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Third Close Call with Drone at JFK; Massive Manhunt for Suspected Cop Killer; Thousands Evacuating as Fire Spreads; Obama to Unveil Major Environmental Plan Today; Federal Agents Now Embedding with Police; Donald Trump, Not a Debater?; Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired August 03, 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] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Let's bring in CNN aviation correspondent Rene Marsh in Washington.

Rene, this is an airport I fly in and out of a lot. So many people do. Three times in three days these drones spotted by commercial pilots. What's going on?

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: That's what the FAA and Port Authority want to know because obviously there are very clear rules against this sort of thing. We do know that this latest incident involves the crew of a Shuttle America flight. They were coming in for a landing at JFK when they say they saw a drone on the left side of the aircraft. Now an investigation is under way.

Of course, this all happened after Friday drones got too close for comfort with two other commercial aircraft. Again Friday we're talking about near one of the nation's busiest air spaces there in New York City. On Friday a drone came within 100 feet of passenger planes. There was a JetBlue pilot who said that the drone passed just below the plane's nose, when the jet was flying at an altitude of about 800 to 900 feet and then a Delta pilot was preparing to land when that pilot reported seeing a drone below its right wing.

But I want to get back to this most recent incident. We have sound at the moment that this pilot noticed that something wasn't quite right. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a drone that's on the runway.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Location please?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right. Roll out of -- behind us. Perimeter three, 5911.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Altitude?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thirty feet.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Left of right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Left side. Little black quadcopter. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Flight 5911 continue straight ahead on Bravo and

monitor ground to the left.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bravo. That drone is on the edge of the runway.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Say again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That drone is on the edge of the runway.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARSH: All right. So the drone on the edge of the runway. As you know, take off and landing, the most critical phases of flight. So they are obviously a safety concern. Of course there are rules in place, Poppy. You should not be flying a drone within five miles of an airport, at least not without notifying the airport or control tower. You're supposed to be flying below 400 feet and, again, away from commercial aircraft. Clearly whoever was operating that in full violation of these rules.

HARLOW: Here's the thing, though, Rene, right. I mean, people aren't going to do things as often when they have really harsh penalties for doing it. If authorities were to track down who has been doing this, what's the penalty?

MARSH: There are penalties. There are civil penalties that the FAA can lodge against an individual and that has been done before, but here is the thing, oftentimes it's very difficult to trace back who is responsible, and I have seen that case happen time and time again in which they've been able to find the actual drone but they can't find the operator because the operator was not within line of sight of this technology, and so there is the difficulty in trying to find who is behind it, but we are told that they are actively trying to find out who is behind these latest incidents, Poppy.

HARLOW: Yes. Absolutely.

Rene Marsh, thanks for the reporting.

In Memphis, Tennessee, now an all-out search under way at this moment for a killer of a city police officer. A witness used the officer's own news to relay the news that the officer had been shot.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 336 Delta, you are on the same scene with 364 Delta?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a traffic stop. It was a traffic stop he was on. The subject bailed out.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Checking, you are advising that the officer is down or the suspect?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Call the ambulance. Call the ambulance.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The ambulance is already en route.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: You can hear the desperation in that person's voice calling for help for this man you see on your screen. Officer Sean Bolton, a five-year veteran in the force, also a Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq war. He was fatally shot during that traffic stop on Saturday night. Police say he apparently interrupted a drug transaction involving a small amount of marijuana.

They have identified his killer as this man, 29-year-old Tremaine Wilbourn who is the passenger of the car that Bolton had approached. Police say Wilbourn was recently released from prison after serving time for a bank robbery.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wilbourn is out on supervised release by the U.S. Western District Court for a 121 month sentence for robbery of a banking institution. He is considered to be armed and dangerous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Nick Valencia live with us this morning.

And, Nick, this is just such a hard time for that police department in particular. Three officers killed over the last four years, right?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Good morning, Poppy. Certainly a terrible time. The mayor took a moment on Saturday night during a press conference to address a rise in what he calls gun violence there in the city.

[10:05:03] As you mentioned, three officers gunned down in the line of duty in the last four years. 29-year-old Tremaine Wilbourn is the suspect in the murder of Officer Sean Bolton. 33-year-old Bolton was said to have noticed a car parked illegal just after 9:00 p.m. He approached that car and that's when the suspect Wilbourn got out of the car, a struggle ensued, and he allegedly shot the officer that you're looking at there on your screen multiple times.

A witness in the area, a resident in the area, heard the gun shots, ran towards the scene and used the officer's radio to phone back in to 911 but it was too late. Officer Bolton died and was pronounced dead at the hospital when he arrived there. A $10,000 reward being offered for information leading to this suspect -- Poppy.

HARLOW: I'm wondering, Nick, if they do have any leads at this point in time?

VALENCIA: Well, a person of interest was initially brought into custody sometime yesterday afternoon. He was said to be the driver of that car. We don't know the relationship between Wilbourn and the driver but what we do know is shortly after the driver was released from questioning, that they named 29-year-old Tremaine Wilbourn as the suspect in this shooting, no charges have been filed against the driver. But right now, as I mentioned, an aggressive manhunt underway in Memphis for the man you're looking at on your screen.

Police need your help finding this man. So if you have any information, please call your local authorities -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Very sad story.

Nick Valencia, thank you.

To California now we go. It is almost -- well, look at the pictures. It looks like a volcanic eruption, doesn't it? That is a towering plume of black smoke that hangs over much of the state. There are nearly two dozen wildfires burning across California right now racing across drought-parched landscape from one end to the other. The most ferocious, the Rocky Fire. It grows more dangerous and ominous by the hour. Thousands of people have fled their homes and fire officials are already issuing dire warnings for the day ahead.

Let's go straight to Stephanie Elam. She's in Colusa County, California, that is north of Sacramento, really in the thick of it.

What are you seeing, Stephanie? All right. I'm going like this because I can't hear Stephanie. So for our viewers we're going to try to reconnect with Stephanie who is there in one of the hardest hit parts of California from these wildfires. Once we get Stephanie, we will bring you that live report.

Still to come here in the NEWSROOM, also, President Obama preparing to announce his plan to fight climate change and already Republicans fighting him tooth and nail on it. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:11:55] HARLOW: All right. We now have Stephanie Elam with us from Colusa County, California, north of Sacramento, where she's monitoring more than two dozen major wildfires there.

Stephanie, what are you seeing?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, and I can update you right now, Poppy, about the Rocky Fire where we are. I can now tell you that they know it's been 60,000 acres that have been burned. The containment, though, going up to 12 percent and that is good news. And part of how they're doing it is back burning. And what you see behind me is where they were doing some back burning yesterday.

We were watching them as they were lighting fires here to burn down this dry underbrush and the reason why they're doing that, that's literally fighting fire with fire. They're burning this area so that it's no longer fuel for any wildfire coming through here. It's already burned and they can contain it along these roadways.

The other thing they're doing, they're using bulldozers. They've got firefighters out there on the line working to break through the brush so that there's a line that will stop this fire from spreading. That's what they're working on doing so that there will be no more buildings burnt but already we know that there have been some 50 structures that have been damaged, destroyed I should say, half of those being homes. They're working to just try to keep other buildings safe and all those evacuees who have been removed from these area, to allow them to get back in here.

But right now 60,000 acres, that is a lot of acreage we're talking about, Poppy, that has been burned in this Rocky Fire and so much of it ballooning over the weekend, just really taking off.

HARLOW: The last thing that drought-riddled California needs right now.

Stephanie Slam, thank you for that.

To politics now. Republican presidential hopefuls are blasting President Obama's ambitious new plan to combat climate change. Some already threatening to take it to court, and the president hasn't even officially unveiled it yet. That happens later this afternoon.

Let's go to the White House. CNN White House correspondent Michelle Kosinski live there for us.

And, Michelle, the White House put out this extensive plan and they said it's going to save lives, it's going to save Americans an average of $85 a month on their energy bill. Republicans like Marco Rubio say no way, no how. It's going to cost Americans more. Jeb Bush calling it, quote, "irresponsible and overreaching."

How big of a fight is this going to be?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, this is a huge debate, that's really just the beginning. So this is going to be interesting to watch. I mean, this maybe doesn't have the emotional and religious aspects of the debate over the Planned Parenthood thing obviously, but this really does strike to the core of what people believe on this.

I mean, first of all, do you believe in climate change? Do you believe it's happening? Do you believe that man is causing that? And then it has multiple layers in that, you know, many say, well, why should the U.S. pinch industry here when other developing countries are just belching out more and more pollution?

So with all of these elements thrown in there, it ends up being pretty complicated but pretty interesting. So the White House is really putting out this big push starting now. And you're right, they kind of unveiled everything in the lead-up to the president's announcement this afternoon saying that this is going to cut carbon emissions from power plants in particular 32 percent over 2005 levels by the year 2030.

[10:15:01] And they have this medical aspect, too, that it's going to prevent premature death by a factor of 90 percent over 2005. It's going to prevent childhood asthma attacks by 90,000 cases. That it's going to grow jobs, that it's going to cut energy bills. But the critics are saying exactly the opposite on some of those points. I mean, here is Jeb Bush as one example. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think it's a disaster. It's taking -- it's typical of the Obama administration taking executive power he doesn't have. For the first time they've extended this to require states in a very coercive way and a very confusing, convoluted way to deal with this issue, and I believe it's unconstitutional.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSINSKI: So it's not as if the White House wasn't prepared for some of these groups and some of these people in particular, slamming the plan, so they are ready with an answer to it all and we'll hear from the president directly in just a couple of hours now -- Poppy.

HARLOW: We will. It will certainly be a big, big fight.

Michelle Kosinski, live at the White House, thank you.

The president's plan, as you just heard from Michelle, to push on climate change is just one of the big headlines that he has grabbed and some might say is a very controversial fight, issues he's tackling in what is now the fourth quarter of his presidency. It is all part of what he calls his bucket list.

Remember, remember this moment from the White House Correspondents Dinner?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: After the midterm elections my advisers asked me, Mr. President, do you have a bucket list? And I said, well, I have something that rhymes with bucket list.

(LAUGHTER)

Take executive action on immigration, bucket. New climate regulations? Bucket. It's the right thing to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: You remember that, John Avlon, CNN political analyst and editor-in-chief of the "Daily Beast"? Seriously, that's the first thing I thought of yesterday when I saw this climate proposal announced was, here we go.

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Bucket, yes. Poppy, I mean, this has been an extraordinary fourth quarter of a presidency. You know, traditionally fourth quarters of presidencies are considered lame-duck times. That's been the stereotype that a lot of predecessors have been laden with but this president has decided to sort of throw that idea off and instead seems liberated to pursue a lot of progressive agenda items that he had been apparently restrained from doing when either he or his party was facing re-election. And these drawing from range from Cuba to this ambitious action on

climate change. The question will be as you see the heat he's taking, the fight he's going to face not, only the political fights but the legal challenges from a number of key states. So this really is a deep divide between the two parties. It's deeper than it was a decade ago. We should underscore that. But this is going to be a major fight played out in the courts as well as the political arena.

HARLOW: All right. Also, though, when you talk about his legacy, you've got the executive action on immigration, you've got Iran, you've got Cuba, you've also got the issue of race in this country, right? And you have to talk about that. Donald Trump yesterday in his interview with ABC talking about the president and race saying, I think he set a very poor standard, a very low bar, and I think it's a shame for the African-American people. Talk to me about this president and race and his legacy.

AVLON: Well, you know, it's really quite something to have President Obama be lectured on racial relations by Donald Trump.

HARLOW: Right.

AVLON: But let's put that evident absurdity aside for a second. Look, this president obviously not only -- obviously the first African-American president but has been leading a much more complicated nuanced national conversation of race, about race in the wake of Ferguson, in the wake of Baltimore, the Eric Garner case and so many others.

And so I think the president has been taking sort of an AP race conversation to the American people in the way that a lot of Republican candidates are deeply uncomfortable with because it's simply more complicated and nuanced than the broad bromides they're more comfortable with. And Donald Trump talking about race, well, that's absurd on its face.

HARLOW: Big picture, is President Obama rewriting the rules for a so- called lame duck? And I just wonder what you think about this strategy for future presidents.

AVLON: Yes. You know, I love that point because it's so important. You know, so many of the ideas we inherit may be rooted in history but especially when presidents or people in executive positions can throw them off simply by acting and thinking differently. Now it's significant that this president's poll numbers haven't descended to the quarter of the electorate approval that his predecessor George W. Bush had in the fourth quarter of his presidency, but he really has acted liberated. He's pursuing long-term agenda items he thinks are the right thing to do.

And among other things, he's certainly energized his base. And it's unclear that he's alienated the centrist moderate majority of Americans in the process. So these are bold actions and I do think it can influence future presidents to act sort of liberated and do what they think is right. [10:20:07] Obviously the Democrats are going to have to -- you know,

he'll be held to account for some of them come 2016, but there's little sign that they are deeply divisive in the way that some folks who are afraid of their shadow might have feared.

HARLOW: All right. John Avlon with his bucket list for us. Thank you, John.

Still to come, a Trump campaign adviser out of a job after racially charged Facebook posts surfaced, but could this latest controversy actually give Trump a boost going into the debate on Thursday?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Federal agents are joining the Baltimore Police Homicide Unit trying to help them fight the unprecedented level of violence in that city right now. According to "The Baltimore Sun," there have been at least two murders already this month, 45 murders in July, the most in any month since 1972. In total this year of 191.

[10:25:11] CNN's Boris Sanchez is following the latest from Baltimore with me here.

It's incredibly disturbing, especially considering what that city has gone through in the last six months. Why the decision to bring in federal agents from so many different agencies?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And partly because the number is so eye-popping, what you mentioned. Already in three days of August there have been 11 people shot in Baltimore, two of them fatally. In response officials are looking to launch BFED, B-F-E-D. It's a new collaborative effort between five federal agencies and the Baltimore Police Department, the FBI, the ATF, the DEA, the U.S. Marshals, and the Secret Service offering two agents each to help with the bulk of homicide cases in Baltimore.

The ATF, for example, offering to trace shell casings and identify suspects. The FBI meantime helping out with intelligence gathering. Officials say they really hope this works.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN DAVIS, BALTIMORE INTERIM POLICE COMMISSIONER: We expect to enjoy successes with BFED. We know that our federal law enforcement partners bring tools to bear that we necessarily don't enjoy, federal assets and other federal investigative techniques we think will help us close more homicide cases.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Now to be fair, this is a nationwide problem. Many other cities are also seeing an uptick in the number of homicides. Washington, D.C., Chicago, Dallas, just to name a few.

HARLOW: How rare is it to see so many different agencies sort of combining here and going into a city in a situation like this. Not a terrorism case but something like this.

SANCHEZ: Right. It's not rare for them to help out and lend resources to local law enforcement in specific cases like the prison break we saw earlier this summer.

HARLOW: Right.

SANCHEZ: In Upstate New York. But for such a broad effort, something that isn't one specific case but rather a multitude of them is rare.

HARLOW: Yes. Yes, and how long do they stay.

SANCHEZ: Right.

HARLOW: And how do they determine success. I mean, this is a huge problem facing Baltimore.

Boris Sanchez, thank you, as always.

With just days to go until the first Republican debate, Thursday night, and after weeks of taking aim at his rivals in the race for the White House, is Donald Trump scaling back expectations a little bit? You know, he said I'm not a good debater. I'm not about debating, I'm about jobs. After tweeting that he plans to be respectful this Thursday night in the debate he said this in an interview on Sunday with ABC.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I'm not a debater. These politicians, I always say they're all talk, no action. They debate all the time. They go out and they debate every night. I don't debate. I've built, I've created tremendous jobs, I built a great company. I do a lot of things and maybe my whole life is a debate in a way, but the fact is I'm not a debater and they are, but with that being said I look forward to it. We'll see what happens. Who knows.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: I can tell you one thing, a lot of folks are going to be watching this debate. Trump making those remarks. There's a new national poll, shows him firmly ahead in the Republican race, 19 percent of Republican primary voters backing him. That is compared to 15 percent who support Scott Walker, 14 percent who support Jeb Bush. Ben Carson and Ted Cruz round out the top five.

Let's talk about it. CNN politics reporter MJ Lee and CNN senior political reporter Nia-Malika Henderson with me now.

MJ, let me start with you. The stakes are high for Donald Trump. If he tones it down, are his supporters going to be upset or is it give us just another surprise from Trump to talk about?

MJ LEE, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Well, Poppy, it almost sounds like he's trying to downplay how much he's preparing for this debate, downplay sort of the expectations that he's setting for himself which is an understandable strategy. He has never done this before. This is his first time on the debate stage. So this makes sense. I think that from everything we've seen from the last couple of weeks from Donald Trump we know that his strength and his forte is going to be these one-line zingers and punches that he throws at some of his rivals.

I think for him to say that he may not really be on the offensive, I think it's likely that that is exactly how he is going to be. I do think, though, when you're thinking about some of his weaknesses and potential sort of weak spots on the debate stage we have seen this over and over again the last couple of weeks when he has particularly sat down and extended sit-down interviews, he doesn't have sort of a deep policy, sort of proposals and details when it comes to issues that he loves to talk about, issues like immigration, issues like health care.

You know, he likes to talk a good game and talk about how the Obama administration has really failed on these issues, but then when he's pressed a little bit more and asked to share specific details, he isn't really ready to go there yet. So I think some of his GOP rivals are going to understand that and will probably try to highlight that on the debate stage to show the audience, you know, this is not someone who, you know, may not particularly be ready to really be a serious candidate yet.

HARLOW: Nia-Malika, to you. This ABC interview with Donald Trump yesterday getting a lot of attention, particularly for this part where he addressed the controversial tweet that he made.