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CNN NEWSROOM

Family Names Alleged Sex Abuse Victim; Clinton Slams GOP over Voting Restrictions; NSA Expands Overseas Web Spying; American Pharoah Goes for Triple Crown. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired June 5, 2015 - 10:30   ET

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


[10:29:46] TERESA HUIZAR, NATIONAL CHILDREN'S ALLIANCE: Really we have to measure what happens in a sexual abuse case by the trauma of the victims and effect on them. You know, I think people have rightly said that it was important for him to get help and that we need to recognize that youth with sexual behavioral problems can get help and get better while at the same time not at all minimizing the effects on the victims including his siblings.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Teresa Huizar, thanks so much for your insight this morning. I appreciate it.

HUIZAR: Thank you.

COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

A betrayal of trust and accusations of child molestation. A woman comes forward saying her brother, shown here in high school, endured years of sexual abuse by a teacher who would become the Speaker of the House. Dennis Hastert is just days from his first court appearance accused of lying to the FBI about hush money he was paying out.

This woman says she never demanded money nor did her brother who died 20 years ago but she says Dennis Hastert should pay for that abuse that left her brother severely damaged for the rest of his life.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOLENE BURDGE, SISTER OF STEVE REINBOLDT: There are no words to describe what it felt like, you know, it's just like Stevie who had done it. It's going to happen. We got him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Jeff Zeleny is our senior Washington correspondent. Welcome -- Jeff.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Hey -- Carol

COSTELLO: Jeff, I know you covered Speaker Hastert for years as a reporter for the "Chicago Tribune" and then the "New York Times". Are you floored by these latest allegations? ZELENY: Carol I have to say that I am. And I think anyone who

covered Speaker Hastert here in Washington in Congress has been very surprised by this. And the Republicans on Capitol Hill I've spoken to who worked alongside the Speaker for so many years say they just simply can't believe it.

In politics everything always seems to come out. There always is someone running against you and in Hastert's case, in Speaker Hastert's case the Democrats were trying to take back the House for so many years so they would certainly, you know, were look for anything that might have been a problem. There was nothing. So it is very surprising to me that nothing came out when he was the Speaker of the House.

I traveled with him across the country. I interviewed him a lot in Washington. There was no hint of anything amiss here. This is something that I'm guessing he kept inside him. His aides say that they did not know anything about this. I would be surprised if his family knew anything about this. This is something from his past some four decades ago.

COSTELLO: Usually though there are whispers or rumors especially on Capitol Hill. It's like Peyton's Place

ZELENY: There were not any whispers at least that I heard at the time about any of this. I mean one of the reasons was that Speaker Hastert sort of swept into power as an unknown figure. Of course this was all during back in 1998 during those impeachment proceedings. Newt Gingrich was going to be the Speaker of the House. He had to step aside because of problems in his past and Bill Livingston was going to be Speaker of the House. He had to step aside because of problems in his past -- adultery and other things. And then Speaker Hastert was very aptly named the accidental speaker because no one seemed to know very much about him.

So it's so ironic that this is happening now so many years later given how he got to his role in the first place.

COSTELLO: I think -- there are so many sad aspects of this story but his home state of Illinois, he was this big hometown hero. People admired and respected him and now these allegations are coming out and it hurts.

ZELENY: No doubt. I've talked to several of his former advisers, former aides, and supporters and they are just as stunned by these allegations as well. And one of the things -- he sort of left the speakership under a bit of a cloud of questions about how he handled another Congressional scandal. There have been so many scandals and that was involving a Florida Republican Congressman Mark Foley who was accused of inappropriate relations with summer interns and other things and Speaker Hastert was accused of not taking this seriously enough.

So Carol, I'm surprised that this did not come out at that time. There were no hard examples of anything from his past. A few whispers and now people are recalling but nothing that surfaced at that time. So obviously whoever this Individual A is who Speaker Hastert was paying money was finally ready to just come forward in 2010 and that's how this all finally unraveled.

COSTELLO: Jeff Zeleny, thanks so much. I appreciate it.

ZELENY: Thanks -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Hillary Clinton calling out the GOP for fear mongering and she's naming names. Her attack on a couple of likely Republican presidential contenders next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:38:55] COSTELLO: Hillary Clinton comes out swinging. She slams her GOP opponents by name not over foreign policy or the economy but voting rights.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I call on Republicans at all levels of government to stop fear mongering about a phantom epidemic of election fraud and start explaining why they're so scared of letting citizens have their say.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Then Clinton named names.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: Governor Perry is hardly alone his crusade against voting rights. In Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker cut back early voting and signed legislation that would make it harder for college students to vote. In New Jersey, Governor Chris Christie vetoed legislation to extend early voting and in Florida when Jeb Bush was governor, state authorities conducted a deeply flawed purge of voters.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[10:40:00] COSTELLO: Yes. Voting rights are important but why the full-court press now? With me now to talk about that, Jason Johnson, professor of political science at Hiram College; and Larry Sabato director at the University of Virginia center for politics. He's also the author of "The Surge: 2014's Big GOP win and what it means for the next presidential election. Welcome to both of you.

JASON JOHNSON, HIRAM COLLEGE: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning.

LARRY SABATO, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: Hi -- Carol.

COSTELLO: So, Jason, I'll start with you. Why the full-court press now on voting rights?

JOHNSON: Because there's no good Republican response after stumbling several different ways. Hillary Clinton latched on to one issue that Democrats love and Independents can be moved to care about. The voter I.D. laws that had been passed in several states have created tons and tons of problems for young people and for college students and by naming names, Hillary Clinton puts all these Republicans on the defensive.

This is probably one of the smartest moves she's done in weeks.

COSTELLO: Interesting. So Larry, Clinton is right in effect that voter fraud is rare and I'm talking extremely rare. According to the Department of Justice of the 197 million votes cast for federal candidates between 2002 and 2005, just 40 voters were indicted for voter fraud. Of those only 26 cases resulted in convictions or guilty pleas.

So, Larry, is she right to call out the GOP and accuse them of fear mongering?

SABATO: Well, there's the policy issue. You just pointed out the way that she's right on that. But this is obviously political. First, turnabout is fair play. They've all been attacking her. She's decided to go after them. And I think this is the first time she's named some of them.

And second, look, the Clinton campaign knows if she's the nominee, which just about everybody assumes, she's going to have a problem generating an African-American and Hispanic turnout and also turnout among young people to equal that that Barack Obama got in 2008 and 2012. She's got to start now emphasizing issues that matter disproportionately to the young, to Hispanics, to African-American voters and here's a classic case of it.

COSTELLO: So is that why she named these particular GOP candidates, Jason?

JOHNSON: I think she named them because they have states where these kind of laws have come into play. The other thing to remember is this. This is a hugely symbolic issue. Rand Paul, a Republican candidate, has said on more than one occasion, look, guys, we need to back off of this. The optics of trying to keep people from voting aren't good for the Republican Party either who also need to get young voters, who also need to get African-Americans, who also need to eat into the Hispanic vote to be successful.

I think she's got a one-two punch here. It's a very, very good idea. And until these guys can come up with an answer. She's going to be successful with this narrative.

COSTELLO: Larry, you don't seem as excited about this.

SABATO: No. I just think that it's early and you never know what else is going to come to the fore.

JOHNSON: Right.

SABATO: I think that's why she's doing it early, Carol. She's doing it early because this is going to have to be emphasized over and over again if she's going to get the kind of turnout she needs to win in November 2016. It's not going to be as easy as some of the early polls have suggested.

COSTELLO: Larry Sabato, Jason Johnson -- thanks to both of you. I appreciate it.

JOHNSON: Thanks -- much.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, NSA secrets revealed. Why the U.S. quietly ramped up its web spying on Americans.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:47:58] COSTELLO: Just days after Congress reined in the NSA's power to collect your phone calls, a new report says that the agency secretly spied on Internet activity of Americans in the hunt for hackers. Let's bring in CNN's Barbara Starr -- she's at the Pentagon this morning to tell us more. Good morning.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

This all comes from documents from who other than Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor, document shared with the "New York Times" and other organizations. It appears that back in 2012 the NSA got approval from the White House -- pardon me from the Justice Department to begin to monitor these Internet connections coming into the United States. The idea was that they would look for any hacking or malware activity but it was supposed to be tied to foreign government activity.

That's what the NSA does of course as an intelligence collection agency. The problem some people feel is as you do that, you will pick up details about Americans communications on the Internet and you will likely pick up details about criminal hacking originating overseas perhaps coming in to the U.S. That's law enforcement.

That's not what the NSA is supposed to be doing. NSA not supposed to be monitoring Americans. Not entirely clear how much they did pick up. The director of national intelligence defending the program saying in a statement in part and let me quote, these operations play a critical role in protecting U.S. Networks from disruptive and even destructive cyberthreats. As we have seen in the last 24 hours with the latest allegation that China was behind the latest massive hacking attack in the U.S., a lot of concern that these attacks are growing. They are happening more often and very difficult to see how at this point they can be stopped -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Barbara Starr reporting live from the Pentagon. Thank you.

Checking other top stories for you this morning at $9 minutes past at 49 minutes past, President Obama heads to Europe this weekend to try to calm border violence between Ukraine and Russia. He's urging European leaders to extend economic sanctions on Russia in order to discourage President Vladimir Putin's army attacks. Thousands have died since fierce fighting broke out last year between the countries.

[10:50:13] Is it a sense of patriotism or a quest for profit? Either way some senators now want to ban the NFL from using your tax dollars to pay teams to salute and honor our troops. Last month Senator John McCain highlighted $49 million that the army National Guard spent last year despite its own budget shortfalls.

The May jobs report is out this morning and there are signs the economy is picking up. 280,000 jobs were created last month. That's a slight spike from April boosted by increases in construction, health care and retail. But the unemployment rate edged higher to 5.5 percent from 5.4.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, one horse with a shot at history. Could American Pharoah accomplish one of the toughest feats in sports?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:55:19] COSTELLO: Cranes have now uprighted that capsized Chinese cruise ship and lifted it out of the water. Searchers can now enter the cabin for the first time since the ship sank on Monday. More than 350 people are still missing their bodies believed to be trapped inside. 82 people have been confirmed dead.

Take a look at this. That is a massive, massive sinkhole with a police SUV inside of it. This happening miles outside of Denver this morning. The officer was driving when the road just opened up and gave way. Luckily the officer was able to get on the roof of the car and he climbed out and he's OK this morning.

Also in Colorado, a storm chaser staring down a tornado when it suddenly comes right at him. Crazy guy. He wasn't hurt but his truck took a lot of damage. Tornadoes damaged or destroyed several homes yesterday, caused flooding and even brought hail. No reports of injuries.

Let's talk sports now. Will we finally see a Triple crown winner or is another upset in the making? All eyes are on American Pharoah who's going for history tomorrow at the 147th running of the Belmont Stakes.

CNN's Andy Scholes is live at Belmont Park in New York. You are so lucky.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS: That I am. It's been 37 years since we've seen a Triple crown winner. Me and you have never seen it in our lifetimes, right? Last one to do it, Affirm, 1978. It's been so long since we've seen it. But American Pharoah has the chance to make history here tomorrow evening and there's going to be 90,000 fans here in the stands packing this place hoping to see history and hoping to be a part of it.

American Pharoah has a great chance. He's won six races in a row and his trainer Bob Baffert (ph). He says he's confident that he's got a great horse coming in to this. You know, Bob Baffert -- he's been in this position three other times but he's come up short. Here at the Belmont of winning that elusive triple crown but that Baffert says the American Pharoah is the best horse he's ever had. Take a listen.

He wins his races with ease. The Derby he had to work at it and didn't bring his best race. I just really think coming into this race, if it's going to happen for me, this is probably my strongest hand I've ever had --coming up here. So I think that this is the year you better tune in.

SCHOLES: That's right, Carol. And Baffert says just a little while ago at a press converts -- that win or lose American Pharoah in tons of carrots after the race.

COSTELLO: And you'll deserve it. What are that odds that American Pharoah will win?

SCHOLES: Well, he's by far the favorite to win the Belmont Stakes. Right now he's at 3 to 5 favorite. You have to bet $166 to win just $100. The next ones after him not very close. Frosted and materiality have much better odds being 5-1 and 10-1 right now. American Pharoah the odds on favorite to win this race.

That being said, the favorite in the last eight Belmont Stakes have all failed to win. So history not really on American Pharoah's side right now. Wasn't the owner of last year's horse angry because his horse was kind of tired and the other horses were fresh during the Belmont.

SCHOLES: Yes, that's right -- Carol. You know, this is a grueling five weeks if you're trying to win the Triple crown. Three races in five weeks. The thing is that people talk about a lot is horses that don't win the Kentucky Derby. A lot of times, they tick the Preakness in order to arrest and prepare for the Belmont Stakes because it's a mile and a half track which is longer than other two races.

That's what got Steve Coburn the owner of California Chrome so hot last year when his horse didn't win the Triple crown. He called it the coward's way out. Horses should not be allowed to just come in and race in the Belmont Stakes after sitting out Derby and/or the Preakness and I got another stat for you.

I'm throwing a lot at you. The last nine horses to win the Belmont Stakes, either didn't run the Derby and/or the Preakness. So that rest plays into this.

COSTELLO: Ok. So I'm going to put you on the line. Do you think American Pharoah will pull it out and how much are you going to bet, Andy Scholes?

SCHOLES: Well, I'm going to keep that under wraps. I'm definitely going to get a souvenir ticket in case he does win. I'm hoping that this is part of the year. Now we've waited long enough. 37 years is long enough to wait for anything -- right Carol.

COSTELLO: Come on. You're going to bet. Tell us how much you're going to bet. Come on, Andy.

SCHOLES: I said you have to bet 166 to win 100. There's your hint.

COSTELLO: Andy Scholes reporting, live from the Belmont - thanks so much.

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

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: A shocking claim. A woman comes forward to say Denny Hastert --