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Bergdahl Not to Testify at Preliminary Hearing on Desertion Charges; Some Former Employees Not Happy with Carly Fiorina; New Plans for Student Arrested for Homemade Clock; Homeland Security: Pope's Arrival Could Draw Terror Attack; Boston's Baby Doe Identified, 2 Arrested. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired September 18, 2015 - 14:30   ET

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


[14:30:06] TERRY LYLES, PSYCHOLOGIST & AUTHOR: Well, Brooke, I think a couple of things. Thanks for having me back again. We have talked about this off and on for over a year. It's one of those things if our medical records can't follow us to help what's happening so when the Coast Guard somehow did not get the release of those records to the Army, they brought him in, they didn't have a full capture picture of who he was. You have one issue with if there's a mental health issue it needs to follow us to protect not only himself, but others around him and secondly, obviously the administration went out to rescue him and will be left to be seen how that will work out for the administration because he's a deserter. It looks like more and more we talked about over a year ago maybe he is, maybe he's not, but it looks like now he deserted and put everybody at risk in his platoon.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN: How much -- looking ahead, if there is a trial to invoke the insanity defense in military court, how challenging is that?

LYLES: Well, I think it's going to be challenging, very much so. I think there's enough proof that's going to continue to come out with everyone in his platoon that kept saying this guy deserted, he left, we couldn't find him. We spent a lot of time, effort and energy. There could have been more lost lives because they were looking for this guy, Bowe, that just defected. And for him to be captured. If he was captured in this day and age with ISIS, he would have been beheaded already. We live in a little different world than years ago. So he was fortunate enough to live but, unfortunately, we released five Taliban leaders to get him back and it just continues the saga of what are we doing in response to people that are captured and how do we do the right thing as a country.

BALDWIN: As we mentioned, the White House stands by that prisoner swap. Hearing from these members of the platoon, we'll be talking to one next hour who is still frustrated.

Terry Lyles, thank you.

LYLES: Sure.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, Carly Fiorina may have hit a homerun this week at the Reagan Presidential Library, but her former employees, some of them are not at all happy with her. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HALYNA SORENSEN, FORMER EMPLOYEE OF CARLY FIORINA: I invested in my stock. I worked with the company for 37 years.

DONALD TRUMP, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE & CEO, TRUMP ORGANIZATION: And that Lucent? Lucent?

SORENSEN: Yes, Lucent

TRUMP: And headed up by who?

SORENSON: Carly.

TRUMP: That's right.

SORENSEN: Carly.

TRUMP: That was before Hewitt-Packard?

SORENSEN: Before Hewlett-Packard. I was --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So that voice, that woman there, who is speaking out at that event last night in New Hampshire, tells the story about how her life drastically changed for the worse once Carly Fiorina took over a division at this technology company. We'll have her on to tell her side of the story, next, here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:37:13] BALDWIN: Donald Trump getting a little backup in his effort to disparage the business acumen of his Republican rival, Carly Fiorina. During a town hall in New Hampshire, an audience member, who worked at Lucent Technologies when Carly Fiorina was the president there, blasted her former boss. Listen to that exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SORENSEN: I invested in my stock. I worked with the company for 37 years.

DONALD TRUMP, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE & CEO, TRUMP ORGANIZATION: And that Lucent? Lucent?

SORENSEN: Yes, Lucent

TRUMP: And headed up by who?

SORENSON: Carly.

TRUMP: That's right.

SORENSEN: Carly.

TRUMP: That was before Hewitt-Packard?

SORENSEN: Before Hewlett-Packard. I was buying stock to put into my retirement at $87 a share. When I was forced to retire almost 15, 16 years ago, my stock wasn't worth 25 cents. I lost almost half a million dollars. That's what I planned on retiring and I got nothing.

TRUMP: Yeah, you know, the Carly Fiorina thing is sort of amazing because a lot of people don't get it. Because Lucent was a disaster. You know.

SORENSEN: Lucent was the company that she ran prior to Hewlett- Packard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: You heard her voice. Here she is, former Lucent Technologies employee, Halyna Sorenson. And also with me, "CNN Money's" digital correspondent, Paul La Monica.

Wonderful having both of you.

Halyna, let me go to you first.

This is politics, just the timing of all of this. Trump and Fiorina were sparring just 24 hours prior to this town hall in New Hampshire. I do have to ask, were you asked to be there or did you go because you are a Trump supporter and went on your own?

SORENSEN: I'm a Trump supporter, and I did go on my own. I had seen him once before at another rally that they had in Hampton. I thought he was excellent. My husband missed that one and he wanted to go. We had the opportunity to drive up there to Rochester to see him, yes.

BALDWIN: So you went.

By the way, this didn't only affect you. This affected your husband. Take me back, Ed. Tell me what happened when Carly Fiorina became president of your company.

SORENSEN: When she became president, many things changed in the company. Everyone was worried because she had the reputation of cutting back employees and cutting back positions. And that started. With her there, my husband and I, after she had left, we were holding on to our jobs and then our jobs were terminated. We were forced to retire. He was forced to retire in 2001. I was force retired in 2003.

BALDWIN: And how much did you lose? What did you lose from that forced retirement?

[14:39:54] SORENSEN: When we were force retired, my savings that I had in stock -- because I had a lot of stock options when I was working -- was close to $500,000. He had approximately $400,000, which was also lost.

BALDWIN: And so you squarely lay the blame of that loss and that forced retirement on the shoulders of Carly Fiorina. Is that correct?

SORENSEN: Carly Fiorina had also said that when she was the president, she could work that company with one computer.

(CROSSTALK)

SORENSEN: She didn't need the staff that we had. She cut back and cut back and jobs were terminated.

BALDWIN: Halyna, stay with me.

I want to bring in Paul La Monica.

Because, listen, your heart goes out to someone who loses all of that with her husband at the same company. You hear Trump say Lucent was a disaster. It was a disaster? Tell me, was it a disaster? What happened?

PAUL LA MONICA, CNN MONEY DIGITAL CORRESPONDENT: Lucent was a disaster. Trump is telling the truth about that. But it was not the only company of that era and Carly was not the only person in charge. She was the president. There was a CEO above her. But it's an iconic company that was part of AT&T. They ran into trouble. They got greedy during the tech boom in the late '90s. They did this dumb thing of starting to lend money to start ups to buy their equipment. It was called vender financing.

BALDWIN: Which didn't work.

LA MONICA: A huge disaster for the entire industry because it was a stupid idea to lend money to start up companies that would never be able to pay them back. It was incompetence and greed. She definitely deserved some of the blame for that, but she was gone by the time Lucent completely imploded. Now it's part of a French company. They are getting bought by another company, Nokia. They still survive, but sort of barely.

BALDWIN: What about Halyna's point -- and we heard the night before Donald Trump pointing out -- even to this day, positions are being cut at Hewlett-Packard where she went on to be the CEO, and she apparently, according to Halyna, could run the job with just one computer and didn't need all these people. Is that a fair assessment of her reputation?

LA MONICA: A lot of people in the world of finance, the knock on Carly at H.P. was that she rose to the ranks so rapidly at Lucent, on the cover of magazines as the most competent, powerful woman, it got to her head in that she became the epitome of a celebrity CEO, which is ironic because that's what Trump was. Fiorina was the celebrity CEO that might be interested in self-promotion. So I can understand, my heart goes out to those workers who aren't happy with the claims she's making about her business record.

BALDWIN: Halyna, let me end this with the man you do support. You said this was trip number two to see Donald Trump in person speaking. He has resonated tremendously with so many people. I know you said he walks the talk. He's the successful billionaire. But he's also calling some people idiots and losers. I have to ask you. When you close your eyes and picture the commander-in-chief of our country, why do you picture Donald Trump?

SORENSEN: I still picture him as a gentleman. Some of those areas have been softened some since he's been running. I still think he would be an excellent president, in my opinion. He does walk the talk. When he makes a commitment to people, he follows through.

BALDWIN: Halyna Sorensen, thank you so much for joining me.

And Paul La Monica --

LA MONICA: Thank you.

BALDWIN: -- I appreciate it.

Next, this Texas high school student arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school. His teacher thought it was a bomb. He's been contacted by everyone from Facebook to Twitter to the White House. But it's his next move that's making headlines today. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:48:13] BALDWIN: He has an invitation to the White House. But the Muslim teen whose self-made clock police suspected of a fake bomb no longer feels welcome at his school. His father says Ahmed Mohamed will not return to McArthur High School in Irving, Texas.

On Monday, the officer's arrested him on suspicion of a hoax bomb. That charge was dropped but not before officers questioned him for more than an hour without his parents present.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AHMED MOHAMED, STUDENT: I'm the person who built a clock and got in a lot of trouble for it. I built a clock to impress my teacher but when I showed it to her, she thought it was a threat to her. So it was really sad that she took the wrong impression of it and i got arrested for it later that day.

MOHAMED MOHAMED, FATHER OF AHMED: They don't evacuate the building. What happened to my son is something that doesn't look like America.

BALDWIN: Since his arrest, the president has invited him to the White House. And MIT, his dream school, has asked him to visit.

Let's go to CNN's Nick Valencia.

We'll get to that part of the story, but, first, the police chief is defending the school's resource officers, yes?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, he says based on the limited knowledge they had that it was justified. We also attempted to reach out to McArthur High School several times. So far, we have not gotten a response. They would not be commenting based on privacy reasons.

So far, it's just this police chief that's commenting. He was on our new day program early this morning to offer his explanation of what happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[14:50:01] LARRY BOYD, CHIEF, IRVING POLICE DEPARTMENT: There were factors and details to this that, for whatever reason, weren't shared at the time the officers were there initially. As we pursued this investigation further, as you know, we didn't file any charges on him. We dropped those charges because we were able to find out those facts that you're talking about. He did talk to people earlier and presented it, as you just described. So those were the kinds of things, once we're able to get that information, that allowed us to get to the point where we could settle the matter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VALENCIA: Brooke, adding insult to injuries, Ahmed was suspended even after the police determined this device was not a hoax bomb but an alarm clock he invented.

On Wednesday -- this all happened on Monday. By Wednesday, an outpouring of support. You have internship offers from Redditt, from Twitter. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg offered a tour of Facebook in California. And of course --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Is he going to the White House?

VALENCIA: Yes, he's going to the White House as well. He has a trip planned for later next month in the middle of October. We expect him to make his visit there to visit the president -- Brooke?

BALDWIN: There you go.

Nick Valencia, thank you.

VALENCIA: You bet.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, we have more details today in this incredibly tragic case in the Boston area of Baby Doe. This little girl, whose body was found along the Boston Harbor three months ago, she's been identified and there's already not just one but two arrests in this case. A live report from there coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:55:47] BALDWIN: As Catholics and, really, millions of others are anticipating in the United States Pope Francis's arrival, the pope is due to land tomorrow in Cuba. This is the first leg of the nine-day tour of the Caribbean island. And then on to three U.S. cities. He arrives in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, where he's due to address a joint session of Congress. This morning, the pope tweeted, "I asked you to join me in praying for

my trip to Cuba and the United States. I need your prayers."

He tweets this as the secretary of Homeland Security evaluates security on the ground in Philadelphia. Jeh Johnson is there today. And security experts warn the pope's visit makes for an attractive terror target.

Joining me is former New York City homeland security director, Michael Balboni, who oversaw the security in 2002 when Pope Benedict was here.

You know the complexities of this, especially with this pope, who likes to get out and about and shake hands. How do you protect him?

MICHAEL BALBONI, FORMER NEW YORK CITY HOMELAND SECURITY DIRECTOR: The benefit we had in 2008 that we'll have here again is the New York City Police Department is one of the most sophisticated and experienced in the nation. You say the same thing for Washington, D.C., as well.

BALDWIN: You're worried about Philly?

BALBONI: Hopefully, Philly will put all their resources there, but I don't think they have the experience of dealing with these types of numbers. Not that I know of. Here in New York, we had the ability to work seamlessly with the Secret Service, FBI, NYPD. And you saw this great coordination where they looked at threats and looked at the parade routes and what were people going to be able to get next to him.

BALDWIN: But look at him in this crowd. This was just of two years ago when he was in Rio in the middle of the throngs of people who all just want to reach out and touch him. It has to be impossible to know who is in the crowds, who wants to jump in. How do you safeguard him?

BALBONI: It's all layers of protection. You're trying to do a 360- arc of protection. This is a concentration of risk we haven't seen in a long time. 170 world leaders and the pope and president, everybody, what you try to do is use multiple factors. Intelligence-led model of security, which means you have to have information back and forth all the time. That means social media monitoring, looking into the crowd, getting people on camera, trying to follow facial recognition and identify who might be somebody who might be do something bad. There will be thousands of undercover officers.

BALDWIN: What's the biggest difference from all kinds of world leaders in New York? The president has obviously popped through a number of times. What makes the pope different?

BALBONI: You have ISIS having said a couple months ago in their magazine that they want to raise the ISIS flag over the Vatican. So you have that direct connection. In addition, which there's the jubilee for the church coming up in a couple months. So you have some focus on what the churches and ISIS threat. But this is still their major target. And so there's an opportunity to perhaps strike a blow against Christianity and strike a blow against their hated enemy, the United States. BALDWIN: I hope it goes smoothly for everyone involved.

Michael Balboni, thank you so much. Come back next week as the pope is in Washington, Philadelphia, and here in New York City.

Thank you so much. I appreciate your time.

We continue on.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Major developments in the case of Baby Doe, the little girl whose body who was found in Boston three months ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Come on, let's go. Let's go look. Come on, let's go. We haven't' sent he end of this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[14:59:40] BALDWIN: This Facebook video of such a happy time is now linked to this tragedy. This beautiful toddler is Baby Doe. We now have her name. She was Bella Bond. And the news just in, her mother along with her boyfriend are under arrest. You can see -- we saw the facial rendering that was shared among millions of people. Here it is. Really resembles. A phenomenal job of Bella. This image was created by an expert based upon what was left of her small body.