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Obama "Encouraged" By Iran; Obama Orders Dialogue With Iran; Missing Teen Is A Murder Suspect; Senator Ted Cruz Starts Filibuster

Aired September 24, 2013 - 14:30   ET

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

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BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Bottom of the hour, I'm Brooke Baldwin. So far no meeting, accidental or otherwise, between Barack Obama and the new Iranian President Hasan Rouhani, both are on the ground of the United Nations Headquarters in New York amid clear signs of Iranian interest in better relations with Washington. More than a generation has passed since the two sides have been on speaking terms.

Just look at these pictures. This is then President Jimmy Carter shaking hands with the shah, leader of pre-revolution Iran and nothing but bitterness since. Iran has held Americans hostage. It called the U.S. the great Satan, supported terrorism add its previous president as he accelerated the country's nuclear program had a pension for sparking outrage, whether it's denying the holocaust ever happened to saying the U.S. government was behind 9/11.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy and its grips on the Middle East. Today the Zionist regime is on a definite collapse and there's no way for it to get out of the cess pool it created by itself and its supporters.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: By comparison Iran's new president at least is saying the right things and whether he and Barack Obama actually shake hands today, have arranged for a meeting on Thursday between Secretary of State John Kerry and the Iranian foreign minister and that in itself is a breakthrough.

Joining me now from New York is CNN's Christiane Amanpour. And Christiane, why the apparent change in heart in Tehran regarding its nuclear program? Is it the sanctions? Are they really -- how bad is Iran hurting now?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, obviously the sanctions really do hurt, but we haven't heard about a change of heart from Iran about the nuclear program. In fact, Iran insists that it should still have the right to a civil nuclear program. The issue is, are they prepared to have real negotiations that build up confidence after these 34 years of incredible mistrust so that the west can see and the rest of the world could see what it professes to be just a civilian nuclear program and not one that's diverting to military capabilities.

So that's the challenge. That's what Iran has to prove and then will the United States and the west decide to have some kind of meaningful reciprocity? In other words, would they lift some of the sanctions in exchange for a step-by-step transparency from the Iranians? I think that's at the heart of what's going on. Those two, you know, really antagonistic bits that you played from the previous president is what has gotten the world so angry about Iran and so fearful and mistrustful over the last eight years, much more fearful and mistrustful than they were before.

So President Rouhani, who's a moderate and who said that he had been elected with a mandate to pursue a more moderate, less extremist, those are his words, foreign policy and engagement with the west. He came here promising to show, quote, "the true face of Iran." He was obviously meaning not the face that was just presented by Ahmadinejad, his predecessor.

So clearly, in terms of style, there's a massive change already from the Iranian president. Everybody's waiting to see what kind of substance will change as well, whether meaningful negotiations can be undertaken to resolve this diplomatically.

Today I spoke with the French president, Francois Hollande, about all this and how Iran could hope to stave off even worse sanctions and even a possible Israeli attack, as Israel is always talking about.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT FRANCOIS HOLLANDE, FRANCE (through translator): If Iran is willing to negotiate to give up on its military nuclear program and get a civil nuclear program to be accepted then there is a possible solution. On the other hand, if a deadlock remains, what will happen? More and more sanctions, very burdensome for the Iranian economy and at some point, the threat of an operation so the Iranian president has to move from words to deeds.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So that was from your interview and that was my next -- you talked so much about the mistrust that underlines -- and who can forget the recent and past history? There are the critics and skeptics. You think of Netanyahu as well who is saying this Rouhani is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Is there anything we know about the new president of Iran that might suggest he's being genuine?

AMANPOUR: Well, again, in the famous words of President Reagan, it's trust but verify. There has to be some kind of resolution if it's going to avoid a military strike or an Iranian nuclear weapon. The aim obviously is to have some kind of diplomatic resolution to this if it is at all possible. The new President Rouhani, in fact, used to be the nuclear negotiator during the first reform era of 1998 through 2005.

The time he was the chief nuclear negotiator, and he was able to persuade the supreme leader in Iran to suspend Iran's uranium enrichment. That went on for a few years and it collapsed around the time of the election of Ahmadinejad. So he has got that background and furthermore, he says that he has the authority from the supreme leader now to negotiate on a diplomatic resolution to this situation.

Again, Iran has said it doesn't intend to give up its right to enrich but we'll see whether there's any possibility of some kind of meaningful negotiations. The previous reform president wrote an op- ed. It's quite extraordinary, actually, all of this outreach, saying this is the real thing.

When I was here, I tried to do it, but I didn't have the backing of the leadership, and I wasn't able to forge a consensus inside Iran. He says Rouhani has been able to forge a consensus and that the Iranian leadership wants to figure out a way how to resolve this diplomatically. Many are saying if this window isn't taken, well, it won't be open for a very, very long time.

BALDWIN: Christiane, thank you.

Coming up, murder mystery in Nevada after a mother and son were found brutally stabbed to death and now a twist as a relative once thought to be a victim is now the suspect. And he's a teenager and he's disappeared. We're on the case next.

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BALDWIN: A missing teenager in Nevada originally thought to be the victim of a gruesome crime is now the primary suspect in the death of his mother and his younger brother. Police in Henderson, Nevada, are desperately searching for Adrian Navarro Canales after his mother and brother were found stabbed to death in their apartment. A judge formally signed an arrest warrant Monday, charging the teen as an adult with two counts of murder. The 16-year-old's father is begging him, please come home.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ADRIAN NAVARRO, TEEN'S FATHER (through translator): Adrian, please call us. We are looking for you. Don't be afraid. I don't have any information about you. Call whoever you can, me, your aunts. Find a way to call us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: CNN's Stephanie Elam is working this one for us from L.A. And Stephanie, how did detectives go from, you know, victim here to suspect when it comes to this teenager?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I know, Brooke. It's an interesting twist in the story here. What has happened is that we do know that the niece of the mother who was found dead, 40-year-old Elvira Canales Gomez, she was found with a knife in her chest in the bathroom. Her youngest son, who would have been 10 next month, was in the tub, Cesar Navarro.

They believe that when they first saw that, that he could be also someone who may have been hurt, this older son. But they noticed that the keys were gone. They noticed that his cell phone was gone and so when they started looking at the scene, they figured there might be more to the story.

As you take a look at the story, they think that this may actually have happened on Tuesday afternoon, but the bodies were not discovered until Friday. This is not because people weren't asking for welfare checks.

In fact, there were three prior ones, prior to the one that led to the discovery of the two bodies, this coming from the boyfriend of the mother who kept going to the door, kept calling, kept asking police to check because he knew something was wrong. And then he enlisted the help of his niece. That's how they were able to do this, once they found out Cesar had not been to school and she had not been to work -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: We heard the father's plea for his son to come home. Has anyone heard from Adrian since this happened?

ELAM: The interesting thing was there was one text message that was sent on Wednesday. It was to his father. He said this he was sorry, that he had not been in touch that, his phone had been dead. He had just charged it. He said the others were fine, but that they were sleeping. Since then, they believe that Adrian has since turned off his phone.

What's also interesting here is what has been discovered. That A, he's not been enrolled in high school since November of 2012. They didn't know that apparently. The family members did not. And he was known to be anti-social and that he had acted out and been violent towards his mother, even allegedly punching her or hitting her before.

So these details coming out along with the fact that his cousin was saying she believes that he's been in the apartment since the investigation cleared out of the apartment. So he may not be far away -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK, Stephanie Elam, keep us posted. Steph, thank you.

We are now also getting word, live pictures, here he is, Republican Senator Ted Cruz speaking right now on the Senate floor about his opposition to Obama care. The Texas senator says he will talk until he can no longer stand there.

Keep in mind he's been getting a lot of heat from folks within his own party calling him a fraud. How long will he go? We're going to listen in. We'll go to Capitol Hill and break this down for you next.

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BALDWIN: I want to take you to Capitol Hill. Something interesting is happening. The man here in the blue tie, this is Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz. He's standing and speaking and speaking and talking because he's this -- really, I don't know if he's the lone, but one of the only Republican senators who agrees with many of his House colleagues.

Because you know it was last Friday when his House colleagues passed that continuing resolution that they essentially -- this all has to do with passing the budget. They put this teeny, tiny provision if there saying in order for the government to continue being funded, we want to defund Obamacare. Now this sits with the Senate.

Dana Bash, let me go straight to you, our chief congressional correspondent. You can big picture this for me and explain what the heck is going on.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: What's going on is Ted Cruz just got to the Senate floor about 10 minutes ago. He said that he is going to stand and talk about defunding Obamacare until I'm no longer able to stand. So he is going to be talking likely all afternoon, maybe even all night, I'm told by a source close to him. But here's the big but.

Let's keep them honest, as our friends at "AC360" would say. This is time for Ted Cruz to talk, but he's not delaying anything. He's not changing the timing of these procedural votes. They're going to happen when they happen. It's already scheduled for sometime tomorrow, maybe around noon. This certainly is a chance for Ted Cruz to speak, and he's going to do it for hours and hours and hours.

But this is not the traditional Jimmy Stewart kind of filibuster where he's going to hold everything up because the wheels are already in motion for the votes to happen. The first vote is expected to be tomorrow, which will be to -- it's a vote he doesn't want to take place, which is all of his Republicans are going to go against him and not support him in blocking this.

BALDWIN: OK. So this is the context. You said he's been talking for about 10 minutes. Let's just pause and take a listen.

(LIVE SPEECH - JOINED IN PROGRESS)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: -- when we're home on the campaign trail, we say we listen. Yet, something about this Senate floor, something about Washington, D.C. -- I don't know if it's the water, something in the air, the cherry blossoms, but people get here and stop listening to the American people. You know, throughout the state of Texas as I travel -- and I spent the month of August and beginning of September traveling, virtually every day on the road throughout Texas and across the country, listening, hearing the stories.

The American people are hurting. This is a difficult time. Look, the very rich, they're doing fine. In fact, they're doing better under President Obama than they were before. But hard working American families are struggling and their life has become harder and harder and harder.

And Madam President, Obamacare is the biggest job killer in this country. The American people want to stop this madness and so do I. Here in Washington, we pass million-dollar bills, billion-dollar bills no one has ever read, often without even voting on them. We call it unanimous consent. It's only unanimous because they don't let anyone know.

(END LIVE SPEECH COVERAGE)

BALDWIN: OK. We have Dana Bash. What's the bigger picture? What's this really about? Gloria Borger, let me go to you, our chief political analyst here because we've heard from within the Republican Party and even colleagues in the Senate, you know, they're very against this strategy of, you know, allowing the government to, you know, not fund the government, this whole idea of defunding Obamacare.

They disagree with Republican colleagues in the House. What is this really about, though, other than putting him on national television and showing him talking and talking and talking? What's in it for him to do this?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, they want to defund Obamacare, they say. Republicans are at least united on that. What they're not united on is the strategy and the tactics. You know, Ted Cruz is kind of an interesting character. Dana did a piece on this earlier today.

He's somebody who's relatively new to the Senate, came with national ambition and has not been shy, shall we say, about proclaiming that national ambition and some of his colleagues believe he's done it without regard for them. When the House passed its legislation last week, defunding Obamacare, initially Ted Cruz came out and said, well, we can't do that in the Senate, we don't have the votes.

They felt like he had left them out on a limb. Then he had to backtrack and take up the cause, as you see him doing there, because he came under a great deal of criticism by his own Republicans. So I would have to say internally in Congress, he's not very well liked by members of his own party. They understand he has national ambition, and I think that's what you're seeing here right now. This is somebody who clearly has an eye on the presidency.

BALDWIN: OK, Gloria Borger, thank you. We'll continue watching him talking there. I think it's just really important to keep in mind Dana mentioned the Senate will be voting tomorrow. The clock is ticking. It is after September 30th, that's the deadline for the government shutdown. Gloria, thank you very much.

Coming up, we'll take you back inside a courtroom in Los Angeles where jurors are hearing the closing arguments in a trial over Michael Jackson's death.

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BALDWIN: Penn State University getting some relief from scholarship cuts related to the whole Jerry Sandusky scandal. The NCAA says it's going to begin restoring football scholarships to Penn State gradually as the school works toward athletics integrity. The school is banned on playing in the postseason and a $60 million fine will remain in place. The penalties were imposed on Penn State after former football assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, was convicted of child sex abuse charges. Investigators found that top university officials failed to act on and in some cases actively concealed information about Sandusky's behavior.

Coming up, he has just a couple of hours to do so, but should President Obama meet with Iran's new president, you're about to hear both viewpoints.

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