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Wolf
White House Responds to Democratic Divide; U.S. Takes Fight to ISIS in Libya; Battle Brewing Over Zika Funding Bill; Girl Taken by Boko Haram Rescued. Aired 1:30-2p ET
Aired May 18, 2016 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:30:00] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Debbie Wasserman Schultz, thank you for joining us.
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: My pleasure.
BLITZER: Programming note. Tomorrow, Chris Cuomo will interview Hillary Clinton, live from Chicago, tomorrow, right here around 1:30 p.m. eastern, right here on CNN.
Coming up, the White House now responding to the divide inside the Democratic Party. We have new information. That's coming up next.
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[13:34:50] BLITZER: Moments ago, we heard from the White House on the growing anger and division inside the Democratic Party. Here's how the White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest addressed the controversy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I feel confident, although I did not specifically do this myself, that if you were to Google news coverage from May 18th, 2008, the tenor of the coverage would be quite similar to the tenor of the coverage today. There would be all kinds of handwringing among party activists about whether the party would come together after a divisive primary between Senator Obama and Senator Clinton. There would be pundits with decades of electoral experience posing difficult questions about whether or not it is even possible, given the passion of Clinton supporters, for even somebody with all the skills of president -- Senator Obama to unite the Democratic Party. There would be Republicans salivating at the prospect of a divided Democratic party limping into a general election giving an advantage to the Republican nominee.
I guess the point is that we've seen a lot of this before. And that's not to diminish anybody's candidacy. It's not to diminish the passion and commitment of supporters for either candidate. But it is an indication that the Democratic Party, in a general election, will be focused on a different question.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: Coming up, ISIS on Europe's doorstep. The terror group's new focus on Libya, and how U.S. Special Forces are now trying to take the fight directly to them.
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[13:41:15] BLITZER: The stories are horrific, public beheadings, corpses on display, and floggings from minor offenses. That is life in the ISIS-controlled city of Sirte in Libya, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch. But that may be changing.
As senior international correspondent, Nick Paton Walsh, reports, U.S. Special Forces are now shoring up the fight against ISIS.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the eye in the sky for America's quietest war on ISIS. In Libya, an especially adapted spy plane.
(on camera): These flights part of a growing effort by U.S. intelligence agencies to learn as much as they can about ISIS in what many consider to be its most dangerous stronghold so close to Europe.
(voice-over): Buried in the rock of the remote Sicilian island of Pantelleria, it's run by a handful of Americans. They fly over South Africa's coast, records show, likely Hoovering up electronic chatter, video, from above the failed state, a tenth of whose coastline ISIS now control.
And down here is where it matters. The long isolated road between the Libyan city of Misrata and the ISIS stronghold of Sirte.
(SIREN)
PATON WALSH: This day it is all bad news. ISIS using a suicide bomber to help in an advance, the furthest yet.
(SHOUTING)
PATON WALSH: Fighters tell us that Americans are also on the ground here.
(on camera): Along this road, we see reinforcements pouring down here. And one witness aid they saw what looked like four armored SUVs containing Western-looking soldiers.
(voice-over): They're never about what we see. One Libyan official later revealed that a dozen troops operate out of a nearby air base. The Pentagon confirming U.S. troops are, quote, "meeting with Libyans," but wouldn't give details.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
PATON WALSH: This man saying he managed to save his family as ISIS moved into their hometown.
(GUNFIRE)
PATON WALSH: This was the scene they left behind.
(GUNFIRE)
PATON WALSH: These chaotic militia are all that stands between ISIS and one of Libya's biggest cities.
(GUNFIRE)
PATON WALSH: Hours later --
(GUNFIRE)
PATON WALSH: -- ISIS sent another suicide bomber in an armored car.
(SIREN)
PATON WALSH: It flew Misrata into a state of emergency --
(SHOUTING)
PATON WALSH: -- flooding it with casualties.
(SHOUTING)
PATON WALSH: Scenes they thought they'd seen the last of once they defeated Gaddafi are back again.
(SHOUTING)
PATON WALSH: Over 100 injured and nine dead. On a scale the hospital can barely cope with. Relatives kept out, can only hear through the glass of news.
(on camera): The most severely wounded brought out now, a steady stream of casualties, quite unlike anything the city is used to, along with that sense of ISIS never really having been so close or so threatening.
(CHANTING)
PATON WALSH: Funerals now too common, they say.
(CHANTING)
PATON WALSH: This for a man killed in the first of two suicide bombings, leaving his wife pregnant with their third child.
(CHANTING)
PATON WALSH: "A martyr, he is a friend of God," they chant.
(CHANTING)
PATON WALSH: After five years of war, it barely jars other routines.
(EXPLOSION) PATON WALSH: America is for now here as little as it can be and ISIS is winning. The wait for outside help measured in sons lost.
(SHOUTING)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[13:45:12] PATON WALSH: It really couldn't be much more urgent, Wolf, that fight for Libya. John Kerry is saying that they will arm if they get a request from, quote, "the legitimate government of Libya." The problem is -- and this goes to the heart of the chaos in that country -- there are three different groups who claim they have the right to rule Libya right now. John Kerry has one particular group in mind. They're the latest to arrive on the scene. But it is that political confusion and chaos that let ISIS get a grip in the first place and that grip is growing -- Wolf?
BLITZER: Nick Paton Walsh, thank you so much for that excellent, excellent report.
Coming up, putting a price on battling Zika. The funding bill hitting the White House against lawmakers up on Capitol Hill right now, all while cases of the virus continue to rise.
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[13:49:51] BLITZER: A battle is brewing up on Capitol Hill right now over funding to take on the Zika Virus in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there are now at least 503 cases of Zika in 45 states, all contracted during travel outside the United States.
With me now is Senator Bill Nelson of Florida.
Senator, thanks very much for joining us.
I know you and your Republican colleague Senator Marco Rubio in a bipartisan effort, you've been trying to push for what, nearly $2 billion requested by the White House to fund this Zika crisis right now. The Senate only approved about half that amount. Can you live with that?
SEN. BILL NELSON, (R), FLORIDA: Well, you can live with whatever you can get because this is a real crisis. Another three of those cases occurred yesterday in Florida. That brings Florida to 116. But we're looking at the possibility of our American citizens in Puerto Rico having 20 percent of that entire island infected with the Zika Virus.
BLITZER: How do you prevent that from happening in Florida where the climate obviously is not all that different than it is in Puerto Rico, central America or South America, for that matter, where the problem is obviously more hue?
NELSON: Right now, until you get a vaccine. That will take a couple of years, until you get through all of the intricacies of genetic alteration and wipe out that strain of mosquito, the Egypti. The only thing you can do is mosquito control. So, Wolf, can you imagine being a pregnant woman this summer in the southern United States if your county does not have the funds for mosquito control? You're going to be petrified the entire summer.
BLITZER: So should pregnant women stay away from Florida?
NELSON: Pregnant women should be in an area where they are taking all the precautions of mosquito control. And that's what makes it so problematic in a place like Puerto Rico, where already they are in a financial crisis. Part of this money is to send money in for mosquito control, and Medicaid, but it's to send that additional federal money to help the local governments do what they have run out of money.
BLITZER: I know, you know, Florida relies a lot on tourism. How worried are you, given the revenue that you generate from tourism, how worried are you that maybe tourists will stop coming to Florida until this problem is resolved?
NELSON: Of course, that's a concern. But the long-term problem, Wolf, is we know now that especially in the first trimester of pregnancy, if a woman has the Zika Virus, then there is likely to be some problem in deformity with her baby. We just saw the first case of encephalopathy in Puerto Rico. It was through a miscarriage, but that is what is the horrendous tragedy to a family involved. And it's certainly going to be a huge cost to society to take care of these babies. And so you see the enormity of the problem. And for these guys to stick their heads in the sand and say, like the House has done, only $622 million, and part that have is going to come from the Ebola fund and so forth. I mean, they are just not facing the rough, rough music that we have to face.
BLITZER: Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, good luck. Thanks very much for joining us.
NELSON: Thanks, Wolf.
BLITZER: There's breaking news that we're getting right now. We're getting brand new details about the rescue of a young girl kidnapped some two years ago by the terrorist organization Boko Haram. She is one of 200 other girls that were kidnapped.
Let's get right to our international correspondent, David McKenzie, joining us from Johannesburg.
What are you learning, David?
DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we're learning right now is new details from the Nigerian military, Wolf, which are saying that in a joint operation, a vigilante group and the Nigerian military managed to rescue this girl. They are calling her Amina Ali ([ph). And they say she was one of the Chibok girls, one of the more than 200 girls that were taken by ISIS-affiliated Boko Haram more than two years ago in northeast Nigeria. Many of the parents have been campaigning. There was a global campaign, including the first lady, Michelle Obama, to bring those girls back. Now the first one of them, all that time later, seems to have been rescued -- Wolf? BLITZER: What is this girl saying about her classmates who were also
abducted? Are they still alive?
MCKENZIE: What she's saying is very heartening to the parents of other girls who were taken, Wolf. She's saying many of them, if not most of the girls, are still alive in the Sambisa Forest, the stronghold of the Boko Haram, where they have been corner by regional military with help from U.S. intelligence. Now she says most of them are alive. She says six might have been killed. Not divulging why or how they were killed. But in our own reporting of kidnapped girls that have been released or escaped, there is a sense that Boko Haram is doubling down, protecting or at least guarding these girls and women to stop Nigerian militaries and other militaries from pushing in, because, of course, a hostage situation like this is extremely difficult to solve -- Wolf?
[13:55:38] BLITZER: And very quickly, is Boko Haram getting stronger or weaker now?
MCKENZIE: Most people say they are getting weaker. They are being squeezed by the regional forces, Wolf, depending on asymmetrical attacks like suicide bombings, but the fight is certainly not over -- Wolf?
BLITZER: David McKenzie, in Johannesburg, thanks very much for that.
That's it for me. I'll be back at 5:00 p.m. eastern in the "The Situation Room."
The news continues right after this quick break.
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