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FBI Helped Stop Nuclear Smuggling Plot; Clinton, Trump Lead in Key Swing States; Families, Communities Praying for Missing Crew; U.S. Calls Russian Strikes a Fundamental Mistake; Democrats Gear Up for First Debate; Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired October 07, 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] CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT: The two people next to you for an entire flight, I mean, that is horrendous.

ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Awkward.

ALESCI: Right? But listen. I called Airbus, and they said, you know, we file all sorts of things. That doesn't mean they're going to make it to market. And I don't know if this one's going to really -- the passengers are going to swallow this one very well.

CABRERA: Well, no, it's a talker and maybe we'll get some initial response that will have them can this idea.

Cristina Alesci, thank you very much.

The next hour of NEWSROOM begins next.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

CABRERA: Good morning, I'm Ana Cabrera in for Carol Costello. Thank you for joining me.

I want to get right to this breaking news out of Washington we're following. CNN now learning that the FBI has helped to thwart a smuggling ring that involved nuclear and radioactive materials. Now authorities believe the smugglers were trying to put these deadly materials into the hands of ISIS and other extremist groups.

Justice reporter Evan Perez is joining me on the phone with more on this.

Evan, tell us what you've learned.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, this is an operation done by Moldovan law enforcement and they have the assistance of the FBI. The big concern here was that you have smugglers in that region in Moldova and across the border in a Russian region called Transnistria, which if you have smugglers who might want to sell materials such as this, radioactive materials, that could be used to make a dirty bomb and that this would end up in the hands of extremist groups, and ISIS would be one of those groups, obviously this is something that's a big concern for U.S. law enforcement, for the U.S. government. The idea that one of these groups could get their hands on these

materials has been a big concern for many, many years. So there were a number of arrests in the last couple of years done by Moldovan authorities with the assistance of the FBI. These were sting operations. So there were no actual jihadi groups or anybody actually involved in them. These were simply targeting these smugglers to try to make sure that this material did not get into the hands of these bad groups.

CABRERA: Scary situation, Evan Perez, keep us updated on what you learn.

And right now, let's move to politics where we are just six days out. Lots going on this morning. The first Democratic debate here on CNN. Guess who's up in the polls this morning. We'll start with the Democrats. New numbers from Quinnipiac University show Hillary Clinton with a double-digit lead in three key swing states. Clinton now ahead of rival Bernie Sanders in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. On the Republican side, Donald Trump remains on top and gaining traction in Florida and Ohio.

We'll dissect all the poll numbers in just a moment. But first, all eyes on Iowa today. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both hitting the campaign trail there.

Let's bring in CNN senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny in Mount Vernon, Iowa, where Clinton will have a stop. We're also joined by CNN's Athena Jones in Waterloo, Iowa, following Donald Trump.

Jeff, to you first, Hillary Clinton holding that sizeable lead we just showed, double-digit lead, in three swing states, but right now she's focusing on Iowa. Well, what's going on there today?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, she's focusing on Iowa because that's where this presidential race is going to start in February, of course. And she does not have the comfortable lead in Iowa that she has in some of those other general election battlegrounds. So, of course, the process goes Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada, and then on to those states.

So what the Clinton campaign is trying to do is focus on this Democratic race. There's so much uncertainty inside this Democratic campaign right now. Not only is Bernie Sanders surging in New Hampshire and coming right on her heels here in Iowa, there's also so many questions about is Joe Biden going to jump in this race or not? But the Clinton campaign is trying to stay focused. They're going to be having an event in about an hour or so. You can see behind me here the chairs are set up in Mount Vernon, Iowa.

She is going sort of town by town trying to win over these Democratic activists here. But with all the uncertainty in the Democratic race, she is trying to show that she is focused on being the strongest Democratic candidate to take on the Republicans. And last night at an event in Muscatine, Iowa, she told the Iowa supporters, though, that she has actually sent a copy of her book "Hard Choices," an autographed copy, with a letter to each one of these Republican presidential candidates.

So she is trying to push back on the fact that they say she has no accomplishments. So she said, look, I just thought I would send my book to them. But I can tell you even though she's trying to talk about the Republicans, they are focusing on the Democrats and all this uncertainty on this side of the race.

CABRERA: And Trump, you know, has got out his victory pom-poms this morning with those new polls showing him in the lead.

So, Athena, let's bring you into the conversation to talk more about what's happening there on the Republican side as you follow the Trump campaign in Iowa.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Ana. Well, we're told by a Trump aide here today that we expect Donald Trump to talk about his tax policy, that tax plan he rolled out just last week that, of course, lowers tax rates across the board while also getting rid of a loophole that allows hedge fund managers to pay less in taxes.

[10:05:12] One thing we won't hear him talk about likely on that front is what kind of tax rate he pays. He's talked about how he fights hard to pay as little as possible in taxes. But you're right, Ana. As much as we hear Donald Trump talking about polls, I'm going to venture a guess, without much fear of contradiction, that he's going to mention these latest poll numbers in -- sorry, in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida.

You know, these new numbers show him out on top in those three states, and they're going to give pause to folks who thought that maybe Trump was fading a little bit. His lead in national polls slipping a little bit, and even in Iowa and New Hampshire coming down to just five points. But the fact of the matter is, he's still out in front. And look at Florida, of course, where he's leading both Senator Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush, the former governor of that state. He's way out in front of them in double digits. And we're likely to hear him talk about that a couple of times today -- Ana.

CABRERA: All right. Athena Jones, Jeff Zeleny in Iowa, thank you both.

And Hillary Clinton's team is hoping to sustain this boost in the polls with a little help from her husband, of course, a very popular Democrat, the former president, embarking on a busy month of campaigning for her.

One of the stops on the trail, well, it was "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" last night where Clinton talked about his wife's recent appearance on "Saturday Night Live."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, "LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT": Who do you like for 2016. And please try to be impartial here. Who do you think is the most qualified to hold office in 2016?

BILL CLINTON, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: The lady I saw singing on "Saturday Night Live."

COLBERT: She was very good. She was good. Yes. That Val woman was wonderful.

CLINTON: Yes.

COLBERT: She was really wonderful.

CLINTON: Made me want to take a drink with her.

COLBERT: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Well, joining me now, CNN political analyst and the editor in chief of "The Daily Beast," John Avlon.

John, I hope you can hear me. We saw you looking down. Some would say sending in Bill Clinton could carry both reward and risks. And I understand he cannot hear us right now, so we'll have to come back to John to talk more.

Can you hear me now, John?

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I can hear you. Thank you. I can hear you now.

CABRERA: OK, great. Well, we're going to talk about Bill Clinton now on the campaign trail with Hillary Clinton. He was on "Stephen Colbert" last night. We just played one of his clips. Reward or risk having Bill Clinton out there in such a spotlight when you're talking about Hillary and her campaign?

AVLON: Yes. I mean, the Clinton campaign has apparently decided to deploy Bubba, and that's never a bad idea. There is nobody who's a better happy warrior than Bill Clinton. And as President Obama found out, dubbing him the secretary of explaining stuff, he just does it well and he's in many ways his wife's best advocate. And even though it was sort of a softball interview, he really made a lot of commonsense arguments and was in all his full glory.

So the Bubba is out. Bubba has been released, people. Watch out.

CABRERA: Some have said that this may have to do with Clinton trying to shore up support with some of the minority voting groups, African- Americans, Hispanic voters. We know that Bill Clinton is well liked in those groups. Is this going to work?

AVLON: Well, look, you know, I think it's important to remember that, you know, eight years ago when Hillary Clinton ran for the Democratic nomination against President Obama or then-Senator Obama, she actually did very well among blue-collar workers, core elements of the base, among women, and particularly Latino voters, that particular part of the story's been largely forgotten. So she's got a strong base. Bernie Sanders has the activist crowd really excited. But the crowds are sort of monotone when it comes to racial diversity.

So actually, Bernie Sanders, for all his liberal bona fides, has a lot of ground to make up. Hillary Clinton can't afford to recede in any of those areas. She's seen some downward pressure in her support among women voters, and -- but Bill coming out, I think, will galvanize the base all around her as well as centrist Democrats who are ultimately the folks who are the best case for a general election win.

And let's not forget all of this primary stuff is preamble to winning a general on both sides of the aisle, something that activists tend to forget.

CABRERA: Let's take a look at these new polls. Good news for Hillary Clinton, she is still on top by double digits in these three key swing states. But the bad news that we've learned from when you look inside some of the polling that she is still considered very untrustworthy. The majority of the voters in these states say they don't think she's honest. Of course, she's going before the Benghazi committee here coming up in the next few days and weeks.

Is that going to help her, do you think?

AVLON: That is going to be a major political high wire act, the likes of which we really haven't seen in modern American politics. Now in the wake that Kevin McCarthy's unwise comments that the Benghazi committee had contributed to her decline in the polls, Hillary Clinton has found some righteous indignation about the politicization of the Benghazi committee. And that genuine passion and fury, I think, resonated.

[10:10:10] It's what we don't see too often when people retreat behind talking points and get in a position where they're afraid to lose, so they're afraid of offending and therefore they don't say or feel what they think. That's what -- is the core of authenticity. She needs to tap into that, stop trying to pander to specific constituencies, be who she is which is I think a passionate public servant, and really bring some heat on the politicization on the Benghazi committee which she did last week, I think, to some great effect. She was fired up and it showed.

CABRERA: All right. John Avlon, editor-in-chief of the "Daily Beast." Good to have you with us.

AVLON: Thanks, Ana.

CABRERA: We want to take you now back to Washington where House Republican leadership is holding its weekly news conference. Outgoing Speaker John Boehner, he is there along with the man hoping to replace him at the top job, House majority leader Kevin McCarthy. And there's Kathy McMorris Rogers. Again, one of the rising stars believed to be there in the Republican Party and the House of Representatives.

We're going to monitor this conference. We'll bring you any updates. Of course, we're listening to hear any highlights regarding that House speaker race as the Republicans get ready to vote on their nominee tomorrow.

And still to come here on CNN right now, looking for survivors from that cargo ship presumed to have sunk during Hurricane Joaquin. This morning, what we're learning about those missing.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:15:51] CABRERA: Families and communities not giving up hope as Coast Guard crews continued their desperate search for survivors of the cargo ship El Faro that has presumed to have sunk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Be with them by night and day for merchant mariners, we pray.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: The vigil held last night at the same school where four of the missing crew members on board studied.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This isn't a memorial for anyone because they're still out there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is for the community to keep that hope, to show that, you know, we're rooting for them and that they're going to get home safe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: So people still staying optimistic even though it's been almost a week since that ship went missing. And here you're looking at seven of those crew members aboard the ship as it sailed right into a hurricane.

Among the missing, we're learning their stories. 34-year-old Daniel Rudolph, a second mate. She e-mailed her mom ahead of the storm. This is what she wrote. "We are holding right now and heading right into a category 3 hurricane. Last we checked, winds are super bad. Love to everyone."

And take a look at Keith Griffin. He is a soon-to-be dad. His wife, in fact, expecting twins. And upon his return, they hope to learn their gender.

Now, though, we're getting word of a possible break in the investigation. Some new debris found overnight possibly from El Faro, surfacing in the Caribbean.

Alexandra Field is going to join me now for the latest on that investigation.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Look, all efforts have been focused on trying to find any survivors who are out here. We know that there were 33 people on board this ship. So they're really devoting these resources, trying to see if there are people out there. That is all they care about at this point. They have not been trying to find the ship which they believe sank itself. They are still considering this a search and rescue operation. They are still working around the clock.

We know that they've got a number of Coast Guard cutters in the water as well as commercial vessels which are helping them with the search. At this point, the Coast Guard has already reported that they've searched more than 174,000 square nautical miles. It's a huge area. But they have honed in on these two separate debris fields. One is right sort of in the area of the ship's last known location, northeast of the Bahamas. The other debris field about 16 miles north of that. So they have had some direction in which to concentrate the efforts.

But, Ana, you know that this has been just an agonizing wait for family members to get any information. They are also now looking for answers, asking a lot of questions of the TOTE Maritime, which is the company of course that owns El Faro. They have been forthcoming and moving sort of through the timeline of what happened to this ship.

We know again that it left on Tuesday. We understand now that on Wednesday the captain of the ship had made contact with the parent company, saying he was aware of the worsening weather conditions, but he felt that the ship was in a good position and in favorable conditions. By Thursday, we know that the ship had lost propulsion. That's when they lost contact. So now you have the NTSB, and it is their job to get on site and to try and determine why the ship lost propulsion.

They'll be on site for seven to 10 days. But as you've pointed out this morning, a key piece of this investigation could be recovering the data recorders. And while the focus is on finding survivors, some of those resources will have to wait to be deployed in order to go search for those data recorders.

CABRERA: And, of course, the clock is ticking on those because the pingers only work for 30 days. So the countdown is on in many ways.

FIELD: Right.

(CROSSTALK)

CABRERA: Heart-wrenching.

FIELD: A 30-day battery life but they should be pinging by now once they hit the water.

CABRERA: All right. Alexandra Field, thank you.

And still to come, let's check top stories. Texas death row inmate apologized to his victim's family shortly before being executed last night. Juan Garcia was convicted of shooting and killing a Christian missionary during a robbery back in the '90s. Now the victim had just $8 at the time. Garcia is the 11th inmate to be executed in Texas this year. The Justice Department announcing it will release around 6,000 inmates

from prison at the end of this month. This is the largest number ever released at one time. Officials say the move is an attempt to reduce prison overcrowding and to ease harsh sentences in drug cases. About a third of the inmates are undocumented immigrants who will be immediately deported according to authorities.

The Army is investigating a fatal shooting at Fort Campbell this morning. Officials say a soldier was killed after being shot during a training exercise. The Army not releasing the soldier's name or any other details at this time.

And commissioners in Blount County, Tennessee, have voted down a resolution begging for God's mercy following the Supreme Court's ruling on same-sex marriage. The resolution which was sponsored by a fellow county commissioner said, in part, "We adopt this resolution before God that he pass us by in his coming wrath and not destroy our county as he did Sodom and Gomorrah."

Now so far it doesn't appear that one in the county is taking any action to actually stop same-sex marriages from taking place there, but certainly trying to make a statement.

Still to come, less than a week from that first Democratic debate here on CNN, we'll have a look at the big challenges Hillary Clinton could face when squaring off against Bernie Sanders.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:25:30] CABRERA: Welcome back. The United States slamming Russian military action in Syria. And earlier this morning, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter called Russia's airstrike campaign a, quote, "fundamental mistake."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ASH CARTER, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Russia has the wrong strategy. They continue to hit targets that are not ISIL. We believe this is a fundamental mistake. What we will do is continue basic technical discussions on professional safety procedures for our pilots flying about Syria. That's it. But we will keep the channel open because it's a matter of security and safety for our pilots.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr following this story. And Barbara, we keep hearing from U.S. officials saying, you know, Russia is saying this but doing another. At this point, is the U.S. indicating it's planning to intervene, to do something to stop Russia any time soon?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Ana. I don't think you're going to see that from the U.S. military at any point. It was last week, of course, that President Obama said he didn't want to turn this into a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia. So expect to see the U.S. for now continue on the path of airstrikes against ISIS. But this comes as Russia seems to be stepping up its combat action and its combat power almost every day.

Now today we are learning that the Russians have begun naval strikes into Syria. They moved four warships into the southern Caspian Sea to the east. That put them within range of Syria and by all accounts, they are using some very high-tech missiles off those ships to strike targets. Nobody at the Pentagon can really recall the last time the Russian Navy was in combat in this way.

In addition, U.S. -- pardon me, Russian ground units in combat in western Syria now. Russian artillery, Russian rocket launchers that had moved into western Syria now striking as well in support of Syrian regime airstrikes and ground action. So you're seeing the Russians step it up almost every day. You're seeing a U.S. administration, a U.S. Defense secretary obviously very unhappy about all of this. Don't expect to see a change in policy, a change in U.S. military action, at least not for now -- Ana.

CABRERA: All right. It is concerning. Barbara Starr, thank you for your reporting.

Hello, again, and thanks for rolling with us into the back half of the hour. I'm Ana Cabrera in for Carol Costello. Good to have you with me.

In just a matter of days now, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders go head to head in the first Democratic presidential debate. And this means both campaigns are, of course, preparing right now, gearing up.

Here's what "The Times" writes that over the next few days, Mrs. Clinton and her aides will look for the best way to explain to viewers why she is a better choice than her nearest rival without sounding condescending to Mr. Sanders or dismissive of his views so she does not risk alienating his growing army of supporters.

Now among Clinton's tactics, perhaps, her focusing on those new gun control proposals, her challenging some of Sanders' spending plans.

Let's discuss more about this. Political science professor at Hiram College Jason Johnson is joining me now. He's also a contributor on Sirius XM POTUS Channel.

Thanks for being here, Jason.

JASON JOHNSON, PROFESSOR POLITICAL SCIENCE, HIRAM COLLEGE: Thanks, Ana.

CABRERA: If you were advising Clinton, what would be your advice in these final days before that debate?

JOHNSON: The most important thing for Hillary Clinton to do is say what she has accomplished. That's something that Bernie Sanders can't really talk a lot about. I mean, he's been in the Senate for a long time, but Clinton can say, look. I ushered through the violence against women act. I was secretary of state. I got Osama bin Laden.

She needs to focus on what she has done versus what Bernie Sanders has talked about. And that's a way to draw a contrast without seeming condescending or too harsh.

CABRERA: Right, because a lot of people view Bernie Sanders as sort of this very nice almost grandfatherly figure. Now on the flipside, with Clinton being a woman, you don't want to sound patronizing to her either. So if you were Bernie Sanders, what do you do?

JOHNSON: Well, what Bernie Sanders has to do is simply say, look, we need something new. Now it's interesting because, you know, they're both fairly old candidates, but Bernie Sanders is going to say, I am new, I'm going to bring something new to Washington. Hillary is old guard. She's been in Washington for 20 years. She's part of this disappointing administration. You know, but here's the catch. It's also going to be interesting to see what do the other three candidates do.