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CNN NEWSROOM

Actor Stephen Collins Faces Molestation Accusations; Midterm Elections: Who Cares?; Supreme Court Puts Hold on Same Sex Marriages in Idaho; Twitter Sues U.S. Government

Aired October 8, 2014 - 10:30   ET

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


SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In court documents, Faye Grant alleges her husband had been engaged in a quote, "long-term pattern" of sexually molesting children and that he had quote, "admitted" that he had sexually molested three underage girls over a decade ago. In the documents, Collins does not specifically address the claims, but he made a reference to it saying quote, "This is really an attempt to extort concessions in a settlement."

In the court documents, his wife said she reported the allegations to the NYPD and the Los Angeles Police Department because she feared she could face civil and criminal liabilities for not reporting on Collins. In 2012, the Los Angeles police department looked into the case but said it was closed when no victim came forward and no police report was filed.

Since the allegations emerged Tuesday, Collins has been let go from his role in the current movie production of "Ted 2". He has also resigned from the Screen Actors' Guild National Board.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: CNN has reached out to Collins and his representatives and they have not returned our calls. We can tell you that the Manhattan district attorney's office does know about the case but they told us they can not prosecute because of the statute of limitations.

Sara Sidner, CNN, Los Angeles.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Checking some other top stories for you at 30 minutes past the hour, changes are coming to U.S. airports because of the global ebola crisis. Starting as early as this weekend, passengers arriving on flights from countries stricken with ebola will have to get their temperatures checked before entering the United States. Besides the U.S. ebola has been found in a half a dozen other countries, mostly in West Africa.

An American who has survived ebola has donated blood to another American being treated for the disease. Dr. Kent Brantly contracted ebola in July while caring for patients in Liberia before recovering at an Atlanta hospital. Brantly has now donated his blood to NBC cameraman Ashoka Mukpo who has ebola. He's now in a Nebraska hospital.

An Indiana family is suing local police for excessive force after officers allegedly smashed their car window. The family said the incident happened during a traffic stop videotaped by a teenager in the backseat. Both sides argued they feared for their safety. Family members will be interviewed tonight, 10:00 p.m. Eastern.

Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson is in a Texas courtroom at this hour expected to plead not guilty to child abuse charges. Peterson is accused of hitting his four-year-old son with a switch. Peterson is not playing on the team, at least until the case is resolved, which may not be until next year.

The midterms -- they're coming up. You know, the midterms. Republicans can take control of the Senate. Democrats could become oh, I don't know, irrelevant. I can see you yawning.

MTV is hoping this will wake you up long enough to cast a ballot.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(MUSIC)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm Darren and I'm turning out for education.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm E.J. and I'm turning out for marriage equality.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My name is Lena and I'm turning out for --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: (inaudible) Lil John, and Lena Dunham, don't do it for you -- I get it. The "Wall Street Journal" illustrates the voter malaise going on in this country in a cool graph. Less than 40 percent of independent voters give a hoot about the midterms. Republicans care the most, but that's not saying much because only 55 percent of them actually care.

So try to stay awake while we talk more about this. Let's bring in CNN political commentator and Republican Alex Castellanos; and Democrat Hilary Rosen, she's also a CNN political commentator. Welcome to both of you.

ALEX CASTELLANOS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good to see you, Carol.

HILARY ROSEN, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Thanks Carol.

COSTELLO: Nice to see you, too. So the "Wall Street Journal" also points out that in 1994, voters were upset over the direction of the country and Democrats lost the house. They actually went out to vote. In 2006 voters were upset over the war and Democrats returned to power. In 2010, voters were upset about the economy and the Tea Party was born.

This year, help me out, Hilary, what are voters actually passionate about?

ROSEN: Well, the thing that voters are most passionate about I don't think they feel like it's going to get resolved in this election which is the sort of gridlock that's facing Washington. I think what -- so the strategy is how do you keep people focused on the issues you know that they care about and see what's at stake in the election?

So for instance, for women particularly, keeping Democrats in control of the Senate means keeping guaranteed contraceptive health care, keeping the right to choose, keeping help for families and children. For young people it's the environment, it's things like marriage equality. For seniors it's things like social security. So what you see now in so many respects is sort of the most technical election that we've had in years.

COSTELLO: Technical election. Boy, that inspires passion among voters.

ROSEN: That's what -- you're sort of targeting what people care most about and you're doing it with some, you know, with real tactics that may work.

COSTELLO: I don't know. Alex, even Senator Lindsey Graham, who is cruising to a victory, isn't sure what victory will mean these midterm elections. He says, quote, "There is no mandate other than we don't like the other guy."

CASTELLANOS: Well, it's a bigger problem than that. He's right. Carol, would you go out shopping for products that didn't work? The answer is no. And America looks at Washington, it doesn't work. All these promises, Hilary just went through a nice list, Republicans have a list, too, but nothing gets done.

Washington is dysfunctional, it's the V.A., it's the IRS, they can't control spending, health care is a disaster. So when you look at all of that, this is the plague on Washington election. If voters could vote not to send anybody back, turnout would be about 150 percent.

COSTELLO: I actually agree with you, Alex because Hilary, I posture more than one American is wondering why we even need Congress. They don't do anything anyway so why waste a vote?

(CROSSTALK)

ALEX: Yes, and when they do something it's terrible.

HILARY: Here's an interesting thing. You just showed a "rock the vote" video and encouraged folks to go actually to rockthevote.com or youtube.com and look at some other really cool "rock the vote" commercials that say, for instance, if you care about the environment, you know, that the oil companies are getting their vote out. If you care about women's right to choose, well the anti guys are getting their vote out.

So in some respects it's kind of negative reinforcement but it sort of forces you to pay attention there in a way that you might not otherwise.

COSTELLO: But does it? Because Alex, I watched that "rock the vote" there were no names of any candidates mentioned. It was all these issues and I just don't know that --

CASTELLANOS: It's because we hate them all. Americans have figured out the emperor has no clothes; that all these political promises end up meaning nothing, as a matter of fact, often the opposite. You know, jobs plans, growth plans, all of that. At some point we're headed for a big change and that is getting money and power out of Washington, growing the economy not the old way top down politically and artificially from Washington.

Those days are over. We know that's behind us. It's time for a big change from both parties. Grow the economy bottom up naturally, organically. Get power out of the place that doesn't work, move power closer to where our needs and problems are and guess what? You'll get voters engaged again.

COSTELLO: Man.

ROSEN: You know, I think Alex is right and so it will be interesting to see what kind of voter turnout we have. Don't forget, it's not just Congress that's up for election. There are state elections, there are city council elections, there are mayorals all over the country. And so to the extent you can devolve power into some communities where you might feel like you've got more say, we'll see where turnout is in those areas.

COSTELLO: It will be interesting.

CASTELLANOS: It's not just voters who are disinterested, look at President Obama, he's practically retired.

COSTELLO: You had to get one in -- good job. Alex Castellanos, Hilary Rosen, thanks to you both. I appreciate it.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Twitter has become the latest tech giant to take on the U.S. government. Laurie Segall is here with more.

LAURIE SEGALL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey Carol. Well, your tweets, your conversations -- Twitter's got them and they want to be able to disclose when the government asks for them.

We have more on that coming up after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: All right, this breaking news out of the U.S. Supreme Court. It is putting a hold on same-sex marriage in Idaho. The nation's highest court is halting a lower court ruling that would have allowed same-sex marriages to take place. U.S. Justice Anthony Kennedy is giving same-sex marriage supporters until tomorrow to respond. So what does all of this mean because I know what you're saying, didn't the U.S. Supreme Court punt on this issue like just yesterday?

Law professor Gloria -- she's a constitutional law professor at John Jay, Gloria Browne-Marshall joins us. And also do we have Jeffrey Toobin with us as well? I'm sorry, we do have Jeffrey Toobin? Ok.

Jeffrey, I want to go to you first because -- no Toobin. Ok. I got it now, Gloria, I'm glad you're with me. Thank you so much for joining me. So explain this to us. Why is the U.S. Supreme Court intervening now?

GLORIA BROWNE-MARSHALL, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW PROFESSIONAL: Well, the U.S. Supreme Court is receiving cases pro and against gay marriage in a particular state. And what the Supreme Court is saying now is that the Idaho law was one that wasn't before and now it is. It's giving the other side time to address the issues that had been raised by its denial of grants earlier this week.

COSTELLO: So is this unusual for the high court to intervene on an emergency basis?

BROWNE-MARSHALL: Well, the high court intervenes on emergency basis all the time, we just don't hear about it. This is a very controversial case so we're hearing about it as it goes incrementally up through the court. We were watching these cases across the country approaching the court through the appellate system, whether through the state court system or the federal court system and these states for and against are waiting for the Supreme Court to take one of the cases. And in taking one of those cases address the issues the rest of the states have on their dockets as well, whether or not the states can control same-sex marriage.

When we go back last year and we were discussing this issue of same- sex marriage, the state's case that went before the court was one on the procedural issue that the court did not address. It was whether or not the parties were in a position to bring the case before the court in the first place, whether or not they had standing. That procedural issue, the court said basically that the parties didn't have standing but it didn't reach the merits of the case.

So now we have all these state cases that are merit-based going before the court and the court is basically saying we're not taking any of these cases right now, but that doesn't prevent you from asking. So they have to give each side a chance to, you know, raise their points.

COSTELLO: So same-sex couples were just celebrating yesterday. What should they make of this today?

BROWNE-MARSHALL: Well, this is also state-based. So this is definitely Idaho and it's not -- the court is not saying all of our other decisions -- all of the decisions we made on Monday in not granting cert for those other cases are -- would not be important to them -- or -- not justified in some way, don't forget about what we did on Monday but we're looking particularly at the Idaho situation.

COSTELLO: Gloria Browne-Marshall thanks so much for your insight. I sure appreciate it.

I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COSTELLO: Stop making me laugh.

MIKE ROWE, CNN HOST: Control yourself woman, we're live. We're live.

COSTELLO: I can't. I just asked him is that the only sweater he owns? And apparently you have 12 of the same sweater.

ROWE: Well, it's here and I stole it from CNN the last time we shoot that promo. I like it so I wear it now everyday.

COSTELLO: Really, I can see you opening your closet and there are 42 navy blue sweaters and 82 pairs of jeans.

ROWE: I have jeans. I have sweaters. I have a tasteful hoodie. I have literally dozens of white t-shirts. And yes.

COSTELLO: Put up the picture from the party. There was this premiere party, CNN threw this premiere party. We all thought we had to dress in cocktail gear. Look at you.

ROWE: You are just plain nasty. That's the nicest shirt I own and those jeans were freshly laundered.

COSTELLO: Sure they were.

ROWE: Well, fresh enough. Look at you. Look at all the blondes. I love this place.

COSTELLO: Well, I'm not a natural blond but I play one on television.

ROWE: I'm not going to pry, Carol, it's none of my business. It's just nice to see.

COSTELLO: All right. Well, let's talk about your show "SOMEBODY'S GOTTA DO IT" because I have a nice little clip from the show. Would you like to see it?

ROWE: You know, I'm all a-twitter.

COSTELLO: Let's go then.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROSE: Forget about backstage, this is under stage, except it's more complicated than that because the stage is always changing elevations. Sometimes it's out of the water, sometimes it's just below the surface and other times it's way down toward the bottom. So, yes, it's like cave diving if the caves are constantly moving.

And guess who's going in the water? That's right. Here's Chris. Chris has just told me that my wet suit is on backwards and that I might care when I go down to depth.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know, everything squeezes. You may want to go change that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: You were too busy putting on your man spanx.

ROWE: You bet I was. Two pairs, why take chances.

COSTELLO: Was that you diving off that high --

ROWE: Doing all the flips? Yes, that was me. No, it's not me.

COSTELLO: That's -- why do you do these things?

ROWE: It's not -- we went to Vegas to profile who I believe is the greatest stage hand in the country and that show is called La Rev, it's French, I think it means "The Dream". I have no idea if there's a plot, I just know that amazing boneless people fly through the air and drop from great heights into a giant pool of flaming water and then miraculously vanish.

When I saw the show a year ago I said if I ever go back, I want to meet the person responsible for all of it. So we went back in the first episode of "SOMEBODY'S GOTTA DO IT" and met a guy names Dale Hurt and learned how that show gets put together. It's pretty cool.

COSTELLO: That is cool. So what other cool things can we look forward to?

ROWE: That's it.

COSTELLO: That's it? Just that?

ROWE: No. We've been on the road now for --

COSTELLO: You appeared in a wet suit, that was enough for people.

ROWE: Are you not entertained? The last four months we've been going all over the country. We've been relying heavily on my Facebook page to get ideas. Essentially this is a show that allows America to introduce itself to people they think I should know and I in turn come to you guys and say, "Hey, look, there's a really cool thing in Vegas. There's a hair museum in Kansas City. There's a forager up in Point Reyes who no longer buys food but lives off the fat of the land, et cetera, et cetera." So I'm having a time.

COSTELLO: It sounds like a -- it really does sound awesome and a lot of fun and you get to meet more interesting people than I do, frankly.

ROWE: Listen -- yes. I do.

COSTELLO: It's true.

ROWE: Well, I get to meet people who wake up kind of afflicted because the world is not exactly the way they want it and they march to the beat of a drum that really only they can hear. And I just always have dug people like that. They're doing what they're doing out of a passion and love for it and it's a very, very broad pallet. It's not just jobs. It's vocation, avocation, bloody do-gooders, insane collectors, mad scientists, inventors, entrepreneurs, all of them.

COSTELLO: I only say that because people often ask me who's the most fascinating person I've ever interviewed? It's never a famous movie star. Well, it's Mike Rowe now. But truly the most interesting people you find are typical Americans out there doing amazing things.

ROWE: Right. Quietly.

COSTELLO: Quietly, right.

ROWE: So we were in Kansas not too long ago and we had finished what we had come for and we had some time so I go on Facebook and I say I'm not far from the Missouri line, tell me if there's nip in the zip code who's got do it that I should meet. 3,000 replies instantly and one of the top ones was for a woman named Lyayla (ph) who runs a hair museum in a strip mall not far from Harry Truman's house.

These are words you seldom hear grouped up in a sentence. But it's the only hair museum in the world. So you'll learn about why hair matters vis-a-vis genealogy and you'll learn why she loves it so much and you laugh and then you leave and that's kind of what I do.

COSTELLO: That's kind of cool, right?

ROWE: Learn, laugh, and leave.

COSTELLO: Learn, laugh, and leave. I love that. That should be my motto for life. Ok, so "SOMEBODY'S GOTTA DO IT" premieres 9:00 p.m. Eastern tonight.

ROWE: Yes.

COSTELLO: Right here on CNN.

ROWE: Will you watch?

COSTELLO: I am going to watch.

ROWE: Excellent.

COSTELLO: Because you have not mentioned the Orioles beating the Tigers, I will watch.

ROWE: Oh, man did we spank you guys?

COSTELLO: Stop it.

ROWE: Did we spank you or what?

COSTELLO: I think we have to go to a break now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Twitter has grown into a platform where millions of users can share and access real-time information in an instant from reaction to the Super Bowl or pictures from the pro-democracy protests at Hong Kong. However Twitter itself is limited in the amount of information it can publicly reveal when it comes to government surveillance. But now Twitter hopes to change that by taking the Justice Department to court over rules that expressly forbid the company from revealing the types or how many surveillance requests it actually gets from the government.

Laurie Segall is following it all. Good morning.

SEGALL: Hey, Carol. Well, it's all about transparency. You know, Google and Microsoft have previously sued for the ability to show more requests but what they were able to get was they're allowed to disclose very broad strokes. They're able to disclose if they received between 0 and 999 national security requests. That's just an example.

So what Twitter has said is that's not enough. We want to be more specific. Let me read you what they said in a statement. They said "It's our belief that we're entitled under the first amendment to respond to our users' concerns and to the statements of the U.S. government officials by providing information about the scope of the U.S. government surveillance. We should be able to do this in a meaningful way rather than broad inexact ranges."

So what they're asking for, Carol, is they want to be able report the actual number of requests and break it down into the specific types of requests. Right now they're very, very limited on what they can say. They actually took a transparency report to the government, the government said, hey, you cannot disclose us and then they decided to sue, Carol.

COSTELLO: Interesting. So what is the Justice Department saying about this?

SEGALL: You know, the Justice Department goes back to that lawsuit. They say that earlier in the year that they addressed similar concerns with previous companies. They go on to say that they work together to provide broad information on government requests while protecting national security. It's always about trying to find that balance but Twitter has said you know what? That's just not enough. We need to be more specific and what we show and what our users are able to understand about the government.

COSTELLO: All right. Laurie Segall reporting for us this morning -- thanks so much.

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

"@THIS HOUR WITH BERMAN AND MICHAELA" starts now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: Brand new measures to battle ebola. U.S. airports will start screening passengers perhaps as early as this weekend.