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Deadline Looming For Iran Nuclear Deal; New Clues Found In Co- Pilots Home; Prosecutor: No Claim Of Responsibility; Tim Cook To Give Fortune Away. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired March 27, 2015 - 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: You're the perfect person to talk to about this this morning.

AARON DAVID MILLER, VP FOR NEW INITIATIVES WOODROW WILSON CENTER: Good morning, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: What does Iran want today?

MILLER: You know, they're looking for a deal they can defend. One that leaves them with a capacity when the deal is done to maintain a -- or at least to create an industrial-grade nuclear infrastructure and ultimately leaves them with the possibility should they want to exercise it, of breaking out to acquire a nuclear weapon.

They want a deal with dignity, one that creates not just a measure of sanctions relief, but demonstrates that these negotiations which have been ongoing have been worthwhile, have paid off. And above all, I think they want to be treated, whether they deserve to be treated or not this way is another matter, as a co-equal, as an emerging great power, at least in the Middle East.

CAMEROTA: Now of course, the fear is among critics of this deal, that the U.S. is now so politically motivated to make a deal, that it will tell settle for a lousy deal and it will give Iran too many concessions, do you fear that?

MILLER: Well, you know, there are no good deals. There are only deals with varying degrees of risk. I know that negotiators always fall in love with their negotiations. They don't want to admit defeat and sadly, when there's a lot of pressure, they rush.

My biggest concern I think is that -- that what will be produced, and they're going to produce something by the end of March. May be too general and won't in fact create the slower, smaller more transparent and more easily verifiable Iranian nuclear program.

I mean, I don't think we're heading for a catastrophe, but the reality is the Iranians have already won and won big-time. They maintain the right to enrich. They will be left with a fairly large nuclear infrastructure.

And as we know, we see in Yemen, in Syria, in Iraq, their regional role is increasing. They are in fact the, as the Arab world melts down, it is the three non-Arabs, Iran, Turkey and Israel, which frankly are the most consequential powers in the region and right now, Iran is emerging as the most consequential.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about what's going on in Yemen because Saudi Arabia continues to launch airstrikes against the Houthi rebels. The U.S. supports Saudi Arabia, Iran supports the Houthis. Is this affecting the nuclear talks?

MILLER: I think the desire do shelter these talks has been so strong on both parties. I mean we virtually ignored the behavior and actions of a repressive regime, their efforts to -- their efforts to maintain Assad in power. Their support for the Houthis, which I think is probably far more limited than people suspect, their role in Iraq, in an effort to get this deal.

This deal is a critically important component of Obama's foreign policy and they want it. So I think no. What's going on in Yemen, it's a long movie and it will not affect whether or not you get a deal by the end of March or at least a political framework.

CAMEROTA: OK, so we're four days away from the end of March. Will there be a deal next week?

MILLER: I mean, betting on this is bad. Nobody ever lost money betting on Arab/Israeli peace. On this one, though, I think you've got two parties that have been at this for a while. They want this. They've narrowed the gaps considerably.

The Americans yesterday put out the most optimistic assessment. There's always the possibility of an end game, an end game catastrophe. But I suspect by the end of March, April 1, you will have some sort of political framework agreement then the fun begins.

CAMEROTA: And by that, you mean the devil's in the details. So there's just a framework. All we can hope for is a framework next week and then they have to get into the muck.

MILLER: Right. But that framework better be pretty compelling. You've got a lot of people, the Saudis, the Emirates, the Israelis, the U.S. Congress, the chattering classes in Washington -- everyone is going to be looking into this agreement and trying to figure out whether or not in the end the U.S. was snookered.

That will be I think the key fault line here because the view in Washington among many is that we're playing checkers and Iran continues to play three-dimensional chess not only in the nuclear negotiations, but in the region at large.

So whether this passes the "Washington Post" test, I think is going to be the most critically important and interesting thing to watch.

CAMEROTA: So very quickly, next week will the U.S. Congress and the general public know some real details about this? That they've been clamoring for?

MILLER: You'll probably have a three to seven-page agreement, which will contain the major principles on some technical issues and then the next several months will be spent trying to figure out how to render that into an agreement can actually stand up, and tough, very tough. But I think you're headed for some outcome and not just continued process in negotiation.

[07:35:13] CAMEROTA: Aaron David Miller, you've given us some great information this morning. We appreciate it. Have a great Friday.

MILLER: Always a pleasure, you too.

CAMEROTA: Thanks so much. Let's go over to Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Alisyn, so one dangerous unknown to another. We are waiting right now for a press conference from the German prosecutor, will it be a key or a clue to why this happened because that's the question.

What made the man on your screen, the co-pilot on 9525, become a mass murderer? The most haunting detail could be the most critical clue so far -- that steady breathing. We have one of the best psychiatrists in the field taking us through what that may mean.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:44:52]

CAMEROTA: This is breaking news because we're just getting in details on that co-pilot who crashed flight 9525 into a mountainside. CNN's Fred Pleitgen joins us from Cologne, Germany with more what have we just learned, Fred?

[07:45:07] FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Alisyn. This comes from the public prosecutor in the town of Dusseldorf, which is the authority that's leading us investigation on the German side. They've now given details about what they actually found when they search the homes of Andreas Lubitz, both in the town of Montabaur, as well as in the city of Dusseldorf.

It appears as though they found documents in Dusseldorf, which they say show that there was or don't show that there was a religious or any sort of terrorism motivated thing behind all this. However, they do say that they did find records that he had been treated for some sort of illness for quite a while and also I think this is the really important part in all this.

They found that he had destroyed several doctors' notes which would have declared him unfit to work and they therefore believe that he was hiding his illness from his employer. So this is something that we've gotten just now.

They say that they have searched the premises. They found a bunch of documents that showed that he had been visiting a doctor that he had been treated for some sort of illness. They didn't elaborate whether it was mental or physical.

And they said there had been sick notes that he had been issued by a doctor, which were found in the apartment and which had been destroyed. Therefore, they believe that he was trying to hide his illness from his employer.

CAMEROTA: And Fred, one particularly chilling element of this, they say they found a ripped-up note from a doctor that was giving this co- pilot a medical excuse to have taken the day off, the day of the crash. Is there any more on that?

PLEITGEN: The day of the crash, not just the day of the crash, they said they had found medical notes that had been ripped up for the recent times, over the past couple of days and including the day that this flight took place so he was in fact deemed unfit to work on the day that he did fly the airplane.

So that of course sheds light or at least sheds a little bit of light on why he might have done all this. What exactly this illness was. It's certainly something we're going to try to find out.

Certainly the next thing that the prosecutors are probably going to try to do, speak to that doctor, who issued that note, and see what exactly happened, how long he had been within the treatment and how bad the illness actually was.

CAMEROTA: Fred, when we say illness, is there any indication if that means depression or some sort of mental illness or physical illness?

PLEITGEN: You know what, reading that note, they don't exactly say, what they say and it's a very short press statement that the prosecutor's office gave out. They say simply that he had been under treatment by a doctor for an extended period of time, for an illness which they don't say what exactly it is.

They don't say whether it's something that was mental. They don't say whether it was some sort of physical longer-term thing that he might have had. But again they did say that this is something that had been ongoing and that had deemed him unfit to work.

So we're going to try to get more information on that. At this point it's unclear what that illness, whether it's a depression, certainly there have been media reports coming out here in Germany that have gone in that direction.

That he might have had some sort of mental condition, but judging from the note, or from the press statement that we got from the prosecutor's office, they haven't defined yet what sort of ailment, what sort of issues Andreas Lubitz would have had. CAMEROTA: Fred, there are media reports here at home that are notable

as well. One comes from "The Wall Street Journal" and they say it was confirmed that Andreas Lubitz had a medical condition. In fact, it was noted in his pilot's medical certificate. So in other words, whatever the medical condition was, that he was

being treated for, at least this one, maybe he had more than one. It was not one that meant he couldn't fly, but it was noted in his pilot's certificate.

Again, it would be so helpful if the authorities could explain if this was mental, if this was physical, just what it is. PLEITGEN: That certainly is going to be the big question, about whether or not this was something where he had a medical condition in the past and someone was deemed that maybe he had gotten it under control. Because of course, there are people who do have mental problems, who do have issues with things like depression.

But it's something they can keep under control and so we'll have to wait and see whether or not this might have also had something to do with the fact he took a break during his pilot training in 2008. He took several months off.

It's a very good question at this point in time whether or not his employer here, believed and the authorities, the aviation authorities here in Germany believe that he might have had something that he was able to keep under control.

[07:45:06] What in reality he was still being treated by the doctor and that the doctor deemed that he didn't have it under control and therefore issued him these sick leaves. Those are things we believe we're going to get additional information throughout the day.

It certainly is the big sort of line of thought, the big threat right now in this investigation that seems to point to that medical condition whether it's mental or something else. But certainly something we're sort of trying to piece together the mosaic of what drove him to do this.

CAMEROTA: OK, Fred, so again the breaking news is that there was some sort of medical condition. Investigators say that they found evidence of that in his home. They also found a ripped-up doctor's note giving him permission to take the day off on several days including the day of the crash.

Fred Pleitgen, thank you for all of that breaking news, and of course, we'll check back with you as more details come to light. Let's get over to Chris.

CUOMO: Alisyn, while I share your frustration that it would be so good to know what that medical condition is and does it mean that he was suffering from some type of advanced mental illness, maybe it doesn't matter as much as we think that detail.

Let's bring in someone who can help us understand why. Dr. Michael Welner is one of America's leading forensic psychiatrists and he designed a tool to help doctors flag malicious intent and introduce earlier treatment to avoid situations like this.

Doctor, it's always a pleasure. So as a journalist we say that's not enough. I need more information, what it was a medical situation that didn't affect his head or what if it was depression. You with looking at me during the reporting and saying, it doesn't matter as much as you think. Why?

Well, I think there are several ground troops that we have to start with. First of all, even if this was an intentional act, we have do get away from this as a pilot suicide. This is a murder suicide. What we understand in medical research is that murder-suicide is very different from suicide.

When you get into the murder suicide space, pilot suicides are one thing. Pilot murder-suicides where someone takes a whole plane load of passengers down with him are actually very rare. They're unusual events.

I would tell you it's an incredibly small subset of all of those pilots with depression. Keep this in mind -- you as a high- functioning man, me as a high-functioning man. Many people out there who watch as high-functioning males, you don't have the bandwidth to be depressed, to allow your depression to claim you.

So the idea of saying he had depression -- no. When it comes to murder-suicide, it's always more than depression. Murder-suicide in a mass casualty context, the most important element of that is -- hopelessness. A person can have hopelessness from a medical condition.

CUOMO: He could have had some type of cancer that was getting out of control. So it's not the malady. It's what it means to him.

DR. MICHAEL WELNER, FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIST AND CHAIRMAN, "THE FORENSIC PANEL": It's where he goes with it as he relates to his workplace, as he relates to his fellow crew members, the bigger scheme of things. The closest parallels that one can have to the hopelessness of murder- suicide in a pilot, is the workplace mass homicide.

In pilot murder-suicides, where we know more about, it isn't just that those pilots were struggling with stressors or that they may have had depression. It's that there was an antagonistic relationship between them and their superiors where their job may have been threatened, their capacity to fly, or their career may have been threatened.

There are several aspects of this case that are very unusual. He was only 28 years old. For people saying he was a very inexperienced pilot. What was he doing there alone? Rest assured, in the previous identified murder-suicide pilot cases, they were very experienced pilots. They were older pilots.

CUOMO: So the inexperience isn't enough.

WELNER: So he doesn't even fit that demographic. The only thing he has in common is that he was a dedicated pilot. And for someone who takes down a plane, the question may not be his depression, but to what degree it was hopeless and it was -- it was inspiring his hopelessness and to what degree, how he related it to his company threatened his position with the company and his own perception of job security.

Keep in mind, it doesn't mean that the company was hostile to him. It may have only been in his own interpretation, you know what, the end is near, and I'm going to end it on these terms. That's the way workplace mass killings work.

I'm not saying that that's what this was, but if it was ideological like an Anders Brevick or an Islamist, he would have disseminated that message in a way that would have been obvious to us and it's not.

CUOMO: They said they found no suicide note. No sign of responsibility in advance. No sign of zealotry or any type of extremist identification. But they did find ripped-up doctor's notes that were absenting him from duty saying you should not fly today including the day that this crash happened. What does that mean?

[05:50:08] WELNER: Well, it's just a clue. It's very nonspecific. There isn't much we -- the important interpretation from the absence of obvious messages is this wasn't ideologically driven. However, a person who carries out a murder-suicide who may have some resentment, antagonism and wants to take his airline down with him these individuals didn't write notes, didn't leave manifestos.

There wasn't some angry legacy, and yet further probing there was tension, maybe not from their employer, but in how they appreciated and they interpreted job security where flying was everything for them.

CUOMO: All right, so in terms of the take away, one is just because someone's depressed doesn't mean you don't want to fly with them. There are a lot of other things that get involved. I've got that.

Here's the second piece. We want to figure out how to avoid this. It seems he was hiding the condition. That's what the airlines have led us to believe so far. They didn't know. What they did know about his medical situation still allowed him to fly. He was ripping up notes.

Maybe he wasn't telling them. So it comes to what can we do to flag someone like this who doesn't want us to know in advance before something like this happens?

WELNER: The most important quality of a high-risk individual in a sensitive position is hopelessness. Now a person may not convey that he's hopeless, but a person may be in a situation, either from a social rejection, a personal rejection because that also circulates around the whole murder/suicide mass killing genre, or a threatened job loss where a person's world is disintegrating.

We see that at the end of the year with familicides, who thinks about taking out a whole family, a person who loses their world. An individual who loses their world is a person at high risk, whether he looks intact or whether he's not.

CUOMO: So that's what we have to look for. Dr. Michael Welner, we're going to continue this conversation as we get more information. Thank you for giving us your head on it. Appreciate it -- Mich.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, we'll have much more ahead from France and Germany on the Flight 9525 investigation. But also ahead, I want you to consider this. What would you do with $800 million? Apple CEO, Tim Cook revealing what he intends to do with his fortune. We'll have that in "CNN Money" next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:55:27]

PEREIRA: All right, it's time for "CNN Money Now." Chief business correspondent, Christine Romans is here to tell us what we need.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: A crackdown is coming for pay day lenders, folks. These are the companies that make money lending people paycheck to paycheck people their own money. We're talking about interest rates of 400 percent in some cases. The White House calls that predatory. Expect new rules to reign in the loan market that serves the working poor.

Apple CEO Tim Cook says he will give all his money away. He told "Fortune" magazine he plans to donate his estimated $800 million almost a billionaire. He'll donate it to charity after paying for his nephew's education. Cook was also just named the world's greatest leader not long after he was questioned his ability to fill Steve Jobs' shoes.

CUOMO: World's greatest leader, that's not bad.

ROMANS: Not heads of state, it was Tim Cook. He could pay for all of our kids' school.

CAMEROTA: Just putting it out there. Great for him. Good for him.

CUOMO: Good to have you. Have a good weekend.

All right, we have a lot of news coming out on Flight 9525. We're going to get you that in just a moment. We also are going to bring you details about what police found in the co-pilot's home, what the answers, what new questions there are. We also have breaking political news for you. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "AC 360": A single person was responsible for taking down this flight.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To tell you the truth, we have no explanation at this point.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A number of airlines have since changed cockpit rules.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: That door was designed for a purpose. That purpose had consequences.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no doubt that we would like to see a functioning central government in Yemen. We don't see that right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let these Arab countries do what they think they need to do in the region. Let's see what shakes out.

PEREIRA: Indiana Governor Mike Pence signing the controversial religious freedom bill into law.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Taking away certain religious freedoms from certain people in order to protect ours.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Welcome back to NEW DAY. It is Friday, March 27th. It's 8:00 here in the east. Breaking news in the flight 9525 investigation, German prosecutors say they found documentation in Andreas Lubitz home documenting a medical problem.