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Donald Trump's Campaign Manager Turns Himself in to Florida Police; President Obama Blames Journalists in Part for Rise of Donald Trump; Exclusive Interview of a Man Whose Brothers Joined ISIS; 3:30- 4p ET

Aired March 29, 2016 - 15:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:34:12] PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: We are just one week away from the next presidential primary in Wisconsin. And every delegate counts. So of course all the Republican candidates are there.

So far today, the focus has been on Donald Trump. His campaign manager turning himself in to Florida police today on charges of simple battery. And just moments ago, Trump himself suggested on twitter that he might press charges against the reporter at the center of that controversy. All of this as a Republican front-runner returns to the trail in the next few hours. It's his first campaign event in a week. His supporters and his ready, so is correspondent Nick Valencia.

Nick, what's going on there?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Pamela. The Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is expected to arrive in Janesville, Wisconsin, at any moment now. He's here for an event, a rally held behind here at the Holiday Inn and convention center for hours since supporters have lined up to catch a glimpse of the candidate here and for this event here which is expected to happen in the next hour or so.

You can see behind me, there are already plenty of demonstrators out, largely peaceful. We have not seen any arrest so far. That certainly was not the case. However, last night, and we're joined by one of those six people who were arrested yesterday, (INAUDIBLE), you came out with your 9-month old. What happened? Why did you get arrested?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. We acted to show that, you know, we're angry too. The real issues are the economy and racism and we're not going to let a billionaire divide us by blaming immigrants, Muslims and black people.

VALENCIA: You posted bail earlier this morning. And you came right back out here to the scene where you were arrested and brought your 9- month-old with you, what made you do that?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. For me, you know, I have to two kids. And as a parent, I want to make sure my kids can live in a world where they can express their full selves and not be taught to hate or fear other people.

VALENCIA: And the message that you would like to send to the presidential candidate Mr. Trump?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Love not hate, yes.

VALENCIA: Thank you so much for take the time with CNN, Kristen.

A lot of the same messages are being seen here behind us. Signs asking for the wall not to be built. One of the main talking points of the presidents an candidate, there's about four or five groups that have helped organize this. I would say, Pamela, about 200 or so demonstrators against the presidential candidate. But by and large, it has been peaceful. I know the security presence here, very large security presence here. Hope that it stays that way.

BROWN: I'm not sure if you've had a chance to talk to any of the Trump supporters who were already there. But curious to know if you know what their reaction is to the development today about Trump's campaign manager being charged?

VALENCIA: Certainly. I spoke to one of the Donald Trump supporters earlier. His name (INAUDIBLE) who showed up here with his wife, drove about four hours from Wisconsin here, the state Wisconsin. But he said he wanted to show up -- to show his support for the candidate. Despite the news today, he still is very much behind Donald Trump. He is really behind anyone that is running in the Republican Party, according to that supporter that I spoke to. He said it's between Trump or Cruz, he'll support either nominee, whoever gets that nomination come July, during that convention. But he really wants Trump in office. He says one of the big messages that is resonating with him is that he is a small business owner. That Donald Trump is a business owner. And he feels as though somebody who is a businessman would be the best person to run this country -- Pamela.

BROWN: Nick Valencia, thank you so much for that.

And Donald Trump often comes under fire for what he says about women. Remember this?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Bimbo.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Dog.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fat pig.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Real quotes from Donald Trump.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: About women.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A person who is very flat chested is very hard to be a 10.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'd look the right in that fat ugly face of hers.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Look at that face. Would anyone vote for that?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: But Trump's words aren't turning off all women. CNN's Martin Savidge talked to some of Trump's female supporters.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Who is for Trump?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm for Trump.

SAVIDGE: I'm in Tucson with a group of conservative women. They meet every month to talk about politics. And they all support Donald Trump.

So I'm going to go around and just say why.

CRYSTAL JUNIOR, TRUMP SUPPORTER: I just find that who yaw see is what you get with this man. And that is what I want. He is not afraid to say what he thinks.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He is a strong man with a strong personality. He really does love his country. He loves people. He really has a respect for women.

SAVIDGE: To non-Trump supporters, that may seem ridiculous given some the things Trump has said and done. For example, the weekend twitter fight BETWEEN Ted Cruz and Trump over their wives.

OK, so you have all seen this, right? This is the tweet. This was a retreat by Donald Trump. Have we crossed some sort of line here?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This tweeting, it's quite ridiculous. We need to focus on the issues at hand and what's going on in our country and around the world and the problems.

SAVIDGE: This latest incident involving the wife does not change your support?

JUNIOR: This kind of thing isn't new to politics. So I mean, it's not nice.

SAVIDGE: He's unfiltered, not politically correct. That's something these women love even if they don't always love how he says things.

LYN KILIAN, TRUMP SUPPORTER: I have cringed maybe on occasion when he's said a certain thing. I have wondered why he said a certain thing. But that's his personality. He's just -- he just lets it roll.

SAVIDGE: And nowhere has Trump perhaps let it roll more than with his feud with FOX anchor Megyn Kelly.

MEGYN KELLY, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: You've called women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals.

KILIAN: He has been baited. He's been baited by Megyn Kelly. I can't even believe --

[15:40:03] SAVIDGE: You really think that?

KILIAN: Come on. The first question that was asked by her at that first debate was to bait Donald Trump and to get him in a position where he would react.

SAVIDGE: What about his reaction to that?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her -- wherever.

KILIAN: He did say it, but you don't know what his connotation was. I didn't take it that way.

SAVIDGE: I would have thought that really would have gotten you upset.

JUNIOR: Not necessarily. Just because he insults men as well. And because he insults men as well, I can't be upset that he's insulting women.

SAVIDGE: I asked how is it that they didn't seem to think their personal values of honesty, respect and decency weren't compromised by supporting someone who seems to go against those principles.

How do you balance that with your support of a man who seems to violate every aspect of what you believe?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because the other side is worse.

SAVIDGE: Is there anything Donald Trump could do that would make you change your support?

JUNIOR: Just going back on his policies and on the issues.

SAVIDGE: Martin Savidge, CNN, Tucson.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And up next on this Tuesday afternoon, President Obama takes on the media, blaming journalists in part for the rise of Donald Trump. Why he says our democracy is at risk and why some are calling this hypocrisy.

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[15:45:24] BROWN: President Obama is once again speaking out about the vitriol of the 2016 presidential race. And this time around, he is also calling out the media's role in covering the campaign. During a speech given at a journalism award ceremony, the president lamented the current state of politics and called on reporters to do better.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I know I'm not the only one who may be more than a little dismayed about what's happening on the campaign trail right now. The divisive and often vulgar rhetoric that's aimed at everybody but often is focused minorities. The sometimes well-intentioned but I think misguided attempts to shut down that speech. The violent reaction that we see as well as the deafening silence from to many of our leaders. It's worth asking what each of us as politicians or journalists but most of all as citizens may have done to contribute to this atmosphere in our politics. I was going to call it carnival atmosphere but that implies fun. When our elected officials and our political campaigns become entirely untethered, to reason and facts and analysis, when it doesn't matter what's true and what's not, that makes it all but impossible for us to make good decisions on behalf of future generations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: And joining me now to discuss are CNN senior media and politics reporter Dylan Byers and CNN political commentator Errol Louis. Thank you both for coming on.

Errol, I want to start with you. I just read your article where you lay out why you disagree that the media is to blame for Donald Trump. Tell us why you disagree with what the president just said.

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Sure. There seems to be some impression that any press given to Donald Trump either directly and intentionally or indirectly and unintentionally helps him. And that is simply not the case. I mean, he is legitimate news. He has been from the time that he announced or at least from the time that he made clear that he was really going to run and shot to the top of the poles.

Now, if anybody has some sort of directive about why we're not supposed to cover the Republican front-runner for president, I would love to hear the rationale. But the reality is, he is newsworthy. If he should, somehow become president, he would actually be making history. We have never had a president who had ever served in government before and so to speak walked in off the street and into the oval office. And sort of letting the voters know, letting people know that he has engaged in misstatements of fact and vulgar petty and childish attacks and, you know, completely out of his depth in certain issues, especially related to foreign policy. It is our job to let the public know and that's what we've done, whether the president likes it or not.

BROWN: It's interesting you bring that up because what I heard from President Obama it seemed like he was insinuating that the media doesn't fact check, that the media just kind of lets Trump do whatever and say whatever he wants without, you know, looking at what he's really saying and scrutinizing it.

But Dylan, that's not necessarily true, right? I mean, I know CNN for one does it all the time, especially after every major event. DYLAN BYERS, CNN SENIOR REPORTER FOR MEDIA AND POLITICS: No, it's not

true. There's actually a preponderance of fact checkers, fact checking organizations. Every media organization runs some version of its own sort of fact checking outfit. In fact, go back and look, just two days before the last super Tuesday, "Politico" reviewed a week's worth of Donald Trump's speeches victory rallies and found that he basically told a lie or made a misstatement about once every five minutes on average. What happened two days later, Trump went on to win Florida and Illinois and a host of other states.

The issue isn't that there isn't fact checking. The issue is the facts just don't matter. They don't matter to the litany of voters out there who are so frustrated with the establishment and who view the media as being in cahoots with the establishment and basically advancing sort of pro-liberal, pro-elitist, pro-coastal, you know, pro-global what have you sort of world view that leaves the American low class worker behind. You read about all of this anger directed towards the political establishment, the financial establishment, the cultural establishment by blue collar workers. They view the media as being part of the establishment. And that is why when the media comes down and says, hey look, here are the facts. Donald Trump is wrong. He is lying to you. They say, you know, we're not even going to listen.

[15:50:22] BROWN: So Errol, in your view, how is press coverage different now than when President Obama was running for president? Some would argue he was sort of given a free pass by the media.

LOUIS: Well, I don't know how much of a free pass he got. From what I remember being on the trail back in Iowa and South Carolina back in 2008, he was a phenomenon and he got the kind of coverage, frankly, and it reminds me of some ways of some of the coverage of Donald Trump. The mere fact that say, 10,000 people came out to certain events in the middle of the cornfield that is in fact newsworthy. If the registration rolls spike up, if unprecedented numbers of people are coming out to rallies, coming out to vote in primaries and caucuses, that is news. And believe me, while candidate at the time Barack Obama benefited greatly from a lot of that stuff.

I've got to say something else, I mean, to hear the president talk about he wishes we would dig deeper when the administration has the record for denying freedom of information requests and has, you know, issued secret subpoenas to track the movements and the phone calls of journalists and so forth, this not somebody who has a lot of credibility, frankly, on this issue.

I mean, again, on the campaign trail, 2008 all of the coverage was fine. Once he made it into the White House, record number of denials to freedom of information request. And now, he doesn't like the way the campaign is going. It seems that the media can't do anything quite right.

BROWN: Well, I mean, you have to imagine reaction if the media did not cover Trump and his remarks.

But Dylan, it is always good to go back as we can see the media could do anything better. I mean, what is your view?

BYERS: Well, look, I think, you know, we sort of want to see things in black and white. We either want to blame the media for our problems, you know, or say it's just doing a bang-up job. I mean, the truth is, is that it's much more nuance and it is much more complicated than that. The fact is we could have a much better media establishment in this country. We could have a media that focuses purely on policy issues, that doesn't address that sorts of sensationalism and gutter sniping that takes place in these campaigns but addresses issues that people like. Unfortunately people don't watch that. At the end of the day, the media business is a business and that you have to give people what they want, as sad is that is.

BROWN: And it's taken on many form especially with social media and all the different types of journalists that are out there now.

Errol Louis, Dylan Byers, really interesting discussion. Thank you.

LOUIS: Thank you.

BROWN: And up next, the allure of ISIS. A Belgian man with one brother who joined the terror army and another brother who is about to do the same. He speaks exclusively to CNN. How ISIS has torn his family apart and how he thinks his brothers were sucked in.

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[15:57:21] BROWN: Belgium's face of ISIS a man suspected in beheading and crucifixions in Syria was once a normal Belgian kid, according to his family. But he now praises the Brussels bombings and in showing video, it seem threatening more attacks on the west. His name is (INAUDIBLE) and his actions have divided his Belgian family.

CNN anchor and correspondent Michael Holmes sat down for an exclusive interview with the terrorist brother.

Michael joins me now live from Belgium.

An incredible interview here, Michael. What more did he have to say?

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. You know, Pamela, in an organization that revels in barbarity, there would be few people with more blood on their hands than the (INAUDIBLE). He is 34-year-old, ISIS executioner who has beheaded and crucified and shot countless people in his time with ISIS.

(INAUDIBLE) is 34 years old. He was born in Belgium, of Moroccan dissent. And this week, after the horror of these attacks that took place here, he was in another video, praising the bloodshed and promising more to come. And then ends that video by shooting another unnamed prisoner in the head and killing him. Now, we sat down with his brother Mohamed Aman Chab today who spoke to us about the brother he used to know. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MOHAMED AMAN CHAB, BROTHER OF BELGIAN ISIS FIGHTER (through translator): Someone who couldn't hurt a fly and went through life laughing. Just disbelief and still family doesn't believe this could happen.

HOLMES: What good memories do you all of this? What are your memory of him as a young man, as a child?

CHAB (through translator): One of the member is an older brother who is always there, that's what I remember. If I had trouble, he was there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: He comes from a family of 13, in all. His parents and 11 kids. And you know, initially he was raised in a normal childhood. He had moderate Muslim parents and then met radicals, they turned him to a form of Islam. He was not raised in, I mean, what his brother called cut and paste Islam. And in 2013 disappeared to Syria. And that's when the killing began. And he has appeared in numerous videos killing people -- Pamela.

BROWN: Very disturbing. But important to learn about how these people get sucked in to the terrorist group.

Michael Holmes, thank you for that report.

I'm Pamela Brown filling in for Brooke. "The LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Pamela.

An arrest and new video of that grab, the one that Trump campaign says never would have happened.

"The LEAD" starts right now.