Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Trump and Carson Alone Atop GOP Field; Joe Biden Meets with Advisers; Bernie Sanders to Speak on Democratic Socialism; Hackers: We Hit CIA, Homeland Security Chiefs; Bush, Trump 9/11 Feud Intensifies. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired October 20, 2015 - 09:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[09:00:01] DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: How can you say you were safe under his brother when we just had the worst attack in the history of our country?

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And those comments on George Bush on 9/11? Not swaying his supporters.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald says it, I take it.

COSTELLO: Also, the CIA director's personal e-mail allegedly hacked. CNN talks to the hacker who says he did it.

LAURIE SEGALL, CNN MONEY TECH CORRESPONDENT: How difficult would you say it is?

UNIDENTIFIED HACKER: You mean out of 10?

SEGALL: Sure, out of 10.

UNIDENTIFIED HACKER: A one.

COSTELLO: Why he did it and what did he find out?

Plus it's finally here.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There were stories about what happened.

HARRISON FORD, ACTOR: It's true.

COSTELLO: The new "Star Wars" trailer racking up millions of views. Ticket sites crashing. So what if the movie doesn't even come out until December?

Let's talk. Live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

In the Republican race for president, the strong get stronger. Frontrunners Donald Trump and Ben Carson now control nearly half the GOP support. According to the latest CNN-ORC poll, Trump leads Carson 27 percent to 22 percent. All the other candidates in the crowded field are mired in single digits.

This morning on CNN Trump discussed the possibility of a running mate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Ben Carson is running second to you. He's at 22 percent. Could there be any two more different people? How do you explain that you both are winning with Republicans?

TRUMP: Well, we hit a cord. And we're not as different as people think. You know, we have a very good relationship. We're not as different as people think. But there is a -- certainly a different style. And you know, I have great assets and he has some great assets. But we are both resonating; there's no question about it. And NBC just came out with their poll, and it's very similar. I'm in first place.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

TRUMP: And Ben is in second place. And I went up a lot and from my original, I've gone up a lot. And you know, it's -- the other candidates are very similar. So maybe these polls are starting to really accurate out.

CAMEROTA: Can you imagine a Trump-Carson ticket?

TRUMP: Well, I like him. He likes me. I mean, stranger things have happened. That I can tell you. But it's too early to think about that. It certainly is interesting. So many people have suggested it because we seem to be doing awfully well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: CNN's Athena Jones live in Washington this morning with more. Good morning.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. There is so much to talk about in this poll. Very interesting to hear Donald Trump say stranger things have happened when talking about a possible Trump-Carson ticket. But these latest numbers are just the latest poll to make all of us from the media sound like a broken record. Trump is still right there on top. Carson is within striking distance.

That's maybe one of the most interesting things about this poll. Trump's support is pretty solid. It hasn't changed much. But Carson has risen eight points in the last month. And as you mentioned they win a large portion of the GOP vote. And when you ask people who's their first choice and their second choice, they end up with nearly two-thirds support.

And I got to tell you that Trump's support sounds pretty solid. We've heard him say a lot of controversial remarks. The latest him talking about 9/11 but you have supporters who say look, we still back him. I believe we have a sound bite from one supporter. Let's go ahead and play that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL PARDEE, TRAVELS TO TRUMP RALLIES: He was in office when that happened unfortunately. I did support George Bush. I am a Republican. And I support Donald Trump.

ERICA PARDEE, TRUMP SUPPORTER: I personally feel like it's fine. He's a very bold and brash businessman and he brings that to the table as far as his campaign -- running for the White House. And I think it's fine.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: How do you feel that he's making statements like that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If Donald says it, I take it. That's how much I believe in it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: And so those are Trump supporters saying they don't have an issue with the fact that Donald Trump is repeatedly bringing up 9/11, even going as far as to suggest that at one point George W. Bush is responsible because it happened on his watch. His supporters seem very, very forgiving.

A couple of other interesting points in this poll here is to see how Carly Fiorina, who is that third outsider candidate who got a lot of attention after her strong debate performances, well, she slipped down. You can see now she's tied for seventh place. She's lost 11 points in just the last month. Meanwhile Bush and Rubio, two of the so-called establishment candidates, they're tied for a third but look how far behind they are at third. Tied there at 8 percent.

So a lot of interesting numbers in this poll. One more thing our poll found I should mention, Carol, is that 68 percent of Republicans polled said they were either enthusiastic or very enthusiastic about voting for president next year. That's about 10 points higher than the Democrats who say they're enthusiastic and 75 percent of Republican voters say they're satisfied with their choices in this race.

[09:05:10] So Carson and Trump on top and people very happy to see them on top. Very, very interesting numbers here, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Athena Jones reporting live from Washington.

Is the Joe Biden guessing game entering the final hours? Let's go live to the vice president's next public appearance. He's actually appearing at a Washington event honoring Walter Mondale. And like Mondale, will Biden chase the Democratic nomination for president?

New moves by Biden and his political allies may mean the decision is finally, finally imminent. Senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta is here with more. Good

morning, Jim.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

Democratic sources telling me Vice President Biden is still sounding very serious about a run for the White House. He's been reaching out to loyalists to talk strategy, but even his friends inside the Democratic Party are not sure how long he can drag this out. Last night he met with his political advisers and his team is talking to operatives about joining a potential campaign.

And it seems each day Biden sends out another teaser about his intentions. Consider these comments he made at a climate conference at the White House here yesterday when he indicated he was running a little behind schedule. Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm the late Joe biden. And I just want you to know as much as I love you, I've been in a meeting with the president on another matter for the last two hours. And it's hard to say, Mr. President, I'm -- you're on your own. I'm leaving, although he is on his own. He doesn't need me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: So there you go. Vice President Biden talking about the late Joe Biden. Truer words have not been spoken.

But, Carol, there is also some fresh information for the vice president to consider this morning as to why he may not want to run. There's a new NBC-"Wall Street Journal" poll this morning, you can put it up on screen, it shows that Democrats across the country are not so sure the vice president should jump into this race. Only 30 percent said yes, 38 percent say no. That's pretty consistent with what our CNN-ORC poll said yesterday.

And you talked about this Walter Mondale event that's about to get started here within the hour. The vice president is going to be paying tribute to Walter Mondale who was of course the vice president under Jimmy Carter and went on to lose by a landslide to Ronald Reagan. So he's getting a reminder of the perils of a vice president running for president, Carol.

But keep in mind, vice presidents have run for office and won before. George H.W. Bush, Harry Truman, you know, the list goes on and on. Sometimes a good way to become president is being vice president. But he's honoring Walter Mondale who was not so lucky when he ran in 1984 -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Jim Acosta, reporting live from the White House this morning. While we await Biden's final decision let's talk Sanders. Bernie Sanders got a modest bump in the polls after the Democratic debate. But according to the latest ABC News-"Washington Post" poll, only 11 percent of Democratic voters think Sanders can actually win the party's nomination. Maybe it is that Democratic socialist thing. Clinton pinged Sanders on that in the debate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And it's our job to rein in the excesses of capitalism so that it doesn't run amok and doesn't cause the kind of inequities that we're seeing in our economic system. But we would be making a grave mistake to turn our backs on what built the greatest middle class in the history of the world.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN DEBATE MODERATOR: Senator Sanders?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Perhaps that's why Sanders is planning a major speech to explain exactly what Democratic socialism is.

Let's talk about that and more with Sanders senior media advisor Ted Devine.

Welcome.

TED DEVINE, SENIOR MEDIA ADVISOR, BERNIE 2016: Good to be with you, Carol.

COSTELLO: Nice to have you here. When will Senator Sanders deliver his speech?

DEVINE: I think soon. In November. I mean, he's been thinking about this for a while. He understands that people need to get to know him better, his political philosophy. Bernie has always been very honest about who he is. The first time I met him 20 years, I said you're a socialist. And he corrected me and said I'm a Democratic socialist.

And I think for him it means an economic system that isn't rigged the way ours is today. An economic system that doesn't send all the wealth to the top, that distributes it and builds a strong middle class. That's what he wants to talk about and I think people will be very interested in what he has to say.

COSTELLO: They may be interested, and I think many people are a bit confused because when you say Democratic socialism it sort of means you give free stuff to everyone.

DEVINE: Well, you know, I think that's why it's important for him to explain his program. I mean, Bernie Sanders believes in building a strong middle class in the America. He believes the way we do that is to change an economic system which today is rigged. This economic system is rigged to send all the wealth to the top. It's held in place by a corrupt political system of fundraising, of super PACs, of special interest donors that keeps that economic system in place.

So he thinks it's time that we have a real debate about what's happening in America's economy. And he looks forward to be able to explain it. COSTELLO: Yes, and he talks a lot about Denmark. And I wanted to get

into that a bit with you. So let's talk about Denmark. According to the "New York Times," Denmark taxes the living daylights out of its citizens. The top income tax rate is 60.3 percent. There is a 25 percent national sales tax. Denmark's tax take is almost half of its national income.

[09:10:13] Many Americans would look at those numbers and kind of freak out.

DEVINE: Well, I think that, you know, that's why we need to have this debate. You know, if you live in Denmark, every single person has healthcare as a right. OK. It's not a privilege as given to people who can afford it. If you live in Denmark you get two and a half -- you get two and a half months of paid family and medical leave if you need it. There are a lot of systems in place to build the middle class in that country.

Listen, Denmark is not going to be the model for the United States. This is the biggest economy in the world. The most powerful nation in the world. But what Bernie Sanders is talking about is looking at other countries like Germany, where kids don't have to pay to go to public colleges and universities. That's a good idea. If we're going to compete, if our kids are going to compete against German kids in the future economy, and you put a burden of debt on their shoulders that is unsustainable, and German kids have no debt, we are putting our kids in a very difficult strait if they want to compete in -- in the new economy that's emerging in the century.

So these are debates that should happen. Bernie has got a lot of good ideas about how to make, for example, college education universal. He believes we shouldn't stop at high school anymore like we did a hundred years ago. We need to make college education, public college and universities, universal education in America so our kids can compete. And I think his ideas and whether they come from Germany or Denmark or some other place are really worth looking at for America because the time has come for that.

COSTELLO: OK. Well, we look forward to Bernie Sanders' speech sometime in November.

Ted Devine, thanks so much for being with me this morning.

DEVINE: Thank you.

COSTELLO: You're welcome.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the CIA is all about gathering intelligence. But did hackers just get all the information on the CIA's chief?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:15:58] COSTELLO: An Israeli killed this morning after being run over by a truck. Israeli officials say a mob of Palestinians first threw rocks at the victim's vehicle and when he stepped out of his car, they ran him down.

The latest deadly attack comes as United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon makes a special visit to the region today, hoping to stem the violence with some sort of political solution. This month alone, nine Israelis and the 45 Palestinians have been killed. That's according to officials from either side.

It's this violence in Israeli that the group of hackers motivated them to breach the e-mail accounts of two high ranking U.S. officials. The FBI and Secret Service are investigating reports that CIA Director John Brennan and Department of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson were hacked.

This morning, we're hearing from a group calling themselves C-W-A. They are taking credit. The apparent hackers giving CNN an exclusive phone interview.

Laurie Segall is in London. She took that phone call. Tell us more, Laurie.

LAURIE SEGALL, CNNMONEY TECH CORRESPONDENT: It was an interesting phone call to say that. I actually reached out to them on the Twitter account that they are allegedly leaking all of this data. And we ended up talking on the phone.

And I'll say this. They disguised their voice so it sounds very different than what I would imagine they sound like in real life. But they talked to me a little bit about how they did this and why they did this.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEGALL: You claim you were able to hack the private e-mail account of the CIA director. How did you do that?

HACKER (via telephone): Well, we have most of his personal information like his name, address, Social Security and other things. And socially engineered, we, like, manipulated to, like, do the password reset on the account. We socially engineered Verizon and then we socially engineered to get his last four details on his bank account.

SEGALL: If this is true and it is true you guys have actually broken into his private e-mail account, how difficult would you say it is.

HACKER: You mean out of ten?

SEGALL: Sure, out of 10.

HACKER: A one.

SEGALL: A one?

HACKER: Yes. SEGALL: You guys say you were able to hack into his personal inbox.

What did you find?

HACKER: Social Security numbers. Plans talking about Iraq and Syria. There was a lot of, I guess, private information, really. He's pretty stupid, really. He's supposed to be high so high in the government, like head of the CIA. He should be more clever.

SEGALL: What was your motivation for doing this?

HACKER: Free Palestine. The United States government funds Israel and in Israel, they kill innocent people.

SEGALL: Can you give us any indication of your background? I mean, how old you are? Are you in the United States? I mean, anything you can tell me about yourself.

HACKER: Yes, I am below the age of 22 years old. I smoke spot and I live in America.

SEGALL: And you smoke pot.

HACKER: All day, every day.

SEGALL: So you might have hacked the director of the CIA while you were high.

HACKER: Probably.

SEGALL: Are you sophisticated hackers?

HACKER: I would kind of put us like in the middle maybe. We're not like stupid but we're not really smart. There are a lot of really, really smart people.

SEGALL: Do you guys worry about retribution?

HACKER: I'm going to go to Russia and chill with Snowden because I know that the government is pretty about this. I'm probably get tortured. I'm actually a pretty fast runner.

SEGALL: You plan to leak more information? Is there any specific target?

HACKER: Yes, the government and the police, and the White House people. They're losers.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SEGALL: Now, Carol, sources have confirmed both accounts were hacked, but CNN cannot independently verify the leaked documents. I will say this. Covering cyber security, talking to very sophisticated hackers quite often, I did not get the feeling that these guys were that sophisticated, which is pretty eye-opening if it is true, in fact, that they did in fact get inside the CIA director's personal e-mail account -- Carol. COSTELLO: They kept using the term "socially engineered".

[09:20:01] What does that mean?

SEGALL: That is the term going hear more and more.

So, they're not sophisticated technical hackers. But social engineering is basically able to call up Verizon and use data about the CIA director to pretend to be him, to pretend to get more information about him. Then they were able to go to AOL, call up AOL and convince them they were someone they were not, so AOL would reset the password.

So, it's this idea of not having technical schools but almost having very good people skills and being able too utilize public data that's increasingly available about us online and use that for bad causes, which is what these guys are doing and what I'm hearing in the hacker community is happening more and more -- Carol.

COSTELLO: It's amazing because apparently he was high the whole time since he smoked pot every day all day.

Have the authorities contacted you -- have the authorities contacted you about this?

SEGALL: I spoke to them yesterday. And they have said that -- they said that they are hiding. They said they don't believe they are traceable. Right now, they haven't been contacted the authorities have said they are looking into it. The CIA has confirmed they are aware of it, and they are looking into it.

You know, and I will say this. It is very u very difficult to remain untraceable for a very long time when you do something like this, Carol.

COSTELLO: I think you just proved that. Laurie Segall, many thanks.

Still to come in THE NEWSROOM: Jeb fired up and Trump is not letting up on his 9/11 claims. Will there be any fallout?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:25:50] COSTELLO: Donald Trump is doubling down on his controversial comments about 9/11. Earlier today in an interview with CNN's Alisyn Camerota, Trump stood his ground and said former President George W. Bush did not keep the country safe. The frontrunner also said his immigration policies would have made a difference.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (via telephone): How can you say we were safe when we just had the worst attack in the history of our country? You can't say you were safe. You can say, yes, we did well after. But then we made mistakes there because yes, we were safe in a sense, but we went into Iraq which was a disaster decision, just a disastrous decision. Not Afghanistan because that's probably where we should have gone in the first place. But Iraq was a disastrous decision.

So we go into Iraq and we make a mistake. But -- and you can also say, well, is that safe going into Iraq when we are losing thousands of soldiers? That is not safe either. You got right down to it.

But I simply said that you can't say that we were safe -- he said, "Under my brother we were safe." Well, you can't say that, because we had the worst attack in the history of this country. If you look at what happened, number one, I would have had much stronger immigration policies.

I'm not saying I would have prevented it but I would have had a chance. I'm pretty good at this stuff.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: So, I will ask you about, but hold on --

TRUMP: But I would have had much stronger immigration policies in effect.

CAMEROTA: But meaning, that you would not -- if you were president, you wouldn't allow student visas? I mean, as you know, the hijackers came in on tourist visas and student visas --

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: I would have had a much tougher visa program. The visas are too easy. And I would have had a much tougher -- well, but look --

CAMEROTA: You wouldn't allow those going forward?

TRUMP: But, Alisyn, they knew an attack was coming. Georgia Tenet, the CIA director, knew in advance there would be an attack. And he said so to the president and he said so to everybody else that would listen and that came out.

The other thing is the FBI, the NSC and the CIA were not talking to each other.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Jeb Bush fired back at Trump. During an interview with FOX News, Bush defended his brother's anti-terror policies and argued that the former president did keep America safe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: His view of history is just wrong. The simple fact is that when we were attacked, my brother created an environment where for 2,600 days we were safe. No one attacked us again.

And he changed the laws. He did everything necessary. He united the country and kept us safe. Donald Trump is not a serious candidate as it relates to foreign

policy. I think he has to show he's capable. It is not just all about him. It is about policies. It's about strategy. It's about understanding how the world works and how American leadership matters.

This lack of understanding of how the world works is what the problem is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Bush argued, instead of blaming his brother for 9/11, the finger should be pointed at former President Bill Clinton for not doing enough to hunt down Osama bin Laden.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: I think there are two ways to look at terrorism. One is a threat that has to be taken out as it relates to -- you know, creating a strategy that calls it a war, or we view it as the law enforcement operation where people have rights. I think the Clinton administration made a mistake of thinking bin Laden had to be viewed from a law enforcement perspective. Similarly, President Obama's policy seems to be focused on that as well. This is a war against Western civilization.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: I want to wring you back to September 11th to the moment that President George W. Bush was told America was under attack. You remember he was at an elementary school in Florida reading to school children. And you can see the shock on his face.

So, let's focus again on whether President Bush should have known an attack was imminent and was Bill Clinton at all to blame?

So, I want to bring in CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen. He's the author of "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden", and wrote an op-ed for CNN.com called "Is Trump right about 9/11?"

Thanks, Peter, for being with me.

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: OK. So, before we begin our discussion, is this finger pointing important?

BERGEN: Well, you know, history is about trying to discern the truth. So I guess I think it is important. I mean, of course, ultimately, the people who were to blame for 9/11 were Osama bin Laden and the hijackers and al Qaeda. But the fact is, the historical record shows that President Bush before 9/11 really had no idea about al Qaeda or bin Laden.