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TSA Asks Congress for More Funding to Ease Long Lines; Obama Makes History in Hiroshima; Clinton and Sanders Battle for California; Kenneth Starr Demoted for Role in Alleged Cover-Up at Baylor; Antibiotic-Resistant Superbig Found in U.S. Patient. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired May 27, 2016 - 06:00   ET

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

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[06:30:31] ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back on this busy holiday travel weekend.

The TSA now announcing another move to try to ease the long wait times at airport security checkpoints, it's now asking Congress for another $28 million to make nearly 3,000 part-time security officers full time. We are keeping tabs on the air front lines for you and the weekend holiday forecast.

Let's begin with Rosa Flores live at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. One of the trouble spots lately. Rosa?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ana, good morning.

Well, this was the terminal that made national headlines a few weeks ago because 450 passengers were stranded. They had to sleep on cots. Well, take a look at the line this morning. It is long, but it is moving fairly swiftly, at a pretty good clip. But as you can see, this swirls around, it snakes through.

Now, here are the changes so far. There are 58 new TSA agents here at O'Hare. Overtime was tripled and five canines were brought in. You can see that the dogs are right over there, and what we've learned from the TSA is that with these canines an extra 5,000 passengers can be cleared every single day.

And, of course, nationally, about 800 TSA agents were also -- TSA is planning to add those 800 agents. That cost $34 million. But like you said, Ana, $28 million is what the TSA is asking for now. And they're expecting that with that money they can screen about an extra 82,000 passengers a day.

CABRERA: Wow. Looking at in there, it's only 5:30. And those lines are long already.

Rosa Flores, our thanks to you.

FLORES: They are. Right now ...

CABRERA: Go ahead. FLORES: Oh, no, I was going say right now the TSA is recommending the passengers arrived two hours early for domestic flights and three hours early for international flights and these passengers, Ana, they are heeding the warning. A lot of the domestic passengers are arriving at least three hours early to make sure that they don't miss that flight and their plans for the holiday weekend.

CABRERA: No kidding. Well, thank you so much, Rosa Flores reporting again from Chicago, O'Hare's Airport.

The weather another factor in your plans this weekend, so let's get the forecast right now from CNN's Allison Chinchar joining us now. Severe weather has been a big issue week Allison.

ALLISON CHINCHAR, AMS METEOROLOGIST: That's right, yes. If it wasn't bad enough dealing with TSA lines, now take a look at airport delays due to simply weather alone. Dallas and Houston, we thunderstorms causing delays from that. Memphis also will be dealing with some thunderstorms today. And Seattle and San Francisco could be dealing with delays. But it's not just air travel. Roads are also going to be a big issue. Interstate 10, 20, 35 and 45 will all be big issues today if you're traveling by road, mainly because of rain and severe weather.

This is what we have the big threat today. Large hail, damaging winds, and, yes, potential for some isolated tornadoes and also flooding, Brenham in Texas had over 16 inches of rain and more rain is expected as go through.

Here's a look at Memorial Day. Not too bad. But, again, we are expecting the potential for maybe even a tropical disturbance to form over the coming days and that could bring even more bad weather through the weekend.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Thank you for that. I'm just watching that thing swirling around. We always have the same feelings. Hopefully it stalls. Hopefully it doesn't get stronger. But thanks for keeping us in the loop on that information. We'll check back on a little bit.

Let's take a break.

President Obama, certainly made history in Hiroshima, there'd been no president that visit there since the atomic bomb was dropped 17 years ago. He had a very specific message for the people who live there now about the day the world was changed, as he put it.

[06:34:16] We're going to talk with the congressman whose family is from Hiroshima, next.

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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But we have a shared responsibility to look directly into the eye of history, and ask what we must do differently to curb such suffering again. For the memory of the morning of August 6, 1945 must never fade.

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ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: That's President Obama making history in Hiroshima this morning. The first sitting U.S. president to go there since the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb that nearly obliterated that Japanese city 70 years ago.

Here to discuss is California Congressman Mark Takano whose family is from Hiroshima. Congressman, thanks so much for being with us this morning.

MARK TAKANO, (D) CALIFORNIA: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

CAMEROTA: Tell us what today means to you and your family?

TAKANO: Well, for my family it's extremely meaningful that the president's gone to Hiroshima to call the world's attention to the cause of nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation. I think the people of Hiroshima and the people of Japan are going to feel a great deal of not only comfort but reassurance that the president is really trying to make sure that another nuclear weapon is never, ever used again.

CAMEROTA: Your great-grandmother saw the explosion in Hiroshima. She was in a sweet potato patch in the mountains. And she saw it happen. She witnessed it with her own eyes. She thought it was a fertilizer fire.

TAKANO: Yes.

CAMEROTA: And you wrote a letter to the president sort of urging him to make this trip. You said it would be healing. And can you explain how this visit will help heal your family?

[06:40:00] TAKANO: Well, you know, my family, of course, my mother and father and most of my grandparents, they born here in the United States. So they were actually in American internment camps during the war and there American naval clashing (ph).

So it's, you know, there was always an ambivalence towards Japan. And it wasn't until I was age 41 that I actually myself went to Japan with a lot of mixed feelings. But when I met my relative, my second cousin Kikue Takagi who had been in America after the war, she had never, ever been to the Peace Museum. She was a 12 or 13-year-old girl at the time the bomb dropped. Most of her classmates perished because they were near ground zero and she was kept home that day by her mother who lived about two miles outside the city center.

As Kikue and I drove in to the Peace Museum for the first time for both of us, she pointed to the Ota River, we crossed the river on a bridge and she said, "You know, they say that the water could not be seen in the surface of the water because it was so covered with dead bodies. At that moment I thought to myself, every world leader who controls a nuclear arsenal should come to Hiroshima to really comprehend and fathom the destructiveness of a nuclear weapon.

Of course we have bombs today that are far more powerful than the one that dropped on Hiroshima.

CAMEROTA: Wow, what a moment for history and for our country and for your family, of course. So congressman, let's talk about what's going on back here at home. You, of course, your district is in California. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump seemed to be both amenable to having a debate in California. Should Hillary Clinton be a part of that debate?

TAKANO: Well, that's up to Secretary Clinton.

CAMEROTA: But do you think would be wise? I mean now that it's seems like they're taking it seriously, and these there are two opponents, might be having a debate without her. Should she be involved?

TAKANO: Well, I think Secretary Clinton and, you know, Senator Sanders have had ample time and numerous debates to be able to flush out their differences. I don't know whether another debate would do to amplify, you know, the distinctions among the candidates. And so, you know, I don't really have a strong opinion about whether she should be a part of that debate or not.

CAMEROTA: Well, here's the problem, congressman, in your home state of California look at the polls. This is the latest polling out of California. Hillary Clinton at 46 percent. Bernie Sanders at 44 percent. I believe that's within the margin of error. What do you thinks is going to happen in your state?

TAKANO: Well, I continue to believe that Hillary Clinton will prevail on June 7th. I believe she will be the nominee of our party, regardless what happens in California. But I still believe she's going to win California. And the math is the math. She will be our nominee and it will be a moment at which we're going to unite around her and I have every bit of confidence that the people that have been supporting Bernie Sanders, most of them, are also going to begin to coalesce around Secretary Clinton. And knowing that the choice, stark choice with Donald Trump, Donald Trump who says that Japan and Korea, South Korea should get they're own nuclear weapons and, you know, presents the possibility of a nuclear arms race in Asia. This is simply no comparison between, say, Secretary Clinton and someone who's nonchalant and cavalier about foreign policy as Donald Trump.

So I think we'll see the beginning of a coalescence around Secretary Clinton and the unification of the party.

CAMEROTA: Awesome, Mark Takano. Thanks so much for being on NEW DAY in sharing your family's personal story today.

TAKANO: You're welcome. Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Let's get over to Chris.

CUOMO: All right, another big story in the news now, is what's going on at Baylor University, and they certainly just got big black eye. The school president, Ken Starr, the man who prosecuted Bill Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky case as you remember, he was stripped of his title and demoted. There is a rape scandal there involving the football team and it's escalating. [06:44:17] We have new details for you coming up.

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CABRERA: Fallout this morning from the alleged cover-up of sexual assault from the campus of Baylor University. Kenneth Starr, the former independent counsel who investigated Bill Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky case. He has now been stripped of his title as a university president and demoted. The school is accused of mishandling reports of rape involving football players.

And CNN Ed Lavandera is live in Dallas with more on this. Ed?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Ana.

Well, it took a number of former Baylor female students who had been raped to come forward, personally tell their stories, for all of this to be uncovered.

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LAVANDERA: Baylor University is demoting its president Ken Starr and firing their head football coach Art Briles. Members of the university's board of regents says, they are "Horrified by the findings of an independent investigation."

The scathe report found a fundamental failure to respond students' sex assault allegations and detailed troubling mishandling of rape by players on the Texas school's nationally ranked football team.

The Baylor bombshell happened under the leadership of Starr who led the impeachment of then President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. Starr hasn't responded to CNN's request for comment, and an attorney for one sexual assault victim and former Baylor student Jasmin Hernandez isn't surprised by the findings.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a serious issue. And I think in terms of Jasmine's case, we're going to be able to show Baylor had a prior knowledge of a huge problem with sexual assault on their campus especially through the athletic program. And they just did nothing. They did absolutely really nothing to protect these female students.

LAVANDERA: Baylor is apologizing and pledges to do better. Hernandez is suing the school for they handle her rape by football player Tevin Elliott back in 2012. Elliott, one of the two football players who was ultimately convicted of sexual assault is serving a 20-year sentence.

[06:50:13] JASMINE HERNANDEZ, FORMER BAYLOR STUDENT: I'm just still always a little bit surprised that they never did anything except kind of reroute me to other people who in turn rerouted me to other people and I never really got help.

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LAVANDERA: Now, Ken Starr will remain at the university. He will become the chancellor with what told no really duties on the internal operations of the school. And he'll also remain as a professor at the Baylor law school.

However, several regents were pressed on this yesterday is to -- if Art Briles was fired, and this was viewed as a failure of leadership, why wasn't Ken Starr fired altogether? And Baylor regents would not answer those questions. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Ed, what a story to have Ken Starr be involved in. Thank you for all of that.

Well, another important story to tell you about a super bug, resistant to even the strongest antibiotics has been discovered in the U.S. What it is and what can be done about it?

We have the details.

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THOMAS FRIEDEN, CDC DIRECTOR: The medicine cabinet is empty for some patients. It is the end of the road for antibiotics, unless we act urgently.

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CUOMO: That the reaction after a female patient was found to be carrying a bacteria that's resistant to even the most powerful antibiotics.

[06:55:03] This is the first time this super bug has appeared in the U.S. that was CDC director, Thomas Frieden. The doctor sounding the alarm, well, how bad can it be? And what can be done? Let's get answers for you.

We have Dr. Alexander Garza, former assistant secretary for Health Affairs and chief medical officer at the Department of Homeland Securities, currently associate dean of the St. Louis University College of Public Health.

Doctor, it's good to have you this morning. How worried should we be?

ALEXANDER GARZA, FMR. CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER DHS: Well, I think there's -- it's sort of a mixed message. So, yes, we should be concerned, antibiotics resistance is growing every year you're hearing about a new bacteria that are becoming resistant to antibiotics. But on the other hand I think there's still a lot that we can be doing to prevent that spread of resistance from occurring.

CUOMO: Well, what does that mean, though? Because, you know, somebody hears, "resistant to antibiotics." It seems to mean, that if you get this, there's a chance you die. How dire is the concern?

GARZA: Right. So the particular patient that we're talking about this morning is, has a gene that infers resistance to a drug called colistin. And colistin is a very old drug formerly was not used much because it did damage to the kidneys. But more and more we're having to turn to these old drugs because the newer drugs have been either over-prescribed or bacteria had become resistant to it.

So the fear is that bacteria will become so resistant to the most of the antibiotics that are used out in the field that potentially none will be able to be used to defeat them, if patients become infected. So that's the big concern with this newest bacteria resistance.

CUOMO: So help me get it right. Is it that the bug itself is resistant to everything? Or is it that the bug, when combined with certain individuals who have some type of resistance as well or some kind of chemical component to their own blood chemistry then that combination is what makes this so dire?

GARZA: Right, right. So that's a great question. So the bacteria that's in question carries a gene calmed the MCR 1, which is never been seen before in the United States in a human patient.

And so and it's also encoded on a particular piece of the genome called the plasmid. And this is what makes it even more sort of scary in terms of antibiotic resistance, because a plasmid can be transferred to other bacteria.

And so the patient in question right now is susceptible to some other antibiotics. But the concern is, is that this piece of genomic material with this gene can then be spread to other bacteria that are resistant to other antibiotics. And potentially make these very, very difficult to treat and to bacteria that aren't susceptible to any antibiotics. And so that's the really big concern that's going on right now.

CUOMO: Are the bugs adapting faster than medicine is adapting to the ability to stop the bugs?

GARZA: Well, it's sort of a give and take there. And so medicine and quite frankly, agriculture practices have been contributing to this antibiotic resistance by using antibiotics in livestock and also the overprescription of antibiotics for human disease and so it's not so much that we haven't been able to keep up with treating the bugs. It's sort of a, yes, we need to develop new antibiotics. But also we have to change some of the practices that we do in order to prevent those super bugs from coming along in the first place.

CUOMO: It's kind of like the problem that we see in hospitals were they clean so often that anything that's able to survive is obviously going to be a very strong. If the animals get it antibiotics, anything that can survive in the animal is now resistant to that antibiotic and it's an increased problem.

All right, so we get, you know, does make sense to you doctor?

GARZA: Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. Whenever the bacteria always in competition and so if you eliminate one form then the more strong one is going to grow.

CUOMO: So everybody is heading to the airports, everybody is in the cars, everybody is traveling, everybody is going to be mixing because it such as a big weekend right, as we enter into Memorial Day. Zika virus is in the air, both figuratively and literally. How dire is that situation?

GARZA: Well, it's dire for those countries that have the endemic Zika spread. So it's spread naturally through the mosquito. And for them, it's devastating and unfortunately we discovered it too late for many of those countries in South and Central America.

The United States is a little bit different. You know, our weather patterns are a little bit different. The spread of the mosquito is a little different. And quite frankly our infrastructure is a little bit different, meaning, you know, we have air conditioning. We have screens. We have all of these other things to prevent widespread of the Zika virus.

So the things to keep in mind are exactly what the CDC has been putting out. So people that are highest risk, which are pregnant females, shouldn't travel to areas that are endemic for the Zika virus. As you know, the summer months are coming right around the corner, right around Memorial Day, and we all need to take precautions to prevent infection.

[07:00:07] CUOMO: All right, obviously, we always want to give people the right information, but not scare people unnecessarily.

Doctor, thank you very much for joining us, giving us perspective, the best to you and your family for ...