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Soldier who Served with Bergdahl Speaks Out; Baby Doe Identified; Rally for Teen Accused of Making Bomb. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired September 18, 2015 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:29:41] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

After more than five years in captivity, Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl walked into American hands and almost immediately into controversy. These images hard to forget. This was the dramatic video from a dangerous rescue mission by U.S. Special Forces to free Bergdahl -- members of the military coming face to face with armed members of the Taliban near the Afghanistan/Pakistan border.

The President praising the mission with Bergdahl's parents by his side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This morning I called Bob and Jenny Bergdahl and told them that after nearly five years in captivity, their son Bowe is coming home. Sergeant Bergdahl has missed birthdays and holidays and the simple moments with family and friends, which all of us take for granted. But while Bowe was gone, he was never forgotten.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: But critics blasted President Obama for swapping five Guantanamo Bay detainees for Sergeant Bergdahl. Fellow soldiers accused Bergdahl of being a deserter and argued that he willingly left the base and put his fellow soldiers at risk.

Bergdahl is now charged with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. And this hour a hearing to determine next steps gets under way.

Joining me now to talk about this, former army sergeant Josh Korder; he served with Bergdahl in Afghanistan. He also went through basic training with Bergdahl in 2008. Thank you for being here. Appreciate it.

JOSH KORDER, SERVED WITH BERGDAHL IN AFGHANISTAN: Hello -- Carol. Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning. Now that the process has really started, are you relieved?

KORDER: In some ways I am relieved, yes. I'm glad that the proceedings are taking place and that this is all being taken extremely seriously. I mean you remember the day he was released, everybody was talking about, you know, him being a hero and the Rose Garden announcement, all that stuff was very surprising to me based on all the things that we knew.

So the fact that this is the direction things are going, it's definitely much better than the way they started out.

COSTELLO: In testimony yesterday it came out that Bergdahl was supposedly planning to leave the base for weeks. He had sent a laptop and kindle home. He wanted his paycheck to go to his godmother. What does that say to you?

KORDER: I mean there's clearly something there that shows that he left for a reason. Desertion is not just about, you know, walking away from your post. Desertion is about walking away from your post for a reason and with the intention of not coming back. And the idea of intent in this is an extremely huge thing to be able to show that he did, in fact, dessert.

So, all of those are just pieces of evidence that point to the fact that he intentionally deserted.

COSTELLO: On the other hand, Bergdahl's attorneys say he has a mental defect. In fact, you know, he was let go from the Coast Guard because of psychological issues. And then the Army admitted him. And at that time they didn't run any psychological tests.

So his defense attorneys are saying, it's in part the Army's fault for taking Bergdahl in and making him a soldier. Your thoughts?

KORDER: Well, I think that there's a very big, you know, gap in what might be true and what's not true in that fact. Psychological testing at the recruiting level -- I mean I was a recruiter for a while. And usually it's on recommendation based on whatever it is that the person tells the recruiter at the time.

So he may have told his Coast Guard recruiter something and realized, oh, well, if I tell them that, they're not going to let me into the service. He wanted to join the service so badly that he may not have told his next recruiter what he told them.

But that's not a problem of the military not doing its diligence. It's a problem of Bergdahl wanting to badly to be in military that he was willing to change his story. And then after that he seemed as much a dedicated soldier as any other one that I'd ever met up until the time where things started getting difficult in our deployment and he started to drift away and become closer to the Afghans.

So, by all accounts, everyone who met him thought he was just a good soldier. If he was planning it extraordinarily well and you would not be able to tell until just the very end that he was planning anything nefarious or that he had any kind of defects at all.

COSTELLO: You know that there's a lot of bad stuff out there about Bowe Bergdahl. In fact, according to ABC News, he has to walk around with a body guard basically because everywhere he goes his commanders believe he's in physical danger from his fellow soldiers. Can you respond to that for me?

KORDER: I mean that's the thing that I haven't really understood since he's returned. They've let him go off base. They've let him be free to go on leave and things like that. But it is a situation where almost every person in the armed services has, at least the ones that were Afghanistan at that time, searched for Bergdahl. And that's in the hundreds of thousands of numbers of people.

[10:34:58] And these are all combat veterans, people who have been trained in all sorts of military tactics. And they know for a fact that this guy left us and walked away. And that level of betrayal, as I've always said is a huge betrayal that not a lot of civilian people can really grasp. But that level of betrayal is huge.

And I believe that there is in fact a risk for him outside of -- you know, if he gets released and he's not charged with anything, there may be a risk on his health and safety because there were people who put their health and safety at risk unwillingly because of his decision.

COSTELLO: All right. Sergeant Josh Korder, thank you so much for sharing your insight. I appreciate it. And thank you for your service as well.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, what's next for a Muslim teenager arrested for building a clock and then bringing it to school? Would police have acted differently if Ahmed Mohamed had been white?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:40:18] COSTELLO: All right. More on our breaking news out of Boston where local media is reporting that Baby Doe, that little girl discovered dead in a trash bag near Boston Harbor earlier this summer has been identified. The girl was just about 4 years old. She was found with a fleece blanket.

CNN's Poppy Harlow joins me now with more.

It's just a heart-breaking story.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's a heart-breaking and for every one -- the more than 50 million people that have viewed this image over the past few months there's now an answer. According to several media outlets in Boston, there was a break in the case.

Yesterday a search warrant was executed in the Mattapan neighborhood of in Boston -- that's according to the "Boston Globe". And what we know is that a tip came in to the homicide unit of the Boston Police Department. That led investigators to a break in the case.

What we still don't know is the cause of death. What led to this girl who's believed to be four years old, only 3.5 feet, 30 pounds -- what did she die from? What we also don't know is her name but we do believe that police say they believe they have an identity.

Just to walk you back here. Her body was found in a plastic bag. We know it was found just east of Logan Airport on Deere Island. A woman walking her dog saw the plastic bag, called police. It captured, as you can see here, her beautiful face, the attention of the nation. What was with her -- that zebra blanket, the polka-dotted leggings that this little girl was wearing.

There have been lab tests, Carol, that have been done and what they have found, we know up until now is pollen. And they were able to trace that pollen back to New England from trees and shrubs there. So they believe this is a local girl from New England.

They also at this point don't believe that she was necessarily in the water, even though she was in a plastic bag. She may have just been left right by the water. What's important to note so far, the medical examiner has said and they have no new conclusion yet the medical examiner, but they have said there was no obvious sign of violent trauma, so they're looking into the possibility of poisoning.

Still we're looking at what is the cause of death. What is this little girl's name, who is believed to be Caucasian or Hispanic? And this is what they believe that she would have looked like. But what we do know and this is a huge break, is that a tip led them what they believe is a place with a search warrant that has identified her.

COSTELLO: Poppy -- let's both look at our incoming e-mail and your phone at the same time.

HARLOW: Right, right.

COSTELLO: Because we just got new information. CNN has learned they have identified -- tell me exactly the wording because I don't want to get it wrong.

HARLOW: Right. So this is a law enforcement source telling CNN that officials have identified Baby Doe and is -- and someone has been taken into custody. That's the latest development. That someone has been taken into custody. No arrests at this time.

COSTELLO: It's the boyfriend of --

HARLOW: And right. According to this law enforcement source, the person in custody is the boyfriend of Baby Doe's mother. Again, no name, but a law enforcement source telling CNN the person taken into custody is the boyfriend of Baby Doe's mother. That's all coming from that tip.

COSTELLO: So, they traced this little girl back to a neighborhood in Boston, which means the little girl's mother saw the pictures of her daughter on television, on the Internet everywhere and didn't say anything -- allegedly.

HARLOW: These pictures, these pictures which are computer generated --

COSTELLO: Right.

HARLOW: -- the computer-generated image. I don't know how precise those are or not.

COSTELLO: But you're missing your kid.

HARLOW: Of course. Absolutely, of course. And what we do know according to the "Boston Globe", that search warrant carried out last night in the Mattapan neighborhood of Boston.

COSTELLO: All right. Poppy Harlow -- thanks so much. I appreciate it.

I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:48:27] COSTELLO: It is tough to be Muslim in a post-9/11 America. Still, with the rise of ISIS and the threat of homegrown terrorism, some say it's understandable. Others say it's just an excuse for racism. They point to polls like this new CNN/ORC poll that shows nearly one-third of Americans still think our Christian president is Muslim.

Last night there was a prayer vigil for Ahmed Mohamed, the Texas boy who was handcuffed and arrested for making a clock for his teacher. His father, who emigrated from Sudan, says anti-Islam paranoia fueled the panic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MOHAMED ELHASSAN MOHAMED, FATHER OF AHMED MOHAMED: If really this is a bomb as they say, why they don't evacuate the building? But my son is something that doesn't look like America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So, let's talk about this. I'm joined by Anushay Hossein, she's the editor-in-chief of AnushaysPoint.com and Dean Obeidallah a columnist from the Daily Beast. Welcome to both of you.

DEAN OBEIDALLAH, DAILY BEAST: Thanks.

ANUSHAY HOSSEIN, ANUSHAYSPOINT.COM: Thank you so much -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Thanks for being here. So Anushay you could hear the paranoia at that Trump rally last night. A supporter asserted that President Obama is Muslim and not American and Donald Trump didn't really shoot him down at all. He just stayed silent. So, why does this keep coming up?

HOSSEIN: I think it keeps coming up because people are really scared and it demonstrates to us just how entrenched Islamaphobia is in our everyday consciousness. And it also demonstrates how political candidates like Trump will use this fear and exploit this fear for their own political advantage. [10:50:01] COSTELLO: Is that true, Dean. Is he -- or was he

just caught by surprise, because Trump's camp said, you know, he didn't really hear the question?

OBEIDALLAH: Usually when a politician doesn't hear a question, they ask the person to repeat it if they actually care about what the person is saying. Donald Trump heard the question, at least the first part, there's no doubt about it.

Donald Trump, 66 percent of his supporters believe Obama was a Muslim. Donald Trump lacks the courage to stand up to his own supporters to say things are wrong like President Obama is not a Muslim. Or more importantly we don't have a Muslim problem like the question was actually posed. We have Muslims in this country, it's a problem.

You know, we have a problem with terrorism. It's isolated. To me, it was wrong. He should have sent the message. I have the character. I have the leadership to be president and I'm going to stand up against bigotry when it's said five feet from my face.

COSTELLO: Well, you know some people might say, you know, we're kind of connecting these two incidents and we shouldn't because Donald Trump has nothing to do at all, Anushay, with this kid in Texas.

HOSSEIN: Yes, he has nothing to do with this kid in Texas, perhaps, but he has a lot to do with fear mongering. And this is, you know, not very different than what the mayor of the town that Ahmed is from was also doing, kind of fanning the flames of Islamophobia. This is really dangerous territory that we're in.

When did being Muslim and being American become mutually exclusive? There are Muslim-Americans. There are Arab-Americans. There are black Americans. So I mean if we just imagine for one second, if this kid was blond, blue-eyed and a white kid, we would be hailing him as the new Einstein. We would be hailing him as a genius.

But because it was a young Muslim-American kid, he was handcuffed. I mean, this is -- this is outrageous. It's outrageous.

COSTELLO: I want to go back to the mayor of Irvine, Texas because you bring up a good point, Anushay. Texas backed -- the mayor of Irvine, Texas I should say backed a state law banning Sharia law in Texas. She's a hero to the birther movement. Frank Gaffney who supports Ahmed, by the way, I should say, he also supports this mayor. He sent out a series of tweets thanking the mayor for standing up against Sharia law. You see it there.

OBEIDALLAH: And she actually received an award from Frank Gaffney's group. Frank Gaffney, I invite people to go to the Southern Poverty Law Center Web site. Frank Gaffney is listed as one of the most notorious Islamaphobes in this country. And that takes a lot. We have a lot of Islamaphobes. To be the top up there -- the ADL office announces.

This is a man who said Muslims have infiltrated every form of our government. We need Joe McCarthy type hearings -- that's his words. We need McCarthy type hearings. And she appealed to that. She stoked the flames of anti-Muslim sentiment in her town saying, Muslims want to impose Sharia law. They want to destroy America. So the police simply acted in accordance with the climate that mayor has nurtured along for months to help her own political career because she has aspirations.

You'll see her no doubt run for governor or senator in Texas. And this is how you do it over there in Texas.

COSTELLO: OK. So Anushay, just to wrap this all up. It was great to see how many in America embraced this 14-year-old. That was a beautiful thing, right?

HOSSEIN: I totally agree. You know, there's so much negative in this story but I feel like the outpouring of support for Ahmed really demonstrates the best of America. President Obama tweeted out an invitation to the White House. Mark Zuckerberg invited him to Facebook. Twitter offered Ahmed an internship. Hillary Clinton, you know, very clearly stated that this is not the direction that we want the country to go to and tweeted out her support.

So I think at the end of the day, it shows that, you know, the majority of Americans really to want move forward and embrace our evolving identity.

COSTELLO: I think this kid has a bright future. I know his parents transferred him. He'll go to a new school. He won't go to that same high school. But I think that colleges across America are already aware of this 14-year-old.

Thank you both so much for being with me -- Anushay Hossein, Dean Obeidallah. Thanks as always

Get ready for some special coverage you will not want to miss. Pope Francis making history and CNN is all over it, from his Saturday arrival in Cuba to his trips to D.C. and New York and Philadelphia. CNN will bring you all the details. I'll be out and about in the crowd and you can check out some of my special reporting throughout the week.

I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:58:20] COSTELLO: Checking some top stories at 58 minutes past.

American soldier Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl who was held captive by the Taliban before he was released in a controversial prisoner swap will not testify during a preliminary hearing today -- that's according to Bergdahl's legal team. Bergdahl has been charged with misbehavior before the enemy and desertion and faces the possibility of life in prison.

The arrest of a teenager by a Stockton, California officer sparking controversy. In it, several officers are seen grabbing a 16- year-old and then throwing him to the ground. Police say the teen was arrested for trespassing and interfering with a bus lane. According to officials, the teen resisted arrest, yelled obscenities at the officer and was asked to stay on the sidewalk. The incident now under review.

A bizarre story out of Florida. It started when police went to a woman's home to assist probation officers in serving an arrest warrant. But the woman refused to be taken into custody. Instead, investigators say she lunged at officers swinging a sword, yes a sword, at a sergeants head and missing by just inches. Then when they went inside the home that's what they found -- a virtual house of horrors. 3,500 knives, swords and other blades; the home was even booby-trapped with those knives. Some of booby traps went off while the home was being searched, injuring several officers. It took five hours of negotiations, several rounds of bean bags and a stun gun before the woman was finally taken into custody. Wow.

Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm Carol Costello.

"AT THIS HOUR" with Berman and Bolduan starts now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: Donald Trump under fire again. This time not for something he said but actually for something he didn't say. Will Trump's silence hurt him?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: The political sex scandal that confused the nation. The representative who invented a hook-up with a male prostitute to cover up --