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New Talk of Biden Joining Presidential Race; Market Plunged This Morning in Major Selloff; North, South Korea Strike Deal After Brink of Wall; ISIS Destroys 2000-Year-Old Temple in Palmyra; Over- Flow Seating at Jimmy Carter Sunday School Class. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired August 24, 2015 - 14:30   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[14:30:00] JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: And that should give you some sense of the president's view of the vice president's aptitude for the top job.

The president does plan to vote in the Illinois primary, and that ultimately it will be Democratic voters who are responsible for choosing the Democratic nominee, but I wouldn't speculate at this point about whether or not the president would offer an endorsement.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Is there any possibility, say, he'd endorse Joe Biden or endorse Hillary Clinton. I wouldn't rule out an endorsement for Bernie Sanders or the possibility of an endorsement in the Democratic primary. I am confident the president will support the Democratic nominee in the general election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: John Avlon, what's going on here?

(LAUGHTER)

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR & EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, DAILY BEAST: Well, it's good to know he'll support the Democratic nominee.

(CROSSTALK)

LIZZA: The president has to walk a tight line here.

AVLON: Yeah, exactly. The president has to walk a fine line. Because Hillary Clinton is the phenomenon of the Democratic Party. The margins are still an unprecedented situation. This is as close to a coordination that you get in American politics, particularly on the Democratic side. But as she's taken on a lot of water about questions about honesty, trustworthiness, Bernie Sanders is surging in the polls, the Biden option looks more credible.

This puts a real division with the administration itself, let alone, in the White House. The president is not going to throw his V.P. under the bus. That's not going to happen. But there are real concerns about how strong a general election candidate, Joe Biden, can be. It's one of the factors he has to figure out, is his best day the day he announces. They don't represent divergent wings of the party but the president is going to try to stay away as far as possible and say nice things about both. If it comes to the brass tacks of winnings, you've got to look at the polls and see who is in the best position to win, and Biden has a halo effect right now. Unclear if it will translate to a November 26th win.

BALDWIN: Here's my Question.

Ryan, I'll put this to you.

Who is really creating the Biden option? Is it Joe Biden and those who believe in his heart of hearts that he'd like to go through this again and try to sit in the Oval Office, or those who are now sort of getting cold feet perhaps over the Hillary Clinton option, therefore, would switch their support and get in the race?

RYAN LIZZA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR & WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORKER: Let's be honest about it, it's Biden and the media in Washington who the Biden and people close to Biden are leaking to. I mean, look, as a reporter covering this race, I would love nothing more than for Joe Biden to get in this race. It would be a lot of fun to watch Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden debate the issues that they debated in the Obama years and see who the true heir to the Obama presidency is, but let's just -- on the facts, politically, there is no clamoring among the Democratic base, among the Democratic Party elite for Joe Biden to get into this race.

Hillary has already locked up more than half of the sitting Democratic members of the House and the Senate. You can't find a single prominent official who is a Democrat in this country, saying, I don't want Hillary, I want Joe Biden. Frankly, I think this is skittishness by some Democratic operatives in Washington and some pro-Biden people worried about the scandal going on with the e-mails and I think Biden is really the insurance policy for Democrats if there's a catastrophic collapse of Hillary Clinton.

BALDWIN: If, if, OK.

John Avlon, final thoughts?

(CROSSTALK)

AVLON: This is the political equivalent of professional wrestling. People want to see a conflict but only true believers believe it will change the outcome.

BALDWIN: John Avlon, Ryan Lizza, thank you both.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Coming up next, North Korea and South Korea striking a deal after reportedly being on the brink of all-out war. We're also learning that commanders at the Pentagon reviewed a potential war plan for defending South Korea if the situation got out of control. Those details are ahead for you. Stay with me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:38:17] BALDWIN: 1,000 points in the red this morning and the Dow cut major losses in the matter of seconds at its open. A huge plummet in stocks that brought back fears of the 2008 financial crisis. Today's losses started in China and the second-biggest economy stemmed worldwide selloff over fears of the markets there.

"CNN Money" correspondent, Cristina Alesci, is joining me now from the New York Stock Exchange.

Cristina, this is a crucial final hour and a half of the trading day. Tell me what is going on.

CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's a lot calmer now, as you indicated. We're 350 points down, which on an ordinary day would be terrible, but we started with a 1,000-point drop this morning. It's much more rational and calmer on the floor. This, as you mentioned, is all sparked by concerns of global growth specifically. Specifically in China, it has been such a growth engine. Not just for that country and the S&P 500 is a broader market index, those earnings come from China and from the emerging markets.

So, Brooke, that's the ripple effects that people -- that is a ripple effect that investors are paying attention to. And because we had a stock market crash in China, that means a 40 percent drop from the peak, now investors are trying to make sense of all of this, raising Questions like, is China potentially heading for a recession? What don't we know about the Chinese economy because we don't trust the data? These are the things that the market professionals are looking at and parsing very closely. And some would say, well, we knew all of this months ago. Why today?

All I can tell you, Brooke, I've been covering the markets for years now and this is the way markets work. There's not much rationale behind these moves other than when fear takes hold, as Richard Quest said, all it takes is one person to shout fire and it just catches on.

[14:40:31] BALDWIN: That's exactly right. Psychological in how each market feeds upon the next. We'll talk to Richard Quest at the top of the hour.

Cristina Alesci, thank you so much for now.

Just in here to CNN, a deal has been reached and it seems war with the U.S. ally has been avoided for now. South Korea and North Korea signaling a ratcheting up of tension like we haven't seen in years. But after days of marathon negotiations, the two countries, who are technically still at war, have just struck a deal to end the standoff. CNN has also learned that the tensions between North and South Korea prompted the Pentagon to dust off its own war plans in South Korea needed defending.

Barbara Starr is live at the Pentagon.

Barbara, the Pentagon were so concerned they were examining how they would defend North Korea if something would escalate. What was decided?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, I have to tell you, Brooke, behind the scenes it was a couple of days of high drama. U.S. intelligence began late last week to see moves of a North Korean military mobilization. Not what you want to see on the peninsula. They were noticing defense radars had been activated, the kind that could see incoming aircraft. If that was in the works, North Korean artillery moved closer and they have thousands of artillery troops, but some of it on the move. Signs of a potential scud missile launch, and even more concerning, dozens of North Korean warships and submarines putting out to sea.

All of this, put together, pointed, along with the rhetoric from the North, to real concern that the North Koreans were really ramping things up. So what the Pentagon did was take the plan off the shelf and have a look at it and talk to the South Koreans about what was going on. Perhaps some pressure behind the scenes to the South Koreans to try and cool things down, because nobody would have wanted to see this escalate further.

But make no mistake, top commanders looked at the war plan, we are told, and one more time over the weekend reviewed, if it had gotten more serious, more of a mobilization, if North Korea had done something, what U.S. troops, they would have had to activate, what would have had to have been sent over to the peninsula very quickly. By all accounts, all of this avoided now by this peace agreement. But behind the scenes, we now know the level of drama behind it all -- Brooke?

BALDWIN: Drama and preparedness.

Barbara Starr, thank you so much at the Pentagon.

Coming up, people from all around the country traveling to Plains, Georgia, lining up to witness former President Jimmy Carter teaching Sunday school in the wake of his making his cancer public. We'll speak with someone who met the president, and called his class beautiful.

First, another appalling act at the hands of ISIS. The terror group rigging a 2,000-year-old temple with exclusives and blowing it up. What Syria is now trying to do to save these precious and priceless relics.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:48:09] BALDWIN: A Syrian temple built nearly 2,000 years ago, now a pile of rubble that was blown up after the terror group, ISIS, rigged it with explosives and blew it up. This is what the temple looked like before it was destroyed. In the past, ISIS has gone after smaller structures and statues claiming they were encouraging the worship of false idols so they must be destroyed. But some say this is the way for the terror group to gain more notoriety.

Let's go to our senior international correspondent, Ben Wedeman, live now. Ben, it makes you sick to your stomach what these terrorists have been

doing, but can you explain to me why you think they are doing this?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think, Brooke, it's for the shock value, that they want to show those -- their supporters around the world or those who might be supporters just how farther willing to go to get across their message of utter nihilism, that they will do anything to show that they are more Muslim than anybody else.

Keep in mind, ISIS took over the city Palmyra on May 21st. This is the first major archeologist site that's been destroyed, but they have killed, executed hundreds of people since then. Just last week, the 82-year-old former head of antiquities in that city, who served in that position for 40 years, they apparently tortured him for an entire month, hoping to find out where the antiquities they thought were hidden in that city. And last month, we saw as ISIS brought out 25 Syrian soldiers and had them executed by what appear to be teenagers in the city's ancient amphitheater. So they see this as another opportunity put on this spectacle of barbarity that doesn't have any end -- Brooke?

[11:50:18] BALDWIN: I spoke to someone who had known that 82-year- old for 25 years, and the way he spoke about him and the fact that this man would not give up where these antiquities were and treasures, speaks volumes about who he was and the passion for this part of the world.

Ben Wedeman, thank you.

Coming up here on CNN, after taking a steep dive this morning, will the markets make a full recovery in the final hour of trading? We'll go live to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

And next, far from the ordinary Sunday. Former President Jimmy Carter spoke in front of his packed hometown church that was over capacity. Here he was, teaching Sunday school after telling the world about his cancer fight. Hear from a man who was willing to camp out overnight for a front-row seat.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:55:17] BALDWIN: A Louisiana state trooper died today after being shot by a driver he had stopped to help. Police say Trooper Steven Vincent stopped to assist a man whose pickup truck was stuck in a ditch. Authorities will give an update at the top of the hour. We will bring you the news live.

Let me move along and talk about Jimmy Carter. For him, it was just another Sunday school class, just like the nearly 700 Sunday school classes he has taught through the years at his church in Plains, Georgia. Sunday's lesson came, of course, days after the former president told the world he's suffering from advanced cancer. By the way, did I mention, he's 90 yours of age.

So many people showed up, a lot of them had to sit in a spillover area in a nearby auditorium. The president came by later and spoke to them in person as well.

Among those who traveled to Plains for Sunday's class is Ron Lipe, from Columbia, South Carolina.

Thank you for coming on.

RON LIPE, COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA RESIDENT & ATTENDED JIMMY CARTER'S SUNDAY SCHOOL: You're welcome.

BALDWIN: I know you had made the trek to Plains before to see him. You know, did you actually decide to make this trip before we all learned about his battle with cancer but I understand you were so enthusiastic about your desire to go and sit in that front row that you were willing to camp out overnight at the church. Thank goodness you didn't have to do that. Tell me why it was so important for you to be there.

LIPE: Well, when I took my mother and my son approximately 11 years ago, we took her as a Christmas present. She was an avid Jimmy Carter fan. We went to the church at 6:00 in the morning and we were not first in line. We were second. But fortunately, we still got a front-row seat and it's fantastic to be so close to the former president while teaching Sunday school. On this trip, I had planned to make my wife for her birthday, which is this Wednesday, and I wanted to have her to have the same experience. And when we went to the church that night after dinner and all the media were setting up, I just decided that at that point I was number one in line and there was only one way to remain number one in line and that was to stay there until the rest of the night until the next morning. That's when I made my decision.

BALDWIN: That's when you made your decision. You wound up inside. I understand you got that front row seat, you and your family. Can you just tell me, what was it like sitting in there on being so close to the president? How does he seem?

LIPE: He seemed well. He's lucid, intelligent. He takes the class lesson out of the Baptist Special Guide. It's not a special preparation that he has. It was what the subject was for the week of august 23rd and he did very well with it.

BALDWIN: What was a moment, for you and your wife, you've gone home and shared with your friends?

LIPE: That he's so accessible. He's just an authentic person. What you see is what you get. You know, he's not like most or many of the ex-presidents. He makes himself accessible to people locally, nationally and throughout the world.

BALDWIN: And just even being part of it, reading about it this morning and how it was over capacity by several hundred people, I know you didn't have to be in the spillover area but as you left Sunday school, what -- you know, did you talk to others? I mean, what were -- what was their takeaway? What was that like for so many who made that trek as well to Plains? LIPE: Everybody felt the same way. Everybody was just heard the

cancer diagnosis and came on a last-minute trip but there were many people who, like us, had already planned the trip and that the diagnosis and the announcement didn't have any factor in the decision of making the trip.

BALDWIN: Special weekend for you and your wife, who had the birthday.

Ron Lipe, thank you for joining me.

LIPE: Thank you.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

[14:59:52] BALDWIN: We continue on. Top of the hour. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Big, big day on Wall Street. We are now 60 minutes away from that closing bell. It's been a whiplash sort of day for U.S. markets. Let's look at how the day started. Shall we? Take a close look at you'll see a picture.