Return to Transcripts main page

The Lead with Jake Tapper

Has The 2016 Election Already Started?; Blackwater Guards Found Guilty; Lower Gas Prices Fuel Conspiracy Theories

Aired October 30, 2014 - 16:30   ET

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

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: First time, I've ever said that on television, by the way.

Second thing, very interesting, talk about get out the vote, this is the first time that the state of Colorado, every registered voter gets a ballot in the mail. They don't know what's going to happened with it.

I was in Boulder with Senator Udall and the students are talking about, what is a stamp? Where do you go get stamps? And by the way, the ballot is so heavy it needs two stamps per ballot.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: For the ballots, they can figure it out.

BORGER: And third of course, is the same problem all this (inaudible) are having, which is that President Obama is the 39 percent in the polls in the state, which he's won twice.

TAPPER: He's a huge albatross on Democrats.

BORGER: Well, he hasn't been in the states.

TAPPER: Interesting, my race -- let me just tell you about mine is it's in the state of Kansas, which is recuperating from the World Series last night. But I will say, it is one of the most interesting races.

Because the Democrat left the race and the independent, Greg Orman, is the one giving a real run against the incumbent Republican Pat Roberts, who there are questions about whether he actually has a House in the state and Greg Orman has been very good about -- I shouldn't say very good.

Disciplined about not saying which group, Democrats or Republicans he will caucus with. He suggests he'll go with the majority, whatever it is. But he's asked, what if you're that last vote, he dodges it completely.

PETER HAMBY, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: He's been very disciplined and on message and talked about his Kansas roots and his relationship with the state. He's an impressive --

TAPPER: He's given money to Democrats and to Republicans. He says in his ads, I've tried Democrats. I've tried Republicans like most Kansans, I'm disappointed with both. This is one of the races where you see not just an anti-Obama sentiment out there, but the anti-incumbent sentiment out there that a lot of people out there as you know say it's real out there and it's why people like Pat Roberts are in trouble and why incumbents like Rick Scott in Florida or Scott Walker in Wisconsin are in trouble.

So those are four of the races and thank you so much for joining us, Gloria, Peter, Brianna, I appreciate it. We're going to be covering this a lot more in the next five days.

Coming up, it's a story line, political junkies are rooting for in 2016, another Bush battling it out against another Clinton and it looks as though it's already getting started. Jeb Bush, last night, taking a swipe at Hillary. What did he say? That's coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. Continuing with our Politics Lead, what does Iowa, Colorado, and Florida have in common? Yes, they are all battleground states in next week's midterm elections. They also happened to be perfect places to campaign for president and, coincidentally, places that Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush and Chris Christie all speculated 2010 candidates just visited this week.

Of course, they were campaigning for those midterm candidates, but with the insults already flying, it sure starting to feel like 2016 is upon us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER (voice-over): The high stakes midterm election is just five days away. In the race for the White House in 2016, that will begin hours later or has it already started? Because it seems some possible presidential hopefuls cannot contain themselves.

They are unable to hold off any longer in what could be a preview of 2016. Florida Governor Jeb Bush took a swipe at former Secretary of Hillary Clinton last night in the battleground state of Colorado.

JEB BUSH, FORMER FLORIDA GOVERNOR: I saw something that was breathtaking. A former secretary of state who was campaigning in Massachusetts where she said that, don't let them tell you that businesses create jobs.

TAPPER: Bush was referring to Clinton delivering this whopper of a gaffe during a campaign stop.

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: Don't let anybody tell you that, you know, it's corporations and businesses that create jobs.

TAPPER: Clinton's team later issued a clarification. She meant tax breaks for corporations that outsource jobs or stash their profits overseas don't create jobs. OK, maybe it was just new talking point nerves getting the best of her.

"Politico" today reported that Obama campaign guru, David Fluff, recently advised Clinton to, among other things, root her campaign in a larger Democratic mission of economic equality. Either way, even though they are on the campaign trail for 2014 candidates, the 2016 possibles are jumping on it.

SENATOR RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: Hillary Clinton comes up and she says, businesses don't create jobs, anybody hear think businesses don't create jobs?

TAPPER: Some of the Republicans are even jabbing at each other. Here is Senator Ted Cruz on CNBC today after he was asked about a potential Jeb Bush run.

SENATOR TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: We run another candidate in the mold of a Bob Dole or John McCain or Mitt Romney. We will end up with the same result, which is millions of people will stay home on Election Day, which is what happened for -- and if we run another candidate like that, Hillary Clinton will be the next president.

TAPPER: Another potential candidate, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is focused on electing Republican governors, though Christie did return home to the garden state long enough to commemorate Hurricane Sandy and to encounter a heckler, Jersey style.

GOVERNOR CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: Sit down and shut up.

TAPPER: Christie will pin ball among a whopping 19 states in just the next five days including battleground states New Mexico, Colorado, and Iowa today. They are all leaving bread crumbs on this campaign trail to find a path back to voters come 2016, which is closer than you think.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: Coming up, his own employees convicted of killing more than a dozen innocent civilians. But the founder of Black Water is still defending them and he'll join me, next.

Plus, instead of just enjoying the low gas prices, some out there are coming up with questions about just why are those prices so low? Coming up, the one conspiracy theory that involves President Obama, one that an analyst tells us is absolutely nuts.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. The Buried Lead now, it was a major turning point in the Iraq war. A horrific incident in the streets of Baghdad that left 14 unarmed innocent Iraqi civilians dead and 18 others wounded in a hail of bullets and grenades at the hands of four American security contractors.

The 2007 massacre harmed the U.S. effort in Iraq and poisoned the name of the security contractor, Blackwater. Now the guards claimed self- defense, but seven years later, just a few days ago, an American jury disagreed and found one of the men guilty of first-degree murder and the others guilty of dozens of counts of voluntary and attempted manslaughter. Today, Blackwater, per se, is no more, having undergone two name changes and a merger. Joining me now is the founder and former CEO of the company known as Blackwater and author of "Civilian Warriors, The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of the War on Terror."

Erik Prince is here. Mr. Prince, thanks so much for joining us. It's a very interesting book. I want to start obviously with some of the news, the verdicts last week.

When you write about this in your book and you have quite a bit on it, you say I will not second guess the split second decisions of my men and you say to this day you have no reason to doubt your men. Have you changed your opinion at all based on the jury verdict or the trial?

ERIK PRINCE, AUTHOR, "CIVILIAN WARRIORS": When I said, I'm not going to second guess their actions, you know, they were there, they were operating, they were four military veterans that had served many in that theater already. They were operating with the rules of engagement dictated to them by the State Department with the whole use of force continuum.

And you know, there's been a lot of politics in this. The government is one for two. First time it was thrown out for prosecutorial misconduct. The guys have a lot of means to appeal, a lot of good basis for appeal and I'm sure they will exercise their rights to do that.

TAPPER: Do you have any compunctions as the former CEO of the company that these 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians including a young boy, including a poet, including a grandparent, like do you feel bad about it? I mean, is that something that --

PRINCE: As I've said, any time innocent lives are lost, of course, it's a tragedy. Forty one of our men were killed in action by Iraqis who were trying to kill Americans and sometimes they are successful. We did 100,000 missions, protecting diplomats and no one under our care was ever killed or injured. It's a very dangerous job in a very difficult place in the middle of a war zone.

TAPPER: When you say there are politics at play, what do you mean?

PRINCE: Well, the huge political pressure, a lot of political outcry about this case, really about the role of contractors, you know, in the '70s, Vietnam war, the anti-war left, went after the troops. This time they really went after contractors and so there's been a lot of politics about security contractors or not.

The president, Secretary of State Clinton then were campaigning against the use of contractors and what did they do while they were in office? They of course doubled or tripled their use of them.

TAPPER: Well, to be fair, I mean, I know a lot of troops. Some of them are now contractors and some of them have huge respect for contractors, a lot of them have misgivings, specifically about Blackwater, thinking that they think the rules don't apply to them.

That they acted as though the troops were an annoyance who were in their way. It is not only the left who feels that way about contractors. When you talk about Nusra Square, in your book you quote three other guys in the convoy, who said that they were yelling at the contractors, no, no, no.

You quote a lieutenant colonel who said they did not see any threat or any firing at the convoy. So it's not just hippies that were criticizing Blackwater. There are --

PRINCE: Of course, not. People see things differently in a fire fight. I bet if you ask people who were in that fire fight last week in Canada, ten different people would have seen things differently.

TAPPER: I don't think there's any question that most of the people who work for these contractors are good people. There a lot of them are former troops and they are trying to make a good living. The question is, are there so many bad apples that they give the group a black eye.

I wonder if you have any regrets at not taking some of the complaints more seriously so that those few bad apples couldn't ruin the whole bunch.

PRINCE: Sure. We did take things seriously. We fired a lot of people if they crossed the line in any way. Anytime that there was a use of force, it was documented, recorded back to the State Department who controlled those missions.

We asked for specifically cameras to be in every one of the vehicles so every time the vehicle left the wire, went out in a dangerous place.

If there was any kind of shooting, like a cruiser cam on the dashboard of a police vehicle, it would protect the public, protects the personnel doing the mission and it's the third person that neutral third party observer in the story that was denied by State Department lawyers.

TAPPER: Erik Prince, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate you answering my questions.

Wolf Blitzer is here right now with a preview of "THE SITUATION ROOM." Congressman Peter King is going to talk about the Khorasan terrorists still very much a threat to the U.S. officials say even though there was an airstrike them.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST, "THE SITUATION ROOM": The 47 tomahawk cruise missiles were launched at the leadership of the Khorasan Group in Syria and the leadership survived. Each one of those Tomahawk cruise missiles cost U.S. taxpayers $500,000. We're talking about $25 million and I'm trying to figure out what did the U.S. get for the $25 million?

TAPPER: It's a great question, but I'm guessing that Peter King doesn't care about the expense of it.

BLITZER: He cares about the expense. He wants to make sure the U.S. is going to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles. You've got some payout for it. Apparently, there wasn't much payout for that.

TAPPER: Once it hit them. Wolf Blitzer in "THE SITUATION ROOM," that's coming up in less than 10 minutes. Thanks, Wolf.

Coming up, in case you have not noticed, gas prices are really, really low. There are some people out there who wonder if this is all part of some big conspiracy, is this an attempt to stop ISIS? Is President Obama trying to sway the election? What is it? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. Our Money Lead now, in case you haven't noticed, you're probably paying a lot less at the pump these days, gas prices are near their lowest levels of the decade right now.

It seems as though every time we see a huge spike or plunge in the price of gasoline, people out there have to find some bigger reason behind it because oil equals power. What are the masters of the universe up to?

CNN Money's Cristina Alesci is taking a look at some of the conspiracy theories out there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT: The raw material used to make gasoline, crude oil, is falling. Some industry insiders say it may be a power play or even a conspiracy. Let me take you through the top theories.

Saudi Arabia wants to keep their dominance in the oil market at any cost. Other oil-producing countries look to Saudi Arabia to cut production and boosts prices. For now, the Saudis are keeping the spigot open. Why? Well, the U.S. has higher production costs.

So any reduction in price will hurt the U.S. more than it will with Saudi Arabians. In doing so, Saudi Arabia also takes a swing at two of their biggest enemies, Iran and Russia. Their costs are higher as well.

Theory number two, here's one that's popular around election time, the president is messing with oil prices so that Americans feel good about their pocketbooks and maybe those good feelings translates into positive marks for Democrats around midterm elections.

Theory number three, ISIS is profiting by smuggling oil into Turkey. Less expensive oil can hurt a major source of funding for the terrorist organization. So are any of these actually true?

Let's start with the first one, Saudi Arabia has been spending a lot of money to keep its citizens happy. Rebellion (inaudible) the economy so the Saudis probably can't keep prices too low for too long.

Number two, at least one oil analyst has said this theory is absolutely nuts. The president can't single handedly influence the supply and demand that drives oil prices.

Theory number three, unfortunately, the amount of oil that ISIS is smuggling into Turkey isn't really big enough to sway the decisions of the top oil producers out there so none of these theories really pan out. This may be a case where the simplest explanation is probably the right one, supply and demand.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: That was CNN Money's Cristina Alesci. Cristina, thank you so much.

Finally, our Sports Lead, it has been observed that baseball is a metaphor for life and we were reminded that again last night at the end of the seventh game of that amazing World Series between the San Francisco Giants and Kansas City Royals.

At the end, two outs, down by only one run, facing dominant Giant's pitcher, Madison Bumgarner on the mound, Royals' left fielder, Alex Jonathan Gordon, stepped up to the plate. One pitch, one strike, but then Gordon connected and hit the ball to left center field where the Giants bungled it.

This should have been a mere single, but Gordon took advantage of the Giant errors and rounded second, but stopped at third. He didn't want to be tagged out at home. He didn't want to be the last out and that was the cautious move.

The odds are that Gordon would have been tagged out at home. No question except, except -- except this is baseball, this is life. And, yes, while Gordon was the potential third out at home, it was also the potential tying run and with amazing Bumgarner on the mound, you have to go for it.

This is not just 20/20 hindsight argued with the knowledge that the next Royal delivered the third out ending this series. Our Nate Silver crunched the numbers and determined Gordon only had a 25 percent chance of scoring, but Silver argues that Gordon should have tried for home anyway.

That at worst it would have been the most extraordinary way to lose the game in the history of baseball. And after all, long after Gordon and Bumgarner and Nate Silver and me and you and Kansas City and San Francisco are all gone, what does caution in a moment of potential glory end up meaning? Are we not here to try to win even if we usually lose in extraordinary ways?

That's it for THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.