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Background on Aaron Alexis; Congress and President in Another Showdown; Tea Party Dad Backs Openly Gay Son; Russia Critical of U.N. Weapons Inspectors' Report; NYC Neighbors Save Man From Fire; Costa Concordia Upright; Dow Closes All-Time High
Aired September 18, 2013 - 15:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: So, while some people noticed his erratic behavior, his friend, she says that she never saw any signs of any kind of mental illness.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MELINDA DOWNS, FRIEND OF AARON ALEXIS: It's like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Who was this guy? Is there something I could have saw?
Was there some type of behavior I ignored or didn't see that I could have prevented this?
But there is no answers. He was very intellectual. His mind was sound.
He could hold a conversation with the best of us, and he didn't -- he was not hearing voices. And if he did, he hid it very well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Wow. Wendy Walsh, psychologist, joins me now. What do you make of this?
You hear one thing, his erratic behavior, from someone else, that he was fine. What do you make of that?
WENDY WALSH, PSYCHOLOGIST: Well, this is -- Brooke, this is actually kind of common.
If you have one of these organic progressive mental illnesses that has a biological piece to it that may involve hallucinations or dilutions, you're not bonkers 24/7. You can come in and out of things.
I want to go back to the police interviewing him and him talking about hearing voices, et cetera. Again, you cannot arrest somebody for being mentally ill in America.
That's not a crime, and as we know, so many mentally ill people are in our society, not getting the help they need.
But the thing that disturbs me is after two, not one, two incidents using a gun, at that point, can we not take the gun away from somebody who is mentally ill? BALDWIN: So here's the next question. This is sort of tangential, but we were talking about, you wonder about your own co workers, after your shift ends, you have no idea what your coworker is doing at home, what issues someone may or may not have.
I know it's a slippery slope, but do you think workplaces should know more about their employees' personal lives and mental states?
WALSH: It's a good question. I think there's a book out there called "The Psychopath Next Door" or "The Sociopath Next Door," but it's really not the job necessarily of work places.
But work places have been -- you know, not on purpose, tearing apart families. We're seeing a lot of social isolation. People are no longer living near family members who are looking out for each other.
So it really does beg that question, who now picks up the slack of being sort of the guider of the social order and the helper of those people, and where are our primary relationships?
Are they with people who are blood relatives, are they our coworkers or are they our friends?
BALDWIN: It's interesting because we know his parents are divorced, we know the shooter left New York and then lived in a number of places before ultimately visiting Washington and doing what he did.
On the flip side, I just want to play this. It's audio only. She didn't want to show her face.
This is Aaron Alexis' mother's voice talking to our correspondent, Deborah Feyerick today. Here she was.
CATHLEEN ALEXIS, MOTHER OF AARON ALEXIS: Our son Aaron Alexis has murdered 12 people and wounded several others.
His actions have had a profound and everlasting effect on the families of the victims.
I don't know why he did what he did and I'll never be able to ask him why.
Aaron is now in a place where he can no longer do harm to anyone, and for that I am glad.
To the families of the victims, I am so, so very sorry that this has happened. My heart is broken.
BALDWIN: All right, so she didn't -- the mother didn't want to show her face, but you hear her voice, and it must be -- I don't know. I'm not in her shoes, but conflicting, the grief process for her.
WALSH: I'm sure. That's a heartbreaking piece of tape to listen to, Brooke. She's lost a son. He was still her son.
But yet she could have this higher-level thinking to say she's glad he's in a place where he can't hurt people ever again, so that is a confusing feeling, you know? And not to blame the parents when I'm talking about where are the families.
BALDWIN: Sure.
WALSH: You know, systemically in our culture, we have a problem that we cannot involuntarily put anybody away or put them on medication just for being mentally ill.
It's perfectly legal, as long as you're 18-years-old, to be crazy and maybe even own a gun in America and nobody can step in because of our civil rights.
And this is what's causing so many problems in our culture. And these mass shootings so often are related to people with mental illness.
And we've got to find a way. We've got to find a way to get the guns out of their hands either before or after they're diagnosed. We've got to find a way to diagnose more.
BALDWIN: Wendy Walsh, thank you so much.
Coming up next, a political ad that caught our eye, and it's making national headlines.
And you could say it shows a candidate coming out to his father, dad, who is a member of the tea party, but the candidate's message isn't exactly what you think. You're going to see what I mean, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: It is showdown time in Washington. We're bumping up to the end of the federal government's budget year, so in less than two weeks, the government will have to shut down unless -- unless Congress can get together to get the money to run it beyond September.
And right now, that doesn't exactly look likely, House Speaker John Boehner today announcing that budget legislation will include a vote to defund ObamaCare.
Now, that bill would pass the House, but it would never get through the Senate as is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), HOUSE SPEAKER: There should be no conversation about shutting the government down. That's not the goal here.
Our goal here is to cut spending and to protect the American people from ObamaCare. It's as simple as that.
But there's no interest on our part in shutting the government down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Deja vu, perhaps? We all remember talking about and covering the debt ceiling fight of 2011. Remember that mess?
President Obama says nuh-uh, we're not going there again.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And we're not going to set up a situation where the full faith and credit of the United States is put on the table every year or every year and a half and we go through some sort of terrifying financial brinksmanship because of some ideological arguments people are having about some particular issue of the day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Gloria Borger is our chief political analyst, and, Gloria, please tell me this is not 2011 all over again.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: I can't. I wish I could. I think we're headed exactly where the president said he doesn't want to head.
I think this is about politics. It's not about economics, and what you've got is a bunch of conservatives in the House of Representatives, I call them the "Hell No Caucus," and they're saying, look, we want to get rid of ObamaCare.
And one way to do it is to shut down the government if we have to because we want to defund ObamaCare, which by the way, passed, what, three years ago.
And so they've decided to really take a stand on this, even though what they do in the House is not likely to get the same kind of consideration in the Senate.
I don't think the Senate's likely to defund ObamaCare, so here we are again.
BALDWIN: So, is this really the message, the thought, the momentum coming from Republicans here? Or is this fractured?
BORGER: Well, the Republicans in the House, at least, right now, Brooke, seem to be saying, OK, for the minute, and these things change by the minute, for the minute, we are united behind this plan.
It looked to me like the House speaker over there was dragged, kicking and screaming, into this -
BALDWIN: That's what I was wondering.
BORGER: But he is, I think, being held hostage by his caucus and has told them, OK, you're going to get this vote.
So right now, the Republicans in the House are going to pass the defunding of ObamaCare.
But if you look at this poll, OK, they also know, and this is what worries Republicans in the Senate and some Republicans in the House, that they're going to be held responsible, more than the president, if the government shuts down, and that's really not good news for them.
They, however, say, look, nobody likes ObamaCare, so maybe we'll get some points on that front.
BALDWIN: Well, hopefully, this is not here we go again.
Gloria Borger, we know you'll be watching this every little iteration of this. Gloria, thank you, from Washington.
When then Senator John Kerry was chosen as secretary of state, the good voters of Massachusetts elected Ed Markey to fill his former seat, and now the race to replace Ed Markey, one of those running is an openly gay Democrat. He is Carl Sciortino.
I want you to take a look at his new ad. It definitely got our attention. It got my attention first thing this morning when I saw it because it also features his tea party dad.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARL SCIORTINO, SR.: He wants to go to Congress to pick on the NRA and the tea party.
CARL SCIORTINO, JR., RUNNING FOR HOUSE OF REPRESENATIVES: I won't give up on an assault weapons ban.
CARL SCIORTINO, SR.: Or universal background checks, or banning high- capacity magazines.
CARL SCIORTINO, JR.: There are some things you don't stop fighting for.
Also the right to choose, equal pay for women, and equal rights for, well, everybody.
CARL SCIORTINO, SR.: He's been like this for 35 years.
CARL SCIORTINO, JR.: That's why I approve this message.
And I still love you, Dad.
CARL SCIORTINO, SR.: Me, too, son.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Carl Sciortino, Sr., there at the end of the ad.
Tomorrow, I will be talking to the candidate, Carl Sciortino, Jr., and we're trying to get dad to come along for the CNN interview as well.
Just in to us here at CNN, we're learning some Capitol officers responding to the shootings Monday at the Washington Navy Yard were told to return to their positions.
Next, more on why they were told to go back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: If you take a look at the scenes from Monday at the Washington Navy Yard, it seemed like every officer in the area was on the scene.
But we're now hearing that one tactical team, specifically a unit from the Capitol police, was actually pulled back during the critical first minutes of the rampage.
And Jake Tapper is right out there by the Navy Yard. Jake, what do we know about this?
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR, "THE LEAD": Well, it originally was reported by a local TV station here in Washington, WUSA.
What we know is that CNN has learned that there was an emergency response team that is part of the U.S. Capitol police, and one of those teams was apparently right here, very, very close to the Navy Yard, I'm standing outside the Navy Yard, obviously, and they were told to return to the capitol by a commander.
There's still unanswered questions about this. We haven't figured out why. We asked the U.S. Capitol police for a response, to explain why exactly this team was told to come back to the capitol, which is about a mile away from here.
But it's a pretty stunning turn of events, given how quickly the shooter was able to start killing people and how long he was at large within the compound.
BALDWIN: Right. So we're working that.
Also, just quickly, tell me about the guest at the top of your show, this guy who went to boot camp with the shooter.
TAPPER: Yes, a remarkable turn of events. His name is Jason Niehoff. He works here, and he was on location here during the shooting on Monday, and he was stunned to find out that the shooter was Aaron Alexis.
Aaron Alexis is somebody that went to boot camp with in the Naval reserves in 2007.
And it was a very strange turn of events, strange moment for him, and we'll be talking to him at the top of the hour.
BALDWIN: We'll see you then, Mr. Tapper, live in Washington. Thank you very much.
Meantime, much more on the Navy Yard shooting tonight, plus other stories making headlines in primetime.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: CNN tonight, at 7:00, "ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT," controversy and the crown, the new Miss America responds to racist comments over her win.
Then at 8:00 on "ANDERSON COOPER 360," remembering the victims who lost their lives in the Navy Yard shooting.
And at 9:00 on "PIERS MORGAN LIVE," it's a deadly combination, guns and mental illness.
RICK WARREN, PASTOR: There's no way a gun should ever get in the hands of a mentally ill person.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: From the suicide of Pastor Rick Warren's son to the shooting at Washington's Navy Yard, Piers asks the experts, can anything be done.
It's all CNN tonight, starting with "ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" at 7:00, "ANDERSON COOPER 360" at 8:00 and "PIERS MORGAN LIVE" at 9:00, tonight on CNN.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: While we were so focused on the Navy Yard shooting, the United Nations released its report on chemical weapons attacks in Syria.
The report doesn't say who fired them, but experts looking closely at the U.N. findings say the fine print is unmistakable, and that the Assad regime is guilty.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BALDWIN: August 21st, scenes that shocked the world and prompted president Barack Obama to threaten military force in the Middle East against Syria.
Terrified children among the hundreds of victims of an apparent chemical weapons attack.
The U.N. report released Monday concludes, yes, chemical weapons were used.
BAN KI-MOON, U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL: The findings are beyond doubt and beyond the pale. This is a war crime.
BALDWIN: The U.N. investigators steered clear of laying blame in their report, but Human Rights Watch says information buried in U.N. findings shows the Assad regime almost surely fired those weapons.
Using this U.N. report as reference, a Human Rights Watch analysis found the chemical shells that hit two Damascus neighborhoods August 21st were almost surely launched from here, Mount Qasioun.
It's the regime's unchallenged stronghold from which elite forces loyal to Assad's younger brother, Maher, also defend the presidential palace.
From rocket parts found at the scene of one attack, Human Rights Watch constructed this hypothetical line, pointing directly back at Mount Qasioun as the scene of the launch.
Using a similar method, they identified that same regime-held position as the likely launch point for the chemical shells that also hit another Damascus neighborhood August 21st.
The Assad regime denies it was behind the attacks, but the U.S. maintains the U.N. report says otherwise.
SAMANTHA POWER, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: Details of the U.N. report made clear that only the regime could have carried out this large scale chemical weapons attack.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BALDWIN: No surprise here, Syria's friends, the Russians, remain unconvinced of that. They're calling the report, quote/unquote, one- sided and politicized.
And coming up next, the video everyone is talking about, take a look with me, and you will see this man dangling four stories in the air.
The building is on fire. He's got nowhere to go but down. You see the black smoke.
We're going to show you how this ends, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: This is just one of those cases where the video tells the story, this stunning scene in the Washington Heights area of New York City, where some people see this man dangling from his fourth story window.
His apartment on fire, and he tried to escape through the window, which had no fire escape, the daring rescue all caught on cell phone video.
Watch for yourself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, hey.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. No.
(CROSSTALK)
(APPLAUSE).
(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: I tell you, I had seen that before and I am still sitting here on the edge of my seat. I know the ending, but that's incredible.
Those are just people who lived in the area who saved him. The man was not seriously injured.
Firefighters who arrived later quickly then put out those flames.
A record day on Wall Street, will the Dow set an all-time high perhaps? The closing bell minutes away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: It took 19 hours, but the doomed cruise ship, the Costa Concordia, is one step closer to leaving the Italian coast.
You see this here. This is pretty cool time-lapse of the salvage mission to just raise this capsized ship.
The man in charge of the operation got a little emotional when he talked about his crew.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NICK SLOANE, SENIOR SALVAGE MASTER: The Costa Concordia is upright and safely resting on the ground, mattress and platforms.
And you can hear -- yeah, you can hear the guys (inaudible), jumping up and down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: The ship is scheduled to be towed to a wreckage yard next summer.
And in the next couple of days, investigators will board the ship looking for the bodies two of missing crew members and evidence that may be used in the trial of the ship's captain.
And before I let you go, I want to take you to New York and let's just look at the Big Board here.
I'm going to pause in just a couple of seconds so we can listen to that closing bell.
This is what we are waiting for. This is the 15,658 which it's above right now. If it hits above that number, that is a record high for the Dow.
Some big news from the fed today, keeping the stimulus going.
I'm just going to stop talking and let's just listen.
(APPLAUSE)
You hear the cheers, big, big news there on Wall Street. And I'm sure a lot of that is due to what we heard from Ben Bernanke here. That means your interest rates, mortgage, all low for now.
Now "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper begins now.
