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Solo Survivor of Washington Plane Wreckage; Selling the Iran Nuclear Deal to Congress; A Drug Lord's Elaborate Escape Tunnel; NASA on Pluto: "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet". Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired July 15, 2015 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:31:09] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

The father of a 16-year-old plane crash survivor credits the reality survival shows they watched together for helping save her life.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE, "SURVIVORMAN": I am listening to something very large, growl and moan and groan, not too far from here. I have no way of knowing whether it's a wildebeest, buffalo, a leopard or a lion.

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COSTELLO: Autumn Veatch's father says "Survivorman" should be proud of her. The teenager, bruised and burned, walked away from the fiery plane wreckage and then hiked the rugged Washington state wilderness for two days following a river out of the woods before flagging down help. This is new video of her arriving home from the hospital last night. In the meantime, this morning, search crews will try to reach the crash site after spotting wreckage believed to be the plane.

CNN's Sara Sidner is live in Bellingham, Washington, with more on this.

Good morning, Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

Yes, they have, they think, found the crash site. The difficulty is, it is in such rugged terrain -- what is known as really the American Alps -- that they are trying to figure out how to get crews on the ground to that wreckage. And as you know, a 16-year-old girl was able to not only survive the plane crash, but survive two days in the wilderness before being able to get to safety. She is now home with her father.

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SIDNER (voice-over): Search crews locating the wreckage of the Washington state plane crash where 16-year-old Autumn Veatch emerged as the sole survivor. The state's department of transportation says crews can't yet reach the crash site, located deep in the rugged North Cascades. Family and friends say it's a miracle that Autumn was released from the hospital on Tuesday, just three days after surviving the crash.

OPERATOR: Hi, this is Michael with the Okanogan County 911. What is your name?

AUTUMN: Autumn Veatch.

SIDNER: On Saturday, Autumn took this selfie just before flying in a small, private plane with her step-grandparents, Leland and Sharon Bowman.

AUTUMN: I was riding from Kalispell, Montana, to Bellingham, Washington, and about -- well, I don't know where, but we crashed and I was the only one that made it out.

OPERATOR: OK. Um, made it out from the collision or --

AUTUMN: Of the plane.

OPERATOR: Or survived?

AUTUMN: Yes, the only one that survived.

SHERIFF FRANK ROGERS, OKANOGAN COUNTY, WASHINGTON: She said they came out of the clouds and she said all she saw was trees.

SIDNER: Autumn says they crashed into the side of a mountain. The sheriff says she tried to pull her grandparents out of the plane, but it was on fire.

OPERATOR: Are you injured at all?

AUTUMN: Uh, yes, I have a lot of burns on my hands and I'm like kind of covered in bruises and scratches and stuff.

SIDNER: After waiting for help for nearly a day, Autumn hiked her way out of the treacherous terrain, following a creek downstream until she reached a trail and then the highway. A driver bringing her to this store.

RICK LEDUC, STORE OWNER: It's amazing that she -- she was able to accomplish what she did.

SIDNER: Her father speaking about Autumn's resilience.

DAVID VEATCH, AUTUMN VEATCH'S FATHER: She's had to deal with a lot of loss. She's just an amazing kid.

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SIDNER: And, Carol, you know, the reason for the burns on her hands, well, the sheriff says that is because she was trying to pull her grandparents from the fiery wreckage, trying to save them. She says she was unable to do that. But she has certainly survived this in an incredible manner. Her father saying that she has such resilience. He's just amazed by her. And the sheriff saying that she's a super hero. So this is a young lady who's been through quite a bit and she's trying to recuperate now.

[09:35:02] Carol.

COSTELLO: Oh, good for her. Sara Sidner reporting live for us this morning. Thank you.

On to politics now. President Obama is now working to sell his Iran deal to Congress. The lead salesman at the moment, Joe Biden, the vice president, who stood by the president's side as the historic deal was announced, will now head to Capitol Hill in an effort to lobby lawmakers. And in an interview with "The New York Times," the president reflected on the importance of diplomacy, not only in his own administration, but in previous ones.

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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I had a lot of differences with Ronald Reagan. But where I completely admire him was his recognition that if you were able to verify agreements, that you would negotiate with the evil empire that was hell-bent on our destruction and was a far greater existential threat to us than Iran will ever be. And I had a lot of disagreements with Richard Nixon, but he understood there was the prospect, the possibility that China could take a different path.

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COSTELLO: OK. So let's talk about this. Here to discuss, CNN political analyst and former presidential advisor in the Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton administrations, David Gergen.

Good morning, David.

DAVID GERGEN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning.

So is the president right to compare this deal with Iran to deals with the Soviet Union and with China?

GERGEN: He's not only right, he's smart to go back and compare various negotiations, whether it's been by Reagan or by Nixon or indeed by John Kennedy, whom he also quoted yesterday. That, in the past, American presidents have negotiated, they -- with our deepest, darkest enemies. And sometimes they've come up with good victories. Sometimes they haven't worked out so well.

We negotiated with the North Koreans during the Clinton administration, for example, over nuclear weapons. They signed an agreement and then they cheated. And the agreement fell apart and they -- it's now estimated they have as many as 10 nuclear bombs. So sometimes these negotiations can fall apart. Obviously what the president hopes, what is team hopes, what they believe is, they've got a very good chance of making this work and that over 10 years that Iran will change. Iran will become a friendlier country, a more responsible country, and that this problem will gradually recede. We'll have to wait and see. If history is going to -- you know, it's going to be -- the next few weeks are going to be really important and the next years are going to be very important.

COSTELLO: Well, I think it's clear that the Republicans running for Congress -- or running for president rather, have already made up their minds --

GERGEN: Sure.

COSTELLO: Because they talk about the deals in the most apocalyptic terms. Let's listen.

GERGEN: Right.

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SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is a death sentence for the state of Israel.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The Iranians are very good negotiators. The Persians are always great negotiators. They are laughing at us back in Iran.

CARLY FIORINA (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He says it makes a nuclear arms race less likely. Our Arab allies have said just the opposite.

RICK SANTORUM (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They come out of this a much, much stronger and more -- and I believe more virulent state with very, very few responsibilities.

SCOTT WALKER (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Looking ahead, we need to terminate the bad deal with Iran on the very first day in office.

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COSTELLO: So, Joe Biden is trying to lobby lawmakers to accept this deal. How does he do that?

GERGEN: Well, listen, Carol, the interesting thing here is that public opinion polls over the last few months and indeed the most recent CNN poll just a few weeks ago find that the American public consistently -- there are more people who favor this deal -- a deal with Iran than oppose it. And this CNN poll, I think it was like 55 to 40 in favor. So it's the Republicans who have an uphill job in the polls to bring the country around. And they -- I -- they -- they're effective at that. They will find holes here. They will find -- they will, you know, find fears here that will probably change the polls more in their direction. But can they get to the point where it's like health care? It has been consistently negative in that case against the president's proposals. They're not there yet. They're a long way from there. And that's one of the reasons why they're hitting back so hard right away. So I think Joe Biden's got a -- is -- is actually in a stronger

position as he goes up . What he's trying to do, he just needs to hold 34 votes in the Senate and he's got a lot of Democrats to do that in. So he's got to work not only with the sure things that are going to support him, but he has to work especially with senators who come out of states with heavy Jewish populations.

Chuck Schumer, for example, is a critical player here. He's got a large pro-Israel population in the state of New York that is very fearful for Israel and they're going to put a lot of pressure on Schumer. Schumer hasn't committed himself, but he's -- he, along with Dick Durbin and others, are going to be players to watch here and how Joe Biden does in bringing people around.

[09:40:12] Joe Biden obviously knows the Senate very well and he comes up with this extra quality now because people are so sympathetic to him and care about him as a human being.

COSTELLO: All right, David Gergen, thanks for your insight, as usual. I appreciate it.

We'll have full coverage of the president -- of President Obama's press conference that will start at 1:00 p.m. Eastern. The president is expected to field questions about the Iran deal.

Still to come on the NEWSROOM, shocked but not surprise, that's how many Mexicans feel about the daring prison escape by the drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. Up next, why many say corruption allowed "El Chapo" to tunnel his way to freedom.

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COSTELLO: A brazen prison break by one of the world's most dangerous drug lords caught on camera.

[09:45:04] This new surveillance video shows the final moments behind bars for Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman before he breaks free through a tunnel in his cell. You see him there walking over to the shower -- you'll see him in a second -- and that's where he evades the camera's view. And then suddenly he vanishes for good.

So how did he pull it off? CNN's Polo Sandoval explains that would have been no easy feat.

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POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You've heard the numbers and you've also seen the graphics. But in order to truly understand just how elaborate El Chapo Guzman's escape tunnel truly was, you have to step back a second.

The distance from where I'm standing all the way to where the Altiplano prison facility is off in the distance is about a mile. And that's how long authorities say the tunnel was.

Distance is one challenge. Depth is another. We know the tunnel was about 35 feet deep. We found this construction site just outside the prison perimeter. So you can see for yourself what it looks like underground. This is a cross section here. You can see just layer after layer of dirt. This is what they potentially had to cut through during the escape.

Now if you take an even closer look at it, you can actually see that the soil is almost clay-like, it even has a lot of rocks in it. So it's very difficult to cut through according to some of our experts.

So that's leaving so many people here to wonder exactly who was helping El Chapo escape.

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COSTELLO: The head of that prison had already been fired. And Mexico says it's likely the drug kingpin had help from the inside.

Joining me now to talk about all of this, "Wall Street Journal" reporter Dudley Althaus. He's based in Mexico City. Thank you so much for being with me this morning. I appreciate it.

DUDLEY ALTHAUS, WALL STREET JOURNAL: Sure, good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning. So when you look at the complexity of that tunnel, what kind of work would have had to go something like that?

ALTHAUS: Some very detailed work and very fast work, if experts are correct. I mean, a mile-long tunnel, it's a very elaborate tunnel. And there's a lot of speculation that they began digging the tunnel almost as soon as he went into prison 16 months ago.

COSTELLO: So does it mean the government had to have something to do -- someone in the government had to have something to do with this?

ALTHAUS: I think that's a sure bet. I mean, they've already arrested the warden and two more senior officials. But does it stop there? How high up does it go? If you look at the video that they released last night, the cell is very sparse, it's very connected to the main corridors of the prison wing. And to break through the floor of his bathroom, of his shower stall, you would have to make some noise. So how did that go unnoticed? He also had a tracking device on his wrist that somehow got taken off his wrist before he got away.

COSTELLO: Interesting. Well, I was curious if they ventilated the tunnel and they provided him a motorcycle. It's only a mile long. It's just mind-boggling.

ALTHAUS: Well, you know, El Chapo has been kind of king of tunnels. In fact, his organization has dug a number of tunnels along the U.S.- Mexico border to smuggle drugs through. And when they were searching for him right before his arrest in the city of Culiacan his home state of Sinoloa, he escaped a number of times from the Mexican marines by slipping through tunnels into the sewer system and getting away.

So I mean it's hardly a surprise that he might have been considering a tunnel as an option. The length of the tunnel and the elaboration of the tunnel I think is pretty amazing and awe-inspiring, actually.

COSTELLO: So the United States has offered to help find him. But to this point, Mexican authorities don't want the U.S.'s help. Why is that?

ALTHAUS: Well, I think part of that is nationalism, what one analyst calls judicial patriotism. They think they can do this on their own. I think that's the public's stance. I think there's some cooperation going on right now in the trenches between U.S. and Mexican officials, as there always have been.

This is just the latest bump in a very often close but very often bumpy relationship. And I think that, despite all the anger and the -- the cover-up and people trying to like figure how to handle this politically, I think that cooperation is going on.

COSTELLO: Dudley Althaus, thank you for your insight this morning. I appreciate it.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a stunning image of Pluto. But it's about to get much better. Why NASA is saying you ain't seen nothing yet.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Copy that. We're in lock with telemetry with the spacecraft.

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COSTELLO: And with a hearty cheer, NASA celebrates its New Horizons spacecraft phoning home after its close encounter with Pluto. Check out this image. Wow. Stunning, right? But NASA says the best is yet to come, tweeting, "You ain't seen nothing yet."

Jennifer Gray is following the Pluto story for us this morning. Good morning.

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning to you, Carol. Yes, it was such an amazing sight yesterday watching NASA TV when they finally made contact after that 12-hour blackout. And just the cheer and the expression on people's faces was just such a special moment in mission control. I mean, nine years this thing has been traveling, this tiny spacecraft, the size of a piano. And for it to finally make contact, knowing that we're getting the best images we've ever seen of Pluto today, was fascinating.

This was launched in 2006. Pluto was still a planet. And so it's been traveling a very long time. It's traveled 3 million billion miles at an average speed of 30,000 miles per hour. [09:55:00] And in fact if the spacecraft had hit anything as small as

a grain of rice it would have destroyed the spacecraft. So it was remarkable that it actually made that nine-year journey.

This is basically what we've known of Pluto. Back in 1930, it was just a little speck out in the far reaches of our solar system. And then the Hubble of course created these images in 1996. And then 2015, those are the images we just got a couple of days ago. But like you said, we are going to get some amazing images today we're so excited about.

We're learning so much about the planet. We've learned more in the last five days than we've ever known. We know that there's ice on Pluto. In fact, some areas of Pluto only see a little bit of daylight every 100 years, Carol. And so what we're learning about the planet and what we're going to discover is just amazing.

COSTELLO: I know. I can't wait for tomorrow. Jennifer Gray, many thanks to you. I appreciate it.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM after a break.

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