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Military.com: Some Military Daycares Slow To Report Child Abuse; 6 Rare Sawfish Deaths In 7 Days Baffle Scientists; "Space Shuttle Columbia: The Final Flight" Airs Sunday At 9PM. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired April 12, 2024 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

KATE KUYKENDALL, DAUGHTER WAS ABUSED AT MILITARY DAYCARE IN HAWAII: It made it hard to help her heal and get better. So I just really wanted to help Isabella when she was having a really tough time for the first five months after the abuse.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: You wanted to know what she was going through so you could help her. What ultimately happened with the investigation? Did you run into walls?

KUYKENDALL: Yes, yes. Every outlet I tried to go to ask for help, to ask for advocacy, support, I was met with the same type of quote was just, it was just a pinch, pinch. It was just one person. There's nothing else there. We watched all the videos. I'm not going to waste my time.

So yes, that was the wall I kept hidden for the first.

KEILAR: Yes, and obviously it was more than that. This has gone all the way up to the Pentagon now, Kate. And I know that you've seen the reaction from the Major General Pat Ryder at the Pentagon.

He said: Any harm to children is unacceptable. These reports will be taken seriously. It is paramount that we ensure children on DoD installations are provided a safe, healthy and caring environment and their families have confidence in the care provided.

He points out this is being referred to the Inspector General for a review. The Army, which of course your husband is in the Army. This was a Navy facility. There have been instances in other cases of abuse in Army facilities, but they expressed sadness and concern and said they'll cooperate with this investigation. What do you want from this IG investigation, Kate?

KUYKENDALL: I want policy changes. I want procedure changes. And I want it to be transparent with parents. Hey, when this happens to your child, you can expect this.

The policies that are in place were not being followed. The procedures were not being followed. So I think everybody needs to know what those are to give the parents the reassurance that their kids are going to be taken care of. And again, these are service members' children. They deserve the best of the best and not their minimum, you know, So that is my hope. That is my hope that this will change. And I have faith in this that it will get better.

KEILAR: Your husband is not with you today. There are some sensitivities. I just want to be clear about active duty service members talking to the media. You know, there are sensitivities about that.

But clearly he is frustrated. He spoke to military.com. He said that there's too much expletive that happened to our child here. He said the people that were supposed to help, they all failed, the cops failed, and the Navy, sure, as expletive, failed.

As you know, I know so many military families know it's a family business, military service. And I wonder how you feel now about your support of your husband's service.

KUYKENDALL: Yes, my husband would give his life for this country. And he does put a lot of effort into providing the best of the best for himself. He investigated this whole thing on his own, 75 hours of footage. And to do all of that and watch your daughter be assaulted by multiple women and then have to go to work, he kept it together and he gave outlets, agencies chances to do right.

But it took this advocacy coming out to get to where we are today. So we are very optimistic that this will change and I'm very proud of him. And it's just black and white.

We're not afraid. He's not afraid of retaliation because, you know, this is not -- but the military values. You know, this is just the daycare facilities need to fix their procedures and their policies.

KEILAR: Yes, certainly. And the hope obviously is that other families are going to benefit from this. Kate Kuykendall, thank you so much. We really appreciate you and your courage to speak out. Thank you.

KUYKENDALL: Thank you. Thank you for your time.

KEILAR: And we'll be right back.

[15:35:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: Fish in Florida spinning in circles until they die. And now there's new urgency in the push to solve the bizarre mystery after six critically endangered small-tooth sawfish washed up dead in the past seven days. It's a dramatic increase in the deaths of the rare creatures.

CNN's Bill Weir has been following this disturbing phenomenon for months now. Bill, what more can you tell us? This sounds so strange.

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: It really is strange, a fishy mystery there in the Keys, especially, Jessica. This particular species once was seen everywhere in the Gulf of Mexico. The sawfish you could find from Florida to the Carolinas, now there's not many left. They're critically endangered, one of the first marine species to join that list a generation ago.

And maybe they lose, on average, four or five a year to bycatch, so they take notice when it jumps like it has right now. 38 sawfish deaths so far this year, six in the last seven days, and all these other species, there's now 50 reported various species having this strange spinning behavior. In some cases, it's lethal.

It seems to be especially lethal for that small-tooth sawfish, especially since six in the last seven days have turned up there. There's anecdotal evidence that they move those fish into clean water, and the spinning stops.

[15:40:00]

So they think it's in the water. It's not red tide. It's not low oxygen levels, which would be the suspects before. And so, really, the main suspect these days is a form of algae called Gambier discus, which has a neurotoxin which can be harmful to fish and humans with enough of it. And it seems to really like hot water, which Florida and the planet has a lot of these days.

They were hot tub, hot temperatures last summer. More expected this summer, it could be supercharging a bloom that is messing with the fish. Of course, there's lots of other kinds of pollution, including pharmaceuticals that have turned up in bonefish, flushed through Floridians out into the waters there. So lots of pressures on that ecosystem. But this has folks who really love the natural world reasonably freaked out until they figure out, really, the cause of it.

DEAN: No doubt about it. Just watching the video while you're talking, yes, it's very disturbing. All right, Bill Weir for us. Thanks so much.

It has been more than 20 years since the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster, but the effects of that accident are still being felt today. Ahead, we're going to look at the new CNN original series, "SPACE SHUTTLE COLUMBIA: THE FINAL FLIGHT."

[15:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: As an accomplished pilot, space journalist and former member of NASA's advisory council, Miles O'Brien has just about seen it all. His coverage of all things aviation and space gave him a front row seat to NASA's space shuttle launches, including the Columbia mission in 2003 that ended with seven astronauts losing their lives. Here's Miles O'Brien remembering what it was like covering the tragedy in the new CNN original series, "SPACE SHUTTLE COLUMBIA: THE FINAL FLIGHT."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AEROSPACE ANALYST: No further communications with the spacecraft about 8 a.m. Central time. Hang on, let's listen in.

And no further tracking data from the spacecraft that was gained from C-band tracking radar at the Merritt Island tracking station in Florida.

My team was in the control room and they were like, this is serious. We need to get Miles off that couch.

And as I was making my way across the newsroom to this other set, I literally started heaving.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The console that I was at, we had an off-duty flight director who called our console and said, hey, I'm watching the landing on TV and they're showing this debris in the sky. That's when we realized it really was bad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: And we're joined now by CNN aviation analyst, Miles O'Brien. It's hard to watch that, Miles. You were on CNN when the news came in. You stayed on the air for more than 12 hours covering this. Take us back to that. What was it like?

O'BRIEN: I got to tell you, Brianna, that it's very hard to go back over this turf even 20 years later.

The worst part of it, Brianna, for me is I knew in an instant what it was because we had all seen this huge piece of foam fall off the external fuel tank of the space shuttle hitting the leading edge of the wing of Columbia on launch day. And that ultimately created this breach in the wing which caused the vehicle to break up in the searing heat of re-entry 16 days later.

But after the launch, I called several of my sources at NASA and said, you know, did you see this? We all saw it. It was quite obvious. And they said, oh, don't worry about it. We've had foam like this fall off. It doesn't do anything. It's light.

And I let the story go, Brianna. And the moment that they said that they didn't have communication and more importantly, that they didn't have radar telemetry which tells you there's nothing there, I knew what had happened. And so to go back to that, it's tough. It was such a hard day.

And to this day, I don't know how I pulled it together to talk for 12 plus hours after having endured that loss and also that profound knowledge that maybe if I had done a story that the events might've turned slightly differently. Who knows?

KEILAR: I think that's also the thing, Miles, was we'd gotten to that point with space travel where we'd gotten kind of used to this idea that it was safe, right? But the truth is it is so dangerous. It remains dangerous.

And I don't know if you remember, but I actually covered the first night launch with you, the first night launch after Columbia because they were doing day launches. Remember that?

O'BRIEN: Brianna, I'll share this with your audience. I tell people all the time when they ask about you how amazing you were and how much homework you did and how you were, you know, kind of faced with this assignment which required a steep learning curve, how impressive you were as a reporter. So I will always remember your efforts at the so- called press mound at the Cape.

KEILAR: Well, I thank you for that. But my point in saying that was really to say that there were so many -- they were so careful after that because it was as if it reminded us this is not safe.

[15:50:00]

This is something to be taken so seriously.

O'BRIEN: Yes, but there, you know, the truth of the matter is, and they're haunting parallels to Challenger 25 years earlier, a group of individuals, a group of really smart people can be completely blind to something which is an obvious thing to inquire about.

Foam had been falling off that tank since day one. They should have tested what might happen on day two and they didn't.

KEILAR: Yes, such a good thing to remember. Miles, thank you so much. We are really looking forward to this. So be sure to tune in the back- to-back finale of the new original series, "SPACE SHUTTLE COLUMBIA: THE FINAL FLIGHT." That will be airing Sunday. Next -- that will be airing Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific only on CNN. We'll be right back.

[15:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEAN: We're waiting on an update from officials after a tractor- trailer crash into a Texas Department of Public Safety office in Brenham, Texas, that's by Houston. There are multiple serious injuries there. We'll, of course, continue to monitor that situation.

KEILAR: Really serious pictures coming in from that. "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.