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New Day Sunday
Race for 2016: Trump Starts Firestorm, Questions Sen. McCain's Bravery; New Details Emerge from Cosby's 2005 Deposition; Shooter's Family: Son Had Depression. Aired 8-8:30a ET
Aired July 19, 2015 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:00:00] COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Kurt said, "Favre the best? Even better question was Aaron Rogers in the crowd?" We know Aaron Rodgers also had the Super Bowl title like Favre but also Super owl MVP.
Maggie said, "Peyton Manning, best quarterback ever, prime example of athlete you want your sons and daughters to emulate."
Josh said, "Although I dislike and the patriots and I'm jealous beyond belief of his life, I have to admit, Tom Brady is probably the best ever."
He is married to a supermodel. So you have that. He has that going for him. The responses kept coming in. We love having you as always.
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Thank you, Coy.
WIRE: All right.
CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Coy.
So thank you, too, for starting your morning with us.
BLACKWELL: NEW DAY continues now.
(MUSIC)
BLACKWELL: Well, first it was about Mexicans coming into the U.S. and now Donald Trump is going after Senator John McCain, questioning if this veteran is, in fact, a war hero. Could this new attack sink his campaign for the White House?
PAUL: And it was a testimony that Bill Cosby never wanted to be public. But it is now. Court documents describing his sexual pursuits, the prescription drugs, and keeping it under wraps from his wife. We have the shocking testimony for you.
We do want to wish you, though, a good morning, and say we are so grateful to have you as always. I'm Christi Paul.
BLACKWELL: Always good to be with you. I'm Victor Blackwell.
Donald Trump is igniting another firestorm. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He hit me -- he's not a war hero.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is a war hero.
TRUMP: He is a war --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Five and a half years --
TRUMP: He's a war hero because he was captured.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLACKWELL: Yes. He then went on to say that I like people who weren't captured.
In the fallout from those comments continues for the 2016 presidential candidate, check out the front page of "The New York post" this morning. Headlines, "Don Voyage".
PAUL: Meanwhile, White House hopefuls on both sides of the aisle are condemning Trump's remarks, and the Republican National Committee has gone so far as to say that his comments, quote, "have no place in their party".
Joining us now with more on the fallout, CNN Politics' Mark Preston.
So, Mark, help us understand, give us a sense of what happened in the room. What was the energy when Trump made these comments?
MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Well, no doubt, Christi -- let's just start with what's happened in the last 90 minutes. Doesn't Trump who was very critical of John McCain, a highly decorated naval pilot who was shot down and was captured by the north Vietnamese during the Vietnam War, tortured and refused early release because his father was a Navy admiral, Donald Trump, critical of him yesterday, went into a little bit of damage control.
But in the last 90 minutes or so, Donald Trump is ramping up his criticism of John McCain. Let's just take a quick look at what Donald Trump said on Twitter about John McCain. "John McCain called thousands of people crazies when they came to seek help on illegal immigration last week in Phoenix. He owes the apology."
But to set the stage of where we are now from where we were yesterday, to your point, Christi, here in Iowa, Donald Trump was addressing social conservatives at a very important political gathering, and this is what he had to say about John McCain that set off the firestorm.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: He hit me -- He's not a war hero.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is a war hero.
TRUMP: He is a war --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Five and a half years --
TRUMP: He's a war hero because he was captured.
I like people that weren't captured, OK? I hate to tell you.
He's a war hero because he was captured, OK? You can -- and I believe perhaps he's a war hero.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PRESTON: And there you are, Christi. I was standing in the room when he had said that. I have to tell you, you heard some laughter but there was also booing. It was certainly a point of Donald Trump talking off the cuff. But it wasn't very well-received, Christi.
BLACKWELL: All right. I'll take it, mark. Mark, stay with us, because we want to bring in political anchor for New York 1 News, Errol Louis.
Errol, let's play a little bit of a response we're getting from some of the other GOP contenders and talk about it on the other side.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICK PERRY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: As an individual who has worn the uniform of this country, I was highly offended by what Donald Trump said about John McCain and his years of sacrifice in a dirty, dingy, terrible prison in North Vietnam. Donald Trump owes every American veteran and in particular John McCain an apology.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He crossed a line today that will offend most everyone that I know. And in my view, the democratic process is going to lead to him hearing what he is so fond of saying -- you're fired.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLACKWELL: Errol, we know that for weeks the party has been looking for some way or another to get Trump out of this race, or at least out of serious contention.
Is this going to be what does it?
ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, you know, honestly, Victor, that's a little wishful thinking from Lindsey Graham and from Rick Perry, who are at the back of the pack, are not even getting enough points to likely be in the first of the debates that are coming.
[08:05:03] My favorite response, by the way, was a tweet from Mitt Romney who said that the difference between Trump and John McCain is that Trump shot himself down. The reality is, the people who want Trump to simply vanish I think are going to be a little disappointed. I don't see him going away anytime soon.
As you saw even from the reaction, it's not as if the room rose up in universal revulsion. The people who like Trump for whatever reason, those reasons aren't going to change just because he said something that is just factually not true. If you take the morally offensive sort of part of that statement off the table, it's simply not true. If there's a definition of war hero in a dictionary, you're going to find John McCain meeting that definition.
Trump has said a lot of things. He's been getting away with murder so to speak among the candidates. He's said a lot of things that are simply not true and he kind of gets away with it, because there are people who like the fact that it's, quote, "straight talk", or that he's addressing their issues.
I think it's really more his tone that people really are reacting to and responding to in some cases. They like the fact that he's angry. They like the fact that he doesn't do the usual courtesies that a lot of politicians take care to respect.
And so, you know, if you're part of that 18 percent of the Republican electorate that like what he's doing, what does he lose? Maybe two points? 15 percent? 14 percent?
BLACKWELL: Errol, there seems to be a difference here, what we've seen over the past couple of weeks of those comments about Mexicans coming into the U.S. he has doubled down and reaffirmed several times. But we saw him come out again yesterday, right after those comments, and try to shift this conversation to senator McCain's workforce veterans in the Senate, and kind of hedging on this.
I mean, is this something you'd imagine that he would continue to double down on?
LOUIS: Oh, yes, sure. I wouldn't see him backing down one bit.
I mean, look, let's keep in mind. He's attacking one war hero in this case. He spent months and months in 2012 attacking the commander in chief of the armed forces, the president of the United States, with a ridiculous, absolutely false, series of statements about his birth certificate. And he never really backed away from that, either, even after the thing was posted online.
So, this is not somebody who is going to be, I think, sort of shamed into hewing closely to the facts. I mean, a lot of supporters, I think, and more prominent ones, are appalled at what's going on. But I don't see that stopping Donald Trump.
BLACKWELL: All right. Errol Louis, Mark Preston, thank you both.
LOUIS: Thank you.
BLACKWELL: Let's bring in the host of "STATE OF THE UNION", Jake Tapper.
Jake, all right. So, you heard what Trump said. Good morning to you first.
JAKE TAPPER, "STATE OF THE UNION" HOST: Good morning.
BLACKWELL: So, if he's going to run this presidential campaign, making one controversial comment after another -- I mean, can that type of game plan sustain him for the rest of the campaign?
TAPPER: Well, look, it's always going to be an uphill battle for an outsider like Donald Trump -- A, because he is an outsider, B, because the way he has gotten attention is by saying things that are very candid, very blunt, to many people, very offensive. And that has been appealing to a certain amount of the Republican electorate in this very divided race. I think there is something like 16 Republican candidates who have declared.
But make no mistake: I think it's very clear that the Republican Party establishment has been for weeks now trying to figure out a way to get Donald Trump's poll numbers down, and I do think, regardless of whether or not people watching find this offensive, I do think there is a degree of that in play here. There is a degree of no matter what, at some point, Donald Trump was going to say something, and the establishment was going to come down on him hard.
This was in many ways a perfect opportunity for them to do that.
BLACKWELL: Yes, and they're doing it very, very quickly. So, we know this is going to be part of the conversation. What else do you have coming up?
TAPPER: Sure.
What we're going to have -- we have an exclusive interview with Senator Marco Rubio, Republican from Florida who is also running for president. We'll ask him about Trump's comments. He's also been very critical of some major Obama foreign policy positions, including the Iran deal, and normalizing relations with Cuba. Tomorrow here in Washington, D.C., the Cuban embassy opens. So we'll ask him about that as well as Hillary Clinton.
We also have an interview about the Iran deal with Secretary of State John Kerry, and the Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz.
Dana Bash is going to join us. She has an interview with Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, the latest Republican to declare his nomination.
And then, of course, we have a full roundtable talking about all the issues of the day, and a new cartoon for the state of the cartoonion on "STATE OF THE UNION."
BLACKWELL: I love that last 60 seconds. The state of the cartoonion.
All right. Jake Tapper, thank you so much. Looking forward to all of it.
TAPPER: Thank you. BLACKWELL: And "STATE OF THE UNION" with Jake Tapper starts at the
top of the hour, 9:00 a.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.
PAUL: Have you heard about the shocking new details this morning about Bill Cosby's sexual relationships with young women?
[08:10:00] Well, they're from court documents told in his own words. We have a live report next on what he tried to keep from his wife.
Also new this morning, the family of the Tennessee gunman who killed five servicemen offers sympathy to the victims and said their son had depression. We're going to talk to a former FBI profiler about this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PAUL: Thirteen minutes past the hour.
New this morning: the latest in the Bill Cosby deposition bombshell now. "The New York Times" report has obtained the full transcript of his 2005 deposition filed by a lawsuit by one of his accusers. In his own words, Cosby denies being a sexual predator, and drugging women without their consent. As more than 25 women have alleged.
CNN's Jean Casarez following the newest developments from New York.
So, Jean, first of all, do -- does this make -- change anything particularly for any current cases or allegations that may be brought up?
JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think the thing that we have to realize, this is sworn deposition testimony. Bill Cosby swore under oath. This is not just an interview. This is something that he said knowing that he had to tell the truth.
And I think the headline also from this deposition is he is saying that any special activity with these women, or drugs, that it was all consensual. And he also makes it very apparent that he was trying to keep it all from his wife.
[08:15:02] We've got some excerpts from. Remember CNN has not obtained this deposition. We cannot denote its authenticity but "New York Times" has told us they have gotten this deposition. That the parties believe that it is still under seal.
First of all, the full screen number one we want to show here, "I think that I am a pretty decent reader of people, and their emotions in these romantic, sexual things, whatever you want to call them." What that goes toward is Cosby saying that he would know when something was consensual with these women. When it wasn't, he would stop.
But, when he would believe and know that they were willing to go forward, he would go forward. Even with the drugs.
Now let's look at this, number two. Question, "And are being who?" Answer, "The family." "Would you want your wife to know about that?" Answer, "That's
family. My wife would not know it was because Andrea and I had had sex and that Andrea was now very, very upset and she decided she would like to go back to school or whatever it is. We can get back on track."
Question, "How would you explain to your wife that you were getting this personally as opposed to using the foundation?" Answer, "I would say to her that there is a person I would like to help."
What he is talking about there is that he had figured out, because Andrea was upset, and remember this is in the midst of the civil suit from Andrea Constand, that he would pay for her education. And that is a way that he would maybe quiet her down. We've got to remember, too, this is not Andrea Constand's side.
Andrea Constand, who was the one brave woman that came forward in 2005, she obviously had deposition testimony. We're hearing his side, not her side. All we know from her complaint is she knew him, he was mentoring her, he gave her three blue pills to relax, she woke up with her clothes off believing she had been unlawfully touched -- Christi.
PAUL: All right. Jean Casarez, thank you so much for breaking it all down for us this morning.
CASAREZ: Uh-hmm.
BLACKWELL: All right. New insight into the mind of the gunman who killed five servicemen in Tennessee. Hear what his family is saying. But also, did recent trips to the Middle East radicalize him? We'll look at the warning signs with former FBI profiler, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:00:53] PAUL: New this morning, we're learning more about the gunman in the deadly shooting in Chattanooga that filled five servicemen. The family of the shooter, Mohammad Abdulazeez made a startling revelation about their son, saying that he was suffering from mental illness.
Now, the family released a statement which reads in part, quote, "The person who committed this horrible crime was not the son we knew and loved. For many years, our son suffered from depression. It grieves us beyond belief to know that his pain found its expression in his heinous act of violence."
Also, new details about the hours just before Abdulazeez's rampage. "Reuters" reporting he sent a text message to a friend, which linked to an Islamic verse. Part of that verse reads, quote, "Whosoever shows enmity to a friend of mine, then I have declared war against him."
BLACKWELL: Let's bring in former FBI senior profiler, Mary Ellen O'Toole.
Mary Ellen, good to have you. I want to start with what we heard from his parents, this revelation
their son had depression. It's important to say that there are many who deal with depression and very few of them -- very, very few of them ever get to anything close to what we're seeing here. Could difficulties like this have made him more susceptible to extremist groups, extremist views like those of ISIS?
MARY ELLEN O'TOOLE, FORMER FBI SENIOR PROFILER: (AUDIO GAP) and as a FBI profiler, what we would do is we would look at the totality of the person. We actually call it the bio psycho social model. So, we look at everything about them, including the mental health.
But, certainly, depression would have to be evaluated, and it could be part of many variables that did contribute to his violence.
BLACKWELL: So, let's talk about the guns, too, because we know, we've learned that the guns, legally purchased, some of them in his own name, one purchased online, and a friend told "The Washington Post," I believe it was, that like a typical Chattanoogan, Christian or Muslim, he liked to shoot guns.
But is that something that would stand out in, you know, the biography that we're now learning about this man when you put all of this together would those guns have been a red flag or should they have been?
O'TOOLE: Absolutely those guns should have been a red flag. You know I'm hearing over these last several days people are saying, well, there was no -- there were no red flags. But, the problem with that is that there were red flags, and having those kinds of weapons would be a red flag. So, people were not interpreting the behavior correctly.
BLACKWELL: Which others stood out to you?
O'TOOLE: Well, several other red flags. Certainly, certainly the gun.
His age group is incredibly important. I know it sounds very generic, but, when you have these kinds of incidents, they almost always involve males between the ages of 18 and 30. And the reason that that's a very vulnerable age group is it's during the time that young males are getting out of college, starting on their own. They're susceptible to depression. They're very idealistic.
And then, you have other factors coming in. If he came from an abusive family --
BLACKWELL: Yes.
O'TOOLE: You know, no girlfriends. He's sort of a lost soul --
BLACKWELL: And the travel.
O'TOOLE: Factor in depression. Absolutely. BLACKWELL: The travel as well. Mary Ellen O'Toole, former FBI profiler -- thank you so much for helping us. We're up against the clock now.
We'll have to take a quick break. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:28:21] PAUL: So many people asking this morning, what happened to Sandra Bland? That's the community of Waller County, Texas, and their big question today. The Texas community circulating this poster on social media as they plan to hold another rally outside the Waller County jail house and a candle light vigil. This for the 28-year-old.
BLACKWELL: Bland was found dead in her cell just three days after she was stopped by a Texas trooper while driving for allegedly failing to signal a lane change. Authorities say she committed suicide there in the jail. Her mysterious death has prompted the widely trending Twitter hashtag #ifIdieinpolicecustody.
PAUL: And take a look at this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, hey, hey. You don't hit a woman. You just push a woman out of the way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL: Do you believe it? The lead singer of the popular band 3 Doors Down being hailed and lauded for this moment caught on camera during a live performance earlier this week. Front man Brad Arnold stops the band set to call out a concertgoer for pushing a woman during their set. The man was quickly whisked out of the venue by security.
BLACKWELL: Good for him.
PAUL: Good for him!
BLACKWELL: Hey, new fit foes released of last week's historic fly-by of Pluto shows what seemed to be a youthful dwarf planet that is still taking shape. NASA says the new close-up image shows that this, quote, "vast craterless plain" appears to be no more than 100 million years old.
PAUL: Wow.
BLACKWELL: Just a baby. Because consider that the solar system is more than 4 billion years old.
PAUL: All righty, then.
BLACKWELL: All righty then.
PAUL: You go make some good memories today. Thanks for being with us. BLACKWELL: "INSIDE POLITICS WITH JOHN KING" starts right now.
