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Donald Trump Gives Marco Rubio A Gift; Major Scandal Brewing Involving Two Fantasy Sports Gaming Sites. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired October 06, 2015 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00] DYLAN BYERS, CNN MEDIA REPORTER: And when he does, he is quite strategically might go to place like the "Today Show" which has a huge audience or somewhere like FOX News where he's sort of catering to some of the voters he's trying to court. But yes, is it strange that he hasn't been on CNN for two months, of course. I mean, if you look across the Republican field, almost every other candidate has come to CNN. So that's a little strange and that might reflect that sort of tense interaction that he had with Chris Cuomo and, you know, the longer he goes without going on CNN, the more of an issue it will be.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: And someone who has been on quite a bit, Donald Trump. In fact, he was on this morning. He sent a prank care package, Kurt, to Rubio's office. And in it was a case of bottled water with Trump's face on it. Listen to how Rubio responded when asked about it on the "Today" show.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When people are ring for office, they are looking for something that's going to give them a competitive advantage. If they think talking bad about someone is going to give them that, and that's what they are going to do. And as far I am -- apparently the water is high quality water. It is topnotch water that he sent us - that Donald Trump sent us. So I'm grateful for the gift.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So he didn't seem to mind that gift, Kurt. What do you make, though, of the fact that both Trump and Jeb are sort of teaming up in a sense to target Rubio? What's your take on that?

KURT, SCHLICHTER, CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR/COLUMNIST: Well, I think it says something really good about Rubio. It says he's the man to go after.

Let's understand about Jeb. He's going down the drain. He has failed. His strategy of I'm going to gather a lot of money and wait you out. You conservatives are going to be stuck with me has become a miserable failure. He has kind of a punch line, no one cares about him. I literally don't know a conservative who says, hey, I'm for Jeb. No, that never happens.

I love the way Rubio handles Trump because Trump is kind of a blow hard. And Rubio comes back being the much younger, a lot more mature, I love his good humor in responding to the bottled water thing which I thought was a funny prank. But I thought Rubio handled it well.

Again Rubio's problem is not his presentation. He's really good. And I think he would serve himself well going on any show that would have him with very few exceptions. But the real problem with Rubio is not Trump or his votes in the Senate. It's convincing us conservatives that we can trust him because, you know, right now that bridge, it might not be burned, but it's a little charred.

BROWN: And he has been criticized for his lack of experience, lack of leadership by Bush and Trump as we have heard.

Kurt Schlichter, CNN media reporter Dylan Byers, thank you so much.

SCHLICHTER: Thank you.

BYERS: Thank you.

BROWN: Coming up, a closer look at whether the Oregon shooter could have been stopped. New reports that his mom knew he was emotionally disturbed, but still kept a stockpile of guns in their home. We'll take you live to Roseburg, up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:37:20] BROWN: The man behind Thursday's massacre in Oregon was 26 years old. But new questions are emerging on how much responsibility his mother should take for his actions. The Umpqua Community College shooter murdered nine and wounded another nine before killing himself on Thursday.

And now CNN has learned through tens of thousands of postings she put online, his mother shared her son's fascination with guns. What's more, she reportedly knew he had mental health issues. A friend told "The New York Times" that the mother, a nurse, revealed she put her son in a psychiatric hospital. Quote, she said that my son is a real big problem of mine. He has some psychological problems. Sometimes he takes his medication, sometimes he doesn't. And that's where the big problem is when he doesn't take his medication."

CNN's Dan Simon is live in Roseburg with more on this.

So Dan, what did these online postings reveal specifically? What more?

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Hi Pamela.

Let's take a step back and look at what the father first said. He said he had no idea that his son had had any weapons, let alone more than a dozen of them. And now, you have the mother who seems to know about all the guns and she herself seems to be a gun enthusiast.

In these online postings, she also acknowledges ta her son had a developmental disorder specifically Asperger's syndrome. Now, we should point out that there's no link between Asperger's and violence, but it raises questions about what she knew about the full mental profile of her son.

First of all, on the guns, I just kind of want to give you a snapshot of what she said on Yahoo! And she wrote, I keep all my mags full. I keep two full mags in my Glock case and the ARs and AKs all have loaded mags. No one will be dropping by my house uninvited without acknowledgment. Clearly, this is somebody who is passionate about weapons.

Now let's talk about the Asperger's. This is what she wrote again on Yahoo! My son has Asperger's. He's no babbling idiot nor is his life worthless. He's very intelligent and working on a career in film making. My 18 years worth of experience with and knowledge about Asperger's syndrome is paying off.

Clearly, there are more questions than answers here, Pamela, as we read this. A lot more questions than answers. But already you're seeing the comparisons between that situation and what you had in Newtown, Connecticut.

Adam Lanza, again, a situation where you had a young man who had a whole host of mental issues with tons of access to weapons. Weapons provided by his mother. So once again, the questions that you had in Connecticut was there responsible parenting there and most people say no. Those questions now being raised once again in Oregon - Pamela.

[15:40:04] BROWN: And we're going to have that discussion, Dan Simon, thank you so much.

And on that note, as you just heard from Dan, the mother of the Oregon gunman hinted of struggles she had raising her so son. But did she know of the danger he would ultimately pose? That's the big question. There are some parents who do live with that torture, the fear that their child could one day hurt others.

CNN profiled one mother in 2013, Stephanie Escamilla. Her son 14 at the time heard voices and some of them told him to kill his family. Her son had been hospitalized more than 20 times. Stephanie joins me now.

Thank you so much for being here with us to share your story again. We're also joined by CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin.

Stephanie, I want to talk to you first because I'm curious what your reaction was when you first heard how this mother enjoyed guns with her son and how she had also reportedly put him into a psychiatric facility at one point. What was your reaction?

STEPHANIE ESCAMILLA, SON HAS BIPOLAR DISORDER WITH PSYCHOSIS: I guess as a mom, I'm not sure what her background is. I don't know if she was a single mom or she was married, I was a single mom at the time when my son was first diagnosed. And you want to do things to do kind of fulfill that void of a male figure in the family. I would take my son fishing. And I would, you know, I would do things that a father would normally do with their children. And so, I really didn't think much of that. As far as if she knew her son had an illness at the time, I'll give you my son attempted suicide when he was 13. And my boyfriend was starting to show him how to use 22 rifle. After that he completely cut him off from any type of weapons or anything like that. And it's just depends on how educated you are when it comes to mental health. Luckily when he was first diagnosed, I learned a lot about it. I taught my son about it. It just depends the type of background you have.

BROWN: And just to be clear, she was divorced several years ago so you raise an interesting point. From what we can tell, she was raising him on her own. And perhaps trying to fill that void of not having a father figure around. But I'm curious, do you think that as the mother, she takes any blame in this or has any responsibility though her son was 26 years old?

ESCAMILLA: Honestly, I believe after the age of 18 it's solely upon that person who has the diagnosis. Sadly, all mothers are blamed for what goes on in their children's lives, even though they are an adult. It's difficult when you have someone who is an adult and they have a diagnosis and you cannot get a guardianship or anything of power of attorney because they are an adult. You can't control when they do after the fact.

And it's sad because I worry. I worry for my son because right now he's 16 and he's doing OK and he is taking his medications, but once he turns 18 and he learns that he's an adult and he can do whatever he'd like to do, it's scary because he can easily just stop going to his psychiatric visits, drop all his meds. And what can I do? I can't force him unless I have guardianship over that.

BROWN: Yes. There's only so much control you can have at that point.

Sunny, I'm going to turn to you. But under what circumstances could this mother face criminal charges? Because after all, they did live under the same roof. She allowed him to have these guns and she knew he was receiving treatment of some kind. We don't know exactly for what. What kind of liability is this?

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: You know, I think the bottom line is the operative fact here is that this was an adult child. Someone that's 26. There has been a clear movement over the past I think couple of decades that parents are held accountable sometimes criminally for the actions of their children. And this is not a new concept. We talk often times about sort of contributing to the minor behavior, right? So there is that notion.

But when you're talking about a 26-year-old adult who is living with you, I see the only way that you would be held accountable is if she knew that he was planning these actions. That she somehow helped him plan these actions. I think we saw that - we have seen that in some sorts of situations.

BROWN: Dylann Roof.

HOSTIN: And his friends sort of not doing anything.

BROWN: Who has been charged, by the way, his friends. [15:45:01] HOSTIN: Absolutely. And prosecutors look for

accountability for the victims. And you know, I think she could possibly, if we learn that she somehow had some sort of involvement, she could have some liability. I think what we also need to think about is whether or not she truly had these guns in the home fully loaded knowing that her son did suffer from mental illness. I mean, there aren't necessarily any laws in place for that right now and there's a lot of debate about gun control, but shouldn't there be some safeguards in place for this kind of situation?

BROWN: Certainly raises a lot of questions. We know she's spoken to investigators, but she's remained silent in terms of speaking to the media.

Sunny Hostin, Stephanie, thank you so much for coming on. And Stephanie, I hope your son continues to progress.

ESCAMILLA: Thank you.

BROWN: And still ahead, a couple vacationing in Brazil walks into a hail of gunfire after following directions from an app on their phone. We'll go live to Rio to get reaction to the shocking murder in a city slum.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:50:30] BROWN: A travel agent, visiting a Brazilian town was shot and killed after mistakenly driving into a slum. Police say she was a using the popular GPS app called WAZE but it gave her the wrong direction.

Joining me now is Shasta Darlington, CNN international correspondent and Brazil bureau chief.

If you would, take us through the time of what a horrific story here.

SHASTA DARLINGTON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Pamela. It was just a terrible tragedy, and it all started right here in Rio de Janeiro when this elderly couple decided to go out on the town and dinner out, and they decided to go across the bay to the city of Misiroy (ph), about a 45-minute drive. So they tried to enter into their Waze application, a popular avenue. But instead of avenue, they wrote street after the name, and the application ended up taking them into one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Misiroy (ph), it's (INAUDIBLE) controlled by drug gangs.

Now, what happened next is still unclear, but it was nighttime and what we know is that someone or some people opened up that fire, their car was riddled with least 20 bullets. The woman, (INAUDIBLE), 70- year-old woman, she was hit, her husband, who was driving, Francisco, managed to get the car out, drive to a hospital, police believe a stack of silver candlesticks in the trunk actually helped protect him. But when he got to the hospital, his wife died.

Just a terrible accident. Reminding people of all the security issues in a city that's going to be hosting the Olympics in just ten months' time. And of course, going to be receiving thousands of people who don't know their way around, Pamela.

BROWN: And apparently, there's also been a rash of robberies on the area's most popular beaches. So officials have a lot of work to do leading up to the summer Olympics.

Shasta Darlington, thank you very much.

And coming up right here in NEWSROOM, a major scandal involving two fantasy sports gaming sites. One employee accused of so-called insider trading. How some say he used top secret information to game the system and win big.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:56:41] BROWN: Well, if you haven't seen the TV commercials for Fan Duel or Draft King websites you haven't been watching much television. Ads like this one, take a look, have blanketed the airwaves especially during live sports events.

Online fantasy sports leagues are a multibillion dollar industry. Draft King expects to pay out $2 billion just in prizes this year. But controversy has erupted amid of reports that an employee at Draft King who allegedly had access to inside information won $350,000 by playing on the rival fan duel Web site. The question is did he profit from inside information? The two companies insist that he did not. But they've now banned employees from playing fantasy sports.

Steven Malanga is here, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Steven, you've been looking at fantasy sports these two sites. Why are these big money fantasy sports sites, not considered gambling? I have to admit, I was kind of surprised to learn that.

STEVEN MALANGA, SENIOR FELLOW, MANHATTAN INSTITUTE: Yes, because the 2006 Internet gambling acts specifically gave them an extension. And the reason it did is the sponsors in congressing. They were lobbied to give them an exemption. The folks said it's not really gambling. It's just friends playing among each other. And everybody in Congress now admits who was there in voted for this, they never expected fantasy gambling to evolve to get the kind of money and the kind of interest that it now become. And so in Congress now, they are calling for hearings to examine this. So there is a big debate and there are many people, including gambling addiction experts who will say this is gambling.

BROWN: Well, and you go online to gamble. It's highly regulated by the government.

MALANGA: Yes.

BROWN: This, they're free agents, right?

MALANGA: No. And that's the point right now. And so, one of the stories about today's story, is that since it's not regulated, it was a form essentially what this follow was doing was a form of insider trading which is illegal, of course, in the stock market. That he had all of this information about who was betting on which players, and putting which players on their team so he went on the other side knowing that and said I'm going to construct a team favorable.

BROWN: And because it's not regulated by the government --

MALANGA: Nothing illegal about that.

BROWN: Looking at these huge corporate investors, Draft Kings has backing from major league baseball, FOX Sports and the NHL. Fan duel has investments from the NBA, Comcast, and Time Warner, of course, CNN's parent company. Do you think that in a way this corporate investment bestows legitimacy on these Web site?

MALANGA: Absolutely, completely. You hit the nail on the head. I think it's more than that. You know, even with legalized gambling, there are warnings, this is gambling. Your family knows if you're going to Atlantic City every week, they know there might be a problem. There's a sense here that in is just fun because Fantasy itself has been around for decades and people played it among themselves, not necessarily for money. So the sense is if you're playing this, and you are obsessing over this, it's just fun. And that's part of the problem, I think, right now.

BROWN: And as we know, gambling's highly addictive. And it will be interesting to see what - how, you know, from politicians will handle this, will it be regulated? That is the big question.

Steven Malanga, thank you very much. We do appreciate it.

And that does it for me. I will be back tomorrow filling in for my friend, Brooke Baldwin.

"THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.