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Lufthansa Knew of Lubitz's Depression; Will Arkansas Governor Sign Religions Freedom Bill?; Iran Deal Negotiations Continue. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired April 1, 2015 - 11:00   ET

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


JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Lufthansa knew and they let him fly anyway.

[11:00:00] A stunning revelation about co-pilot Andreas Lubitz and his battle with depression and new reports of a video showing the final moments of Germanwings Flight 9525.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Will he or won't he sign on? The governor of Arkansas now in the spotlight as he's set to announce his next move this hour after state lawmakers approved a law very similar to Indiana's that has critics and protesters saying allows for discrimination against gays.

BERMAN: Iran nuclear talks in overtime. Are we on verge of an historic deal or a diplomatic collapse that could lead to even stricter sanctions?

A lot going on this morning. Hello everyone, I'm John Berman.

BOLDUAN: Hi guys. I'm Kate Bolduan. As John said, there is a lot going on, including this -- major political news happening this hour. We expect to know whether Arkansas will join Indiana this week in adopting a religious freedom bill that has sparked outrage, especially among supporters of gay and lesbian rights.

The state's governor in Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, is facing enormous new pressure in light of what happened in Indiana. He's expected to announce his plans at an 11:30 Eastern news conference and we're going to take you there live. The measure was approved by the Arkansas legislature yesterday, similar to -- it's similar to Indiana's. Also similar to Indiana, the measure has prompted backlash among business, especially this business. Retail giant Wal-mart, which is based in Arkansas, has come out against the measure. Now Ar -- Wal-Mart urging the governor to veto, not sign on to the bill.

BERMAN: Wal-Mart, the biggest private employer in that state so that is a big deal.

Also AT THIS HOUR, new details concerning what's going on in Indiana with its version of the religious freedom bill. That state's governor, Mike Pence, has pledged to fix and clarify that the law there does not allow for discrimination.

CNN has learned when we might see the new language that he is proposing, or that is being proposed there. Joining us now is CNN correspondent Rosa Flores in Indianapolis. Rosa, what's the fix and when are we going to hear about it?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A very interesting dynamic right now with politics and also with language. It's all about the language that's being used to clarify this law and the language that's being used to talk about clarifying this law.

Now, let me tell you something -- right now, the governor just finished a meeting, a closed-door meeting with Republican leadership, where they talked about the language, about what's going to happen. We caught up with the Speaker of the House right after. Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STATE REP. BRIAN BOSMA (R), INDIANA HOUSE SPEAKER: We still hope to have this completely resolved tomorrow. So that takes work, hard work and a lot of discussion, and we're actively talking not just with the governor but members of the corporate, sports community. I've had a couple of meetings with LGBT folks, and I think we're moving in the right direction to clarify and preserve religious freedom and dispel the myth that this denies service to any category.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: Now, you heard him say we expect this to be quote, "completely resolved by tomorrow". So my follow-up question was, OK, so does that mean that this new law will be on the desk of the governor's office? And they said no, it doesn't mean that. Again, language being used to clarify other language. A very convoluted at this point in time, John and Kate, but of course we're going to be following it.

BERMAN: Rosa Flores, thanks so much. And of course the governor there says the problem is one of perception, not reality, which is interesting too.

BOLDUAN: We'll be following that.

And there is also this for you AT THIS HOUR. Two major developments in the investigation into the crash of Germanwings Flight 9525. The CEO of Lufthansa, the parent company of Germanwings, visited the crash site in the French Alps this morning. This as the airline now says that the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, had reported to them that he had battled severe depression. This is the first time that the airline acknowledged knowing about really any medical conditions that Lubitz suffered from before the crash.

Meanwhile, the German daily publication, "Bild", and French magazine "Paris Match", they're reporting that there is a video showing final moments on board the flight before the crash. The paper is reporting a memory card was recovered from the wreckage site. That video has not been released publicly. But here's the editor of "Bild" describing what they have seen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JULIAN REICHELT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, BILD: We saw the video with our colleagues at "Paris Match" and it was kind disturbing, upsetting material. It's shot in the cabin. It shows that there was a lot of chaos going on, that people apparently were very much aware of where this was heading. And it also seems to document that there was kind of a metallic bang on -- what sounds like a metallic bang on a door, which is kind of in line with results of the previous investigation that say that the pilot was trying to break into the cockpit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[11:05:09] BERMAN: Now the French prosecutor says this video is not authentic. Says that none of the cell phones found at the crash site have been sent for analysis at this point. So obviously a critical discrepancy here.

Let's bring in our senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen. And, Fred, two major developments over the last 24 hours -- the news that Andreas Lubitz had battled severe depression and told Lufthansa, and this report of a video out there.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely. Two major developments. And if we start with what Andreas Lubitz apparently told the Lufthansa company, when he was trying to become a pilot, this was from the year 2009 when he was at the pilot academy of Lufthansa in the city of Bremen. Remember that Lufthansa very early on had said during his pilot training, that he took several months off. They never elaborated on exactly why that happened.

Now, there seems to be an e-mail that he wrote to the folks there at that training academy where he told them that he had suffered a previous bout of psychological problems. And so this was something that was on record, that was in e-mails. Lufthansa came out yesterday. They went back, they checked their files, and that they have now given all of this to the investigating authorities. Of course, both the ones in Germany as well as the ones in France as well.

The interesting thing about all this is, of course, that afterwards he then did become certified to become a pilot. He was allowed to complete his training. He then became certified as a pilot and he also passed all of his physicals since then.

Of course we know that, later, in the time -- in the lead up to the crash in France, that he then was seeing professionals again as well, that he had psychological trouble at that time as well. However, it seems as though the psychologist that he was seeing, at least at this time now, were saying that he's not suicidal and that he didn't pose a danger to other people either. So certainly very interesting revelations about that.

The Lufthansa CEO that was there this morning at the crash site, he was asked by journalists there about all of this, about when Lufthansa knew about this e-mail, and he didn't want to give an answer at that time. John.

BERMAN: All right, Frederik Pleitgen for us following the developments there. Really interesting stuff that needs to be dived into I think a little bit deeper. Thanks, Fred.

BOLDUAN: All right, Fred, thanks so much.

BERMAN: Happening now in Switzerland, overtime. The crucial talks about Iran and its potential ability to build a nuclear weapon, they were extended an extra day. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif are in bilateral discussions right now. Several diplomats from other countries have already left.

BOLDUAN: A short time ago, the British Foreign Secretary said a broad framework had been reached and Germany's chancellor said that she hoped for a compromise at some point today.

Chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto is live in Washington with much more. I mean, watching the day-to-day details, Jim, of where the sticking points are and where the negotiations stand has been a challenge, to say the very least. What are you hearing? They've now passed that self-imposed deadline.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, Kate and John, I got to tell you, I'm almost reluctant to use the word deadline anymore because so many deadlines get passed or changed.

Already, we had yesterday's midnight deadline pass into today. Now there's some talk -- we've heard this from Iranian negotiators -- of the talks possibly moving into tomorrow. Keep in mind, this deadline was really a self-imposed one. It was set by the West for a general political or framework agreement. You see up on the air right now some of the sticking points that still remain, including limits on Iran able to research and develop advanced centrifuges, to spin and enrich uranium, how quickly those U.N. sanctions are lifted.

But we also have to look today at a watering down of what to expect if they do come to an agreement, whether it's today or tomorrow. Now I'm hearing that really what you're going to hear announced is just a statement of goals in the talks as we advance towards the other deadline on June 30th. So goals, nothing really agreed to on paper signed by the Iranian side. That sounds like a lot less than many observers were expecting, at least in this round of negotiations.

BERMAN: Jim, is there unity between the five major powers here or is the U.S. out on a limb? It's odd to me that so many of these other foreign ministers have up and left and left Secretary of State John Kerry there.

SCIUTTO: It's a great point, John. You have seen, we have seen fissures, some minor fissures within the western side, not just in this round of negotiations but in past ones, particularly the French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who at times has at least publicly made a stand saying we have to be tougher, we have to push the Iranians more. That could be good cop/bad cop in these negotiations. But you have seen that.

Now of course you're seeing some foreign ministers leaving, which helps feed this sense that they're not really going to sign a piece of paper even if they do come to agreement in the next 24 hours or so, that they're going to make a statement of goals that haven't been signed to and really leave those tough issues that remain to be decided for the next three months of negotiations.

[11:10:12] That sets you up for this June 30th deadline for a final agreement.

But I'll tell you, John, you look at the calendar -- a lot of these deadlines have been passed. And as you're looking up on the screen there, then you see some of the differences, particularly again on sanctions relief, on R&D. Here's a calendar there that shows where we are, just past that March 31st deadline. And then you have another three months to get to a final agreement.

But like I said, a lot of deadlines have been passed or extended so I'm loath at this point to call any deadline hard-and-fast.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. And where is the patience, in terms of back here at home, amongst the members of Congress who have been watching this very, very closely. What are they going to think of a passed deadline or a nonexistent deadline as we reach the end of March?

Jim Sciutto, thanks so much, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Thank you.

BERMAN: Key questions.

Ahead for us AT THIS HOUR, the defense says Tamerlan Tsarnaev led and his younger brother Dhzhokhar followed. But will the jury buy it? The latest in the Boston Marathon bombing trial.

BOLDUAN: And a closer look at the new developments in the crash of Germanwings Flight 9525. When did Lufthansa know about the co-pilot's severe depression and what did they do about it? And what does that mean for the investigation now?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: This morning, Lufthansa, the parent company of Germanwings, says that they knew the co-pilot accused now of downing the Flight 9525 had battled depression in the past, that Andreas Lubitz told the airline's flight training school all about it back in 2009.

[11:15:03] BOLDUAN: Let's discuss this and the other major developments coming through on this crash. Right now, let's bring in CNN aviation analyst, Mary Schiavo and Miles O'Brien.

So Miles, let's talk about this from your perspective. The airline now acknowledging for the first time that Lubitz did report that he had battled with severe depression. This could coincide with that gap in his training, when he came back reporting that he had been battling this. Does this change the game in terms of the investigation at all for you?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, it certainly under scores a lot of concerns. Those of us in this world of aviation have about these low-cost carriers. What was the follow-up once this was divulged? Evidently not very much. He evidently went back into training. He went right back into flying. Now there's kind of an important point here. The people that go through this cadet program ultimately have to pay back the airline for their training once they get a job flying an airbus. And-- So, there's a real disincentive for the airline to scrub somebody out. They won't get their money back.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Wow.

O'BRIEN: And, so, this is all part of this low-cost pressure on the airlines, which unfortunately, tries to press the pilots as much as possible. Take money out of their pocket, make it harder for them to work and, frankly, add to their stress levels in every way.

BOLDUAN: Mary, it's interesting. There's been criticism of the so- called, self-reporting system, that you couldn't count on pilots to self-report if they had problems with mental health issues. Well, in this case the guy did self-report apparently at least early on, so the question is what then was done with the information? So is this problem truly systemic now?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, certainly it is and I think Miles is absolutely right. And Lufthansa pretty much gave away the fact that they didn't do anything by in the initial press conferences saying, oh no, the pilot was great. There were no problems. He was perfectly 100 percent good to fly. And then only later did this memo surface that he had actually advised them of that.

Now, you can fly if you have depression, but it depends on the level of depression and most importantly, it depends on two things. One if it can be successfully treated with only one approved drug. And the drugs are limited. It's like Prozac, Zoloft, Lexapro and Celexa, and you can't mix the drugs and the airline has to monitor you. And if there's any suicidal ideation, if you mention suicide, you're grounded. So, that's what we have to see what Lufthansa has done about that in the interim. We just don't know.

BOLDUAN: In all things kind of in conflict to the original statements we've heard from the airline, that he was 100 percent fit to fly. That he passed every medical exam that they had for him. Let's turn our attention, though, to this other development, a major development. And one that is so much question and discrepancy around this cell phone video that they say two newspapers, one in Germany and one in Paris, saying that they've seen cell phone video from a memory card recovered from the crash site.

Mary, the prosecutor's office says that's not true, that none of the cell phone video, nothings been recovered and analyzed yet. What do you make of this?

SCHIAVO: I think the prosecutor's office might be out of the loop. You know, I've worked on other crash cases where we've have had cell recoveries, laptop recovery and video that was recoverable from cell phones. So it's very possible., very probable. Particularly here where it doesn't appear that much of the wreckage suffered any fire at all. And it's entirely probably and to me it seems like this is probably the real thing.

The question becomes, did they steal it from the crash site, it's tampering with evidence. It's inferring with an active murder scene investigation. And by the way, this property belongs to someone, and, of course, in the United States, it is the law that the passenger's property must be collected and they're doing this in Germany-in France, by the way, today, collecting the passenger's property and returned to the family. So there's a lot of explaining to do as to how this came into the hands of whoever has it.

BERMAN: You know, Miles, this brings up a good point, a bit of a conundrum for we in the media here, which is that here's all kinds of finger pointing, right now, about leaks in this investigation. Who leaked the cell phone video, if it's authentic. Who has been leaking stories about the cockpit voice recorder to various outlets here. In your opinion, right now, has this investigation been handled in a fairly tight, organized way, or is this a bit of a mess?

O'BRIEN: Well, you know, you're never going to get me to say a leak is a bad thing. I'm a journalist, I like leaks. You know, frankly, I feel like investigations, like this, move a lot slower than the appetite for information these days. We live in a 24-hour news cycle. You know, we still haven't even seen a cockpit voice recording transcript from the AirAsia crash, as you recall. So that's more typical.

[11:19:53] And MH370, think about how that investigation was stone walled. So yes, there's a lot of pressure from the media to get information. But that's because the world needs to know, wants to know what's going on here. And we need transparency in these investigations. If investigators won't do it, the media will step into the void, which is what is happening here. This is a bit unfortunate. Of course, they haven't seen the video.

Let's remember, we haven't seen it. We've talked about it. It sounds awful. It sounds horrible. I shudder to think what the families must think. But, you know, the bottom line here is this will accrue to their bottom line. People like Mary Schiavo can go in and build a better case based on how much suffering these poor people went through.

BERMAN: Interesting points. Miles O'Brien, thanks so much. And again, I couldn't agree with you more. I think it's our business to get the information we can get, when we get it.

BOLDUAN: Yes, Miles, Mary, thank you as always.

Ahead for us AT THIS HOUR, Congress watching closely, new sanctions looming as talks over Iran's nuclear program drag on past the deadline. Where is the next deadline? And how is Capitol Hill weighing in now?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: Right now negotiations about Iran's nuclear program have gone into overtime. Some western leaders hopeful, for an agreement at some point today, but some big hurdles and really decades of suspicion stand in the way.

[11:24:54] BERMAN: So what happens if there is no deal? No framework? Where will the U.S., or specifically ,Congress, go from there? Let's ask someone in Congress. Congressman Steve Israel, he's a Democrat from New York. Thanks so much for being with us, sir.

REP. STEVE ISREAL, (D) NEW YORK: Thank you very much.

BERMAN: I'm going to color you as a skeptic of this deal, from the beginning. You're not someone who has jumped up and down at the prospect of reaching an agreement with Iran here. Now that this deadline, which was stated by the White House, this March 31st deadline, which the White House and state department created here, now that we're past that date, how much more patient are you willing to be?

ISREAL: Well look, your definition, your description of me is accurate. I have been skeptical about this. I know that the baseball season is about to start and in baseball you get to go into extra innings for as long as it takes. This is not a baseball game. This is not the baseball season. This is a critically important nuclear deal. And the negotiations cannot go on forever. We need to figure out whether we have a deal or not, and then when we do, then we have to figure out what's in the deal and Congress has a right to review, and either approve or disapprove it.

BOLDUAN: But where is, where does forever end for you at this point? We've passed one deadline. We're hearing we may get a general statement at some point today, maybe. Where does forever end?

ISREAL: Look, in my view forever ended some time ago. Now, I think it would be very, very hard for the administration to make the case, past today, to members of Congress and to others that they should get more time to do this. At a certain point, given the magnitude of the issue, the Administration and world powers either have a deal or don't have a deal and then we move in either direction.

BERMAN: Move on in either direction. So, forever ends today is what you just told us. So now that forever is over or, about to be over, what, then, are you going to do about it in Congress? Are you going to vote for sanctions next week? New sanctions?

ISREAL: I think we lost our connection.

BOLDUAN: Congressman, can you hear us? Looks like we need to re- establish communication with the Congressman. We'll be right back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)