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George W. Bush and Bill Clinton On One Stage; Two Twins Switched in Hospital Meet. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired July 10, 2015 - 15:30   ET

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


[15:30:00] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: All right. Rene Marsh, thank you.

Next, two former presidents in a unique show here on stage together. Next, hear from the marine who introduced them with a pretty impressive speech moments before they stood on stage. On what the former presidents had to say about him. That's next. He joins me live.

Plus, a family mix-up that is just beyond mind boggling. Two sets of twins split up and separated at birth. But they didn't realize until they were in their 20s. How this whole thing came to light, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:34:49] BALDWIN: Pretty special moment on stage in Texas as you have Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton about to go head to head here for 2016. Last night, you had Bill Clinton and George W. Bush uniting on the stage there in Dallas. This friendly joint appearance came as Hillary and Jeb sparred on social media. Former presidents rolled out by partisanships claiming even Jeb and Hillary would get along. Here is President Bush.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I know Jeb and I'm confident Secretary Hillary will, you know, elevate the discourse.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The former presidents were in Dallas to promote their presidential leadership program and they appeared to be having a lot of fun. It was one of the program's new graduates, a marine combat veteran, who provided the serious note talking about his country, why he chose to fight. He introduced them. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE HARRIMAN, MARINE VETERAN, PRESIDENTIAL LEADERSHIP SCHOLAR: I chose to fight for that marine on my right and the marine on my left to make sure that I could get my brothers home safely to the families who I knew were waiting for them at home. But second, and perhaps more deeply, I chose to fight for the idea that is America. The idea that is America. A nation that stands for the freedom of human rights and lasting meaningful choices for everyone. BUSH: You know, I know two people who are glad he's not running for

president.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hey, that was my line. All right. I thought you all were --

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Glad he didn't run earlier.

(LAUGHTER)

BALDWIN: And now I have live, the man himself, Captain Jake Harriman. He is the marine veteran and founder of Nuru International, an organization aimed at lifting people out of extreme poverty.

Captain, thank you so much for your service to this country and thanks for joining me today.

HARRIMAN: Thank you. It's a pleasure, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Before we get to the crust of your message, I just have to ask, when you heard, you know, both of these presidents joking that they were really glad and can think of two people who are really glad you are not running for president, what were you thinking in that moment?

HARRIMAN: I've got to say, I mean, that would be a humbling honor. But I have my hands full trying to eradicate extreme poverty in some tough places.

BALDWIN: I want to ask you about your work in a second. But what was your message on that stage about this country?

HARRIMAN: I think our country is in a real crisis. We're at a crossroads right now and I think we have the opportunity to engage every day citizens to step up in leadership positions and heal the bipartisan rift that is tearing the nation apart today. And I think the PLS program that these two leaders are leading with is a great example of a program that can do that.

BALDWIN: You talk about leadership. I mean, here you were introducing these two leaders, two commanders in-chief of our country and I'm wondering if you can just sort of peel back the curtain and take me backstage. Was there a moment when you sort of met the two of them? Because I think what's so stunning for so many people is what seemed like so, so not a rivalry and almost like this bromance between these two on stage.

HARRIMAN: Yes. It was a special - it was a special moment. I will tell you that after meeting both of them, I was incredibly struck by exactly what you just said. These two are regular men. They are leaders who is have led the free world but, at the end of the day, they are human beings who want to see our nation restored to the idea -- like I talked about last night, the idea that is America. We need to bring our nation back together again to take our place the way this nation used to be.

BALDWIN: And they really seemed to enjoy one another.

HARRIMAN: They really do. You know, it's actually -- at the end of the dinner, one of the funniest things I saw was President Bush got up to leave with his wife and he hit president Clinton on the shoulder and said, hey, man, I'll see you later and president Clinton turned around and said, yes, I'll see you later George. They are just two guys who are really close friends and I'm struck by that. Their ability to step across the aisle and really embrace each other and teach this nation how to heal that partisan rift.

BALDWIN: I know George W. Bush talks a lot about his father, George H.W. Bush and how he really learned a lot about the importance of friendship from his dad. Before I let you go, you mentioned all of this wonderful work. Can you just talk to me briefly about Nuru international? You all are helping lift 35 people out of poverty? It's phenomenal.

HARRIMAN: It is about --

BALDWIN: Thirty-five thousand, what did I say? Forgive me.

HARRIMAN: It's about 80,000 people permanently out of poverty. We have a big vision. We're actual trying to take this into the most worst and most failed states in the world, as a third way of development to a new path for development, to really stabilize some of the most challenging countries in our world in a way to help restore a greater global security. It's a national security issue.

BALDWIN: Captain Jake Harriman, thank you so much for joining me.

[15:40:02] HARRIMAN: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Next, let me show you an image. You have these two sets of brothers. Really, they are identical twins on the left and on the right but they didn't grow up this way. It all traces back to this massive mix-up at a hospital. How this all came to be and what it was like when they met for the first time. That's coming up.

Also, firefighters about to enter this home when -- look at this -- massive explosion. This is what firefighters call a backdraft. Coming up, I'll talk to the firefighter who was walking into that home right at the front door. Don't miss this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:44:52] BALDWIN: (INAUDIBLE) with me. Two sets of identical twins share one incredible and perhaps unprecedented story. You have one brother from each set wound up going home with the wrong family. This happened when they were newborns. They all stayed at the same hospital in Bogata, Columbia. Stay with me.

Carlos here went home with Jorge and, in turn, that meant their twins, William and Wilbur, then grew up together. They thought they were fraternal and not identical. This is a case of double case of switched at birth. A friend recorded the moment when one pair of identical twins met one another for the very first time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[15:45:31] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: How wild is this? The brother story makes for a fascinating case of nature versus nurture as featured in this furnish. You have "the New York Times" magazine. So with me now is the magazine's editor-in-chief Jake Silverstein.

So Jake, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for bringing fruits because we need visuals in this kind of story. Because again, this is a situation of two sets of twins separated and switched.

JAKE SILVERSTEIN, EDITOR IN-CHIEF, NEW YORK TIMES: That is right. It's very hard to follow. This story is inherently confusing. It is like a game of three card marty (ph).

BALDWIN: Totally.

SILVERSTEIN: And so I have found and explaining the story that a visual aid of some kind helps. And so you explained it pretty well with the photographs at the outset. But just to go over it again, you have two sets of identical twins, right, Jorge and William, and they are born - because one thing that you didn't get into is how different the environments were that they were born in. They were born where they were supposed to be born, in Bogata in the city. These guys over here, Carlos and Wilbur, from the very, very remote part of Northern Colombia. It is extremely rare, very, very poor, the house that the family from, no running water, no electricity. You have to walk through the mud for miles to even get there for miles. So they - both all of the same hospital they get switched like this. And so these guys go home together and that's where our story kind of begins.

BALDWIN: I was going to get to fact that I know one set who ended up (INAUDIBLE) at the rural farmland and frustrated thinking well, they could have grown up and gone to school in Bogata.

SILVERSTEIN: Right.

BALDWIN: But let me not get ahead of myself. So, this whole thing came to light as a total coincidence at a grocery store?

SILVERSTEIN: Exactly. So what happens is these two guys, the twins, this is Wilbur and this is William. And they are raised in the countryside. They moved to Bogota, right? So they moved to Bogata. They both end up working as butchers in a grocery store in Bogota.

Now, Jorge, he is Jorge right here and William who are identical twins, right? So Jorge works at like a piping company. He works in the piping department of a natural gas company and somebody he works with goes into their butcher shop and sees Williams. He says Jorge, what are you doing working behind the counter as a butcher? You work in piping. And he's like, I'm William. And so to make a long story short -- because it's quite a long story --

BALDWIN: "New York times" magazine.

HARRIMAN: "New York times" magazine this Sunday. They get a photograph of William, the butcher, and she brings it and shows it on her phone to Jorge, her co-worker. And he thinks that's crazy. Eventually, they go look at William's Facebook profile and that's what Jorge who is looking sees on William's Facebook profile that William has a brother that looks exactly like Jorge's brother.

BALDWIN: Oh, my goodness. I have an identical twin, not just fraternal twin who I had all my 20-some years of life. We saw the moment a second ago and we showed the video and one of them is joking (INAUDIBLE) who are saying, I don't know if I would have rather found out this way or just walking down the street and seeing this mirror image of myself.

The other fascinating piece of this massive article is that about -- how did you phrase it to me? Twins -- the twins research. And we talk a lot about nature versus nurture. But when they mean each other how the qualities are so similar even though they grew up so separately.

SILVERSTEIN: That's right. Well, this story initially came to us through the work of a woman named Nancy Seagul who is a researcher at Cal State Fullerton. And she's written a couple of books on not just on twin research and studies but reared apart twin studies. So that is to say, twins and it say (INAUDIBLE) identical twins were raised apart and then studied once they are reunited to see how similar are they. It is actually a fascinated field that was pioneered by this woman's mentor, a guy name (INAUDIBLE) who taught at University of Minnesota and pioneering this field with the study of two identical twins, Jim and Jim from Ohio who in 1979 rediscovered each other. They were 39 years old and had tremendous similarities. They have married women with the same first name. They vacationed at the same beach, all of this crazy stuff.

BALDWIN: So all of this twin science is woven through this entire piece, just finally and then I'll let you go. Are they bitter?

[15:50:03] HARRIMAN: Well, it's interesting. I mean, to me, the heart of this story are the two brothers who were sort of raised in the wrong place. And so, on the one hand you have Carlos, who had a lot of benefits. He was raised in the city. He would have been raised in a country, he was able to go to nice school, et cetera. He sometimes wonder, coring to our story, would I have the same life if I had had a much harder upbringing.

And then you have William who had a very difficult upbringing. And I think feels a little bit bitter that he missed out on certain opportunities. He never got to know his mother. These guys' mother died three years before this came out. So you know, there's a lot of difficulty.

On the other hand, the four of them are now all kind of living together, like one big crazy family. When one thing is when Jorge comes home to tell William, he says, do you believe in telenovelas? So that is kind of the best way to express this whole crazy.

BALDWIN: All the details in this in the Sunday "New York Times" magazine.

Jake Silverstein, thank you so much.

SILVERSTEIN: You're very welcome.

BALDWIN: Just a kind of story like this, ever. Thank you.

Next, a firefighters about to walk in this home, you are about to see it. This massive explosion. Next, we'll talk to the firefighter who is there about to go in the front door. Well he'll join me live, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:55:36] BALDWIN: Today's CNN hero has treated more than 200 gunshot victims in Chicago and now he is using his medical expertise to help people who really, really need it, like this man.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was returning home from college. I went to go pick up my sister from school. And next thing I know, I got caught up in a crossfire. I was shot seven times. I was paralyzed from the stomach all the way down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At an orthopedic surgeon you've seen a significant number of patients that have been victims of violent crime.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But there's a whole other layer of patients in these underserved communities. They're underinsured and uninsured, but they need care.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I run three clinics in Chicago's most underserved area.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm walking better.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, you smile more.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We treat orthopedic conditions. We never turn way a patient. We treat patients regardless of ability to pay.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He performed two surgeries on me, and encouraged me to return back to college.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of guys never come out as positive as you. You're living life and you're moving on. I know I can't fix everybody, but my focus is to break down the barriers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: See you in a couple weeks.

The greatest thing we give them is hope.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: To nominate a hero, please visit our Web site CNNHeroes.com.

And now to this incredible video who is out of Arkansas where a seemingly contained house fire turned on to a full-on explosion. Look at this. Crews say it was a backdraft from the home's laundry room. The mother and child who lived there, we're told they're safe, they escape before this explosion happened. But joining me now is Brian Henry, a Texarkana fireman who went inside the home during the explosion.

Brian, thank you so much for joining me.

BRIAN HENRY, TEXARKANA FIREMAN: Hello, Brooke.

BALDWIN: So when we look at - I'm with you. I'm with you. When we look at that video, and you see a firefighter going in that front door, that's you, yes?

HENRY: Yes, ma'am, that was last one right before the explosion.

BALDWIN: What did that feel like?

HENRY: I really didn't know what happened. The fire was in the attic, so it wasn't in the room with us. So I heard and felt, mainly heard the explosion happen. And it caused the ceiling covering of the room I was in to fall. So for a second I thought the ceiling was collapsing, and then recognized that it wasn't collapses, it was just blowing the covering off.

BALDWIN: What did you do next? Did you guys immediately run out?

HENRY: No, my firefighter was in front of me, and so I made sure he was OK. Of course, he was, because it wasn't heavy debris. And then I went outside to see what happened. And that's when I saw that the access door to the attic this blown off in to the house and the insulation was blown across the yard and the street.

BALDWIN: That's what it looks like. It looks like confetti, but it's insulation from the home. And can you explain for me what causes a backdraft? What is that?

HENRY: That's when a fire is contained to an area and burns off all the oxygen, but it's still super-heated, as soon as you introduce oxygen back into the equation, then it erupts into a fireball and expands beyond the ability of the random (ph) to contain it, which is what the explosion is.

BALDWIN: You and all your firefighters on the scene, are they all OK?

HENRY: Yes, ma'am. Nobody was in front of the explosion. Everybody was thankfully off to the side.

BALDWIN: Thankfully is right. And then finally, the mother and the baby who were in the home, they're safe?

HENRY: That's correct. They were already clear of the home when we received the call.

BALDWIN: Brian Henry, it's a stunning image, especially see you there at the front door about to walk in before this massive explosion happens. I'm glad you're OK. And I am not surprised you didn't immediately turn around. You wanted to make sure that that firefighter in front of you is OK. Tremendous that you all do. And I really appreciate you coming on. Thank you, sir.

HENRY: Thank you.

BALDWIN: All right. Well, that does it for me. I'm Brooke Baldwin here in New York. Have a wonderful weekend. But stay right here. "The LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.