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2016 Republican and Democratic Presidential Candidates;; Deadline Over for ISIS Hostages; ISIS Fighting Peshmerga; Aaron Hernandez' Case Decided in Court

Aired January 30, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CN NANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. We begin with a major development in the 2016 presidential race and it's unfolding just minutes from now. At the top of the hour, Mitt Romney will tell his supporters whether he's pushing ahead for a third run for the White House. Now, keep in mind, it was just a few weeks ago that Romney dropped the bombshell that he was even considering another bid. And that news did not sit well with a lot of Republicans.

CNN's Dana Bash joins us from Washington with more. So 11:00 a.m. Eastern is the time? * DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. He's going to be talking to supporters, to donors, giving them a hint on whether or not it's a go or a no go. When I say a go, what I was told is that if it is, that it will be kind of the baby step that we've seen other potential 2016 Republican candidates make. Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, forming a PAC so that he can get the staff, the fund-raising up and going that I don't think anybody thought that he would do for a third time. So, what has he been doing? He's been through his aides collecting what Romney world calls data. Information with phone calls to people on the ground in key states, to important donors or bundlers, the rich guys who know other rich people who raise millions and millions needed to run a presidential campaign. And it's been collecting that data going over it to see whether or not what he says anecdotally is happening, that people are encouraging him to run really matches what is the reality out there.

That's - that's one side, and the other side is the human aspect. The fire in the belly. Does he really want to run? We know he wants to be president. He's made that very clear. And he thinks he would be a good president. But does he want to go through the whole campaign and everything, the grueling aspects of it, what it puts him through, what it puts his family through again, so that's what is being weighed, and what he's decided very, very few people who are very close to Romney know what he's going to say and we will hear about it probably shortly after he tells them on this call.

COSTELLO: All right. Dana Bash, thanks so much. I appreciate it. Now, if Romney does throw his hat into the 2016 ring, he's facing a long list of possible GOP contenders. A lot of GOP chatter is out there. Look at all those GOP heads thinking about running for president. On the Democratic side, well, not so many. Just two. Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. A short list. Let's talk about that angle of the story. I'm joined by chief national correspondent John King. Hi, John.

JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, if you look at that Republican field, we may get Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side. But if you look at that Republican field and thing back to 2012, no offense, but when you saw those early debates, and you saw Herman Caine, and you saw Ron Paul, and you saw Michelle Bachmann, it was very unlikely that any of them were going to be the Republican nominee or were going to be the next president of the United States.

Look at this, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Governor Mitt Romney, if he decides to run. You have got Senator Lindsey Graham. You have got Ted Cruz. Marco Rubio. Rand Paul. Freshman senators. You've got Governor Scott Walker. Maybe Governor John Kasich of Ohio. Maybe Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. Chris Christie of New Jersey, the governor, he's making indications he wants to run. This is a very deep and a very substantial, credible GOP field. And that's part of Governor Romney's decision and that's actually part of the competition Dana was just talking about, Carol.

Romney is making these decisions, he's making his phone calls. He would start with way more infrastructure than any other candidate, even Jeb Bush. However, he's also being told he's losing some of it. Some staffers signing on mostly to Jeb Bush, but some going over to Scott Walker, some thinking about Chris Christie. Bundlers (ph), the people who raise a lot of money out there, they are getting competition for the other. So, as Governor Romney makes this decision, you would have a former nominee in Mitt Romney, maybe running against a member of the Bush dynasty, Jeb Bush, and then Chris Christie. They you'd have three members, three big members of the Republican establishment, right? Then you have got the Tea Party guys. Then you've got the freshmen senators. So, if he runs and even if he doesn't run, you have a remarkable both ideological and generational fight in the Republican primaries about to take shape. Again, as many as two dozen people looking at it. They won't all run. But we're going to have a big field, Carol, and it's going to be amazing.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: It's going to be amazing. I hope you're right. John King, many thanks. So, let's talk more about 2016's potential players and how Romney could fit into that. I want to bring in our political panel, Larry Sabato is the Center for Politics Director at the University of Virginia. Chief political analyst Gloria Borger is here as well as senior digital correspondent Chris Moody. Welcome to you all.

CHRIS MOODY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol.

COSTELLO: So, Gloria, you have talked extensively with Mitt Romney. Why would he want to run for a third term? Is it ego? Is it passion? What is it?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I have asked a lot of people about this in the last couple of weeks including people really close to Mitt Romney. And what they have said over and over again is don't get complicated about this. This is not about Mitt Romney feeling that he needs a do over or avenging his father's loss in the presidential campaign as well as his own. They said don't get complicated. This is about Mitt Romney believing when he looks at the field that he is the best person to be president of the United States and believing as well that he could beat Hillary Clinton. When I spoke with him in September about this and wrote about this for CNN, it wasn't as definitive as it's been in the last couple of weeks.

It was, well, he'll jump in if they need a white knight, if everybody else fails, Mitt Romney would be the white knight. Lately, though, it's been, you know what? He's giving this a serious look. So, now we're at this point this morning where he's looked at all of the metrics that Dana was talking about. And I was talking to a fundraiser this morning who said to me, look, in his heart Mitt Romney is a go. The question is whether he believes that he can raise the money because a lot of those funders have gone to other places and whether he believes that he can gather the staff that he needs. If he thinks he can do it, he will. If he thinks he can't, he won't.

COSTELLO: Well, Larry, you know, we talk - you know, Mitt Romney is talking a lot about metrics, but sometimes metrics even though they may look good, they don't win you the presidency.

LARRY SABATO, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR POLITICS, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: Yeah. Good example of this, Carol, is the fact that the last six national polls that I have seen of the Republican side of the spectrum, Romney is leading. Sometimes in the teens. Sometimes in the 20s. Early polls are very deceptive. And, of course, you know, half of the Western hemisphere seems to be running for the Republican nomination for president. There are so many people in there. Many of them relatively unknown, that it naturally boosts well known candidates like Romney and Bush for that matter, but they're going to have more trouble than they imagined right now.

COSTELLO: And Chris, I suppose it's no accident that Mitt Romney gave a speech in Mississippi, and he was sort of testing the waters with his new thing. You know, he joked about being wealthy, he embraced his Mormon faith. Things that were very different from the last time around.

CHRIS MOODY, CNN SENIOR DIGITAL CORRESPONDENT: Oh yeah, we're certainly seeing a new attempt here. A fresh attempt. But we've seen that before. The Mitt Romney who ran for office in the 90s was a little bit different than the Mitt Romney who ran for governor in the 2000s and then for president a couple of times in later 2000s, and it's going to be difficult, I think, for him after having had several iterations of his candidacy say, OK, this is the authentic Mitt Romney and we saw some reporting over the past week about that that that's really what they're going for. But we also heard, I think, a little bit of laughter in Washington.

Like OK, which one is the authentic one? This one. OK. Well, you know, we'll see about that. He's got a lot to overcome. He's got the infrastructure. That's for sure. Because he's run for president twice but now he has got to win the he hearts and minds of people and convince them that he's the man for the hour.

BORGER: Well, but he just lost his chief Iowa person to Jeb Bush. That was an important piece of infrastructure that just got blown apart. So the staff is migrating to other campaigns. The money is migrating to other campaigns. Does Mitt Romney want to be president? Absolutely. Does he think he should be president? Absolutely.

The question is when he looks at everything that's laid out before him, whether he's going to make that decision to actually say yes.

COSTELLO: OK. So, Larry, I would like to look at this from a historical perspective. Is it smart to run for a third time? Has anyone ever done it?

SABATO: Sure. Ronald Reagan did it. And Ronald Reagan won. And that's what Mitt Romney is thinking about. What he's not thinking about is, say, Adlai Stevenson on the Democratic side who was the party nominee twice in 1952 and 1956 and failed miserably. Absolutely fizzled when he tried for a third nomination in 1960. So, it can go either way. And I would say Mitt Romney has Mt. Everest to climb to get to that third try that produces another nomination.

COSTELLO: OK, well, thanks to all of you. I have to leave it there. Thanks so much. Larry Sabato, Gloria Borger, Chris Moody.

That Romney phone call with his supporters will happen in less than an hour. 11:00 a.m. Eastern. CNN reporters will bring you Mr. Romney's decision live.

Still to come in the "NEWSROOM," - say that we move farther away from that lapsed ISIS deadline. It highlights the danger in negotiating with terrorists in the first place. Jim Sciutto looks at what's at stake next.

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COSTELLO: It's been more than 24 hours since the lapsed ISIS deadline for a prisoner exchange that could free two hostages. The Jordanian government said it would hand over a failed suicide bomber if ISIS would release a captured fighter pilot. That bomber had been discussed earlier as a bargaining chip to free a Japanese hostage. We still have no word on the status of a possible hostage exchange or even if any of the hostages are still alive. As more time passes, the more hope fades that the situation will end with either hostage coming home. Jim Sciutto joins us to talk about the dangers of even meeting terrorists at the bargaining table. Good morning, Jim.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Well, just dead silence over the course of the night. The Japanese spokesman say this morning there's nothing I can tell you. I think that sums it up. There was no update positive or negative. No, still no proof of life of that Jordanian pilot which has been the Jordanian demand even to continue negotiations to take steps forward, but also no bad news, no video released from ISIS or on known ISIS websites showing what everyone fears which would be the killing of the pilot or perhaps, of this Japanese journalist. It's a really frustrating time. I've been in touch with Jordanian officials. I know that through the night on their end they kept a sad, a nervous, a tense vigil, but still no news.

COSTELLO: Do they regret making this all public?

SCIUTTO: I don't think so. I think that it's a difficult situation from the beginning. ISIS has a Jordanian pilot in their hands. Obviously very valuable from the ISIS standpoint and that poor Jordanian pilot in great danger because he's a prize. Whether dead or alive, frankly. So Jordan pushed up against a corner. They have to do something. They have to make every effort to free him. And this is a big offer to free this failed female suicide bomber from 2005, Rishawi. These attacks were devastating in Amman. They struck a wedding there. Dozens of people killed. The only reason she wasn't killed is her vest did not go off. Jordanians say they consider this a prisoner swap between warring states and that because she doesn't have blood on her hands because her bomb did not go off, that makes it a little bit more palatable. But as everybody knows they don't want to be in this position. They don't have good choices here. The worst outcome from their perspective, even worse than having a negotiation with this group would be to have that pilot killed like we've seen so many others in a horrible video of beheading.

COSTELLO: I just talked to Chris Oday (ph) last hour and he said that with ISIS changing its demands with every passing day and allowing deadlines to pass, that it is deliberately stirring things up in Jordan to make it difficult for the government there. Do other experts agree with that?

SCIUTTO: I think that's one read. There's also read - I've spoken to Jordanian officials that this shows the possibility of division with inside ISIS as to what to do. That they are under pressure and they're making tactical decisions rather than strategic decisions. That's plausible as well. You know, they just don't know what to do and they are kind of dragging this out as they go, and there's also the fair question, Carol, you know without that proof of life, what evidence is there that pilot is alive today or was even alive a few days ago? It's just not clear because why wouldn't they give proof of life if the negotiation is serious? It shows the difficulty of trying to negotiate with a group like this and frankly, Carol, you know, they're benefiting from all of this public attention, right? That's what these groups thrive on.

COSTELLO: That's right. Jim Sciutto reporting live for us this morning. Thank you.

ISIS is also making a push deeper into Iraq. Its fighters have launched a new attack on Kirkuk, a major oil producing city in the northern part of that country. But the real goal of the terrorist group may be to pull rival Kurdish troops from Mosul. The Kurdish troops have laid siege to the ISIS stronghold, thanks in part, to the U.S.-led airstrikes. An important U.S. ally is a casualty of that fighting. The brigadier general seen here was the highest ranking commander of the Kurdish Peshmerga troops in Kirkuk. He was killed.

Still to come in the "NEWSROOM," right now day two of the Aaron Hernandez murder trial under way. The prosecution painting the former Patriots player as a cold blooded killer, but the defense says Hernandez was too busy planning his future to plan a murder. We'll talk about that next.

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COSTELLO: A marijuana blunt, a shell casing and a footprint, those are just few of the piece of that evidence in the murder trial of former New England Patriots' player Aaron Hernandez. You're looking at live pictures of the courtroom where day two is now under way. Prosecutors argue Hernandez not only orchestrated the killing of his former friend Odin Lloyd, but tried to cover it up. But Hernandez's defense team says he's as loving father who was busy planning his future, not a murder.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL FEE, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Aaron Hernandez is an innocent man. The evidence will show that Aaron Hernandez did not murder his friend, Odin Lloyd. Nor did he ask or orchestrate anyone else to murder him.

(EV)

COSTELLO: So, let's talk more about this with CNN legal analysts and criminal defense attorney Danny Cevallos. I'm also joined by HLN legal analyst Joey Jackson. Welcome to both of you.

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAN ANALYST: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: So, right now on the stand is a man who worked at the- he works at an office near the industrial park where Odin Lloyd's body was found. Why is his testimony necessary?

JACKSON: Well, remember, you want to, as Danny was saying, coming back, lay the foundation. You want to give the jury the entire picture. When was the body found? What condition was the body in? Did he have any reason or other purpose, that is, the diseased, right, Odin Lloyd for being there. And the answer is, of course, not. But remember, he's not an eyewitness to the particular crime. And that's what the prosecution is lacking. They have to establish. You know, whether he's the murderer.

Now, the good thing for the prosecution is they are proceeding on the theory, Carol, called joint venture liability. What does it mean in English? It means that you don't have to show that Aaron Hernandez pulled the trigger, but merely that he was involved in this joint venture. He was a participant, he was an active participant and that alone, whether he has the gun in his hand or not is enough to convict him of murder.

COSTELLO: Got you. We do expect Odin Lloyd's mother to take the stand very soon and describe a very positive picture of her son. You know, Odin Lloyd was just 27 years old when he was shot seven times. And the family has already filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Aaron Hernandez. So, what will her testimony, you know, her testimony will be very emotional, right? But she's testifying for a specific purpose, right?

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, the purpose is -- the official purpose would be to give some underlying facts to the jury. But let's not kid ourselves. The real reason you put mom on the stand as a prosecutor is to humanize this victim and make him a real person with a mother that loves him. The actual factual part that she supplies is probably minimal. There's lot more emotional information that she provides. But otherwise, the prosecution is doing prosecution 101. They are building a case brick by brick with each of these foundational type witnesses and, remember, the defense's strategy is to huff and puff and blow that wall down or more like that game jenga. You played that in college, right, Joey, Jenga? You pull out one brick and you pull out enough of them and eventually everything collapses. But remember, the prosecution must build their case.

COSTELLO: And Mom's testimony is particularly important because defense attorneys are painting Odin Lloyd as this drug dealing partying guy who just hung out with Aaron Hernandez to supply him with women and drugs.

JACKSON: Sure it is. And you know, to Danny's point, interestingly enough, Carol, what she says may pale in comparison with the fact that she's there simply to say it because, listen, when you see that mom on the stand. The mom whose son was lost way too soon. Tragically by this brutal murder, will say the prosecution, it's a problem. But, of course, there's always conflicting and competing theories and I would look for the defense certainly to establish, look, she wasn't there. She doesn't know what happens. But they have to walk the fine line because you don't want to mess with anyone's mom, particularly a mother who is grieving for the loss of her son at your hands.

CEVALLOS: They may leave mom completely alone. There may be nothing - and by that I mean the defense. The defense may not even have any questions for her. When there's a witness on the stand that can do you more harm than good, often the defense strategy is no questions.

COSTELLO: Understand. I don't know if we have that picture up of that field, but that was the industrial park where Odin Lloyd's body was found. Just to clarify, so you know. It would appear that prosecutors have a mountain of circumstantial evidence against Aaron Hernandez. So, is it insurmountable, do you think?

JACKSON: It's not, Carol. But you know, it's one of those things where jurors are never allowed to speculate, right? You can't wildly speculate as to what happened, but at the time, you could draw reasonable inferences from the facts and follow me briefly. I text two of my colleagues, that is Mr. Wallace and Mr. Ortiz. I say, you know what, come and meet with me. I then text the - Odin Lloyd and say meet with me too. We'll pick you up at 2:30, 3:30, you know, we've gone to the industrial park and an hour later you're dead. Witnesses saying that they heard gunshots. At the scene, you have this marijuana cigarette with your DNA on it, you have ballistics in the rental car with your DNA on it. We have surveillance video at your house with you holding a gun ten minutes later, and so it's compelling, but at the same time - so, it's circumstantial but at the same time boys, it's somewhat direct.

At the same time, however, the defense going back to motive, why on earth would my client do this? It doesn't make sense, ladies and gentlemen. Sloppy investigation focusing on him for celebrity status. It doesn't add up. Reasonable doubt. Not guilty will say the defense.

COSTELLO: Doesn't it depend on his fiancee, Aaron Hernandez's fiancee? Because if she testifies that she got rid of the gun, right? He's toast.

CEVALLOS: In my experience there's nothing more compelling than another witness or person, whether it be fiancee or otherwise, coming in and saying that's the guy that did it or that's the guy that had the gun and even if on the defense side you call that person a liar and prove they were inconsistent and exploit those inconsistencies there's something I found that jurors even if they seem to understand it, sometimes people have inconsistencies, but if someone was willing to come in here and point that finger, then for some reason they find them credible.

JACKSON: If she does.

COSTELLO: If she does.

JACKSON: If she does.

COSTELLO: I bring that up because supposedly Aaron Hernandez sent her this cryptic text message in secret code language to get rid of the gun, but then defense attorneys showed a picture of them and he had his arm around her. So, then you might think, well, why would they show that picture if she's going to testify against him?

CEVALLOS: And that's the wild card. Would she testify against him? Word is that she'll be granted immunity in order to do so. That means that she won't otherwise be prosecuted. But remember, they have children together and will that really compel her not to say anything harmful against her fiancee?

COSTELLO: We'll see. Ok, Joey Jackson, Danny Cevallos, Thanks so much. I appreciate it. We'll be right back.

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