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Hillary Rises in Polls, Biden Is Wildcard; Military to Decide Bowe Bergdahl's Fate Within 2 Weeks; Viola Davis' Message on Winning Emmy. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired September 21, 2015 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[14:30:00] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: It's exciting. Father Beck, thank you for coming on. I'm sure we'll be talking in the coming days.
We'll have special coverage of the pope's visit. Watch our special report "The People's Pope" tomorrow night at 9:00 eastern and Pacific only here on CNN.
Coming up next, Hillary Clinton, check out her latest numbers. She's rising in our new CNN/ORC poll against her Democratic opponent, Bernie Sanders. But there is the wild card here, the variable, if I may. The vice president, Joe Biden. If he decides to jump in the race, that could shake things up. His new signal, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:35:00] BALDWIN: Just past the bottom of the hour. Let's talk Hillary Clinton. She has a little more room to breathe because she's padded her lead in the race for the White House. Check out this new poll. She has a commanding lead with 42 percent. Bernie Sanders now sitting at 24 percent. Joe Biden at 22 percent. Keep in mind, Biden not in the race. For Clinton, the comparison from September, it's a five-point drop.
We don't know if Joe Biden will jump in or not, but we know this. He has spoken about this, this past weekend.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's not quite there yet. It may not get there in time to make it feasible to be able to run and succeed because there are certain windows will close. But if that's it, that's it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: That's the latest we have from him.
Here's the thing. If the vice president does not get in the race, look at how much bigger her number is. Hillary Clinton's lead even stronger, picking up last month's slump, jumping to 57 percent, leaving Bernie Sanders well behind with only 28 percent.
Joining me, CNN chief political analyst, Gloria Borger. Gloria, this is great for the Hillary Clinton camp. What helped her
turn the corner? He's been pounded relentlessly by folks on the other side about the e-mails. Is this the showing her heart and humor and apology tour? Is that what worked for her?
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: I think you're absolutely right. She finally did after a bunch of tries, if you'll recall, say that the private e-mail server was a mistake. So she's out there apologizing for it. She is out there more in a variety of different venues. Not only doing television interviews more than she's ever done, but she's on Jimmy Fallon, joking around.
BALDWIN: Dancing on "Ellen."
BORGER: And also don't forget the Republican Party has been having its own show and by comparison lots of Democrats look at her and go, you know what, she looks pretty terrific. I think the Republican race helps her very much as well. But I do think that as a candidate when you're overprotected, people sense it and they feel it. When you're out there more, not every word is parsed in a way that it would be if you weren't out there. The sense of being out there really helps her.
BALDWIN: Speaking of maybe parsing, let's play the clip from Hillary Clinton on "Face the Nation" yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON, (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE & FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: I mean, look, I am a real person with all the pluses and minuses that go along with being that. I've been in the public eye for so long that I think it's like the feature that you see in some magazines sometimes, real people actually go shopping, you know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: So, I get it, she's a real person. She shops. But she's also Hillary Clinton. And she also went on to suggest she's running as an outsider, in the context that she would become the first female president. But I'm thinking, outsider?
BORGER: She's not an outsider. She's not an outsider. She's been in politics for most of her life. Her husband is a former president of the United States. She's a former secretary of state. She is a Washington person. What's different in that clip from "Face the Nation" is I can almost sense someone said, energy, put some energy --
BALDWIN: It was there.
BORGER: -- in your answers, don't be so low key and downtrodden and just be more of your natural self. And that's what she's trying to do. It's not so much being an outsider as it is being herself. And maybe we'll get to see a little bit more and more of her. Her staff likes to say she's the most famous person you don't know.
BALDWIN: Somebody who definitely appears quite authentic, and we talked about this last week, is the vice president. So now we have the nation waiting. We have now heard from his wife, Dr. Jill Biden. They released this statement, "Of course, Dr. Biden would be on board if her husband decides to run for president, but they haven't made that decision yet."
You heard the bite from over the weekend. What will it take for him to say, I'm in, or forget it?
BORGER: I've done a lot of reporting on this it. First of all in regard to his wife, no wife wants to be seen as an impediment to her husband running. So there were stories out there that she was opposed to it. I think they had to put that to rest if you wanted to run of course, she would be with him. But I do think with Joe Biden, unlike with other politicians, what you see and what he's saying in public is what he's saying in private. This is an intensely personal decision. I don't think anybody knows what he's going to decide yet. There are dead lines approaching about filing dead lines in certain states. I think he can only go as quickly as his heart and his head tell him to go. And so at this point, we don't know an answer. We do know that everybody who cares about him is doing an awful lot of due diligence for him, giving him all the alternatives, letting him know what he would be heading into. And at a time when he feels it's right, he'll make a decision.
[14:40:51] BALDWIN: Gloria Borger, thank you so much.
BORGER: Thanks.
BALDWIN: Speaking of the Democrats, in just three weeks, CNN and Facebook will be joining together to host the first Democratic candidates debate, Tuesday, October 13th, in Las Vegas. Don't miss it.
Coming up next, we have new details in the case against Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. Brand new revelations by his defense team. Says he up and vanished from his post in Afghanistan. Much more on that.
Also, the stunning and moving moment that everyone is talking about from last night's Emmys.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:45:37] BALDWIN: Senior military officers will decide over the course of the next few weeks whether former prisoner, Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, should be court-martialed. They need to weigh dramatic testimony from the lead investigator, Major General Kenneth Dahl, who said he found no evidence that Bergdahl was sympathetic to the Taliban, and added that jail for the Army sergeant would be inappropriate.
Bergdahl's attorney was visibly relieved to hear that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EUGENE FIDELL, ATTORNEY FOR SGT. BOWE BERGDAHL: I'm going to allow readers and viewers to draw their own conclusions as to what it means for a general officer in the United States Army to provide the kind of testimony that General Dahl did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: There is so much more to the story that could resort to a trial to a court-martial. Former Navy SEAL Jimmy Hatch lost his leg during rescue operations after Bergdahl disappeared. Hatch talked to CNN about the mission that ended his military career.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIMMY HATCH, FORMER NAVY SEAL: I was laying there. Initially, I thought I was dead because I'm so close and I can't move. Then I hear my buddies. Then I hear the guy throws a grenade. The shrapnel is flying around.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, A.C. 360: I'm like, one of the Taliban guys threw it.
HATCH: Yeah. Anyway, my buddies finished the job.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Bergdahl was freed after five years of captivity in the controversial prisoner swap with five Taliban at Guantanamo Bay. The Army then charged him with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.
Martin Savidge is on this for us today.
Martin, we know the testimony not the only thing possibly working in Bergdahl's favor. Tell me who else is testifying.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The other person who was there is a man by the name of Terrance Russell. He spent 22 years in the Air Force as a survival instructor, but now he's considered perhaps the DOD's top person when it comes to understanding POWs. He's debriefed over 125 of them. He debriefed Bowe Bergdahl. He's heard it all and essentially seen it all when it comes to the horrors of captivity. He went into detail of what Bergdahl went through, and twice during that explanation, this hard-core expert had had to wipe tears from his eyes and his voice cracked with emotion. In two quotes he gave under oath, he said that Bergdahl's experience, quote, "ranks in the same area echelon of horrible conditions that we have not seen in 60 years." He went on, "Bergdahl is described as an Army of one. He had to fight the enemy alone for four years, 11 months. You cannot over estimate how difficult that is." He finished by saying, "And he has my respect for it."
You could have heard a pin drop in the hearing room and the viewing room. That literally brought people to a pause to hear that kind of an endorsement from such a man who knew so much about POWs -- Brooke?
BALDWIN: Wow, and the whole why. The reason why apparently Bergdahl says he left the platoon was because he said it was poor leadership and wanted to make a ruckus to talk to a high ranking official.
SAVIDGE: His plan sounds crazy and that, in fact, is what the defense says it was. They brought forward records that show that Bowe Bergdahl had been washed out of the U.S. Coast Guard because he had failed mentally. In other words, they didn't deem him mentally fit to serve the Coast Guard. Somehow the Army overlooked that. But Bowe Bergdahl says to the Army investigators that he was afraid that their leadership was going to lead and get his men killed. He needed to talk to somebody off post. That's why he left the outpost to go talk to a general, not to flee the enemy.
BALDWIN: I talked to somebody from his platoon on Friday, and he says he believes he's a deserter and deserves jail time. We'll wait and see in the court martial happens.
Martin Savidge, thank you very much.
SAVIDGE: You're welcome.
[14:49:44] BALDWIN: Coming up next, the lovely Viola Davis making history, becoming the first African-American woman to win a specific Emmy Award, and her message has everyone talking.
Plus, no apology, yet, from Dr. Ben Carson, not even close, in fact. A Muslim should not be elected president, he says. His campaign is doubling down and one group is calling on him to withdraw from the presidential race.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: Viola Davis made Emmy history when she won best actress in a drama series. Here's the precise moment when she heard the news.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Emmy goes to -- Viola Davis, "How to Get Away with Murder."
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[14:55:12] BALDWIN: Oh my goodness gracious. This is history because receiving the Emmy as a leading actress, the first for an African-American woman. And history aside, it was her acceptance speech that's really other than her true talent and heart that's getting all the buzz today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VIOLA DAVIS, ACTRESS: You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there. Shonda Rhimes, people who have redefined what it means to be beautiful, to be sexy, to be a leading woman, to be black.
(APPLAUSE)
DAVIS: And to the Kerry Washingtons, the Halle Berry, the Nicoles, the Megan Goods, thank you for taking us over that line.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: She was quoting Harriet Tubman, and she went to say the only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. Immediately after her speech, Twitter lit up. The creator of "How to Get Away with Murder," Shonda Rhimes, tweeted one word, "Speechless." That drew this tweet from Oprah: "Shonda Rhimes, couldn't have happened without you. Thank you for kicking the door wide open."
Joining me, Cori Murray, of "Essence" magazine.
I see you nodding. It is lovely to have you on.
You have interviewed Viola. I interviewed her some years ago. When she walked into the restaurant, it was just grace walked in.
CORI MURRAY, ESSENCE MAGAZINE: Not just great for me. Have you seen her body?
BALDWIN: Oh, my goodness, gracious.
MURRAY: She's not acting. She's doing pushups.
BALDWIN: Strong, in and out.
MURRAY: I was moved.
(LAUGHTER)
I was there in my cheap sweater and I was like, yes. To start her speech off with Harriet Tubman, it was a touching moment. Well deserved, long overdue.
BALDWIN: When she mentioned Shonda Rhimes and making roles beautiful and sexy and leading women, and she mentioned some other amazing women in the crowd, what is that about? She pointed out it's all about opportunity. It hasn't been there for these ladies for a number of years.
MURRAY: I think it's what she said. We can't win awards for roles that aren't there. I mean, I cover entertainment. I can count on my fingers a number of times the black woman has been the sole subject of a movie poster. It was Viola Davis with "The Help." There were very few moments far and between where we have had that leading role. With TV and last season given her, we are finally having these big, big moments that have been afforded to mainstream audiences for years.
BALDWIN: Where else still needs the Viola Davis to breakthrough? Whether it's politics, music industry, other aspects of Hollywood, where has that barrier yet to be shattered?
MURRAY: It's interesting you ask that. Now that the Emmys are gone, what's next are the behind the scene pictures. Every time I see those, it's the same people. It's the same color of people. It's the same gender of people who are going to be featured. I think there needs to be diversity behind the scenes. That's why Viola Davis brought up Shonda Rhimes. You need people of color -- there's only one black woman who is the head of the studio and it's the head of FOX Animation. Great for her, but we need someone to step in and be the president of sonny, the president of FOX Pictures, the president of Universal Pictures. We're in marketing roles, but we need to be in executive roles. That's where I think we'll see real change.
BALDWIN: What else? I have 45 seconds left with you. What else about last night? I loved seeing Tracy Morgan. It's wonderful to see him out. What for you also stood out?
MURRAY: When Amy Schumer won. I love comedy. "Vanity Fair" did that big picture with the late-night guys.
BALDWIN: The boys club.
MURRAY: The boys club. Samantha Bee put that in. The picture. But when Amy won, that was a great win for women in comedy. I loved that moment.
BALDWIN: Don't you want to be best friends with her?
MURRAY: And she thanked her makeup artist.
BALDWIN: There you go.
(LAUGHTER)
We love and grateful for our makeup and hair people, those of us lucky enough to have them if our lives.
Cori Murray, thank you so much, "Essence" magazine. Come back.
MURRAY: I appreciate it.
[15:00:00] BALDWIN: Now this.
We continue on. Hour two. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.
