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Chaos on Cruise Ship; Former President Bush Says He'd Order Waterboarding Again If Necessary; Riots in the Streets of Bogota; Spencer Bachus: Palin Cost us Control; Reliving a Nightmare, Elizabeth Smart Testifies
Aired November 09, 2010 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: And right now I want to welcome the men and the women watching us on American Forces Network all around the world.
Top of the hour. We're going to hit you fast. Let's begin the rush hour. First, the president, Mr. Obama cutting his trip to Indonesia short. The problem, all that volcanic ash. You know we have been talking about this for weeks here. I'm talking about Mount Merapi, which could be grounding Air Force One.
So, the schedule been tweaked just a tad. Mr. Obama and Indonesia's president did speak to reporters earlier today. One of the major topics was trade. The president not finished with Indonesia yet, has an official dinner to go to and also give a speech to the University of Indonesia and then it is on to South Korea and the G20 summit.
Next, to Florida. Five children, brothers and sisters, die in a house fire. Rescuers managed to pull two girls out through the window, but they died at the hospital. The three boys were trapped inside as the fire tore through that home. The children's mother and grandmother did manage to escape, as did an aunt, who suffered severe burns.
Neighbors, they picked up the phone. They called 911 when they heard the woman screaming.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I told my husband I think the neighbors are in trouble. When I hit my front door, the whole front of the house was engulfed in flames. And I heard the mom saying: "My babies. My babies are inside."
It's very, very sad, because (INAUDIBLE). My kids play with them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Investigators are looking now at one of the possibilities, that a space heater in the living room caused that fire. Next: a not-guilty plea today from a Pakistani-born U.S. citizen charged with attempting to help al Qaeda bomb the D.C. Metro system -- 34-year-old Farooque Ahmed was arrested last month after being targeted in a federal sting operation. The people he thought were al Qaeda operatives really undercover police officers.
In court today, Ahmed requested a jury trial. That should begin in April.
Next, take a look at this pretty picture with me. I'm loving this today. This is a possible missile, could it be a rocket, streaking across the southern coast of California. It looks pretty cool, right? Here's the thing. Nobody knows who launched it.
People at the Pentagon have no idea. But they also say it actually doesn't look like a military missile. In fact, one analyst is telling us he thinks it could just be a streak of condensed air from a commercial airliner, and the fact that it's maybe coming out of the sea because the plane is flying over the horizon.
Next, some details to tell you about in the case against the Atlanta-area church leader Bishop Eddie Long, new information today. I know you remember this story. Here he is. Long is accused of coercing young men into sexual relationships. Well, now the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church is acknowledging that his accusers went on trips with the pastor, they did go, they say, and that Long shared hotel rooms with members of the congregation.
But the church says it cannot confirm or deny whether anything inappropriate happened.
Now, he was the man lots of people loved to hate during the BP oil disaster. Now former CEO Tony Hayward speaking out for the first time since he stepped down from that top post. He is telling the BBC that the company was basically -- quote -- "making it up day to day" at the beginning of the disaster.
Hayward says BP was not prepared to deal with all that media attention. Look at that crush of cameras there. And he said he doesn't regret taking time off in the middle of the crisis to go yachting. He says he had not seen his son for three months and needed some time off.
Next, forget everything you have heard about Charlie Sheen's wild and crazy night at the Plaza Hotel last month. Apparently, it's been blown out of proportion. At least that's what he's saying. The actor told the entertainment news show "Extra" that he had -- quote -- "one bad night" and everybody is overreacting.
Sheen confirms that a $50,000 watch is missing. Sheen allegedly trashed that hotel room, angry that someone stole the watch while a porn star hid out in the bathroom. He ended up in the hospital that night.
Next, it is a sad, sad day for Happy Meal lovers in San Francisco. In a couple of hours, the Board of Supervisors will vote on a measure that would ban toys from those little fast-food meals that don't meet certain nutritional requirements. So, what happened was a preliminary vote last week passed with just enough margin to survive a veto from the mayor. The ordinance would go into effect next December.
Next, a Florida man sets a record with a pretty big gator. I'm talking a 14-foot record. Look at this guy with me, 648 pounds. That is how much this gator weighs. Hey, the guy is just over 14 feet long. You got to figure he's tipping the scales with that. Robert Ammerman of Orlando caught the giant gator about a week ago on the last day of Florida's alligator harvest.
Did you know they had that in Florida, an alligator harvest? Yes, they do. And he beat the state's previous record set in 1977, when a trapper caught a slightly, slightly smaller gator.
Listen to this. Pretty compelling pictures here. These are students fighting against police in Colombia, explosives, Molotov cocktails all part of this violent clash. You will see this unbelievable video. We will tell you that story. That's ahead. Plus, imagine you're on a vacation cruising around on a cruise ship when it suddenly loses power. Now thousands of Carnival passengers are stranded still right now, that nightmare far from over. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: Imagine you finally got some time off. You hop on this cruise ship. You think, hey, it's going to be great. I'm going to take this seven-day vacation, you know, along the Mexican Riviera and then suddenly you're on board and you hear about this fire in the engine room. What does that mean to you? No power.
So we're talking hours with no air conditioning, no working toilets, yikes, also no hot food, among other issues you're dealing with. So that actually has happened. There's a ship here. It's still stranded off the coast of western Mexico.
Chad Myers has been looking into this whole thing.
I cannot imagine. But at least some good news, and I say that half-facetiously, is at least the backup power is on, so they can have cold water and flush the toilet.
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: They have water pressure.
(LAUGHTER)
BALDWIN: That's where they are right now.
MYERS: Let's just go with --
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: Let's be brutally honest.
MYERS: When you lower your standards all the way to water pressure, OK?
BALDWIN: It's a good thing.
MYERS: But that's better. At least it's sanitary.
BALDWIN: Absolutely.
MYERS: Before that was like those eight hours of a plane sitting on the tarmac with a bathroom that's not running, right? OK. So they're not there anymore, but they're not going to get power back to that engine. They're going to have to be literally tugged, dragged back by a tugboat all the way to Ensenada.
BALDWIN: Talk to me about that, the tugboat issue.
MYERS: Yes. And it's not going to go very fast. OK. I went on to the Carnival Web site. This ship was built in 2008. So this isn't some old random rickety old thing --
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: Nice, new shiny boat.
MYERS: Exactly. Brand-new engine room, brand-new everything.
So, something kind of went wrong. It could be user error. It could be all kinds of things that went wrong.
BALDWIN: OK.
MYERS: But there's 68,000 horsepower to move this ship at 20 miles per hour.
BALDWIN: OK. What does that mean?
(CROSSTALK)
MYERS: That's a lot of horsepower. That's an awful lot of mustangs out there trying to drag this thing back to land.
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: Yes.
MYERS: So -- and tug boats don't have that kind of power. So they're not going to get this thing basically what they call up on plane or at least moving all the water -- this thing is going to be one slow boat to Mexico for the next couple of days.
BALDWIN: Chugging along. And this is 3,300 passengers, 1,100 crew members, a lot of people stuck.
MYERS: Yes. And they were only out of port for a couple of days -- a day when this happened. They came out of Long Beach and then they ended up here. They were supposed to have two nice day -- fun days on the fun ship before they got all the way down to Mazatlan. So, that's a two- day cruise all the way down here. That's not going very fast. You can get there quicker than that, but whatever. That's not part of the ship.
Three ports, Mazatlan, then to Puerto Vallarta, then to Cabo San Lucas, beautiful place there, and then back home. So they are about 250 miles or so from San Diego, but not that far from Ensenada. They should be able to be dragged back home in Ensenada.
I actually went on to a Web site that showed the location of the ship and before it stopped running, before it stopped transmitting, and it seemed like it was only about 60 miles away from shore. And if a tug can pull it at three to four knots, maybe not much bigger than that, because this is a big boat. This is 980 feet long. The Allure of the Seas, the Royal Caribbean, is only about 200 feet longer than that, and that's the biggest boat that I have ever seen.
And so here we go. This is what the ship is. And here's the beautiful boat. There it is, built in Italy, 2008.
BALDWIN: Wow, two years old.
MYERS: All these staterooms here, all balcony staterooms with views. There's MSNBC interior state rooms as well. Here's the bridge.
Do you remember Carnival, the Ecstasy? I think this was 1998. Left Miami, couple days, maybe a half a day out and the engine room wasn't on fire, but the -- I'm thinking the laundry caught on fire. They had like sheets in the laundry and they caught on fire and it put the boat completely out of commission.
They had to drag those people back as well.
BALDWIN: Same deal.
MYERS: Same deal.
Now, they're going to get their money back and they're going to get a new free cruise and all that, but this is -- you're not going to get another free week of vacation from your boss.
BALDWIN: I know. I know.
(CROSSTALK)
MYERS: Once you have used that week up, you're done.
BALDWIN: What about supplies? I was hearing that the USS Ronald Reagan was heading that way. When will that get there? Do we know?
MYERS: Yes. Already been there.
BALDWIN: Already been there. Got the supplies. (CROSSTALK)
MYERS: Fresh water. Yes.
Now, you would think that cruise ships grab all their stuff and they load it up in L.A. or in Miami and then that's it, then they're done, that's all the stuff they need. But, in fact, that's not what they do. They actually load from other ports as well if the ports don't make them buy some things from their ports. You always see things getting loaded on from ports, whether it's fresh fruit or whatever it might be.
But the problem -- and I'm wondering if there wasn't power to the engines, did we have power to the refrigeration to keep that fresh fruit fresh, to keep those fresh -- those frozen things frozen?
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: I don't know. I don't know.
MYERS: I don't know.
(CROSSTALK)
MYERS: We can't -- we don't have any iReports from them because we believe they're just too far out to sea.
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: Wait for it. Wait for it. We will get them.
MYERS: And no one has sent us one by $7-a-minute satellite phone.
BALDWIN: So the fun boat, not so fun, not so much.
(CROSSTALK)
MYERS: Not today. They're going to work on it.
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: I know you're a cruiser.
(CROSSTALK)
MYERS: I have been on dozens. I have never had that kind of experience.
BALDWIN: Thank goodness.
MYERS: I have wiped down the entire boat because of whatever virus, Norwalk virus, because it was on before me. I took just a carton worth of Lysol wipes, wiped down my entire boat.
BALDWIN: That didn't ruin your whole seven-day vacation. (CROSSTALK)
MYERS: But that's just me. I'm a germaphobe.
BALDWIN: What? You are?
MYERS: Yes.
BALDWIN: I'm shocked. I'm shocked.
Chad Myers, thank you.
MYERS: You bet.
BALDWIN: Not so much fun anymore here, the fun boat.
Well, former President Bush says he would order the use of waterboarding again, adding in this interview that it saved lives. Well, now there's breaking news as to whether the Justice Department will look to bring charges against anyone involved there. That is next.
Plus, she can negotiate peace deals, but how does Secretary of State Hillary Clinton negotiate takeout orders? She answers that question and more in this offbeat comedy show. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: Well, as you surely know, former President Bush has a book out there, making the rounds, promoting it. You just saw our own promotion. Well, you know, he's talking most recently we've been hearing about waterboarding, simulated drowning. Was it legal and did it help pry information out of terrorists?
Mr. Bush was asked that in an interview with NBC's Matt Lauer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I said find out what he knows. And so I said to our team, are the techniques legal? And a legal team says, yes, they are. I said use them.
MATT LAUER, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Why is waterboarding legal in your opinion?
BUSH: Because the lawyer said it was legal. They said it did not fall within the anti-torture act. I'm not a lawyer, but you got to trust the judgment of people around you and I do.
LAUER: You say, it's legal and the lawyers told me.
BUSH: Yes.
LAUER: Critics say that you got the Justice Department to give you the legal guidance and the legal memos that you wanted. (INAUDIBLE) Keane who was the former Republican co-chair of the 9/11 Commission, said they got legal opinions they wanted from their own people.
BUSH: Well, he obviously doesn't know. I hope Mr. Keane reads the book. That's why I wrote the book. He can draw whatever conclusion they want, but -- I will tell you this, using those techniques saved lives. My job was to protect America, and I did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Now, if Mr. Bush seems certain that waterboarding worked, that is something that's still in dispute. But he reminded Matt Lauer that out of all of the terror suspects his administration questioned, only three were waterboarded.
And he was also asked about WMDs and he said, quote, "it was sickening not to find weapons of mass destruction his administration claimed were in Iraq."
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton making a three-day diplomatic trip to Australia over the past weekend. And her schedule pretty busy, including meeting the prime minister of Australia, but it also involved being interviewed be a comedy duo. Hamish and Andy, they're these two Australians comedians known for prank interviews on their radio show and they began by presenting the America's top diplomat with a gift.
Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We start with a gift. It's potato chips or crisps.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a flavor that the people of Australia invented. It's the gravy chip.
HILLARY CLINTON, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: I am thrilled. I cannot tell you how much this means to me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you a collector of chips? Is this your first --
CLINTON: I'm an eater of chips.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We recommend not. No, not these ones.
(CROSSTALK)
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you try to eat them, technically that's an assassination attempt by us.
(LAUGHTER)
CLINTON: Shall I wait until I'm out of Australian airspace?
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With a lot of foreign travel in your job --
CLINTON: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- you must get very good at accepting gifts --
CLINTON: I do.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- and making believe that you love them.
CLINTON: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just like then.
CLINTON: I mean, usually, it's a very happy expression on one's face. Now sometimes the gifts are really hard to do that with.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you ever left one behind?
CLINTON: No, no, we take them all.
We do thank-you notes. You will get a thank-you note for this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not necessary.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Consider us thanked.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: A little bit of a sense of humor there, Mrs. Clinton. Hamish and Andy have also interviewed the likes of John Mayer and the Dalai Lama.
Take a look at this. Angry students or are these urban terrorists? Police in one South American city are not taking any chances. We're going to get the story behind this dramatic video next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: Riots in the streets of Bogota, Columbia. Let me set it up for you, the student protestors there say that gap between the haves and the have-nots is just getting bigger and that the new government is just corrupt and doesn't care. The situation on the streets got very intense, Karl Penhaul takes us there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KARL PENHAUL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Student barricades in the heart of Bogata's financial district. Their protest against Colombia's right-wing government and free-market economic policies degenerates into clashes with riot police. The new government of Juan Manuel Santos is a government backed by death squads, landowners, establishment parties and state terrorists, this student leader says.
Authorities say these student groups are urban terrorists. Some claim loose allegiance to guerilla groups, but their battlegrounds are campuses and the Internet.
In the past we've been divided, but today, Bogota student groups have come together to fight the power of multinationals and corrupt politicians, he says.
These students say they wear masks so police don't hunt them down later. They argue their violence is symbolic, but their homemade explosives and Molotov cocktails are very real.
Police reported no injuries on either side, yet some neighbors were clearly annoyed. I'm fed up of having my windows smashed, this woman says.
On the political front, Colombia's government has scored a string of major victories against once powerful guerilla forces in the jungle. On the financial front, the economy is tipped to grow a healthy 4.5 percent this year, but the benefits aren't trickling down. The U.N. estimates almost half of Colombians are living below the bread line and Colombian is the only country in Latin American where inequality has increased in recent years.
Today, leftist groups and young people are fighting for radical democracy and we call to unite the people for peace and social justice, he says. Demands that have exploded into a riot.
Karl Penhaul, CNN, Bogota.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BALDWIN: She is revealing details that no one has ever heard before. Elizabeth Smart telling her story -- telling her own story to a courtroom about her own kidnapping many years ago. What she kept telling herself in order to survive that horrific ordeal, that is ahead.
Also ahead, Jessica Yelling with brand new information just in from the world of politics. Your CNN Political Ticker is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: CNN has all your latest political news with "The Best Political Team on Television." And that includes, of course, Jessica Yellin. She has left her home digs in D.C. for the big lights of Los Angeles.
And, Jessica, let's talk about elections. I know we are, what, a week -- a week now exactly away here from the midterms, but still two House races remain unresolved. JESSICA YELLIN, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. This is actually my home state. I'm from California, from Los Angeles. And wouldn't you know it, two of the seven nationally unresolved -- two of the seven House races that are unresolved nationally are right here in California.
Both of them interestingly, Brooke, are in central valley districts, that is the hard hit agricultural center of this state. It leans conservative, it's been decimated by job losses and housing crisis.
And what that means fundamentally is that when these House races are resolved, neither of the winners will have much of a mandate. Maybe, just maybe, they'll feel a little bit of pressure to work with the other party and compromise on some issues. We'll see.
Turning to another issue, Republican -- Alabama Republican Congressman Spencer Bachus learned what you say in your district doesn't necessarily stay in the district. He was speaking to a local chamber of commerce in Alabama, and he said that Sarah Palin cost Republicans the U.S. Senate. Now, he praised the Tea Party and he praised her generally for getting out the vote, but he did say that -- wouldn't you be surprised? Not so much, that Palin hit back on Twitter and so did one of her top aides, saying first of all, she won more of her endorsements than she lost. And her aide said, look, we weren't going to get the Senate anyway. Don't blame this on Sarah Palin. And the classic quote, "Deal with it, Beltway GOP." A lot more of the Beltway GOP's going to be getting more tweets like that when they attack her.
And I should say his office insists it was not an attack. They are respectful to Sarah Palin's accomplishments.
BALDWIN: Uh-huh.
YELLIN: Finally. Yes, right? Kim Kardashian, what am I going to stay about her? She's hit the international diplomatic page in a most unusual way. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, you just played some video of her being interviewed by those two comedians in Austrailia. Well, they actually asked her do you think the U.S. is exporting cultural material that misrepresents what the U.S. is really all about? For example, "Keeping up with the Kardashians" and Kim Kardashian?
Secretary Clinton in an amazing loose and sort of humorous appearance there knew who Kim Kardashian was and immediately said, you know, based on that Kardashian show and what we export, you might think all Americans spend their day wrestling and wearing bikinis.
BALDWIN: Oh! No!
YELLIN: That was a pretty funny note. Cute, right?
BALDWIN: That is cute.
YELLIN: Funny showing by the secretary of state who also promised a thank-you note in return for that. You saw that --
BALDWIN: For the bag of potato chips.
YELLIN: -- when those comedians offered her potato chips.
BALDWIN: Of course.
YELLIN: She has a funny side.
BALDWIN: She does! It's nice to see it. It's nice to see the president dancing a little bit with the young kids in India, and it's nice to see the secretary of state's humor as well.
Jessica Yellin, thanks so much. Enjoy your home state, by the way.
We'll get another political ticker update for you next hour. You can also get all the latest political news. Just hop online. Go to CNNpolitics.com and on Twitter, @politicalticker.
With that, a tough story right around the corner. A single mother loses her only son after he was beaten to death at a party just two days ago. What happened to this young man, how is that mother now coping, and why did she want to sit down with me two days after her son's death? We're going to hear her honest and emotional interview here in the studio, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: There are some new developments today in the stomping death of a teenager at a house party in suburban Atlanta. Today, CNN has confirmed that Bobby Tillman was stomped and beaten so hard one of his own bones broke and punctured his heart.
Tillman was just 18 years of age. He was killed simply because he was in the wrong place. What was supposed to be a party with fewer than a dozen kids -- apparently he was there at the wrong time. After this party basically exploded to at least 60 kids and he walked by just after a girl fight broke out. So, one of the girls hit a boy.
As for what happens next, I'll hand it off to Douglas County Sheriff Phil Miller.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHERIFF PHIL MILLER, DOUGLAS COUNTY, GEORGIA: One made the statement they were going to beat up the next guy that showed up, and this little 5'6, 125 pound 18-year old kid with braces happened to come by. They beat him down on the ground and stomped him and killed him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Again, that young man's name, Bobby Tillman. I spoke with Bobby's mother, Monique Revard last hour. She has a message for parents. There is a huge lesson in her son's senseless death. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: We're looking at some pictures. This is a makeshift memorial, actually, at the house where he died. And you and I have not been able to stop talking through this break, because you were telling me how you lost your father two years ago, and how, you know, Bobby really became the man of the house. You're a single mother.
MONIQUE RIVARDE, BOBBY TILLMAN'S MOTHER: Mm-hmm.
BALDWIN: And, to have this happen, you're sitting with me because you have a message to parents.
And the message is what, Monique?
RIVARDE: My message is, let's start from the root.
To me, Bobby is the end result. A death is the end result. We need to stop it before it even gets there. I want a law passed. I mean, these guys, I want them to go away forever.
But let's stop it before it even gets to that, before it gets to death. My son died from bullying. If we can stop it before it gets there and help these children -- it was rage. It was jealousy. It was pride. All these things in these boys to make them want to stomp my son and kill him? That's outrageous.
How can someone have so much of that inside of them, especially someone that is not even 21 yet? So they have lived only that long and have that -- so much of that built up that they had to stomp my child.
It has to be stopped. It's before, not once they're caught, because we can put everyone in jail, but before. You know what I mean? Like --
BALDWIN: Before it happens.
RIVARDE: Yes.
BALDWIN: I saw the look in your eyes.
Roger, if -- guys, if we can pull up the video once again and the memorial at that home.
I saw a look in your eyes, almost like you had not seen those pictures yet.
RIVARDE: No. I haven't --
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: You had not seen the memorial.
RIVARDE: No. BALDWIN: And so here it is.
RIVARDE: Yes.
BALDWIN: I mean, looking -- look at all -- you're looking at these signs for the first time.
RIVARDE: Yes.
BALDWIN: "Young man, your death was not the end."
RIVARDE: Yes. I -- I haven't -- I haven't been watching the news. I haven't been doing anything.
And it's just beautiful that everyone is pouring out all this love for Bobby.
BALDWIN: You had to change the church. As you're having to go through the motions and make these funeral arrangements, you had to change it to a larger church --
RIVARDE: Yes.
BALDWIN: -- simply because of the outpouring of support.
RIVARDE: Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: Talk to me about the fund the is set up.
RIVARDE: We established a fund. Actually, today, it's settled. It's final. And it's called the Bobby Tillman Fund. And it's through Bank of America.
And we have been called or contacted with so many people wanting to contribute in some type of way. They wanted to give flowers or anything. We're just asking, like, if they do, just to give money to his fund, because this fund is going to help -- we want to help children Bobby's age or younger to stop with the rage or just, you know, whatever they're feeling to where they have to bully and they have to hurt or take it out on someone else.
Let's see what it is, so that it can be helped, and then it will help another child and another one and another one, and they won't end up and go through what my son did.
BALDWIN: You are so strong and so put-together, sitting here in front of me. And it's just one of the situations where you think, as a parent, I'm not supposed to be burying my child.
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: It's supposed to be the other way around.
RIVARDE: Absolutely. Yes, I never thought -- I don't -- my sister has been handling everything. I -- I don't even -- I didn't know step one. I have never in my life imagined -- this is the worst time in my life. This will be the worst time of my life.
I never thought I would have to bury my child, never. I never thought that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: What a tough interview, and I was inundated by tweets from you. A lot of you are very moved. I want to run through a couple of tweets to share them with our audience.
First from Katie. "Watching your interview, just heartbreaking. His mother is so strong." I agree. Very strong.
Also from Stan, "I can't believe that those teenage boys beat up that poor kid in Atlanta. My heart bleeds for the mother and family."
We have another one. "Great interview with Bobby Tillman's mom. Suns such a senseless act."
"Normally not for death penalty, but the four thugs, and they are, should be put down."
Kristopher says, "CNN, incredible interview. It's got to stop. Kids killing kids, the bullying, it's insane. Parents have got to be involved."
And I think we have one more. Do we have one more, guys? Nope. That was it. So, thank you so much, though, for all your tweets. Appreciate it. Be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: "Trending" today. None other than Conan O'Brien. After nine months all of the Coco fans got their wish. Last night, the comedian made his return to late-night TV on a new show, appropriately titled "Conan" on our sister network, TBS.
And you know what? The show dived head first, answered the question on all of our minds. What has Coco been up to since his departure from NBC? Well, apparently, he stayed pretty busy. Tried on a couple of different careers. Watch. Pretty funny stuff.
(BEGIN VIDE CLIP)
CONAN O'BRIEN, HOST, "CONAN": We had amazing music guests. We had Pearl Jam.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't care who you were. I just asked for some extra sweet and sour sauce.
O'BRIEN: Oh.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's like seven forks. Not sweet and sour sauce. (LAUGHTER)
O'BRIEN: First they said Obama's a socialist, then they say he's Muslim. Now they're saying he wasn't even born in this country. It's got me thinking, OK, the guy might not be qualified to be president, but I guess he is qualified to drive a cab in New York City.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Here's your money. Please go.
O'BRIEN: It's supposed to be $30 --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'll call the police.
O'BRIEN: You want me to move "The Tonight Show" to 12:05?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't care who you were.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get a job.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'll call the police.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're very good looking.
LARRY KING, CNN HOST: Don't do it, Conan!
O'BRIEN: Larry King?
KING: I'm your guardian angel.
O'BRIEN: But you're not dead.
KING: Never mind that. I have two words for you. Basic cable.
O'BRIEN: Basic cable?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Conan, I think you'll find our terms very attractive.
O'BRIEN: I think we have a deal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: OK. That was funny, right? Did you watch that last night? I loved the Larry King cameo.
So, by the way, last night's numbers are in. We're talking ratings. The show was a huge hit, beating both Letterman and Leno.
In fact, we got this tweet from our CNN "SHOWBIZ" unit. Breaking it down, look at the numbers with me. Here's what they're tweeting: "Last night's show was watched by 2.4 million adults in the coveted 18-34 demographic; 3.2 million adults in the 180-49 demo; and 4.1 million viewers total.
Hello? Welcome back, Conan O'Brien. Wolf Blitzer gets those kinds of ratings, of course. He's up next. We'll look at what's ahead in "THE SITUATION ROOM."
Stay there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: How about this? A GOP lawmaker says Sarah Palin may be to blame for the Republican Party's failure to take back control of the Senate. That is from Alabama Congressman Spencer Bachus.
He told a local Chamber of Commerce group last week that, "The Senate would be Republican" -- I say "would be" -- "if not for certain for Tea Party movement candidates, candidates like the ones endorsed by Sarah Palin."
Wolf Blitzer joining me in "THE SITUATION ROOM."
And Wolf, you know, during the run-up for the elections, Republicans really enjoyed this whole -- the Tea Party movement really getting a lot of Americans very much so fired up, you know, got them to the polls. But I'm curious if any of these Republicans now are having buyer's remorse.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Well, I think there's certain buyer's remorse for the mainstream, for the establishment of the Republican Party in Delaware, for example. They think that Christine O'Donnell was not necessarily the strongest Republican candidate, even though she was a great favorite of the Tea Party movement.
Mike Castle, who had been elected statewide in Delaware many times as governor, as congressman, he would have been a stronger candidate. He could have easily, they say, beaten Chris Coons, the Democratic now-senator-elect.
The same goes in Nevada, for example. Sharron Angle, the Republican candidate supported by the Tea Part, they think that she was not necessarily the strongest Republican that could have beaten Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, the majority leader, someone else might have been a stronger candidate.
Having said that, there's no doubt the Tea Party movement across the country energized the Republican base, energized conservatives to go out and vote in big numbers, and they got a lot of people elected. Rand Paul, in Kentucky, for example, you know -- he's going to be on my show in the next hour -- he was elected in part because of that strong support he had from the Tea Party movement. Marco Rubio in Florida.
So, there were Tea Party candidates who were energized by that base, and they got out. And I think there's no doubt that this huge net gain for the Republicans in the House of Representatives, 60-plus seats, was in part fueled by a very aggressive and assertive Tea Party movement across the country.
So it's a mixed bag. It's not as simple as simply saying they would have been in the majority if. That's always -- Monday morning quarterbacking is always easier to do than Sunday morning quarterbacking.
BALDWIN: Sure. And in terms of the stronger candidates who have been elected, Republicans did -- or I should say could be putting a couple of female Tea Party freshmen in positions of power. You have the newly-created freshman leadership position maybe going to South Dakota's Kristi Noem, also Michele Bachmann of Minnesota running for caucus chair.
And you mentioned Rand Paul will be on your show. Also, Bachmann joining you on "THE SITUATION ROOM."
BLITZER: Yes. She's going to be on live in the 6:00 p.m. Eastern hour. We're going to talk to her about her fight to get this leadership post in the Republican Party.
Jeb Hensarling, he's about to get his fifth term from Texas. He's the established candidate. Eric Cantor, the number two Republican in the House, has made it clear he wants Jeb Hensarling to get this position.
So there's going to be a battle between Michele Bachmann and this Texas congressman. We'll see who wins that fight.
But she thinks she deserves it given the work that she did on behalf of the Tea Party, on behalf of Republicans and conservatives. We'll get into that with her and a lot more.
That's coming up in "THE SITUATION ROOM."
BALDWIN: And then, Wolf, I can't let you go without asking when you'll be headed to the Reagan Airport, to then head to Atlanta. When do we get you?
BLITZER: You'll have me tomorrow in Atlanta a. It will be a fun day in Atlanta, culminating tomorrow night, you know, with what?
BALDWIN: Soul Train, Wolf Blitzer.
BLITZER: Soul Train. The awards -- I'll be there in Atlanta. I'll be making a special presentation. It will be a lot of fun.
BALDWIN: You're not giving up. You're not giving anything. All we know is you're giving this presentation. We don't know what. You're not giving it up.
BLITZER: You'll learn -- the whole world will learn November 28th, when it's televised on BET. They'll see what happens at the awards, but there will be a few thousand people at the Soul Train Awards tomorrow night. And I'm sure the word will get out soon.
BALDWIN: All right, Wolf. Word will get out. We welcome you with open arms down here in Atlanta. Can't wait to have you in the studio. We'll see you tomorrow.
BLITZER: Thanks.
BALDWIN: All right.
Well, it has been eight years since a man kidnapped Elizabeth Smart from her own bedroom, but the memories of those days are still very much so vivid and haunting. She is sharing her story, finally telling her story here to jurors.
You will hear them in a live report from Utah, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: In Salt Lake City, in a courtroom there, Elizabeth Smart is finally telling her own stories, and the details will most definitely shock you and also break your hart. Smart testifying here, day two, in the trial of her accused kidnapper, Brian David Mitchell.
He is the man charged with abducting her right out of her own bedroom, out of her family's home, eight years ago. Now, even his defense team admits he did it, but they say he is insane.
And just yesterday, Smart told some jurors about waking up with a knife to her neck -- imagine. She was terrified. But that was just the beginning of her nightmare.
Jean Casarez is following this trial for us in Salt Lake for our sister network, "In Session," on truTV.
And Jean, let's just begin with -- you know, one thing that really got me here was that Elizabeth Smart said she could have been rescued months earlier when she had this encounter with the detective who was out looking for her.
Tell me how that whole thing turned out.
JEAN CASAREZ, CORRESPONDENT, "IN SESSION," TRUTV: That was really something. And she said she was so angry at herself. Why hadn't she had the strength and the courage?
Well, you know, they had upper camps and lower camps. They lived outside the hills here in Salt Lake City.
And so one time they came down into Salt Lake City. They went to the library because Mitchell had said that he had been divinely touched, that he had to have seven wives in seven cities. So he needed to go to the library to get a map.
So, they were at the library, and a homicide detective came up to them. And remember, they've got their robes, they've got their veils, but her eyes showed.
And the homicide detective looked into her eyes and said, "I think you're Elizabeth Smart." And Mitchell was standing right there. And he said, "No, no, no, no. This is our religion. You cannot come to us." He said, "Can I take your veil off?" And Mitchell said, "No, only her husband. You are violating our religion." And the homicide detective said, "Can I just be a part of your religion for one day so I can take the veil off and tell my detectives that this is not Elizabeth Smart?"
Well, that, Brooke, is when they decided they had to move to San Diego. And that's when they took a Greyhound bus shortly after that and set up camp in the hills outside of San Diego.
BALDWIN: Wow. It was that close at that point in time. And I know she told the detective -- I guess when the detective left, she said she felt like hope was walking away.
Jean, I also want to talk though about this whole ordeal, you know, when she was with him at these camps. She also talked about the way she tried to keep some sense of her family close to her, even in the middle of this horrific situation, like keeping the safety pin from her pajama top, or a piece of her shoe with her.
CASAREZ: That was unbelievable. She said that at one point, Mitchell said that she had to get rid of any possession that she had, that she came into the camp with.
Well, all she came in with were her tennis shoes and her red pajamas. So she ripped something from her shoes because the soles were coming off anyway, and she kept that red rubber. And she burned her red pajamas, but she saw the safety pin that had held it shut up here, that it didn't burn, so she picked the safety pin up and put it through the rubber of the shoe and just kept it.
Well, Mitchell found it several months later and he made her get rid of it.
BALDWIN: And I know this is day two and some of these details are emerging today as she's taken to the stand. But if we can, Jean, let's just go back to yesterday. I mean, that is when we finally heard how this whole thing went down.
When she was 14, you know, she's in her own bedroom. Her sister is asleep nearby when she was kidnapped.
Go through her description if you can as to what happened.
CASAREZ: Well, she woke up and there was a man with a knife to her throat saying, "Don't say a word, because if you do I will kill you and your family." But, he said, "We're going to go to your closet. You get the sturdiest shoes you can."
Now, Brooke, let me stop here for a second. You see, the federal prosecutors want to show everything that he did, knowing what he did with his premeditated plan. So that's really important -- "You get the sturdiest shoes you can."
He led her out of the house, went through the hills, went into the mountains. It took three to five hours to get to the camp where Wanda Barzee was.
She went into the tent, Wanda Barzee hugged her like she'd known her for years, got a bucket of hot water, washed her feet, told her she had to take her pajamas off and put a robe on. She refused. Wanda Barzee, his wife, said, "He's going to rip your clothes off if you don't do it."
She took all of her clothes off, put on a robe. He proceeded to come in the tent and sexually assault her for the first time, which added up to three to four times a day for nine months.
BALDWIN: Jean, 30 seconds. I just have to ask about the defense. I know they're not disputing these stories, but they're also going out and saying he's not guilty by reason of insanity.
CASAREZ: Exactly, that he is not criminally responsible because he did not comprehend and understand the criminality of his actions. They're basing it on religion. He believed he was the prophet, the prophet from God that was destined to have plural wives.
BALDWIN: What a story. We are watching this so closely, along with you, finally hearing the story in her own words from Elizabeth Smart, day two there on the stand.
Jean, we thank you for that.
Meantime, I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thanks so much for watching.
Wolf Blitzer starts now in "THE SITUATION ROOM."
