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CNN NEWSROOM

Voting for Soccer's International Leader; GOP Hunger Games; Town Just Says No to Arresting Addicts; James Holmes Trial. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired May 29, 2015 - 10:30   ET

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


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[10:29:55] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

A reminder this morning of the passions and anger swirling around the world's most powerful sports organization -- just a few hours ago, a bomb threat was called into the site where soccer's governing body is about to elect its leader. As you can see in this live picture from Zurich, members at FIFA's congress are gathered to vote this hour. The election comes amid a corruption scandal. Despite that, the top man is likely to keep his job.

CNN's Nic Robertson is in a very windy Zurich with more. Hi -- Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi -- Carol. It really is windy up here. Inside the congress, of course, it's still -- you could almost hear a pin drop but what will be dropping will be the votes in the ballot box. Literally, they've just taken a very short break. They built a ballot booth on the stage here in the middle of this congress. 209 delegates there will get to vote.

This is a secret ballot. All the voting they've done so far today for other issues has been electronic. You get a result in about 20 minutes -- 20 seconds rather. This is probably going to take about an hour from where we are now to get the results.

Sepp Blatter and his challenger Prince Ali bin Hussein of Jordan both get 15 minutes to speak to all the delegates then each delegate will come forward, put his vote in the box, each taking their turn under the eyes, I have to say, of Sepp Blatter.

There's some feeling that Prince Ali has been making -- winning over a few friends and allies in the last day or so but the expectation at the moment is that Sepp Blatter may have it -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, we'll see. Nic Robertson reporting live from Zurich -- many thanks to you.

Onto American politics. Call it the GOP Hunger Games without the fun. I'm stealing that line from Gloria Borger because it perfectly sums up in what's happening in the race for president. An example -- Senator Rand Paul came out and said something

unusual. He blamed Senator John McCain and the GOP for the rise of ISIS.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: People are trapped inside the Beltway and they think that war is always the answer. But I'm asking some difficult questions of Republicans. Do you think the invasion of Iraq made it more stable or us more safe?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: After that, the GOP Hunger Games began. May the odds be ever in your favor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICK SANTORUM (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would expect to hear that from maybe Bernie Sanders. I don't expect to hear that from someone running for the Republican nomination.

GOV. BOBBY JINDAL (R), LOUISIANA: His statements yesterday and some of his previous statements I think were unsuitable.

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: If he thinks it's not nice to disagree, then he's probably in the wrong race because people will be disagreeing with each other all the time. I certainly didn't say -- I didn't even mention Senator Paul's name. So I don't know. He's getting particularly sensitive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So let's talk about this.

Sara Murray is a CNN politics reporter and David Chalian is our political director. Welcome to both of you.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Thanks for having us.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Hey.

COSTELLO: David, is the race getting nasty early because candidates are vying to participate in an August debate?

CHALIAN: This is nothing yet, if you want to talk nasty -- Carol. We should tune back in, in February right before the voting starts. That's when it will get really nasty.

But yes, you are right -- that whole concept about the debates. That is why some elbows are being thrown right now. People are very focused on August 6th. That's the date of the first debate in Cleveland, Ohio. It will be on Fox News. And the top ten people in the polls get into that debate.

So everybody and their brother because the field is so large is trying to do what they can to grab headlines and get attention and bump up their name ID and therefore bump up their poll numbers.

COSTELLO: Yes. And I'm noticing that the people throwing out the nastiest barbs, Sara, are the people who don't make it into the top ten.

MURRAY: Yes. You know, you really need to get your name out there and there is no easier way to do that than offer some sharp comments about your fellow Republicans. I really do think we started to see that these would be the rules for debates. They would take the top ten people in the national polls at the Fox News debate is what we're talking about here.

And then the claws came out. People are trying to make a name for themselves and I think that's what you're seeing in terms of all that criticism of Rand Paul. Of course, some of it is substantive as well. Rand Paul is very different from many Republicans in this party in terms of where he stands on foreign policy.

COSTELLO: And David I was just going to say that Senator Rand Paul is saying something different from every other Republican candidate. It would be great to hear him on the stage debate the others but he probably won't make it, right?

CHALIAN: I imagine Rand Paul will make the debates. He's been polling pretty significantly almost constantly in that top ten. And in fact, I would envision on the debate stage we're going to get a full airing of this debate because he does stand in sort of a solitary place. And it is a debate that he wants to spark inside the Republican Party.

His supporters are ones that are very, very enthusiastic about this notion about sort of pulling back a little bit in terms of overseas interactions, making sure that we're not spending all our treasure in military conflict overseas.

And so this is a very exciting opportunity for his supporters to hear him bring that to the sort of establishment Republicans who are a little more hawkish on foreign policy.

COSTELLO: Got you.

Ok. So let's talk about the Democratic side for just a second.

So Martin O'Malley is going to announce Sara on Saturday? Why Saturday?

[10:35:01] MURRAY: Why not Saturday? I mean --

COSTELLO: Why not Friday at 5:00?

MURRAY: -- you have to get in this race at some point. I think Martin O'Malley is kind of coming in. He's going to try to make a splash with his announcement. It remains to be seen if he will be able to get any traction no matter when he announces.

I think there are definitely people who are looking for an alternative to Hillary Clinton but very few people know who Martin O'Malley is. They might know he was the governor of Maryland. But that's basically it. That's as far as he's got right now. So I do think he has a really steep hill to climb just to get people to even think about him as a potential alternative to Hillary Clinton.

COSTELLO: Ok. So let's talk about Bernie Sanders for just a second -- David.

40 years ago he wrote an essay that includes sexual rape fantasies. He talked about women on their knees and women fantasizing about gang rape. So Sanders spokesperson did respond and said quote, "This was a dumb attempt at dark satire in an alternative publication intended to attack gender stereotypes in the 1970s." What do you make of this?

CHALIAN: And the spokesman will not say it was dumb then and it's dumb now and they realize it's a mistake and that's he's got to walk away from it. I mean when you have an ideologically pure candidate like Bernie Sanders, you're going to find some writings back in his hay day before he was in public office that may indeed not match with where a presidential candidate would want to be now.

Bernie Sanders is going to have to answer this for himself -- Carol. It's one thing to have a spokesman statement but he is definitely going to have to answer this for himself. And he, I have no doubt will do the same thing and distance himself from it and try to say that he was trying to talk about gender stereotypes but it is just rhetoric that doesn't belong anywhere -- frankly.

COSTELLO: And he was 30 years old -- Sarah. It's not like he wrote it like when he was in high school.

MURRAY: Yes. This is just -- I mean it's a bad look. If you are anyone who's thinking about running for office and you are talking about rape, the only thing you should be saying is rape is horrific and we need to be doing everything we can to try to prevent it from happening and leave it there. That's all we need to hear from you. We don't need to hear anything more.

COSTELLO: Oh, I so agree -- Sarah.

Sarah Murray, David Chalian -- thanks to both of you. I appreciate it.

CHALIAN: Thanks -- Carol.

MURRAY: Thanks.

COSTELLO: It is the buzz of Washington and beyond. The man who was once in line to the White House, second only to the vice president, is now at the center of a mysterious and intriguing federal indictment. Federal officials say the former House Speaker Dennis Hastert lied to the FBI about $3.5 million in cash withdrawals. The sizable fortune, according to investigators, paid as hush money to cover up quote, "past misconduct" but the feds aren't saying what allegedly was being covered up or if the person who was being paid was a man or woman. The indictment does say Hastert has known that person for most of his or her life. We'll keep you posted.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the police department tried to get addicts help instead of a jail sentence. I'll talk with the police chief in charge next.

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[10:41:42] COSTELLO: In Gloucester, Massachusetts the police department is taking a new approach to fighting the war on drugs by treating addicts instead of arresting them. It's called the Angel Program and here's how it works. It applies to people who walk into the police station and request help for opiate addiction. Addicts will be assigned a volunteer angel who will steer them through a treatment program. Any drugs or drug equipment will be seized and marked for destruction.

Let's talk about that. Chief Leonard Campanello of the Gloucester, Massachusetts Police Department joins me this morning. Good morning, sir.

LEONARD CAMPANELLO, GLOUCESTER, MASS. POLICE DEPARTMENT: Good morning -- Carol. Thanks for having me.

COSTELLO: Tell me how you guys came up with this idea.

CAMPANELLO: Well, we held a public forum back in early May in which the community gave us some ideas about what we could be doing better and what kind of position the police department could make some strides in. And you know, typically police departments are historically on the side of strictly law enforcement and in Gloucester we were charged with coming up with some innovative ideas for this addiction.

COSTELLO: And did you do that because you found that it wasn't so effective in winning the war on drugs, I suppose, by arresting drug addicts and putting them in jail?

CAMPANELLO: Well, I think the war on drugs -- you know, the majority of people know that that's lost. And while we still need to focus on the supply side and there's good work being done there, the police can also be involved in the demand side by recognizing addiction as a disease and participating in the conversation about how we reduce demand.

COSTELLO: So would police officers try to convince drug addicts they run into while on the streets to come in and say, look, I need help or would the people just have to do it themselves?

CAMPANELLO: No. I think we all know that an addict is ready for help when they're ready for help. We want to offer the police department as a safe haven for them to come to and not fear arrest or charges that compound their issue already but have a place where we can get them into treatment.

COSTELLO: And so you're going to provide an angel. Who are these angels? CAMPANELLO: The angels are from all walks of life. Some work in

the community in a healthcare capacity. Some are recovering or recovered addicts themselves. Some are people that have lost family members to this horrible disease. And some are simply volunteers who recognize that this is a problem that we can't arrest our way out of.

COSTELLO: Do you think there are enough treatment centers?

CAMPANELLO: We have received incredible support for this program from around the country. And so we have an excellent organization that we're working with Leahy Group that is committed to this program and should we run out of treatment options, we've had offers from 15 states and 20 different facilities that will offer services both to those who have insurance and for those who do not have insurance.

COSTELLO: I can't wait to see how it goes.

Chief Leonard Campanello, thank you so much for joining me this morning. I appreciate it.

CAMPANELLO: Thank you very much.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a stunning admission from accused movie theater shooter James Holmes. Up next, you'll hear from Holmes in his own words about that brutal massacre.

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[10:48:38] COSTELLO: Checking some top stories for you at 48 minutes past. The 31-year-old founder of the notorious Silk Road Web site which was best known for selling drugs will be sentenced today in federal court. Ross William Albrecht was convicted of seven felonies including drug trafficking and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

The observatory at One World Trade Center opens to the public today. They first ticket holders are enjoying the view after a ribbon-cutting ceremony last hour. The observatory plans to offer free admission for 9/11 families and first responders.

Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch is for sale and it can be yours for $100 million. The late musician bought the estate back in 1987 for just under $20 million. It's been renamed since it was sold and is now known by Sycamore Valley Ranch -- boring.

All right. Right now jurors are trying to determine the fate of accused killer James Holmes. The question, whether Holmes was legally insane when he opened fire in a crowded movie theater back in 2012 and killed 12 people.

Before the trial started, the judge ordered a mental evaluation of Holmes. On Thursday the doctor who conducted that evaluation told jurors he concluded Holmes was sane at the time of the shooting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) [10:49:59] DR. WILLIAM HOWARD REID, PSYCHIATRIST: My opinion is

that he did not -- whatever he suffered from it did not prevent him from forming the intent and knowing what he was doing and the consequences of what he was doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Let's get more now from CNN's Ana Cabrera. Good morning.

ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning -- Carol.

Court is just getting back into session today and we're really starting to get to the heart of this case -- the issue of sanity. Now there were actually two different mental evaluations that were ordered by the court before the trial, not on behalf of the prosecution or on behalf of the defense. They were done by two different psychiatrists.

You just heard from Dr. William Reid who performed the second mental evaluation of Holmes. And that happened less than a year ago. And he said it was a total of nine sessions that took about 22 hours. It was all videotaped and jurors have only seen video from their first session.

It was more of an introductory interview between the two where we hear Dr. Reid ask Holmes about his childhood and his upbringing, his relationships with his family members. What he was like as a student. We haven't heard any questions just yet about the shooting itself.

But I want to play a clip where you hear Dr. Reid ask Holmes about a visit by his parents when he was in jail after the shooting and whether it was emotional for him. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Did you get a tear in your eye?

JAMES HOLMES, ON TRIAL FOR THE MOVIE THEATER SHOOTINGS: No.

REID: Do you ever get tears in your eye?

HOLMES: Yes. Sometimes.

REID: What brings tears to your eyes sometimes?

HOLMES: Just regrets.

REID: Regrets. Can you tell me a little more?

HOLMES: Usually it's before I go to sleep.

REID: Regrets about?

HOLMES: About the shooting.

(END VIDEO CLIP) CABRERA: So he says he regrets the shooting. Now, I want to

point out a couple of things about this interview and what we just saw. Important to note that this happened again just last July -- July 30th, 2014 -- that's more than two years after the shooting. Also Dr. Reid told jurors that at the time of that interview he believes Holmes was on some medication, anti-psychotic medication as well as an anti-depressant so his demeanor and how he presented himself wasn't necessarily what it would have been like at the time of the shooting -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Fascinating. Ana Cabrera -- many thanks.

More news after a break.

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[10:56:15] COSTELLO: The clock is ticking down on the National Security Agency's massive data collection program. The law runs out on Sunday. Republican leaders are trying to strike a deal while the Obama administration warns our national security is at risk without it.

Intelligence agencies are working on contingency plans preparing for what appears to be a likely lapse in the data collection program. We'll keep you posted.

And for the second year in a row, the National Spelling Bee has ended in a tie.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you spell this word correctly the Scripps National Spelling will declare you and Vanya co-champions.

Nunatak.

GOKUL VENKATACHALAM, SPELLING BEE CO-CHAMPION: Nunatak. Nunatak. N-U-N-A-T-A-K. Nunatak.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Correct.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Pretty awesome -- right. The teen champion spellers hail from Kansas and Missouri and in addition to the trophy, they will each take home $35,000. Congrats, congrats, congrats.

In the NBA, 6 feet is considered short and gazelle-like speed almost sluggish. So how is it a pint sized toddler towering over the greatest giants in professional sports?

As CNN's Jeanne Moos reports, she may be tottering on the fine line between adorable and annoying.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Steph Curry may be one of the

best shooters in basketball, but when his two-year-old got her shot at the spotlight, Riley Curry dominated the post-game presser, she was on a tear. She didn't just take a curtain call. She wrapped herself up in, not once but three times.

STEPH CURRY, NBA PLAYER: Everybody has to be, you know, determined to -- whatever comes our way.

MOOS: Sometimes he tried to shush her.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Steph, you've always been a very competent person --

STEPH CURRY: Shush.

MOOS: Sometimes she tries to shush him.

STEPH CURRY: And it's going to happen, but --

RILEY CURRY: Be quiet, daddy. Quiet.

MOOS: Riley wasn't quiet about quoting the rapper, Drake.

RILEY CURRY: Way up, I feel blessed.

STEPH CURRY: You don't want to say that.

MOOS: Whatever she said, the Internet swooned.

RILEY CURRY: Dada, help me. Dada, help me.

MOOS: Some of the press would have been happy to help her. Help her right off the stage. This was actually Riley's second post-game presser. After the first one, some journalists braved popular opinion to say it makes asking tough questions difficult.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was counter productive.

COLIN COWHERD, ESPN HOST: It was cute and last night was a little less cute. Do that about 38 more times.

SKIP BAYLESS, ESPN HOST: Riley is adorable, but I've seen enough because I'm trying to listen to what Steph is saying, and I can't even follow it.

CHARLES BARKLEY, FORMER NBA STAR: But I would prefer it personally if they wouldn't bring their kids.

MOOS: It has become a thing for players immortalized online.

But at least not yet immortalized the way young Andrew Giuliani was after he acted up as Rudy was sworn in as Mayor. It became fodder for "SNL".

Sometimes, it's a fine line between cute and annoying, but when Riley gave her wad of gum to an attendant waiting in the wings, that is an image that stuck.

STEPH CURRY: A pretty special moment today.

MOOS: Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Thank you so much for joining me today and happy Friday. I'm Carol Costello.

"AT THIS HOUR" with Berman and Bolduan starts now.

[10:59:58] KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: In one of America's busiest air spaces, someone is aiming a laser at pilots. This happened to four passenger jets already -- a disturbing trend with potentially deadly consequences.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: Once one of the most powerful men in the country now accuse of using hush money to hide something -