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Hollywood Production Technique Used in Filming ISIS Videos; American Doctor with Ebola Transported to U.S. Hospital in Nebraska; Ceasefire Reached between Ukraine and Russia

Aired September 05, 2014 - 10:30   ET

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

WILL CAIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Instead, Maureen was doing this on her own and she doesn't really have any power. Maureen participated in that. The goal for both of them was to stay out of jail. They were lying. They just weren't lying about having a good marriage. They were lying about having a bad marriage.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Well, I do believe they had - all right, I do believe they had a really bad marriage, though. I mean they didn't even ...

DONNA BRAZILE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Maybe they stopped talking over lunch or they stopped doing whatever married couples do. I've never been married so I don't want to even figure that out right now, but here's the problem, no one is above the law. The governor, when you look at the indictment against the governor and now the charges that -- the felony charges, he basically lent the prestige of his office to this guy as star scientific, Mr. Williams, that's what he's been indicted and now convicted of. That was the real case. Not his marriage. I think their threw their marriage under the bus as a legal strategy. It didn't work. It backfired.

COSTELLO: So, you think they had a good marriage?

CAIN: How could any of us ever know what the true nature of their relationship is ...

COSTELLO: He's living with his priest now, he's not living with her.

BRAZILE: That's when confession starts.

CAIN: At least when hearing the trial.

COSTELLO: No, right now.

BRAZILE: That's when confession starts. You know, when you leave with your priest, God forbid if I ever live with my priest, because I guarantee you, if I did decide to live with the priest, it's because we want to drink more wine.

(LAUGHTER)

BRAZILE: And get (INAUDIBLE) earlier. But I cannot imagine, you know, maybe there's a friendship there, maybe, you know, whatever, but the bottom line is, is that again, he's not above the law and now Virginia officials must really go back and design strong ethics law, so this will never occur again and being from Louisiana maybe we can give them some ideas.

COSTELLO: I kind of want to also talk about can you be divorced and a Republican and be elected to office? Ronald Reagan was divorced, right? So why is it such a big deal to come out and say I'm having problems in my marriage, people?

CAIN: Well, many argue that it's not such a big deal any more. You have several governors right now, most of which are Democratic, you point out the Republican angle, but Andrew Cuomo and John Hickenlooper are both divorced. It seems to be when the political question matters is how far in the past are you divorced? I think if you are going through a divorce during the campaign phase or during the political wind-up phase that would probably be hurtful to your campaign. But having had a divorce, like Ronald Reagan got divorced in 1949, won the presidency in 1980. People don't hold that against you.

BRAZILE: No one should be forced to stay in the bad marriage simply because they want electoral votes. Look, if the marriage is bad, get rid of it and find someone else.

COSTELLO: I just want to ask you a hypothetical question.

BRAZILE: OK.

COSTELLO: And I know that Bill and Hillary Clinton love each other. I do. And I'm not intimating anything different, but if they were to get a divorce, do you think it would affect a possible run for president for Hillary Clinton?

BRAZILE: No, I don't think so. Look, look, people know Bill Clinton because he's been a champion for middle class families. They know Hillary Clinton because she's also been a champion. They are going to judge Hillary Clinton on her own merits not just simply because she's married to a former president of the United States.

CAIN: Awful close to a potential presidential election, and you are talking about star - it's like Brad and Angelina breaking up. I have no idea the ripple effect that would have.

BRAZILE: The only thing that we can anticipate right now is that they are, you know, waiting for their grandchild. That's all we can anticipate right now.

COSTELLO: By all accounts, they are very happy together.

BRAZILE: Yes, they are happy.

COSTELLO: Donna Brazile, thanks so much. I appreciate it.

Kind of an interesting topic. I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: A memorial service for Steven Sotloff will be held at a Miami temple this afternoon. Florida Governor Rick Scott has ordered all state and local buildings to fly flags at half-staff today to honor the journalist beheaded by ISIS. The public is welcome to attend.

ISIS seems to be taking a page out of the Hollywood playbook, with videos that are almost homage to movies and TV shows, but as CNN's Brian Todd reports, this splashy recruitment took could backfire on the terror group.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's a slick horrifying video, with Hollywood-like production techniques. This is the opening of that video created by ISIS, showing Steven Sotloff's execution.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We will be vigilant and we will be relentless.

TODD: Look familiar? This is the clip from the opening to Showtime's terrorism drama "Homeland."

OBAMA: We must and we will remain vigilant to homeland ..

TODD: Similar phrase, similar grainy video effect.

MATTHEW LEVITT, WASHINGTON INSTITUTE FOR NEAR EAST POLICY: There's no coincidence here. This is Western media production personnel for ISIS drawing on their knowledge of Western popular culture to not only get our attention but kind of stick it to America.

TODD: One ISIS video has a scene similar to one in the film "The Hurt Locker." An ISIS drone video looks early like a scene from "0 Dark 30," but strangely enough, these productions could harm ISIS. In this recent video showing Syrian soldiers being paraded in the desert in their underwear to their executions, the camera at one point jaggedly swings around, to show - on the production team. One man holding a camera, another with his face shown, driving.

(on camera): Are these framed grabs of any use to Western intelligence?

LEVITT: Well, Western intelligence looks at the frame like this, they are looking to see if there's someone's face. There might be someone they can recognize. A frame like this is inquiries useful. You can't see anything about his face here, maybe you can see that he's right- handed but given that there are so many Westerners involved in the slick ISIS propaganda machine on social media, digital media, one of the things that I'll be looking at is to see if this is one of the known Westerners.

TODD (voice over): CNN has learned investigators are looking at whether that Ahmad Abu Samra, an American from Boston who is on the most wanted terrorist list has now joined ISIS and whether he may be behind some of its social media campaign.

RICHARD BARRETT, THE SOUFAN GROUP: These groups themselves understand that you need to get somebody who understands the vernacular, if you like, you need to get somebody who knows what images are going to appeal.

TODD: How effective has the ISIS media campaign been? Effective enough for the U.S. government to produce a counter-narrative. This new video from the State Department sarcastically tells potential ISIS recruits they can "learn useful new skills," like blowing up mosques, crucifying and executing Muslims, they show gruesome images to that effect, much of the rest of this video is too graphic for us to show you.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: All right. I believe we have a statement from the Ukrainian president. I told you earlier that a ceasefire agreement has been reached between Ukraine and pro-Russian rebels. Shortly we're going to have a statement from the Ukrainian president. In fact, I'll have that for you after a break. I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: All right, back to that breaking news we told you about at the top of the hour, that Ukraine and pro-Russian rebels have agreed to a ceasefire and we believe it's the real deal. In fact the Ukrainian president talked about it a short time ago. Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRES. PETRO POROSHENKO, UKRAINE: We're expecting in the very nearest future to release the hostages. Most probably should happen tomorrow and we are ready for provide the significant steps including the decentralization of power, and including the speciality (ph) on the certain districts of the Donetsk and Lugansk region for the economic freedom, guaranteed their right for use any languages on this territory, and defend the cultural tradition, including the amnesty, so everything, which is mentioned in my peace plan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So, the Russian President Putin backed this ceasefire plan, that's why Matthew Chance says it could well be the real deal, but again a ceasefire agreement has been reached between Ukraine and those pro-Russian rebels. We have much more about this later on on CNN.

You know the news this morning, an American doctor infected with the Ebola virus is back in the United States for treatment. Dr. Rick Sacra was taken to Nebraska Medical Center after his plane landed in Omaha this morning. Sacra is the third American to become infected with the deadly virus while caring for patients in Liberia. But his wife said she got encouraging news before the doctor's plane left for the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DEBBOE SACRA. WIFE OF DR. RICHARD SACRA: I just had a call from the doctor who put him on a plane to come to the United States, and he said that Rick is clearly sick, but that he was in very good spirits, and he was -- and he walked on to the plane.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: He walked on to the plane. CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins me now. Does she have reason to be positive?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think, so. You know, obviously, you know, walking onto the plane, as sick as patients can become with Ebola, the fact that you can simply walk on the plane is obviously a very encouraging sign, more like D. Kent Brantly, you remember, Carol, than Nancy Writebol who - you know, ahead of - a much tougher course through Ebola. They both recovered. And I think that that bodes well for him as well. We know that he's in Nebraska. He's in this isolation unit there. He's been able to communicate using cell phones and an intercom system. And should be able to continue to do that after he gets settled in, but I think, you know, obviously it's a very favorable sign.

COSTELLO: Could he be treated with that special serum that the other doctors were treated or the doctor and the aid worker were treated with?

GUPTA: ZMapp and the answer is no for the simple reason that there's no more of it left right now. Remember, this whole thing, the way it went down, Carol, it was unusual, this had never been used in humans before. It was a little bit of a Hail Mary in terms of trying to get it out to these people. About seven people were able to receive the medications. But you know it's - there's no more of it left. There are other medications out there that may be available to him and we know that the doctors in Nebraska are looking into that as well. I should point out though, Carol, it goes without saying that obviously there's a lot of people who survive and do very well without any of those experimental therapies, you know, 50 percent or so, and we don't know just how much these therapies do yet in humans because there haven't been studies so he's going to have other options besides just something experimental.

COSTELLO: All right. Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Thanks so much. We appreciate it. You can watch Sanjay Gupta this weekend on CNN tomorrow at 4:30 P.M. Eastern and Sunday, at 7:30 a.m. Eastern.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Checking some top stories for you. It's 51 minutes past the hour. Grand jury has indicted the father of a Georgia toddler who died after being left in a hot car. Justin Harris faces eight counts including malice murder in his son's death. Harris told police he forgot 20-months old Cooper was still in the car when you arrived at work. Cooper died after being left his car seat for seven hours.

The district attorney says he will decide in the coming weeks whether to pursue the death penalty. Just about an hour ago, the government released a new snapshot of the economy. August saw the smallest jobs gain of the year. 142,000 jobs created. It's far below the 200,000 jobs predicted by most experts. The unemployment rate from 6.2 percent to 6.1.

A state of emergency has been declared on Hawaii's Big Island as lava flaws continued moving dangerously close to neighborhoods. The lava started flowing from a volcano on the southern shore of the Big Island in June, and the U.S. Geological Survey says the flows could reach homes within the next week. Residents have been told to prepare for possible evacuations. And need a new record holder for the ages. These massive dinosaur bones are from newly discovered Dreadnautus. That means fear nothing. That's because this dinosaur may be the biggest creature to ever live granted that was 77 million years ago. Well, here the dinosaur is on the far right and look at how he dwarves the mighty African elephant on the far left. The remains were unearthed in Argentina's Southwestern Patagonia.

Apple is rolling out new security measures after that mass theft of nude celebrity photos. In the coming weeks, users will be alerted when someone makes any change to their account.

Users can also offer a second line of defense, a temporary password texted to them and required to access the account.

Have you ever uttered the phrase stick a sock in it? Yeah, me too. But now, I know not to say it too loud. At least not in front of a Great Dane. Here's Jeanne Moos.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You never know where their nose has been, what they are guilty of eating until you see the X-ray and learn what hooked them from Marley the pooch who grabbed a shish-kebab skewer loaded with meat, to Yoda the Chihuahua who somehow swallowed nine sewing needles. We present the winners of the 2014 X-Ray contest, organized by veterinary practice news. Maybe you've already seen the Great Dane that gulped down 43 and a half socks. The vet had to slice open his stomach.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Removing sock after shock of all different shapes, colors and sizes.

MOOS: Try finding a matching pair, maybe this goes with this. Or is it this? For some reason, the first prize went to a frog who had the munchies and ate 30 ornamental stones in his cage. Then there was the light bulb. Coatie the golden retriever swallowed and managed to pass intact. It could have been worse. I'd like to see Coatie pass this intact. Talk about swallowing alien objects, Mitchell the cat actually ingested a toy alien. Its outstretched arms made it impossible to pull out, so they had to operate. All the pets you see here recovered from their meals. Take Stella the pug, she downed 104 pennies and a quarter. $1.29.

It's OK, dog, you can keep the change. Nora the rat terrier won honorable mention thanks to this nondescript metal clip, the x-ray revealed attached to it was his owner's bra. Nora says - were no longer, he's been banned from the laundry room. Even a lizard received honorable mention for swallowing a tiny banana from Barbie's dream house where he occasionally lounges.

Then there's Wolf observed by his owner wolfing down a rubber ducky straight out of the tub.

It turns out, there was a flock of five in there that the vet had to remove.

(SINGING)

MOOS: Oh, if not fun, at least filling.

(SINGING)_

MOOS: Jeanne Moos, CNN. New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Really, 104 pennies? Great to hear all of those pets live to eat another day. Hopefully with a change in their diet.

Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm Carol Costello, "@THISHOUR" with Berman and Michaela after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)