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New Training for Baltimore Police; French Terror Investigation; Donald Trump vs. FOX News. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired August 25, 2015 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:02]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: "Perhaps she could take another 11-day unscheduled vacation."

So, Brian Stelter, CNN senior media correspondent, host of "RELIABLE SOURCES," has been all over this story, Also joined by former White House Political Director Matt Schlapp and Democratic strategist Angela Rye.

So, welcome to all of you.

And let's just get to, as we called it last hour, the ping-pong match here, Donald Trump v. FOX News. Here is the statement that FOX News president Roger Ailes released a short time ago. Let me read this for you in full -- quote -- "Donald Trump's surprised and unprovoked attack on Megyn Kelly during her show last night is as unacceptable as it is disturbing. Megyn Kelly represents the very best of American journalism and all of us at FOX News Channel reject the crude and irresponsible attempts to suggest otherwise."

He goes on: "Donald Trump rarely apologizes, although in this case, he should. We have never been deterred by politicians or anyone else attacking us for doing our job, much less allowed ourselves to be bullied by anyone and we're certainly not going to start now."

So, Brian Stelter, to you. That is from FOX. You now have the return volley from Donald Trump.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: It was almost like he had a statement ready to send when Ailes sent his or something, but Trump is not apologizing. He says he doesn't think that Megyn Kelly is a quality journalist, but he hopes to be proven wrong, he says, in the future.

He said: "I totally disagree with the FOX statement. I do not think Megyn Kelly is a quality journalist. I think her questioning of me" -- he's referring to the debate of course -- "despite all of the polls saying I won the debate, was very unfair. Hopefully, in the future, I will be proven wrong and she will able to elevate her standards" -- basically -- "to a level of professionalism that a network such as FOX deserves."

That's Trump's response. And of course he will say more tonight in Iowa. I'm sure he will continue to address this. But as a source said to me this afternoon, Brooke, we're in completely unchartered territory here, the number one channel among Republicans against the number one Republican candidate for president right now. It's an extremely delicate situation for FOX and for Megyn Kelly.

She will continue to take the high road, I think, and avoid commenting.

BALDWIN: Absolutely.

STELTER: But now we know Roger Ailes is going to go straight at trump here. They are going to be covering this on their shows. But I don't think Trump will be appearing on their air any time soon, not if he continues to attack Megyn Kelly like this.

BALDWIN: Then, Matt, you talk about this being the number one go- place for Republicans being FOX News. So, why -- Matt, you know, you would think FOX needs Trump. Trump needs FOX. What's to gain by attacking FOX for Trump?

MATT SCHLAPP, FORMER WHITE HOUSE DIRECTOR OF POLITICAL AFFAIRS: Yes, I don't know. It's hard to see.

I have to credit Roger Ailes for speaking up aggressively for a member of his team, an important member of his team. I think that was quite a strong statement. Donald Trump, when you take him on, he gives it back to you double and clearly he thought Megyn Kelly was not balanced with her questions and clearly he's not over it yet.

Does this make any sense? I don't think there's any political consultants in Washington, D.C., who look at this race and see much sense of anything. But it's the way it is and put your seat belt on because it's going to be a long ride.

BALDWIN: Angela, for Democrats, is this best for a Hillary Clinton or a Bernie Sanders or, who knows, maybe potentially a Joe Biden, to sort of sit there and, Angela, watch the volley back and forth, back and forth and not say a darn thing?

ANGELA RYE, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Of course.

And part of the reason for that, Brooke, is that it's a distraction, right? The interesting thing to me is, the reason Donald Trump is in this race and here to stay is because he has an addiction to winning. He's competitive and that's why he's been a successful business mogul.

Now you're seeing the Achilles' heel of that same thing and that's his desire to win this other thing, right? I think initially he thinks the Ailes thing was too soft for him,so now he has got to show that he's a bulldog and I day say a bully and he's coming back after Megyn Kelly to somehow get a win out of this. I don't know if he's expecting a win from just his Twitter followers, but if he thinks that she's going to apologize.

But she's not. I think this is really interesting to kind of watch him unravel, if you will, in this instance.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: I don't know, though, if he's been unraveling. Let's be real. When you talk about the numbers and you especially post-debate, he's now in the 30s as far as percentage points...

(CROSSTALK)

RYE: I don't mean points. I mean, he's literally melting down on Twitter. He's retweeting people that are egg-faced or...

(CROSSTALK)

RYE: That's what I meant by unraveling, not the numbers. You're right.

(CROSSTALK)

STELTER: I'm with you on that.

And when he retweets someone calling Megyn Kelly a bimbo, that's out of line. And journalists and women's groups and -- everybody should be critical of that.

(CROSSTALK)

STELTER: But that said, if people only hear the thumbnail of this story, what they hear that Trump is being tough. And that's his brand, right? That's his brand, his identity, Trump being tough.

So maybe to some degree this does help him. But I'm reminded of what Roger Ailes's father taught him. Roger Ailes, now the head of FOX News, well, 50 years ago, his father said to him, don't pick fights with people who like to fight. Ailes usually says that to his rivals, to his enemies. Don't pick a fight with me because I like to fight.

The problem is, Trump likes to fight, too. It's almost like Ailes and Trump have met their match.

[15:05:00]

BALDWIN: That's interesting. I was talking to Bob Cusack last hour from "The Hill" and he was saying really the most powerful thing in politics is a counterpunch.

Brian Stelter, I'm going to let you go. You too stick with me. I want to continue this conversation, because talking about punching and toughness, now you see the toughness the last couple of times we have seen Jeb Bush, most memorable yesterday in McAllen, Texas, really responding and punching back to Donald Trump.

And then you had the senior senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, today talking to my colleague Kate Bolduan, responding. Listen, he isn't doing great in the polls in South Carolina. But this is what he said about Donald Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Come to South Carolina, and I will beat his brains out.

I know my state. This is a silly season in politics. He's shallow, he's ill-prepared to be commander in chief. He doesn't know what he's talking about in terms of how our laws work. He says the worst things possible about immigrants and women. And he's a complete idiot when it comes to Mideast policy. I think over time common sense will prevail. He's a showman. He's really good at that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Showman, idiot, Matt, yes, this is a senator whose personal cell phone was told to the world by Donald Trump, and so now we're continuing to see the true punches. It seems to me we're entering a new phase of this race, Matt.

SCHLAPP: Yes, it's getting awfully personal among some of these candidates.

And I think some of them are doing it tactically, because it's very hard to get media coverage in the midst of all this. There's a lot of coverage for Jeb Bush. There's a lot of coverage for Jeb Bush vs. Donald Trump, even Donald Trump vs. Megyn Kelly. So what do you do if you're one of these other 15 candidates?

You have got to do something. Some of them are choosing to attack Donald Trump. Some of them are choosing to emulate Donald Trump. Lindsey Graham clearly he is a little defensive over the fact that in the South Carolina poll, he does so much worse than Donald Trump and Donald Trump is having some fun with him.

I wish Lindsey Graham wouldn't take the bait.

BALDWIN: Well, I was talking to Lindsey Graham earlier today before he went on and talked to Kate. He was saying -- here you see the numbers here from South Carolina. He was saying it's absolutely time to punch back. He was not just talking about himself, but also the Jeb Bushes of the world and said basically heaven forbid that Americans start to think that Donald Trump belongs under the same Republican tent from the rest of that field.

SCHLAPP: And he does. Look, he does. Donald Trump is a legitimate candidate for president. And people ought to stop -- people like Lindsey Graham ought to stop saying that he's not legitimate. He is. Take him on, on the issues. That's what matters.

BALDWIN: Final word from you, Angela?

RYE: Yes, I totally agree. He's somehow legitimate. And I think that that says a lot about the state of the Republican Party. They have a lot to do and he's certainly not going to help with that big tent outreach plan that they were hoping for earlier on.

BALDWIN: Angela Rye, Matt Schlapp, thank you. Brian Stelter, thank you as well from earlier. Let's move along. ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: Got some breaking news right now for you out of Paris. An attempted act of terror and mass murder on board a high-speed train, I'm talking about the gunman here, Ayoub El-Khazzani, who was stopped, subdued, hog-tied by a number of fellow passengers, including Americans.

The Paris prosecutor saying he had apparently been watching radical Islamic video, listening to jihadist preachers and extremist songs on the Internet, on his cell phone minutes before he walked into this bathroom on this train and emerged with 200 rounds of ammunition, a bottle of gasoline, a bag full of weapons, including an assault rifle.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRANCOIS MOLINS, FRENCH PROSECUTOR (through translator): His use of the Internet through his phone showed us that, among others, Ayoub El- Khazzani was looking at abroad the Thalys train an audio file on YouTube in which an individual was calling his followers to combat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Joining me now, Paul Cruickshank, CNN terrorism analyst.

We know, Paul, the Paris prosecutor said he was trying to kill a train full of people and he had a "membership of a terrorist organization."

What do you know about that?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: They're looking into the possibility of did he join a terrorist group like ISIS?

From the legal point of view in France, this doesn't necessarily mean at this point that they definitely believe that he was part of a terrorist organization. It's just the way that they put that charge into wording in France. But they are certainly looking at the possibility that he perhaps joined up with ISIS.

They believe he traveled to Turkey on May 10 of this year in order to try and get over to Syria to join ISIS. But it's not clear whether he actually connected with ISIS in Syria. They are looking at the possibility that he might have met with ISIS operatives in Turkey.

One of the key new bits of information we learned was that on June 4, he traveled back from Antakya port in Turkey, which is just 15 miles from the Syrian border, and then took a flight via Istanbul to Albania, a kind of a strange route to get back into Europe, probably because he was trying to fly under the radar screen and get back into Europe unnoticed.

BALDWIN: But wasn't he flagged by certain governments prior to getting on the plane heading to Turkey? Why was he even able to get on the plane in the first place if they were looking at him?

[15:10:07] CRUICKSHANK: That's absolutely right.

He was flagged at Berlin Airport on May 10 early in the morning. It was Sunday morning and he was on the (INAUDIBLE) information system. They -- the French thought he could be a potential foreign fighter, but there wasn't an arrest warrant out for him at that point.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: ... quite loud?

CRUICKSHANK: The Germans did not have any legal grounds to arrest him, but they questioned him at passport control. They searched his luggage. They then informed the French authorities that he had traveled to Turkey.

BALDWIN: OK.

CRUICKSHANK: So the European security agencies knew all of this, Brooke, back in May.

BALDWIN: And these videos and songs and this Islamist preacher he was apparently listening to as he was walking into the bathroom on the train, how do you see that?

(CROSSTALK)

CRUICKSHANK: Well, he was psyching himself up for this attack.

BALDWIN: He was psyching himself up.

CRUICKSHANK: These were the nasheeds, right, the jihadi hymns, that he would be a glorious fighters, that he would go to paradise.

For all these young men who are doing this, they want to do it because they believe that they could be rewarded in the afterlife. He wanted to be listening to this music on YouTube over his phone just about when he was allegedly about to conduct a massacre on this train, Brooke.

BALDWIN: What about the ammunition, the weapons? I have to imagine investigators are trying to find the genesis, the provider of all of that, right, whether or not he got all the way to Syria or even perhaps someone in Turkey?

CRUICKSHANK: Well, probably he would have got those weapons in Belgium, where he was in the lead-up to the attack.

We have seen other terrorism cases where they have managed to get weapons in Belgium, a lot of weapons coming in from the Balkans on the black market. This is somebody that had been involved allegedly in some drug trafficking, so may have had connections to criminal networks. It may not have been too difficult for him to get these weapons.

But one big question is, where did he get all the money for all of this? Because he bought this ticket, return ticket, to Turkey. He didn't actually take his return that he originally booked. He bought a whole new ticket to come back to Europe via Albania and then presumably thousands of dollars to buy all of these weapons as well.

(CROSSTALK)

CRUICKSHANK: Was he financed in some kind of way? Is there a group behind him? They are looking at whether that group was ISIS.

BALDWIN: All right. All questions they're looking into. Thank you for you're reporting. We will continue as soon as you get more information on this. Paul Cruickshank, thank you so much.

Straight ahead here on CNN, Baltimore police introducing new training here months after Freddie Gray's death. Listen, this is not typical police training. This all involves your brain, cognitive training developed by a neuroscientist. We will talk to the man who came up with all of this coming up.

Plus, loaded guns, cigarettes and drugs, all items, of course, this is contraband people want to get inside of prison. But can you imagine trying to do that strapped on a drone? Oh, yes. People are trying. What they are doing to stop it.

And turnaround Tuesday. Will Wall Street's rally hold up after yesterday's nose-dive? We will take you to the closing bell, 40 minutes away from that. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:17:25]

BALDWIN: Watching the clock with you, 43 minutes and counting here to until closing bell on Wall Street. What a day, what a week thus far it has been. Folks, it's just Tuesday.

But I'm liking the green on the screen. Stocks bouncing back today on track to close in the green after Monday's massive losses. Right now, you see the Dow Jones up 212 points here. China is helping to stem the bleeding we have seen in recent days by pouring cheap money into its economy and slashing interest rates to help stabilize global markets.

We have CNN business correspondents Richard Quest and Alison Kosik.

But to you, Alison Kosik, first there on the floor. How does right around this time today compare to this time yesterday?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, like night and day, Brooke.

Yesterday's frayed nerves have been replaced by the usual hustle and bustle of the floor on any ordinary day on Wall Street. This morning, when the bell opened, it was a little frenzied. When the orders were coming in, I was actually doing a report here on the floor, was pushed around a little bit as traders were running around getting their orders done. But once the numbers settled in, the floor actually cleared out, much

like what you can see around me here. And traders kind of settled in for the day. But it's been a really stressful several days. In fact, one trader yesterday told me when he saw the Dow drop more than 1,000 points at the open yesterday, he said he almost passed out.

Just to give you an idea of how stressful it has been, there's a local bar close here to Wall Street called The Dead Rabbit. Apparently, its sales are up 33 percent compared to last year at this time because of all of the libations going around, everybody needing to take a break from Wall Street.

BALDWIN: It's a good place. I may have been there before. I can say, based upon some of the looks of some of the traders' faces, maybe they needed it.

Richard Quest to you, in terms of volatility, I know we have been on this upward trend for the last couple of years. Is the volatility here to stay?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, for the foreseeable. Volatility is not going away. The only question is whether you have small volatility or extreme volatility.

BALDWIN: Which we won't know.

(CROSSTALK)

QUEST: On a daily basis. At the moment, you're seeing extreme volatility.

And that's because the market is seeking direction. And you see a really good example of it today. All right, you got nice and excited. Up you go 300 or 400 points at the open. But with the exception of that little blip after lunch, you're in a fairly tight range for most of the day.

So the market is saying, all right, we have repaired some of the damage.

BALDWIN: OK.

QUEST: We have oversold over the last few days, we have clawed a bit back, but we're not quite sure what the medium-term direction actually is meant to be.

[15:20:00]

BALDWIN: Can I ask you about Donald Trump with regard to the markets? Shall we go there?

QUEST: Bring it on.

BALDWIN: Let's ask.

QUEST: Bring it on. Donald Trump, as we talked about this yesterday, he jumped on and sort

of capitalizing as this successful businessman on what is going on. He talks a lot about China. We saw him last night on FOX News Channel saying this:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We're tying ourselves so closely to Asia and in particular to China, that this is going to be trouble for our country. And not only now have they taken our jobs and they taken our base and they taken our manufacturing. But now they are pulling us down with them. And I said we can't do this. We can't allow this to happen and we have to do a big uncoupling pretty soon before it's too late.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: Oh, magnificent, a big uncoupling pretty soon before it takes us all down.

Well, Mr. Trump, where would you like the uncoupling to begin? Would you like the uncoupling to be Boeing not to sell so many planes to China's Southern or China Eastern? Would you perhaps like the uncoupling to be Caterpillar not selling as many earth-moving equipment, or maybe Goldman, J.P. Morgan or anybody else who is working and issuing bonds with China?

So the point I'm saying is, until you look at the policy and until you flesh it out, for instance, the U.S. at the moment is negotiating the Trans-Pacific trade partnership. China's not part of that. It's with Indonesia, Japan, everybody else.

BALDWIN: OK.

QUEST: You can't just come along and say they are taking our jobs, they are taking all this, they are taking all that. Those same policies also allowed Trump to build his towers. They allowed General Motors to have 30 percent of its business now in China.

And it allowed companies like Ford and the rest of them to grow their businesses. Of course there needs to be a rebalancing, but you can't put it in such, frankly, fairly simplistic terms.

BALDWIN: Richard Quest, tell us how you really feel. I appreciate it.

(CROSSTALK)

QUEST: I am not in any shape, form or description enmeshing myself into a political position about...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: No. But you know the world economy. You host a show each and every day. Listen, you know this stuff better than anybody I know. And so I appreciate it. I just wanted to play the Donald Trump sound. (CROSSTALK)

QUEST: As soon as somebody I think starts calling -- it doesn't matter whether it's Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders.

BALDWIN: Any of them. Any of them.

QUEST: Or any of them. As soon as somebody starts saying -- this country has done remarkably well over many years because of the policies that these candidates are now starting to call into serious question, and there may need to be a rebalancing or tinkering with the policy, but you don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

BALDWIN: Richard quest, thank you very much. Done. And we're done with that.

Let's move along. Coming up next here, a new type of police training in Baltimore months after Freddie Gray sparked all of those protests. This new training doesn't necessarily involve gun training or simulations with suspects. This is all about brains. This is about neuroscience, going inside an officer's mind. We will talk to the professor who designed it. he will explain what this means to these officers and why this is so important in Baltimore.

Also, another case of people trying to use a drone -- listen, folks are getting creative -- to try to fly contraband into prisons. What is being smuggled in and what prisons doing hopefully trying to do to stop it?

You're watching CNN. Stay here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:27:30]

BALDWIN: All right. More than a year now after the death of Michael Brown and protests on the streets in some parts in some moments really looked like a war zone, and now this judge has just announced he's dropping all arrest warrants for minor violations, including traffic stops, issued before 2015.

This decision part of the fallout from a Department of Justice report that found the Ferguson Police Department and the city's municipal court were using minor citations to engage in discrimination against African-Americans.

At the same time that's happening there in Ferguson, something just as unusual happening in the city of Baltimore, a city also rocked by violence and claims of police brutality after the death of Freddie Gray in the back of that police van.

Now new police recruits are getting brain training. Yes, the Baltimore P.D. has just hired a cognitive neuroscientist to train new recruits in a type of repetitive mental exercise to help them better handle stressful situations. And he joins me now live. He's Jonathan Page, professor at Dickinson

College, who's really made a career of studying how the brain functions as it pertains to law enforcement officers under duress.

Jonathan Page, welcome. Wonderful to have you on.

JONATHAN PAGE, DICKINSON COLLEGE: Thank you. It's really good to be here.

BALDWIN: You have developed this training. You were the go-to guy on this. So, first, before we get into the details of the technique for these officers, what is the goal here for you?

PAGE: So the goal is to use what we know about the brain and brain processing to try new methods to train officers how to deal with stress, how to deal with the general public, how to kind of control emotional intelligence, stay in mental control during critical incidences.

So we know a little bit about training and how training works, so we can either -- if it's not working very well, we can either change how the brain works -- that might take 15,000, 20,000 years -- or we can change our training today and start training better.

BALDWIN: OK. Staying in mental control, flexing those mind muscles, which I'm sure we could all use help on doing sometimes.

PAGE: Yes.

BALDWIN: But I know that your training consists of three different techniques. You talk about tactical breathing, mental imagery and self-talk.

PAGE: That's right.

BALDWIN: Explain those steps for me.

PAGE: Yes. And these steps, the ideas and the concepts behind them are not new to law enforcement officers.

They understand that tactical breathing is used to indirectly control heart rate, to keep heart rate down during an incident. Mental imagery can be used to kind of lay neural pathways in the brain to help you perform things better. And then self-talk is used many different ways.

What we did is went to the laboratory and said, let's find out what we can about how to make this work kind of to the best