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Judge Orders Cosby to Give Sworn Deposition; Bill Clinton/Donald Trump Phone Call Suggests Trump a Plant; Netflix Starts Trend to Bump Up Parental Leave; Tonight is Jon Stewarts Finale with "The Daily Show". Aired 11:30-12p ET

Aired August 06, 2015 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:41] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, a new legal development that could spell serious trouble for Bill Cosby. A California judge is ordering Cosby to give a sworn deposition in a lawsuit alleging he sexually assaulted a teenage girl more than 40 years ago. Cosby must answer questions under oath on October 9th. The case involves Judith Huth, who claims she was 15 years old when she met Cosby in Los Angeles.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: She says Cosby plied her with alcohol and then took her to the Playboy mansion where he allegedly had her perform a sex act without her consent.

HLN legal analyst, Joey Jackson, is here with us now.

So, Joey, they've set the date when he's going to be required to offer this -- he's going to be deposed.

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: October 9th.

BOLDUAN: October 9th. What can he be required to answer? Can he remain silent?

JACKSON: It all depends. This is a significant development. And here's why. We know there are other lawsuits pending but they're defamation because the statute of limitations is gone so creatively the attorneys said, through your representatives, you've called me a liar so we're going to go forward on deposition. This involves the underlying merits of what he did or did not do.

BOLDUAN: Right. And it's only allowed to go forward because she was a minor at the time.

JACKSON: That's right. So you have this law that says if you have a repressed memory but you discover the memory within three years, you can move forward. And so predicated upon that, the attorney has to do an investigation, consult with a mental health professional.

But here is the issue. The crux of the issue is we know depositions are about discovery, what happened, where were you, you know, what do you recall? I don't know on the merits what he could reasonably be expected to recall 40 years ago but he's going to be required and compelled to answer those questions, and here is the tricky issue. Many people might say just assert, you know, fifth amendment because I can't incriminate myself, but to the extent that the statute of limitations has expired criminally as it relates to this issue, I don't think he has a legitimate basis to assert a fifth amendment claim now. In the event the attorney starts asking him questions that are what we lawyers call collateral, dealing with other issues that are potentially within the statute of limitations for which he could be prosecuted, then he could assert his claim. Otherwise, Kate, guess what, he's got to talk.

BERMAN: So bottom line, you know, in English --

(LAUGHTER)

-- for all of us who only applied to law school but didn't go, there are a lot of other people charging he did a lot of things. He will be under oath. Does he have to answer questions about cases that go beyond Judith Huth?

JACKSON: The answer is it depends. Those are collateral cases. In depositions you can go on fishing expeditions. You can ask a lot of questions. Where at trial they would say objection, relevance, and it would be sustained meaning you can't answer it, but at a deposition you can answer anything that could potentially lead to admissible evidence. So it's very wide ranging. So I think what his lawyer will instruct him to do in the event it's relevant, he has to answer it. In the event he could incriminate himself for any case which they may ask him about, then he could reasonably say Fifth Amendment privilege. I don't have to talk about that.

BOLDUAN: One thing the court was being asked to decide here is who was going to have to speak first. Who was going to be questioned first, Huth or Cosby? Is there an advantage there? Does that matter at all?

JACKSON: To some extent it does. Look, you're the plaintiff and you're moving forward, as a result of that, I want to know from you, Bill Cosby, what happened? Did you take her to that mansion, did you engage her in those activities that she alleges you did, did you know her to be 15, and even if you didn't, was she with a friend. And that's going to be important, too, because she's asserting she was with a friend when they met him at the tennis club and he invited her there. Ultimately it's going to depend. It's going to depend on what he says.

Of course, whenever someone goes first -- imagine this, when you represent a defendant at a trial, the defendant always testifies last because now the defendant knows everything that everybody else has said, now you can come up and say what you say. But at the end of the day, you expect when people are deposed, just like when people testify, that they swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but whether they testify first, last, or in-between, in an ideal world.

BERMAN: And being under oath, yeah.

BOLDUAN: An ideal world we don't live in.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: But for him, it's not ideal to be under oath and be in this kind of jeopardy with all this stuff swirling out there.

JACKSON: About the merits of the case, John. And that's what's big. What did you do in 1974? Did do you this to her? I'm interested in knowing the other person she asserts who she was with, will that person come forward? Who are they? Are they still alive? And will that person corroborate and otherwise support the claims Huth is making?

[11:35:11] BOLDUAN: Joey, thanks so much. Great to see you.

JACKSON: Thank you. Absolutely.

BOLDUAN: Thanks so much.

Coming up for us, still on the attack. Hillary Clinton takes some big swings at one of her rivals, that man being Jeb Bush. But why isn't she setting her sights on the front-runner, Donald Trump, instead?

BERMAN: And could it be because of a phone call, the phone call everyone is talking about? Bill Clinton placed a call to Donald Trump just before Donald Trump announced for president. What on earth do you think they spoke about?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: In just a few minutes, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will respond for the first time to President Obama's stark in, some would say, a severe speech on the Iran nuclear deal. The president seemed to compare some in the Republican caucus to Iran's hardliners. The Senate takes up the deal in September.

BOLDUAN: Meanwhile, Caroline Kennedy, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, attended a memorial ceremony for the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. Secretary of State John Kerry released a statement saying that Hiroshima underscores the importance of the Iran deal.

Back to politics. Did Bill Clinton influence Donald Trump's decision to run for president? The conversation took place, a phone call, while Trump was nearing his decision about making a run for the White House, and after Hillary Clinton had already announced her candidacy. Despite the interesting timing, aides say 2016 was never specifically discussed.

[11:40:20] BERMAN: Clinton aides say, but an unidentified Trump ally told "The Washington Post" they did discuss his interest in a 2016 run and that Clinton analyzed the Republican field. Ah, the words of a political strategist.

Joining us to discuss this, former White House political director under George W. Bush, Matt Schlapp; also with us, Hilary Rosen, a CNN political contributor and Democratic strategist whose firm advices Democratic candidate and the DNC.

Matt, conspiracy theory, Trump is a Clinton plant. Bill Clinton has orchestrated this whole Trump phenomenon. Discuss.

MATT SCHLAPP, FORMER WHITE HOUSE POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, let me tell you, Bill Clinton is somebody who has a good idea of what's going on in politics, but I can't think that even Bill Clinton could have predicted what Donald Trump has done to this race, and they better be careful. If they pushed him to run, they might be sorry they did.

(LAUGHER)

BOLDUAN: They might.

But, Hilary, why would Bill Clinton be discussing the offer to Trump, if you will, advice to Donald Trump?

HILARY ROSEN, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR & DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Bill Clinton offers the neighborhood bartender advice on politics. It doesn't take a lot to get him to discuss politics. I think Matt is right that probably the first thing Clinton did was analyze the GOP field and what we saw early on in the race was Republicans really weren't that happy with any of their choices. There was nobody who was, you know, people were coalescing around, and Trump, you know, understood that. Bill Clinton pointed that out to him, that, you know, that that would be the obvious, but, look, I think Donald Trump's ego is strong enough that he didn't need anyone to tell him how great he was going to do and how important he could be in this presidential race. He felt it all himself, I'm sure.

BERMAN: There's no doubt there ere a lot of strong egos on that phone call. And as you both say, Bill Clinton does love to dispense political advice. We were reminded, in 2012, with the Clinton Global Initiative. Bill Clinton gave Mitt Romney debate advice just before Mitt Romney was due to debate Barack Obama, so it is a guy who loves to talk about politics.

But, Matt, you know, Donald Trump, he hung with the Clintons. The Clintons went to his wedding in 2005. Do you expect that people on the Republican side are going to use this to point out that Donald Trump is not really one of us, he's played it all ways over the years?

SCHLAPP: They tried this when he first got into the race. They said he's appealing to the whacko birds and the crazies. John McCain took him on. There's a lot of insider voices inside Washington trying to belittle Donald Trump and the fact is Donald Trump isn't the most partisan of Republicans. He has not some kind of party operative over the past couple decades. He's more of an independent guy, and, guess what, my party is big enough to take independent voices and have people run. I think we have a strong Republican field, stronger than it was the last two times. Yes, they are not coalescing behind one candidate but that's because they have so many. These are Senators, these are governors, but Donald Trump, you got to give him credit, he has really stood out and connected with voters.

BOLDUAN: And with Donald Trump being the front-runner, why, oh, why, is Hillary Clinton not taking him on so much, Hilary? Her main target has been most recently Jeb Bush. We are still in the primary here. Is there a risk she's going to face criticism for running a general election campaign before she's even out of the primary?

ROSEN: I think there are a couple reasons why Jeb Bush remains an important target, and she's taken on all of the GOP candidates at one point or another. She was, you know, the first person to criticize Donald Trump for being racist in his remarks on immigration about Mexicans. So what I think we have though is, you know, Bush -- Jeb Bush in particular from where I sit is kind of the favorite of the donor class, of the establishment, of the traditional Republican media in many ways, so undermining his ideas and his credibility, talking about how what he stands for is not the mainstream of America elevates, you know, her positions, and so I don't think she needs to get into a kind of a shouting match with Donald Trump because he doesn't engage on the issues. He engages in personal attacks.

(CROSSTALK)

ROSEN: That's not where Hillary Clinton is going to go at this point. She doesn't need to.

BERMAN: Matt?

SCHLAPP: Hilary, she needs to get into a shouting match with Bernie Sanders. If you look at the New Hampshire polls, she has a plenty hard enough fight within her own party without focusing on ours.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: But she is focusing on the Republicans and, to an extent, on Jeb Bush, Matt, more than others. "The New York Times" pointed out she really seems to have an operation ready to pounce anytime Jeb says anything.

[11:45:11] SCHLAPP: Yeah.

BERMAN: Backup for a second, from a nonpartisan perspective, do you think that's why? Does it make sense to land some punches now?

SCHLAPP: I don't know if they'll like hearing it from me but I want to give her some credit. She's alive. The candidate is alive. This rose garden strategy of keeping her away from the press is damaging her candidacy. She looked actually like she was active and on the attack and that's always better in politics. You're better to be on your front foot attacking and having your voice heard than you are hiding and ducking like she's been doing over the course of the last month.

ROSEN: Let's talk about tonight for one minute on this point which is I don't think those Republican candidates are going to spend much time attacking each other or Donald Trump. What they're going to be doing is attacking Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. So, you know, she's going to be front and center in this debate tonight and not be there, and so a lot of what they're going to have to do at the Clinton campaign over the next week is push back on, you know, who is going to be the best -- who is going to be the best leader for this country and fighting back on the attacks that she's going to withstand tonight.

BOLDUAN: I'm sure there's going to be a lot to work with after tonight, that's for sure Hilary.

BERMAN: Yeah.

BOLDUAN: Matt, great to see you.

Hilary, thank you so much.

ROSEN: Take care.

SCHLAPP: All right, thank you.

BERMAN: And a new company goes big on parental leave. So is this a new trend that will hit your office?

BOLDUAN: And a plane window and seat cushions, reports if new debris from an aircraft has been found. Is it from missing flight 370, and can Malaysian officials' account on this really be trusted?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:50:20] BERMAN: First, Netflix, now Microsoft bumping up paid parental leave for employees. They say it's geared to getting the best talent in the business to come to work for them and, frankly, stay with them.

BOLDUAN: Microsoft will now allow new moms in the United States to take up to 20 weeks paid leave starting in November and non-birth parents up to 12 weeks, while Netflix is offering unlimited parental leave during the first year. Pretty amazing. Facebook already offers parents four months. Apple moms get 14 weeks, their partners six weeks. And Google is giving 18 weeks off.

Let's bring in CNN's digital correspondent, Kelly Wallace, to talk about this.

The Netflix, the Microsoft announcement sure seems huge.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN DIGITAL CORRESPONDENT: I think it's huge. I really think we are sending a signal here. Netflix saying pretty much unlimited paid parental leave for the first year after a child is born or adopted, and other companies following suit. In part they want to retain and attract the best talent. They also want to keep their female talent. And Google, even as Google increase its paid leave for women, maternity leave, it found it was losing women at half the rate as it was before it increased that paid leave. It does something. It makes women --

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: They've seen it works.

WALLACE: They say it works, yeah.

BERMAN: It works for them. It is interesting. We're seeing this innovation in the tech sector, which is starved for female talent. They can't hire enough women. You see more men. And in some ways, this is a way to get women to enter the workforce in these industries.

WALLACE: I think that's definitely part of it. That is definitely a motivation for them. We know how much companies invest in their talent, men and women, and if you are losing more women after they leave because they don't feel like the maternity leave is flexible enough for them or they can have flexible policies when they return, that's a big waste for that company and you're not having that diversity, which research has shown, more diverse workforces will be beneficial to a company's bottom line.

BOLDUAN: So why are we seeing reaction out there today? Everyone wondering, will this work? It's bad for business. I'm wondering why we're even having the conversation.

WALLACE: I know, it's funny. A lot of it was a negative like, will it work? Bad idea? And, in part, here is why. Some of the tech companies have been offering unlimited vacation time for their employees. You take whatever you want --

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: -- as long as you get your work done. What they're finding is people are confused by it. What's an OK standard? If Joe takes five months but I only take two months does that make me look better as an employee? I'm using huge numbers.

BOLDUAN: Right.

WALLACE: That's confusing what's the standard? They're finding people aren't taking a ton of vacation time. What you want to see if you're offering this unlimited leave will men and women use it or will they feel that it's confusing? Will they feel that it's sending a message they're not as committed?

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: -- vacation time off is very different than maternity or fraternity leave. I think those are two different kinds of standards that I think people --

WALLACE: I really do believe --

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: It can't be bad for business.

WALLACE: It can't. We are making a shift and I believe Millennials are demanding this. They are demanding more opportunity to take the leave they need to do the job when they need to do it not under these sorts of set standards of what's inappropriate and what's not.

BERMAN: And if it doesn't work, we'll stop doing it. That's the beauty of the free market.

WALLACE: Right.

BOLDUAN: I'm re-upping my Netflix subscription.

(LAUGHTER)

WALLACE: I wish I was still having babies and could have this paid leave.

(LAUGHTER)

BOLDUAN: Thanks, Kelly.

WALLACE: OK.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: From media critic to just plain funny, tonight, Jon Stewart signs off with a final farewell. We will tell you everything he will say next.

BOLDUAN: Everything.

BERMAN: Everything.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:52:38] BOLDUAN: Tonight, one of TV's most influential comedians will be ending his television run. Jon Stewart is set to bid farewell after 16 years and nearly 2,600 episodes.

BERMAN: Not bad at all. Stewart's finale will be longer than the usual half hour. It'll be about 50 minutes. Who is going to show up? Which correspondents will return? What jokes will he tell?

The man with all the answers, CNN's chief media correspondent, host of "Reliable Sources," Brian Stelter, outside the Comedy Central studio.

Hey, Brian.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT & CNN HOST, RELIABLE SOURCES: I've got some of the answers, John. I'll manage your expectations.

I can tell you that Jon Stewart wants this all to be kept a secret. He does not want anybody to get a preview of what he will be doing tonight. I think we'll see some of his former correspondents come back to greet him, maybe Stephen Colbert, maybe John Oliver, and some of his frenemies. I wonder if Bill O'Reilly will make an appearance.

People have strong feelings about Jon Stewart. Some love him, some hate him. Everyone here loves him. These are fans that have been lined up since sunrise today.

We spoke to one of them, Peter Knox. Here is what he said about tonight's finale.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PETER KNOX, JON STEWART FAN: I'm here because Jon Stewart basically educated most of my generation, I would say, on politics and why we should care about them, engage in them, make sense of them and in an educational way that was funny enough we paid attention. He's an icon and I'm amazed that I'm here live.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STELTER: We have a big night, guys. First the debate and then the final Jon Stewart "Daily Show."

BOLDUAN: I know. And with that in mind, I'm still surprised that he's ending his run in the middle of what could be an amazing election season.

STELTER: Yeah, that's exactly why he says he's doing it. He says the reason he's leaving now, he wants to give the next host, Trevor Noah, more time to get comfortable in the middle of the presidential election cycle. He will have three or four months of practice before the primaries even begin and he'll have lots of fodder for the election cycle next year.

I don't think --I know for a fact we've not seen the last of Jon Stewart on TV. He won't have a "Daily Show" again but he'll have something. All the networks you can imagine all would love to sign Jon Stewart. We'll hear from him somewhere, some day in the future.

BERMAN: Brian Stelter outside, I think, the most-watched studio on earth today. Thanks so much, Brian.

BOLDUAN: Great to see you, Brian.

He's going to try to get a seat inside. I know he is. I know he is. He does.

Thanks for joining us this hour, everybody.

BERMAN: "Legal View" with Ashleigh Banfield starts now.