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At This Hour
CNN Gets Rare Look Inside Inmarsat; Newly Released Excerpts from Hillary Clinton's Book; Rove Calls Clinton "Old and Stale."
Aired May 27, 2014 - 11:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Remaining troops will be used for two purposes only, training afghan forces and continued operations against al Qaeda. Any troops remaining in Afghanistan continue on bilateral security agreement between the United States and Afghanistan, something the current president and Hamid Karzai has not done but suspect the new president will. They never did that in Iraq. That never happened. That's why U.S. troops left Iraq.
MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: The president expected to make that announcement at 2:45 from the Rose Garden today.
BERMAN: Other news now, the flight 370 mystery has made British satellite company Inmarsat an almost household name. In the search for flight 370, data pointed searchers to the Southern Indian Ocean and that's all the data they had to work with.
PEREIRA: Given that it's been 81 days with no concrete sign of the plane, critics wonder if Inmarsat's work is accurate. Who are these people in London trying to solve the biggest mystery in aviation?
Our Richard Quest has an exclusive look inside Inmarsat's operation center.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is Inmarsat. The company which for 35 years has been used by ships and planes to keep in touch. We were given exclusive access to the network's operations center.
(on camera): It's here in the satellite control room in London that you see the technology involved and you start to understand how they came to the conclusions. The satellite involved is Inmarsat 3F1, one of 11 satellites in the Inmarsat collection. It's in geo stationary orbit over the Indian Ocean. And it was to this satellite that MH370 sent the signals, the so-called handshakes.
(voice-over): Leading the team here was Mark Dickinson with his colleagues they dived deep into the data.
MARK DICKINSON, VICE PRESIDENT OF OPERATIONS, INMARSAT: There are three types of information that we. Messages from the ground station to the plane and back again that tells you the terminal is switched on and powered up and we have some time information and in addition to that there was some frequency measurements. QUEST: Timings told them the distance between the plane and the satellite enabling them to create the so-called arcs.
DICKINSON: We see how fast the plane can travel.
QUEST: They then factored in the frequency differences. Dickinson's team concluded that MH370 had to have flown south, in the opposite direction. It was a startling conclusion.
(on camera): What did you think when you got the data and you started modeling and you put it in and you suddenly realize where this plane probably went.
DICKINSON: Let's check in. Let's check it again. Because you want to make sure you come to a conclusion like that that you have done the right work. The data is as you understand it to be.
QUEST: Was there a moment of disbelief?
DICKINSON: Messages for six hours after the plane was lost is probably the biggest disbelief in terms of what you have.
QUEST (voice-over): Inmarsat quickly realized the analysis of data from MH370 to the satellite produced an extraordinary result and needed to be tested. So they ran the model against other planes which had been in the sky at the same time on the night and against previous flights of the same aircraft. Time and again they ran the model over dozens of flights and the planes were always found to be exactly where they were supposed to be.
DICKINSON: We don't have a reason why it shouldn't work for this particular flight when it works for the others and it's important that this isn't just Inmarsat activity. There is other people in the investigation, experts helping the investigation team who got the same data. They made their own models up and did the same thing to see if they get the same results and speaking for the teams we get roughly the same answers.
QUEST: The results of all this work led to dozens of search planes and ships being sent to the Southern Indian Ocean where, for weeks, they followed the trail to nowhere.
Inmarsat's calculations have been called into question. The families demanding the raw data.
DICKINSON: I think the data itself stand alone is fairly opaque and you can't draw too much from it. What is more pertinent is to see the messages and important bits of information and that's the job that we've been trying to do and explanation behind how the numbers are used.
QUEST (on camera): You are letting people make judgments on your work. You're not inviting them to redo your work.
DICKINSON: No. Re-do the work requires experts in many, many different fields. QUEST (voice-over): Mark Dickinson recently returned from the rethink team. He knows the entire weight of this search rests on the Inmarsat data.
DICKINSON: I think everyone on the investigation team working with this understand what it means. It means this is data that we have for what's happened for those six or seven hours is important that we get it right and particularly trying for the families and friends of the relatives onboard to make sure that we can help bring this sad incident to a close.
QUEST: The Inmarsat data will guide the search for the foreseeable future. It's all they've got. Without it, there would be no search at all and the men in London are still sure they're right.
Richard Quest, CNN, in Inmarsat, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PEREIRA: Thanks for that look inside, Richard.
Also, top Nigerian military official says he knows now where more than 200 kidnapped girls are but here's the "but." He'll not use force to try to rescue them. Speaking in Nigeria's capital he defended his military's position saying he doesn't want to get the girls killed trying to save them.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALEX BADWEN, AIR MARSHAL, NIGERIA CHIEF OF DEFENSE STAFF: Good news for girls is we know where they are but we cannot tell you. We cannot tell you. Just leave us alone. We're working. We'll get the girls back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PEREIRA: Those girls were kidnapped on April 14th by the Boko Haram terrorist group. The U.S. has been using drones and other assets to help in the search for those missing girls. If you would like to help the girls and girls like those in Nigeria, courageous effort just to get an education, go to our website. CNN.com/impact.
BERMAN: Ahead for us @THISHOUR, brand new excerpts from Hillary Clinton's new book. How she'll deal with issues surrounding her marriage and how she'll deal with issues surrounding Benghazi. We'll try to decode the clues coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PEREIRA: We're learning new details about Hillary Clinton's life and career.
BERMAN: Brand new details and brand new excerpts from her brand new yet to be released book titled "Hard Choices." She talks about all of the choices Americans have to make every day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: We have to decide how to balance the demands of work and family. Caring for a sick child or an aging parent. Figuring out how to pay for college. Finding a good job. And what to do if you lose it. Whether to get married or stay married.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PEREIRA: Clinton is obviously weighing a decision whether or not to run for president in 2016. In the book, she speaks about her long career in politics.
BERMAN: I want to bring in our political commentators now, Sally Kohn and Ana Navarro.
What I would like to do is break this down word by word and analyze exactly --
(CROSSTALK)
PEREIRA: Do they have decoder rings?
BERMAN: This author's note that we were craftily handed today is loaded with lines that could have many meanings.
Ana, that line we just read about families and choices we all make. The decision to get married or stay married. To me that sounded very interesting coming from Secretary Clinton.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: We all know what you're driving at. I think this is a brilliant move by Hillary Clinton. First of all, she's doing what so many other former secretaries of state have done recently. Wrote a book about her years as secretary of state. If she does run for president, this is a terrific chance to have a dress rehearsal of what a book tour will look like and campaign tour will look like to try to shape her own narrative. If she's not running for president, there is no other time like now when there's all this speculation about her running that will cause as much attention to be garnered and many book sales. This is a good time for Hillary Clinton to be doing this. Either way.
PEREIRA: Let's play another little bit of sound. Clinton talks about mistakes she's made in life. Sally, we'll let you respond to this one.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: Along the way I've tried not to make the same mistake twice. To learn, to adapt and pray for wisdom to make better choices in future.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PEREIRA: Mistake, learning. SALLY KOHN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: First of all, obviously the veil running over the entire book is the choice. The choice about whether to run. Right? That is what will drive book sales. Her publishers have to love her. I, however, think this is going to be the most boring book ever in the history of the world. If this excerpt has anything to indicate, it should be called boring choices.
It's dry, right. It's safe. It's dry. It's not the book of someone who feels like they have to really get out in the political environment and fight for it and really give us interesting stuff. So far it seems like she's going to either have a safe after career or she's going to have a very safe run for the White House because she seems like the inevitable candidate. It's moving and inspiring and hopeful. All of those things but it is generally political. So far it seems like a yawner.
BERMAN: I don't think boring choices was one of the titles they considered. The publisher might have had a problem with that.
Ana --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: I got to tell you, it's funny. It's funny that sally would say that because as I was listening to the excerpts, some of what she reads, she has them narrated, people around me say what are you trying to do, get yourself to go to sleep? It sounds cautious and it's very cautious.
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: And also trying to shape her own narrative.
BERMAN: Let's talk about that. Is it too cautious? Does she not say enough for instance on the issue of Benghazi?
Listen to this exert.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: As is usually the case with the benefit of hindsight, I wish we could go back and revisit certain choices but I'm proud of what we accomplished.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Revisit certain choices. That's language she used. Talking about hindsight in dealing with Benghazi. Is that enough from her here on this subject or does she need to dive into this more with less caution as you say?
NAVARRO: I think it depends, John. If she runs, it's definitely not enough. If she's running in large part on her record as secretary of state and the choices she has made. The actions she has taken. The policies she's advocated as secretary of state are going to be fully scrutinized much more so than her shaping her own narrative and her own choices in this book. So if she doesn't run, this may do it. If she does run, there's going to be a lot more explaining to do.
BERMAN: So I can tell you one person I do not think will like this book and that is Karl Rove --
(LAUGHTER)
-- who just called Hillary Clinton old and stale. What does he mean and what does it mean for Mrs. Clinton? We'll discuss that when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PEREIRA: As Hillary Clinton weighs whether or not she'll run for president, there's one man who's got pretty tough words about her. Want you to take a listen to what Republican guru, Karl Rove, has to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KARL ROVE, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: In American politics, there's a sense that you want to be new, that you don't want to be too familiar, you want to be something fresh, you don't want to be something that's old and stale.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PEREIRA: With us once again, our political commentator, Sally Kohn, Ana Navarro.
Ana, I'll start with you.
Old and stale, and wasn't he just saying not too long ago, suggesting that Hillary Clinton had brain damage? Why does he keep hammering this?
NAVARRO: Are you talking to me, Michaela?
PEREIRA: Yes, Ana.
NAVARRO: OK, let's be fair, though, in fairness to Karl Rove, he didn't call her old or stale. He said in politic, you don't want to seem old and stale. I think that's a fair point. We saw that in 2008, Democrats went for hope and change and she was seen as the Washington insider. The truth of the matter is, she has been around federal policy making and shaping the federal policy for well over 20 years. So she's going to have a hard time reinventing herself as fresh and new.
KOHN: I just think this is so funny coming from Karl Rove, right, I mean because the larger tone of his point, we didn't show the -- the larger tone of his point was in politics we like people who are scrappy, who aren't entitled to hold office who don't have things handed to them on a silver platter. What does that make me think of who Karl Rove represented in politics? Oh, right, George W. Bush. The classic example of dynasty politics. Had his entire political career has-beened to him. There was nothing scrappy about him, right? Coming from Karl Rove, this is a little bit laughable.
BERMAN: It doesn't mean though there isn't a point in politics people don't like new things. Look, hope and change. Let's talk about hope and change. This is something Hillary Clinton will have to deal with if she runs for president as she considers it in the months ahead. She's got to attract people who supported Barack Obama and may not have supported her in the primaries. So what does she do to excite the Obama coalition which is a thing? It was a thing in 2008, in 2012.
KOHN: There are a couple of dynamics here if we want to get in on this, on Hillary and her particularly candidacy. At this point, less to do with Hillary and more to do with who runs against her. If Republicans can find a candidate who can speak more than three days without offending half the human population and actually excite voters under the age of 75, then Hillary might have a problem where she can't just rely on her sort of very broad popularity across parties, by the way. She'd actually have to go out and be a little scrappier and prove something. Right now, her strategy is to remain above it all, to kind of be consistent and this kind of leaderful figure, and trust that the other party can't muster someone to have any kind of competition. That's her strategy. I don't see that changing any time soon based on the Republican Party.
BERMAN: Ana, you'll have to go and get your friends to come up with a strategy. Because we've got to talk about "The Sixties" coming up here.
Ana Navarro, Sally Kohn, thanks so much.
PEREIRA: When we come back, an exhibit that's opening as our series about to hit the air. "The Sixties," the decade that changed the world, we'll tell you about it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PEREIRA: Kind of exciting, we're only a couple of days away from a brand-new series here on CNN that will take you back in time, really a time that changed the world. We're talking about "The Sixties."
BERMAN: Earlier this morning, at New York's Grand Central Terminal, Governor Andrew Cuomo cut the ribbon at a special exhibit. It's called "A Look into the Sixties." A collaboration with 11 Smithsonian-affiliated museums.
Our colleague, Kate Bolduan, was at this ceremony. She joins us live.
Kate, they fit 10 years into a single exhibit. How do they do it?
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN NEW DAY CORRESPONDENT: Really easy. No, just kidding, not at all. They packed a lot into this exhibit. I want to give you some of the highlights. Here at grand central terminal is Harold Foster, the director of Smithsonian affiliations.
You were talking about those 11 Smithsonian-affiliated museums that really made this happen. Let's look at why it's so important. One I find very fascinating is the camera that was used in the Nixon/Kennedy debate.
HAROLD FOSTER, DIRECTOR, SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM: The Smithsonian has the chairs that Nixon and Kennedy sat in, so complements that camera very well. The 60s were a period of great change and great promise. This exhibit captures that so well, from the Beatles to the moon landing to the civil rights era.
BOLDUAN: It really shows the extremes. Everything you really see here also shows that television was part of everything that happened in this decade. We talk about the debate. Next, we talk about Mr. Rogers who really embodies the innocence of the decade.
FOSTER: Mr. Rogers was an icon who started in the '60s. We're very honored that the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh donated his clothing to this exhibit. And it speaks of a calmness, the growth of television, and the involvement of children.
BOLDUAN: And juxtapose that calmness to the volatility that was happening in reality. The social change happening all around everyone in this country.
The two parts of this exhibit I want to make sure we get to before we get back to you guys, the stools with the civil rights movement and the bench in the jail Martin Luther King Jr. sat on.
FOSTER: These are important artifacts that symbolize the civil rights movement of the 1960s. The four stools we see here come from the Greensboro Historical Museum. They were at the lunch counter, the Woolworths lunch counter when the four African-American students sat down and requested a cup of coffee and more or less launched the student sit-in movement.
BOLDUAN: The bench Martin Luther King Jr. was sitting on when he wrote the letter from a jail in Birmingham.
FOSTER: A moving artifact. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in jail, for nonviolent protest, writes the doctrine of nonviolence.
BOLDUAN: And it becomes such an iconic document of the civil rights movement.
This is just a couple of the things that you can see here at Grand Central through the rest of this week, all leading up to this premiere of "The Sixties." I got a sneak peek of the episode last night, captivating, really unusual, unique, rarely seen archival footage.
PEREIRA: You guys were great tour guides for us. Thank you so much for a sneak peek. We're going to let people know you can take in "The Sixties" if you didn't live through it yourself.
BERMAN: Like me.
PEREIRA: Like you. It premieres Thursday, 9:00 eastern and pacific. Check it out on CNN. Set your DVR.
BERMAN: Go to our Facebook page, like it immediately. Thanks for joining us at this hour. I'm John Berman.
PEREIRA: I'm Michaela Pereira.
"Legal View" with Ashleigh Banfield starts now.
