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Important Virginia Governors Race; Washington State Initiative on GMO Crops; Rethinking Nuclear Power; Injured Bronze Star Recipient Now a Rock Climber

Aired November 05, 2013 - 13:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Voters in Virginia are choosing a governor today and the outcome could have implications far beyond the state. Tea Party-backed Republican, Ken Cuccinelli, is up against the former Democratic National Committee Chairman, Terry McAuliffe. Polls leading into today's election showed McAuliffe with the edge.

We want to get some insight on the race from a former Virginia governor. We invited Doug Wilder to join us from Richmond.

Governor, thank you for coming in.

DOUGLAS WILDER, (D), FORMER GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA: Wolf, it's always good to be with you, my friend.

BLITZER: All right. Well, you're a Democrat. So, people shouldn't be surprised you've endorsed Terry McAuliffe, but it took you a little while to make that decision. What finally convinced you he would be a better governor than Ken Cuccinelli?

WILDER: Well, I like his straightforwardness. I like the fact that he stands up. I like that he says that I'm not doing this for poll ratings or favorability, but because I believe in it. I like his energy. I like also that he is going to be someone that unites and brings people together. That's going to reach across the aisle and work with both of the parties and work with anybody for that matter and I think, Wolf, at this time, particularly in America, we need government to show a responsibility to show that it can work for all people.

BLITZER: We know he's very, very close to both Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton. They were campaigning for him. He's been among their best friend forever, I must say. Do you think -- what does this bode for 2016 assuming that Hillary Clinton runs for the Democratic presidential nomination?

WILDER: Well, you said assuming.

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

WILDER: No, I know. Be crazy not to know that Hillary is going to run. And if she runs, she's going to be the nominee. And if she is the nominee in Virginia, it's going to help her have a governor who is of her party and the state helping her to get elected, so none of those things are without consequences. But on the other hand, I think that there were great mistakes made in this election, particularly as it relates to Cuccinelli. He didn't run on the record that Bob McDonald had set forth. Nor did he distance himself significantly away from the Tea Party, and that hurt. Some of the people you've had on early speak about this. The Tea Party is fine. It's good. It's nice to have that. But when you're identification is such that it's divide and conquer, of division, ours or none, it's not going to be good and it's not going to help in this election in Virginia I don't believe.

BLITZER: You've been in Virginia your whole life.

WILDER: That's correct.

BLITZER: You've seen this state change dramatically over the years. In the years I've been living here in the Washington, D.C. area, northern Virginia has been booming, and so many people have moved in from other parts of the country. Just explain to our viewers, Virginia today is not what it was even 10 years ago.

WILDER: Absolutely, Wolf. That population in northern Virginia turns over at least a third or a quarter every 10 years or so. And so, people who are there from all over the country, in numbers of people likewise who have retired in other areas of Virginia, they may live in some of the rural areas or some of the suburban areas, but they're not dyed-in-the-wool, back to what we used to have. Virginia's not a red or a blue state. It's a people state. People are independently thinking, independent minded, and they're going to show that in their votes. That's why I think people are smart to campaign in Virginia at the national level because it's a new state. It's a new commonwealth. It's a new Virginia.

BLITZER: I'm sure you think that Terry McAuliffe will be the next governor of Virginia, but give me a prediction, how tight or not so tight do you think this race will be?

WILDER: I think if he wins by six points, he could carry in the ticket. If he wins by say five or four, he might not be able to carry the ticket.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: You're talking about the lieutenant governor, the attorney general.

WILDER: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: There's a possibility that all -- I don't know if you agree, Governor, that all five statewide elections, seats, if you will, the two Senate seats, the three other seats, would be held by Democrats in Virginia. WILDER: It could very easily be that way and, yet, I would think you're going to have the closest race of all of the three, in Virginia, would be the race for attorney general. If mark is within, I'll put it this way. If McAuliffe does not win by five so six or seven points, Oppenshain (ph) could win. I think that the lieutenant governor's race is over and was over, couldn't wait for the Republican candidate for that matter. But I do think that the coattail effects of McAuliffe, if it's six or more, he could carry the entire ticket in. And it would be a game changer.

BLITZER: Terry McAuliffe, let's see if he wins tonight. Ken Cuccinelli is the Republican.

Doug Wilder, thanks for joining us.

WILDER: Thank you. Thanks, always, Wolf.

BLITZER: My pleasure to have you on the program.

Up next, the ballot initiatives in Washington state. They're taking a closer look at food and whether consumers need to be warned if crops have been genetically modified.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: There are several interesting initiatives on ballots across the country. In Colorado, for example, residents in 11 northern counties are deciding if they want to break way and become the nation's 51st state. They'd be the smallest state, but even if the vote to secede, even if they did decide to succeed, it's unlikely they would get enough voters to support a statehood for northern Colorado. That would have to be approved by the Colorado legislature and the U.S. Congress, so it's almost certainly not going anywhere.

In Washington State, meanwhile, genetically modified foods on the ballot.

Our senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, joining us now.

Elizabeth, how common are these foods? What are they proposing to do in Washington State?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, they are very common. I can pretty much guarantee you, you and I have eaten genetically modified foods. It's in a lot of our soy, is genetically modified, a lot of our corn. What scientists do is take the gene from one living thing and put it in another. So, for example, take a gene from a bacteria, put it into corn, the corn can then resist certain bugs. Some say this is a good thing, some say this is a bad thing. What they're proposing in Washington to label foods that are genetically modified right on the front so people know what they're getting -- Wolf?

BLITZER: What do we know about the safety of genetically modified food? COHEN: Wolf, several major scientific groups have said this is perfectly safe for people to eat, but there are some people who say there are rodent studies that say it's not safe. So it kind of depends who you ask. Most mainstream scientists believe that genetically modified food is safe.

BLITZER: What's the argument against labeling?

COHEN: You may think, why not label them? Why not tell people what they're getting and let them decide. But some people say, if you label, you're going to make the food more expensive. It's expensive to figure out, if a food might have a lot of ingredients, are any of them genetically modified, does it need to be labeled, that costs money and we would see more expensive food in our communities.

BLITZER: That's an initiative on the ballot in Washington State. We'll see what happens tonight.

Elizabeth, thanks very much.

COHEN: Thanks.

BLITZER: Rethinking nuclear power. Despite the Fukushima nuclear meltdown, a change of heart from some environmentalists. We'll tell you about a though-provoking new documentary that examines whether what you think you know about nuclear power could be wrong.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Could long-held fears about nuclear power be wrong? There's a stunning new CNN Film that unveils new thinking about nuclear power and claims it may even hold the key to climate change. Look at this from "Pandora's Promise."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NARRATOR: Assuming that the world continues to develop and that China and India and Brazil become rich countries over the next half century or century, how much energy is the world going to use? When you start running those numbers, it's a sobering exercise.

And you may not be able to get that number exactly right, but you realize we're going to basically double the amount of energy we consume by 2050, probably going to quadruple it by the end of the century.

And, meanwhile, if you want to stabilize emissions at some reasonable level, almost all of that energy has to be clean energy. You've got to not only you know, create a clean energy infrastructure that will replace the fossil-fuel infrastructure we have, but we have to create yet another one or maybe two of them between now and 2050 or 2100 to stabilize the climate. And that is just nothing that anybody has really been talking or dealing with over the last 20 years.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BLITZER: All right, let's get right to the film's producer. Robert Stone is joining us from New York. Also joining us, our "Crossfire" co-host, Van Jones, an environmental advocate, as a lot of our viewers know.

Welcome to both of you.

Robert, the film's point of view is from an environmentalist who defected from -- a bunch of environmentalists, I should say -- who defected, if you will, now support using nuclear power. So here's the question: What changed their minds?

ROBERT STONE, FILM PRODUCER: Well, changed my mind as well. I've been an environmentalist my whole life, but it's 25 years of ethic failure on the part of the environmental movement to do anything to combat climate change. And I think it's -- the old definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I think, frankly, the environmental movement is guilty of that. So it's incumbent on us to put everything on the table, all clean energy sources and see what works. And nuclear power produces prodigious amounts of nuclear energy with no pollution, no CO2. The more we looked at it, the more we realized almost everything we thought we knew about it was wrong.

BLITZER: What about that, Van?

VAN JONES, CO-HOST, CNN'S CROSSFIRE: Well, I think it's a fascinating film. In some ways, what's weird is that the environmental movement is somehow being held up as the obstacle to nuclear power going forward. It's not, don't blame us. People don't want the stuff in their backyard. I don't think anybody in our viewership would say, hey, please put a nuclear power plant in my backyard. Please dump the waste in my backyard. They're looking at Japan where they just had a massive failure.

Part of the problem here is that nuclear power is incredibly expensive, especially when you have to deal with all the safety issues. You could make it less expensive. There's only one way to do that. You've have to have a carbon tax or Cap-and-Trade to get it cost competitive. If we're going to do it in a market-based way, which is what I think people want, then you have to have a carbon tax. Environmentalists have been fighting for a carbon tax or Cap-and- Trade, getting no help from anybody else. If you're going to attack somebody, don't attack the environmentalists, who are trying to get the costs right to make clean energy go forward. To me, that's the weird thing about the film. It seems --

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: All right, Robert, go ahead and --

(CROSSTALK)

STONE: I'm not attacking environmentalists. I am an environmentalist. And everybody in my film is an environmentalist. I think if there is some -- if people are to be held to account, it's the leadership of the environmental movement. Just a couple of days ago, four of the world's leading climate scientists, including Dr. James Hansen, wrote a letter to the leadership of the environmental movement pleading with them to support the development of advanced nuclear technology to combat climate change, and that has been met with dismissal from the leadership. And I think it's -- they've doubled down on this epic failure for 25 years. I think it shows the leadership of the environmental movement has passed its expiration date. Young people need to take control of this movement and assert themselves so it operates in the interest of --

(CROSSTALK)

STONES: their interests and not the interests of the Cold War generation.

JONES: Well, listen, I'm all for new thinking. I think young people are all for new thinking. Here's the thing. The letter, nobody can argue with that letter. The letter says we should look into whether or not there can be this cleaner, more advanced -- listen, I'll tell you right now, I'll go on record. If this magical solution that's being described now, where there's no risk to anybody, where it's cheap, where it's clean, where there's no problem with waste, no problem with nuclear proliferation for weapons can happen, I'm for it. And when Puff the Magic Dragon shows up with that solution, great. But we have to deal right now with the opposition that's coming to the nuclear power we've got right now. And that's really what people are concerned about.

If you've got something besides a PowerPoint presentation that would work in the real world, I think people would love to hear about it. The problem is that right now the nuclear power we've got is very scary for people. I don't think you should be mad at people who are afraid of the downsides.

STONE: I'm not mad at anyone. Nobody in my film is advocating building more nuclear power plants like we had in the 1970s. I urge people to watch the film. You'll see we actually have developed these advanced reactors that consume their own waste, where the very physics of them prevent them from suffering a kind of meltdown like we had at Fukushima and Chernobyl and Three-Mile Island. That would be impossible. There's all kinds of exciting things that are happening in reactor technology that people just don't know about.

BLITZER: Well, let me interrupt and ask Robert the question Van raised earlier.

A lot of people are reluctant to see a nuclear power plant built in their own backyard. How do you get around that?

STONE: People are reluctant to have anything in their backyard. Whenever wind turbines go up on mountain ridges, they're against that. They've been protesting against solar rays in the California desert. But we all want our lights to go on. Personally, I would much rather live next to a nuclear plant than a coal plant any day. For instance, if you're scared of radiation, a coal plant puts out 100 times more radiation in the atmosphere every day than a nuclear plant. Who knows that? It also causes asthma --

(CROSSTALK)

STONE: -- and fossil fuels kill three million people every year.

JONES: You're singing my song now. I fought against coal plants the whole time. But I think it's important for the audience to understand that the cost of solar, and solar would be a part of the solution, has fallen by 99 percent since the '70s. The cost of nuclear keeps going up. And it doesn't yet seem to be much safer.

I think the film is fascinating. Everyone should watch it. It's a very important conversation. I just think sometimes it gets posed up as the old environmentalists attacking somebody. I think the jury is still out on this whole question.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Van Jones, at least both of you agree everyone should watch the film Thursday night right here on CNN.

JONES: Absolutely.

BLITZER: Van Jones, Robert Stone.

Important subject. Don't miss CNN Films' "Pandora's Promise," Thursday night, 9:00 p.m. eastern and pacific.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: In honor of Veterans Day next week, CNN's photojournalists turn their lenses on the brave men and women who have served this country. Today, on "Vets in Focus," CNN's Bob Crowley meets a Bronze Star recipient who was barely able to walk or speak after a combat injury but is now reaching new heights as a climber.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK COLGIN, U.S. ARMY VETERAN: This is a legendary, historic climbing area. The reason we're all here is because a part of us likes risk. When you go climbing, it takes you out of what would be your conventional element and forces you to come to terms with fear.

It's kind of like just being in the military in you always got to be ready.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nick first came into our programming about a year ago.

COLGIN: You mind if I have this piece right here?

What Paradox does is they take us vets and they pair us with just regular civilian disabled individuals.

(CROSSTALK)

COLGIN: They've been doing for years what I've been used to for the first two years or three years since I've been back from Afghanistan.

Climbing is just my way of dealing with transition. Dealing with life and death, risk, kind of the closest thing I have to being in the military now.

(on camera): I was fortunate enough to earn a Bronze Star for saving the life of a French soldier. Unfortunately, I was injured as well. I suffered a traumatic brain injury. I came home in 2008, couldn't spell my own name, couldn't walk without a cane, and I could barely speak.

(voice-over): You come home, and everybody thanks you for your service, but they really don't understand what you went through. It's hard to convey that.

This gets the heart pumping. It's good practice for those vertical walls that come in life.

When you're on a rock wall and come up to a problem, you just don't know if you can get through it. You're sweating, your heart's beating, you just want to give up. Then when you keep trying and you end up getting to the top, it's the best feeling in the world.

This one gets hard at the top.

(SHOUTING)

COLGIN: Feels good. Feels good. It lets you know you can feel again, that you're not numb.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boom.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Give it up, brother.

COLGIN: There's something inside you that's still alive.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Amazing story indeed.

I'll be back 5:00 p.m. eastern in "The Situation Room." Later in the evening, updates on the polls as they close, the results come in.

Meantime, NEWSROOM continues right now with Brooke Baldwin.