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The Situation Room

Town: We Don't Want Bomb Suspect's Body; DNA Proves Castro Fathered Victim's Child; Michelle Knight Leaves Hospital; Political Firestorm Over Benghazi; Obama, Clinton And Benghazi's Fallout; IRS Denies Political Motive In "Mistakes"; Crew Plans Spacewalk To Fix Leak

Aired May 10, 2013 - 18:00   ET

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

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, new developments in the Cleveland kidnappings. What investigators have learned from suspect Ariel Castro's DNA.

Obama administration e-mails raise new questions about Benghazi, and the political firestorm heats up.

And an extraordinary survival story, a young woman is pulled alive from a collapsed building after more than two weeks.

Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. Wolf Blitzer is off today. I'm Jake Tapper, and you're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

We'll start with a twist in the Boston bombing case that has a small town hundreds of miles away suddenly being seen in a very unwelcome spotlight. We now know the body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev rejected by cemeteries throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and beyond.

Well, that body has been buried in Muslim graveyard in Doswell, Virginia, population 1,800. It's about 80 miles south of Washington, D.C., but people there say they don't want the Boston bombing suspect's remains in their town. We'll talk to the chairman of the county board in a moment.

But first, CNN Crime and Justice correspondent Joe Johns, who is in Doswell, Virginia. Joe, what are you hearing?

JOE JOHNS, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, the body is laid to rest here, but this is not where the story ends by any stretch of the imagination. Tamerlan Tsarnaev is laid to rest in a tiny Islamic cemetery not far from here. I'm in Bowling Green, Virginia. That body is laid to rest in an unmarked grave.

So far, there's no sign indicating the name of Tamerlan Tsarnaev that was buried yesterday, brought here with the help of a woman from Richmond, Virginia, who said it was her Christian duty to lend assistance in the situation. But it's very clear right now that the county leaders didn't like it at all. They didn't know about it and neither did the residents. Listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FLOYD THOMAS, CAROLINE COUNTY, VIRGINIA, BOARD OF SUPERVISORS: We don't want the county to be remembered as the resting place of the remains for someone who committed a terrible crime. I'm sure that if no laws were broken again, there's nothing we can do. However, if there were, we would -- I think we would -- we would try to undo what has been done.

RHONDA RICHARDSON, RESIDENT: He killed Americans on American soil. Therefore, he shouldn't be buried here. I believe he should have been sent back where his mother is.

THOMAS RICHARDSON, RESIDENT: If they did it legal, there's nothing we can do about it. But if they didn't do it legal, dig him up and drop him in the ocean.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: Islamic leaders here are saying they do not condone the actions of Tamerlan Tsarnaev by any stretch of the imagination, however, they say they are adhering to religious principles in returning the body to the earth. And they say whatever he did is between him and God -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Joe Johns, thanks so much. Floyd Thomas joins me on the phone now. He's the chairman of the Board of Supervisors of Caroline County, which includes Doswell. You heard him in Joe's piece there.

Mr. Thomas, thanks so much for joining us. What is your reaction to the news that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the man accused in the Boston terrorist attacks, was buried in your county in Virginia? What fallout do you fear?

THOMAS (via telephone): Well, Jake, first of all, we were not consulted. We had no knowledge before this happened and most of all, the county did not provide any permission for this to happen. It was basically done without our knowledge. What we did when we found out was try to confirm.

We actually had the sheriff's office still trying to confirm that this was actually the case. I know it's been reported, but we're still trying to get full confirmation. We are trying to make sure or ensure that this interment was done legally.

TAPPER: Why would you need to be alerted? It's private property. They buried a body. Why would you need to be notified?

THOMAS: It is. It is. We would be notified to obviously make preparations for the obvious fallout that's happening now. During our press conference, the sheriff expressed his concern of public safety. This is probably going to be a public safety issue. As you reported, Doswell is a small town. Our entire county is only 30,000 people. So we would have been -- or would have preferred to have been in a position to prepare a little bit better. TAPPER: You have expressed concern that your town in Caroline County might become known for having the remains of Tamerlan Tsarnaev in that graveyard in your property, in your larger county. But the only reason a lot of Americans are hearing about Caroline County for the first time is because you're objecting to it.

THOMAS: Well, let's take a step back, first. This is not the first time the -- secretariat was raced at the Caroline State Fair. The negative reports that are coming out and the concerns of the citizens in the county are what we look for first and what we try to protect.

TAPPER: Bad guys get buried all the time. Virginia put to death somebody in January. I believe his body went back to where he was from Massachusetts. How are counties supposed to supervise whether or not bad guys be buried in their midst? What are we supposed to do with the bodies?

THOMAS: Well, you're exactly right. You're exactly right. I'm sure there are bad people buried somewhere in Caroline. But what you just said was that they went back to where they were, and there are no ties to Caroline County for this particular individual.

TAPPER: Are you equipped to protect this cemetery if it becomes a target for vandalism, or for protests? If it becomes a security issue, is Caroline County ready, do you have the means?

THOMAS: Those are exactly the situations that we are worried about, and wish we would have known. It is a private cemetery. We will, the sheriff's office will enforce trespassing, and try to make sure, you know, things are taken care of. There's no harm comes to the residents or people there. You know, we're equipped as we can be. But it's really -- any services required by the sheriff's office regarding this private property will more than likely be the responsibility of the private property owners.

TAPPER: All right, Caroline County Virginia Board of Supervisor Chair Floyd Thomas, thanks so much. Really appreciate your time. Have a good weekend.

THOMAS: Thank you, sir.

TAPPER: Now to Cleveland and DNA confirmation of one of the multiple horrors Ariel Castro is accused of inflicting upon the three women he's charged with holding captive for a decade. CNN national correspondent Susan Candiotti is in Cleveland. Susan, what is the latest?

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, one of the main things we learned today is information that probably won't come as a surprise, Jake, to most of us, and that is, there has been a DNA match, a preliminary one, to prove that the young child, the 6-year- old daughter of Amanda Berry is in fact the daughter of Ariel Castro, the man charged in this case.

The prosecutor -- the attorney general, rather, of the State of Ohio released those preliminary results today, proving in effect that he fathered this little girl while her mother was in captivity. And remember, he has been charged with three counts of rape and four counts of kidnapping, including that little girl.

But they're not done yet with that part of the investigation. They did run his DNA up against any other unsolved crimes in the State of Ohio, didn't find any match there. However, they are continuing to make that run of all unsolved cases in the entire FBI's DNA data base. It is called "Codis", throughout the United States, to see whether it's possible there might be a match between Ariel Castro and any other unsolved case -- Jake.

TAPPER: Susan, turning from the suspect in this vile, vile crime, to these brave young women, the survivors, what is the latest on them? How are they doing? One of them was released from the hospital today. Tell us the latest on them.

CANDIOTTI: That's right. That's Michelle Knight. She is the eldest of all of them. She's only 32 years old, but the statement issued -- released on her behalf said that she is in good spirits. She's been released from the hospital. She's very thankful for all of the support that she has been receiving and that she, like the others, really wants her privacy most of all at this time.

Now, I was speaking just a little while ago with a source very close to this investigation, who told me they will not reveal where Michelle Knight is, only to say that she is, quote, "in a very safe place," and that she is very comfortable.

We ran into her grandmother and some of her siblings today, but other than to say that she was in good spirits and feeling good about being out of the hospital, they didn't have too much to say also to protect her privacy. Not surprisingly, Jake.

TAPPER: All right, our thoughts and prayers are with them, as I'm sure from the nation is with them.

Up next, the political firestorm over the Benghazi terror attack heats up with Obama administration e-mails now adding fuel to the fire.

And I'll ask the deputy chief of Cleveland police why one of those missing women was removed from an FBI data base, just months after she disappeared back in 2003.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE SITUATION ROOM. In what's become a political firestorm, the Obama administration today treated reporters to talking points about talking points. What we didn't get were clear answers about who watered down the official explanation of September's terrorist attack on the sufficient post in Benghazi, Libya.

Thanks to newly public e-mail traffic, we know the explanation changed a dozen times, mentions of possible al Qaeda involvement were taken out of these talking points so are references to CIA security warnings. Now was that done intentionally to prevent political damage to President Obama? His spokesman says, no.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAY CARNEY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Did the White House change the intelligence community's assessment of what happened? Did the White House tell the intelligence community say there were demonstrations? And the underreported fact of all the revelations today is that these documents bear out what we said all along. The answer is no. The answer is no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: The answer is no, says Jay Carney. Let's bring in CNN foreign affairs reporter, Elise Labott. Elise, how is the State Department responding to all of this because there is something of a disconnect between what the White House was doing at the time and what the State Department was doing at the time?

ELISE LABOTT, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS REPORTER: That's right, Jake. Well, the State Department, officials familiar with this inner agency process are saying, what Nuland was trying to do is raise two concerns about the CIA's early drafts of those talking points.

First of all, Nuland was saying that these talking points go far further than even Nuland was allowed to go at the briefing. And she said, listen, we all agreed to this investigation. We all agreed to let it play out. Everybody has to be on the same page. So that's the first thing.

And then she thought that the CIA was trying to do an end run using congressional members of its intel committees to kind of exonerate itself at the State Department's expense by suggesting that the State Department ignored these warnings about the security situation. Let's take a listen to a little exchange at the State Department briefing today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATRICK VENTRELL, ACTING STATE DEPARTMENT DEPUTY SPOKESMAN: Again, excerpts of various e-mails have been taken.

LABOTT: Do you feel that if we were able to read the e-mails in their entirety, they would show some kind of context that we would understand?

VENTRELL: That's only one piece of the discussion of this. So when you take them and snippets of them, it can be taken out of context.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LABOTT: Taken out of context. So I went on to push Patrick Ventrell, the deputy spokesman, that the administration should release these e- mails. And Jake, I think the whole State Department and supporters of Nuland hope that the White House will release them. Because officials say that they will show that there was no cover-up. That she was trying to get everybody on the same page. TAPPER: Except that she was arguing that what would happen if this paragraph that talked about all the warnings towards the State Department, about what was going on in Libya against western interests throughout 2012, that she was worried that it would cause members of Congress to beat up the State Department. That was her concern and that's a political concern, just on its face. No?

LABOTT: It's a political concern. And Jake, you know how these inner agency e-mails back and forth, every agency is trying to protect itself, cover its butt, so to speak, and make sure its equities are protected. Nuland felt the CIA was trying to throw the State Department under the bus a little bit and was trying to make sure that didn't happen.

Those warnings in these early drafts of the talking points, I might add, that the CIA suggested that they had warned about a looming threat, a growing al Qaeda threat in Benghazi. CIA has never publicly acknowledged those warnings.

TAPPER: Except also, Elise, we know now there have been investigations, that many of the State Department employees on the ground in Libya were also worried about increasingly violent situations in the country, and asking for security to either come to Libya, or be allowed to stay in Libya.

So it wasn't the State Department in this case trying to protect the State Department employees, it was the State Department trying to protect the senior State Department leadership who refused to give those lower-level people the security that they wanted, right?

LABOTT: And that's right. And that's one of the things that Greg Hicks was saying in his testimony earlier this week. That they felt that this independent review board had kind of let some senior officials off the hook who made those ultimate -- those security decisions. So it's a little bit of trying to cover your butt, it's a little bit of trying to keep everybody on the same page.

And I think that at the same time, one of the major unanswered questions is, where did this protest come from? The State Department never said that there was a protest. Always maintained it was a terrorist attack. The CIA had always said so as well. So who came up with this idea of the protest? Was it a loose piece of intelligence thread that they just went with? Nobody really knows the answer to that question -- Jake.

TAPPER: Thanks, Elise. Let's talk about the political repercussions for President Obama and Hillary Clinton, and bring in CNN's chief political analyst, Gloria Borger. Gloria, walk us through this. What's the context for this controversy?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it's political. I mean, let's go back to last fall. You're in the heat of a political campaign in September. The attack on Benghazi occurs and Mitt Romney has made some mistakes in how he talks about Benghazi. And I think if you're in the administration, you'd rather let Romney's mistakes get played out rather than details about whether this was or was not a terror attack.

You have these talking points that are being edited, Jake, to go to members of Congress who want to go on television, and talk about this, members of Congress from the Intelligence Committee. That is before they were even used by Ambassador Rice. So today, Jay Carney says, you know what, Republicans have chosen to politicize this.

But I would argue that it's very legitimate to ask the question of whether this administration, in the middle of a campaign, having had this terror attack, was somehow concerned about being accused of dropping the ball, Jake, or being blamed in one way or another for not seeing the warning signs about what occurred in Benghazi so completely political time of the year, right, the middle of the campaign.

TAPPER: So Gloria, we only have about a minute left, but tell us where you think this is all going now? Where does this head?

BORGER: Well, I think it's going to head to more congressional investigations. There have been some calls for select committee, which would be a bipartisan select committee, like for example Iran contra was. The "Wall Street Journal" today endorsed that idea. I believe Congress' job is oversight, Jake.

They ought to be able to do their job. They ought to be able to try to make this a bipartisan investigation, to get to the bottom of it. Largely not only for the political answers here, but also, they don't want this to occur again. And if for no other reason, they ought to do that, and do their job.

TAPPER: That's right. I think it's fair to say that one of the biggest gifts that the White House has been given in all of this is that so many of the players that are asking for questions are very partisan Republicans.

BORGER: That's right.

TAPPER: And it's not the statements of the Republican Party, more the attack dog types that allows the White House to dismiss what is a legitimate controversy as just politics.

BORGER: Right. But if there are questions about whether the State Department and CIA had infighting in the middle of something that was awful that had been occurring on the ground, whether there are questions whether there should have been more air support given at the time, I mean, these are issues that the internal investigation looked at. But I think it's also -- it also makes sense for Congress to take a look at it in a larger context.

TAPPER: Gloria Borger, thank you very much.

BORGER: Sure.

TAPPER: And on that point you just made, when the diplomats in Benghazi were attacked, the U.S. military did not come to the rescue. They say they were not able to. Coming up, we have an exclusive look at how the Marines are making sure that they will be ready next time. And also coming up next, the IRS embarrasses the White House by admitting a mistake.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: The devastating explosion of a Texas fertilizer plant is now at the center of a criminal investigation. Lisa Sylvester has more on that, and some of the day's other top stories -- Lisa.

LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, there, Jake. Well, the investigation will be done by local authorities and Texas Rangers. The April 17th fire and explosion killed 14 people and damaged homes and schools in a little town near Waco. Also today, federal authorities charged one of the town's first responders with possession of a destructive device. There's no indication it's connected to that plant explosion.

Both Republicans and civil libertarians are furious after the Internal Revenue Service today admitted making mistakes in the way it treated conservative groups. Even though the IRS said politics played no part in its handling of the group's application for the tax exempt status, the ACLU calls the news as troubling as it gets. Republicans want a government-wide investigation.

And astronauts aboard the International Space Station are getting ready to check out a coolant leak affecting their power supply. It's causing little white flakes that you might see there -- there you see it drifting through. Two U.S. space walkers will go outside tomorrow. NASA says the leak does not threaten the crew's safety -- Jake.

TAPPER: Thanks, Lisa.

Up next, an exclusive interview with the daughter of Cleveland kidnapping suspect, Ariel Castro. She uses words like, vile, and demonic, to describe him and his alleged crimes. That's coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Happening now, her father accused of monstrous crimes. Ariel Castro's daughter talks exclusively to CNN.

Also, we're with U.S. Marines training to prevent the next Benghazi. That's another CNN exclusive.

Plus, more than 1,000 people killed, but one woman miraculously survived and was rescued. Sixteen days in the rubble of a collapsed building. Now back safe home.

Wolf Blitzer is off today. I'm Jake Tapper. And you're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

Cleveland police say they took Michelle Knight's name off the FBI's National Crime Information Center Database in November 2003, when they could not find a parent or a guardian to confirm that she was still missing. Police say that's standard procedure. But they also claim they were still checking up on the case as recently as November of last year.

I talked about that, and more, with the deputy chief of Cleveland's police, Ed Tomba.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: Sir, can you explain the decision to remove Michelle Knight from that FBI database?

ED TOMBA, DEPUTY CHIEF OF CLEVELAND POLICE: That was a policy decision that was made earlier. Since then, our policies have changed. They've been updated. And that would no longer happen. But since we could not contact a family member for verification, and the results of her age, she was taken out of that database.

TAPPER: According to the "Cleveland Plain Dealer," your department's policy at the time of her disappearance stated that an officer must go and see that a missing person has been found before taking the person off the list. Then inform the FBI within two hours for removal from the database.

I want to play some sound from a neighbor of Ariel Castro and have you respond to that, if that sound is ready.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ISRAEL LUGO JR., NEIGHBOR: They went to Ariel's house, knocked on the porch, on the door, like 20 good hard times. There was no response. So they walked into the driveway and looked all around. They couldn't see nothing, so they got back in the car and went up on their way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: So neighbors are saying that they did make complaints. There were things that were suspicious at that house. The department has said no neighbors have ever called police with a tip on Castro's home. Is it the position of the Cleveland Police Department that all these neighbors that are making these comments, that they're not telling the truth?

TOMBA: Well, that's not our position. I can tell you that is the truth. We have searched and searched all of our computer-aided dispatch for any assignments to that -- to that house, and any other reason the police were dispatched there. The police did not respond to that location.

There were other incidents where neighbors and people throughout the neighborhood have said things. Those have all been investigated. And they are not true.

TAPPER: One other argument being made in Cleveland, as you know, there's a history of accusations that the Cleveland Police Department does not take as seriously as it should the complaints and the concerns of people in low-income neighborhoods. Nearly 37 percent of people in Castro's ZIP code live under the poverty line. How does your department respond to reports that suggest that police officers don't respond as diligently as when there are calls for more affluent areas? Is there any cause for concern there at all?

TOMBA: No, I can tell you that I've been a member of this division for 28 years. And that the members of the Division of Police take all the calls very serious. And we provide a service to our community.

Obviously in law enforcement, there is a -- at times there can be a perception. But the members of the Second District are very involved in this community. We have a commander out here that's very, very involved with the community. If you ask the community organizers, the council people, the neighbors, they will tell you that they're very, very involved.

From the time that these young girls went missing, I was involved with Gina DeJesus' disappearance early on. And we were just reviewing some of our older case files as to what took place, and the amount of staff hours, the amount of resources that were put in initially, early on in this investigation, to locate Gina was -- was just amazing. The work that the men and women did. A lot of the men and women are now part of our command staff that worked early on on this.

So I can tell you that the men and women of the Division of Police are committed to the whole community as a whole, no matter where they live. Low-income, or any other parts of the city, we're committed to serve the citizens of the city of Cleveland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: That was the deputy chief of Cleveland police, Ed Tomba.

Relatives of suspect Ariel Castro are speaking out. They're as horrified as the rest of the world, they say, at the crimes he's accused of committing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LILLIAN RODRIGUEZ, ARIEL CASTRO'S MOM (through translator): I have a sick son who has done something serious. I'm suffering very much.

I ask for forgiveness from those mothers and those girls forgive me. I suffer the pain they suffered. I'm suffering for my son's pain. My son is sick, and I have nothing to do with what my son did.

MARIA CASTRO MONTES, ARIEL CASTRO'S COUSIN: Shame does not begin to cover -- I don't know what he feels. I don't know how he can feel. Obviously, this is a man that didn't feel, who apparently had no heart.

ARLENE CASTRO, ARIEL CASTRO'S DAUGHTER: I'm really disappointed, embarrassed. Mainly devastated about this whole situation. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What would you say to your nephew if you could talk to him? What would you want to know?

JULIO CASTRO, ARIEL CASTRO'S UNCLE: What can I say? Shame on you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: Another of Ariel Castro's daughters is speaking out at length, and exclusively to CNN. She calls her father evil, vile, and says after his alleged crimes, he's now dead to her. She sat down with CNN's Laurie Segall for a powerful interview.

Laurie, what else did Ariel Castro's daughter have to say?

LAURIE SEGALL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, she called him vile and evil. But we should note that she also said she was very close with him. Closer than many of his other daughters.

This home here on Seymour Avenue, she actually came to this home, where these women were held captive, and she had no idea. She was here a couple months ago. They had dinner and she often came. She wrote on his Facebook wall, "I love you, Daddy." So this came as a shock, and she had to wrap her head around it. But she had a message. Listen to what she had to say to me, Jake.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANGIE GREGG, ARIEL CASTRO'S DAUGHTER: All these weird things that I've noticed over the years, like about, you know, how he kept his house locked down so tight, certain areas, and, you know, how if we'd be out at my grandma's having dinner, he would disappear, you know, for an hour or so, and then come back. And there would be no explanation where he went. Everything's making sense now. It's all adding up.

And I'm -- I'm disgusted. I'm horrified. My father's actions are not a reflection of everyone in the family. They're definitely not a reflection of myself, or my children. We don't have monster in our blood.

SEGALL: You look at your dad now, you would call him a monster?

GREGG: Yes. Yes. There will be no visits. There will be no phone calls. He's dead to me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SEGALL: Again, you know, Jake, you hear those words, "He's dead to me," "monster blood," I mean, she sat down -- she actually sat down yesterday and had to tell her children, because she's a mother, what their grandfather had done. She said there were tears. She's lucky that her youngest son didn't understand the gravity of the horrific events that took place right behind me -- Jake.

TAPPER: And she saw a picture of Amanda Berry's daughter, right? SEGALL: She absolutely did. I asked her about this. I said, "Did you see a picture of a 6-year-old?" Because a lot of people were wondering, you know, was Ariel related to this girl? What was that relation? She said there were signs. Listen to what she said, Jake.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREGG: He showed me a picture that was in his cell phone, randomly, and he said, "Look at this cute little girl." It was a face shot.

And I said, "She's cute. Who is that?" You know.

And he said, "This is my girlfriend's child."

And I said, "Dad, that girl looks like Emily." Emily's my younger sister.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SEGALL: And now today, the news that it was, in fact, conceived by Ariel, this means that this is a blood relative of Angie. And I asked her, Jake, I said, "If this is the case, would you want to see her? What would your message be?"

And she said she's got love in her heart. And her heart goes out to these women. And she said if they -- if they're able to heal, she would love to see this little girl -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Laurie Segall, a remarkable interview in a horrific situation. Thank you so much.

SEGALL: Thank you.

TAPPER: Most missing person cases do not have happy endings. Anderson Cooper looks at the frightening number of missing people in America. Don't miss "Vanished," an "ANDERSON COOPER 360" special, tonight at 8 Eastern, only on CNN.

The Marines did not come to the rescue last September in Benghazi. Next, we have an exclusive look at how they're making sure that that does not happen again.

And later, she was trapped in a collapsed building for more than two weeks. Stay with us for an amazing story of survival and rescue.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: With unrest growing in Libya, U.S. Marines have put on standby in case they need to go there from Spain to evacuate U.S. personnel. That, of course, is exactly what did not happen last September when the U.S. mission in Benghazi was attacked.

In a CNN exclusive, Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr spent time with Marines training to prevent the next Benghazi -- Barbara. BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Jake. Well, you know, it's the State Department that actually assigns Marines to protect embassies and diplomatic compounds. The Marines were not at Benghazi. They weren't assigned there by the State Department. But this time the Marines are getting ready for whatever may come next.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STARR (voice-over): CNN is here for an exclusive inside look at Marines training...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fire.

STARR: ... to guard U.S. embassies around the world. The mission? Protect diplomats against attack. A mission more crucial since those four Americans were killed on September 11 in Benghazi, Libya.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ready, strike! Ready, strike!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You go ahead and do the three strikes.

STARR: Now it's my turn on the mat.

GUNNERY SGT. DANIEL HABER, U.S. MARINE CORPS: You're putting your -- you feel your whole body weight.

I'm going into it. I'm going to go ahead and wrap up your arm because I want to control your arm. And I grab right above the elbow at the tricep, because now I have your arm controlled. So if you try to pull away, I've got -- I've got your arm now.

STARR: Marines stand guard in 137 countries. Since Benghazi, where the State Department did not have Marines assigned, there are changes. The current 1,200-strong Marine force will nearly double. There will be more Marines at embassies with higher threat levels. And 100 Marine guards are now in a special unit able to deploy on a moment's notice.

COL. MICHAEL D. ROBINSON, U.S. MARINE CORPS: What we're doing now is putting more Marines out there, and also providing a force that can go in and reinforce embassies or consulates.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Deep breath. Close your eyes. O.C., O.C., O.C.

STARR: If rioting occurs, Marines trained to keep going, even IF hit with pepper spray.

(on camera): Do you think you can take down an intruder? Do you take down an attacker?

CPL. HALEY WHISENANT, U.S. MARINE CORPS: Yes, ma'am. We've learned defensive tactics.

STARR: Making these Marines ready for the next Benghazi, if and when it happens.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STARR: For the Marines we're seeing here, they are training to be those elite embassy guards. But as you mentioned, Jake, just a couple of minutes ago, there are also now, post-Benghazi, 500 combat- ready Marines in southern Spain on station ready to go if one of these diplomatic compounds or embassies runs into trouble. That is what they did not have on September 11 in Libya -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Barbara Starr at the Pentagon. Thank you so much.

After more than two weeks of digging, rescue crews had given up hope of finding anyone alive in the debris of that collapsed garment factory in Bangladesh. Today they heard a voice. Stay with us for a remarkable story of courage and survival.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Here's a good news story to end this trying week. An astonishing rescue today. A young woman was pulled to freedom after surviving more than two weeks buried in the rubble of the collapsed garment factory in Bangladesh. CNN's Mary Snow has more on who she is and how doctors say she managed to survive -- Mary.

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jake, this is so amazing. And it's a rescue watched around the world. It's also a rescue no one expected.

The woman who survived is a garment worker, a wife and mother. She was able to attract attention by moving a stick through a hole in the debris. And when a rescue worker got to her, she said, "Please save me."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW (voice-over): Her name is Reshma, and her story is extraordinary. Sixteen days after a building collapsed in Bangladesh that killed at least 1,000 people, rescuers who long gave up hope of finding any signs of life discovered her in the rubble.

Not only did she survive, but she is talking. The 19-year-old woman says she rationed two bottles of water, according to reports, and obtained the water and some dry food thrown into the debris by rescuers after the collapse. There was also an air pocket.

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta says a lack of major injuries also helped save her life.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: There were no crushed bones or broken bones, no deep gashes. That's important, because the energy to heal those wounds can sometimes, you know, take away from your overall survival.

SNOW: The lack of major injuries has also been seen in other remarkable rescues like one after the 2011 earthquake in Turkey when an 18-year-old man survived in the rubble of his crushed apartment complex for four days.

In Haiti, there were a number of rescues called miracles. This man survived in the rubble of a hotel for 11 days.

GUPTA: The body will do a lot to try and survive. It will literally start to digest itself. It's tough to think about. But, you know, your muscle, other sources of calories in the body. They all start to make themselves available. I mean, you hear about people who lose incredible amounts of weight in a situation like this. It's because the body will seek out energy anywhere it can find it.

SNOW: And there was the case in Haiti of Evan Muncie, who was believed to have survived for nearly four weeks in the debris.

GUPTA: The medical doctors, I remember when I was down in Haiti, they were calling them miracles. And, you know, when you think of miracle, you think this is one of most rare things, obviously, that we ever heard of. They are -- every time we hear about this in the medical community, it is a single, you know, usually anecdotal story. They're very, very rare.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: Now the young woman reportedly told doctors she ran out of water and food two days before her rescue. The dark space where she was trapped was said to give her just enough room to sit and stand but not enough room to lie down. Really extraordinary, Jake.

TAPPER: Indeed. Thank you, Mary Snow.

Remember the old Robin Williams movie "Mrs. Doubtfire"? Well, he brought her back to take a jab at one of the Kardashians. Jeanne Moos has the story next.

And if you're looking for something exotic this weekend, tune in to CNN Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern for "ANTHONY BOURDAIN: PARTS UNKNOWN." This week, he's eating his way through Tangier, Morocco.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Comedian Robin Williams picks a fight with one of the Kardashians. That's a pop culture story made for CNN's Jeanne Moos.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was the floral bomb heard around the fashion world. All week people have ragged on Kim Kardashian's dress.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That dress is horrendous.

MOOS: The one she wore to a star-studded gala at New York's Metropolitan Museum.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's too busy. She should really calm down.

MOOS: A dress in which Kim's pregnancy bloomed.

(on camera): I thought you'd be sympathetic. Because you're pregnant. You know, you want to let it all hang out.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. That's not my style.

MOOS (voice-over): Amid all those famous figures, from Beyonce wearing a train to Sarah Jessica wearing a Mohawk head piece, only Kim had the honor of being compared to a couch. Buzzfeed even showed her as if she were a couch. But the decorating digs didn't end there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A little carpet.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A little bit wallpapery.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Like a drape.

MOOS: People made fun of the gloves attached to the sleeves, dubbed gleeves by the Web site Fashionista.

But the cruelest cut came from Robin Williams who tweeted out this split screen of Kim Kardashian and his character, Mrs. Doubtfire. Robin Williams' tweet read, "I think I wore it better."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He did. He certainly did. He did.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Want to go for a dip?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Great. Good. How about you, Mrs. Doubtfire?

ROBIN WILLIAMS, COMEDIAN: Oh, no, dear. I think they've outlawed whaling.

MOOS: This "Us Weekly" cover proves Kim Kardashian isn't shy about showing skin, even though "The New York Post" screamed, "Would Someone Please Tell Kim She's Pregnant?"

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She shouldn't have to, like, cover herself up any other way. Like, she's allowed to look like this if she wants to.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I gained 80 pounds when I was pregnant. We need to lay off. I mean, that -- that's not fair. But it is an atrocious choice.

MOOS: The Givenchy designer who created the choice, Ricardo Tisci, dresses lots of celebs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Work it, Madonna. Work it!

MOOS: From Madonna to Rooney Mara. Tisci told "Women's Wear Daily," "To me, pregnancy is the most beautiful thing in the world. When you celebrate something, you give people flowers. I think she looked amazing."

So come on, ladies. Maybe Kim deserves a pat on the back because her back is probably aching.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's definitely carrying the baby in a lot of places.

MOOS: Jeanne Moos...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I didn't even know what a Kardashian was. I had to ask my friend, "What's a Kardashian? A rug?"

MOOS: ... CNN...

WILLIAMS: Fan-bloody-tastic.

MOOS: ... New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: Remember, you can always follow us on Twitter. Just tweet me, @JakeTapper, or the show, @CNNSitRoom.

That's it for us. "ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts right now.