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Former Maine Representative Calls Out President Obama To Help Refugees In Europe; Jeb Bush Rolls Out Plan To Overhaul Nation's Tax System; Apple's New Products. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired September 09, 2015 - 15:30   ET

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


[15:30:00] TOM ANDREWS, FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE (D-MAINE): First of all, let's change U.S. policy. Let's open our doors to more refugees. Let's lead with compassion and also common sense here and let's provide the means and the opportunity for people who want to do the right thing to do the right thing.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: There are cynics, I mean, it's impossible to turn away from these images of our crews chasing these people through these farm fields, watching woman who gave birth 11 days ago nursing her child as she is marching on. I have to play this sound bite. This is from Chris Dickey (ph), an editor with "the Daily Beast." He is a 40-year veteran covering wars. This is his perspective.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS DICKEY, WORLD NEWS EDITOR, THE DAILY BEAST: People become outraged. They cry and they do nothing. I've seen a lot of suffering, but I've never seen a crisis on quite the scale that we're looking at now in Europe. There are more and more people who are more and more desperate. It's not that they don't want to work. It's not that they don't want to do thing. Hell, people who become migrants, immigrants, refugees, those people are very often the smartest, most capable people in their society.

It's all about one central issue. It's about hope. It's about people who want to have hope and they lose hope in the land where they were born and they think that they can have some kind of hope for themselves and their families if they go to Europe or for that matter if they come to the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: But when you listen to the whole thing, you know, one of the worries is that ultimately the American people will do nothing. Thirty seconds, Congressman. What would you say to Chris Dickey?

ANDREWS: Have hope. There are many, many Americans here who have great compassion and are looking at this with common sense, who want the United States government to stand up to lead, to -- to lead the world in having a collective global response to this crisis. This is the largest refugee crisis that we've seen since World War II. And in World War II, one of our darkest moments was when we turned away refugees at our border who ended up dying in -- in ovens in the holocaust. We cannot afford as a country both morally or any other way to turn aside. We need to open our heart and our minds and use common sense and provide the leadership necessary to save untold numbers of lives.

BALDWIN: Tom Andrews, appreciate your voice. President and CEO of united to end genocide. Thank you, sir.

ANDREWS: Thank you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Republican hopeful Ben Carson took a shot at Donald Trump's immigration plan and now Donald Trump firing back. What he told CNN about the candidate nipping at his heels in those early primacy state.

Also Apple just rolls out its new iPhone, its iPad, its Apple pencil, details on the announcement that has everyone talking.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:37:02] BALDWIN: Just in to us here at CNN, police in Phoenix are now investigating another apparently random shooting along a major highway there. There have been at least ten such incidents in the last ten days in this area. Authorities say the windows of the car driving just hours ago near the freeway were shot out. A person was in the car. That person was not hurt, but police will not say if today's shooting is related to all the others.

Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush just rolled out his plan to overhaul the nation's tax system speaking to supporters in North Carolina. Jeb Bush says his new plan would make the tax code simple, fair, clear. He particularly though took aim at the Republican and Democratic front-runners for president while laying out his plan to lower taxes and create more jobs. Here he was just a bit ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The way we bring jobs back to America is to take power out of Washington and give it back to the American people by allowing them to have more of their hard-earned money. Through hard work --

(APPLAUSE)

BUSH: Through hard work and ingenuity and know-how as we have always done, we will compete with the world and, yes, we will win. Senator Clinton and Mr. Trump may not believe we can do it, but I sure as heck do, and I know you do as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: CNN political commentator Sally Kohn and Republican strategist Mercedes Schlapp are both with me. Ladies, hello.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nice to see you.

BALDWIN: Calling out both front-runners there, Mercedes in, one of his big, you know, economic speeches thus far, both Trump and Hillary Clinton. What was he doing there?

MERCEDES SCHLAPP, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: A double punch, there you go. You are going after Clinton and Trump putting them in the same sentence. It's part of his strategy also to basically pin or push Trump into this corner as him not being a conservative. Trump talked about his tax plan or gave a little bit of information about his tax plan and it didn't sound too much like a supply side tax-cutting conservative plan and Jeb Bush took aim that. So I think it was an effective approach on Bush's side, especially when he's trying to get in there and start -- and start getting play in the media as well.

BALDWIN: OK. Let's move to one of the targets, Sally Kohn, Hillary Clinton.

SALLY KOHN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Can we just talk about that tax --

BALDWIN: All right. Wanted to do Hillary Clinton with me. Sorry my friend. The whole I'm sorry, bit. Days ago. Days ago with NBC she refused to apologize and now she's apologizing. If you get to Hillary Clinton email she's apologizing. In the ABC interview she is apologizing. If you read the "New York Times" yesterday, they said this is about to be a big strategy change and initially you thought hang on a second. But then you see what's happened and, I mean, I have to have think that this is choreographed.

KOHN: Look, a couple things. First of all, there is no question that in the grand scheme of political topics, you know, talking about, you know, Jeb Bush's plan to restructure the economic tax code in the same way that his brother did that crashed the economy and talking about Donald Trump's plan to deport 11 million people, those are substantive discussions of the kinds of things we should be talking about and the kinds of policies and actions we should be attacking.

Hillary Clinton using a private email server in the grand scheme of thing is small potatoes. And frankly, it is one of those things that if anybody else had done it, it wouldn't be a big deal.

(CROSSTALK)

KOHN: Let me say, that being said, this was a crummy apology and came too late. And I'm going to be honest, gone through couples counseling and really good at apologizing, and the one thing I learned apologies don't have but. And there is a lot of but shaking going on there with Hillary's apology and I don't mean the part when she was dancing with Ellen.

[15:40:49] BALDWIN: Yes. We showed the video in the last hour. Mercedes, jump in.

SCHLAPP: Sure, I mean, you know, it's not small potatoes when the FBI is involved. I mean, you have inspector generals, intelligence review coming out basically saying that at least two of her emails were highly classified. This is an issue. And obviously for Hillary Clinton they had to focus group it to figure out what -- how people were feeling about the fact that she was not apologizing and so it's impacting obviously her trustworthiness, her favorability has gone down.

I mean, I think it's a very insincere apology, a little bit too late, and, again, I don't know at what point. I mean, we've still got a long way to go before the primary season heads, but I think it does impact Hillary and I think it's going to hit her even in the general election.

BALDWIN: Well, she is now apologizing sort of over and over and over. You have to imagine that her camp is hoping some sort of sincerity will eke through in the polls.

But Mercedes, let me stay with you. I have to ask you about Ben Carson. You know, really, now the number two Republican on the ballot, and he was talking yesterday, and, you know, the headline a day after he said, OK, I'll consider this Trump/Carson ticket. You know, he said anyone who thinks about rounding up massive numbers of immigrants, who is supporting them, Donald Trump, that is a solution has a problem.

So now we have some sound, just turn it around for you. This is Donald Trump who was speaking at this rally here in D.C. This is what he just told Sarah Murray in reaction to Ben Carson.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He's wrong. He doesn't understand it and he's wrong.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Why do you think he doesn't understand it?

TRUMP: He doesn't understand it and he's wrong. We need a strong immigration plan. We have to come back and bring back this country. We need borders and strength and if he doesn't like it, he doesn't understand it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So no more Trump/Carson ticket, Mercedes? What has happening here?

SCHLAPP: Wait. I thought it was a Trump/Cruz ticket. I mean, you know. Maybe Trump doesn't need a vice president at this point. So, you know, I think for Carson -- Ben Carson is obviously trying to get into this debate about immigration. Again, it is incredibly tricky because when you start talking about mass deportation, majority of Republicans don't agree with it as much as there is that. A group of Republicans very angry and very concerned about illegal immigration in this country.

But, again, I think it would be the wrong way to go for Ben Carson, particularly because he is trying to attract a social conservatives particularly in states like Iowa and South Carolina.

BALDWIN: Sally Kohn, Democrat here nodding, you get the last world. KOHN: Well, the whole dynamic here is sort of mind-blowing. You have

basically all the Republican contenders in a race to move as far away from the mainstream voting public as they possibly can. I mean, you have, you know, immigration reform, exactly right. Majority of voters and majority of Republicans support comprehensive immigration reform and at a time when we're talking about whether we have a moral obligation to deal some of the refugees and help some of the refugees in Europe. You talk about the majority of Americans worried about economic inequality and Republicans raising out conservative out- extreme each other on their economic plans, reproductive justice, you name it, Iran. They are distancing themselves from the majority of American voters.

SCHLAPP: Majority of Americans are not in favor of the Iran deal.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: You hit it all, Mercedes Schlapp and Sally Kohn, thank you very much.

A reminder to all of you, speaking of, yes, there are a lot of voices that we'll hearing from on stage, but first let me tell you this. Tomorrow Donald Trump will be live on CNN, 7:00 in the morning. Later in the day, Jeb Bush will be talking to Jake Tapper on "the Lead" at 4:00. Do not miss the interviews. And, again, next week, a week from tonight, the big CNN debate in California.

Well, the tech-geeks jazzed up. Did I just say jazzed up? I sure did. Apple just revealed its new product lineup. There's a whole lot more than a new phone.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:49:06] BALDWIN: It is September, that means a lot of things and a lot of people, that means Apple products to a lot of you. The people at Apple just wrapped up their event in San Francisco showing off their latest and greatest. Got a look at the newest iPhone and a new and improved Apple TV, a supersized iPad and the newest accessory, the Apple pencils.

So to our CNN senior media correspondent, host of "RELIABLE SOURCES" Brian Stelter, have been watching all the latest and greatest here.

And so, since we last spoke, my friend, you say -- tell me about this 3D touch with the iPhone. How does that work?

BRIAN STELTER CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I guess this one is truly obsolete. Time to throw it out.

BALDWIN: So over that one.

STELTER: Not entirely true, of course. We all have different models of the iPhone. But the newest one, one that is going to come out in a couple of weeks, Brooke, has 3D touch. The idea is that depending on how hard or how lightly you touch the screen it will have different functionality. So you might be able to scroll through Instagram differently, depending on how gently or firmly you touch the screen.

Just another step in the direction of innovation for iPhone, they had to come up with something new and cool every time. So that is one of the improvements in the iPhone. It also some different colors, some different technology underneath the phones that will be powering the phones in the future. This is not a revolutionary change of the iPhone but it is a co-evolutionary change.

[15:50:20] BALDWIN: So if you're kind of rough on your iPhones, this is maybe not for you?

STELTER: Be a little more careful maybe? They announced new ipad as well. So, they got the medium sized of that phone. I mean, the big new ipad. It's intended for partly business use. And I think a lot of folks at home will be interested in it as well because it is a bigger, boulders screen. It be better for watching movies or reading magazine and things like that.

BALDWIN: What about, you know, Apple TV, the gaming features? Tell me about that and how Apple in a sense is really playing catch up. But now, with these new advances, leapfrogging?

STELTER: Yes. This is one of those anticipated part of the announcement, Apple TV. It's not a big screen TV, but it is that hockey packs sort of box. You put in living room. It is mostly better than your cable set up boxes you probably using right now to watch CNN. It gives you a better interface. It gives you access to things like Netflix through your TV and CNN has an app. Lots of companies have apps now for Apple TV and that's what Apple really pushing, the idea that you can use Apple TV to access all of these different internet sites and services. They do have any remote as well which you can talk to. So if you want to say hey, Serie, let me pull up Brooke Baldwin's show, now you'll be able to talk to your remote and that is pretty cool.

Some companies have it already. But Apple is so big, so influential, that whenever they announce something like this, it does influence the industry.

BALDWIN: I like that, pull of the Brooke Baldwin show. I like the sound of that. I think Serie and I needs to have a better relationship in order to get things like that. I will work on that.

Brian Stelter, thank you.

STELTER: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, just an extraordinary story here on CNN, this young woman, held as a slavery the leader of ISIS. She spoke out exclusively to CNN about life under his brutal hand and how she tried to convince U.S. captors to escape with her. Her extraordinary story is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:56:15] BALDWIN: As CNN follows that exhausting journey of thousands of Syrian refugees into Europe, we are getting a reminder of the great suffering and violent conditions so many are fleeing.

Hunting new details about ISIS leader, Abu Bark al-Baghdadi, (INAUDIBLE) girl now, just 16 years of age, who became one of al- Baghdadi's slaves is now coming forward and speaking exclusively with our correspondent, CNN's Atika Shubert, to share some of her horrors. Her cellmate, a tragically familiar face, Kayla Mueller, the American aid worker captured by is, killed in captivity. The teenager told CNN that Mueller was tortured and raped repeatedly by al-Baghdadi himself.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Zeinat was just 15 whether she was captured by ISIS fighter and brought, she says before their leader, Abu Bark al-Baghdadi.

ZEINAT, HELD AS ISIS LEADER'S SLAVE (through translator): the first time he came, I was sitting and crying. When I stood up, he looked at me and told the guard, take this girl away and put her to the side.

SHUBERT: She said he was taken to the Syrian city of Raqqa, the ISIS stronghold where she took and cleaned for Baghdadi's three wives and six children. She tried to escape once. Her punishments, beating with a garden hose, the last blows delivered by Baghdadi himself.

What did he say to you?

ZEINAT (through translator): Abu Bark al-Baghdadi told us said we beat you because you run away from us. We chose you to convert to our religion. We chose you. You belong to the Islamic state.

SHUBERT: Then she says she was thrown into a cramp cell for a month. That is where Zeinat says she met Kayla Mueller.

ZEINAT (through translator): I told her I'm a Yazidi girl (INAUDIBLE) and I was captured by (INAUDIBLE). After that we stayed together and became lie sisters.

SHUBERT: She and Kayla were moved to the home of Abu Sayyaf, a high- ranking ISIS commander. Shortly after, she says, Baghdadi came to visit. He called for Kayla.

ZEINAT (through translator): When Kayla came back to us, we asked her, why are you crying? And Kayla told us, Baghdadi said I'm going to marry you by force. You are going to be my wife. If you refuse, I will kill you. When I heard what Kayla told me, I wanted to escape. I told Kayla to escape with me, but Kayla refused. And she said if I escape, they will behead me.

SHUBERT: She says he waited until 1:00 a.m. and pushed over a broken window into their room and ran. A man in a nearby village smuggled her out to her family, and only then did she discover who the man who tortured her really was.

ZEINAT (through translator): When I escaped, I saw him on TV and I heard his voice. When I ran away, I ask my family, who is this man? They told me this is Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. SHUBERT: Zeinat says she's told her story to U.S. investigators

including details of Baghdadi's daily routine.

What kind of man was he? Was he ever, ever kind to you?

ZEINAT (through translator): No, he was always evil. There were no kind words.

She says she opens some piece of information, however small, will lead to the downfall of the man who once called her his slave.

Atika Shubert, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Atika Shubert with that incredibly powerful reporting here on CNN.

And while we cannot independently confirm all the details of her story, Kayla Mueller's family has told us that some of the details do indeed match what the family has learned from government officials.

I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you so much for being here with me today. "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.