CNN: Top 10 Scandals and Controversies of 2015

‘They were the people and events that made jaws dropped and forced very public apologies and resignations’

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:
COSTELLO: "They were the people and events that made jaws dropped and forced very public apologies and resignations. CNN's Joe Johns counsel down the top ten scandals and controversies of the year."

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JOHNS (voice-over): "Number ten, most hated. Pharmaceutical company CEO Martin Shkreli tops our list. He jacked the price of a drug to help cancer patients and AIDS patients. He took too long to stop talking."
SHKRELI: "I can see how it looks greedy, but there's a lot of altruistic property to it."
JOHNS (voice-over): "Or tweeting. Trying to make Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton who did not want to hear it. He was indeed for related fraud and resigned before the end of the we're. Number nine, state of denial. 2015 was yet another banner year for Illinois politicians in big trouble. Former House Speaker Dennis hast either got caught up in sexual misconduct and hush money allegations. Former congressman Aaron shock resigned after misusing taxpayer money including to redecorate his office in the style of the Downton Abby TV show, and Rahm Emanuel was on the ropes for his city's handling of police shooting video that show didn't go public until after the mayor got re-elected."
EMANUEL: "I'm responsible. I don't shirk that responsibility." 
JOHNS (voice-over): "Number eight: The year of family values. 
DUGGAR: "This is a story of my family. We're the Duggars." 
JOHNS (voice-over): "Conservative family man and reality TV star Josh Duggarquit the family research council after admitting that while in his teens he monthly tested four of his sisters. Then Duggar popped up when the Ashley Madison hacker started naming names. Though he wasn't the only one. 32 million people buying into the website slogan life is short, have an affair. Number seven, black like me. The story of Rachel Dolezal was hard to watch, but impossible to turn away. President of Spokane's NAACP outed as white by her parents." 
UNKNOWN MALE: "Are you African-American?"
DOLEZAL: "I don't understand the question."
JOHNS (voice-over): "No crime, of course. In a color-blind society, it wouldn't matter, but this is not that America. The telling part was the overheated reaction to Rachel's story that said more about our times than she ever could."
UNKNOWN FEMALE: "I think she's out of her mind, to be quite honest."
UNKNOWN FEMALE: "At first I thought, you know, maybe this is a psychological disorder, but now I'm convinced that she's a con artist." 
JOHNS (voice-over): "Number six, at least they're consistent. The U.S. Secret service, the guys who protect the first family, seem to stay in the spotlight and not always for their heroics. Sometimes it's not even their fault. This year some rocket scientists flew a drone over the white House that crashed on the lawn. What are you supposed to do about that? But then in March two senior agents who had been drinking crashed a car into the white House barricade. So there's that. Number five, journalism's naughty list is anchored this year by former NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams. 
WILLIAMS: "I want to apologize. I said I was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by RPG fire." 
JOHNS (voice-over): "Who somehow managed turn his credibility into a late night comedy routine. Not to be forgotten, rolling stone magazine, which this year had to retract a story by Sabrina Ruben early, who managed take a serious issue of national concern and change the focus with her deeply flawed opus on the alleged sexual assault at the university of Virginia. Number four, no sense of humor. Here's a question. Three top officials of FIFA, the governing body for soccer, is traveling in the car. The police. It's almost not a joke considering so many officials who control the world's most popular sport have been implicated by the have yous department for allegations of bribery, fraud, and money laundering. That joke was so not funny to FIFA that when one of its pr guys told it in public, he quit his job. Number three is speaking of sports scandals we can't forget Tom Brady of the NFL's New England Patriots who faced down allegations that made both a joke and a punch line. Grown men accused of playing with deflated balls." 
BRADY: "Our equipment guys do a great job of breaking the balls in. To me those balls are perfect, and that's what I expect when I show up on the field."
JOHNS (voice-over): "Number two, I'm 'Alice in Wonderland', and I approve this message."
UNKNOWN MALE: "There is a place like no place on Earth. Some say to survive it, you need to be as mad as a hatter." 
JOHNS (voice-over): "When Lewis Carol wrote this fantasy classic, he could not have foreseen the unparalleled political coming from candidates in both parties in the U.S. Presidential race."
CLINTON: "Everything I did was permitted by law and regulation." 
JOHNS (voice-over): "Where being a leader can mean insulting millions --" 
TRUMP: "They're rapists."
CARSON: "I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation." 
JOHNS (voice-over): "Even billions of people."
TRUMP: "Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States."
JOHNS (voice-over): "And the great thing is the general election is still more than ten months away. Finally, number one, policing in the age of candid camera phone. It has dominated the headlines for more than a year separating the vast majority of officers just doing their jobs from those who abuse their power. Nowadays, if the police report says a guy got locked up or beat up or worst, was supposedly resisting arrest, pictures sometimes tell the rest of the story. Joe Johns, CNN, Washington."

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