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Donald Trump Speaks; Criticism Over $400 Million Payment To Iran; Zika Remains Problematic In South America; Barack Obama Celebrates Birthday. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired August 04, 2016 - 15:30   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[15:30:10] DONALD TRUMP, (R), REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Isn't that amazing? Isn't that amazing? Sort of rude. You know, when you think of it. And what are we looking for? We want strong military. We want jobs. We want good education and health care. Right?

We're all like looking for the first -- we're looking for the same thing, sort of. You want to have a good life. You want to have a good life. You want safety. And then we have people interrupting constantly. But actually, it hasn't been happening much. It's happening a little bit today, but it hasn't been happening much. I sort of missed my protesters, you know?

And we don't get it from Hillary because there's no, you know, the Bernie people had spirit. We don't get it from Hillary. Because they don't care. They don't care. But you look at what's happening in terms of our police with the shooting, our police at record levels. Fifty percent up. And I said 50 percent, it's actually much higher than that from last year.

So, we need law and order. We have to have it. We have to have it. We need law and order. We got to protect our police. And our police have to be careful. And they have to do their job and they have to do it correctly and they will do it correctly. But we have to take care of our police. I'll tell you. They're really going through a tough time.

So, I wrote a little thing down that I thought I'd have because in light of the $400 million that just got ripped away from our country, all right. And, you know, the real number if you look at it, a $150 billion, we got nothing. We got nothing. And they think they probably paid the $400 million for the hostages which is even worse.

And now since then, I don't know if you know, we have two more hostages right now. Why wouldn't they? We have two more hostages right now who are fairly recently grabbed and they're in Iran. And I guess what are we going to do with that one, right?

So, they do $400 million gets flown at night into Iran. I think it's so sad and so disgusting. And you also wonder about a government, who could approve a thing like that, where they take cash into a country and just hand it to them? Bushels and bushels of cash? And then you look at our country where we owe $20 trillion -- I used to say 18 trillion. Used to say 17. When I started I was saying 16 and 17.

Now it's 18 and 19. Now it's going to be very soon 20, it's going to be 22 very soon. Because we have a budget that is very, very expensive but it doesn't take good care of our military. Our military is depleted. And we have to fix our military. And I know for the navy, one of the reporters was talking about -- one of the reporters, how do you feel about building ships because you have a lot of ships you're building up here. Good ones, right?

So, our navy, as you know, has one of the lowest numbers of ships that they've had in decades and decades. And we've got to rebuild our navy. We've got to rebuild our whole military, folks. And we're going to do it.

Probably, almost never have needed it more than we need it now with all of the people out there that don't like us very much. And we're going to be very strong. We're going to be very smart. We're going to build up our military. It's so depleted. We're going to take care of our vets. We're going to take care of our vets.

Our vets -- our vets are so badly treated. You look at what's going on where they wait online six, seven, eight days, think of it. You're not a vet. Think of it in the audience. Think of it. Six, seven, eight days. People are dying online waiting for doctors. And committing suicide.

The suicides are at numbers that nobody's ever thought possible. We're going to take care of our vets. I put a plan in. People are loving the plan. People are loving the plan.

And if you're waiting, if you're waiting in line for an extended period of time, you're going to walk outside, you're going to go to a doctor who's looking for business, you're go to a hospital, private or public, you're going to get taken care of and it is going to be less expensive. The government's going to pay the bill. It's going to be far less expensive than what's been happening. People are dying waiting in line for a simple pill --

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BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, so you heard Donald Trump. How about the timing if I could, you know. Buck and Juliette we're discussing the $400 million, the optics of it, the no big dealness of it, you know, from your perspective. We know the president will be speaking from the Pentagon. He's been meeting with the security chiefs and so he'll addressing this and what this means.

But I also want to mention, that was the second -- I think that's second time we've heard Donald Trump mentioned the existing of some tape that he's seen of the transfer of this $400 million in cash in Iran.

[15:35:11] To my knowledge, I don't know if it exists or not. I'm sure we have people working on that very point. But on the politics of this, we -- I was asking you, you know, Trump is using this obviously as a tactic to pin this on the administration, ergo pin it on Hillary Clinton, and you do think it could be effective?

BUCK SEXTON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it's effective because it place into a larger issue of the narrative around the Iran deal. There are already a lot of people very critical obviously tending to be on right but not all on the right. They tend to be on the right who are very critical of the Iran deal overall, the way that it's been set up. But this then goes to the inducements to get the deal done, this sort of sweeteners that were added in. And it looks like the Obama administration essentially went to the mullahs on bended knee and said anything for a deal, what can we do. And that protecting --

BALDWIN: Iran said there was no ultimatum which is going on (ph).

SEXTON: Sure, that's fine. The Iranian press has also said, for example, that the $400 million was in response to them releasing the hostages that they're holding, right. So they've already used this for their own internal --

BALDWIN: Have the Iranian press.

SEXTON: That's the Iranian press. But they're using that for internal propaganda purposes essentially saying, you know, the great Satan knows all the mistakes they've made, they're coming to us now hat in hand begging us for a deal. That's terrible if you're Iranian moderate (ph), it's terrible if you are U.S. ally to trying to put pressure on Iranian in the region. We can't get judge where the deal is going because obviously it's -- it has a long horizon on it. But what it took to get us there, it seemed like Obama walked in and said whatever you need, we'll do. And what did the Iranians not get in this that they wanted?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Just two things on what Buck's saying. So Buck makes -- here's where we will agree. This is all about criticisms of the Iranian deal which has been litigated and relitigated and your side lost. I mean I don't know how else to put it. So, you can get into the little pieces of, oh, they were on an airplane overnight. Like who cares? Right?

I mean in the sense that you had three negotiations going on. This all comes down to disagreements with the Iranian nuclear deal. That has nothing to do with whether the cash was on a plane or not. So that's the first thing.

The second thing is this for viewers who are wondering how should I interpret this. This $400 million did not come out of nowhere. It's not like $400 million, we'll just give them $400 million and we'll get a bunch of hostages back. This has been part of a disagreement between Iran and U.S. which never had negotiations going on until the last couple years since 1979.

The burden on the United States if we lost in court would have been in the billions so we settled. Right? So that is where that number comes from. It's not mysterious. It was disclosed in January and anyone following Iran/U.S. relations knew that this was a piece of the puzzle. So they can say, well, it looks bad. But it ultimately comes down to they don't like the substance --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Quickly.

SEXTON: You say that either side is lost. We'll see how the Iran deal actually unfolds. I think a lot of us are pessimistic about it for good reason. An only issue of how this was no big deal. It was disclosed. Why are we only finding out about it now if it was no problem? Why did department of justice officials say that this was --

BALDWIN: We knew about the $400 million. We didn't know about the method and the cash.

KAYYEM: Just because you didn't know about it.

SEXTON: And looking bad actually matters.

BALDWIN: OK. Well, we'll going to hear the president address all of this very, very shortly. He's speaking, he's holding a news conference from the Pentagon in just a little while.

Also we are waiting to hear from Hillary Clinton. Live pictures on the right side of your screen. They're getting ready -- we'll see her in Las Vegas. And again, Donald Trump speaking in Portland, Maine. It is not a dull August day. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. We'll be right back.

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[15:43:10] BALDWIN: Right now, Florida's governor, Rick Scott, speaking about the Zika virus that has reached his state. Meanwhile, in Brazil where the outbreak started, a number of couples are choosing to delay starting a family simply because of the concerns over zika and the possibility of devastating birth defects.

CNN's chief medical correspondent dr. Sanjay Gupta is live in Rio de Janeiro where the Summer Olympics kicks of tomorrow. And so, Sanjay, on these athletes, I mean, a number of them are skipping the games because of fears of zika. What are, you know, people who live there in brazil, in Rio, what sort of precautions are they taking?

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, Brooke, they're doing anything they can. And it's really not just a small area. It's really the entire country that's been given these warnings. Zika has prompted some pretty remarkable recommendations and remarkable planning. Here's a little bit of what we found.

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GUPTA (voice-over): All across Salvador, Brazil, rooms sit empty, like this one. No sign of the child Ana Cassia hoped to have.

Is it tough to see this room empty?

They were high school sweethearts, and children were always part of the plan. But it was late last year when Ana and Alberto decided the time was finally right.

ANA CASSIA MIRANDA, FROZE EMBRYOS (through translator): We were planning to get pregnant this year, but because of Zika, we decided to wait more. There isn't much that we can do about it, and it worries us.

GUPTA: You see, when a link between Zika and birth defects became clearer, the Brazilian government gave a stern and heartbreaking warning, don't get pregnant.

So these are the -- these are the tanks?

DR. GENEVIEVE COELHO, DIRECTOR, IVI BRAZIL: These are the tanks where we keep the embryos, the eggs and the semen.

GUPTA: So Ana's embryos are in one of these tanks?

COELINO: Yeah, sure.

[15:45:03] Doctor Genevieve Coelho has been a fertility doc in Salvador for 10 years. She first saw Ana a year ago for help with fertility, but then Zika started to spread.

COELHO: And then I suggest, OK, freeze your embryos, and then later, when there is like a solution, or a light at the end of the tunnel with all this things, all of the Zika virus, you can decide.

GUPTA: At a cost of around $8,000, this is not an option for most of the population here, where the average income is just a few hundred dollars a month. And many don't have access to birth control. For most people like Bruno and Vanessa, delaying is the only option. For the time being, they're also living with an empty room.

How long will you wait? What's next for you?

BRUNO NASCIMENTO, DELAYING HAVING CHILDREN (through translator): We hope that with all the research and people studying it, it gets better in about two or three years.

GUPTA: Two or three years. You can wait that long?

VANESSA NEVES, DELAYING PREGNANCY (through translator): I will try. It's already been really hard.

GUPTA: It is difficult to imagine entire towns, even countries, with hardly any new babies for two years. Hard to imagine the loss economically, socially, culturally. No babies crying, or laughing. In the meantime, rooms will stay empty, even as names are already chosen.

NEVES (through translator): The child isn't even born, but she already has a name. The girl was going to be named Valentina.

GUPTA: You already have names picked out?

MIRANDA: (Inaudible). GUPTA: You're confident that you will -- you will have a baby one day?

MIRANDA (through translation): I'm so sure. I'm really confident that this home will soon have three people in here instead of two. It's just a matter of time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: So, Brooke, you can understand that light at the end of the tunnel means a lot of different things. But here they really are looking at the possibility of a vaccine. I mean that what a light at the end of the tunnel means. There aren't many mosquitoes here right now. As a result the concern is lower. But as the weather gets warmer, those concerns will come up again. So a vaccine is what everyone's got their eye on so people can start having babies again.

BALDWIN: Hopefully that happens, Sanjay Gupta in Rio, thank you.

Meantime, President Obama is celebrating his role as fitness (ph) and as a father on this his 50th birthday. We'll discuss some moving (inaudible) that he tend in "Glamour" magazine, where the president honors the women in his life and reflects on his own shortcomings as a parent.

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[15:50:57] BALDWIN: Here is quote, "I'm a feminist." Those are the words of President Barack Obama who just penned an essay for "Glamour" magazine laying out the world he wants to live for his daughters and challenging all men to identify themselves as feminist.

So on that, so much to discuss. Let me bring in Rachel Sklar, she's back this week. She's the founder of the TheLi.st, Rich Benjamin, author of Searching for Whitopia and a senior fellow at Demos, a liberal think-tank. And Liz Plank is wit us as well, Senior Correspondent and Producer at Vox.

So welcome to all of you. And there's so much to sort of dig into in this. I think what it struck me the most was how personal he got and especially when he open the piece saying, you know, listen, his had -- like many working dads have they have jobs all over the place and now he lives just above the store in the White House, 45-second commute and so he's been able to spend so much time with his -- the women in his life. He says the most important people.

RACHEL SKLAR, THELI.ST FOUNDER: You know, I have to be honest. What struck me with how thorough. He just -- it was a thorough taxonomy (ph) of what it means to be a feminist. And I really appreciated that the fact that he explicitly mentioned reproductive rights. Because often times that's alighted in this discussion. And so that's -- very important to make explicit.

BALDWIN: Actually Liz, let me ask you, because it's important -- can we define -- what is it, is it definable when we say feminist and throw this word around in 2016, what does it mean? LIZ PLANK, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT AND PROCUDER, FOX: I think it means

whatever you want it to mean, but I think that women in this country know exactly what it means when President Obama says it. I mean President Obama you have to say -- I mean has set a new precedent for women's rights when it comes to, you know, being the first sitting president to ever declare himself a feminist. And he doesn't just say it and say believe me."

After it, he actually, you know, walks that walk the policies and the appointments that his made as a president are unprecedented. I mean he was the first -- one of the first things that he did was sign the Lilly Ledbetter act which was, you know, related to pay equity, he hired the first transwoman staffer. He hired a woman as the head of the Secret Service. So there are lot of first in his presidency and women certainly know that when he says he's a feminist, he means it.

BALDWIN: I wanted to make sure I had a man on my feminist panel today, and you got the gold star for Rich Benjamin.

Reading it though, you know, from your eyes what struck you from this whole piece?

RICH BENJAMIN, AUTHOR, SENIOR FELLOW, DEMOS: What struck is he spoke from the heart. He said he has a 45-second commute, he spoke about his daughters, but what he does the sub text of this article is that this man is such an elegant 21st century role model for fatherhood and manhood. And I totally agree with Liz, even 10 years ago, feminist was like liberal. It was a dirty word. It was majority of people would label people feminist. But for a man and a president to proclaim himself a feminist in such a persuasive way, in which he's not just talking the talk but he's walking the walk. I think that will touch a lot of readers.

BALDWIN: How lucky is he to be 45 seconds away from his family, you know. I mean I realize he's kind of a busy guy, but the fact that he talks about the women, his family, the most important talk, start talking about his grandmother, his mother, and of course then his wife and his two girls.

SKLAR: I think it's also important that even if he didn't have women in his life, that he didn't have daughters --

BALDWIN: So even if she (inaudible).

SKLAR: Sure. But it's not a prerequisite for acknowledging the political, social and economic equality of women in this country. And it shouldn't be just, you know, have a gay relative shouldn't be a prerequisite or say, you know, not making it difficult to do business with gay people in the state like say Indiana, like these are the prerequisite of leadership is being able to acknowledge the fundamental equality of people without having to -- you have it in your own life first.

BALDWIN: Let me bring something else in because the president also wrote about his wife, writing about Michelle Obama, "Even after achieving success in her own right, she still held doubts, she had to worry about whether she looked the right way or was acting the right way -- whether she was being too assertive or too 'angry."

And it's something we've heard Michelle Obama addressing the past. Here she is.

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[15:55:14] MICHELLE OBAMA, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: - I guess it's more interesting to imagine this conflicted situation here and a strong woman and -- you know? But that's been an image that people have tried to paint of me since, you know, the day Barack announced, that I'm some angry black woman. And, you know --

GAYLE KING, CBS: Yeah. How do you (inaudible) that image?

OBAMA: I just try to be me and my hope is that overtime, people get to know me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Rich, I'm looking at you because we were listening and you laughed. You laughed, why? Listening to that.

BENJAMIN: Well, I totally identify and relate which what she is saying but I'm laughing almost perversely in the sense that you can dismiss such an accomplished person as an angry black woman and just dismiss her like that. She's gone to Princeton, she's ran a hospital health service, she's done a fabulous job as first lady and she's right. People can dismiss or with this tired old (inaudible), and for some Americans that may resonate, for others it doesn't.

And so if you detect the laughter is a bit of shock and sadness.

BALDWIN: But that still address?

BENJAMIN: Yeah.

SKLAR: Well it's great that president Obama address that explicitly whether he didn't just talked about women generally, he also called out the extra burden on black women to conform or push back against the stereotypes.

BALDWN: What about, though, and Liz, just because you're sitting next -- I want to make sure you're part of this conversation. He talks about he writes we need to breakthrough these limitations, we need to keep challenging the attitude that raises our girls to be demure, and our boys to be assertive. Do you think that -- I mean listen, I'm from the South. I know a thing or two about, not my parents but, you know, being demure -- I'm not -- the disappointment maybe to some, but do you think that still really the case in 2016? The boys are supposed to be, you know, assertive and girls demure?

PLANK: Absolutely. And I think -- actually the ending of that (inaudible) he says, you know, we shouldn't judge boys for shedding a tear. So, he's also calling out, I think one of the most powerful thing about I say is calling out how feminism can help men too and boys. We often have this silo of conversation about feminism and we've had a great conversation about feminism for the last few years, and women and helping women navigate that, but we need to help men navigate that too and we need them in that conversation.

And again this is something that President Obama has done. You know, one of the many examples is "It's On Us" campaign which is about sexual assault, you know, health epidemic on our campuses. Bringing men into the conversation not talking about it as a women's issue but as smething that, you know, we can't tell women not to drink and not to go out. We need to have nothing to think about their own behavior and how they're perpetuating that problem too.

BALDWIN: Liz, Rachel, Rich, we need like 10 more minutes. I don't have it.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: To be continued. To be continued. Thank you all so much. The piece is in Glamour magazine if you want to check it out online.

Meantime, as for now, speaking ago, President Obama speaking at the Pentagon. Stay tuned for that. We'll take it live. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Is the Republican civil war about to get uglier? "THE LEAD" starts right now.