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Radio Legend Casey Kasem Missing; Truck Rams TV Station in Maryland; Medal of Honor Recipient Speaks; Terror Fear Grips Nigerian Town; Karl Rove Suggests Hillary Clinton Brain Damage; Diver Says He's Found Columbus' Santa Maria Ship

Aired May 13, 2014 - 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: CNN has tried to reach Jean Kasem's attorney for comment, without success, but I can tell you that our affiliate KCBS reports that court documents show Jean feels the kids' public protests have, quote, "shattered their lives" and, quote, "disgraced their father and vilified their stepmother."

Have you met this woman? Have you met Jean Avery? She used to be, from what I've read, an actress. People knew her from "Cheers"?

FRIEDMAN: Yeah. Yeah, she was on "Cheers." She was in "Ghostbusters," I think.

And, as a matter of fact, when one of Casey's daughters was getting married, and I figured Casey was walking down the aisle, I said to Jean, I said, you know, I'd be honored to sit next to you while Casey does that.

And she looked at me and said, Avery, I wasn't invited. So that gives you a pretty good idea -- oops, a mistake on my part -- but it gives you a pretty good idea of how dispersed this family is and how troubled the situation is.

And this has been the most recent of an ongoing battle. So they're going to find Casey, and we're going to get him care, and hopefully the children will have access to their dad.

BALDWIN: Once they -- once, let me say -- once they find him, you know, maybe we can have you back on, you can have the legal hat on and we can talk about how this may be playing out in the court system.

Avery Friedman, thank you so much.

And tonight, 9:00 Eastern, CNN's Bill Weir sits down with Casey Kasem's children as this manhunt for him intensifies.

When we come back, we're keeping a close eye here on the breaking news out of Towson, Maryland. This is the Baltimore area, as this man with his landscaping truck, apparently rammed, smashed, straight into this TV affiliate in this city and is reportedly still in there, as all these newsroom employees got out of there.

They're A-OK. We understand this news briefing is about to begin. Stay with me. CNN's there, live on the ground.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Let's pick up on our breaking news out of the Baltimore area, out of Towson, Maryland, where someone, just a couple of hours ago, crashed a truck, rammed it right into a TV station, WMAR.

Evacuations have been under way. According to TV station officials and executives, they say everyone is accounted for.

But a news conference is about to be under way, because, Tory Dunnan, as I bring you in, you're standing outside that news station, this individual is still holed up in the station, correct?

TORY DUNNAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, you're correct, Brooke. And this is an extremely tense situation happening right now.

I want to kind of give you a sense of what's going on. They've got the crime scene tape up. They have this whole roadway blocked off.

And then if you take look above the WMAR-TV sign here, you're going to see, literally, armed police inside the bushes there, standing by, ready for what could come next.

Let me sort of back up a little bit and tell you what's happened here earlier today, though. It was just before noon, when employees here at the station say that a man came to the front doors and started rattling the front doors, was angry, was yelling.

They didn't let him in, and that's when, apparently, according to people who worked here, he decided to get into a landscaping truck which was in the parking lot and literally drive that truck through the front doors into the lobby, and then according to employees as well, went up to the second floor, and that's where it's possible he is right now.

But Brooke, very serious situation happening here right now. And as you can tell from the pictures behind me, authorities are treating it as such.

BALDWIN: OK, Tory Dunnan, we will stay in close contact with you. We're waiting for the news conference to begin, and just hearing from the executive producer who talked to Wolf Blitzer just about an hour or two ago, said apparently this man, as he was, you know, slamming this truck into the TV station, was claiming that he was God.

So that's what we know, according to these folks who work at this TV station, incredibly frightening.

Tory, we'll come back to you as soon as we see the officials step behind that podium.

But now, as we watch this whole thing, I mean, it's just an amazing moment to watch a Medal of Honor individual receive such an honor at the White House, as we did just a little while ago with former Sergeant Kyle White.

So we now have some sound from him directly. He just spoke outside the White House. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SERGEANT KYLE WHITE, MEDAL OF HONOR RECIPIENT: Good afternoon.

On the surface, this is a piece of blue fabric and carved metal. At its core, it is a symbol of the nation, a nation forged in war, of men and women who heroically give their all for the nation and for each other.

At its core, it is a symbol of the soldiers departing for distant lands, a responsibility that locks us all in bonds of brotherhood.

The Medal of Honor is said to be the nation's highest award for valor by one individual. For me, it is much more.

It is representation of the responsibility we accept as warriors and members of a team. It is a testament to the trust we have in each other, and our leaders.

Because of these reasons, the medal cannot be an individual award. Battles are not won by men. If that were true, the Taliban would have won on that trail in Afghanistan, because they had every tactical advantage, including the numbers.

Battles are won by spirit, and spirit is present in the relationships built from the trust and sacrifice we share with one another, in times of hardship, and by that definition cannot be possessed by one person.

Without the team, there could be no medal of honor. That is why I wear this medal for my team.

I also wear a piece of metal around my wrist. It was given to me by another survivor of the 9 November ambush. He wears an identical one.

This is maybe even more precious than the medal, the symbol just placed around my neck. On it are the names of my six fallen brothers. They are my heroes.

Though I am still uncomfortable with hearing my name and the word hero in the same sentence, I am now ready for the challenge of wearing this blue piece of fabric and carved medal, with the same reverence of this bracelet.

I vow to live up to the responsibility of doing so.

Thank you all for allowing me to share this day with you. God bless you, the United States Army, and God bless America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Sergeant Kyle White, thank you. We salute you and all members of the U.S. forces. And let me just add one more thing that the president brought up when he was bestowing quite the honor on this young man.

He said, "After 9/11, he chose to leave the Army, went to college," and we saw him in his uniform, with all his medals, but he now works at a bank in Charlotte, just wearing a suit each and every day.

So just to imagine working with this man, thank you.

Coming up next, men with homemade weapons on night patrols, all in an attempt to keep their families safe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The men here have come together, each bringing what they could, machetes, homemade bows and arrows, trying, hoping, that they will be able to protect their families.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: CNN's correspondent Nima Elbagir here traveled to one of the most dangerous places in all the world. This is the same area in Nigeria where more than 200 school girls were abducted.

More on what she found, plus more from the Nigerian government about what it's willing to do to get the girls back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: New revelations here about this latest chilling terror video, the one that shows about a hundred girls wearing hijabs, reciting the Koran, as they make Islamic declarations of faith.

Fifty-four girls here, you've seen this video by now here, they have been identified by name, and according to the governor of Nigeria's Borno state, all the girls are former students of the school in Chibok.

The Pentagon says the U.S. is flying manned, military surveillance flights over Nigeria to help in the search for these young women.

Reuters is reporting the Nigerian government is open to negotiations with this terrorist group, Boko Haram, but even with the world here really honed in on Nigeria, families continue to live in the frightening grip of the terrorists.

CNN's Nima Elbagir reports from one of the most dangerous places in Nigeria and all the world.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELBAGIR: Nightfall in Chibok, and with it, the fear returns, bringing back memories of when nearly 300 girls were abducted here.

It's at night that people here say they feel most vulnerable, most abandoned by the outside world, which is why they've started going on nightly patrols like this.

Ever since that horrifying night of April 14th, the men here have come together, each bringing what they could -- machetes, homemade bows and arrows, trying, hoping that they will be able to protect their families.

DANIEL MUVIA, CHIBOK RESIDENT: And it was very dark, but the sound of gunshots, explosions everywhere.

ELBAGIR: Daniel Muvia and his family witnessed the terror firsthand.

MUVIA: We had to run into the bushes for our lives, so it was a horrifying night

Fear is all over. Fear is everywhere.

ELBAGIR: Daybreak does bring respite, but the burned-out school stands as a reminder of the sheer scale of the devastation.

Nearly a month since the night when the radical Islamist group Boko Haram stormed this town, more than 200 of the girls are still missing.

Tired of waiting for help to arrive, fear is making way here for resilience.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: And Nima joins me live from Abuja, Nigeria.

And, Nima, we have seen your incredibly compelling interviews with mothers of missing daughters and also with a young girl who managed to escape.

But I just have to ask you, I understand just to get to this village, it took you some four days. It should have just taken hours.

Can you just tell me about your harrowing journey to tell the stories?

ELBAGIR: Well, as you said, it took us an awful long time, and a lot of that was on roads that were very, very exposed.

And the closer you got to Chibok, the less security presence there was until, when we finally turned off the main road, two hours before Chibok, an area where you would imagine there would have been reinforcements, where you would imagine there would have been some kind of support available to the people there, there was nothing, Brooke.

There was no phone that worked. It was just open savannah. And there was a real sense of -- perhaps a small sense, I should say, of what it's like for the people living at the center of this tragedy every single day.

You don't know where the danger is coming from. And that road we were traveling on, just the day before, policemen had gotten into a firefight with Boko Haram terrorists who had come from raiding another village.

So this threat for the villages, for the community out there, while dealing with trying to come to the terms of the theft of their daughters, that threat is ever-present for them, Brooke.

BALDWIN: The theft, that is the absolutely appropriate word.

Nima Elbagir, my heartfelt thanks to you and the crew for risking what you have to tell those stories. Thank you, live in Abuja, Nigeria, for us.

Coming up next, Karl Rove makes an absolutely outrageous comment about Hillary Clinton's health, so shocking that even the man known for his biting remarks is now backtracking.

Is this a sign of what's in store for a possible Clinton presidential run? Stay with me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Karl Rove is apparently taking a page from the political operatives play book. This is a page that when the going gets rough, suggest your opponent is crazy.

Karl Rove says, like it or not, her health will be an issue. He's saying in "The New York Post" that Clinton's brain is damaged.

"The Post" says Rove mentioned several times at a conference that Clinton suffered a blood clot in 2012 and then wore glasses made for people with brain trauma.

Now, Rove is saying "The Post" got it wrong, at least sort of wrong.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KARL ROVE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: No, no, no. Wait a minute. I didn't say she had brain damage.

She had a serious health episode, and my point was that from the 7th of December in 2012 through the 7th of January of 2013, she underwent -- first, she had apparently a serious virus.

They announced that on the 15th of December, that she had, some period in the past week, fallen. They didn't say where. They didn't say when. She was recovering at home.

On the 30th of December she goes in and it turns out she had a blood clot. They won't say where.

My point is, Hillary wants to run for president, and she would not be human if this didn't enter in as a consideration.

And my other point is, this will be an issue in the 2016 race whether she likes it or not.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: Jake Tapper, he's up next with "THE LEAD." They say that Karl Rove is guilty of a flagrant foul.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR, "THE LEAD": I don't know if it's a foul. We see it time and time again, a political operative looking to inject something into the bloodstream of the political media world says something seemingly outrageous.

The condemnations come, but he does interject this, introduce this subject. We saw it in the 2008 election a number of times.

I remember a lot of operatives for Hillary Clinton doing this about Obama, about his drug use when he was a child, a teenager. He's going to be asked about this. I'm not saying that I support it, but he's going to be asked about it.

And then there also was a time when some operatives for then Senator Obama started using interesting language about Senator John McCain that seemed to be suggesting that his age would be an issue. They kept talking about his losing his bearings or being confused.

BALDWIN: Does it work, more or less?

TAPPER: It can work. There's a risk because when you do that. You risk repercussions against yourself and the person you're advocating for.

We're having this conversation right now, and for that reason, to a degree, Karl Rove succeeded, absolutely.

BALDWIN: Jake Tapper, we'll be watching you in a couple of minutes on "THE LEAD." Thank you, sir.

And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Before I let you go, you remember the story of Christopher Columbus and the three ships that sailed the ocean blue, right, from Europe to the New World, the Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria?

Well, this underwater explorer says he has found the last one just off the coast of Haiti.

Barry Clifford described the Santa Maria as, quote, "the Mount Everest of shipwrecks."

How about this? Divers just took measurements and photographs that could prove it is the flagship sailed by Christopher Columbus himself.

Clifford hopes to work with the Haitian government to recover the wreck, and you can read more about that. Go to CNN.com.

Thank you so much for being with me. I'll be back here, same time, same place, tomorrow. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Let's go to Washington. "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.