Return to Transcripts main page
New Day
Hillary Clinton's Emails as Secretary of State; Netanyahu to Address Congress; Impact Your World: ACCESS; One Year Since Flight MH- 370 Vanished
Aired March 03, 2015 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: E-mail controversy, or nontroversy. Hillary Clinton used her personal e-mail account for all of her official business while she was Secretary of State. That much we know. Why did she do that? Is it OK? What will it mean for her? Less clear. Let's bring in Jake Tapper, CNN chief Washington correspondent, anchor, of course, of "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper.
Good to see you, my brother.
What do you see as the potential exposure and timing on this?
JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, what's really interesting is the fact that Jeb Bush jumped on it. Jeb Bush, who famously released about 250,000 e-mails from his two terms as Florida governor, saying in an e-mail clearly aimed at the former Secretary of State Clinton, transparency matters and calling for her to release all of her e-mails.
I can't really say why this story is coming out right now, whether it's reporters realizing that without question Hillary Clinton is going to run for president and it's time to put some scrutiny on them, or perhaps the Clinton people are seeing some damaging stories in their midst and getting them out there as soon as possible. But, either way, I do think potentially it feeds into a narrative about Hillary Clinton that she does not want to be out there, which is that she is secretive and can't be trusted.
CUOMO: I think you're spot on about that in terms of the perception being reality, the optics of it. It seems a little less clear what she did wrong. The State Department changed its policy. Secretary Kerry has a different protocol now than was in place for then Secretary of State Clinton. So maybe that part goes quickly, but the political side maybe a longer haul, yes?
TAPPER: Yes, I agree. And the other thing that's interesting is the fact that they thought that they could get around the Federal Records Act by just having her send her e-mails --
CUOMO: Right.
TAPPER: Even though they were from a private account, not accountable to other State Department officials, their government accounts. That, of course, is not what the letter of the law says. The Federal Records Act explicitly says --
CUOMO: Yes.
TAPPER: That her aides should have retained all those e-mails and kept them and turned them over.
CUOMO: You are right, as always. So talking about political tactics and the trouble they can get you in, let's shift over to what's going on with Prime Minister Netanyahu, when he comes here now. The White House has been cagey about this, but now they're taking some moves of their own, right?
TAPPER: That's really interesting. In the last few days, I mean we have seen an escalation of rhetoric on both sides, from the Netanyahu side and also from the Obama side. Bit in the last couple of weeks, especially this week, we've really seen some very stark language. President Obama, in that Reuters interview he gave yesterday, explicitly trying to undermine Prime Minister Netanyahu's credibility, saying that when it came to the 2013 interim deal with Iran, quote, "Netanyahu made all sorts of claims about that deal that would not come true, trying to undermine "Netanyahu's credibility before the speech to Congress and using language that you would usually reserve for a primary opponent in the thick of a presidential battle.
CUOMO: And, of course, now having the video conference the president is with other European leaders that will start about a half hour in to the prime minister's speech. I mean that's a pretty obvious tactic there. I mean the one thing is -- that justifies wait and see is, we've never really seen anything like this before where you have someone who's so important to the United States coming here to take a position opposite to the United States on its own territory to its Congress, right?
TAPPER: No, that's right. And it is stark. And you also are going to see a lot of pageantry this morning with the Republican House speaker, John Boehner, really making a show of support for Netanyahu, presenting him with a bust of Winston Churchill. Churchill, the only other foreign leader to address Congress three times. Netanyahu will be giving Boehner some things as well. But it really is a sign of how tense and uncomfortable things are specifically between Obama and Netanyahu. I'm sure the relationship will continue strong. But I don't know -- between countries, but between the leaders, I doubt it.
CUOMO: Well, we know you'll be covering every second of it and we'll be watching. Jake Tapper, thank you for being with us.
TAPPER: Thanks, Chris.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: And chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash has been talking to her sources about this Hillary personal e-mail story, as well as Netanyahu's upcoming speech.
Dana, great to see you.
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You, too, Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: Let's start with the Hillary e-mails. What are your sources on Capitol Hill saying?
BASH: I think concern is an understatement. There is a lot of fretting going on right now. I've been talking on the phone, I've been e- mailing with Democratic lawmakers, with other Democratic sources because, you know, she's their horse. She's it. And, obviously, a concern among Democrats has been about her, her baggage. There's no other way to put it. And as Jake was just talking about with Chris, what this exposes isn't just some troubles about these e-mails, but it took, maybe not unlike Mitt Romney and his 47 percent problem, that was a problem because it fed a narrative. And this feeds a narrative that the Clintons feel like they are above everything else. They can get around the laws, fair or not. Perhaps in this case it is unfair if we get all the information. That's what Democrats are very, very concerned about.
And also, Alisyn, what they're concerned about is that she doesn't have a formal campaign up and running, not even close. So she doesn't have the apparatus around her for the damage control that she could do, that Democrats know how to do. They've done this before. But she's not there yet. So they don't have the mechanisms of getting the information from the State Department, from her office, from her aids or former aids to try to prove the idea wrong that she isn't transparent. So that is the very big frustration I'm hearing from Democrats who very much want to keep the White House in 2016, as you can imagine.
CAMEROTA: Interesting. OK, so let's turn our attention now to Netanyahu's speech. I know you had a very interesting exchange with Senator Dianne Feinstein. What did she tell you?
BASH: Well, she's concerned about what the prime minister is going to say with regard to the Iran talks. Elise Labott has been reporting that the Israelis are saying that he is going to give some new information about the substance of those talks. Well, with Dianne Feinstein, who's the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee told me is that she's concerned about that because the only information she's gotten at all about what's going on in these talks is in a classified setting. So there's a lot of concern.
And we've heard it openly now from the White House that they -- they're concerned that he's going to talk about sensitive or even classified information. But it certainly does feed people like Dianne Feinstein, and there are a lot of them. We know probably about 50 who are outright boycotting this speech who think that this is the wrong time and the wrong place for the prime minister to be speaking, both on the substance and just on the optics of it because they believe that this is partisan at a time when it shouldn't be partisan.
CAMEROTA: All right, Dana Bash, thanks so much for sharing your reporting with us. We will all be watching starting at 10:00 a.m. this morning. Thank you.
CUOMO: A little bit shocking to think about it this way, but we're coming up on a year since MH-370 vanished. Of course, the search still underway in the southern Indian Ocean, but are we really any closer or anywhere in terms of finding out what happened, let alone finding the plane itself? There are new details. We're learning then and we're telling them to you, ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, here are the five things you need to know for your new day.
At number one, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressing Congress this morning. The White House warning him not to reveal sensitive details in the ongoing nuclear talks with Iran.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State John Kerry says they are making some progress in those nuclear negotiations. Kerry and his Iranian counterpart meeting in Switzerland. There's an end of March deadline to agree on a framework for a deal.
A funeral this morning for Russia's former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov. He was gunned down days before he was set to speak against Russia's aggression in Ukraine. The killer remains at large.
"The New York Times" reports former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may have broken federal recordkeeping rules for exclusively using her personal e-mail account for government business during her tenure. She apparently did not have a government e-mail address.
A messy winter storm tracking across the Midwest and Northeast. It is expected to bring snow and freezing rain. The storm is also expected to hit Pennsylvania through New England tonight into tomorrow morning.
We do update those five things to know, so be sure to visit newdaycnn.com or the latest.
Chris.
CUOMO: All right, Mich.
In this week's "Impact Your World," do you remember the TWA Flight 800 disaster? So many lost so much in that mysterious catastrophe. Well, Heidi Snow lost her husband and she wanted to help others, so look what she did.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The U.S. Coast Guard tonight is reporting an explosion --
CUOMO: Not many of us can relate to losing a loved one in a plane crash, but Heidi Snow can.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're up in the air --
HEIDI SNOW, LOST HUSBAND IN TWA FLIGHT 800: I just remember fire and really dark water and at that point my life just stood still. CUOMO: Snow spent the days after the 1996 TWA disaster with the other
families finding comfort in shared grief. When everyone went home, she felt lost.
SNOW: I had a huge hole in my heart and I had a future planned with somebody and that was gone.
CUOMO: Snow then met with some families of another plane crash that lived near her. She realized there wasn't a support group for this kind of loss.
SNOW: When I walked in that room, it was the first time I didn't have to apologize for my tears. They didn't have to say a word. They got it. I said to them, we've got families all around the world who could benefit so much from talking to you. I want to make sure that no one ever has to go through their loss alone.
CUOMO: Snow created a unique foundation.
SNOW: ACCESS is a nonprofit peer-to-peer bereavement grief support for people who have lost loved ones in aviation disasters. So we match mothers to mothers, siblings to siblings, spouses to spouses.
RACHEL COURTNEY, ACCESS MENTOR: This is the year before he died.
CUOMO: People like Rachel Courtney. She lost her father in a private plane crash.
COURTNEY: I needed to talk to someone for a period of time, then I felt like I was in a really good place. I felt like I had made peace with the loss of my father. And at that point I felt like I want to be able to do this for other people.
SNOW: There is no process that's right or wrong. You can't fix somebody's grief; you have to sit with them. You have to hold their hand through it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CAMEROTA: So helpful to hear about that.
And on the same grim topic, it's been one year since Malaysian Flight 370 disappeared. After all this time, why do searchers now think they're looking in the right place? A CNN Special Report brings you the latest.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PEREIRA: March 8th will mark one year since Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished. With a search still underway in the Southern Indian Ocean, CNN's Martin Savidge looks back at what we do know and asks the question -- will we ever find it? Here's an excerpt from the CNN Special Report "VANISHED, THE MYSTERY OF MALAYSIA AIRLINES FLIGHT 370".
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): 19 minutes after air
traffic control's last communication with the cockpit, Flight 370 has disappeared. A controller in Kuala Lumpur calls Malaysia Airlines for help.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think fundamentally you have to assume nobody expects one of these planes to fall out of the sky. Nobody expects a 777 to vanish.
SAVIDGE: And Malaysia Airlines tells air traffic control a completely different story. They say MH-370 hasn't vanished at all according to their own internal flight tracking system.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Malaysia Airlines says, oh, , the aircraft's fine. We know exactly where it is.
SAVIDGE: Yet they've had no communication.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They've had none. They've had none. So their system was showing that the aircraft had continued to go on that heading.
SAVIDGE (on camera): Over the next hour and a half Malaysia Airlines gives air traffic control more promising messages. They had exchanged signals with the flight. The plane was in normal condition. And the plane was flying off the coast of Vietnam along its scheduled flight path.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And at that point the guard is let down. You start going in a different direction. You're not search and rescue; you're just trying to communicate.
SAVIDGE (voice-over): But an hour and a half after that first reassuring message, a tragic realization. Malaysia Airlines now tells air traffic control the information was wrong.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PEREIRA: Martin Savidge joins us now from Atlanta. So many frustrating pieces and parts to this. So much mystery. Are we learning anything new? Any new developments in the investigation, Martin?
SAVIDGE (on camera): Well, we are learning new. They're learning new information all the time. Most people come up to me and ask me that very question -- where is that plane? And the search effort is ongoing. They've refined the search effort.
The man who heads up that search is an Australian, Martin Dolan. He says normally he's a pessimist but he is optimistic this aircraft will be found. But it's been a year now or almost. Not even so much as a cocktail napkin. There are other experts, unfortunately, who are growing pessimistic that they will find the plane, but they are still looking, Michaela.
PEREIRA: For the special, I understand you had a chance to meet with the man who was friendly with one of the pilots?
SAVIDGE: Yes, this is what's fascinating. He is a fellow pilot himself from Malaysian Airlines. He grew up with and trained with the man who was the captain of MH-370. He knows the man, he knows the plane, he knows the airline like no one else days. The insights he brings to the report we have for you is fascinating.
PEREIRA: Lastly, I have to know, and it will still point people to the show to see it tonight because I think it's very important. It tells a vital story. How long are they going to keep at it? They have to look for the benefit of these families. But what is their plan?
SAVIDGE: Their plan is to continue as long as it takes. Now that's always a standard line, given Australia has allocated $46 million for this phase of the search. They are doing it differently. This time, they've said, look, we'll let you know when we find something unlike last time when they built up hopes and then hopes crashed as a result of false leads. They're still out there every day.
PEREIRA: Every single day. And we know that it's such a desolate part of the world, in the middle of the ocean there, and weather does not cooperate with them very often.
Martin Savidge, we can't wait to see this. Tune in for it. It's called "VANISHED, THE MYSTERY OF MALAYSIA AIRLINES FLIGHT 370" hosted by our Martin Savidge, 9:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN. Thanks, Martin.
Chris.
CUOMO: Some very special Girl Scouts for you in the Good Stuff. They do more things than sell cookies. Selfless things for someone else in crisis and that's why they get the GS stamp on them. Not Girl Scout, Good Stuff.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CUOMO: The Good Stuff, but I just got hit with a big left turn here. Look at how small the boxes of Girl Scout cookies are now; even the cookies are smaller.
PEREIRA: Maybe your hand's gotten bigger.
CUOMO: Don't force me to be healthy! Anyway, Girl Scouts. A troop in West Carrollton, Ohio, they sold the most cookies. Hooray. And for their efforts, they earned reward money. They were going to spend on a spa day for the entire troop. Isn't that great? Not great enough.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She lost 75 years of pictures and she lost most of her jewelry.
(END VIDEO CLIP) CUOMO: They were talking about one of the scout's great-grandmothers. There was a fire. She lost everything. So what do these 10-year-olds decide to do? They say, you know what? Forget the spa day. Let's help this beautiful lady get back on her feet.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was going to be the best day of my life with the troop but I thought it was more special to give up the money.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For them to give up something that meant so much to them for a complete stranger is mind blowing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: Best news of all, local spa, the one they were going to go to, heard about the troop's generosity -- going to give them a spa day anyway.
PEREIRA: Hooray!
CUOMO: It's contagious, like eating Samoas.
PEREIRA: Eat cookies and celebrate.
CUOMO: I could eat this entire box.
CAMEROTA: Let's celebrate by having a cookie.
PEREIRA: We will eat cookies. But we know there's certainly a lot of news to get to. So let's get straight to the "NEWSROOM" with Carol Costello. What's your favorite? Mint, thin mint? Peanut butter?
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: No, the peanut butter. Peanut butter is fantastic. Are you kidding?
CUOMO: I've got them.
COSTELLO: I'll be over shortly. Have a great day.
Thanks!
"NEWSROOM" starts now.
