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PETA's Victory in the Fight against SeaWorld for Abusing Killer Whales; CNN Working Mothers Talk about Their Experience of Being Reporter and Mother of Young Child; Outbreak of Violence in Salinas, California; New Details in Boston Bombing Investigation; Adolescent Becoming Writer to Boost His Moral When Seriously Sick

Aired May 22, 2014 - 14:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Bottom of the hour, you're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. In the months since CNN first aired the documentary "Black Fish," exposing alleged mistreatment of killer whales at the SeaWorld, the company has faced unrelenting criticism. Now its public relations fight coming right to its doorstep. Because in the lawsuit settlement, PETA and the ACLU won the right to post this ad at the San Diego International Airport. By the way, SeaWorld is right around the corner from there. So, for the next month, folks flying into San Diego maybe will see - first park on their agendas, will see this message here, "If you love animals like I do, please avoid SeaWorld." Let's talk about this public relations wise. With our go to all-star Peter Shankman. Peter Shankman, welcome.

PETER SHANKMAN, BRANDING & SOCIAL MEDIA CONSULTANT: Good to be here, thanks.

BALDWIN: So a SeaWorld spokesman called PETA, quoting "extremists", says their animals are "happy and healthy." And with this, we know, it's just in one part of the airport. I understand the airport initially pushed back, but obviously, we know it's now there. How big of a problem is this for the park?

SHANKMAN: Well, it's a big airport and it's only one ad, and it's only running for four weeks. You know, SeaWorld did exactly what it's supposed to do, which is pushed back, tried to fight this, tried to prevent this from happening. It is an ad that could hurt them. Not tremendously, though. A lot of people don't necessarily come to SeaWorld and land at that terminal, or take the airport - take that airport there. A lot of them fly into L.A. and then drive south. But it's more the bigger picture, which is that PETA is not letting this go.

BALDWIN: They won't letting this go.

SHANKMAN: They really not. And SeaWorld needs to be aware, that they are focusing on that. You know, if PETA gets its bite into something, you know, 30 years later, and PETA still has a very huge presence when it comes to fighting fur and vegetarianism. So, once they get their teeth into something, you know, they are going to see through. So, PETA knows this and SeaWorld is bracing themselves for what is going to be probably a very long fight.

BALDWIN: Well, what do they do? They just buy an ad? To this one, currently sitting in that terminal in San Diego airport? What do they do?

SHANKMAN: Well, SeaWorld has shown that between the movie and the protests after that, SeaWorld has shown that they are very good at sort of ignoring the subject. You know, they put out a press release, it says our animals are great. Our animals feel fine. They really - they really quote the animals. But they say the animals feel fine, and then the question becomes, you know, they just sort of hope for it to die out. And then there is other breaking news and things happen and people - they tend to forget about it.

BALDWIN: Right.

SHANKMAN: Until the next time. And that's the problem is that PETA keeps this going on so there really always is a next time.

BALDWIN: So, just quickly - have you checked the numbers? How has attendance at SeaWorld changed at all?

SHANKMAN: It has not changed dramatically, enough to have an impact. It's certainly not from a financial standpoint. They did lose some bands, if you remember, some of the acts that were to participate, bailed out after this first happened, but again, these are things, we have a very short attention span in American, short attention span theater. And so, we kind of forget that there is a problem. What PETA is doing is they are making every effort to make sure that we don't forget and SeaWorld is going to have to deal with that.

BALDWIN: We have a short attention span? Get out of here, Peter Shankman.

(LAUGHTER)

BALDWIN: I don't know what you are talking about. Peter Shankman, thank you so much. Appreciate it. And for more on this controversy surrounding SeaWorld, make sure you watch the CNN film "Black Fish" in its entirety. If you have not seen it, you have to tonight. 9:00 Eastern, we are very re-airing it here on CNN.

Well, the fun day in the sun turns into a nightmare at the swimming pool. You have these young kids - we'll show you the video - so, these young kids splashing around in the shallow end. And suddenly, this powerful surge of electricity just charges the water. This little girl - we spotlighted it for you, she touches the handrail, freezes, she feels this jolt. Her muscles rendered useless. Man, you see him, pulling her to safety. The danger, though, far over, because nearby a five-year-old girl floats, her body is limp. Her brother says she was turning blue. Her grandfather racing here to the rescue, yanks her from the electrified waters. Her brother in doing this gets shocked as well.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DIEGO CABRERA, GET SHOCKED IN THE POOL: I was in the pool and the metal - the metal railing, I was swimming close to it and then I felt the shock.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Well, I can tell you, happily enough, all three kids are OK. They survived after spending a couple of days in the hospital. That pool has since been closed and drained. CNN's Miami affiliate WFOR reports, "a preliminary investigation blames unconnected ground wires in the pool pump house." That could have done that. Coming up, Angelina Jolie telling moms who have it all, stop complaining. We'll talk to a couple of power moms right here at CNN, we'll get there real reaction to that. Plus, developing right now, a police shooting sparking massive protest. Bottles, bricks being thrown, hear what the man was doing at the time he was shot. Was that justified? The police action. We will discuss.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Police officer shoot and killed a man, they say, lounged at them gardening chairs. This deadly altercation happened Tuesday in Salinas, California, sparked outrage right there in this community and cries of police brutality. And the shooting is all caught on video. We have it here for you. And we'll warn you, though, what you are about to see is tough to watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Um: Down! Put it down!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (speaking Spanish)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (YELLING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: You hear the cry mom, and (INAUDIBLE). That means mom, come here. Protests erupting afterwards. Our Salinas affiliate reports up to 500 people flooded the streets and that officers [NO AUDIO] were attacked with bricks and with bottles. CNN Stephanie Elam is controlling this for us. And as we mentioned, Stephany, these allegations of unnecessary use of force here, how are, if they even have responded, how are police responding to that?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, I actually did get off the phone within the hour with the police chief in Salinas. Kelly McMillin. He says that these responses coming from the community that there was excessive use of force. He says they are understandable, although they may not be accurate. He says they do not have a lot of police involved shootings, but acknowledged that there was this one on Tuesday, and there was also one on May 9 that was very similar to this, but he goes on to say that this is just not something that happens there. And that the investigation is under way. If you keep listening or watching this video you hear a woman yelling, why not taser, why didn't you tase him first? And the police chief tells me that they did tase this man, but it was not effective, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Can we just - let's walk back a half step. Why were police in the neighborhood to begin with?

ELAM: Well, they were called to the neighborhood, the police chief tells me, because of the man in the neighborhood, he tried to break into a house of a woman. And allegedly he then exposed himself, was choking her dog in the yard. Was wielding this - (INAUDIBLE), garden chairs, he was wielding it out there. And so the time between that 911 call that came in from the community and the time that the man was shot was about eight minutes. So, not a quick response, but they were there because they were called there, the police chief is saying.

BALDWIN: OK. So then in the wake of this shooting, as we mentioned, the community, the uproar, tell me about the protests, what happened, how many people, what were they telling you?

ELAM: Well, apparently it started very small on that corner where this man was shot, and it grew, and grew, and grew. You can hear horns honking when you look at some of the footage. You here people out there yelling and screaming. At one point during this, a man was shot and police responded to assist the man, trying to get him CPR. That officer was hit in the head. And they moved into a vehicle, an ambulance, to finish giving him CPR, to take him into the hospital. The man later died, and the issue there, the police is saying that the area was so contaminated they couldn't go back and investigate and find out. It took them many hours before they can go back into that investigation. So this is the one fatality from that protest, but a lot of people wanting more answers. They are wanting to know, what is going on in Salinas, and that's where this anger came from, because of the fact that there have been three police involved shootings in Salinas this year. And the police chief is saying, that's just - that is not normal. They just don't have a lot of that there. So, emotions are running high in Salinas, for sure.

BALDWIN: We know you will stay on it. Let us know what happened to these officers. Stephanie Elam, thank you very much. For us in Los Angeles today. Coming up, did the brothers accused in the Boston bombings have help? Brand new information may answer that question once and for all. Plus, Angelina Jolie telling privileged moms stop complaining. It is sparking a bigger conversation about parent's guilt and the fear of missing out. We will go there, but first it's hard enough for adults to manage the stress of being very sick, but for a teenager, it can hardly - it's even harder, it's difficult, it's very lonely. In this week's "Human Factor," our chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta introduces you to one who took writing to help him mentally escape from a strange disease.

(BVT)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: For Schuyler Ebersol, high school started pretty normally, but his luck quickly took a turn for the worse.

SCHUYLER EBERSOL, AUTHOR, "THE HIDDEN WORLD": I have severe dizziness so that I couldn't really walk or see straight for days at a time. GUPTA: At first, he just chalked it up to stress, but Ebersol quickly realized something was really wrong

EBERSOL: No one knew what was wrong with me. And there were all sort of hypothesis.

GUPTA: Home from school for months at a time, Ebersol desperately needed an escape. And he found it -- in writing.

EBERSOL: I just started writing. And I would get lost in this world and I identified with this character and it was just a way to keep me going while everything else in my life wasn't so great.

GUPTA: And then after several months doctors finally discovered the cause of his symptoms. A rare form of Lyme disease. And at the same time, his scattered pages started to gel into a book.

EBERSOL: The book is called "The Hidden World." It's about a main character who has a heart attack. He slips into a coma. And when he wakes up he turns into a wolf in the hospital room.

GUPTA: "The Hidden World" was published last December with more in the works. And Ebersol says through it all, writing saved his life.

EBERSOL: You really just have to find something that can sustain you and keep you mentally strong.

GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN reporting.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Oscar winning actress Angelina Jolie actress is standing up for working moms who do not have movie star means. The mom of six tells "The New York Daily News" quoting her here, "I actually feel that women in my position when we have all at our disposal to help us shouldn't complain. Jolie's comments come directly after the wife of New York City mayor was blasted for saying this to "New York Magazine." She said, "I have been working since I was 14 and that part of me is me. It took a long time for me to get into "I'm taking care of the kids." With me now two working moms, two awesome women, CNN correspondents who go back - way back to your 20s, I know.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Way back.

(LAUGHTER)

BALDWIN: Way back.

DANA BASH: Way, way back. It was only a few minutes ago, right?

BALDWIN: Producing in a D.C. bureau. Who, thank to you two, would be on talking about being moms, right? But the Kelly Wallace covers parenting for us, and our chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash always chasing down the story.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BASH: Are you heading to your car?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go ahead. Yes.

BASH: Just a quick question. You all are coming out the last vote of the week. You are not going ...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The comments that I made about the president are the fact that during the Benghazi debacle the president went missing.

BASH: Right. What I want to ask you about is ...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: She is chasing, she is running, she's getting answers. She's Dana Bash. As she was just named one of the top five powerful working moms in the country.

(CHEERS)

BALDWIN: So, to both of you, yes. Awesome talking to you. And Kelly Wallace, let's begin with you.

WALLACE: Yes.

BALDWIN: Because I know you wrote about this for.com. Let's talk about - so, Jolie made this comment in response to Chirlane McCray's, you know, just brief - brief, what paragraph or two, the "New York Magazine" interview talking about mom guilt.

WALLACE: Yes. No, I think Angelina Jolie, I think so many women and moms are applauding what she says because so many people get so tired of celebrity moms ...

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: who have all of the financial means, right? They say, oh, it's so hard or they are applauded for being a great mother when they have a lot of support that many women around the country don't have. What I didn't totally get was her connection between her comments and what Chirlane McCray was saying. Because I think - it didn't seem to me that Chirlane McCray was complaining about being a mom or that she deserved that title that the "New York Post" gave her saying, you know, "I was a bad mom."

BALDWIN: No.

WALLACE: I think she was saying what a lot of professional women feel. I'm sure Dana can relate. When you have kids a little bit later in life, your career is thriving, your - you know, your identity is connected to what you do. Sometimes some women grapple with that balance of being the mom they want to be while still having the career they want to have at the same time.

BALDWIN: Dana, we were just talking, that was just D.C. - what, on Friday, and we were, you know, chatting in a corner together privately, but I will share, you know, I was asking you how do you do it? You have, you know, a little boy and you are always the first to say, listen, I have help!

BASH: I exactly have help. Listen, I didn't think I had anything in common with Angelina Jolie.

(LAUGHTER)

BALDWIN: Good company to be in.

BASH: Yes. Yeah. And I will say, also, that now you know how I have the stamina to run after these members of Congress, because I'm running after a two-year old all the time.

BALDWIN: Right.

BASH: But it is absolutely true. Look, I have a tremendous help. And I'm not - (INAUDIBLE). I actually just called the person who is with my son now and said, turn on CNN, because I want her to know, she is absolutely remarkable. She's part of my family. And I will say that I'm lucky enough to have my family. I have parents close by, so if I get that late night call, that I've got early morning live shot, I get I call I've got to go away, you know, they are also there to help out, to help us out. So, it is incredibly important, and I think about people like the woman who is with my son right now who was a single mom herself, who didn't have the kind of help that she gives me for her child. And it is just remarkable. I just - I bow at the altar of all the women out there who do it. And ...

BALDWIN: We bow. We bow.

BASH: Yeah.

BALDWIN: We bow. And here is my question, actually, really to both of you and speaking from someone without child, but one day hoping, maybe, to be a mom, to be like the two of you. When I read that - what Chirlane McCray said, it is interesting, because like the two of you hard working women, you know, now and then also, of course, before you had your kids, this whole notion of you have this self-identity. I am tough, powerful independent single career woman and then you have this child, how do you wrestle with maintaining that - that identity, but then being a mom as well?

WALLACE: Well, I can say, you can do it. No, you can't have it all, right? We have that conversation all the time. I think one friend of mine once talked about this. And I'm not a failure at all, but she said think of your life being on a sailboat. Sometimes you might have to tack more toward family, but you're still moving forward with your career and your family. Other times you might have to tack more towards your profession or your career. But you are still moving forward. You are not out of balance. And I think what is so important here, Brooke, is the judgment that goes on is incredible. And so much of it comes from insecurities that we all have. Stay-at- home moms judging working moms, working moms ...

BALDWIN: Working moms judging stay at home moms. WALLACE: Right. And a friend of mine on Facebook jokes, saying, why don't we go with encouraging, right? Why don't we encourage all moms instead of judging them and that might be a better way to go. I think that would be helpful and more supportive.

BASH: That's so true, Kelly. And, you know, I think about the fact that I actually because I was older when I had my son and I had seen so many of my friends have their kids, when I was pregnant, I was thinking to myself the whole time, you know, don't pre-judge what you, meaning what I would think about how I wanted to live. Would I be able to go back to work, you know, full-loaded (ph), like I had been or not? And, you know, part of the way I am able to do it, obviously, is with help, but also with colleagues and friends who have done it. I mean I have Gloria Borger is in the office right next to me, and she knows how many times I've gone in, closed the door. And you know, she's lifted me off of the emotional floor ...

(LAUGHTER)

BASH: I'm trying to figure out - because she did it. And Candy Crowley did it, and other people who have done it before ...

WALLACE: Come before us.

BASH: ... will show us the way.

BALDWIN: OK, well, Ladies, one day, can I call ..

WALLACE: One day?

BALDWIN: I'm calling both of you and I bow down to both of you with everything ...

WALLACE: That will be great ...

BASH: You too.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Thank you. Kelly and Dana, I appreciate it so, so much. Coming up, new details today about the Boston bombing suspect information about what made up those bombs and exploded at the Boston Marathon finish line. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: We are learning some new details today about the attack at the Boston Marathon last year. These new documents from the prosecutors really go into dramatic detail as to how the Tsarnaev brothers allegedly built these bombs using some pretty common items you probably have in your own home. Three spectators were killed near the finish line last April and more than 200 others were injured. Let's go straight to Jason Carroll. And Jason, when I was reading this morning, I thought Christmas lights? Really?

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, common items that turned out to be deadly. Investigators say that the fuses for the bombs were actually, you are right, made from Christmas tree lights and that it appears the brothers used and crushed empty - and emptied hundreds of fireworks containing black powder in order to make the devices. Also revealed, Brooke, really Intriguing details about a note that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had written when he was hiding inside that boat parked in the driveway during that massive manhunt. Tsarnaev wrote he was jealous of his older brother for getting into heaven before he did. As you know, his older brother was killed. He also wrote, "God has a plan for each person. Mine was to hide in this boat and shed some light on our actions. The U.S. government is killing our innocent civilians. I can't stand to see such evil go unpunished. We Muslims are one body. You hurt one, you hurt us all." Then Tsarnaev writes, "We are promised victory. And we will surely get it. No, I don't like killing innocent people. It is forbidden in Islam. Stop killing our innocent people and we will stop."

Prosecutors say the use of the word "we" is key. The government is arguing its investigators had to question Tsarnaev before they informed him of his rights because they had to quickly find out if more attacks were being planned by others.

In other words, public safety was an issue. They now also believe that the brothers did in fact act alone. The defense argues those early statements made by Tsarnaev should be thrown out because he was questioned without a lawyer.

BALDWIN: Jason Carroll, thank you so much for the new details there from New York. Appreciate it.

CARROLL: You bet.