Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Manhunt Intensifies for Prison Escapees; Bush Europe Trip; Dennis Hastert in Federal Court; The NBA Finals. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired June 09, 2015 - 09:30   ET

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


NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Some of those residents seen on that videotape trying to calm the situation down as well as helping the police officer say that they have been targeted on social media by death threats. As a matter of fact, Carol, we saw some of those residents, mostly white residents, packing up, saying they didn't feel comfortable staying in that neighborhood.

[09:30:06] They heard about that rally that was making its way to that site of Friday's pool party incident.

For the police union's take on this, they gave us a statement yesterday saying that absolutely in no way was Officer Casebolt's actions motivated by race. They say no one in the McKinney Police Department practices racial based policing.

Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: CNN's Nick Valencia reporting live this morning. Thank you.

And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

Right now, authorities are trying to figure out if a female prison worker helped two convicted killers break free from a supermax prison in upstate New York. Authorities say Richard Matt and David Sweat could be anywhere. The manhunt now intensifying, stretching from Canada, all the way down to Mexico. Last night, CNN's Don Lemon spoke with the bounty hunter Duane "Dog" Chapman, who knows exactly what kind of challenges investigators are up against.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DUANE "DOG' CHAPMAN: These are absolute killers, but they've had to leave clues and it had to cost a lot of money. You know, whether you're in prison or not, money still is, you know, the god. So, you had to have a lot of money to get all those other inmates to shut up while the drilling was going on. You had to be very, very intelligent, you know, to know where the plumbing was. You had to have a ride as soon as you got out of there. These guys -- you know, I'm worried if the next thing they want is drugs and money. If they don't have a lot, they're going to hide out a couple days, let it die down and then, you know, they're going to start doing their thing, which is killing, robbing and destroying. (END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right, let's talk more about this with former NYPD Detective Joseph Giacalone. He's now an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Thanks for being here. I appreciate it.

JOSEPH GIACALONE, FMR. NYPD DETECTIVE SERGEANT: Thanks, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, so this prison worker now being questioned tailored clothes for the inmates, including these two men. That brings to mind all kinds of possibilities.

GIACALONE: Sure. I mean if you get somebody on the inside, whatever it costs, it makes it a lot easier for them to, you know, plan their escape. But I don't think this might be the only person that's involved in this. This seems to be a very intricate plot to get out of this supermax prison basically.

COSTELLO: Sure, but this one step along the way, I have an active imagination. So, you know, she tailors clothes, so she may have provided them with another -- a change of clothes out of their prison jumpsuits, right?

GIACALONE: Right. Yes, I mean, yes, running around with orange jumpsuits might, you know, tip-off some people in the neighborhood. So, yes, I mean, they could have had -- provided the clothes but also could have helped them make the dummies to put in the bed too to make them look lifelike.

COSTELLO: Oh, yes, with the hoodies and the whole bit.

So speaking of -- I don't know, a lot of people are really into this woman prison worker and, you know, your imagination leaps to whether she was having some sort of relationship with them and we don't know that. But just in general, and I'm just generally speaking, there is this psychological phenomenon called -- and I'm going to pronounce it wrong -- it's called hybristophilia, where women are attracted to bad boys, the badder the better. Have you heard of this?

GIACALONE: I haven't heard about that specifically but I have -- you know, every guy has, I think, experienced that one time in their life that the, you know, the ladies seem to go for that bad guy image.

COSTELLO: Yes, but these are really bad guys.

GIACALONE: Yes, these are really -- but, I mean, but there's -- there's prison dating sites. There's -- I mean Charles Manson's getting married. I mean this is -- you know it's a little bit crazy for people to think about this, but --

COSTELLO: But this is a prison worker and don't they train prison workers not to do that kind of stuff?

GIACALONE: Well, yes. I mean this is all about screening. About how they, you know, pick people. Like I said, when you look at any problem in the criminal justice system, you've got to look at the policy, the procedure and the people. And you have to examine all three of them. And in this case you've got to figure out where they broke down.

COSTELLO: OK. And, again, we don't know if this woman had any sort of romantic, you know, relationship with these men.

GIACALONE: Right. No.

COSTELLO: But your imagination does go there.

OK, "The Buffalo News" did an interesting story. They talked with Richard Matt's son. He's 23 years old. He said, quote, "you know he has escaped before. He has a genius I.Q. I can't believe they let this happen." Nicholas Harris (ph) went on to describe how his father bragged about his attempted escape from a Mexican prison. Quote, "he said he made it up to the roof of the prison and got shot in the shoulder. He pulled down his shirt and showed us the bullet wound. This guy has bullet holes on his body. He's been shot like nine times. It's like they can't kill him."

If this guy is caught, do you think he'll go down peacefully?

GIACALONE: No, I don't think this is going to go down peacefully, unfortunately. And, you know, from your last guest who said about so many guns in the area, if they break into a house, they could steal guns and have access to ammunition. That would be, from a law enforcement point of view, very concerning. So this is something everybody has to be extremely careful. I mean these guys have, you know, brutally murdered people. This isn't just, you know --

COSTELLO: Some -- the neighbor that I spoke with also thought that these guys were still in the neighborhood, maybe holed up in a home holding someone hostage. Is that possible or do you think these guys are long gone?

GIACALONE: No, the idea of breaking out of prison is getting as far away from the prison as possible. I don't think they're in that neighborhood. I think they have gone somewhere else, across the river into Vermont or wherever it may be, you know, because, remember, they knew the dogs were going to come after them, so they've got to get rid of that scent. One way is to get through that, you know, get through that water. So that's something that I hope the investigators are looking at.

[09:35:04] COSTELLO: All right, detective, thank you so much for coming in.

GIACALONE: Sure. Thanks.

COSTELLO: I really appreciate it.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Jeb Bush heads overseas and shakes up his -- and shakes up his team days ahead of his campaign announcement. Will either move help him in the polls?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: In the summer before he was first elected president, Barack Obama took a much publicized and well-received tour through Europe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I know that I don't look like the Americans who've previously spoken in this great city. The journey that led me here is improbable. My mother was born in the heartland of America, but my father grew up herding goats in Kenya.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:40:12] COSTELLO: That trip was a bid to boost the then freshman senator's foreign policy credentials. And for Jeb Bush, who is poised to launch his own presidential bid this Saturday, the goal is the same. Today the former Florida governor kicks off a three country, five-day tour in Germany. He's heading to Poland and Estonia later this week.

Here to talk about this, CNN political reporter Sara Murray and Bloomberg columnist Josh Rogin.

Welcome to both of you.

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Thank you.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Thanks for having us.

COSTELLO: Thanks for being here.

Sarah, set the stage. What will Bush do in Germany?

MURRAY: Well, I think this is going to be a three stop trip, as you pointed out. He's going to try to do a couple of things. One is to just show that he would treat our allies better than President Barack Obama has. And you get that sense by the countries on his list when you talk about Poland, Estonia, Germany.

But the other thing he wants to do is show that he would take a hard line when it comes to countries like Russia, when it comes to dealing with Vladimir Putin. And this is a way he can kind of burnish his foreign policy credentials.

Now, Jeb Bush is not like the other Republicans we've seen who have gone on foreign trips like this. This is not his first time abroad. So he does come into it with sort of a stronger base of knowledge than people like Scott Walker or even someone like Chris Christie.

COSTELLO: And, Josh, you got ahold of Bush's agenda. He's going to keep a low profile, unlike Obama did. Is that by choice?

ROGIN: That's by design. Two things go into that consideration for the campaign. One, they've got a big campaign roll-out next week. That's what they're prepared for. That's what they're focused on. He's going to officially become a candidate. They don't want to step all over that. They don't want to make too much news that's going to -- or do anything that could lead to a gaffe. They don't want to be in front of the press a lot. So there will be one sort of public speech and a question and answer. And other than that, he'll just be low key. That -- that's totally intentional.

The other reason is that Bush knows that his brother, George W. Bush, wasn't very popular in Europe. He knows that he can't pull off a huge rally like Obama did at the Brandenburg Gate in 2008. So he's playing it safe.

So he wants to check this off. It's a good thing to do. Every candidate should go to Europe and shake hands and meet people, maybe learn a few things, and that's it, and you check it off and you move on with your campaign.

COSTELLO: And he's also playing it safe, Sara, by focusing on Russia. I would assume that Vladimir Putin's name will come up a lot.

MURRAY: Yes, I think that that is definitely a safe bet. And, you know, there's no real losing side of saying, look, we're going to take a stronger, tougher line with Russia. It allows him to sort of draw this kind of contrast with President Obama, but still do it in a place where, you know, lots of people are uncomfortable with our relationship with Russia right now. So this is, again, pretty safe territory.

I think that, yes, the primary goal here is to just not screw up. I was with Mitt Romney when he went on his foreign trip in 2012. It was a total disaster. And they really do not want anything that looks anything like that trip did in 2012.

COSTELLO: I can totally understand that.

Josh, Mr. Bush is also making a change at the top in his campaign. With six days to go before he officially announces, why?

ROGIN: Yes. I mean there's no way to call it over than a shake-up. And it's not good when you're shaking up your campaign before your campaign even really officially exists. But the Bush camp people had a problem after a very strong start at the beginning of the year, very strong fundraising numbers and a lot of good press. Over the last couple of months, they really haven't been able to make any traction. Meanwhile, they've been losing ground to opponents like Walker and Rubio. The press has been terrible. And they knew they had to do something.

So they've replaced their campaign manager, Dave Kochel, with Danny Diaz. Diaz is a well-known guy in D.C. He's known as aggressive. He's definitely going to take a harder approach toward attacking the other candidates. And there's a feeling in Jeb land that the candidate just wasn't being aggressive enough in going after his rivals, that he was projecting too much of an era (ph) of invincibility. And their air (ph) of invincibility as a front-runner for Jeb doesn't really exist anymore and they know that and they're making the change. So it was never really a good thing when you have to shake up your campaign, but they -- it's better than not fixing the problems when they're so obvious.

COSTELLO: So we'll see, I guess, a meaner Jeb Bush, Sara?

MURRAY: Well, I sort of look at it this way. Dave Kochel is the guy you might want to be your campaign manager in a time of peace. Danny Diaz is the guy you want to be your campaign manager in a time of war. And it is clear that Jeb Bush is not the elder statesman, not the front-runner in a way that I think that many people expected him to be. That said, I know Dave Kochel. His talents are much better utilized in the role that they're going to be putting him in, as a chief strategist, than they probably would have been at the head of a campaign. You really need someone who is aggressive, who knows how to drive a message and who is a task master. And that's really what Danny Diaz is.

COSTELLO: All right. Sara Murray, Josh Rogin, thanks to both of you. I appreciate it.

ROGIN: Thank you.

[09:44:49] COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, after nearly two weeks in hiding, former House Speaker Dennis Hastert prepares to face a judge and answer charges that he lied about hush money.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert comes out of hiding to appear in federal court. He'll be expected to enter a plea when he's arraigned later this afternoon on charges he tried to hide hush money payments and lied about it to the FBI. And he'll come armed with a high powered attorney he just hired. A man who's represented clients tied to infamous scandals like Watergate and Whitewater.

Ryan Young is live outside the federal courthouse in Chicago to tell us more.

Good morning, Ryan.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

Look, a lot of attention already out here because no one's seen the former speaker in quite some time, so everybody would love to ask him a few questions.

[09:50:03] Dennis Hastert has hired high-powered attorney Thomas Green. The former U.S. House speaker and his attorney are due in federal court this afternoon. He's facing charges of bank fraud and lying to the FBI about alleged hush money he paid to keep one of his alleged sexual abuse victims quiet.

The sexual misconduct scandal swirling around him has grown. Two people are now accusing Hastert of sexual abuse while he was a high school wrestling coach in Yorkville, Illinois. Now, Hastert has remained silent since the indictment, but these charges have been a long time coming for the sister of Steve Reinboldt, who came forward to say her now dead brother was one of the high school victims. And I can tell you, court starts around 2:00 today. But by the fanfare

all around the courthouse, everyone's waiting for the former speaker to arrive, Carol.

COSTELLO: Any idea how long this hearing might take?

YOUNG: Well, you know, with one of these hearings, it could be very short or it could go a long time. Of course, a lot of us want to hear the details in court. But one of the things that will be marked by today is that first mug shot that will be taken of the former speaker.

COSTELLO: Oh, Ryan Young reporting live in Chicago this morning. Thank you.

Still to come on the NEWSROOM, can LeBron James overcome the so-called Cleveland sports curse tonight? CNN's Andy Scholes is in Ohio.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS: Well, tonight's game three here in Cleveland is the biggest game this city has seen in years. We'll hear what fans have to say about possibly ending the 51-year championship drought when NEWSROOM continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:55:43] COSTELLO: Checking some top stories for you at 55 minutes past.

An urgent health alert this morning from the Centers for Disease Control. They're tracing the path of a woman with a rare and deadly form of tuberculosis. She's now in isolation at the National Institutes of Health. Officials are trying to track down people who may have had prolonged contact with her. She spent time in Illinois, Missouri, and Tennessee, before arriving from India back in April.

And a strong start for the U.S. women's soccer team. The Americans beat Australia 3-1 in their opening match at the World Cup in Winnipeg. Next up, the U.S. takes on Sweden this Friday.

With just 12 hours to go until game three of the NBA finals tips off, some are wondering if LeBron James and his Cleveland Cavaliers have what it takes to overcome the so-called Cleveland sports curse. The one behind the half century that's passed since any pro team in the city has won a championship. And I know that because, man, did I live it in my childhood.

CNN's Andy Scholes joins me now from the site of tonight's big game.

I'm keeping all of my digits crossed, Andy.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS: Yes, Carol. You know, I was thinking of you because I know you're from this area, so you -- you know what Cleveland sports fans have been through over the years. You know, they've had it the worst. It's been 51 years since this city was able to celebrate a pro sports championship. And they've had all kinds of bad things happen to them, which now have famous names, whether it be "the shot," "the fumble," "the drive," "the decision." And, Carol, you know, you'd think after all that these fans here in

Cleveland would have basically just program themselves to expect the worst when they're in these championship-type scenarios, but, you know, when we got here to Cleveland yesterday, that's not what we found. You know, I walked around downtown, talked to a bunch of fans, and they're mainly optimistic in this NBA finals as opposed to pessimistic because they have the best player in the world, LeBron James.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATT HUML, CLEVELAND SPORTS FAN: You might be talking to the most optimistic Cleveland sports fan there is. Just eternal optimist, born and raised.

STEVE SEYMOUR, CLEVELAND SPORTS FAN: You always fear the worst but you hope for the best.

LISA YOUNG, CLEVELAND SPORTS FAN: Cleveland is always the underdog. Always, you know, the city that people doubt.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's beyond us. I mean it's Cleveland. It's Ohio. It possibly could be the Midwest, it's that big.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: And, Carol, this is the biggest game the city of Cleveland has seen since they were in the NBA final back in 2007 when LeBron was here previously. Of course they faced the Spurs in that series, were swept. So tonight's game still the game that the Cavs are trying to win in the NBA finals here in the city of Cleveland for the first time. So you know it's going to be rocking at The Q tonight. It's for game three between the Cavs and the Warriors. Tip-off set for 9:00 Eastern.

COSTELLO: And by the way, it wasn't "the fumble," he was stripped of the ball, but I digress.

Back to LeBron James -- I remember it so clearly.

SCHOLES: Earnest Byner thanks you for that.

COSTELLO: Yes, I'm sure he does, because I remember sobbing when that happened.

But back to basketball, if LeBron James pulls this off, they should erect a giant statue right in front of the arena and rename the arena the LeBron James Arena, don't you think?

SCHOLES: They probably will anyways, Carol. But, yes, this would be one of the greatest feats in NBA history. He's without -- you know, they started this postseason as a big three. They're now down to the big one. They're without Kevin Love, without Kyrie Irving. He's playing with a bunch of role players and guys that were on the bench the whole season. So if he's able to win this NBA final, it will be one of the biggest upsets in NBA history and one of the biggest feats we've ever seen an athlete do in this country, I would say. And the city of Cleveland would go bananas, as you -- as you know.

COSTELLO: Amen, brother. That's right. Andy Scholes, thanks so much.

CNN is gearing up for an epic premiere this week that's sure to be out of sight. Get ready, here come "THE SEVENTIES".

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The '70s awakened us and polarized us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The 1970s saw the development of terrorism.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With bombshell after bombshell after bombshell.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Watergate scandal broke wide open today.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I hear the 1970s, I think more, more hair, more naked people, more misbehavior.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The world is getting crazy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The cultural revolution just kind of exploded and kind of fascinating (ph) chaos emerged.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because of what was going on, people came home and they wanted to laugh.

[10:00:00] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want one picture taken with Archie Bunker and me. One, two, three.

[10:00;05] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a period of discovery for a lot of people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My only defense was it was the '70s.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dynamite.

(MUSIC)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Brought to you by Volkswagen.

(END VIDEOTAPE)