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Revealing Details Surface from Cosby Deposition; Surfer Escapes Shark Attack on Live TV; Chattanooga Gunman Investigation; Donald Trump in Trouble?; Nuclear Agreement Goes to Congress; The Hunt for an Incestuous Father; Aired 6:00-7p ET

Aired July 19, 2015 - 18:00   ET

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


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[18:00:46] ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, again. You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with us. I'm Ana Cabrera, in for Poppy Harlow.

And we begin with yet another bombshell in the scandal surrounding comedian Bill Cosby. Including revelations of affairs with young women, that he admits to drug use, pay off in return for silence. All of this coming straight from Cosby himself. It's including in a 2005 deposition that was first obtained by "The New York Times" and later by CNN, and it stems from a civil lawsuit filed by one of his accusers, Andrea Constand.

Now Constand is one of dozens of women who have now publicly accused Cosby of sexual assault over the past several decades. She eventually settled in this case. CNN has reached out to Cosby's publicist who said at this time they have no comment.

CNN's Jean Casarez has been going through this deposition, is joining me here now with more.

Jean, it's 1,000 pages long. What are you learning?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN LEGAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right.

CABRERA: Pull out the most important stuff for us.

CASAREZ: Well, you know, we're still looking because there's so much here but I think the headline is that he admits in 2005 as to five -- at least five women having consensual contact involving drugs and women. But I think one thing that might be surprising to some, maybe not, but he readily admits it, that he was so very scared of his wife in all of this.

We've got something we want to show you from the deposition. He said -- and this is the attorney for the accuser at that point. "So it would be OK with you if the story was printed in any newspaper other than the 'National Enquirer' so long as it wasn't a tabloid? No, Cosby says. "You didn't want that story to come out at all? Isn't that correct?" Exactly, Cosby says. "And why didn't you want that story to come out?" "I didn't want Mrs. Cosby to know about it and I didn't want it to -- I didn't want more embarrassment than had already hit."

He also admits in this that he never went the entire way with women. That he believes sexual intercourse was concerning because somebody could fall in love with him. He didn't want that. It was sexual games, it was playfulness, but he does admit that he paid the women in certain ways. And he was very apparently intent on how to do it so once again his wife wouldn't find out.

Let's look at this. He says, "Describe cash payments for school sent surreptitiously so Mrs. Cosby would not know about them. And when the check was written to, you sent cash to, then there was a check that came from William Morris? Did you then send a check to William Morris? Yes. And did that come from your personal account or from the business? That's from my personal account. So was the purpose of that to disguise -- yes. I have to finish my question. Was that to disguise that you were paying the money to -- yes. And the reason you were doing was preventing -- who are you preventing from knowing that? Mrs. Cosby."

And so, Ana, he says that -- he thought Mrs. Cosby wouldn't know and this is in regard to Andrea Constand also, that if he would pay for school, he was helping someone. That's what Bill Cosby has been all about.

CABRERA: He was a wonderful man in that way. Right.

CASAREZ: Helping people, mentoring people. And he also admits that that's how he would find the women that he wanted to have sex with, by mentoring them and acting like he cared a lot more than he admits in here that he really did.

CABRERA: Again, he was under oath in this deposition and he says some things that are extremely disturbing. But he doesn't actually admit to rape or even sexual assault in any way?

CASAREZ: No crimes at all. And I guess the defense would say he answered the questions with specificity. He answered the question. He didn't lie. He told the honest truth, no matter how bad it was for him.

CABRERA: All right. Jean, stay with me. I want to bring in criminal defense attorney, also our HLN legal analyst Joey Jackson. Also joining us criminologist, behavioral analyst and CNN contributor Casey Jordan.

Joey, to you first. How damaging is it for Cosby to have this new information out now?

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it's entirely compellingly damaging. If there are any other adjectives certainly I could use I'd say those two, Ana. But there's two courts, of course, as we know. There's the court of public opinion and then there's that other court where you actually air cases and they are heard in front of judges and juries.

And so as it relates to the court of public opinion, I believe this further fuels what everybody believes now or is being led to believe by Cosby himself and that is he was taking advantage of people who look up to him.

[18:05:12] And I think it's further troubling in the court of public opinion because of the disparate really positions you're in. Whenever you have someone, whether it's a mentor-mentee relationship, a student-teacher relationship, it's not equal. And so certainly you look up to people and you certainly as a result of that want and believe that they are well meaning and then you further introduce the issue of drugs, Quaaludes, that have been introduced to the process and it's damming as to how he could even do this or contemplate doing it.

And then, Ana, of course, there's the other court we discussed which is the actual judicial court with judges and juries. And I just think, based upon statute of limitations issues, from a civil perspective, that is suits that relate to money damages or from a criminal perspective that is holding him accountable and being prosecuted and, you know, really affecting his liberty, I think those statute of limitations, to the extent that they're gone, he's largely immune at this point from prosecution.

Last point, Ana, and that is of course we know that there's a pending defamation claim and that's joined by three different women. We know that there is, of course, the other claim by Miss Huff in California. But even still with the defamation claims, I think I'm doubtful as to whether they would succeed for a variety of reasons. Defamation really is to affect your reputation. Did it impair your reputation?

I think we could all agree that the person with the reputation problem is him. People now, Ana, are largely believing that the victims who came out, their stories have a lot of merit.

CABRERA: Right. Right.

And, Casey, last hour I spoke to Cosby accuser Barbara Bowman. And I want you to read her quote for how she described Cosby, calling him a classic narcissistic psychopath behavior and what this deposition she says revealed. What do you think?

CASEY JORDAN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, I would agree. And if you read the information from the deposition -- and it is over 1,000 pages -- but even the snippets that have been pulled out by the "New York Times" are jaw-dropping. He -- it isn't even that he's owning it, he's just jocular and dismissive and unapologetic. As you read it, you go, how could he be so clueless?

This is a little bit beyond he said-she said. He's admitting he got Quaaludes and gave them to women like he would buy them a drink. This was just a normal thing for him to drug women, doesn't -- don't all men do that? He bragged that he's really good at reading body language. And if it wasn't consensual, of course he would know. These women didn't seem to be leaving his room upset or anything like that.

So it's the cluelessness of which he almost owns everything, without denying it. He never admits to rape because, in his mind, it's not.

CABRERA: So you think he believes what he's saying?

JORDAN: That is the most fascinating part of it. It's almost like she's self-inculcated his -- in this very, very kind of misogynous, women are just these mindless sheep that need me, they need mentoring, this idea that when Miss Constand complained, she told her mother, her mother confronted Cosby and said she doesn't want to talk to you and I can't believe you would do that to a young woman. He was like, well, I think if I paid for her college, everything would be OK.

And then he started sending her checks. And the interesting thing is, he paid her personally. And when he was asked, what if your wife found out that you were sending checks to this young lady to pay for her tuition, he said, well, I would just say, I'm helping her.

CABRERA: I'm helping somebody.

JORDAN: I'm helping her out.

CABRERA: Right.

JORDAN: So the idea that you have sex with somebody, they complained and then you pay them off, to him it's just par for the course.

CABRERA: Jean, does this new information, the deposition, open any legal doors?

CASAREZ: Well, this is sworn testimony, under oath. It was 10 years ago so it's a ways away. But in all the civil cases, I'm sure that the attorneys for the victims are going to want to get this in because they're statements against his interest.

CABRERA: Right.

CASAREZ: Right? Against him. And as far as a criminal case, we know there's one investigation ongoing in Los Angeles. We don't know if there'll be criminal charges.

CABRERA: Right.

CASAREZ: That would be huge, of course. But of course, the prosecutors are reading the thousand pages right now. You can imagine.

CABRERA: Right. Joey, that criminal case that Jean just mentioned, in California, apparently it has allegations connected to 2008. In an incident this woman, Chloe Goins, says happened to her at the Playboy mansion. Does this deposition help her case in a criminal court of law?

JACKSON: Well, here's the issue. In the event that cases brought forth and potentially it could be very helpful because now you're into the area of his prior conduct which could be admitted in court, Ana, under theories of common plan of scheme, intent, purpose, motivation. The question really about that case, however, is whether it gets to

court. Why? Because apparently the allegations concern August 9th, 2008. Cosby's people, number one, say he was never in California at the Playboy mansion, at any party at that time. And number two, there's the question as to whether it's time barred in light of the six-year statute of limitations that exist in California.

[18:10:05]Apparently she went to the police in January 2015, which it would have exceeded that time and so we'll see whether or not there is some other exclusion as to how or if the police and the prosecution would like to move forward on that matter if there's enough evidence to do so.

CABRERA: All right. Joey Jackson, Casey Jordan, Jean Casarez, our thanks to all of you.

And still ahead, a slightly rare scene caught on camera. A shark attacking a surfer. And you'll hear from this surfer who kicked and punched his way to safety. Plus a shark expert will weigh in on the best ways to survive such an attack. That's next.

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CABRERA: Now to a terrifying close call in the waters off South Africa that led to perhaps the most unforgettable video of the day. An Australian surfer lucky to be alive after narrowly escaping a shark attack on live TV.

Take a look at what happens to surf champ Mick Fanning. He is on his board with what's believed to be two sharks suddenly appear in a matter of seconds you can see he gets knocked off his board, goes under the water.

And let's show it to you again in slow motion. Fanning says at one point he punched the shark to try to scare it away. The whole struggle lasted less than 20 seconds. You can imagine it probably felt like an eternity to him. And while Fanning was not hurt, he was understandably shaken up.

Here's what he had to say after being rescued.

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MICK FANNING, PRO SURFER FIGHTS OFF SHARK: I was just sitting there. I just stopped moving. And then I felt something grab my -- like got stuck in my leg. And I, like, instantly just jumped like away and then it just kept coming at my board and I was just like kicking and screaming. And wow.

[18:15:10] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Seen some teeth? Get some teeth?

FANNING: I just saw a fin. I didn't see the -- I was waiting for the teeth to come at me as I was swimming, I was like. I'm happy to not even compete ever again. Like seriously, like to walk away from that, I'm just so stoked. Oh, man.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Well, as a precaution this competition was called off and this area where the competition took place is known for having some of the most shark-infested waters in the entire world.

So let's talk more about this with Joe Romeiro, he's a shark expert and cinematographer for the Discovery Channel's "Shark Weekend" which will air in August.

Joe, it's often, most of us see a shark encounter like this one captured on camera. When you saw that video, what struck you?

JOE ROMEIRO, SHARK EXPERT: Well, what really struck me was that this is a very good example of mistaken identity. It seems like a great white shark came up and saw what appeared to be its natural prey item which are seals and a surf board is much shaped like a seal and the silhouette, came to see what the prey item is and got tangled up with the surfer, and tried to get away from the surfer, the surfer got away from the shark. It was -- it looked like a very exciting encounter indeed.

CABRERA: Oh, my gosh. You could hear his nervousness, his emotion after the event but, yes, he was pretty composed. You just said you thought it was a great white. Why?

ROMEIRO: Well, you see the tail fin come up at one point and it's very identifiable from the dorsal and the tail fin what type of shark it is and it looks to me like a great white shark.

CABRERA: Mick Fanning says he punched the shark in the back. Maybe that was instinct or just a gut reaction. But was that a smart thing to do?

ROMEIRO: It will let the animal know that you are not, you know, a prey item and it will make something retreat. Especially in the back, it would not know what that was. So I think he had a good reaction. He -- you know, he got away from the situation very quickly and the shark testament to the animal, you know, didn't come back for the man. He understood that this was not an actual prey and left the scene quickly.

CABRERA: We're showing some just still snapshots of some of that video. You see that shark fin. That's like everybody's worst nightmare. It's like out of the movie "Jaws." And yes, this type of a shark attack or encounter is so uncommon and we did the research and sharks and attacks are -- your odds of being attacked are one in 11 million. But are surfers, in particular, more vulnerable because of the craft that they use in the water?

ROMEIRO: Surfers are well known to know that sharks occupy those waters and they -- they seem to have a very good symbiotic relationship with the sharks. They know that they are there, they surf because they feel a very strong connection with the ocean, and I think they understand what's going on. So it's something that in South Africa and Australia and all these areas that have seals and other things will -- do understand quite regularly, you know. CABRERA: Right. And other than just staying out of the water, is

there anything people can do to make themselves less vulnerable?

ROMEIRO: Well, in that visibility, the animals are looking up at the silhouettes to judge what something is. If you're on a surf board, it's much shape like a seal. There are a couple appendages hanging off either side. It's easy to see why the shark -- mistook the surfer as something else. But, I mean, really you want to avoid like dusk, dawn, areas where you know fish are really like feeding or you can see sharks in the surface and stuff. But the chances of it are so rare. You have more of a chance of being bitten by another human by a huge amount than you do even running into a shark.

CABRERA: This guy, this surfer lost his leash that's connected to the surf board so the shark must have taken a chunk of that. Are you surprised that Mick Fanning walked away without as much as a scratch?

ROMEIRO: I'm not surprised that the shark's reaction once it figured out what it was. I think that it's definitely an exciting encounter and it got tangled up in the leash, as you said, and either the shark severed it or the leash came off. But once it did, they both separated and got away from each other.

CABRERA: Thank goodness. Joe Romeiro, our thanks to you. We appreciate your expertise on the issue.

ROMEIRO: All right. Thank you so much for having me.

CABRERA: Close call there.

Still ahead, what we are now learning about the troubled life of the man who opened fire and killed five U.S. troops this weekend. The investigation has now turned overseas. That's next.

[18:20:04]

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CABRERA: We're learning new details today about the gunman who killed five service members in Tennessee this week. Jordanian security investigators are now interviewing relatives of Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez in Jordan. He flew there several times in recent years. In fact, just last year was the last time he was known to have traveled there.

Let's go to our Boris Sanchez who's in Chattanooga tonight.

Boris, what do investigators hope to learn about those trips overseas?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ana, a source telling CNN that a close friend of the shooter telling CNN that Abdulazeez was different when he returned from a 2014 trip to Jordan. That's why investigators are really looking closely, questioning his extended family in that country, to see who he met with, who he may have visited and how long he had been in those areas and what his demeanor was like, what may have kind of led him to come back differently after the end of that trip -- Ana.

CABRERA: You know, his family here in the U.S. is now saying he suffered from depression and that he was, quote, "not the son we knew." What else are they saying?

SANCHEZ: Well, first and foremost, they're extending sympathies and condolences to the families of those affected. They mentioned that Abdulazeez was depressed for some time. They also say they are complying with law enforcement, trying to help in any way that they can. This is something that they apparently did not foresee and it's something that caught them off guard.

[18:25:11] CABRERA: Now investigators talked to a friend of Abdulazeez who apparently got a text message from him just hours before the shootings. Tell us more about that.

SANCHEZ: Yes. A source telling CNN that a text message was send from Abdulazeez to a friend. They were having a conversation and the text message was, quote, "Whosever shows enmity to a friend of mine, then I have declared war on him." That is from a holy text attributed to the Prophet Mohammed. But investigators tell us because of the context of the conversation they do not believe that it was a foreshadowing or indicative that something was going to happen.

In other words, it wasn't a warning that it was going to lead to a shooting. They tell us it's just a small piece of a much bigger puzzle to try to figure out why he did this.

CABRERA: Boris, of course, we focus on the gunman in order to learn more about motives, about how this kind of attack can be prevented in the future but we don't want to take attention away from the victims. And I know relatives of the victims gathered for a memorial today. And you had a chance to speak to the mother of Randall Smith, who was the sailor who was shot Thursday, but just died early yesterday. I can only imagine how emotional she must be. How is she coping?

SANCHEZ: She was visibly emotional. And she arrived here at the memorial. She got here at about 1:00 and was crying and -- you could tell she was shaken by the amount of support she had seen.

I got a chance to chat with her. She said the outpouring of support was something she was overwhelmed by, and then when I asked her how the family was coping, she kind of broke down and later on in the day a hearse carrying Randall Smith's body passed through here, she broke down again as well. Obviously very difficult to imagine what her family is going through.

CABRERA: Thoughts with her and all the victims' families tonight.

Boris Sanchez, thanks so much.

And up next, more on the investigation that extends all the way to Jordan. I'll talk with a counterterrorism expert right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [18:30:12] CABRERA: Welcome back. Jordanian security officials are now interviewing the Chattanooga shooter's relatives overseas. Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez visited the Middle East several times, most recently in 2014, and now officials are still investigating the shooting in the death of the five U.S. troops as an act of domestic terrorism.

Former CIA counterterrorism official Philip Mudd, he's joining us live from Memphis tonight.

Phil, how likely is it that Abdulazeez, a devout Muslim, was radicalized when he went overseas?

PHIL MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: I think the chances are pretty high. When you look at situations like this, we have this term we use lone wolf. I don't like the term because in my experience, most individuals like this particularly people who don't appear to have substantial psychological issues, we talked about this fellow might have been depressed and a lot of these cases we see people are actually deranged.

This person went to college, graduated electrical engineering, that term lone wolf suggests that they went through a radicalization process that does not include other people. That is not my experience. I would wager that he spoke with somebody or a group of people, maybe in Jordan. It looks like it was not in Tennessee who led him to believe that this was an appropriate interpretation of Islam. I don't think he did this alone at least ideologically.

CABRERA: It's been several days since the shooting. Are you surprised that we haven't heard a motive yet?

MUDD: Yes. I think there are two things here that surprised me. One is what we just discussed. You would find in these cases because of the sort of advent of the e-mail, of cell phones, we can track somebody's cell phone use over months and years, that the circle of people who might have been aware and who might actually have conspired in an event like this, could be identified fairly quickly. We do not have that circle.

And second, as you're suggesting because people access YouTube videos, because they download material, because they post things on Facebook, you should be able, in contrast even 10 years ago, very quickly determine what the individual's state of mind was. That's why it's so difficult to characterize this as a case of domestic terrorism. Terrorism requires you to determine that someone acted for a political purpose. We don't really know.

CABRERA: We just don't have a lot of answers yet.

MUDD: Yes. Right.

CABRERA: We are learning more about the weapons used. A law enforcement official telling CNN that the shooter obtained one of the guns via the Internet and two others from licensed dealers. So if they were purchased legally, does where they come from make a difference?

MUDD: I think possibly, and you've got to pursue that line if you're investigating. Less because of the acquisition of the weapon than because of the person who provided the weapon might be able to give you some clues about the mind set or motivation of this individual.

My problem with this whole case over the past few days is we keep talking about answers. In my world as a practitioner, an answer means information that you can use potentially to stop the next one. We might be able to determine something had happened in Jordan six months ago but it's starting to look to me like we will never get answers that allow us to prevent this kind of thing.

CABRERA: And when you talk about prevention, there are few signs in this case. Do you believe there's something more intelligence officials could be doing to prevent an attack by someone who's not already on law enforcement radar? For example, some people who travel to specific countries in general, be looked at more closely or is that taking precaution too far?

MUDD: It's not just taking precautions. Too far. If you look at the numbers of people traveling to places of concern, let's take two places that border Syria, Jordan and Turkey. You can try to question those people at the border but if you just take the numbers, they're so high that you can't really get into a serious conversation with people at airports in New York or Washington or Chicago. Just too many of them.

To be blunt, as a practitioner, again, we are diluting ourselves into believing that the incidents of radicalization that occurs across America can be somehow be identified by federal law officers happening to look at Facebook posts or twitter, that is not possible when you're just talking about people who are saying, hey, I'm interested in the Quran, I'm interested in jihad. You're talking about thousands or tens and thousands of people. It's not possible to find them all.

CABRERA: All right. Phil Mudd, we appreciate your insight. Thank you so much for joining us.

MUDD: Thank you.

CABRERA: Coming up next, Donald Trump, he refuses to apologize after slamming John McCain in a way. And just about everyone is saying crosses a line. Has he finally gone too far and could Trump, his brand, take a bigger hit, we'll talk about it right after the break.

[18:29:40]

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CABRERA: A defiant Donald Trump is sounding off about this new controversy surrounding his presidential campaign. Today he defended a comment he made yesterday, that Arizona Senator John McCain is only a war hero because he was captured during the Vietnam War.

Now take a listen to what Trump told ABC's Martha Raddatz just this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTHA RADDATZ, ABC NEWS ANCHOR: Do you owe John McCain an apology?