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Police Officers Save Choking Girl; GOP Nomination Could Depend on Committee Rules; Obama Talks Nuclear Security. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired April 01, 2016 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00] SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No, and the inspector looking at the bus finding explosive material.

(CROSSTALK)

MALVEAUX: Just an incredible story. I have to be honest, when I first heard it, I said, was this an April fools something or whatever.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah, clearly it is, right?

MALVEAUX: But unfortunately, it is not April fool's joke.

BROWN: Oh, my goodness.

MALVEAUX: They say they've taken care of it. We'll see.

BROWN: Suzanne, thank you. Appreciate your reporting.

Meantime, two officers are being hailed as heroes after they jumped into action to save the life of a little girl who was choking on the side of the road. This is just the latest example of police going beyond the call of duty.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a Thursday night in the Chicago suburb in Schaumburg when the call came in.

(BEGIN AUDIO FEED)

911 OPERATOR: 911, what's the address of your emergency?

(END AUDIO FEED)

SANDOVAL (voice-over): A Good Samaritan pulled over when she noticed a frantic woman on the side of the road.

(BEGIN AUDIO FEED)

CALLER: We have a child in distress.

(END AUDIO FEED)

SANDOVAL: Aliana Goolan (ph) 18-month-old was having a seizure and struggling to breathe according to her grandmother. (BEGIN AUDIO FEED)

911 OPERATOR: Is the child breathing or coughing at all?

CALLER: The baby's not coughing, she's not breathing.

(END AUDIO FEED)

Officer Bryan Poradzisz's dash cam video picked up the rest.

OFC. BRYAN PORADZISZ, CHICAGO POLICE DEPARTMENT: I just bolted out of my car and ran towards her and picked her up.

SANDOVAL: His partner, Kevin O'Connor, was right behind him.

OFC. KEVIN O'CONNOR, CHICAGO POLICE DEPARTMENT: My heart was bounding so heart I could feel it.

SANDOVAL: Fearing the worse, both officers were able to put panic aside.

PORADZISZ: I looked at her and says, doesn't look good, this is bad. And I basically grabbed her and was frantically trying to bring her back and revive her and miraculously, the lord just gave her life again.

SANDOVAL: The little girl started breathing again and was whisked away by paramedics. Her family told CNN she suffered a seizure but is now home doing better.

PORADZISZ: Out of my 21 years, that's probably the most terrifying event I've had to experience.

SANDOVAL (on camera): Both officers will tell you that what happened on this very spot really did hit close to home. You see, they each have daughters of their own.

PORADZISZ: This girl was not that much younger than mine. And that's what went through my mind.

O'CONNOR: I think the hat we put on at that moment was the hat of a dad.

SANDOVAL (voice-over): Whether you call them officers or dads, the child's grateful family says they'll call the officers something else heroes. And it seems to be catching on.

O'CONNOR: Bryan is very modest. He's my hero.

(LAUGHTER)

PORADZISZ: Well, Kevin's my hero, too.

SANDOVAL: Polo Sandoval, CNN, Illinois.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: What a story there.

Up next on this Friday, the Republican nomination could all come down to the party rules that govern delegates. So what actually goes on behind closed doors in the proverbial smoke-filled back-rooms of a political convention? I'll talk with someone who has about there and knows firsthand.

Plus, President Obama speaking at a summit today, warned if terrorists get their hands on nuclear material, they will, quote, "use it to kill as many people as possible." So how close he says they are to getting then, after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:37:21] BROWN: Donald Trump is backing off his GOP loyalty pledge and the move may cost him delegates he dearly needs. Trump says he no longer stands by his vow to support the eventual nominee. That means South Carolina could yank all 50 of Trump's delegates. That's because the state party requires Republican candidates to pledge loyalty to the eventual nominee. The potential for big-time delegate drama came up when Trump huddled with RNC chairman, Reince Priebus, in a close- door meeting in Washington.

I want to talk it over with Republican National Committee member, Randy Evans, an expert on GOP nominating process.

Thanks for coming back on, Randy.

RANDY EVANS, RNC RULES COMMITTEE MEMBER: Thanks, Pam. Thanks for having me.

BROWN: You just spoke to Reince Priebus this morning. What do you know about that meeting yesterday? And what do you think Trump's questions were about delegates during the meeting?

EVANS: I think it was an opportunity for him to visit. I think all the candidates stay in touch with Priebus regularly to make sure everybody kind of stays on the same page. It was a wonderful photo op for a campaign that's had a really bad week. It was a moment of coming together as opposed to coming apart. I think it serve a very useful purpose for both.

BROWN: So what do you think Donald Trump's big concern is when it comes to delegates? Do you think he can get to that magic 1,237?

EVANS: The delegate math is unforgiving. Even before we started to see the polls turn in Wisconsin, we started to see some erosion, some possible challenges. I think at that point, he's probably looking at being about 75 to 100 delegates short. That's if he continued on his current trajectory. Wisconsin, as you know, is going to be that coalescing moment of the "anybody but Trump" crowd and those who support Donald Trump and that way what you're see is both John Kasich and Senator Cruz changing this election into being a referendum on Donald Trump. So it's not so much as why Cruz is good or why Kasich is good, it's a referendum on whether or not the Republican Party can come behind Donald Trump.

BROWN: Bottom line, you don't think he can make it to that number if he doesn't win Wisconsin?

EVANS: That's right. I think it would have been tough even winning Wisconsin. But I ran 10 different scenarios. We have a computer model that runs those. Two of those models, both involve winning Wisconsin.

BROWN: I have to ask you this because we know it happened in Louisiana with the delegates. Clearly Trump wasn't happy. It was reported by "The New York Times" Trump confronted his advisers for not being totally prepped on the process. Do you think his advisers are failing him here?

[14:39:56] EVANS: Candidly, we've just seen -- he's had what I call a rookie mistake week. Literally first-time candidates do things like this. Like how could you not be prepared for a question on abortion? You know that issue is going to come up. You know it's going to be a centerpiece of a Republican primary. How do you not have a canned prepared speech? How do you not know the delegate rules in Louisiana? There's a long list of them that go down. Really, I think you're start to see him now recalibrate the campaign, bring in people who are actually professionals, at politics, so those kind of mistakes can get changed. But if you've never run for office before, those are the kinds of mistakes that can cost you in the end.

BROWN: With delegates, it's not as simple as you run a state. Each state has its own set of rules. In South Carolina, particularly, this could be an issue for Trump, right --

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: -- when it comes to the delegates he won there. Why so?

EVANS: There's all kinds of rules. In South Carolina, the issue of whether or not you maintain your loyalty to the party. There are other states that have a variety of nuanced rules. Literally, it's 56 different mini-primaries. It's not a national campaign. It's a series of 56 individualized state campaigns. And I think they're learning the hard way, you better learn those rules and they're not simple, they're rather archaic. If you make a mistake, one or two delegates her, or there, it starts to add up. It's hard to get to the 1,237 anyway.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Go ahead.

EVANS: I was going to say, as we all know, we talked about it a lot, which is you have to win a majority of eight states. If you only have 10 winner-take-all states, it becomes very difficult to make sure that you can put together a majority of delegates in eight states to even get your name and nomination.

BROWN: That rule could change too, right? I mean -- (CROSSTALK)

EVANS: The convention could change any rule. When the convention rules committee meets, it will make recommendations. They'll go to the floor of the convention. The convention can deal with whatever rules. If you don't have a presumptive nominee is where's the majority of delegates, because no one candidate will have a majority, they can't dictate the rules. On the other hand, you do need a majority of delegates to pass the rules. You really could be looking at a really kind of chaotic moment there at the beginning of the convention. Before a single ballot gets cast, we first vote on the credentials and, second, vote on the rules, and the rules, as you know, can dictate the outcome.

BROWN: I have a feeling you're very good at math, Randy Evans. This is a lot to keep up with.

(LAUGHTER)

EVANS: Well, I think we're going to see a lot more math come along. I think at the end of the day, we're looking at either a contested or an open convention. We're looking at the possibility that it will be limited to three candidates if Kasich can get two or three and they change the rules so you have fewer states, or you can literally have an open convention which is to change the rules to permit anyone to be nominated.

BROWN: Far from over, clearly.

Randy Evans, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

EVANS: Thank you for having me.

BROWN: Up next, on this Friday, as the White House calls Donald Trump's nuclear ideas, quote, "catastrophic," President Obama hosts a nuclear security summit with dozens of world leaders about how to keep nukes out of the hands of terrorists. Hear how close they are to getting one.

Plus, how does Donald Trump see himself? CNN has combed through transcripts, video, everything the man has said, basically. We found some interesting observations, including why Trump feels he's part of the, quote, "lucky sperm club."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:47:22] BROWN: "Plutonium in the hands of the most barbaric terrorists on earth," a very real threat, and top of the agenda as leaders from across the world meet right now in Washington. President Obama weighing in on state of global nuclear security and how to stop groups like ISIS from waging nuclear terrorism.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Just the smallest amount of plutonium about, the size of an apple, could kill and injure hundreds of innocent people. It would be a humanitarian, political, economic and environmental catastrophe with global ramifications for decades. It would change our world. So we cannot be complacent. We have to build on our progress. This will also be an opportunity to make sure that we're doing everything in our power to keep a terrorist group like ISIL from ever getting its hands not just on a nuclear weapon but any weapon of mass destruction.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Joining me now, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and author of "Ashley's War" and contributing editor at Atlanta media's "Defense One."

Gayle, just to get right to it, how real is this threat like a group like ISIS getting its hands on nuclear material?

GAYLE TZEMACH LEMMON, SENIOR FELLOW, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS & AUTHOR & CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, DEFENSE ONE: Folks closest to it says there's no sign of an immediate plan or anything they think is imminent but is the ambition there, yes, right, and you know having talked to people inside and outside the administration since 2012, 2013, about the threat of what was happening, and then the rise of ISIS, you know, this has always been the fear that this would become -- Syria would become this club med for foreign fighters, for people seeking to do wrong to west and other developed countries and this would get their hands on material that would allow them to make a dirty bomb.

BROWN: I remember a report several months ago about this motion of criminals and the Maldivians were saying criminals in their country were trying to sell nuclear materials to ISIS or just trying to find a buyer, but I remember they were saying, you know, but there's a lot of protections in place, right, at detect nuclear materials from crossing countries, correct?

TZEMACH LEMMON: Right. You have sort of the protections versus transnational networks. And nobody really understands the full extent to which the ISIS network has penetrated both some of the places where this could come from and places where they would want to detonate it. This is the fear. There are universities, hospitals, places that you wouldn't think of that have this material.

BROWN: We heard an Iraqi official come out recently and say they're using labs at Mosul University to make these materials and so forth, these bombs.

[14:50:07] TZEMACH LEMMON: Absolutely, right, that is the big fear. The story about Mosul University is incredibly worrying. And then if you look at what happens with Belgium, right, I've been following German media closely and they've been talking about this that there was video found of a Belgium nuclear research center. So there was one of the issues we're facing. Is this extent and depth of these transactional networks is something we don't fully yet understand and I think the horrible attacks in Belgium really exposed yet again the threat that this could pose and everybody wants to make sure that this is stopped before we get anywhere near that as a reality. BROWN: No doubt, that is being discussed during the summit. But

there are some arms control advocates who worry that Obama has lost his momentum on this issue of nuclear proliferation. Of course, as we know, he has less than 10 months left in office. How much progress has been made? What is he likely to achieve from this summit?

TZEMACH LEMMON: Well, a great deal of program has been made certainly the U.S. and Russia have had really I think pretty productive conversations. You have seen the nuclear proliferation curbed to some extent, much less than the president and others might have wanted, but certainly directionally it's in the right direction. The question is everybody outside the room, right, North Korea, ISIS, you know, people who -- everybody is really worried about would never be part of these frameworks, people who don't have return addresses in the case of ISIS who are trying to get a hold of this material.

BROWN: All right, Gayle Lemmon-Tarmac, thank you for sharing that perspective. Very interesting.

TZEMACH LEMMON: Thank you.

BROWN: Coming up, CNN's Bill Weir goes west and follows the Colorado River for the next episode of "The Wonder List." Absolutely breathtaking scenes and a looming environmental threat. He joins me live with a preview, up next. And a chilling video. A police officer firing eight shots at a fellow

cop. We'll show you what led up to this stunning mistake and the shooter's horrified response.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:56:30] BROWN: CNN's Bill Weir is traveling deep into parts of the vanishing Colorado River. On this Sunday's "The Wonder List," he plunges down a section of the waterway where civilization's impact is becoming more obvious.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL WEIR, CNN HOST, THE WONDER LIST (voice-over): A mile or two later, Jack turns from rackentour to rower.

(on camera): Here we go. Have a train coming overhead. We're doing this. Awesome. Good timing.

(voice-over): They call this rapid pinball for all the boats that bounce off the train trestle.

(on camera): Woo.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here's the tricky part.

WEIR: Wow, look at this.

Go, Jack. Go, Jack. Yeah.

(voice-over): He tells me if it weren't for this train, the federal government might have dammed this stretch of the Colorado, so he's grateful. But he worries about derailments and dam failures and the kind of toxic mine leak that turned the nearby Animus River bright orange.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Those are kind of worst-case accident type feels but the thing that I worry about is the death from a thousand cuts, taking a little bit more water. If Denver water takes another 10 percent, that's the kind of thing that would kill this river slowly.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: So Bill is back from his journey. He joins me from New York.

First of all, Bill, you have the coolest job in the world, getting to go on all these adventures.

WEIR: I hear that a lot, Pam. Thank you.

BROWN: I'm sure you've been told that by everyone. But this is such an amazing natural wonder. There's a sad part to this, right, because it's really disappearing before our very eyes. What did you experience when you were there?

WEIR: Well, it was a fascinating, very personal journey for me. My dad moved to Colorado when I was a kid so his soul is the inspiration for this show. He taught me to explore the wonders and then wonder about their fate. A lot of- too many people who live in Salt Lake City or Albuquerque or San Diego don't realize their water doesn't come from a tap, it comes from the Colorado River. 40 million Americans depend on that body of another 20 million are expected to join them by midcentury. And if you've seen those giant bathtub rings around Lake Meade or Lake Powell, this is like a huge wake-up call. It's our fault for not understanding how we have to divvy this up. It goes back to the Old West in terms of law as we get into the whole explanation.

But an amazing journey, and a most precious, very perilous place.

BROWN: I was impressed with Jack. He's very strong there.

WEIR: Jack Bomader (ph), yeah.

BROWN: Yeah. Is there anything else people might be surprised by?

WEIR: Well, it's just how much life a single drop of water in the American west provides. One molecule that falls as snow high in the Rockies can be used 20 times through seven national parks, through cattle ranches and wheat farms, through municipalities and suburbs. But now because the river is so low, the river dies 50 miles from the sea in Mexico. So there's dams that are, you know, aging and give us pause to worry about, because if we lose that source, what are the 40 million people going to do in that desert? These are things that don't get talked about enough on the campaign trail. So hopefully, Sunday night, a little fresh perspective on the glorious American west.

BROWN: Very important --