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At Least 24 Dead in California Building Fire; Trump Widens Field of Potential Secy of State Picks; Trump: Companies Won't Leave U.S. "Without Consequences"; Campaign Managers Deliver Postmortem on 2016 Election; General Petraeus Makes Case For Secretary Of State. Aired 2-3p ET

Aired December 04, 2016 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:02] JOE JOHNS, CNN ANCHOR: Good afternoon. I'm Joe Johns in for Fredricka Whitfield, taken a well-deserved day off. We're going to begin in Oakland, California, that's where officials are expected to give an update later this afternoon on recovery efforts following this weekend's tragic fire which have been called one of the deadliest in the city's history. Here's what we know right now.

Officials say they found 24 dead so far from the fire but investigators fear the death toll could go much higher. The fire broke out as an electronic dance party was getting under way in a converted warehouse space. Emergency responders found most of the victims on the second floor. So far the recovery has been painstaking in the last 12 hour; only about 20 percent of the building has been searched.

CNN's Stephanie Elam is in Oakland for us. And Stephanie, as we wait for the update, we're hearing from at least one of the survivors. What's he saying?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, definitely. And yes, we were just listening because they were telling us that they were going to have a press run and just delayed it. But they gave us a little bit more information, Joe, and what they're saying is that it is really painstaking; they're using buckets and shovels to go through the space to look for people.

And they said some of the people are easily identifiable and some of the people who lost their lives, it's much harder for them to identify them and that is part of the reason why it's taking so long. But when you take a look at the stories coming out of the people who did survive this fire, there's one man, Bob Mule, who is in there, he did not go to the party, he was in his space preparing to paint when the fire broke out. Listen to his emotional recount of what happened for him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOB MULE, FIRE SURVIVOR: When I ran back to get my camera, I saw Pete, he's a larger fellow. I guess as he was climbing down from the loft in his space, he'd fallen and broken his ankle and was calling out to me. And he's like, I broke my ankle. I need you to pull me out. I need you to pull me out. I need you to pull me out. And so I just immediately took his arm and I was pulling him out.

I just got to a certain point where there was all this stuff like blocking my path with him. And I wasn't able to just, like, pull him out. And the fire was just getting too hot. And the smoke was just getting too bad. And I had to -- I had to -- and I had to leave him there. And I wasn't able to get him out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ELAM: Just a harrowing detail there for him on getting out of the building. And at this point, we know that they've only made it 20 percent of the way through this building. So still a lot more to go. But because the roof collapsed onto the second floor and all of the debris that is there, it is slowing this process down. We're hoping to learn more.

They're saying they potentially could have some names of the victims after that they notify the next of kin. We may learn some of those names today, Joe.

JOHNS: Stephanie, looking at those pictures, it looks like a very large space. And the authorities have always been very specific about the number of people they think were inside that space. Do you have any idea how they come up with estimating about 50 people inside?

ELAM: Well, I think a lot of it has to do with the people that were in there that got out. I think that's talking to them and then other people who've been looking for people and trying to discern how those people were there. But just knowing people who were using the space and were frequenting the space and then on top of it, the fact that you had a party, people who they may have said that they knew somebody who's going to the party, that's how they're trying to figure out who was inside at the time.

JOHNS: Just a horrific story developing there in Oakland, California. Thank you so much, we will be checking back with you, Stephanie Elam.

And now joining me on the phone is James McMullen. He's a former California State chief fire marshal. Chief only about 20 percent of the burned building has been searched, 80 percent to go. Can you tell us what the crews are facing as they tried to search for victims of this fire?

JAMES MCMULLEN, FORMER CHIEF FIRE MARSHALL, CALIFORNIA STATE (voice- over): Well, as you search a building that's been burned such as that, you have to move very slowly and very cautiously for several reasons: One is falling debris. One is building collapse. One is the fact that you don't want to disturb evidence that's critical for the fire investigation. You want to ascertain that you don't miss any bodies or critical matters that are going to be used as evidence.

And so the key thing is you got to move slowly and you got to preserve the scene at the same time so that the fire investigators can, in fact, determine the area of origin and subsequently the point of origin and then determine the cause. It's critical to know that before you determine what caused the fire, you have find out where the fire started.

And so once you determine generally where the fire started, called the area of origin, you hone that down to the point of origin where the fire precisely started. And at that point then, you determine what are the causative factors within that point of origin and go through a process of elimination to determine the cause.

And in addition, they're still searching for bodies, they still have hot spots. And so they have a real task and they're moving cautiously and slowly, which is what they should be doing.

JOHNS: So let's back up a little bit as we look at some of the picture, the smoke and the fire and the flames from overnight. Look, one of the things we know is that even after this fire was out, it was still deemed not safe enough for emergency workers to enter. Does that in and of itself tell you something about this structure that they were dealing with?

MCMULLEN: Well, there's no question that the fire will always, of course, damage your structural supports. And so whether or not the building is structurally sound is something that has to be determined before we can let rescue workers or investigators make entry into there because we certainly wouldn't want a building to collapse that's had a fire on the workers that are trying to solve the crime or rescue the people.

JOHNS: Also, there have been some past concerns raised about this space, this warehouse building. Among them, there have been reports of the typical thing like trash, which I think is understood and pretty clear but there have also been some reports out there about internal illegal structures.

Apparently, that sounds like things inside the building that enforcers deemed to potential problem. What does that mean?

MCMULLEN: Well, it means illegal occupancy. Occupancy means use of the building in according to the codes, the building and fire code. What you do inside the building is its occupancy. And when you have an illegal occupancy, it means you've occupied it without the proper permits from the agencies that issued those permits such as the building department, the fire department.

When you have people that are living inside, that becomes a residential occupancy. When you have a business, that becomes a different kind of occupancy. And then when you go in and you have an assembly such as this gathering people, that's an assembly occupancy, which is a third type of occupancy.

And so I've heard -- I'm sorry, I was just going to say that I've heard that they were in there occupying, living there, that's what the news accounts I've heard so far have said and it wasn't clear if it's a residential occupancy.

JOHNS: Right. It certainly sounds like they had a lot going on there in that building. At the news conference earlier today, here's what the battalion chief had to say. Take a listen and I'd like you to weigh in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MELINDA DRAYTON, BATTALION CHIEF, OAKLAND FIRE DEPARTMENT: Our goal is to work collaboratively with public works to breach the B side, it would be the left side of the warehouse building, the fire building, in order to gain access for our fire fighters and Alameda County Sheriff to be able to remove debris systemically from the building to the vacant lot next to the building, literally, bucket by bucket in a methodical, thoughtful, mindful and compassionate way.

We had firefighters with basically coveralls and buckets and shovels taking bits of debris out into the vacant lot to then be loaded into dump trucks and removed to an off-site location.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: So you listen to that and here's a picture of rubble being taken out bucket by bucket. There are also reports that the stairs were incinerated. And it sort of begs the question, how is it that you could have so much fire without people discovering it and starting to try to get out of there, any idea?

MCMULLEN: Well, what's important to remember is that all fires, no matter how big, such as this one, became a gigantic fire, no matter how big they ultimately become, start very small. A short of a molotov cocktail or an explosion, you will always have a fire starting and what's called the incipient stage which is the beginning of the fire when it's very small. And at some point in that area, if you see the fire and you can get to it soon enough and you can put it out with a fire extinguisher.

And I understand that one of the witnesses had attempted the use of fire extinguisher and he couldn't get the extinguisher to operate. And that is also potentially a violation of the code. And need for maybe improving what we do in the way of fire extinguishers. But as soon as you can get the fire extinguisher on a fire, in the fire service we call putting in the wet stuff on the red stuff, the sooner you can do that, the sooner you can put the fire out.

Once it begins to extend, it burns in what it's called combustible loading. And this, I understand, the building had a lot of combustible loading where people brought in combustibles and had artist displays and so forth and it will move very rapidly. The code also requires that you have interior finished materials that mitigates fire spread.

And you probably heard about the fire in East Warwick, Rhode Island -- West Warwick, Rhode Island make it -- well, the Station nightclub fire wherein we had interior finished materials that burned very rapidly, polyurethane foam. And that's one of the things the code regulates and this maybe the case here. We had interior finished materials that didn't meet the code standards.

JOHNS: James McMullen, thanks so much for that. Standby because we're going to want to come back to you when we get more information. Turning to politics in just a little while and keeping our eye on

Oakland, Donald Trump is expanding his list of potential secretary of state picks. We will tell you who he's now considering and perhaps why? Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHNS: With less than seven weeks until Donald Trump takes office, a search for his secretary of state is expanding. Trump's top aide telling CNN they will interview more candidates this week.

Meanwhile, the president-elect is announcing more proposals which he hopes will save American jobs, doubling down on that threat he's made against companies that move operations abroad. In a series of tweets, Trump writes, "Any business that leaves our country for another country, fires its employees, builds a new factory or plant in the other country and then thinks it will sell its products back into the U.S. without retribution or consequence is wrong."

Also this morning, Vice President-elect Mike Pence revealing more details about Trump's controversial phone call with the president of Taiwan. So let's go over to CNN's Ryan Nobles who's live in New York outside transition headquarters at Trump Tower. Ryan, what's the latest?

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORREPONDENT: Yes, Joe. Vice President-elect Mike Pence as you mentioned really spent the morning defending the president-elect's decision to take that call from the president of Taiwan. He said it was really no different than the 50 other heads of state that the president-elect has talked to across the world.

And he also said that to a certain extent the media is driving this question of whether or not it was a major foreign policy blunder, he said it's standard practice for a president-elect to talk to foreign leaders. Listen to that argument that he made on NBC.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think the conversation that happened this week with the president of Taiwan was a courtesy call. She reached out to the president-elect and he took the call from the democratically-elected leader of Taiwan and it's one of more than 50 telephone calls that the president-elect has taken from and made to world leaders in the midst of a historic pace and cabinet appointments and senior appointments, building a legislative agenda, even traveling the country and saving a thousand jobs in the State of Indiana.

And so it's all the reflection of the tremendous energy. And I think it's the kind of approach that you're going to see him bring the challenges at home and abroad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBLES: Of course, that phone call a little bit different than the more than 50 phone calls made to other foreign heads of state because it's the first time a phone call like that has occurred since 1979 and that's why there are so many people concerned in the foreign policy community in Washington.

The Chinese government is also alarmed by it. They filed a formal complaint with the White House and the Obama administration has responded by saying there's been no change in that policy where the United States recognizes the one China policy, essentially, that Taiwan is part of the Chinese government.

But Joe, this shouldn't be that big of a surprise because, of course, Donald Trump was very tough on China on the campaign trail during this election and that relationship with China is going to be something to watch very closely in the early days of the Trump administration. Joe.

JOHNS: He sure is getting started out of the blocks on that. Let's switch gears here a little bit, Ryan. Team Trump is still looking for obviously one of his most important cabinet positions, secretary of state. And there's actually a new name being floated and as name a lot of us have heard before. Can you talk about that?

NOBLES: Yes, Joe. It's an interesting name in light of what's happened over the past 24 hours with China and Taiwan and it's the former ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, of course a candidate for president not too long ago, also the former governor of Utah.

Huntsman is kind of different than many establishment Republicans and that he was not critical of Donald Trump during the campaign and is someone that Trump could perhaps tap for secretary of state. Now, even though Huntsman is being considered for secretary of state, this is not to say that he's emerged as a front-runner. We do know this morning, Trump's top aide, Kellyanne Conway saying that the list has expanded.

Initially, they had said that they were down to four finalist including Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, David Petraeus and others. And now they said that the field has expanded, that they could potentially talk to more candidates.

And Joe, we thought maybe this appointment would come soon. The Trump's transition saying that the president-elect is going to take his time because it is such an important decision.

JOHNS: Right. Reading the tea leaves, that could be important. Some talk about it being up to two weeks. It doesn't sound like they're very close. Ryan Nobles, thanks so much for that. We will be checking back with you.

And if you think about it, Huntsman may not be the only new candidate for Trump's secretary of state as a matter of fact. With interviews for that all-important role coming this week, we're going to ask our panel of experts who can best help the president-elect build on U.S. relationships abroad. Coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) JOHNS: OK. You've probably heard his name before, he's the former

U.S. Ambassador to China, he speaks Mandarin Chinese and now he's being floated as a possible nominee for secretary of state. The Trump transition source tells CNN, Republican Jon Huntsman is the newest name being considered for the job.

So let's get some insight into this with Julian Zelizer, a former historian and professor at Princeton. Also joining me is CNN Presidential Historian Tim Naftali, the former director of the Nixon Presidential Library.

Julian, starting with you. So is it a coincidence? Are we supposed to read something into the fact that Jon Huntsman's name is being floated one day after the controversial Donald Trump phone call with the Taiwanese president?

JULIAN ZELIZER, HISTORIAN AND PROFESSOR, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: No, I don't think it's a coincidence. Obviously, this was a phone call that although some conservatives are defending and almost making the argument it was strategic decision, has also elicited a lot of criticism. And so the float what might be the person with the most expertise and the most competence in the pick, I think it's the decision by the president-elect's team to give some confidence in what's going on in this area of policy.

JOHNS: So we've talked a little bit around this and now I'm going to play the sound, the Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway weighed in on the secretary of state selection. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP SENIOR ADVISER: -- that he's brought in the search and the secretary of state is an incredibly important position for any president to fill. And, you know, he's very fortunate to have interest among serious men and women who all of whom need to understand their first responsibility as secretary of state would be to implement and adhere to the president-elect's America first foreign policy and be loyal to his view of the world.

So he continues to talk to different people. I think you've all seen the list before that already existed. This week, he will have additional interviews with other candidates for secretary of state and other cabinet positions and deputy cabinet positions as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: Tim Naftali, they continued to mull around on this and it sounds like they're no closer for making the decision for the president who arguably has minimal experience in international diplomacy. Who do you think, number one, is the best choice for this role among the names we've known out there? And also, what does this project, the idea that this administration to be is taking so much time with the selection?

TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, first of all, to be fair to the administration to be, they're actually doing this reasonably fast. Some administrations with this whole process continues for another two weeks well into December.

But what's really interesting is that the Trump team is a lot more unified on what military policies should be going forward than on what diplomacy should be going forward. A lot of presidents or presidents- elect coming to office thinking they will be their own secretary of state. That's not going to be the case for Donald Trump. He doesn't really know and he admits that he doesn't really know very much about foreign policy.

So this key, this decision, the choice of the secretary of state, looms larger for him than for a lot of presidents-elect that we've had in history. Who would be the best? Well, we have two candidates that have real experience in interacting with foreign leaders, in representing the United States on a world stage.

Jon Huntsman would be superb. He's fluent in Mandarin. He has lived abroad. He understands one of America's most important trading partners and the Chinese respect him.

Mitt Romney although he's never represented the United States officially abroad, he did a remarkable job in pulling together the Salt Lake City Olympics of 2002. He's respected overseas. He, too, would be an excellent representative of our country.

So either of these men has the skillset required to be good secretary of state. The real question is whether Donald J. Trump will be comfortable having a secretary of state who might outshine him.

JOHNS: Got it. Julian, let's talk about Donald Trump's renewed threat against job outsourcing. Thirty-five percent penalty for companies that send jobs abroad. Do you think he can actually do that?

ZELIZER: No. I'm not convinced he even wants to do that. I think we have to separate some of the populist anti-corporate rhetoric that we've heard from President-elect Trump from what he actually plans to do.

So far the big announcement was the carrier jobs, which obviously is terrific to the family who have jobs. But it's really a very small piece of the employment sector. And it's going to be very hard for him whether he wants to or not to take this kind of an approach to keeping corporate jobs here in the United States. He's not going to get a lot of support for doing this within his own party and from some people within the potential cabinet that he's putting together.

So this is a case where there's a lot of bluster coming out from the Twitter feed of Trump where I'm not sure that's going to be the policy but that's not what bother him. He wants to send a message, he wants to rally his supporters and he wants to make this claim that he will defend the worker against corporations that are not doing well by them.

JOHNS: And I have to talk about this a lot more in the coming days. Julian Zelizer and Tim Naftali, thanks so much for coming in.

NAFTALI: Thank you.

ZELIZER: : Pleasure.

JOHNS: Coming up. Dissecting the most bitter campaign many of us have ever seen. Both campaign managers analyze what went wrong and what went right and whether Donald Trump expressed any regret behind closed doors for his controversial comments about women and Muslims.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:32:22] JOHNS: Can you believe it already? It's been nearly a month after the election and there's proof that we are still living in a very divided country. Campaign managers from both sides in that campaign sat down to decide one of the most bitter and divisive campaigns of our lifetime.

So at the end of the day, what was it that went wrong for Hillary Clinton and, by the way, who are those undercover voters who propelled a billionaire with no political experience to the highest office in the country? Here's CNN's Jake Tapper.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST, "STATE OF THE UNION": What happened? What went wrong? Obviously, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote and she won more votes for president than any white man in history, but this is obviously a race to 270, and she came up short and traditionally in Democratic states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

She told donors not long after the election that she thought the letter from FBI Director James Comey was really the nail in the coffin for her. Do you agree? Is that what went wrong?

ROBBY MOOK, CLINTON CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Well, look, we are really proud of her margin in the popular vote, but as said this was about the Electoral College votes and we did come up short. We felt very good about where we were going into the last 10, 20 days of the election. I think it is hard to imagine the kind of impact that that letter had.

You know, most of the public polling showed the distinct drop. We certainly saw that in our internal numbers and particularly because the letter didn't really seem to have much of a purpose. He said he had some e-mails, he had not seen them, he didn't know what they were.

So, look, when you look across the three states that you mentioned, you're talking 100,000 votes, anything could have made a difference with such small margins, less than 1 percent in each of those states, but we do think that was an incredibly powerful force in the race.

You know, the other reality is, you know, we were hoping for stronger performance in some sectors and a lot of the data was very off in this race. So we have to reflect on all those reasons.

TAPPER: What sectors?

MOOK: Well, we were expecting to perform better with suburban women in particular. We saw those numbers a lot stronger that what happened on Election Day. We do think that was because of the Comey letter. We saw a lot of young people go to third-party candidates. We think the letter had a lot to do with that as well. So there were a number of reasons for this, but (inaudible) my view would be that letter from Director Comey.

TAPPER: Kellyanne, you said that the shift, the movement towards Donald Trump and away from Hillary Clinton among undecided voters in some of these key demographic groups started before the Comey letter came out.

KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP SENIOR ADVISER: Yes, you even see the public polls are reflective of what we were seeing internally, Jake. For example, ABC News released a poll on Sunday that said 50/38. We really didn't believe that she was at 50. We knew we were not under 40.

[14:35:05]But everybody then 0had to live with that 12-point poll because people held it up as evidence that the race was over. That there was no way Hillary Clinton could lose, no way Donald Trump could win.

And by Friday of that same week, it was a one-point race and that was before the Comey letter. Also, Secretary Clinton herself, the night of the day the Comey letter was released on October 28th, said at her rally that it didn't matter because Americans had already decided what they thought about the e-mails.

And that it was already baked in the cake and this was a messaging point from her campaign. So at the time they said $at, maybe it was wishful thinking, maybe they weren't being completely truthful, and now it's supposed to be the Comey letter.

I have to say, Donald Trump turned over 200 counties that went for President Obama in 2012 to Donald Trump in 2016. That's because of messages that connect with people in those areas. Not because of a letter late in the game.

I do think that it probably had an effect on some voters, but if you want to reach suburban women and the question is you're the first female president running for -- first female running for president as a party nominee then why is the message not nearly connected to them?

TAPPER: I want to get to messaging in a little bit, but let's back up to June 2015, Donald Trump comes down the escalator at Trump Tower announces that he's going to run for president. It seemed back in the primaries that many people in your campaign, Robby, wanted Donald Trump to be the nominee that you thought he would be easier to beat than say Marco Rubio. Is that true and why?

MOOK: I think many Democrats did believed that. I think obviously our opinions on that changed as he progressed to the primary and was very successful by any standard in that primary.

TAPPER: And Kellyanne, you've been very critical of the polls so let me give you an opportunity to weigh in on a rare moment of agreement here. Why were the polls so wrong?

CONWAY: I'm critical of the polls just because (inaudible) the polling company and I never want to practice law again so I can't be that critical of the polls. But the polls are wrong for a couple of reasons.

And when I say the polls, let's be very clear, these are mostly the public polls. So I think Joe Benenson worked, the internal polls, our polling worked. We had five different poll firms working including my firm.

Those don't really see the light of day. We are using those for internal strategic positioning. We are not trying to get clicks or make headlines or call the race over before it is one way or the other. I think a few things happened.

One is presuming that the 2012 electorate would be the 2016 electorate. And that also presumed implicitly, Jake, that Secretary Clinton would be able to attract and knit together and keep together what is called the Obama coalition.

So a critical mass of voters of color, of millenials, and maybe even her running up the totals among women since she's the first female candidate and running a decidedly reach out to women as an anti-Trump campaign until the very end.

So I think that was a failing. The other failing is in presuming that people who had voted Democratic in the past would do so here, which is slightly different than the Obama coalition.

We thought in our modeling that the 2016 electorate had a better chance of loosely resembling the 2014 electorate in some of these key states and counties, which was my obsession, the counties, than it would resemble the 2012 election.

And so we talked, I talked very publicly very early on under a hail of criticism about the undercover Trump voter and it was very real. An undercover Trump voter to put it all to rest, this is not somebody who is afraid to say they are voting for Donald Trump.

That's not what it is. It is somebody who just doesn't look like a Trump voter. It's a union household that's voted Democratic for years. It's a single mom who couldn't possibly dream of voting for Donald Trump.

Why would she do that when she could vote for Hillary Clinton who is, quote, "Fighting for women and children?" And so we took the approach where we were a little bit more open-minded about who the electorate maybe and allowed them to tell us who they were.

MOOK: Look, turnout wasn't what we wanted it to be in some places and there were different stories across different states. Philadelphia did turn out the way we would have liked. Other states weren't.

But one thing I think we did see across the country that Kellyanne would agree with this we did see a record number of Hispanic turnout in a number of communities.

I think that was important to our win in Nevada and Colorado and that's why Texas was a lot closer than many people anticipated. Obviously, that was not enough for us to win the election, but I think that is something to be celebrated and lifted up. That was unprecedented and I hope that those voters continue to turn up.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: So we're going to hear more from both campaign managers in the next hour, including whether Donald Trump expressed any regret behind closed doors for his controversial comments about women and Muslims.

[14:40:05]Also ahead, the former director of the CIA, David Petraeus, says he made a serious mistake when sharing classified information. Why he's trying to clear the air coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHNS: We're expecting to get another update this afternoon on that deadly Oakland warehouse fire that killed 24 people. The death toll is expected to rise since firefighters have only been able to search about 20 percent of that building.

Firefighters say they are removing the debris bucket by bucket. The warehouse which had been converted into a loft and event space didn't have working fire detectors or sprinklers.

CNN spoke with one of the artists who lived there who survived the fire. Here's Bob Mule talking with us through his experience as he tried to save a neighbor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BOB MULE, FIRE SURVIVOR: I have, like, burns on my arms and my hand and on my shoulder. I'm just really glad that I had my vest on, but when I ran back to get my camera, I saw Pete. I guess, as he was climbing down from the loft in his space, he had fallen and broken his ankle and was calling out to me.

And he was like, I broke my ankle. I need you to pull me out. I need you to pull me out. So I immediately took his arm and was pulling him out. I just got to a certain point where it was -- there was all this stuff, like, blocking my path with him.

[14:45:04]And I wasn't able to pull him out and the fire was just getting too hot and the smoke was getting too bad and I had to -- I had to leave him there. I wasn't able to get him out. I just ran outside and watched this warehouse burn.

All of our stuff is in there. Our whole livelihood. All our belongings. Everything we used to create in our space, our most cherished things, all our clothes even. You know, everything that, like, this is literally all I've got.

I am so grateful that I have such an amazing space of support through the communities that I'm involved in and I have plenty of places to stay, you know, and so many people have reached out to me. They are like, what do you need? How can I help?

I don't know what I need. I'm just happy to be alive and like, I have this, you know? This is more than enough for me right now. You know? It's like -- I don't know. Hugs and high fives.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: A horrific story. Our hearts really go out to all the families and the survivors. If you want to help those affected by the fire, visit our website CNN.com/impact. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:50:26]

JOHNS: The list of candidates for the president-elect, Donald Trump's cabinet, continues to expand and the names of former generals are being discussed for several of those positions. Today, David Petraeus made a last-ditch effort apparently to show that his guilty plea for disclosing classified information to his girlfriend and biographer should not prevent him from being secretary of state.

Former general and CIA director making the case to Republican senators who could be hesitant to confirm a man who plead guilty to exactly what they accusing Hillary Clinton of doing by way of her private e- mail server. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GENERAL DAVID PETRAEUS, U.S. ARMY (RETIRED): What I would say to them is what I have acknowledged for a number of years. Five years ago, I made a serious mistake, I acknowledge it. I apologized for it. I paid a very heavy price for it and I have learned from it.

And again, they will have two factor that in and also obviously thirty eight and a half years of otherwise fairly in some case unique service to our country in uniform and at the CIA. And then for years or so in the business community during which I have continued to travel the world, nearly 40 countries in that time as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: OK, so let's talk about General Petraeus with CNN military analyst, Major General James "Spider" Marks. General, thanks for joining me by phone. So from your perspective, do you think General Petraeus ought to be allowed to serve as secretary of state even though he actually pleaded guilty to disclosing classified information?

MAJ. GENERAL JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST (via telephone): I think David Petraeus is an immensely gifted man. Our nation would be wise to take advantage of those skillsets. I think the challenge that Dave has right now, and I've known Dave frankly for over 30-plus years, and I'm a very big fan of his skillsets. The challenge is that as you mentioned in your front piece there, Joe, the challenge he has is that he released classified information to a mistress, that's too significant ouches right there that he has to deal with.

And that former presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, when as secretary of state was accused of what I would call essentially gross negligence in handling of classified and the narrative is just too easy. It's too clear. It could be too contentious in the Senate if Dave was nominated and they were to -- obviously the Senate would have to debate that.

I would think that would just get awfully nasty on a personal level and certainly Dave would have to muscle up and man up with that, and he would. I'm confident he would, gut it would have to be a decision of the president-elect as to whether he would want to go through the fight. But clearly, I think without question, David Petraeus is an immensely gifted, talented guy.

JOHNS: And that's very interesting too because in a way Donald Trump would end up embracing an issue that he kind of condemned on the campaign trail if he nominated David Petraeus just for that reason. But I'm going to move on. In an interview released today, the former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden, actually weighed in on Petraeus. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EDWARD SNOWDEN, FORMER NSA CONTRACTOR: Perhaps the best known case in recent history is General Petraeus who shared information that was far more highly classified than I ever did with journalists. And he shared this information not with the public or the benefit, but with his biographer and lover for purchasing benefit, conversations that had access to classified programs, top secret conversations with the president and so on. When the government came after him, they charged him with a misdemeanor. He never spent a single day in jail despite the type of classified information he exposed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: OK, there's a lot of backstory going on there. But look, on the other side, you look at David Petraeus' bio, he served 37 years in the army, four-star general, former CIA director and former CENTCOM commander. Nonetheless, given even all of that, do you think Edward Snowden has a point?

MARKS: Well, no, I wouldn't -- I would not give the credit to Edward Snowden clearly was egregious in his actions and put a whole host of great Americans and folks that were out there doing their very, very best on our nation's behalf. And to compare those two is faulty and is a narrative that I wouldn't try to honor with a response.

[14:55:10]But I find quite interesting is that now there's this, what I would call this juxtaposition of argumentation. You know, clearly what Snowden is doing is he's looking to get a ticket back in the United States. He's second-guessing his terrible mistake and the fact that he broke the law and now is in purgatory to live in Russia the rest of his life.

The second he steps foot on either a friendly nation's territory or comes back to the United States, the man is going to be put in handcuffs and will be arrested and charged and arrested. So I understand what he's trying to achieve, but let's not honor that comment and try to make a comparison with David Petraeus or with someone else.

JOHNS: General "Spider" Marks, always good to talk to you. Thanks.

MARKS: Joe, thanks very much for your time.

JOHNS: So this political season has been called a lot of things, has been called unprecedented and now Van Jones is calling it something else. He's got a special called "The Messy Truth" this Tuesday night at 9:00 p.m. on CNN. He'll talk about all the issues brought up during the campaign and we'll ask him about that coming up on CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHNS: Top of the hour now, this is CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Joe Johns in Fredricka Whitfield.

We are going to begin this hour in Oakland, California.