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Selena Torres (D), Nevada State Assemblywoman, Discusses Nevada Democrats Seeking To Avoid Repeat Of Iowa Caucus Chaos; Leaked Documents Show Lengths China Is Taking To Allegedly Detain Muslims; Trump Camp Deletes Dramatic Air Force One Picture At Daytona 500 After Twitter Points Out It's From 2004; Man Sues L.A. Hospital After Wife Dies During Childbirth. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired February 17, 2020 - 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 HOST: We saw the former vice president's disappointing finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire. And I know in Nevada and South Carolina look very different in terms of diversity, which is Biden is banking on. But if he doesn't come in first or second in Nevada and in South Carolina, how does his candidacy survive?
SELENA TORRES (D), NEVADA STATE ASSEMBLYWOMAN: You know, in this campaign, we are just committed to ensuring that we have every vote out there for Vice President Biden. And in the next few days, as you know, we have early voting until the end of Tuesday and then the caucus on Saturday. And we are mostly concerned with making sure our voters get out and vote.
BALDWIN: All right, Selena Torres, thank you very much.
TORRES: Thank you.
BALDWIN: Thank you.
By the way, to all of you watching this week on CNN, five town halls. Sanders, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Biden and Warren will all be live in Las Vegas ahead of the critical vote Saturday. So watching three tomorrow night, starting at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. And then two more Thursday, starting at 8:00, right here on CNN.
It's a great photo. Air Force One flying over a packed crowd at the Daytona 500. So why did the Trump's campaign manager tweet this out and then deleted it? We have the details.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:35:05]
BALDWIN: Over the past four years, China says it has been trying to root out Islamic extremism and terrorism through what it calls a massive vocational training program. But critics and survivors say it's actually a mass internment policy targeting members of the country's Muslim minority.
CNN's Ivan Watson obtained rare documents detailing citizens being rounded up for the most arbitrary of reasons.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Growing a long beard, making an international phone call, having a passport, these are all reasons that can land you in what U.S. officials call concentration camps in China.
Chilling revelations detailed in what appears to be a Chinese government surveillance report on its citizens leaked from Xinjiang. That's a region in western China where a mass internment policy has forced up to two million Muslims into detention.
(on camera): The documents are spreadsheets of data on more than 300 families who live in one neighborhood of Kanakash (ph) County. They provide highly detailed personal information, including national I.D. numbers, home addresses, history of foreign travel, religious practices, and whether or not they are a threat.
(voice-over): The authors, believed to be Chinese government officials, then decide whether to keep individuals in what the Chinese government calls vocational training centers.
(SINGING)
WATSON: Beijing wants the world to believe this mass job training program is rooting out violent extremism. But several survivors tell CNN the reality is these camps were crowded, prison-like facilities where inmates were subjected to torture.
Due to China's crackdown and heavy curtain of censorship, independently confirming anything in Xinjiang is incredibly difficult.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why you are here? Tell me, why you are here?
WATSON: On a recent visit to the region, Chinese security forces harassed and blocked CNN's Matt Rivers from visiting the internment camps.
However, a CNN investigation tracked down Uighurs living in exile who verified the identities of at least eight of the families profiled in the leaked report.
The investigation takes us to Istanbul, Turkey. Here, I meet Rozinsa Mamattohti, a mother of three from Xinjiang, whose name is on the document.
ROZINSA MAMATTOHTI, RELATIVE OF DETAINEE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
WATSON (on camera): (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE) That is you. That's your name. (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
MAMATTOHTI: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
WATSON (voice-over): Her name appeared under case number 358, which revealed that her younger sister, Patem, was sent to a camp in March of 2018, for supposedly violating China's family planning policy. That is, having too many children.
MAMATTOHTI: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
WATSON: Rozinsa says this is the first information she's had about her family in Xinjiang since 2016.
Many Uighurs living overseas says communication with family back home was completely cut off when China cracked down in Xinjiang.
But Uighurs are risking their lives to expose this sensitive information.
(on camera): This is the first time you are speaking publicly about these documents?
TAHIRJAN ANWAR, UIGHUR ACTIVIST: Yes, this is the first time.
WATSON (voice-over): Tahirjan Anwar is a Uighur activist living in exile in the Netherlands. Last summer, he received this trove of documents from a source in Xinjiang he won't identify for their safety.
ANWAR: That was my birthday. And I got the attachment. I was very surprised.
WATSON: It is Anwar, along with a patchwork of other Uighurs living in exile, who are sharing this information with the outside world.
ADRIAN ZANZ, SENIOR FELLOW IN CHINA STUDIES, VICTIMS OF COMMUNISM MEMORIAL FOUNDATION: This document is like a microcosm of what's happening all over Xinjiang.
WATSON: Adrian Zanz is a U.S. based academic who have been studying what he is convince ready internal Chinese government documents.
ZANZ: This is the future of authoritarianism. This is the future of changing populations who don't agree with the main regime in terms of ideologies, spirituality, political identity, or other criteria.
WATSON (on camera): CNN's data analysis reveals, among at least 484 people sent to camps, five were detained because they communicated with people overseas. Twenty-five were detained for holding a passport without visiting a foreign country. And the most, 114 people, were labeled a threat for simply having too many children.
[14:40:08]
Those Uighurs were sent to four different camps all apparently located within the same community. Using other open-source Chinese government documents, we were able to find the locations of the four facilities, including the number two training center located near the Kanakash (ph) train station.
(voice-over): This is where Rozinsa Mamattohti's second-oldest sister, Rozinyas (ph), was sent. According to case number 597, her offense, having a passport and giving birth to too many children. Rozinsa fears her family could be punished further because she is
going public.
(on camera): Why are you showing your face to the outside world?
MAMATTOHTI: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
WATSON (voice-over): CNN reached out to the Chinese foreign minute tree and Xinjiang regional government in writing with detailed questions, but Chinese officials did not respond. In the past, Beijing has strenuously denied allegations of mess treatment and arbitrary detention.
WANG YI, CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTER: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
WATSON: As for Tahirjan Anwar, he hopes that sharing these documents will force Beijing to ease its crackdown in Xinjiang and lead to information about his own missing loved ones.
ANWAR: This is my father. He is now in a jail. I don't know what exactly crime of him.
Chinese Government, let's free my father immediately and let's free all Uighurs immediately.
WATSON: Ivan Watson, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BALDWIN: Ivan, thank you.
With the Nevada caucus under way, there are already concerns about the system for reporting votes. And are we facing a repeat of the disaster in Iowa? Let's hope not.
And a health crisis for America's women. Why this is the only developed country with a death rate for pregnant or new moms.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:47:09]
BALDWIN: Among other things, President Trump's Sunday visit to the Daytona 500 was meant to provide a great photo opt, and it worked. But it also backfired on Twitter after President Trump's campaign manager, Brad Parscale, tweeted this photo out along with the caption, "RealDonaldTrump won the Daytona 500 before the race even started."
You see that phot? The problem was the photo he chose here is actually from 2004. And he chose huge race crowds greeting then-President George W. Bush. Oops, tweet deleted. Replaced hours later by this. A photo of Air Force Once flying over a lot of empty seats.
Let's go straight to our favorite fact-checker, CNN's Daniel Dale. He's been following the latest Twitter fit for us.
When the original tweet went up, Daniel, what happened?
DANIEL DALE, CNN REPORTER: As so often, Brooke, it's like there were two separate worlds. On one hand, you had many self-professed Trump supporters on Twitter saying things like, "Wow. Awesome. Sharp. That should be framed and given to him. Pilot must love working for this man."
And then, on the other hand, you had people saying, hey, wait a minute, that's not a shot of President Trump's Air Force One.
So I think it's important to say, in this case, we don't know exactly what happened here. It's, of course, very possible this was intentional deception. And it is possible the tweet was a mistake. The tweet was deleted three hours later.
But it's yet another example, regardless, of the people, who often accuse the media of perpetrating fake news, deceiving people themselves.
BALDWIN: I know at one point I know you tweeted side-by-side pictures and people responded with pictures of the inauguration crowds, right? And then, of course, that was when the White House was fuming over the comparisons to Barack Obama's inauguration.
Who can forget this from Trump's then-press secretary, Sean Spicer?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEAN SPICER, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The photographs of the inaugural proceedings were intentionally framed in a way, in one particular tweet, to minimize the enormous support it gathered on the National Mall.
This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Man, that was a blast from the past.
What -- Daniel, is this a blip overall? What is with the constant focus on crowd size?
DALE: Trump has been exaggerating everything possible to exaggerate since well before he was president. He adds additional floors to his buildings and he adds rating points for his reality shows.
I don't like to make predictions but I think it's safe to say that, as long as this president is in public life, he will continue to exaggerate the size of his crowds. And this are the most pointless lies, Brooke. I mean, this president has very impressive crowds. He could site them accurately and impress people.
But, instead, because he is Donald Trump, he adds thousands and thousands of people that don't exist.
BALDWIN: Right, right.
Daniel Dale, thank you.
DALE: Thank you.
[14:50:00]
BALDWIN: Even as 2020 candidates focus on Nevada, they are also trying to head off another threat, billionaire, Michael Bloomberg. How the former New York mayor is now targeting the Democratic frontrunner.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: A stunning new report finds that American women are dying in childbirth at alarming rates. And according to the CDC, the U.S. is the only developed country with a rising death rate for pregnant women or new moms.
[14:55:05]
CNN's Robyn Curnow talked to a man that who is suing a Los Angeles hospital after his wife died during what was supposed to be a routine C section.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROBYN CURNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Little boys playing, watched over by a mom they are too young to remember.
Kira Johnson's husband, Charles, hasn't stopped remembering. He's still grieving, still angry from that night in hospital.
JOHNSON: I can see the Foley catheter coming from Kira's bedside begin to turn pink with blood.
CURNOW: He says doctors told them now-three-year-old Langston's birth would be a routine cesarean section.
JOHNSON: I just held her by her hands and said, please, look, my wife isn't doing well. And this woman looked me directly in my eyes, and she said, sir, your wife just isn't a priority right now. It wasn't until 12:30 a.m. the next morning that they finally made the decision to take Kira back to surgery.
CURNOW: As critical minutes turned into hours, Johnson says he was continually ignored by staff at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles as Kira's health continued to suffer.
JOHNSON: When they took Kira back to surgery and he opened her up, there were three and a half liters of blood in her abdomen from where she had been allowed to bleed internally for almost 10 hours. And her heart stopped immediately.
CURNOW: Johnson is suing the hospital for the loss of his wife. And with the case pending, Cedars Sinai told CNN in a statement that they could not respond directly because of privacy laws but that, "Cedars Sinai thoroughly investigates any situation where there are concerns about a patient's medical care."
Kira was a successful entrepreneur, who spoke five languages.
KIRA JOHNSON, DIED IN CHILDBIRTH: (INAUDIBLE)
CURNOW: This is video she recorded, teaching her firstborn son to speak Mandarin.
This was a woman who could fly planes and skydive, seemed invincible to her family, which is why her death is so much harder to understand.
JOHNSON: That's when I started to do the research for myself, and I realized that, oh, my gosh, we are in the midst of a maternal mortality crisis that isn't just shameful for American standards. It is shameful on a global scale.
CURNOW: The charity Every Mother Counts, which was started by supermodel Christy Turlington, works across the world on maternal health but also in the U.S. Because America is the only developed country with a rising death rate for pregnant or new mothers. Approximately 700 women in the U.S. die each year.
Globally, the comparison is stark. More mothers die in childbirth in America than they do in Iran, Turkey or Bosnia Herzegovina, even Kazakhstan. All have lower maternal death rates.
LYNSEY ADDARIO, WAR PHOTOGRAPHER: Finally, they took her to the doctor --
CURNOW: Lynsey Addario is a Pulitzer Prize-winning war photographer who has documented the deaths of women in childbirth around the world in the same way she tackles a war zone.
ADDARIO: It's almost more heartbreaking, because I think when I go to war, I kind of know what to expect.
CURNOW: What she did not expect was to find that her own birthplace, America, was failing pregnant women in some of the same ways that much-less developed countries fail their mothers.
ADDARIO: When I go to the United States, I see, you know, these little scenes of heartbreak. I just can't believe they're happening in my own country. It's almost harder.
CURNOW: Every Mother Counts says many of their deaths are because of an unequal health care system and systemic racism.
Public health experts warn this crisis is not just affecting poor or sick moms, but also healthy, college-educated African-American women.
WANDA BARFIELD, DOCTOR OF DIVISION OF REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH, CDC: We do know that there may be issues in terms of institutional racism. A well-educated African-American woman with more than a high school education has a fivefold risk of death compared to a white woman with less than a high school education. JOHNSON: There is a failure and a disconnect for the people who are
responsible for the lives of these precious women and babies, to see them and value them in the same way that they would their daughters, their mothers, their sisters.
CURNOW: Now part of an unnecessarily large fraternity of Americans who have lost partners in childbirth, Charles is pushing for policy changes, raising awareness and trying to hold doctors and hospitals accountable.
JOHNSON: If I can simply do something to make sure that I send other mothers home with their precious babies, then it's all worth it.
CURNOW: And he's raising his sons, teaching them about their mother.
JOHNSON: What I try and do is just wake up every day, and make mommy proud, repeat.
When'd you get so good?
(LAUGHTER)
CURNOW: Robyn Curnow, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BALDWIN: That this is happening in America.
Charles Johnson, you keep fighting for everyone.
Thank you, Robyn, for that story.
Now to this.
Hour two. We continue on. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.
The Democratic primary is heading west as voters in the state of Nevada become the latest to weigh in on the battle to oust President Trump from the White House. And 48 delegates are at stake there.
[15:00:00]
And while it may be President's Day today, for these candidates, a day off is not on the calendar.
