Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Senate to Vote on NSA Surveillance Tactics; Summit Draws GOP Contenders to Florida; Latest Polls on the Democratic Side; Hundreds Feared Dead in Cruise Disaster; Takata Replacement Airbags Must Be Replaced; Murder Rates Up in Some Big U.S. Cities; Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired June 02, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:01] BRUCE JENNER, FORMER OLYMPIC MEDALIST: Caitlyn doesn't have any secrets.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: She's left Bruce Jenner behind in a glamorous new magazine cover.

JENNER: As soon as the "Vanity Fair" cover comes out, I'm free.

COSTELLO: Let's talk. Live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

We're following three major hearings on Capitol Hill this hour. A House Committee on Foreign Affairs is having a hearing of several Americans detained in Iran. Families of the detainees are expected to speak at this hearing.

Also, last month's Amtrak crash will be at the forefront of a House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing. Issues likely to come up until the need for two-man crews and inward facing cameras in train cabs.

Also the Senate Committee on Finance will be investigating that massive data breach at the Internal Revenue Service, the IRS. The IRS says more than 100,000 people were affected from the cybercrime which likely originated in Russia.

Also right now the Senate is gearing up for a tense battle over the NSA's expired surveillance tactics. You're looking at live pictures on Capitol Hill. This hour lawmakers are expected to take the first steps to decide whether those tools should be restored. Critics like Senator Rand Paul say the agency's ability to collect bulk telephone data on millions of Americans violates the Constitution. Others argue those tools, which are aimed at catching terrorists, are a matter of national security.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MAC THORNBERRY (R), ARMED SERVICES CHAIRMAN: I think we're less safe today than we were four, five years ago because we have increasingly been tying our own hands, limiting our ability to gather information. And that is the key way that we find out about and stop terrorists attacks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: CNN's Athena Jones is on Capitol Hill this morning with more. Good morning.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. From the looks of our latest CNN/ORC poll, it looks like a lot of Americans agree with the congressman whose sound bite you just played, Mac Thornberry. Asked if Congress should renew the law allowing bulk telephone data collection, 61 percent said yes. I believe you have those numbers you can put on the screen. And 36 percent that said they should not. Only 3 percent had no opinion.

What's interesting here, though, is that at about 10:30, about half an hour from now, that is going to be that first vote to end debate on the USA Freedom Act. That bill effectively ends the bulk data collection program. It takes that phone data out of the hands of the government, and puts it in the hands of telecommunications companies and requires the government to get a special warrant through report set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to access that data.

So it does the opposite of what a lot of people in the poll want to see done. But there are a lot of people who have had problems with domestic surveillance and wanting to put limits on it. So that vote will go down at 10:30. We expect it to be successful. Then the Senate will move on to discussing a series of amendments that supporters say will help strengthen the USA Freedom Act and help make sure that even though they're transferring this data from the government to the telecommunications companies, that the program would still be effective.

The big question there, though, Carol, is that even if those amendments pass the Senate, it's not clear that they'll pass the House. We're seeing some warnings there. So this is not over yet. It could still be a couple of days at least before the programs a lot of people see -- want to see put back in place with some reforms. It could be some time before they're restored -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Athena Jones reporting live from Capitol Hill this morning. Thanks so much.

Senator Rand Paul, he's still at it. He calls this debate a victory for personal privacy. In a new "USA Today" op-ed, Paul writes, quote, "I don't object to collecting as many records as necessary to catch terrorists. In fact I want to collect more records from terrorists and less from innocent suspicionless Americans. Congress will -- this week will force the president to end this illegal program. For those who cherish the right to be left alone, this is a victory."

Now some lawmakers have accused Paul of playing politics to help bolster his bid for the White House. We'll see. Shakeups at the TSA this morning following stunning failures by

airport security screeners. The acting TSA chief has been reassigned after an undercover operation by Homeland Security showed weapons and fake bombs getting through security at a whopping 95 percentile. The Homeland Security Department says they're taking these results very seriously. The former TSA administrator John Pistole told me while disappointing, this is a learning experience for the TSA and they now know where to focus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN PISTOLE, PRESIDENT, ANDERSON UNIVERSITY: Did the technology work properly and if not, why not? Second was were the SOP, the standard operating procedures, followed or were they appropriate, I should say? And then third, were they followed and if not, what type of remedial training needs to be done really across the system?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson already made changes directing the TSA to revise its screening procedures, conduct training, and re-evaluate its screening equipment.

[10:05:00] To Florida now where Republican presidential hopefuls have gathered for an economic summit. These are live pictures from the forum where, as you can see, Mike Huckabee is speaking. Rick Perry is also expected to speak this hour. Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal and Scott Walker also on the agenda. But Marco Rubio canceled his appearance due to the Senate vote on restoring some of the NSA surveillance tactics. He will instead appear in a short video.

And with less than two weeks until the first major rally of her 2016 campaign, Hillary Clinton will be hitting a few hurdles. That's according to a new CNN/ORC poll which shows unfavorable opinions of Clinton at their highest levels in 14 years. Still, Clinton maintains her commanding lead over the rest of the field. 60 percent say she is their top choice on the Democratic side. Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders rounding out the top three.

Sanders taking his campaign to the late-night talk shows where he addressed his socialist label.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SETH MEYERS, HOST, "LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS": You describe yourself as a Democratic socialist and that is, some would say, a dangerous thing politically. Are you worried or concerned about framing yourself as this, I think, so many people have a negative connotation?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Not if we have the opportunity to describe what Democratic socialist means. I think when people understand that in those countries governments are working for the middle class rather than the billionaire class, I think we get our message across.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Here to talk about that and more, CNN senior political correspondent Brianna Keilar and CNN political director David Chalian.

Welcome to both of you.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Hey, Carol.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol.

COSTELLO: Hi. So, David, at least Bernie Sanders owns it.

(LAUGHTER)

CHALIAN: That he does. And wise for him to get out there on late- night TV. He's in a big introductory phase right now. And he clearly -- you know, he doubled his support from 5 percent to 10 percent in our -- in our polls. So he clearly is getting out there, introducing himself to Democratic voters, and without Elizabeth Warren in the race, he's proving to be a little bit of a vehicle for any sort of ideologically pure liberal, who is not a fan of Hillary Clinton. They have a place to go right now.

COSTELLO: You know who did really poorly, Brianna, was Martin O'Malley. He barely registered. I mean, Joe Biden is not even running and he got 14 percent.

KEILAR: That's right. He has obviously very good name recognition, Joe Biden does, compared to Martin O'Malley. But a few months ago if you asked the Clinton campaign who they were worried about, Martin O'Malley or Bernie Sanders, they might have been a little more worried about Martin O'Malley and now it shows you that Bernie Sanders is the one, at least right now, in a position to sort of push Hillary Clinton to the left a little more and maybe get a little more notices.

COSTELLO: Wait a minute, Brianna. Are you saying that Hillary Clinton is concerned about Bernie Sanders?

KEILAR: I'm saying that Bernie Sanders represents, as David said, this contingent of the Democratic Party that is essential for Hillary Clinton to win the general election. And so he -- even though you look at him and he's got 10 percent to her 60 percent, that doesn't mean that you can underestimate sort of what he stands for and what kind of influence that has on Hillary Clinton.

COSTELLO: All right. David, let's talk about Hillary Clinton's unfavorability factor because it's at a 14-year high. What do you make of this? Because she's supposed to be going around and meeting with small numbers of people so that they get to know her softer side but is that working? Is it not working? What do you make of these numbers?

CHALIAN: Well, I think what you see here, I think there are two major contributing factors, Carol. One, Hillary Clinton is a politician again now and the country is largely seeing her almost wholly in that role as a politician. She's not in that lofty nonpolitical secretary of state place, she's not some former dignitary space that she was during her book tour last year. She's in the middle of the fray right now. So that's one contributing factor.

And the other is obviously the last several weeks of constant news stories about Clinton Foundation fundraising from foreign countries or about her e-mail server or Benghazi. These things have a cumulative effect that also have clearly impacted her image. So I think that those two things combined are why you see her unfavorables higher than they usually have been.

COSTELLO: And, Brianna, when you are out and about, because you cover a lot of political events, do you find that Democratic voters yearn for a worthy candidate in the Democratic primary, I mean, besides Bernie Sanders?

KEILAR: They do. They want some variety. You see that in the poll here that more than half of Democrats and independents who lean Democratic, they want someone -- they want some choice rather than just someone who is pushed forward as sort of the frontrunner, which Hillary Clinton very clearly is when you look at this.

But if I'm Hillary Clinton, Carol, and I'm looking at these poll numbers and I'll tell you her campaign aides are downplaying this dip in her favorability rating, but what I would be concerned about is when you look at questions about does she inspire confidence? Down 9 percent since March. Is she honest and trustworthy, down 8 percent since March. Does she care about people like you, down 6 percent since March.

[10:10:05] These are questions that are very key. Voting is a very emotional thing. And what Hillary Clinton, I would say one of the main goals of her campaign is to say, I'm the one to fight for you. I'm the one to fight for your needs. And so I think it just shows that she does have some work cut out for her as she goes into this next phase of her campaign, which is going to start a week from Saturday.

We'll hear her outline some more policy proposals and this is when she really does have to appeal to people and try to make them believe that she is fighting for them.

COSTELLO: All right. I have to leave it there.

Brianna Keilar, David Chalian, thanks to both of you. I appreciate it.

CHALIAN: Thanks, Carol.

COSTELLO: Still -- you're welcome.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, new video from China as hundreds are feared dead when a cruise ship capsizes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Cries for help from trapped survivors could be heard echoing through the hull of a sinking cruise ship in China this morning. Just 15 of the 400 plus people on board this vessel have been found alive including this woman who was pulled from the murky waters of the Yangtze River earlier today.

[10:15:16] But as rescuers battle the darkness, many are losing hope that more survivors will be found. Five bodies already have been recovered. The death toll could soon climb into the hundreds.

CNN's David McKenzie has more.

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, as the hours stretch on and night has fallen, they're still desperately searching for survivors here in the Yangtze River in China. That glow behind me is the staging ground for the search and they've had hundreds of people rushing to the scene using their specialists skills to try and find people trapped underneath the water inside that vessel.

Scores, in fact hundreds are still missing. They've only managed to pull out a few alive today and there've only have been a few bodies removed. The captain and the chief engineer were both able to escape alive. They've been taken into custody now so questions being asked what exactly happened.

Most of these traveling onboard were pensioners, elderly Chinese enjoying an 11-day cruise on the famous river here in China. Now hope is fading fast that anymore will be brought out alive -- Carol.

COSTELLO: David McKenzie reporting.

Now this rescue in China as you might expect is proving more difficult because the ship is upside down. One marine expert tells CNN it's not easy for passengers to escape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BARNES, INSTITUTE OF MARINE ENGINEERING: I think another problem that hasn't been mentioned as far as I know regarding the fact that people were elderly is the fact that when the vessel is upside down, the natural way to escape anywhere is to go up. The surface is up above you. But in actual fact you're going down inside the ship. To get out and make it is you have to go down, which in a sense that defies, you know, normal logic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: 438 passengers and crew members still missing right now.

More than half of Americans think the war against ISIS is going badly. That's according to a new CNN/ORC poll. In fact the current campaign is as unpopular as the Iraq offensive before the 2007 surge. When asked whose policies are to blame for the problems the U.S. is currently facing in Iraq, presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama are almost tied. 44 percent blame Barack Obama while 43 percent blame President Bush.

In the meantime, the U.S. has already started delivering anti-tank weapons to Iraqi troops to help boost the forces' strength. This as coalition members hammer out a strategy against the terror group during a meeting in Paris.

Let's talk more about that with senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh, he's live in Baghdad.

Hi, nick.

All right. We lost Nick. Sorry about that. We'll try to get him back. Make sure, though, you watch CNN tonight, 9:00 p.m. Eastern. We'll have a special on ISIS and we'll try to get Nick back. I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:22:50] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

COSTELLO: The airbag manufacturer at the center of the largest car recall in history says some of the replacement airbags -- wait for it -- need to be replaced. A Takata executive is expected to testify before Congress later today about what's wrong with the newly installed airbags.

CNN Money chief correspondent Christine Romans --

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN MONEY CHIEF CORRESPONDENT: It is the most complex and confusing product recall in American history, I think it's very fair to say. You have millions of these airbags that need to be replaced because in some instances people were injured or killed because when the airbag deployed it was like shrapnel going into the car. You can see our animation of that there.

Now some of those airbags that may already have been replaced, the company is saying will have to be replaced again because there's something called a bat wing part, a bat wing shaped part that may in fact be dangerous.

The company telling Congress in its update, it's updating Congress today. This is prepared testimony. We have it here from a Takata executive. He will say that they are going to transition away from this bat wing part but in the meantime the replacement bags that are out there have this part in them. So it is a replacement of the replacement. More confusing. More drama for millions of car owners.

COSTELLO: OK. OK. So let's say replace my airbag like I was supposed to.

ROMANS: Yes.

COSTELLO: So now I have to replace it again. So how does that happen?

ROMANS: You will be at the end of the line now because age they have found is part of the problem here for this airbag. The older and more humid area that you live that was a problem. So they think these might be safer than the previous airbag but no one is saying exactly that they are 100 percent safe. So you will go to the end of the line.

This is going to take five years, Carol. I mean, when you do the math on how quickly they're making the replacement parts, how they will have to transition away from this bat wing piece in the end and how many cars are out there, 34 million, you're talking about years.

The big problem for consumer product and auto safety experts is that once you've gone through the process of a recall and then you get a second recall notice, people become numb to this urgency especially when you can get in the car and you can drive and the car is working just fine. So there's a sense here that people in a few years when they're going to need to get this replaced may not feel like they should and it could be a dangerous situation.

[10:25:04] COSTELLO: Just awful. Christine Romans --

ROMANS: It really is awful.

COSTELLO: I know. Christine Romans, many thanks. I appreciate it.

On the heels of protests and rioting, Baltimore just had its worst month for murders in four decades and it doesn't stop with Baltimore. A wave of deadly violence seems to be hitting many of America's biggest cities.

CNN's Miguel Marquez has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Protests and rioting in Baltimore and Ferguson. Anti-police demonstrations from New York to California, and now worrying indications violent and deadly crime in some places on the rise.

In New York, a brazen scene. Police now seeking this man who fired off several rounds in Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood. A 50-year-old man shot twice but survived. And one of the nation's latest murders, this weekend, a 23-year-old from the Bronx in New York.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw a brother on the floor with a big hole in his -- where his heart should have been just pumping blood.

MARQUEZ: Police grappling with increased crime worst in places like Baltimore that has seen so much protest and violence in recent weeks.

The month of May in Baltimore, the deadliest in 40 years. In Houston, murders up 45 percent year to year. In Chicago, where total crime is down, murders and shootings up. In New York, where crime overall is also down, murders up nearly 20 percent. In Milwaukee, says "The Wall Street Journal," murders up a staggering 180 percent this year. The paper also says in Los Angeles, crime is down but in the South Central Precinct shootings up 100 percent. And in St. Louis next door to Ferguson, Missouri, the "Post Dispatch" reports 70 homicides this year. That's up more than 30 percent.

Peter Moskos is a former Baltimore cop and current professor of policing.

PETER MOSKOS, SOCIOLOGIST, JOHN JAY COLLEGE: If there's a national mood that starts to see police as the bad guys, police as the enemy responsible for these problems, it makes it a hell of a lot harder to police. One way that cops deal with that is they just stop policing those people.

MARQUEZ: One example, New York City has sharply limited the controversial police tactic of stop and frisk. At its height in 2011, nearly 700,000 mostly black and Latinos stopped and searched. So far this year, just over 11,000 total but gun crimes in New York now up.

Are increases in gun crimes tied to a sharp decrease in stop and frisk?

MOSKOS: It's entirely possible that stopping hundreds of thousands of people, which has moral and constitutional and legal questions but it's quite possible that has a strong deterrent effect on people carrying guns. If we give that up and people start dying again, then we have to come up with a plan B.

MARQUEZ: Miguel Marquez, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Have to come up with plan B. Not so easy, right?

Joining me now to discuss this is CNN law enforcement analyst and former NYPD detective, Harry Houck.

Thanks for joining me.

HARRY HOUCK, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Thanks for having me, Carol. Good to see you.

COSTELLO: Good to see you, too. I'm sorry we have to talk about this. So --

HOUCK: It's very important.

COSTELLO: It is very important.

HOUCK: Very important. We've got crime going through the roof in major cities and I have finally come to the conclusion that the reason we're seeing the crime spike as we've seen it is because of liberal politicians that run the cities.

Here in New York, we've got Mayor de Blasio and we've got the New York City Council. They are handcuffing the police and it's going on in all these other cities.

COSTELLO: In Houston?

HOUCK: Houston, too. I know that's a Republican mayor, though, right?

COSTELLO: Right.

HOUCK: OK. But still, they're not doing -- they're not giving law enforcement, all right, the tools that they need to be able to combat this. And when you keep on handcuffing police and they're not out there acting pro-actively to reduce the crime, this is what we get.

COSTELLO: So should we not be concerned? I'm playing devil's advocate because that's my job. Should we not be concerned about constitutional issues?

HOUCK: No. We should be concerned about constitutional issues. All right? I've got no problem with that. I don't think police officers should be out there violating anybody's rights. All right? But the fact is there's so much rhetoric out there, police officers are probably holding back a little bit on their pro-active responses.

You know, we had in Baltimore where that young man was stopped and eventually died, all right, as a result of police work. There was a young man in a drug prone location, a known drug dealer, that's what police officer stop, and now the police officers have to be worried about what if I get that guy and I have to chase him down and he resists arrest and something really bad happens because -- as a result of him resisting arrest? That's what police officers are worried about.

COSTELLO: Something bad did happen.

HOUCK: Yes. And --

COSTELLO: And those officers are charged criminally.

HOUCK: And we're going to go through the courts and we're going to see what happens.

COSTELLO: We're going to see what happens.

HOUCK: I'm fine with that.

COSTELLO: So you have to take into account that, too, right?

HOUCK: Right. Sure. I mean, you've got to take it into account. I mean, there are officers out there, and we don't know in this specific instance if the officers did anything wrong or not in Baltimore but, you know, you've got also take into account that police officers are looking at this also and they're saying if I get a little too proactive out here, this could be me tomorrow. And I've got a pension, and I've got a family, and I've got to worry about that.