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Ashley Madison Hacking; Two Women Graduate Army Ranger School; Jimmy Carter Battles Cancer. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired August 20, 2015 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:03]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: An extraordinary announcement from a man who is about to undergo one of the biggest challenges of his life. He wasn't always so hopeful about his survival, though. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY CARTER, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I just thought I had a few weeks left. But I was surprisingly at ease.

You know, I have had a wonderful life. I have had thousands of friends. And I have had exciting and adventurous and gratifying existence. So, I was surprisingly at ease, much more so than my wife was.

(LAUGHTER)

CARTER: But now I feel, you know, that it's in the hands of God.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: In the hands of God.

I want to bring in Dr. Stephanie Bernik. She's the chief of surgical oncology at Lenox Hill Hospital right here in New York City.

Thank you for being here.

DR. STEPHANIE BERNIK, LENOX HILL HOSPITAL: Thank you for having me.

HARLOW: The prognosis, how tough is this to treat and at 90 years old?

BERNIK: So, metastatic disease is always tough to treat. The goal is really to try and curtail the disease from progressing.

You really can't cure someone once they have metastatic disease.

HARLOW: The radiation starts today. How aggressive will the treatment be?

BERNIK: Right.

He's going to start with immunotherapy as well, in addition to the radiation to the brain. Immunotherapy is actually very exciting. It's new. It's working really well. And it's actually giving some of these patients hope.

HARLOW: When you look, he said it's four spots on the brain. Obviously, it's hard to say for him, but what about -- can someone live for years with this?

(CROSSTALK)

BERNIK: Well, in the past, the survival rate for metastatic melanoma was only about 40 percent for the first year.

With these new drugs, that number is going up to about 75 percent. So, hopefully, yes, he can live for a few years.

HARLOW: OK. And he's in good health otherwise.

I do want you to listen to what he had to say about his family, because we know his family has a history of cancer. His parents, his three siblings developed pancreatic cancer. This is a different form of cancer, melanoma. His mother also had breast cancer. Let's listen to what he said about his family history.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARTER: I don't think there's any doubt that my descendants have some challenge from the pancreatic cancer and my melanoma.

Whatever the doctors recommend for blood tests or things like that as a precautionary measure for the other family members, I think that will probably be put into effect.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: How likely is that one had to do with the other?

BERNIK: We actually think there is some sort of connection between pancreatic cancer and melanoma.

HARLOW: Really?

BERNIK: We do that there are some families where both cancers are prevalent.

HARLOW: His demeanor.

BERNIK: Sure.

HARLOW: There's a part of medicine and a part of fighting cancer that you can't quantify or qualify, but it's the way that you carry yourself.

(CROSSTALK)

BERNIK: Absolutely. He has such a great attitude, I think is going to go a long way in

terms of helping him get through this. I think he should do well. He's 90, but I'm sure he's going to be fighting this all the way.

HARLOW: No doubt he will. You heard him say he still wants to go build homes for Habitat for Humanity in Nepal around this treatment, just an extraordinary individual. Thank you very much. We appreciate it.

(CROSSTALK)

BERNIK: Thank you.

HARLOW: We're going to talk more about this now with Sally Quinn. She is a "Washington Post" contributor.

Sally, thank you for being here.

SALLY QUINN, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Glad to be here.

HARLOW: Let's talk about this remarkable moment where he spoke about the lowest point of his presidency, the Iran hostage crisis, the failed rescue. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Anything you wish, I'm sorry, that you had not done or that you had done differently?

CARTER: I wish I had sent one more helicopter to get the hostages and we would have rescued them and I would have been reelected. But that may have...

(LAUGHTER)

CARTER: And that may have interfered with the foundation of the Carter Center. And if I had to choose between four more years and the Carter Center, I think I would choose the Carter Center. Could have been both.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Saying he would choose the Carter Center. Looking at him, he got some laughs out of that one. Do you think he would have had four more years if it weren't for that?

QUINN: I do, yes, because it came right up to the minute with the hostage crisis and literally right up to the last vote.

And I think he was ahead in the polls just days before the election. So, I think there's no question he would have been reelected. But I have to say one thing. I thought Jimmy Carter today at 90 with brain cancer was for more lucid than most of the candidates who are running for president today.

(LAUGHTER) QUINN: He was amazing. And if anybody can beat brain cancer, it's Jimmy Carter.

HARLOW: Yes.

QUINN: He's got this incredible resolute -- last year, David Ignatius and I interviewed him in front of a live audience at "The Washington Post" about his book. He wrote a book on violence and women.

[15:05:03]

HARLOW: Right.

QUINN: And there were two steps going up to the stage. I had just had a knee injury. And David Ignatius and I were kind of slowly walking up the two steps, and Jimmy Carter just jumped right up on the stage.

Both of us were just stunned -- and was so articulate and so funny. He has a wonderful sense of humor. And one of the things that I noticed today, he mentioned that this was in the hands of God and he mentioned that a couple of times.

He's an extremely religious person. He's still been -- in the last week been teaching Sunday school and he said I'm going to continue to teach Sunday school as long as I can. And I think when he talked about being at peace and feeling at ease with this, I think that he's really relying on his faith. And he was head of the Southern Baptist. He got out of the Southern Baptist Convention, quit because of the way they treated women.

(CROSSTALK)

QUINN: Sorry?

HARLOW: I was going to say, as you're pointing to how he's been acting in his darkest moments, you can learn so much about a person in how they act in their darkest moments.

And seeing him today was profound. I want to read you this from "New York Times" columnist Nick Kristof. And he recently wrote that history has been unkind to Jimmy Carter, saying: "Carter, the one- termer who was a pariah in his own party, may well have improved the lives of more people in more places over a longer period of time than any other recent president. So we in the snooty media world owe him an apology. We were wrong about you, Mr. President. You are not a lightweight at all and we cannot wait to see what you will do in your next 90 years."

Do you agree?

QUINN: I absolutely agree.

When you think at just things that people don't really think about much, like eradicating the guinea worm in Africa, that was a huge deal. And I think building houses and Habitat for Humanity, but I also think that his record on human rights and let's not forget Camp David, which was the closest that we have become to peace between Israel and Palestine.

And as he took a little shot at Netanyahu today he's not giving up on that. He wrote a book. He was criticized for calling Israel -- accusing Israel of apartheid. And he's not backing down. I mean, he basically said that the Israelis and Netanyahu do not want a two-state solution.

And, you know, for him in this press conference, which is about his health, to still go at it and take a shot at it was I thought extraordinary that he cares so much about peace in the Middle East because he was the one who probably did more to help along the process than any other president.

HARLOW: Sally Quinn, thank you very much.

QUINN: Thank you.

HARLOW: Nice to have you on.

I want to take you right now to a live press conference at Fort Benning in Georgia. You're seeing history in the making, the first two women ever to graduate from Army Ranger School. Let's listen in.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

QUESTION: What would you tell other women who are probably now going to try to follow in your footsteps?

1ST LT. SHAYE HAVER, GRADUATING ARMY RANGER SCHOOL: I would say that it's definitely awesome to be part of the history of Ranger School in general, so graduating with these guys next to me and the 90-plus other Ranger students that will graduate tomorrow probably will be one of the highlights of my life.

To the other females who plan on coming, I hope that they come with a strong mind. That's what it takes to get through here, just like everyone sitting next to me here had to do to make it to tomorrow.

CAPT. KRISTEN GRIEST, GRADUATING ARMY RANGER SCHOOL: Yes, I feel pretty much the same way. I'm just happy to be done with the course.

I just came here to try to be a better leader and improve myself and I feel like I did that. And for other women who have that goal in mind, just keep that goal in mind and just don't lose sight of it and just keep reminding yourself of why you are there and they will be fine.

QUESTION: Jim Miklaszewski with NBC News, also for the two women, no surprise, I guess.

First of all, what made you pursue the Army Ranger course? What made you come here to do that? Second, at any time during the training, did either one of you think about quitting? Did you ever reach that low point where you actually thought about quitting? And then, the third part -- well, why don't you do those two and then I will do a follow-up?

GRIEST: Sir, I definitely wanted to come to Ranger School for the last couple of years since I learned about it at West Point.

I had a lot of mentors and peers that were training to go, and so they really just motivated me to get in that mind-set and try to improve myself as a leader and be the best officer I could be. So, that's been about four or five years now. And as far as -- sorry, what was the second question?

[15:10:08]

QUESTION: Did you ever think at any point think about quitting?

(CROSSTALK)

GRIEST: I never seriously considered it. I definitely had some low points, particularly in the swamps in Florida. But I never actually thought anything was going to be too difficult that it was worth leaving the course.

HAVER: Well, I decided -- actually, I didn't really consider coming to Ranger School until the ALARACT was posted. That's just the military message that was posted last November, stating that they were going to open that course up to females.

I had a very supportive chain of command who encouraged me to do so. The reasons why I chose to come were the same as these men here, to get the experience of the elite leadership school that the Army has to provide, to give me the opportunity to lead my soldiers the best that I can.

Seriously considering quitting throughout the course? I think I would be crazy to say if I didn't. The men can back me up on this. There's definitely a point that you hit along the way. It doesn't matter where it is. It's all different for everybody else, but the ability to look around to my peers and see that they were sucking just as bad as I was kept me going.

And I'm pretty sure that they could probably say the same thing. So...

QUESTION: And neither one of you feel like you have broken new ground here, that you have opened the way for other women to not only pursue Ranger training, but actually to go beyond that to actual positions in combat units?

GRIEST: I think the decisions to open up for the combat units of course will be up to senior leaders in the military.

But I do hope that, with our performance in Ranger School, we have been able to inform that decision as to what they can expect from women in the military, that we can handle things physically and mentally on the same level as men, and that we can deal with the same stresses and training that the men can. HAVER: Just to further on that point, I think if females continue to

come to that course, that they can possibly -- they could be encouraged by what we have accomplished, but hopefully they are encouraged by the legacy that the Ranger community has left and that that is good enough.

It was good enough to make us come and it's good enough to help us force ourselves through and to eventually graduate tomorrow.

HARLOW: All right, there you are seeing history that has been made.

Let's talk about it with my guest. Gayle Tzemach Lemmon joins me now. She is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and she has also written "Ashley's War," a book that she extensively, extensively studied for, a book about female soldiers on special ops.

Thank you for being here.

GAYLE TZEMACH LEMMON, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Thank you for having me.

HARLOW: You spent time in the trenches with these women. You spent time on these courses. You know what it is like better than perhaps anyone except those that just went through it.

What is the training camp like? How grueling is it?

LEMMON: Oh, it's grueling.

I have talked to a lot of men who have gone through Ranger School and a lot of Rangers who would say it was she just called it, a suck fest. It's very hard. It's incredibly mentally challenging and physically challenging. And it's three phases. You get through one and then your reward is to go on to the next.

I think it's the legacy and the history of Ranger School and the fact that it's the Army's premier leadership school that keeps people going, but it's hard.

HARLOW: So, 20 women joined this class at the beginning.

LEMMON: Yes.

HARLOW: Two graduated, along with I believe 94 men that are going to graduate, all of them tomorrow. This is only because the Pentagon changed the rules in January 2015. The Pentagon changed the rules. How many doors does this open and what other hurdles are there to cross?

LEMMON: You know, I think today's graduation really is a sign and a symbol of the fact that, you know, women were not seeking to prove a point. They were seeking to go serve with purpose and they wanted to be the best leaders that they possibly could and that's why they wanted to go to Ranger School.

And I think the fact that they showed we have the guts and the heart and the grit, from their perspective, right, and that they were never looking for any standard to be changed, but simply looking for the shot to meet that standard, I talked to a Ranger instructor yesterday, Silver Star recipient, 13 deployments, former best Ranger, and he said, they changed my mind. Right?

And so that is a moment. Today is a moment. But we will see. By January 1, 2016, all combat roles are set to open to women unless exceptions are sought and we will know that by October.

HARLOW: Yes. We will be watching. Certainly history is changing and these women have made it today.

Thank you so much, Gayle.

LEMMON: Thank you.

HARLOW: Coming up next, he poses with a bald eagle, he scares the pope and he's Batman. Not surreal enough? Well, Donald Trump is now winning in Jeb Bush's home state. He's ahead of Jeb Bush in Florida. Also, Trump's opponents shaking up their strategy.

[15:15:03]

Also ahead, the man who pulled one of America's most daring escapes appears in court for the first time. See what happened and what prosecutors just revealed.

Also ahead, new revelations involving the Ashley Madison huge hack and Josh Duggar -- the details from our Laurie Segall next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Jeb Bush isn't taking his dip in the polls so calmly anymore. The self-described tortoise in this GOP primary is showing off a definite change in tone when it comes to talking about front-runner Donald Trump. Take a listen to BUSH: just a short time ago.

[15:20:02]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There's a big difference between Donald Trump and me. I'm a proven conservative. He isn't.

I cut taxes every year. He's proposed the largest tax increase in mankind's history, not just our own country's history. I have been consistently pro-life. He, until recently, was for partial-birth abortion. I have never met a person that actually thought that that was a good idea.

I believe we need to reform our health care system to make sure that we stop the suppression of wages and allow people to have access to insurance. He's for a single-payer system. He actually advocates these things. He's been a Democrat longer than being a Republican. I have fought for Republican and conservative causes all of my adult life and I just think when people get this narrative, whatever the new term is, compare-and-contrast narrative, then they are going to find that I'm going to be the guy that they are going to vote for.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: CNN political commentator and Republican consultant and strategist Margaret Hoover is with me, also Erin Elmore, a Trump supporter and a former contestant on "The Apprentice."

Ladies, thank you for being here.

Margaret, I want to start with you, immediately jump into this big fight that has been developing today and certainly heating up this afternoon about the term anchor baby. Let's roll it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Anchor baby, is that not bombastic?

BUSH: No, it's not. Give me another language. Give me another word.

(CROSSTALK)

BUSH: That's like a seven -- that's not another word. That's a seven -- look, here's the deal.

What I said was, it's commonly referred to that. That's what I said. I didn't use it as my own language. What we ought to do is protect the 14th. You want to get to the policy for a second, I think that people born in this country ought to be American citizens.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: So it's interesting. Hillary Clinton then comes out right after this and I want to show you what Hillary Clinton tweeted. She tweeted: "Some options. How about babies, children or American citizens?"

OK. So Jeb Bush there is asked, why did you use this term anchor babies? He's defending it. Hillary Clinton is criticizing it. Does he need to trend more carefully? Because that's a term that Donald Trump used as well.

MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. So you're telling me Jeb Bush and Donald Trump are being held to different standards? Shocking. Just shocking that that could possibly be the case or Donald Trump and the entire field against him.

Look, what is interesting is, Donald Trump has put his flag in the sand in terms of this entire debate about naturalized citizenship. Should people be able to just be born here? This is codified not just in the Constitution, in the 14th Amendment. You would have to change the Constitution. Let's have a debate about policy for once, rather than this substance-free showmanship that Trump has brought to the table.

HARLOW: But does it show us that this bombast that we see from Trump can not be exhibited by the other candidates without a lot of backlash that frankly Trump doesn't get as much of?

HOOVER: Trump is not held to the same standard. That is certainly true.

Look, I don't think it's fair. Look, it's like we're just dealing in this unparallel -- this parallel reality. It's just impossible that Jeb can be held to a different standard than Trump, except for that he's actually a credible candidate. And you never in the history of the United States has somebody who has been a citizen never elected to another position been elected to the presidency, with the exception of once. It was Herbert Hoover and he had served in both Democratic and presidential Cabinets for eight years before he was elected.

Citizens, just out of the ordinary, people like Donald Trump, we do not have a precedent, a historical precedent for just ascending to the presidency without having held elected office before. And that's why there is a different standard here.

HARLOW: Erin, what do you make of these opponents really taking -- especially you have seen the transformation in Jeb Bush I think in the last 48 hours, really taking Trump head on and instead of sort of waiting for him to wane and thinking that might happen, instead just going right after him?

ERIN ELMORE, FORMER "APPRENTICE" CONTESTANT: I mean, at this point, Donald Trump is the front-runner. He has to be taken seriously.

These other candidates are starting to realize the numbers are not lying. They better wake up and really start to compete with him. I think that's why they are just coming head on.

HARLOW: Margaret, the -- one way to put it is, he takes the oxygen out of the room. If you look at the dueling town halls last night, Jeb Bush and Donald Trump, or you look at the front of "TIME" magazine and the front of "The Hollywood Reporter," Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.

You advise candidates and you advise people running for office. What do you do to get some of that oxygen back, to get some of that airtime back?

HOOVER: I do think, Poppy, that some of this will run its course. If you look at August of 2007, Rick Perry led and Rudy Giuliani was leading in the polls, the guy that I was working for.

He didn't end up getting the nomination. If you look in 2012, this time in 2012, Rick Perry was leading, Herman Cain led at one point, Michele Bachmann led at one point. None of this is going to stay constant. Right? This is what we do know about presidential races. They are constantly in flux and changing.

On one level, we know that the dynamics are going to change unpredictably. On the other level, I'm delighted to see a fired-up Jeb Bush. I'm delighted to see somebody punching back, because for too long the rest of the candidates, at least the ones who actually have a real credible chance at the nomination, have taken their time and punches. And they have been too timid because they have been afraid of what Trump is saying or what Trump supporters might do.

[15:25:17]

This is a positive development, I think, we're seeing in Jeb Bush.

HARLOW: I do think we have seen, Erin, a change in Donald Trump even just in his interview style. If you watched him, say, with our Chris Cuomo, if you watched him on "Meet the Press" with Chuck Todd on Sunday morning, it was a different tone than he took with all of the reporter interviews he did at the beginning.

He seems to have calmed a little bit and I just wonder, you know him. You were on the show "The Apprentice," and is there a different Trump behind closed doors when the camera isn't rolling than when they are on him?

ELMORE: Well, Donald Trump is quite a character on and off camera. He's very, very smart. He's very savvy and he's very sharp.

And he also is a big personality both on and off camera. He's also quite funny, which you don't see sometimes, and he's great at taking advice. I think he's got some great advisers that are helping him out and he's really starting to show that change and I think it's actually helping his campaign.

HARLOW: But I'm asking, is he different? I mean, you are one of the few people who have gotten to spend time with him when the cameras are not rolling. Is he different?

ELMORE: You know, he's pretty much the same. He's maybe a little funnier, but he's really -- the character that you see on television, it's pretty much the guy that you get to know off camera.

He was always very respectful to me as a woman. He treats everyone with kindness. I think he's a consummate professional in that regard. He's maybe just a little bit funnier, but he's the same character that you see on television.

HARLOW: sounds like he has your vote. Am I right?

ELMORE: Yes. So far, I am definitely team Trump.

HARLOW: Erin Elmore and Margaret Hoover, thank you.

CNN, just a reminder here, hosting the next presidential -- Republican presidential debate. It's on September the 16th at the Reagan Library in California, only right here on CNN.

Coming up next, new revelations involving the hacking of the infidelity Web site Ashley Madison and what former reality star Josh Duggar is now saying next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)