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The Dow, NASDAQ And S&P 500 Is Up Since Trump Election; The Owner Of Mandalay Bay Hotel Is Now Questioning Police About The Shooting Timeline; Salt Lake City Detective Fired After Arresting Nurse; Deadly Wildfires In California; Reports Of North Korean Hackers Who Stole U.S. War Plans. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired October 11, 2017 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Let me show you what that looks like, because we put it all together. The President, of course, taking credit for those record highs, but you can see that this is a trend that is well entrenched. This is a long bull market. About eight years long.

There has been a nice recovery here based on corporate profits a recovered economy and then more recently that Trump bump you see is because of expectations of tax reform and just a general pro-business feeling in the business community because of the election of Donald Trump.

Let's look at the numbers since the election, which we point out periodically I would say at nauseam in the very early mornings I talk about what happened in the economy and the stock market.

The Dow, since the election, is up an astonishing 25 percent, the NASDAQ up 27 percent, the S&P 500 up to 19 percent. Mr. President, we are not hiding this. We talk about it every single day.

Now here's the question though, the President will be pumping tax reform and tax cuts later today when he is in Pennsylvania. There's some people starting to say the market maybe priced in a very good economy, a record-high corporate profits. Things are going well, a 16-year low in the unemployment rate, a roaring stock market.

Could tax cuts, especially if they're not paid for, actually melt up the stock market, actually cause a problem for the stock market? Also this next Fed chief will have to decide what to do if the economy really starts humming along, maybe have to raise rates which would blunt the effect of a tax cut. It starts to get very, very complicated.

You guys, there's a short list emerging for who the next Fed Chair will be. The former Fed Governor, Kevin Warsh is seen as a frontrunner here. Fed Chief Janet Yellen is still on the list, but you know if she is not reappointed, she would be the first Fed Chief in 30 years not to have the job two terms.

You can see some other folks on that list including the Trump Economic Advisor, Gary Cohn. What's interesting about this list, three of those people, you guys, are not economists. That would break the playbook. Poppy, John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right Christine Romans, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

We have some startling new details in the Las Vegas massacre. The gunman may have tried to set off a huge explosion and the hotel's owner isn't sure the police have got the timeline right.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:36:37] BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning new information on the Las Vegas massacre and some of it is disputed. The owner of the Mandalay Bay Hotel is now questioning the shooting timeline from police.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: We are also learning that the shooter hoped to cause more carnage triggering what could have been a huge explosion. Let's go to our Sarah Ciner. She joins us from Las Vegas. What new have we learned this morning?

SARA SIDNER, CNN SENIOR INTERNAIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There are several things and one of which, we've now heard from another person who was on the 32nd floor, who was working for the hotel.

Stephen Schuck was a maintenance engineer who came up to that floor and he describes what happened and how Jesus Campos, who was the security guard, who was up there as well and had been shot in the leg, he describes how Jesus saved his life but it gives us another look at what was happening on the 32nd floor.

STEPHEN SCHUCK, MANDALAY BAY BUILDING ENGINEER: I started to hear shots go off. They were not in the hallway yet. And as soon as they stopped I saw Jesus pop out because the doors in the hallway are set back a foot and he popped out and yelled at me to take cover.

I told myself, you know, remain calm. If I freak out right now it's only going to get me killed or injured and remain calm and call it over the radio so we can get police on their way as soon as possible.

SINDER: Now we also heard from police that a timeline changed and I am sure he played into that, because now police have spoken with them. The timeline changing drastically from the very beginning.

So we're talking about when Jesus Campos, the security guard, went up to the 32nd floor, because there was a door ajar or an alarm going off and so he was told to go up there and try to figure out what door was ajar.

He goes up and authorities now say, instead of interrupting the shooter shooting down at the crowds, he was actually shot at first and then six minutes later is when Steven Paddock ended up turning the gun on the crowds below down at that Route 91 concert.

It is a big change and we're now hearing from MGM Resorts, which is the parent company of Mandalay Bay. They are disputing that. Hearing from their spokesperson who says, we are not sure about the accuracy of what has been out by officials publicly.

And so there's definitely a spat now between what police are saying and what the MGM Resorts are saying, that owns the Mandalay Bay. But ultimately, police are sticking with the new timeline, that indeed, Jesus Campos was shot six minutes before the shooter turned his guns on the crowds. Poppy.

BERMAN: And Sara, we're also getting new information about the fact that the crowd might not have been his only target. How and where he was targeting, the jet fuel tanks at the airport nearby.

SINDER: Yeah, we knew the jet fuel tank had been hit by fire a few days ago, but we are now learning that there were incendiary bullets that were used to clearly try and figure out how to blow up these tanks according to law enforcement sources that we've spoken to.

And so interestingly, obviously, he was trying to create some kind of explosion. That did not happen, but we have also seen that the Sheriff, this morning, in talking to the "Las Vegas Review Journal," we think that we need to put more protection around those tanks. Perhaps have a stronger outside shell of those tanks, clearly concerned this man was trying to blow something up as well as kill so many people.

BERMAN: All right, Sara Sidner for us in Las Vegas. Sara, thanks so much for that reporting. We have new information morning, a Salt Lake City detective has been fired after dragging a nurse out of her burn unit handcuffing her and arresting her.

(VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: That video is from July. You may have seen it then, but it shows what happened when the nurse refused to draw blood from an unconscious patient. Something that violated policy agreed upon by the hospital and the police department. After an internal investigation, we now know detective, Jeff Payne, is out of a job. His commander has been demoted as well.

Deadly destruction in California. Complete neighborhoods wiped out. Years of memories scattered among ash and debris. Death toll rising. Next we will speak to a family whose home, completely burned to the ground.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: This morning thousands of people in California are facing a devastating reality. Their homes completely destroyed as the wildfires continue to burn all over Northern California. Zach Block is one of those people.

BERMAN: Yes, these are photos of his family's home before and after the fire ripped through the neighborhood. The home, just gone. Completely gone, except for the chimneys.

Zach Block joins us by phone. Zach, we're so sorry for the loss of your home. We're looking at the pictures right now which are just crazy to see. So again, sorry for that, but more importantly, how are you, how is your family doing?

ZACH BLOCK, CALIFORNIA WILDFIRE VICTIM: Family is good. Obviously that's the number the one. You know we're kind of figuring it out as we come across the things that we need to worry about. The support has been unreal and we're just kind of taking it one step at a time.

HARLOW: you have an 11-month-old little girl. It is hard for anyone to flee their home but especially -- there, we see her on the screen, especially with an 11-month-old. All the memories and photos, all of that. Are you getting the help you need, at this point, from insurance, somewhere to stay, help eventually rebuilding?

BLOCK: Yeah, you know, my brother's a fireman for the City of Berkeley and that department has been so helpful. They've gone above and beyond to help us out and get where we need to be. It's just -- it's an amazing, situation to have. That type of support and just the friends and family we have are just coming together and it's really overwhelming with the amount of love we are seeing.

BERMAN: So you had to leave basically in the middle of the night with nothing more than the clothes on your back. How quickly did this develop? How much warning did you really have?

BLOCK: We woke up at 1:00. We started to smell it. I woke up my brother, I woke up my wife. We started to figure out how far it was. As we were looking in the backyard we started to notice that the air started to become a little more dense in smoke and then there was a lot of light from the fire shining on the other side of the freeway.

And within ten minutes, you know, my brother and I were out in the backyard with the hoses and trying to fight off as much as we could. And then we had to evacuate within five minutes of he fire touching down on the backyard and as we were leaving, seeing the house pretty much involved and getting out of there safely. But very concerned about what was happening.

HARLOW: Zach, we're just glad you're okay as we look at these images. All material things gone, yes, but so many memories for your family. We are really sorry, good luck, okay. If we can help, let us know.

BLOCK: Will do. Thank you, guys.

HARLOW: All right. Good luck, Zach.

Ahead, another show of force from the U.S. Military amid reports that North Korean hackers stole U.S. warplanes? That's ahead.

(COMMERICAL BREAK)

[09:52:45] BERMAN: In a show of force, the U.S. flew fighter jets over the Korean Peninsula overnight. This is the first-ever nighttime military exercise in conjunction with South Korea and Japan. The drill came after President Trump met with top defense officials to discuss how to respond to threats from North Korea. HARLOW: So all of this is happening as we're learning North Korean

hackers allegedly stole classified documents that included U.S. war plans. Let's go to Seoul, South Korea. Our international correspondent, Alexandra Field joins us from there. Stole U.S. war plans?

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN COORESPONDENT: Hey Poppy, John. Yeah, it is what it sounds like. Look, we know that North Korea has a cyber threat as part of its arsenal, really, of weapons that it plans to use. We are seeing evidence, this according to a lawmaker here in South Korea. He is a member of the ruling party.

He says he was given the information by the South Korean Defense Ministry and what he describes is a hack that happened back in August of 2016, when he says, North Korean hackers got into the Defense Ministry's database and they were able to recover about 235 gigabytes worth of data that include U.S. and south Korean war plans, including procedures on how to decapitate the leadership in North Korea. Remove the leadership in North Korea.

The defense ministry has been asked about this breach. They are not confirming it or denying it. Similar kind of response from the Pentagon, but they are putting out a message through a spokesperson, assuring people that the U.S.' plans remain fully secure.

To that end, we know that plans for military options to address the growing conflict with North Korea are being regularly and routinely updated at the request of the administration.

It was just a day ago that President Trump was briefed by his top national security advisers about the range of options that are available in terms of dealing with North Korea.

And really, it was just hours after that, Poppy and John, that we saw these exercises taking place in the overnight hours here in Asia, between the U.S. and Japan, also the U.S. and South Korea.

The exercises further included the U.S. flying B-1B Bombers over the Korean Peninsula. That's important, because that's a move that is seen as a provocation by Pyongyang. It's a move that frankly enrages them and you'll probably both remember back in the summer, it was some of those flights of some of those B-1B Bombers that prompted the regime to threaten to land missiles in the waters near the U.S. territory Guam if the Pacific in retaliation for those bomber flights.

[09:55:06] Of course, those bombers take off from the base in Guam. As of yet, no response from Pyongyang, but certainly, we are waiting for it and we will keep you up to speed when we hear anything. Poppy, John.

BERMAN: And the reaction seems to carry with it some kind of reaction. So we will watch very carefully. Alexandra Field, thanks so much.

The California wildfires growing by the minute. We have a very troubling forecast. Breaking news, coming up.