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Carson Ties Trump for First Place in Iowa; Pope Francis Changes Rules for Women and Abortion; Funeral for Darren Goforth Set; Journalist Jailed for Causing China Stocks Chaos; ISIS Destroys Ancient Temple; State Department Releases 7,000 Pages of Clinton E- mails; Jeb Bush Fires Back at Donald Trump Ad. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired September 01, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:02] CHRIS DRAFT, FORMER LINEBACKER, ATLANTA FALCONS: That movie is really talking about something that happened around 2007, 2006, so a lot has happened since that time. You know, right now with training camp just finishing up, NFL players, they can't even do two- a-days anymore. As we get into the regular season, the amount of actual contact practice has been dramatically decreased and then really just the concussion protocol across the league is drastically changed which really amounts to not just trusting the player, because players are really kind of conditioned to lie in so many cases.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Right.

DRAFT: You ask them how you're doing, and you know, they can barely remember their name and they're saying, I'm fine, because they want to go back in the game, so like, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good. So you have to help a doctor out so that he can be able to really, you know, watch them and then make a decision outside of just what the player is saying.

COSTELLO: All right. I've got to leave it there. I've got to leave it there because I have to start the next hour. Thanks to you both, Chris Draft, Rachel Nichols.

DRAFT: Thank you.

COSTELLO: The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. We'll get to our top stories in just a moment. But first, take a look at Wall Street because the Dow is dropping like a rock. Stocks down more than, what, 350 points? One factor moving the markets, concern about China's economy after a factor report suggested a slowdown.

Oil prices also slumping today. All signs point to another wild day on Wall Street. We'll keep an eye on it. And of course we'll keep you posted.

All right, on to politics now and yet another twist for the Republicans who want to be president. Now this time it has nothing to do with Donald Trump or actually it kind of sort of does. Ben Carson, the neurosurgeon who has won over voters with his personality as well as his personal stories, surging to the top of the pack and to a first place tie with Donald Trump in Iowa.

CNN's senior political reporter Nia-Malika Henderson joins me now from Washington to break down the numbers.

Good morning.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Good news obviously here for Dr. Ben Carson, the pediatric neurosurgeon. He is in the middle of a bit of a surge. He has a pretty aggressive ground game in Iowa. He's been up on the air for at least two weeks. During this month, he had a bit of a post-debate surge there so you see him there in that tie with Donald Trump.

What's interesting about those numbers is you have all of these anti- establishment, nonpoliticians who are riding high in these poll numbers. Not only Ben Carson, obviously Donald Trump as well. Carly Fiorina there at 10 percent. Ted Cruz at 9 percent who sort of wants to distance himself from what he calls the Washington cartel.

So good news there. It looks like these Iowa caucus voters at least right now aren't in the mood for business as usual, aren't in the mood for people with government experience. Whether or not that changes, we'll have to see.

COSTELLO: OK. But let's look at the numbers behind the numbers because the numbers also show another story when it comes to voters clearly making up their minds about who they're going to vote for.

HENDERSON: That's right. If you look at these numbers, A, there are all sorts of choices that people have, right? And so the numbers so far show that about 47 percent there, if you combine the undecided with people who have a slight preference, they just haven't really made up their minds, and then there are other numbers that show they've got this bevy of candidates to choose from. 54 percent of Iowa -- likely Iowa GOP caucus voters say that they could vote for three or four candidates.

That's well over a half. 54 percent saying that. So listen, those folks who are at the bottom there, people like Huckabee, people like Santorum, people like Walker who've seen a bit of a dip in his numbers, they still got very much of a chance come February.

COSTELLO: All right. Nia-Malika Henderson, thanks so much for parsing the numbers for us. We appreciate -- you sound so excited about them, too. It was awesome. Thank you so much.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: All right. Now to a groundbreaking announcement by the Catholic Church. Just days before a historic visit to the United States, Pope Francis has announced women who have had an abortion and who have been excommunicated, kicked out of the church, can be forgiven. Not only that, that forgiveness can be granted by a woman's parish priest. That's not to say the church no longer considers abortion a moral sin, it does, but Pope Francis says he has met so many women who bear in their heart the scar of this agonizing and painful decision.

So joining me now to talk about all of this, CNN religion commentator Father Edward Beck and to discuss the possible political implications Republican consultant, John Brabender. He was also a senior strategist for the Santorum presidential campaign in 2012.

Thanks to both of you for being with me this morning. I'll start with you, Father Beck, because as a Catholic, I was -- I was pretty astounded by this announcement this morning.

FATHER EDWARD BECK, CNN RELIGION COMMENTATOR: Well, Carol, you know, the forgiveness of the sin of abortion has always been reserved to a bishop. But what people don't understand is that there are circumstances where the excommunication is not even given. In other words, if a person, a woman under grave fear has an abortion or if she does not know that excommunication was a result of the abortion, then it is not part of the penalty.

So, of course, as with all things with church law, there are exceptions. But what's different about this is, that the Pope is saying during the Year of Mercy, if a woman goes to her parish priest and is contrite and confesses, the priest can absolve for the abortion without having to go to the bishop. That is what is new about this.

COSTELLO: OK. So let's talk about skipping over the bishops in this instance. The bishops, aren't they more conservative, much more conservative than many parish priests?

BECK: Well, of course, it depends on the bishop. You can't put all bishops into the same category. There are more liberal bishops and there are more conservative bishops, and this Pope has been appointing more moderate bishops. So it's changing the complexion of the College of Bishops.

And I think, Carol, what you have to understand here is that the parish priest might be more conservative, more liberal. So it's kind of hit or miss depending on who the woman winds up with I think.

COSTELLO: Interesting. OK. So let's talk about this from a political perspective because, as you know, the Pope is coming to the United States at the end of September and he's going to speak before a Republican Congress.

So, John, in light of how some Republicans view abortion, for example, Mike Huckabee compared abortion to the terrorist actions of ISIS. Rick Santorum called legal abortion genocide and called Planned Parenthood cancer, how might they view the Pope's decision?

JOHN BRABENDER, REPUBLICAN POLITICAL CONSULTANT: Well, I think you've got to understand that what this Pope is doing is not necessarily changing the Catholic Church's viewpoint on abortion. One thing that's very important about the Catholic faith is forgiveness, and so I think that Rick Santorum, who is a practicing Catholic, would look at the Pope and say that he thinks that this will be helpful because it will give people a better understanding about one of the most beautiful things about our faith is regardless what sin you may commit, there's always the opportunity for forgiveness and to make it to heaven.

And so I don't see where there's a political difference with the Pope here, and as Father pointed out, this is specific to next year, the Jubilee Year, which is something that traditionally the Catholic Church does do something like this during that time period.

COSTELLO: No. And I understand that, Father Beck, and I want to ask you about that. Because yes, it is the Year of Mercy, right? But the Pope could decide during the year of mercy to extend this new rule, right?

BECK: Yes, and a lot of things that happen during the Year of Mercy the church sees in its wisdom is something that should be accorded all of the time. And so indeed, Carol, the Pope could decide to extend this. A lot of these issues are being currently debated. We have a synod coming up on family, birth control is going to be one of those issues.

So I think some of these are test balloons, if you will, and it's all within the purview of God's mercy and forgiveness. This Pope is all about that. So I think if there's any movement that's going to happen. It's going to err on the side of mercy, love, compassion and forgiveness.

COSTELLO: And just one last question to you, John, because when the Pope speaks before Congress, you know, the Pope has said of homosexuals, who am I to judge? He talks very strongly, comes out on climate change, we need to deal with it right now. This latest thing on abortion. So how will this Congress accept the Pope? Will it make some members uncomfortable? Will he make some members uncomfortable?

BRABENDER: Well, first of all, I think you have to understand and separate the Pope when he's talking about Catholic ideology where he is the leader and other times where he is just talking as a leader of the world. There are some distinctions there. But, again, I think a lot of this is where what the Pope has been saying, what ultimately gets reported can be different.

This Pope has become a much better communicator, much more open. It's created a new excitement in the Catholic Church and, frankly, outside the Catholic Church. And so I think this is more about how he communicates rather than any real strong change in church doctrine.

COSTELLO: All right. John Brabender, Father Beck, thanks to both of you. I appreciate it.

The funeral for murdered Texas Deputy Darren Goforth has been set for this Friday. Goforth was ambushed and shot execution-style while pumping gas. President Obama called his widow yesterday to express his condolences. And now we're learning disturbing new details about the mental health of the alleged gunman, who's been charged with capital murder.

CNN's Rosa Flores joins us from the gas station where that deputy was gunned down.

Good morning, Rosa.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Take a look behind me. Pump number eight is the scene of the crime, now turned memorial with lots of notes and messages for Deputy Goforth, even a teddy bear with a purple heart as well.

Now we're learning more about the man who's charged with capital murder and more about his criminal past and also his history of mental illness. From prosecutors we've heard that back in 2012 he was deemed incompetent to be -- to stand trial in a case in which there was an altercation with another homeless man.

[10:10:19] Shannon Miles, 30 years old was homeless at the time as well. And it was an altercation over a remote control. It escalated and it turns out that Miles ended up spending about six months in a mental institution, and then deemed competent but by that time authorities say that they couldn't find the other homeless man, so that case went nowhere, and then here we are in 2015, and this man facing capital murder charges in the case of Deputy Goforth.

And just to tell you, Carol, you can see the memorial growing behind me. We have seen people come by all morning long to pay their respects.

COSTELLO: So, Rosa, do we know how the suspect got a gun if he, like, spent time in a mental institution?

FLORES: No, that's one of the big questions, Carol. We don't know. That's the short answer, but, of course, we're trying to dig for that information just as prosecutors and other investigators are as well. I should add that neither the defense nor the prosecution is saying anything. They're tight-lipped about the motive in this particular case, and so they keep on giving us little hints about the information that they know. For example, his criminal past and also his history with mental illness.

The talk of this video because I can see -- I can tell you I can see the video cameras that are around this place, but, again, they're not disclosing that information. That's one of the big questions given this -- the uncovering of this information from back in 2012 -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Rosa Flores reporting live from Houston this morning. Thank you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a journalist says he's to blame for China's stock market chaos, and he issues a public apology. But is this just China trying to save face?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:16:33] COSTELLO: From Asia to Europe to Wall Street, stocks sliding this morning. In fact, I'm just going to look at the board -- the big board. The Dow is down 356 points. Investors, of course, blaming China. China pointing the finger at somebody else, that would be a financial reporter. He has now been arrested and now he's confessing to causing the chaos in China's stock market. Reporters Without Borders says his detention is, quote, "absurd."

CNN's senior media correspondent and "RELIABLE SOURCES'" Brian Stelter joins us now to talk more about this journalist.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: And absurd is the perfect word for it. This is an example of the kind of censorship that we see in China. Some of it is soft, some of it is much harder. In this case pretty extreme measures being taken against the reporter. We've heard about hundreds of people arrested as a result of the markets in China, as a --

COSTELLO: Who are these people being arrested?

STELTER: Yes. Many of them are not journalists. Many of them are other people, you know, who are accused of financial crimes of various sorts. But this is an example as we've seen in the past of China trying to control its markets, trying to -- paint a very positive picture when its picture is not nearly as positive as they are saying.

COSTELLO: So what exactly did he write?

STELTER: But this particular reporter -- well, you see on screen here, confessing to causing great losses in the market. Obviously he's not single handedly responsible for causing people to sell their stocks. But in the Chinese media ecosystem there's an expectation they are going to tow the party line. You're going to report what the government essentially wants you to report with only some ability to color outside the lines. And when you color a little too far outside the lines this is what happens.

It's a very clear example of a reporter being disciplined, in this case much more than just disciplined, for coverage the Chinese government did not want to get out. But thankfully in this day and age we at least do hear about these cases and Chinese citizens are able to comment on them online. We have seen some complaints about the government's actions on Weibo, for example, the Chinese version of Twitter.

COSTELLO: We've also heard of people being placed under arrest and just simply disappearing.

STELTER: That's right. That's right. You know, in this case, this is a very clear cut example of how the Chinese government tries to paint this positive image of how their economy is doing and expects reporters to participate in that.

COSTELLO: All right. Brian Stelter, thanks so much. Market down now 355 points.

ISIS is continuing to destroy ancient monuments and temples. The latest casualty, the Temple of Bel in Palmyra, Syria. It dated back to the first century. And now as CNN senior international Nick Paton Walsh tells us, it's gone.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The jewel in the crown of Syria millennia of rich history. The Bel Temple, dating back to the first century when Palmyra, the City of Palms, was the crossroads between Roman and Persian empires. Yet it is no more the U.N. has confirmed after locals reported Sunday hearing an explosion loud enough it was said for the deaf to hear.

This image is from last week when ISIS leveled a neighboring temple, Baal Shamin, named after a Phoenician god. They're long threatened to drag this vital trace of irreplaceable history into the their world of destruction and did with crude devices. Satellite images showing how total its descent into rubble was. The U.N. said late Monday that satellite images seem to confirm the total destruction of Sunday's victim, Bel Temple. Despite witnesses saying earlier Monday they thought its columns that withstood the rise and fall of empires may still have been standing.

ISIS' obsession with destroying what is dear to all other cultures has not stopped at property here. The bespectacled curator of this open air museum, Khaled al-Asaad, Palmyra's antiquities chief, dragged into a square a week ago and beheaded. His body then hung in public with red twine.

[10:20:21] ISIS, many say, are in obsessive competition with themselves to outdo their last ghastly outrage. It was with some relish they released a video of their elaborate dismembering of the Iraqi city of Nimrod and of Mosul's museum. A millennia of thought and endurance wiped away by a culture worshipping death and the seconds of dark fascination they can conjure with videos on social media.

Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Beirut.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: All right. I want to take you to Miami for just a minute because Jeb Bush is speaking at a town hall there. You see him there. The GOP candidate has been making a lot of waves with his brand new attack ad, and guess who he's attacking? That would be Donald Trump. We're on it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:25:22] COSTELLO: The State Department unleashes a new avalanche of e-mails that passed through Hillary Clinton's unsecured server. More than 7,000 pages in all. No bombshells and no evidence that secrecy laws were violated, but the State Department stopped short of exonerating the former secretary of state.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Can you say from that podium categorically that Secretary Clinton followed the rules and the law?

MARK TONER, STATE DEPARTMENT DEPUTY SPOKESMAN: I'm just not going to answer that question. It's not our goal, it's not our function in this regard in releasing these e-mails. Our goal and our sole purpose when we look at these e-mails is to decide -- well, first, to publish them according to the FOIA request that we've received, but in doing that looking at them and deciding whether any of that material needs to be redacted and subsequently classified.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Elise Labott is CNN's global affairs correspondent. She's been poring through these 7,000 e-mails. She joins us live from Washington.

What have you turned up, Elise?

ELISE LABOTT, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS REPORTER: Well, Carol, we're hearing that 125 of these e-mails, of these 7,000 e-mails, have been upgraded to classified. Now the information wasn't classified at the time but it's since been upgraded to classified because it was released to the public.

One of the things that really kind of comes out in these e-mails is Clinton's reliance on outside advisers, particularly Sid Blumenthal, who you remember was a former adviser to her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and has really become a subject of the House committee on Benghazi investigating the attack on the consulate. A lot of memos to Secretary Clinton. She had said that they were unsolicited but in one e-mail that he sent her in May 2010 following the UK elections and sharing his analysis, Secretary Clinton said to Blumenthal, "I shared your e-mails with Bill who thought they were brilliant, keep them coming."

So obviously they weren't always unsolicited. She really in these e- mails shows that she relied on his advice and it wasn't just about foreign affairs. It was also about the political. In November 2010 Blumenthal sends a message to Secretary Clinton really slamming then House speaker John Boehner labeling it, quote, "post midterm strategy," showing a long list of information he got from some sources on the Republican side.

And let me quote you from this e-mail. "Boehner is despised by the younger, more conservative members of the House Republican conference. They are repelled by his personal behavior. He is louche, alcoholic, lazy, and without any commitment to principle." So clearly even though Secretary Clinton -- you know, she says politics has always been in her DNA, still following the politics behind the scenes.

There's also a memo, Carol, from her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, who seems to be also an informal adviser. She went to Haiti after the earthquake on behalf of the Clinton Foundation and reporting back her insights and her analysis about what she found on the ground.

So there's a lot of things like that. There's some personal about how she likes her tea and charging her iPad but there's also some very sensitive information in those e-mails. A lot of it redacted.

COSTELLO: All right. Elise Labott, thanks so much. We appreciate it. And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining

me.

Right now in Miami the former Florida governor Jeb Bush is holding a town hall meeting with high school students. He seems to be taking a sharper edge in the presidential race these days and here is one reason.

Listen to this Donald Trump ad attacking Bush and his views on illegal immigration.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes, they broke the law, but it's not a felony. It's kind of -- it's a -- it's an act of love.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK. But Governor Bush is fighting back. CNN's Athena Jones is in Washington with a closer look at that.

Good morning.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. That was a tough ad from Donald Trump, a short video on instagram. It's one of his favorite social media sites to use, but Jeb Bush is firing back. Let's go ahead and play that and then talk about it on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I lived in New York City and Manhattan all my life, OK, so, you know, my views are a little bit different than if I lived in Iowa.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Partial birth abortion.

TRUMP: I'm very pro-choice. I am pro-choice in every respect and as far as it goes. As far as single payer, it works in Canada, it works incredibly well in Scotland.