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U.S. Embassy Attacked in Afghanistan; Republicans Debate in Florida; Rick Perry Criticized in GOP Debate; New Film Focuses on Worldwide Epidemic; Wolf Blitzer Reviews GOP Debate

Aired September 13, 2011 - 15:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, Randi. Thank you very much, and hello to all of you. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

I want to begin this hour here with this story. Broad daylight in Kabul, Afghanistan today, broad daylight, militant gunmen and suicide bombers targeted three places where Americans and western allies gather and where they work, the U.S. Embassy, the headquarters of the International Military Force there and the NATO command center. Watch the fighting in Kabul today. You're going to see rooftop-to- rooftop fighting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(GUNFIRE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: These are U.S. security forces. They're there returning fire from what military sources tell us was a well-organized Taliban attack using rocket-propelled grenades, also machine guns. The street fighting lasted several hours.

It is over now, and there were casualties.

Want to go straight to the capital of Kabul, where our own Suzanne Malveaux has been there for a better part of a week-and-a- half. She has some new details there.

And, Suzanne, just begin with, can you confirm what we're being told, that all of the assailants are either dead or captured?

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Actually, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense just tweeted moments ago. He says there might be one or two more terrorists still alive.

He also says that the building has not yet been cleared. We know for sure that there are four insurgents that were involved in this attack. They have been going floor by floor in this abandoned building, this building that's been under construction for some time. This has happened over the course of hours.

This whole thing started 10 hours ago. But it's been relatively quiet with sporadic gunfire that we have heard throughout the evening and the last couple of hours or so as they have been trying to find who this fourth building, perhaps a fifth person, if they're still in this building and if they're still alive. They do not believe that this thing is yet wrapped up, but it certainly is a lot quieter than it used to be.

Folks at the U.S. Embassy, they have been on lockdown for the last 10 hours or so, kind of in a duck and cover mode. All of their activities have been canceled for tomorrow. And I have to say, Brooke, I was down there below and outside of the embassy, outside the NATO compound. This is where we spent a lot of time over the last week or so. A very tense situation.

You had Afghan police, you had Afghan army who were trying to clear the streets. You had people who were in the hospitals who were being wheeled in who had been injured. We even saw one person, a man, who had been shot and killed, who was taken in the back of a pickup truck to a military hospital, found out that that was actually one of the insurgents who had been killed in the building.

This is a bold, it's a brazen attack, and this is one of those things really that affects a lot of people who we talk to on the ground because this really is at the heart of the security apparatus in Kabul. You have got the presidential palace, you have got NATO, you have got U.S. Embassy, you have got all these places in a relatively close proximity. For the Taliban to get to them and get to them way outside the compound and do the kind of damage they did, quite unsettling for a lot of people here -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Yes. Help me understand, because you have been walking, as you have explained, the ground. Help me understand the lay of the land, this building apparently where these insurgents positioned themselves, prepared to do this in conjunction with these other targets and also what more can you share about the casualties? Any U.S. casualties, NATO casualties, and certainly civilians?

MALVEAUX: Well, sure. What happened today is obviously you had this bold attack against the U.S. Embassy, NATO, as well as intelligence agencies offices downtown central Kabul.

But you also had three other attacks that were happening all around the area. These were isolated situations where you would have a suicide bomber with a jacket who would try to detonate a bomb at various places. So one was outside a high school. One was on airport road that's right outside of the airport. Another one was at a police compound.

All of these different things were happening within a course of a couple of hours that this was taking place. Now, in terms of casualties, the final numbers that we have gotten here is that seven people in total have been killed through the day and 17 have been injured, most of them civilians.

Now, nobody inside of the U.S. Embassy we're told was actually killed or injured. We do know that four Afghans who were right outside the compound of the embassy were injured. We know that also inside of the international security assistance forces, that's a place we have spent quite a bit of time this week, nobody was injured. They were not able to penetrate the barriers, the walls that you see in that video. Everything is stringed with barbed wire, very, very thick barriers to actually get inside.

That did not happen, so nobody was injured or killed there. But the police have been killed, civilians have been killed, and, more importantly, people just feel a sense of fear and anxiety because what's happening is the Taliban is going to the heart of the security to show that they're going to disrupt things and the Afghans trying at the same time to get up to speed, take their own security into their own hands.

And they realize that they're working against a Taliban that is really trying to show a symbolic strike, if you will, that they he can get to the heart of the power and the heart of the security apparatus here in Kabul -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Certainly. And here we are just two days after the 10th anniversary of 9/11 as well. Suzanne Malveaux live from Kabul. Suzanne, many thanks to you.

Also unfolding right now, the president of Iran tells an American news network that two U.S. citizens in prison there will be freed, and I'm quoting him, he says they will be freed in a couple of days. Talking about Josh Fattal, Shane Bauer locked up in Iran since July of 2009 when they were arrested and accused of crossing into Iran from Iraq. They say they were with hiking.

They and another American were accused of being spies. Fattal and Bauer were convicted last year. They were sentenced last month to eight years behind bars in Iran. But here is the problem trying to learn more about their fate. The U.S. has no diplomatic relations with Iran and relies on third parties just to get information.

Elise Labott is the CNN senior producer for us over at the State Department.

And, Elise, did the statement from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, did it just kind of pop up out of the blue?

ELISE LABOTT, CNN PRODUCER: Well, certainly the news that they could be released any day now is news from the United States.

And they were just watching the interview with President Ahmadinejad today and heard him say this. But for the last month since these men were convicted, Brooke, there's been rumblings that perhaps they had been released. But U.S. State Department officials being very cautious and not wanting to say anything because we have been here before. They have heard that they're going to be released only to have the hopes of the families and the U.S. dashed.

Let's take a listen to how careful Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was today when she was asked about this news.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We have followed this very closely, and we are encouraged by what the Iranian government has said today. But I'm not going to comment further than that. We obviously hope that we will see a positive outcome from what appears to be a decision by the government.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LABOTT: Now, Brooke, even the family being very careful today. We have a statement just coming out Shane and Josh's families.

And it says: "Shane and Josh's freedom mean more to us than anything and it's a huge relief to read that they are going to be released. We're grateful to anyone who has supported us and looking forward to our reunion with Shane and Josh. We hope to say more when they are finally back in our arms."

And we understand tomorrow there could be some more news. The Swiss ambassador to Tehran -- as you mentioned, the U.S. doesn't have any relations with Iran. So the Swiss government is the protecting power. We understand that the Swiss ambassador to Iran has been summoned by the Iranian Foreign Ministry to have a meeting on this.

I just spoke to a Swiss diplomat just minutes ago. I said, are you optimistic? Is it looking good? He said, look, it doesn't look bad, but we just don't want to say more, because, again, we have heard this before and we don't know. We're cautiously optimistic, but we don't want to get too excited, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Yes, we have heard that phrase before, haven't we, Elise, cautious and optimistic at the same time, hopeful from the parents as well. Elise, thank you very much.

And I spoke with both these mothers right here on CNN, the mothers of both Josh and Shane just a couple of months ago. And here's what they told me back then.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So, do you think that this story really -- really, it's so much bigger than Josh and Shane and Sarah? This is really country vs. country? And how does that make you feel if that is the case?

LAURA FATTAL, MOTHER OF DETAINED AMERICAN: We feel terrible. We -- this has been a time of enormous anguish, enormous desperation. Our kids are in isolation from any other prisoner. We don't get to speak to them more than two five-minute phone calls over 21 months. This has been a terrible situation. We want it to end.

BALDWIN: Cindy, have you gotten everything you have needed thus far in this entire ordeal from the U.S. government? Have they done enough for you?

CINDY HICKEY, MOTHER OF DETAINED AMERICAN: You know, when Shane and Josh are home, we will know enough has been done.

But the real message here is, Iran needs to quit playing games with Shane and Josh and our families. This is political. They need to take this out of the political arena. Our families have been devastated. Shane and Josh are 28. They need to be out doing what they do for the world, and get on with this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Obviously we will follow it and see if those young men come home.

Also, just in to CNN, an arrest in the bizarre kidnapping case. We first told you about this yesterday. Here's the backstory. This 3-year-old Canadian boy goes missing. Several days miss later, he suddenly shows up at home unharmed. Here's his father.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL HEBERT, FATHER: Kienan is happily home and he's playing with his brothers and sisters. Thank you. Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So police, they come forward, they name this guy as a suspect. This is 46-year-old Randall Hopley, a convicted sex offender who lives just a couple of miles down the road from the boy's home. Here is the news today. We are told police tracked him down using dogs as he took off running from a house. It's not yet clear what evidence investigators have on him.

Also, this:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (INAUDIBLE) weaponize the bird flu. Is that what we're working at?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Someone doesn't have to weaponize the bird flu.

The birds are doing that.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: That's where we're headed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: This is the biggest movie in America right now. A virus threatens to wipe out the human race and it's got a lot of people asking, how real is this threat? Coming up, we will talk with a woman who actually advised the folks behind the scenes behind this film. It's called "Contagion." She says the threat is very real and the world needs a wakeup call.

Also ahead, this incredible video. This car and motorcycle go up in flames. Bystanders race to rescue the guy pinned beneath it. Police had been looking for all these heroes involved, and guess what, we have managed to track one down. We will talk with him live next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BALDWIN: I want to show you some video. This is of a rescue like you have never seen before. Watch this with me. This is a motorcycle on fire and a BMW behind it.

Police say the car pulled out in front of the biker who swerved to avoid hitting it, ended up underneath the car. So you see the fire? That's because gas spilled and then the big boom. One man tries to help this guy, tries to lift the car, can't do it by himself. You see this crowd of people, one, two, three, four, it's about 10 people by my count, pulling this car up. By the way, the car 4,000 pounds. You see they actually drag the guy out. We will loop the video again so you can see it, saving this young man.

They then basically wander off. Stunning. Police in Logan, Utah, they are trying to track some of these heroes down so they can recognize their efforts, say thank you.

And I want to bring in one of the guys who actually helped in this rescue. In fact, I just learned he was the first officer on the scene.

Let me bring in Logan Police Department Sergeant Jason Olsen.

And, Sergeant Olsen, first things first. Let's just say this 21- year-old motorcyclist, Brandon Wright, we're now reporting he is in stable condition. Where were you when you got the call to get to the scene?

SGT. JASON OLSEN, LOGAN, UTAH, POLICE DEPARTMENT: I was actually on the street of about 900 North and 600 East in Logan, so I was probably only less than half a mile away when the call came out.

BALDWIN: Half a mile away. You rush to the scene. At that point were there people already around the car, doing what we're watching on television, already trying to lift it up?

OLSEN: Well, I think you can see on the video, if it it's the same one that I have, as I get next to the vehicle, I kind of turn and look over my shoulder because I have got another officer that's arriving. And I kind of motion to him that I need him to bring me a jack.

But it was only seconds that I realized that these citizens had already organized and were just going manually lift it up. So by the time I realized what was -- what they had in store, I really didn't even need to help because the vehicle was up and they were dragging the victim out from underneath.

BALDWIN: By looking at this video, you see a guy in a suit, you see a couple of construction workers. I understand the agriculture building there on campus was under construction so some of these people just so happened to be nearby.

Do you know who these individuals were who just all kind of rushed together to pull this car up and save this young man? OLSEN: Well, fortunately the accident happened right there close to a campus where there's a lot of people in classes and I understand there was a business meeting going on, on the ninth floor where this videotape came from and there's a building that's under construction.

So it's a very, very high-traffic area. I think had this accident happened in more of a suburban area, we wouldn't have gotten that kind of a response. We would have never had that kind of manpower to get that car up, which was why I was already just kind of going through our protocol and I was motioning for a jack because I thought it was just going to be me and another officer trying to get this vehicle up.

BALDWIN: So did you even know, though, that this 21-year-old was under the car? Did you know that when you first came in?

OLSEN: It was obvious. I could tell by the panic on the people. And the people were getting down on the ground. I think you see a couple of citizens, one female included, actually lay down on her belly. They're looking under the car. So I didn't have to ask. I knew that the motorcyclist was pinned underneath.

BALDWIN: And tell me, what's being said in this group of people who are lifting this car up? What are they saying? What are they shouting?

OLSEN: You know, I can't really honestly recall that for certain. I -- it was very stressful, just because I'm now concerned about the 15 people that are there. I don't want them to get hurt.

And obviously you said that they picked up and then they walked away. I was telling them to get back away from the fire because it was still so volatile. I didn't want to have it become something bigger. And they just moved out of the way of the camera. They didn't really want to leave very badly. But it was just kind of chaos and pandemonium. I do remember the one gentleman saying, we need everybody to come and help lift, and that's when everybody just ran over.

BALDWIN: I mean, at any moment in time, that car could have burst into flames. Obviously, you, the people around you were risking their lives.

But what does this say, though? From what I understand, you know, your police department has been trying to track some of these people down. I guess they hadn't inherently come forward to get kudos. What does that say about, I don't know, your community, Logan, Utah?

OLSEN: Well, I have lived here for my entire life, which I guess I can say on the radio is 40 years. And, you know, it's always been that way around here.

You can't say enough for what happens when people are really in dire need. I mean, that's not just our community. I'm sure that that's all over the place. But in ours in particular, it speaks volumes to what people will do in a tragic situation to help another person out.

BALDWIN: Amazing. Again, that young man there on the ground is in stable condition. What about quickly, Sergeant Olsen, do we know about the driver of the car? Is he OK or she?

OLSEN: He is OK. Obviously he's very shaken up about this, but as far as injuries there were none reported by him that I know of anyway.

BALDWIN: Stunning scene in Logan, Utah. Sergeant Jason Olsen, thank you so much for calling in. I appreciate it.

OLSEN: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Next, zero jobs created from the stimulus, stealing money from Medicare to pay for health care reform. Those are just some of the comments from the Republican presidential debate that aired live on CNN last night. In just a moment, Tom Foreman will break down what else was said and whether it was true or false.

And later, Pope Benedict faces some serious allegations. We are going to explain why he's accused of -- quote -- "crimes against humanity." Be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: OK. Let's talk about the debate. It was great stuff. Did you watch last night? Lots of great exchanges among those eight Republican candidates, each of whom of course wants to be president. Wolf Blitzer by the way did one heck of a job, didn't he?

I do want to play this. This is a nice little exchange on something we knew was coming, Social Security. Want you to Listen to Mitt Romney zeroing in on Rick Perry. Perry first.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RICK PERRY (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: A program that's been there 70 or 80 years, obviously we're not going to take that program away. But for people to stand up and support what they did in the '30s or what they're doing in the 2010s is not appropriate for America.

MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: But the question is, do you still believe that Social Security should be ended as a federal program as you did six months ago when your book came out and returned to the states or do you want to retreat from that?

PERRY: I think we ought to have a conversation.

ROMNEY: We're having that right now, governor. We're running for president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: And there were a lot of good moments like that one. But did you happen to be watching? Did you hear any whoppers? Eight politicians, two hours, surely someone shaded the truth just a smidge.

Tom Foreman is live in Washington for us, doing a little fact checking.

Tom Foreman, what did you hear?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, here's what I heard.

First of all, don't write books. That's obviously a mistake because people will hold you to it later on. Listen we heard a lot of statements last night. As I always say to people, these are smart folks. No matter what you think of them, they're smart folks. They're rarely going to just throw something out there that is patently untrue.

And yet they get excited and they stray and they say things that certainly deserve a lot of scrutiny. Think about something that was said by Michele Bachmann in the course of this debate that was quite incendiary because it was aimed directly at President Obama. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MICHELE BACHMANN (R-MN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: President Obama in a stunning, shocking level of power now just recently told all private insurance companies, you must offer the morning-after abortion pill, because I said so. And it must be free of charge. That same level coming through executive orders and through government dictates is wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOREMAN: Well, you know for many social conservatives in this country those are just -- those are firebomb words. It's very, very important. Here's the claim, that the president has ordered the morning-after pill must be free, as she referred to it, as an abortion pill.

The simple truth is that Health and Human Services back in August did in fact put in some regulations that said you must allow women, if you're an insurer in this country, to have access to various birth control methods through you with no additional co-pay.

That doesn't, first of all, make it free because they still have to pay for the insurance to begin with, but nonetheless, no additional co-pay. There is an argument to some degree to be made about the type of pill you're talking about. If you're talking about the morning- after pill, which can be taken some two, three days after somebody has had sex to keep them from becoming pregnant, and I know I'm on dangerous ground now because there are arguments among people about when actually pregnancy occurs, that is considered different by doctors than what are more commonly called an abortion pill, which could be taken like four, five, six weeks later to actually terminate an ongoing pregnancy. So those are some details. There was an effort by the HHS in August to put this new thing in. So we're basically going to say that that is true, but incomplete. If you listen to everything about it, you get a somewhat different picture than just this idea that the president said the morning-after pill must be free -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK. We also, though, in another word that came up many times, jobs -- we know the president we just saw him in Columbus selling his jobs plan, the eight candidates up there saying, elect me. If you elect me, I can help the economy create more jobs than the president has.

Did you, Tom, did you hear any concrete specifics to back up those claims?

FOREMAN: The tricky part to this, Brooke, is every politician here in the city will tell you privately nobody really knows how they're going to create jobs or if they can guarantee anything.

But I did want to look specifically at the governors who are up there, the governors and former governors, Rick Perry, current governor of Texas, Jon Huntsman, former governor of Utah, Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, because all of them in this debate and in others have basically said, our states prospered, did better than almost everybody else when we were the governors.

Well, this gets really tricky because if you look at the way they slice these numbers up, there's some validation for what they say. For example, Rick Perry says he's created a lot of jobs over the years. Yes, he has. He's been in office for quite some time. He's created a lot of jobs. He hasn't created as many jobs as his population has grown. So Texas's unemployment rate, along with the country's, has gone up. It's better than the national rate right now. National rate is about 9.1 percent. Theirs is about 8.4 percent. But still it has gone up.

Mitt Romney said in Massachusetts, look, I came in office, we were losing jobs. We started surging forward. Yes, and the whole nation surged forward at that time. Massachusetts was sort of trailing. Jon Huntsman came the closest to being on the money with that, but even there it's the way you wiggle around the numbers. In their case, we can move this back and forth, but I think you will still wind up somewhere between misleading and true but incomplete is probably the best assessment because these guys know the truth of their numbers and they all know they're leaning on them to push them as hard as they can in a positive direction.

But you can't separate any state's economy from the national economy. That's just the way it works.

BALDWIN: Well, Tom Foreman, thank you very much.

And speaking of last night, listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PERRY: Mitt, you were doing pretty good until you got to talking poker.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Will the real Rick Perry please stand up? Still ahead, I get a unique neck perspective on what he's really like and if -- it's actually from a man who had to literally walk in his shoes.

And, later, retired baseball star Manny Ramirez arrested, his wife telling police he hit her. We have the 911 tapes. And you will hear them, too. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You know, we heard something a bit rare in that debate last night. Did you catch this?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RICK PERRY (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I will tell you that I made a mistake.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Maybe we'll see his lips moving next time. Let's try it again. I know it went by quickly, but let's try it again.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PERRY: On that particular issue, I will tell you that I made a mistake.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That was Texas governor Rick Perry admitting that he did make a mistake, and fellow Republicans if you were watching the debate last night, they certainly attacked him. We'll cover that next hour.

But I do want to bring in my next guest. Joining me live from Austin, Texas, State Representative Mark Strama. He once channeled Rick Perry, I mean he played the governor during debate preparations for one of Perry's opponents. Representative Strama, when you channel Rick Perry, what do you find?

TEXAS STATE REP. MARK STRAMA, (D) STATE HOUSE: Well, I didn't try to emulate his mannerism or his accident, but I did try to voice his argument. I found it rather easy to voice. I mean, the guy runs on bumper sticker politics. Just because it fits on a bumper sticker doesn't make it true, but it does make it easy to articulate and argue. And I found it a comfortable place to argue from.

I'm on the other side. I'm a Democrat and I oppose a lot of Rick Perry's policies. But it was a useful exercise for me to understand where he's coming from to play his role in a debate and I found it one where are I haven't been surprised frankly that he's been effective in these debates at appealing to his base, because he tends to position himself right where they want him to be.

BALDWIN: You know, here on our end, the Texas governor seemed subdued compared to how we've seen him before. Would that have been by design, or is that what happens when it's seven against one?

STRAMA: It's what happens when it's seven against one and it's what happens when you're ahead by ten points or so in the polls. I have been a little bit surprised he hasn't been better prepared to respond. I think where he's vulnerable in this primary process is vulnerable to attacks that he's too far to the left. I don't think you can be too far to the right in this primary season. And that's the advantage that he brings to the race.

But when they get him on HPV, which strikes people on the right as being big government, when with they get him on crony capitalism, and when they get him on immigration where he is genuinely to the left maybe of the Republican primary electorate, maybe he's vulnerable there and he wasn't as well prepared to respond to those attacks as I thought he would be.

BALDWIN: Let me jump in.

STRAMA: I think the next thing --

BALDWIN: Perfect segue, because I want to play a little bit of that. He was taken to task last night over Texas letting illegal immigrants pay in-state tuition. Let's hear him -- this is it Texas governor Rick Perry defending that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PERRY: It doesn't make a difference what the sound of your last name is. That's the American way. No matter how you got in the state from the standpoint if your parents brought you there and what have you, that's what we've done in the state of Texas. And I'm proud we are having those individuals be contributing members of our society rather than telling them you go be on the government dole.

WOLF BLITZER, HOST, CNN'S "THE SITUATION ROOM": You heard some boos there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That was Wolf pointing out what we heard. You hear the boos. But you say Rick Perry doesn't back away from controversy. Over and over I hear he's a fighter, he leans into it.

STRAMA: He does. And some may argue he leans with his chin, as a lot of people think is the case on Social Security. I don't think it his Social Security position will hurt him in the Republican primary. I think it might devastate him in the general election and I don't think it's sensible policy. I don't know how in a 21st century economy where people are as mobile as we are you can have a state- driven pension system, because what happens to people who move from state to state?

But I don't think that his being so far to the right on Social Security is going to hurt him. Being as far to the left as he is on immigration policy, while I agree with his sentiments and I think frankly it's admirable he stood for them in that environment and debate, you saw the reaction from the crowd. It's not one that plays well among Republican primary voters right now. And he's either going to have to lead the electorate to a place they're not today or he may have to retreat from his position on that, which is not something he does well.

BALDWIN: Texas State Representative Mark Strama, thank you very much. He also brought up the HPV vaccine. We'll be talking with Elizabeth Cohen about later next hour. That was a mistake he referenced.

Coming up next, though, a U.S. Airways flight from New York to Phoenix makes an unscheduled stop in St. Louis. Why? Three passengers allegedly acting suspicious. The flight crew said they didn't want to take chances.

Also, it is the movie that has a lot of you talking and tweeting about, "Contagion." Is the threat presented in this film real or is this just great Hollywood script writing? We'll talk to a woman who worked behind the scenes, talk to the producer, the director, tell us where we must be prepared.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Checking top stories now.

Some tense moments onboard a U.S. Airways plane this morning, flight 457 to New York to Phoenix, diverted to St. Louis after some passengers on board noticed what they described as suspicious behavior by others. A TSA spokesman says three passengers were taken off the plane for questioning after it landed. The plane was inspected and allowed to proceed on to Phoenix.

Several victims of abuse by Catholic priests are asking the International Criminal Court to charge Pope Benedict and other top Vatican officials with crimes against humanity. They say the church has had tolerant attitudes toward the abuse and turning a blind eye for years. A Vatican spokesman tells CNN he's aware of the filing but had no comment.

And three schoolchildren are dead, 16 others hurt. This is after their school bus was hit by rocket and machine gun fire in Peshawar, Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan. The bus driver was killed. A Taliban affiliated extremist group claimed responsibility, renewing its vow to continue attacking civilian targets in Pakistan.

Still ahead, it had has all the makings of a really good joke. You have Charlie Sheen, the star of MTV's "Jackass" and the band the Great White. Only this joke didn't go over to well. We have the scoop on what was said and why you will not be hearing it if you tune in to Charlie Sheen's roast on Comedy Central. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: This one is definitely trending today. A judge has ordered Manny Ramirez to stay away his wife after she picked up and phone and dialed 911 saying he hit her. The former World Series MVP was in court this morning, spent the night in jail after being arrested yesterday. He's accused of slapping his wife during an argument. Now we have it. Here is her call to 911.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is 911. What is your emergency?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. My husband just hit me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What's the address where this happened, ma'am? What city is that?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Weston, Florida.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is that a house or an apartment?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: House.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is he still inside?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you need an ambulance?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is your name? Are you inside or outside?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm here. He's here.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What's -- he's inside with you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where did he hit you, in the face?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My face and my head. I have a bump on my head.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You don't need rescue? Are you sure?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I'm sure.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What's his name? All right, we'll send somebody over, hon. Are you in a room where you can stay away from him?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. He's not doing anything more because he knows I'm calling the police. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We'll send somebody over, OK?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Bye-bye.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: We do want to let you know CNN has reached out to Ramirez's agent for a response. Thus far our calls have not been returned.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So we have a virus with no treatment protocol and no vaccine.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In three months it's a billion. That's where we're headed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: At the center of the biggest movie in America right now, this global virus threatening mankind. I know, I know, this is a movie. My next guest says the threat is very real and the world is not ready. We'll speak live to Laurie Garrett who advised the producers behind the scenes there on the movie "Contagion." She says when with it comes to this kind of emergency we're just not prepared. We're back. That conversation in 70 seconds.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

POPPY HARLOW, CNNMONEY.COM CORRESPONDENT: Time now for the help desk where you get answers to your financial questions. Joining me this hour, Lynette Khalfani-Cox, the founder of financial advice blog AsktheMoneyCoach.com and Stacy Francis, a certified financial planner and also president of Francis Financial. Thanks, ladies, for being here.

First question for you, Lynette, a pretty straightforward one. Elizabeth asks, "How can I get a loan without a co-signer if I have a limited credit history?"

LYNETTE KHALFANI-COX, FOUNDER, ASKTHEMONEYCOACH.COM: Elizabeth, the truth is you might not be able to do so if you don't have a co- signer if you don't have very strong credit on your own. You have a couple of options though. One is to wait, build your rating and try to apply for a loan later. The second is maybe put up some collateral of some form depending on the type of loan you want. She wasn't very specific. I don't know if it's personal, home loan, whatever. But really lenders want to see that you have some skin in the game, so collateral may be the way to go.

HARLOW: Especially now. Stacy, your question from Allie, has an IRA balance of $50,000, a 51-year-old, $10,000 in taxable income this year and next. Is it wise to convert to a Roth IRA? STACY FRANCIS, FINANCIAL PLANNER: It may not be that wise for him. He's age 51. The first hurdle is, can he pay the taxes from outside money? If he's able to do that, then he has to look at how long can this money stay in the IRA before he has to tap it? The longer, if it could be in there one, two, three decades, possibly. But the younger you are the more sense it makes for you to do that Roth conversion.

HARLOW: Thank you, ladies. Folks, if you have a question you want answered, send us an e-mail anytime to CNNhelpdesk@CNN.com.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You start off with just a cough, then you get really sick really fast, and then you die, a victim of a deadly pandemic sweeping across the world. This is the plot of the new thriller that's out in theaters called "Contagion." But what makes this so disturbing is that this could maybe actually happen. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. She said she was jet lagged.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A person touches your face a few times a minute in between touching doorknobs, water fountains and each other.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So we have a virus there is no treatment protocol and no vaccine. Last night, there were 32 cases.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She's going to die.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right. Can I go talk to her?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your wife is dead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What are you talking about? What happened to her? What happened to her?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there any way someone could weaponize it?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: I want to bring in Laurie Garrett. She was one of the experts actually brought in to consult on this movie. She's a senior fellow for global health on the Council of Foreign Relations. Thank you for coming on. I read your opinion piece and you say part reality, part fantasy, totally possible. How totally possible is this?

LAURIE GARRETT, SENIOR FELLOW, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: This is one of those low probability but high consequence events, sort of like imagining that a couple of guys hijack jet airliners and fly them into the world trade center or trying to imagine that somebody takes a bunch of anthrax spores and stuffs them in an envelope and mails them to senators and members of the media. These are all things that can happen, how likely, we can't say. It's a gamble. We've made this picture and I really praise Steven Soderbergh and the team, they really made a movie that adhered as closely as possible to what we know to be scientific reality, and every step of the way, the projections into the fantasy part are based solidly on current knowledge, and a lot of it from epidemics I've personally been in.

BALDWIN: Let me ask you about that. You told me during the commercial break when we were talking, you helped them through 30 different drafts. They come to you. You're a Pulitzer Prize winning writer reporting on 20 or so epidemics -- ebola, SARS, for example. What specifically did you suppress to them to make this screen play realist realistic?

GARRETT: I thought the most important thing to get across was that globalization means that no risk remains isolated for long if the microbe has the proper conditions to spread, if it's contagious from human to human. We are all traveling so much, our food is traveling. Every threat is a global threat, but we don't really have global mechanisms of response. We have a globalized vaccine production, drug production.

And so the problem is that the cures, the things that would slow an epidemic down are confined to one part of the world, the rich world, and are completely unavailable or available too late in poor world. And since the poor world outnumbers the rich world in numbers of people, that's bad news for all of us.

BALDWIN: So, I haven't seen it yet. I plan to. My booker said -- of course Sanjay Gupta's in it. Of course I want to see it. Everyone left the theatre and didn't want to touch the escalator rails. And everyone is buying their Purell. Truly, what do you want moviegoers to take away? What kinds of questions should they be asking and how temper may be some of the fear folks may have?

GARRETT: Yes, I think the wrong response would be to simply walk out and say, I need to wash my hands, though I do think you need to wash your hands.

(LAUGHTER)

GARRETT: But I think it's more than that. I think you have to walk out and ask yourself really truly, who spots these epidemics? When an outbreak happens, it's like that old movie line in "Ghost Busters." "Who are you going to call? Ghost Busters." What's the equivalent? We like to say our CDC, the centers for disease control in Atlanta.

But the truth is, the whole chain, especially in poor countries, is very weak and the who to you call is not necessarily obvious to people. As things spread, as things get out of control, we have weakened infrastructures all over the world for health because government is weak. When government is weak, we don't really have a way to respond.

This is not something we're the private sector says, oh, wow, we're in danger by an epidemic. We shall take care of it. No, the private sector role may be to develop a drug or market a vaccine, but when it comes to getting out there and vaccinating people, getting out there and telling people what to do, what we found with anthrax and I show it clearly in my new book, "I heard the Sirens Scream," if government doesn't know the answers and what to do, then things quickly get out of control. That's the issue.

BALDWIN: From what I understand it's certainly a wake-up call. Laurie Garrett, thank you. I know you're going to continue the conversation with Sanjay Gupta this weekend and since I haven't seen it, I want to see this clip. Sanjay is in the film. Here he is playing himself. Also in the film, Kate Winslet. She'll be joining Sanjay this weekend as well, Saturday and Sunday morning. So tune in for "SANJAY GUPTA MD" 7:30 eastern right here on CNN.

And coming up, the candidates, two hours of questions. How on earth did Wolf Blitzer decide what to leave in? And what were his impressions behind the scenes? He is standing by for us live. He is back there in Washington. Excellent job last night, Mr. Blitzer. We'll talk to him, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Now, the man is back in Washington, D.C. Wolf Blitzer has the latest off the CNN Political Ticker and let's just talk debate. You and I already had a little e-mail exchange this morning. Wolf Blitzer, I thought you did a fantastic job, but if I may, I know townhall.com said so. "Who won the debate? I'm going to give the status to CNN and Wolf Blitzer. The layout, the moderation, and the questions in the debate were outstanding."

BLITZER: It was a lot of fun. But you know, it's a lot of work and I just read a little blog about this at CNN.com/SituationRoom. It takes a village. I'm up there by myself with these eight candidates, but we practiced, rehearsed the production, the research. We had a whole team helping prepare for possible questions, answers. You have to do a lot of homework going into a debate like this.

The more you do, I did five presidential debates the last cycle four years ago, the more you realize it really is a difficult assignment. You're juggling a lot of balls. You're listening closely to what the candidates are saying, but you're already starting to think about the next question you want to ask. If a candidate says anything negative about the others, you've got to give that candidate a chance to respond. So things are moving very, very quickly, as you know.

And you want to be fair to eight people. Some of who can are top tier, others not so much. But we want to give everyone a chance to make his or her point of view. So it's not an easy assignment by any means. But I loved doing it. It was a lot of fun. And from the historic point of view, remember, one of these eight is almost certainly going to be the Republican nominee, and there's a presidential election coming up next year.

BALDWIN: One of my favorite Wolfisms, I was listening carefully, you said, I want you to be precise. This is what you say to people when you get them to answer your questions. But the final question, you said you moderated five debates, learned something from each. In 30 seconds, what did you learn last night?

BLITZER: The most important thing I learned is to anticipate what the answers are going to be, knowing they're going to give you their standard boilerplate, their spin. But then you follow up with something -- you know, you didn't really answer the question. Let's get specific. Let's get precise. What are you going to do? Don't just give me a general, vague answer. Give me something specific we can talk about.

And I learned that, you know, these candidates are very, very different. They have different perspectives. And I was impressed. I got to tell you, the front-runner, Rick Perry, he didn't back away from virtually any of those controversial positions he took, even though that audience there, the Tea Party audience in Tampa, wasn't very happy with what he said about immigration, wasn't very happy with what he said about that vaccine for young girls to avoid cervical cancer.

He was pretty forceful on those issues. Might help in a general election. Not so sure necessarily those issues will help him in the Republican primary contest, but we will see.

BALDWIN: We're going to pick up on that point in a matter of minutes, what he referenced as his mistake. Wolf Blitzer, bravo again. We will see you again in about a half-an-hour. You can talk to me about what you have coming up on "THE SITUATION ROOM."

BLITZER: Thank you.