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Muslim-American Father of Fallen Solder Speaks at DNC; Clinton, Kaine Hit Trail in Philadelphia; Officials Confirm Zika Transmission in Florida; Deejay Jazzy Jeff Talks Race, Politics. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired July 29, 2016 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[14:31:58] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's come out with some live pictures there. There is the bus for the big west tour for the Clinton-Kaine ticket. They spoke at Temple University. Today is the day, 101 days to go until Election Day. They are about to board the bus. They'll head from Philadelphia on to Harrisburg, P.A. They could make some stops before they get there, we've been told. Two key states in play for the election, both Pennsylvania and Ohio. Donald Trump is in Colorado today and his running mate also in the state of Ohio. Back to that in a second.
Meantime, what a moment. Faith, law and order, passionate patriotism -- typically themes of what you would see at a Republican convention. But amid chants of "USA," powerful speeches expressing admiration for veterans, the police, the Democrats made their issues their own.
Perhaps the most heart-felt emotional moment of the night belonged to an angry grieving father who lost his Muslim-American son in the Iraq war. Let me show you this picture. This is Captain Khan. He was killed in 2004 when a truck packed with explosives drove into his compound. Khan ordered his troops inside while he tried to get his driver to stop. And his father issuing this challenge as he was on that big stage last night in Philadelphia issuing this challenge to Donald Trump.
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KHIZR KHAN, FATHER OF FALLEN U.S. SOLDIER: Our son had dreams, too, of being a military lawyer, but he put those dreams aside the day he sacrificed his life to save the lives of his fellow soldiers.
(CHEERING)
KHAN: Hillary Clinton was right when she called my son the best of America.
(CHEERING)
KHAN: If it was up to Donald Trump, he never would have been in America. Donald Trump consistently smears the character of Muslims. He disrespects other minorities, women, judges, even his own party leadership. He wants to build walls and ban us from this country. Donald Trump, you're asking Americans to trust you with their future let me ask you, have you even read the United States Constitution?
(CHEERING)
[14:35:24] KHAN: I will - I will gladly lend you my copy.
(CHEERING)
KHAN: In this document, look for the words -- look for the words "liberty" and "equality protection of law." Have you ever been to Arlington Cemetery? Go look at the graves of brave patriots who died defending United States of America. You will see all faiths, genders and ethnicities. You sacrificed nothing and no one.
(CHEERING)
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BALDWIN: Captain Khan was laid to rest as Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors. He was awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart.
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[14:41:59] BALDWIN: Back to Philadelphia. You hear the cheers from the crowd. Folks there at Temple University in Philadelphia who were waiting, hanging out to see now officially they've accepted the nomination. So you have your Democratic nominee for president, Hillary Clinton, with her husband. And Tim Kaine, Virginia Senator, who has accepted his nomination to be on her ticket. So they are about to hop on that bus and leave Philadelphia, first stop is Harrisburg, P.A. But they're on this three-day swing, both through these key battleground states of Pennsylvania, shaking some hands and saying hello before they head on to Ohio. So it begins. Can't believe it now. We are officially in that final 101-day stretch, whereas Hillary Clinton said moments ago to that crowd, it is time to make our case and continue making our case to Americans. There you have it, the theme on the bus. Two words, "Stronger Together."
We're also waiting for a Donald Trump event. He holds a rally at the top of the next hour in Colorado Springs, Colorado. We'll take that. And the man on his ticket, Mike Pence, he is in Ohio.
We're following trouble developments on the Zika Virus today, specifically if Florida. Health officials there confirming for the first time in the U.S., Zika has been transmitted on American soil from mosquitoes.
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RICK SCOTT, (R) GOVERNOR OF FLORIDA: This morning we learned that four people in our state likely have the Zika Virus as a result of a mosquito bite. This means Florida has become the first state in the nation to have local transmission of the Zika Virus.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: This is a big deal. Officials believe all four people were infected within a small stretch north of downtown Miami and while most people with Zika actually never show symptoms, it causes serious birth defects.
Joining me, Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventative medicine at Vanderbilt University there in Nashville.
Doctor, welcome. Thank you for joining me.
DR. WILLIAM SCHAFFNER, PROFESSOR OF PREVENTATIVE MEDICINE, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY: Good to be with you, Brooke.
BALDWIN: Americans heard Brazil, South America, and that's one thin but now that we're hearing Florida, can you just hammer home the significance of this for us here in the states.
SCHAFFNER: Well, we anticipated, Brooke, from the beginning that because there were so many individuals infected with Zika in Central America and South America, and in the Caribbean, that travelers from those places would introduce Zika into the United States and that's clearly happened. What's now been confirmed is that some of our own domestic mosquitoes bit some of those people, and then bit some people who never went to the Caribbean, for example. Never left the U.S. And we've know transmitted Zika to them. Public health response has been on the ball, by the book, prompt, comprehensive. So we expect that this will be contained. And we can anticipate that there will be some other transmissions that occur from time to time during the course of the summer. But the response will be very prompt.
BALDWIN: If we're talking though mosquitoes, you mentioned containment. I know officials believe that the local transmission is actually confined there, North Miami, a single zip code. Doctor Schaffner, how do you contain that?
SCHAFFNER: First of all, you find all the cases. Make sure they get under good treatment. You provide education for everybody in the environment so that they use the insect repellant all the time. And you do mosquito abatement activities. You do spraying and you try to get everyone to go around their house to find out where there might be standing water, breeding sites, and eliminate those. A comprehensive response.
[14:39:58] BALDWIN: OK, Dr. William Schaffner, thank you so much, from Vanderbilt. Hopefully, to your point, it doesn't go beyond this little stretch of area in Miami.
Thank you very much.
SCHAFFNER: Thank you.
BALDWIN: Straight ahead here, you know him as Jazzy Jeff from "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" episodes. Times have changed. And now politics has him front and center in Philadelphia. My conversation with deejay, Jazzy Jeff, there in Philly at the CNN Grill, next.
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[14:49:27] (SINGING)
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BALDWIN: Yes. You are watching the right channel. This is CNN. We're letting "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" set the scene for us because last week we were all in Philadelphia where, last night, Hillary Clinton formally accepted her nomination for president.
I got to chance to catch up with the "Fresh Prince" star, deejay, Jazzy Jeff, who's still touring the world and making music. He gave me some real good conversation at the CNN Grill about race and about politics during this election season.
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BALDWIN: Is it all true in west Philadelphia -- born and raised?
[14:50:] JAZZY JEFF, DEEJAY & SINGER & ACTOR: Yes, absolutely.
BALDWIN: So what is it like for all of us and all of the delegates and Hillary Clinton descending upon your town?
JEFF: This is amazing. This is amazing. Most of these venues are sports venues and you're used to coming in for --
BALDWIN: Basketball, hockey, baseball.
JEFF: -- watch the world basically be converged in Philly is amazing.
BALDWIN: Are you a full Hillary Clinton supporter? Did you have love for Bernie? Where do you stand on that with respect to Democrats?
JEFF: I have a little love for almost everyone.
BALDWIN: OK.
JEFF: It's kind of like if I could take a piece of this and piece of this and piece of this, I think you would have the best candidate in the world.
BALDWIN: Are we talking piece of Bernie, piece of Hillary, piece of Trump?
JEFF: No. I don't really have too many pieces on that that I understand.
BALDWIN: When did you sort of come into a passion for politics? Like were you a kid and your grandmother made you watch the news? Or was this later in life?
JEFF: You know, what's funny, it was really later in life. And it is going to sound really funny but it was driving down the street and I hit a pothole and got a flat. I was just like I don't understand why we don't have the poll holes filled. That's what --
BALDWIN: That's what took you.
JEFF: Yeah.
BALDWIN: What are some of the issues that you truly care about, that matter to you?
JEFF: Health care is very important and education is very, very important, because I think so many of the issues have a chain reaction. Like I don't think that there is one thing that you can fix that will fix everything. I kind of think you have to really go back and a lot of it starts with education. You give kids a great education, they want to do more, they want to be more and that affects the community and that starts from 5 years old, and you know, if they carry that to adulthood, then we live in a better world.
BALDWIN: I just have to ask because I am looking at you and also thinking "Fresh Prince" and Will Smith. Do you all talk? Do you ever talk politics with him?
JEFF: Some. Some. We don't really get a chance to talk a lot. When we do talk, sometimes we more so talk family.
BALDWIN: One night this week they had the Moms of the Movement. Right? So you had mothers on the stage. You had the mother of Trayvon Martin, mother of Eric Garner, a number of moms who lost their sons or daughters through excessive gun violence or excessive force violence, facing charges in the killing of Freddie gray. A Bernie guy said he felt like the DNC put those moms up as props.
JEFF: I don't know. And I don't like that I don't know.
BALDWIN: What don't you know?
JEFF: Well, sometimes I feel like it is so much of a smoke screen to make you look the other direction instead of really focusing on an issue. Sometimes it confuses you. I really sometimes have a problem with the fact that we don't ever answer questions when they're asked. It's always a round-about, it's always, you ask is it red or green and someone says it's raining today. You know? And sometimes people just want answers. We are trying to fix a problem without going back to the origin of the problem. I think it's more important to protect the interests of groups or organizations than the people. We live in a nation that we're supposed to be protecting the people. And you only realize that that's not the case when something like that happens.
BALDWIN: Did you feel protected growing up?
JEFF: You know what? I felt normal growing up. I don't know if I was protected or not. Like sometimes if you grow up and it's an issue, you don't know it is an issue. You don't know it is -- I didn't realize there was an issue until I got older. I didn't realize that there was an issue until I started traveling globally, asking myself, how come you don't have these same problems? I was in Canada doing a show in Victoria. And the driver was driving me around showing me landmarks. And he looked at me, and he, "And last year there was a murder in that house right there." And everyone in the car just got quiet. It was like, wait, last year? Like you don't have the same issues that we do. Like how come the whole world isn't like that? Like -- you know. And I think a lot of people get confused because we're perceived as the biggest nation, the strongest nation. We are the protectors of other nations. But a lot of us don't feel protected.
[14:55:17] BALDWIN: Talk to me about your concert. Talk to me about why you wanted to be here, who you're performing with and the message.
JEFF: You know what? This is my hometown. I was happy that this was in my hometown. I was very honored to be asked to do this, to be on this kind of bill. And hopefully just me participating, me providing some good music for people to feed good that can translate all the way across the board. We need a lot of feel good right now. We do. This is the first time that I felt that America needs a hug. And like I said, I'm blessed with the ability to travel abroad, and it hurts my feelings the way we are portrayed now. We've never portrayed like that. You know? As soon as I get out of the car in London, the Uber driver's asking me a thousand questions about what's going on in America. I don't want to answer those questions. I don't feel that I should have to answer those questions. I don't have the answer to those questions. And it hurts. They feel bad for me as an American. They feel bad for me as an African-American.
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BALDWIN: Deejay Jazzy Jeff, thank you so much for spending time with me and being so candid.
Coming up, Donald Trump's first appearance since Hillary Clinton formally accepted the Democratic nomination for president. He got hit pretty hard last night. How will he respond this afternoon in his rally in Colorado Springs? We are there live.
Also ahead, after both conventions, the ratings are in. Who had more viewers? Was it Donald Trump in Cleveland? Was it Hillary Clinton in Philadelphia? We have that for you. Why it matters, coming up next.
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