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Fallout from Trump Breaking GOP Loyalty Oath; March Jobs Report; Interview with Bob Wright on Donald Trump, Autism Speaks. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired April 01, 2016 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00] DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: In order to secure a slot on the primary ballot. So Trump won all of the state's delegates in February in the primary, but the anti-Trump forces are now plotting to contest their binding to Trump because of the threat of a pledge on Tuesday. You're saying just because he said I'm not going to support the eventual nominee, that he is in breach of this agreement?

MATT MOORE, CHAIRMAN, SOUTH CAROLINA REPUBLICAN PARTY: Well, good morning, Don.

What I did say is, these are all hypothetical questions and answers, the many unknowns. And right now, no one is trying to unbind any delegates in South Carolina. What is known is that the best way to be the nominee of the party is to get the majority of delegates before the convention. That would make all of this media frenzy a moot point.

LEMON: OK. Let's take a look at the moment when he changed his position on supporting the GOP nominee.

OK. So - yes. So he said, "I - so he - he said that in a town hall with CNN, and then this is what he said. "I generally believe in and intend to support the nominees and platform of the Republican Party." That was November 8th in - of 2016. OK. So, my question to you is and - and you said it will make the point moot. But do you think that this is a legally binding contract? And because if it happened here, he signed that in other states as well. Does he have a problem in other states if this indeed becomes something that is a legal problem for him?

MOORE: Well, that's the big question. This is a process. And this process leads to national convention. I personally am not the person that could educate that kind of question. I think it would have to go to possibly the national convention contests committee. Look, I think the bottom line is still, the best way to be the nominee is to win the majority of delegates. We are in the process now, between now and July 18th through 21st, committed to honesty, fairness and transparency. We launched a site yesterday, conventionfacts.gop to explained this to Americans, to explain that sometimes games cannot be sold (ph) on the field and overtime is necessary and in that overtime the rules may change just a little bit. But the bottom line is, we'll emerge from the party - the party's convention in July with a nominee and get behind that nominee.

LEMON: But you - you did - you did tell "Time" magazine that "breaking South Carolina's presidential primary ballot pledge raises some unanswered legal questions that no one person can answer. However," you said, "a court or national convention Committee on Contests could resolve them. It could put delegates in jeopardy." You are saying that. You're saying you're not the best person to do it, but you're telling "Time" magazine, yes, it's going to have to be resolved, possibly through some sort of legal process.

MOORE: Well, again, there are a lot of unknowns in this process. What is known is that there's a - there's a process that yesterday Donald Trump and Reince Priebus met about in D.C. to discuss logistics of a - of a possible open convention, how fair the party's going to be in this process, you know, and what it means to have an open convention. Now many people have experience with this over the past 40 or so years. But, again, I can't stress enough. This is a process that no one person's involved with. This is a grass roots driven process of delegates and possibly a convention committees who will decide these things.

LEMON: OK, let's talk about that meeting that you just mentioned because he met with the RNC yesterday, and Reince Priebus, tweeting out that it went well. The RNC confirmed that through a statement. What is your reaction to that meeting? Is it - do you think it's just standard operating procedure or do you think there's more to this meeting than the RNC is letting on to?

MOORE: Well, first of all, I was not there, so I can't speak for either side in this meeting. What I can say is that preparations for the national convention are underway. The processes that lead to that convention are underway. And they, I'm sure , were discussing things as simple as hotel arrangements and committee room arrangements in Cleveland for this summer. So there are a lot of little loose ends to begin discussions on as we head into this process. I think we will not know until June 7th what eventually will happen. And then, again, the best way and the easiest way to be the nominee is to win elections between now and then.

LEMON: Matt Moore. Matt Moore is the chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party. Thank you. I appreciate it.

MOORE: Thanks, Don. Take care.

LEMON: Michaela, over to you.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, the March jobs reports released just moments ago. Christine Romans is on deck and she'll fill you in on the number of jobs created and what it could mean for your money and your vote.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:38:08] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, it's time for "CNN Money Now." The Labor Department releasing the jobs report for March. So chief business correspondent Christine Romans is here with all the breaking news.

Christine. CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Alisyn.

Another strong month of hiring. We just got these numbers and I want to show you what it looks like. Two hundred and fifteen thousand net new jobs. And there were a couple of revisions, but you can see it was a strong end to the year and beginning of this year. So that's where we stand for job creation. A little stronger than expected on job creation.

On unemployment, the jobless rate ticked up just a tiny bit to 5 percent. Why did it tick up? Is that a bad sign? No. It's a sign that more people are coming into the labor market. Perhaps encouraged by the strong hiring of the past few months. They are coming into the labor market trying to get a job. So 5 percent there.

I want to show you the labor force participation rate. That also came up. What is that? It sounds so wonky, so nerdy. This is the number you hear so much on the campaign trail from people who say millions of Americans have been elbowed out of the job market, but the unemployment rate is really somehow much worse than we think. Things are getting better. People are starting to come back into the labor market. That's what that tells us.

Let me look at the sectors quickly so you can see where the hiring has been. Construction -- these tend to are higher paid jobs. This also shows us health in the health market. Retail, health care. Manufacturing, another loss there. Again, that is a hot topic on the campaign trail because manufacturing jobs are those solid, good, middle-class paying jobs. Another month of losses there.

Let me just show you overall job growth here. Now, the average for this year is about 209,000 jobs a month. That is solid jobs growth.

But, you guys, this report like a Rorschach test now on the campaign trail, right? You look at these numbers, these pages of numbers. Republicans will see the weaknesses and try to say that the economy is not working well for everyone. Democrats will try to say, look, we're moving in the right direction.

PEREIRA: Well, that's why we like having you here to break it all down for us. Christine, thanks so much. You'll continue to crunch through those numbers today for us.

[08:40:04] Let's turn now to the five things on this Friday.

Donald Trump and GOP leaders holding an unannounced unity meeting in Washington as the candidate tries to calm the firestorm over his comments about abortion and nuclear security.

The Democratic duo, meanwhile, for (ph) New York's 247 delegates already fierce. Hillary Clinton lashing out, saying that she is sick of the Sanders campaign lying about her. New Yorkers vote in less than three weeks. First up, though, the Wisconsin primary Tuesday.

Virginia State Trooper Chad Dermyer shot and killed in the line of duty at a bus station in Richmond. Others troopers shot the suspected gunman, who later died at the hospital. Two civilians suffered non- life threatening wounds.

It is day two of the nuclear security summit in Washington, D.C. The focus today, terrorism. Summit participants brainstorming counter ISIS strategies.

Well, March Madness now spilling into April. The final four tipping off in Houston tomorrow. First up, Oklahoma faces Villanova. Then it's North Carolina against Syracuse. The winners, of course, play for the championship Monday night.

And for more on the five things to know, be sure to visit newdaycnn.com for the latest.

Don.

LEMON: Don't go anywhere because I want to talk - I'm going to continue to talk about March Madness. As you just noted, Michaela, March Madness is quickly coming up - coming to an end, but if you need a little extra basketball fix before it's all over, I want you to check this out. This is this week's CNN Hero. His name is Marquis Taylor. He's using the sport to help kids tap their potential on and off the court.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUIS TAYLOR, CNN HERO: This program is not about creating the next basketball star. It's about helping young people develop skills that are going to prepare them for the next step. It allows you to navigate challenges that are in your face, because that's what's going to happen when they hit life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: And there's something different about this basketball program. How older players become mentors for younger ones and how that can become a pathway to college. You can watch Marquis' story right now at cnnheroes.com. And while you're there, make sure you nominate someone you think should be a 2016 CNN hero.

PEREIRA: One of my favorite initiatives of CNN here. I love it. I love it.

LEMON: It's it amazing. Yes, it's great. Good - good stuff. Good for Marquis.

PEREIRA: All right, we have a special guest coming up. Bob Wright is the former head of Peacock Network, now leading the world in the - leading the charge, rather, in the world of autism awareness. We're going to speak to him about his new book and the unique perspective he brings on Donald Trump.

Also, there's some new autism numbers out today. We'll talk about that as well.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [08:46:30] CAMEROTA: Our next guest has a unique perspective on Donald Trump since he was once Trump's boss. Bob Wright ran NBC Universal for more than 20 years, including during the time when the Donald was firing people on "The Apprentice." Today, Wright's organization, Autism Speaks, leads the charge in autism awareness. Bob's first grandchild was diagnosed with autism back in 2004, and his new book is titled "The Wright Stuff: From NBC to Autism Speaks." And Bob Wright joins us now.

Bob, great to have you here in studio with us.

BOB WRIGHT, CO-FOUNDER, AUTISM SPEAKS : Thank you, Alisyn. It's a pleasure to be here.

CAMEROTA: Oh, it's great. So, let's talk about when you were Donald Trump's boss. What is the -- who is the real Donald Trump? What can you tell us about having worked with him so closely?

WRIGHT: Well, it actually goes back 30 years, because when we - when I first came to NBC, he was trying to get to NBC to move to Studio City, which was this thing -- he was going to build this tower, 102- story tower over on the west side where the apartments are today. And he wanted to convince me and others, this is the place to go. If we - we were the prime tenant, we would get on the top floors and all this, and that -- we had a six-month negotiation on that.

CAMEROTA: And he loves negotiating, you say.

WRIGHT: Yes, and he's good at it, but he's -- the thing about Donald, he's very transparent, and that's -- people don't realize -- when I say that, he basically says what he means, and he means what he says, and he doesn't -- he doesn't coat himself in some kind of a protective shield and he's not three Donalds, really.

CAMEROTA: No pretense?

WRIGHT: No. He has really no pretense whatsoever. But one thing I've noticed about him, he always does -- he does have advisers and he does seek thought if he doesn't - if he doesn't have enough material. So we did this negotiation for a long time. I eventually didn't go there. I did a better deal and I stayed at 30 Rock.

We had another situation later on when he called me and he said, you know, I want to -- I own half of the Miss Universe and CBS owns half of it, and it's not working out. I don't think they want to be there. Why don't you buy the other half? And so we had a long conversation. I said, were you really interested in this? He said, absolutely. He said, I could make this better than it is. So, a long...

CAMEROTA: Vintage trump, sounds like.

WRIGHT: The long story is that I said, okay. We'll do it, and we named a price, and I said I'm not going to call up Les Moonves it will be twice as much if I call up. I said, if you want me to do it you have to get that price from Les.

CAMEROTA: Wow, yes.

WRIGHT: Two weeks later he called me up, he said, I have that price.

CAMEROTA: Well, there you go. I mean, that's what he said, that that's his strong suit.

WRIGHT: Now, we did it, so we got it.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

WRIGHT: So, we're (inaudible) into it shortly and he calls me on the phone, he said, your people, they're no good, they're not -- this isn't working out at all. I said, okay, Donald, you take over, full executive thing. You have the right to hire and fire. He said, oh, thank you. And he pulled it in. The ratings for that first year were stupendous. Much -- it was...

CAMEROTA: A Trump word.

WRIGHT: It was like, you know, 40 percent, 50 percent higher than it had been in years.

CAMEROTA: Wow.

WRIGHT: So, he delivered.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about your book, "The Wright stuff." You've had quite a life and you chronicle it here. Great successes, and some heartbreaking moments, particularly when your first grandchild, Christian, was diagnosed with autism. You write very vividly about what a scary time that was.

WRIGHT: We were totally caught off guard. We had no idea what autism was and we certainly had no idea how it puts somebody in a dark corner.

[08:50:00] Meaning that you don't have any insurance, you don't have any method to deal with them, you don't have proven drugs or technologies, and you get isolated very quickly. And we went around the country and we saw this happening, and we thought we'd try to do something about it. And we got involved with Bernie Marcus, who called up and said, I've been in this a long time, I really want to help you.

So based on Bernie Marcus, and he came up with a lot of financial support, we really started in 2004 to put Autism Speaks together and we - we found three family organizations that we thought were the best in the country. And my we is other businessmen like myself who join me in this effort, some of them having autism in their family and a couple not, like Phil Geier, the president of Interpublic for years, and Mel Karmazin.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

WRIGHT: And Andrew Robertson of BBDO, people like that. And we just set out to make it a business. I said from day one, we're going to have audited financials, we're going to register in every single state to raise money and to have offices and to do walks.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

WRIGHT: And we did it all and...

CAMEROTA: You just tackled it the way you did all of the businesses. But I want to ask you about what's happening with autism today, because the new numbers are out. 1 in 68 children is diagnosed with autism. That number is staggeringly different than a generation ago when it was 1 in 10,000. And I couldn't help but notice your wording in the book when you talked about Christian - the timing of Christian's autism.

You say, "Right after he got the standard one-year vaccinations, he developed a very high fever and screamed for hours. Katie," your daughter, "was so frightened she called her husband to come home from work and they put the baby in an ice bath to bring down the fever. When they called the doctor they were told the reaction was completely normal."

Bob, I can't tell you how many parents, dozens, I have interviewed who had the exact same experience that you did. After the children got their standard vaccinations, that night the child had a high fever, they were clearly in distress, they were screaming in mortal pain, they called the doctor and the doctor said you're having a vaccine reaction. I know this is very controversial. Are you satisfied that enough research and studies have been done to prove that there is no link?

WRIGHT: Well, I'm satisfied to date from what has been done, that we can't establish directly that link. And -- but it's -- you know, as we get smarter and we're able to do better research, it's very difficult to do research on vaccines when you're talking about vaccines that go to tens of millions of people, because you need a large sample to make any conclusions about something like this. And that's part of the difficulty. I would also say that, that you -- that we all know without any controversy that a lot of children have very different reactions to vaccines, period.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

WRIGHT: And all vaccines essentially are the same, of the same type of vaccine, and the children are all different, and they have different immune systems. So their responses are going to be like this and pediatricians are too quick to say, oh, you fall in a normal category. Well, that normal category is like this wide, and that's where vaccine safety comes in, and that's an area I did spend a lot of time in trying to understand the CDC's vaccine safety program.

And I can tell you conclusively in that one, that program can be significantly improved for very little money and we tried, and I tried with two administrations, the Bush administration, Obama administration and I failed to get it. It got stopped in the White House in both cases.

CAMEROTA: My gosh. WRIGHT: And that's probably one of the most disappointing things that

I didn't get done.

CAMEROTA: On a brighter note, literally, tell us about Light it up Blue.

WRIGHT: Light it up Blue, which is really the work of Suzanne Wright, my wife of 48 years and my - my best friend and love for 50, it's -- this will be the eighth year of the World Autism Awareness Day, celebrated at the U.N. It's a U.N. function. And this afternoon, if she's able to, she'll be there. But we have -- last year we had 15 -- 18,000 buildings lit up around the world, and we all chronicle. We all have to send our pictures in and everything.

CAMEROTA: Wow.

WRIGHT: I think it's probably going to be closer to 20. She was at 143 countries last year, and going to add some more. And what it is, it's they're showing -- they're being respectful to their own communities.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

WRIGHT: Of people with autism.

CAMEROTA: And it's so striking to see all of those buildings lit up so beautifully. Bob Wright...

WRIGHT: Seven of the top - the tallest buildings in the world this year.

CAMEROTA: That - that will be great. Great pictures, and great message. Bob Wright, thanks so much for being on NEW DAY.

WRIGHT: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Great to have you here.

WRIGHT: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Let's get over to Don.

LEMON: Yes, certainly a great message in the book, thank you very much.

This Sunday, 10:00 p.m. on CNN's THE WONDER LIST, Bill Weir follows the Colorado River recalling a journey with his late father. Take a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[08:55:00] BILL WEIR, HOST, THE WONDER LIST (voice-over): Every time I come back to Arches National Park I am blown away. But never as much as the first time.

WEIR (on camera): We got off work on a Friday. Drove through the night. Slept in the bed of the pickup truck in the ranger station parking lot, with no idea what was outside around us. And then dawn breaks. And you peek out and realize you just woke up on Mars. Or in Bedrock, and the Flintstones are coming over for brunch.

WEIR (voice-over): With 60 pounds of water on our backs, we wandered down sandstone avenues, under arches, vast gargoyles and hob goblins of rock. And we'd get lost in the changing light.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: Two Illinois officers are being hailed as heroes for saving a little girl's life. Polo Sandoval has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a Thursday night in the Chicago suburb of Schaumburg, Illinois, when the call came in.

UNIDENTIFIED MAKE: 911. What's the address of the emergency?

SANDOVAL: A good Samaritan pulled over when she noticed a frantic woman parked on the side of the road.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have a child in distress.

SANDOVAL: 18-month -old Ariliana Cologne (ph) was having a seizure and struggling to breathe according to her grandmother.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is the child breathing or coughing at all?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The baby's not coughing. She's not breathing.

SANDOVAL: Officer Bryan Poradzisz's dashcam video picked up the rest.

OFFICER BRYAN PORADZISZ, SCHAUMBURG POLICE DEPARTMENT: I just bolted out of my car and ran towards her and picked her up.

SANDOVAL: His partner, Kevin O'Connor, was right behind him.

KEVIN O'CONNOR, SCHAUMBURG POLICE DEPARTMENT: My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it hitting my bullet-proof vest.

SANDOVAL: Fearing the worst, both officers were able to put panic aside.

PORADZISZ: I looked at her and I said, dear god, this doesn't look good. This is bad. And I basically grabbed her and was frantically trying to bring her back and revive her. And miraculously the lord just gave her life again.

SANDOVAL: Little Ariliana (ph) started breathing again and was whisked away by paramedics. The family told CNN she suffered a seizure, but is now home and doing better.

PORADZISZ: Out of my 21 years, that's probably the most terrifying event I've had to experience.

SANDOVAL (on camera): Both officers Poradzisz and O'Connor will tell you that what happened on this very spot really did hit close to home. You see, they each have daughters of their own.

PORADZISZ: This girl was not that much younger than mine, and that's what went through my mind that day.

O'CONNOR: You know, I think that the hat that we put on at that moment was the hat of a dad.

SANDOVAL (voice-over): Whether you call them officers or dads, Ariliana's (ph) grateful family says they'll be calling Kevin O'Connor and Bryan Poradzisz something else from now on, their heroes. And it seems to be catching on.