Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Trump Axed From Event Over Blood Comment on CNN; Trump Insults, Dismisses Two High-Visibility Women; Ferguson Marks One Year Since Teen's Death; Poll: Majority, More Needs to Be Done to Achieve Racial Equality; Teen Snared in Sex Offender Registry; Obama Vacationing But Iran Nuclear Deal on His Mind. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired August 08, 2015 - 17:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:00:55] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, everyone. Five o'clock Eastern here in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Poppy Harlow joining you tonight. We begin with republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at the center of another political controversy. This time, it's a comment he made last night to my colleague Don Lemon about FOX News host and debate moderator Megyn Kelly. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: She came out there reading her little script and trying to, you know, be tough and be sharp, and when you meet her you realize she's not very tough and she's not very sharp. She's zippo.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: She did push you. Pushed a lot of people. But what is it with you and Megyn Kelly?

TRUMP: Well, I just don't respect her as a journalist. I have no respect for her. I don't think she's very good. I think she's highly overrated. But when I came out there, you know, what am I doing? I'm not getting paid for this. I go out there and, you know, they start saying lift up your arm and you know, I didn't know there would be 24 million people. If I knew it was going to be a big crowd, because I get big crowds, I get big ratings, they call me the ratings machine, so I have, you know, she gets out and she starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions and you know, you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.

But she was in my opinion, she was off-base and by the way, not in my opinion, in the opinion of hundreds of thousands of people. The great Mike Wallace was a friend of mine. In fact, he interviewed me on "60 Minutes." It was phenomenal. It was a phenomenal "60 Minutes." But he was a friend of mine. He was a tough cookie. And he was great. The son is only a tiny fraction of Mike, believe me. There is a big difference between Mike Wallace and Chris Wallace because I watched him last night. You know, blood pouring out of his eyes, too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: In response to the blood comment, a gathering of conservative activists in Atlanta disinvited Trump to their meeting today. The organizer of RedState.com Erick Erickson saying, quote, "He's not a professional politician and is known for being a blunt talker but there are even lines blunt talkers and unprofessional politicians should not cross. Decency is one of those lines."

Let's talk about this with Kate Bohner, she co-authored Donald Trump 1997 book, "Trump: The Art of the Comeback." You are a big supporter of Donald Trump. I guess she came on a show with me a few weeks ago and said he is anything but sexist, he has been incredibly respectful to all the women that you witnessed, including yourself working with him. Is this a Trump you haven't seen before?

KATE BOHNER, CO-AUTHOR, "TRUMP: THE ART OF THE COMEBACK": This is a Trump I haven't seen before but remember, I worked with Trump one-on- one in a confidential setting co-authoring a book together. So, I wasn't that familiar with the Trump that we're seeing on air. It's not exactly apples to apples. But when I -- I did watch the debate. I have seen watched it again. I saw Don Lemon's show. And my overall comment here is he's not doing himself any favors. This is a comment about a woman who actually is quite brilliant, who has an enormous body of work behind her.

She is smart, she's sassy, she's beautiful and she goes right at it. And I think he should have maybe been a little more prepared for that in advance, knowing that those were going to be the types of questions she was going to ask. And to me, it's not -- it's a little bit disheartening to see that this is where we ended up. I know as a woman, I don't want to hear about that. I don't want to hear about blood coming out of people's eyes and certainly not what it morphed into on Mr. Lemon's show. I'm sure men don't want to hear that content either.

HARLOW: Right. Right. Let me read you this. This is a passage from the book that you co-authored with Trump. Quote, "This is Trump speaking, there's nothing I love more than women but they are really a lot different than portrayed. They are far worse than men, far more aggressive and boy, can they be smart. Let's give credit where credit is due. And let's salute women for their tremendous power which most men are afraid to admit they have." What's different from that Trump to this Trump?

BOHNER: He was a completely different person that I worked with privately back then. One of the other quotes he said, and I brought this to the show today, "I'm not a crusader for feminism and I am not against it. I am just oblivious to a person's gender when it comes to hiring and firing people." The Trump that I worked with, it was all about meritocracy. I never even felt as though I was a woman working for him, that I was a co-author/woman writing his book. I felt like an equal. He treated me as an equal. Again, he kind of gave me enough rope to hang myself after he decided that he trusted me. Today, he's become I think most people would say this, he's become more extreme in his views.

[17:05:32] HARLOW: Right. I do want to ask about some of these poll numbers on women and Trump. We're going to have to wait until the next block to do that. Stay with me. Kate Bohner for more on that ahead.

I do also want to talk about this major conservative event happening today in Atlanta. Donald Trump was supposed to be there. He was to speak at 8:00 tonight. No longer invited. It's called the Red State gathering.

Mark Preston, CNN politics executive editor is with us to talk about news this afternoon from team Trump. And that is that the top political advisor on that team, camp Trump, no more.

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Yes. There is a he said/he said situation going on right now internally in the Trump campaign. Not only is he having to deal with the adversity of this comment that he made last night, but they just told us several hours ago that they had fired the senior advisor, Roger Stone. Now, Stone has come out and said that that is not the case. In fact, he had resigned and he said he resigned because the campaign was getting off the core message being beset by all these controversies. Now, the Trump campaign says that Roger Stone was using the campaign for his own personal publicity. So, Poppy a really he said/she said situation going on there.

HARLOW: And what about the people who are there? Most people supportive of Erick Erickson disinviting Trump to the event or are they frustrated and they think Trump should have been welcomed despite what he said?

PRESTON: Well, depends who you talk to. Right. There is certainly I think overwhelmingly people understand why Erick Erickson decided not to invite Donald Trump but having said that, he still has his supporters. In fact, we ran into one a short time ago and this is what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why did he have to interpret it because she's a woman? That is an assumption he should have never said. They made an assumption and they were wrong to make an assumption because someone said that they were offended. And I am offended that they are being offended has allowed them to dictate to this group who they will invite and who they will disinvite.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PRESTON: Now, I have to tell you that he wasn't the only one to say that. I met a woman from Indianapolis, had driven down from Indianapolis to come to Red State. She said she's not supporting Trump for the presidential bid. However, they said that he should have been invited and his words were misinterpreted and misconstrued. So, there you have it. There is definitely a line, battle lines being drawn between Trump supporters and everybody else.

HARLOW: What about with his opponents? I mean, you heard Jeb Bush there onstage at the event where you are saying Trump should apologize. Mike Huckabee talked to you. What did he say? PRESTON: He did. You know, Mike Huckabee had spoke to the

organization earlier today. And we had a few minutes to talk to him about it. And this is what he had to say about Donald Trump's comments.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE HUCKABEE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, Mark, Megyn Kelly was a colleague of mine for six and a half years when I was at FOX. She's one of the most remarkable people I know, intellectually unsurpassed as a broadcast journalist, she has great integrity. And so, you know, I'm going to stand for Megyn Kelly.

PRESTON: You think it was inappropriate? Did he cross the line with that comment?

HUCKABEE: You know, Mark, I certainly would never say anything about a person like that and I hope he apologizes because I think that he should.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PRESTON: And there you have the former Arkansas governor seeking the republican nomination adding to the course of people who are seeking it as well, who think that Donald Trump should apologize to Megyn Kelly including the likes of Rick Perry, Carly Fiorina, George Pataki, several others as well -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Mark Preston reporting there from the Red State event in Atlanta, thank you.

Coming up tonight, in less than an hour's time, 6:00 Eastern, the man himself will sit down with me, join me for his first interview here on CNN, Roger Stone, Trump's friend for 35 years, top political advisor, just out of the camp today. He will tell me his side of the story, ahead.

But next, women make up more than half of voters in America. How will Trump's latest comment impact his chances for the women's vote? Ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:12:46] HARLOW: In the past few hours, Donald Trump has publicly criticized two women and one of those comments that he made cost him an appearance at this weekend's conservative gathering. He criticized Megyn Kelly, FOX News anchor and moderator of the debate on Thursday night, calling her a lightweight, retweeting a tweet that called her a bimbo. Also he criticized fellow republican hopeful Carly Fiorina, he brushed her off as a failed former Senate candidate who is in his words, not going to win.

Back with me, Kate Bohner, who co-authored a 1997 book with Donald Trump and also with me, CNN political commentator Hilary Rosen. Thank you for being here. Let me start with you, Hilary. Gloria Borger wrote this fascinating

piece on CNN.com this week and she talked about this and the comments about women in saying it's not that it's a premeditated war on women as the Democratic Party apparatus likes to dub it. But it's more of a head scratching did you just say that process of flubs that slowly seeps into the ether. Do you agree with that assessment, Hilary?

HILARY ROSEN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it's right. In fact, you know, the GOP has tried over and over again to quote, "Fix their problem with women." They give their candidates special women training and all sorts of things about how to talk about women. But there's a fundamental problem and if everybody focuses on Donald Trump and he ends up out of this race, the Republicans I think still do have a problem with women.

When Marco Rubio at the debate says, it doesn't matter if someone has been raped, that woman should still be forced by the government to carry that child to term, women just look at that, that's head scratching. When Scott Walker says yes, you know, even if my wife were to have a life-threatening problem and, you know, I would still want to risk that life to save an unborn child. I mean, women just do not believe this. They don't want the government in there, they don't want these republican men telling them how to run their lives.

HARLOW: But actually, if you look at some of the numbers here, it's interesting because a recent CNN/ORC poll found that the most popular candidate among GOP registered female voters is Donald Trump, coming in at 15 percent -- Kate.

BOHNER: I was very surprised by those numbers. I thought it was really interesting. As I was saying before the show, Poppy that I have done my own informal voting survey among the women that I know. And I worked for a big financial services firm, Global, I'm just asking them, and there's one thing that I keep hearing over and over again is that I don't want to be considered a woman voter. I don't want to be a protected class or I don't want to be considered as a minority. I just want to be considered to be a voter. And I think that that will resonate more and more what Hilary Rosen was saying to is that, you know, women want to be a voice but they also want to be an independent voice, not necessarily a collective.

HARLOW: Hilary, why do you think it is that we're constantly, and I mean we as a collective, a society or the media, if you will, jump to wow, I wonder what this is going to do to the woman vote that he said something that many think is offensive to women? Should we be asking? Aren't men upset about this, too?

ROSEN: Yes, it's a really good question. And that's why, you know, Erick Erickson from Red State, the guy who disinvited Donald Trump, is somebody who I disagree with on substantive issues, on almost everything, as he and I have been on the opposite sides of CNN for many years. But the one thing I really respect him on is that, you know, as a man he stood up and said you know what, it is really unacceptable to be talking about people that way.

And I just think that we're going to get to a place where the conversation has to be smarter. I think frankly, when Hilary Clinton is facing whoever that GOP candidate is, the fact that she's a woman won't be the most obvious thing. It will have to be about where each of these folks want to take the country. You know, so good for Erick Erickson as a guy to stand up and say, you know, we're going to have a better discourse than that.

HARLOW: Kate, you know Donald Trump very well. You co-authored the book with him in 1997. And, you know, some say that his comments last night to Don Lemon about Megyn Kelly bleeding from the eyes and from quote, "wherever," even the one woman who will join me next hour, Mel Robbins, CNN commentator said, she doesn't think he was talking about menstruation and he was saying, move on, wherever. You know, interpret it as you will, would Donald Trump rather be talking about this and being in the headlines and leading hour after hour of newscasts or would he rather be talking about substantive issues? Because that's something we haven't heard a lot of his answers and plans.

[17:17:34] BOHNER: Here's the thing about Donald Trump. I feel like I know him well enough to say that the last thing he wanted was for this flub to turn into what it turned into, late night on Don Lemon's show. But I will say about Donald Trump, sometimes our assets are always our flaws. He has an intense attention to detail. When I was writing the book I saw it over and over again, that he was the one that found the mistake, he was the one that found the contractor who was double billing. And that also can be a flaw in the sense that sometimes he seizes on one detail and won't let it go. If I were his campaign advisor I would have said, okay, you said it on the debate, stop, no more talking about this. Let's just leave it in the green room and certainly no tweeting it 3:48 a.m.

HARLOW: Kate Bohner, Hilary Rosen, thank you very much. Donald Trump will be speaking tomorrow morning to our very own Jake Tapper. He will be a guest on "State of the Union" 9:00 a.m. Eastern only right here on CNN.

Coming up next, it has been a year since the death of teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Ferguson has become a lightning rod for the conversation on race and policing in America. Next, you will hear from the new Ferguson police chief about what has to change going forward in that city.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:22:38] HARLOW: Ferguson, Missouri, it is a city that has spent the last year in the spotlight. It is a city still trying to move forward. Everything changed on August 9th last year when Darren Wilson, a police officer, killed Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year- old. As the city tries to repair its image, a new police chief is leading the way.

CNN's Sara Sidner spoke with him. She was in Ferguson for months and months on end throughout covering all of the protests and she joins me live in Ferguson. Hi, Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Poppy. Yes. You know, we spoke with the new interim police chief and there's a lot of talk about whether real change has happened here. He says it has and there will be more to come.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHIEF ANDRE ANDERSON, FERGUSON, MISSOURI POLICE DEPARTMENT: I just really wish we had peace. We don't need this. No one needs this. It's not just the police officers I'm concerned about. I'm concerned about everyone.

SIDNER (voice-over): This is the man leading perhaps the most scrutinized Police Department in America right now. The Ferguson, Missouri Police Department. The city where an explosion of anger against police tactics erupted a year ago when Officer Darren Wilson killed unarmed teenager Michael Brown after the two scuffled at the police vehicle.

(on camera): When you were looking from afar at what was happening here in Ferguson one year ago, what was your take on all that was going on here in Ferguson?

ANDERSON: It bothered me. It really did.

SIDNER: What was it that bothered you? What disturbed you?

ANDERSON: To see that divide that was evident in this community. That's what bothered me. It just didn't feel like we should be this way in America. But I understand that there are differences and I wanted to be part of making a change.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Failure to disperse may result in arrests or other actions.

SIDNER (voice-over): That change coming in big part after the streets of Ferguson looked more like a war zone than small city America.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look out!

SIDNER: Protesters took to the streets for more than 100 days straight with sometimes violent outbursts. Their persistence influencing the Department of Justice to investigate. The investigation cleared Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting but issued a damning report on the department as a whole, saying it helped create the racial tensions by unfairly targeting, searching and ticketing black people to help fill the city's coffers.

(on camera): What happens if your bosses, the city manager, comes to you and says we need you to generate more money, we need you to ticket more people. What do you say to them?

ANDERSON: I won't do that.

SIDNER: You will just say no?

ANDERSON: I will. And they won't do that, either. I've had conversations about the new leadership. I didn't sign up as a police officer to go out and write tickets to generate funds. That is not our job.

SIDNER (voice-over): This year a new law has been passed to stop Missouri cities from using their police departments as ATMs, lowering what they can make on traffic fines. For Ferguson that means a reduction from a maximum of 30 percent to 12.5 percent of its operating revenue. The new chief says his officers are eager to move forward. Black officers have been hired though still make up only 10 percent of the force. While the community they serve is 67 percent black.

(on camera): Does Ferguson have a racist view? Is there a problem within the department?

ANDERSON: I think that in the department there are individuals and factious that don't understand the community but in fact, there have been some issues with respect to having race problems. There has been. And I think that the Police Department is doing a good job, has done a good job at getting rid of people that have caused those types of problems.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: Now, what you're seeing here, though, is there are still protests. There are still people who are trying to make more changes. There are a group of people who want to see the mayor go. They have tried to recall so far. Those have both failed. But they are still pushing forward saying, he is also part of the problem but the city points to this, they say that all of the people who were highly criticizing that Department of Justice report, Poppy, they are all gone, replaced by African-Americans though when you look at the beginning of their titles, many of those titles say interim in front of the title. Lot of folks saying that's just temporary and they want to see if real change happens here -- Poppy.

[17:27:08] HARLOW: Absolutely. And everyone will be watching. Sara Sidner, thank you for that reporting.

Coming up next, the discussion on Ferguson continues. My next guest says for this city to heal it must begin and continue with a long conversation. What he says the dialogue should be and how it could change a generation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:30:35] HARLOW: As we have been discussing, tomorrow marks one year since Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot and killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. A new poll shows that Americans are becoming more and more concerned about racism in this country. That poll shows that 53 percent of white Americans believe more needs to be done to achieve racial equality. Among Republicans, 41 percent said they believe racism is a big problem in this country. That is significantly higher than in 2010 when only 17 percent held the same view.

Joining me to talk more about this, Dr. David Anderson, founder and president of Bridge Leader Network. You spent time in Ferguson. You have worked with the community on

this. What do you make of these numbers, where the Pew poll shows 50 percent of Americans think racism is a big problem? That's up from 26 percent in 2009. What do the numbers tell us?

DR. DAVID ANDERSON, FOUNDER & PRESIDENT, BRIDGE LEADER NETWORK: It tells us that what we have been dealing with for so many years have finally become so public that now we have to actually face it and have a conversation. In some ways it's a good thing. The sad thing about it is it's elementary to a lot of people when so many of us have lived at a graduate level in this area for so long.

HARLOW: You mean people who have experienced it.

ANDERSON: People who have experienced it, lived it for so long, they are tired of dealing with it, frustrated talking about race and then others who are just learning about it. It's like a woman who has been in a marriage for 13 years and is in a counseling office sitting on my couch, saying I'm done, I'm through and the guy's just like but I'm just getting a clue that we have a problem.

HARLOW: You spent time in Ferguson.

ANDERSON: Yes.

HARLOW: And embraced people on both sides. How far do you think Ferguson has come in a year?

ANDERSON: Well, I think it's actually moving in the right direction. When the Ferguson commission report comes out next month, hopefully it will point us forward, especially with the justice report having a new person on the ground there, new chief of police there in Ferguson along with some new initiatives like a community engagement team and pastors and police doing things together. I think they're moving in the right direction. When we were there we met with the five "P"s as I call them: police, protesters, pastors, private sector business and others in the population, and having these kinds of conversations really matter.

HARLOW: What is the conversation that you think needs to happen that you say could change a generation? What is the hardest part, the most important part of that conversation?

ANDERSON: In all of those areas, police need to have a conversation about the way they police. When we were having a conversation, one of the lead officers there said I need to tell my police officers to slow down, roll their windows down, get off their cell phones and their computers and just say hello. When he said that in this big room of protesters and police and pastors, it was amazing. You could take -- it felt like the air went out the room and everyone was like yes, yes, yes. It seems like something that's so small to some of us but that was huge there. If you think about what that means, police can have those conversations with themselves and if protesters and people in the community could check themselves and the way they live and the way their families function and the education system functions, if everyone can talk to themselves about their particular groups and then also talk to one another I think we can help the situation.

HARLOW: You started out this interview by saying there are those of us who lived it. I haven't lived it. I won't live it. How do you get people who haven't lived it or aren't engaged or feel like maybe they're not in the 53 percent of that study, how do you get them to care and engage?

ANDERSON: This is why multi-cultural churches, multi-ethnic ministries like Bridgeway Community Church and so many others throughout the country are so important to continue to grow. We already know that churches are important, whether they're white churches, black churches, Asians, Hispanics. When you have multi- ethnic churches, people like you and I get to do life together. Guess what, you may not have lived being an African-American male being stopped by a police officer four times within 24 hours in Chicago like I did when I was 23, but I haven't lived what it means to be a pretty white woman who has to grow in an environment in the media world. So I can empathize with you because now I'm entering into your story. You can empathize with me because you are entering my story. We are brothers and sisters. That's how you do it. You have to have relationships.

HARLOW: Some people have pointed to President Obama saying look, we have now as a nation twice elected a black president. We have come so far.

[17:35:05]ANDERSON: Well --

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: What do you say to them?

ANDERSON: I say that we have come a long way. There's no doubt about it. To elect a black president, we need to celebrate that. That's huge. No doubt about it. He could not have done it without simply the black community but people who were not African-Americans voting.

HARLOW: More people now, than in so many years, think racism is a bigger problem.

ANDERSON: Because we have now a black man in power. So one thing, putting him in power shows the progress. Having him in power also shows what's been happening under the surface. So you have a different militia groups more than ever, different -- all kinds of threats going on and the kind of conversations that probably should have happened a long time ago come to the surface again because now you do have people in power who don't look like those who have been in power for so long.

HARLOW: Are you hopeful?

ANDERSON: I'm hopeful but I have to admit to you that sometimes I'm sad, like I was sitting in an Irish restaurant having a beverage by myself and I said hello to a couple people who were sitting at the bar area and you know, the white guy looked up and saw the news, it was CNN or something, and saw the news and it was the news of police pulling over Samuel DuBose and he starting talking to the bar and saying, if these guys would just not be A-holes when they're pulled over, if they would just obey the police, they wouldn't go home dead. I kind of sat there, I didn't say anything, I didn't engage. Normally, I would, but just hearing it and feeling it, I just said to myself, wow. Let's just blame the victims and they won't go home dead. Normally, I would be fine with that but for some reason on that day after spending over 20 years building bridges between different people, I have to admit to you, I shed a tear when I was in private because I thought, what am I doing? Am I not making a difference? I know that I am. But it's moments like that that you realize there is so much more education to be done.

HARLOW: Thank you for being with us and being part of that education and conversation. Thank you, sir. Good to have you on.

ANDERSON: Amen. My pleasure. So good to be with you. Thank you.

HARLOW: Thank you very much.

Also, a quick reminder for all of you watching, at the top of the hour, joining me, first here on CNN, will be Donald Trump's former top political advisor, Roger Stone. Was he fired? Did he quit? He will tell us his side of the story. One thing for sure, he's no longer in the Trump camp, and he was about 12 hours ago. 6:00 p.m. eastern right here. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:41:05] HARLOW: Sex offender registries are designed to help police track predators. That's the theory anyway. But not everyone who makes the list is a rapist or a child molester. In fact, one teenager's nightmare began when he used a dating app to meet a girl who lied about her age, and now his life is forever changed.

CNN's Kyra Phillips investigates.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For 19-year-old Zack Anderson, it looks like it's been an idyllic summer. Relaxing like any other teenager with his family on the St. Joe river. But looks can be deceiving. This summer is hardly normal for Zack. In fact, his parents say Zack can't even live in their house anymore because his 15-year-old brother lives here, too. And that's not all.

ZACH ANDERSON, REGISTERED SEX OFFENDER AFTER DATING APP HOOKUP: Like using the Internet, going to like -- if you're bored, going to walk around in a park or something.

PHILLIPS (on camera): Can't go to a mall.

ZACH ANDERSON: Yeah. Can't go to a mall to buy clothes or anything like that.

PHILLIPS (voice-over): All because Zach is listed in his state's Sex Offender Registry. ZACH ANDERSON: It's like I'm an outcast from society for all the

things I have put on me.

PHILLIPS: Here's what happened. Zach went on a racy dating app called Hot or Not, hoping to meet a girl. He did. They had sex. And that's when the problems began.

(on camera): How old did she say she was?

ZACH ANDERSON: She had told me she was 17.

PHILLIPS (voice-over): But she lied. She was actually 14. By law, he had committed a sex crime. He was arrested and convicted. Now Zach is on the same list of sex offenders as child molesters and pedophiles, and his parents say that's a colossal mistake.

(on camera): When you heard those words, that your son was a sex offender, what was your reaction?

AMANDA ANDERSON, MOTHER OF ZACH ANDERSON: It's a blatant lie. It's not true. It doesn't even fit our lifestyle. It doesn't fit how we raised our kids.

PHILLIPS (voice-over): Even the girl's mother appeared in court, testifying that she didn't want Zach labeled as a sex offender because, quote, "He's really not."

We also obtained this letter that the girl in Question gave Zach's family. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you my age," she writes. "It kills me every day knowing you are going through hell and I'm not. I want to be in trouble and not you."

(on camera): Did it ever enter your mind at any time that she could be under age?

ZACH ANDERSON: No, not at all.

PHILLIPS: And was the sex consensual?

ZACH ANDERSON: Yeah. Yeah.

PHILLIPS (voice-over): But even if the girl admits she lied about her age and the sex was consensual, as she did in court, it's not a defense in the eye of current sex offender laws. And that's why the judge and prosecutor in Zach's case didn't let him off the hook.

Judge Dennis Wily, angry that Zach had used the Internet to meet a girl, said, quote, "That seems to be part of our culture now, meet, have sex, sayonara. Totally inappropriate behavior. There is no excuse for this whatsoever."

He sentenced Zach to 90 days in jail, five years probation, and 25 years on the Sex Offender Registry.

(on camera): Is that you?

ZACH ANDERSON: No.

PHILLIPS: Are you a sex offender?

ZACH ANDERSON: Not at all.

PHILLIPS (voice-over): What's happening to Zach sounds unusual, but it's not. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, about a quarter of the 850,000 people on the Sex Offender Registry across the nation were under 18 when convicted.

(on camera): The problem, say experts, is the Sex Offender Registry is one size fits all. Everyone on it is treated as if they pose the same threat, whether they're a predatory child rapist or a teenager who had sex with his girlfriend.

[17:45:15] WILLIAM BUHL, FORMER MICHIGAN JUDGE: If we caught every teenager that violated our current law, we'd lock up 30 percent or 40 percent of the high school. We're kidding ourselves.

PHILLIPS (voice-over): Former Michigan Judge William Buhl has been trying to fix the Sex Offender Registry for two decades. He says adding teens just takes away resources from monitoring the truly dangerous.

BUHL: They take that example and say, boy, we've got to watch this guy, and so we'll apply that to everybody. And it just doesn't make any sense.

PHILLIPS: Even convicted sex offenders, the very people the registry was set up to monitor, tell us their type of criminal behavior and mind-set is vastly different from some of these teens.

TED RODARM, ON SEX OFFENDER REGISTER: He's not the one that we're going to have to fear. He's simply a teenager.

PHILLIPS: Ted and Rose Rodarm were both convicted of molestation in separate incidents 20 years ago and are part of a ministry now for sex offenders.

RODARM: The registry has become so diluted that you can't identify the truly dangerous, and that in itself is dangerous.

PHILLIPS: So Zach is left wondering about what the rest of his life will be like. The weight of his sentencing came crashing down, his first day back at church after he was are released from jail.

LESTER ANDERSON, FATHER OF ZACH ANDERSON: He just didn't look right. I said, are you OK? He just shook his head. We went outside, and he just started crying. I said, what's the matter? He just said, "I don't know who I can talk to. I don't know whose hand I can shake. I feel like everybody is looking at me." You know, and to have to deal with that --

(CROSSTALK)

AMANDA ANDERSON: The shame. LESTER ANDERSON: The shame. That's the biggest issue, the shame of

it.

ZACH ANDERSON: To me, it honestly doesn't really seem real to me. It seems like a bad dream that I haven't woke up from yet.

PHILLIPS: In Elkhart, Indiana, Kyra Phillips, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Great reporting by Kyra Phillips.

An update for you, right now, a judge is considering a request from Anderson that he be resentenced. That means the 19-year-old could potentially be taken off the sex offender registry. It is not clear when a decision might be made on that.

Straight ahead here in the NEWSROOM, President Obama may be on vacation but the deal with Iran still weighing very heavily on his mind. A live report from Martha's Vineyard next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[17:51:58] MONIQUE POOL, CNN HERO: Sloths are very cute because they're very slow animals. They like to hang out and they have always a smile on their face.

Here in Suriname, we have the most pristine rain forest of the whole world but sloths are facing loss of habitat in the urban area.

10 years ago, we started doing sloth rescues. When sloths are in trouble, all the telephone calls come to us.

(SHOUTING)

POOL: My biggest rescue ever was this plot of land that was going to be cleared.

We rescued in total 200 animals, mostly sloths.

There was sloths all over, in my living room, in the cages. I was slothified.

I still have a lot of sloths.

He came in with his nails cut. That's why he has to stay with us.

It's a lot of work, but wherever I go in my house, I may see a sloth.

What does a sloth do all day? It sleeps, it grooms, it eats.

Your whole face is yellow.

And it sleeps a little bit more. It's ridiculous the way he's laying.

My life with sloths.

(LAUGHTER)

The best part of a rescue is when we release the animal.

Go into the forest.

Sloths are not pets. Wild animals should live in the wild.

Find yourself a safe spot, huh?

My work is about the environment.

We should sell you.

And protect it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:57:23] HARLOW: President Obama, on vacation now in Martha's Vineyard, never far away from one of the most pressing issues on Capitol Hill, which members of Congress will or will not support the Iranian nuclear deal. Already one high-ranking Democrat in Senate has said he will vote against it. That is Chuck Schumer. Republican presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee, responding today, saying, quote, "Thank god for Senator Schumer and his opposition to this reckless nuclear deal with Iran."

CNN's Michelle Kosinski, traveling with the president, she joins us from Martha's Vineyard.

Obviously, is not welcome news. The White House coming out saying they're disappointed, though not surprised. You saw two other Congressional Democrats say they're going to vote against the deal. Who else are we hearing from the White House?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Every day, there are some coming out in support, some coming out in opposition. Chuck Schumer, being a high-ranking Democrat in the Senate, that's a big deal. Ruffled feathers. Raised lots of eyebrows. Republicans are saying this is going to influence more Democrats and that's a great thing. But what the White House feels is pretty confident, that they would be able to sustain a presidential veto, that there are enough votes there. This is not good news for the White House you have, and it's such a high profile opposition, they feel like, in the end things, are going to go there way -- Poppy?

HARLOW: Michelle, I'm also wondering, you look at those that are undecided, how confident the White House feels now because, the first thing that came to my mind, when we saw Schumer lay out this long explanation of why he was against but also give the president, quote, "tremendous credit for the work he had done on the deal," does Schumer, such a high-ranking Democrat, saying, no, I'm not for this and here are my considered reasons why, does that give the confidence to some who may be on the fence to vote against it?

KOSINSKI: Yeah, it definitely could. I mean, he's done it. He's laid out all those points. There are about a dozen undecided. We expect some of those could come out in opposition, like Bob Menendez who, the other day at a hearing, asked some really tough questions about the deal. But still, he says he's undecided. There are other influential Democrats, Mark Warner, Claire McCaskill. We don't know which way they're going to go on this. But in the end, the White House says, even if more were to decide so that it got to the point they voted disapproval against the deal, you know, trying to override a presidential veto is a much higher step, and the White House feels like that's insurmountable right now -- Poppy?

[17:59:54] HARLOW: Michelle Kosinski, live from Martha's Vineyard where the president is on vacation. Thank you very much, Michelle.

6:00 p.m. Eastern, 3:00 p.m. Pacific, this Saturday. I'm Poppy Harlow in New York. Thank you so much for being with me.