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Trump Backlash; Cosby Bombshell Revelations; Cheaters at Rick. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired July 20, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: That's it for me. Thanks very much for watching. For our international views "Amanpour" is coming up next. For our viewers here in North America, "Newsroom" with Brooke Baldwin starts right now.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Well, thank you so much. Great to be with you on this Monday. I'm Brooke Baldwin. This is CNN.

And this is the kind of behavior we have come to expect from Donald Trump. Make a provocative statement and, if challenged, do not apologize, instead double-down, even criticize the critics. Today, Donald Trump is refusing to apologize for remarks over the weekend about long-time senator and fellow Republican John McCain. As you know, the party's 2008 presidential nominee spent more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. These days, McCain and Trump have serious policy differences over issues like immigration. Senator McCain recently criticized a Trump rally in McCain's home state. So over this weekend, in a conversation with Republican pollster Frank Luntz, Trump fired back. Trump says the media doesn't like to play the entire exchange, but we will. Roll it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRANK LUNTZ, REPUBLICAN POLLSTER: Referring to people as rapists --

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Excuse me --

LUNTZ: Referring to --

TRUMP: Excuse me --

LUNTZ: To John McCain, a war hero, five and a half years as a POW, and you call him a dummy. Is that appropriate in running for president?

TRUMP: OK, let's -- you've got to let me speak, though, Frank, because you interrupt all the time, OK?

So -- no, I know him too well, that's the problem. Let's take John McCain. I'm in Phoenix. We have a meeting that is going to have 500 people at the Biltmore Hotel. We get a call from the hotel. It's turmoil. Thousands and thousands of people are showing up. Three, four days before, they're pitching tents on the hotel grass. The hotel says, we can't handle this because it will destroy the hotel.

We move it to the convention center. We have 15,000 people. John -- the biggest one ever. Bigger than Bernie Sanders. Bigger than the 15,000 people that showed up to hear me speak. Bigger than anybody and everybody knows it. A beautiful day with incredible people that were wonderful, great Americans, I will tell you.

John McCain goes, oh, boy, Trump makes my job difficult. He had 15,000 crazies show up. Crazies. He called them all crazy. I said, they weren't crazy. They were great Americans. These people -- if you would have seen these people -- you -- I know what a crazy is. I know all about crazies. These weren't crazy.

So he insulted me and he insulted everybody in that room. And I said, somebody should run against John McCain who has been, you know, in my opinion, not so hot. And I supported him -- I supported him for president. I raised a million dollars for him. That's a lot of money. I supported him. He lost. He let us down. But, you know, he lost. So I never liked him as much after that, because I don't like losers.

But -- but, Frank, Frank, let me get to it.

LUNTZ: He's a war hero.

TRUMP: He hit me --

LUNTZ: He's a war hero.

TRUMP: He's not a war hero.

LUNTZ: He's a war hero.

TRUMP: He is war hero --

LUNTZ: Five and a half years in a POW camp.

TRUMP: He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured, OK, I hate to tell you.

LUNTZ: Do you agree with that?

TRUMP: He's a war hero. He's a war hero because he was captured, OK? You can have -- and I believe -- perhaps he's a war hero, but -- but right now he said some very bad things about a lot of people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: All right, so there's a lot to get through in that exchange and I should also mention that Trump is now trying to shift the discussion. Since Saturday he has now pivoted away from McCain's military service and is now honing in on McCain's effectiveness as an advocate for American's veterans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I'm not a fan of John McCain. He's done a terrible job for the vets. I go around (INAUDIBLE) on the circuit and I'm seeing so many vets and I see families crying before me, they can't see doctors. They're waiting in reception rooms for five and six days. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So what about John McCain? What's the senator saying about all of this? He's deflecting Trump's criticism saying he personally is not the one owed an apology.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: When Mr. Trump said that he prefers to be with people who were -- who were not captured, well, the great honor of my life was to serve in the company of heroes. I'm not a hero. But those who were my senior ranking officers, people like Colonel Bud Day (ph), Congressional Medal of Honor winner, those who inspired us to do things that we otherwise wouldn't have been capable of doing, those are the people that I think he owes an apology to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: I want to bring in someone who knows John McCain and who also known as lot about leadership and sacrifice. He is retired Air Force Colonel Lee Ellis. He spent more than five years in the infamous Hanoi Hilton. Roughly the same five years John McCain has held there. He is now a leadership consultant whose clients include Fortune 500 executives.

So, Colonel Ellis, welcome and wonderful having you back on -- on the show.

COL. LEE ELLIS (RET.), FORMER VIETNAM POW: Hi, Brooke. Good to be back with you again.

BALDWIN: So, sir, before we get your reaction to Mr. Trump's comments, I want you to first -- because I think it's also so important in these conversations, can you just take me back and tell me what you endured at Hanoi Hilton.

[14:05:03] ELLIS: Well, I was captured 11 days after John McCain. We both went to the Hanoi Hilton, which was their central camp. There were many camps around Hanoi, but it was kind of the -- the mothership, you might say, of the POW camps. We were both there early on in our capture. I was there nine months. I was in a cell about six and a half by seven feet with three other guys. I was fortunate to be with some other folks.

It was a hard time. It was scary. They were threatening us that we would never go home, that we were going to be tried as war criminals. We were trying our best to be faithful to our country and to code of conduct and to be good military people. We were fairly isolated, but we eventually did get some contact. And then the interrogations started and that's when most of the people in the camps -- 95 percent of the POWs were tortured at one time or another. So we all went through a very similar situation. They wanted us to make propaganda for them and to collaborate with them. If they couldn't convince us by words, they wanted to use force to do that. So we all went through that same thing.

BALDWIN: Force such as what? Can you give me one example, sir?

ELLIS: Well, there are a number of kinds of torture that they used. One was a ropes (ph) trick, where their elbows were tied to the point where they touched, the wrists are tied, ankles are in leg irons and then you've got someone pulling your arms back over your head. Your elbows are, you know, wrenched up together behind you and then someone's lifting them over to the point that you're being torn apart all up into here. It's terrifying, horrifying and painful beyond belief. And all sorts of different -- there was cell torture, positions of stress, there were beatings, everything you can imagine went on at one time or another. And Senator McCain's right, our leaders were the real heroes because they took the most torture and the most often and yet they bounced back and they kept on leading in that crucible with no let-up.

BALDWIN: It's entirely germane to hear the details simple because of what's happening right now and the discussions and what Donald Trump has said. So, colonel, when you heard Donald Trump's words directed specifically about Senator McCain as a prisoner of war who endured much of what you described, what was your reaction to that?

ELLIS: Well, I was very disappointed. I was very upset because I -- I know that was unfair. In fact, even though I've heard Senator McCain's handled this with great dignity, I would disagree with him only on one thing, and that he is a hero because he was offered the opportunity to come home early and leave the rest of us there and it could have been justified because he was probably the most seriously injured of all the POWs, both arms broken, his leg broken, stabbed with a bayonet, beaten with a bayonet. He was in bad shape. And they tried to get him to come home as part of a propaganda release. Well, to them it was their good, humane treatment to come home and he recognized that it would be a propaganda coup for the enemy and he said, no, I'll go home when it's my turn. And he stayed there another five years. For that he was beaten and put in isolation for the next year.

So he is a hero. He suffered to do his duty. Someone who suffers to do what's right and do their duty, that's a hero to me. And he certainly is one of my heroes.

BALDWIN: Again, Senator McCain saying he's not the one that's owed an apology. It's, you know, the veterans and the families. On the other side, you have Donald Trump. You have this man who is extraordinarily successful, you know, in terms of business. And if you read his opinion piece in "USA Today" today, you know, he talks about how he spent a lot of money over the years on veterans issues. And he says he would do a better job than John McCain, who he says has not done enough for veterans. I want your reaction to that, Colonel Ellis.

ELLIS: Well, my first thought on that is, we don't know because what we do know is that Donald Trump has very successfully run many organizations and done a lot of things to help many people, but he hasn't run a government entity and that's a very different thing than running a business, I'll tell you. As a business person, as a person who is around some government contracting, and I think even people in government contracting will tell you that that's a different world. So operating a government and operating a business, two entirely different things. And he hasn't experienced that from the inside yet. So we really don't know what he would be able to do for veterans in -- especially in a period of three or four years.

So I think -- there, again, it's a situation, you know, from a leadership perspective, as a leadership consultant, I know that most strong leaders have big egos and I'm not a real strong leader but I have a big ego. If you're a fighter pilot, you have a strong ego. And we think we know a lot. And we think that can transfer over to areas where we haven't been yet. And that's where we get in trouble is when we take the fact that we've been very successful in one area and transfer that good opinion of our capability, which is -- which is important. You have to believe in yourself to be a good leader. But transfer that into areas where we really don't have expertise and Donald Trump really doesn't have expertise in war heroes and he doesn't have expertise yet in running a government entity. I think those are the two mistakes he's made and I think the third mistake would be that when you make a mistake, you know the old Chinese proverb, when you get in a hole, stop digging.

[14:10:15] BALDWIN: That's not happening, is it? And, listen, he's doing incredibly in the polls. We're going to have that other conversation later in the show. But for now, incredible perspective from you, as always. Colonel Lee Ellis, thank you so much and thank you for your service.

ELLIS: Thank you, Brooke, Always good to be with you.

BALDWIN: Thank you.

Coming up next, Bill Cosby used drugs to seduce women. That's not an accusation, folks, that is an admission straight from Cosby's mouth. You're about to hear from one of his accusers, former supermodel Janice Dickinson, on this bombshell revelation today.

Also ahead, this is a website that helps people cheat, married people cheat, and now hackers threatening to reveal their identities unless this website, Ashley Madison, does one thing.

And ISIS stepping up its use of chemical weapons on the battlefields of both Iraq and Syria. Why this is a game changer in the war against the terrorists. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:15:12] BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Bill Cosby is accused of being a serial rapist but his own words prove he is a serial adulterer. In court documents from 10 years ago, the comedian admitted to having sex with at least five women outside of his marriage. This is the latest bombshell from a deposition taken during a lawsuit from Andrea Constand. She is one of more than 25 women who says Cosby sexually assaulted them.

Excerpts had been released but now the full 1,000 page document is out and CNN has independently obtained it and learned that Cosby did give prescription sedatives to women he wanted to have sex with and that he tried to hide his affairs from his wife Camille. I should also point out, Cosby's publicist declined to comment to CNN, but Cosby has repeatedly denied he's committed any of these crimes, saying the sex and drug taking were always consensual.

The full deposition also shows the strategies Cosby used on these women and in this excerpt I want to read for you, he's speaking about accuser Beth Ferrier, who we actually talked to recently on the show, who had a consensual relationship with the comedian in the '80s, but says Cosby raped her towards the end of it. So let me read part of this for you here.

Quote, attorney, "She," meaning Beth Ferrier, "says that she stayed with you and that you began talking about her career and ask about her father who had died of cancer. Does any of that ring a bell with you?" Cosby, "yes." Attorney, "do you remember talking about that?" Cosby, "yes." Attorney, "do you remember what else you talked about?" Cosby, "that's enough." Attorney, "did you ask her those questions because you wanted to have sexual contact with her?" I mean questions about the father with cancer. Cosby, "yes."

Let me bring in CNN's Fredricka Whitfield, who spoke with another one of Cosby's accuser, former super model Janice Dickinson.

What did she share with you?

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, Janice Dickinson almost didn't want to talk about this deposition. I had to chat with her throughout the day many times before finally last night she agreed to get in front of the camera and she said reading portions of this deposition meant that she has relived what she calls a nightmare but, at the same time, it's also ignited some hope for some kind of validation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Did reading the details of this deposition or that knowing that it's now been unsealed and many are reading through it, did that also mean that it's been an emotional journey for you just within the past 24 hours?

JANICE DICKINSON, FORMER SUPERMODEL, AUTHOR: Yes. Absolutely. There's no doubt about it. There's no way to put into words the depth of misery, pain and humiliation that I have -- that I and the other women and all women and men that have gone through unconsented, nonconsensual drugs and rape, it's -- it's -- it's -- it altered my behavior. My family has been embarrassed and humiliated.

WHITFIELD: Has reading this deposition in any way kind of reopened wounds for you? Has it given you a better recollection of what your account has been about what happened back in 1982?

DICKINSON: There's no words even -- I'm angry. I -- I'm -- I'm confused. I -- I don't have any healing yet that's taken place. I -- I -- the nightmares that occur every night. You know, the sense, memory, the taste, you know, the -- and the cadence of these court -- unsealed court records or these sealed court records that have just been made public have just got me really -- I'm really upset.

WHITFIELD: Explain to me how this has further upset you. Because I remember last December you telling me -- describing back in 1982, you all were in a hotel room. You went to his room willingly and that you say that he gave you some sort of drug and when you woke up, your account was you were in pain and you were certain that he raped you. When you read through this deposition now and read that he said he pursued young women for sex and that there were Quaaludes involved, how does that help your account, how does it change your account, does it add more details for you?

[14:20:06] DICKINSON: It just -- I keep reliving the same sick -- the same sick feeling, you know, in my soul and in my body. It's -- it's -- the memories are still there. And every time I think about it and I hear -- I hear new information, I still -- it takes -- it still takes me back to that actual night, like it happened yesterday, and it was back in 1982. And it sick -- it sickens me.

But I have to be strong. I have to be strong for my -- you know, our daughters, our sisters, our mothers, our aunts, our cousins. I have to be strong for women. I -- I have to do this. It's the right thing to do. The court of public opinion now believes what happened. I mean all these women were telling the same story again and again. You know, underaged women, no one gave this monster permission, I can -- I promise you, no one -- I didn't give him permission. I can only speak for myself. It just sickens me.

WHITFIELD: Because that is the word that he uses in this deposition, that it was consensual.

DICKINSON: I don't believe that, Fredricka. I do not believe that at all. Ever. I will -- I will never believe that. I can only speak with what happened to me. I did not consent to having consensual sex. How could I, I was drugged?

WHITFIELD: And I remember you telling me that you felt there were a lot of people who doubted your story, whether it was then, back in the '80s, and then even along the years. But now with this deposition being revealed, the deposition taken 10 years ago, how does this, in your view, validate the story that you've been telling and that of other women?

DICKINSON: I don't know how that works in a courtroom. I don't feel any validation. I won't feel validated until Cosby -- and to the known women and the yet to be known women get an apology to each and every one of us, to myself and to each and every one of us and that this mass serial rapist be put in jail for his crimes against humanity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: So Janice Dickinson did not pursue any criminal charges against Cosby after the 1982 alleged incidents. She says no one believed her. And since then, the statute of limitations has run out. She is hoping that this unsealed deposition will now help dispute Cosby's attorney who called her story a quote/unquote "lie." Dickinson is hoping to restore her reputation in this defamation suit against Cosby.

Brooke.

BALDWIN: And again, still from his attorneys and Bill Cosby himself, no comment.

WHITFIELD: No comment.

BALDWIN: Fredricka Whitfield, thank you so much for that.

Coming up, it is the website for adulterers called Ashley Madison. And, guess what, it's been hacked and the secrets of millions, I mean I'm talking tens of millions of married men and women are at risk. We'll talk to someone who actually used the site, next.

Plus, is the terror group ISIS stepping up its use of chemical weapons on the battlegrounds of both Iraq and Syria? This as we get word of a terror attack by the group. Stay with me. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:27:48] BALDWIN: Another cyberattack attack, another big breach of customers' information. But let's just say these customers, they have a lot to hide. I'm talking about this website. It's called Ashley Madison. And if you haven't heard of it, good for you. The slogan stays it all, "life is short, have an affair." A site that hooks people up looking to cheat on their spouses. Executives now confirming the website has now been hacked and the personal information of 37 million members, their names, their addresses, their sexual fetishes, could now be in the hands of hacker who call themselves "the impact team."

So joining me now, I've got Charles Orlando. He wrote about his experience on the site for -- for his work, "Why Women Cheat: A Married Man Goes Undercover on Ashley Madison." And also with me, Joe Loomis, cyber security expert and CEO of Cyber Response.

So, gentlemen, welcome to both of you.

And, Charles, you first because just reading your piece, I mean, for someone -- listen, I'm not -- I'm not married. I hope never, ever, ever, ever, ever to cheat on a potential spouse. But it's sort of fascinating getting sucked into your piece and all these details. I mean here you are, this happily married man. You're doing this piece for work. Can you just give me some details on who exactly you found on the site?

CHARLES ORLANDO, WENT UNDERCOVER ON ASHLEYMADISON.COM: Sure. I went in with a simple hypothesis, which is why women are cheating. Why -- why were they so interested in looking for an extramarital affair (INAUDIBLE).

BALDWIN: Well, let's be clear, it's equal opportunity cheating. It's men and women, yes?

ORLANDO: Yes, it is. Absolutely. BALDWIN: OK.

ORLANDO: But I was looking specifically -- I wasn't looking to date men on the site, it was looking to date women on the site. But men are there for a variety of the same reasons. They're looking to feel like people again. Women are there to feel like wives and not feel like wives and mothers but to feel like women, desired, wanted and needed beyond just housework and work and finances and all the things that go with co-habitation. They just want to feel like women again. And men are looking for the same type of validation. That's why they don't necessarily want to leave their current relationship, but they aren't getting their needs met so they look externally. And I'm not advocating having an affair. We're just talking about why people are sitting on sites like this.

BALDWIN: Yes. Yes. And so tell me, Joe, before I get to you, you know, when I'm thinking about potential information that these hackers would have, what kind of information did you have to give up about yourself? And I mean personal information.

[14:30:00] ORLANDO: Well, I'm probably part of this hack, right? So, credit card information, my full profile. I actually put up three profiles to go on the site and do my investigation.