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Obama Hosts Nuclear Summit; Trump Refuses to Fire Campaign Manager; Minneapolis Protests; Wellesley Women Discuss 2016 Presidential Race; Indications Zika Virus More Harmful Than Previously Thought. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired March 31, 2016 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:05] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

President Obama is calling on world powers to help keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists. Today, he welcomes more than fifty leaders to the nation's capital for the final nuclear summit of his presidency. The president already setting the tone with a new op- ed in "The Washington Post" this morning. In part it reads, quote, "achieving the security and peace of the world without nuclear weapons will not happen quickly, perhaps not in my lifetime. But we have begun. As the only nation ever to use nuclear weapons, the United States has a moral obligation to continue to lead the way in eliminating them. Still, no one nation could realize this vision alone. It must be work of the world."

Let's bring in CNN's Athena Jones. She's at the White House with more.

Good morning.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

A busy day ahead for the president. Also an important day. Nuclear security has been one of his top foreign policy agenda items from the -- since from the very beginning of his administration. Take a listen to some of what he had to say about the importance of this summit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In light of recent events, this gathering takes on more meaning. Around the world we have seen horrific acts of terrorism. Most recently Brussels, as well as what happened in Pakistan. Innocent families, mostly women and children, Christians and Muslims.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: But keeping nuclear weapons out of hands of terror groups, like ISIS, isn't the only thing these nations will be discussed. The president has a trilateral meeting with Japan's prime minister and South Korea's president to talk about North Korea's provocations and also efforts to denuclearize the Korean peninsula. He'll meet with China's president, Xi Jinping, and with French President Francois Hollande today. They'll discuss the implementation, the progress of implementing the Iran deal, the Iran nuclear deal, and also efforts to stop more terrorist attacks.

At the end of the day, world leaders will come here to the White House for a working dinner. And this is all coming, of course, as one of the candidates who hopes to occupy the White House by this time next year, GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, has been making some big headlines over the last several days about nuclear issues, starting on Tuesday at the CNN town hall when he said he'd be open to Japan and South Korea having nuclear weapons. That, of course, flies in the face of decades of efforts at non-proliferation. He also said later on MSNBC that he wouldn't rule out using a nuke in Europe. So interesting times, Carol.

COSTELLO: To say the least.

Athena Jones reporting live from the White House. Thank you.

JONES: Thanks.

COSTELLO: It is a busy day for Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders. Any minute now we're expecting Sanders to hold a news conference. These are live pictures out of Pittsburgh where Sanders is getting ready to speak. After that he's scheduled to hold a rally with voters. We will continue to monitor this for you throughout the morning.

Completely unacceptable, that's how the White House is describing the behavior of a top Trump aide after that now infamous scuffle with a female reporter. The calls to fire Corey Lewandowski now getting louder. More than a dozen female conservatives are speaking out, demanding Lewandowski be fired. They write this in an open letter. Quote, "never in this line of work is it acceptable to respond to reasonable and legitimate questioning with use of physical force. The photographs, audio, videos and witness accounts documenting the treatment of Michelle Fields by Corey Lewandowski are inexcusable and unprofessional."

Despite this growing firestorm, Trump refused to ditch his top aide, who's facing a misdemeanor charge of simple battery. So who is Corey Lewandowski? CNN's senior investigative correspondent Drew Griffin has the answer.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The candidate may be a novice to politics.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Corey -- good job, Corey.

GRIFFIN: But Donald Trump's campaign manager is someone D.C. types call a long time political operative who says on message. And Corey Lewandowski's message is to stick to the Trump script.

COREY LEWANDOWSKI, DONALD TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN MANAGER: The first thing we need to do is to build a wall. GRIFFIN: Lewandowski, just 42 years old, has been around politics, controversy and even arrests his entire political life, including one of the biggest political scandals of the new century.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I do.

GRIFFIN: It involved Jack Abramoff, the Republican lobbyist who went to prison after admitting how he bought politicians and even an administration official with bribes, freebies and favors. One of the politicians he bribed, Congressman Bob Ney of Ohio. Corey Lewandowski had previously been Congressman Bob Ney's right-hand man. Lewandowski cut his political teeth in the office of the Ohio Republican. And when Congressman Ney was to be sentenced to prison, Corey Lewandowski wrote this letter to the judge about his old boss, calling the convicted congressman a "surrogate father."

[09:35:12] It was during his time as an aide to Bob Ney that Lewandowski also had his first brush with the law. In August of 1999, the then congressional staffer was heading to work at the Longworth House office building on Capitol Hill. That's when police found a loaded pistol, three pistol magazines, ammunition and a holster in his overnight bag. He was arrested for carrying a gun without a license. The charge, quickly dropped. Lewandowski sued the federal government trying to get his own gun back but lost an appeal. Lewandowski never got the gun back.

In 2001, he joined up to run the re-election campaign of another Republican politician, U.S. Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire. Smith, a sitting senator, was in a heated Republican primary with John E. Sununu. Smith, with Corey Lewandowski running the campaign, was trounced.

From there, Corey Lewandowski took jobs as a real estate agent with a PR firm and even worked as an officer trainee in New Hampshire's state marine patrol, but eventually worked his way back into politics through lobbying. For the last eight years, he has worked as a lobbyist and advisor to the Americans for Prosperity political action group, a conservative PAC founded by one of the Koch brothers.

Drew Griffin, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Thanks to Drew Griffin for that.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, outrage in Minneapolis. Police say it was self-defense. Protesters say, no way.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:40:58] COSTELLO: Hundreds protest in Minneapolis overnight after two officers are not charged in the shooting death of an African- American man. Protesters marching for Jamar Clark who say -- who they say was murdered by two white police officers. Officials ruling the officers acted in self-defense, though. Ryan Young live in Minneapolis this morning. Good morning.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. We've covered this story since the very beginning. I'll tell you, when we first arrived here several months ago, people here in the community said they saw something completely different than what police say happened here.

Now, just across the street, you can see the memorial that has grown several times for Jamar Clark. That is actually the area where Jamar Clark was shot. Now, hundreds of protesters hit the streets overnight as they were walking through to talk about Jamar Clark. They wanted the public to know they're not giving up this fight. They're hoping the federal government steps in and does something with this investigation. They believe these two officers shot and killed Jamar Clark in the middle of the street. And we saw hundreds of them protesting for several hours. It remained peaceful, but the police department was ready for anything to happen if it turned -- or took a turn for the worse.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF JANEE HARTEAU, MINNEAPOLIS POLICE: We do pride ourselves in ensuring that we will protect and provide safe spaces for people to express their feelings and their thoughts. But we will also ensure public safety for everyone, that includes protesters, bystanders and police officers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: Now, protesters made the point, they weren't going to do anything last night because they wanted to prove a point, but the police also released this video, the prosecutor's office, to show the struggle that happened just outside an ambulance. Now, what we're told is Jamar Clark was trying to talk to his girlfriend as she was being removed from the scene after a fight between the two of them. And then apparently after that fight, there were shots fired when officers arrived because they say he was grabbing for the officer's gun. Now, the police say DNA proves this because his hand print was on the back of that officer's gun. People in this community, though, still don't believe the story and they want more to happen.

Now, Carol, I just want to show you something. They went so far to make sure that the public understood what was going on here. In the paper today they actually have a shot of Jamar Clark's hand here in the paper to show that there are no marks from handcuffs because so many people in this community thought there were handcuffs on Jamar Clark when he was shot. They're going a long way to try to show everyone in this community that the police department feels that they had no other choice but to shoot him after he grabbed the gun. But I can honestly tell you, in this community, this is a wound that's going to take quite some time to heal.

Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Ryan Young reporting live for us this morning. Thank you. Still to come in the NEWSROOM, they're young, they're well-educated and they are more than ready to vote. What the women from Hillary Clinton's alma mater, Wellesley College, think about Donald Trump, women's issue and this bizarre election season.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Well, if you were to pick one word out of the stratosphere to describe this election season, what would it be?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Disappointing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tense. It's very tense.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would say anti-establishment.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would say unprecedented.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:48:41] COSTELLO: Yesterday I visited Wellesley College, where Hillary Rodham Clinton entered as a Republican and graduated a Democrat. I talked with five current students from Wellesley, an all- women's college, about their trail braising alumna and their thoughts about the 2016 race.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: So I'd like to talk about women's issues since, you know, we're at this university. How do you think that women have been talked about by the candidates?

HANNAH LINDOW, PRES., WELLESLEY STUDENTS FOR HILLARY: I support Hillary Clinton for a variety of reasons, but -- and I particularly think that we hold her to a higher standard than we do other candidates particularly because she's a woman. And I do find gender to be a very strong issue in this campaign.

So I can't tell you how many times someone has commented on an article I'll post about Hillary and said, "This could be a man or woman. You're just voting with your vagina. "

COSTELLO: Do all of you agree with that? Is Hillary Clinton being held to a higher standard?

MICHELLE LU, WELLESLEY COLLEGE STUDENT, SANDERS SUPPORTER: Yes, I do generally think there are a lot of stereotypes about women that voters and people I've talked to have kind of rebtained and kind of applied to her that they wouldn't necessarily apply to Bernie as an old white man.

COSTELLO: Like what?

LU: For example, the idea that she's untrustworthy, that she -- I've heard people call her, like, a harpy. Like, you know, I've heard them call her very gendered --specifically gendered bad names.

EMILY RODRIGUEZ, WELLESLEY COLLEGE STUDENT, CRUZ SUPPORTER: But the reason we're holding her to the higher standard is because she's been in the public eye for so long and she's changed position on certain things -- which is fair, you know, that happens sometimes. But sometimes it seems like it's more because it's politically advantageous and also because of all the scandals that surrounding her. That has nothing to do with gender; that's legitimate.

SABRINA LIANG, WELLESLEY COLLEGE STUDENT, UNDECIDED VOTER: I mean, even if she wasn't Hillary Clinton, I think that same person would be just as heavily scrutinized. As Emily said -- and I'm only speaking for myself here -- but what's happened with her stance on certain economic policies, her certain diplomatic stances toward countries that we have troubles with, and other reasons, I find that's the reason why she's being scrutinized.

COSTELLO: Are you aware of the most recent thing with the reporter from Breitbart, Michelle Fields? Right. And Corey Lewandowski grabbing her arm and Donald Trump said that actually didn't happen.

RODRIGUEZ: I'm not so sure that Trump's comments are necessarily because she's a woman. I'm sure if, you know, he had assaulted a man, he'd still be denying it for his campaign manager.

But I think women haven't necessarily been brought out too much on the Republican side. Obviously people do ask about the pro-life stance and such. And we did have Carly Fiorina, who I thought was a great role model.

COSTELLO: I'm getting the sense that none of you would consider voting for Donald Trump. Do you think Donald Trump would be dangerous for the country if he became president?

SYDNEY STEWART, WELLESLEY COLLEGE STUDENT, UNDECIDED VOTER: Dangerous? To some degree, yes. I feel like a lot of people, honestly, through his candidacy and if he were to become president, have already felt more marginalized. And I think that a lot of people would feel like America was no longer there, if the America, the American citizens were to vote him into office.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Those students also opened up about the political environment on their campus and beyond.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: You're idealistic now, but once you get out there, right? Maybe you'll be just as cynical as the electorate is now.

LINDOW: Perhaps. But I think that there are generational forces that affect groups of young people of various ages. And I think this is perhaps one moment in history where we are so -- we are so limited to our own way of thinking, that we've seen government be completely ineffective and completely gridlocked, that maybe we will understand the importance of moving a little bit on various issues, by deal- making, which is what politics is, to advance issues that we all care about.

COSTELLO: Do you think that's possible, Emily?

RODRIGUEZ: I don't know if the political climate's going to get any better in the future. I have experienced a lot of animosity just here, so that kind of makes me a little cynical already.

COSTELLO: What kind of animosity have you experienced? Just because you say you're a Republican?

RODRIGUEZ: People tend to just kind of dismiss my views automatically. It was pretty bad in 2012. I think 2012 scared everybody and it's gotten a lot more tolerant in a way here, but back then people just didn't want Republicans on campus and they told us to go back to rural Mississippi where we belong.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Pretty tough, right? But those young women also told me that they're proud of the open nature of the Wellesley campus. They feel that they can talk to one another no matter their political views.

And I'd like to thank them for allowing me to come in and talk to them and sharing their thoughts on one strange political season.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, new concerns the Zika virus may be more harmful to babies than previously thought.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:57:53] COSTELLO: U.S. scientists are in a race against time as more evidence shows Zika may cause more developmental problems in babies than previously thought. And these coming as the CDC confirms a pregnant woman from Missouri has contracted the virus. 273 people now sick with Zika across 39 states.

With us now, CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. He has more for you this morning. Hi, Sanjay.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Carol. You know, there's new evidence now about a particular case of a woman who had traveled down to an area where Zika was spreading. She was three months pregnant at the time. Came back, was having ultrasounds, and subsequent ultra sounds around about four or five months into her pregnancy showed that in fact she had microcephaly, the fetus not only had microcephaly, but also other brain abnormalities.

Now, this has been suspected for a time, that this isn't just causing a birth defect that results in smaller heads, smaller skulls, but also other abnormalities within the brain. And this sort of shows that association. Again, Caorl, we don't know for 100 percent sure that Zika virus is causing these problems, but I will tell you now, after months of this, it's starting to look awfully suspicious that these two things are related, and it leads to more than just again the microcephaly.

COSTELLO: So I know that scientists are working feverishly on some sort of a vaccine. Any movement on that?

GUPTA: Well, there's movement and there's a lot of interest, obviously. But these take time. Not only does it take time to develop the vaccine, but it also takes time to then test the vaccine to see if it's effective. You have to test the vaccine in the midst of an outbreak: Some people get it, some people don't, and you basically see how it's working. That all takes a while. They did it with Ebola, but even with Ebola, it took some time to actually get an effective vaccine out there.

COSTELLO: All right, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO (voice-over): Happening now in the NEWSROOM, abortion uproar.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There has to be some form of punishment.

CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: For the woman?

TRUMP: Yes. There has to be some form.

COSTELLO: Trump now backtracking. His rivals pouncing.

[10:00:00] SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I strongly disagree with him.

GOV. JOHN KASICH (R-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDDIATE: Of course women shouldn't be punished.

COSTELLO: The Democratic response is even more brutal.