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Debris of EgyptAir Plane Found; Speculation Continues on Cause of EgyptAir Plane Crash; Donald Trump Endorsed for President by NRA; Interview with Libertarian Party Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired May 21, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:09] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Real time data sent from the plane shows smokes was detected in one of the plane's bathrooms.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (via translator): I asked god for the flight to be hijacked or something like that, instead of what we've been told.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What I want to make sure of is that we do everything humanly possible to make airline travel safe. I wish we didn't have to face this madness, but we do.

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Gun-free zones -- we're getting rid of gun-free zones, I can tell you.

(APPLAUSE)

BERNIE SANDERS, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You may not end up with the strongest candidate to defeat somebody like a Donald Trump.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you're pro-life and you want to try to get rid of abortion, you go to Washington, D.C.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. And thank you so much for sharing your time with us. I'm Christi Paul.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Victor Blackwell. Good to be with you. And CNN Newsroom begins right now. Big developments this morning in the search for EgyptAir flight 804. We're getting here our first look at debris from the plane after it crashed into the Mediterranean Sea. This is new video just coming in. It appears to show angled metal here, a purse we saw in some of this video, there's a shoe as well, fabric from maybe the carpet, upholstery from one of the seats, even an unwrapped life jacket here you see. Up on the upper left here on that tab, "EgyptAir" printed. The question is what will this offer? Are there clues here to help investigators determine what happened?

PAUL: Also we'll let you know today just a short while ago France confirmed that on board systems did detect smoke in parts of the plane moments before it plunged into the water. We're going to dig into what this means in just a moment. But meanwhile, high above the Mediterranean, the search for more wreckage, including the plane's voice and flight data recorders is ongoing as U.S. aircraft hope comb an area 180 miles off the coast of Alexandria.

BLACKWELL: There still is no definitive proof of what caused the crash at this point, but the plane's last stop at the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris has come under scrutiny. There is a lot of concern, most notably this morning from the former CIA director.

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BLACKWELL: Do you have any concerns? Would you fly your family to and from Charles de Gaulle?

JAMES WOOLSEY, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: I think I'd think twice about it, but -- and especially during the forthcoming soccer championships. I think I'd be worried about it. I might still decide to do it. I just got back from flying to Europe not long ago. But it's something that people should start thinking about.

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BLACKWELL: Let's bring in CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen. Peter, there are some people who are perking up, they're looking forward to the French Open and they're looking forward to the Tour de France, and who now see a former CIA director saying he'd be worried. He'd think twice about going to that airport. What's your reaction?

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, I think it's a fact that one of the weaknesses that the metro-jet crash showed was people who work at airports and getting something on a plane. Obviously Sharm el-Sheikh, which is a small airport in Egypt, was a relatively easy target compared to Charles de Gaulle, but if indeed this is terrorism, then you're raising questions about not only I think Charles de Gaulle but I think other airports which don't have the same amount of scrutiny that the United States does.

But even in the United States, Victor, we've seen people sympathetic to Shabaab, which is a Somali terrorist group working at Minneapolis airport. We've seen somebody who later joined ISIS who is working at the Minneapolis airport. And so it's not an argument for not taking flights, but it is an argument for increasing scrutiny of anybody who works in an airport.

And I would add to that there are many airports around the world that fly to the United States. So we're looking at a couple of hundred airports that have flights into the United States. And the fact is that many of these airports don't have the same level of scrutiny that we have here in the United States, and this is really the potential Achilles heel for airline aviation.

BLACKWELL: So let's talk about this theory from some Egyptian officials and from some U.S. officials that terror indeed took down this plane, that a bomb took down. We spoke with Michael Weiss this morning who literally wrote the book on ISIS said that it's bizarre that if this is ISIS that there is no claim of responsibility. Mr. Woolsey, the former director, said that there would be a downtick in his estimation, in his conclusion or hypothesis that it's terror. From your perspective, going now several days with no claim of responsibility, does that undermine or does that reinforce the possibility that this is an actor terror?

[10:05:08] BERGEN: It certainly undermines the idea that it was something that was actually trained, directed, financed by ISIS. Now, it may not undermine, for instance, the idea that it was somebody perhaps inspired by ISIS. I mean, it feels like a long time but we are only three days into this. We have seen credible claims of responsibility come out later than the immediate 24-hour time period. But it is very puzzling.

The two biggest puzzles here, Victor, I think are, one, no mayday signal, which implies a catastrophic event, and, two, no claim of responsibility. So we're sort of left in this inconclusive space where both terrorism and catastrophic failure similar to, say, TWA 800, which was an electrical spark in the central fuel tank that brought down the plane in a similar catastrophic manner, that kind of mechanical failure, these are still both very open.

BLACKWELL: Yes. And you think about those families that are both in Paris and in Cairo and really in cities around the world as we had that list up earlier of the countries in which other victims were living or were from, and you think about waiting for a definitive answer in what took down this flight. Peter Bergen, thanks for helping us analyze the latest that we're getting in.

BERGEN: Thank you.

PAUL: That has to be one of the most excruciating things for these families who just want some answers. CNN International Diplomatic Editor Nic Robertson is in Greece right now where investigators are analyzing some newfound debris. Have they given you any indication, Nic, as to whether this new debris has revealed anything that they can use?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: It's revealed, they believe, a sort of slightly tighter focus of the debris field. They say that the area they're searching is about 40 miles in radius. That's an area of about 50,000 square miles. When that debris was pulled out of the sea, the sea was calm, it was flat, it was like a mill pond. We're right down at the water's edge now. We're in shore waters here. There's an island out there. You can't see it. It's invisible because the visibility is poor, the wind is up, the waves are up, the white tops are on the tops of the waves here. But when you look at the size of the pieces of debris that have been pulled out of the water so far, they've all been relatively small. In these types of conditions, and remembering we're talking about 100 miles out to sea from here, the seas are going to be a lot choppier, a lot more prone to the strong wind that is about.

So the recovery effort, although they believe that they've located a tighter pattern of search, a field of search, the difficulty is going to be magnified and increased because of the conditions. And of course what they really want to do is find where a large amount of debris is which could give them a reasonable degree of certainty working with tidal patterns that they can predict where the aircraft went down, because that's where the data recorders are going to be. And as we hear more and more from officials and investigators, everyone is pointing to the need to find those data recorders, the voice recorder and the data recorder. And of course the debris field is key to getting that information, and getting that information, getting that debris field, is very tough today. And we know the winds are only going to get up in the next couple of days, Christi.

PAUL: You had said early there were some C-130s on standby because of that weather. We hope they can get back out there for those families' sakes to get some answers. Nic Robertson, we appreciate it so much, thank you.

BLACKWELL: In just a moment we're going to talk in some detail about the onboard monitoring systems that picked up the smoke alerts in the moments, really just a few second, minutes before this plane went down. So stay with us for that. But did you notice in that shot, Nic talked about it a bit, the chop on the water, the wind, the elements that are causing problems in the search for the plane and the black boxes in the water. Meteorologist Allison Chinchar has a virtual preview of some of the challenges these search crews are facing. Allison?

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Nic mentioned we have the storm that's pushing in. And not only do they have to worry about the showers overt top hindering the helicopter portion of the investigation, but you also have to worry about the stuff underwater. We'll take an in-depth look at that coming up.

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[10:12:55] BLACKWELL: The search for clues in the mysterious EgyptAir flight 804 crash is now in large part going on underwater. Recovery teams from several country including the U.S. are making new discoveries by the hours, including reports of an oil slick in the area where flight 804 is believed to have disappeared. CNN Meteorologist Allison Chinchar is here to walk us through what investigators face in this underwater search.

CHINCHAR: That's right, Victor. So let's take a look. Directly beneath me is the spot where they have found some of the debris and likely the spot where the crash took place. Here you can see the next storm that will be making its way through. And again, notice we have some spotty showers and thunderstorms here and there.

But the fact of the matter is the weather is not going to cooperate. And that play as huge role not just from above. We also have in addition to the ships that are out there, we also have helicopters that are also part of the search and rescue effort, and that's going to limit their visibility.

But also we have the winds. This is a forecast looking at the winds going forward, and notice how it really quickly picks up, very quickly upwards of say 40 to 50 miles per hour. The problem with this is those white caps that you often see on the ocean, those are now going to become much more frequent, which is going to obscure visibility looking down into the water.

And that's very key, because those ships that are out there, the average depth of the area right below the search spot is about 8,000 to 11,000 feet. One perk of that is the pinger located on what would be the black box can work up to death of 20,000 feet. The ground directly beneath where we believe the crash site is, is relatively flat, and that also helps for debris recovery and also potentially for the black box.

But as those storm begin to come into the area, that can help move things around. And again we talked about, as those white caps begin to pick up from the storm that you see here, it will begin to obscure a lot of the visibility around where those ships are located, making it very difficult to for the ships to be able to see down in what normally would be relatively clear water. They now will no longer have that, Victor.

[10:15:00] BLACKWELL: The challenges moving ahead, just the few pieces of debris that we are seeing this morning for the first time, but of course the search for those black boxes and the fuselage is going on in those really unfavorable conditions. Allison Chinchar, thanks so much.

PAUL: Investigators are hoping finding plane debris will quickly lead them to the wreckage itself and ultimately the plane's black boxes. Let's make some sense of this with oceanographer David Gallo from Columbia University's earth observatory. He's an expert on underwater search and ocean exploration and also co-led the search for the doomed 2009 Air France flight 447. David, we know that it took a couple of years to find those black boxes buried on the ocean floor in that case. When you hear about the weather patterns that are coming in right now and the fact that, as Nic Robertson just said, they have tightened the search area, what kind of hope does that tell you about a timeline to possibly find more?

DAVID GALLO, OCEANOGRAPHER, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: Well, Christi, if the winds are in the vicinity of 50 miles an hour, that's going to probably bring everything to a halt for a bit, at least in terms of searching at the surface and definitely for having a ship out towing anything like the pinger locater. So it's going to put on hold.

But I'm not sure they've begun to assemble -- I hope they have -- the kinds of equipment they need to have begun the bottom search. That area that we heard about, the 40-mile radius circle, that's exactly what we worked at with Air France 447. And if you're going to survey every bit of that ocean floor, we're talking about months of survey. So we'll see where it goes from here, but the weather needs to cooperate a little bit more.

PAUL: But certainly the depth, as Allison was saying, 8,000 to 11,000 feet and the pinger works at a depth of 20,000 feet, so that works in their favor I would assume. And what about the oil slick as well, what does that tell you? GALLO: The oil slick is good, and especially since it was near the

last known position. I think that's a good sign that they might very well be in the right neck of the woods, so to speak. The depth is not so imposing, 4,000 meters. But I don't put a lot of faith in the pinger locaters. You have to have conditions just right. The team has to be exactly on their game to be able to get a signal from that. I do think that, in fact, I know that the right team with the right tools can certainly survey and locate the flight using sonars and things like that.

PAUL: And how confident are you in the search efforts when we've got so many different nationalities offering resources?

GALLO: It takes a lot of coordination. You know, you need the tools -- it's just like a symphony orchestra. You want to have the best instruments, you want to have the best musicians, but probably as important is having the right conductor and everyone on the same page of music. So the coordination is very important.

And if the French are involved, the BEA, they're the one that led us through the search for Air France 447. NTSB just finished the search and recovered the voyage data recorder from the El Faro, the ship, and it was much deeper than this. So the people are out there, the tools are out there. It's a question of bringing it all together about which agency takes the lead.

PAUL: All right, David Gallo, always appreciate your insight. Thank you for taking the time this morning.

GALLO: Thanks, Christi.

BLACKWELL: Turning to politics, Donald Trump picks up an endorsement from the NRA and says Hillary Clinton wants to take down the Second Amendment.

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[10:22:17] BLACKWELL: Donald Trump picks up what he says was an unexpected endorsement from the NRA. That was last night in Kentucky. And he promised the crowd he would lead the fight to defend the Second Amendment. He also said former secretary Hillary Clinton would do the opposite.

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DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The Second Amendment is under a threat like never before. Crooked Hillary Clinton is the most anti-gun, anti-Second Amendment candidate ever to run for office, and, as I said before, she wants to abolish the Second Amendment. She wants to take your guns away. She wants to abolish it, just remember that.

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BLACKWELL: CNN White House producer Kristen Holmes joins us now. Kristen, how did Hillary Clinton respond to that claim and overall to Trump's speech?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN WHITE HOUSE PRODUCER: Well, Victor, this isn't the first time Donald Trump has gone after Hillary Clinton on this very issue. Clinton, I should point out, does call for universal background checks as well stricter laws on guns in general. However, she has never called for the abolition of the Second Amendment. Yesterday she fired back on Twitter to Donald Trump saying "You're wrong, Donald Trump. We can uphold the Second Amendment rights while preventing senseless gun violence."

Now, yesterday at the convention we did hear several leaders of the NRA and Donald Trump saying that the Second Amendment was certain to be on the ballot in November. However recent polling shows that issues such as the economy and education are more important to American voters.

BLACKWELL: All right, so listen to what Trump said about gun-free zones.

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TRUMP: Gun-free zones, we're getting rid of gun-free zones, OK, I can tell you.

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TRUMP: We're getting rid of them.

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BLACKWELL: Roaring response from the crowd there, but there seems to be a bit of inconsistency.

HOLMES: Yes, well, today NPR is reporting that several of Trump's properties, including Mar-a-Lago, his signature property in Florida, are gun-free zones. So the question is whether or not those would change under a Trump presidency. But we do have to remember that this is not the first time that Trump has gone against the NRA and several of its core beliefs. In the year 2000 Trump wrote a book called "The America we Deserve" where he supported a ban on assault rifles, assault weapons in general, and called for a longer waiting period for people to purchase guns. Now obviously that has changed. He now has a more extensive view, wants to expand gun rights in general. So we'll have to see how all of that plays out once we get closer to the general election.

[10:25:01] However, I would say that none of this comes as a surprise to the nation's top gun lobby, the NRA, and they endorsed him anyway.

BLACKWELL: Actually, you don't have to look as far as Florida or Illinois for a gun-free zone. "New York Times" reported that that room was a gun-free zone, that Secret Service did not allow people to bring their guns at an NRA event into that room with the presumptive nominee. Kristen Holmes there for us in Washington, thank you so much.

HOLMES: Thank you.

PAUL: New this morning, the French foreign minister does confirm smoke alarms went off moments before EgyptAir flight 804 crashed. What does that tell us about the final moments before this plane went down? We're going to break it down for you in a moment. Stay close.

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BLACKWELL: This morning we have new images of the debris from EgyptAir flight 804. Take a look. They were just released by the Egyptian armed forces. They appear to show here, you saw that life vest, some mangled metals, parts of the plane maybe, other parts of metal with "Egy"tAir" emblazoned on them. Some of them are unidentifiable, but there are a few personal effects, a purse, a shoe. There are also some elements of the upholstery inside that plane.

PAUL: And this of course the life jacket that does say "EgyptAir" on it that you just saw there, which does make some people wonder if perhaps there was a time in the air when they were told to put their life jackets on because this lifejacket was found out of its packaging.

French officials, though, have confirmed that smoke alerts did indeed go off just moments before the plane plunged into the water with 66 people on board, remember. U.S. and Egyptian officials suspect it was the result of a terrorist act. So far there is no claim of responsibility, we want to be clear on that.

[10:30:01] Still, the plane's last stop at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris has come under scrutiny, most notably this morning from the CIA director.

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BLACKWELL: Do you have any concerns? Would you fly your family to and from Charles de Gaulle?

WOOLSEY: I think I'd think twice about it, but -- and especially during the forthcoming soccer championships. I think I'd be worried about it. I might still decide to do it. I just got back from flying to Europe not long ago. But it's something that people should start thinking about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: So now let's talk about these alerts that came from an onboard system. What's the significance of the smoke alerts going off near the plane's cockpit just a few minutes before the plane vanished from radar? We asked our aviation and safety analysts, Miles O'Brien and David Soucie, to explain the flight data system calls ACARS.

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MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: The aircraft communications addressing and reporting system, ACARS, all you really need to know about that is it's live streaming the important information about systems on the aircraft to the maintenance people. For the pilot's perspective, it's here. These are the flight management input systems, and the box is beneath it in the avionics bay. This screen right here gives them the data from the ACARS if they want to see it, but typically they don't bother with it because it's all for maintenance. So that's not in their bailiwick. This is to make sure when the plane lands, they have all the parts in place, they're ready to go and turn the plane around.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: It's there, but they hardly even look at it under normal circumstances. David Soucie, we have these five or six data points with ACARS right now. Explain where each point is on the aircraft.

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: The first warning that we received in this report was from this back window right here. This back window started to get a report saying it's bad. Following that there was another report saying that it wasn't just the anti-ice, it was that the window had failed, which would imply that it had some kind of breach. The next report we got was down in the compartment, and then the other report we go was back here right behind there where the lavatory system said there was smoke in the lavatory. And then the final one we got was smoke in the compartment, excuse me, it wasn't the final. The very final one was that this window had failed as well. So there's a continuous movement of this, and this is all within about a minute and a half.

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PAUL: Let's talk to Peter Goelz. He's a CNN aviation analyst and former NTSB director. Thank you for being with us. I want to get to that ACARS system because you were talking about this yesterday, and when you see that information of what came down, there was an anti-ice issue with the pilot windows that are heated, smoke in the lavatory, smoke in the avionics bay, which we know is beneath the cockpit there and inaccessible during flight. When you hear all of that, does that diminish or enhance your belief that this was a technical issue or that perhaps terrorism could have been involved?

PETER GOELZ, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: I think it leaves both options fully on the table. If I were investigating this accident, one of the things I'd be doing today is looking at the maintenance history of this aircraft and seeing if there had been any problems at any time in the recent past that traced itself to the avionics bay. I would also be looking at, did anyone have access to this bay? Was any maintenance done on this inside the bay over the past 48, 72 hours where someone could have placed something into the bay? You can see the bay is a very -- it is crammed with electronics devices. It would not surprise you if something was hidden inside the bay, some sort of incendiary device or an explosive device that could have initiated this tragedy.

PAUL: We've been showing some of the first pictures we've gotten this morning that are out there of the debris that has been found, and here this is, very small pieces being found. Is it possible that explosive residue could be found on some of those pieces of debris, even that small?

GOELZ: Sure. It's possible but it's highly unlikely. The material that's floating that they're picking up now is the very light material that's on the surface. And what you look for there is you try to see if there's any sooting on any of the pieces that would indicate that a fire had taken place. And you look on the metal pieces, if there's any indication of blast signatures. But it's unlikely that anything definitive will come from this early wreckage recovery.

[14:35:00] PAUL: OK, we also know from ACARS is that data sent down spanned about three minutes. One of the things that has come up this morning that one of these pieces of debris, the life vest that was not in its packaging, which some say may lead to the possibility that in those three minutes -- and by the way, that highlighted part says "EgyptAir" on it, that's why it's highlighted -- may indicate that they had time to put on life jackets or at least open them up and try to get to them. Do you think that could be a possibility there as well?

GOELZ: Yes, but the forces of a plane crashing into the ocean are so tremendous they're unimaginable. It really is a leap to say because this life jacket was outside its container, its bag, indicates there was some sort of warning given. I think the only thing you might be able to speculate on the ACARS data is this might help explain why the pilots did not respond to the air traffic control signoff two or three minutes before the plane went into its final spasm.

PAUL: And on that note real quickly, I only have a couple of seconds left, but what about the fact that there was no mayday call?

GOELZ: Well, if you're in the middle of a tremendous challenge, if your plane is coming apart, you are really trying to fly the plane and diagnose what's going on.

PAUL: Peter Goelz, I so appreciate you taking the time be with us and share your expertise, thank you sir.

GOELZ: My pleasure.

BLACKWELL: All right, the frontrunner for the Libertarian Party now has a running mate. That means two former governors could get the third-party nomination to face off against Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

PAUL: Also, a bill making abortion a felony does not make it past the governor's desk, but lawmakers are going down without a fight, they say.

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[10:40:32] BLACKWELL: The Libertarian ticket very likely now has a vice presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld. Could he jumpstart the third party momentum and get them one step closer to the debate stage. Joining me now, the frontrunner for the Libertarian nomination, Gary Johnson, who is also former governor of New Mexico. Governor, good morning. GARY JOHNSON, LIBERTARIAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Victor, great to be

with you. Thank you for having me on here this morning.

BLACKWELL: Certainly. So you picked as your running mate, Bill Weld, former Massachusetts governor, has been off the radar as it relates to politics for some time. Why Bill Weld?

JOHNSON: Well, first of all, to say that I picked Bill Weld, I think that's misleading. Look, number one on my list, hit out of the park, is Bill Weld. The fact that he wants to do this for me, it's just unbelievable. This was beyond my wildest dreams that Bill Weld would want to do this.

With that said, I do really think that it is formidable, the notion of two governors that served two terms in heavily blue states that both were fiscally conservative, socially liberal I just think speaks volumes.

BLACKWELL: Let me ask you. You said to say that you picked Bill Weld would be misleading. Did he approach you and ask to join this ticket?

JOHNSON: No, I approached him but, like I say, he was way above the list that we had. He enthusiastically wanted to be a part of this. But, like I said, to say I picked him I think just -- he's unto himself. I put Bill Weld on a pedestal. I think that as governor of New Mexico when I showed up to these National Governor Association meetings that Bill Weld was the smartest guy in the room, and from a good standpoint, you know, a humility, not arrogance, but really, really smart and was an outstanding governor, got an A from the Cato Institute.

BLACKWELL: He's certainly making news now. Let me ask you about something he said to the "New York Times" this week in discussion of Donald Trump's proposal to deport 11 million illegal immigrants. He said this reminds him of Kristallnacht back in 1938, the hundreds of synagogues and homes and businesses that were burned in Germany. He said this, "I can hear the glass crunching on Kristallnacht in the ghettos of Warsaw and Vienna when I hear that, honest." Holocaust references and reference to Hitler are typically in politics seen as beyond the pale. But I'll ask you, do you agree with Governor Weld?

JOHNSON: Well, look, deporting 11 million immigrants is just crazy. And I am speaking as a border governor. It has to do with misinformation. We should embrace immigration. It's a good thing. We should make it as easy as possible for somebody that wants to come into this country and work to be able to get a work visa. I'm not talking about a green card or citizenship, but a work visa. It should entail a background check, Social Security so that taxes get paid.

BLACKWELL: Let me jump in here again, because there are many people who agree with you but who would say a reference to that night of all nights and to the holocaust is beyond the pale. Do you agree with Governor Weld or do you regret his having made that comment?

JOHNSON: Look, I take real offense as a border governor myself, I take a real offense at someone that says they want to deport 11 million illegal immigrants, because it affects thousands of families in New Mexico that decades ago came over here as undocumented workers. It wasn't this notion of being illegal. It was undocumented, and he is going to take and deport individuals in New Mexico that are community leaders who have had children, who have had children? There is misinformation about this and it is absolutely off the charts when it comes to the reality of these undocumented workers.

[10:45:07] BLACKWELL: Understood. But the last time I'm going to make a turn on this question. Bill Weld made the comment comparing this to Kristallnacht, the night that hundreds of the synagogues and homes and businesses were burned, and that people --

JOHNSON: So what are we going to do?

BLACKWELL: Let me ask you the question, governor.

JOHNSON: What are we going to do? Are we going to go in these homes and take these people out of their homes? Come on. He made that reference. I don't make that reference, but it's crazy. It's off the charts.

BLACKWELL: OK, let's move on. You've now answered the question. Let me move on to the next question.

The possibility of making it on to the main debate stage with the presumptive nominee Donald Trump and the frontrunner, Hillary Clinton or if Bernie Sanders gets the nomination, Senator Sanders, you've got to reach 15 percent there. In the latest FOX News poll, you're at 10. How do you get to 15?

JOHNSON: Well, we just continue to be in the polls. This is going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. If Mickey Mouse were in the polls right now, he would be polling at 30 percent, but Mickey is not going to be on the ballot in all 50 states. The Libertarian candidate for president is going to be. So just being in the polls will be a self- fulfilling prophecy. And by that, just being in the polls, look, I think my record under the light of day is a good record, my resume, what I've done, that it holds up under scrutiny. Add Bill Weld to that, I think it very formidable.

BLACKWELL: All right, Governor Gary Johnson, we want you to stay with us. We'll take a quick break and I've got a few more questions.

JOHNSON: All right.

BLACKWELL: Thank you.

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[14:50:21] BLACKWELL: Back now with former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson who is the frontrunner for the nomination of the Libertarian Party. Governor Johnson, as I said in the previous segment that in the latest FOX News poll that you're at 10 percent double digits already, but as you described on this program yourself and other times and during this interview that you are fiscally conservative and socially liberal. There are some who are part of the never-Trump movement who are not supporting Donald Trump simply because they believe he is not conservative enough. How do you get those voters, can you get those voters who are never-Trump because they don't believe in his conservative bona fides?

JOHNSON: Victor, I've always thought, and have been governor of New Mexico two terms as a Republican, I've always thought that Republicans when it comes to conservative that it had everything to do with smaller government. I'm all about smaller government. I think government tries to do too much and in the process it taxes us too much, and when it taxes us too much, that takes away from my own individual ability to live my life the way I see living my life. So conservative is dollars and cents, living your life, personal freedom. I think most Republicans fall in that category. I think most Americans fall in that category.

BLACKWELL: In the discussion of the pro-life movement, in the discussion of those who believe marriage is to be between one man and one woman, do you believe those views are o of reach for your new running mate Bill Weld?

JOHNSON: Not necessarily. Look, there's nothing wrong with being a social conservative, but if you try and apply those principles to law, what you end up with criminalizing activity that sends people to jail for that activity. I don't think that even though you've got Republicans that are socially conservative, for the most part, I think they really don't care. What they really care about is smaller government, and now I'm back to what I think most Americans really care about. People are fiscally responsible and socially, they're tolerant.

BLACKWELL: All right, Governor Johnson who is the frontrunner for the Libertarian ticket, you've chosen your running mate, former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld, thank you so much for spending some time with us this morning.

JOHNSON: Victor, thank you. And you said it at the top. I'm hoping to get the libertarian nomination. Bill Weld also has to run separately to get the vice presidential nomination. So that happens next weekend. Hopefully we'll move on from there.

BLACKWELL: All right, thank you, governor.

JOHNSON: All right, thanks.

BLACKWELL: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: We meet another of this year's top ten CNN Heroes. Semi-pro cyclist Craig Dodson, he found that bringing inner city into the rough and tumble word of mountain bike racing, it really does change their lives.

BLACKWELL: Yes, but it is much more than cycling. Dodson plays multiple roles at coach and mentor, caseworker, even father to many of the young people who join his team. And his core message is never give up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRAIG DODSON, CNN HERO: What a lot of people can't see is that our kids have the equivalent of 10 suitcases each of baggage that they are carrying on their bikes. These kids can tell me to piss off at any time. What am I going to do? There's connections being made. This is a war to me. It's me against the circumstances that these kids live in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Check out all of this year's top ten and vote for your favorite to become CNN Hero of the Year. You can vote once a day at CNNHeroes.com.

PAUL: New this morning, nearly two dozen guns are off Chicago's streets following one of the biggest anti-gang sweeps in the city's history. At least 140 people were arrested in the two-day sweep, most of them documented gang members. The city's police and federal agents also confiscated $7,000 in cash and $45,000 worth of narcotics.

BLACKWELL: A gunman who was shot near the White House is recovering today from a single bullet wound to the stomach. A Secret Service agent shot him once after the suspect ignored commands to drop that gun. The president was not at the White House at the time but the compound was knocked down for about an hour during the incident.

PAUL: And listen, Bill Cosby's wife sat through two days of depositions but apparently provided little solid information in the case defamation case against her husband. Transcripts of the depositions back in February and April show she refused to answer an awful lot of questions about marital infidelity. She did so on the ground of spousal privilege. Bill Cosby is being sued, remember, for defamation by seven women whom he called liars when they accused him of sexual assault.

BLACKWELL: Lawyers for Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman vowed to appeal his extradition to the U.S. The Mexican foreign ministry announced Friday it approved the extradition but appeals could delay his transfer by up to three years. In the U.S. Guzman would likely stand trial in New York for a huge drug trafficking case from 2009.

PAUL: And you've been watching us this morning. And we're so grateful to have you as we've been talking about EgyptAir 804, and we've been getting new pictures of some of the debris that they are finding. So even though there is a lot we don't know, we are learning more and more it seems by the hours or by the day. So we just want to push it ahead to the next hour.

BLACKWELL: Yes. And of course coverage and analysis of the new images and the new revelations will continue now with our colleague Fredricka Whitfield. Fred is just a few feet away.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, good to see you guys. BLACKWELL: Good morning to you.

PAUL: You, too.

WHITFIELD: You've had a busy, full morning. Of course, yes, more on kind of the signals something was wrong, and we're hoping through much more analysis, experts we're going to have as well today, to help us understand does this help define what happened, what brought that plane down.