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Moore's Wife Speaks Out on Allegations as "A Witch Hunt"; Firsthand Look at Horrors of Myanmar Massacre; Obama's WH Photographer Continues to Troll Trump. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired November 13, 2017 - 13:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:31:42] WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: The wife of the Alabama Senate candidate, Roy Moore, is speaking out about the allegations against him. Kayla Moore says the accusations that he pursued teenage girls and initiated sexual conduct with a 14-year-old are a witch hunt. On the Facebook page, Moore says, quote, "After the accusations came out against Judge Moore, his polling numbers did not change, so do you think they will let up? We knew something was coming, just didn't know what next. This is the same Gloria Allred that did the very exact thing trying to dump during his campaign going on two months. They have been on a witch hunt here in our county and state advertising people to step forward with accusations. And we are gathering evidence of money being paid to people who would come forward. Which is part of why we were filing suit. The Washington establishment and the Democrat party will stop at nothing for the campaign. Prayers appreciated."

CNN has attempted to reach out to Roy Moore to comment on it, but have yet to receive a response.

Let's get more insight from the CNN senior political analyst, Mark Preston, and our politics senior writer, Juana Summers.

It's heating up. The next couple of days could be critical.

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANAYST: No question. What is interesting about that statement is the Moore campaign, the Moore family and the supporters are lumping together establishment Republicans here in Washington, D.C. Let me be the first to tell you that establishment Democrats and Republicans don't like each other and do not get along. There's a lot on the line right now, Wolf. The comments that we heard from the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, today are very, very important.

BOLDUAN: He flatly said he must drop out of the race.

JUANA SUMMERS, CNN POLITICAL WRITER: That's right. I spent time in Alabama ahead of the run off with Roy Moore against Luther Strange, backed by Mitch McConnell. The voters that I spoke to are no fans of Mitch McConnell. That statement is incredibly important, I still wonder whether or not voters, if Judge Roy Moore decides to stay in the race, and it's too late to change the ballot, will they still cast a ballot for him with these shocking and awful allegations. BOLDUAN: What's the game plan if he does dropout?

PRESTON: If he does drop out, at that point, it will become a Democrat's because, the way that election law is set up in Alabama, you can't get another name on the ballot. The ballots have gone out. Absentee ballots have gone out. You would likely see a Democratic candidate. We heard Mitch McConnel say they are looking at a write-in candidate. That is very difficult. But what's important --

BOLDUAN: Not impossible.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: Lisa Murkowski, in Alaska, was a write-in after losing the Republican primary.

PRESTON: Absolutely.

BOLDUAN: And she won.

PRESTON: She did win. Two different states. Alaska is much smaller and that her name was strong. Her father had been governor and Senator. Close-knit. Alabama is much more diverse.

Here's what could happen. What if Roy Moore does win? He has to be accepted in the United States Senate. He has to be sworn in. Given the comments we saw from Mitch McConnell saying he believes the women, will he move to have him expelled? If so, you need 67 Senators to agree.

BOLDUAN: You see it the same way, Juana?

SUMMERS: I absolutely do. It will be incumbent. I think every Senator in the GOP will be asked whether or not they can stand shoulder to shoulder with a man who had a woman come out on record saying 14 years old, two years younger than the age of consent in Alabama, that he molested her. Every Senator will have to answer to that.

[11:35:17] BLITZER: When the president comes back to the United States, everyone will be asking him, what do you think. We know his aides are saying, if it's true, we should dropout. We will see what the president has to say.

Guys, thanks very much.

A CNN exclusive report coming up. The harrowing tales of ethnic cleansing in Myanmar are told by those who escaped into neighboring Bangladesh. We will take you there live, next.

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[13:40:04] BLITZER: They are witnesses to a massacre. Rohingya refugees are facing unspeakable horrors as they are being violently being driven from Myanmar. The Rohingya are a religious minority that has been targeted in what the U.N. calls a clear case of ethnic cleansing. The British prime minister released a statement today echoing that same concern.

Our senior international correspondent, Clarissa Ward, is on the border and joining us now.

Clarissa, you had a chance to seek to survivors who shared some of their stories.

And I want to warn the viewers what you are about to see and hear is disturbing.

Tell us what you saw and are hearing, Clarissa.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf. The accounts that we have been hearing from the survivors are some of the most harrowing that I have ever heard. These people said they had been beaten and tortured and raped and killed in an attempt to push them out.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WARD (voice-over): It's just a few hundred yards to safety, but it doesn't take long to see that something has gone very wrong. A woman's limp body is rushed between no man's land and Myanmar, as anxious families wait to see what happened.

(SHOUTING)

WARD: On this days, it's a husband and wife. The crowd said they were shot dead as they try to leave Myanmar.

(SHOUTING)

WARD: They are among more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims who have flooded this border to escape what the United Nations had a text book example of ethnic cleansing.

Each has a tale more harrowing than the next.

Norelle Hox (ph) says he fled a brutal massacre in his village of Tulatoli (ph).

"My sons and daughters were shot on Thursday. I can't find them," he says. There is no one left."

Hox (ph) claims local officials told residents it was safe to remain in the village, but the days later, the Myanmar military poured in and carried out a blood bath.

"Please, someone kill me," he cries.

"This is God's will."

Others who escaped tells a similar story.

Ryahana (ph) says, "The soldiers rounded them up on the river bank and separated the men from the women. We couldn't escape. Many children were shot and fell on their faces," she recalls. "Those lying on the ground were picked up and chopped and thrown into the river."

Cell phone footage given to CNN by two Tulatoli (ph) residents appears to show these three children wash up on the shore, as witnesses cry to God for mercy.

(SHOUTING)

WARD: CNN cannot confirm the authenticity of the video or verify the many accounts.

Access to the state is heavily restricted.

But we wanted to find out more about what happened in Tulatoli (ph). We travelled to a sprawling refugee camp along the border and met this 30-year-old Motez (ph).

She said that Burmese soldiers raped her before setting the house alight with her inside.

But the burns that cover her body only hint at the horror she survived.

(on camera): Describe to me what happened to you. What did you see with your own eyes exactly?

(voice-over): "My boy was just behind me and they hit him with a wooden stick and he collapsed to the ground, dead. His head was split open," she says. "Then they took my other son from my lap and him into the fire."

She managed to escape with her 7-year-old daughter, Razzia. All three of hers were killed.

"Oh, God," she cried. "Why didn't you take me?"

But for the survivors of Tulatoli (ph), there is no justice in this world.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WARD: CNN has reached out to the Myanmar government for some kind of a statement. Wolf, they say they have a very different version of events of what happened. They accuse the residents of Tulatoli (ph) of being involved in insurgent terrorist attacks on the Burmese military. This is the same thing we're also hearing from Myanmar's leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who actually met with President Donald Trump today in Manila. Wolf, it will be interesting to know whether or not he raised the issue of what is happening to these people -- Wolf?

[13:45:05] BLITZER: It's pretty shocking, very shocking, the ethnic cleansing going on. Clarissa, what has the U.S. government said? What has the community done to deal with this crisis?

WARD: The U.S. and several others in the international community have been quite outspoken about their real concerns about what is going on. So far, we have yet to see a real unified support come together across the international community for some kind of a decisive action, not just determining whether Myanmar is carrying out ethnic cleansing, as it appears, but also in terms of dealing with the crisis. And 609,000 Rohingya Muslims here, Wolf, in these camps, another 200,000 expected in the next two weeks. Simply put, it is not a sustainable situation -- Wolf?

BLITZER: It certainly is not. Thanks for bringing this crisis to the world's attention.

Clarissa, doing excellent reporting for us on the scene as she always does. Thank you very much, Clarissa Ward.

Coming up, he turned 75 years old next week. The former Vice President Joe Biden said he is not ruling out a 2020 run for the White House. Will Democrats welcoming him with open arms?

Plus, President Trump bragging that world leaders are rolling out the red carpet like no one who came before him. I will speak live at a former White House photographer for President Obama who has been trolling the current president. Pete Souza is Standing by. He'll join us live.

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[13:51:07] BLITZER: Eight years, nearly two million photographs, and one very unique perspective. The former White House photographer, Pete Souza, captured President Obama in some of the most iconic moments of his two terms. Souza just released a beautiful new book show casing many of those moment, a coffee table book called "Obama: An Intimate Portrait."

He joins us now.

I'm looking through this book. It's a heavy book, Pete.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: You have a lot of pictures in here, and it brings back a lot of memories and I want to get through those pictures in a moment.

But let's talk about what you've been doing since leaving the White House. You spent eight years as the official White House photographer. You've, some say, trolling the president on Instagram when he says something you come back, and you suggest well, maybe it's not necessarily the case. The first week of his presidency, when he signed the travel ban, executive order barring travelers from six Muslim-majority countries from coming to the United States, you posted a picture of President Obama meeting a child refugee. Were you trolling him and are you trolling the current president?

PETE SOUZA, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PHOTOGRAPHER: I am posting public domain photos as a private citizen. And I like to let my Instagram feed speak for itself.

BLITZER: A lot of people are following you on Instagram.

SOUZA: Yes.

BLITZER: More people know about you now than they knew about you during the eight years you were the official White House photographer.

SOUZA: And that part of it is a little unsettling to me.

BOLDUAN: But it's probably true.

Let's talk a little bit. You heard the president say in his overseas trip, he's being received on the red carpet like no other president maybe before. You spent a lot of time during those eight years, international trips with President Obama. What do you think?

SOUZA: I think President Obama was welcomed the same way in Europe and Asia.

BOLDUAN: So you're suggesting --

(CROSSTALK)

SOUZA: I'll leave it at that.

BLITZER: You have some great photographs in here, but what's your favorite of all of those iconic pictures and all of those iconic photographs you took of the then president?

SOUZA: It's kind of like asking, you know, a parent what's your favorite child? It's really hard to decide. And the one on the back cover is one of my favorites, Little Jake from Philadelphia.

BLITZER: We can show that, if you want to do a tight shot. You can see it right there.

Tell us about this picture.

SOUZA: This is Little Jacob, of Philadelphia, who had asked the president and said that his hair looked just like his, and the president bent over and let him touch his hair just like that.

BLITZER: You see the president bent over and the little boy could touch his hair. Is that right?

Why do you like this picture so much, and why did you put it on the back cover of this book?

SOUZA: Because I think it really speaks to two things. One for this young 4-year-old African-American kid, he's touching it the head of the president of the United States who looks just like him, and I think that a lot of African-American kids were able to look at that picture and identify with that moment, but it tells you a lot about President Obama, as well, the fact that at the behest of a 4-year-old kid he would bend over and let him touch his head like that.

BLITZER: It does speak a lot about this president and the impact that he had. What about the clearance, the authorization that you had to release

these pictures, and would he have to say release this, don't release that, I look great in this one?

SOUZA: During the administration we tried to make public authentic pictures. He never looked at the photos before we made them public.

BLITZER: It was almost always your call?

SOUZA: I chose the photograph, and then I would have someone either Josh, Ernest or Robert Gibbs --

(CROSSTALK)

SOUZA: -- look at them first before we released them.

BLITZER: You posted them. Of the TWO million photographs you took, how many were made public?

SOUZA: Oh, gosh. Thousands, probably. I don't even know the number.

[13:55:01] BLITZER: So if people go to the book and if they can go online and see the pictures?

SOUZA: The White House Instagram feed, the White House Flickr account and WhiteHouse.gov during the Obama administration are all now archived.

BLITZER: So the book is entitled "Obama: An Intimate Portrait." Pete Souza, the former chief official White House photographer,

And you have a foreword in there by Barack Obama himself.

SOUZA: Yes.

BLITZER: Pete, thanks for doing this and thanks for your great work over the years?

SOUZA: Thanks for having me.

BLITZER: We'll have more breaking news coming up, including on Roy Moore. Another high-profile Republican Senator now calling on him to leave the race amid these new allegations. Stand by. We'll be right back.

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[13:59:56] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Here we go. Top of the hour. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you very much for being here. You're watching CNN.

We begin with the unequivocal call of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell against the controversial Alabama Senate Candidate Roy Moore." There are no longer any ifs, ands or buts, from the leader of Senate Republicans. Today, McConnell said Moore should drop out --