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Three U.S. Contractors Missing in Iraq; Democratic Presidential Debate; New Polls Out for Democratic Race; Three Freed Americans Land in Germany; Trump Honored by Criticism from Both Sides; Ted Cruz Pounded on Citizenship Issue; Jason Rezaian Freed. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired January 17, 2016 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[18:59:54] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, everyone. 7:00 in Charleston, South Carolina tonight where in just two hours the Democrats face off in their final debate before the key race in Iowa and New Hampshire. We will have a live report on that in just a moment.
But first we do begin this hour with breaking news. Three American contractors have gone missing in Iraq. An Iraqi security official tells CNN they were taken by gunmen on Friday. They were driven off in a convoy. We also now know two of them are dual Iraqi-American citizens; the third is an American national.
Our senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh spoke with us about this a little bit earlier. Here's what we know.
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NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Initial reports suggest some of them may hold dual nationality so the American and perhaps Iraqi as well. They are said to be contractors. Now, that's minimal information. That, of course, could mean a variety of potential tasks -- anything from security to assisting communications logistics could be the kind of thing they're involved in.
Now they it seems went missing and there's been reports suggesting this could have been a detention or a kidnap in a southern neighborhood of Baghdad. The State Department has said they're working with Iraqi officials as much as they can to try and ensure the safety and security and they're working with full cooperation of Iraqi authorities to take and recover those individuals. That's according to State Department spokesman John Kirby.
Now, we don't know who might be behind this detention or quite the nature of how they've gone missing from Iraqi officials. The area in Baghdad in which it would have occurred would most likely -- and some of your reports that are coming in suggest that perhaps militia in Baghdad could be responsible rather than this being something that, perhaps, ISIS or more extremist militias from the outside of the capital could be involved.
(END VIDEO CLIP) HARLOW: All right, Nick Paton Walsh for us on that. Of course, this is developing. We will bring you the latest on those three Americans as soon as we have it.
To politics now: it is the last meeting before the caucuses -- the Democratic debate tonight in South Carolina. Everyone is waiting to see it and the gloves are probably going to come off.
Hillary Clinton is going in the underdog in Iowa and New Hampshire compared to Bernie Sanders. She is still leading by a very wide margin nationally, though. A brand new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows her ahead of Bernie Sanders by 25 points. Martin O'Malley's campaign, meanwhile, only has enough cash they say to get him through Iowa so if he has any tricks up his sleeve tonight, well, tonight is the tonight.
CNN political reporter Eric Bradner joins me now from Charleston, South Carolina. What a night it's going to be. But I got to get to some breaking news with you right away. This has been something people have been waiting for and waiting for -- Bernie Sanders' health care plan. A lot of experts say it will cost $15 trillion. He just released the details. What do we know?
ERIC BRADNER, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes, two hours before the debate, Bernie Sanders has dropped this "Medicare for all" plan that we've all been waiting for. Now, he is arguing that this would save Americans a lot of money. He's arguing that for employers, businesses, it would cut costs by about three quarters. And for the average American family, they'd be paying less than $500 per year.
So the details are, you know, he would levy a new tax, a new income tax on all Americans -- 2.2 percent. That's how he would pay for it.
Now, the Sanders campaign is arguing that's a lot less than Americans pay in premiums, so it's a savings, not a new tax. He would also impose a new 6.2 percent tax on employers and he would raise state and income taxes on the wealthiest Americans.
HARLOW: Eric, here's the --
BRADNER: So those are the details that we have now.
HARLOW: No, I mean that's great details -- it's very important to know because here's the thing, Bernie Sanders has previously said that he wasn't going to raise taxes on the middle class on anything other than to pay for his basically family paid leave proposal.
BRADNER: Right, right, exactly.
HARLOW: So this is a big change from that.
BRADNER: It is. The Clinton campaign is arguing already that he has flip-flopped. That this is a reversal -- that he promised not to raise taxes and now here he is doing it. In the debate tonight, you can expect to hear Sanders use the word "premiums" to describe --
HARLOW: Right.
BRADNER: -- as it public premiums to replace private premiums, one payment to replace another payment.
Now, obviously, this is an income tax. That's how he's going to do it. The mechanism he's going to use. So Hillary Clinton has already been warming up. Now she's ready to really take this swing. So this is an issue that's definitely going to dominate the night tonight.
HARLOW: Yes, no question. The way, so our viewers know, that Hillary Clinton's camp has been framing this, to be fair, before this whole plan that I just got in my hands came out, they've been saying that this would be essentially a 9 percent tax increase on America's middle class. When you add your numbers -- 6.2 percent tax increase on employers, 2.2 percent tax increase on income -- all of our income tax and raising the state tax, they're likely adding those up and getting 9 percent, right?
[19:05:01] BRADNER: Right, right. Yes, I mean this is, you know, Bernie Sanders has been advocating a bigger role for the government in American life throughout this entire campaign, and Hillary Clinton has been pressing and pressing for specifics. What would that mean? How would you pay for it?
And this is Sanders' first real foray into offering that kind of detail and it comes so close to the debate that a lot of people won't have time to really parse this and see what it means. And so with Clinton sort of making that argument, a 9 percent tax on the average American, that's what Americans will be hearing for the first time tonight when this is discussed during the debate.
HARLOW: Right. Right. You know what, though, they're going to get to debate it. They have two hours on stage together.
Before I let you go, I do want to ask you about guns because this debate is being held just blocks from that church in South Carolina where that horrific shooting took place last year.
BRADNER: Right.
HARLOW: And you've got Clinton going after Sanders hard on gun control pointing out that he voted against the Brady Bill in '93, that he voted in 2005 to restrict liability for gun manufacturers in mass shootings. How big is the gun debate going to be on stage tonight?
BRADNER: The gun debate will be huge. Perhaps second to health care. It might even eclipse health care. So expect Hillary Clinton to refer to the Charleston loophole. She's criticizing a years'-old vote that Bernie Sanders took back when the Brady Bill was being debated that allowed for a shorter window for the FBI to perform background checks and Clinton has argued that the Charleston shooter never would have been able to get the weapons he used had Sanders not cast that vote, had the Brady Bill not had its sort of timeframe for the background checks shortened.
So given the location, we're just around the corner from the Emmanuel AME Church, and given the prevalence of guns in this Democratic primary, you can expect that to be one issue where Clinton is really ready to take some swings and Sanders is trying to sort of soften the blow. He's endorsed a bill that would sort of backtrack from some of the things that Hillary Clinton has hit him on before, but the Charleston loophole will be the new element tonight. That's the one that he hasn't really had to be on the defense about yet.
HARLOW: Right.
BRADNER: He'll definitely have to talk about that tonight.
HARLOW: Absolutely, especially being there in Charleston. Thank you very much, Eric Bradner -- I appreciate it.
Well, many recent polls show Senator Sanders surging in two key states. According to the Des Moines -- a very recent Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll Sanders trails Clinton by only two points in Iowa. That's well within the margin of error. It's also a fraction of the lead that Clinton held over him there in December.
Let's look at New Hampshire now. Clinton is trailing Sanders by 14 points in New Hampshire. That's according to the latest Monmouth University poll.
I want to talk about all of this and a lot more. The polling is an issue, obviously. You heard Jennifer Granholm from the Clinton camp telling me last hour that New Hampshire's going to be a battle but they are feeling good about Iowa.
What is going to happen when all of this comes to play between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton? Again, that national poll coming out this morning from NBC and the "Wall Street Journal" shows a 25-point lead for Clinton over Sanders. But when you look at those state-by- state polls that are so important right now, you've got just a small gap between the two.
Something else that's very interesting: since 1972, only one candidate has lost both Iowa and New Hampshire and still gone on to win the presidency. That candidate, Bill Clinton but in that case, two different candidates were the winners in Iowa and New Hampshire.
So let me bring in from the debate site now, Karen Finney. She is senior adviser and a senior spokeswoman for the Clinton campaign. Thank you for being with me.
KAREN FINNEY, CLINTON CAMPAIGN SENIOR SPOKESPERSON: Great to be with you, Poppy.
HARLOW: I was just going through for our viewers the fact that since 1972, only one candidate has lost both Iowa and New Hampshire, gone on to win it all, that's Bill Clinton. But you had two different candidates winning those states. If you have Bernie Sanders take Iowa, take New Hampshire, can Hillary Clinton still take it all?
FINNEY: Absolutely. Remember, Iowa and New Hampshire while they're very important they represent a portion of the total delegates needed to secure the nomination.
So -- and I firmly believe that regardless of what happens in Iowa and New Hampshire, we have a very strong team here in South Carolina. We're about to have the debate. We have a strong team in Nevada - and we are ready to compete in those March states. So, you know, we started this campaign knowing we were not going to take anything, anyone, any voter for granted and we have built a real grassroots operation and so we are ready to go.
[19:10:01] HARLOW: Let's talk about this Bernie Sanders health care plan. It just came out. Obviously, I haven't read through the whole thing yet because it literally just came off the printer.
Here's what our Eric Bradner just reported though. It is a 2.2 percent tax on people's income. It is a 6.2 percent tax on the employer. Raises the state taxes, however, he says it will cost American families about $500 a year, much less than most of us pay in to our insurance premiums.
FINNEY: Right.
HARLOW: You guys have said it's a 9 percent tax on the middle class. His camp says that's totally wrong. How are you going to attack that tonight on stage?
FINNEY: Well, look, I think we need to learn more of the details and check the math on that because I know they disagreed with the 9 percent, but the data was there for the bill that Senator Sanders had introduced time and time again.
You know, one thing I will say is I guess I'm glad to see that they decided to, you know -- clearly they felt the pressure and decided to go ahead and release a plan tonight because remember, we started the week, they were going to release the plan, then they weren't going to release a plan. And clearly they felt the heat and felt the pressure in the need to put out a plan and to say how they're going to pay for it before voting actually starts on February 1st.
HARLOW: But what do you think resonates more with voters? When you're two weeks away from Iowa and you guys are deciding strategy, do you go after him more on the health care plan? Which, frankly, when you're talking about this tax versus that tax and it's not a tax, it can get lost in the weeds.
FINNEY: Yes.
HARLOW: Or do you really hone in on your charges against Sanders when it comes to his gun policy votes in the past?
FINNEY: Well, look, I mean here's the thing we have to remember, right. We are at the point where it is about drawing the contrast. There are some real differences between where Secretary Clinton is and where Senator Sanders is.
You mentioned, for example, gun safety. I mean you know, Hillary Clinton has made it clear she will stand up to the NRA. This is a very important issue.
And I have to tell you, you know, we're here in Charleston, South Carolina, just blocks away from Mother Emmanuel Church where that horrific massacre happened and I was sad to see that it was surprising, actually, that while Senator Sanders had a flip-flop yesterday with regard to gun manufacturers' liability, he wasn't able today to say that he would support closing that Charleston loophole.
So, again, we think that's an important issue for people to know exactly where he stands. When you talk about health care, again, we'll have to go through the details and check the math, but there, again, there are some real differences.
Hillary Clinton wants to, she's made it very clear, build on the Affordable Care Act, and Bernie Sanders has said, no, I want to start over again and now he's put out a plan to say this is how I'd get there.
But, again, I think people want to understand what does that mean for me, what does that mean for my family, what does that mean for my life?
HARLOW: And to be clear here on guns, he has said he would revisit that 2005 vote when it comes to gun maker liability and mass shootings.
FINNEY: Right.
HARLOW: You're referring to the 1993 Brady Bill vote on FBI background check length.
One more question on the important demographics here for the candidates. You know, when you look at --
FINNEY: You got it.
HARLOW: -- the Monmouth University poll, what it shows us is that Bernie Sanders is leading by more than 20 percent with voters under 50 in New Hampshire. How do you battle that? The energized young voter and the female voters there in New Hampshire who are supporting Sanders more than Clinton?
FINNEY: Well, you know, as you know, I mean there have been a number of polls out this week -- they go up, they go down. They are a snapshot in time. The most important thing for our campaign is that we stay focused and that we continue to do the work every day of making sure that people know why Hillary Clinton is the best person to lead our country beginning in 2017 -- really what's at stake in this election. I mean so many of the issues that are critically important to people when you think about what the Republicans would do to strip away the progress that we've made. That's what we're going to continue to do.
And I'll tell you the other thing that we have done that I think is critically important is we have built a really strong grass roots operation in the states. We've got thousands of volunteers who have been knocking on doors and making phone calls. So, you know, we feel good about that. We're going to continue to do the hard work. Hillary's going to continue to do the hard work. And then we shall see, you know, what happens when voting begins on February 1st.
HARLOW: Absolutely. Two weeks away. We will be there -- CNN in full force in Iowa. You better believe that.
Karen Finney -- thank you so much.
Don't miss our post-debate special tonight. Our Wolf Blitzer, our best political team on television debate who won, who lost and whether tonight changes the race. That is 11:00 p.m. Eastern only right here on CNN.
Ahead in the NEWSROOM: coming home -- a plane carrying three of the four Americans freed from Iran has landed in Germany. What this swap means for the delicate relationship between Tehran and the White House.
[19:14:58] Also, is he or isn't he -- the debate over whether Ted Cruz is eligible to be president is heating up. I will speak with a constitutional law professor who says Donald Trump is right on this.
And later, a must-see interview: why soccer legend Abby Wambach is fighting to close the pay gap for women in sports and across the board.
Stay with me.
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HARLOW: Three Americans who endured years in a notoriously harsh Iranian prison are one step closer to coming home. President Obama called the families of the Americans released just a short time ago. A plane carrying "Washington Post" reporter Jason Rezaian, and Marine veteran Amir Hekmati and Christian pastor Saeed Abedini landed at a U.S. air base in Germany. Abedini's wife Nagmay, tweeted about her talk with the Commander-in-Chief. "Just had a wonderful call with Barack Obama, POTUS. Our family is so thankful for all the hard work and support in bringing Saeed home."
CNN's senior Washington correspondent Joe Johns has more tonight from the White House.
JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Poppy, the hope here is that the actions today have ushered in a new era of cooperation between the United States and Iran -- the President laying some of this out in his remarks at the White House today. The thing the President emphasized more than anything is about the certification by the IAEA that prevented Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and how American engagement with Iran led to that success. It also means there's an added benefit -- the President said the United States and Iran now engaging actually helped release the Americans today. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Today we're united in welcoming home sons and husbands and brothers who in lonely prison cells have endured an absolute nightmare. But they never gave in and they never gave up. At long last, they can stand tall and breathe deep the fresh air of freedom.
As a nation, we face real challenges around the world and here at home. Many of them will not be resolved quickly or easily, but today's progress, Americans coming home, an Iran that has rolled back its nuclear program and accepted unprecedented monitoring of that program. These things are a reminder of what we can achieve when we lead with strength and with wisdom.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[19:20:00] JOHNS: In exchange for the release of the Americans the United States granted clemency for six Iranian-Americans and one Iranian all serving sentences or awaiting trial.
But perhaps the most controversial part of the deal is the lifting of sanctions, a settlement to unfreeze billions of Iranian dollars, which have been held in the United States and other countries since the 1980s. Many other issues have yet to be resolved including human rights issues and nuclear inspectors will be watching closely to see how Iran complies with this agreement -- Poppy.
HARLOW: Joe, thank you very much tonight at the White House.
Political infighting has the GOP turning on itself. Some say the party establishment frustrated at times by their frontrunner, yet he says their displeasure is his great honor. We will dig into the battle for the GOP nomination next.
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HARLOW: To politics and the GOP. Is the GOP ready to split for good? Republican Governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley used part of her State of the Union response to slam Donald Trump, the party's frontrunner. Here's what Trump said in response this morning on "STATE OF THE UNION".
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: I have never before seen, and I don't think it's ever happened, that there's been a state of the union address in which a candidate, you, was implicitly criticized and then a response from the other party in which the same candidate, you, was implicitly criticized. It really was historic. What was it like to watch?
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: My great honor. It was my great honor because I'm angry, and they both said I was angry. And I get along very well with Nikki. You know, Nikki said we're friends, and we are friends. I supported her. But I am angry.
And when she said there's an anger that we shouldn't have, I said, well, I disagree with one thing, there's an anger that we should have. Our country is going to hell.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Mark Preston, executive editor of CNN politics back with me. So Mark -- some would argue, with friends like these, who needs Democrats anyway?
MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Right. Well, listen, Donald Trump is absolutely right in the fact that he is angry and he has tapped into an electorate right now that's very frustrated not only with Washington but with the establishment politics that are running Washington -- whether it's the Democrats or the Republicans.
[19:25:04] Poppy -- I was in New Hampshire last week and I have to tell you not only did I see disdain on people's faces but despair. People that are still frustrated, they look at the economy that we continue to tell them is getting better but it's not getting better for them.
Donald Trump -- no matter what he says that might anger other people, might anger the Republican establishment, is certainly resonating outside of Washington and in fact, we're also seeing that on the Democratic side Bernie Sanders is also tapping into that same type of anger and that's why he's doing so well against Hillary Clinton.
HARLOW: Yes, but when you look at the division within the party, I mean you argue, Mark, it's not broken, it's just deeply fractured, you got to get unity before November. How do we go from here to unity?
PRESTON: Right. So right now if you are within the Republican Party, if you're party establishment, you look at Donald Trump and not only are you looking at the White House, Poppy, you're looking to see what happens to Congress, what happens to control the United States senate? How many seats can Republicans hold onto in the House of Representatives?
A lot of Republicans are afraid that Donald Trump is so divisive that he could hurt down-ballot races and specifically the United States Senate and Republicans could lose the U.S. Senate.
Having said that as well, they also don't like the fact that Donald Trump refuses to fall in line behind them and, in fact, runs against Washington harder than we've ever seen anyone before except for perhaps Pat Buchanan.
So can the Republican Party pull it together? I think you will see them come together but to your point about being fractured, they are fractured. And they've been fractured for a while between those who believe in social conservative views, those who are economic conservatives and quite frankly there's a whole moderate wing, centrist wing that doesn't believe that social conservatives should be running the party. So they have a lot of work to do.
HARLOW: Let me ask you about those social conservatives. I mean do you believe those are votes if this fracture remains, Mark, that could actually go to whomever the Democratic nominee is especially among young Republican voters who this pew study showed are much more liberal when it comes to their stance on immigration, on corporate profits, on the environment, on climate change? Could they swing over?
PRESTON: Well, no. So if you're a social conservative, the biggest fear right now in the Republican Party, Poppy, is they will not show up in November, that they've decided that the Republican Party has abandoned them and they're going to sit this election out. Whether that's going to happen, who knows, but what could happen is if we do see some of those voters sit out, will they sit out and perhaps not vote in a very crucial senate race that Republicans need in a key state? So that is of concern.
For Republicans, though, who are looking for a party long term, as you said when you look at the polls, young Republicans don't tend to be as staunch on issues such as abortion or same-sex marriage. And folks who want to see the Republican Party be a bigger tent are afraid of alienating these younger voters.
So the Republican Party are fighting, you know, the war on two fronts as far as how are they going to move forward certainly past this election and the elections to come forward.
HARLOW: It's a hard fight on both fronts. Mark Preston -- thank you very much.
Coming up next, a Texas attorney is not only questioning Ted Cruz's eligibility to serve as president, he is taking his fight to federal court. It's the issue that has become a central theme to Donald Trump's recent attacks on Cruz. You will hear from a constitutional lawyer who argues Donald Trump is right about this one. Next.
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HARLOW: A Texas attorney is not only questioning Ted Cruz's eligibility to serve as president, he is taking his fight to court. His lawsuit is based on the theory embraced by Donald Trump that Cruz may not be a natural-born citizen of the United States since he was born in Canada. It's an issue that came up quite a bit at Thursday's Republican debate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Back in September, my friend, Donald, said that he had had his lawyers look at this from every which way. There was no issue there. There was nothing to this birther issue. Now, since September, the Constitution hasn't changed. But the poll numbers have.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: here's a big question mark on your head. And you can't do that to the party. You really can't. You can't do that to the party.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Here's the thing. While the constitution provides that, "no person except a natural-born citizen shall be eligible for the office of president," some constitutional scholars are split on what, "natural born," means. Let's get in the weeds here. Joining me now to talk about it, Mary Bridgid McManamon, a law
professor at Delaware Law School. Thank you for being with me.
MARY BRIDGID MCMANAMON, PROFESSOR, DELAWARE LAW SCHOOL: My pleasure.
HARLOW: You wrote an op-ped, it got a whole lot of attention this week, an op-ped in the "Washington Post." You said Donald Trump is actually right about this but you also say I'm not a birther, but Donald Trump is right. Explain.
MCMANAMON: Well, the constitution uses the term, or the phrase, natural-born citizen, as you said, and that comes from the common law. The Supreme Court has repeatedly said if you have a common-law term in the Constitution, you have to look at the common law. When you go back and read the old common law, it's very clear that a natural-born citizen is someone born in the territory of the sovereign. Here the United States.
HARLOW: OK. I spoke to Adam Winkler who is a constitutional law professor as well. He's at UCLA, he disagrees with you. His argument is you're a natural-born citizen if you're a citizen at birth, right? Here's what we know about Ted Cruz. Yes, he was born in Canada. His mother an American citizen. Let's play what Adam said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ADAM WINKLER, PROFESSOR, UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW: I think there's no doubt that he is eligible to be president. The constitution says you have to be a natural-born citizen. But the constitution doesn't define that terminology and we don't know exactly what the framers meant.
HARLOW: And no Supreme Court case since has?
WINKLER: None that really made it crystal clear. So the prevailing view is you're a natural-born citizen if you're a citizen at birth as compared to a naturalized citizen, someone who becomes a citizen through a process after they're born. And we know from the Constitution that you're automatically a citizen if you're born in the United States no matter where your parents are from.
But under federal statutes they also say you're a natural-born citizen if both your parents are citizens and you're born abroad or you're born abroad and one of your parents is a citizen who has lived in the United States for a significant number of years.
HARLOW: Right.
WINKLER: In Ted Cruz's case, his mother was born in the United States. She's a citizen of the United States and she lived almost all of her life in the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Why do you say he's wrong, Mary Brigid? MCMANAMON: He's incorrect in his definition of natural-born citizen.
The Constitution does not say that someone born abroad to American parents is natural born. That comes from statutory law. The only power that Congress has is the power under Article 1 to naturalize. When Congress enacts a statute involving citizenship of someone, that is a naturalization statute. The Congress does not have the power to effect the status of natural born.
[19:35:00]
HARLOW: So do you think that this needs to go all the way up to the Supreme Court? Obviously a case would have to be brought up and the justices would have to agree to hear it. Is that what we're going to need to hash this all out?
MCMANAMON: Assuming Ted Cruz makes it to the nomination --
HARLOW: Well, just in general. It sounds like we need a better definition of natural born.
MCMANAMON: Well, I would argue that we have a clear definition of natural born. With regard to litigation that Houston case isn't going to go anywhere because the voter doesn't have standing, but one of the candidates might raise it and then, you know, it could go as far as the Supreme Court.
HARLOW: Yes, or the state's attorney general when it comes to who to put on the ballot.
MCMANAMON: Absolutely.
HARLOW: Go ahead.
MCMANAMON: I was just going to say, absolutely, Senator Cruz would - definitely have standing to challenge that.
HARLOW: All right. One more question for you because there was this other argument that came up during the debate that struck a lot of us. Cruz brought it up and it confused some folks. Let's roll it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CRUZ: at the end of the day the legal issue is quite straightforward but I would note that the birther theories that Donald has been relying on, some of the more extreme ones insist that you must not only be born on U.S. soil, but have two parents born on U.S. soil. Under that theory, not only would I be disqualified, Marco Rubio would be disqualified, Bobby Jindal would be disqualified and interestingly enough, Donald J. Trump would be disqualified.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: What is he talking about?
MCMANAMON: You'll notice that he introduces that by saying, some of the more extreme birther ideas. He's absolutely right. Those are fringe ideas that have no basis in law. The -- they're taking from the 14th amendment the fact that you have to be born in the United States and under the jurisdiction thereof. They're saying, a-ha, a- ha, if you have a foreign parent you're not under the jurisdiction. That language only refers to diplomats. You've heard about diplomatic immunity, right?
That means that the diplomat is not under our jurisdiction, therefore there's an exception the ambassador from France, from Japan, if she or she had a child while here that child would be French or Japanese. The birthers have taken that and completely misunderstood it.
HARLOW: It's a fascinating read. I point people to your article in the "Washington Post" this week. Mary Brigid McManamon, thank you for joining me.
MCMANAMON: Thank you.
HARLOW: Coming up next a soccer legend fights for an even playing field.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABBY WAMBACH: I think where I'm geared toward now is just real true equality and the conversation around it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Six months after her World Cup win, Abby Wambach has a big new goal, equal pay for us ladies. My conversation with her after a quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:40:48]
HARLOW: She is a lend in the world of soccer. Abby Wambach retired last year retired after scoring more goals than any player in the history of the sport, man or woman. But she was also scoring far less in salary than the male stars who are making millions and millions more.
Now Wambach is fighting to close the gap for women in sports and across the board. I sat down with her this week for an eye-opening discussion.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARLOW (on camera): You're a legend and you have said that ending your soccer career has actually allowed you to discover more of who you are. What did you find?
WAMBACH: When I retired, I've been able to kind of shed my soccer skin, so to speak, and open and take these blinders off and, like, I'm able to do things I never was able to do before.
HARLOW: You've said that you were in search of something. WAMBACH: Yes.
HARLOW: What's your mission now?
WAMBACH: I think that where I'm geared toward now is just real, true equality and the conversation around it.
HARLOW: Equality for who?
WAMBACH: For everyone. You know, it's not just a gender woman versus men. This is also a race issue. This is also a religious belief.
HARLOW: When did you realize, first, that you weren't getting it? As a female athlete star, that you were not getting equality?
WAMBACH: I think that I probably always knew that I wasn't getting it and I was always fighting for something and clawing, but when I retired I kind of realized, whoa, I've been getting mistreated on some level, and it's this deep-seeded innate thing that we all kind of agree and believe in and accept. I was allowing myself to be treated that way.
HARLOW: You mean being paid less?
WAMBACH: Yes, being paid less, being given less opportunity.
HARLOW: When you and the women team won the world cup, you guys got a nice chunk of change, $2 million. But when you compare that to the $35 million the male champions got in the World Cup the year before -
WAMBACH: It's incomparable.
HARLOW: It's incomparable. How did you stomach that?
WAMBACH: Well, I didn't. I didn't stomach it. That's why I'm fighting, that's why I'm talking about it. That's why I want there to be at the very, very least a conversation around it. We were the most watched soccer game in the history of North America.
HARLOW: Over 26 million people.
WAMBACH: Actually the number is even higher. Fox will tell you it was probably 31 million people which is pretty amazing and if you compare that to the men, and also say it actually still beat any male game that was ever aired, that's a huge deal.
HARLOW: Here's how you put it. Simply put, you said, "enough is enough."
WAMBACH: It is. I mean, at what point as a female are we going to keep letting this happen? And it's really scary when you're on the inside. I get it because I was there. You don't want to rock the boat. You don't want to lose your position. You don't want to lose your job. You don't want to lose your insurance. You have bills to pay. I get the level of fear that it's based around, but now that I'm outside of it, I can fight for the rights of the women that are still involved who make still - and might have that fear factor.
HARLOW: It's very clear this is your next fight, right?
WAMBACH: Yes.
HARLOW: Your fight before was on the field. This is your fight for equality in women's pay. What are you going to do? What do you want to do tangibly about it?
WAMBACH: Right now I'm in the research phase, right? I want to talk to every big CEO hitter, all the politicians I can talk to to figure out really what the best avenue is to try to fix this problem because here's the thing. Real equality, not just gender discrimination, real equality doesn't cost a single dollar.
HARLOW: When you and your teammates went to the White House after winning the World cup, here's part of what President Obama said.
BARACK OBAMA, U.S. PRESIDENT: This team taught all America's children that playing like a girl means you're a bad ass. Playing like a girl means being the best. It means drawing the largest TV audience for a soccer match, men or women's, in American history.
[19:45:05]
HARLOW: What did that moment feel like?
WAMBACH: That's one of a prouder moments in life. You know what I mean? And what he, I think, inevitably was saying was, that 15-year- old boy who goes to school the next day after watching us win, he thinks that 15-year-old girl's a little bit cooler. I think it takes a certain kind of interesting people, like our team, that we kind of cover a broader scope. I'm so lucky to have had the opportunity, you know, to have the president talk about us like that.
HARLOW: You are a big supporter of Hillary Clinton, and I'm interested in why you're supporting Hillary Clinton over, say, a Bernie Sanders who has made a push on income inequality?
WAMBACH: Uh-huh.
HARLOW: Or say a Carly Fiorina who certainly shattered the glass ceiling becoming CEO of Hewlett-Packard.
WAMBACH: Right.
HARLOW: What is it about Clinton?
WAMBACH: Clearly I'm a democrat, right, and I think all candidates have such valuable things that they - that they're going after and that they want to change about this country. But I think Hillary lines up with my personal value systems. If I was 10 years old and I look up and I can see somebody in the White House, I can look up and I envision, you know, Hillary Clinton and I can put myself in her shoes as a 10-year-old. And I think that that's really important. And that's not the only reason, right? The fact that Supreme Court justices might be elected and appointed, rather, I want to make sure whoever is in the White House stands for the things that I stand for.
More than anything, when I'm on the campaign trail for Hillary, obviously I want her to be in the White House, but more than anything, it's about a conversation.
HARLOW: Is there anything that you want to push Hillary Clinton more on, further on?
WAMBACH: I would love to see what's going to happen with women and how she actually attacks.
HARLOW: You're going to hold her feet to the fire.
WAMBACH: Yes, of course I will, right?
HARLOW: Will you ever run for elected office?
WAMBACH: everybody keeps telling me that I'm very political and I should run for office. I've been a captain of this country for women's soccer for so long that we've had a lot of different debates on our team.
HARLOW: Sure.
WAMBACH: And they're right for them. I mean, if you believe in something, I believe that for you. I believe that to be true for you.
HARLOW: So is that a maybe?
WAMBACH: Yes, that's a political way of not --
HARLOW: You just gave me a political answer.
WAMBACH: Exactly.
HARLOW: To my question.
WAMBACH: A political way of not answering the question. Maybe I am good at this. This is scary.
HARLOW: You're working on a memoir. What's the first line?
WAMBACH: The more important question than the first sentence is probably the last, and I think that, you know, the last sentence will be a to be continued. I had this 15-year-old boy, he came up to me and he was just like, are you Abby Wambach? Yes, I'm Abby Wambach. He's like,, when I grow up I want to be a women's soccer player. I was like, wait, what did you say? Wow, I mean, of course, obviously, I think he was like joking but kind of that was such an impactful moment for me. Like, whoever you are, you know who you are and like you've changed my life because it made me realize that that 15-year-old girl that walks into class next to him the next day walks a little bit taller.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARLOW: Abby Wambach, more power to you. Thank you so much for that.
Also consider this, according to a 10-year study by the World Economic Forum, the gender wage gap will not be closed by the time generation "Y" retires. In fact, the results show it's going to take another 118 years for that to happen. Maybe we can all do a little something to change that number.
Just ahead, while yesterday's prisoner release seemed to come out of the blue, there was a small group of journalists who knew it was coming.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DOUG JEHL, "THE WASHINGTON POST" FOREIGN EDITOR: It's always important to balance the public's right to know with the necessity of protecting the health and safety of individuals.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: After the break, more on the secret negotiations that led to the release of these five Americans.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:52:10]
HARLOW: "Washington Post" reporter Jason Rezaian is now free after being released in that prisoner swap with Iran. We learned that "Washington Post" executive editor and foreign editor just spoke with Rezaian a short time ago. He was asked, of course, how he was doing and perhaps the understatement of the century, here's what he said, "I'm a hell of a lot better than I was 48 hours ago."
The prisoner release came as a surprise to almost all of us but it turns out part of the story was kept under wraps for months. Our Brian Stelter spoke today exclusively with The Post's top editors to get the inside story about how all of this, frankly, came to be.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: You mentioned the secrecy around the prisoner swap talks and we now know that CNN, "The Huffington Post," "The Wall Street Journal" and your own newspaper kept these talks a secret. I wonder if you believe that if they had been reported, if the knowledge of these talks had been reported that actually the swap would not have happened?
JEHL: Well, it's always important to balance the public's right to know with the necessity of protecting the health and safety of individuals, particularly our employee. We were persuaded by U.S. government officials last summer that if we were to report some information about talks that were under way that that would jeopardize the safety of Jason and other individuals and our reporter and her editors agreed to withhold that information at that point. It seemed a plausible argument and we certainly didn't want to do anything that could compromise the safety of so many Americans held in Iran. STELTER: Do either of you have any regrets or are you second guessing
yourself about sending him to Tehran in the first place? About having him report from that country for many months before he was detained?
MARTY BARON, "THE WASHINGTON POST" EDITOR: I have no regrets about his assignment to Iran. It's obviously something that he wanted to do. He was there before he actually started working for us. As a correspondent there. And, look, we have correspondents in many difficult countries. In a way, it's most important that we have correspondents in those countries because those are areas of intense interest and that's our job is to cover the world.
Obviously we're very interested in the security and safety of our colleagues wherever they are in the world, but no one can predict that a government or elements within that government will arrest a correspondent and put him in prison and then keep him in prison for this period of time.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[19:55:10]
STELTER: As you can imagine, Poppy, this is a very personal story for the "Washington Post." One they never wanted to be a part of, but thankfully today it does have a happy ending. Poppy, back to you.
HARLOW: Absolutely, Brian, thank you. Fascinating conversation. You guys can see the whole interview Brian did with the editors of the "Washington Post" on cnn.com. Also don't forget "Reliable Sources" with Brian every Sunday morning, 11:00 a.m. Eastern, 8:00 a.m. Pacific, right here on CNN.
While Jason Rezaian is free, there are many journalists, far too many around the world who are waiting still to be released, reunited with their families. We're going to take a look at the shocking number in prison around the world in tonight's "The Number." That's ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARLOW: Amid the news at "Washington Post" reporter Jason Rezaian has been released from jail in Iran, it's important that we not forget the journalists who remain imprisoned around the world. That's why tonight's "number" is 198. That is the number of journalists jailed worldwide in 2014 according to the committee to protect journalists.
Often these journalists are imprisoned for just doing their jobs, telling the important stories that make some angry. The majority of whom are local journalists whose names maybe even haven't made the national news. While we celebrate the release of the "Washington Post" reporter, Jason Rezaian and all those released from prison in Iran yesterday, it is important that we not forget the 198 journalists who remain in prison tonight.
Tonight on CNN, "Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown" takes us to Charleston, South Carolina, home of tonight's Democratic debate. Then at 9:00 p.m. Eastern, the premiere of the CNN films "Sunshine Superman," see how the legendary founder of base jumping inspired a movement and jumped into history.
Then at 11:00 p.m. Eastern, our post-debate special, Wolf Blitzer and our political team debate who won, who lost, and whether tonight changes the race for good. That is 11:00 p.m. Eastern only right here.
Thank you so much for being with me. I'm Poppy Harlow in New York. Have a great week.
