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New York City Voters Could Elect Their First Democrat Mayor Since The 1980s; 11 Colorado Counties Voting On Whether To Secede, Form A State; Governor Chris Christie Re-Election Seen As A First Step Toward 2016 White House Campaign; Virginia Race In National Spotlight; Gallup: Obama Approval Plummets; White House: Obama Can't Go Back In Time; Senator Rand Paul Makes Changes After Plagiarism Accusations; Inmate: Macneill Claimed Police Had No Evidence That He Killed His Wife; Daughter Defends Mother Who Police Say Sold Daughters' Virginity For $200

Aired November 05, 2013 - 14:30   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Here we go. Bottom of the hour. Election Day 2013. So, let me run this through for you. In New York, we could see a Democratic mayor elected for the very first time in decades. In Colorado, voters in 11 counties are considering secession and there's already talk about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's future plans.

Let's play reporter roulette. Deborah Feyerick, first to you live in New York. Set the scene for me.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we can tell you a lot of people have been turning up at the polls today. Democrat Bill De Blasio has been polling 40 points ahead of his Republican challenger. De Blasio, as you may remember, is a former staffer for both Bill and Hillary Clinton. He is a proud progressive. He is working to close the financial gap between the city's rich and poor.

The way he plans to do that is by raising taxes on the rich to help educate and create universal pre-k for low-income children. Now De Blasio's biracial family has really resonated heavily with black and Latino voters.

Meantime, the underdog, Republican candidate, businessman, Joe Lhota, he once served as Mayor Giuliani's budget director, he is tough on crime. He's more closely aligned with the current mayor, Michael Bloomberg. De Blasio would be the city's first Democratic mayor in more than two decades, stunning when you think that the majority of voters here are actually Democrats -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Deborah Feyerick, thank you. Ana Cabrera live for us in Denver today. Tell me why these voters may want to secede.

ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, there are 11 counties in Northern Colorado voting on whether or not to create a 51st state. These are rural communities angry at a Democratic-run legislature, the House, the Senate, the governor's office all Democratic majority. They're mad about gun control. They're mad about renewable energy standards. This is the way they think they're going to best have their voices heard. The idea of secession isn't likely to become a reality regardless of how today's vote goes, but it certainly sends a powerful message -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Ana Cabrera, thank you very much. And Erin McPike in New Jersey for us today. We know why that governor's race is getting national attention, don't we?

ERIN MCPIKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We sure do, Brooke. And that's because Chris Christie has been on something of a victory lap, really, over the past week as he's been on a 90-stop bus tour. That's because he has been ahead in the polls some 20 to almost 40 points ahead of his Democratic opponent. The real question tonight is not, of course, whether or not he's going to win. We know it'll be a blowout. The real question is can he go beyond a 30-point margin? Everybody is watching to see what he'll do next. He's been very open about the fact that he may very well look at a presidential race in 2016 -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Erin McPike, thank you very much.

And one other key race in the national spotlight today, the Virginia race for governor. Saw Hillary Clinton, even President Obama get involved to help Democrat Terry McAuliffe. Republican Ken Cuccinelli has tried to link McAuliffe to the president's shaky health care rollout. McAuliffe has tied his opponent to congressional Republicans and the government shutdown. So it's really seen as this bell weather for how these issues will play out in future races.

Then there's this. Mayor Captain Jack Sparrow has a nice ring to it. Perhaps you prefer the guy from the pirate party who's not Captain Jack Sparrow. These are two of the 35 choices facing Minneapolis voters today as they choose a new mayor. Minneapolis did away with primary elections, allowing just about anyone with the $20 filing fee to run for the city's top jobs. Voters are asked to pick their top three choices.

If no one gets 50 percent of the vote, a series of run-off elections will determine the city's new mayor. Depending on the outcome, city council meetings in Minneapolis could get a whole lot more interesting.

And as we mentioned at the top of the hour here, President Obama's job approval ratings taking another hit. Gallup, take a look at the numbers with me. Just completed a survey and found this approval rating now dipping down to 39 percent.

So let's take you to the White House to our senior correspondent there, Jim Acosta, who had a pretty interesting exchange with Jay Carney not too long ago. Tell me about that.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's right. I think the only thing that can explain that dip, and it's a pretty significant dip, in those poll numbers, Brooke, is this intervening event that occurred with the rollout of Obamacare, this disastrous rollout of Obamacare. Then the president basically having this problem with something that he said to the American people time and again, if you like your plan, you can keep it, talking about their insurance before the implementation of Obamacare.

Obviously, that has not been the case, with perhaps millions of Americans receiving cancellation notices from their insurer. So we've gone back to Jay Carney time and again to ask him about the president's words. In the meantime, the president last night at an event with the organizing for action group that is basically his post- campaign volunteer action group, he basically went back and talked about that pledge that he made to the American people about Obamacare.

And he said basically if you have or had one of these plans before the affordable care act came into law and you really liked that plan, what we said was you could keep it if it hasn't changed since the law was passed.

So obviously the president is adding a few caveats, adding context there that wasn't there before when he made that pledge repeatedly. I asked Jay Carney at today's briefing here at the White House what is the deal with the president now adding those words to his original pledge? Here's how Jay Carney answered that question.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAY CARNEY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president, as awesomely power as the office is, can't go back in time. You know what the president is focused on is what we're all focused on, which is getting this right for the American people and getting it right for everyone so that the benefits of the Affordable Care Act, the improvements in the coverage that everyone will enjoy and the broader benefits for our economy because of the slower rate of growth and health care costs come about and come into being.

You know, there's no question that this rollout has not gone as smoothly as we had hoped and there's no question that the web site has caused a lot of problems for Americans trying to get information about the options available to them because of these marketplaces.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: And so Brooke, you just heard one exchange there. Actually, this went on for several minutes. I tried to ask Jay Carney, did the president misspeak? Does he admit that maybe he goofed? He messed this up? I asked as many different ways as you can. Jay really just did not want to concede, and this White House is not ready to concede that the president misspoke, Brooke. That is the bottom line here.

They are defending what the president said throughout that entire run up to the passage of Obamacare. They're sticking to it at this point. They're basically saying, if people are losing their insurance, that's the fault of the insurance companies, not Obamacare.

One thing Jay Carney did say, though, is that they are making a vow to the American people to fix this, to get this right so people who do lose their coverage can get on this web site whenever it's up and running at full capacity and get insurance that will get them covered -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: And because of all of this, again, the number from Gallup today, 39 percent in that approval rating.

ACOSTA: Yes, lowest since 2011. Not good.

BALDWIN: Not good. Jim, thank you.

Coming up next, Senator Rand Paul facing accusations of plagiarism, now announcing some changes inside his office, we'll explain what that means.

Also, what a day in Toronto, live pictures here as we have learned the Mayor Rob Ford has admitted not too long ago that, yes, indeed, he smoked crack in his office. Any minute now, we'll see him appear yet again. What will he say next? Stay with me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: So we are now learning that Senator Rand Paul is making some changes to how things are done in his office. This is all in response to those accusations that two of his speeches borrowed from Wikipedia. Paul was at a campaign event in Virginia last week for a candidate there when he said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: In the movie "Gattaca" in the not too distant future, eugenics is common and DNA plays the primary role in determining your social class.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So you heard the words you were reading with us. Those are the lines nearly identical to a "Gattaca" plot summary on Wikipedia. Senator Rand says he gave credit to the people who wrote the movie. So let's talk about this with chief congressional correspondent, Dana Bash, who's on the phone with me because we're learning these changes in his office, Dana, quoting a spokeswoman, "restructuring the approval process." What does that mean?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): That means in layman's terms, they're going to try to get their act together in Senator Rand Paul's office, in his world. Most importantly and specifically among the people who write the material he used. Not just in speeches but in op-eds. Information has come out in the past few days that an op-ed that he wrote in September was -- reports were that word for word parts of it had appeared in a magazine. Parts of a book had been lifted from someplace else.

Senator Paul gave an interview to "The New York Times" where he was really defiant and also explaining this new process saying they're not going to fire anybody, no one is going to lose their job, but, quote, "If it will make people leave me the hell alone, we're going to do that," meaning the process, like college papers, meaning they're going to put footnotes out, make information available about where the citations come from in his speeches and so forth.

Look, he understands that this is a big deal and that this is a potentially very big problem for him. So he's trying to figure out a way to nip it in the bud, understanding, according to "The New York Times," that he doesn't necessarily know if other things might come out.

BALDWIN: Just quickly, Dana, remind us, who typically writes speeches for senators like this?

BASH: That's a great question and an important thing to keep in mind here. Every senator, every politician does things differently. But for somebody like Rand Paul, who admits that he has a large volume of speeches, of op-eds, of information coming out in his name of his office, he outsources to his staff. That's not unusual.

Most politicians do that. But for him, he has admitted that they have probably -- maybe they tried to do too much to try to be out there a lot and that he approves things on his blackberry, in his car going from one place to another, as do others. Maybe they do things too much and too fast. Perhaps this is something they have to think about doing.

Obviously, the reason we're talking about Rand Paul isn't just because he's a senator who seems to have these problems. It's because he's a very high-profile one, someone who's not been shy about ambitions for president in 2016, and this is a potential issue that he knows full well he's got to deal with.

BALDWIN: Dana Bash, thank you very much.

BASH: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: And any minute, the mayor of Toronto, the fourth largest city in North America, will speak live. These are live pictures here. Just mere hours after he admitted to smoking crack while in office. So what the heck will he say when he appears this time? Stay right with me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Once again, as we come up on live pictures -- on the left side of your screen, this is taped from a little while ago when the mayor of Toronto admitted to the scrum of reporters in city hall that, yes, in one of his drunken stupors, he did, in fact, smoke crack cocaine approximately one year ago, so that huge admission happening not too long ago. Right side of your screen, live pictures as we have learned the mayor is reappearing today. What he will say and why we have to wait to find out. So stay tuned as we await that.

Let me take you to Provo, Utah. The murder trial of Dr. Martin Macneill today showcased testimony from four federal inmates who knew Macneill when he was serving time for identity theft. The first inmate identified only as Number Three was asked about his conversations with the man known as Doc about allegedly killing his wife.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just asked him, I said, Doc, they say you murdered your wife and he was like, no, I didn't murder my wife. If I did, they don't have any evidence. So you know -- and I was like, Doc, they say you murdered her. He was like, no, I'm going to go home. They don't have any evidence.

JARED PERKINS, PROSECUTOR: What else did he say about evidence against him?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nothing, really, except they didn't have any evidence and they couldn't prove anything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Let's talk about this. Let me bring in HLN's Jane Velez- Mitchell. Jane, let's back up to what we just heard. Can you give me context there?

JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, HLN HOST: Well, if the prosecutor didn't look too happy, it's because this inmate that they brought on with so much fanfare and we expected just a slam dunk for the prosecution, you heard what he just said. That the doc said, that means this guy, the defendant, no, I didn't murder my wife, and if I did, they don't have any evidence.

I actually saw Dr. Macneill smile at one point. It's the first time I think I've seen him smile. This was very, very bad for the prosecution, in my opinion. There was such hype surrounding this. We really thought that we were going to hear that Dr. Macneill was walking around, bragging behind bars about how he had offed his wife. We didn't really hear that.

What we heard is that he called his wife the "b" word. We heard that from two inmates. And we heard comments he made about his adult daughters, who charged the case against him. But we didn't hear any inmate saying, yes, I killed my wife and I got away with it. That's what we thought we were going to hear so big disappointment.

BALDWIN: Why was there even a question as to whether or not this testimony would be allowed?

MITCHELL: Well, I mean, these are criminals. These are people who have done very bad things. They are liars. That's what their criminal record shows. So they have a very big credibility problem. There was a huge debate before they took the stand this morning where the prosecution and the defense were arguing about what would they be allowed to say?

Would, in fact, these inmates be allowed to say that Dr. Macneill referred to his wife using the "b" word? Ultimately, yes, but they eliminated other things. You're talking about people who are convicted criminals. Obviously, their word doesn't mean a heck of a lot.

BALDWIN: I mean, if you're a juror sitting in that courtroom, I would be questioning the veracity of a hardened criminal sitting on the stand. How do they work that in the favor of defense?

MITCHELL: Well, I mean, actually, I thought the first inmate who took the stand sounded quite believable. He said he used to work out with Dr. Macneill and they became friends. He said, Doc, word out here is you killed your wife. The answer, unfortunately for the prosecution, was that Dr. Macneill said, no, I didn't murder my wife, and if I did, they don't have any evidence. That's not something you can hang your hat on. So if they was the big crescendo that we were expecting, not so much.

BALDWIN: Not so much. Jane Velez-Mitchell, thank you, as always. Watch Jane on HLN at 7:00 p.m. Eastern.

Now, one family, two very different descriptions of the same mother, police say a woman in Columbia who is a mother of 14 forced her daughters to sell their virginity for about $200. Some were allegedly as young as 12 years of age. Now one of her own daughters is speaking out, and would you believe, coming to mom's defense, saying her mother is innocent and has made so many sacrifices just to raise her children.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARYURI ZAPATA, DAUGHTER (through translator): I don't understand why they're accusing my mother without proof, without getting everybody's testimony. I don't know why she's doing that. What's more, my mother didn't raise her. Why are they saying my mother sold her, knowing that she gave her to another lady when she was little? It's not fair. It's not fair that they're accusing a person without gathering proof, without being sure that what they're saying is true.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Police launched this investigation when one of the sisters contacted officers seeking help. The mother here has denied these accusations and has not been formally charged. But police are standing by their case, saying they, indeed, have proof and that the older daughters changed their stories upon realizing their mother would be sent to jail.

Coming up, passengers forced to run for their lives after flames erupt on the tarmac. Look at these pictures. We'll play more of this for you, show you how these dramatic moments unfolded. Also, live pictures in Toronto, again, we await -- look at the press here. They're awaiting and watching for the mayor of Toronto, who hours ago admitted to smoking crack cocaine while in office. What will he say next? Stay with me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Now to some of the hottest videos of the day. We call it "Hit Play."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN (voice-over): Fire on the tarmac. Passengers just settling in for takeoff in Montreal forced to run for their lives after a luggage cart burst into flames. You see people sliding off the plane, running from the smoke. Several of them needed medical attention.

This Oregon middle school football coach fired. Why, for organizing a team dinner, of all places, at Hooters. Word got out of the event's risque location and the coach got canned. He apparently was offered other spots to dine, but he refused and says he has no regrets.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not allowing myself to be bullied by the vocal minority is the example, is the war I want to win.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On my right is the new Dodge Durango with up to 360 horsepower. On my left is one horse.

BALDWIN: Dodge definitely feeling the power of Ron Burgundy, those new ads featuring the anchorman apparently a huge hit. Sales of Dodge Durangos up 59 percent last month. Stay classy, Ron.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The luxurious things in life are -- what are you doing? Get out of here! Get out of here, you dumb dancers.

BALDWIN: And that's today's "Hit Play."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: The rollout of his signature law is a mess, and now President Obama changing his tune in a complete reversal of a promise he made Americans. I'm Brooke Baldwin. The news is now.

He's known for speaking his mind. Just a short time ago on this Election Day, Chris Christie doesn't hold back in an interview with CNN.

Did the childhood of a football player contribute to his alleged harassment of a teammate?

Plus, a little girl was reportedly scared to show her parents a bad report card. Now years later, she's found starved to death, her body burned. We're on the case.

And did the football coach who collapsed on the field see signs of a mini stroke?