This is the 420 Festival, so you see a lot of the festivities happening in civic center park. And we're talking to people from all across the country who were here this weekend for the Cannabis Cup, the Super Bowl of marijuana's industry.

Joining me now is somebody who has joined us from South Carolina. It's one of the states where even medical marijuana is not legalized. Jeremy Grove is here with me. Thanks for joining me.

HARLOW: I know you came just for the festivities here this week. What are you thinking about everything so far?

JEREMY GROVE, SOUTH CAROLINA RESIDENT: It's the future. It's the future. It's awesome. The best.

CABRERA: You're a marijuana enthusiast?

GROVE: I am.

CABRERA: You use pot.

GROVE: Yes.

CABRERA: Tell me what it's been like to purchase marijuana legally here in Colorado at the marijuana dispensary.

GROVE: It's a little bit of a hassle. It's a long line. They have a lot of rules, standards, which is understandable. Overall, it's -- I mean, nothing like I've seen before. Not like --

CABRERA: There are hundreds of different marijuana products. What do you use?

GROVE: I prefer shattered, jabs, wax, oil, like, more than bud. I don't like edibles. Edibles are too much.

CABRERA: A lot of people are hearing words like "shattered, dabs, edibles." There are dozens of different products. "Shattered and dabs" are the highly concentrated THC products.

Jeremy, when you talk about marijuana, and being here in Colorado, ground zero of this legalization experiment in the country, I asked you earlier, is this about novelty, or is this really about making a statement? And your answer?

GROVE: To me, like this whole thing and like the legalization, what it really is about is the fact that, for so long people have been, you know, hiding in the dark with marijuana, and all of the negativity that they've looked on it from a countrywide standpoint is stuff they don't know about. They don't know about marijuana. They don't know it doesn't make you go crazy. You chill, have fun, laugh with your friends and sit around and joke. But doctors give people pills all the time they get addicted to and die from and we just let that happen as a society. But we make marijuana illegal? It doesn't make sense.

CABRERA: Jeremy Grove, thank you so much for talking with us.

Back to you, Poppy.

[17:54:31] HARLOW: Thanks, Ana. Have fund there.

We'll keep talking about this all weekend and also what happens when cannabis meets capitalism. CNN's new original series, "High Profits," follows two business-minded relentless visionaries who plan to be the first ever moguls of marijuana. "High Profit," series premiere tonight, 10:00 p.m., here on CNN.

Back in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Time now to meet CNN's Hero of the week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was diagnosed with stage-four breast cancer just about a month after my daughter's dad and I split up. All I could think about was, oh, my god, my daughter, I can't do this to you.

UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: Here I go, Mom.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With chemotherapy there's a lot of fatigue. When you can't really do much, and you're looking at the dirt on the floor, it's like, one more level of stress.

UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: They're two for $1.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Being a single parent and having cancer, you don't know where to turn.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But that's not on the list.

UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: But it's a $1.88.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Disability is 60 percent of your salary but your bills are still 100 percent. It's hard.

JODY FARLEY-BERENS, CNN HERO: My friend, Michelle, was a single mother of four. When she was diagnosed, she struggled with just day to day. When she passed away, we realized other people like her need help.

CHILDREN: Good morning.

FARLEY-BERENS: Singleton Moms provides practical support for single parents battling cancer.

You have these people that don't know you, and you're going to help me with -- clean my house?

We help them pay a couple bills, and then we provide day-to-day needs for their house. This is what we should be doing for one another.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you have a protein preference?

FARLEY-BERENS: It's about being that support.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We need a hand out with these?

FARLEY-BERENS: It's a lot of help.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They go out of their way to make sure you're taking care of, therefore, your whole family.

FARLEY-BERENS: Neighbors helping neighbors, family helping family, this is what we should be doing for one another.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Singleton Moms definitely helps. I've got all the motivation in the world looking into my daughter's eyes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[18:00:00] HARLOW: Some amazing women there. Thanks to them for all they do.

Thanks for being with me tonight. I'm Poppy Harlow in New York.

"Smerconish" begins right now.