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Obama May Meet with New Iranian President; Project Unbreakable for Rape Victims; Vigilante Justice in Detroit; Pornographer Insists on Condoms

Aired September 20, 2013 - 15:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: A new Iranian president could be the key to improved relations between Iran and the United States.

Next week at the U.N. General Assembly meeting, President Obama is expected to meet with President Hassan Rouhani. It's the first meeting between the country's presidents since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Already, Rouhani is taking steps to soften the rhetoric we're used to hearing from Iran, on Twitter, well wishes for the Jewish new year, and in the pages of "The Washington Post," pledging to, quote, "engage in constructive interaction with the world."

We're joined by Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN's "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS," and, Fareed, even the simple act of these two leaders shaking hands is huge.

But what will become of this, and America's key concern, Iran's nuclear program?

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST, "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS": I think that America's key concern without any question is Iran's nuclear program. It's not the only one, but what you see here is a concerted strategy.

As you pointed out, there's the tweet. There's the op-ed. There have been several statements he's made that have been very conciliatory. He's talked about flexibility in negotiations.

He's talked about transparency, which is a code word for meaning, I may be willing to let inspectors into my country to look at my nuclear program.

So he's -- and this has been going on really since the day he was elected. In fact, it goes back to his campaign.

So this is not just one or two stray pieces of good news. The whole thing is very, you know, encouraging.

BALDWIN: From the president of Iran, let's talk presidential politics here in the states. You talked exclusively to Bill Clinton, the burning question, of course, will his wife Hillary Clinton run for president.

Here's part of your interview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't -- somebody may know, but I don't. I'm not one of the people who does.

ZAKARIA: When you look at her poll numbers, can any other Democrat even get into the race?

How would you raise money when you have -- I don't think I have seen numbers like this, close to 70 percent Democrats say they would vote for her.

CLINTON: Well, I think partly that's because she served well as secretary of state, and because people across the political spectrum finally got to see her the way those of us who know her see her.

And you know, when you're -- when I was president, she, like me, was subject to a long line of relentless criticism, and she did in the Senate.

She made a lot of friends in the senate among Republicans as well as Democrats. People in New York liked her across the political spectrum.

It was the first time the country had ever gotten to see her as somebody who just what you see is what you get. She shows up for work every day, gets stuff done, and is very strong about it.

I think that's -- bit these polls don't mean much, now, we're a long way ahead. I think she would be the first to tell you there's no such thing as a done deal ever, by anybody, but I don't know what she's going to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: OK, can you read between the lines of the Bill Clinton smile, Fareed? What do you make of that response?

ZAKARIA: I think as always with Clinton, it's very intelligent, very well thought through.

I would have to think that, if I were advising another Democratic candidate, I would say you have to assume she's running. She's doing everything that would put her in a position to be able to do it.

And remember, she doesn't need to do much. Hillary Clinton has two things that every candidate dreams of. She has essentially 100 percent name recognition, and she can raise money literally within weeks.

So when you have those two things, you can kind of sit back, get into the race whenever you think it's the right moment, but just the fear, the shadow of Hillary Clinton is casting a pall over the rest of the race.

As I said, who is going to get in when you're up against this, you know, 800-pound gorilla? BALDWIN: In the shadow, as you say. Fareed Zakaria, we'll be watching. Thank you.

You can watch the full President Bill Clinton-Fareed interview, Sunday, 10:00 a.m. Eastern, "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS."

Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

Coming up next, it's an online movement that is giving voice to survivors of rape. They're pictured with their signs, quoting their attackers.

The phrases are raw, they're powerful and the survivors say it's a way for them to heal.

We're going to talk to the young woman who started this whole online campaign, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Just in to us here at CNN, BlackBerry announcing it will lay off more than 4,000 people after losing nearly $1 billion in the second quarter.

This as the company launches a new smartphone amid some pretty tough competition in a market dominated by rivals Apple and Samsung.

And no doubt you have heard Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines." It's the biggest hit of the summer.

You may love it, you may love to hate it, but those lyrics aren't quite so catchy when you look at them the way the writer did at the society pages.

He put together the words from "Blurred Lines" in pictures from Project Unbreakable. This is an art project, this global art project, picturing photos of sexual survivors holding quotes from their attackers.

Notice the similarities in the words from the song and the real-life photos. That made us want to share more with you about the extraordinary project, Project Unbreakable.

We have invited the young woman behind this whole thing to join us. She's Grace Brown.

Grace, welcome. Congratulations. You're coming up on, what, two years in October here with Project Unbreakable, and here's my first question for you.

Survivors of sexual assault, they often don't want to reveal who they are because what they went through is so traumatic, so why have them hold up these photos with words their attackers spoke to them?

GRACE BROWN, FOUNDER, PROJECT UNBREAKABLE: Originally, I wanted to just have these posters so I could bring attention to this issue, bring awareness.

But after starting this project, I realized that there was a healing power behind taking back the words.

BALDWIN: Words are powerful. And these women and men are taking them back.

These photography sessions, I'm just curious, they look like it would be a pretty vulnerable moment for these people. I mean, what do these women tell you afterwards?

BROWN: It's very quiet. It's very short, very quiet. It's extremely emotional. You can feel the emotion as people walk in to be photographed.

And we actually don't converse all that much. I let them talk as much as they want to, if at all. And we leave with sometimes a hug, sometimes nothing, but it's always an honor.

BALDWIN: We think what you're doing is amazing. We just wanted to help you raise that awareness. Grace Brown, thank you.

It's called Project Unbreakable. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: There's some people in a close-knit Detroit community who are furious. In July, a 15-year-old girl told her parents she was raped on her way to work.

And to this day, the man she says raped her has not been arrested, so some men took mattered into their own hands.

Gary Tuchman reports

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Detroit resident Angel Garza is infuriated.

ANGEL GARZA, DETROIT RESIDENT: We're going to do what we have to do to protect our kids, and that's pretty much it.

TUCHMAN: For Garza, that means vigilante justice for a man being investigated for a rape in his neighborhood.

Garza posted this on Facebook. "If I seen him, I'd call the cops. Then I would beat the blank out of him until the cops arrive."

GARZA: In my heart, I felt like it was right.

TUCHMAN: And vigilante justice is what happened, but first, how it all began.

The Cafe Con Leche coffee house, a popular spot in southwest Detroit, a 15-year-old girl we'll call Jane had just gotten her first job here. She had Down's syndrome, so it was an especially wonderful accomplishment for her, and the cafe owner thought it was wonderful, too.

JORDI CARBONELL, CAFE OWNER: She was walking to my place when this happened.

TUCHMAN: She was walking to your restaurant from her house when this happened?

CARBONELL: To my place.

TUCHMAN: Jane, who just turned 16 the other day, told her parents and police a man took her into this apartment building and raped her. We're just a few blocks away from her home and the cafe.

According to court records and the police, the man is mentally ill and is well known in this neighborhood for his bizarre behavior. After the incident, many wanted to see a quick arrest, but it wasn't to be.

Jane reported the incident immediately, but police acknowledge it took weeks for a rape kit to be sent to the police lab, which along with the mental state of the accused contributed to the fact that weeks went by with no arrest.

People in the neighborhood started getting angry and worried. In their minds, there was a rapist in their midst. Deb Sumner wrote a warning flyer.

DEB SUMNER, NEIGHBORHOOD RESIDENT: We copied it, printed it, disseminated it, door to door.

TUCHMAN: The flyer had pictures of the man police were investigating as well as his name. The flyer declares, "Rapist warning. Please be aware a man has raped a 16-year-old woman in our neighborhood."

Angel Garza posted that flyer on his Facebook account, which has over 100 "Likes."

Garza said two acquaintances of his saw the man in a parking lot.

GARZA: That's where they initially ran up on him and attacked him.

TUCHMAN: These guys you knew?

GARZA: Yes.

TUCHMAN: And they attacked him. What did they do to him?

GARZA: They beat him up with fists. Then there were reports of that they used a bat.

TUCHMAN: And then he got away, walked down the street over here, you're telling me.

GARZA: He walked down 25th. From there, another neighbor, some people in the community, seen him, and I guess they came out and they had the same feelings as we did. And they started attacking him there.

TUCHMAN: The man ended up in the hospital.

And shortly after, this was spray painted on the apartment house he lives in. You can still faintly see the word "rapist" on the building. It's been impossible to completely clean off.

The man is not here. He's currently living in an undisclosed location.

Angel Garza says he wasn't involved in the beating but wanted to be.

TUCHMAN: You know he's mentally ill, though, right?

GARZA: Honestly, I didn't know that until after the fact. But this man --

TUCHMAN: Would that have mattered, though?

GARZA: No, because I have had plenty of encounters with this man myself, right here, down the street, and he did not seem that mentally ill.

TUCHMAN: What do Jane's parents feel about all this? They didn't want to do an interview, but they asked some of their friends to meet us at the cafe.

Bill Kellerman is the pastor at their church. What did the parents say to you about the fact this man got beaten up?

REVEREND BILL WILEY KELLERMAN, NEIGHBORHOOD RESIDENT: They were heartbroken. That was not what they wanted. And they don't believe that's justice.

TUCHMAN: Rashida Tlaib is a family friend and a state legislator.

RASHIDA TLAIB, NEIGHBORHOOD RESIDENT: I think that was their worst fear. When it happened, I think they were in so much pain that it had to resort to something like this.

TUCHMAN: Megan Heeres used to live across the hall from Jane and her adopted parents.

MEGAN HEERES, NEIGHBORHOOD RESIDENT: It's prolonging the hurt and pain of this. You know, it's not what the family wants.

TUCHMAN: The investigation into the rape continues. No arrest has yet been made.

Gary Tuchman, CNN, Detroit.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Gary, thank you.

And before he was attacked, investigators took the mentally ill suspect in for questioning and released him, but Wayne County prosecutors say the investigation is still active.

Meanwhile, Detroit police continue their probe into the vigilante attack.

Here's a look at what's coming up tonight on CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: CNN tonight, at 8:00 on "ANDERSON COOPER 360," a new resident of a small North Dakota town wants to make it all white.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not hate. It's the First Amendment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But see how some longtime locals are fighting back.

And on "PIERS MORGAN LIVE" at 9:00, who's really to blame in the death of Michael Jackson?

As the defense rests in the wrongful death trial, what does it mean for the doctor already behind bars for his death? Piers gets Conrad Murray's side of the argument.

It's all on 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)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: There's a new twist on the hazards of being a pedestrian. Watch the man with me crossing the street in Houston, Texas. You see him? Walking along and then you see the SUV, smack dab runs into him.

The twist here, the man driving that SUV is Houston's police chief. Now the chief admits he is at fault.

Here it is again. His punishment, a one-day suspension without pay and he will take a defensive driving course.

The man who was hit, he's OK.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROOKE MOSTELLER, MISS SOUTH CAROLINA: This was just very much a lack of judgment on my part, and I should not have said it, and I knew that in my gut.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That is Miss South Carolina, regretting something she said during the Miss America pageant.

She said she is quote, "From the state where 20 percent of our homes are mobile because that's how we roll."

The joke fell flatter than a beauty contestant with a broken stiletto. Miss South Carolina says if anyone was offended, she's sorry.

One director is making waves in the porn industry. She has a new rule for her actors and says it should be something that's done across the whole industry, and that has some people outraged. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You may have heard the world of pornography is apparently in turmoil and it's all thanks to one thing, condoms.

CNN's senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen took our cameras to the set of a porn shoot to find out more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRISTAN TAORMINO, PORNOGRAPHER: Cheat it for me. Let me see what you're doing.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Tristan Taormino directs people how to have sex.

TAORMINO: Nibble your way down his leg.

COHEN: She's a veteran pornographer.

TAORMINO: Give me a cuddly, oh, my god, that was awesome, that kind of thing.

COHEN: She's shot a lot of steamy romps over the years, but from now on, she will be doing something very different and very controversial. She'll be requiring her male performers to use condoms.

TAORMINO: I want everyone to use a condom so that I can feel good at the end of the day that I did as much as I could to protect my performers.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Elizabeth Cohen is here.

So, California, as I learned, this is the porn capital, there was a bill that would have required the actors or performers, I guess as they're called, to have to use condoms. That failed to pass.

So why is this woman saying to her performers you have to use them?

COHEN: It's interesting, in L.A. County, you are supposed to use condoms, but a lot of people say it's not enforced so a lot of people don't use condoms.

This one producer says look, I was about to cast my newest porn flick and a woman on the short list was one of the women who has come down with HIV recently. She found out a few weeks later.

She's like, what if I cast her and she had given HIV to one of my other performers? I would feel terrible about that. She said, I just -- I'm going to do this. Three recent cases of HIV, other recent STDs, she's like, I've just got to make this happen.

BALDWIN: I guess, you think of the health, I don't know how many people they're with. Why wouldn't they use condoms?

COHEN: The porn industry says look, we tried this before and our revenues went down by about 30 percent.

BALDWIN: When people use them?

COHEN: When people use them, because they said viewers want the fantasy. They don't want the public health message.

And the other reason is that some of the performers say look, we're having sex for hours and hours and hours when we shoot these things and that much latex rubbing against that much skin has its own problems.

So a lot of the performers don't want to wear these, either. You may think the performers want to but a lot of them tell me we do not want to wear them.

So it will be interesting to see and the producer we just saw, she said she knows that she could lose some performers. She knows some performers will prefer not to act with her, but she said that's just the way it goes.

BALDWIN: The nature of the biz.

Elizabeth Cohen, thank you very much.

And want to take you to Colorado. The governor there says the state is in a race against winter. They have to fix the 200 miles of road and 50 bridges wiped out by this week's floods because snow will begin falling soon in the Rockies.

The governor says a rapid response team has been set up to make the repairs before the first of December, but the governor says it could take two years to fix all the infrastructure damaged by the floods.

At least seven people died in the Colorado flooding. Three others are presumed dead. 17,000 buildings were damaged, including 2,000 homes. That is the situation for so many folks still today in Colorado.

I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you so much for being with me here on this Friday. Have a great weekend.

I'm going to send things up to Washington now to my colleague Jake Tapper. "THE LEAD" starts right now.