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Democratic Candidates Answer Tough Questions at Town Hall; Trump/Cruz in Dead Heat in Iowa Poll; Zika Virus Reaches U.S. Soil; Obama Changes Rules on Solitary Confinement After Teen Suicide. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired January 26, 2016 - 14:30   ET

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


[14:30:00] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: How do you think she handled that?

JOHN AVLON, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, THE DAILY BEAST: Look, I think she was fired up. I think she tried to put it in context. There's a risk of condemnation when you say, you're probably too young to remember some of the fights I've been through. But I think it really accentuated one of her great strengths, a toughness born of decades of fight. She has liberal credentials going back decades. I think she also showed passion. That's been one of the problems. She's so instinctively about governing and not campaigning. But it succeeded in delivering that response.

BALDWIN: We can argue another day. Bernie Sanders, it's been slow, steady climb for him. He got a little emotional. Talking about how well he's done, the enthusiasm he's elicited, comparing himself to what we saw in Obama in '08. Obama in '08 ran a campaign which is really going to stay in the history books. Do I think in this campaign we're going to match that? I would love to see us do that. Frankly, I don't think we can what Obama did in '08 is extraordinary. Honest answer.

AVLON: It's charmingly honest. I mean, you know, Bernie gets a lot of credit just for being authentic. That's disarming when you see that in politicians. That is the gold standard for an Iowa insurgency. It is tough to hit that note. The challenge both of them has, as Hillary Clinton said the other night, quoting Mario Cuomo, Chris Cuomo's father, "You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose." She's presenting herself as the prose candidate, someone ready to govern. That he's all about the poetry and the enthusiasm but it can't convert to a general election win, let alone, uniting in governing the nation. That's the ultimate argument between them. It's being held substantively and civilly.

BALDWIN: John Avlon, thank you.

And, Brian Stelter, let me bring you in, our senior media correspondent and host of "Reliable Sources."

To you, the upcoming debate, the Republican debate --

(CROSSTALK)

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT & CNN HOST, RELIABLE SOURCES: Yeah, from the Democrat to Republican debate.

BALDWIN: Right. And Donald Trump has taken to Instagram and asked what of his --

(CROSSTALK)

STELTER: Instagram, Facebook Twitter, he says, "Should I go to the GOP debate? This is just maybe example number 1,000 of how Trump is one of a kind. He attacked Megyn Kelly. Maybe we can play about what he said about Megyn Kelly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE & CEO, TRUMP ORGANIZATION: Megyn Kelly's really biased against me. She knows that. I know that. Everybody knows that. Do you really think she can be fair at a debate?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STELTER: So that's the question he's asking his fans. He also has a Twitter poll, saying, "Should I go to the debate at all?" He's objecting the Megyn Kelly because Megan's going to be a moderator of the debate on Thursday. There's no way FOX will take her off that stage. The question is, is Trump going to get up on that stage? I think the conventional wisdom is, yes, of course, he's going to the debate. He does need to be reluctant to go.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: A little drama maybe?

STELTER: A lot of drama. He's building up anticipation for the debate. I'm sure FOX appreciates that.

But there's the element of maybe not wanting to take a risk and step up on that stage Thursday night. So it's interesting he's engaging his followers in this way.

(CROSSTALK)

STELTER: I just heard from FOX while we're in this segment, FOX is basically saying to Trump "grow up." I think we can put up what the message says. It's like a mocking tongue-in-cheek statement. It says, "We've learned from a secret back channel that the ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president. A nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the cabinet with his own Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings."

This is one of the biggest news organizations in the country making fun of Donald Trump, the GOP front runner.

BALDWIN: This is a presidential election --

(LAUGHTER) -- and this is happening.

STELTER: We'll see if he's there on Thursday. What do you think, will he show up?

BALDWIN: I think he wants you to tune in and find out.

(LAUGHTER)

He knows TV. He knows ratings.

STELTER: He does, doesn't he?

BALDWIN: I think he does. I think he does.

Stelter, thank you so much.

STELTER: Sure.

BALDWIN: Don't forget to watch Brian Stelter, "Reliable Sources," Sunday mornings, 11:00, here on CNN.

Coming up next, the attack ads. Are they effective? Are they true? We'll break down what Iowans are seeing six days before they vote, before they caucus.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:38:14] BALDWIN: A new Iowa poll shows Donald Trump and Ted Cruz locked in a virtual dead heat. Trump leads Cruz, 31 to 29 percent in this latest Quinnipiac University poll. And with just six days to go, the attack ads are starting to roll.

Cruz and two of the super PACs backing him put out ads using Trump's own words to attack him. Here you go.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I mean, hey, I lived in New York City and Manhattan all my life. My views are a little bit different than if I lived in Iowa.

ANNOUNCER: They are different, like on abortion.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Would a President Trump ban partial birth abortion.

TRUMP: Well, I am pro choice in either respect.

ANNOUNCER: What does Trump think about Iowa?

TRUMP: How stupid are the people of Iowa?

ANNOUNCER: Donald Trump, New York values, not ours.

TRUMP: My views are a little bit different than if I lived in Iowa.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Let's talk about some of these ads with Steve Deace, a syndicated talk show radio host in Iowa, who has officially endorsed Cruz.

Nice to see you, sir. Welcome.

STEVE DEACE, SYNDICATED TALK RADIO SHOW HOST & HAS ENDORSED TED CRUZ: Thank you for having me.

BALDWIN: You've got it.

Part of what we pulled from the vault from 1999, from a "Meet the Press" interview. Do you think, Steve, it's fair to pull something Trump said 17 years ago to attack him when we all know he stated his position on abortion, for example, has changed?

DEACE: I think it's fair because it's in total line with what he is saying right now. He was named Planned Parenthood's favorite Republican last fall for being the only Republican in this race to come out opposed to defunding it when the controversy over those videos came out. He's the only other candidate not named Bernie Sanders to be for a single-payer government-funded, taxpayer-funded health care, and on and on and on. And his positions really haven't changed. He's the same New York liberal now that he was. That's why he gave Rahm Emanuel $50,000 to get him elected in Chicago.

[14:40:19] BALDWIN: Just talked to a Trump adviser. He would obviously disagree and say this is ridiculous they're pulling these, you know, sound bites from nearly two decades ago. That said, you're on the ground there in Iowa. Here we are, 2016. Do you think these ads really resonate? I mean, how effective do you truly think they are?

DEACE: I mean, it depends. There's some ads trying to say in Iowa Ted Cruz isn't a real conservative. He's the only guy in this race who has a 100 percent score from the heritage foundation. He has 97 percent from conservative review which is the second highest score of any Republican in the Senate. So people aren't going to buy that. What we haven't seen in this race, a lot of these other wimpy Republicans like Bush and others trying to attack Trump because, oh, he's not nice and he's crude. Of course he is. He's a reality TV star. What people really want to know is, where's he at on the issues and is this guy going to defend conservative principles if we elect him. Ted Cruz is the first candidate to attack Trump from the right for the issues. That is something we haven't seen yet, and why I think it bears watching.

BALDWIN: Ted Cruz also says that if Trump wins Iowa, "he will be unstoppable." His words. Do you agree?

DEACE: I think that's possible. I think if he wins Iowa, I think he'll probably name the score in New Hampshire. I know he thinks he has a strong campaign in South Carolina as well. So really, for this caucus in six days, this is what conservatives need to be thinking about, Brooke. Which revolution do they want to fight, Trump's French revolution, which is crude, which is power to the people, power to the mob, and really is unpredictable, or do you want to fight the American Revolution, which is liberty by the rule of law that our rights come from God, the sorts of things that Ted Cruz stands for. That's what I would urge all my fellow conservatives in Iowa to be thinking about these last six days.

BALDWIN: Steve Deace, radio talk show host there in Iowa, with your opinion, thank you so much.

DEACE: Thank you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, a new warning to pregnant women. A virus being called unprecedented. It's now hit the United States. We'll talk to Dr. Sanjay Gupta. What does this mean for you?

Also, the president puts an end to what doctors calls a damaging punishment. His new order on prison solitary confinement for juveniles, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:46:56] BALDWIN: U.S. health officials are keeping a close eye on the Zika Virus. It's this mosquito-borne virus that can cause birth defects and brain damage in babies. It's also been linked to another virus that can cause paralysis. It's spreading across South America, parts of Mexico. According to the CDC, there are about 20 cases right here on U.S. soil. Those patients got this virus while traveling in Brazil and other affected areas, then brought it back here to the states. Now there are fears about how extensively it could spread.

Let's go to our CNN chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, with more on this Zika Virus.

It's apparently contained to those travelers who were sick when they were away, came back to the states. And now it spread more. How far spread?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, keep in mind, what we're talking about, a virus that is still -- it's present in many cases around the world, 23 countries where we know that it's there. The people who have it in the United States that have come back have contracted it over there and then brought it back. So it hasn't necessarily spread within the United States.

BALDWIN: Got it.

GUPTA: It's not spreading among mosquitoes in the United States. But that's the concern. That's what people have talked about with other viruses. They talk about it with this now as well.

BALDWIN: Who is most at risk?

GUPTA: It's really people who are living in these areas, these 23 countries, where we know Zika Virus is present. What happens is a mosquito will bite somebody who has the infection and then go bite somebody else. Keep in mine, it's not the mosquitoes themselves, it's mosquitoes acting as the vector. There are a lot of talks about women who are pregnant, as I'm sure you've heard, because there's relationship between women who get this infection during the first trimester of pregnancy and developing, you know, babies who have some sort of birth detective, birth disorder. It's known as Microcephaly, which basically means a small head. In Brazil, for example, this happens sometimes. Have about 100, 140 babies born this way in 2014. In 2015, 4,000 babies were born this way. So this gives you an idea of the scope and the context here -- Brooke?

BALDWIN: OK, but, you know, perspective, it's not spreading, as you point out, in the United States. I know the CDC has their eye on it.

Sanjay, thank you very much.

GUPTA: Thank you.

[14:49:18] BALDWIN: A new endorsement for Ted Cruz. Former Republican candidate, former Texas governor, Rick Perry, now backing the junior Senator. He'll join us live for his take on the race for the White House.

Also, depression, psychotic behavior, suicidal thoughts, just some of the problems prisoners face while sitting in small cells alone in solitary confinement. President Obama now moving to stop the practice for some people behind bars. We'll explain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Just want to remind you of one young man's personal story, one of many behind President Obama's announcement today that he will ban solitary confinement for juveniles in all federal prisons. In making this announcement and writing about it in "The Washington Post," the president, in the very first line, recounts the story of this teenager, Kalief Browder, who was tossed into New York's infamous Rikers Island Prison, charged with stealing a backpack. The charges were eventually dropped but not before this young man spent three years in Rikers, much of that time in solitary confinement. He was in high school when he went to Rikers. He never went to trial. Never, ever convicted of a crime. One day, he's up and released. No explanation. No apology.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KALIEF BROWDER, JAILED IN RIKERS ISLAND PRISON: They just said, oh, case dismissed. Don't worry about nothing. Like, what do you mean don't worry about nothing? You just took over three years of my life. I didn't get to go to prom, graduation, nothing. Those are three years. I'm never going to get those years back, never.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Kalief Browder took his own life last June.

A week after his death, I spoke with his brothers about the young man, Kalief had been before his arrest and what happened when he was behind bars. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[14:55:13] BALDWIN: He goes into Rikers having no idea he would spend so many years in there, especially in solitary. Kamal, you visited him.

KAMAL BROWDER, BROTHER OF KALIEF: Yes.

BALDWIN: I was reading this phenomenal "New Yorker" article where it talked about the night of February 8, 2012, his 640th day in Rikers. He said to himself, I can't take this anymore, I give up. He tried to take his life at Rikers. Did you notice a decline in his personality, depression, despair? What point did you notice that?

BROWDER: I noticed that when he was in there for, like, two, going on two years. He used to tell me how the guards used to starve him and how he used to beg for food but they wouldn't give it to him. And when they gave it to him, they gave him like half-eaten portions like somebody already dug into it. It was horrible.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Two years of solitary confinement, beatings that were captured on surveillance video. This happened to a high school student arrested, again, for taking a backpack, which charges were eventually dropped.

Let me bring in CNN political commentator, Van Jones, who was a special advisor to President Obama. He is the co-founder of Cut 50. It's a bipartisan campaign to reduce the prison population.

You, my friend, are very passionate about criminal justice reform. We've talked about this in the past. But to know the president did this today, it's huge.

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR & CO-FOUNDER, CUT 50: It's huge. I can't tell you. I'm so proud of this president. He's taken on a lot of tough issues. No issue more important than this. When you put somebody in solitary confinement, the old myth is these people are super violent. You have to put them in this special situation. Turns out that after about a week, people start literally going crazy. Think about being on a long flight. How antsy you get. How -- imagine that never ends. And it's a week, it's a month, it's a year. I know a man who did a total of seven years in solitary confinement. He came out and he was able to turn his life around. But many people can't come back. That young man who took his life never even saw a trial. So you've got people who are suffering in this way. This president is now saying this is horrible, but listen, George Will, the conservative writer, said a couple years ago, this is torture in America. The Eighth Amendment being violated in America. Amnesty International says this is torture. So this is something that we can do. Here's the great news about it. When you stop putting people in solitary confinement, as you saw in Colorado, as we saw in New Mexico, guess what?

BALDWIN: Results are down. JONES: The violence in the prison goes down and rehabilitation goes

up. So there's no justification for this horrible abuse. I'm proud of this president.

BALDWIN: The president said, in America, we believe in redemption. He wrote in his opinion piece, "The United States is a nation of second chances but the experience of solitary confinement too often under cuts that second chance."

What else. I mean, this is your issue. What else needs to be done?

JONES: Yeah. The president is doing all he can do. Congress needs to step up. There's legislation both in the Senate and the House to move forward a comprehensive fix for our federal system. The federal system is only 10 percent of all the people locked up. Let's not forget, the United States is now the number-one incarcerator in the world. We lock up more people than China here in the land of the free, the land of the brave, many of them for petty offenses, stuff that people are doing right now on college campuses. But our college students, they don't go to prison. But poor people, African- Americans, they wind up going to prison for these petty offenses and it ruins their lives.

BALDWIN: What about this? The president has also been focused on trying to put in place programs that help ex-offenders reintegrate. Such a challenge.

JONES: Yeah.

BALDWIN: I've talked to folks who have been convicted of crimes. They can't get jobs.

JONES: It's very hard. There's something now called the Second Chances Act and other things that are moving forward.

The one thing I want to point out to everybody who's watching this. Just because somebody did something in their past, none of us want to be judged by the worst thing that we ever did. We all have done stuff that's not good. When you got somebody, when they come home, sometimes they're not allowed to vote, they're not allowed to get an apartment, they're not allowed to apply for certain jobs, they're not allowed to get a student loan. We're not giving them a second chance. Conservative Christians and I have stood together. Newt Gingrich and I have stood together. Koch Industries has come out and said it's not America if you don't give people a second chance.

BALDWIN: Redemption.

JONES: If you can hire somebody, give them that second chance. You watch, people who are hiring people -- Richard Branson said some of his best employees were formally incarcerated, because they want to make a difference, they want that second chance.

BALDWIN: Van Jones, thank you.

JONES: Thank you. Thank you.

[15:00:11] BALDWIN: All right, here we go. Hour two. You're watching CNN.