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Brussels Manhunt; GOP Rivals Battle in Wisconsin; Female Trump Backers; CDC: Prescription Drug Abuse Killing More than 40 People Every Day; Obama to Host Panel on Opioid Abuse; Hulk Hogan Sex Tape Jurors Speak Out. Aired 9:30-10a ET
Aired March 29, 2016 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:30:03] NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We've seen them happen, it seems, often every night here since those attacks. But the key issue at this point is, who was the man in white, Carol, in that surveillance video from the attacks. There had been a brief moment of respite in the general fear that's gripping Brussels here, that they may have caught their man. There were suggestions in the media that some of the arrested outside the prosecutor's office a number of nights ago, Faycal C., could have been that individual.
Well, it turns out, Faycal C. is innocent. He's been let go by the police. They simply don't have the evidence to continue holding him. So that man in white is still at large, as is the accomplice of the metro bomber. The metro bomber being Khalid el-Bakraoui. As every day does, the number of clues, which police seem to have missed before these attacks, seem to grow.
We ourselves spoke to neighbors of the flats, the apartments, where the Bakraoui brothers prepared the chemicals that were part of the bombs. They described how a leak was so clumsily done that, in fact, the chemicals seeped from the where the brother's lived down to the floor below. That's how much they actually spilled. How the key ISIS bomb maker, the second man in the airport attacks, Najim Laachraoui, how he, in fact, visited that apartment too, even though he had an Interpol notice demanding his immediate arrest, he still went to visit those two brothers. So much that seems to have been on the surface before the attacks and now after the attacks those two key individuals still on the run. And I don't think really until they're in custody or that cell is beginning to be more unraveled will people in Belgium be able to feel more relaxed about day to day life, Carol.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Nick Paton Walsh reporting live from Brussels this morning.
And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.
The CNN town hall tonight promises to be interesting to say the least. In the hot seat, John Kasich, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. Each man will be interviewed separately by Anderson Cooper and Wisconsin voters. Sure topics, the economy and wives. Both topics surfaced in a big way on Wisconsin conservative talk radio. Some conservatives not enamored of Trump hit him hard. In fact, Mr. Trump hung up on Milwaukee's Vicki McKenna.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VICKI MCKENNA, TALK RADIO HOST (voice-over): How about wives and kids off limits?
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (voice-over): Well, that's OK. All you have to do is tell that to Cruz, because he started it.
MCKENNA: If I -- if I can get Senate Cruz on the program, I would say the same.
TRUMP: Thank you very much, Vicki. Have a good (INAUDIBLE). Best -- best of luck to you, Vicki. Best of luck.
MCKENNA: And I -- I appreciate the time of -- the generosity of time today Donald Trump. It was actually really fun.
He just hung up on me. That's OK. No, he gave me 25 minutes. I mean that was fun. He's hard -- it's hard not to like him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: It was a very contentious 27 minute interview, however.
Joining me now to talk about that and more, Republican Congressman Reid Ribble of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Congressman, good morning.
REP. REID RIBBLE (R), WISCONSIN: hey, good morning, Carol. It's good to be with you.
COSTELLO: Nice to have you here. You have -- you've been in the never Trump camp. Are you still?
RIBBLE: I am. And the more that -- the longer this goes on, the more convinced I am that the position I took really last September is still the correct one in relationship to Mr. Trump's ability to be president and his qualification to be president of the United States.
COSTELLO: Can you expound on that? Why do you think that Mr. Trump would be a poor president?
RIBBLE: Well, he certainly doesn't have the right temperament for it. I mean we can just see this kind of silly spat that's going on about the wives and everything. All of these things distract from getting at the real policies that are necessary. And when you do the deep dive on the policies that Mr. Trump is promoting, I don't believe they represent America's conservative positions. I think there would be -- they would be greatly damaging to the U.S. economy. Some of his trade policies are similar to what Herbert Hoover tried in 1930 and '31 with punitive tariffs that led to 25 percent unemployment in this country and the Great Depression. I don't think Trump is right on the policies and he certainly is not right on the discourse. So I've got lots of problems with him. COSTELLO: Are you throwing your support to any other Republican
candidate?
RIBBLE: You know, that -- I've been asked that a bunch of times, Carol, and I haven't at this point kind of landed on either Senator Cruz or Governor Kasich because I think both of them would be totally capable of being president. I think both of them would do a really good job. And so now it becomes down -- comes down, for me at least, a question of tactics. There are things I like a lot about Governor Kasich. For example, he's winning in almost every poll in a head to head against Hillary Clinton. And his tone and civility have been right. He's been right on the idea for the most part and he's electable. Cruz appeals more to my conservative side and I think he's actually better on some of the policies than Governor Kasich, but he's not as strong on electability. So I'm still wrestling myself with this decision.
[09:35:02] COSTELLO: Is it possible you'll sit this one out?
RIBBLE: No. I will be voting in the primary. And I will be voting in the fall. However, I have been clear that if Mr. Trump is the Republican nominee, that I would end up having to look down ballot. I believe Hillary Clinton has disqualified herself for other reasons. And so if it came down to Secretary Clinton or Donald Trump, I would have to be looking down ballot. Not really dissimilar to what Senator Ben Sasse has been saying. And I happen to agree with the senator in that regard.
COSTELLO: Are we headed for a contended Republican convention?
RIBBLE: It sure looks like it to me. I think we're going to know a lot on April 5th, next Tuesday, depending on how Wisconsin goes. Clearly on the ground, Senator Cruz has a really good ground game in Wisconsin. He's gaining support in my congressional district. And I would say both him and Governor Kasich are really starting to make things happen up here in northeast Wisconsin. If one of those two wins Wisconsin outright, I think they would deny Donald Trump the nomination and we would likely have a contested convention in July where the delegates will have to decide.
COSTELLO: And a final question for you. How would you describe the state of the Republican Party right now?
RIBBLE: Well, it certainly is a bit in disarray, but the Republican Party's always been good about debating ideas and issues and we shouldn't be afraid of those debates. We need to have the debates. What we don't need to have is all the pettiness and the name calling and the lack of civility. What we need to have is substantive debates on ideas, issues and policies, and that has been what the Republicans have been known for. And I'm hoping to help redirect them back to that and then we'll be fine.
COSTELLO: All right, Congressman Reid Ribble of Wisconsin, thanks so much for joining me this morning.
RIBBLE: Thank you, Carol. COSTELLO: You're welcome.
Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Trump uses words like "bimbo," "dog" and "fat pig" to describe women. So why are his female reporters sticking with him?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just find that what you see is what you get with this man. And that is what I want. He loves people. He really has a respect for women.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:40:25] COSTELLO: Donald Trump often under fire for how he treats and talks about women. Remember this ad?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Bimbo.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Dog.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fat big.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Real quotes from Donald Trump about women.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A person who is very flat chested is very hard to be a 10.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'd look her right in that fat, ugly face of hers.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Look at that face. Would anyone vote for that?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: All right, but that's not turning off all women. CNN's Martin Savidge talked to some supporters who love Trump?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Who is for Trump in that field (ph)?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm for Trump.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am for Trump.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yep.
SAVIDGE (voice-over): I'm in Tucson with a group of conservative women. They meet every month to talk about politics. And they all support Donald Trump.
SAVIDGE (on camera): So I'm going to go around and just say why.
CRYSTAL JUNIOR, TRUMP SUPPORTER: I just find that what you see is what you get with this man. And that is that I want.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's not afraid to say what he thinks.
BROOKE STECK, TRUMP SUPPORTER: He is a strong man with a strong personality. He really does love his country. He loves people. He really has a respect for women.
SAVIDGE (voice-over): To non-Trump supporters, that may seem ridiculous given some of the things that Trump has said and done. For example, the weekday Twitter fight between Ted Cruz and Trump over their wives.
SAVIDGE (on camera): OK, so you have all seen this.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.
SAVIDGE: All right, this is the tweet --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
SAVIDGE: This was a retweet by Donald Trump.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's right.
SAVIDGE: Have we crossed some sort of line here?
STECK: This tweeting, it's quite ridiculous. We need to focus on the issues at hand and what's going on in our country and around the world and the problems.
SAVIDGE: This latest incident involving the wives does not change your support for --
JUNIOR: This kind of thing, this mudslinging, isn't knew to politics.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
JUNIOR: So, I mean, it's not nice.
SAVIDGE: He's unfiltered. Not politically correct. That's something these women love, even if they don't always love how he says things.
LYN KILIAN, TRUMP SUPPORTER: I've cringed maybe on occasion when he's said a certain thing. I've wondered why he said a certain thing. But that's his personality. He's just -- he just lets it roll.
SAVIDGE: And nowhere has Trump perhaps let it roll more than with his feud with Fox Anchor Megyn Kelly.
MEGYN KELLY, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: You've called women you don't like "fat pigs," "dog," "slobs" and "disgusting animals."
EILEEN EAGAR, TRUMP SUPPORTER: he's been baited. He's been baited my Megyn Kelly. I can't even believe --
SAVIDGE (on camera): You really think that? You think Megyn Kelly --
EAGAR: I -- that -- come on. The first question that was asked by her at that first debate was to bait Donald Trump and to get him in a position where he would react.
SAVIDGE: What about his reaction to that?
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (voice-over): You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her -- wherever.
EAGAR: He did say it, but you don't know what his connotation was. I don't -- I didn't take it that way.
SAVIDGE: I would have thought those really would have got you upset.
JUNIOR: Not necessarily. Just because he insults men as well. And because he insults men as well, I -- I can't be upset that he's insulting the women.
SAVIDGE (voice-over): I asked, how is it that they didn't seems to think their personal values of honesty, respect and decency weren't compromised by supporting someone who seems to go against those principles.
SAVIDGE (on camera): How do you balance that with your support of a man who seems to violate every aspect of what you believe?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because the other side is worse.
SAVIDGE: Is there anything Donald Trump could do that would make you change your support?
[09:45:00] JUNIOR: Just going back on his -- on his policies and on the issues.
SAVIDGE: Martin Savidge, CNN, Tucson.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: CNN's town hall with Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and John Kasich airs live from Milwaukee tonight. Moderated by Anderson Cooper, starts at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, only on CNN.
Still to come on the NEWSROOM, the CDC says precipitation drug abuse is killing more than 40 people every single day. What the Obama administration plans to do about it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: A man is in custody facing assault charges after prompting a chaotic lockdown at the Capitol. Police say 66-year-old Larry Russell Dawson appeared to be pulling out a weapon after he set off a metal detector.
[09:50:04] That's when an officer shot him. Dawson is expected to survive. No officers were hurt, but a female bystander was hit by shrapnel and injured. Dawson was arrested in order to stay off Capitol grounds after shouting he was a prophet of god on the House floor back in 2015.
Today the Obama administration is rolling out new initiatives to combat the deadly opioid epidemic sweeping the country. Prescription drug abuse is now killing more people than car accidents every year. According to the CDC, victims are dying at a rate of more than 40 people per day.
Later this afternoon, CNN's own Dr. Sanjay Gupta will moderate a discussion panel with President Obama. He's here to tell us more about it. Good morning.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Well, look, for the numbers you just mentioned, the reasons you just mentioned, that's why it's got the president's attention and so many others' attention.
This manmade epidemic, as it is described by many within this community, this idea of someone dying about every 19 minutes from an accidental drug overdose, that's really going to be the topic of discussion. And more to the point, what can be done about it.
So we're hearing that there's going to be a billion dollars -- additional dollars -- now earmarked for this particular issue. Doing things like expanding community centers, increasing the number of doctors who can treat these patients with addiction, and also a lot of funding for a medication you may have heard of, Carol, known as narcan. It's essentially a medication that can reverse a drug overdose. We've seen this in action. You can -- literally someone who's overdosed and not breathing anymore, it can revive them. They want to make this sort of drug more available for people to try and cut down these deaths.
That's a lot of what we're going to be talking about today along with people who have gone through a lot of these issues.
COSTELLO: How were you chosen as the moderator, Sanjay?
GUPTA: I think it was my tap dancing routine, Carol. No --
COSTELLO: I'm sure it wasn't that.
(CROSSTALK)
GUPTA: We've been reporting on this issue for a long time, both the opioid, prescription opioid overdoses as well as heroin. So they asked us if I would moderate. They've chosen the panelists but we came up with all the questions that we're going to ask the president and the other panelists today.
COSTELLO: So, in your estimation, what should the federal government be doing to help people with this kind of addiction?
GUPTA: Carol, let me tell you something that I think will be staggering to you, and that is that 80 percent of the world's pain prescriptions are right here in the United States. We are 5 percent of the world's population; we take 80 percent of the world's pain pills. That's a huge problem. I mean, this is a manmade epidemic. So simply curtailing how many of these pain pills are prescribed could make a huge difference.
This has been happening for decades now; it's gotten to this point. There are certainly people who are listening to this who say I have chronic pain. I'm going to get left out in the cold with these new regulations, and that's a concern. So we need to obviously cut down on these pain pills but also still offer different types of pain strategies to people who actually suffer.
Other countries do this well. They don't suffer from these sorts of numbers where it's someone dying every 19 minutes in this way. So this is a fixable problem and I think that's a lot of what the discussion's going to be around.
COSTELLO: Are doctors partially to blame?
GUPTA: Yes, I think so. Look, I think doctors are partially to blame because they overprescribe these medications. I think pharma companies have been, in tacit and more overt ways for decades, pushing these medications. Patients have become accustomed to be able to get and then therefore asking for these medications. It is the culture in which we live. And I think all of these components have played a role. But, again, developed countries where pain can be well controlled, and medical establishments are very, very robust, don't have these sorts of tragic numbers. So it can be done.
COSTELLO: All right, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much.
Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the DOJ is dropping its suit against Apple. Why it says it no longer needs the company's help to break into a terrorist's iPhone.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:58:19] COSTELLO: Checking some top stories at 58 minutes past.
This afternoon on Capitol Hill, Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland will finally meet with a Republican senator. Mark Kirk of Illinois is the first to break ranks and sit down with the federal appeals court judge to discuss his nomination. A few other Senate Republicans say they are open to meeting with Garland.
The FBI says it's been able to break into the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters. And that's because of this -- it's ending its fight against Apple. FBI investigators used a third party to get around Apple's encryption. Security advocates now want the government to explain how exactly it got into the phone to protect other iPhone users.
We're now hearing from some of the jurors in the Hulk Hogan sex tape case. They awarded the pro-wrestler $140 million in damages. They said it was an invasion of privacy for Gawker Media to release the tape online. The jury deliberated for four hours, and two of them said it boiled down to one thing -- whether anyone had permission to release the tape.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEVIN KENNEDY, JUROR IN HULK HOGAN V. GAWKER: Well, the fact that there was no evidence showing that they gave Gawker the rights to show the video. And that's really what the crux of the decision was about, and that's really what this -- a large part of what this case was about.
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: So Shane --
KENNEDY: They didn't have their permission to show it.
SHANE O'NEIL, JUROR IN HULK HOGAN V. GAWKER: It was clear it was an invasion of privacy and it was very clear that he did not want that tape to be put out to the public. And so that was the evidence that was absolutely 100 percent clear to all of us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Gawker founder, Nick Denton, says he's looking forward to winning the case on appeal.
[10:00:01] His lawyer said the jury wasn't allowed access to evidence that would have told the other side of the story.
The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.
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