Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Trump Fires Controversial Campaign Manager; Trump Son Admits Hand In Lewandowski Firing; Warren Pokes Fun At Potential Trump Running Mate; Olympic Tickets Go On Sale At Rio Kiosks; U.S. Senate Rejects Four Gun Control Measures; FBI Releases Shooter's 911 Call Transcript; Inside Rio's 24-Hour Anti-Doping Lab; British Parliament Honors Jo Cox Ahead of Brexit Vote; Criminals Connect with Kids on Social Media. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired June 21, 2016 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[01:00:09] AMARA WALKER, CNN ANCHOR: This is CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles.
JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Ahead this hour, you're fired. An embattled Donald Trump sacks his controversial campaign manager just four weeks before the Republican Party convention.
WALKER: Plus, chilling new details about the Orlando shooting massacre -- what the gunman told police during phone calls from inside the nightclub.
VAUSE: And four votes taken to toughen gun laws in the United states, four measures rejected by the U.S. Senate.
WALKER: Hello and welcome, everyone, to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Amara Walker, in for Isha Sesay.
VAUSE: Great to have you with us. I'm John Vause. NEWSROOM L.A. starts right now.
The Trump campaign appears to be in crisis tonight. The campaign manager has been fired. Trump's poll numbers are falling and he is at war with leaders of the Republican Party.
WALKER: Sources tell CNN Trump's children were behind the decision to fire campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Senior White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, has a look now at how it all unfolded.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The uprising against Donald Trump's sharp elbowed campaign manager, Corey Lewandoski, had been building for weeks. Then over the weekend, campaign sources tell CNN the mutiny began, with Trump's daughter Ivanka, her husband and campaign adviser, Jared Kushner, along with Trump's sons and campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, all pleading with Trump to fire Lewandowski. As one source put it, the family was not happy. Another adviser added, Manafort, a Lewandowski rival, told Trump, it's him or me.
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Why were you fired?
COREY LEWANDOWSKI, FORMER CAMPAIGN MANAGER, DONALD TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT: I don't know. I don't know the answer to that.
ACOSTA: Lewandowski told CNN's Dana Bash he had no idea why he was fired, but sources say the family was outraged over Lewandowski's handling of Michelle Fields, the reporter he grabbed on video, leading to charges that were later dropped. Other campaign sources accuse Lewandowski of egging on Trump's more inflammatory remarks, notably on a Mexican-American judge overseeing the lawsuit against Trump University.
DONALD TRUMP (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This judge is of Mexican heritage. I'm building a wall, OK? I'm building a wall.
ACOSTA: As one Trump staffer tweeted, ding dong the witch is dead. Lewandowski brushed that off.
LEWANDOWSKI: In all campaigns, you've got detractors and you've got supporters. Things change as the campaign evolves. I said to him, it's been an honor and privilege to be part of this. And I mean that.
ACOSTA: But the campaign shakeup comes after a brutal stretch for Trump, including sagging poll numbers weighed down by a series of unforced errors. The latest Monmouth poll out today shows Trump trailing Hillary Clinton by seven points in a general election matchup. Meanwhile, Trump advisers are downplaying Lewandowski's departure.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think we are shifting to a new phase in the campaign as we approach the convention.
ACOSTA: They're pointing to a new campaign structure that's now in place. Manafort is now fully in charge of the campaign right under Trump, while the roles of Trump's daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner, are clearly growing inside the campaign.
TRUMP: Jared is a very successful real estate person, but I actually think he likes politics more than he likes real estate.
ACOSTA: But Trump hasn't always taken their advice.
TRUMP: Ivanka would say, be more presidential. I said, I can't. Being presidential is easy.
ACOSTA: The question now for the Trump campaign, GOP sources say, is whether the candidate will change as well, or just continue to stir controversy, like with his comments this weekend about the Orlando shooting.
TRUMP: If you had somebody with a gun strapped onto their hip, somebody with a gun strapped onto their ankle, and you had bullets going in the opposite direction, right at this animal who did this, you would have had a very, very different result. Believe me, folks.
ACOSTA: Jim Acosta, CNN, Washington. (END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Joining us now, Wendy Greuel, a Clinton supporter and former L.A. council woman and KABC talk radio host. And Trump supporter, John Phillips. Oh, it's been a tough couple of days for you, John.
JOHN PHILLIPS, DONALD TRUMP SUPPORTER: A punching bag.
VAUSE: Should go up from here. The sacking of Lewandowski appears to have been engineered by his children, Donald Jr. confirmed that during an interview with Bloomberg.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP JUNIOR, SON OF DONALD TRUMP: Were we involved in talking about this with him? Sure. But he's always going to come up with his own mind. And again, I think we left it in a good way with Corey. We have a great relationship with Corey. He's done something that's incredible, and I wish all separations of this nature went that well.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we've been told is, you three were -- you weren't out to get Corey, but your judgment was that a change was required, and you made the recommendation to him and that's what made him decide he needed to --
TRUMP JR: I think that's fair. But in many respects, he was coming to that on his own, and we were there to help augment that and really think it through with him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: OK. Trump had been loyal to Lewandowski through a number of scandals. He bragged about it at one point. But it seems what is not forgivable is losing. Take a look at this Monmouth poll, Clinton up by eight points. So John, was Lewandowski the reason or the scapegoat for all of the problems within the Trump campaign?
PHILLIPS: Well, I think campaigns sometimes operate like this. If you look at sports, there are certain coaches that are very good in rebuilding years where you have young players, they respond well to yelling and screaming, and people who like a lot of structure. But then when the team makes to it the next level, you bring in somebody else who's used to dealing with super star players and then the team goes to the next level. I think the same dynamic may have been in play here, where he was the right guy for the primary but now they're moving into the general election strategy, so it's time to move on to somebody else, and somebody else is going to be in charge of the campaign now.
WALKER: Let's talk about this new general election strategy. I want to show you some sound from Donald Trump. He was talking to Fox News and he said, all right, after the sacking, we're taking this campaign into a new direction. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: He is a good guy. He is a friend of mine. But I think it's time now for a different kind of a campaign. We ran a small, beautiful, well unified campaign. It worked very well in the primaries. I think I'm probably going do some of that. I want to keep it a little bit very much in control -- as an example, I have 73 people. Hillary Clinton has like almost 900 people, and we're in the same position. So, you know, there is something nice about that. I got criticized for that. I said, wait a minute, I've spent much less money than her and the result so far is the same.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALKER: All right. So Wendy, I want you to chime in here, because Trump is talking about a new campaign, but so far we've only seen one version of Trump for quite a while, right, with a lot of Republicans kind of nervous, grimacing every time, each time, or sometimes when he opens his mouth. What direction do you think we are talking about here?
WENDY GREUEL, FORMER L.A. COUNCIL WOMAN: I think he is hemorrhaging and he's trying to respond to that. Because people are seeing the real stripes that he has. The fact is that he is not doing well across this country. He is not doing well with women. He is challenged in some of the battleground states that are occurring. People are now saying, you know, you were kind of funny for a while and we enjoyed seeing you on TV, but we are talking about the president of the United States. So I think you are going to continue to see the numbers get much greater between he and Hillary Clinton. He hasn't raised much money. He has been spending more money than he has. He has no ground operation in these states. It's going to be tough for him going forward. I think he is realizing that and trying to scramble to respond. But I think it's based on that, that he is seeing his numbers going down.
VAUSE: OK, let's pick up on that last point, because the Republican Party believes Trump has about 30 paid staff. Let's look at this. This is a graphic. It compares the staff for Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump. Look really carefully. Right down the bottom there is the Trump campaign staff. Itty bitty one right down the bottom. But John, this sort of goes to the point, you know, this is a campaign that doesn't really have any organization right now. Whatever Donald Trump says about it, he's only got 70 staff or 30 staff -- he doesn't have much of a ground game out there.
PHILLIPS: Hey, I have a Scottish father, so doing things on the cheap is a virtue in my household.
VAUSE: It doesn't always work, though, for U.S. politics. There are certain things you have to do to win an election, and he is not doing them.
PHILLIPS: Well, if you look at the elections that have taken place so far, he's done quite well. He won all of these primaries. When he started out, he was polling in low single digits and everyone said he has no chance, and then he started doing a little bit better and a little bit better. VAUSE: And winning.
PHILLIPS: Winning the primaries.
VAUSE: But he is falling behind now.
PHILLIPS: Well, he won the primary and now he is switching strategies. So the general election hasn't begun yet. Bernie Sanders is still in this race. He hasn't conceded. (laughter) He hasn't yet, and the Democratic primary may be an interesting place to be.
VAUSE: Don't even try to deflect.
WALKER: The thing is, you need money in U.S. politics, especially to run a general election campaign. I want to show you some filings from the FEC as of Monday. Clinton's campaign had, I think, $42 million in the bank. You can see Trump really behind, $1.3 million. So he's just getting off the ground the fundraising machine. Aren't you concerned about this? That's a fundamental problem, especially when you have GOP donors who are hesitant to contribute because it's not just the controversies but like John said, there is this concern over the infrastructure, the organization of the campaign.
PHILLIPS: Well, Jeb had more money than Trump, Rubio had more money than Trump, Ted Cruz had more money than Trump, and Trump beat all of them. I think this is a non-traditional cycle. He is a non- traditional candidate. He lives on all of the shows. He lives on "New Day" here on CNN. The public knows what Donald Trump has to say.
WALKER: But what's this new strategy you think he's trying to employ? What's this new campaign he's talking about?
PHILLIPS: Well, I think he is going to broaden his appeal. What does Jerry Brown say here in California? The secret to winning an election is to paddle a little bit to the left in the primary, and then paddle a little bit to the right in the general, and then you end up somewhere in the middle and you end up winning the general.
[01:10:02] VAUSE: But usually when you have an experienced politician, they get into trouble like this, the party comes to the rescue. At this point, Donald Trump is at war with the party. So who from the Republican side wants to come over and be the chief of staff at this point?
GREUEL: And that's the biggest challenge, not only in the fundraising. Because he really hasn't raised money. The money that he has, a lot of it he has loaned to the campaign and is owed back. I think secondly, in a general election, it's about getting out your voters, and the Republican Party or the Democratic Party play a key role in each of those states. And if they're not excited -- and it's clear, from Paul Ryan on down, about their candidate, it's going to be difficult in some of these battleground states to have that organization, because that day, election, and of course, in absentee ballots and all those things, you need a ground game. And he just doesn't have it. He's never been able to create that. WALKER: John, are you concerned that this campaign is in free fall at
this point? Now you have a new, revived, kind of stop-Trump campaign. "The Washington Post" is talking about 400 Republican delegates supporting this new stop-Trump campaign where they want to change the delegate rules so they have to vote according to the elections but with their conscience. That's quite concerning. Are you not worried about that?
PHILLIPS: Look, anytime you have a non-traditional candidate, it's a little bit of a roller coaster ride because they've never done it before. But non-traditional candidates have had electoral success in years when the public is upset. Richard Riordan, a two-term mayor of Los Angeles, ran for mayor of Los Angeles as someone who has never run for public office before. He won twice and was very popular. Arnold Schwarzenegger did it here in California, Jesse Ventura did it in the State of Minnesota -- so it happens, but it's certainly a different sort of dynamic.
VAUSE: I admire your commitment. OK, we heard again from Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren. This time it was over the weekend. She was talking about reports that Donald Trump was thinking of choosing Scott Brown as his V.P. Of course, Warren defeated Brown for the Senate in Massachusetts. This is what Elizabeth Warren had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D), MASSACHUSETTS: And I hear that Donald Trump is floating Scott Brown as a possible running mate. And I thought, ahh, so Donald Trump really does have a plan to help the unemployed. And let's face it, nobody knows more about losing to a girl than Scott Brown.
Think of it as the perfect reality TV show. "Celebrity Apprentice" meets "The Biggest Loser".
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: OK, this is all part of a long running feud between Donald Trump and Elizabeth Warren. He has been calling her, you know, Pocahontas as a reference to her Native American heritage, and he was asked tonight on Fox News if he had any regrets about that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I do regret calling her Pocahontas because I think it is a tremendous insult to Pocahontas. So, to Pocahontas, I would like to apologize to you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Is this the new campaign that we're seeing from Donald Trump? This was tonight. This was a few hours ago.
PHILLIPS: You know, I did (ph) 23 and me recently and I found out that I'm 5 percent Native American and I respect Donald Trump's apology. VAUSE: Wendy --
GREUEL: I think, when he talked about going from the primary campaign to a general campaign, what Donald Trump has done is offended a whole swath of people, from the international community, those that are from foreign countries who have become citizens of this country, to women, to others, to the American Indian. It's going to be hard for him to go into that general election and say, I've changed my stripes. I'm now somebody different. We've seen that his potential running mate has lost a few elections, and I don't think it's going to be very helpful to him.
VAUSE: OK. Wendy and John, thanks for being with us. We'll talk to you next hour. There's a lot more to get to. Thanks for coming in.
When the man arrested for grabbing a police officer's gun at a Trump rally admits he wanted to use it to kill the Republican candidate.
WALKER: Police arrested 19-year-old Michael Sanford after he tried to pull the officer's weapon from his holster Saturday in Las Vegas. He is now charged with violating two federal laws and could face a decade in prison if he is convicted.
VAUSE: A short break here. When we come back, the FBI has released a transcript of the Orlando gunman's calls to police during his rampage. We'll have a look at those details in a moment.
WALKER: Also, four gun control measures failed to pass the U.S. Senate. Why senators say they are not surprised by the result, as well as the public, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, I'm Michael Holmes, and this is your ROAD TO RIO update. Olympic tickets went on sale at kiosks across Rio on Monday. While they have been available online for months, this was the first opportunity for fans to purchase them in person. Officials say more than 4 million tickets have sold so far. They expect demand to pick up as we get closer to the start the games.
A Rio hospital is reeling after a deadly shootout. Some two dozen heavily armed gunmen forced their way into this hospital on Sunday, police say, to free a fellow gang member who was being treated there for a gunshot wound. One patient was killed, a nurse and a police officer wounded, and the gang members, they escaped. The downtown hospital where this happened is one of five medical facilities recommended for tourists.
Meanwhile, hundreds of police officers took part in a huge security drill in Rio on Sunday night. They were rehearsing for opening ceremonies at the Americana soccer stadium in Rio. While the drill caused some traffic headaches, authorities say everything ran smoothly.
A pair of sky divers joined the Olympic torch relay over the weekend. A parachuting torch bearer carrying the flame from high above the Amazon jungle safely down to the ground below, the torch now passing through several indigenous communities on its way closer to Rio. That is your ROAD TO RIO update. I'm Michael Holmes.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WALKER: Welcome back, everyone. U.S. Senators could not get enough bipartisan support to pass any of a series of gun control measures introduced after the deadly nightclub shooting in Orlando.
VAUSE: The measures included expanded background checks and preventing gun sales to anyone on the government's terror watch list. Manu Raju has the details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MANU RAJU, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Just eight days after the deadliest mass shooting in American history, the senate rejected four measures aimed at tightening restrictions on guns. Two of the measures were Democratic measures, one to expand background checks. Another to ensure that people who are suspected terrorists do not get firearms. Now, Republicans came back with alternatives to both of those approaches and Democrats voted down the Republican measures and Republicans voted down the Democratic measures. What we have seen in the aftermath of that Orlando shooting was no real movement on gun control in the United States Senate. Even though a clear majority of voters do support greater restrictions on guns, it has not translated to the United States Senate, where views are very, very locked in on this issue, very polarizing issue, particularly when it comes to expanding background checks. Now an interesting part of Monday night's vote was that a handful of Republicans breaking ranks, including in difficult re-election races, like Mark Kirk of Illinois in one of the toughest re-election races in the country, in that blue state, voting with Democrats, also voting with Republicans too, ensuring he is not going to get hit from either the right or the left on this issue.
[01:19:57] And also, a Democratic leader, Jon Tester of Montana from that very red state voting against the Democratic background checks, even though he is the head of the Senate Democrats Campaign Committee. Very interesting split there. What we are going to see going forward is whether or not there could be a bipartisan deal. Susan Collins of Maine is spearheading that effort. Right now, leaders on both sides of the aisle are wary about that idea, but that's one other thing going forward that moderate Democrats and Republicans are going to push. Manu Raju, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: The FBI has released a full transcript of the 911 calls made by the gunman in the Orlando shootings.
WALKER: It is shedding more light on the horrific rampage in which 49 people were killed at a gay nightclub. Our Pamela Brown breaks down the new details.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Omar Mateen makes his first call to 911 33 minutes after the first reports of gunfire at Pulse nightclub, telling the operator in Arabic, praise be to God and prayers as well as peace be upon the prophet of God. He goes on to say, I'm in Orlando and I did the shootings. Mateen also pledges his allegiance to ISIS.
UNIDENTIFIEDF MALE: We currently have no evidence that he was directed by a foreign terrorist group but was radicalized domestically.
BROWN: The gunman then spends around 28 minutes on the phone with hostage negotiators, at one point demanding America stop bombing Syria and Iraq. When the negotiator asked Mateen what he had done, he responds, you already know what I did. He later states, in the next few days, you are going see more this type of action going on.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: While the killer made these murderous statements, he did so in a chilling, calm, and deliberate manner.
BROWN: Mateen also claims he has explosives, saying, there is some vehicle outside that has some bombs, just to let you know. He says, I'm going to ignite it if they try to do anything stupid. Later, Mateen tells a negotiator he has a vest and described it as the kind they quote, used in France, an apparent reference to the Paris bombings in November. And he threatens to put suicide vests on four victims. The SWAT team commander told CNN that ramped up the risk for both civilians and first responders.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're way too close. Because if explosives go off, we are all within 1,000 feet and we all could be killed.
BROWN: No explosives were found. The partial police transcripts show at 5:14 am, nearly three hours after the attack began, shots were fired again. A minute later, the gunman was reported down. Today, officials defended their handling of the three-hour ordeal.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our officers were within the club within minutes and engaged the suspect in gunfire. That's important because that engagement and that initial entry caused him to retreat, stop shooting, and barricade himself in the bathroom with hostages. So during that time, our officers were intermittently in and out of that club saving people, rescuing people from inside the club.
BROWN: Initially, this was only a partial transcript with the words ISIS and al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS omitted, because Department of Justice officials didn't want to fuel terrorist propaganda. But then there was fierce backlash, including from the House Speaker Paul Ryan who said it was preposterous to omit those words. So after this backlash, the FBI and DOJ sent out the full transcript with those words. I'm told by officials at the Department of Justice, they were surprised by the reaction of those omissions. Pamela brown, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEO CLIP) WALKER: Let's turn now to Chris Voss. He is a former FBI lead international kidnapping negotiator. His new book is called, "Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It".
VAUSE: Thanks for being with us.
WALKER: Yes, thanks for joining us.
CHRIS VOSS, FORMER FBI LEAD INTERNATIONAL KIDNAPPING NEGOTIATOR: Thanks for having me.
WALKER: Let's first talk about that last nugget that Pamela Brown was talking about. It took a public outcry for the full 911 transcript where the shooter called 911 came out. Initially, parts of it were reacted and of course there was a lot of criticism over it. Why not just be transparent from the beginning? What was there to hide?
VOSS: Well, it's not that they're hiding anything. It's really the fact that terrorism is about publicity. He wants these names out there, he wants these oaths out there. I mean, otherwise he's a coward with a life that has no meaning. So they simply wanted to limit the amount of publicity and marketing that his group got. That's what terrorism is about, publicity.
WALKER: But James Comey was out talking about it before the transcripts fully came out.
VOSS: I know that was what the thinking would have been behind it. Now it was probably the result of a compromise, which is usually a bad decision anyway.
VAUSE: OK, you say they don't want to give it publicity, because there's 29 minutes of conversations which are summarized. There is no mention of the Boston bombers, the Tsarnaev brothers, which apparently he talked about. There's no mention of (ph) Mohammad Abusalah, the American suicide bomber who went off to Syria. Why not put the audio out or the complete transcript? Because there is a lot of speculation out there, because they haven't done it, that now they're covering something up.
[01:25:06] VOSS: Right. That's what everybody worries about initially when they're slow to release information. They are trying to conduct a deliberate investigation here. They are trying to keep the investigation as clean as possible. They have got a massive murder investigation to make and they have got to make sure they cover all the bases. They are simply trying to be diligent about what they are doing. It's nothing nefarious about holding it back.
WALKER: Well -- this is a three-hour ordeal, what happened inside that nightclub. When you look back, when you understand some of the details that happened during this massacare, what can we learn from it in terms of helping minimize the number of people killed?
VOSS: I'm glad you brought that up, because a colleague of mine, (ph) Derek Gunn, actually pointed this out to me today -- we have got a publication that comes out next week about what the negotiators did in the middle of this. In the critical 28-minute time frame when the negotiators were engaged, what's really important about is the activity that was going on in that time frame. The critical thing is if he wasn't killing. That's what a negotiator's job is to do is to come to these scenes and stop the killing if they can and at least keep the subject distracted. Law enforcement brings two sorts of distraction devices to these scenes. One were flash bangs. And this is actually the other distraction device. This is why so many people get into accidents when they are driving. If we can get that guy to pick up the phone, then we've got him distracted and there was no killing going on in this time frame. I buys important time for the SWAT people to get maybe a floor plan of the inside -- I mean, this is a horrific place to try to assault.
VAUSE: Sorry, so that's all they were trying to do at that point was to distract him? Because when people say he was on the line, he was negotiating with law enforcement, it comes to mind that maybe they were trying to negotiate an end to this. But there was never going to be an end, a peaceful end to it, is it.
VOSS: That's a tough job for the hostage negotiator, something they have to figure out from the very beginning, because they have to understand, is it my job to talk this guy out? Was it my job to talk him to a window for another reason? Or to locate him specifically inside so I can help SWAT make an entry. And that was what they were really after.
WALKER: Yes, no doubt a really tough pressure-filled job. You've got to make decisions at the split second. We have got to leave it there. Chris Voss, thanks for coming in.
VOSS: Thanks for having me.
VAUSE: Appreciate it. Thank you.
WALKER: We're going to take a short break here. When we return, federal officials say the Orlando gunman had multiple Facebook accounts. How other criminals are using the social media site under the radar.
VAUSE: Also, an exclusive look at how Brazil plans to catch cheaters at the Rio Olympics.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[01:31:11] VAUSE: Just gone 10:31 here on the west coast. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM, live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause.
WALKER: And I'm Amara Walker.
The headlines this hour --
(HEADLINES)
VAUSE: We are hours away from a decision by the International Olympic Committee on whether Russia's track and field athletes can compete in the 2016. They were banned after a report uncovered widespread doping.
WALKER: Meantime, a new lab plans to keep cheaters out of the Olympics.
Senior international correspondent, Nick Paton Walsh, has this report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the race for Rio to be ready, a few final tweaks matter more than in this one room, Brazil's 24 hour anti-doping laboratory for the Olympics. Testing 6,000 tiny samples from athletes in the games, each able to crush a sportsman's dreams, where nations will be desperate for a clean slate after allegations of doping on a state-sponsored industrial scale and seen Russian track and field stars banned for now. Russia has categorically denies all allegations but says it needs to regain trust.
Here, they're hoping to stay clear on controversy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe we are really clean in the system now.
WALSH (on camera): Doping risks overwhelming the Olympics, introducing to it a geopolitical rivalry, corruption and essentially cheating at the heart of sports.
(voice-over): Here you are going to strip down to the core molecules these spectrograms identify but it's before this stage that samples were allegedly tampered with in the 2014 Sochi games. Russia accused to using its security services, its new KGB, to tamper with supposedly tamper-proof bottles. Allegedly, using this hole in the laboratory wall to switch samples. With each bottle having a special random on its seal, how do you do that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Millions of different caps, you could choose, open a bottle and close it with the other one.
WALSH (on camera): You basically have to be the person making the bottle to be able to replace it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Almost that, almost that, or to have a mirror factory of that to be able to fabricate it.
WALSH: But it's almost impossible to be sure if countries are willing to do that kind of thing, that level of planning.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it is really hard to reach that point because you need to involve, well, high-ranking officials from the countries, from the country's anti-doping agency, from the direction of the laboratory, from the technicians. So to do that, it's kind of a Mafia thing.
WALSH (voice-over): This is where the cold gray-wearing of science collides with that underworld of alleged breath-taking deception.
Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (END VIDEOTAPE)
[01:35:18] WALKER: When we come back a solemn moment in British parliament as lawmakers honor a colleague who was murdered in the streets.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WALKER: More fires are burning across the southwestern U.S., including this one here in southern California. The conditions are exacerbated by a deadly heat wave across the region with temperatures topping 48 degrees Celsius, that's 118 Fahrenheit in some areas.
VAUSE: The Jeep involved in the accident have killed "Star Trek" film actor, Anton Yelchin, has been flagged by the automaker for safety makers. Yelchin was killed when the Jeep rolled down his driveway pinning him against a brick post.
WALKER: Fiat-Chrysler issued a warning on the 2015 Grand Cherokee in April. It says more than 100 crashes have been reported because of a problem with the gear selector that caused confusion about whether the vehicle was actually in park.
In a rare move, British lawmakers returned to parliament from recess to pay tribute to a slain colleague. Two roses, white and red, were placed where Jo Cox usually sat in the House of Commons. She was killed last Thursday in Birstall in northern England.
VAUSE: Her death brought Brexit campaigns to a halt for three days. On Monday, Cox was honored by Prime Minister David Cameron and the opposition Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID CAMERON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Jo's life was a demonstration against despair. In her tragic death, we can come together to change our politics, to tolerate a little more, and condemn a little less. We pay tribute to a loving, determined, passionate and progressive politician who epitomized the best of humanity and who proved so often the power of politics to make our world a better place.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[01:40:19] WALKER: So it's unclear what effect Jo Cox's death might have affected the referendum vote on Thursday.
Charles Litchfield is an associate with the U.K. Eurasia Group and he joins us now from London.
Good to have you on the program.
Let's talk more about Jo Cox, her death, and what kind of impact that will have on the referendum results. It seems we are seeing the Leave Campaign lose momentum after her death.
CHARLES LITCHFIELD, ASSOCIATE, U.K. EURASIA GROUP: Yes. I think the impact of her tragic death is limited though. I mean, the shift towards the Remain Campaign was visible in polls released after her death. Most of the polls were done before her death. I think the real reason for the shift for Remain is what you usually see in European referendums, especially in the U.K., a flight to safety. Her death has made the Leave Campaign go on the back foot. They can't campaign on immigration because there is a suggestion that the person was, in a sense, encouraged by the unpleasant campaign that we have in the moment in the U.K. But I don't think that's the reason why you see Remain doing well in the polls.
WALKER: Your job obviously is to remain neutral in this. You have done some analysis with your colleagues and you have arrived at the conclusion that the vote will likely be to remain in the E.U. How did you come to that conclusion?
LITCHFIELD: Through the momentum we've seen over the past week, but also what we've seen the week before when an unprecedented amount of people registered just before the deadline. They even had to extend the deadline because the website crashed. That's never been seen before in the U.K. It suggests high level of interest, which will translate into a high level of turnout on Thursday. High turnout I think that helps the Remain side. The Leave side -- the voters who will vote to leave are more enthusiastic. Had the turnout been lower, you could have expected a vote to leave. However, because of the high turnout, we think that Remain will just win, but it's going to be close.
WALKER: One of the issues foremost on the minds of the voters, especially those leaning towards a Brexit, is, of course, immigration and national security. We know that a Brexit, the impact it will have on immigration will likely curve immigration into the U.K. But will it actually make Britain safer?
LITCHFIELD: First of all, immigration, no one really knows. That's the problem with this debate. On the Remain side you hear figures how the economy will completely fall off a cliff, which are perhaps exaggerated. On the Leave side they make all sorts of promises they aren't sure they can achieve if we leave the E.U. Specifically on immigration, I think any British government will want to sign a trade deal fairly quickly with the E.U. That will prove complicated. I think they have to sign up to freedom of movement or something akin to it with the European Union if they want to get a trade deal quickly. So I'm not sure it will solve the immigration problem. On security, I think Britain will be safe whether in or out of the E.U. It has a good alliance system, good intelligence sharing. People want to work with the U.K., even though the acrimonious of a divorce may hurt that a little bit harder in the short-term.
WALKER: An acrimonious environment, indeed, and also both sides guilty of exaggerations and fearmongering, right, Charles? But when we talk about the economy and the impact on the economy that a Brexit would have, we have heard from the IMF who is warning this would be disastrous when it comes to the economy, so when we hear about that, those comments overstated, or are more likely realistic?
LITCHFIELD: There will definitely be a short-term impact. I think even people on the Leave side accept it will be difficult in the short-term to avoid shock in the markets, the pound falling, and perhaps even a short recession. The bigger debate obviously is on what happens in the long term. The Remain Campaign claimed it will be very difficult to get as good a deal with the E.U., which remains the U.K.'s main trading partner, for access to their single market and it will be difficult to replace the deals the E.U. has with third-party countries very quickly. I have my doubts over how easy it will be for the U.K. to get its interests listened to in China and in India and in the United States because we claim that -- the Leave Campaign claims we do badly in the E.U. already. I have my doubts how the U.K. will fare on the international stage. But it won't be a complete recession for too long. That's what the Remain Campaign claims.
WALKER: A lot of questions about what is in store for Prime Minister David Cameron's future after Thursday.
Good to have you on show, Charles Litchfield, with the U.K. Eurasia Group. Appreciate your time.
VAUSE: Well, after weeks of heated debate, fiery accusations and what seems to be endless campaigning, comedian, John Oliver, host of HBO's "Last Week Tonight," boiled down the issues in his own style.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[01:45:19] JOHN OLIVER, HBO HOST, LAST WEEK TONIGHT: Immigration policy may not change. Hysteria over regulation is a red herring. The costs of membership are reasonable. And the economic benefits of staying appear to outweigh the costs. And yet, polls suggest my homeland is on the edge of doing something absolutely insane. And on some level, I actually kind of understand. Because there is an innate British desire to tell Europe to go (EXPLETIVE DELETED) itself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(LAUGHTER)
VAUSE: 15 minutes. He really got into it. It's worth finding it on the Internet if you have not seen it already.
HBO's John Oliver
WALKER: I think it's going to drive a lot of people to see the clip or the show itself.
VAUSE: Absolutely.
WALKER: We'll take a short break here. When we return, criminals are connecting on Facebook. We'll hear from investigators on the illegal activity happening on the social media site and why suspects are so hard to track down. That's next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(RIO UPDATE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [01:50:02] WALKER: Welcome back, everyone. Investigators are discovering a dark world of illegal activity on Facebook.
VAUSE: Among the crimes, drugs being sold to teens by secret groups.
Ana Cabrera reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So this is the group you guys shut down?
MICHAEL HARRIS, INVESTIGATOR, JEFFERSON (ph) COUNTY D.A.'S OFFICE: Right.
CABRERA (voice-over): Mike Harris investigates Internet crimes against children. His decades as an on line absolute this was a first.
HARRIS: Under this banner, I start seeing all of this, like, for example, ten mill oxies, $10 a pop.
CABRERA: Fly Society 420, a secret Facebook group, now busted but after teenagers confessed to buying drugs on line.
HARRIS: I able to identify out of 900 people, members, 171 kids in middle school and high school.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was very, very easy. That was what was so alarming as a parent, to see how easy that was.
CABRERA: Claire asked us not to show her face. Her daughter is the one who was busted she wonders who else is happening in these secret Facebook groups.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With my experience with my daughter, she has been flagged from at risk for human trafficking, because once these kids get into the drugs, they get addicted, they are desperate and they will do whatever.
CABRERA: The secret Facebook groups cannot be found through a simple search. They are not just private. They are hidden. To see the group you have to be invited to join or already be a member. And there is no need for encryption for communication to be covert.
(on camera): Do you worry that's groups are going down other nefarious roads?
HARRIS: Yeah, I'm not me eve enough to think that if this is going on with drugs we could have sex trafficking, we could have terrorism because there is no one monitoring these groups.
CABRERA (voice-over): It is a concern echoed by federal officials following the Orlando massacre.
JAMES COMEY, FBI DIRECTOR: We are highly confident this killer was radicalized and, at least in some part, through the Internet.
CABRERA: Investigators say the shooter searched for jihadist propaganda on line, including ISIS beheading videos and videos of Anwar al Awlaki. And he had multiple Facebook accounts. He was posting and checking Facebook during the attack.
SEN. RON JOHNSON, (R), WISCONSIN: Can our intelligence gathering capabilities, can our law enforcement officials, can we figure out how to gain access to that, monitor it, so we can prevent these tragedies.
CABRERA (on camera): We asked Facebook whether they monitor communications on their platform, including these secret groups. They didn't address that question directly but pointed out people often use secret groups to discuss sensitive issues like medical issues or sexual orientation where privacy is a concern. In addition, they issued a statement that reads, in part, "We don't allow people to use Facebook for criminal activity. Our community of 1.6 billion people helps us enforce our community standards and we make it very easy for people to report content to us. Our global team works around the clock to review these reports and quickly remove prohibited content."
(voice-over): Law enforcement officials say that's reactive, not proactive, making the issue a privacy versus security issue.
HARRIS: If I can find them, I will definitely attack them. But the problem is finding them, because they are secret.
Ana Cabrera, CNN, Denver.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALKER: Joining us now, Dr. Wendy Walsh. She is an adjunct professor of psychology at California State University, Channel Islands.
Good to have you here in the studio.
DR. WENDY WALSH, ADJUNCT PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY, CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, CHANNEL ISLANDS: Happy to be here.
WALKER: I want your reaction to this story because there are secret groups on Facebook that you can't find through a search as Ana Cabrera was reporting. Obviously, a lot of parents are going to be concerned. How do I monitor my children? I guess sometimes you just can't.
WALSH: I think it's important that parents start parenting from the beginning. Kids have been meeting secretly for all kinds of reasons, good bad, since the beginning of time. Now they are meeting in a different place. Instead of at the mall to do their secret stuff, they are doing it on line. I think it's important that we teach our kids digital etiquette, that we start at young age, approving their friends, being a friend, following them on Twitter and Facebook and SnapChat, being in the village with them. To say that a child's social media is their private place and you are somehow feel like you're going between these sheets in their diary to read it is an absolutely crazy way to think about it. The truth is would you let your kid stand at the corner of 42nd and Broadway with a megaphone and just yell and you would walk on with blinders and say, oh, that's their private time.
VAUSE: These secret groups are not necessarily nefarious. There have like Pakistan women's groups or vegan sites in Australia, but are these sites different than say kids texting or being at the mall because it is on social media and can lead to something else.
WALSH: Sometimes these secret groups, if you will, can be so helpful to identity formation. If a child has a kind of sexual identity that they are growing, a gender identity that may not match whatever their familiar of origin thinks is norm, so it can be a place where they can find like-minded people to help them develop a healthy sense of self. We can't throw them all out. I think the important thing for parents is to be involved in all digital media and talk to them about where they are going, who they are friending on line. Just like in the real world, where are you going and who are you going to be with?
[01:55:31] WALKER: On social media, your children can naively be on there not knowing the next turn can have a pedophile or propaganda you don't want your children to be exposed to.
WALSH: No.
WALKER: Quickly talk about that conversation you should have with your kids. And there's also a parental app out there that will help you monitor your children online.
WALSH: There is an app I use called VISR. I have a 12-year-old. And it's V-I-S-R. Instead of reading all your children's texts and posts and blah, blah, to the parents, it sends me a ping if they think something is inappropriate and I can check on it. If not, I can also schedule her bedtime, and I'll get a ping saying, oh, late-night usage. Or I'll get a ping saying possible nudity. My daughter is a dancer, so I'll click on that and say, oh, not nudity, that's a dancer costume.
VAUSE: V-I-S-R.
(LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
VAUSE: Dr. Wendy Walsh, thank you for coming in.
(CROSSTALK)
VAUSE: Good advice. We appreciate it. Thank you.
WALSH: Thank you.
WALKER: Thanks, Dr. Wendy Walsh.
You are watching NEWSROOM, L.A. I'm Amara Walker.
VAUSE: I'm John Vause.
We'll be back with another hour of news right after this. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
