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E-mails from Lawyer to Cohen; O'Rourke Launches 2020 Campaign; U.S. Grounds Boeing Max 8 and 9; Similarities with Lion Air and Ethiopia Crashes. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired March 14, 2019 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: This and hotel were raided. Michael Cohen was clearly very nervous about whether or not President Trump would have his back and what was -- he was going to be facing.

He got this e-mail, CNN has obtained it, which is basically a very comforting bedtime message to Michael Cohen from this intermediary. Sleep well tonight. You have friends in high places. Spoke with Rudy. Very, very positive. You are loved.

Wow. That's a -- that's a really intimate little bedtime message there, Laura. How do you hear it?

LAURA JARRETT, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: You know, I really look at this as a matter of who has the most to lose here. Cohen clearly wants to show that a pardon was dangled. He has a lot on the line here for his credibility. He's already gone in front of committee and said that he never asked for and he never had any intent to accept a pardon.

But clearly these e-mails are being put out to show that there was at least an offer and a reassurance, if you stick by us, we'll have your back. And that's sort of the insinuation through these e-mails.

But the problem I think for Cohen is that, when he testified, he didn't sort of lay out the timing in terms of the conversations that were going on between lawyers, whether or not he was involved, lawyers on his behalf in seeking out a pardon while there was still a joint defense agreement.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, the question here is --

JARRETT: And so there's a question of timing there that I think is important for him.

BERMAN: Yes, you know, you have friends in high places, Carrie, very quickly, you know, is it more Garth Brooks or Tony Soprano? I mean that's the question that investigators have to ask themselves.

CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Clearly there was an open line of communication. That's what we know. And it would have been -- this communication was with Rudy Giuliani, the president's lawyer. It would have been in the president's interests, and so Rudy Giuliani was trying to understand where Michael Cohen's head was, what was he think, was he still sort of, you know, being friendly to them and I would have think -- I would think that the purpose was more for Rudy Giuliani to understand what Michael Cohen was thinking and the reassurances were just to sort of provide that confidence to him. That's my best read of it.

BERMAN: All right, Carrie Cordero, Laura Jarrett, thank you very much.

It could be one of the most significant events in the Democratic race for president yet. Beto O'Rourke made it official just moments ago, he's in. So, what are the numbers that give us the best sense of how he will do and which other candidates he threatens the most? We're going to dive into the numbers, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:36:36] BERMAN: Breaking news just a few minutes ago, former Texas Congressman Beto O'Rourke officially entered the 2020 presidential race. This is a moment that many Democratic voters and strategists have been waiting for. But, why? What makes O'Rourke so intriguing for better or worse?

There's a story in the numbers. CNN's senior politics writer and analyst Harry Enten knows them better than any.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICS WRITER AND ANALYST: That's very kind.

BERMAN: Harry, there's been some slippage for Beto O'Rourke the last couple of months.

ENTEN: Yes. So, I mean, if we look at the polls, whether they be in Iowa with our poll or the national average, what we saw was back in December, he was breaking double digits. That's why a lot of us thought, hey, this guy could really go places. But look what's happened over the last few months. He's dropped by seven points nationally. He's dropped by six points in Iowa. And now he's basically in fourth or fifth place depending on exactly how you rank the numbers.

CAMEROTA: But that might have changed in the past half an hour since he announced just --

ENTEN: He -- it might have changed. And, indeed, this is one of the reasons why we think he might be able to go back up and why we're so enthusiastic about his campaign. I thinking a lot of people like myself are thinking, he could rise again. Look at the money that he was able to raise from individuals in his 2018 Senate bid. He raised $80 million in a field that's going to be a dozen, 15 people, where you're going to have to outlast people on the Democratic side. The ability to raise money, look, he raised more than double the next highest person from individual contributors. So we really think that if he's able to harness that energy, he may be able to rise once again.

BERMAN: And we'll know that in a few days. You'll know that fundraising haul very quickly. Does he surpass the Bernie Sanders $6 million thing (ph). We'll know that shortly. When he -- when we announced his candidacy, or when he did it at 6:00,

one of the things some of our guests said is, one of the things that makes him intriguing to some strategist is he has a more moderate voting record than other Democrats. Is that true?

ENTEN: Yes, I think it is true. I mean if we were to look -- this is essentially his roll call voting record. I've shown this graphic a lot of times, right, where zero is the most liberal and 100's the most moderate among the Democratic caucus. We see Bernie Sanders well on the left.

But look where O'Rourke is. He's basically right here with Biden. He's right on the right side. He's basically where past presidential nominees have been for the Democratic Party over the last few cycles, but he's pretty much to the right of where the average of the 2020 candidates are.

CAMEROTA: That's fascinating because that's not the reputation, right, that he has. I mean you -- you -- I think the reputation is that somewhere on the spectrum he's more to the progressive side. But neck in neck with Joe Biden? I mean I'm so glad you're pointing this out.

ENTEN: Yes, I mean this is what the voting record says. Now, of course, there are different ways to sort of measure --

CAMEROTA: Right, what he says versus how he votes.

ENTEN: Exactly right. I would say that that is correct. I think part of it -- of why we think that is, you know, if we were to basically look at, you know, we think -- oh, he's this young, cool, hip progressive. It is true that does he tend to poll -- at least in 2018, a larger amount of his support from those under the age of 45, right? He got 48 percent of his supporters were under the age of 45, versus the average of the 2018 Democratic Senate candidates where it was only 39 percent. So it is true that he polls from more younger people, which could, in fact, pull from the Sanders file.

BERMAN: All right, the O'Rourke people will tell you that he can drive turnout. That true?

ENTEN: You know, this is a very tricky thing to figure out but this -- and this is a little complicated. But what I will say is that he -- Texas turnout in 2018 was higher than the national average as a percentage over the last presidential turnout verses in 2014, the midterm before that, it was far lower. So this is certainly an argument in his favor that, yes, he was sort of the marquis race and turnout in Texas was higher than it was nationally versus in 2014 when it wasn't.

CAMEROTA: You have someone you'd like to wish a happy birthday too? Anyone? Anyone?

ENTEN: There is. There is someone I would like to wish a happy birthday to.

One other thing I'll just point out, though, is that he did, in fact, do better than the average House Democrat in the state of Texas, but not overwhelmingly so. So I think that's sort of something that we should keep in mind that, yes, maybe he does do better than the average candidate, but at least in 2018 it wasn't overwhelmingly so, at least for House Democrats in Texas.

[06:40:12] And there is, in fact, someone that I would like to wish a happy birthday too. Uncle Neil turned 80 yesterday. Isn't that nice. If we can all get up there and look as good as he does and sound as good as he does, we would all be very, very happy. Happy birthday sweet 80th.

BERMAN: Happy birthday, Uncle Neil.

CAMEROTA: Happy birthday Neil Sedaka.

BERMAN: All right, we have to work it in once a show.

Thank you very much, Harry.

ENTEN: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: All right, the United States finally grounded the Boeing 737 Max 8 planes, and 9, at least a day after many, many other countries. What was the delay? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right, new this morning, questions about what took so long for the United States to ground the Boeing 737 Max 8 and the Max 9 passenger planes. We learned overnight that the FAA found similarities between this weekend's doomed Ethiopian Airlines flight and the crash of a Lion Air jet back in October.

So with the rest of the world taking much quicker action, why was the U.S. so slow to move?

Tom Foreman is live in Washington with much more on this.

Tom.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, officials here say what they needed was some evidence, and they got it yesterday. They say they studied these satellite tracks and the more they looked at them and got more information, the more this crash in Ethiopia looked like the Air Lion crash in Indonesia last fall. And that's what it took.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN (voice over): After days of resisting, the United States caved to global pressure, grounding Boeing's 737 Max 8 jets after Sunday's Ethiopian Airlines crash.

[06:45:06] DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Any plane currently in the air will go to its destination and thereafter be grounded until further notice. FOREMAN: President Trump made the abrupt announcement to ground the

Max 8 and Max 9 models of Boeing's newest planes just hours after American regulators insisted the planes were still safe to fly. The FAA is attributing the about-face to new evidence collected at the crash site and newly refined data from satellite-based tracking. That data suggests similarities between the vertical speeds of the Boeing 737 Max 8s involved in the crashes in Ethiopia and in Indonesia last October.

TRUMP: It's the safety of the American people and all people is our paramount concern.

FOREMAN: President Trump's announcement came shortly after Canada said they would no longer allow the aircrafts to take off or land in their country. An official tells CNN that while President Trump had not been pushing to ground the planes, Canada's decision made it untenable for the United States to continue to hold out. Mr. Trump suggesting the decision was more precautionary than mandatory.

TRUMP: Well, I didn't want to take any chances. We didn't have to make this decision today. We could have delayed it. We maybe didn't have to make it at all. But I felt -- I felt it was important, both psychologically and a lot of other ways.

FOREMAN: Sources say President Trump consulted with Boeing's CEO directly twice after the Ethiopia crash and even after grounding the planes he continued to tout the American plane manufacturer.

TRUMP: Boeing is an incredible company.

FOREMAN: But, "The Washington Post" reports that in private the president told administration officials he thought the 737's, quote, sucked, and that they paled in comparison to his personal jet, a Boeing 757.

Boeing saying they are supporting this proactive step out of an abundance of caution and doing everything they can to understand the cause of the accidents.

The decision will impact three major U.S. airlines which normally fly hundreds of flights using Max 8 and 9 jets daily.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN: The bottom line is Boeing has to figure out whether or not onboard software is for some reason causing these planes to dive toward the ground. To do that, they have to look at the flight data recorder and the voice recorder. They're both in France now finally being analyzed. But until they get those answers, officials here say those planes will remain parked.

Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, very good to know, Tom. Thank you so much.

So, what does this data tell us about the similarities between the Ethiopian Airlines flight and the Lion Air crash? There's the graph. Miles O'Brien is standing by to explain these graphs to us.

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[06:51:39] BERMAN: All right, why are these charts right here to my left that we're going to show you here in a second, why are they so important to the investigation and what happens to the Ethiopia Airlines crash and the Boeing 737 Max 8? This is part of the reason the FAA says they made the decision to ground the planes.

Joining us now, CNN aviation analyst Miles O'Brien. He's also the science correspondent for PBS "NewsHour."

Why -- Miles, walk us through these. This is the Ethiopian Airlines flight and the Lion Air crash five months ago. What do you see here that's similar?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, first of all, top line, this is -- this is a graph which depicts terror. This was a wild ride on both aircraft, total roller coaster. Just so you know, we're talking about here, this is the vertical rate of speed. So how fast it's going up or down, not across the ground.

Look at this first peak here. Shortly after takeoff, going up to about 3,000 feet per minute, which is about normal for a 737. But then apparently the crew was trying to struggle to bring it down, to control that rate of assent. Every graph line you see here represents in excess of 90 pounds of pressure on the control yoke. So these crews were battling actually in a physical struggle in both cases. But the similarities are there. You see the big peaks, in other words, the computer is trying to send that nose up, and the crew pushing on the wheel trying to arrest that problem, presumably trying to cut off the system, but in this wild struggle ultimately losing in both cases.

So when you see those two, the similarities are very haunting. And you're sort of -- the inescapable conclusion is you have something at root cause that is the same.

CAMEROTA: But to my layman's eyes, this is a nose up situation. This is that sharp peak.

O'BRIEN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: And this is a nose down situation.

O'BRIEN: This is where you want to start looking here.

CAMEROTA: OK.

O'BRIEN: This is where the trouble began here. So when you see that nose up scenario and then you see the roller coaster ride with about 15 to 20 seconds in between, that's the cycle of trying to pull back, push, trying to overcome what the airplane is doing.

CAMEROTA: Because -- so the autopilot is making the nose go up?

O'BRIEN: Actually, no. What's interesting about this scenario is, this is manual flying, OK, and this system is designed to kick in when the flaps have been retracted, in other words after you've departed the flaps are tucked in and the airplane is still being flown by the individual.

The plane was designed with bigger engines, which made it more likely to go nose high. So they put this little software system in to make sure the pilot didn't do that. So if it detects a nose high situation, it commands the aircraft down, overrides the flight crew.

So, in this case, was there bad data going to that system or was the system itself flawed, the software? That's the root of the investigation right now.

BERMAN: So what's haunting to me is, again, this is the reason the FAA, the administration says -- or is now pointing to that they decided to ground the Max 8. This was publicly available information days ago.

O'BRIEN: We knew all this. This is all public information. So when the FAA says we had more data from the satellite, yes, it might have been more granular, more specific, but the broad outlines of these graphs we've known for a while. So we have to take that with a bit of a grain of salt.

They said they found something in the wreckage which led them to believe this. I'm not sure what that was.

It is interesting to me that the black boxes, the flight data recorder, the cockpit voice recorder, have been sent to France for the French authorities to look at it, not the U.S.

[06:55:03] CAMEROTA: What does that tell you?

O'BRIEN: Perhaps -- perhaps the Ethiopians have some skepticism about the objectivity of the U.S. system right now. I don't know. But it is an interesting thing. You would expect in this case U.S. aircraft, you know, U.S. manufacturer, it would end up in the United States.

BERMAN: I mean soon enough the controversy over what happened is going to be over and the controversy about what happens next is the next question. I mean how big will it take to get this back in the air?

O'BRIEN: Well, you know, hopefully they're not rushing it, right? I mean you -- what you have is a software patch there designed to overcome a fundamental instability problem essentially with the aircraft. So you want to make sure you do this right because it is flight critical. So better to get it right and take a little longer.

There will be a lot of pressure to get these planes in the air, but, really, when you consider the fleet, it's still a small percentage.

CAMEROTA: To your original point, I mean I just imagine the passengers on these flights and how scary that was.

O'BRIEN: I -- it's horrifying, actually, when you look at it --

CAMEROTA: Yes.

O'BRIEN: Because if you think about what was going on --

CAMEROTA: It's --

O'BRIEN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Yes, it's hard to think about.

Miles, thank you very much.

O'BRIEN: You're welcome.

BERMAN: All right, we do have major breaking news in the 2020 race for president. Just a short time ago it became official, Beto O'Rourke is running for president. We will play you the announcement video, analyze what this all means, next.

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