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Nine Detained in Tunisia; Boston Bombing Trial; Hidden Sugars in Food; U.S. Diplomat Safety; Brooke Baldwin's Emotional Journey up Mt. Kilimanjaro. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired March 19, 2015 - 08:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:30:11] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: And we do have breaking news right now out of Tunisia about that deadly terror attack. CNN's senior international correspondent Arwa Damon joins us by phone from Tunis.

What do we know, Arwa?

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Well, at this stage, according to Reuters, we're working on getting more information on this, the Tunisian president (INAUDIBLE) has said that nine people have been detained because of this attack. That (INAUDIBLE) earlier in the day we did hear from senior government officials that they had at least one of the two suspects that were killed yesterday, they had already had him under surveillance. Exactly why at that stage was unclear. Tunisia has been battling extremism jihadi for quite some time now.

At a press conference that took place earlier in the day, the top government ministers saying in the last four weeks the country has detained around 400 individuals accused of having ties to terrorism. Tunisia has the highest number of foreign fighters in the battlefield of Iraq and Syria. Upwards of 3,000. Hundreds if not more of them believed to have come back here. Many of them perhaps potentially the concern is with the intent to carry out attacks such as this one.

No claim of responsibility at this stage just yet, but a lot of people were talking to saying this is a wake-up call for the country. They need to take this threat even more seriously than it has in the past. People absolutely horrified because of the violence that took place and very concerned about what it's going to mean for the future of the country, for the future of tourism here. The vast majority of those who were killed were foreigners, tourists that had come to this country inside of the museum. We're also now hearing that two Spaniards managed to survive by hiding out in the basement.

CAMEROTA: That is the good news there. Arwa, we -- Damon, thank you with that, because we started the show where there were gunmen at large and now this breaking news that nine have been arrested in Tunisia. We will follow this for you and bring you all the latest.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, new developments in the Boston Marathon bombing trial. Testimony expected today about physical evidence found after the shootout between the Tsarnaev brothers and Watertown Police. Much of it has never been seen before. CNN's Alexandra Field breaks down the key evidence.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Day nine of the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev trial, a technical one. Crime scene experts testifying about the mountain of evidence collected at the crime scenes. An arsenal of homemade bombs put together with pipes and kitchenware.

A Tupperware container stuffed with fuses and two or three pounds of explosive powder recovered in the back of the car jacked Mercedes. The car, riddled with bullets after the shootout with Watertown Police. Pictures taken inside the car show where bullets hit the passenger's side headrest and the driver's side headrest.

Witnesses testify the Tsarnaev brothers both hurled homemade bombs, including another pressure cooker bomb. These two pipe bombs never detonate. Two inches in diameter, filled with gun powder, glue, and BBs. One of them "l" shaped, described by a bomb squad witness as "an improvised grenade. When it's tossed, it won't roll away. It will land and stop."

Robots are brought in to retrieve the explosives found on Laurel Street in Watertown, the scene of the shootout. The Tsarnaev's car, the green Honda Civic, is found on the same street. Inside it, the brother's belongings, iPods and Tamerlan's wallet, his driver's license inside, along with these receipts. Two backpacks, bought at Target, a day before the marathon bombing. Two white gloves covered in blood are taken from the car. Investigators testify the blood is a DNA match for Officer Sean Collier, killed in his MIT squad car just hours before the brothers opened fire, witnesses testify, and tossed bombs at Watertown Police.

Alexandra Field, CNN, Boston, Massachusetts.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, for today's "New Day New You," some food that you eat may not be as healthy as you think it is. That's because there's hidden sugar in there ultimately adding inches to your waistline or worse. CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: As much as you try and keep track of how much sugar you're eating in any given day, because of added sugars in all these surprising places, it becomes almost an unfair game. The thing about added sugar is that it's going to crop into a lot of

foods where you might not expect it. So take ketchup, for example, something we all eat. Look at how much sugar is in that. Four grams of sugar for every tablespoon of ketchup. Simply switching it out for mustard can make a huge difference.

So take something like salad dressing. You make this decision all the time. If you have a sweet salad dressing, like a raspberry vinaigrette, versus a balsamic. Well, the sweet salad dressing can be about five to seven grams of sugar for every two tablespoon serving.

[08:35:07] And, finally, pasta sauce. All right, you want a little bit of sauce on your pasta. You can understand that. But if you get up to about a half a cup of pasta sauce, for example, that's going to be about 12 grams of sugar. That's more than your daily allowance. That's as much as a chocolate chip cookie in every single serving.

We're eating probably at least twice if not three times as much sugar as we should being or could be eating. The average for a woman should be about 100 calories per day of sugar. For a man, about 150 calories per day. It depends, obviously, on how much you weigh. But the average person is eating probably 200, 300 calories, a lot of that, again, coming from added sugars as opposed to the sugars that we know about.

We know that sugar is associated with the things you might expect, weight gain, diabetes, increased risk of heart disease and stroke, but I think you might be surprised to learn that it can also affect your immune system. Our human bodies simply didn't evolve to be able to eat that much sugar. And now the average American eats about 140 pounds a year. And our bodies simply don't know how to handle all that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:39:56] PEREIRA: Is worldwide tension against America making it too dangerous for U.S. diplomats overseas? The U.S. embassies in Djibouti and Saudi Arabia temporarily closed in light of ongoing threats. Caroline Kennedy, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, has received multiple death threats after the U.S. ambassador to South Korea was attacked in Seoul.

Want to turn to Amand Cucciniello. He's a former U.S. diplomat. Served four years as the spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Iraq. Served in Pakistan as well.

Good to see you this morning. And you're the man to talk about it.

These two cases that we've seen, the actual attack on Ambassador Lippert in South Korea and then the threats against Caroline Kennedy in Tokyo, do you draw a line, a continuation there? Do you think there's a connection?

AMAND CUCCINIELLO, FORMER SENIOR PRESS OFFICER, U.S. EMBASSY IN IRAQ: Not necessarily. Just because they've taken place in the same region in East Asia doesn't mean that there's a direct correlation because two U.S. ambassadors had threats on their life.

PEREIRA: But it is a concern that these are not necessarily places where Americans are poorly viewed. There's a good relationship with those nations.

CUCCINIELLO: Absolutely. And these jobs come with risks regardless of the location. So whether it's Iraq or Pakistan or, you know, Korea or Japan, that doesn't mean that there's not potential for violence.

PEREIRA: Generally, given your experience, how safe is -- are our men and women of the foreign service overseas? I mean do you feel adequately secure when you're abroad?

CUCCINIELLO: I always have, quite frankly. I spent four years in Iraq at the U.S. embassy of Baghdad. So I'll just speak to that.

PEREIRA: You were in the thick of it.

CUCCINIELLO: I was in the thick of it, yes, during the surge, before the surge, after the surge, and at the U.S. embassy in Islamabad in Pakistan, including during when Osama bin Laden was killed.

I always felt self. There were certainly flare-ups in terms of violence and the potential to be attacked. However, diplomatic security always did a great job, I felt, in protecting us. And incidents like these with Carolyn Kennedy and Ambassador Lippert we tend to hear about in the news, but we forget that most days in the year diplomats are safe.

PEREIRA: I mean it's not --

CUCCINIELLO: Right.

PEREIRA: But the fact is, you are going to Pakistan and Iraq knowing likely what you are potentially up against.

CUCCINIELLO: Yes. Absolutely.

PEREIRA: Arguably in Korea, in South Korea and in Tokyo, you wouldn't anticipate anything like that.

CUCCINIELLO: True. It's not expected in Korea or in Tokyo, but, as I like to say, you know, terror threat is real and it's global.

PEREIRA: Yes.

CUCCINIELLO: So a diplomat, I believe, shouldn't feel any safer these days in Rome or in London than they should in Baghdad or Islamabad, quite frankly.

PEREIRA: Should they generally feel less safe then?

CUCCINIELLO: As a U.S. official, there's a bit of a mark on us, I would say, yes.

PEREIRA: I want to point to a State Department inspector general report that was done last year --

CUCCINIELLO: Sure.

PEREIRA: Assessing the threat programs division, which is charged with dealing with diplomatic security. And it said many improvements really have been made since that horrifying Benghazi attack.

CUCCINIELLO: Yes. Right.

PEREIRA: Yet still they talked about staffing gaps, they talk about position shortages, about not having authority to enforce implementation on foreign soil often and some confusion about that.

CUCCINIELLO: Right.

PEREIRA: Did you see those things happen and do you think they're significant enough and that they're being addressed?

CUCCINIELLO: Well, they definitely should review the security posture at all U.S. embassies, which the State Department does take very seriously and they're in the process of doing that, as you correctly pointed out. The embassy in Djibouti, I think it was yesterday it was announced, that they're going to be closing for a security review. And so when the inspector general does these types of assessments, the State Department takes it seriously and then reviews the security posture, which for every country is different.

PEREIRA: And the fact that the threat to Americans overseas and to our foreign service men and women has evolved over the -- even just the last 10 years, since even when you started --

CUCCINIELLO: Right.

PEREIRA: The service has to evolve in how it manages it.

CUCCINIELLO: Absolutely.

PEREIRA: And also the men and women that it attracts.

CUCCINIELLO: Yes.

PEREIRA: Is it evolving, do you think, to the right level? Is it keeping up with the level of the threat?

CUCCINIELLO: Yes. New embassy complexes or new embassy compounds, as they tend to be called, have been built over the past two decades, I believe, since the embassy attacks in Africa. So the State Department and the U.S. government has always taken seriously the protecting of diplomats and determining new ways in order to, you know, mitigate risk and to get --

PEREIRA: Keep up with the times.

CUCCINIELLO: Absolutely. Absolutely. And sometimes this puts diplomats in confined spaces, you might say, and prohibits us or them from doing their job at times but, you know, protecting people is number one. PEREIRA: Yes.

CUCCINIELLO: You can't do your job if you're not alive.

PEREIRA: Yes. Did you enjoy your service?

CUCCINIELLO: I did. I did. I liked it a lot.

PEREIRA: Well, thank you very much for it.

CUCCINIELLO: Thank you. thank you. Appreciate that.

PEREIRA: Thank you for serving us so boldly for the nation overseas.

CUCCINIELLO: Thank you.

PEREIRA: For eight years, my goodness.

CUCCINIELLO: Eight years.

PEREIRA: Thank you so much, Amand Cucciniello.

John.

BERMAN: All right, thanks, Michaela.

It is one of the most exhilarating experiences of the world, reaching the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro. I am not nearly brave enough to try it. Thank goodness we have someone who is. Brooke Baldwin, alive, back from the mountain, here to tell us about her emotional journey, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Brooke Baldwin is back from an incredible life changing trip. She decided to tackle Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa. Let's take a look at a moment from her emotional journey.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: So we just finished day one hiking six, six and a half hours. We climbed from about 6,000 feet to 10,000 and we just found our camp.

I am overwhelmed by the support, and the singing. There is something about the magic of Swahili music. There are 41 people who are helping us get up this mountain, and to have them welcome us into the camp like that, and being in Africa, it took me 35 years to get here, I am so grateful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin joins us.

PEREIRA: Spiritual journey.

CAMEROTA: Wow. What was going on there? BALDWIN: So that was the moment. You climbed Kilimanjaro, it takes

six or seven days depending on how tough you are.

[08:50:00]

And that was the end of hiking day one, which was about 6 hours backing up. We did the Machame route, there were multiple routes on the mountain. It was the end of day one. We were exhausted. And I mean, I hadn't been to Africa ever in my life. I'm 35. I moved to New York last summer. I was like, all right, what's next?

And I think one of my biggest takeaways from this trip, these 41 Tanzanians porters in their 20s and their 30s, some of them just wearing ill-fitting shoes and clothes that had been donated from Americans. I mean, by the way, I came home with half of my stuff, because by the end of it you're giving away everything. Somebody's climbing Kilimanjaro with my CNN jacket. Sorry, CNN.

And there was a moment when they sung us into camp, all these Swahili songs. And I just -- it hit me like a ton of bricks. And I just dug my fingernails into my hand because I didn't want to be that girl crying in front of my whole crew, but I just lost it in the tent.

BERMAN: Tell us about the altitude there.

BALDWIN: So that was nothing. That was just 10,000 feet at that point. The top of Kili is 19,341. Got that in my head now. And so by the time you get up to 15,000 feet, which is day three, when you try to acclimate, that's when you really are taught. I had a phenomenal guy through Abercrombie & Kent, Dismus Muriki (ph), who's my now dear friend from Tanzania, and he -- you literally learn how to breathe differently. And so through this deep breathing, through not eating certain things and eating other things, and getting great sleep, oddly enough, at altitude, you make it.

PEREIRA: But going into it you knew like people have lost their lives on Kilimanjaro.

BALDWIN: Right.

PEREIRA: People have done it and half the people make it up that try.

BALDWIN: Right.

PEREIRA: What did you do to sort of mentally prepare, emotionally prepare, and physically prepare for this gigantic task?

BALDWIN: Excellent question, Michaela Pereira.

I think I'm pretty tough, pretty strong. I kicked up my workouts to six days a week. Really it's all about quads so I was a SoulCycling fiend. And core. The big variables, I knew at the end though would be -- and I was with college athletes, and Ironman triathletes and marathoners, and it kicked our butt in different ways. Went to REI. I bought all kinds of stuff. I didn't know how to use half of it. Now I'm a total expert. But at the end of it, it's altitude and mental toughness. So a guy

who'd done a bunch of marathons on the trip had a really tough time, oddly enough, because you just never know how the altitude's going to hit you until you're that high.

BERMAN: Mental toughness, dealing with the producers here on CNN made you --

BALDWIN: That prepared me. Thank you, CNN.

BERMAN: -- prepared for this.

BALDWIN: Yes. Listen, it becomes meditative. In that final night, that final stretch, we were awake for 39 hours. Had we known, we were all joking, we never in a million years would have done it, but we're so thrilled we did.

PEREIRA: What about that view at the top? That's the part that I think about. You're high -- you say the altitude again. How high?

BALDWIN: 19,341.

PEREIRA: You are above the clouds. Birds are below you.

BALDWIN: We were above the clouds day three. It was totally wild. We were at the top of Africa. It was the sunrise. You get to this sort of final point where you've been walking overnight with your headlamps for six, seven hours. You get to Stella Point, which is a tease because you're finally over the lift of a volcano. It's a volcano. And you see the side of the peak in the distance and you're digging deep because you have one hour to go. But it was the sunrise over Tanzania that just gave me that last little bit of energy and push to make it that final hour.

CAMEROTA: Now, you anchor two hours of live television every day. That's not enough of a high wire act for you? Why did you want to do this?

(LAUGHTER)

BALDWIN: Alisyn, that's an excellent question. I don't know. I don't know. I don't really have an answer. I mean, I think I had always wanted to go to Africa. I joke in my piece, because I wrote this whole piece on cnn.com, what I've learned from Kilimanjaro that apply to my life here on sea level. And I don't know. I think I just had never been to Africa. I was like, I'm 35. I need to go climb a damn mountain when I go to Africa. And so I did.

BERMAN: I got past 35 without that just so you know.

(LAUGHTER)

BALDWIN: Well, call me crazy.

PEREIRA: Are you feeling different now that you're back? BALDWIN: I do. I don't know how to explain it. It's so silly. It's

so trite to say it was this life changing journey, but it kind of was. It kind of was. The air seems a little different. Friends, memories, events, perspective.

CAMEROTA: How many minutes were you at the summit?

BALDWIN: Like six. Like six minutes.

PEREIRA: But you made it.

BALDWIN: But I made it. I made it. I took the video. This whole thing, by the way, this was just my personal trip. I paid for the trip myself. This was for my soul. And CNN sort of got wind and said so we're going to give you a camera. So I tried to take as much video as I could. But there's a whole video journal all six days on CNN.com.

BERMAN: Check it out. It is awesome. I have to say, I'm beyond impressed with everything.

BALDWIN: You have to do it. You could all do it.

PEREIRA: Nope. You're my new hero. You did it for us.

BALDWIN: Thank you guys so much.

BERMAN: Up next for us. That's the good stuff. The great stuff here. Up next, the entire world rallies to support a little boy who needs it desperately. More of the Good Stuff coming up.

[0854:57]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: This is going to be a hard one to get through today.

BALDWIN: I know.

PEREIRA: The music started to --

BERMAN: This is a good one, I can promise you that. Time for the Good Stuff. In today's edition, 4-year-old Wyatt Rebel from North Carolina. Wyatt just lost his father unexpectedly. That is not good stuff. But what happened next is. To help him through Wyatt's mother got him a post office box where friends and family could send him condolence cards and letters of encouragement.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALYSHA STARLING, WYATT'S MOM: It's little. It's about this big. I mean, it's the smallest one that they have. I thought I was going to have to end up sending him mail myself.

(END VIDEO CLIIP) BERMAN: Yes, little. No. That was until our affiliate WTVD got a hold of this story and then it went viral. Now Wyatt gets cards, gifts by the crate from all over the world every day. We're talking handmade gifts, a pillow with his father's face on it, that kills me. Wyatt loves that, as you can imagine. Also, letters and cards from other kids, concerned adults, even celebrities. Stuffed animals, toys, mail from as far away as South America and Spain. Wyatt's mother said all those people showing they care helps more than she can say.

PEREIRA: That is so beautiful.

BERMAN: Isn't that nice?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STARLING: To stay strong, little one.

[09:00:01] WYATT: Keep driving.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Oh, that's so beautiful. People are wonderful.

PEREIRA: They really are.

CAMEROTA: People really step up.

BERMAN: Including Brianna Keilar, who takes over for "NEWSROOM" and Carol Costello right now. Hi Brianna.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR, "NEWSROOM": Oh thank you. I don't think I'm wonderful as all of those fabulous people who sent little Wyatt all those gifts, but what a heartwarming story.

Thanks, guys. Have a great day.

"NEWSROOM" starts now.