Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Woman Who Helped Inmates Escape Sentenced; Water on Mars; Trump's Tax Plan. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired September 28, 2015 - 15:00   ET

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


[15:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In according with this logic, we should support tyrants like Bashar al-Assad, who drops barrel bombs to massacre innocent children, because the alternative is surely worse.

The United States is prepared to work with any nation, including Russia and Iran, to resolve the conflict. But we must recognize that there cannot be after, after so much bloodshed, so much carnage, a return to the pre-war status quo.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: And no one knows the ins and the outs of this story better than the three correspondents sitting to my right.

I have with me Nick Paton Walsh, Phil Black, Ivan Watson. You are familiar with their work. Here's a piece.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They say the airstrike came in about four hours ago. But still they are racing frantically to pull what they say are nine people still stuck under that rubble.

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We are just on the Turkish side of the border on a hilltop surrounded by a crowd. And you should start to make out some figures on the top of that ridgeline. They are, we're pretty confident, ISIS fighters in action.

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They are protecting the helicopter. But it's terrifying the little kids. The problem is, we're flying over ISIS front lines.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: It's journalism at its best.

It's an honor to get to have you all on my set because normally we're speaking and you're all half-a-world away. Let's just begin with the fact that looking at you based in Moscow, the fact that we know that President Obama and President Putin will be meeting in two hours. We just saw the picture. I don't know if it's an example of some infinitesimal psychological warfare or not that the clinking of the glasses at this lunch.

What's to be anticipated? It's one thing to speak publicly and address the U.N. G.A. It's another to sit behind closed doors. What do you expect from this?

BLACK: Well, we're going to see more scrutiny of their body language, certainly. But what I think the U.S. president is going to be pushing for are details of intentions, goals, objectives. What is Vladimir Putin planning to do in Syria, now that we have seen this very bold, dramatic step up and really doubling down on his support for the Syrian president there?

What's he doing? We didn't learn any of that today when Vladimir Putin spoke to the U.N. G.A., no details there at all, really just a repetition of long-held grievances and repeating that policy clearly there standing by Assad. That's their man. But in what way? What do they do now? What do they do with those new forces there?

BALDWIN: It's this intelligence agreement, this accord that was signed. You have Russia, Iran, Iraq and Syria all agreeing that they will share intelligence. Of course, we have U.S. there and there's intelligence happening there as well. I have to imagine, Nick, that there's some nerves frayed on the U.S. side of things, but could Russia and the U.S. be unlikely partners for peace here?

WALSH: Highly unlikely that the Russians are going to want to see any much of the U.S. intelligence that's available or that they will actually be particularly able to cooperate.

I think the major thing here is we're looking at a very simple Cold War style of thinking from Vladimir Putin. He's back to his old KGB days. He's looking to create his own bloc, parallel, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Russia together on one side and potentially the U.S., Turkey and maybe Gulf nations floundering to get their act together on the other.

It's about the rhetoric. It's about his own domestic problems. There's been a real hit on the economy because of sanctions there. Ukraine didn't necessarily go the way he necessarily expected, so he's trying on the world stage to look good, to try and sound as important as possible to restore that sense of Soviet Union grandeur that he grew up with, that he cherishes so much.

And part of that is these lavish agreements saying Russia will work with Iran, Iraq, Syria, most of those already their allies. It's just putting Iraq in the complicated mix there of saying they will also be sharing intelligence too with Russia, as well as the United States.

But, yes, it makes an already very complicated battlefield even more complicated. We have myriad of different groups fighting each other there. We have the U.S. often pretty not successfully trying to corral Syrian moderate rebels to be something coherent in the northern to fight ISIS. BALDWIN: The few rebels who even exist. Right?

WALSH: Or five. We spoke to one of them. He right now, frankly, along with many of them up there are very worried about the dominance of al Qaeda.

There's not much hope for this moderate force that people think could possibly become the future in Northern Syria. There's a basic bit of realpolitik here where I think many see that Assad, if he fell overnight, you could see a massive catastrophe in the areas which he holds.

If we suddenly ISIS or other radical groups move in, that could be genocidal in some ways. It could be absolutely awful. Nobody wants to see that overnight. The political negotiations, people I think are concerned as to where they would actually necessarily lead. Who fighting Assad will listen to this talk?

It's been going on for months, years. No one is really expecting the radical groups there to really want to get involved and put their arms down over some piece of paper signed in Istanbul. It's simply not going to happen. I think the problem here is that U.S. policy has hit ground and it's run out of ideas. The Russians have come in and said, all right, we will try and fix this. Perhaps the U.S. is willing to let them flounder as well and say, OK, we will try. It was a mess for all of us.

[15:05:03]

BALDWIN: We talk about so much the policy is so important, but I'm also looking at you all because you're at the front lines and you're telling all these real stories of just these human lives who are all affected of what is -- all of this at play.

I was just sitting asking you earlier because I look at you and I think of you in the helicopter with the Yazidi families. We covered that story, it was last -- I can't believe it was last August, that long ago.

WATSON: 2014.

BALDWIN: And -- 2014. And here you are in that helicopter. This was when they were essentially, what, all holed up at the top of the mountainside surrounded by ISIS. It was either convert or be killed. Have you followed up with this family?

WATSON: Absolutely. Just last week, I was in Iraqi Kurdistan, Northern Iraq, and we found the family -- one of the families that we met on this helicopter.

They are living in a refugee camp now in Iraqi Kurdistan, along with tens of thousands of other people, more than a year after they had to flee their homes. They are safe now, but two of their brothers were believed to have been captured at this time. They haven't been heard from since. Their father who escaped has deteriorated mentally and physically. He

can't walk any longer. One of the brothers, a 23-year-old who was on the chopper, he went on the migrant trail to Europe. He lives in Hanover, Germany, now.

BALDWIN: He's one of the thousands of refugees you all have been covering.

WATSON: He's one of the tens of thousands who are fleeing and the Middle East and going into Germany. I asked him, do you miss your home in Iraq? He said, no way, that is finished for me. My future is here in Europe.

He wants to bring his family eventually, but these people are so traumatized still. We were talking to the teenage girls, this little girl here. She was smiling. Her name is Aziza (ph). She was smiling and she was talking to me. And then suddenly her eyes just welled up with tears in front of me. I asked what's wrong, and she said when I see you, I remember this awful year we have had.

And they are just one family out of 1.5 million people who have fled since August of 2014, homeless now with little to no hope of ever going back home. And most of the people you talk to talk now -- they say their only hope is to try to escape somehow into Europe.

It's a matter of paying the money to the smugglers to get them there and most of them don't have the money to pay those thousands of dollars to do that. It just shows how hopeless the situation is.

BALDWIN: But this is one story, one family. You meet so many of them.

In the bit of time I have remaining, what other stories? This is your time to tell me of other stories that aren't getting covered. So many others aren't getting covered. Who...

WALSH: We talk a lot about in Lebanon the scale of the refugee problem they have there.

There are 1.2 million Syrians living in Lebanon now. That's made the population, one in four of the people you met are going to be a Syrian refugee. You can barely get reliable water, electricity. They are living in abandoned building sites. There's a flow of that are trying to leave the country. There those who don't have the money to even think about the trip to Europe, expensive, perilous as it is.

And that's going to have a long-term permanent impact on this already very volatile region which the U.S. depends on so many things for stability. The problem is who rebuilds afterwards. Those amazing pictures Ivan filmed a year ago, these are people who will never come back and will never recover from that trauma and are stuck potentially looking for lives outside.

But the whole idea of when this peace finally comes in and if it ever manages to happen, what generation is left, who have the skills, where's the middle class who can be the dentists, the architects to get normal life going again in these shattered societies? That's the problem really that the whole region faces. And this war has go on so long, no one is really going to come back.

BALDWIN: Please keep telling the stories. Thank you all so much for being with me here today, Nick and Phil and Ivan. Thank you all very much, our international correspondents here at CNN. Thank you.

Just blocks away from the United Nations headquarters is the iconic Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Many world leaders, including President Obama, have stayed there overnight, but new ownership may be prompting some security concerns. In fact, the president has decided not to stay there anymore.

Here's CNN's Richard Roth with more on the heightened security there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NARRATOR: New York's Waldorf Astoria houses the history-making parlays of the big four foreign ministers.

RICHARD ROTH, CNN SENIOR U.N. CORRESPONDENT: The Waldorf Astoria Hotel, a New York institution for eight decades. U.S. presidents have stayed the night here when they come to town, but no more.

For President Obama, it's time to move out of the Waldorf. The fear, security concerns. China now has business interests that own the Waldorf Astoria. You know what happens when someone takes over a hotel. There are renovations. White House officials are very worried that a lot of that renovation work, well, that could lead to spying, bugging.

In the movies, which always seems to highlight security bugging, James Bond had to deal with a threat from Russia.

[15:10:03]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of the things would be the phone. OK? Not only checking this phone for a device that's bugging your call, also whether or not inside here there's another device.

ROTH: In your decades of police and detective work, how common was bugging in hotel rooms?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very common. Wherever somebody knows you're going to be and they want to find out your secret, somebody can go in there and place a bug in there.

ROTH: There are thousands of hotels in Manhattan and elsewhere for a U.S. president to stay. So, where should he or she in the future?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He should do Airbnb.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Dream Hotel?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In the meat Pack industry.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's welcome to come and stay with me in my house in Queens.

ROTH: One presidential candidate won't have to face the where to stay in Manhattan issue. He already lives here. Plus, his name is on the building.

The president stayed at the Millennium Hotel across the street from the U.N. and here at the New York Palace. A permanent home for White House visitors is unknown. The management of this West Side hotel claims many U.S. presidents have stayed here from Clinton to Garfield. They were guests who signed in under those names to provide anonymity.

I would like a room.

Well, it's definitely cozy. There's something on the wall and on the pillow that would be a little different than the average hotel room. Of course, in diplomacy, loose lips is not something you want to be known for.

The Liberty Inn could be a solution when world leaders have such a problem finding rooms in a hurry to meet face to face. Here, the rooms go by the hour.

The Waldorf Astoria won't comment specifically on President Obama's departure, but did say in effect the welcome mat is always open for an opportunity to return.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Richard Roth, thank you.

Next, Donald Trump gets specific,the billionaire releasing his highly anticipated tax plan. He says it's going to make the wealthy very angry. Will it and how feasible is that plan?

Plus, the woman who helped those two inmates escape in one of America's most daring prison escapes, remember her? Of course you do. She learns her fate today and heard some emotional final words before the judge's sentence. We will play that for you.

And breaking news today in the world of space. There's now proof there's flowing water on Mars. This is huge. What this means -- coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:16:25]

BALDWIN: Thanks for being with me today. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

You're watching CNN. A new poll has Donald Trump barely holding on to his lead to become the nominee for president. Now the question is this. Will his new tax plan he just unveiled today draw fire or more fans to his campaign?

Today, the candidate known for avoiding specifics got plenty detailed on a topic he proudly admits is in his wheelhouse. He says his plan will make taxes lower and simpler for everyone. He says 75 million low-income households will pay no income tax, adding this online: "They get a new one-page form to send the IRS saying, I win."

And higher-income Americans, they also get a big tax break as well, but Donald Trump told reporters one of the ways he's paying for this overall tax reduction is by closing loopholes and eliminating deductions that the healthy love so much.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is actually a tax reduction, a big tax reduction, including for the upper income. I believe that the economy will do so well that even though they won't be getting certain deductions, which aren't fair for them to be getting, that they will end up doing better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: I have CNN global economic analyst Rana Foroohar and CNN politics reporter M.J. Lee with me now.

So, just the facts first up, M.J. Explain the plan for folks all along the financial spectrum.

M.J. LEE, CNN POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Trump's tax plan would make a lot of people happy.

We're talking about deep income tax rate cuts for people across the board, whether it's poor people or people that make a lot of money, including someone like Trump, who clearly falls in the upper-income bracket. Just to put this in perspective, if his plan were to be enacted, more than 50 percent of households in America would pay no income taxes.

BALDWIN: None?

LEE: That's pretty dramatic. So, if I were making $25,000 a year or if my spouse and I were together making $50,000 a year, we would pay nothing in income taxes.

I think the big question is how he would actually make up for the cuts that are made, the deep, deep cuts that are made in his plan. Theoretically, there are several ways to do this. Right? The cuts could be outset by investments that get boosted because people have more money to spend. There are deductions for the rich that would create more revenue.

Trump says that he would have incentives for companies to bring back money that is currently overseas to the country, which would help, but I do think that is what critics are going to want to know. How is he going to pay for this?

RANA FOROOHAR, CNN ANALYST: I'll take that point and say...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: There you go.

FOROOHAR: I think it is going to be very popular with a lot of people, but I don't think this tax plan is going to create more revenue or more economic growth.

And I'll tell you why. One of the key things here is this tax repatriation issue, this idea that American companies have a lot of cash that they are holding in overseas bank accounts. Hey, if they could just bring it home, they will put it to work retraining workers and making factories.

But we have done this before. We did it in 2004. The money did not go to creating jobs, building factories, R&D. It went to share buybacks and dividend payments. What this kind of plan will do is bolster the markets, but it not create underlying growth in the real economy.

BALDWIN: It may make me or someone happy initially, but it won't create the jobs and the growth.

(CROSSTALK)

FOROOHAR: I think so.

He's also focusing on the fact that by cutting taxes to the tune that you're talking about, it puts more money in people's pockets, and that's true in the short term. And certainly low-income Americans have been incredibly hit over the last few years. But longer term, that's not what creates growth and it doesn't change the underlying vectors that keep American jobs going overseas or keep innovation stalled out.

[15:20:00]

BALDWIN: OK. Let's put this in perspective, because other candidates have put forth -- other candidates in general have put forth their tax plans.

What about a Marco Rubio, a Jeb Bush? How does his compare?

LEE: Right.

Broadly speaking, Trump's plan is actually sort of a typical Republican plan. If you're looking at someone like Jeb Bush's plan or Marco Rubio's plan, they too want tax cuts, broadly speaking. They are talking about simplifying the tax code. They are talking about making all of that up by closing loopholes and getting rid of deductions.

But there are some differences. For example, if we compare Trump's tax plan to Bush's and Rubio's, one would reduce the tax bracket, Trump's, to four. For the other two, it would be three and two. Something else that Trump's plan has in common with the others is that he wants to lower the corporate tax rate, another idea that's pretty popular among conservatives. But the difference is just by how much. Trump's would lower to 15

percent, Bush 20 percent, Rubio 25 percent. So, all in all, these are some deep tax cuts that we're talking about coming from Trump and that Trump is proposing. Again, it goes to the question of, how do we make that up?

BALDWIN: Right.

FOROOHAR: I think the thing that's kind of amazing frankly politically about this is he's managed to be most populist and plutocratic at the same time. This is a guy who...

(CROSSTALK)

FOROOHAR: Exactly.

And this is what it speaks to, that he's saying, yes, let's cut the corporate tax rate. And a lot of people would like to see that cut across the board. Let's cut the carried interest deduction for hedge funders. A lot of people would like to see that cut across the board. Certainly, people like Elizabeth Warren on the left would like to see that cut.

But at the end of the day, this is not something that hedge funders are going to be crying over. Nobody who is rich is going to really complain that much, I don't think, about this plan.

BALDWIN: OK. All right. Rana and M.J., thank you so much on the tax plan for Donald Trump.

About two weeks from now, just a quick reminder to all of you, and I will continue to remind you, CNN and Facebook will be the hosting the very first Democratic candidates debate. That is Tuesday, October 13, in Las Vegas.

Coming up next, Joyce Mitchell breaks down. Remember her? The former prison employee who helped the two convicted killers escape that maximum security prison in Upstate New York, well, she pleaded for mercy from the judge this morning -- details on her sentencing ahead.

Also, all eyes on NASA, as scientists today announce there may be flowing water on Mars -- what it means for possible life currently on the Red Planet. Stay here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:27:42]

BALDWIN: Joyce Mitchell, my goodness, we used to talk about her a lot, that former prison employee who helped those convicted killers, those inmates escape in that maximum security prison in Upstate New York, she's going to jail herself now.

The 51-year-old tailor shop worker was sentenced today. She received the maximum penalty allowed, up to seven years in prison, for her role in the June escape of Richard Matt and David Sweat. The prison break set off a three-day manhunt, three-day manhunt -- how may days was it?

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Three weeks.

BALDWIN: Three weeks -- thank you, three weeks -- manhunt and cost the state millions of dollars in manpower. Mitchell cried through her sentencing this morning. She pleaded with the judge to show mercy and let her stay home under house arrest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOYCE MITCHELL, DEFENDANT: I live with regret every day and will for the rest of my life. I'm sorry.

I have never been so disappointed in -- in myself. And I not only let myself down, but my family. My husband and my children are my life and my world.

I'm not a bad person. I clearly made a horrible mistake. I realize I need to be responsible for my actions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Alexandra Field, she was up in Upstate New York for those three weeks covering this.

And just seeing Joyce Mitchell this morning, was she able to get anything -- it was just a lot of tears.

FIELD: We have seen her in court once before and she was pretty weepy the last time.

This time was the same thing. You came in, you could see those pieces of paper in her hands, those handwritten notes, and she spoke for quite a long time. She sobbed a lot, stopped, wept, wiped her eyes, expressed her remorse, and then made this plea at the end to the judge to just give her an ankle bracelet basically and let her go home, saying she was sorry and she regretted it and it was the biggest mistake of her life.

The judge did not buy that. He told her really in no uncertain terms. He said to her point blank, you did terrible things and then he sentenced her to the maximum penalty allowed, which is two-and-one- third years behind bars, up to seven years behind bars. Here are some of the sort of choice words that he had for her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN RYAN, CLINTON COUNTY JUDGE: But staggering as the economic cost to New York State may be, the economic and noneconomic cost suffered by so many people is incalculable. A large portion of the local population were terrorized. Many were forced to flee their homes. Some did not have places to go.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FIELD: You can see that agony on her face as she listens to the judge.

And, Brooke, you heard the judge say that the costs were incalculable, but he did actually lay out some of the costs.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Can we talk about some of the costs? I didn't even realize it.

FIELD: I think that people are still sort of trying to process, because we watched this thing unfold and you saw just this huge swarm of manpower that was across not only Upstate New York, but really looking sort of across the country for than three weeks.

BALDWIN: And $23 million in overtime.

FIELD: In overtime alone for the people who were actively involved in the manhunt.

BALDWIN: Wow.

FIELD: And we know that these aren't even the beginning of the costs really.

The judge went on to say that there are millions of dollars more that the state had to spend, because, remember, you have got this huge investigation going on now being carried out by the inspector general's office, a lot of costs associated with that.

BALDWIN: Will she pay any teeny-tiny sliver of that, do you think?

FIELD: So, this was the wrinkle that came up in court today.

This whole thing was agreed upon. This was a plea deal. She pleaded guilty to two charges back in July.