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Derek Jeter's All-Star Farewell; Immigrants Ride "Train of Death"

Aired July 16, 2014 - 06:30   ET

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


PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I will say this about Jon Stewart, by the way, who hates my guts. He does not breed disaffection though, Chris. He doesn't.

I was worried about that. I teach at Georgetown, the public policy school, one of my students two years ago did a paper on this. She found that people who watch Jon Stewart tend to vote more. So, even though he hates my guts, and I guess you don't like him, I like Jon a lot. I mean --

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, no, no, I don't like dislike him. I don't agree with the disaffection thing because when you make everything a joke, I don't know how --

BEGALA: But he's a comedian.

(CROSSTALK)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: That's the thing. But he's a comedian. That's why Hillary Clinton is going on the show.

BEGALA: But people who watch his show vote more than people who do not in the same age group.

BOLDUAN: Kevin, would you put your -- would you put your candidate on Jon Stewart's show?

KEVIN MADDEN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, first of all, I can't believe anybody hates Paul Begala's guts, that's the hardest thing for me to digest.

CUOMO: I know, Paul is all over the place.

BEGALA: Yes, look --

MADDEN: An easy job.

BOLDUAN: Paul is a sociopath?

MADDEN: You know --

(LAUGHTER)

BOLDUAN: Go, Kevin. MADDEN: You know, I don't think governor -- I can't remember if

Governor Romney ever went on the show, I don't think he did.

I would put a candidate -- look, it's a distilled version of the news. It's not real news, but there is a way where you can engage in light hearted conversation and you can show people a different side of you. That's a lot of what some people are looking for in candidates. I wouldn't supplement it with other interviews where you can actually talk more in depth about your ideas and the issues you care about.

But, look, I sort of agree with Chris, that there was -- the answer is that Hillary Clinton were just, you know, full of platitudes -- but, again, this was a book that was full of platitudes. I mean, if this book was like the "Seinfeld" of books, it was a book about nothing really.

CUOMO: I love "Seinfeld."

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: I'm loving this segment today. I don't even know where to begin with you two.

BEGALA: It's a book review from "The New York Times". They praised it. They loved it. "The New York Times" --

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: "The New York Times" praised it. Well, then, the discussion is over.

BOLDUAN: Oh, come on. We are rough today, man.

CUOMO: You're friends with "The New York Times," Begala.

BOLDUAN: All I care about is, Kevin Madden, would you like your office to have corners or no corners, go?

MADDEN: No corners. I've got kids. They are running into corners. You can't have that.

CUOMO: So great.

Kevin Madden should run for president.

BOLDUAN: I see, that's what Kevin wants.

CUOMO: He's too handsome to be president.

BOLDUAN: Thanks, guys.

Now, go duke it out. My goodness.

MADDEN: Have a great day, guys.

BOLDUAN: Thank you. CUOMO: Nobody answers my questions.

BOLDUAN: They do, not the way you like and that's the problem.

CUOMO: That's the same thing.

BOLDUAN: Pretty much in your mind.

(LAUGHTER)

BOLDUAN: Coming up next on NEW DAY, we're going to take you back to the immigration crisis. Immigrant children risking everything, climbing on top of the so-called "Death Train" to get to the U.S.- Mexico border, a firsthand look at their difficult and sometimes deadly journey.

CUOMO: Plus, the captain goes out the way he came in, as a winner. Derek Jeter in his final all-star appearance. From the fans to the players and to his performance, what a special night, all of it ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: Good to have you back with us on NEW DAY.

Here's a look at your headlines.

Residents in three northern Gaza towns are being urged to evacuate. Israeli authorities are warning of air strikes in areas where rocket fire toward Israel has originated. The first death in Israel has now been recorded when a volunteer was hit by mortar shell, 141 rockets were fired into Israel Tuesday after the militants refused a cease- fire. The death toll in Gaza now tops 200.

New this morning, two maintenance workers have been detained following a deadly subway train derailment in Moscow. Officials say they are investigating a violation of the transportation safety rules, 22 people were killed in the rush hour accident Tuesday. More than 160 others were injured.

European union leaders will meet today, and they will discuss whether to consider adopting new sanctions against Russia. This as tensions mount between Russia and Ukraine. Officials in Kiev accusing Moscow of carrying out a deadly air strike that leveled an apartment building in Eastern Ukraine. At least 11 civilians were killed. Pro-Russian separatists are blaming the Ukrainian military for that attack.

A man suspected of breaking into the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts will be arraigned this morning. James Lacroix was arrested and charged and with breaking and entering. Ted Kennedy Jr. called 911 asking them to check on his teenage son. Police say when they arrived, they found Lacroix the man wearing a Captain America teacher. His teenage son was also there, but he was uninjured. Lacroix reportedly told police that he was, quote, looking for Katy Perry.

BOLDUAN: That sums it up for you, folks. CUOMO: Scary, families have got to deal with a lot, that's for sure.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely.

CUOMO: All right. Some good news, want some good news?

BOLDUAN: Yes, please.

CUOMO: The Captain went out on top. The American League all stars snagged home field advantage for whoever goes into the World Series, all thanks to Derek Jeter, delivering a final performance for the record books. That is objectively true. Not even as a Yankee fan.

Andy Scholes has it. Is it true or is it true?

ANDY SCHOLES, BLEACHER REPORT: I got chills watching this game.

BOLDUAN: Andy.

SCHOLES: Hey, hey. If it's true, it's true, Kate.

You know, if this was the final time you get to see Derek Jeter on a national stage, he certainly did not disappoint. Jeter was leading off for the American league, and it was a very special moment when he came to the plate in the bottom of the first.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now batting for the American league, from the New York Yankees, the shortstop, number 2, Derek Jeter. Number 2.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: The recording of the legendary Bob Sheppard introducing Derek Jeter, everyone giving him a standing ovation.

As for the bat, Jeter like he's done in his entire career, coming through in a big moment with a double to the right field. His next to bat in third inning, and Jeter comes up with a hit. Came out to start the fourth inning and then manager John Farrell pulled him so he could get one last standing ovation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEREK JETER, NEW YORK YANKEES: It was a wonderful moment that I'm always going to remember, unscripted and like I said, I was unaware of it, but the way the fans treated me, you know, these are fans from all different teams, and the fans have shown respect for me my entire career, both at home and on the road, and to have that moment at the all-star game was special.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Now, the next Jeter-like superstar may very well be this guy, the Angels Mike Trout. He went 2 for 3 in the game including the go-ahead double in the fifth winning. Trout was named the all-star game MVP as the American League came out on top, 5-3.

Guys, but there was a little controversy in this game, after Adam Wainwright, the National League starter came out of the game. He said he might have grooved some of those pitches to Jeter but he definitely, Jeter definitely deserved it. He hammered on social media for saying that by National League fans, but he kind of backtracked on that after the game. But either way, great moment for Derek Jeter and pretty awesome stuff, to come through with the W.

Now, you can throw the strike but still have to hit the double, right, Chris?

CUOMO: That's exactly right. Thank you very much --

BOLDUAN: Yes, Andy, and you naysayers out there. Thanks, Andy.

CUOMO: Besmirching the captain.

BOLDUAN: I'm just being contrarian because you were a contrarian earlier.

CUOMO: Yes, with good reason. This is a bad reason about Jeter.

Coming up on NEW DAY, for the first time, we're going to hear from the mother of that toddler allegedly murdered in a hot car. Her lawyer is begging for privacy for his client, but he's also saying more. What could be a defense for her, but does she need one? We're going to tell you coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: Welcome back.

We've been reporting on the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, of course. Thousands of immigrants, many of them unaccompanied children, making the dangerous journey from Central America to the United States, in search of a better life, in search of escaping at least their life there.

CNN's Gary Tuchman went on a stunning journey with many of them. They are literally risking everything riding north on what's known as the infamous train of death.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is called "The Beast" or "The Train of Death". And it's heading north, arriving in in southern Mexico pueblo of Ixtapa. When its midst of its journey across Mexico, hundreds of migrants sit on top and in between its cars, many people get hurt or killed boarding or getting off while it's moving and that's why it's known as the "Train of Death".

The train in Ixtapa is making a pit stop, and many of the people on top of the train for as many as eight hours are getting off for food and water. This Honduran man was one of the passengers. He says the ride wasn't so bad. They left Honduras to find better work. Like many of the passengers he's extremely hungry. Most people get

off "The Beast" right now to go to a nearby shelter and will catch the next train but some people like these guys up there will stay on this train because they don't want to miss this when it leaves.

The shelter provides food, water, medical care and is well known among migrants who can spend as much time as they want here.

Two-year-old Richard of Honduras is here. His foot was cut off when he and his mother were run off by one of the train wheels this when they were trying to get off. Arm of his mother Emily was partially detached. She pulled her son off the tracks with her good arm just before her son would have been killed.

She says, "I couldn't believe what was happening, while it was taking place." One of the things I thought is this is God's will, that it's God's will.

Unaccompanied children share this facility with adult migrants before they go back to The Beast with the rest of the journey north. Volunteers, many from the United States, help take care of them.

Emily is an artist, a painter, who dreamed of practicing her craft in the U.S. I ask if she and her 2-year-old will continue their journey to the United States.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Si.

TUCHMAN: She says yes, so none of this will be in vain. The Beast will be leaving soon.

(on camera): This guy waiting on the train right now. He's waiting for it to slow down enough and says he wants to go to the United States and he's going to stay on it until he gets to the U.S. border.

(voice-over): The journey with other train connections will take no less than 12 or so days, for many much longer, if they make it at all.

(on camera): Once people start boarding they have no idea when it will actually start the trip to the north. Starts and stops for a while they get it back on track. I'm going to get off before it's going very fast but it's anybody's guess when it gets to the United States. I'm getting off now because it's starting to go fast.

(voice-over): This is a life for the very motivated and very desperate.

Gary Tuchman, CNN, Ixtapa, Mexico.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Gary doing another one of his signature in-depth pieces of a problem that very few understand.

BOLDUAN: Taking just a slice of the life of going into what people go through to try to get out. PEREIRA: Desperation is driving them out.

CUOMO: And what that desperation is and why it is.

BOLDUAN: And why they risk it all.

PEREIRA: Some people misunderstand the motivation. They think that it's just greed or a chance at the American Dream -- yes, a chance at the American Dream but also fleeing the situations that so many of them can't bear.

BOLDUAN: But how to do it.

PEREIRA: There is there's the conundrum.

CUOMO: That's exactly right. There are definitely two sides to how it should be done, you know, what the law is and how the law is applied, but the humanity of the situation seems to be getting caught up in lost in that.

PEREIRA: How to do it is the big question.

CUOMO: That's exactly right. But thank you to Gary, great piece to be sure. No matter what your opinion is.

Coming up on NEW DAY, living a nightmare. That's the statement from the mother of the toddler allegedly murdered in a hot car. She's speaking out through her attorney. We're going to tell you what's in the statement, describes what life has been like, and how she felt when she saw her husband locked up, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Welcome back to NEW DAY.

For the first time since her son's funeral, we're hearing from the mother of a toddler left to die in a hot SUV. Leanna Harris' attorney issued statement on her behalf that reads in part, "Newspapers, television and online media have fostered a poisonous atmosphere in which Leanna's every word, action and emotion or failure to cry in front of a crowd is scrutinized for some supposed hidden meaning. Please allow her the dignity to mourn her son in private."

Now, her husband, Justin Ross Harris, has been charged with murdering their son.

Let's bring in attorney and radio personality Mo Ivory, and criminal defense attorney, Page Pate.

Let's take a look about this statement and what it means and what it really means about what's happening in this investigation.

Mo, let me start with you. What's your take on the statement?

MO IVORY, ATTORNEY: Oh, well, you know, I think that the defense attorney for Leanna is doing exactly what he's supposed to do. He's supposed to try to paint the picture that she's a grieving mother, that this has been most devastating thing in her life and that's exactly what he should do. And so, I think that the statement is right on line with what a defense attorney would do trying to protect the client.

But, of course, you know, I don't think that a lot of the statements that, you know, the poisonous word and things like that are accurate because any time that somebody is involved in a situation like this, they are going to be scrutinized, and her actions do need to be scrutinized because they are trying to find out if her child was murdered.

CUOMO: All right. So, Page, let's do this. Let's play it out, OK.

I'm going to be defense counsel and you be what the prosecution and all of these criticizers would have going. What is the basis for scrutinizing this woman? What do you think would have any value in a court of law?

PAGE PATE, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, Chris, everything that she said from the moment she found out that Cooper was not in that car points the finger at her, at least being aware that this is something that could happen.

CUOMO: Such as?

PATE: Showing up to the -- showing up to the day care, and her first thought become, oh, my gosh, he must have left him in the car. That is not a normal response for a mother.

Then going to talk to her husband while he's been interrogated or during a break and suggested that he may have said too much. Too much about what? Obviously, that suggests to the prosecution that she knows something about what happened.

Now, I know they are combing through the evidence that they seized at this point, going through the text messages, going through the e- mails, to try to find some hard concrete evidence to link up their suspicions to her.

CUOMO: OK. Right now, no charges. We don't know of any real evidence. Let me take the other side of these just to offer perspective.

And, Mo, you get to be the judge -- that when she went to the day care center and she said oh, I bet he was left in the car. My best sense on that is that that comes from investigators who said she was worried about the possibility of her son being left in a hot car, that she told officers it was her worst fear.

It's a lot of parent's worst fear. We don't know that it was specific to this situation. We have to know more about the context.

Similarly, did you say too much when she was reunited with her husband after learning he had been charged with murder? That's according to a Cobb police detective, Phil Stoddard -- let's say he's telling the truth, say too much about what? Maybe he said too much and that's why they charged him in the first place. Maybe he said he was so upset it must be his fault. We don't have context.

And then, lastly, what she said at the eulogy, the funeral for her son, bereaved in pain. She says I wouldn't bring him back if I could. People say oh, you wanted him to die.

No, she's a Christian, Mo, and she believes he's in a better place and that this is God's intention.

Now with that reckoning of it, Mo, what's your take in terms of whether this is deserved scrutiny of somebody?

IVORY: Yes, I don't buy any of those things that you said. None of those reactions would be in the context of your child dying. When you arrive somewhere and somebody said, well, your child is not here. The first thing you go, what? What do you mean? Where's my child?

Panic sets in. You're worried. Has something happened to my child?

There's no context to say, oh, my husband must have left him in the car. It's just weird and outrageous.

CUOMO: Do we know if it was the first thing?

IVORY: Well, they said that that's what her first reaction.

CUOMO: It was a reaction. Do we know that it was first?

IVORY: It was a reaction, but then the day care worker actually said to her, well, why would you say that? Why would you just say that?

It was even disturbing to the day care worker as she responded.

So, secondly, why would you say too much when she goes to the jail? Who that isn't in law enforcement would even know to say something like that, unless you've researched evidence that says don't say anything when you're being interrogated. I mean, it just doesn't add up.

And then, lastly, what parent -- what parent wouldn't want the power to bring their child back after something happened? If something happens to a child, what parent would beg, I'd do anything, I'd give my own life. I do anything to have my child back.

CUOMO: One who believes in the promise of an afterlife that's better than this?

IVORY: I mean, I guess so, but I just don't, I think put into context with the other things that she said, it's just a very weird reaction, and as a lawyer -- if a law enforcement or a judge or a jury looks at that, I think they would find that to be, you know, not so much in the context of normal behavior.

CUOMO: And a reference in the letter, the attorney goes out of his way to -- to reference Richard Jewell. We all remember Richard Jewell. He was falsely accused of being bombing surrounding the Olympics. What do you make of that, Page?

PATE: Well, I think that's significant, number one to suggest that, look, you're rushing to judgment here. You're jumping to conclusions.

But also Richard Jewell, for folks in Atlanta, that name has another meaning. Richard Jewell pursued a very lengthy defamation lawsuit against the media, folks that portrayed him as guilty before there was enough evidence to convict him. So, in a way, I think her lawyer is at least suggesting, hey, you better be careful about what you're saying, and I know we have been here and other media outlets have certainly said she's not a suspect yet, she's not been charged.

But I think this is his way of sending a message that, you got it wrong about Richard Jewell and we think you got it wrong about Leanna Harris, too.

CUOMO: Look, I mean, I believe the best way to do these stories is also to test what's out there on both sides, bringing in strong people like yourselves to be able to test what's out there and give the audience the best sense of what's happening and then see what investigators find, but you do have to be careful here and also important to know what's not in this address from the lawyer. There's nothing in there supportive of the husband which was also remarkable.

IVORY: That's very true.

CUOMO: But, Page, thank you for laying it out there.

Mo, thanks for throwing me under the bus, not giving me a single point on anything.

As we continue to try to make sense of this situation, I may not have done as good a job as her lawyer will do going forward, but this is the universe effect as we understand it right now. Thank you very much on this. This is one story, what happened to this baby in this hot car, and why we're going to keep following it.

But there's a lot of news as well, so let's get right to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hamas has to stop all rocket fire against Israel.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are not the side who is killing. We are the side who is being killed.

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: There are great risks of a potential and even greater escalation of violence.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're protesting the invasion of the United States by people of foreign countries.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: None of you are born here!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They are spending this money to upgrade this camp for illegal allies. Spend the money on Americans first. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One of the nation's most famous and outspoken

undocumented immigrants detained.

JOSE ANTONIO VARGAZ: I dare any congressional member to look at the eyes of these children and tell them that they're going to be sent back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Good morning. Welcome back to NEW DAY.