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Zimbabwe Moves to Extradite U.S. Hunter; Presidential Candidates Court Black Voters; Plane Debris on its Way to France; Palestinians, Israelis Decry Deadly Attack. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired July 31, 2015 - 10:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:30:44] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me.

You can see in that little box to my right, that is Jeb Bush. He's now speaking before the Urban League in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Earlier Hillary Clinton came out and spoke behind that very same podium and slammed Jeb Bush -- not exactly by name but certainly slammed his policies.

We're monitoring Jeb Bush's speech to see if he will answer Hillary Clinton's allegations and, of course, how he's also received by the Urban League. We'll dip in again when it is warranted.

In other news this morning. The American dentist who hunted down Cecil the lion now has to worry about more than public scorn. Zimbabwe's environment minister said today her country has started extradition proceedings for Walter Palmer. Zimbabwe officials say Palmer guilty of well-orchestrated and well-resourced poaching. They're urging the United States to cooperate and it just might.

With worldwide protests growing, the White House will now review a public petition to extradite Palmer. That petition has well over 100,000 signatures, fueled in part by talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, who choked up while he was talking about Cecil the lion during his monologue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY KIMMEL, TALK SHOW HOST: If you want to make this into a positive, you can -- sorry. OK. I'm good. Make a donation and support the --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Touched a lot of people. The problem is the dentist, Mr. Walter Palmer, has closed his dental office and gone into hiding. Nobody knows where he is. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department says it wants the dentist or his attorney to contact them.

With me now to talk about this, CNN legal analyst Mel Robbins and Johnny Rodriguez, an animal rights activist in Zimbabwe. Welcome to both of you. JOHNNY RODRIGUEZ, ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVIST: Morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning. Johnny, are you surprised Zimbabwe is trying to extradite Palmer?

RODRIGUEZ: Yes, very surprised.

COSTELLO: Why?

RODRIGUEZ: The law hasn't been carried out to the full in so many years, and it's nice to see it actually doing the right thing for the right cause.

COSTELLO: Mel, do you think that the United States will cooperate?

MEL ROBBINS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: You know, I actually think they're going to, and here is the reason why. When you think about extradition, it's really a diplomatic issue as much as it is a legal one. And so what you already have is the country saying we are going to initiate the process. And it goes through diplomatic channels first, so they will reach out to the office of international affairs through probably -- they'll reach out to the office of international affairs and then the office of international affairs will reach out to the attorney general and the federal authorities in the state of Minnesota. And then they will seek a hearing with this dentist. And that's how the process starts.

And, frankly, Carol, if you have a country that we have a treaty with and we've had a treaty with Zimbabwe since 1997, it was signed into law by Bill Clinton, as long as there are the same sort of crimes here that are punishable in the United States, our hands are kind of tied. I mean, it would be a slap in the face in terms of our relationship with Zimbabwe --

COSTELLO: But we don't have a great relationship with Zimbabwe.

ROBBINS: I know but for us to basically say we're not going to extradite the dentist, we're going to protect him and we're not going to send him to you, that's a huge statement that the United States would be making to that country, and they have grounds to extradite him.

We have a treaty in place. This would be a punishable offense and I might add that this dentist was convicted in 2006 for poaching a black bear illegally in Wisconsin. He was also convicted of lying to the Fish and Game authorities. He's done it before. It's punishable here in the U.S. We have a treaty. I don't see how they wouldn't cooperate and extradite him.

COSTELLO: Johnny, are you surprised by the emotional outpouring over the killing of this lion in the United States?

RODRIGUEZ: I can understand the whole reason behind this is that the scourge has been going on for so long, and we've got a platform now to actually tell the world, you know, we need help and we need to change a lot of the rulings that they've got and the treaties like (INAUDIBLE) where there's endangered animals which can be traded and hunted.

[10:35:11] And we tried to stop that by sort of saying let's preserve these animals. So, yes, I'm happy if justice does go ahead. I mean the person is not guilty until they've gone to court and defended themselves. Let's see what the circumstances.

But I do believe that the law was broken, and it is classified as a poaching, and a local guy if he hunts and he gets caught, he hasn't got a permit, he goes to jail for anything between 2 and 15 years. Now, these guys lured a lion out of a national park into a safari area where there was no permit, no nothing, and all of a sudden they can do it.

Justice has to be seen to be done and let's stop this from ever happening again. So that people would realize that they will be prosecuted.

COSTELLO: All right. I have to end it there. Johnny Rodriguez, Mel Robbins -- thanks so much.

I have to take our viewers back to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Jeb Bush speaking before the Urban League. Let's listen to what he has to say.

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: -- the fewer obstacles imposed by government, more people have the opportunity to achieve earned success. We gave more people the tools to move up in the world through adult education and workforce training. We expanded our community college system and made it more affordable for low-income families.

Florida in those years helped thousands more first-generation college students make it all the way to graduation. We didn't lose sight of the ones who had missed their chance at a better life or maybe even lost their way and landed in jail.

In Florida we didn't want to fill prisons with nonviolent offenders, so we expanded drug courts. They started here in Florida, and we expanded them all across the state and we created prevention programs. I took the view, as I would as president, that real justice in America has got to also include restorative justice.

I opened the first faith-based prison in the United States and signed an executive order to promote the hiring of ex-offenders. In this country we shouldn't be writing people off, denying them a second chance at a life of meaning. Many only ask for a chance to start again, to get back in the game and to do it right, and as a country, we should say yes whenever we can.

We also went after the real enemy that afflicts our cities -- the smugglers, the drug cartels, and the violent criminals that profit from the undoing of so many lives. We passed tough sentencing laws for gun crimes and ensured that dangerous people were kept off our streets. As a result of all of this, we brought violent crime in Florida down to a 27-year low and drug abuse way down as well. Social progress is always the story of widening the circle of opportunity.

For that reason I gave the challenge of school reform everything I had as governor because if we fail at that responsibility, it's a bitter loss. I believe in the right to rise in this country and a child is not rising if he's not reading.

When I took office, Florida was down near the bottom in student achievement. Almost half of all fourth graders were functionally illiterate and half of all high school kids never even graduated. So we overhauled the whole system, set clear standards, and brought out the best in our great teachers.

We insisted on testing and accountability. We created the first statewide private school choice programs in America. We expanded high performing charter schools and we ended the insidious policy of social promotion in third grade, the practice of just passing unprepared kids along as if we didn't care because we did care and we should care. You don't show that by counting out anyone's child. You give them all a chance, and that's what we did in Florida.

COSTELLO: All right. We're going to step away from this for just a minute because other presidential contenders did take the stage at the Urban League.

One of the hot button issues all of them talked about was the phrase "black lives matter". Of course, that phrase became controversial after Martin O'Malley said all lives matter and then had to apologize. So here is a mash-up of how the candidates addressed this before the Urban League earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have no desire to get rid of safety nets for people who need them. I have a strong desire, however, to provide a ladder to get people out of dependency so that they become part of the fabric of America.

[10:40:08] Hillary Clinton (d), presidential candidate: And the racial disparities you work hard every day to overcome go against everything I believe in and everything I want to help America achieve.

MARTIN O'MALLEY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: But we are not there yet. Every headline or video of official abuse, injustice, indifference, killing, or murder reminds us of how far we still have to go. Every story reminds us that Americans of color must endure a constant state of random vulnerability even when they're just driving to work.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We must reform our criminal justice system, black lives do matter, and we must value black lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right. There you have a mash-up of what was said before the Urban League. Let's head to Washington and check in with Jeff Zeleny. You have been monitoring this whole forum. Who got the biggest response?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, I think that Jeb Bush just a few moments before we went to him, he talked about how he did something when he was the governor of Florida. He took down the confederate flag back when it was not necessarily a popular thing to do in Tallahassee. That got a fairly big response from that audience and we heard Jeb Bush lay out what he did as governor of Florida through education reform and other things.

But, Carol, I think one of the funniest lines, and we'll perhaps hear this over and over, Jeb Bush talked about the debate next week, the Republican presidential debate. He said before this whole thing is over, we might need a doctor on stage. And then he said, that's where Dr. Ben Carson comes in. So a little bit of a shout out to him. A little bit of humor from him today.

But an interesting audience today because they're hearing from both Democrats and Republicans alike down in Florida.

COSTELLO: All right, Jeff Zeleny, thanks for your insight. I appreciate it.

I'll be right back.

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[10:46:03] COSTELLO: The debris found on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean has now been loaded onto crates. It's at the airport. It is expected to be sent to France for identification later today. Investigators telling CNN authorities will be able to ID the object quickly to figure out whether it's the first clue from that vanished plane, MH370. The source also telling CNN engineers should be able to determine if the plane exploded in the air or if it hit the water in one piece.

Let's talk about this. With me now, James Carlton -- he's a professor of marine sciences, emeritus at Williams College. I'm also joined by CNN aviation analyst and 777 pilot, Les Abend. Welcome to you both. I appreciate it.

JAMES CARLTON, PROFESSOR OF MARINE SCIENCES (via telephone): Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning. James, we've been talking a lot about the barnacles attached to this flaperon. And I want to put up a picture of those barnacles right now. I think we have a close-up shot as well.

In looking at these barnacles, do they tell you anything?

CARLTON: This particular species of barnacle is very widespread through all of the Indian Ocean. So this particular barnacle would not tell us exactly where the flap was from, but we can age the barnacles, and it would tell us how long the flap has been at sea. A French marine biologist has estimated their age as about one year, which would fall within the time parameters we're looking at. COSTELLO: Interesting. Remind us again what a barnacle is.

CARLTON: It's a crustacean. It's not a seashell. It's a crustacean distantly related to crabs and shrimp and that sort of thing.

COSTELLO: And they attach -- the location on this flaperon where they've attached, does that say anything to you?

CARLTON: It can tell us a little bit about how much of the flaperon was exposed above the sea's surface or the orientation of the object in the sea. The barnacles only settle when there is water on the object. These are barnacles that live only on surface objects and so they don't live in the deep sea down below at the bottom.

However, although we don't know exactly what it can tell us about where it's from, an interesting aspect of these barnacles are the chemical analysis of the shell often reflects the temperatures through which the barnacles and the flap floated, so it could be with analysis of the shell you can tell a little bit about exactly where the flap has been to determine the temperatures -- the temperatures experienced by the animals as they grew. It could tell us a little bit about whether or not the flap stayed on a predicted track or took a more meandering route.

COSTELLO: That is fascinating. So once this flaperon gets into the laboratory in Toulouse, France how will they extract the barnacles?

CARLTON: The barnacles will be removed from the surface and then they're (INAUDIBLE) confirm the exact species identification, although we do have one based upon just looking at the photograph. And then if chemical analysis is done, that's done in the laboratory as well.

There may be other things on the flaperon besides the barnacles. There can be other species which we're simply not seeing in these photographs. Those could be analyzed as well and they could provide further evidence of the ocean voyage.

COSTELLO: Fascinating. James Carlton, many thanks to you.

Les -- I'm sorry to neglect you here, but that was fascinating, right?

LES ABEND, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: It was. It was.

COSTELLO: So those barnacles may tell us a lot about maybe what happened.

ABEND: And with the information he gave us, it looks like it was partially submerged at least at some point or floated underneath the surface of the ocean to some degree.

COSTELLO: Because the surface had to be wet for the crustaceans to attach.

ABEND: According to his information, yes.

COSTELLO: -- really fascinating. So once that piece of the plane gets to the laboratory, what is the first thing investigators will do?

[10:50:07] ABEND: It's hard to say. But I would imagine they're going to look at the piece as one -- at any accident investigation you start with the whole and narrow your focus down. So I would imagine they're going to look at the piece, see if it matches what they're saying is a flaperon.

It's very, very strong words from Boeing. Boeing is not a casual company. And when they come out with their PR department saying that they have a high degree of confidence, that's more than likely what it is.

COSTELLO: So, you have been immersed in this for the past couple days.

ABEND: Sure.

COSTELLO: What does this flaperon tell you?

ABEND: Well, at this point it tells me that the flaperon perhaps -- my gut feeling is it broke off in the water. How it impacted the water, I don't know. I mean we have the Hudson River landing in 2009 to remind us of how a controlled descent is going to work. We did have an engine piece break off, one of the engines actually came off and a few assorted other pieces. So even in a controlled descent, pieces of the airplane are going to come off.

Could this have come off in a high speed, high impact? Absolutely. And they may be able to determine this when they bring it to Toulouse.

COSTELLO: Hopefully we'll know shortly. Les Abend, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

I also want to remind you to check out the CNN documentary "VANISHED: THE MYSTERY OF MALAYSIA AIRLINES FLIGHT 370". That airs at 9:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

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COSTELLO: They're called price tag attacks, but today it cost the life of a toddler on the West Bank. Israeli radicals attacked a home as a reprisal against Palestinians trying to stop new Jewish settlements. A one and a half-year-old child was killed, his mother and brother injured. The Palestinian leader said "We hold the Israeli government fully responsible for the brutal assassination of the toddler." The Israeli government also condemned the act.

Ian Lee is in Duma, on the West Bank.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) [10:54:59] IAN LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The Molotov cocktail,

this firebomb, went through the window lighting up this entire room. This is the room where the family was sleeping at the time of the attack, the family of four. You can see their personal effects everywhere completely scorched. This entire room burned out.

There's nothing really much left, but down here you do have the remnants of Baby Ali. You have the milk bottle that he used. There's also milk still left in it. You can see the remains of the beds, of the cribs, also a blanket here.

As you mentioned, this "price tag" attack on the surrounding walls on the outside of this building. You do see Hebrew graffiti and one of the graffiti says "revenge" on it. So Palestinians here very angry about this attack they say was from Israeli settlers. Both the Palestinian Authority has condemned this calling this an act of terror.

Now, the Israeli government has also condemned this. Right now there hasn't been any suspects arrested in connection to this case.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right. That was Ian Lee reporting.

Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm Carol Costello.

Berman and Bolduan after a break.

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KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: Malaysia now confirming the plane debris found on an island belongs to a Boeing 777. And the United States now saying someone deliberately steered Flight 370 off course. But why?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: An international tug of war brewing over the American dentist who killed one of Africa's most treasured lions. Zimbabwe now demanding the U.S. extradite him. The problem is the dentist is nowhere to be found.

[10:59:58] BOLDUAN: And the campus officer accused of murder is right now free on bail as new revelations emerge about the history of the officers who corroborated his story.