Return to Transcripts main page

AT THIS HOUR WITH BERMAN AND MICHAELA

Trumps Heads to Texas, Threatens Third-Party Run; Trump Highlights Claims Mexico Sending Criminals into U.S.; New Revelations in Sandra Bland Investigation; FBI Warning on ISIS. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired July 23, 2015 - 11:00   ET

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


[11:00:] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: As you can see, he's facing lawmakers on the Senate foreign relations committee.

Here is a portion of what Kerry said moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: So this isn't a question of giving them what they want. I mean, it's a question of how do you hold their program back? How do you dismantle their weapons program? Not their whole program. Let's understand what was really on the table here. We set out to dismantle their ability to be able to build a nuclear weapon, and we've achieved that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Congress has 60 days to review the terms of that deal.

Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm Carol Costello.

AT THIS HOUR with Berman and Bolduan starts now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump, the spoiler, threatening a third-party run if Republicans don't play nice. This, as Trump's border trip today just hit a snag.

And did Sandra Bland previously try to kill herself? A new revelation from the jail under investigation in her death.

Plus, we're now hearing from Sandra Bland herself from behind bars.

And on alert. New security concerns about President Obama's trip tonight as the U.S. launches a wave of secret strikes against a terrorist group in the very region the president is visiting.

Hello, everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan. John Berman is off.

The Donald Trump train keeps on rolling. Right now, it's headed to the border with Mexico. And don't worry, if Trump's poll numbers don't hold up, if he does not win the nomination, there appears to be a plan "B" for that. The bombastic billionaire telling "The Hill" newspaper in Washington that he absolutely will consider running as a third-party candidate if the GOP doesn't treat him fairly. And Trump says so far the Republican National Committee, in his words, "have been very foolish in not supporting him."

Let's bring in A.B. Stoddard, associate editor at "The Hill" newspaper, to discuss this more.

A.B., a fascinating interview you guys got. Trump has gone from not ruling out a third-party run to now appearing to threaten the RNC over it. What's your read on this?

A.B. STODDARD, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, "THE HILL": If Republicans aren't fair to him in the process, which is a great qualifier. I think that this is obviously the huge fear of the Republican Party, that Trump has the ego to do this and he has the money. You can see a scenario in which Trump, if Jeb Bush is the nominee, for example, and Hillary Clinton is the nominee, says I have no choice but to spare America from these political dynasties and go down in history even if he doesn't win. He and his top advisers have said publicly so far they know that that would all but ensure a Democratic president, that they knew Republicans would likely lose if he ran as an Independent. But the fact that he's willing to say if they're not playing nice with me, I might do it is a real threat and it's why you see Republicans scared to really take him on directly.

BOLDUAN: And so how serious do you think he is with this threat? I mean, it seems he could be just trying to make a point with it right now as he was earlier just quoting the percent that Ross Perot got back in '94, but do you think he's actually serious and would follow through? What's your take?

STODDARD: Well, the question is it's interesting, do you run as a third-party candidate because the Republicans aren't nice to you or do you run because you're truly an Independent and you're not truly a Republican? He's not actually saying I'm really a Republican so, of course, I won't do this. He's threatening it because he's really once been a liberal Democrat. He's donated to Hillary Clinton. He once said he was pro-choice and for single-payer health care. He's all over the place. If he makes the case to the electorate, I am truly Independent of the lobbyists, the special interests, both political parties, that actually has a very powerful appeal, and so he knows the threat is real, people are telling him to do it, that he could win if he did it. He has a real constituency that is sick of both parties. Does he have anything to lose after Macy's and NBC and everyone is dumping him, I don't know. Does he want to make the history books? We don't know, but the threat is what makes Republicans attack him about John McCain but not so much about other stuff because they really want to keep him in the tent no matter what.

BOLDUAN: And exactly to that point, A.B., is the RNC at all at fault here for wading into the feud that ignited when, of course, Trump questioned John McCain's war hero status? Then even putting out a statement in the middle of a primary like this, that, in and of itself, was unusual.

STODDARD: Well, I actually don't think it's bad for the Republican Party to say as Republicans we don't dismiss our veterans who have been locked up as prisoners of war. I don't think that was an error. I think they really had to stand up for all veterans and everyone who has been taken prisoner in a war and for John McCain. I don't think that was the wrong thing to do. What they don't want to do is what Rick Perry is doing to differentiate himself or what Senator Graham is doing which is to say he's a cancer or a jackass. Those are the things you will not see the party operatives doing. They have tried to play nice. They have tried to stay friendly with him. We don't know what's going to happen in the debate. It will be hard to ignore him. If you ignore him, he takes you on. If you take him on, he hits you harder. This is a real struggle for the party but they're obviously not divorcing themselves from him officially because, you know, they want him to run as a Republican.

[11:05:40] BOLDUAN: And when you're at 24 percent, when you have a double digit lead, you can't ignore him. That's kind of a basic fact of politics when you're looking at the primary.

STODDARD: Whether you're running the Republican national committee or a candidate for president in the Republican Party, these are your voters and they are supporting him. He is the favorite. Until and unless he's not, they obviously have to take him seriously because these are the voters they have to appeal to.

BOLDUAN: A.B., thank you. Great to see you.

STODDARD: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Of course.

As I mentioned earlier, Trump is heading south today. A local border agent union in Laredo, Texas, was supposed to be giving Trump a tour today but they have just backed out. Trump's campaign says the trip is still on, though, and other border agents will be showing him around. He's using the trip to shine a spotlight once again on his claims that Mexico is sending criminals into the United States.

Trump talked to Anderson Cooper about that and referenced the undocumented immigrant accused of killing a young woman in San Francisco earlier this month during the conversation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE & CEO, TRUMP GROUP: Excuse me, this animal that killed Kate, he came across five times. Five times. Now, maybe he came across because he thought the weather was nice. Maybe he was pushed across by Mexico officials. Look, Mexico --

(CROSSTALK)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, A.C. 360: You have no proof.

TRUMP: Mexico's leaders are much smarter and sharper and more cunning than our leaders. They're doing things we don't even know about. Let's see what happens. I'm going to talk to a lot of people. There are a lot of people very excited I'm going to border tomorrow. I may never see you again but these are minor details.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Being facetious there.

Let's continue this conversation with Sheriff Richard Jones. He's from Butler County, Ohio.

Sheriff, thank you very much.

You have spoken out saying you agree absolutely with Mr. Trump's take. I want to get your take on the news, though, that just came out, that this union of Border Patrol agents, they were supposed to be showing him around, they've now pulled out. It seems they're afraid of looking like they're endorsing Donald Trump. What do you make of that?

SHERIFF RICHARD JONES, BUTLER COUNTY, OHIO, SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: Who knows? He's still going to -- the union there is a very large union. Who knows? He's going to be at the border. Right now, what I make of it here in Ohio, he's the talk everywhere whether they like him or they don't. You go into cafes, you go into restaurants, everybody is talking about Trump and they're not talking about the other candidates, and he is the one that has got this immigration issue back up where the Republican party, might party, does not want it, they can't resolve it. The House and the Senate won't do anything about it. Trump is going to make these other candidates talk about it that are running for president. They have no choice at this point.

BOLDUAN: And talking about talking, you have said that the Trump campaign has reached out to you recently. Did you speak to Mr. Trump?

JONES: No, I have not, but his people have called our office --

BOLDUAN: What were those conversations about?

JONES: Four, maybe five times. They're about wanting to meet -- wanting me to endorse Mr. Trump, wanting to know would I be willing to meet with him and I do want to meet with him but I'm not endorsing anybody at this time, but I do like what he has to say about the immigration system being broken and many people in Ohio, we're just fed up with it. We have a governor from Ohio that's running for president right now.

BOLDUAN: That's right.

JONES: He's not spoken anything about immigration for five years.

BOLDUAN: Well --

JONES: Nothing, nothing at all, but he's going to have to talk now.

BOLDUAN: Why then are you not ready to endorse Donald Trump? You say you absolutely agree with his statements. What's holding you back?

JONES: I want to hear what he has to say about other issues, not just the border. I like him. My family likes him. Other veterans I talked to like him, not all, but I'm waiting to keep my powder dry. There's a lot of candidates but right now he's leading the pack. He's talking. He says what the American people are so fed up with all these politicians on both parties. You can't trust them. They're trying to be tough right now only because Trump is leading them and beating them in the polls. They've tried to kill him off. The news media has tried to kill him off. They can't kill him off. His numbers keep going up because he says what he thinks. He's not controlled by the donors or special groups. He's not politically correct at times. He says what the American people just -- they're so fed up with both parties, they want somebody that stirs it up and will come in and not be controlled by the wealthiest people in the United States or the world.

[11:10:14] BOLDUAN: The interesting thing is though he is one of the wealthiest people and he speaks right to you.

JONES: Yeah, he is --

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: I applauded Trump for not being afraid to speak his mind, but you also say you don't always agree with everything he says. Where do you disagree?

JONES: Well, I have never watched any of his reality shows or any of his shows. I have never watched them at all. When he first came in and said he's running for president, he said that before. I didn't know if he was serious for not. Obviously about the immigration issues, he talks about jobs. When he talked about Senator McCain, I'm not a big supporter of people that have been there too long. As far as I'm concerned, Senator McCain is a war hero. Mr. Trump and I disagree on that. But that's between Trump and that's between McCain, not I and not other veterans, not all veterans are angry over that. But that's where I have a little difference with him. I too have talked about McCain, his lack of having support and supporting immigration issues even in Arizona. I believe he's been there way too long and it's time for people like him and Graham to leave and get out and let somebody else come in, and maybe the party has to be pressured into doing something about themselves. They're so divided. They promised the American people they were going to do something when they got the House and the Senate. They've got it, they've done nothing except disagree with each other and you divide and you conquer. Right now our party is not doing so well. We've got 18, 17 people in this race and nobody knows who they're going to support other than Trump is leading in the polls and they don't know what to do about it.

BOLDUAN: Sheriff, thank you very much. We're looking forward to hearing if you get that sit down with Mr. Trump. Hope you can come back and tell us all about it. Thanks for your time.

JONES: Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Of course.

So the Texas jail under investigation says that Sandra Bland admitted to trying to kill herself in the past. This, as we hear about a surprising discovery that has turned up from her autopsy report. We'll have much more on that coming up.

As President Obama is getting ready to visit Kenya, a new wave of air strikes targeting al Qaeda in the region. One analyst says it's a warning. The new security concerns coming up.

And Bill Cosby suffers a huge legal setback. Why he may be forced to testify under oath about rape allegations against him involving the "Playboy" mansion.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:15:] BOLDUAN: New conflicting details this morning about whether Sandra Bland had previously attempted suicide. Police claim the African-American woman hanged herself in her cell three days after being arrested following a routine traffic stop. Now, her family maintains she would not have taken her life and had everything to live for, including a new job. Well, now newly released jail documents show the 28-year-old at one point told jail officials that she had tried to kill herself last year. Now, you can see that marked on this page of the intake form, but on another page that was released of that form, jail officials indicate Bland said she had never attempted suicide. Jailers say Bland told them she was not depressed and said that they felt she didn't need to be on suicide watch.

Meanwhile, the district attorney now says a preliminary autopsy shows what appears to be cutting scars on her arm.

Now you can hear Bland in her own words from inside jail, a voice mail she left a friend the day after she was arrested. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANDRA BLAND, DIED WHILE IN POLICE CUSTODY (voice-over): I'm still just at a loss for words honestly about this whole process. How switching lanes with no signal turned into all of this, I don't even know. But I'm still here so I guess call me back when you can.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Joining me now, CNN contributor, Bakari Sellers, a former South Carolina legislator and attorney; as well as Ed Davis, the former police commissioner for the city of Boston.

Thank you both.

Bakari, a lot of new details coming out overnight and, still, this morning, and they're now and they are somewhat confusing details coming out in large part.

This is what Sandra Bland's sister told me last night about this previous suicide attempt. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: As her sister, though, Sharon, were you aware of this? It gives some detail of why there was a suicide attempt. Were you aware of that?

SHARON COOPER, SISTER OF SANDRA BLAND: No, I was not and it's the first time I'm hear being it. We don't have a copy of those documents to refer to, so, no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: As painful as this is now, Bakari, do you think the family needs to begin preparing themselves for the possibility that this was a suicide?

BAKARI SELLERS, (D), FORMER SOUTH CAROLINA LEGISLATOR & ATTORNEY: Well, first of all, my heart breaks for this family. We have two separate incidents. We have the traffic stop and then we have what we just don't know happened in that jail cell. These inconsistencies bring about the point that the jail was still neglectful. The jail had a responsibility if these inconsistencies show at one point she said that she previously tried to commit suicide and another point she didn't, those should draw up some type of red flag and they should watch her and monitor her 24/7. They didn't do that. The system failed Sandra Bland many times on this day, and, unfortunately, now Sandra Bland, like many other African-Americans in this country has become another hash tag, has become another rallying cry. It's frustrating and saddening this keeps happening but hopefully we can get some answers in her case.

BOLDUAN: Ed, kind of to the questions Bakari is raising, how do these intakes forms work at a jail? What do you make of the discrepancies that are being pointed out now?

ED DAVIS, FORMER BOSTON POLICE COMMISSIONER: Well, a lot of times you'll find that people change what they're saying to you during the course of when they first come in and then 24 hours later. Usually the situation gets less intense as time goes on, but when people are giving you different information, that should be a red flag. You know, you're dealing with people in high emotional states. There's also a national database of people who have attempted to commit suicide while in lock up in the Criminal Justice Information System which is run by the FBI. So that's a database that we check every time a prisoner comes in to make sure this hasn't happened before. There are a number of safeguards in place because this is a problem in policing and in custody situations across the nation.

[11:20:17] BOLDUAN: So, Ed, do you think from what you know at this point, do you think she should have been put under suicide watch?

DAVIS: Well, clearly there are some problems here, and I don't know exactly what the jailers knew on intake, but if you're getting conflicting information like this and you've checked the national databases, you have to make a decision with each and every prisoner as to who you're going to pay close attention to.

The other thing is I don't understand why she was in jail for so long for such --

SELLERS: Exactly. DAVIS: -- small charges. You know, there should have been a bail

made available to her. In our jails in Massachusetts, you'd never be in jail for three days on a case like this unless it was very unusual circumstances.

BOLDUAN: It is really interesting. The family has said they were working as quickly as they could to get bail together in order to get her out but she had been there for thee days and she had been arrested for assaulting an officer, though it all started from a lane change, failing to signal a lane change.

With all of this, we're talking about the inconsistencies, Bakari, as you're pointing out, the family is clearly very frustrated with how this has been handled from her arrest to her death. Do you think there's a legitimate reason to fear a cover-up?

SELLERS: Well, from what we've learned so far, whether or not it's Tamir Rice or Eric Gardner or Mike Brown or Freddie Gray, what we know is that Sandra Bland, like many others, did not get the benefit of her humanity, and so it's frustrating. And with that in mind, there's nothing you can cross out. You know, I like to believe in the best of people. I think that our law enforcement officers do a yeoman's job day in and day out, often times not getting enough credit. But in cases like this where you see a power trip gone awry, you see a young woman who wasn't a felon, wasn't a convict, wasn't a bad person at all, she simply made an illegal lane change and now she's dead. So for that family, I say that they have to remain resolute. They have to trust but verify. And there are answers we have to continue to seek to find. That's what justice is in this case.

And this could have been my mother, my sister. This could have been you, and we have to keep that in mind. This is unfortunate.

BOLDUAN: A lot of questions. And the thing that keeps seeming to happen is the more information that comes out, the more questions are raised in this situation.

Ed Davis, thank you so much.

Bakari, thank you.

SELLERS: Thank you.

DAVIS: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, ISIS is now a bigger threat to the United States than al Qaeda. That coming from the head of the FBI. You're going to hear his reasons next.

Plus, Russian bombers come within miles of the California coast to deliver a message to America. One analyst says Vladimir Putin is playing with fire. Details ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:26:35] BOLDUAN: A new warning about ISIS. The terror group is now a bigger threat to the U.S. homeland than al Qaeda. That's according to the FBI Director James Comey. He sat down with Wolf Blitzer to explain this threat. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMES COMEY, FBI DIRECTOR: The threat that ISIL presents, poses to the United States, is very different in kind, in type, in degree than al Qaeda. ISIL is not your parents' al Qaeda. It's a very different model, and by virtue of that model, it's currently the threat we're worrying about in the homeland most of all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: The threat they're worrying about most of the all in homeland.

Let's bring in Bob Baer, CNN intelligence and security analyst and former CIA operative, about this.

So, Bob, it has a lot of people paying attention that's for sure, what Comey said to wolf. A bigger threat to the homeland than al Qaeda, the most significant threat they're worried about right now. Does it surprise you -- maybe not surprise you it's the case but does it surprise you he's stating it so publicly?

BOB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE & SECURITY ANALYST: No, I think the FBI wants Americans to know this is a real threat. We had the shooting in Chattanooga, there is no evidence there was help with that but that young man I think was probably inspired by the Islamic State. I think the Islamic State is much more capable at keeping its commune cases secret using encrypted communications, but more than that the whole idea of a caliphate has attracted people all over the world, including the United States. Our first problem is lone wolves inspired by this caliphate but there also remains the possibility it could send people here. I think this has all made al Qaeda fairly irrelevant at this point. I think it's been eclipsed by the Islamic State.

BOLDUAN: And then what do you think -- as we heard in a bit of that interview right there when Comey said ISIS is not your parents' al Qaeda, what does he mean by that then?

BAER: They're much more vicious. They intend to destabilize the Middle East. They intend to take recruits from everywhere. They're -- it's more of an inspired movement for radicals. It's much more effective at recruitment. These Internet and the social accounts they're getting people, al Qaeda never used it to that degree, and just their technical capabilities is way beyond anything we've seen in al Qaeda. This is an advance. This is al Qaeda 2.0, but, frankly, I agree with Comey, it's much bigger than that.

BOLDUAN: Serious threat. A serious threat and a serious warning coming from the FBI director.

Bob, thanks so much.

Coming up for us, as President Obama gets ready to visit Kenya, a new wave of air strikes targeting al Qaeda in the region. The rising new security concerns there, next.

Plus, Bill Cosby suffers a big legal setback. Why the comedian may soon be forced to testify under oath about rape allegations about him and why his attorneys seem to be shifting their strategy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)