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New Day Sunday

American Officials Reaction to New Wave of Terrorism in Israel; Fundraising for the Campaign; Michigan Sports News. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired October 18, 2015 - 06:30   ET

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


[06:30:00] VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Bottom of the hour now. And Jeb Bush has thrown the latest punch in this fight with Donald Trump, the former Florida governor has a new ad calling to question Trump's grasp of military strategy and mocking the billionaire's fitness to be commander-in-chief. The clip includes everything from Trump's questioning of John McCain's status as a war hero to his inability to name prominent terrorists. So far, there has been no response from the Trump campaign about the ad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's in my (INAUDIBLE) truck at the same time. It goes ...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was nervous when I saw people running because I didn't know what was coming behind that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: And we are saying on top of the breaking news this morning. We first reported last half hour. Police in Ft. Myers, Florida, say one person was killed and four others were wounded in a late night shooting at Zombicon, a festival there in Ft. Myers. No suspects are in custody. Police are asking witnesses to come forward. We understand that, you know, there were lots of people there with cell phones, so maybe someone has video of the incident. Zombicon organizers say they are deeply saddened by this. We'll have more on this at the top of the hour.

PAUL: Right now we want to talk about the Middle East, tensions are escalating between Israelis and Palestinians. The Israelis say Palestinians engaged in five separate knife attacks yesterday with Israelis shooting dead four of the suspected stabbers. Now, this is just the latest in weeks of clashes as you know. The two groups fight over access to a site considered holy by both Muslims and Jews. Seven Israelis have been killed since October 1st. 43 Palestinians have died in that same period. Some killed in clashes with Israeli forces, others shot while carrying out stabbing attacks. The international correspondent Phil Black is joining us now. Phil, we saw actually a lot of movement a lot of things happening behind you yesterday. How does it seem today compared to yesterday?

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it is calm for the moment, Christi, but it is certainly tense. No new violence, no new stabbing attacks, but as you touched on yesterday, well, it was a very violent day. Five attempted stabbings by Palestinians against Israeli Jews, according to Israeli authorities that as you mentioned then, resulted in four Palestinians, at least four being shot and killed. Palestinians, some of people who's claimed to witness these events, they tell different, slightly more nuanced versions, and so there is certainly that divide, if you like, in terms of the accounts that we hear from both sides here.

But what this all means in a general sense is that the security remains in place that added security. And that is what you're seeing behind me right here. This is one of the checkpoints outside Palestinian community in East Jerusalem, Isawiya. There is more than 10,000 people living here. But in Palestinian communities like this, Israeli authorities have really locked them down in recent days, established these fortified checkpoints which you can see only letting some people in and out, conducting thorough, very through checks. And I think what you might be able to see behind me, is some of those checks. This is a pedestrian access point. So, when men want to walk out of this community, they have to lift up their shirts at a distance, turn around, show to the authorities that they are not armed. The Palestinian men really don't like this. They find it an undignifying experience and the Palestinian communities more generally see these sorts of lockdowns as collective punishment. Whole communities being locked down and punished, in their view, because of the actions of these knife attackers. For those families of the people involved in these attacks where the punishment is even more severe, their homes are going to be demolished, their residency here in Jerusalem is going to be revoked. That hasn't started to happen yet, but when it does, you can be sure that the tension will increase alongside with that. The Israeli government's view is that all of these sorts of steps are necessary to return calm and to return security, to make the streets of Jerusalem safe again after these two weeks of random violent attacks here. Christi.

PAUL: All right. Phil Black, we so appreciate the update. Thank you sir, for being with us.

You know, New York's Mayor Bill de Blasio is in Israeli right now. Here is what he had to say about the situation there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO, NEW YORK: We feel extraordinary closeness, our people by blood, by history, feel such a connection, and so when you are going through pain, we feel pain, too. When you're under attack, we feel under attack too. And I'm honored to be here in that spirit of solidarity. Today, we saw three families deeply affected by these acts of terror and we understand that any act of violence against the civilian is unacceptable and we have to condemn it and we have to fight to stop it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: Let's bring in David Tafuri, he is a former U.N. and State Department official and a former adviser on foreign policy to the Obama administration. David, so good to have you with us again. Let's talk about that real quickly. What kind of influence do you think Mayor de Blasio can bring to this?

[06:35:00]

DAVID TAFURI, FORMER U.N. AND STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Well, I mean his comments were very nice. He sympathizes with Israelis. Israelis are in a very tense situation. There are a few things that need to happen to help calm down the situation in Israel. Mahmoud Abbas should condemn these attacks. He has not done that yet, but he also does not speak on behalf of all Palestinians, especially Palestinians in Gaza. So, that is not enough. These are lone wolf attackers meaning they are not organized by the Palestinian leadership. It seems they are getting their idea to do this or being encouraged to do this through the Internet, through social media. I was in Gaza and in the West Bank a few years ago. Internet connectivity in those places is very high for the Middle East. That can be a good thing. It means, Palestinians get access to information other than the information their leaders give them. Also, Palestinians can also use that to be gainfully employed. However, it also has negative consequences and we see that here. The people who are encouraging these attacks are preying on the hopelessness of Palestinians. These acts are cowardly acts, however, it's still appealing to some Palestinians. We need to also stop that. All leaders in Palestine need to encourage the people not to engage in these attacks.

PAUL: You know, we are talking about Secretary John Kerry, Secretary of State who is supposed to, we understand, be meeting this week with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, we know he has spoken to, he's spoken to king of Jordan, King Abdullah, of course, as well. But when we talk about the fact that Netanyahu opposes the president's nuclear deal with Iran. What kind of rift is there between the U.S.? I mean really, help us understand the rift and what kind of influence the U.S. might have in this situation overall?

TAFURI: Well, there has been a rift between Netanyahu and President Obama. There's a lot of tension there. They don't agree on a lot of issues. They are mostly in agreement with relation to this situation. President Obama has made helpful comments, encouraging both sides to tell their people to calm down, not to engage in these attacks. That's important. More engagement by President Obama is very important here. He does have influence with the Israelis and with the Palestinians, and also engagement by John Kerry, we see him doing that. But again, this really isn't going to be up to the U.S. The U.S. can only do so much until things calm down and then they really - we really need to try and help encourage both sides to get the peace process back on track.

PAUL: The settlements that are being built in the West Bank, some say, are part of the problem. How do you see a peace process forming, if that one element cannot be remedied in some way?

TAFURI: Well, that certainly is inciting some of this, and it also really complicates the peace process. The settlements really probably should not continue. And President Obama has been critical of the fact that the settlements have continued. It makes this situation even more difficult. The next president of the United States will have even more trouble working through a peace process. We saw a lot of hope when President Obama came into power that may be there would be peace in Israeli/Palestinian conflict, but we haven't achieved that. The next president has even greater obstacles in part because of these settlements.

PAUL: All right, David Tafuri, always appreciate your insight. Thank you for being here, sir.

TAFURI: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: How much money do presidential candidates need to remain viable in this race? We are looking at the latest fund-raising numbers next. Who has just a few thousand dollars left and is fighting off calls to bow out.

Plus, the latest on Lamar Odom's recovery. What the NBA star did Saturday that some find encouraging.

[06:38:48]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: So, here is the big reveal. Take a look at this number. 264 million dollars. 346 thousand dollars as well. That is how much candidates collectively raised for their campaigns to date. While that may seem like a big number, and it is, check how much they have spent. More than $141 million today. Poppy Harlow breaks down where it all goes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The huge field of GOP candidates, if single-digit poll numbers don't force some out soon, their war chests almost certainly will. Campaign finance disclosures were filed Thursday. Tangible evidence of who is up and who is down. Excluding super-PACs, Jeb Bush raised 15.4 million dollars in the last quarter, but spent 11.5 million, forcing him to slash staff salaries and use cheaper hotels. Others faired far worth. Rick Santorum and Bobby Jindal, each camp was last in $300,000 cash on hand. Political outsiders did best. Ben Carson raised the most of any GOP candidate in the quarter, $20 million. Carly Fiorina, at nearly $7 million. Then there is Donald Trump, proudly self-funding his campaign, he took in 3.9 million from 74,000 of what the campaign calls, unsolicited donors. But surprisingly, the billionaire front runner's campaign has little cash in its coffers.

DONALD TRUMP: I'm really rich.

HARLOW: Trump's war chest, something he can drop millions into whenever needed, had only $254,000 at the end of the quarter. The un- orthodoxed candidate runs an unusual political operation. His second biggest expense? $723,000 to Tag Air, a company he owns and operates his fleet of planes and helicopters. But his biggest expense is those now famous "Make America Great Again" hats and t-shirts at $781,000 line item, nearly $400,000 more than Rick Santorum raised all quarter.

[06:45:07]

Where isn't Trump spending money? Advertising, for one. He is a proven master at generating free air time. By contrast, Bush spent $415,000 on media in the last quarter. Then there's this.

TRUMP: I don't want pollsters, people that are running against me. They are pollsters. They pay hundreds of thousands of dollars.

HARLOW: His estimate is a tad low. Hillary Clinton's campaign paid more than $1 million for polling last quarter alone. Trump is proud of his conservative spending, saying in a statement, to be number one in every poll and to have spent the least amount of dollars of any serious candidate is a testament to what I can do for America. And the little things count too. For the Trump campaign, they include $1,400 on New York City cabs and $1,302 spent at Home Depot and 324 bucks at Applebee's.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: All right, so that was Poppy Harlow reporting for us. So, now, even if the candidates are raking in so much money, they need to be careful about how much money they spend and how quickly. Let's bring in - or bring back, rather, Patricia Murphy, a columnist for "Daily Beast." So, the big question is, how much are they going to need to run a viable campaign?

PATRICIA MURPHY, "DAILY BEAST": Yes. Well, it is entirely up to the candidates how they are spending their money and there are some campaigns at this point who are starting develop reputations for very lavish spending and then very frugal spending. That's very important to their donors. And it's also important at the end of the day. For somebody like Hillary Clinton, you've raised $30 million, but you've spent $24 million. She is going to have to really double down on her fund-raising, especially with small donors because she has a lot of big donors max out already.

BLACKWELL: Yeah.

MURPHY: She's going to have to really aggressively fund-raise to keep up with the amount of infrastructure and spending she has already set for herself and this isn't the expensive time yet. This is just getting started.

BLACKWELL: But the expectation is that she won't face a protractive primary like she did in 2008 that went on into May.

MURPHY: So far.

BLACKWELL: Yeah.

MURPHY: I mean who knows - I mean if Joe Biden gets into it, we have got just a whole new ball game going on here. And then - and somebody like Bernie Sanders has shown an enormous amount of strength that nobody in Clinton land was really expecting, so she will have to spend more money on advertising, more money going into states, later states other than the early states just to make sure that she doesn't have any sort of embarrassing surprises the way she did in 2008.

BLACKWELL: And Bernie Sanders doing so well with those small donors. We can go to over and over and over.

MURPHY: Yes.

BLACKWELL: Let's go to some of the people on the other end of the spectrum. We've got Lincoln Chafee, Jim Gilmore, just I mean Lincoln Chafee raising a little more than $44,000 to date. How far does that take you? Jim Gilmore was 62,000.

MURPHY: The question is, do they have outside income to live?

BLACKWELL: Yes.

MURPHY: If they are taking - if they are taking income from this campaign, you're not going to last much longer. If you're just spending on Southwest tickets and getting invited to an Iowa fall fair and you can go out there on Southwest Airlines, you know, you can kind of - you can stretch yourself into a number of weeks and months, but these are not real campaigns. And when you look at fund-raising money like this, that's when you know it's not a real campaign. Somebody like Ben Carson had been written off very early in the game when somebody like Ben Carson raises $20 million.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

MURPHY: He is a player and that is what the money means for these people also.

BLACKWELL: And, you know, the argument we hear from the people at the other end of the spectrum who don't have much money is, look at John McCain in 2008, you know, flying alone and taking a coach seat and fought back to get the nomination. So, we will see. We'll see. Patricia Murphy, always good to have you.

MURPHY: Thank you. Great to see you.

BLACKWELL: All right. Christi.

PAUL: Already. A look at comedian Tracy Morgan's first appearance on "SNL" since that accident, of course. He vowed to return and he is back.

Also, next hour, boxing champ Evander Holyfield joins us live to talk about everything from politics to boxing. What do you want to ask him? Go to my Facebook or my Twitter page and put your question there and we will put it to him. Stay close.

[06:49:13]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: 52 minutes past the hour. And he's back after that horrific car crash last year, beloved comedian Tracy Morgan hosted "Saturday Night Live."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRACY MORGAN, COMEDIAN: Thank you! Thank you so much! Thank you so much!"

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: He was critically injured when a truck hit his limo and actually one of his friends was killed, so when he stepped up on stage, he knew that there would be a lot of people wondering if he was up to the task of hosting the show. CNN senior media correspondent, host of "Reliable Sources" Brian Stelter is joining us now. So, Brian, what do you think? Did he do it?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN HOST: He sure did. It was more than just a sympathy return to the show. He was back 100 percent and, of course, joined by many of his longtime friends from NBC. You know, Tracy - He hosted from 1996 to 2003 and he starred in "30 Rock" afterwards, so some of his former "30 rock" friends came back and here is what happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I hope Tracy pulls through this. He told me he was getting me back stage to the Grammys to meet and sigh. Remember, this was 2012.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Morgan has got to get better. Who is going to teach me to drink Hennessy until I throw up and who is going to remind me to expose myself to dogs to show them who's the alpha.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's the think about loss is only when someone or something is taken away from you that you realize how much you really missed him and even things that seem silly or ridiculous at the time - when they are gone. As my friend once said ...

Boring!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, good god, Tracy!

MORGAN: I'm black and better than ever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STELTER: Yes, indeed, he was even poking fun at a couple of different points about people wondering whether he would be able to make it back, whether he would be able to be funny again. You know, I remember in his interview, his first interview after the accident, he said he wondered - he wondered if he would ever be able to be funny again after the crash. I think a lot of people can relate to that. If they go through a traumatic experience, they wonder if they can ever get back to being themselves and that is exactly what he did last night, that's exactly what he did by getting back on the "SNL" stage and honestly, I think it inspired some people to see him back there.

[06:55:04]

PAUL: I don't doubt it. And humor can really be a great healer in its own way. Brian Stelter, thank you so much. By the way, a program note here for you. At 7:00? You know what? Here at CNN, we can laugh at ourselves. You should hear us during the break. "SNL" gives us their version of the Democratic debate. We are going to show you that next hour.

BLACKWELL: I'm looking forward to that, too. A serious turn here. A shark goes after another swimmer in Hawaii. Next, the damage it caused and how the victim got away.

Also, coming up next hour the latest on the breaking news that we are following. Police are searching for the person who opened fire at Zombicon in Ft. Myers, Florida. Five people shot, one killed as officers tried to track down that shooter.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: Former NBA star Lamar Odom may be showing signs of improvement, at least that is what sister-in-law Kim Kardashian tweeted to her 36 million followers. In part, she writes, so happy Kendall and I can make you smile today. That is good. Odom was hospitalized Tuesday after he was found unconscious at the Love Ranch in Nevada where he'd been seen Saturday.

BLACKWELL: A 44-year-old man is in the hospital after a shark bit him while swimming off the Hawaiian shore. He sustained serious injuries to his lower leg. The person he was swimming with was unharmed. Two good Samaritans in a canoe helped bring the victims to shore. In a separate shark attack on Saturday, a man was bitten on the left foot. He's in the hospital in serious condition. Also in Hawaii, two Fridays ago, a surfer had to fight off a shark and lost his leg and fingers in the process.

PAUL: Here we have a new most exciting finish in sports contender, this comes as college football.

BLACKWELL: You know the one I'm talking about. CNN sports Coy Wire is here with us. Michigan/Michigan State.

COY WIRE, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, my goodness. Everybody was talking about that and still talking about this! You're talking about seventh ranked Michigan State, 12th rank Michigan and Michigan huge rivalry, right? And there is just no other way to put it, this is simply one of the most exciting unimaginable finishes in college football history. Let's take a look at this exciting play. Michigan Wolverines led by Jim Harbaugh, they never trailed in this game until the final play of the game. Michigan is up 23-21 and they just need to punt the ball, guys! There is ten seconds left! Now somehow Sparty gets the ball, just get him on the ground! But no, Michigan state goes into the end zone for the go ahead score and no time remaining. The devastation! Can you imagine? I can't even fathom what this feels like. Certainly one of the most exciting finishes ever. You're talking about two top ranked teams, so that - the question, we want to ask our viewers today what is the most exciting finish in sports history, period? You were so great yesterday morning with all of your responses when we had you on the show. We want to hear from you now. What is it that Kirk Gibson in the World Series home run in 88, is it Brandy Chastain's, in the World Cup. Let us know. Hashtag "NEW DAY CNN." Hit us up on Twitter at "NEW DAY" and our Facebook page as well.

[07:00:00]

PAUL: I just know I'm a buckeye. I could watch that again.

Thank you so much, Coy. And thank you for starting your morning with us.