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Clinton in California; Zoo Killing Ignites Firestorm; WHO Issues Guidance on Zika; Curry Leads Warriors to Finals. Aired 9:30- 10a ET

Aired May 31, 2016 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00] ERROL LOUIS, POLITICAL ANCHOR, NY1 NEWS: What it says to me is they have probably seen some numbers suggest that they are looking at maybe a worse performance than they want. They don't want to get blown out in California. If they don't win the state, it doesn't necessarily change very much because on that same night, in fact, she is much favored to win in New Jersey, a neighboring state to her as a former U.S. senator from New York, and it would also put her over the top. It will sort of give her the kind of delegate count that she can go to the convention and win essentially on a first ballot. So the business of getting nominated is essentially over, but the optics could be really bad if she takes a really bad loss in California.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: OK, well, let's talk specifically about how she'll campaign in California because it seems to me that Bernie Sanders is getting all of the media attention because of the kinds of -- because of the kind of campaign events he holds. They're big. They're exciting, right?

LOUIS: Well, that's right. In some ways --

COSTELLO: And -- and a lot of times you don't know where Hillary Clinton is.

LOUIS: In some ways this is Bernie's kind of a state because it's multiple media markets. You know, so essentially if you're not picked up either -- if you're not running ads, and neither of them have enough money to spend very much on a very expensive state -- but if you're not on the 6:00 news or the 11:00 news, it is very much as if you hadn't been there. And you've got to sort of do that in northern California, southern California, the inland empire, you've got to get up -- you know, I mean, so -- so, yes, Bernie Sanders is doing the kind of thing that is guaranteed to get media attention. Hillary Clinton, it remains to be seen. My guess is that frankly at night she's probably doing some fundraising, some big money fundraisers, which is what she's going to need for -- to complete the pivot. She's been trying, you know, for weeks now to sort of make the pivot into the general election. She thinks that the nomination is essentially hers. She has said as much on CNN. And now she's trying to sort of get her ducks in a row for November.

COSTELLO: Errol Louis, thanks for stopping by.

LOUIS: Thank you. COSTELLO: I appreciate it.

Coming up in the NEWSROOM, backlash, fast and furious over the death of that gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo. Some people are calling for the parents of that little boy to be charged. Why one woman calls that, well, kind of a mob mentality. We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:36:13] COSTELLO: Cincinnati Zoo officials say they would shoot and kill a rare gorilla all over again to save a little boy's life. The video is still terrifying to watch, right? The 450-pound silverback dragging that three-year-old boy. The gorilla staff igniting a social media firestorm, though, of parent shaming posts, even death threats. One person tweeting "The Cincinnati Enquirer," quote, "shoot the mother." Another FaceBook post, quote, "I had much rather see her dead than the gorilla."

Oh. Hundreds of thousands now signing a petition calling for the parents to be criminally charged.

CNN's Jessica Schneider is live in Cincinnati with more on this.

Good morning, Jessica.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

You saw it in those comments, the debate and the controversy raging online. People are questioning the zoo's decision and the parents' action or potential inaction. But the zoo's director says he refuses to cast blame. He refuses to point fingers. And he's also calling out those Monday morning quarterbacks.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We did not take the shooting of Harambe lightly, but that child's life was in danger.

SCHNEIDER (voice-over): The Cincinnati Zoo standing behind their call to kill the gorilla named Harambe --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my God! Oh, my God!

SCHNEIDER: After a three-year-old boy fell roughly 10 feet into this moat Saturday, coming face to face with the 450-pound 17-year-old silverback.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This child was being dragged around. His head was banging on concrete. This was not a gentle thing.

SCHNEIDER: But outrage continues to grow over the decision to shoot. The anger spreading online. A change.org petition now garnering nearly 300,000 signatures demanding authorities investigate the little boy's parents for not watching their child. The #justiceforharambe trending on Twitter. "Don't take your kids to the zoo if you are unable to keep an eye on them at all times," one user writes. Some are questioning how the protective barriers around the enclosure were breached. That's now under review by zoo officials. Officials who claim the rails and wires the boy crawled through meet all safety requirements and have been in use for 38 years without incident.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can lock your car, you can lock your house, but if someone really wants to get in, they can.

SCHNEIDER: The child's parents thanking the zoo in a statement saying, "we know that this was a very difficult decision for them and that they are grieving the loss of their gorilla." The boy's mother works at a child care center for toddlers and preschoolers in Cincinnati. One of Harambe's former caretakers, emotional when recounting the silverback's fate.

JERRY STONES, HARAMBE'S FORMER CAREGIVER: He was in a situation where here's this strange thing here that I don't know what -- what do I do? Do -- and do I fight it? Do I love it? Do I run from it? What do I do? And an unforeseen circumstance was born and he had to lose.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHNEIDER: And a spokesman for the Cincinnati Police says he is not aware of any intention to charge the parents or the mother at this time. As for the zoo, they say they hope the reopen the gorilla world exhibit this weekend after they've had a chance to adequately assess all those barriers.

Carol.

COSTELLO: Jessica Schneider reporting live from Cincinnati. Thank you.

My next guest is now speaking out against what she calls the viral mob attacking the boy's mother. With me now is the opinion editor at the "Cincinnati Enquirer" and cincinnati.com, Cindi Andrews.

Welcome, Cindi.

CINDI ANDREWS, OPINION EDITOR, "THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER" AND CINCINNATI.COM: Good morning. Thank you, Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning, Cindy. Thanks for being here.

Thousands of people are calling for the parents of this little boy to be charge with the crime. Are you surprised by that?

ANDREWS: I guess I'm surprised at how the stridency and the number of people, yes. Although -- and then again, we have also seen with social media how quickly what opinion here or there can snowball into, you know, what I called in my column a virtual mob.

[09:40:11] COSTELLO: A mob mentality, right.

ANDREWS: Right.

COSTELLO: You wrote in that op-ed, quote, "raising a child to age 18 means maneuvering him or her safely through more than 567 million seconds. And it only takes one of those seconds for something to go terribly awry." A lot of parents surely realize this. So why are we so quick to judge?

ANDREWS: You know, I think social media just has made it so easy. It's -- you know, as I suggest in my column, it's hard to mourn, to just simply sit and hurt and feel bad for the loss of this magnificent animal. And it's easier to create a mean and to lash out and I think -- I think in a sense that we feel we've solved the problem if we can say, OK, it's the parents' fault. If parents simply do better, this won't happen again.

COSTELLO: And as you point out in our column, nothing like this has ever happened at this particular zoo. And this exhibit has been there for many, many years. So why aren't people considering that?

ANDREWS: Absolutely. It's 38 years is what the zoo says that that exhibit has been there. And, you know, my family, I didn't mention this, but my family -- in the column, but my family is members of the zoo. We love going there. And it's a zoo that's among the highest rated in the country that we're very proud of. So this is -- this is hard in a number of ways.

You know, I think, again, I think people just react and they feel before they stop to think sometimes. And when you hear somebody else on social media agreeing with you, then it just becomes this piling on effect and -- and the level of vitriol also ramps up, I think.

COSTELLO: You know -- you know, some people are calling the killing of this gorilla "murder." They're holding vigils for the gorilla. It seems as if some are putting more value on the life of this gorilla over a child.

ANDREWS: Absolutely. And I've gotten some e-mails to that effect. You know, we've seen posts that, you know, the gorilla was innocent. You know, I got -- had an e-mailer or a comment this morning that the gorilla was innocent and then the child was at fault. You know, that seems a little bit extreme. But you do have that animal rights and I certainly consider myself an animal lover, but you have that animal rights contingent that absolutely is putting -- placing more value on the endangered gorilla than the child.

COSTELLO: So, last question, what kind of backlash have you gotten online?

ANDREWS: You know, very little. Very little. You know, I did have an e-mail calling me a terrible writer and, you know, implied, I think, terrible person. But I've gotten a ton of support and so many parents have reached out to say -- to tell me about their one moment, just as I described my one moment of, you know, failure to safely control the child. And, you know, the -- where they've lost a child in a crowd or in water or, you know, stuck something into an electric outlet. You know, it's -- I think parents are less quick, especially as we stop to reflect, I think parents are less quick to blame because we have all been there at one moment or another.

COSTELLO: Cindi Andrews, thanks for stopping by. ANDREWS: Absolutely. Thank you, Carol.

COSTELLO: You're welcome.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the World Health Organization today issuing stricter guidelines to prevent the transmission of the Zika virus.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:48:28] COSTELLO: Men and women who travel to Zika-hit areas should wait even longer if they're planning on having a baby. The World Health Organization is issuing new guidance now saying a woman should wait eight weeks and a man should wait six months if showing symptoms of Zika before trying to conceive. This comes after months of debate in Congress over funding to fight the Zika virus.

Joining me now is Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious diseases and public health specialist.

Thank you so much.

OK, so this is probably going to freak a lot of people out, eight weeks -- eight weeks?

CELINE GOUNDER, INFECTIOUS DISEASES AND PUBLIC HEALTH SPECIALIST: Yes, so, Carol, the WHO, World Health Organization, guidelines are really just aligning themselves with what our Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been saying for a few months now. So anybody who's traveled to a Zika virus effected area should wait eight weeks before trying to conceive so that they need to be having protective sex in the meantime. But if you're a male and you've had symptoms of the disease during travel there, the advice is six months. And the reason is that the virus can actually linger much longer in the semen, and so for that reason if you're a man and you've had symptoms, it's really important that you abstain or use condoms for sex during that period.

COSTELLO: Even with these new guidelines, though, I would expect people still to be freaked out and perhaps want to wait even longer. I mean is this a guaranteed period of time?

GOUNDER: Well, to quote Tony Fauci, never say never. But, you know, based on the data that we've seen so far, the men who have sexually transmitted the Zika virus to women have been men who have had the disease. And in addition, they've have other symptoms, like bloody semen and so on. So we've also -- part of the reason the National Institutes of Health and the CDC want funding from Congress is so that we can do the research to be able to provide better advice. I mean the longer that money gets held up, the longer that research is going to take to get done.

[09:50:17] COSTELLO: OK. And there are many people frustrated about that and two of them were on my staff. Not about Congress funding the money, I'm -- but they're scared of the Zika virus because they have destination weddings in the Caribbean. They're wondering, should we have our wedding there, because you have a lot of guests going. Should they cancel? Like how long should they wait?

GOUNDER: Well, it's very likely that the Zika virus will continue to be an issue in Latin America, the Caribbean, the Gulf Coast, probably for the next year or two at least. So for that period of time, I would certainly be very cautious about having women who might want to get pregnant, you know, likely among the wedding party guests, traveling to that kind of area.

COSTELLO: So no amount of -- I mean I guess you could have bug spray at your wedding, right, mosquito repellent, but even then you're taking a chance, right?

GOUNDER: You may be. You know, I think there are certain things that we can do. If you're not a woman who's trying to get pregnant or who is pregnant, for the vast majority of us, using mosquito repellent, wearing the long sleeves and long pants, you stay indoors as much as possible, you can treat your clothes with (INAUDIBLE), which is another kind of a repellent, those are very reasonable measures. So for the vast majority of us, the risk is very low. But it's really for those women who could be pregnant or trying to get pregnant for whom their pregnancies could be affected by the Zika virus that we really need to be concerned about.

COSTELLO: OK. So while we await Congress funding research, right, I'm going to ask you a question concerning research, right? So how long might we have to worry about this? It's going to go on one year, two years, five years, ten years?

GOUNDER: Well, looking at what's happened with similar viruses, so cousin viruses like dengue, and (INAUDIBLE), which are transmitted by the same species of mosquito, you see flare-ups and then it dies down for quite a while. So we saw that with dengue in Brownsville, Texas. It's been ten years now since we've seen, you know, an issue there. Or (INAUDIBLE), it's been a couple of years in Florida. So probably we'll see some cases, some scattered cases in the southern United States, but I would predict in another year or two it is going to die down. But it will take at least that long to get a vaccine in the meantime.

COSTELLO: Dr. Gounder, thanks for stopping by.

GOUNDER: My pleasure.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, it is a rematch. What the Golden State Warriors had to do to make it back to the NBA finals and when they'll face off against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Thank you very much.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:56:52] COSTELLO: Checking some top stories for you at 56 minutes past. New calls to extradite film director Roman Polanski to the United States. Poland says it will appeal a judge's decision not to extradite Polanski, stemming from a 1977 child sexual abuse case. Polanski pleaded guilty to having sex with a minor nearly four decades ago, but he fled the United States before he could be sentenced. The Polish-born Polanski lives in France, but sometimes visits Poland. It is not clear when the appeal will be heard by Poland's supreme court.

We now know that kidnapped Mexican soccer star Alan Pulido is free thanks to his own heroics. According to authorities, Pulido freed himself from his captors and then alerted police to his location. During his escape, the 25-year-old scuffled with one of his captors and injured his hand when he broke a glass pane. The city where Pulido was kidnapped is a brutal battleground for some of Mexico's most violent drug cartels.

A 92-year-old World War II veteran Burke Waldron threw the first pitch at last night's Seattle Mariners' game. Look. What an awesome entrance to the field. He didn't walk, he ran. And, guess what, check out this throw. Yes. It's so awesome. Waldron began his military service in Pearl Harbor back in 1943. He retired from the service in 1946. And, yes, he's still got it.

The epic rematch is now set for the NBA finals. The defending champion, Golden State Warriors, will now face the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA finals. But reaching the NBA championship took some heroics from Golden State.

Coy Wire joins me now live.

Hi, Coy.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS: Hi, Carol.

What a comeback. The defending champs were down three games to one at one point in this series. Only two teams had ever come back from that great a deficit in conference finals history. Make that three now.

Last night down at halftime, but then it's alive. Steph Curry comes to life. Five three-pointers in the second half, including this one right here, money. That one tied the game in the third. Curry brought more splash than a puppy getting a bath. Thirty-six points in all. Warriors come back-kids, y'all. He had to come back in this game, did the Warriors. They had to come back in this series. (INAUDIBLE) win 96-88, repeating as Western Conference Champs. And after the game, Curry talked about just how big that game seven win was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN CURRY, WARRIORS GUARD: You appreciate how tough it is to get back here. That's -- that's the one thing I've learned is just, you can't take anything for granted because it's such a grind, it's such a battle against a great Thunder team that, you know, pushed us to the brink. So you've got to be appreciative of this accomplishment, and now I look forward to getting four more wins.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: Cool jacket, Steph. Watch your back.

Check out this cool feature from our friends at CNN Money. The new player return on investment feature. You can find it at cnnmoney.com. And if you're looking for an unsung hero, this is where you'll find him. Golden State's Harrison Barnes score as a good bargain last night. Five points, seven rebounds against a relatively low NBA salary. Barnes was money.

[10:00:07] You can follow that feature throughout the NBA finals too. Next up for the Warriors, LeBron James and the Cavs. A rematch of last year's finals.