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Charlie Rangel Faces Real Challenge in Primary; NTSB Blames Asiana Flight 214 Crash on Pilots; Girls' Lung Transplant Changes Policy; Queen Elizabeth Visits "Game of Thrones" Set; Coach Gears Up for World Cup Match Against Germany.

Aired June 24, 2014 - 14:30   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At 84 years old, he's been in Congress for 43 years.

(SHOUTING)

REP. CHARLIE RANGEL, (D), NEW YORK: One voice, one community.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right now, he's facing a real challenge in the primary battle. There is a legitimate chance he could lose his seat.

RANGEL: If you had a good race horse that was old, would you say he's too old to win again?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How hard is it to break a streak to unseat someone who's sort of a legend of Harlem politics?

STATE SEN. ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, (D), NEW YORK: He's been in office for far so long. He has forgotten the little guys. He's picked Wall Street over 166th street.

FIELD: Rangel has been through this before. Two years ago, he narrowly saved his job after some health problems and after the House censured him in an epic scandal.

ESPAILLAT: I congratulate Congressman Rangel for having won this victory.

FIELD: Now, just two years later, the same opponent is back.

ESPAILLAT: I think, back then, I didn't have the support that I have now.

FIELD (on camera): What's changed since 2012?

RANGER: Well, I don't have a walker. I don't have a spinal injury.

ESPAILLAT: He doesn't have the leverage that he used to have at one time. He had to step down from the ways and means committee what the heck could he do if he finds his way to the House floor. FIELD: Rangel won his seat from another legend of Harlem politics,

Adam Clayton Powell Jr. The year was 1971.

NEAL SHOEMAKER, HARLEM HISTORIAN, HARLEM HERITAGE TOURS: 1971, voters were pessimistic about coming across over to 5th street. So you had perilous times at that time.

FIELD: Since then, Harlem has changed.

SHOEMAKER: You have the Republican housing project behind me, but all around, gentrification. That is the primary concern that people who have lived here have an opportunity to remain.

FIELD: Before 2012, the maps were redrawn. Part of the Bronx became part of this district. That added a lot of Hispanic voters.

ESPAILLAT: If you come to east Harlem, you will find the Puerto Rican community. You are going to find Mexican-Americans.

RANGEL: The press keeps saying my community has changed.

FIELD (on camera): It has changed, right?

RANGEL: So what? I mean, I don't speak Spanish on the House floor. Whoever wins will represent the 13th congressional district in the 114th Congress. This primary is the election. This district is Democratic.

ESPAILLAT: We got to wind behind us and the people have finally said enough is enough.

FIELD: Espaillat has become more well known in the area so he has gained some ground. Rangel, he says he wants one more term.

RANGEL: You don't think we're going to end up here?

Let's make some noise.

(SHOUTING)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, that voice. Charlie Rangel. Alexandra Field, live for us in his district of Harlem.

When we say 43 years in office, third-longest serving active member of the House behind John Dingell and John Conyers. Alexandra, when Rangel says this is it, is this really written in stone? You talked to him.

FIELD: I mean, Brooke, that's what he is saying. Frankly, he has said it a number of times. We will have to see if he is forced to retire earlier than he had planned, what he will choose to do. At this point, this is a guy who feels very confident about this race. He wants those two more years in Washington. But the fact is this is still a very tough race to call. Turn out is expected to be very low today. This is the only race on the ballot in this district. There actually was a poll released about a week ago from New York One. They put Rangel with a 13 point lead. It certainly would sound like a lot. But we've been speaking to both of the campaigns and both campaigns say they are geared up for a very close race.

BALDWIN: Alexandra Field, for us in Harlem, thank you.

We mentioned those five races we are really watching. We will take you to Mississippi, coming up.

Also, today, federal safety investigators looking into the cause of last year's Asiana plane crash have concluded the pilots are to blame. The NTSB is citing mismanagement by the crew as the cause. Flight 214 bounced off a sea wall at San Francisco's International Airport, flipped and burst into flames. Three people died.

Rene Marsh joins us now.

So, when we hear the pilots, Rene, what precisely was the driving factor in that ruling?

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: So yeah. That was the headline, Brooke, pilot error. The NTSB just ruled this. They say it was the action and sometimes inaction of the pilots that caused the Asiana flight 214 to crash. The NTSB specifically says the flight crew relied too heavily on the plane's automated systems to land the plane. They didn't fully understand how those systems worked. Take a listen.

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ROBERT SUMWALT, NTSB BOARD MEMBER: The errors of the pilots were not because of incompetency. They were because of an expectation that the autopilot and auto throttle system would do something for them that the airplane was not designed to do. And also a lack of monitoring.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARSH: So what happened? Well, one of the pilots unintentionally deactivated the automatic -- automatic air speed control. Similar to cruise control in the car. The flight crew failed to closely monitor the plane's air speed. And then they reacted too late when they attempted to abort landing.

Now the board said that fatigue likely contributed to do their poor performance. Their mistakes, couple with the complicated design of Boeing's throttle system, which were inadequately explained in the user manuals, that was one of the five contributing factors.

The board made more than two dozen safety recommendations, including pilots and automation, how the systems were designed and better training and explanation for how the systems work. They also made recommendations for post-crash response. If you remember, one of the three passengers who died was hit by an emergency vehicle. The NTSB recommended more studies be done on the injuries of the people onboard to come up with ways to make the cabin even safer.

One more point, I really want to hammer home, Brooke. Two of the three people who were killed in this incident they were not wearing seatbelts and the NTSB clearly stated today they believed that those people would have survived if they were wearing seatbelts -- Brooke?

BALDWIN: Rene Marsh, thank you so much.

MARSH: Sure.

BALDWIN: Coming up, remember this little girl? Oh, we talked about her for months, little Sarah Murnaghan. Last year, she received not one but two lung transplants from adult lungs, even though she was just 10 years of age. And that was a big deal. Her case has now permanently changed the way the cases are handled. Dr. Sanjay Gupta will join me to explain the policy change, the significance here, coming up.

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BALDWIN: What happened last year to save a deathly ill Pennsylvania girl was an exception to the rule? Now that exception is the rule. You remember Sarah Murnaghan. I talked to her parents about her urgent need for a lung transplant. She was just 10 years of age. With child donors being so rare, her mom and dad were fighting to get her lungs from an adult donor. Now, according to the rule at the time, it said a patient had to be at least 12 years of age to be eligible. A court had to intervene to get Sarah adult organs. As of Monday, Sarah's exception has become a permanent policy change, allowing kids 11 and younger to receive adult lungs.

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BALDWIN: My goodness. How wonderful does she look here? They are celebrating. Both the fact that her struggles will help other kids and celebrating her remarkable recovery. She could barely breathe last year and now here she is.

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SARAH MURNAGHAN, RECEIVED ADULT LUNG TRANSPLANT: Well, you should try hard because --

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BALDWIN: How about that!

Chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, with me here.

I remember this story. We talked about it for a quite while here. Just remind us, pre-policy change, what was the issue with her getting a lung?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: This was a tough situation in medicine. It's a real collision of medicine and ethics. Part of is you're dealing with something we don't have enough of. It's 1,600 people waiting for a transplant and there's simply not enough. That's why some of these rules come about. What they said is, if you're talking about a child. In this case, she's 10 years old and put adult lungs, you have to trim them to make them fit, simple things like that. But that could all reduce the chance they're going to work. It could increase the chances they will fail. If they fail, you can't use them again. You can't transplant them into someone else. It becomes a tough choice, do we give it to this person who will have a potential chance of survival, or do we give it to someone who may have a good chance but not quite as good as the first person. That's where the policies come from.

BALDWIN: As a child -- and the policy was still in force for the time -- she was able to get those adult lungs. Now that we know the policy changed as of Monday. Those parents were out there, they were saying this is wrong, this should change. Should we give them the credit?

GUPTA: I think so. There's no question they drove the train on this. If you look at the language from the organization that approved these rules, they say it was some high-profile cases that changed their minds. I think they deserve a lot of credit. And often it's personal for them. You see now, Sarah is doing well, riding a bike like that. The previous image is of her in an ICU next to a ventilator. It's pretty incredible.

Listen to what her mom had to say, specifically, and her dad.

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JANET MURNAGHAN, MOTHER OF SARAH: Mama Bear moves really, really fast and a government agency maybe doesn't move quite as fast. So I don't think it's surprising that it took a lot to get here.

FRAN MURNAGHAN, FATHER OF SARAH: I mean, often, in order to initiate change, either through government or whatever it may be, I mean you really have to push and stand up. You have to make people aware. That was the biggest thing, is that we wanted to make people aware of the issue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: Let me give you just a little bit of context as well. I said 1,600 people waiting for a transplant last year. About 16 of them were people under 10 or under. So it's not a large percentage of the people who are waiting. But as you just heard, it is a very important percentage for them.

BALDWIN: When we look at her biking around, it's wonderful. Is she out of the woods by this point?

GUPTA: The thing with lung transplants, I don't know that you're fully out of the Woods. Even at five years, they talk about survival being 50/50. Part of the concern with Sarah, in particular, was cystic fibrosis. It's not cured by a lung transplant. She still has the disease. She still needs medications for the disease. She's going to have a rockier, tougher road than most, but it's good to see her recovering as well as she is. But it's going to be a while before you can say she's truly out of the woods.

BALDWIN: Good on those parents. To you Sarah Murnighan, you go girl.

Sanjay Gupta, thank you very much.

GUPTA: You've got it.

BALDWIN: We really appreciate that.

Coming up, the queen, Queen Elizabeth visits the set of "Game of Thrones." The big question, did she sit on the iron thrown? The answer just ahead.

Also, next, World Cup fever. The U.S. coach, Jurgen Klinsmann, gearing up for the big match, U.S. versus Germany this Thursday. But he has a long history with the German team. We'll tell it, coming up.

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BALDWIN: Who says Americans don't watch soccer. Ratings are in for Sunday's U.S./Portugal game. It was a record breaker. 25 million watched on ESPN and Univision. Two games that haven't played today, Uruguay is moving to the next round, beating Italy, one, nil, and Costa Rica and England ends in a tie, meaning Costa Rica will move on.

Meantime, let's talk Team USA. U.S. men's team on the practice field without star striker, Josey Altidor (ph). The team announced he will miss Thursday's match as he is still recovering from that hamstring injury but the head coach, Jurgen Klinsmann, said he is ready to beat Germany, the message is simple.

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JURGEN KLINSMANN, USA SOCCER TEAM COACH: The message is real simple. We want to beat Germany. We want to be first in our group. We're not thinking about a tie.

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BALDWIN: Clearly, the focus for Team USA. Germany is a team that the U.S. head coach has a long history with.

CNN's Miguel Marquez has that.

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MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Is the fix in? Could a U.S./Germany tie be in the works so that both teams safely advance to the next round? That suspicion ripping through the soccer world as Team USA preps to face off against Germany. Two teams with lots of ties.

KLINSMANN: Facing Germany personally will be a very emotional situation but once the game starts, I'm down to work and to compete.

MARQUEZ: Leading Team USA, Jurgen Klinsmann, German born but long time California resident. He played for Germany in three World Cups. Coached the German national team in 2006. And Germany's current coach was his number two. They are friends. The cozy history for some has raised eyebrows.

SEAN GREGORY, SENIOR WRITER, TMC MAGAZINE: He has denied it vehemently. He is saying that's not the American thing to do.

MARQUEZ: It has happened before, though. 1982, the World Cup in Spain, where Germany and Austria played safe so both teams would advance. In the soccer world it's remembers as the non-aggression pact. Adding to suspicion, before, U.S. men's soccer win versus Ghana and their tie with Portugal, an unlikely person thought they might lose the World Cup. Their outspoken coach, Jurgen Klinsmann.

KLINSMANN: For us now, talking about winning a World Cup is just not realistic.

(CHEERING)

MARQUEZ: It wasn't the first time this German-born soccer legend has shaken up the American soccer world.

GREGORY: You see him on the sidelines going nuts after every goal or missed goal. He's a German-born son of a pretzel maker, superstar for the West German team on the 1990 World Cup winning team. In 1998, he moved to southern California, mixed in and kind of became an American.

(CHEERING)

KLINSMANN: I think my background hopefully helps me to prepare the American team in the best way possible for a very extreme tournament.

MARQUEZ: He has made a number of controversial moves since he was named the head coach of the U.S. men's team in 2011, like leaving out the most beloved star of previous World Cups, Landon Donovan, while the rest of the team, including five German/American players, travelled to Brazil.

GREGORY: He has been very open by wanting to change the American soccer system.

(CHEERING)

GREGORY: And the way America has been doing it hasn't won World Cups. I think he feels like he can play around and take some risks. So far, again, they've mostly paid off.

MARQUEZ: This Thursday, his now-American team goes up against his former team, Germany, a team he knows too well.

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BALDWIN: Miguel Marquez, thank you so much tor that.

And big news from Tiger Woods today. Golf superstar, who has been off the course for about three months, had to have back surgery for a pinched nerve, but he is making his comeback this weekend at a tournament outside of Washington, D.C., that benefits his charitable foundation. Woods says he is not quite as young as he used to be but that he is ready to play.

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TIGER WOODS, PROFESSIONAL GOLFER: It's going to be a little harder this time. I just haven't had the amount of prep and reps that I would like but I'm good enough to play. I'm going to give it a go.

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BALDWIN: Also, President Obama is supposed to host members of last year's President's Cup team at the White House later today. That team included Tiger Woods.

Coming up, Queen Elizabeth on the set of "Game of Thrones." We will tell you why she was there in the first place and if she sat on the iron thrown. That's next.

Also ahead, more shocking allegations against the V.A. hospital in Phoenix. Patient records changed. Some even altered to make dead veterans appear to still be living. I know. Drew Griffin joins me at the top of the hour with that. Stay right here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: All right. All you "Game of Thrones" fans, the mythical seven kingdoms, did you know, is filmed in Northern Ireland. The sprawling stages are part of the biggest TV production ever mounted in Europe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: She wasn't enough to turn you, right? Were you enough to turn her?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: She put three hours in me and I escaped.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Did you see her again at Castle Black?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Well, the show received a very special visitor this afternoon. Queen Elizabeth dropped in to meet the cast and check out the show's sword-covered seat of power.

CNN royal correspondent, Max Foster, has this tour, this video.

And, you know, listen from hearing you and my homework on all things royal, I mean the queen's own thrown is some eight centuries old, so did she dare sit on this iron thrown?

MAX FOSTER, CNN LONDON CORRESPONDENT: This is going to stand the test of time, this throne.

(LAUGHTER)

It just wasn't been that long enough. Also, I think -- if she was a true "Game of Thrones" fan, surely she could not pass up the opportunity of being on this thrown moments away from her little walk. But she missed the opportunity. I think actually, she was there because this was a really important sort of business to Northern Ireland. She was fascinated when she heard more and more about it. She met the cast members, very famous people in our world, Brooke, but maybe not in hers. She took away a little miniature thrown. At least she's got that as a memory.

BALDWIN: She got a little swag from the throne. She was really there to meet the cast or was there a bigger picture, bigger reason here?

FOSTER: Well, it's extraordinary if you think about it. Obviously, HBO chose Ireland to film this for cosmetic reasons. For Northern Ireland, a population of less than two million, this has been a huge earner, one of its biggest industries. Just one TV show. They earn something $140 million from this according to the local government office. Hundreds of jobs, thousands of temporary jobs. That's why she was there promoting the "Game of Thrones" as an industry which has literally transformed this nation. Extraordinary story. Extraordinary to see her near a thrown which has nothing to do with her.

BALDWIN: Shock in Belfast. But everything I know about the plots of the show, it's probably a good thing that she did not sit on this iron thrown.

FOSTER: Yeah.

BALDWIN: Max Foster, for us in London, thank you.