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Report: 49ers' QB Says Will Continue to Sit During National Anthem; Doctor Provides Life Saving Care in Kenya; Clinton Crams for Debate, Trump Eases into Prep; Huma Abedin Furious and Sickened by New Sexting Scandal of Husband; Ex-Host Suing Fox Wants Execs to Face Lie Detector; Gene Wilder Dead at 83. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired August 29, 2016 - 15:30   ET

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


[15:30:00] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: And you say it's disrespectful for veterans because why specifically? What does that mean for you?

SGT. DREW DWYER, US MARINE CORPS VETERAN: It means a lot. Right now in Iraq, the Anbar province, the devil's den, there are soldiers right now saluting to the flag going down at night. For him to be sitting there, this guy makes more in one game check than I made in four years in the Marine Corps. So for him to be sitting there during the national anthem, it's a hard pill for us veterans to swallow.

BALDWIN: How do you see this, Angela? You can understand where he's coming from, Angela?

ANGELA RYE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Absolutely. I appreciate your service, to Brooke's point. But I do respectfully disagree. The hard thing is to take a step back, sometimes in conversations like this, and try to understand a different paradigm.

Just, for example, when I was growing up, my dad had a poster that he got at the million-man march. And this poster is a black man and his back is beaten, the American flag is beaten on his back. When you think about some of those things, including I saw earlier -- and I hadn't realized this. It's something I learned in history and forgot.

But in the third verse of the national anthem by Francis Scott Keys, there's a line that says no refuge could save the hireling and slave from the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave. For those who have ancestors who were slaves in this country, it is a little bit more of a checkered past, and I feel the conflict that you are talking about because I never would want to disrespect our vets.

But at the same time I understand the conflict of being an oppressed person in this country, of being someone who understands I have slavery ancestors. I know what port they came into at Alexandria. And so this is very, very difficult. And I think the only we are going to figure this out is to have real conversations like this. So thank you for doing it.

DWYER: And I appreciate that. Colin Kaepernick has that platform to utilize in other ways than sitting down on the sidelines. I know the NFL has said that it's not mandatory for you to stand during the national anthem but just out of courtesy, I think that he could approach it other ways to help out in the situation.

BALDWIN: How else would you see him doing that?

DWYER: I spoke to Dakota Meyer. medal of honor winner last night and Kris Tonto Paronto a personal friend of mine from the "Benghazi Story" on the way here on the train. They both said the same thing and they don't have a problem sitting down with the "national anthem" but it's his next step. What they have problem with is next step, like let's go to solutions and not just talk about the problems and that's where they want to see him at.

BALDWIN: As far as police brutality is concerned. So you want solutions to his concern. Is that what they are saying?

DWYER: Yes, ma'am. I think -- I don't know what Colin Kaepernick donates to or helps. I'm sure there's a lot of organizations.

BALDWIN: Power in the pocketbook instead of sitting down?

DWYER: Correct. Go to your local YMCA, boys and girls club be a mentor. I think that would produce more results than sitting down in the national anthem. Even though now it's created a platform on national television for him to talk about it.

BALDWIN: Let's just be real, we would not be talking about it.

RYE: You know, he did it two other times. Because he wasn't in uniform, nobody noticed. This time he was in uniform and the first stage to empower someone is to call notice to the issue and that's what he did here. I hope you're right. I hope it doesn't stop there. Again, I'm not going to speak on his behalf. I'm not a spokesperson for him. I would doubt he meant to do anything disrespectful to vets. I hope if you could take that lens off and say maybe there's a part of this oppression --

BALDWIN: No. He says he respects the military. The fight for freedom is not being felt by everyone here at home including troops. Got to leave it here, Drew and Angela. We'll see if he continues to do this.

Less than a month until the first presidential debate and we still do not know who will be on the stage asking the questions of the candidates. An inside look at the debate actually over the moderators themselves and the drastic differences in how Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are preparing to take the stage. Stay with me.

[15:35:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Let's take a moment and honor this CNN hero, Umra Omar, who left a medical career in the U.S. to make sure people in her homeland of Kenya get the treatment they need, attacks by the extremist group Al Shabaab have left many who live on the islands bordering Somalia struggling to survive.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UMRA OMAR, FOUNDER SAFARI DOCTORS: We have about six villages that have absolutely zero access to healthcare. When an individual is in the remote area and has an absolute emergency, it's considered a matter of destiny. I feel like there's no purpose if you don't challenge your comfort zone. And do something that's a little bit bigger than who you are.

BALDWIN: To watch one of her life-saving missions, visit CNNheroes.com. Back in 45 seconds.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: All right. The very first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is set for September 26th. Four weeks away and the Washington Post, they say the two candidates could not be preparing more differently saying, "Hillary Clinton is methodically preparing for the presidential debates as a veteran lawyer would approach her trial and perfect the pacing and substance of her presentation."

[15:40:00] They write that Trump isn't holding any mock debates but meets with his advisers for "Sunday chats" where they test out zingers that may work on the debate stage. So CNN's chief political correspondent, Dana Bash who might I add would make a phenomenal moderator in any of these debates.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: OK, showing your bias my friend but thank you.

BALDWIN: I am totally biased towards you but whatever, everyone knows that. What specifically have you heard about how these two are preparing?

BASH: I think the Washington Post laid it out right and I don't think anybody who else who has watched either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton for more than five seconds would be surprised that they are very different in how they approach their prep. Hillary Clinton is known to be incredibly methodical, detail oriented, has been her whole life since law school and through politics as both the first lady and a candidate herself.

And Donald Trump since August of last year, the first time he was the presidential candidate in that he doesn't approach debate prep in that kind of methodical way. He is a go with his gut kind of guy and didn't do the traditional mock debating that is really the norm and has been in recent history since television debates have been around.

Which is, you stand at a fake podium and have somebody playing the role of your opponent or opponents, and have somebody playing the moderator and everybody throws questions at you. And you spar with the person playing your opponent and you get comfortable that way in addition to reading briefing books and so forth. As you said, I'm told that at least now the plan is not to do that, even for this high- stakes general election debate, just like he didn't do that in the primaries. But he has been meeting on Sundays so far with a core group of people

to go over details, to go over policy points, to go $ over talking points. He did it last Sunday and we're told he did it yesterday as well.

BALDWIN: Let me bring in my next guest, Dana Bash, for now. Thank you. Let's bring in Kirsten Powers. Welcome to the CNN family, my friend.

KIRSTEN POWERS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Thank you. Nice to be here.

BALDWIN: You joined CNN from that other network that rhymes with "sox". So you know Roger Ailes and Laura Ingraham. To some degree they are the ones advising Trump behind the scenes. What kind of advice do you think he's getting from them on style and substance?

POWERS: Well, look, I can't really say exactly what they would be vising him on. All I can say about Roger Ailes is he definitely knows how to prepare somebody for a debate. This is what he used to do a long time ago before he ran Fox News. Basically has been in this business for 50 years, television business, he also was a political consultant before and advised Richard Nixon on how to make Richard Nixon more likable and better in debates.

I think he's somebody who has a lot of experience and is somebody most importantly that Donald Trump trusts and respects and would listen to.

BALDWIN: And would listen to.

POWERS: And I can hardly think of another person that you can say that about. He has this long relationship and Roger Ailes is not going to suffer -- he doesn't suffer fools and he's going to tell Trump how it is. What he needs to do.

BALDWIN: Do you think that because Dana was just talking in the primaries, Trump was so successful with those one-line zing that took him to winning the nomination but this is different. I mean, this is a different stage, this is one-on-one, how do you think that might play out.

POWERS: Well, that's the million-dollar question because he didn't have to go one-on-one. He was able to deflect with sometimes going on the attack against somebody or with the one-line zinger whereas a one- on-one debate is going to require more depth and I think anyone who has interviewed Donald Trump knows that he stays very surface level.

He really has this attitude that when he's president, he will just delegate. Once you get down to the second level, he starts moving and saying, well, I would hand that off to somebody and I have good people around me and they would know how to handle it.

That's not going to work in a debate. You have to be able to talk about issues and Hillary Clinton is going to talk in-depth about issues. She's studying. He's not. Could be a problem for him.

BALDWIN: Do you think -- we thought it was interesting that the Hillary Clinton campaign came out and said, listen, he's formidable, he's tough. Downplaying expectations big time.

POWERS: Well, I think they are trying for her.

[15:45:00] And in the same way that you see the Trump campaign talking about Hillary Clinton sort of casting her as this uptight -- what do they call her -- he's the unpredictable X factor and she's the statist because he prepares.

There is really nothing wrong with preparing for a debate and it's something that most people would expect someone to do and do we really want somebody who's an unpredictable X factor? That's the question. When he shows up a debate like that, it's not the same audience as it was for the Republican debate.

They were looking for the unpredictable X factor. I don't know that the average general election voter is looking for that.

BALDWIN: Kirsten powers, thank you.

POWERS: Good to be here.

BALDWIN: Again, September 26th, the first debate.

Coming up next, top Clinton aide, Huma Abedin, stood by her husband Anthony Weiner during those sexting scandals but today she's announced it is over. The latest sexting scandal involving her husband and, guess what, Donald Trump just weighed in.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:50:00] BALDWIN: Former New York Congressman, Anthony Weiner, and his wife, Human Abedin are separating. The news hours after the new allegations that Weiner has been sexting again.

One of the recent photos showed the couple's four-year-old son fast asleep right next to him. Weiner resigned from Congress in 2011, after he got caught. Sending suggestive texts, since then he has been a stay at home dad and his wife is one of the top advisers to Hillary Clinton.

We have new information from her. Let's bring in Miguel Marquez from this. A quote from Jeff Zeleny that she is furious and sickened with the picture of her husband and child.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This picture here is something she did not know about she said until she heard about it this weekend. She and her son now five years old were out at the beach in the Hamptons with the Clintons over the weekend. She left Monday apparently.

Drifting apart from Anthony Weiner for quite some time and this is certainly sealed it. Donald Trump quick to jump on this as well Saying that "Huma is making a wise decision. I only worry for the country in that Hillary Clinton was negligent in allowing Anthony Weiner to be in close proximity to highly classified information. It is possible our country could have been compromise by this." There is no indication of that but because of this cover, the concerning part here is that this picture here, where it shows Anthony Weiner in his underwear with a child next to him, The Post saying that this was a conversation he was having, a sexual conversation over text with a woman in her 40s from out west is the only thing they identify her with his child and then sleeping next to him. And very disturbing this latest turn in this.

BALDWIN: And officially separating. Miguel Marquez, thank you.

MARQUEZ: You got it.

BALDWIN: Next, former Fox host suing the network for sexual harassment. She says her old bosses should take a lie detector test to prove their innocence. Can she do that? Let's ask. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: A former Fox News host accusing her bosses of sexual harassment. She is now challenging to take a lie detector test.

[15:55:00] She is Andrea Tantaros, she is suing the network today. Her attorneys challenge former boss Roger Ailes, current host Bill O'Reilly and other Fox executives to take a polygraph. Among questions she would like Roger Ailes to answer include did you ever ask Ms. Tantaros to turn around for you. She has questions for Bill O'Reilly also, did you ever tell Ms. Tantaros that you believe she has a "wild side"?

In return her attorneys says Tantaros will take a polygraph and answer any questions from Fox.

With me now, CNN senior media correspondent, Brain Stelter, Host of "Reliable Sources", and CNN legal analyst, Joey Jackson.

BALDWIN: You sir, just hopped off the phone with who?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: With Fox News they are now filing their first motion in response to last week's lawsuit, it is motion to compel arbitration, they are saying she is violating her contract. This does not belong in court it belongs if arbitration.

But the headline from the motion it is 40 pages long so I'm just starting to read it. They say she is not a victim, she is an opportunist. She is filing her own retaliation claims and calling for a lie detector test.

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: All anyone has, Brooke, is their credibility. I think if you're going to submit to a lie detector test then you putting your credibility at issue. She is confident enough in her claims, Andrea Tantaros to say, if I'm an opportunist, let's establish that. You in fact, answer these questions you laid out some of them, and I will answer any questions you want and ultimately it will be determined if I'm fibbing or you.

BALDWIN: Forgive me. I'm just getting news my ear. Gene Wilder is dead. Gene Wilder is dead. You know Gene Wilder -- oh. I hate passing this kind of news along. Dead at age 83.

This is man brought Willie Wonka to life. We are getting confirmation he passed way. He was an iconic actor, screen writer, author, although he was most famous for his role as the curator of candy as I mentioned a second ago in "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory". His collection of work was as wide as his imagination. Let's watch. Okay. We will have a clip in a moment.

He is known for his work with actor and filmmaker Mel Brooks with such roles as Dr. Frankenstein in "Young Frankenstein". Also starred along with Richard Prior in "Silver Streak", "Stir Crazy" and "See No Evil Hear No Evil".

Gene Wilder was 83 years old. Willie Wonka, I have 60 seconds left. I just got the news in my ear. How many times have you seen that movie?

STELTER: So many films over so many decades. "The Woman in Red'. "The Producers", "Silver Streak". "Stir Crazy". "Blazing Saddles". "Young Frankenstein". That's after Willie Wonka in 1971. Go to Netflix to see if it is on there to watch it again now. When you think of Gene Wilder, you think of this movie and yet so many dozens of films and TV shows in his filmography over the years.

[16:00:00] BALDWIN: I am just mesmerized listening to him, can we just listen for three seconds.