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At This Hour

Donald Trump Remarks Fallout; More on Heightened Security for the Holiday; Case Against Charles Bothuell; Alleged Richard Matt Letter Examined. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired July 03, 2015 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:15] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: The problem is, Ben, there's no how to guide here. There's no how to -

BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.

BERMAN: - there's no how to deal with a guy like Donald Trump because there's no guy...

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: There's no way to push him out. That's the beauty of the process.

BERMAN: NBC fires him, his poll numbers go up. He says stuff and alienates Mexican immigrants, his poll numbers go up. So it doesn't seem like you can hurt him because he will just turn it around on you.

FERGUSON: Well, and, and ultimately, wait until people engage him. I, I think Chris Christie getting into this race is one of those issues where I think it's going to take a lot of wind out of the sail of Donald Trump. Can you imagine Chris Christie and Donald Trump going back and forth? I will put my money on Chris Christie...

BOLDUAN: I can only hope we can see that on the debate stage. Yes.

FERGUSON: Yes. I mean, it, it - and that's the thing, this has been a reality show in politics on tour. And Donald Trump knows how to do that and how to be a reality TV guy better than anyone else does. I'll give him credit there. But I, I think a lot of the complains, there was this I don't even know what we should do with him, how do you even interact with him? How do you sit down and have a legitimate conversation about foreign policy, and I think when voters start to see that, that, that is when we'll see his numbers come down very quickly because ultimately do you want this guy really being in charge of dealing with ISIS or Vladimir Putin or foreign trade or Cuba or any other issues? I don't think people are going to like that.

BERMAN: I have to say the Kardashians are calling you right now, they're upset that you said that Donald Trump was the best reality TV otherwise...

FERGUSON: If I insulted them, I guess that's a perk to the job today, right?

BOLDUAN: Yes. I think that, be careful, be careful, Ben. It's great to see you.

FERGUSON: Thanks.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, more on our breaking news. New warnings just coming in involving the terror alerts ahead of the July 4th holiday. Hear what big cities are doing now to try to stay safe this holiday weekend.

BERMAN: Plus, his son went missing for 11 days in the family basement. Now the father is speaking out about this strange, strange case after the judge made a surprising move.

[11:35:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: Federal officials are warning of possible ISIS related attacks at home and abroad during the July 4th holiday. A short time ago we learned that the State Department had instructed all diplomatic posts worldwide to review security measures before the holiday weekend and within the United States law enforcement agencies from coast to coast are on heightened alert.

BERMAN: This morning New York's Governor announced extra man power and enhanced monitoring operations this weekend and a top police official in the nation's second largest city says that the threat stream has not been this high since September 11th, 2001. That's the word from Michael Downing, the deputy police chief of the Los Angeles Police Department. He joins us now. Thank you so much for being with us, sir.

DEPUTY CHIEF MICHAEL DOWNING, LOS ANGELES POLICE: Good morning.

BERMAN: Not since 9/11. Those are pretty alarming words. What are you hearing that makes You think such a thing?

DOWNING: Well, there's a number of things. First, the threat stream has never been this high. We are in the month of Ramadan. We're five days after the establishment of the so-called Caliphate. We've had major terrorist attacks in Tunisia, the Sinai, France, and Kuwait, and we've had more disruptions within the United States in a, in a, in a period of time than we've ever seen before.

So I think the propaganda machine that this adversary has pushed out is effective. We have more foreign fighters than we've ever seen before, and probably a population of homegrown violent extremists within our country than we've ever seen before. So it just makes sense that we're on, that we're on a higher level of alert.

BOLDUAN: So yours is one of the major cities that could be a potential target here. Also one of the cities that's on heightened alert. From your post, what's different this year in how you're handling it and preparing?

DOWNING: Well, we definitely opened up the lines of communication with our FBI partners, with our Department of Homeland Security partners and we activated our joint regional intelligent center which is our fusion center. So the information sharing, the situational awareness of what's

happening around the country and our ability to respond and make deployment decisions and resource decision on that is, is well, and we also have a much heavier deployment than we've, we've had on normal routine days.

BERMAN: I've been struck over the last several days about how much we are hearing from police departments like yours, like in New York City, and also from federal officials as well about how concerned they are and how much security they're putting in place. And I'm wondering who the audience is for this message?

Is it the public? Do you want to reassure the public that you're on it and things are going to be OK or is it a message to people who might want to do harm themselves?

DOWNING: It's really a prevention message. It's a preparation message. It's to ensure that the government responds to this threat appropriately and that we put out enough resources to, to deal with it, but secondly is to elevate the attention cycle of communities, to say, look, government can't do this alone. Police departments can't do this alone.

We need to leverage our resources, and our greatest resource is the communities that we, we serve. So we need people to pay attention to anomalies, to suspicious activity, and to know how to report that suspicious activity.

BOLDUAN: Now, ahead of this weekend, have any events been changed, canceled, modified because of just simply the threat and the risk benefit analysis you have to do?

DOWNING: Not, not in our city, and we're really encouraging communities not to not go to something because of this. I mean, I think that this adversary this weekend is getting a freebie. The freebie is they're getting a lot of publicity on what this threat is. So I think Americans really need to kind of stand strong, defend the values of our country, celebrate our independence, and show, show this adversary that we are not afraid.

BERMAN: Michael Downing, we wish you a good weekend, we wish you a safe weekend, and thank you so much for being with us.

DOWNING: Thank you. Good weekend to you as well.

BOLDUAN: Thanks.

BERMAN: That's 20 minutes before the hour right now. It was such a bizarre moment when this father found out on live television that his missing son had been found where? In the family basement.

(START VIDEO CLIP)

[11:40:00] NANCY GRACE, HLN NEWS ANCHOR: Your son has been found in your basement. Sir? Mr. Bothuell, are you, are you...

CHARLES BOTHUELL, SON FOUND IN BASEMENT: What?

BERMAN: Now this man is speaking out with some more words about what happened. We will hear from him next.

BERMAN: And, plus, as we learned, Richard Matt sent a letter to his daughter just days before his daring escape from prison. CNN goes inside the very trailer where that inmate hid from authorities. You can see what our correspondent Gary Tuchman found inside.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: Torture charges have been dropped against a Detroit man whose missing son was later found hiding in the basement. The search was in its 11th day when HLN's Nancy Grace really dropped this bombshell during a live interview with the father. Listen to this.

GRACE: Charlie, we're getting reports that your son has been found in your basement. Sir? Mr. Bothuell, are you, are you...

BOTHUELL: What?

GRACE: Yes. We are getting reports that your son has been found alive in your basement.

BOTHUELL: What?

GRACE: Yes. If you can hand me that wire very quickly. We're getting that right now from, from - yes, how could your son be alive in your basement?

BOTHUELL: Oh - I have no idea. Oh, shit. I have no, I have no idea. I, I...

[05:45:00] GRACE: Now, this is just a report that we are hearing out of Detroit that we're trying to confirm. Sir, did you check your basement?

BOTHUELL: I checked my basement. The FBI checked my basement. The Detroit police checked my basement. My wife checked my basement. I have been down there several times. We've all been checking out.

GRACE: OK. This is what we are hearing, that the missing 12-year-old boy has been found alive and well in his father's basement. Now, this is what I, I don't understand why you guys would have reported he's missing and all our viewers have been on the lookout for him...

BOTHUELL: We've been on the lookout for him. We searched that entire house repeatedly. The FBI searched it. The Detroit police searched. We've all searched. God.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

BERMAN: After this the father was charged with child abuse and torture. Part of the case against him was a text message to the boy's mother saying the boy needed to, quote, get gone. Now, Bothuell this morning told CNN's Michaela Pereira that the message was not as ominous as it sounded.

(START VIDEO TAPE)

BOTHUELL: My son needed more help than I could give him at home.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Fair enough, fair enough.

BOTHUELL: I'm a registered nurse and with a mental health care background. My son needed additional help. We researched, the military...

PEREIRA: Did you reach out for help?

BOTHUELL: Absolutely. And he was getting ready to be sent. This was my plan, and the day or couple hours after I made this very clear to him, then he ran away again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Now, in dropping the torture charges, the judge in the case said that the boy's testimony against his father was not credible. Now, Charles Bothuell still faces second-degree child abuse charges. He is going to be arraigned next week. I just remembered when it happened. It's a very difficult case and continues.

Coming up next for us, CNN goes inside the very hiding spot where Richard Matt spent his final days. You're about to see where he slept and he waited out police.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't even know if this door has been opened since this all happened. Take a look.

[11:50:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: New details this morning about the New York prison escape including a letter written by now, dead escapee Richard Matt to his daughter. According to the Buffalo News, Matt reached out to her before the prison break bowing to quote, see you on the outside.

BOLDUAN: Now, this comes nearly a week after Matt is shot and killed by in order agent after having been on the run in various places in Upstate, New York. CNN's Gary Tuchman takes us inside one of his final hideouts.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is one of the busier roads in Franklin County, New York, a road that has regular police patrols during portions of the three week long manhunt.

Richard Matt and David Sweat spent a lot of time in the wilderness, but we know that in the last day of Matt's life he wasn't in the wilderness, he was very close to hundreds of motorists here on State Highway 30. This is where he spent the last day before he was killed.

This trailer which is only about 100 feet from this road. But it can't be seen from the road, although the road can be seen from the trailer. It's been abandoned for years, a state inspection sticker on the window is from 1998.

Inside, it's the dilapidated and smelly, broken benches and tables, a sink area full of spider webs and insects. Silverware still sitting in a mason jar, a teapot on the stove. All in all, a very disgusting scene.

I don't even know if this door has been opened since this all happened. Take a look. Nothing. But there are a couple blankets in here.

On closer examination, there's sleeping bags and on the side of the closet a bunch of newspapers from 1994. Right across the street from this trailer lives Jon Chodat.

JON CHODAT, LIVES ACROSS FROM TRAILER: To my knowledge he had been staying there a few days and on the day after his birthday, on Friday, he decided apparently to shoot at a passing camper, probably to slow them down and maybe, you know, commandeer it and take them somewhere but they kept going.

TUCHMAN: The driver of the camper called police and the trail got hot.

Police were told that camper had been hit by what appeared to be a gunshot and authorities had a big clue. Ultimately they headed in the direction of the trailer. By that point, Matt had already headed back into the woods. He made a fatal mistake when he coughed, tipping police off to where he was hiding.

This is where police found Richard Matt and shot and killed him. About a five-minute walk from the trailer. And this was his final hiding place, only 200 feet from the people traveling on Route 30. Gary Tuchman, CNN, Malone, New York.

BERMAN: Amazing view there. Thanks to Gary for that.

BOLDUAN: That details keep coming out.

BERMAN: We have breaking news, two big announcements, one from the State Department, the other from the State of New York about the warnings of how possible terror threat on July 4th. We have new details on how this will affect the crowds this weekend. That's coming up next.

[11:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: A combat veteran who served three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan is a true American hero and now he's a CNN hero as well. Sean Gauvin's warrior hike program is helping his combat veterans cope with life after war

literally one step at a time.

SEAN GAUVIN, CNN HERO: You take back a lot of things from war that you didn't think you were going to bring back.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was just angry at everyone and didn't want anything to do with anybody.

GAUVIN: It can be kind of hard. You just get kind of anxious.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You stop feeling, basically.

GAUVIN: All three of my combat deployments were really intense. There was no time to cope. I decided to hike the Appalachian trail because it had been a dream of mind growing up. I saw it as a personal challenge. But about two-thirds of the way I realized I was processing all of these experiences that I had put away and I knew that there were other combat veterans that needed to do that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: See you in about six months.

GAUVIN: The warrior hike provides veterans with the equipment and supplies they need to complete a long distance hike. It's just like a deployment except instead of going to fight a war, your mission is to be a civilian again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just being in the woods out here, there's nothing to do but think.

GAUVIN: There's internal quiet and some of the problems that you're dealing with get hammered away.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just being around other military is worth more than words can say.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How many years?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 15 years.

GAUVIN: Our veterans receive trail town support along the way.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi. How are you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good, how are you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can see how much they care. It helps.

GAUVIN: We help veterans prepare for the next chapter of their life.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're learning to take it as it comes and move on.

GAUVIN: I'm looking far sense of calm. Every step I take I think I'm going in that direction.

BOLDUAN: Now, if you know someone like Sean who should be recognized for their great and selfless work, please go to cnnheroes.com right now and tell us all about them.

I think let's all say together.

Happy Birthday, America.

BERMAN: Happy Birthday, America.

BOLDUAN: Thanks for joining us, At This Hour.

BERMAN: Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield, starts now.