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Syria's Situation; Hillary Clinton's Run; Homeless NCAA Player Extended Help; AT&T-DirecTV Reach Deal to Merge; "New York Times" Publisher Speaks Out; The Political Frontrunner's Burden; Air Assault on California Wildfires; Woman's Cancer Cured by Measles Virus

Aired May 18, 2014 - 19:00   ET

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

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Miguel Marquez. The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts right now.

You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Miguel Marquez, in for Don Lemon.

We start with this developing story. Your TV and Internet habits, they may be changing. This, after today's major announcement that AT&T and DirecTV have agreed to merge. The roughly 50 billion buck deal will have to be approved by federal regulators. Under terms of the agreement, AT&T will acquire DirecTV in a stock and cash deal for about 95 bucks a share. It would create a company with unprecedented capabilities in mobile, video, and broadband services.

The merger comes this after a few months after another blockbuster telecom deal, Comcast, announcing it was buying Time Warner, a deal worth about $45 billion.

Joining me now on the phone is Leigh Gallagher, assistant managing editor of "Fortune" magazine.

Leigh, if regulators approve this merger, good, bad for consumers? It seems a little concerning.

LEIGH GALLAGHER, ASST. MANAGING EDITOR, FORTUNE MAGAZINE: Well, it's just a continuation of what's happening which is a huge consolidation of video, voice, and data, all coming together. And you know, as you mentioned, this is right after the Time Warner and Comcast deal which is probably one reason why regulators may not have a problem with this deal because it will present a more robust competitor to Comcast/Time Warner but it's definitely interesting times.

MARQUEZ: Very interesting times. You do have to wonder, you have these very large companies that will controlling all of the broadband in the pipe that all of that information is set through. Is it changing too fast? Are regulators able to keep up and actually properly regulate this industry?

GALLAGHER: I think they are. I mean regulators are looking at this industry very closely right now, especially with the whole net neutrality debate. So this will probably draw a lot more attention, obviously, but you know, we live in changing times. And this -- you know, there's been more activity in this space in the past few months than there has been in years and I mean this the first big deal for AT&T since the failed effort to take over T-Mobile a couple of years ago, which was thwarted by regulators.

So there's a lot of activity. And what's interesting also is that pay TV is actually not -- growth is slowing in pay TV. If you just think about it, all the activity that we all talk about, the way we watch TV now is changing and everyone, you know, watching "House of Card" on Netflix and Amazon and Hulu are all getting into that game. So it's -- a lot of analysts are saying that strategically it's not the most obvious deal but they're doing it for other reasons.

MARQUEZ: Yes. Binge TV is what it's all about these days.

GALLAGHER: Yes.

MARQUEZ: But these two companies coming together for Jose and Josefina consumer. What are they going to see? What will they provide service wise?

GALLAGHER: Well, you know, they will provide DirecTV offers pay TV and AT&T sells data wireless and telecommunications services so they will be bundling those. But you know, you can already get those bundled depending on your market. It may benefit consumers in rural areas but it really remains to be seen. It's -- these deals tend to make more sense for the companies than for the consumer sometimes.

MARQUEZ: And is it the Comcast/Time Warner Cables of the world that's going to be most concerned about these guys, or is it the content providers, the studios and television networks that are going to be most concerned about this large amount of power? GALLAGHER: It's both. I mean, Comcast will be the biggest competitor. But one of the things that this deal will do will give the combined company more access with content providers and more able to strike more and better deals with programming, which is really the name of the game.

MARQUEZ: Leigh Gallagher, thank you very much for your thoughts.

GALLAGHER: Thanks for having me.

MARQUEZ: The "New York Times" publisher is getting personal about why he fired Jill Abramson, the first female executive editor of that paper. Abramson will speak publicly tomorrow for the first time since she got fired four days ago. She will give the commencement speech at Wake Forest University. Abramson's daughter posted this photo on Instagram, showing her mom boxing. She wrote, "This story isn't over, not even close."

With me now, correspondent Alexandra Field.

Alexandra, what does "The New York Times" publisher saying about all of this?

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: All right. Well, this weekend we're hearing from Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.

MARQUEZ: Yes. FIELD: And he is telling us that Jill Abramson's dismissal had nothing to do with pay or gender. Why is he saying that? Well, that's to try and knock down some of these reports that first surfaced last week. That Jill Abramson has learned that she was making less money than her predecessor, Bill Keller, that she had confronted management when she learned that, and that shortly afterward she was dismissed.

So here's how Sulzberger is answering. He says this, quote, "Perhaps the saddest outcome of my decision to replace Jill Abramson as executive editor of the 'New York Times' is that it has been cast by many as an example of the unequal treatment of women in the workplace."

Sulzberger goes on to say that in her last year on the job, Abramson, when you look at her total pay package was making 10 percent more than Bill Keller. He says again this has nothing to do with pay or gender. And then he lists the reasons that she was dismissed. He says that it had to do with failure to consult and bring colleagues with her, arbitrary decision making, public mistreatment of colleagues. He goes on with a few other characteristics.

Why is he saying all this? Well, we spoke to Sharon Waxman, a media executive, who says when you've got even the implication of gender discrimination, she says she can understand why the "Times" would take the risk of putting this all out there and trying to address it head- on.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Sharon Waxman, editor, It would only suggest that the publishers or "The New York Times" is so worried about being regarded as a sexist that he's willing to take the risk of legal liability here by detailing how terrible a manager Jill Abramson was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FIELD: A lot of people are speaking about what may or may not have happened behind the scenes at "New York Times," and what it means for the landscape as far as, you know, female journalists at the top of the field.

We haven't heard from Abramson herself.

MARQUEZ: Well, and clearly we are going to, with that boxing picture, a shot across the bow, I'd say. "New York Post," others, reporting that this was over her hiring a co-managing editor, that she basically lied to Sulzberger about it. This is a woman who liked to get her way, didn't mind mixing it up with the boys or anybody who got in her way. She's a role model to female journalists, what are they saying?

FIELD: Yes. Look, a lot has been said, this negative about her management style, whether you buy it or you don't buy it. But this is a bigger issue. And female journalists really are taking it on because look, Jill Abramson, she was the first executive editor of "The New York Times" appointed to the job just three years ago. It's a high-profile position. That means this is a high-profile loss in the field as well. So a lot of people and journalists are trying to look at this topic and say, you know, why aren't we seeing more women climb to this level in this field. Here's what Waxman had to say about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WAXMAN: I think that we're talking about Jill Abramson because she seems to symbolize something broader that's going on in the gender politics among high-achieving women in our society. We are worried that there are not enough women. They are worried that there are not enough opportunities for women to rise to the top.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUEZ: Alexandra, thank you very, very much. This story is going to keep going, I'll tell you. Has legs, as they say.

FIELD: Absolutely.

MARQUEZ: Rutgers University today, graduation day. Cool. Four hundred grads showing their love for Eric LeGrand, the Rutgers football player who's paralyzed in a game back in 2010. Today, LeGrand graduated with a degree in labor relations. He was also one of the commencement speakers telling his fellow grads that he's proof that anything is truly possible in this world.

Former New Jersey Governor Tom Keen also spoke. Keen was a last- minute replacement for Condoleezza Rice who pulled out of the graduation ceremony after Rutgers students and staff protested her selection.

To politics now and the race that's a long way from getting started and the candidate Washington can't stop talking about. Hillary Clinton, she looms over the Democratic field as odds-on favorite.

But CNN's Erin McPike reports that most favorite status can also work against her.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ERIN MCPIKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Some top Democrats are growing concerned, Hillary Clinton is so far ahead, so early.

GOV. DEVAL PATRICK (D), MASSACHUSETTS: I do worry about the inevitability thing. I think it's off-putting to the average voter. I think that was an element of her campaign the last time.

SEN. DIANE FEINSTEIN (D), CALIFORNIA: Yes. This is hard for me because I did talk with her and thought it would be better that she not get out there early because her favorability was so high that all that could happen in this is go down because somebody would do the stupid things that Karl Rove has just done.

KARL ROVE, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: A concussion is by definition a traumatic brain injury. MCPIKE: Roves and other Republicans kept up the pressure.

RICHARD CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: Any presidential candidate or vice presidential candidate is going have to answer questions about their health.

REINCE PRIEBUS, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Health and age is fair game, it's fair game for Reagan, it's fair game for John McCain.

MCPIKE: Rove insisted she might choose not to run because of her health. And said these Bill Clinton comments supported his case.

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT: That she had staged what was a terrible concussion that required six months of very serious work to get over.

MCPIKE: There's also Benghazi.

CHENEY: I think she clearly bears responsibility for whatever the State Department did or didn't do with respect to that crisis. I do think it's a major issue. I don't think we've heard the last of it yet.

FEINSTEIN: I think it's ridiculous. I think it's a hunting mission for a lynch mob.

MCPIKE: But whatever comes her way, defenders say --

SEN. CLAIRE MCCASKILL (D), MISSOURI: But there's one thing I know for certain, Karl Rove engaging in cheap shots is not going to back off Hillary Clinton.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUEZ: Well, Erin McPike joining us live now from Washington.

Erin, what's Camp Clinton saying about these GOP comments?

MCPIKE: Well, Miguel, Clinton's spokesman Nick (INAUDIBLE) put out a very strongly worded statement earlier this week, essentially calling Rove's comments desperate and saying that Clinton's health is at 100 percent.

But I would point out, Miguel, that there are some Republicans in Washington who are saying that what Rove is doing is smart because he's beginning to cast these doubts about Clinton so early.

MARQUEZ: And so it begins. It's going to be a long campaign.

Erin McPike, thank you very much.

A woman with incurable cancer got an experimental, new treatments and it put her cancer in remission. She talks about her incredible recovery, ahead. But first, firefighters claim victory against those huge dangerous wildfires in Southern California. But the governor of the state is sounding a warning about what's to come.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MARQUEZ: The words Californians have been waiting to hear, the wildfires are down for the count. Cooler winds and moist ocean air have returned, helping bring a group of dangerous San Diego County fires to their knees. Families in San Marcos are now being allowed to return home. The weather change is also good news for weary firefighters.

California Governor Jerry Brown talked about the challenges that lie ahead on CNN's "STATE OF THE UNION."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JERRY BROWN, CALIFORNIA: We're just a small part of a very large, overpowering system that we have to adapt to with great wisdom and preparation and investment. And that's what we're doing in California. We're ahead of the curve. But that curve of dryness and fires and disasters continues to escalate, we're going to have to deploy more resources.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUEZ: Now California residents are also dealing with the state's aftermath in the air, smoky skies have forced people to limit their time outside.

Weather isn't the only saving grace in Southern California. The massive team of fire crews had more than 100 engines in service plus two dozen water trucks and bulldozer, that's not counting the ranks of firefighters from the Marine Corps base and their equipment.

CNN's Indra Peterson gives us an upclose look at how firefighters are battling the blaze from the air.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST (voice-over): A wall of flames closing in on a Marine airstrip, a military base under siege.

COL. WILL HOOPER, 3RD MARINE AIRCRAFT WING: I watch as this thing marched from about a half a mile away almost to within 200 meters of us. And I could feel the heat on my face as this thing approached.

PETERSONS: Enter the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, and 22 helicopters ready to battle the flames. On this flight, we're headed for a lake on the base with a 300-gallon bucket in tow. Our chopper is guided by a crew chief manning a door in the chopper floor known as the hellhole. From our window, you can see the delicate balance as other choppers lower toward the lake. Our pilot does the same, lowering the bucket until it's submerged. Once it's full, we head for the fire line. (On camera): Right now, we're flying directly over the fire line. You can actually see how badly burned this area is after these fires.

(Voice-over): Again using the hellhole and a lot of precision, the crew chief spots the right moment to make the drop. On his signal the water is released. In all, these choppers made over 900 drops. At the fire's peak, Captain Bradley Gibson pulled it off with zero visibility.

CAPTAIN BRADLEY GIBSON, PILOT: You see your lead aircraft going to smoke and it just disappears. You don`t know if it`s going straight ahead. You don`t know if it`s coming out to the left. You don`t even know if it got its bucket dropped off or not, so the best you can do is hope.

PETERSONS: The smoke so intense it cut off the main water supply on the base, forcing the crews to look elsewhere. This video shows a Marine chopper hovering over the Pacific Ocean.

ERIC LANDBLOM, PILOT: Actually reassuring to see my neighborhood.

PETERSONS: These Marines don`t just fight fires on Camp Pendleton, but in nearby communities. In some cases, water drops like this are to protect even their own homes.

LANDBLOM: You know, you had confidence. And I can -- I can call home and call the wife and say, hey, our neighborhood looks good.

PETERSONS: The water drops these Marines could have make in 2003, when the massive cedar wildfire killed 20 people. Today new policies have united the Marines with local firefighters.

HOOPER: So rather than having to go back to Washington, D.C., to launch aircraft to fight these fires, the local commanders here can make the determination that there's an immediate threat to life and property and we had our aircraft airborne inside of powers.

PETERSONS: Immediate action helping Marine save property and lives. In this case those lives were their own.

Indra Petersons, CNN, Camp Pendleton, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUEZ: Thanks to Indra.

Extreme weather overseas now at least 13 people have died in flooding across Bosnia Herzegovina. Nonstop rainfall has pushed water to the highest levels ever recorded in the former Yugoslavia. Officials say parts of country got two months' worth of rain in just two days and pushed rivers way out of their banks.

It's too bad in neighboring -- it's bad too in neighboring Serbia. More than 24,000 people had to be evacuated out of the flooded areas. Red Cross officials say many are refusing to leave their homes. The water is chest deep in some places. And just hours ago, gunmen stormed Libya's parliament in Tripoli after lawmakers had ended their session and left the building. Two militia groups have claimed responsibility for the attack, witnesses say the violence is spreading across Tripoli and appears to be the worst since the 2011 revolution that ousted Moammar Gadhafi.

This comes as a retired general vows that his self-declared Libyan National Army will keep attacking Islamist fighters in the city of Benghazi. 75 people were killed there on Friday.

Now this doesn't happen every day. A college football recruit who was living out of a car, people wanted to help but the NCAA wouldn't allow it. But now the organization is bending its own rules. That's ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MARQUEZ: A third case of the Middle East respiratory syndrome has been confirmed in the U.S. A man in Illinois who has closed contact, a business meeting with an infected Indiana man has tested positive for MERS. But what makes this latest case worrisome it's the first time the illness was passed between two people on U.S. soil.

Health officials are testing health workers, family members and business associates who may have also come in contact with the Indiana man.

The question now, will we see more cases in the coming weeks? And should hospitals prepare for a MERS outbreak?

A woman who had incurable cancer is now in remission, after getting a huge dose of measles vaccine. It's an experimental, new treatment doctors at Mayo Clinic tried. They gave the woman enough measles virus to vaccinate 10 million people and it ended up killing her cancer.

Stacy Erholtz talked about her recovery with our Fredricka Whitfield.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STACY ERHOLTZ, CANCER PATIENT TESTED WITH MEASLES VIRUS: I was just overjoyed. I had been tracking the news of it for a couple of years. And my doctor and his colleagues were working on such a study. And so when it was my turn, I was more than excited. And -- yes.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. We described it a real megadose of the measles. So this treatment actually made you very sick at first, right? I mean, did you think, this isn't going to work, or this is just what I have to get through in order to get to the other side, so to speak?

ERHOLTZ: Well, it really was an intense dose. And I received enough to inoculate 10 million people, which I didn't learn the relatable terms until after the fact, which was good. I had a really horrific headache during the process and I spiked a high fever and had nausea. But those symptoms or side effects are very short-lived. And the day I was able to walk across the street to my hotel. WHITFIELD: Wow. And then the doctors told you, you were cancer-free, at least temporarily. How did that news hit you?

ERHOLTZ: Well, it's very exciting. I actually had a built-in monitor on my forehead. I had a plasmacytoma which my family named Evan, and within 36 hours the plasmacytoma the size of a golf ball disappeared.

WHITFIELD: Amazing. And so at that point you knew?

ERHOLTZ: I knew. I knew --

WHITFIELD: This is working.

ERHOLTZ: I knew before the tests were telling us that it was working.

WHITFIELD: Wow. And so it did come back, but temporarily, right? Now you're in remission?

ERHOLTZ: I am in complete remission. I am.

WHITFIELD: Wow. And how are you feeling?

ERHOLTZ: I'm feeling great. I have not felt this energetic for 10 plus years. It's been the easiest treatment I've done by far.

WHITFIELD: My goodness. OK. Well, I know the hope is in the medical community that this will work for many more because apparently you really are the anomaly in which this has helped you.

ERHOLTZ: I am. And I'm so looking forward to others joining me on this journey. We need to get this moving faster.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUEZ: Amazing story.

Coming up next -- they are back home, but after years of war, there isn't much left. Return to the devastated city of Homs, Syria.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MARQUEZ: After 2 1/2 years people who fled the city of Homs, Syria, are returning -- or trying to return but with that city having been the scene of bitter fighting between Syrian government and rebel forces, there's not much left of their homes, as CNN's Fred Pleitgen reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As we leave Damascus for Homs, in the outskirts of the Syrian capital, the devastation of the war is clearly visible. This road was only reopened by government forces two months ago and it still isn't always safe.

(on camera): These are the districts of (INAUDIBLE) and Duma. There was very heavy fighting on this very road until recently. The rebels still control large parts of this area, so we're going to have to try to get through here as fast as we can.

(voice-over): The highway to Homs leads mostly to the desert. There used to be fighting here as well. In Homs, some districts lay in ruins after 2 1/2 years of fighting and people are just now beginning to pick up the pieces.

(on camera): They've only started the cleanup effort here in Homs. As you can see there's still quite a lot that they have to do. Homs is one of those places where you go after the battle is over and you can still feel how heavy and how hard the fighting must have been. You can see the shutters of this building, absolutely destroyed, all the houses are pockmarked.

And also you can see a lot of very heavy weapons were used in the urban combat here. If you look over there, the bottom floor of that building is totally burned out. There must have been a massive fire there. Up there you can actually look into someone's living room because that house is totally destroyed as well.

And just from that, you can see how long it's going to take for them to rebuild this place. It's not just rebuilding the material things, it's also trying to rebuild the social fabric of this community, to get people to actually live together again.

(voice-over): Sunnis, Christians and Alawites live in deep distrust of each other after more than two years of civil war. Their common history in this town has also been damaged as the sunlight creates a surreal mood in the burned and broken ancient bazaar.

(on camera): Homs is a town with thousands of years of history but of course, that didn't matter at all to the warring factions. They fought as hard as they could here in the old town of Homs, the ancient bazaar, for instance, was completely destroyed and burned out. If you look up there, those stones up there are thousands of years old.

Of course none of that is in any way replaceable. And sometimes I really wonder, after an assignment like this one how I'm going to go home and tell my children all of this was destroyed in our times and we, the world, didn't do anything to prevent it.

(voice-over): But now that the battle for Homs is over, the people of this town have a chance to rebuild maybe one day move on together.

Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Homs, Syria.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Fred Pleitgen, such amazing work there.

Let's talk more with Syria with Christopher Dickey. You've spent some time there. Things have really - it seems that Assad's forces have really reversed any gains the rebels have made there. Where are we right now? CHRISTOPHER DICKEY, MIDDLE EAST EDITOR, THE DAILY BEAST: Well, I think we're seeing slowly bit by bit, Assad's forces are regaining control of places they want to control. Homs is a critical, strategic point, near the Lebanese border. If they control that, they may make it almost impossible for the rebels and a large part of the country to be resupplied.

MARQUEZ: The president in the famous quote about chemical weapons being a red line for him, the U.S. also promised military aid to the rebels. Is any of this going to happen? Is there any sort of stomach in the international community do anything more here?

DICKEY: Well, they'll give some military aid to some of the rebels and some training as well but that's not going to turn the tide of the war. The problem is the United States and Europe and the rest of the world could not decide exactly what they wanted.

First they said they wanted to get rid of Bashar Al Assad. But they didn't apply any pressure that would do that, that would achieve that end. He knew if he left all of his world would disintegrate and everybody around him would be crushed by whatever forces came in. So that didn't happen. And now we've got a situation where so many rebel groups are allied with or sympathetic with the aims of Al Qaeda, nobody wants them to take over.

MARQUEZ: We waited too long.

DICKEY: So it's just a hopeless situation. It really is, it's going on and on. It will be like the Balkans, one of those wars that goes on and on and on.

MARQUEZ: And it clearly won't change anytime soon as Assad holds power, I take it, that will just cement in a status quo?

DICKEY: Well, but he'll have a ruin - he has and he will have a ruined country. At some point he's got to think about trying to rebuild it if he can. I'm not sure, if anybody is going to give him the wherewithal to do that. You know, we had one person who has been active in the Syrian opposition say, let's bring Israel in, let's get it involved in some way. It is next door. But that is truly a sign of desperation.

MARQUEZ: Let's switch over to Libya. You've followed the fighting in Tripoli today. We know that it's been ongoing in Benghazi. There's been a long-term fight against the militias in Benghazi. It looks like the same thing is happening in Tripoli now. How do you read the situation there?

DICKEY: Well, what it looks like is this General Heftar (ph) who has created this sort of army of his own, a large militia that seems to be pretty efficient. First he has an offensive in Benghazi, then he has an offensive in Tripoli. He may be trying to establish some kind of order. He's an interesting character. He lived in the United States for two decades, in northern Virginia.

MARQUEZ: Right. DICKEY: And many people think he was in some ways allied with the U.S. government at some point.

MARQUEZ: They all claimed to be allied with the CIA and all those -

DICKEY: Maybe they were.

MARQUEZ: Well, maybe they were. Maybe they have a point. The U.S. had great influence when this all first happened and then sadly Chris Stevens was killed there, the U.S. ambassador. Does the U.S. have cards to play here? Does the U.S. have some arrows in its quiver?

DICKEY: Not many. I mean, again and again, we come up against the situation, the United States does not want to put boots on the ground, there's very little it can do in these kinds of situations, this really chaotic situations. What we've had is the French putting boots on the ground in a number of places, not in Libya but places like the Central African Republic, Mali, places that in some respects have been affected by the Libyan chaos.

But nobody, I think in the United States wants to dispatch soldiers to any where in the Middle East. So I think we're going to be in a situation where we're going to try and move things from outside while the core of the problem becomes more and more volatile. It's just an extremely difficult situation.

MARQUEZ: So much hope. I assume you watched the Arab Spring from the inside as it was playing out? So much hope during that time. Where are we in that process?

DICKEY: Well, we're in a bad situation. I mean, the only country that's really looking pretty good now as a result of the Arab spring is Tunisia, where they really have had a democratic process that's moved forward in fits and starts, but certainly better than in other countries. In Egypt, we'll have elections very soon that will make a new strong man president, general and will sort of turn the clock back to where we were even before Mubarak.

MARQUEZ: Interesting times. Christopher, don't go anywhere.

The world's largest democracy, India, has a new prime minister. I want to know from you why all our viewers should care. We'll talk about that, coming right up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) MARQUEZ: We just discussed Syria and Libya with Chris Dickey of "The Daily Beast." Lets dig a little deeper with other international stories. Making headlines we'll start with Sudan. A 27-year-old woman, eight months pregnant, has been sentenced to death because she refuses to recant her Christian belief. She's also been convicted of adultery for marrying a Christian man. Her husband says Sudan's court even ruled their marriage is illegal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANIEL WANI, HUSBAND (through translator): I was considered innocent and the marriage revoked. The revoking of this marriage means that my son is no longer my son and the one coming is not my son, too will not be my son. So this innocence means nothing, and I will appeal for my myself and I will appeal for my wife.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUEZ: Chris, is it common in Sudan for these sort of rulings to come down? It seems extraordinarily extreme.

DICKEY: No, it is extreme, and it's fairly rare. Some of it may be the result of this particular judge and this particular case. But is it a really grossly unfair and by most standards illegal rule, even by standards of Sharia law.

This is a woman raised as a Christian, always a Christian, ruling was made because her father was a Muslim and when she was seven, he left.

MARQUEZ: Do you think they'll reverse?

DICKEY: I think they've got time to appeal. I think the way that people are looking at this story, they tend to think that she's going to be executed tomorrow. That's not going to happen. She's eight months pregnant, she's going to have the baby, then they will wait until the baby is weaned. During all of that period, many, many months you'll have a situation where appeals will be made.

MARQUEZ: Reports out about Christians being persecuted group worldwide, the most persecuted group worldwide, does that ring true to you? We've seen it in other places.

DICKEY: You know, Miguel, every religious group you can talk to seems to think it's the most persecuted group. There are a lot of Christians persecuted in a lot of places. Muslims are persecuted as well. The real problem is that you have a few countries that look really very sinister from the Christian point of view.

One of them being Saudi Arabia, our great ally, where it's very hard for Christians to worship in public and then you have countries like Sudan, where let's face it, it's already been called a genocidal regime. Omar al-Bashir, the president is a war criminal, in the eyes of the United Nations. So you've got this situation where if they want to play this game which is really what they're doing with Sharia, with Islamic law, they will go ahead and do it. Their reputation could hardly be worse.

MARQUEZ: And not much leverage from the U.S.. Nigeria and Boko Haram now saying that they want to install Sharia law there.

DICKEY: Their kind of Sharia law.

MARQUEZ: I mean, it seems to be a theme across parts of Africa, northern parts of Africa.

DICKEY: Again, who is being persecuted in different places? The feeling of the people in northeast Nigeria who are mostly Muslims is that they've been persecuted and forgotten by the regimes in Lagos and the other end of Nigeria. But this guy's crazy, the head of Boko Haram. But crazy like a fox. He knows that he can motivate young men who are unemployed, a lot of them are trained in religious schools, to the extent they get any training at all and then he can play on the discontent of the population.

MARQUEZ: India just held their six-week election, 450 million voters there, they've voted out the guys who had been in (INAUDIBLE), the congress party for the last 10 years, the BJP, the Hindu Nationalist Party in there now. How do you see these elections?

India's a very difficult place to manage. How do you see them doing there?

DICKEY: Well, you know, the problem is that the congress party was doing so badly, it had been in power so long. I mean, essentially you can trace it back to Naru, the founder of modern India.

MARQUEZ: But can the BJP rule?

DICKEY: Probably it can do a better job than the Congress Party.

MARQUEZ: Really?

DICKEY: At this point.

MARQUEZ: That's clearly important to the entire world.

DICKEY: At this point. But remember, that Modi, the head of the party. The man who is going - he is the new prime minister. He has been accused of being involved with massacres of Muslims in Mujarab where he was in charge 10 years ago. And that's going to be hard for 150 million Muslims to accept in India.

MARQUEZ: He's got some work to do.

DICKEY: He does indeed.

MARQUEZ: Do you think he'll do it?

DICKEY: I think he'll try. He certainly played down some of the hostilities of Muslims during his campaign. I don't think many voted for him. But I think now he's running on an economic platform.

MARQUEZ: We'd like to see it stable in Libya, or India and both, really. Chris Dickey, thank you very much.

DICKEY: (INAUDIBLE) in India.

MARQUEZ: We do indeed.

Up next, is Hillary Clinton too old and too unhealthy to be president? That's the argument made by a former White House adviser. We'll debate it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) MARQUEZ: Veterans Affairs secretary Eric Shinseki says he's mad as hell about allegations some veterans have been forced to wait for treatment at V.A. hospitals. Some hospitals waited so long, in fact, that several dozen vets died while waiting for treatment. Shinseki hasn't resigned and it doesn't look like he's going to get fired either.

Earlier, I discussed this issue with CNN commentators, Marc Lamont Hill and Ben Ferguson. We started with the debate over Hillary Clinton's health, an issue that came out of nowhere when Republican strategist Karl Rove brought it up during a recent speech.

Marc Lamont Hill thinks that Rove's remarks may be good for Hillary Clinton.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, he's done her an enormous favor. One, because he gets the conversation on the table, he gets the issue out of the way, but also people will come to her defense. People were outraged that he would not only put something like this out there but that he would litter it with so many untruths about how long she was in the hospital, what type of technology she had on her face.

By doing that, he made women empathize with Hillary Clinton more because they see this as a gender sexist attack. He also made the elderly sympathize with Hillary Clinton more. This did much more for Hillary Clinton than for any potential Republican nominee. She should be sending Karl a thank you card.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): Well, we'll see about that. Ben, Republican strategist Alex Castellano, your colleague, he says that Rove's attack on Hillary, whatever the victory Republicans feel about it right now, it may leave a bitter taste. Could all this backfire on him?

BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, it certainly could backfire. I also think it brings up the obvious which is she is the front-runner and she was in this position before. I think the earlier you kind of say to everyone this is the candidate, the more pressure it can also put on a campaign. She was in the exact same position and then Barack Obama really took it from her.

And so I do think it brings that up. I think it may have been played a little bit too early. I certainly wouldn't have suggested this idea out there. I disagreed with it. But it is going to bring up the issue of age and health the same way that we always do with candidates. People did it about Democrats did with John McCain, saying, you know, the guy's too old and you know, there was also suggestions out there about him that maybe when he was tortured that he may not all be there together and that came out when he was running for president.

So unfortunately, this is the ugly bad part of politics that a lot of people say they don't like. I'm one of them. HILL: Let's take Benghazi off the list just for a moment. I think that's sort of an outlier in your examples. But if you're asking the question does the president not have enough oversight, I would say probably. I mean, if you look at the Health and Human Services issue, to not know the website was dysfunctional in June and then in August, is kind of odd. Then it rolls out in the fall and all of a sudden it's like I had no idea this was happening, that seems to be inexcusable.

When it comes to Shinseki, I'm not sure that he could have known, the president could have known this. Either way, if the constant narrative is I didn't know and my team didn't know, you have to take accountability for it. Let me say one more thing. I don't necessarily believe the Obama administration always doesn't know. I think their position is to distance themselves from this stuff as much as possible because they see it to be politically expedient and sometimes it is but in the long term if you have mistake after mistake and mistake and you never knew about it, that looks equally bad.

MARQUEZ: Ben, on Shinseki -

FERGUSON: I think -

MARQUEZ: - him staying, from a Republican point of view, him staying, does that hurt the president more or him leaving, will the Republicans smell blood and go after him harder?

FERGUSON: I don't - I honestly don't think this is a Republican or Democratic issue for once. Because this is veterans affairs, which affects anyone that ever served in the military, and there's a lot of Democrats and Republicans that were affected in a negative way. I mean, when people die like this, because of a list, you have to fire the CEO whether they knew about it or not because that's your job to know.

I understand Benghazi, why he didn't fire anybody. He asked Susan Rice to go on TV and tell a story, tell a lie to protect the president in his re-election campaign. So I get that one. I even understand Health and Human Services from a political point of view. If she admits it was a debacle and he fires her, that is actually going to hurt him. So he kept her around to protect her and really, to protect him and his White House.

This one, I don't understand. Because no one is going to say it's political when people died on a list. You should fire this person because people in fact did die, and they should be - we should care about our veterans. It should not have anything to do with politics. That's what I don't get about this one. I think people would applaud him for firing him. I really do.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUEZ: My thanks to CNN commentators, Ben Ferguson and Marc Lamont Hill.

Here's something you don't see every day. College football recruit was living out of a car, people wanted to help but the NCAA, they wouldn't allow it. Now the organization is bending its own rules. That story coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MARQUEZ: A college football player was living out of a car and is finally getting the help he needs all because the NCAA bent the rules. CNN's Brian McFayden has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN MCFAYDEN, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT (on camera): The NCAA forbids boosters from giving money to student athletes but it couldn't turn down the request from one school trying to bend the rules in the name of common sense by helping to get a homeless college football player off the street.

(voice-over): It's a movie in the making.

ANTOINE TURNER, BOISE STATE FOOTBALL SIGNEE: Wake up, survive, go to sleep, survive, wake up, survive.

MCFAYDEN: Such is the story of incoming Boise State football recruit Antoine Turner. He told KTVB after his mother died from cancer when he was four, he lived with various family members in New Orleans only to be left homeless after Hurricane Katrina ravaged his Lower Ninth Ward home, killing his uncle. He told the station he dealt drugs for gangs in New Orleans but never had a steady roof over his head.

Just trying to survive, the only solace he seemed to have was escaping to the football field. He played for a junior college team in California while living in parks and in his girlfriend's car.

TURNER: We had no blanket or nothing like that so I could either lay across this or sit under like this and put my head down.

MCFAYDEN: He got his big break when he was recruited by Boise state as a defensive tackle but he was still homeless. Boosters pledged to help but the school let them know that if they assisted, it could affect his eligibility. But that all changed on Wednesday.

The NCAA granted Boise State permission to provide immediate assistance to Turner. Now at the age of 21, Turner says he has a long way to go on his journey from homelessness to division one football player.

TURNER: I understand it's not over. I'm bringing all the pain, all the things that I have with me. Feels like I owe Boise (INAUDIBLE).

MCFAYDEN (on camera): It's a nice ending to the story for Turner and the NCAA. The NCAA has taken a lot of criticism recently with the way they handle student athletes and you have to believe that played a role in the positive outcome of this case and the speed with which it was handled.

Brian McFayden, CNN, Atlanta. (END VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUEZ: I'm Miguel Marquez, stay with CNN and cnn.com for the latest news. Next, it's Anthony Bourdain "PARTS UNKNOWN: RUSSIA," that's followed at 9:00 Eastern by the premiere of "PARTS UNKNOWN: MISSISSIPPI" and at 10 Eastern, it's the premier of "MORGAN SPURLOCK: INSIDE MAN: UFOs."

A night of premieres right here on CNN.