Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

FaceBook Murder Manhunt Over; Zuckerberg Vows to Do More; Trump Visits Wisconsin; Trump's Credibility Takes Hit; Dems Want Tax Returns; Clinton Camp Mix-up. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired April 18, 2017 - 14:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:00:11] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being with me.

Let's begin with the breaking news right now. This manhunt for the FaceBook killer is over. Police say Steve Stephens killed himself in Erie, Pennsylvania, after a tip led police officers to this local restaurant's parking lot and then there was this police chase. Stephens was ultimately found in the very same area where authorities initially said his cell phone was picked up by a cell tower.

But for nearly 48 hours, authorities across the country scrambled to find him after he randomly shot and killed Robert Godwin, this grandfather of 14, who was on his way home on Easter Sunday from a meal with his family. Stephens then posted this video to his FaceBook page.

Moments ago, Godwin's daughter told CNN over the phone she wishes the search of course ended differently saying, quote, "all I can say is that I wish he had gone down in a hail of 100 bullets."

With me now, Deborah Feyerick, CNN national correspondent, and Mary Anne Franks, University of Miami law professor.

And, so, Deborah, just beginning with you, you know, so he's dead. But for 48 hours, police had no clue where he was. What do they do now as far as retracing?

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, and that's so interesting because even as early as this morning, they didn't know. They had no indication as to where he might be. There were 400 tips that came in all across the country. Initially there were 911 calls in Philadelphia. There were calls about sightings in Texas. They simply didn't know early this morning.

But about 11:00 they got the tip that they were waiting for. That was the one coming from Erie, Pennsylvania, that a white Ford Fusion was found in the parking lot of a local McDonald's. Pennsylvania State Police responded and Stephens apparently fled. A short pursuit, a chase, and that's when the car was stopped effectively and he shot himself. It appears that he did not open fire on other police officers who were there. Once he was pulled over, once he was discovered, he shot himself.

And one of the big questions, Brooke, is where was he over the course of the 48 hours.

BALDWIN: Right.

FEYERICK: And now we're getting word, our Sara Ganim reporting, that, in fact, he may have been in a casino. Now, in the original FaceBook page that he had broadcast, basically, he had said that he had lost everything. He was out of options. He had lost his money and that he had been gambling. And so whether that was a clue, we do know that authorities were up in that area. They were searching hotels. But he may have very easily turned off his cell phones and simply looked for a place to basically lay low, lay quiet.

What we do know now is that investigators are in that area, they're looking inside the vehicle, they're trying to determine his exact whereabouts because, as you know, he did make threats that not only had he killed people before Mr. Godwin, the very public shooting that we saw on FaceBook, but also that there may have been a larger spree after that. It does not yet appear that that's the case, but police and investigators, they want to rule everything out. So they are going to have to go back, retrace his steps and see whether, in fact, he may have been in communication with anybody in the Erie, Pennsylvania, area.

BALDWIN: OK. So that's the investigation piece of it, right? Then there's the whole FaceBook piece of this. We know FaceBook has been in a bit of trouble after the video remained on FaceBook for about two hours after this gruesome shooting. The CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, he held a meeting and actually responded to this just moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK ZUCKERBERG, CEO, FACEBOOK: Our hearts go out to the family and friends of Robert Godwin Sr. And we have a lot of work and we will keep doing all we can to prevent tragedies like this from happening.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: My question to you, Mary Anne, is just from a - from a FaceBook perspective, responsibility, legal perspective, what do they need to own with this?

MARY ANNE FRANKS, LAW PROFESSOR: FaceBook has a lot to answer for here because this isn't the first time by any means that we've seen a violent act perpetrated on FaceBook or using FaceBook. And so for FaceBook to continually say we're going to work on it, we can do better, is really not an adequate response. They really have to think hard about the products that they are making available to all of these people and they need to think really, really hard about the negative consequences that are clearly going to be a product of those particular platforms before they roll them out to the public.

BALDWIN: I read a piece in "The Washington Post" where you were quoted this morning and you talk about the whole FaceBook Live feature and you say, quote, "bound up with doing all of these terrible things is the possibility of showing thousands, possibly millions of people that you're doing it. When it comes to FaceBook Live as a product specifically, I don't think it's a solvable problem." Why?

FRANKS: Well, the entire point of FaceBook Live is to have no mediation, no moderation. That immediately when somebody wants to post something, they can do so. And no matter what that post happens to be, whether it's a gang rape or a suicide or a homicide, there won't be any way to keep it from people's views. And so the best case scenario will be to rely on people to flag it and maybe to bring it down within a certain period of time, but we all know that by that moment this can have gone viral, it could be available on a hundred other sites by that point.

[14:05:21] So if we're really concerned about making sure that people don't turn their cruelty into performance art, then something like FaceBook Live is going to be a real problem to have wrestled with long before there was a launch and there was a rollout and any of the other issues. It should have been dealt with before the product was ever introduced.

BALDWIN: We could be hearing more from Zuckerberg. We should be hearing more from Zuckerberg.

Professor, thank you.

Deb Feyerick, if you get anything more, obviously, let us know and we'll put you back on TV on the investigation side.

Meantime, watching the clock, we are moments away to see President Trump. He will be arriving in Wisconsin. One of the so-called blue wall states that crumbled, remember, on election night in Mr. Trump's favor. He will be there to push his America first platform, visiting the headquarters of a tool manufacturing company. We're also told he'll sign an executive order making it more difficult for guest workers to get visas for jobs.

But as he stands there and introduces this, his credibility is taking a massive hit. Let me show you some numbers. And this is just one example here. It shows the president's poll numbers dipping 17 points when it comes to whether people think he will keep his promises. We'll take a closer look at those numbers here in just a moment.

But, first, let's go to Kenosha, Wisconsin, and our senior White House correspondent Jeff Zeleny.

Jeff Zeleny, talk to me about what the White House has planned for the next couple of hours and how this is sort of the pivot back to America first.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, the president will be coming here to Kenosha, Wisconsin, in the next hour or so and it is his first visit to Wisconsin, as you said, since taking office back in January. And they are trying to make the point that he is trying to fulfill some of those campaign pledges to hire American and buy American. So he will be signing an executive order here. You can see the desk behind me here up on stage. And we are at a, you know, an iconic manufacturing center of a brand that was born in Wisconsin and it's a U.S. company of course here.

But, Brooke, one thing that's clear that he will not be doing is signing legislation. We are in Speaker Paul Ryan's home legislative district here in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the southeast part of Wisconsin, just south of Milwaukee here. And as the 100-day mark of this presidency approaches next week, the White House knows that it is short on accomplishments. There are more executive orders piling up than pieces of actual legislation.

But that said, the president will be coming here to sign this executive order, making the point that he is still sending his administration this directive to change the number of visas, to limit the number of visas for guest workers coming into the U.S. here. But, again, this stops well short of the things he promised when he was running for president that he would sign actual laws to do this.

But, Brooke, the White House is definitely aware of that Gallup poll and other polls out there. It's one of the reasons he's actually traveling. One of the ways for the president to get up his poll numbers and his approval ratings is to leave Washington, to travel and make his sales pitch, if you will, across the country. So he's doing that just once this week on his schedule. So it's been one of the surprises of this presidency, Mr. Trump not traveling as much as he said he would, Brooke.

But he will be here in Wisconsin within the hour making that executive order to hire American and buy American. Again, one of those campaign pledges we heard so much about.

Brooke.

BALDWIN: Rally those crowds.

Jeff Zeleny, thank you. We'll talk again. And thank you WDJT, our affiliate there out of Milwaukee, as we're watching Air Force One coming close to landing before this big event in Kenosha.

And as we wait to see this big arrival, let's get a little deeper into the - those Gallup numbers that Jeff alluded to. And you can see some of these - some of these numbers. Listen, the president is down seven points as a strong leader, down seven points for bringing about need change, down six points under honest and trustworthy and so the list goes on and on.

With me, Carol Lee, White House reporter for "The Wall Street Journal" here. I don't even recognize you without the White House behind you. And Alexis Glick, financial expert and former Wall Street executive.

Ladies, awesome having you both on.

And, Carol, let me just begin with you on these - these Gallup numbers. And I've got the list in front of me and the questions, keeps his promises, a strong and decisive leader, you know, is honest and trustworthy. Clearly his credibility is taking a hit. CAROL LEE, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": Yes, it certainly is. And the one - there's other - one of the ways in which it's taking a hit is that he'll keep his promises, which people are increasingly - don't trust that he will do what he said he was going to do. And all of this is very problematic for this White House - 100 - less than 100 days in to have these sorts of numbers.

[14:10:04] It's interesting that he's choosing to leave the White House and actually get out in the country. We have not seen him do that a lot at all.

BALDWIN: People love him out and about with the crowds. It could help.

LEE: And there's a - and it's - there's this - you know, you can get stuck in the White House once you take office. President Obama, a number of times, would get frustrated with that in the White House. His aides tried to really get him out in the country. So we'll see if he starts to do more of this. But he really hasn't engaged in the country in the way I think people thought he would.

BALDWIN: So he will momentarily and we'll talk about that and what sort of effect that may have on him on these numbers. But, Alexis Glick, let's talk tax returns. I means we've all been pulling our hair out over doing our own taxes. You know, this is a day where people are talking about the president's tax returns. And this is an old issue that's coming up and up and up. You know, you even saw this during the show, the White House being asked about this yesterday, will the president ever, you know, release his tax returns and, you know, the White House quickly deflecting. You hear from the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, quote, "if he doesn't release his return, it is going to make it much more difficult to get tax reform done. It's his own self-interest." So they're tying it to tax reform, even though these are really two totally different issues. This is really about posturing, isn't it not, Alexis?

ALEXIS GLICK, FORMER WALL STREET EXECUTIVE: Oh, I could not agree more. I mean, Brooke, at this point, all it is, is posturing. And the Treasury secretary came out yesterday in an interview with "The Financial Times." I found that to be very telling. In fact, that's why the stock market did rise yesterday. What he indicated is, in fact, when it comes to tax reform, we're not going to get an aggressive tax policy out of the gate by the end of August. That was an aggressive timeline to start. And right now, if anything, the jockeying is because, as you mentioned earlier, everything has been about an executive order. Right now we're actually, even at the point in which folks are talking about what we call a candy option, which is, can we spur some kind of stimulus, maybe tax cuts, not tax reform, since we haven't had tax reform since 1988, and really, for the first time in quite some time, there's some talk that, you know what, maybe the border adjustment tax is off the table. That would have brought in a trillion in revenue. And maybe they're willing to actually face a rise in deficits in the long term if they can spur some economic growth right now.

So we're seeing a lot of jockeying. But I would say the good news is, Brooke - BALDWIN: Yes.

GLICK: Is that everybody is in a rush to get health care done, in a rush to get tax reform. We don't even have folks confirmed. We need to sit down and have some pragmatic conversations before we decide what the future tax reform policies might looks like.

BALDWIN: I mean I think the last person, Carol Lee, who's going to get the president to even release his tax returns is a bunch of Democrats screaming about it. Am I wrong?

LEE: Yes, I don't think that's going to really work out for them.

BALDWIN: I didn't think so.

Let me move on to this phone call with the Turkish president, Erdogan. There has been this, you know, far-reaching, almost like democracy squeezing referendum that happened over the weekend. We remember the coup that happened last summer and this is a way for Erdogan to say essentially to his people, you can't do this to me, give me stronger powers, that the U.S. State Department has essentially - and other world leaders have said, we need to be cautious as we walk forward and look at Turkey and what Turkey's doing here. You have the president of the United States calling up Erdogan and congratulating him for this.

LEE: It's pretty remarkable. And even Republicans on Capitol Hill are saying this is - are really raising questions about this and saying we need to look at this really closely. You know, we don't know exactly what it means. We haven't heard from the White House yet today on what - and whether they're going to walk it back or how they're going to explain this. But this is something that the U.S. has decided during the Obama administration that they were going to just deal with Erdogan in a different way, meaning that they were going to accept certain things, that he wasn't - he wasn't moving towards democracy and there were - there was a crackdown and they were going to - increasingly willing to accept that because he's such a key ally in the fight against the Islamic State in Syria and in Iraq.

BALDWIN: In Syria, next door.

LEE: And so you can see this administration moving in that same direction, but embracing him is not necessarily something that is sitting well with folks at the State Department.

BALDWIN: OK. Carol Lee, keep asking those tough questions from the White House.

LEE: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Good to see you in person.

LEE: You too.

BALDWIN: And, Alexis Glick, thank you, my friend, very much.

GLICK: Thank you. BALDWIN: Coming up - coming up here, you say Bianna, I say Brianna. Hillary Clinton's closest aide apparently mixed up her first big interview on the campaign trail. We'll talk to both of these ladies about this and other revelations from this new book.

Also ahead, underway right now, what could be the first real verdict of the Trump presidency? Why the president is stepping up insults on a young Democrat in Georgia?

And on the very day Ivanka Trump had dinner with the Chinese president, the country's government gave her company a big break. Coincidence or conflict of interest? New questions ahead.

You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:18:48] BALDWIN: Welcome back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

A tell-all on the 2016 presidential election. This new book "Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign" from political reporters Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes reveals a campaign manager going rogue, fears of internal leaks and an apology from Hillary Clinton to then President Obama on the night of her loss.

But among all of these interesting reveals is a mix-up involving our very own Brianna Keilar. You remember the big interview. This was when Brianna was offered candidate Hillary Clinton's first national television interview. It was a hard-hitting exchange at a time when Clinton appeared adverse to the media in the midst of her private server scandal.

Well, it turns out that there was actually a bit of mix-up involving Yahoo! News and Finance anchor Bianna Golodryga and Brianna Keilar, OK. So I am lucky enough to have these two gals with me, Brianna and Bianna.

I know it's like kind of - you giggle, but it's also serious stuff. How did this go - I was in your apartment when you got the call that you got the interview.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: That I had the interview. That's right.

So, first off, is it Brianna or Bianna? We don't get confused with people that often, but we do get confused with each other because we have similar names.

[14:20:01] BIANNA GOLODRYGA: Well, it's an important letter that draws the distinction.

BALDWIN: You know, letter "r."

KEILAR: There is. That is right. But it rhymes. It rhymes.

GOLODRYGA: The letter "r," that's right. It's an occupational hazard.

BALDWIN: Yes.

KEILAR: So what actually happened - so the - so the book talks about how Hillary Clinton had expressed an interest in her interviewer being Bianna and that was transmitted to the press team that - that was lost in translation and it ended up being Brianna.

As I understand it, though, because I checked with a top aide - former aide on the Clinton campaign, what happened was there was a press strategy that was laid out by the press team, and aside from it being CNN and me, it was the idea that people who were the beat reporters on the trail kind of day in, day out as Hillary Clinton had not given an interview for some time and was kind of looking for a way to sort of get into that, she was going to interview with each of the beat reporters starting with Brianna. This was transmitted for approval to Huma Abedin, is what I've been told. Huma Abedin approved this thinking I was Bianna -

BALDWIN: Because you have a - you have a connection or it was just a - you were going to be Bianna, you were going to be the initial interview?

GOLODRYGA: Yes, I'm Bianna and I'm not Brianna.

BALDWIN: You don't even know. You didn't even know this was going on?

GOLODRYGA: Right, I had no - I found out when I was reading the book because I'm interviewing one of the authors tomorrow. So I found out about it over the weekend. I just saw you on Friday on your show and I had no idea that this was taking place and this was going to happen.

Look, it's - it's the story of my life. It happens all the time that my name gets butchered. I never thought that it would impede me from participating in what would be one of the biggest stories of my life. That I didn't realize.

BALDWIN: That you would have, could have had the interview. But if I may, I mean, watching your interview -

GOLODRYGA: It was a fantastic interview, right.

BALDWIN: I was amazing.

KEILAR: But it would have been a fantastic interview if Bianna had done it. And also you have - I mean you've interviewed a lot of people around Hillary Clinton and so it would be a logical choice but it -

GOLODRYGA: And, look, it's indicative to the bigger problem -

KEILAR: That's right.

GOLODRYGA: That her entire campaign was plagued with. If this had been the biggest issue that they had, believe me, they would not be sweating it today. But there was a lot of confusion, internal disconnect about who would relay what to her, who felt that they could be upfront with her about certain issues in a normal campaign, especially of this size and magnitude, I don't think something like this would have happened.

BALDWIN: Well, let me jump in and just ask about one other nugget of the speech. And since you've read it and I - this is for either of you, this is on election night. The book detailed how President Obama talked to her twice that evening to get her to concede. This is while she pushed back against aides who advised her to inject bitter politics into her concession speech. This is - Clinton said, she wanted to bow out gracefully and here's a quote, "other people will criticize him. That's their job. I have done it. I just lost and that is that. That was my last race."

So does this explain some of the confusion on that last evening going into the concession speech because, remember, we didn't see her until the next morning.

GOLODRYGA: Right, and we had expected to see her. I was at (INAUDIBLE) that night and -

BALDWIN: Both of you were.

GOLODRYGA: Both of us were there and we had expected to see her. John Podesta came out finally and said she will not be coming and we're going to handle this more in the morning with more details. But clearly you could understand the emotional wreck that she was back at the hotel where she was staying and where she watched all of this continue to unfold.

But this entire campaign reflected in this book at least detailed how it's always been a game of catch-up, how she just wanted to learn from her mistakes back in 2008 and she constantly felt herself having to play the role of defense in this campaign, as opposed to being ahead of her opponents, both Bernie Sanders and then, obviously, Donald Trump.

KEILAR: And we understood her to be - I mean you can imagine the shock. Even just covering it, we were completely shocked by an outcome that was unexpected by practically everyone, including Donald Trump. The crux of the book really gets to whose fault is it and - for why she lost because all of those folks who were supporting her, and even some who weren't, were completely turned around by her loss. And the authors really seemed to come to the conclusion that despite a lot of finger pointing, which inevitably happens in a situation like this, that Hillary Clinton bore a lot of the responsibility. That original sin, even before her campaign started, with the way she had set up her e-mail server, the months of struggling to explain that. And even now you'll talk to them and they'll say they don't feel like that compares, especially now in light of questions about Russian involvement. But at the same time it was something that she really struggled and we saw that in the interview, the Brianna/Bianna interview, that she struggled -

BALDWIN: Can we call it that forever?

KEILAR: She struggled - GOLODRYGA: (INAUDIBLE).

KEILAR: That would be nice.

GOLODRYGA: But it also shows the frustration she had about not connecting with voters and she's constantly asking her aides, as the book details, you know, why am I not getting through to them? Why am I not getting through to the Obama coalition? Is it social issues? Is it guns? Is it - am I not focusing more on Flint and on water? As we know now, it turned out to be a lot of focus should have been on the economy, jobs and trade.

BALDWIN: Does she own the loss since - in this book that you've read, does she own it or is it deflected?

[14:25:00] GOLODRYGA: You know, I've seen more now in recent interviews that she's given where she obviously has owned. She owned it the day after when she gave her concession speech as well. But you really, for the first time, get to see internal details and the discussions that were being had throughout this campaign and I think even now they're probably still have reflections about it.

BALDWIN: OK. OK. Bianna, Brianna -

GOLODRYGA: We like each other.

BALDWIN: I love it.

KEILAR: Right.

BALDWIN: When am I ever going to (INAUDIBLE) this again? Ladies, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

And, he is young, he has celebrity support and he's become a target of President Trump's. Right now in Georgia, voters are deciding the fate of a young Democrat in a race that could be really the first real verdict referendum on Trump's presidency.

Also ahead, a controversial call. The president congratulating a world leader for expanding his powers and rules over democracy. By the way, his own State Department, not on the same page.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)