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Russian Air Strikes Commence In Syria Today; Scheduled Execution Of Death Row Inmate Now On Hold In Oklahoma; Jeb Bush Still Lagging In Polls. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired September 30, 2015 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00] JENNIFER GRAY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Even impacting portions of South Carolina, North Carolina, and then we have a couple of outliers that are taking it straight out to sea. So that is why there's still a lot of question marks involved in this forecast.

We're also looking at a lot of rain. We could see anywhere from 10 to 12 additional inches of rain. We have seen a lot of rain already across the mid-Atlantic and the northeast over the past couple of days. And if the storm does take that western track, Brooke, a lot more rain is going to come.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Jennifer, thank you so much. We'll stay in close contact with you as Joaquin develops.

Meantime, I want to get back to our breaking news here. Russian airstrikes hitting within Syria today. U.S. officials, we just heard from secretary of defense Ash Carter, now saying they are not targeting ISIS at all, rather Syrian rebel strongholds, those who have been waging war against the president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad.

For perspective, let me bring in Ambassador Robert Ford, former U.S. ambassador to Syria and Algeria and also Scott Mann, a retired lieutenant colonel for the U.S. army special force. He is an author of "Game Changers: going local to defeat violent extremists."

Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me.

And Mr. Ambassador, first just to you. What is - we can't crawl in Vladimir Putin's mind, what do you think, though, Russia's short game and long game here is strategically speaking?

AMB. ROBERT FORD, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO SYRIA AND ALGERIA: I'm not sure the Russians have a long game. I think their short term is to bolster the Assad government, which has been retreating on the ground throughout calendar year 2015. His forces are losing slowly but surely a war of attrition and the Russians are there to bolster him to prevent his fall.

BALDWIN: White House says this wasn't a total surprise. We've seen the Russian presence ramping up in Syria. What do you say?

FORD: I think what's interesting is that the Russians suddenly hurried their forces in, really in the space of just a couple of weeks. So it wasn't a long, slow, steady buildup. They rushed them in. And that tells me that the Assad regime must have been weakening very quickly and they needed to act fast.

BALDWIN: Lieutenant colonel, I had major general spider Marks on a little while ago. And he says a potential eventuality would be, you know, the U.S. swallowing the fact that Assad isn't going anywhere and perhaps even the U.S. joining up with Russia together fighting ISIS. Is that even within the realm of possibility for you?

SCOTT MANN, AUTHOR, GAME CHANGER: Well, nothing seems to surprise me any more on this. And you know, I'm not a fan of partnering with Russia on something like this, even though we have a common enemy, Brooke, just because of some of their behavior in other places like Ukraine and other aspects of the Middle East like Iran.

But you know, the bottom line is, when we just bomb marginalized groups in Syria and Iraq, whether it's Russia that does it or the U.S. that does it, that strategy doesn't work. We can't bomb our way to victory against ISIS or any other marginalized group that's out there. We're going to have to work this thing at the ground level. And whether that's Russia doing it, whether it is or us doing it, it doesn't matter. It's ineffective. And frankly, partnering with Russia on this really just strengthens the ISIS narrative globally that Islam is under attack. I don't think it helps our cause at all.

BALDWIN: What do think about that?

FORD: I completely agree with that. I think that's spot-on analysis. I would just add that it should not be foreign ground forces that fight the Islamic state in places like Iraq or Syria. They need to be indigenous, local Syrian or Iraqi forces. And we need a new national government in Syria that can mobilize many, many more Syrians to fight extremists and Bashar al-Assad has been able to mobilize. Bashar al- Assad has had four years to mobilize Syrians.

BALDWIN: And the people have been fleeing from him.

FORD: Exactly. That is precisely my point. And so the Russian idea that you could join up with Bashar al-Assad who caused this problem in the first place, his brutality, I just think the Russian analysis is completely flawed and I think they know it. I think they are perfectly prepared to leave Bashar al-Assad in control of the western quarter of Syria and if the Islamic state remains entrenched in the eastern and central half of Syria, the Russians don't particularly care. They didn't hit the Islamic state today. They hit the people fighting both the Islamic state and the Assad government.

BALDWIN: And apparently some civilians.

FORD: Well, Syrian civilians are always taking them brunt of a lot of the bombing.

BALDWIN: Robert Ford, Mr. Ambassador, thank you so much. Scott Mann, lieutenant colonel, thank you as well. Thank you both.

Just in to CNN, a new poll shows Donald Trump is opening up his lead among Republicans. Hear who has now taken the latest big dip.

Plus, minutes from now, a man is scheduled to be executed and so many people coming forward saying he didn't do it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:39:22] BALDWIN: All right, even more new numbers today, although dropping in popularity, Donald Trump still has a huge lead in a new poll released today. These are numbers from Suffolk University and "USA today." Trump is ten full points ahead of Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina and a little farther down you see Jeb Bush in fifth place. And he told CNN's Dana Bash he never thought he would be one of the front-runner at first. He is in New Hampshire talking about the national increases in heroin overdoses and prescription drug addictions. And Dana Bash is there in Manchester as well.

You spoke with Jeb Bush. How does he feel about fifth place right now?

[15:40:01] DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, as you can imagine, he is trying to brush it aside. But, you know, Brooke, I talked to Governor Bush in the context of a lot of people kind of looking at his numbers, seeing that he has dropped sort of nationwide more than 50 percent in just three months since he was at least by polling standards the front-runner when he first got into the race in June.

You know, he said to me in this interview a lot of what we have heard behind the scenes from his aides, insisting that they have a plan, they are building a very large organization, they of course have raised a lot of money for his campaign, not to mention the super PAC. And the plan is, you know, initially he was talking about slow and steady, it being a marathon. Today he said it's a triathlon. And of course I said, what part of the triathlon are we in? And he said, well, we're swimming.

So, you know, he really is trying to calm everybody down, particularly when you look at the calendar today. It's September 30th, the last day of the fiscal quarter. My mail box - my inbox, I'm sure a lot of people's who are on political mail lists, they are blowing up with people asking for money to make sure that they get high enough numbers because that matters a lot. It probably matters most to Jeb Bush because he did so well in the first quarter. He's going to have to show that he can continue to do so.

BALDWIN: Well, back to his triathlon metaphor and the swimming section. You always know going into it you're going to get kicked, right? That's the part of the swimming.

BASH: I wouldn't know. I will definitely take your word for it, Brooke.