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Las Vegas Police, FBI Update Massacre Investigation; Iranian President Responds to Trump's Decertifying Iran Nuclear Deal; Trump Silent on Green Berets Killed, Wounded in Niger; Paul Ryan to Speak in Puerto Rico. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired October 13, 2017 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00] BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: And then it was 12 minutes after that that the first officers arrived there on the 32nd floor where the gunman was.

So I want to start there now with CNN law enforcement analyst and former U.S. Marshal, Art Roderick. We also have Tom Fuentes, CNN law enforcement analyst and former assistant FBI director. I want to also bring in Scott McLean. He is outside of police headquarters.

First off, Tom, can you speak to this? Because I was struck so much by the emotion there. We will dissect the timeline and some of the changes there. But clearly, Sheriff Lombardo feels like his police department has been doing the best job they can. They have a fluid situation and he is feeling very much under fire. And clearly, sensitive as he deals with his police officers who are dealing with mental health issues from guarding those who were killed in the aftermath of this, who put their lives on the line to try to reduce casualties.

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: That's true, Brianna. But the problem is the difference in the first narrative that came out shortly after the event, and that was that the security guard somehow distracted the shooter and took fire, thereby, maybe saving more lives on the ground down below, that he had to stop shooting to take him on while he was in the hallway. And to switch that all the way around, that shooting of Campos preceded the shooting of the crowd, you know, that is still a pretty huge difference. And I think that the mere fact that that difference exists has created the situation for the criticism of the police. And for Sheriff Lombardo, there's no question that this is a very stressful investigation and event, in general, to be in charge of from the very beginning. And then on top of all of the situation of wounded officers and members of the public, who have been killed, wounded, injured, and affected by this, to then be subject to the level of criticism that has been laid on him in the last few days, I can see where that stress is taking its toll on him.

KEILAR: Sure. And he is clearly exhausted. This is an extensive investigation that they are still in the middle of.

Art, when you look at that changing timeline, how do you characterize that? Do you say, oh, it's been fluid or do you say they should have been able to get this story straight a while ago? ART RODERICK, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, I think that there's

a couple issues here. Yes, it's fluid. We all know that. We all know initially that a lot of the information we get in regarding these incidences changes a lot. But I think one of the problems we have is the last press conference was last Friday and he dropped this on everybody that the timeline changed and the 9:59 Campos timeline came in can, which really changed the whole incident as far as what was laid out initially a week prior. So one of the issues is he waited another week before he was able to straighten the timeline out. So in that week time frame, conspiracy theorists came in and started talking about, well, there's something going on here with the FBI and Las Vegas P.D. If he had come out on Monday, that would have ended a lot of this conspiracy theory issue. But I think still, Campos' actions might have distracted him. And now we know there's actually three targets. Not only the people at the concert targeted but also the gas tanks and the Las Vegas P.D. when they showed up in their cruisers on Las Vegas Boulevard.

KEILAR: Scott, what stood out to you when you heard the sheriff detailing that timeline?

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So I was struck by how defensive the sheriff was. Earlier, he called these changes minute, but they do make a very big difference. The first change was about 15 minutes, changing the time that Jesus Campos, the security guard, who first spotted trouble, was shot, to after the suspect stopped firing to six minutes before. Now he changes it again after MGM came out with a statement saying that Campos was shot within about a minute, within 40 seconds, they say, of when the suspect started firing on the crowd. So now we have the sheriff saying, no, no, no, I wasn't saying he was shot six minutes earlier, I was saying he arrived or tried to get on the 32nd floor six minutes earlier and he was shot at almost the same time the suspect started firing. The sheriff seems to be downplaying those but they are significant changes -- Brianna?

KEILAR: That's what he is saying is, he responded. Maybe he got the call but he made the point, right, Scott, that the security guard had to go another floor in order to access the 32nd floor, presumably, different elevator banks or something like that.

[14:35:02] MCLEAN: And remember, we learned from that "60 Minutes" interview with some of those law enforcement first responders that, originally, that door to the stairwell near the suspect's room was screwed shut. Luckily, they were able to pop it off. But Jesus Campos likely didn't have the tools to do that so they had to go get the tools to access the 32nd floor. And that's what sheriff is saying in terms of discrepancy that that's why there was a couple of minutes delay because he couldn't get through that door.

KEILAR: Art, clearly, the sheriff here, defensive, very emotional. Describe what's been going on and what his department has been going through for the last two weeks.

RODERICK: There's obviously a lot of emotion here. You can hear it in the chief's voice. You could hear it last week when we were out in Las Vegas. The stress not only on his police department but on the E.M.s people, the community at large is raw out there right now.

There are programs in place to help law enforcement officers through these types of incidents. I'm sure the sheriff is accessing the programs. For the officers involved right there at the scene, at that particular point in time, and also the officers that made entry. And I know he is probably utilizing a lot of those peer-support programs and counseling programs for police officers that are involved in these types of situations. But you can -- I agree, you definitely hear that raw nerve in his voice and, hopefully, over time, I know over time, that all these programs do help law enforcement officers get through these types of stressful incidences.

KEILAR: Tom, it seems so important for him to highlight those two officers, Brady Cook and Samuel Whitworth. One who broke his leg and still stayed on-site so he could maintain security. Brady Cook, who he said had four gunshot wounds, was responding, heading toward the danger, of course, as people were trying to run away and trying to provide the support for people who were trying to get out of there.

FUENTES: Right. This just goes to what Art has been talking about in terms of how defensive the sheriff has been. I think he is trying to overcome the argument somehow that police or FBI or authorities responding were incompetent or didn't do what they should have done either during the event or after. And I think he is trying to show that nothing could be further from the truth. And I think most people really do believe that, that these officers, first responders, the members of the public that weighed in, are heroes. That they defied, you know, all odds to stay in the area, there of the event, under fire to try to help as many people as they could. Even then, couldn't help everybody. So I think that you know, to me, that a -- you know, very noble attempt on the sheriff's part to try to pay tribute to his officers and show examples of, here is an example of what I'm talking about of what kind of heroes they really are.

KEILAR: And they clearly are heroes. It was amazing to hear those stories.

All right, Tom, Art, Scott, thank you to all of you.

Happening right now, the president of Iran speaking out, responding directly to President Trump minutes after President Trump accused Tehran of violating the nuclear agreement "in spirit."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:42:56] KEILAR: Breaking news as President Trump will not recertify the Iran deal. He did not point to any specific violations of the weapons inspections but rather he says Iran is not living up to, quote, "The spirit of the deal."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Given the regime's murderous past and present, we should not take lightly its sinister vision for the future. The regime's two favorite chants are "death to America" and "death to Israel." The previous administration lifted the sanctions just before what

would have been the total collapse of the Iranian regime through the deeply controversial 2015 nuclear deal, with Iran.

As I have said many times, the Iran deal was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.

Importantly, Iran is not living up to the spirit of the deal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: So decertification doesn't scrap the deal entirely. It does punt the decision to Congress.

We also just got some reaction from Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani, who says the U.S. is, for the first time, standing against an international treaty.

And we now have Fareed Zakaria, host of "FAREED ZAKARIA, GPS" joining us to analyze all of this.

I want to talk about what the Iranian president in a moment. But, first, let's go to the president's speech. I wonder what you think about this, Fareed. What was your take away?

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST, FAREED ZAKARIA, GPS: It was perhaps the most bizarre statement by an American president on foreign policy in a long time. Because it was a diatribe against the Iran agreement, but then we're still in it. So the president is, in effect, criticizing a policy he is at same time upholding. As I say, it is incoherent and contradictions is so strange that I don't think I have ever seen anything like it before. If the deal is as bad, as he says it is, why doesn't he get out of it? He points out that, effectively, that Iran is, in fact, adhering to deal, but he says not to the spirit of the deal. It's unclear what he means by that. It is adhering to the letter of the deal and has been certified eight times by the International Atomic Energy Agency. And it has been confirmed by every intelligence agency in the world that has been monitoring it. I think that I, like most people watching this, in Europe, in the Middle East, are wondering what does it mean?

[14:45:41] KEILAR: Yes, what does it mean? We heard from the Iranian president and he points out, look, the president cannot decertify it unilaterally, that is true. And that is what is happening, as you point out. But he also said that president was full of accusations, full of insults, that it was baseless. And he said specifically to the point that President Trump made about how Iran is sponsoring terrorism. So break that down for us.

ZAKARIA: So there's no question that Iran has engaged in actions that the United States hasn't liked in the Middle East. There are some areas where Iran has done things that the United States has wanted it to. In Afghanistan, Iran has been reasonably helpful and on the same page as the United States for much of the last decade. But there are areas, significant areas of disagreement. The Iran deal explicitly does not deal with foreign policy in general, regional policy in particular. The Iran deal was about one specific thing, Iran's quest for a new -- for nuclear weapons, as seen by the United States and many other countries. The Iranians always claimed they were acquiring nuclear capacity, not nuclear weapons. The deal was meant it freeze that capacity, roll it back in certain areas, and it has been extraordinarily successful that. And 98 percent of Iran's enriched uranium, 10 tons was taken out. A facility in Iraq literally paved over with concrete. There was molten concrete poured over it to render it inoperable. There's inspectors in Iran on a level that no country has ever had at any point. So in many ways, it's an incredibly intrusive agreement. The Iranians, so far, have maintained it. And it deals with freezing and reversing Iran's nuclear program. Yes, the Iranians are doing things in Yemen or in Lebanon that the United States doesn't like. By the way, we are doing things in the Middle East that they don't like. Maybe that is something that could be discussed separately. Maybe it couldn't. Ironically, during the initial period of the negotiations, it was Iran who tried to broaden the deal to encompass some of these other regional issues. And it was the United States and the West that said no. We want to deal with one issue. Our fear at the time was this just creates a big large smorgasbord of issues and we will never resolve anything.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Yes. So when you look at what's been happening over the last 24 hours, this was, at least optically, an attempt to undo a hard- fought, hard-negotiated agreement with Iran by the Obama administration. But also this cancelling the subsidies with Obamacare. What do you think of the president, these two things taken as a whole, this approach of really trying to just take chunks out of that legacy?

ZAKARIA: I think more than anything else what you see is a president that seems more interested in disrupting than in building. Because in each of these cases, and you're right to tie them together, there's no new policy. There's no new set of programs that people can bank on, that people can understand, that the world can follow. Instead it is simply something that has sown confusion, uncertainty, race tensions, without resolving anything. It is difficult to see how anyone could look at this as a productive step forward. It is almost as though it is political signaling. It achieves -- feeds a certain kind of anger that people might have in the Republican base, anti-Obama elements, and things like that. But what does it do for people in the United States, people in the world, when you look at the issue of health care, you look at the Iran deal? It is not clear. Just confusion, uncertainty, chaos.

[14:50:02] KEILAR: I want to ask you about the Green Berets killed in Niger, because CNN has learned new details about this ambush. Four killed, two wounded there. Now the U.S. military is investigating exactly what happened. Why do you think the president hasn't said anything about these fine servicemembers who have been killed? ZAKARIA: I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt. It is a

rapidly unfolding situation. Perhaps he is waiting to get more information. I'm not reading anything into it at this point. I think that people should wait until we get more information about it. It is, of course, a tragedy. And these are very fine -- these are very fine soldiers.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: But what is it that needs to be known, Fareed? Is it the circumstances of it? This was supposed to be an ambush. Maybe it was supposed to be a relatively safe operation, and then, surprisingly, it wasn't. So that's really the question that needs to be answered?

ZAKARIA: Precisely. It appears to be something that was almost routine. It wasn't. Was there a break down in intelligence? Does it suggest something new? Does it require an immediate response? You know, would you be telegraphing anything by responding to it publicly? As I say, I think it is worth giving the president the benefit of the doubt on this.

KEILAR: Fareed Zakaria, thank you so much for that.

I want to tell you, we are minutes from the House speaker, from Paul Ryan, speaking after getting a first-hand tour of the devastation in Puerto Rico following the hurricane there. This s more than 60 percent of Americans saying people aren't getting the help they need in Puerto Rico. We will bring this to you live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:56:16] KEILAR: We want to take a moment to honor this week's "CNN Hero." Blake Rockwell has brightened the lives of more than 10,000 sick children and their families by giving them VIP treatment at college sports events around the country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLACK ROCKWELL, CNN HERO: When you have a child, who is dealing with a life-threatening illness, their treatment protocol might be two, three years. And their tanks start to go dry.

You a big O.U. fan?

UNIDENTIFIED BOY: I am.

ROCKWELL: Awesome.

Our game-day experiences provide an opportunity for a family to get out as a family, just being there together. And days like this, they really motivate the kids to continue their fight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Ah, to see all-access experience yourself, go to CNNheroes.com. It's there right now. House Speaker Paul Ryan is expected to speak any moment in Puerto

Rico. This is, of course, where millions of Americans are still struggling. Three weeks after Hurricane Maria, clean running water and power hard to come by still at this point in time. Officials say that only 9 percent of folks there have electricity. That's a nearly 50 percent drop from yesterday. Gas stations, hospitals, grocery stores, banks, all slowly coming back on-line.

And days after slamming Puerto Rico, the president made a public about-face proclaiming he is there for storm victims.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: These are people that are incredible people. They are suffering gravely. And we will be there. We will be there. We have really, it's not even a question of a choice. We don't even want a choice. We're going to be there as Americans. We love those people and what they have gone through. They are all healing. And their states and territory are healing and they're healing rapidly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: That is not reflected in this Kaiser Foundation poll. More than half of those polled, 62 percent, said Puerto Ricans aren't getting the help they need.

For a better picture of how things are progressing, we have CNN's Leyla Santiago in San Juan for us.

Leyla, where was the speaker today? What did he get to see?

LEYLA SANTIAGO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, we are waiting for the speaker of the House to step up to the podium. We understand he will do that in a matter of minutes. He took a fly over the island. I spoke to the governor who was in a meeting with him who said the speaker was very struck by what he saw on the western parts of the island. That said, we're told he did not actually stop to talk to the people on that island. We see the governor coming out, the congresswoman coming out, and speaker now getting to the podium. So we will listen to what they have to say. We're told they are not taking questions but making statements today.

KEILAR: OK. So we're watching that as we see folks approaching the podium.

Leyla, you say that they -- have they already started? We might have a delay.

SANTIAGO: They have started, Brianna. The governor is now speaking.

KEILAR: OK, let's listen in.

(INAUDIBLE)

RICARDO ROSSELLO, GOVERNOR OF PUERTO RICO: Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for being here. Thank you to all of the people of Puerto Rico.

But overall, thanks to the delegation and to the speaker for being here in Puerto Rico.

There are two important things to take out of what is going on in Puerto Rico. The efforts that are ongoing. The efforts with the federal government, with the DOD. The actions that were taken swiftly and quickly by Congress, so we can get resources and act on the liquidity. And also the recognition that there's a disaster, a tremendous disaster in Puerto Rico and that we need to take immediate action.

So I would like, on behalf of the people of Puerto Rico, first of all, to thank the leadership of the speaker for acting quickly, as well as the delegation that is here, taking into consideration our people. But also coming over here and, as the speaker said, seeing it with his --