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President Obama Declares State Of Emergency In South Carolina; U.S. Coast Guard And Navy Confirm They Have Found Multiple Items Belonging To Missing U.S. Cargo Ship El Faro; Interview With NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio and Robert Reich; Rep. Jason Chaffetz To Run Against Kevin McCarthy For House Speakership. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired October 04, 2015 - 17:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:00:07] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN HOST: Top of the hour. 5:00 eastern. I'm Poppy Harlow joining you from New York this Sunday evening.

And we begin with breaking news right now. Much of the state of South Carolina is under water. These pictures are just unbelievable. Not just along the Atlantic coast, but reaching very far inland. The words state officials are using right now to describe this flood, catastrophic and historic.

This is low-lying Charleston where two feet, two feet of rain has fallen in just the past three days. People are trying to navigate the streets in kayaks and canoes. One hundred and twenty miles upstate in Columbia, a foot of rainfall has hammered this city. Flash flooding some neighborhoods with water now deeper than the cars.

It is not just one state in trouble, this flood emergency is impacting movement up and down the entire east coast. A stretch of I-95 for more than 70 miles is closed right now. That is the busiest highway running north to south along the east coast. South Carolina's Governor Nikki Haley holding a press conference just a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. NIKKI HALEY (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: What we are going to continue to say is if you are in your house, stay in your house. This is not something to be out taking pictures of. This is not something that you want your kids playing in. The water is not safe and a lot of areas across the state where you see this deep water, it's got bacteria in it. So stay inside and don't get in there. We've seen areas of the interstate that are right now clear, but there will be a patch where it goes and it gets real deep.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Her whole point she reiterated over and over again, stay in front of this storm. Stay off the roads.

CNN's Boris Sanchez is in Georgetown, South Carolina. It has been pelting you with rain. No relief.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No relief, Poppy. It's been coming down steadily all day. As a matter of fact, five minutes ago it intensified. And again, to reiterate a lot of what the governor was saying, we drove down highway 17 today south from Myrtle Beach and it was just awful. The roads were covered in water throughout the entire drive. And when we got here to Georgetown, there was a police barricade. They weren't letting anyone through partly because it's such a mess here. A lot of the roads are kind of broken up. There's also cars submerged.

And as the governor said, there are random things floating around in the water. Rocks, manhole covers, several things just kind of lurking about. Possible dangers for people that are coming out here. As you can imagine, very difficult for those that live in this area. We're near an inlet right now that just hit high tide a short while ago. The good news is the water started receding back.

The problem, however, is that it's still raining and there's nowhere really for the water to go. Georgetown is kind of at the bottom of a geographical bowl so it's going to keep getting flooded as the rain keeps coming down.

We spoke to a business owner who works nearby. She runs an animal hospital just down the street. She talked to us about the trouble she had trying to get in and rescue pets that were still at her hospital. Here's what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERI DUNCAN, HARBORWALK VETERINARY HOSPITAL: I think God was looking out for us because it actually did not get up high enough to damage much. So, but it is very stressful that your whole business and livelihood and thank God I didn't have any animals here at the --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Fortunately, she was able to team up with a nearby business owner who runs a water extraction service and he got in there pretty early on and tried to get as much water out as he could. He said he could hear animals in there but he couldn't get to them because he wasn't sure what the conditions were like inside the hospital.

HARLOW: All right, Boris, I hope they get some relief very, very soon. Sort of as we heard the governor of South Carolina say, the worst they've seen in 1,000 years.

Boris Sanchez in the middle of it, thank you.

Meteorologist Tom Sater at the CNN severe weather center.

Let's talk about that, Tom. I mean, we heard that press conference from Nikki Haley, the governor of South Carolina. You've got federal weather experts saying the worst rain this part of the country has seen in a thousand years. I mean, they didn't track that far back. How do they know that? TOM SATER, CNN METEOROLOGIST: That is a great, great question. In

fact, Poppy, we were forecasting maybe one 500 year event. Well, let me explain what they're talking about. When you look at the colors of South Carolina, notice the purple here, I mean, we are getting 10 and 20 inches. This has been the greatest one-day rainfall total in Charleston. Some areas the greatest two-day, three-day. Greatest all-time rainfall for the month of October. Greatest rain for any month. A one in 1,000 year event.

When you take a look at the 10 to 20 inch total, that doesn't mean the last time this happened was a thousand years ago. It doesn't mean the next time will be a thousand years. That means to get this much rain is a one in 1,000 chance. Could it happen next month? It could.

But the difference is for some cities, such as Columbia, let's say a three-day total for a one in 500 year event is 17 inches. A one in 1,000 year event could be maybe over 18 inches. So there's not a big variation. But if you look at the last 36 hours, we've been talking about this moisture plume which is really moisture that has been coming from hurricane Joaquin which is passing right to the west now of Bermuda.

Thank goodness. On Thursday, the forecast changed. They had the landfall after this was already going to occur. So we knew this was going to be significant. There's an area of low pressure that's been moving across Georgia. It's just been sitting there. High pressure moving out of the Hudson to the north has been giving us this northeast wind across the coast for over ten days now.

So, again, warnings are still in effect for flash flooding. Believe it or not, waters rescues are still occurring, evacuations are still occurring from Charleston to Columbia. Concerns to the west in parts of Greenville where the eastern part of our plume has started to shift to the north. But even though, the concern to the outer banks, part of the tidal bore area, part of the areas of estuaries, and evacuations, again, on the coast of the outer banks, we're also going to see not just in North Carolina, but this moisture streaking in to the same location that's been inundated with over, you know, a foot- and-a-half, two-feet of rain.

The concern is that the rivers, already, Poppy, some rivers are near or above historic levels even washing away river gauges. That's something that just doesn't happen. You don't see that. And all of this rain still need to make its way into the larger tributaries and larger rivers. And they all seem to flow back toward the ocean which is going to see an additional six to ten maybe be isolated 10 inches more in the next 24 hours.

Water treatment facilities are being inundated, the need for fresh water. The infrastructure on bridges, dikes and even some dams are in jeopardy. So again, as soon as we get this area of low pressure out, we will start to see that moisture plume lift a little bit. But still, evacuations are going to take place not just in South Carolina but in areas of the outer banks and eastern areas of North Carolina. Busy weekend. Crazy.

[17:06:58] HARLOW: Busy weekend. And already some deaths related to this.

Tom Sater, we will continue to monitor it. Thank you very much.

Despite also I want to update you on this very disturbing story this widened search effort today, there is still no sign of that cargo ship, that container ship or its crew of 33 people. It vanished amid hurricane Joaquin. It's called the El Faro. It vanished off the coast of the Bahamas on Saturday as Joaquin rolled east as a category four storm.

One piece of the ship, a life ring bearing its name has been recovered. So they were able to find that from some of the search planes. More items were found today. It's unclear, though if they are from El Faro. Again, it got 33 people on board. They're continuing to monitor that. We will have a live update from the coast guard at the top of the next hour.

Coming up next, we return to Oregon and two remarkable stories of survival. You will hear from the father of a student injured in Thursday's campus shooting. And a young woman who was sitting in that very classroom when the gunman opened fire. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:11:08] HARLOW: For the first time, we are hearing from survivors in that Oregon college campus shooting this week. First, a survivor's mother saying the gunman offered to spare her son's life. The gunman wanted her son to give the police something specific. You'll hear that.

Also, a passer talks about his daughter who was in the room with the gunman when the gunman murdered her friend who was sitting right beside her.

I want to go straight to Dan Simon. He is in Roseburg, Oregon.

And Dan, let's begin with the survivor's mother. What is she saying that this gunman asked her son to do?

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy, one of the most chilling accounts of this massacre occurs after three people have already been shot and killed, the teacher and two students. And at that point, the shooter pauses for a moment and he sees a young man who's wearing glasses and says, hey, you, with the glasses, come here, you're the lucky one. And he hands him an envelope. And he says if you give this to police, you'll live.

Well, we now know that was 18-year-old Matthew and his mother doesn't want us to use his last name, but just moments ago, I had a chance to sit down with her and as you can imagine, she's very emotional as she relays this incredible ordeal that her son witnessed. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SIMON: There were people being shot around him.

SUMMER SMITH, MOTHER OF SHOOTING SURVIVOR: Yes.

SIMON: And that in certain point the shooter singles out him, is that correct?

SMITH: Yes, yes.

SIMON: What did the shooter do?

SMITH: The shooter asked him to give the police a -- something, and that if he did, he would live. And Matthew said at that point, he didn't quite get what the shooter said. He thought he was standing up to die. And that when the shooter gave him what he was told to give to police, he was then sent to sit in the back of the room facing the room and to watch what was going on.

Matthew said that he froze. He didn't make a single move. He was afraid to look away. That if he made anything -- did anything to make the shooter notice him, that he would be shot. So he just sat there.

SIMON: He's sitting there watching the shooter execute people.

SMITH: Yes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIMON: Well, we saw Matthew during a church service here, and you just had to look at his body language and to see the look on his face to know that he had seen something truly horrific. I can tell you that according to his mother, he feels a tremendous sense of guilt, Poppy, that he lived while so many others died. And as for that envelope, he never saw the contents, but he could feel that inside there was a computer flash drive and, of course, he gave that envelope to police - Poppy.

HARLOW: Wow, what so many people deal with after something like this, survivor's guilt. But thank goodness he did survive. I know you also spoke, Dan, with the pastor whose daughter was right there, whose life was also spared.

SIMON: Right. So Pastor Randy Scroggins, he is a prominent pastor in town, and his daughter, Lacey, happens to attend that school. And she was in that very classroom. And after several people had been shot, lacey is there, she's lying on the ground, and she hears a loud boom. And that boom was the person who was literally next to her was shot. And this is quite graphic. I don't know if there's another way to say this, but a lot of blood and the body basically went on top of Lacey. And I'll let the pastor pick up the story from here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[17:15:01] REV. RANDY SCROGGINS, FATHER OF OREGON SHOOTING SURVIVOR: She said after that loud bang, I felt Travis' body move over on mine. I felt the weight. It's almost like he was stopped breathing but he was on me. And I looked under my left arm and all that blood from Trevin was coming under my arm and she said I knew then that I was going to die. (END VIDEO CLIP)

SIMON: Well, she lived because the shooter apparently thought that he had killed her. So here you have two survivors, Poppy, two people who are obviously very lucky to have lived through this for whatever reason - Poppy.

HARLOW: Dan, thank you very much. Thank goodness that they both did survive.

And for all of you watching, Dan will have both of those interviews in their entirety tomorrow right here on CNN.

Dan, thank you.

Also now, a survivor of the Oregon school shooting, the young woman was shot in the hand and covered in blood from the others who were shot right next to her. Now, this woman did not want CNN to share her name or to show her face, but I do want to go straight to CNN's Sara Sidner. She is in Roseburg, Oregon.

And Sara, you sat down with her.

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Poppy. This is the first time we're hearing a firsthand account from someone who was actually in classroom 15 at Snyder hall, here at Umpqua Community College. She talks about just exactly what happened as this shooter went and basically sentenced people to death. She talks about what he said to them, that it would be quick, that he would try to make it painless and that he would be joining them in a minute or two.

But she says she knew he had no remorse and no mercy for anyone. She thought she would die when she saw what he did to a woman in a wheelchair.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Wait. There was a woman in a wheelchair during all this as well?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. And she had a dog with her but the dog was just on the ground. And she got off the chair. She went on the ground. And he told her to get back on the chair. And then she tried to climb back on the chair then he shot her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: She said no matter what he demanded, people did what he said. But it simply didn't matter. And then at some point to some of the folks who were sitting in the back of the class, he said, are you Christian? And she says he even said, are you catholic? And was very specific about that.

HARLOW: Wow. Sara.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SIDNER: What do you think he was trying to do? Was he targeting Christians and Catholics?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't think he was really targeting them. I think he just - I honestly don't think he was targeting anybody, he just wanted to do it for fun. Because he still shot everything anyone that he asked. So I don't think he was actually targeting a specific religion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Now she says that she survived because she was standing in the front row, got on the ground, and when he started shooting people, there was so much blood, she was covered. Half of her body was covered with it. And he just thought she was dead. So she played dead. And that's how she made it out alive. She says she is one of three people, only three people who were able to actually walk out of that class because everyone else was either injured, two scared to move, or deceased - Poppy.

HARLOW: Sara Sidner, it is hard to stomach. Thank you very much for that.

You will see Sara's entire interview tomorrow morning 6:00 a.m. eastern on "NEW DAY."

Coming up next, in the wake of this tragedy in Oregon, many people are asking, how can we create change? Could any law prevent this? I will speak live with Congressman Adam Schiff of California about a law that California passed in the last year, a very controversial law about taking guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:23:12] HARLOW: What could be done to prevent another tragedy like the mass shooting in Oregon this week? It is a huge question. It's a very controversial debate going on. In California a law was signed this year by Governor Jerry Brown. A controversial law allowing family members to ask that their relatives' gun be taken away because a relative is mentally ill or they're concerned that person presents a threat.

I want to talk about that more now in the wake of what happened in Oregon with California Democrat and ranking member of the house intelligence committee, Representative Adam Schiff.

Thank you for being with me.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), RANKING MEMBER, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: You bet, good to be with you.

HARLOW: This is a law that many have cited in the wake of mass shootings since it was signed earlier this year. Is it a law that you support?

SCHIFF: It is. I think it's a very important and common sense step. Poppy, you know, these crimes are all very different. These serial killings. But there is a common denominator we find in a lot of them and that is too easy access, too ready access to firearms by people with serious mental health problems.

Often in cases where family members are aware of the mental health problems, this law empowers them with law enforcement to go to the court and essentially get a restraining order preventing them from accessing firearms. Now, often people who are mentally ill, they're more likely, frankly, to use a firearm against themselves than against others, but we've seen all too often in this country where people with serious mental illness get a gun and maybe as it appears in the case of this shooter they want the notoriety, they want to somehow call attention to themselves and they see other killers have done this successfully by taking other people's lives. So this, I think, is a very important measure and I hope that other states will follow suit.

HARLOW: So here's the real crux of the controversy over it. You've even got some mental health advocates and professionals who say, look, our concern is that if you do this, this is going to stigmatize those that are battling mental illness, they're not going to come seek treatment and seek help because they don't want to be categorized or they don't want their, you know, the weapon that they lawfully own to be taken from them. Are you worried about that?

[17:25:21] SCHIFF: Frankly, I'm much more worried about the fact that it seems like every week, every month we have another one of these mass shootings and so often it's by people that are mentally ill. So that is a risk and that is something that we're obviously going to have to keep an eye on and make sure that we're not deterring people from getting treatment. But I think at the same time that we put in place laws like this, we ought to be doing everything we can to expand the availability of mental health treatment for all Americans. I don't think these are mutually exclusive propositions.

But you know, as a father of a daughter who's about to head off to college, I don't want to have to worry about her ending up in a shooting like we saw so tragically this past week. No parent should have to go through what those parents you just interviewed, your fellow correspondents, had to go through. That is just such a horrible trauma. And it's a trauma not just to those families, it's really a trauma to the whole country.

You know, I mentioned one thing that I thought was really a serious indictment of our inaction on this. I was in London two weeks ago meeting with our ambassador there. He goes to high schools, he surveys high school kids in Britain about what they associate with America. And the number one negative association with America is gun violence. We have to do something to stop this scourge.

HARLOW: You know, we heard our Ryan Young spoke with the father of this shooter yesterday and he called for, you know, gun law reform. Now his son didn't live with him, but he saw his son and he said he had no idea that his son was battling any of these mental illness issues or that he had 14 guns. How much of this falls on parents in terms of knowing, you know, what their kids are doing, how their kids are struggling? SCHIFF: I think parents have a big responsibility here, and I think

in many of the cases where we have seen young people commit these serial crimes, at least one of the parents was well aware of both the possession of these weapons as well as the fixation on these weapons by these mentally ill children. So, yes, I think parents have a responsibility here.

And as a country, and this is something I think the president emphasized the other day, we have to have a conversation about this as a country, in each of our communities and each of our homes about whether we want to have these weapons accessible, whether we want to take the risk that someone is going to use those weapons against themselves or against others. Because we have just got to do something about this problem. It's sickening that every single week it seems we go through this terrible tragedy.

HARLOW: Before I let you go, I do want to switch gears here and talk about something that you said earlier this week on MSNBC specifically focusing on the committee looking into the, what happened in Benghazi. Let's roll that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCHIFF: So it's time to shut this down. What representative McCarthy merely did was to acknowledge the truth at the very highest levels of the Republican leadership in the house. This has always been and remains all about Hillary Clinton and has very little to do with the facts of Benghazi.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Of course, you're referring to what Representative McCarthy said talking about sort of making a link between the Benghazi commission and Hillary Clinton's falling poll numbers. Understand that that upset a lot of people on both sides of the aisle, but you're calling for the entire commission to be disbanded, to stop, not to look for anymore answers in Benghazi. Four American lives were taken. Why should we not have more answers?

SCHIFF: Well, because we've had eight investigations and I think we have all the answers that there are to be found. There really aren't any major conclusions of this new effort after 16 months, $4.5 million. And not only do we have no new insights that these other eight investigations didn't uncover, we don't even know what we're looking for. If you ask the leadership of this select committee, what is it we're trying to find? Because the chairman has said we don't believe there was gun running, that the rumors of a stand-down order have been refuted. There was no interference by the secretary of state and the security at the facility. All the conspiracy theories have been debunked. And at certain point, you have to ask yourself after a year and half and all these millions spent, what are we looking for? And if we can't answer the very basic question, it's time to shut it town.

HARLOW: Quickly, before I let you go, some might say are you trying to protect Secretary Clinton in this election, what would you say to them?

SCHIFF: I'm trying to protect the institution of Congress because we're going to see a multiplication of these abusive taxpayer-funded select committees already. The Republicans are talking about a new select committee on Planned Parenthood. It's going to become just another partisan tool if we continue to allow this to happen.

So, you know, I think the presidential campaigns can sort out whatever issues have been with the secretary is used of a private email system. That's the job of the political parties. That's the job of political campaigns, you know, the Democrats can point out Jeb Bush used to private server for government business. That's fine. You don't need a taxpayer-funded committee to do that and I want to see the abuse of this process come to an end.

[17:30:34] HARLOW: Representative Adam Schiff, appreciate your time today. Thank you.

SCHIFF: Thank you.

HARLOW: Just days ahead of the vote a new person whose name has certainly been in the news a lot this week throwing his name officially into the hat, into the ring for the race for speaker of the house. Utah congressman Jason Chaffetz have a chance? My political panel weighs in next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:34:05] HARLOW: To Politics now and the race to replace house speaker John Boehner just got a little more interesting this morning. Utah congressman Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the government reform and oversight committee, says he will challenge fellow Republican Kevin McCarthy for that seat. Keep in mind just a few days ago Chaffetz told our Wolf Blitzer that he was backing and supporting McCarthy. Today, not the case. He said he is the best person to unify the party.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JASON CHAFFETZ (R), UTAH: There's several people who took a couple runs at me suggesting that maybe what we should do is could I be that fair arbiter that brings together the far, far right of our party with centrist members and be a far arbiter, and somebody that could go at and make the case to the American people? And I was recruited by a number of people and finally said alright, I'll give it a shot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Let's bring in CNN political commentators Maria Cardona, Tara Setmeyer and Peter Beinart. Maria is a Democratic strategist. Tara worked on the Hill as a communications director for a house Republican member. Peter is a contributing editor for the "Atlantic" and "the National Journal."

Thank you all for being here. You worked on the hill, so let me begin with you. What do you think? If Jason Chaffetz - does he have a shot? I mean, he says it's all about the numbers. It is all about the math and McCarthy can't get 218 votes.

[17:40:22] TARA SETMEYER, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, as of right now Chaffetz is right about that. McCarthy doesn't have a solid 218 votes which is what he would need. There is about 50 or so Republicans that are just flat-out not going to vote for Kevin McCarthy as of right now.

HARLOW: Because of the Benghazi comments?

SETMEYER: No. I think it was before that they were, you know, the freedom caucus and some of the tea party folks were thinking they were going to give him a chance but weren't sold on him. There was still some room to move around here. And then the Benghazi remarks just blew the lid off of everything. Everyone is pretty upset there on Capitol Hill about this. And they're going if he's going to -- if he can't even get the message out correctly now, what's he going to do when he's speaker?

So there's a lot of room here. I don't think that Chaffetz necessarily can win, but I think it's going to definitely cause some backdoor dealing going on before the vote on Thursday.

HARLOW: That never happens in Washington.

SETMEYER: No, no. More so than they originally thought.

HARLOW: Maria, to you, I think the American people have shown they're fed up with the partisan bickering and want to see leaders of both parties who can negotiate. That can help, that can also hurt if people think you're going to bend too much and side with your colleagues on the other side of the aisle. What do you think in terms of Chaffetz's shot?

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think you are absolutely right, Poppy. I think what the American people are looking for in their leaders is for them to find solutions. And we certainly have not seen that from the Republican Party. And I think the biggest problem the Republicans are facing now and you are seeing it play out with Chaffetz now putting his name into the ring, is this pull, this tug-of-war between the extreme far right of the Republican caucus, and the more moderates. And I think this is why McCarthy is in such trouble because, you know, I agree with Tara on this, that the far right of the party, they don't trust him. It's similar to what was happening to Boehner and why he was -- he finally thought he had to leave. And this is just going to play out yet again with Chaffetz putting his hat into the ring.

And frankly, the comments that McCarthy made earlier I think also, you know, betray this feeling that this is not somebody who really understands either strategy or how to communicate, but overall the reason why his comments were so damning to the Republican party as a whole is because he told the truth, and now everybody knows it.

HARLOW: Peter Beinart, to you. PETER BEINART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think the bigger problem

here, McCarthy is still probably likely to win, but what's frightening is he could be a weaker speaker than John Boehner is. Regardless of what you're a Democrat or Republican, we need strong leadership in the house. Otherwise we're not going to be able to do things like raise the debt ceiling. This is very scary stuff.

HARLOW: Like things that keep our country functioning.

BEINART: Right. It seems that regardless of their ideology, the country has to do to avoid calamity.

HARLOW: Do you remember what happened just a few years ago on that front?

BEINART: Right. So this is a very frightening situation we're in now as McCarthy looks weaker.

SETMEYER: Just a really quick point about this. If Boehner was in the house for 25 year and he couldn't do it, you have McCarthy who came in in 2007 and now Chaffetz in 2009, relatively new comers when it comes to ascending to the leadership positions and being able to herd cats like. People while to understand all the players. So you know, it's going to be --

HARLOW: Not an enviable job herding cats.

I do want to move on to the Mideast, Donald Trump making headlines yet again this morning talking about Russia's bombing campaign in Syria.

To you, Peter, in the chaos unfolds across the region. He said it might be better if some fallen dictators in the Mideast, we are talking Gadhafi, Hussein, were still in power. Here he is in his own words.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And you can make the case. If you look at Libya, look what we did there, it's a mess. If you look at Saddam Hussein with Iraq, look what we did there. It's a mess. It is going to be the same thing.

CHUCK TODD, NBC HOST, MEET THE PRESS: You think the Middle East would be better if Gadhafi, Saddam and Assad -- if Saddam and Gadhafi were still there and Assad were stronger -- do you think the Middle East would be safer?

TRUMP: It's not even a contest, Chuck. It is not even a contest. Iraq is a disaster.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Peter Beinart, can you set the record straight on that one? What does history tell us?

BEINART: You know, I tremble before saying this but I actually think there's something to what Donald Trump is saying. And in fact, the person who said it before was Rand Paul.

What's interesting about Trump is even though he's often way off in left field or right field, he kind of marches to his own drummer. What he's doing here is criticizing Obama on the one hand for the Libya, toppling, and attacking George W. Bush for Iraq, and basely saying we would be better off if we intervened in the Middle East less. Now, it's a complicated subject. And I frankly don't think Donald Trump on the specifics knows what he's talking about at all. But that is general perspective actually is a valuable part of the political debate. And I think it's useful that he's injecting it in there.

[17:40:04] HARLOW: Maria, to you?

CARDONA: Well, I think we can put all of this into a category of Donald Trump doesn't know what he's talking about, except for he is making sure that his base is all riled up. Now, I will say that, you know, in terms of whether there's any truth to what he says and whether this needs to be discussed, yes, let's discuss it. But the problem with what Donald Trump says is that he never follows it up with any real either strategy or explanation of why he's saying what he's saying. And this is somebody who has said that he wants to build a wall with Mexico and make Mexico pay for it. That he wants to tear up trade deals. That he wants to go into Syria, and to ISIS and take their oil.

And so, again, you know, what he has said in the past really doesn't let us take him seriously in the future especially when he says that he takes his advice from the morning shows. So I just --

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: To be fair here, he has named some of his military advisers.

SETMEYER: But this is not his area of expertise. OK? So if he wasn't for talking foreign policy, that's where -- I know. And this is where someone like Marco Rubio will outshine him and really be exhibiting more presidential knowledge quality on this issue. For some people, very simplistically, yes, but like Peter also said, it's very complex. So let's have that conversation. I wouldd be very interested to see in a debate each one of those candidates get up there and explain why we did or didn't do something, or why it was or wasn't a failure.

CARDONA: Including Donald Trump, right?

BEINART: What is interesting about Trump is saying, all the Republican candidates except Rand Paul are saying we need to be more interventionist in the Middle East. And I think actually most Republicans out there in the country probably agree with Donald Trump that our intervention have got us into trouble and that they rather have. And that's why I think it's a useful debate to have being inside.

Marco Rubio knows a lot more about specifics. But I don't think his actual general overall perspective is necessarily one shared even by most people in his own party.

SETMEYER: I think it just explained that people would understand why. We can't have Russia running around crazy. The problems that are going on now, you need to have real solutions. We can't re-prosecute what happened ten years ago.

HARLOW: We need much more than five minutes for this conversation. And I hope they do have that conversation in the next Republican debate at length.

Thank you, all. Peter, Tara, Maria. Appreciate it.

The Democratic presidential debate, you will hear from them on foreign policy and much, much more. All the candidates on one stage. CNN's Facebook democratic debate Tuesday October 13th, 9:00 p.m. eastern only right here. Don't miss it. We're back in a moment.

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[17:46:21] HARLOW: The humanitarian organization doctors without borders is calling the suspected U.S. bombing of a hospital in Afghanistan a war crime. It happened after nearly a week of fierce fighting between Taliban and Afghan forces. What we know at this point, at least 22 people including three children were killed. The rights group is now demanding a full and independent investigation.

CNN's Nic Robertson reports.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy, what we're hearing here in Kabul are positions that seem to be becoming more opposed. What we're hearing from NATO is they now have an assessment of what happened that night. 2:15 a.m. in the morning. U.S. strike called in support of U.S. Special Forces on the ground to advising and assisting Afghan government forces. U.S. forces, they say, coming under direct fire from Taliban. Their strike was called in in close proximity to the doctors without borders hospital.

We're also hearing from NATO saying that they will now have a preliminary multinational investigation that should have results within several days, a casualty assessment team they call it. That is as well as the U.S. military investigation. The formal investigation that will take period over a longer time.

Doctors without borders, however, have issued a new statement very, very strongly worded. They are saying on the presumption, on the presumption that a war crime has been committed, they demand that there must be an independent and transparent inquiry. They say it is not enough that parties who were involved in the action that night should be part of the investigation. They want an independent, international investigation into what happened.

Doctors without borders also saying that their hospital essentially closed. Medical personnel evacuated in some cases, to Kabul. Some of their personnel there witnessed horrific scenes at the hospital. Patients burning in their beds because they couldn't get out. President Obama offered his sympathies in support to the victims and their families and backing the U.S. military investigation, a formal investigation that will take place over a longer period of time - Poppy.

HARLOW: No. But an absolute tragedy for those aid workers and those in that hospital.

Nic Robertson, thank you for the reporting for us from Afghanistan tonight.

Next, to politics, and I want to know which message resonates with you the most. Make America great again or make America fair again? New York City major Bill de Blasio takes on Donald Trump's slogan, ahead.

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[17:52:43] HARLOW: New York City mayor Bill de Blasio, weighing in on the race for the White House. I sat down with him this week to talk about the front runners on both sides of the aisle, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

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HARLOW: You were Hillary Clinton's campaign manager for her 2000 senate race. You said you have quote "tremendous respect for her," but you have not come out and endorsed her. Why?

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D), NEW YORK: Because I want to see the vision fleshed out. I think when she announced her candidacy I thought she was arguably most capable and experienced to run for the office. And I said we are facing a profound economic crisis and a kind of inequality we haven't never seen before. We need assess solution. To her great credit she has, with each passing week, put more meat on the bone.

HARLOW: Does she getting you closer to her?

DE BLASIO: Well, I think she is getting a lot of Democrats closer because she is speaking to the issues at hand. But the point is there are still some outstanding issues that I for one need to see and a lot of people need to see more on. But this is why we have these debates,

HARLOW: Is there one thing she can say to you?

DE BLASIO: A couple of issues that I think need to be addressed more clearly in the context is the $15 minimum wage and obviously the trade issue which is a very, very important one for the future of the country. I'm very pleased at what I have seen. Because the Democratic candidates are talking about income equality constantly.

HARLOW: Secretary, to you. Hillary Clinton's camp I know called you, has reached out to you. Big issue on this election on both sides is income inequality. What did they ask you? What did you tell them policy-wise?

ROBERT REICH, FORMER LABOR SECRETARY: Well, those are unfortunately confidential communications. If Jeb Bush or Donald Trump or anybody called me I would say the same thing. Not only do you have to invest in infrastructure and education and understand not all government spending is the same. Government social insurance spending is very different from a government investment spending. But you also do have to raise the minimum wage, expand earned income tax credits and get big money out of politics.

DE BLASIO: Poppy, it is quite obvious that if you want to get an idea across America you need to put on a hat. So, I want you to - you can examine this.

HARLOW: You made hat?

DE BLASIO: We made hats.

HARLOW: Are you focusing too much on Donald Trump?

DE BLASIO: I think this hat says it all. I think it just, you know, we realize we can get it to four words and put it on a hat.

HARLOW: You little (INAUDIBLE) in Trump's poll numbers? Do you think it is all in the hat?

DE BLASIO: I think the hat may be the magic piece. And now that we are promoting a progressive agenda with the hat. Let's see where it goes.

[17:55:07] HARLOW: On that note, Donald Trump came forward with his tax proposal this week. Part of it is that he wants to have people that make under $25,000 a year not pay any tax. He also wants to see the top tax bracket come down to 25 percent. What do you make of the plan?

DE BLASIO: The one part I like and I give him credit for is calling for closing of carried interest loop hole because I think his voice actually matters on this. But the rest of the plan is very suspect. And it looks to me like a plan that continues to reward wealth instead of work. It certainly looks like a plan where wealthy Americans do better, actually pay less taxes.

HARLOW: Yes. But it means more Americans won't be paying any tax.

DE BLASIO: Look. We certainly need to figure out how to reach people right now, for example, through the earned income tax credit in a more comprehensive manner. But if the sum total of his plan is that wealthy play less, it would be to goes to the point. You raised the revenue will not be there for the kind of investors we need from more just in effect (INAUDIBLE).

HARLOW: He says it will. He says he will bring the jobs back from Mexico and China and Japan. And I will make sure that happens and we will have enough revenue.

REICH: The Trump plan is completely and utterly bogus. It provides such a big tax cut for people at the top but there is a larger question here. Not only do you not know where the revenues are coming from, but also it does nothing to deal with inequality over the long term. We have a structural problem in America.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Much more from mayor de Blasio and Labor secretary Robert Reich in the next hour on income inequality in this country.

But coming up at the top of the hour, the catastrophic flooding in the Carolinas. We will take you live to the flood zone, the pictures are just hard to imagine.

First though, a preview of tonight's Anthony Bourdain.

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ANTHONY BOURDAIN, CNN HOST, PARTS UNKNOWN: So let's get right to it.

Among most popular questions asked of me, what is the most under rated destinations you is been to? Undiscovered secrets, that sort of thing. Marseille in France. It is a glorious stew of Mediterranean madness.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So close to the cliff.

BOURDAIN: Easily the most interesting, under visited, under exploited place I have been in a really long time.

I'm stunned and shocked that it took so long to get here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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