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New Day
Protests In Minneapolis After Officers Aren't Charged in Jamar Clark's Death; Trump Ignites Firestorm Over Abortion Comment Advocating Abortion Ban & Punishing Women; FBI Agrees To Unlock Apple Devices In Murder Case; FDA Eases Guidelines For Abortion Pill; Antarctic Ice Melt Could Double Pace Of Rising Seas; Woman Turns Twitter Handle Into Water For Flint; Obama Hosting Nuclear Security Summit; Turkish President: Belgium Ignored Warnings About Attacker. Aired 6:30-7a ET
Aired March 31, 2016 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[06:30:00] DON LEMON, CNN HOST: Investigators say they acted in self-defense but the 24-year-old's family says otherwise. CNN's Ryan Young live for us in Minneapolis with more. Good morning, Ryan.
RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Don. I want to show you here. This is the memorial that everyone started their protests at just yesterday. The people were very angry after hearing this news about Jamar Clark. Jamar Clark was shot near this spot about four months ago. This investigation lasted that long as investigators tried to figure out exactly what was going on this case.
We did see some video that was involved, and police contend that when they arrived here Jamar Clark was trying to stop them from being involved with his girlfriend, in terms of her trying to get inside an ambulance. Once that happened, two officers struggled and shots were fired. The community believes that Jamar Clark was actually handcuffed but now we've learned, according to police, that did not happen.
(VIDEO PLAYING)
Protesters took into the street, as you can hear here. Hundreds walked through the streets last night. Everything remained peaceful, Don.
LEMON: All right, thank you very much, Ryan Young.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: That's good to hear that it all remained peaceful. A lot of crowd there. Well, Donald Trump trying to back away from his comments about abortion. How do women feel about what he said yesterday? We'll discuss the fallout.
[06:32:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:35:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Do you believe in punishment for abortion? Yes or no, as a principle.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The answer is that there has to be some form of punishment.
MATTHEWS: For the woman?
TRUMP: Yes, there has to be some form.
MATTHEWS: Ten cents, ten years?
TRUMP: I don't know. That I don't know. That I don't know.
MATTHEWS: Why not? You take positions on everything else.
TRUMP: Frankly, I do take positions on everything else. It's a very complicated position.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: All right, the shock waves from Donald Trump's comments on abortion go beyond the political world. How will female voters react to him? Joining me now is Scottie Nell Hughes, national political commentator for USA Radio Network and a Trump surrogate. We also have CNN political commentator Ben Ferguson. He's the host of the "BEN FERGUSON SHOW" and a Ted Cruz supporter. Great to have both of you with us this morning.
BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.
CAMEROTA: Scottie, how do you explain Donald Trump's initial response to the question where he said that women should be criminalized for having abortions? It's so far outside the mainstream, even pro-life thinking. Where did he come up with that?
SCOTTIE NELL HUGHES, NATIONAL POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, USA RADIO NETWORKS: Well, I think you have to look at the context and the situation he was in. This is a typical trap that a lot of Democrats, a lot of liberal media do when they ask this question amongst a pro- life or amongst a conservative.
There is no easy answer out of it because it is a complicated situation because it's a complex issue. And I think the fact that Mr. Trump realized immediately after he got off, how quickly this was going to be misconstrued and issued the clarification --
CAMEROTA: Hold on. Was it misconstrued? He said that women should be punished. He said women. I mean, he was clear about it. Not doctors -- women.
HUGHES: And he actually -- I think he completely misspoke and I think he realizes he misspoke and did not use the right words. That's, obviously, not what he means. He is 100 percent pro-life and he's been that way since 1999. He has admitted that he evolved on the issue, like Ronald Reagan, and in this case there are exceptions to the rule.
And I think he -- in the situation that was in -- this is a very tough subject, and I think handled it, especially clarifying it immediately and not waiting a couple of days because he knew that it was, obviously, not exactly the words that he wanted to say.
CAMEROTA: Yes, go ahead, Ben.
FERGUSON: Yes. First of all, he's not been pro-life since 1999. In 1999, he said on "MEET THE PRESS" that he was in favor of abortion, including partial-birth abortions, so that is a lie.
HUGHES: And he evolved since 1999.
FERGUSON: The second thing is -- the second thing is -- he didn't evolve in 1999. He did not evolve in 1999. He was in favor of partial birth abortions, so let's make sure we have a timeline of Donald Trump's flip-flopping on abortion.
The second issue is this. This is Donald Trump being a pro-life fraud candidate. Three times yesterday he switched his position on abortion. If you know what you believe when you're running for the presidency, this is not an "I got you" liberal question, OK? This is what a president deals with. This is also what a president deals with when it comes to dealing with the Supreme Court.
HUGHES: Hey, Ben, hold on. The president does not deal with this.
FERGUSON: Donald Trump knew -- no, let me finish. Let me finish. You have a presidential candidate here that literally walks out and says I think this is what people want me to say so I'll fake it and act like I know what I'm talking about on pro-life issues. He switched three times an hour.
What's even more crazy is your campaign doesn't even have a stance on this because Donald Trump's own son was actually contradicting Donald Trump's campaign while they were making a statement on their first flip-flop. So his own kids don't even know what his dad thinks about this issue.
HUGHES: This is a hypothetical question that was asked of this.
FERGUSON: It's not a hypothetical when you're running for president.
HUGHES: It was a hypothetical question because the truth is --
FERGUSON: No, it's not.
HUGHES: -- the presidency does not deal with reversing Supreme Court decisions. Let me give you a little bit of --
FERGUSON: Then you shouldn't let Donald Trump say that.
CAMEROTA: Well, hold on a second. But it is fair to ask the presidential candidate how do you feel about abortion.
HUGHES: Exactly, and that -- and he said he was pro-life.
CAMEROTA: It was a fair question. Chris Matthews was trying to -- he did. And then, Chris Matthew said so then what? If you're pro-life, what should you do to --
HUGHES: He went into a hypothetical question. He went into a hypothetical question without the details, and you can sit there --
FERGUSON: You're running for president.
HUGHES: Exactly. And if you want a politician, if you want a lawyer that can sit there and talk the talk, then go for it. You don't vote for Mr. Trump. If you want to look at actions and you want to look --
FERGUSON: Scottie, Scottie.
HUGHES: -- at a presidential candidate who had the choice of actually doing something to help the pro-life movement --
FERGUSON: Scottie.
HUGHES: -- like standing up --
FERGUSON: Scottie.
HUGHES: -- for taxpayer-funded abortion, like your candidate did not do when he had the chance in declaring (ph) this budget.
FERGUSON: OK, Scottie.
CAMEROTA: OK, go ahead.
FERGUSON: Scottie, this is the problem I have here. You're running for president and when you're asked a question and fumble it, it's because you're a fraud.
HUGHES: A hypothetical situation.
CAMEROTA: But, hold on. I just want -- hold on, Ben.
FERGUSON: Let me finish, let me finish.
CAMEROTA: OK, go ahead.
FERGUSON: When you're a fraud on the issue and you're running for president, and then all of a sudden you say what's not fair -- the question. If you cannot know what you believe in as a person, don't run for president, especially on the issue of abortion. Conservatives always have said -- true conservatives have always said you do not punish the woman. That has been something very --
HUGHES: Actually, to clarify that -- just the position recently, as well.
FERGUSON: Donald Trump doesn't understand that. CAMEROTA: Well, hold on. I want to be clear about something. It was hypothetical only in that Chris Matthews was following Donald Trump's line of reasoning. So, it is a --
FERGUSON: Absolutely.
CAMEROTA: -- fair question to say how do you feel? He says I'm pro- life. He says, therefore, would you ban abortion? Donald Trump says yes, I would like to see abortion banned. The next question -- the logical question is and then what do you do? Who do you punish? Do you punish the woman? This is his line of reasoning.
[06:40:00] HUGHES: He would like to, but hypothetically will it be done? I don't think anybody thinks right now that Roe versus -- but I don't think anybody thinks that Roe versus Wade will ever be reversed.
CAMEROTA: Donald Trump would like it to be.
HUGHES: Well, of course, and most pro-lifers would want it to be.
CAMEROTA: Well then, what do you do when someone has an abortion? That's a fair question. Have you tried to answer it?
HUGHES: And he clarified it and he said that the abortion is -- but here's one thing that we also have to realize and this is where, Ben, it's easy for you to come back just like your candidate, who I respect. The only time that we're ever running soundbites on these candidates are when they're criticizing Mr. Trump. Other than that, Ted Cruz and John Kasich would not have any attention. They would not have been asked this question.
FERGUSON: Scottie, Scottie.
HUGHES: This is a concerted effort to continue this course.
CAMEROTA: The point is -- I mean, do you feel as though he hadn't thought this through? It does feel as though it was a halfway --
HUGHES: He's pro-life. What's not to come through?
FERGUSON: Of course, he hadn't thought it through.
CAMEROTA: But what happens then? What happens to abortion then?
HUGHES: But he's pro-life, and he said he's pro-life except with exceptions, and if it is banned then it becomes illegal and you have to deal with it at that point.
CAMEROTA: And then when you do it do you punish the woman?
HUGHES: And he --
FERGUSON: Alisyn?
HUGHES: No, he actually said -- and he clarified it in a statement. He might have misspoke in the first statement and the second statement he said that.
FERGUSON: He might have misspoke. Scottie, he doesn't know what he's talking about.
HUGHES: I'm sorry. He's not a polished politician. That's why Americans like him.
CAMEROTA: Go ahead, Ben.
FERGUSON: That's no longer a good enough excuse. This idea that you can be an idiot on a pro-life issue and not know what you believe because -- and your default is well, he's not a politician. He is a politician, Scottie. He's running for the presidency of the United State of America. He needs to start acting like it on issues that are important to voters.
You don't walk out there on a moral issue of life and death with abortion and fake it and be a fraud and switch three times your position in three hours. And your excuse is, Scottie, that he's not a politician. That's embarrassing to the issue of abortion for women and to saving a child's life. It's embarrassing.
HUGHES: No, it is not because right now that's what's gotten him into this situation is politicians that talk things on the campaign trail and when given the chance to defund taxpayer-funded Planned Parenthood, they sit there and run away from it and shy away from it.
FERGUSON: He's defunded Planned Parenthood.
CAMEROTA: Well, obviously, we could do this -- we could do this for hours, guys. There's so much to talk about on this topic but we have to leave it there. We do want to hear, however, your take. You can tweet us @NewDay or post your comments on facebook.com/NewDay. We would love to hear what you think about Donald Trump's comments.
Coming up in our next hour we will hear from Planned Parenthood's executive vice president, Dawn Laguens, on Donald Trump's abortion comments -- Don.
LEMON: Boy oh boy. All right, thank you very much. Just what the doctor ordered for people in Flint, Michigan, that is. See how a selfless good samaritan turned her Twitter handle into a huge donation. That's next on NEW DAY.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:46:00] CAMEROTA: The FBI is helping an Arkansas prosecutor unlock an iPhone and iPod that could hold evidence in an Arkansas murder trial. Four teenagers are accused of killing Robert and Patricia Codgell at their home in July and officials believe the Apple devices could have pertinent information. This comes one day after the FBI managed to unlock an iPhone belonging to the San Bernardino terrorists despite objections from Apple for their help.
LEMON: A big win for abortion rights advocates. Guidelines for women taking a pill to induce abortion relaxed by the Food and Drug Administration. The change allows women to use the drug Mifeprex later in their pregnancies with fewer doctor visits. Critics call the change politically motivated, insisting that the White House is trying to win over female voters. The FDA says, however, the adjustment was based solely on medical science.
CAMEROTA: An alarming new study suggests that sea levels could rise nearly twice as much as predicted by the end of this century if greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated. Researchers say the melting of ice in Antarctica could trigger a monumental and irreversible increase in sea levels, devastating coastal communities across the globe.
LEMON: A Michigan woman is giving back -- this is a good story -- turning Dr. Pepper into a truckload of bottled water for people who live in Flint, Michigan. When Diana Hussein signed up for Twitter -- this was back in 2009 -- she chose the handle @DietDrPepper. But after being urged to leverage the handle she finally decided to do so and ask for one thing in return, and that was help for Flint. She gave up the handle in exchange for 41,000 bottles of water from Dr. Pepper's parent company, which were delivered to Flint earlier this month.
CAMEROTA: Wow, that is some ingenuity.
LEMON: Yes, good for her.
CAMEROTA: That's great.
LEMON: Yes.
CAMEROTA: All right, so back to this update now for you. Why did Belgian officials ignore the warnings from Turkey before the Brussels attacks? CNN's Christiane Amanpour talked to the Turkish president about all of this. We have that exclusive interview for you next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:52:00] LEMON: So, Donald Trump's comments on abortion, not the only ones raising eyebrows. The Republican front-runner suggested this week that some countries in Asia may need to develop nuclear weapons to protect themselves. Those comments come ahead of a nuclear summit starting today in Washington, so how are Trump's world views being received outside the U.S. Boy, we could do a whole hour on that.
Christiane Amanpour is CNN's chief international correspondent and she joins me now. I want to play this for you because the president, of course, is hosting more than 50 countries, including many NATO countries, in an effort to make the world safer from nuclear weapons. But the question is, Christiane, how are Donald Trump's comments going to play to the leaders of these nations?
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.
LEMON: Here he is speaking to our Anderson Cooper in a town hall about NATO. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON COOPER, MODERATOR, CNN TOWN HALL: You really think NATO is obsolete?
TRUMP: I think it's largely obsolete, yes. It's got to be changed. It's got to be -- you don't talk about terror. Our single biggest threat right now is terror, OK? I mean, I really do understand this stuff. NATO is obsolete. Now that doesn't mean it can't be rejiggered and it can't be fixed and made good, or it's possible --
COOPER: And, for you, is that a financial component that when you talk about rejiggering --
TRUMP: We're paying too much. You have countries in NATO -- I think it's 28 countries.
COOPER: OK.
TRUMP: You have countries in NATO that are getting a free ride and it's unfair.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: NATO members are going to be here. NATO is obsolete. The U.S. is paying for it.
AMANPOUR: Look, obviously, there's one fact that is correct in what he said. One of the huge, big challenges is global terrorism. But then to swing all the way over to the other side and say NATO is obsolete is a statement that is not hinged to that particular point.
NATO is not a terrorist-fighting organization. Never has been. NATO is sometimes a peacekeeping operation and sometimes a war-fighting operation. What he really means is talking about beefing up security, beefing up intelligence, better intelligence sharing. But that kind of comment obviously went down incredibly badly around the NATO allies when it was made earlier.
And he's right also on one issue there that a lot of the countries are not paying their 2 percent of GDP into the NATO budget. But now, since President Obama complained about some of the countries, they have upped their contribution to the NATO forces.
LEMON: The nuclear proliferation thing. Is that raising eyebrows?
AMANPOUR: Yes, it's raising a lot of eyebrows because, obviously, the world here is trying to de-escalate when it comes to having people having nuclear weapons. South Korea and Japan, of course, are allies, but there's a reason why they don't have nuclear weapons. And I think particularly in this period of time when so much angst and concern is about the proliferation of nuclear weapons, suggesting that other countries get them is, again, not going down very well at all.
LEMON: So, let's talk about the European countries because Paris authorities have charged a suspect arrested in connection with the foiled attack. So the question is they have gotten intelligence about some of these men who have been charged, right, and some of the men who --
AMANPOUR: Yes.
LEMON: -- blew themselves up. What is going on with European countries? Do they have enough resources? Are they sharing enough information?
[06:55:00] AMANPOUR: You know, Don, that seems to be the big issue right now. After you've had, in Europe in about 15 months, three mega attacks starting in Paris with Charlie Hebdo, then in Paris again with the Bataclan, and then in Belgium just a couple of weeks ago. They are now incredibly worried that there is a super cell of ISIS metastasizing in the heart of Europe, particularly between France and Belgium.
And there's this real sort of base there right now as ISIS has now been revealed to have had a much longer planning to send operatives to Europe and there isn't the intelligence sharing or the resources, and that's a big deal -- the resources being put into this counterterrorism operation.
LEMON: You spoke with the president of Turkey, --
AMANPOUR: Yes.
LEMON: -- Erdogan.
AMANPOUR: I did.
LEMON: And they warned Belgium officials.
AMANPOUR: Well, yes, because once the pictures came out on the security cameras of who was responsible, at least for the airport bombing, one of them was this brother, Ibrahim El Bakraoui. And within days the Turkish government and Erdogan himself, the president, had tweeted that, in fact, more than a year ago they had deported this man. They had warned that he had Jihadi tendencies and deported him. This is what he said to me about that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN, PRESIDENT OF TURKEY (through translator): Well, of course, both the Netherlands and Belgium, for someone having a Jihadi intention or not. First, they need to know what Jihadi intention means. They have to identify whether these are foreign fighters or Jihadists. The Netherlands nor the Belgians seem to have understood what Jihadi stands for. We've been calling the nations for common stance against terrorism and many of the European member states seems to have failed to attach the significance that this call for action deserves.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So, it's obvious European officials need to improve their communication.
AMANPOUR: Yes. I mean, there's a big problem with intelligence sharing. He was also saying that we, ourselves, want more intelligence sharing with Europe, not to mention within Europe itself, so that is a big issue.
And, of course, we've talked a lot about the bifurcated nature of the Belgian security operations. There's so many of them, with all speaking fairly different languages. Belgium is quite a sort of divided society in terms of language. And this has just, yet again, shown the holes and how these terror cells can fall through the gap there in intelligence.
LEMON: So then, how does that happen? That takes resources.
AMANPOUR: It does. It takes resources and it takes a lot more cooperation, really. It's all about intelligence sharing and resources. And every time, for instance -- after Paris, they said yes, we were tracking these people and we had a super police and security cell going off there, but actually, the previous president had cut down on the resources for them. So we get these sort of mea culpas come up after these attacks and this is one of the biggest threats to Europe right now.
LEMON: I can't wait to see your reporting after this summit, Christiane Amanpour. Thank you very much.
AMANPOUR: Thanks a lot. Thanks.
LEMON: All right. All right, Christiane Amanpour's exclusive interview with the Turkish president airs today on "AMANPOUR", 2:00 p.m. Eastern on CNN International. Again, our thanks to Christiane Amanpour.
We're following a lot of news this morning, including the fallout from Donald Trump's controversial abortion comments. Let's get right to it.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If you make abortion a crime, you make it illegal, then you make women and doctors criminals.
MATTHEWS: Do you believe in punishment for abortion?
TRUMP: There has to be some form of punishment.
TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: That comment was wrong.
JOHN KASICH (R-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's a difficult enough situation and to try to punish somebody.
BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What is in Donald Trump's mind?
TRUMP: I'm a better person than these people who are running against me.
CAMEROTA: The president will host his fourth and final nuclear security summit.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've been warning for years that the risk of nuclear terrorism was real.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The consequences are so huge, we need to take action now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An imminent terror attack foiled.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They found five (INAUDIBLE), false passports, bomb-making materials. They were in a position to immediately attack something.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How big could this terror network be?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota, and Michaela Pereira.
CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your new day. Michaela is on assignment this morning, but she will join us later this hour. Meanwhile, Don Lemon is here with me this morning.
LEMON: Good morning. You know, I'm not John Lennon this morning.
CAMEROTA: No, you're actually Don Lemon. Thank you. It's early. We begin with Donald Trump under fire for his comments on abortion. Over three hours Trump had three different stances on the issue. First, calling for banning abortion and punishing women who get them. Then he backtracked saying the states should decide the matter. And then, in the third statement he declared its doctors performing the procedure who should be punished, not women.
LEMON: Yes, he's really getting it from all sides, taking heat from Democrat and Republicans alike. Critics calling his position shameful, horrific, and flat out dangerous. Rival Ted Cruz taking it one step further, though, accusing Trump of damaging the pro-life movement. How will Trump's evolving stance on abortion impact the race?
Our coverage begins with CNN's Phil Mattingly, live in Milwaukee. Good morning, Phil.
