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Clinton Reaches out to Republicans; ISIS Executes Civilians; France Clears Migrant Camp; AT&T and Time Warner Deal; Bus Crash in California. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired October 24, 2016 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00] BILL PRESS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: This shows that Hillary Clinton recognizes she's got this in the bag. It shows that Republicans in the Senate know she's got it in the bag. The American people have had enough of gridlock. I think it's very smart for them to be talking. And if you look back at Hillary's Senate record, actually, she worked together, was known for working across the aisle. She did not just with some of the more moderate or progressive if you will if there is one Republican senators.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, Bill, but there was no Tea Party then. It was such a different time.

PRESS: Well, but, I mean the fact -- like Jim Imhoff, there's nobody more conservative than him. She did -- co-sponsored legislation with him. She sponsored legislation with Lindsey Graham. She co-sponsored legislation with several, several Republicans. She's got a history of that and I think you'll see that with her as president and she's starting now.

COSTELLO: But can you really see her cutting a special deal or having a beer with -- with Issa, for example, or --

PRESS: You know what, actually, I can. I really can. There was a time, it's not that long ago, when Trent Lott or Tom Daschle or George Mitchell or Bob Dole, I mean, they attack each other during the day and they sit down and have a beer and work some things out. I think it's good -- I think it would be good to get back to that time.

But again, the fact that these Republicans are talking with Hillary about her transition indicates they know what's coming down on November 8th.

COSTELLO: Well, John, I don't know --

JOHN PHILLIPS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Speaking of bipartisanship --

COSTELLO: I don't know -- I don't know --

PHILLIPS: I remember a time -- yes.

COSTELLO: No, John, go ahead, finish your thought.

PHILLIPS: I was going to say, I remember a time when Bill Press used to do his radio show from the Nixon Library.

PRESS: Once.

COSTELLO: So, John --

PRESS: Once.

COSTELLO: Let me ask you this because I do think Americans are tired of gridlock, right, but you look at what's happening to Paul Ryan right now. He may lose his speakership because he's not enthusiastically supporting Donald Trump. So many voters are stepping back and saying, that doesn't bode well for our future no matter who gets to be in the White House.

PHILLIPS: Well, that's been a problem on the Republican side of the aisle that predated Donald Trump. Bob Michels (ph) had to deal with the conservative front from Newt Gingrich. Newt Gingrich had to deal with it when he was speaker of the House. John Boehner had that as the bane of his existence when he was speaker and it was going to happen to Kevin McCarthy and it certainly happened to Paul Ryan, which is why he reluctantly took it over. And my suggestion to them would be to have a consistent policy.

What we've seen from Republicans in leadership of the House is they go to Washington, D.C, and they get marching orders from the Chamber of Commerce to do one thing, and then they go back to their districts, where their voters have decidedly different feelings and opinions, and say -- speak a different tune and then you have that conflict between the two sides and they kind of have to sell someone out at some point.

So, look, I do think that there is a future for bipartisanship. It's a lot less though than the days that you guys are referring to when you had conservatives and liberals in each party. We've had a realignment of the parties. Conservatives are now in the Republican Party, liberals in the Democratic Party. So it's going to be much harder regardless of who's in charge of the House or who's in the White House to get a bipartisan consensus than it used to be.

COSTELLO: But, but, here's the thing, Bill, that it's -- there's -- I think there's the sense that, you know, Republicans are split right now. There are two Republican parties, per say, because I don't have -- I mean I lack a better term to describe it. So you'll have Democrats, Republicans, and then other kinds of Republicans.

PRESS: Well, John is right, you've always had splits inside the party. But clearly the Democratic Party is united today behind Hillary Clinton. The Republican Party is all over the place. It's certainly split at least in two camps, one is those who hold their nose and will vote for Donald Trump, and there are others who say, even though he's a Republican, we just cannot support this guy, Carol.

And I think that's where Paul Ryan is indeed in trouble. It's not because he's alienated the pro-Trump Tea Party people. I think he's alienated a sensitive or commonsense Republicans across the land who say, we made a mistake in endorsing this guy, nominating him, and we cannot stand with the things that he says and does. And we know if we do, he's going to take the whole party down with us. And so --

COSTELLO: So, John -- I want to get John's sense of this. I mean what's your sense? Will Republicans like Paul Ryan, you know, be the victors in the end? Or -- or not?

PHILLIPS: Well, I mean, who can predict the future? If I could predict the future, I'd be in Las Vegas instead of Palm Springs. But I think that Hillary is also going to have problems if she were to be elected with the Bernie faction. She's been able to keep them in check through the process because they're afraid of Donald Trump, or they're unwilling to support Donald Trump. But what happens to them if she were to double-cross them on TPP? Do they take their medicine or do they scream and yell? What happens if she continues with all of her ethics problems, but from the White House with more goodies to sell? Does the media then stay on board with her or does the media turn on her? I think it's going to be a rough road for Hillary Clinton.

[09:35:11] PRESS: I can speak for the --

COSTELLO" I'm going to have to --

PRESS: I can -- quickly, on the Bernie faction. The Bernie faction. We Bernie supporters are with Hillary Clinton now and you can bet we will be holding her feet to the fire to deliver the progressive agenda that's in the Democratic Party platform --

COSTELLO: That's what John is talking about. Yes.

PRESS: And -- no, but, you know, that's our job. And if she doesn't, we'll give her hell just like we gave Obama hell.

COSTELLO: Oh, John, I think you hit it. You did too, Bill. Thanks so much. Bill Press, John Phillips. Thank you.

They call it the jungle. We'll tell you why a packed migrant camp in France is being forcibly cleared.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Iraqi and Kurdish forces are retaking dozens of villages from ISIS, and they're closing in on ISIS controlled Mosul. But that progress has come at a price. In one town, local leaders say 40 civilians were executed when they started celebrating their liberation too early and ISIS members came back and killed them.

[09:40:16] CNN's senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh joins us now from Erbil in Iraq.

Hi, Nick.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Carol, consistent, awful stories we hear in this war. One more possibly positive note from inside the city of Mosul itself, from residents there, talking about clashes between ISIS militants and unidentified men. Now we've, for a long time, been studying the potential for an insurrection inside of Mosul. Many of the population there deeply unhappy about the repression of ISIS rule over the past couple of years. This could be maybe the first sign of that. We're not entirely clear of the full details. But we ourselves have spoken to people who have been involved in potentially rising up against ISIS.

This comes as continued progress is reported by the Peshmerga. The Iraqi Kurdish fighters tackling ISIS as they move toward the city itself. And I say progress. It comes with a caveat. We don't always know that they've cleared the ISIS fighters out behind them as they continue to advance through population settlements, built up areas basically. They use the phrase cordoned off a lot, like they're moving around things, rather than necessarily going building to building clearing out the mines, clearing out the fighters. They've often hiding in tunnels.

It's going to be messy going forward. The Peshmerga, Kurdish forces, having put in a defensive berm, which may also have potentially marked the territory they want to have as sort of theirs moving forward.

There's a lot of different competing factions here. The Pentagon say they're moving ahead of schedule. We don't know what the schedule was, so we can't ratify that, but there's a lot moving here and the real goal inside, of course, the urban sprawl of Mosul itself, where there could be as many as 1.2 million people trapped in whatever fighting is ahead.

Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Nick Paton Walsh reporting live from inside Iraq this morning. Thank you.

So far, more than 1,000 refugees have been removed from a notorious migrant camp in France known as the jungle. Authorities are now moving migrants out of the camp in Calais (ph), that's in northern France, then they're taking the migrants by bus to shelters in other parts of the country.

Here's CNN's international correspondent Melissa Bell with what happens next.

MELISSA BELL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Carol, the evacuation of the camp in Calais, the jungle, began early this morning with a long line forming, a line of migrants who decided to take up the French authorities on their offer and to take the possibility of heading to one of France's region to seek asylum. They've brought, as you can see, with them all their worldly belongings, and that's because once they make it through that hangar, they get put directly on buses and shipped out to one of France's regions. They've come from Eritrea, from Sudan, from Afghanistan. Now they're going to resettle in parts of France, like Vogdul (ph), Burgundy (ph) and Brittany (ph).

It's not been easy for the French authorities to convince the regions to take on the migrants. But many of them have accepted to do it. The real challenge now, the real test for the French government will be tomorrow morning when the dismantling of the camp itself begins. There are still down the road there inside the jungle thousands of migrants, determined to cling on to that dream of making it to the United Kingdom. They've called the jungle home for months and they're determined to stay there come what may. The French authorities, tomorrow, will begin moving those tents, bringing the bulldozers in, and that's why the police presence here at Calais is as big as it is, 1,200 French policemen and riot policemen on hand to make sure that that dismantling goes as smoothly as possible.

Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Melissa Bell reporting for us this morning. Thank you.

A horrific plane crash caught on dash cam at the Malta International Airport. You can see the plane, it actually falls out of the sky and then explodes. Five French nationals aboard that plane were killed. The Maltese government says the flight was heading to Libya as part of a French customs operation aimed at monitoring migrant trafficking. An investigation now underway. Wow.

Coming up in the NEWSROOM, AT&T and Time Warner, the parent company of CNN, make a mega media deal. What does this mean for you, the consumer? The latest from the CEOs leading the deal, next.

[09:48:37] COSTELLO: Wall Street getting its first opportunity to weigh in on the mega media deal between AT&T and Time Warner, which is the parent company of CNN. AT&T offering $85 billion to buy Time Warner and all of its assets like HBO, TNT, and TBS, along with CNN. But already the deal is getting a lot of scrutiny. Some of that scrutiny comes from consumers. CNN's chief business correspondent Christine Romans talked to both the CEOs of AT&T and Time Warner.

And what did they say?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Parent company of this network.

Look, they are optimistic about this deal and they don't seem to be worried about the regulatory scrutiny at this point. They're talking about an $85 billion deal. They hammered it out just about in the last eight weeks. And I asked the CEO of AT&T, what's the deal? Why do you want to buy Time Warner and -- and what do you get? What is the impetus, the business case that you're making why you have to do it. This is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDALL STEPHENSON, CHAIRMAN & CEO, AT&T: I think you're going to see the pace of innovation in terms of delivering meaningful premium content to the customer on mobile devices. That pace of innovation is what's going to change. Doing it in arm's length contracts is always really, really hard. And so you put these two companies together. Now the two companies are working together to change how the customer experiences entertainment, how the customer experiences CNN, literally. That's what we think will change. The customer is demanding not only the entertainment, not only the content, but the ability to integrate social, doing clipping and posting and social interaction with their content. So these are the kind of things we really want to move fast.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:50:11] ROMANS: Carol, what he wants is he wants the kind of contents the Time Warner stable of companies has been creating. You know, think "Game of Thrones," HBO. Think all the sports content, TNT and CNN, a news leader. You know we asked him point-blank, you know, would you ever exert any influence over CNN? He said, no, I want you all to do what you're doing. I am, you know, a phone company guy. That's what -- that's what we do. He said, I don't know how to handle -- you know, manage a movie studio and I'm not going to try to. So Time Warner will be sort of on its own.

COSTELLO: Because -- because -- and I just want to -- because the worry is, is that you're going to have this massive company owning so many media entities , you know --

ROMANS: Right.

COSTELLOP: Which is under the umbrella of Time Warner and this big company is going to control all of that information.

ROMANS: You know, I asked him -- Bewkes, about that in particular, he's the CEO of Time Warner. He said, look, you've worked at this company how many years and Time Warner has owned CNN and Time Warner hasn't exerted influence over you. CNN does what it does well, just like HBO does what it does and TNT does. So they have their identities and that's what AT&T wants. I asked Jeff Bewkes, the CEO of Time Warner, and also Randall Stephenson, I said, what is the first thing customers are going to notice differently? What's the first change consumers will feel? This is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF BEWKES, CHAIRMAN & CEO, TIME WARNER: More choices of different channel packages. If they want a big package of a lot of channels on their big screen TVs and they can watch the show and walk out the house with a tablet and have seamless connection, or maybe they don't want that. Maybe they've got, it it's a young couple that wants to use mobile devices to watch. Maybe they don't want the full package of channels. There will be more choice, I think better prices for consumers There will be --

ROMANS: You think better prices or consumers?

BEWKES: Yes. More competition usually leads to more price reductions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Can you imagine if you just didn't have to buy, you know, your standard cable package.

COSTELLO: I've been yearning for that for years, Christine.

ROMANS: Yes, yes, yes, exactly. I asked him about the regulatory push-back. You know, a lot of push- back in the newspapers, the headlines in the newspapers this morning were all saying, you know, faces immediate scrutiny or faces, you know, obstacles. They don't seem to be concerned about that. They think this is a deal where they don't have a lot of overlap. They're a vertical integration of these two companies. They think maybe it will take a year to get it through, but they'll work with regulators and they think it will be done.

COSTELLO: All right, Christine Romans, thanks so much.

ROMANS: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: OK, for more on this, visit our website, cnnmoney.com. And they'll have every kind of -- every bit of information you ever wanted to know about this big buyout from AT&T.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, 13 people dead after a tour bus slams into a tractor trailer near Palm Springs. The latest on California's worst traffic accident in decades.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:56:53] COSTELLO: Dozens of families in California in mourning today after the state's deadliest accident in decades. Thirteen people killed, another 31 injured after a tour bus heading back to L.A. slams into the back of a tractor trailer. Some victims still fighting for their lives this morning. CNN's Paul Vercammen is in Palm Springs. He has more for us.

Hi, Paul.

PAUL VERCAMMEN: Good morning, Carol.

In fact, there are still people in critical condition, four of them at this medical center, one of them serious, after this deadly crash. And as we are learning more about this, the Riverside County Coroner listing on its site that ten of the victims were women and three of them men. One of those victims, the driver of this bus that plowed right into the back of a big rig. And they describe it as this bus basically, and the big rig, smashing up to about 15 feet. So many of these injuries, according to doctors, were facial lacerations. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. RICARD TOWNSEND, TRAUMA SURGEON, DESERT REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER: As opposed to hitting wall at 60 or 80 miles an hour, this bus struck something that was actually collapsible. So as a result, the types of injuries that we saw are actually a little bit unique. Most of the victims were unrestrained a therefore were thrown through the air and ended up sustaining facial trauma. So almost all the victims that we took care of had some element of facial trauma.

(END VIDEO CLIP) VERCAMMEN: Now, they say that the -- basically the big rig had slowed in an area where earlier in the day workers had been clearing some electrical lines. And they also say that the CHP reporting that the bus had been inspected three times in three straight years, including last April, and there were no mechanical deficiencies. But something else that was missing, there were no seat belts on this bus.

Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Paul Vercammen reporting live from Palm Springs this morning.

Lawmakers are tangling with the Pentagon over trying to recover improperly paid enlistment bonuses. According to the "Los Angeles Times," nearly 10,000 soldiers are being asked to return at least $13,000 each. The Pentagon says the bonuses were mistakenly paid to thousands of California National Guard soldiers a decade ago. Iraq War veteran Christopher Van Meter says he had to refinance his home to pay that money back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTOPHER VAN METER, IRAQ WAR VETERAN: And it's gut-wrenching because you have to figure out what you're going to do, and how you're going to survive. I had a young family at the time and I was expected to pay $46,000 back. I called the National Guard Bureau or the California Army National Guard and said, hey, wait, I have all these contracts that say I should have -- I should have had that money. And they said in the fall of 2012, well, until we actually start charging you, there's nothing you can do. Wait for -- to fight it out with the lawyers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy is demanding the Pentagon wave those debts.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

[10:00:05] And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.