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Cosby Accusers React to Sentence; Trump to Chair U.N. Meeting; World Leaders Laugh at Trump. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired September 26, 2018 - 08:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:33:33] ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Bill Cosby is waking up behind bars today in a Pennsylvania prison wearing a blue jump suit. A judge sentencing him to three to 10 years in prison for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand 14 years ago. The disgraced comedian and actor is now classified as a sexually violent predator under Pennsylvania law.

Joining us this morning, two women who testified at his trial, accusing Cosby of varying degrees of sexual misconduct, Heidi Thomas and Lise-Lotte Lublin. Also with us, the victims' rights attorney Gloria Allred, who represents several Cosby accusers.

It's good to have all of you with us --

HEIDI THOMAS, TESTIFIED AT COSBY TRIAL: (INAUDIBLE) my girls.

HILL: All of you with us this morning. So that's Heidi in Colorado.

THOMAS: Yes.

HILL: And I said to you that Heidi was going to be with us in Colorado. You said, oh, good. You two haven't had a chance to talk to each other.

THOMAS: Yeah!

LISE-LOTTE LUBLIN, TESTIFIED AT COSBY TRIAL: No.

THOMAS: Hi, sweetie! Hi Lise. Hey, baby girl! Hey!

LATTE-LUBIN: Love you.

HILL: What -- what is it -- what is it like for you right now, Lise, to be in this moment. You and Heidi are sitting here. I love you. You're -- you know, you've been united in this. But to be in this moment where you know that Bill Cosby is now in a blue jump suit.

LATTE-LUBIN: It's incredible. It's something that I fantasized about, never believed would happen many years ago until the case came up.

HILL: Right.

LATTE-LUBIN: And then it was like, maybe there's the chance. And it's not something you want to totally hold on to because I think the disappointment is devastating if it doesn't follow through. So it's really touch and go and a little bit scary. So I'm -- I'm still reveling, getting used to it.

[08:35:03] HILL: Heidi, have you wrapped your head about it at this point?

THOMAS: I'm not sure I have, no. There was so much happening yesterday and so many people were calling and talking and it was probably very similar to what Lise Latte and all those girls back there, all the sisters, were dealing with in Pennsylvania.

But when I -- when I really stopped to think about it, I think -- I think she said it beautifully. You didn't dare to hope. Three years ago when people asked, I -- I didn't think that he'd ever see the inside of a courtroom.

LATTE-LUBIN: Right.

THOMAS: And then that happened. And, not once but twice. And then I didn't dare to think they'd actually find him guilty. And then that happened. And to actually think that we'd see him led out in handcuffs? I didn't want to be disappointed. I didn't know if that would happen or not. So, yes, there's a part of me that's still -- when you -- when you led off by saying he woke up behind bars in a blue jump suit, even that is still inconceivable.

GLORIA ALLRED, REPRESENTS SEVERAL COSBY ACCUSERS: And I want to give credit, if I may, to Lise and also to Heidi and also to many of my other clients who testified as prior bad act witnesses in the case because I understand that some of the jury members have said that the testimony of the prior bad act witnesses who testified the same or similar conduct by Mr. Cosby as was alleged by Andrea Constand was very important in their decision as to whether or not to convict Mr. Cosby.

HILL: Your victim impact statement, which the judge said you couldn't read in court, but we have a copy of it. One of the things that struck me and what you wrote there, as you said, he should try starting with an apology. And that you actually give him permission to ask for your forgiveness. Going on to say, you have to do your part. Be the example you have taunted yourself to be. He was an example to millions of Americans. He was America's TV dad. He was Cliff Huxtable. He was the Jell-O pitch man. And he told people all the time how to live your life as a good man.

LATTE-LUBIN: Yes. Yes.

HILL: That's really powerful to hear you say that, be the example. And you may ask for my forgiveness. Would you forgive him?

LATTE-LUBIN: I have forgiven him. I think that he needs to present himself to -- if he wants to have salvation, if he wants to get to a place where he's going to make it in what he believes in, he needs to do something about this. And the thing is, he's the only one that doesn't seem to know that he's done this, you know? So at some point he's got to get there.

Right, Heidi, he's got to get there if he's going to --

THOMAS: Right. He doesn't get it.

LATTE-LUBIN: Yes, he doesn't get it. So --

ALLRED: And he doesn't -- hasn't shown any remorse whatsoever. He had that opportunity.

HILL: Was that one of his biggest mistakes, do you think?

ALLRED: Well, I mean, it may be that his lawyers advised him, because he is filing an appeal --

HILL: Right.

ALLRED: Not to acknowledge anything that he has done. But we'll have to see. I don't know.

HILL: In terms of that appeal, I want to play a little bit of what his publicist said yesterday after court because it has certainly struck a nerve with a number of people. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREW WYATT, PUBLICIST FOR BILL COSBY: Mr. Cosby's doing great. And Mr. Cosby knows that God is watching over him. He knows that these are lies. They prosecuted Jesus and look at what happened. Not saying Mr. Cosby is Jesus, but we know what this country has done to black men for centuries.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: They are appealing. Also making the cause that there -- there was race at play here.

ALLRED: And apparently Camille thinks maybe sexism as well, or a sex war of some kind.

Look, three of my clients who testified are prior bad act witnesses, both in the first case and also the second criminal case, are African- American women. It's insulting to them and what they allege they suffered because of Mr. Cosby and they say drugging and sexually assaulting them to indicate that somehow it's because he's a powerful black man.

Her life matters. Her experience matters. And no one has a right to drug her, sexually assault her, if in fact that's what happened, and then say, oh, it's because I'm an African-American man that I have been prosecuted. It's really wrong to minimize and insult the experience of an African-American woman.

HILL: There are larger messages here that some of the people are talking about. And, Heidi, one of the things in your victim impact statement, I believe it was in your victim impact statement, but you noted, you hope this sends a message that it's worth having the guts to come forward and that there's a collective responsibility for us all to pay attention and to believe people.

[08:40:01] Do you think the way people look at stories like your own, like Lise's, like Andrea Constand's, has changed over the course of this trial?

THOMAS: I think it's been morphing probably since -- since the Cosby women started coming out about three years ago, when that whole thing really started gaining momentum and there were simply too many to brush under the rug anymore. The numbers coming forward were not going to allow this to just be, you know, a check written and make it go away. So I think it's been a slow process.

I'm going to go so far as to say, I believe most of the sisterhood of the Cosby women would say that this was the first of the Me Too and then the #MeToo kind of became the label. But the Cosby thing kicked it off. To have those women come forward against, as I've said several time, the Goliath and we're all the little Davids.

ALLRED: And so many women have --

THOMAS: It took that kind --

ALLRED: Yes, I'm sorry.

THOMAS: It took that kind of numbers, though, to make this happen.

ALLRED: I was going to say, I represent 33 --

THOMAS: So I hope, yes.

ALLRED: Accusers of Bill Cosby. And some of them have never told what that happened to them. Yesterday one of them came all the way from Europe --

HILL: Right.

ALLRED: And she was there and she shared what she alleges he did to her for the first time. She would have been called as the prior bad about witness, but the court restricted the number who could be called (INAUDIBLE).

HILL: Your story is so powerful, this sisterhood. Appreciate you all being with us.

We'll be right back.

LATTE-LUBIN: Thank you.

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[08:45:41] BERMAN: All right, very shortly, President Trump will chair a United Nations Security Council meeting on Iran. This comes a day after world leaders laughed at the president after he boasted about his administration. The president slammed Iran in his speech and defended his decision to leave the Iran nuclear deal.

Joining us now is CNN chief international anchor, Christiane Amanpour, host of CNN International's "Amanpour" and PBS' "Amanpour and Company." Christiane sat down with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

And this was a fascinating interview.

Christiane, though, let's start with what we are going to see in just a little bit at the United Nations. The president chairing a meeting which will largely focus on Iran.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: It will because he wanted to do so. However, formally, it is not a meeting on Iran. But this is so interesting because if it had been formally a meeting on Iran, which his aids didn't want because it would mean the Iranians would have to be invited and also be allowed to take to the podium and respond in real-time to the president. And nobody wanted to see that happen.

So this is normally about nonproliferation and, of course, this comes at a time when President Trump has pulled out of the only nonproliferation deal that contains Iran's nuclear program.

So yesterday we had the whole hullabaloo as to whether President Trump had received multiple requests from the Iranians to meet. The Iranian president told me, no, he had not requested, but actually the U.S. had made eight requests in the last couple of years. So it's amazing this kind of strange dialogue, sort of Trumpian dialogue, morphing into the way other leaders talk as well.

It is very interesting that what President Trump says is now being sort of played with by other leaders. I mean you'd never have this kind of -- this kind of odd sort of tweet, chat, certainly not with the Iranian president.

HILL: Right.

AMANPOUR: So then when I asked him, well, is there any chance that you will have more dialogue about the other issues that the U.S. is concerned about, ballistic missiles, Hezbollah, Syria, this and that, this is what he told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HASSAN ROUHANI, IRANIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): This is not the time to talk about anything else, to hold dialogue about anything else prior to the proper and precise implementation of the previous agreement that was reached.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So the previous agreement between the Iran nuclear deal. HILL: Right. Which is interesting too because we're hearing of

obviously other signatories now come out and talk about it as well and say, well, hold on a minute, we're still here.

AMANPOUR: That's right. And this is what is so difficult and so confusing. The rest of the world, including the Europeans, but also Russia, China, all those who signed on with the United States in 2013, this has been in effect for the last three years, since 2015, and Iran is keeping its side and keeping up its end of the bargain. And I asked him, how long is he going to do that? And he said, well, as long as it's worthwhile for us.

So the Europeans are trying some kind of newfangled mechanism whereby they can try to figure out how businesses can enact and interact with Iran despite U.S. sanctions, you know, try to prevent them. And the Europeans still believe that they must keep talking, not just about the deal, but also about the other things that President Trump wants to talk about. This is what the European foreign policy chief told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FEDERICA MOGHERINI, HIGH REPRESENTATIVE OF THE EU FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS: Engaging is not being soft. You can be very strong and talk. But do you have better alternatives than talking in times of conflict and crisis and (INAUDIBLE) around the world? Is there a better way than diplomacy and dialogue? Is it worth the alternative? Is that the military option, the alternative that works? Isn't it more dangerous? Haven't we gone that way enough to see the consequences of that?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So, she has a point, right? Everybody remembers the Iraq War, which turned into a complete and utter disaster. So they're trying at all costs to avoid that kind of thing and try to save a nonproliferation deal that is working.

BERMAN: It will be hard, though, without the United States and with U.S. pressure on private entities.

You do see this, to an extent, new pushback. We heard it from her. We also heard it from President Macron yesterday, a direct pushback against the United States, coupled with the laughter inside the general assembly. It was over a statement the president made about his domestic accomplishments and foreign policy accomplishments. But there was laughter there.

AMANPOUR: Well, here's the thing. First of all, you're right that certain leaders are pushing back because they've all adjusted for President Trump. In the first year and a half of President Trump's presidency, everybody was like looking over their shoulders, trying to bend over backwards, making sure that they don't, you know, get under his skin, make sure that they don't get tweeted, making sure that, you know, treaties don't get busted. But treaties have been busted. Alliances have been frayed by the president. And now people are sort of banding together. [08:50:21] As for the laughter, you know, it was campaign mode. It was

typical President Trump who came to a global body and sort of started, you know, beating his chest like Tarzan would and saying, look how wonderful I've done. Well, some in the room thinks he done wonderfully. The economy, the -- you know, they love some of them. The Saudis and others, the Israelis, love the fact that he's pulled out of the Iran deal. But others, as you said, snickered. And, to be fair, Trump did take it in and move on.

BERMAN: Yes.

AMANPOUR: It was kind of an interesting moment.

BERMAN: And I suspect -- there's a news conference at 5:00 today -- I think he'll take it on even more directly then and say, you know what, you know --

AMANPOUR: We'll see what he says about it, yes.

BERMAN: America first. If they want to laugh, go ahead. Keep on laughing.

AMANPOUR: Well, that's the other thing, sovereignty, sovereignty, sovereignty. And he seems to think sovereignty does not mean, you know, sort of multilateralism. He thinks they're mutually exclusive, which, of course, they're not.

HILL: Right.

BERMAN: Christiane Amanpour, great to have you with us. Thanks so much.

HILL: Thank you.

Stay with us because "The Good Stuff" is next.

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[08:55:19] BERMAN: It is time now for "The Good Stuff."

He made it his mission to help victims from Hurricane Florence, but roles were reversed for Ben Landerman (ph) from Virginia. The veteran had help from the sheriff's department and sent all kinds of goods to the Carolinas. But once authorities saw his wheelchair falling apart, they asked people in Virginia to help Ben.

James Cross (ph) was among those who made a donation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's a veteran. He served our country. So why not serve him this chair? He's a veteran. So I wanted to do something right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: And he did something right. As for Ben, he couldn't be happier to have a new wheelchair.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am grateful and thankful and I give God praise for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: He's got a great new ride. He's doing great things. His community is doing great things.

HILL: It's a great story. It's "The Good Stuff."

BERMAN: It is "The Good Stuff."

HILL: I like ending on "The Good Stuff."

John Berman, always a pleasure.

BERMAN: Thank you for pinch hitting today.

HILL: Any time.

CNN "NEWSROOM" with Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto picks up after this quick break.

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