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Tracking Hurricane Joaquin Targeting the East Coast; Russia Unleashes Syria Airstrikes; Kerry to Meet with Allies about Syria Strikes; Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired October 01, 2015 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:04] CUOMO: Had to turn people away.

PEREIRA: It's incredible. Look at that.

CUOMO: Normally it takes a week to clear those 450 acres. They got it done in 10 hours. Carl is still fighting cancer. He says he's the proudest of his bumper crop friends. He says thank you.

PEREIRA: Beautiful. Beautiful.

CAMEROTA: That's so great. All right. Time now for "NEWSROOM" with Poppy Harlow, in for Carol Costello today.

PEREIRA: Hey, Poppy.

CAMEROTA: Hey, Poppy.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, guys. My favorite part of your show. Good news every day to begin our show. Have a good one.

CAMEROTA: Thanks so much.

HARLOW: NEWSROOM begins right now.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow in today for Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

You see it behind my shoulders and it is quite a storm that is brewing. Hurricane Joaquin strengthening over night. Right now the Category 3 storm is bearing down on the Bahamas, winds topping 120 miles per hour. In its path? The East Coast. Record rain from a different system flooding cities from Massachusetts to Maine.

Joaquin now threatening to weaken even -- not weaken, wreak even more havoc in these same towns. Huge surf already slamming the shores, growing fears this morning that Joaquin could be the next Sandy.

Red Cross workers in Pennsylvania packing emergency bags like these, handing them out to people who are in the path of the storm. Farther south they're moving sand and lots of it.

Chad Myers joining us now with the latest on the storm.

Chad, it is, for someone who went through Sandy like so many of us here on the East Coast to even bring that up is terrifying.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: And this storm will get to be a Category 4 hurricane today. It will 140 miles per hour. It will have the momentum that Sandy had. But will it have the turning current to make it turn back to the left like Sandy did back into the New England states and then obviously into New York and New Jersey?

There is the eye of this Joaquin right now. It will travel down into the Bahamas and spend almost an entire day doing a lot of damage down here as a 140-mile-per-hour storm. Then where does it go? Does it go that way like the European model? Does it go that way like most U.S. models or does it go that way which they were going yesterday back into the East Coast of the United States? Especially in the South Carolina and the North Carolina.

Well, it's a wobbly storm. It's wiggling and wobbling around 140 miles per hour in the Bahamas. But I took the middle off. I took the center off, I took the -- just because I want you to see how big of a problem it is when you're talking about left to right or east to west. It could be in West Virginia. It could be halfway to Bermuda because the models can't decide. The models are made by man. So they're not perfect. This model here has -- think about soup. It has -- this has too much salt. This model has too much pepper.

Well, somewhere in between probably is a perfect combination of what this storm will do. What we know it will do whether there's landfall or not. It will make five to 10, maybe 15 inches of rainfall and that will cause flooding. Trees will blow down even with a 40-mile-per- hour wind. This is a flood maker even if the eye doesn't hit.

Back to you, Poppy.

HARLOW: We'll be watching as you will. Incredibly closely, Chad. Thank you.

MYERS: You're welcome.

HARLOW: I do want to turn now to the rising tension between Washington and Moscow and confirmation that Russia has carried out a second straight day of airstrikes in Syria.

We're taking a look at new video that we got overnight of more of those bombings. At the heart of the concern, though, doubts, doubts that Russia is actually targeting ISIS fighters as it claims. Washington says evidence suggests warplanes are striking the U.S. backed rebels who are trying to oust dictator Bashar al-Assad.

The questions ominous enough to prompt a face-to-face meeting among Washington and Moscow's top diplomats. The Pentagon accusing Russia of inflaming the war in a region that is increasingly volatile. Just minutes ago we heard from Arizona Senator John McCain, barely containing his anger.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: I can absolutely confirm to you that they were strikes against our Free Syrian Army or groups that have been armed and trained by the CIA because we have communications with people there. Well, the first thing we do is we say to the Russians, we are going to fly anywhere we want to. And you better stay the hell out of the way. The second thing we do is that we consider Syrian sanctions. Third of all, we develop a strategy pretty much outlined by General David Petraeus before the Armed Services Committee a couple of weeks. To turn this tide. It is -- the slaughter continues and now we have the Russians playing a major role.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: I do want to begin coverage with CNN's Arwa Damon who has reported extensively throughout Syria.

Arwa, to you, Syria's ambassador to Russia, Riad Haddad, just spoke moments ago, held a press conference. What is he saying that is key here?

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, he's basically justifying Russia's actions inside Syria. And remember, these are actions that according to both the Russia and Syria governments came at the request directly of President Bashar al-Assad himself.

[09:05:11] According to Syria's ambassador to Russia, he was very specific to say that the Western media is always misinforming the public and he went on to add al Qaeda and ISIS are one and the same. These strikes are targeting these people. Russia is leading a regional movement to combat the Islamic State.

Now a lot of this, Poppy is really a play on words and definitions. From the perspective of both the Assad regime and the Russians all of these variation different rebel factions are considered to be terrorists and therefore in their perspective legitimate targets along with, of course, ISIS in and of itself.

The other issue, though, is looking at exactly where these Russian airstrikes have been taking place. They have been hitting in many instances areas that were already being bombarded by the Assad regime. Areas where ISIS is not known to have a significant if any presence at all. And the ripple on effect from all of these has caused amongst quite a few activist and rebel faction that we've been in touched with, a lot of concern because the way they look at it, Assad now has a very powerful ally in Russia that is taking direct actions on the ground that are going to have immediate impact on the battlefield dynamics, allow Assad's troops to move in and regain territory, whereas America that is meant to be the so-called moderate opposition's ally really is not doing anything to significantly counter this.

So a lot of people watching very closely to see what America and the coalition is going to do to try to weaken Assad's hand. Because if it continues as is without any sort of counter move to Russia's actions against these various different rebel factions the battlefield dynamic, according to many is going to sway in favor of the Assad regime. And ISIS is not going to be weakened in this process, Poppy. HARLOW: Arwa Damon, reporting for us live this morning. Arwa, thank

you very much.

CNN also learning the Secretary of State John Kerry will meet with other members of the U.S. led coalition that oppose the Assad regime. That will be the third such meeting this week alone. It just goes to the severity of the situation.

Our Barbara Starr from the Pentagon tracking this story. What is the latest on that meeting?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, that meeting is expected to happen. That is the political track, if you will, on the situation in Syria. The military track however might get a little bit complicated today. It is now expected that the U.S. and the Russian military will have some sort of meeting today by video teleconference to discuss this whole thing that we've been talking about, deconfliction. How to keep U.S. and Russian pilots apart in the skies. How to share information so they both know where they are operating. How to avoid any disaster.

From the U.S. military point of view, U.S. pilots have a lot of classified technology. When they are up there in the skies, they have a very good sense through radar and other surveillance means of knowing what aircraft are up there and being able to basically stay away from them. But the U.S., make no mistake, not happy about what the Russians did yesterday, giving one-hour notice that they were going to start airstrikes. Basically knocking on the door of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad saying here we are. Get your planes out of the sky.

Not the way military relations between countries are conducted in this day and age. So a very unhappy Pentagon wanting to sit down with the Russians today to sort out the military side of this. And underscoring all of that, Defense Secretary Ash Carter saying the Russians are simply propping up Assad with these type of airstrikes. He calls it pouring gasoline on the fire -- Poppy.

HARLOW: He does, Barbara. He also says the result of this kind of action will be inevitably simply to inflame the civil war in Syria. That is what he says. But it seems like there are conflicting messages from Washington because then White House press secretary Josh Earnest comes in and says, quote, "I think Russians have made clear they're not interested in provoking a the conflict." Are you seeing some of this messaging confusing?

STARR: Well, you know, whatever top official talks in Washington usually reflects a combination of reality and politics, doesn't it? I mean, the White House clearly does not want to inflame the situation with the Russians. They have known about the Russian military buildup. They have watched it very carefully. None of this is a surprise, in fact, to the White House.

HARLOW: Right.

STARR: With the intelligence community. They saw this coming. They knew the Russians were going to launch strikes. Perhaps not on one- hour notice but they knew. So the White House, the State Department, very publicly focused on that diplomatic track to get the Russians convinced there has to be a political transition out of Assad.

I would say at the Pentagon you have military officials very much embracing that. But perhaps a little more strident because of what the Russians did yesterday. This is a military move by the Russians that the U.S. hasn't seen in decades. And it did not go over well with top military leaders.

[09:10:15] HARLOW: Barbara Starr live at the Pentagon. Thank you very much.

And as the U.S. casts doubt over Russia's targets Republican presidential hopefuls are questioning how the White House is handling the situation. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICK SANTORUM (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would argue our fight is in Iraq right now, not in Syria. I don't think we have any good options in Syria. I have no problem with the Russians protecting their security interest. Vladimir Putin is acting very rationally.

SEN. RAND PAUL (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If I were to see Assad walking down the street I wouldn't feed him. I mean, he is an evil man who has gassed his people and is at least partly if not mostly responsible for this.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They don't respect our president, they really don't respect us anymore. And that's why they're doing this. At the same time if they want to hit ISIS that's OK with me. I'm not going to be saying we have to do it all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Rival Marco Rubio also weighing in, telling FOX News choice should not be between ISIS or Assad but that both, quote, "need to go."

Joining me now to talk about all of this, CNN military analyst Colonel Peter Mansoor, he is also a former aide to General David Petraeus.

Thank you for being with me.

COL. PETER MANSOOR, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Thanks for having me on, Poppy.

HARLOW: What is your reaction when you hear Rick Santorum, a man who wants to be in the White House, say that Putin is acting, quote, "rationally," on Syria, then you hear his rival Donald Trump saying the U.S. should not try to be the policemen of the world. What is your take on what those two gentlemen said?

MANSOOR: You know, I think they need to look at the situation a little more clearly. Putin may be acting rationally. But he's acting rationally in his own country's interest. He's playing a very duplicitous game saying he's going to target ISIS and in fact targeting moderate groups which are a greater danger to Assad. In the end if Russia and Assad destroy all the moderate groups then it's them versus ISIS and they think the world will then support Assad and keep him in power.

And for candidates to say well, let the Russians fight ISIS, it doesn't have any impact on us, they haven't looked at the situation very clearly because clearly Russia's interest is Assad. Not necessarily in destroying ISIS.

HARLOW: Colonel, let me ask you something just about the military strategy here, right? And what you do as the coalition force when you've got Russia now carrying out two straight days of these airstrikes. Former Major General Spider Marks said -- this is a quote from him yesterday, "How do you coordinate at the very tactical level with the Russians with whom we've had no experience at all?"

Just about coordinating your efforts. If you take Russia with its best intentions, right, if you assume the best out of it, how do you coordinate strategically?

MANSOOR: I think what you would have to do is put Russian officers and communications inside the U.S. operations center that is in charge of the air campaign over Syria and Iraq. This will give the Russians however a very inside look at what's going on in our campaign against ISIS. And then they'd have to be transparent about what they were bombing as well. That's why I don't think it will happen because I don't think the Russians want us to know where they are bombing because then we could say hey, there is no ISIS there, why are you bombing there, and would raise a whole host of strategic questions that they're not interested in answering.

HARLOW: So when you talk about defeating ISIS it's more than a sort of one-pronged strategy. It's two-pronged in terms of defeating ISIS in Syria and in Iraq. We heard Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi come out today and say, look, these airstrikes are, quote, "beneficial," and that he would welcome them in Iraq, the Russian airstrikes.

Will we see that? Do you think we will see that or do you believe Russia's strategy will be solely focused on Syria clearly because they are in support of Assad?

MANSOOR: I think it would be a reach for Russia to target ISIS forces in Iraq. They don't have good intelligence there. There is plenty of U.S. air power that can be applied there. And again, Russia's interest here is in propping up Bashar al-Assad, not necessarily in destroying ISIS. So I don't see that as an eventuality. I think Haider al-Abadi was just welcoming anyone to the fight against ISIS because this country, of course, is in a serious, serious fight with that group and needs all the help it can get.

HARLOW: Colonel Peter Mansoor, thank you. Appreciate it.

MANSOOR: Thanks, Poppy. HARLOW: Still to come here, critics were concerned about Hillary

Clinton's private e-mails being hacked. New information show that they had every reason to worry. Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:18:47] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news just into us here at CNN. The director of the Secret Service apologizing this morning to Congressman Jason Chaffetz. A new report says the top official suggested leaking details of the Utah Republican's unsuccessful application to join the Secret Service back in 2003. Chaffetz is a long time critic of the agency.

Senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta joins from Washington with more.

Not often we hear a direct apology like this, Jim.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Not often but the allegations are pretty severe. And so, Director Joe Clancy of the U.S. Secret Service is putting out this statement apologizing to the House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz after one of his top officials apparently tried to leak damaging information about the chairman to the press.

I have one of the emails right here, came out of the I.G. report, the Department of Homeland Security. It says very clearly information he might find embarrassing. This is from a U.S. Secret Service official Ed Lowery. Says some information you might find embarrassing needs to get out, just to be fair, and he's talking about the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Jason Chaffetz.

Now the director of the Secret Service, as you mentioned, Poppy, is putting out a statement apologizing. I don't know if we have that, to put up on screen, but I can read part of it to you.

It says, "This incident" -- I should start with this, "The Secret Service takes employee misconduct very seriously and as I've stated before, any employee, regardless of rank or seniority who has committed misconduct, will be held accountable. This incident will be no different and I will ensure the appropriate disciplinary actions are taken. On behalf of the men and women of the U.S. Secret Service, I again apologize to Representative Chaffetz for this wholly avoidable and embarrassing misconduct."

And, you know, this is essentially the director of the Secret Service admitting that one of his top officials was engaged in an embarrassing misconduct. And as, you know, Poppy, this bombs on the heels of a slew of embarrassing episodes for the Secret Service, including that fence-jumping incident last fall.

Now, it goes on to say in a separate statement from the U.S. Secret Service, essentially that no disciplinary action has been taken at this point. Ed Lowery has not been removed from his position, according to what the Secret Service is saying right now. But it does sort of foreshadow that that process has begun.

And we should point out, Poppy, it was just on Tuesday afternoon when President Obama after his trip to the United Nations came over to the press after he got off Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House. He almost never does this. But he came over to reporters and told reporters how happy he was with the Secret Service after what he called a flawless performance during the pope and his visit last week, during the visit of the Chinese President Xi Jinping and then the United Nations 70th anniversary up in New York.

So, the president of the United States was feeling very good about approximate performance of the Secret Service, and then this damaging report and the apology from the Secret Service director. Not a good day for the Secret Service, Poppy.

HARLOW: No, certainly, and not a good day following such a great performance, as you've said, handling all the security around the pope's visit here.

Jim Acosta, thank you very much.

Joe Biden may be sitting out the CNN debate, that is the one on October 13th. But that does not mean that he is out of the race for the White House entirely. Of course, he hasn't even said if he's in or not. In fact, the discussion could be weeks away.

Let's go straight to senior Washington correspondent Joe Johns with more big "New York Times" article on this, my friend, this morning showing that Hillary Clinton's camp a little more nervous about Biden.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Poppy.

Vice President Joe Biden has extended his window for deciding whether to jump into the 2016 presidential campaign. Several Democrats are saying this, allowing the contest to play out even longer before he answers one of the biggest questions hanging over the race for the White House.

This reporting according to CNN's Jeff Zeleny, Biden apparently not preparing for the first Democratic debate on October 13th in Las Vegas, not expected to participate, people close to him say because he feels no pressure to reach a decision by then. He's likely to reveal his plans in the second half of October. He has suggested publicly that he may very well not run. And some who are familiar with his deliberations say they believe he's leaning against getting into the race.

He stopped short of asking his advisors to pull the trigger on any of their plans in waiting, including setting up the legal structure of a campaign organization and taking the steps to qualify for ballots in Michigan, Texas, and other states with early deadlines. Nothing is actually being done yet, said a senior Democrat who's spoken with Biden. There are far more talk than action.

Biden has said he would only run if he was certain he had a path to victory. Several Democrats who have spoken to him say a hurdle that he increasingly believes is within reach but he's still unsure whether he and his family are ready for the campaign's emotional toll, this Democrats say, which has been the chief benchmark for running -- Poppy.

HARLOW: But, Joe, you've got to think about fundraising, right? I mean, you've got this latest quarterly fundraising numbers in from Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders edging closer and closer to Hillary Clinton. The longer he waits, is there a money concern?

JOHNS: There is absolutely a money concern, because people are writing checks. They have been writing checks for quite a while and somewhat getting locked in.

That said, there are some people -- and I've talked to them on the campaign trail myself -- who are trying to keep their powder try to see whether Joe Biden was getting in. But as these days pass, at some point, you have to go ahead and hitch yourself to a horse.

HARLOW: Good way to put it. Joe Johns, thank you.

The other big story coming out of Washington this morning, Hillary Clinton fighting back after House Republican Kevin McCarthy, a potential candidate for speaker of the House, a position third in line to the presidency, seemingly admitted that the Benghazi investigation was at least in part a partisan attack on her record.

Clinton said this to MSNBC.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When I hear a statement like that which demonstrates unequivocally that this was always meant to be a partisan political exercise, I feel like it does a grave disservice and dishonors not just the memory of the four that we lost, but everybody who has served our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:25:12] HARLOW: So, here's what she's talking about. Earlier in an interview with FOX News, McCarthy appeared to link the Benghazi panel and investigation to Clinton's falling poll numbers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R), CALIFORNIA: Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she's untrustable. But no one would have no one any of that had happened had we not fought and made that happen.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS: I agree. That's something good, I give you credit for that.

(END VIDEO CLIP) HARLOW: Well, McCarthy has been taken to task for those comments, even by members of his own party. Representative Jason Chaffetz told our Wolf Blitzer on THE SITUATION ROOM yesterday, he thinks McCarthy should apologize.

All right. More concerns about the security of the private e-mail server that Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state. We are now finding out there may have been fishing attempt by hackers on her e-mail along with so many others. So, not necessarily a direct focus on her e-mail. Opening the attachment would have allowed hackers to take control of the victim's computer.

The e-mails were part of a wide spread phishing effort. This is back in 2011. I do want to say there's no indication that Clinton ever clicked on the link or fell for the hoax.

Still to come: millions and millions of you are bracing for Hurricane Joaquin. This as it strengthens overnight. Where is it heading? We'll tell you.

Stay with us.

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