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Cleveland Kidnapping Survivor's Message To Jayme Closs; CNN Reality Check: Why Vladimir Putin Is Winning; Government Shutdown Inflicting Greater Damage On U.S. Economy; Democrats Considering Subpoena For Interpreter's Notes. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired January 16, 2019 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: -- imprisoned in a house of horrors in Cleveland for more than a decade. Lily is the author of the new book, "Life After Darkness."

Lily, we're so grateful to have your perspective this morning to help us figure out what the future means for Jayme because you, more than really anyone, can help us understand how she will ever be able to move on.

And so, tell us what you thought when you heard that Jayme Closs was alive and she'd been rescued after three months.

LILY ROSE LEE, CLEVELAND KIDNAPPING VICTIM, AUTHOR, "LIFE AFTER DARKNESS": After I heard that she was rescued, I had tears of joy and so, so glad that she was found alive and safe.

CAMEROTA: And what can -- what do you think her life -- those 88 days -- that ordeal that she endured -- what do you think happened with her?

LEE: I can only tell from my perspective. She went through a lot of things that were probably emotional, heartbreaking, and hopefully, one day she will be able to tell her story in her own way.

CAMEROTA: After you were rescued after so many years in captivity by that psychopath, how long did it take for you to regain some semblance of normalcy? To feel a little bit normal again.

LEE: You really -- to be honest with you, you don't feel fully normal. Normal is not even a word. It's like a new -- it's like for me, it was a new normal.

I had to relearn everything. I had to reteach myself certain habits that I had endured in the house and during my home life. I had to change my whole perspective and look at it -- things differently.

CAMEROTA: I mean, like what? Tell us some of the normal things that you had to relearn after this ordeal.

LEE: Phones, trust -- just the simple normal things that people are so freely at doing. Being able to walk out the door without feeling scared. Even today,

I'm still scared to walk out the door because I have been threatened to die. I have been -- had stalkers -- three of them. And it's really difficult for a person like me or someone that went through similar situations to not be afraid of walking out the door or just being able to go to the store or having a simple dinner.

CAMEROTA: Oh my gosh, Lily. That's so horrible to know that even after you escaped from your captor that you have people who are threatening to do you harm. I mean, it's just so sick and it's horrible.

And, you know, you bring up trust. And, Jayme Closs is 13 years old. Her parents were murdered.

What are the first steps for her? I mean, she's with her family -- her extended family now. They seem very loving. But what are the first steps for her?

LEE: The first steps is the healing. She needs to be able to heal and be able to find her own way back to a normalcy for herself and be able to have support and love from friends and family. And, you know, just to be able to sit down and have a conversation with them without being afraid or without feeling ashamed or just being different.

She don't want to be treated different. She don't want to be treated as there's something wrong with her. She wants to be treated just like a normal person.

CAMEROTA: In your experience, how long do you think it will take her to tell the story of all that happened to her?

LEE: For me, from my perspective, it took me a while to actually want to talk about my story. I was a little hesitant at first when I first went on T.V. It was a little bit difficult for me. I had to deal with a range of different emotions.

So, when she first starts talking she's going to be very scared. It's going to be very abnormal for her to speak about what happened to her. And what we want to do is be very understanding. We don't want to push or she will pull away. We want to be very -- let her open her voice freely.

CAMEROTA: Yes, letting -- in her own time, let her open up.

How often do you still have flashbacks of your ordeal?

LEE: I have triggers. It can be a simple thing as a song, cologne, a way somebody talks. It can be a wide range of different things.

And I still have flashbacks. I still have dreams. But I try not to let my fears, my anguish, and what I went through determine how I live my life.

[07:35:00] CAMEROTA: Oh my gosh, what a challenge. You wrote the book, as we said, "Life After Darkness" and it's about

moving on after some sort of great pain and tragedy. And lots of people who didn't even go through the ordeal that you and Jayme have, have some sort of tragedy in their life.

So, what is the secret to moving on?

LEE: Just forgiving the person that has harmed you and freeing yourself from that emotional chain.

CAMEROTA: Well, that's a lot easier said than done. I mean, I don't know how --

LEE: It is. It is very -- it is very easier said than done. It took me -- it took me a transition to actually do that. I had to take steps.

I did self-healing, so song and writing like really helped me to be able to forgive the person that has harmed me because I wanted to be free. I didn't want that emotional chain. I didn't want that devil to think that he had still control over me.

CAMEROTA: Tell us about your foundation, Lily's Ray of Hope. What does it do?

LEE: It helps women of domestic violence and children of abuse, and it helps them transition into life and it helps them give them a way to talk and speak on their issues freely and openly in a safe environment.

CAMEROTA: All right. Everybody can find that foundation online.

Lily Rose Lee, thank you very much for sharing your personal experience with our viewers.

LEE: You're very welcome.

CAMEROTA: We appreciate talking to you.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: You know, talk about courage and perseverance and purpose there, Lily Rose Lee -- there is a purpose to her. She can talk to Jayme Closs. She can be an example to Jayme Closs to what to do -- how to live now.

CAMEROTA: And if she can move on, obviously it's possible because again, she was in captivity for 10 years. But it really, really going to be a hard road ahead.

BERMAN: All right.

Well, our government shutdown continues and the United Kingdom seems to be on the brink. You know who's having a ball? Vladimir Putin. We'll tell you why in our reality check, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [07:40:54] BERMAN: So, remember when President Trump said we would all get really tired of winning? Well, there is one person who might actually be tired of it, Vladimir Putin.

CNN senior political analyst John Avlon with a reality check -- John.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Guys, how's your new year going? I'm guessing not as well as Vladimir Putin's. Autocrats are getting away with murder, alliances are being weakened, and the West is in chaos.

Britain's government just suffered its latest fail with the implementation of Brexit, something that Russia actively championed. Parliament is polarized and paralyzed. Sound familiar?

In France, we've seen yellow vest protests against pro-E.U. President Macron grow increasingly violent.

In Germany, Putin's longtime nemesis Angela Merkel announced last fall she won't run again, while the far-right governments of Poland and Hungary have embraced Putinesque nationalism to such an extent that a monument to a leader who resisted the Soviet invasion was suddenly removed from a public square in Budapest.

Look, Russia's goal is to destabilize the liberal democratic order that led to the longest period of European peace and prosperity in modern history. That's why a new report that President Trump wants to pull us from NATO against the advice of just about everybody is a really big deal. And the fact it isn't even bigger news is evidence to how numb we're becoming.

But it's competing with attention with a record government shutdown, an investigation of Trump-Russia connections, and these are the kind of self-inflicted wounds that give self-government a bad name.

Look, Russia's goal is clear. Their influence -- effort to influence the '16 election, quote, "represented the most recent expression of Moscow's longstanding desire to undermine the U.S.-led liberal democratic order." That's according to the Intelligence Community.

And it's a playbook Russia has used since the Cold War, but they've never had the benefit of social media to distribute disinformation or a man in the Oval Office so eager to advance their agenda.

Trump's abrupt announcement that the U.S. should withdraw from Syria was just the latest example seeding influence in the region to Russia.

And, Trump's embrace of Russia has even twisted the traditional character of the GOP. Check this out. The number of Republicans who say that Russia is an ally or friend with the U.S. nearly doubled between 2014 and 2018, after election interference.

It's an increasingly obvious irony that nationalists who talk big about sovereignty are the ones doing the most to benefit this hostile foreign power. But we also need to be wary of our tendency to overestimate our adversaries. As "The Economist" recently pointed out, quote, "Things are going wrong for Putin, at least a home."

Sanctions on Russia after the invasion of Crimea -- an invasion Russia -- Trump essentially excused -- are having an economic impact and Putin's approval ratings have plummeted.

Here at home, we're seeing bipartisan coalitions push back. Just last night in the Senate, 11 Republicans joined Democrats in rejecting Trump's plans to go easy on a pro-Putin oligarch.

Defense of NATO is a similar bipartisan cause in the Senate.

Look, these are strange days, but if we have the courage to straighten our civic backbones and pursue longstanding principles beyond partisanship, we can take some comfort from the fact that autocrats who bet against the strength of free people and free markets ultimately find themselves on the wrong side of history.

And that's your reality check.

BERMAN: Ultimately, they do, John. No question about that.

CAMEROTA: That is just such good context John because to know that all is not well at home for Putin because we'd always heard well, his approval ratings are through the roof. And to know that things have slipped is really helpful.

AVLON: It's important.

BERMAN: And maybe why he's trying to project power around the world, though, because he is suffering a bit at home.

AVLON: Deflect?

BERMAN: Yes.

AVLON: Who would do that?

BERMAN: Can't imagine.

CAMEROTA: John, thank you very much.

All right, it's time for "CNN Business Now." It turns out it costs more to shut down the government than to leave it open.

Chief business correspondent Christine Romans joins us with more. That is totally counterintuitive.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT, ANCHOR, "EARLY START": Yes, and really, there's no question here. And now, we know the president's economic team underestimated the cost of the shutdown, acknowledging the hit will be worse because of sideline government contractors.

In dollars, Standard & Poor's forecasts $1.2 billion a week in lost growth. How? Well, workers don't get paid which means they don't spend and that hurts retailers, landlords, auto sales. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon told reporters the shutdown could reduce growth to zero if it goes on for the entire quarter.

And it could hurt airlines. Delta's CEO --

[07:45:01] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ED BASTIAN, CEO, DELTA AIRLINES: One of the other issues to us is that we're seeing a reduction in revenues in the month of January. Not huge, but about $25 million due to the fact that government contractors and some government officials are not traveling the way they would anticipate because of this shutdown.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: In so many ways, shutting down the government costs more than keeping it open.

The CEO of Citigroup, on a conference call, said this. "Right now, we see the biggest risk in the global economy as one of talking ourselves into a recession."

Well now, the government's bringing back more workers. The IRS is bringing back 36,000 furloughed workers to work without pay. That means Americans will get their tax refunds.

But, John, in so many ways, this is a self-inflicted wound on an economy that is strong, yes -- but with so many questions about slowing growth around the world, a terrible time to be taking a hit in the first quarter like this.

BERMAN: Indeed, and the fact that he's bringing some tens of thousands of people back to work without pay, an indication that they know -- they know --

ROMANS: Yes.

BERMAN: -- it is causing pain and suffering for the economy.

All right, thanks, Christine.

So, should House Democrats subpoena the interpreters who sat in on meetings between President Trump and Vladimir Putin? One high-profile interpreter has a perspective that you might be surprised about. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:50:30] BERMAN: So, there's no detailed record of five meetings between President Trump and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. Now, Democratic lawmakers are discussing how to compel the interpreters who were in these meetings to come before their committees.

Joining us now is Barry Slaughter Olsen. He has been an interpreter at the G20 and the World Economic Forum. He has also worked for the State Department. He joins us now.

Professor, thanks so much for being with us because the job that you sometimes do, I think is a mystery to so many of us. So, explain to me the job of an interpreter during one of these high-profile bilateral meetings.

BARRY SLAUGHTER OLSEN, SERVED AS INTERPRETER FOR G20, WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF TRANSLATION AND INTERPRETATION, MIDDLEBURY INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, MIDDLEBURY, VERMONT: It's good to be with you, John.

I would just say that the responsibility of the interpreter in one of these bilateral meetings is to facilitate communication, full-stop.

BERMAN: And how does the interpreter do that?

OLSEN: The interpreter -- usually in these kinds of situations we're using a type of interpreting called consecutive. Consecutive interpreting means that the principal is going to speak for a certain amount of time and the interpreter will usually take notes. And then, the principal stops speaking and the interpreter will then interpret what has been said into the other language.

If the utterance is really short, the interpreter may not take any notes at all. But sometimes, those utterances can go on for several minutes and so the interpreter takes notes and then uses those notes as a memory aid to be able to interpret into the other language.

But it's important to keep something in mind and that is that when you are listening to interpret consecutively, you are making use of your short-term memory. And the notes that you take are basically symbols and they are a way to help remind you of what you have heard and processed and kept in the short-term memory.

Once some times goes by, the interpreter is going to have a very difficult time remembering any detail about the encounter a few hours, a few days, let alone a few weeks or months later.

BERMAN: Linguistic shorthand that might not mean anything to anyone else, in other words, correct?

OLSEN: Yes, that's correct. The notetaking technique that we teach is one that has some basic ground rules, some basic guidelines, and some basic principles, but each interpreter develops his or her own unique way of taking notes that only he or she would understand.

BERMAN: And they wouldn't represent necessarily a conclusive record of that meeting. Still, have you ever --

OLSEN: By no means at all.

BERMAN: Have you ever heard of a principal -- say, a president or someone involved in one of these meetings -- confiscating the notes of the interpreter afterwards?

OLSEN: I don't know if I'd necessarily use the word confiscate. However, I can say from my own practice that I have had clients that have requested that my notes be shredded directly after the conclusion of one of these encounters.

And that's something that's very normal because you have to understand that one of the basic underpinnings of our profession is that of professional secrecy and confidentiality. If that is in any way breached or any way called into question, then the trust that is so necessary for us to do our job can be eroded very quickly.

BERMAN: Is it common or is it usual practice to have someone else inside these meetings to keep the official record of what happened?

OLSEN: Yes, that has been my experience and that is something that does not fall normally on the interpreter's shoulders. The interpreter is there simply to facilitate communication between the languages that are being used in the meeting.

BERMAN: All right. So, all of this is background to what really are the big-money questions that I think the American people and the Democrats would like to know here because the fact is in these meetings between President Trump and Vladimir Putin, most of them, there were no additional people, there were no notetakers. It was just the interpreters.

So, Democrats -- some of the things they're considering. Perhaps subpoena for the notes of the interpreter. What would you say about that?

OLSEN: They, obviously, are within their power to subpoena those notes. I would simply question the usefulness of doing that because I doubt they would be able to glean any meaningful information from them.

BERMAN: It will look like hieroglyphics, other words. And, hieroglyphics -- and maybe the interpreter him or herself wouldn't be able to explain all these months after.

[07:55:05] Then, the bigger question. What about the interpreter himself? Should that person be subpoenaed to testify and explain what he or she remembers of that meeting?

OLSEN: Well, in terms of whether that should be done, I would simply say that if it were to be done it would cause severe damage to our ability to do our job.

And we're not seen normally on television or if you see us you're only going to see a little portion of us or a glimpse or a glance because we go in, we do our job. We are used to being just a couple of steps away from the limelight.

We facilitate that communication that has to go on so that countries, and diplomats, and politicians, and statesmen are able to conduct business and be able to ensure that there is meaningful communication going on between nations.

Now, if that subpoena were to go forward it would be a significant hit to the trust that could be had in interpreters to do this kind of work because statesmen and those who are involved in these kinds of meetings would always have to wonder well, is my confidential discussion truly confidential.

BERMAN: So your advice would be don't do this.

OLSEN: Yes, I would say don't do this. It is not something that is going to be helpful in the long run.

BERMAN: Even if, though -- and you know the conundrum here -- that there is no record of these meetings. There are questions about national security. There may be even counterintelligence reasons to ask questions about what happened here. There might be no other way.

Your answer would still be?

OLSEN: Well, if I can say from a professional standpoint, if you look at the long-term, let's say the interpreter is subpoenaed, called to testify. Well, perhaps there is some short-term gain for those involved in this discussion. But in the long-term, it's going to do possibly irreparable damage to the ability of the United States to actually diplomacy, and I think that we have to keep that big picture in mind.

I am well aware of the conundrum. We are living in times -- I don't know that we could say necessarily unprecedented in every aspect but, yes, these are times in which we are seeing things that heretofore were not something common and we've got to figure out a way through this.

And, yes, we need to make sure that our democracy is protected. But I wonder if we don't end up robbing Peter to pay Paul if I can use that expression --

BERMAN: Right.

OLSEN: -- as we're trying to address the conundrum that you mention.

BERMAN: Very last question here and quickly, knowing what you know and seeing what you see about how this president and administration conducts foreign policy, if the president and the White House called you and said hey, professor, we need you to interpret a meeting that the president's going to have with Vladimir Putin or a foreign leader, what would you say?

OLSEN: Professionally, I would be obliged to accept if I felt that I were available. But I have to be honest. I'm not sure I would accept.

BERMAN: Because?

OLSEN: Because I'm just not sure I would accept.

BERMAN: All right, Professor Olsen. Thank you very much for being with us. I hope people listened carefully to what you said because I think it illustrates the complications here of what a lot of people are talking about doing now. I really appreciate your time.

OLSEN: My pleasure and thanks for your time as well.

BERMAN: So, the economic toll of the government shutdown has the White House in a new tough spot. They perhaps might reconsider reopening the government soon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM BARR, NOMINEE FOR ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't believe Mr. Mueller would be involved in a witch hunt.

SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE (D), RHODE ISLAND: He was very cagey about what he would release and when.

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT), MEMBER, SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: I'm seeing a possibility that he could invoke a known regulation that would permit him to say no to a subpoena, no to an indictment.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: You can see Mr. Barr, a highly-qualified man, will be a good steward of the law.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The shutdown isn't just a Washington, D.C. problem. It's affecting real people.

LIZ RUNGE, MOTHER OF TWO, SUMMERVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA: People might go hungry. There's families that are really being hurt by this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Democrats clearly don't want to give the president a victory on this issue.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), SENATE MINORITY LEADER: I have three words for President Trump and our Republican senators -- open the government.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Wednesday, January 16th -- easy for me to say -- 8:00 in the east.

It is day 26 of the partial government shutdown and it's doing more damage to the U.S. economy than was predicted. White House economists now doubling their projections of how much economic growth is being lost every week due to the shutdown. This adds more pressure on the president today to try to strike a deal to reopen the government.

BERMAN: And in the next hour, the president's pick for attorney general -- he will return to Capitol Hill for day two of the confirmation hearing. William Barr assured senators that he will protect Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, but --