Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Belgian and French Authorities Asking for Help Finding Najim Laachraoui, New Paris Attack Suspect; Potential Showdown Between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired March 21, 2016 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Now that a lot of people have been calling for Donald Trump sort of specifics on foreign policy which we should be hearing later today at APAC, but also naming names on whose advising him. And so, he now has released these five names. The committee is apparently chaired by Senator Jeff Sessions. But then, throw the Kasich tweet up on the screen, please. Because John Kasich, governor of Ohio, has basically responded with this.

This is what it looks like when you build your national security team out of actual experts, is his tweet. And I have page one, page two. These are all names from governor Kasich. Here you can see in the screen, four full pages of names. What do you think of this?

CARRIE SHEFFIELD, CONTRIBUTOR, FORBES: Well, basically when you can put your entire foreign policy on a postage stamp, that is basically says a lot about who you are as a candidate. When you're a candidate who say that you look at the Sunday talk shows to guide your foreign policy, that's how he gets his news. This is a man who has never grappled with serious issues. This is the man who has only grappled with how to make himself rich, how to make his immediate family members rich. It's not a man who has devoted his life to public service. And that's why people like myself, we are part of #neverTrump. We are conservatives who know that he is a phony and we will never support him. We never will because we don't trust him. He is a man who wants power for the sake of its own sake. So I will never trust him. And this is just another example.

BALDWIN: Gina, I want you to respond to that.

GINA LOUDON, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Yes. Well, you know, they say in politics if you want to trust somebody, get a dog. So I could certainly agree with that. And I don't trust really anybody that that echelon of politics. But what I do understand about Mr. Trump, and I have actually not endorsed him, but I am -- my background is in psychology. And what is fascinating about him as a personality is how much he wants to succeed. How much he is in his element when it is about the art of the deal. And how much I believe him when he says he wants to be the greatest American president ever. And this is a perfect example. This whole situation with APAC.

He wants to do the whole dead with Israel and like (INAUDIBLE) wouldn't say what his plays would be but for the next football season. Donald Trump I believe is going to focus a lot more on what he's going to do then the how he is going to do it because he is a deductive thinker. He starts with a goal and he builds down. That's different from your traditional politician. And I don't think Mr. Trump would deny that.

BALDWIN: Gina, let me just stay with you, because, listen that may be the case and he may outline all kinds of specifics this evening. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt. My question, though, is this. On Capitol Hill today when he's meeting with these rank and file Republicans, not a single member of Republican leadership gave him the time of day. And I'm just wondering how -- why you think that is.

LOUDON: To most conservatives out there, this is a huge badge of honor for Mr. Trump because most conservatives don't like the GOP establishment to begin with. This is the reason they're behind candidates like Ted Cruz and Mr. Trump. And here is the fascinate thing. Any other candidate, any other candidate goes to Washington, D.C. and they look like part of the establishment. Mr. Trump goes to Washington, D.C. He looks like the presumptive winner. He looks like he is closing the deal here which is exactly his intention. He looks presidential.

BALDWIN: Let me turn to both you. And Clay, to you first. I mean, respond to that. You know Donald Trump.

CLAY AIKEN (D), FORMER NORTH CAROLINA CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: When I ran for Congress, I ran as an outsider. And, you know, a lot of people in this country do want outsiders. But it is one thing to go as an outsider with a plan and it's a completely different thing to go as an outsider with no plan. And Donald Trump's foreign policy is essentially speak incoherently and carry a big stick, I mean, it's not a --

BALDWIN: Hang on a second. I mean, this is big news that he has a teleprompter.

AIKEN: Absolutely. And I think it will be very telling as to whether or not, a, he sticks with it, because it's not necessarily something that he is comfortable with. And, really, I think that's what I'm most fascinated by. You look at who is going to be president and I have sat here and thought to myself, wait, who can we see giving a state of the union dress? And Donald Trump has not been the person who has -- who has made anyone feel secure that he actually had a plan and had a vision.

Tonight, the stuff that's going to be on his teleprompter I think will probably come from these five people, come from his speech writers. Whether he can stick to it, and whether his supporters appreciate it, and whether they actually continue to appreciate him when he is not speaking in these generalizations, that he is not speaking in these platitudes, will be interesting to watch. It is going to be a very different Donald Trump.

SHEFFIELD: I think the Donald Trump on Capitol Hill why there wasn't members of the Republican establishment or leadership there is because Donald Trump has probably given high fives to Democrats. This is a man who has donated tens of thousands of -- BALDWIN: -- Republicans --

SHEFFIELD: Well, I'm just saying in theory it was actually Democrats who Donald Trump has supported for decades. This is a man who flip- flops. This is a man who is inconsistent. It depends on what side of the bed he woke up on in the morning.

AIKEN: That's not flip. That's not working with his supporters. That argument that -

(CROSSTALK)

[15:35:00] AIKEN: The Republican, the group of voters voting for Donald Trump are not responding to the fact he donated to Democrats. They are not responding to the fact that the Republican --

BALDWIN: These are passionate people who are all in on Donald Trump.

AIKEN: They appreciate him. What they like about him, he is not bowing down to the never Trump movement and they like that. Now, that should scare people, but --.

SHEFFIELD: And he's not bowing down to the establishment too.

BALDWIN: Hold on, I want to hear from you, Gina. Go ahead.

LOUDON: Yes, I think what his supporters like about him is, number one, that he is getting crossover overs. That he is attracting more Democrats than any Republican candidate has in a long time. He is building that big tent. And he is getting nontraditional voters as well, all sort of minorities and others. And so, you know, I don't know why people want to paint this picture that his support is somehow narrow. His support is broader than any of the other traditional Republican candidates.

Let's not forget this, too, I agree with both of your other guests who said that, you know, it is his appeal that he is pushing back against the establishment. That's what people like about him. He wins every time he does that and he is not going to stop that. And I think for those who are supporting him, that is the number one issue. Pushing back against both the Republican and the Democratic establishment that a lot of people are sick of.

BALDWIN: Quickly Carrie.

SHEFFIELD: What's clear is he has been a divisive figure this entire time. The last debate, he said let's be unified. Hel he had an entire year to be a unifying figure and he wasn't. That's why we see people who are upset. That is why people are boycotting and protesting and writing at his rallies is because he is an incredibly divisive and angry figure. And that is why people like myself will never support him. And that is why I would vote for a third party.

AIKEN: Keep it up. It's not going to work and then he's going to be the nominee and then the Democrats are going to win.

LOUDON: Is he more divisive than Hillary?

SHEFFIELD: Absolutely.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: OK. On that, we are going to say thank you. Carrie Sheffield, Clay Aiken, Gina Loudon, thank you all so much.

Meantime, just reminding all of you, tonight, big night for us here on CNN. The final five candidates will be making their cases to the American people. Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper will be hosting our special coverage starting at 8:00 eastern. We're talking Republicans and Democrats only here on CNN.

Coming up next, new information about the inner workings of the terror cell would planned the terror attacks last November. What CNN has learned is one of the key members faces European interrogators today. Stay here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:41:42] BALDWIN: Now to the latest developments here in the investigation into the Paris terror attacks. A manhunt is now under way for a newly identified suspect who is still on the run. Belgian and French authorities are asking for help finding this man, Najim Laachraoui. Authority say he travelled to Hungary last September with captured Paris terrorist suspect Salah Abdeslam. And then there's this.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYING)

BALDWIN: This is newly released video. It shows the raid Friday where Abdeslam was captured, injured but caught alive, as we talked about for hours Friday. The Paris prosecutor says Abdeslam had a key role in planning the November 13th attacks in Paris. Nine terrorists killed, 130 people, hundreds more were injured with guns and bombs, Paris cafes, a stadium, a concert hall.

So let's bring in CNN's terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank. He has been breaking all of this left and right beginning with -- you have new information on how they got him.

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Yes, a key new information on how they got him. Remember, he was at that safe house, hiding place on Tuesday in the Brussels district of Forest (ph). The police went to that address. They weren't expecting to find anybody there. They got into a firefight. And Salah Abdeslam and an accomplice escaped.

BALDWIN: It is up to the roof.

CRUICKSHANK: They got off up through the roof. They escaped into the Brussels afternoon. Well, at that point, they made a crucial mistake. They got in touch with somebody who was under surveillance by Belgian security forces. As one Belgian official just told me, he came right into our net. So they then knew exactly where to go and find him after he got in contact with this person who was under surveillance. And then they were able to move in with a lot of intelligence on Friday and arrest him and his accomplice alive.

BALDWIN: And he was still plotting. He had fresh attacks he wanted to see through.

CRUICKSHANK: Well, that is the worry that Belgian officials have, that they were plotting new attacks. Senior Belgian counterterrorism official just told me at that safe house, the long-term hiding place in the Forest (ph) district of Brussels, they found not only Kalashnikov, not only ammunition but also detonating explosive that you could use in bombs. And that of course has created a lot of concern that they might have been plotting some kind of attack, perhaps in Brussels, perhaps somewhere else, in the days ahead. So it may be that they just got there in the nick of time.

BALDWIN: `Paul Cruickshank has phenomenal material. Please read his article. Just go to CNN.com. Tim Lister does as well, on all of this. Thank you so much.

Next here, Hillary Clinton, reportedly taking a page from the Republicans on what not to do to defeat Donald Trump. We'll look at her playbook from the general election.

Plus, more awkward moments during the news conference between President Obama and President Castro there in Cuba just this past hour. We'll talk to one lawmaker who is in Havana along with the president. Stay with me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:49:02] BALDWIN: Listen, no one can say definitively who the nominees for president will be, but perhaps, perhaps, it could be a showdown between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. And it seems Secretary Clinton's camp is ready to go for the jugular. "The Washington Post" reporting today they are focused on figuring out ways to immediately batter the billionaire's business record without getting petty, but they don't want to repeat what many are calling the Republican party's biggest mistake, waiting too long to try to take Trump down.

So joining me now, David Brock, founder of the pro-Clinton research team, correct the record.

David, good to have you on.

DAVID BROCK, FOUNDER OF THE PRO-CLINTON GROUP, CORRECT THE RECORD: Thanks for having me.

BALDWIN: Why do you think Hillary Clinton will be more effective than all these other Republicans who have come before her in trying to take Trump down?

BROCK: Well, I think we can learn from the Republican mistakes. And first of all, I think the Republicans were afraid to take on Donald Trump because they were afraid of alienating his supporters. That's not a constraint Democrats are going to have. Two, they were very late to the game in realizing that he is a formidable challenger. And he clearly, has turned out to be that. We can certainly learn from their poor timing. And then three, they just didn't do their duty to vet their own rival and we're going to do that. And I think it begins with what's right -- playing out right before our eyes, the incitement to violence in this campaign. The Republicans have been very weak in calling that out. And I think to start this effort off, Democrats have to say, you know, he is proving by the way he is running his campaign, not only the incitement of violence, the threats of riots, but having a campaign manager who is roughed up now a protester, that Donald Trump is just unfit to hold the office of presidency.

[15:50:42] BALDWIN: I would push back on you, though, on the timeline. When you look at some of the Republicans, Rick Perry, Jeb Bush, Lindsey Graham, they did, you know, take Mr. Trump early - take him on early on. But, you know, none of them are left standing.

BROCK: Well, I think there's a couple of things about that. Sure, they did, but in my view it wasn't a strategic or sustained effort. It was a lot of name calling. It was a lot of petty insults. And they were also held back by the fact they really couldn't call out Donald Trump on the big question of the bigotry, the misogynist statements, the sexist statements, the racism. Where were the Republican, were was the Republican leadership during all of that as that played out? And the reality is, you know, to some extent those comments were helping Donald Trump in the context of a Republican primary. But when we pivot to a general election and we have a much broader, more diverse electorate, those things are not going to be a positive for Trump.

BALDWIN: I'm wondering, you know, the campaign staffers who are digging into Trump's business record and policies for Hillary Clinton's arsenal against him, specifically what are they finding?

BROCK: Well, I think you're looking at three areas. He has a big record in business. He has a record in entertainment, he has a record to some extent in political activism, even though he has never held public office and has never taken votes. And so on the business front, I could mention a couple things. You know, Donald Trump seems to be somebody who wants to just tell people what he thinks they want to hear. So what we're going to do is look at his actions.

And how did he treat people who admired him and did things like pay to go to Trump University. Well, he fleeced them. What did he do in terms on treating workers? Well, he offshored the production of his own products. He hired undocumented workers rather than native born Americans. So we're going to look at Donald Trump's actions. And at the end of the day, I think what you're going to see is that Donald Trump has always been in it for one person and that's Donald Trump.

BALDWIN: Bits and pieces of what we could see if it is to be a Donald Trump/Hillary Clinton matchup.

David Brock, thank you so much.

BROCK: Thanks very much. BALDWIN: Coming up next, we'll take you back to Cuba. A little bit

more on some of those kind of awkward moments between President Obama and Raul Castro there in Havana. Much more, and we'll look forward to the big baseball game tomorrow in Havana. We'll speak to a member of Congress, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:55:13] BALDWIN: College basketball sweet 16 now set after a weekend full of upsets and buzzer beaters. Texas A&M pulled off the biggest last-minute comeback in NCAA division I history. Down by 12 points against northern Iowa with just 44 seconds left. They battled all the way back to send the game into double overtime. In the end, the Aggies came out on top 92-88. They take on Oklahoma Thursday. The game between number seven Wisconsin and second seed Xavier went down to the wire. Watch that.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYING)

BALDWIN: Yes, yes. Bronson Koenig hitting a deep three-pointer to tie the game and then he scores another three as the buzzer sounds. In fact, it win 66-63. Xavier fans obviously heartbroken, including, you know this guy, Bill Murray. His son is an assistant coach for the musketeers. Wisconsin takes on Notre Dame Friday.

And finally, my team, my alma mater, the best baby blue, top seed North Carolina beat the nine seed providence in a blowout but the real battle came at halftime with an epic dance-off between the school bands. They face Indiana in the sweet 16 on Friday.

Before I let you go and let my man John Berman take over for "the LEAD," let me bring in Congressman Steve Cohen from Tennessee. He is live now - there he is, in Havana. He is one a nearly 40 members of Congress part of this whole presidential delegation.

Congressman Cohen, can you hear me? Nice to see you.

You've got Congressman McGovern here not Congressman Cohen.

BALDWIN: No, you are not congressman Steve Cohen. We're going to take a break. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)