Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Four Victims In Istanbul Airport Bombings Buried Today; Donald Trump Attacking Chamber Of Commerce; Chris Christie, Potential Republican Vice Presidential Candidate. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired June 30, 2016 - 15:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:38:30] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Welcome back. You're watching CNN's special live coverage. I'm Brooke Baldwin live here in Istanbul, Turkey.

New information as far as the terror attack here from two nights ago. The death toll has risen now to 44 and the families of these 44 victims, they are burying their loved ones.

CNN's Matt Rivers has actually attended the funeral of one of the youngest victims. He has this gut-wrenching story about this father who obviously had to bury his child far too soon - Matt.

MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, as you know, so many families in Istanbul are going through such tough times right now. But sometimes you hear stories about loss that are just difficult to imagine. This morning we met a family who arrived in Istanbul on Tuesday night with eight members of their family. Four of them did not leave the airport alive, including an 8-year-old girl. And this morning they buried all four of them.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RIVERS (voice-over): Four caskets, inside three sisters, (INAUDIBLE) 24, (INAUDIBLE) 16, (INAUDIBLE) 14, and their 8-year-old niece (INAUDIBLE). Her father, Muhammad stood vigil at her coffin preparing to say good-bye at their funeral.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was really lovely.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was very lovely.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very lovely. She was very lovely.

RIVERS: The three women and their young niece were all at the airport Tuesday, just arrived in Turkey to visit family. With them, (INAUDIBLE), their father and grandfather.

I'm heartbroken, he says. We are so powerless and helpless against these terrorists.

He told us they were outside the terminal waiting for a taxi. He didn't see the explosion. Only its aftermath. I was five meters away from my girls, he says, so I ran over. One,

was already dead. I took the other three to the hospital. They died, too.

Two of his other daughters and his wife, (INAUDIBLE) were injured but survived. (INAUDIBLE) wife left the hospital only to help prepare her daughters and granddaughter for burial according to Islamic rituals. Scores came to a local mosque for the funeral under a bright Thursday sun.

Funerals like this one have been happening across the city both yesterday and today. It is the Muslim tradition to bury victims as soon as possible. Of course there are friends and family here but the majority of people here are just locals, people who worship at this mosque, here to pay their respects after an attack that hurt this whole city, the whole country.

A short drive away, some of those same people helped carry the four caskets to a cemetery grave site. They'll be buried together, their own family helping to lower them into the earth. There's so much sadness here. But there's arranger, too, at those who would steal such innocence.

May God damn the terrorists, said the girl's uncle. It is not one or two or three but four good young people. Why are they getting killed?

It is a question on the minds of most in this city as they stand in rows praying for peace and for those they've lost.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[15:36:47] RIVERS: And Brooke, if you noticed in the piece there, the father of that 8-year-old girl, his hand was on her casket. And he stood like that for the better part of an hour before the funeral began just with his hand on the casket. His need to protect her. And even after her passing still so readily apparent. And I think it was instinctual. He just stood there, his hand on the casket and he wanted to be close to her. It was incredibly sad and incredibly emotional there this morning.

BALDWIN: I have no words. No words tonight here in Istanbul.

Matt Rivers, thank you so much for sharing his story.

We will be back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:42:07] BALDWIN: Welcome back. I'm Brooke Baldwin live here at the Ataturk airport here in Istanbul.

I don't know if you can hear. There is a mosque just next to me calls to prayer here this evening on this Thursday. We will take you back to the story. We have new developments as far as the investigation and where these three bombers actually lived here not too far from where I am standing in Istanbul. But first to politics here. Some new developments on the U.S. race

for president. Donald Trump is launching divisive rhetoric on another issue that is coming to define his campaign -trade, U.S. trade agreements. We'll take some live pictures as you can see where he is scheduled to be speaking, giving this town hall in Manchester, New Hampshire, momentarily holding a town hall. Focused we're told on both trade and the economy. He just vowed in a major speech to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. by imposing tariffs on countries including China. He also slammed the U.S. chamber of commerce.

So let's first go to CNN's senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta who is traveling with the Trump campaign.

Jim Acosta, we know that the chamber of commerce is typically lined with conservatives. So this would - would this continues to sort of widen this gap between Trump and Republican establishment?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Brooke. Donald Trump is not playing by the typical GOP playbook. We know that. And in case in point is this week the way he has been talking about this issue of trade saying that he is going to rip up trade deals like NAFTA and the transpacific partnership if he is elect president and going after groups that are normally GOP-friendly like the chamber of commerce.

Yesterday at a speech in Maine he was saying essentially the chamber of commerce which is a very Republican friendly group is in the back pocket of special interest groups in Washington. This stuff you do not hear from Republican presidential candidates. But the Trump campaign feels, Donald Trump himself feels, that this is the kind of message that brings hordes and hordes of people out to his rallies.

And we should mention right now it is a smaller scale setting this afternoon. You've got a relatively small audience tucked in behind the shuttered factory in Manchester, New Hampshire. He is going to be holding a town hall and taking questions. So he could be talking about a variety of subjects.

And yesterday up in Maine, Brooke, we heard Donald Trump sounding off on all these Republicans, his past rivals from the primaries who refusing to get behind his campaign. He talked about it again in a radio interview earlier this more where he talked about how he feels like he is running in two different parties. Here's what he said earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, it was a rough primary. They got beat up. But they went after me, too. And you know, we beat them up. And wow they don't want to endorse. And you know, it's almost in some ways like I'm running against two parties.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. No kidding.

TRUMP: I'm not sure it matte because I think we're going to win. People are so fed up with politics and politicians. But I think I'm going to win either way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: And Brooke, you just don't normally hear that kind of talk coming from a presumptive Republican nominee three weeks out, essentially three weeks to the day from when he is expected to address the Republican national convention in Cleveland, Ohio.

And you know, another thing we may hear from Donald Trump in just a few moments here when this town hall gets started because he was really fired up about it is this case of Bill Clinton talking with attorney general Loretta Lynch. The Clinton campaign, you know, and others, the White House, they are all saying that this has nothing to do with the FBI investigation into Clinton's use - former secretary of state Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. But Donald Trump was saying in that interview that we just played a few moments ago, that he feels like this is the biggest story of the year. And so, we expect him to talk about that more as well, Brooke.

[15:45:42] BALDWIN: We will look for him. My eyes are on that live picture in Manchester, New Hampshire. For now, Jim Acosta, thank you.

David Chalian, let me bring you in, my political guru, CNN political director here.

Let's just begin maybe on Jim's first point here. On trade specifically, we know Trump's talking trade and economics and the fact that he's being slammed sort of on both sides, both Republicans and the president of the United States on trade.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes. It really is a remarkable thing, Brooke, to watch what is normally a debate that we see on the Democratic side between sort of left wing Democrats and more centrist Democrats. They usually have done the political battle over trade of late. This is an entirely different makeup. And listen, Donald Trump understands that the core of his support, the real fuel to the fire that he lit across the country during the nomination season, came from these white working class voters who feel economically left out of this globalized economy that we're now in. And he has been able to get their support and he wants to continue to do so because he realizes it is his path to the presidency.

His path to 270 electoral votes goes through places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. If he can convert those states over to Republican states, they have been Democrat for the last couple cycles, that's how he builds a winning presidential campaign.

BALDWIN: All right. So item number one there. Item number two, Chris Christie what's up there today?

CHALIAN: Yes, Chris Christie. We have now learned is being vetted according to our Jamie Gangel, she confirms report that was first in the "New York Times," is being vetted for Donald Trump's vice president. I don't think that's too surprising. As we all know, he endorsed Trump early on, shortly after he got out of the race. He has been with him and defending him ever since. He is running the transition for Trump should Trump win. And now he is handing over documents and is getting a serious look as a potential VP contender. He has some high negatives that he has got to deal with. He still has some ongoing Bridgegate issues that are out there to be resolved. But I'm not sure that will scare Donald Trump away from considering Chris Christie. And the two clearly have had a long history and they have a personal relationship going back several years that Christie's talked about quite often.

So the one thing that Christie doesn't have that Donald Trump says he is looking for, Brooke, is real Washington experience on Capitol Hill, getting legislation passed. Donald Trump said he was looking for an old Washington hand who knows how to make all that work. Obviously Christie's been a governor, been a U.S. attorney. But he is missing that component Donald Trump has told us many times he is interested in.

BALDWIN: Maybe not a total surprise. But then you have what Jim alluded to in the end there. I'm sure Trump would address it there in Manchester. You know, this plane ride, you know, and this chat between here you have, you look at the optics, right. You have this former president of the United States, Bill Clinton, having a chat with the current AG, Loretta Lynch, as, you know, his wife is running for president, and being, you know, federally investigated. What do you make of that?

CHALIAN: You know, terrible optics. Really bad choice on both Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch's part. You have heard the attorney general address this. And she said that they talked about grandchildren and there was nothing untoward and they never discussed ongoing cases. But this is the woman in charge of the justice department that's looking in to Bill Clinton's spouse who happens to be the presumptive democratic nominee.

So the idea that Bill Clinton learns she's on the tarmac, let me go say hello. I'm sure in his mind initially he thought there would be no problem. But it just would only take half a second to think through the optics of that, that perhaps this isn't the time Bill Clinton should be having a private meeting with Loretta Lynch.

And Clinton's critics have seized on this. It's really lit up conservative talk radio. And even some Democrats have said this is a distraction. This is something that could have easily been avoided and wasn't necessary.

BALDWIN: All right, David Chalian, thank you very much.

We are keeping a close eye on that Trump event. We'll take a piece of it live momentarily.

But back here at Istanbul, we have some new breaking information from our own Nima Elbagir who actually went out to the neighborhood apparently where these three suicide bombers had rented an apartment. What she is learning from those who live nearby, what they saw, what they smelled, she will joined me live with those new details next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [15:54:34] BALDWIN: All right. Let's get right to it in the final minutes I have with you here in Istanbul. Let me just bring here right in, CNN senior international correspondent Nima Elbagir is with me.

You are just back from this apartment where these three suicide bombers were living, about a half hour away from us here in Istanbul, what did you see? What did you hear?

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, as you can imagine, people were absolutely shocked. So many who live there are asking themselves in how the last few days, should have told someone. What should I have seen? Because they did not speak to their neighbors. The curtains were never open. A garage owner whose garage was right behind the flats and she overlooked him, was watching them and he says it was quite strange, they would occasionally open the windows only as if they were airing the flat out. They never opened the curtain.

BALDWIN: And the smell.

ELBAGIR: Yes. That's what people keep describing to us, this chemical smell. The extent of some of the neighbors' word perhaps was a gas leak. I mean, they couldn't understand what it was. It was permeating the whole building. And they tried to reach out to some of the local neighborhood officials but it seemed to be ignore.

BALDWIN: All these details as you and a crew went out there. I know you are turning this around and you have so much more with Jake Tapper on "the LEAD" in a couple of minutes. We will stay tuned for that.

Nima Elbagir here with me in Istanbul. I'm Brooke Baldwin in Istanbul.

Quick break. CNN special live coverage continues right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)