Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Republicans Taught How to Talk to Women; Winter Weather Blankets U.S.; Third Quarter Economy Grows 3.6 Percent; "Born To Run" For $197,000; Court Documents Indicate Ford Tried to Buy Back Crack- Smoking Video; "An Unreal Dream" Air Tonight; Pope Francis Launches Commission to Prevent Child Abuse; Universal Pictures Online Tribute to Paul Walker

Aired December 05, 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: Bottom of the hour. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

And here's a question for you. Does the GOP need some help when it comes to women? You remember Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin's comments last year in an effort to explain when it was OK for a woman to have an abortion. He said it was fine if the pregnancy was the result of a rape, but only if it was a -- quote, unquote -- "legitimate rape." Remember that?

Not long after, another Republican Senate candidate, Richard Mourdock, was slammed for saying, even if life begins with rape, that it's something that God intended to happen.

Hint: This is not the way to win over women.

So, House Speaker John Boehner has a plan, and that is to teach his party a thing or two about how to talk to women.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), HOUSE SPEAKER: Trying to get them to be a little more sensitive.

You know when you look around the Congress, there are a lot more females in the Democrat caucus than there are in the Republican caucus, and you know, some of our members aren't as sensitive as they ought to be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash, when I hear the word sensitive, please explain.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, Brooke, you and I did a story on this whole concept of Republicans reaching out to women, being aggressive in doing so.

A couple of months ago, you remember, I talked to some of the Republican female members about how they were going about doing outreach, and also trying to explain to their male counterparts that there are some ways you speak and some ways you shouldn't speak when you're trying to appeal to female candidates.

But when you're looking at the global problem with Republicans, it's two things. One is that there's a huge gender gap. It's not new, but it's a lot worse than it used to be.

In 2012, Mitt Romney had the biggest gender gap in history, 12 points between he and Barack Obama. But, so it's -- that's one thing, female voters.

But the other problem is that they don't have --

BALDWIN: Members.

BASH: -- enough members -

BALDWIN: Right.

BASH: ... in order to roach out to the voters.

And just look at these numbers. They're really stark, 232 members of the house Republican caucus. Nineteen, Brooke, 19 of those are women. That's all.

So they're trying to do two things. One is appeal to women to run and try to get some of the female candidates running to win.

But also try to get female voters to support their Republican candidates, men or women.

BALDWIN: Just do quickly, do you think John Boehner is confident in this sensitivity training? Think it will work?

BASH: You know, unclear. Unclear, but it is really, really interesting, just really quickly, what they're doing. It's broad media training. Every candidate has it and both parties do it.

But they are adding an element of explaining that, you know, not only should you not say the things that Todd Akin and others said when you're talking about rape and abortion, but also, make yourself more human.

This is men we're talking about. Talk about yourself as a father and as a husband and things like that that men maybe not -- don't normally do when they're, you know, doing policy as a politician.

BALDWIN: Right. Dana Bash, thank you so much for me in Washington today.

Coming up, the lyrics of Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run," this has been running through my head all day, on the auction block today. Can you imagine, the hand-written lyrics?

The bidding had closed. What was the winning price, do you think? We'll have that for you, coming up.

Also, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford under fire again, new allegations that the mayor tried to buy a video that showed him smoking crack, and that's just the beginning of it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: It is more than two weeks until the official start of winter. For a big chunk of the country, it already feels like winter is here, and in some places, this could get really ugly.

We're talking major power outages in Arkansas and Tennessee. That kind of thing shuts off electricity for weeks and weeks.

And then the farther west you go, Denver woke up to miserable cold this morning, double digits below zero.

Even feels colder in many cities, I'm talking about 20, 40 degrees below.

And, listen, we get this. This is December, but look at this. Because from the snow, we go to Texas. You see that number? 80 degrees. That's how warm it was just yesterday.

But tonight, that's when they get hit, freezing rain, sleet, a low of 26, dropping 54 degrees there.

Ed Lavandera is in Dallas where American Airlines is already cancelling flights just as a precaution.

You're looking a little cold, Ed. Tell me about these flights.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the cold weather.

Where we were standing here yesterday, Brooke, as you mentioned, 80 degrees, it is now about 35 degrees, a 45-degree plunge in just a little more than 24 hours.

And my favorite sight of the day, we're here at Clyde Warren Park in downtown Dallas. A lot of food trucks line up around here. The ice cream food truck just left the area, so I would imagine sales are incredibly slow.

But the conditions will begin deteriorating rather quickly over the course of the next couple hours. To the north of us in Oklahoma and farther north in Texas, already starting to hear reports of rain falling.

And the question is where this line will be, the dividing line between the freezing temperatures and where this rain falls. And that will really determine just how nasty this gets over the next couple of days.

As you mentioned, American Airlines at DFW Airport, has already canceled, looking ahead, some 500 flights through tomorrow morning.

So this is obviously a hub for American Airlines. They don't want to get a lot of planes stuck here, unable to move. So that's a thing that a lot of airports are dealing with and trying to figure out, as well as schools and businesses as they will be paying close attention to the conditions over the next 12 hours to see what they'll do tomorrow.

Brooke?

BALDWIN: OK. Ed Lavandera, stay warm.

For the record, it's always good weather for ice cream, by the way.

But let's talk about the snow and this wintry weather because I know, Jennifer Grey, it is cold and getting colder.

JENNIFER GREY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, it is, you know, and when you wake up or you have temperatures yesterday in Dallas at 80 degrees and now you're at 33.

Look at this, New Orleans at 81, 33 in Dallas, and even Atlanta at 70, and 42 in Memphis, so this arctic air is continuing to push down to the South, and it's going to fill in across the Southeast as we go through the next day or so.

Still getting a little bit of a mix across portions of Missouri, even in northwest Arkansas.

We were mentioning Dallas just a few moments ago. Most of the freezing rain, the mix, is just to the north of the city, northeast of the city.

We think there will be a little bit of accumulation inside Dallas, the metroplex, but most of it, at least the hardest hit areas, will be north and east of the city, but you can bet there will be icy overpasses, bridges, could be down power lines, power outages all across portions of Dallas, Little Rock, even including Nashville in this.

So this is something we'll be watching not only tonight, but as we go through tomorrow, as well, Brooke.

BALDWIN: We'll be watching very closely. You can also always go to CNN.com for the latest weather updates.

Jennifer Grey, Ed Lavandera, thank you both very much.

Let's talk economy now, because we learned today it grew more than anyone thought in the third quarter of the year.

The value of all the goods and services produced right here in the U.S., I'm talking GDP, gross domestic product, it grew at annual rate of 3.6 percent. That's good news. That's the strongest GDP number since the first quarter of 2012.

So, has the economy turned around corner? Rana Foroohar is CNN global economic analyst and "Time" assistant managing editor, and, Rana, it's nice to see you. RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Some signs, looking good, right? And let me just say, in addition to today's GDP report, new home sales, they just posted their biggest increase in more than three decades.

Look at auto sales, expected to end the year at their strongest level since the start of the great recession.

So, how out of the woods are we now?

FOROOHAR: These are hopeful signs, no doubt. The GDP figure is sort of a mixed one because the stronger number is down to a build-up in inventory.

So, for a long time, businesses just weren't buying. They weren't stocking shelves. They were waiting for demand to pick up.

Now the shelves are empty. They've got to get more inventory, so that really has a knock-on effect on growth.

But I'm more interested in the home sales number because --

BALDWIN: Why?

FOROOHAR: -- I think the housing market is really what most Americans feel.

The majority of Americans still keep the majority of their wealth in housing. So, when you start to see a stronger housing market, and we've seen some worrisome numbers for the last couple of months, so this is really an important sign.

If we get a couple more months of strong figures, I think we can be optimistic.

BALDWIN: OK, so that could be a harbinger of things to come, when you look at the housing sales.

But when you look at the stock market, it's been on a tear this year, as well. But when you talk to Americans, look at these numbers from our CNN/ORC poll.

We'll show the numbers to you, and I can tell you that 24 percent believe the economy is starting to recover. Thirty-nine percent think it's getting worse.

FOROOHAR: Yes.

BALDWIN: Why -- the skepticism, it's pervasive in those numbers. Why?

FOROOHAR: It's interesting. It's not just in this survey, but in a lot of the consumer confidence numbers. They were down very dramatically in October. They were down again in November.

I think part of that was due to the fact that you were seeing the government shutdown this fall. You were seeing the problems with the rollout of ObamaCare. There was this sense that the government is just still not getting its act together and that it's a real headwind to growth.

But I think that in another sense, you talk about the stock market being up. You have to remember that the top quarter of Americans, the top 20, 25 percent of Americans, own 75 percent of the stocks.

So, sure, you feel that stock market ticking up if you're wealthy, but if you don't own a lot of stocks or you don't own a home in a strong --

BALDWIN: You feel nothing.

FOROOHAR: -- real estate market, you're not really feeling that wealth effect.

BALDWIN: What about these -- we have been talking about these protests today by fast-food workers, and the union, and the community organizers, right? They want the minimum wage to more than double. They want it at 15 bucks an hour.

And when you look at the pay gap, and, of course, the president talked about that and we'll play some of that in a minute, talked about that yesterday, it's been widening since the '70s.

When you look at this, and just for the viewer let me explain. See that blue squiggly line on the top? That represents the top 1 percent. Their income, to your point, Rana, has been growing quite a bit.

But then the --

FOROOHAR: Absolutely.

BALDWIN: The three lines below represent the rest of the country, and not a ton of growth there.

So is there a reason to think that America can return to earlier times when more people shared in prosperity? You know?

FOROOHAR: It's going to take some real shifts in the way the economy works to make that happen.

So one of the reasons that we are still in, at this point, a 2 percent growth economy, even though we've had this strong, new, quarterly number is that the majority of Americans aren't really feeling that recovery.

Wages have been flat. For the average American male worker, the wages have been flat since 1968, so -- in real terms.

So, when people haven't gotten a raise and they don't have more money in their pockets, they're not spending. You're not seeing demand tick up, and that has an affect on the overall growth.

So, this is a huge issue. I think the inequality issue and the stagnant wages issue are the biggest economic problems in the country right now.

BALDWIN: We'll pay close attention to the housing, if you're saying that really an indicator of that confidence and that improvement.

FOROOHAR: Yes.

BALDWIN: We'll be watching that.

Rana Foroohar, thank you very much.

FOROOHAR: Thank you.

BALDWIN: And now, I thought we were going to get to hear some of the song. No? No song today?

Here we go.

I mean, come on. We had to hear a little Bruce.

Bruce Springsteen's original, handwritten lyric sheet for this song, "Born to Run," has just sold for $197,000 at auction.

The rough draft of the hit contained most of the lines of the 1974 version. It sold to a private bidder.

If I had the money, I mean, can you imagine framing that on your wall? Yes, please.

Coming up, a man in prison for 25 years for a crime he did not commit, Chris Cuomo sat down with this man for an incredibly powerful interview.

We will play that for you ahead of this film that's airing tonight.

Plus, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford under fire again, new allegations indicating this mayor tried to buy a video showing him smoking crack, and that's not the whole story.

Stay with me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Toronto's crack-smoking mayor, Rob Ford, has a new problem because court documents indicate Ford may have tried to buy that damaging cell phone video that appears to show him smoking crack from suspected gang members.

Apparently, Ford was willing to fork over thousands of dollars, even throw in a car.

Ford got testy today and issued a firm denial when a sports radio host asked him about it. Here was that.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

RADIO HOST: What do you say to that? These are wiretapped from gang members who say that you offered $5,000 if not more, $150,000 on a car to confiscate the video of you doing crack on the tape. What would you say to that?

MAYOR ROB FORD, TORONTO: Number one, that's an outright lie. Number two, you can talk to my lawyers about it, but I'm here to talk football.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BALDWIN: He veered that conversation back on track.

Jean Casarez, our legal correspondent, joining me now here. The glaring question, one of the questions, I guess, is why hasn't he been charged with anything?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN LEGAL CORRESPONDENT: That's a good question. Let's look at the facts at this point.

This investigation was massive. It was by the Toronto police department, but it wasn't against the mayor. It was against an alleged drug ring, and as the wiretaps were executed on 59 phone numbers and investigators are listening to these phone calls, they start to hear the name of Mayor Rob Ford, the mayor of Toronto.

Well, the investigation went on, and they listened to a voice saying, you know, I went to him with the video and he says I'll pay you $5,000 for that video plus a car.

And the alleged drug mobsters were saying that's ridiculous, it's at least worth $150,000 to us.

So, in that sense, they were trying to blackmail the mayor to try to say if you don't pay us, we're going to release this video.

Now, the video, alleged crack video, although police say they have it in their hands, has never been released. We don't see it. Some reporters in Canada have seen it.

But throughout these conversations, they talk about Rob Ford, that he's going to crack houses, that he's getting drugs.

Even as I continue to research these documents that have been unsealed, I see that at one point, someone in an intercepted conversation says, does he know how much marijuana, it's a slang term for pot, that he got from Rob Ford.

Well, that's distribution, right? But someone that says that doesn't mean that they are proving a crime. It's just an allegation at that point.

BALDWIN: OK. Still the mayor.

Jean Casarez, thank you very much.

And falsely accused of his wife's murder in 1986, ripped from his precious 3-year-old son, convicted, sentenced to spend the rest of his life in a Texas prison.

But after a 25-year battle, Michael Morton was exonerated, the real murderer discovered from DNA evidence.

This is the story told in the CNN Film, "AN UNREAL DREAM," and Morton spoke with Chris Cuomo about he spent all that time, how that time was spent in prison, knowing all along he was innocent.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL MORTON, MURDER CONVICTION OVERTURNED: I am probably the personification of that old axiom remember from school about you can't prove a negative.

How do you prove you didn't do something?

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: How rough was it inside?

MORTON: I never liked it but I got used to it.

CUOMO: How long did it take you?

MORTON: Probably 14 or 15 years.

CUOMO: Fourteen or 15 years?

MORTON: To get where I was used to it.

CUOMO: Are the first years the hardest?

MORTON: The first years are hard just because it's a shock and it's new and it's constant adjustment, constant recalibration.

CUOMO: You say I always thought that I would get out. What fueled the hope?

MORTON: It's difficult for me to say whether it was just faith that I knew I was right and I wasn't guilty, that this would work out, or just that I didn't know how deep I was in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Again, make sure you watch this incredible CNN Film, "AN UNREAL DREAM." It airs tonight, 9:00 Eastern and Pacific, only here on CNN.

Coming up, Pope Francis is certainly making news a lot recently. Today, the pope is launching a commission to prevent child abuse.

Reaction pouring in from all around the world. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: It is a problem that has plagued the Catholic Church for decades upon decades. I'm talking about child abuse.

We have reported on this, scandal after scandal involving priests and young children from all around the world.

Well, now, Pope Francis has had enough. He is launching a commission to help prevent the abuse of children.

And, Eric Marrapodi, let me bring you in, CNN's Belief Blog co-editor and CNN senior producer. Welcome to you, sir.

ERIC MARRAPODI, CNN BELIEF BLOG CO-EDITOR AND SENIOR PRODUCER: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: The church has taken hits in the past, clearly, for not reporting these cases, the myriad cases of child abuse, the pope saying they have been too focused on the judicial aspects of child abuse like fighting of lawsuits.

So tell me what this new commission will do exactly.

MARRAPODI: This commission is doing just what you said. They are looking to get out there and figure out what policies are in place around the world in the Catholic Church, what needs to be changed to do more to protect children.

They're looking at everything from background checks, more psychological evaluations of priests entering seminary.

They are looking at who interacts with children, lay workers in the church, and are looking to bring lots of experts on to this panel that will advise the pope directly.

It's a big step for them and lots of folks are saying within the church it's a step in the right direction.

BALDWIN: From the U.S. standpoint, this is something we have been dealing with for years and years but globally, what's the impact of something like this?

MARRAPODI: Earlier this week, on Monday, the pope met with the bishops from Holland. In the last 30 years, they had something like 20,000 cases of sexual abuse of minors.

He said to them, specifically, priests have fallen short, made mistakes, and you need to care for the victims as well.

hat's something that we have seen this pope saying very specifically, as well, care for the victims to try to turn this from just judicial to a pastoral how to care for the victims and protect children. They have to look at all these things.

In the U.S., our point bishop for the Catholic Church has been Cardinal Sean O'Malley. He's on the pope's council that's advising him on big changes across the entire church.

He was out front today at a press conference with reporters. He appears to be taking the lead in that small group of cardinals advising the pope on this specific issue.

BALDWIN: Eric Marrapodi at the Belief Blog, check it out, CNN.com/Belief.

And, before I let you go, Universal Pictures, paying tribute to the late actor Paul Walker and his on-screen legacy, he was part of one of, really, the studio's biggest franchises they'd ever seen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VIN DIESEL: People in this room right here, right now, salud, mi familia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Some of Paul Walker's "Fast and Furious" moments released online.

In the wake of his death, production for the seventh "Fast and Furious" movie has been officially halted.

I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you so much, as always, for being with me today. I'll see you back here, same time tomorrow.

In the meantime, "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts now.