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Jeb Bush to Announce Run for President on June 15; Perry Enters GOP Presidential Field. Aired 9:30-10:00a ET.

Aired June 04, 2015 - 09:30   ET

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


[09:30:30] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I am Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. The race for the White House, well, this morning we learn the date of Jeb Bush will formerly announce his candidacy. It is June 15th. Another Republican's announcement is just a few hours away, however.

Former Texas Governor Rick Perry, becomes the 10th candidate to enter the crowd of GOP field. This is his second go around. Just four years ago he saw his status plummet from frontrunner to flameout in large part because of the infamous gaffe during a debate, now known as his "Oops Moment."

RICK PERRY, 2012 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And I will tell you, it's three agencies of government when I get there that are gone, Commerce, Education, and the - what is the third one, there? Let's see. Commerce, Education, and the - the, ah...

COSTELLO: That's tough to watch , right. That incident lasted for nearly a minute. So let's talk about a Perry candidacy this time around. Sarah Murray, is CNN's Politics Reporter and David Chalian, is the CNN Political Director. Welcome to both of you.

DAVID CHALIAN, POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Thank you, Carol.

SARAH MURRAY, POLITICS REPORTER: Hi, Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning. Hi, Sarah, you sat down with Perry's wife, Anita, and she is now kind of pitching Rick Perry 2.0, right?

MURRAY: Yes. I think nobody knows how painful this last run the was and how hard Rick Perry has been working better than his wife, Anita Perry. He had literally spend years brushing up on policy to avoid humiliating samples like last time around. Take a look at what Anita Perry was going through her mind when that "Oops Moment" happened.

ANITA PERRY, WIFE OF RICK PERRY: That wasn't the Rick Perry that I knew, that I know now up on that stage. And to be honest with you, he is different, so much different now than he was then, and I think America is seeing what a promising person he could be, and I think America is a great place for a second chance.

MURRAY: You can see that, I mean, she really does believe her husband is a totally different guy this time around. He is working harder, he is healthy, he is prepared, and I think Republican will get a sense of that when he announces today.

COSTELLO: Definitely, so David, Rick Perry also rolled out a couple campaign ads, and they sound awfully reaganesque. Let's listen.

PERRY: We have the power to make our country new again. We don't have to accept the weakness abroad we are seeing today, we don't have to accept the slow recovery economically we see here at home.

COSTELLO: So David, will voters give Perry a second chance?

CHALIAN: That's all mourning in America right there. You know, listen, I do think that voters may give Rick Perry a second chance. Listen, the - one of the most important thing Sarah just said about the fact that he is healthy now, I mean, he just wasn't healthy when he did this before.

He has spent the last two years voting up on foreign domestic policy for precisely this moment and a lot of conservative and Republican activist and sort of strategist in the party will tell you, keep your eye on him.

He clearly has baggage from the bad 2012 run, that "Oops Moment" that you played, but he is spending a ton of time in Iowa, and he is a very personable guy, he has a good record in Texas to run on and this guy has a story to tell and he is more fit, physically fit to tell this time around. So I don't rule him out at all, I think he can have a real impact in the race.

COSTELLO: Sarah, I kind of like when you asked about Rick Perry's glasses, and his wife, well, she kind of took you to task, actually?

MURRAY: Yes. You know, a lot of people say that Rick Perry got those glasses because he wanted to look smart, he wanted to prove that he was a different guy this time around. Anita Perry is having none of that, and she said he needs the glasses to see everybody is making a big fuss out of this for no reason. She said her husband is smart and he's been studying. So the challenge for Rick Perry is going to prove that to voters. Prove he is not just a nice, attractive guy, but he is someone that they can see as their next president.

COSTELLO: OK. So he is fighting his way. So do you think August - the debate, August 16th, do you think he'll make it, Rick Perry, do you think he will make it, David?

CHALIAN: Well, you know, the Fox debate that you are talking about there on August 6th, is going to be the first 10 people in the polls. He is right in there right now so I would imagine Rick Perry will probably be on that stage. I would add another note about his announcement today, he is doing it under indictment, right, he has that Texas lawsuit that is hanging over his head that his aides dismiss as completely partisan. But it's still there, we still got to go through the process, and that's an unusual position for a presidential candidate to be in when they announce their candidacy.

[09:35:00] COSTELLO: Is that a first? We were trying to figure this out earlier this morning, and is that a first?

CHALIAN: Maybe, I can't think of another example of it but you know, politicians have a history of being under indictment, so I can't swear it's a real first.

COSTELLO: Such a comment. David Chalian and Sarah Murray, thanks to both of you, I appreciate it. Next, hour by the way, Thea Kyle, the widow of American Sniper Chris Kyle will be here to tell us why she is supporting Rick Perry.

A field of Democrats also is getting bigger, former Rhode Island Governor, Lincoln Chafee, formerly announcing his presidential bid. It's worth nothing that Chafee served in the U.S. senate as a Republican. He becomes the fourth candidate to officially seek the democratic nomination. He became the first to directly attack the party's frontrunner, Hillary Clinton.

Still to cover in the Newsroom, with just week to negotiate a deal on Iran's nuclear program, families continue their plea for the release of American detainees in Iran.

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[09:40:40] DAN LEVINSON, SONE OF AMERICAN DETAINED IN IRAN: For us the most important thing is to keep it in the eye of the administration and the American public because in this day and age, this is a great hearing and it's going to generate news and we need that, but in a few days people may forget about it and they will likely forget about it and then we are back to where we were.

COSTELLO: A desperate son's plea to lawmakers to make his father's release in the forefront of the negotiations with Iran. With just days left to strike a deal, there is now growing concern about whether the country could be trusted when it comes to stockpile of nuclear fuel, a stockpile that President Obama says, Iran is on track to get rid of.

PRESIDENT BARRACK OBAMA, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The very stockpiles that Mr. Netanyahu had gone before the United Nations with his picture of the bomb and said that was proof of how dangerous this was, all that stockpile was gone.

COSTELLO: As you know, four Americans are being held captive in Iran right now, including former FBI Agent Robert Levinson, he's been missing since 2007. His son, Dan, is the man you heard from just a minute ago, and Dan joins me live from Washington. Good morning.

LEVINSON: Good morning, thank you for having me.

COSTELLO: Thanks for being here. I heard what you said to lawmakers like this hearing was great but tomorrow everybody may forget. Why do you think that?

LEVINSON: Well, in this day and age we have a very short attention span especially with the media reports, and we've been us - it's been over eight years and we have seen my dad's case in the news and then it will die down and then people forget about it for a long time. And that's why I am very grateful that you are having me on here, because it has been a couple days now, and we are already worried that people will going to drop the ball and the pressure is going to be off.

So I think it's really important to keep this message out there, and keep letting people know that he is out there, and he is suffering the most unimaginable nightmare and he wants to get home to his family and people need to understand that and people need to demand action.

COSTELLO: He was also working on behalf of his country, correct?

LEVINSON: Absolutely.

COSTELLO: So the FBI is offering the $5 million reward. Is that enough?

LEVINSON: Well, we hope that kind of money gets people to come forward from over in Iran and if they have information, and you know, that's a lot of money to a lot of people over there, and we're very grateful that the U.S. government is offering that, but we obviously need so much more action on this, and we're pushing the negotiators that are involved in this to really bring up the case, and use the leverage we have right now. Time is running out with these negotiations, and there is only a few weeks left, and we think - my family believes this is our best chance to get my dad home.

COSTELLO: Do you think that the United States' negotiation over Iran's nukes is helping or hurting in this case?

LEVINSON: We've always have been in favor of engagement and for several years of my dad's captivity, there was no discussions whatsoever. So we are very happy that there is a channel of communication, and I don't know if you remember a couple years ago, President Obama and President Rouhani had a phone call when the Iranian president came to the United States, and at that - during that call, it was a short call, but President Obama did note his concern for my dad's well-being, and I think that kind of talk and engagement at the highest level is very important.

COSTELLO: Thank you so much for being with us. I appreciate it. Dan Levinson, thank you.

LEVINSON: Thank you so much for having me.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the "Newsroom," first ISIS drove out the Iraqi army and out of Ramadi, and now it shut off water supplies to thousands of people. We will take you live to Baghdad, next.

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COSTELLO: Happening right now in China, teams are trying to turn this capsized cruise ship upright along the Yangtze river. That should make it easier to recover the bodies of hundreds of people believed to be trapped inside. Earlier rescue teams tried cutting holes in the ship's hull but found no signs of life. The ship went down when hit by a cyclone on Monday. 14 people have been found alive, 77 others are confirmed dead, but as I said hundreds are still missing.

ISIS cutting off vital life line to thousands of people. The militants shut down most of the gates to a dam in the Iraqi city of Ramadi. That's right along the Euphrates River. And the move by ISIS could make it easier for it to attack towns downstream. CNN Senior International Correspondent Nick Paton Walsh live in Baghdad to tell us more. Hi, Nick.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Carol, there are two real signs to this as you mentioned. It seems that ISIS now pretty definitively close more the 26 gates of dam controlled outside of Ramadi but that's two or three open occasionally we understand to let water flow down from that river, Euphrates River from Ramadi all the way to down to Fallujah which they already control. They want to make sure some water flows to their people there.

[09:50:00] But a systemic vast majority of the water. And we are seeing social media pictures uploaded shows how downstream some of the river beds exposed, upstream there are pictures that they are overflowing, all the fish they have caught. Clearly a bit by ISIS to say to those caught up in fighting, there look, we have the one thing you need, the agriculture, the basic daily life in this punishing climate out in here in the desert here, water.

Now, another element, of course, is exposing itself to, we're hearing reports potentially some of the areas, that are contested, the riverbeds may actually be one meter, that's three feet closer now than it was before. The river has dropped, we understand, and that would make it potentially a lot easier for ISIS to attack through government positions in along that riverbed being defended by Shia fighting groups there. That makes them much more vulnerable to attack because ISIS could simply walk across the mote, effectively, they have been held back by in the past stage.

Two substantial issues, in here but in the months ahead, it's going to be the humanitarian crisis that plays harder in this region as the population expands, the climate worsens at times, water is a threat. Now we're finally seeing this emerging on a day in which the United Nations called for nearly a billion dollars immediately to assist the 8 to 10 million people urgently in need of assistance right now, just in Iraq. That's how bad the crisis is. This water crisis unfolding

around Ramadi a part of that picture, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Nick Paton Walsh, reporting live from Baghdad this morning. Thank you. Checking some other top stories for you 51 minutes past. Prosecutors deciding how they want to proceed in the shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Wright. Sheriff's investigators handed over findings yesterday. The case is expected to go to a grand jury. Wright was playing with a pellet gun near his home in November when police officer Timothy Lowman shot him while responding to a 911 call. Ukraine is accusing separatist rebels of violating an already

fragile cease-fire. There's been heavy artillery fire around rebel held City of Donetsk in Ukraine. A major highway leads west and capital Kiev. Ukraine's defense ministry said government forces held back separatists after hours of fighting.

Still to come in the "Newsroom" Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg says she lived 30 years and 30 days. Hear her candid and emotional tribute to her late husband.

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[09:55:00] COSTELLO: It's an incredibly raw and emotional account of loss and grief. Facebook Executive Sheryl Sandberg writing openly about the sudden death of her husband David Goldberg, her public post revealing a personal experience with sadness, grief, even anger and the void our loved ones leave behind.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A very personal post on Facebook from company COO Sheryl Sandberg. A childhood friend of mine, who is now a rabbi, recently told me that the most powerful one-line prayer he has ever read is let me not die while I am still alive. I would have never understood that prayer before losing Dave. Now I do.

Sandberg's husband, Dave Goldberg, unexpectedly died in a family vacation leaving Sandberg a single mother and grieving widow. I think when tragedy occurs it presents a choice. You can get into the void, the emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even breathe or you can try to find meaning. I have lived 30 years in these 30 days. I am 30 years sadder, I feel like I'm 30 years wiser. I have gained a more profound understanding of what it is to be a mother, both to the depth of the agony I feel when my children scream and cry and from the connection my mother has to my pain. She's tried to fill the empty space in my bed, holding me each night until I cry myself to sleep. She has fought to hold back her own tears to make room for mine.

Sandberg doesn't hold back on what not to say to someone experiencing the pain of loss. Real empathy is sometimes not insisting that it will be OK but acknowledging it is not. When people say to me, you and your children will find happiness again, my heart tells me, yes, I believe that. But I know I will never feel pure joy again. Even a simple, how are you almost always asked with the best of intentions is better replaced with how are you today.

Sandberg shares wisdom on life back in the office after death at home. I realize that to restore that closeness with my colleagues that has always been so important to me, I needed to let them in. That meant being more open and vulnerable than I have ever wanted to be.

Lastly she says good-bye to her husband, marking the end of the Jewish mourning period. As heartbroken as I am, I look at my children each day and rejoice that they are alive. I appreciate every smile, every hug. I no longer take each day for granted. I was talking to one of my friends about a father-child activity that Dave is not here to do. We came up with a plan to fill in for Dave. I cried to him, but I want Dave. I want option A. He put his arm around me and said option A is not available, so let's just kick the (bleep) out of Option B.

Dave, to honor your memory and raise your children as they deserve to be raised, I promise to do all I can to kick the (bleep) out of option B. I will always mourn for option A, as Bono saying, there is no end to grief and there is no end to love. I love you, Dave.

COSTELLO: The next hour of newsroom starts now.

Happening now on the Newsroom, a planned beheading stopped in its track. The target outspoken activist behind the Mohammad cartoon contest.