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Historic, Deadly Flooding in South Carolina; Debris Found in Search for Missing Ship; Shooting Survivor's Mother Speaks Out; GOP Battle To Be Next House Speaker. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired October 05, 2015 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00] CAMEROTA: I couldn't understand anything you were saying.

CUOMO: They all came together and helped these people get to the wedding even though they're dealing with all that. And that's why South Carolina will rise again.

CAMEROTA: There you go.

PEREIRA: Good for them.

CAMEROTA: Time now for "NEWSROOM" with Ana Cabrera in for Carol Costello.

Good morning, Ana.

PEREIRA: Hey, Ana.

ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. Well, those bride -- that bride and groom has a story that will live on and on and on, right?

COOPER: So true.

CABRERA: Good one. All right. Thanks so much.

NEWSROOM starts now.

CUOMO: Reminds me of a rap song.

CABRERA: Good morning, and thanks so much for waking up with us on this Monday. I'm Ana Cabrera in for Carol Costello. Good to have you with us. Let's get right to what's happening in the southeast right now.

The death toll rising in South Carolina as historic flooding is now being blamed for at least seven deaths. Governor Nikki Haley calling this a thousand year event. Entire roads swept away, cars, too. And this morning, a stark warning from officials, stay home. Emergency responders have made hundreds of water rescues. Crews in Columbia going door to door right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MAYOR STEPHEN BENJAMIN, COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA: We're going to be knocking doors. As we check doors, we're going to be marking them with an orange X. Just making sure that we've crossed every T and dotted every I in trying to preserve human life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Simply stunning rain totals. And you take a look at this, two feet falling in Mount Pleasant in just a couple of days. 18 inches in Charleston. And near Columbia, the state capital, 20 plus inches of rain recorded there.

Nick Valencia is joining us now. Nick, some residents have lost everything.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Ana, even those who have not lost everything are suffering through this storm. As you mentioned, large portions of Columbia are without usable drinking water. And if you take a look all across the state, more than 21,000 people are without power, as this storm, which continues to hover over the state, hammering South Carolina.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VALENCIA (voice-over): A state of emergency underway in multiple states along the East Coast this morning. Flood watches in effect from Georgia to Delaware as a deadly and historic amount of rain bears down on parts of South Carolina.

GOV. NIKKI HALEY (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: We haven't seen this level of rain in the low country in a thousand years.

VALENCIA: Search and rescue operations will continue this morning in Columbia, the capital pummeled by its wettest day on record. Parts of the coast receiving up to 24 inches of rain in 24 hours, forcing more than 750 motorists to call for help Sunday, trapped by the raging waters.

CHIEF SKIP HOLBROOK, COLUMBIA POLICE DEPARTMENT: Our concentration right now, obviously, is emergency and rescue.

VALENCIA: Officials deploying more than 600 National Guard members. As local authorities say, they've carried out more than 140 water rescues in one county alone.

By air, the Coast Guard rescuing a mother and her 15-month-old child from their flooded home. By boat, officials rescuing this man after he was found clinging to a tree after driving through a road barricade.

MACK REED, GEORGETOWN COUNTY EMS CHIEF: This guy could have lost his life. Luckily, we were able to get manpower down here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, he just made a mistake.

VALENCIA: Another motorist doing exactly what officials say not to do -- try and drive through the deluge. Moments later, the truck's bed is the only thing above water as a tree stops the vehicle from continuing to drift downstream.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have lost everything.

VALENCIA: For many, their cars left submerged.

MAYOR STEVE BENJAMIN, COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA: We continue to go through this. It's unlike anything any of us has ever seen.

VALENCIA: Officials closing all highways across the city as roadways collapse and dams were breached. The historic rain overflowing lakes and rivers across Georgetown.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The lake is all the way past the tree line.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VALENCIA (voice-over): And if you look at the weather models, it appears as if there is no relief in sight. Here at his hydroelectric plant in Columbia, South Carolina, the river behind me is 15 feet, at least 15 feet higher than normal. The state in a desperate and dire situation -- Ana.

CABRERA: Those pictures are unbelievable. Nick Valencia, stay safe. Thank you so much.

Storm chaser Brett Adair has been following this storm. He is in Columbia right now, as well.

And Brett, I just want to get your take on what you've been seeing firsthand this morning.

BRETT ADAIR, STORM CHASER, LIVESTORMNOW.COM: Ana, things have -- they're just unbelievable here. We've been on the Carolina coastline for the last four days and what we've seen here in Columbia is just devastating. We haven't seen anything any worse anywhere else.

CABRERA: You took some video of that white pickup truck we're showing on our screen right now getting swept away. Gives you a sense of how deep that water is. What was going through your mind?

ADAIR: Well, the guy was just very lucky. We were doing a shot for Weather Nation, and we stopped and ended up calling 911 when we saw the guy go through the barricades and get swept downstream.

[09:05:05] So if we hadn't been on scene initially, it could have taken several more minutes for emergency personnel to get there. And by the time that the Good Samaritan knocked the back window out of the truck, the water was already up to his nostrils and he was already ingesting water so he was very close to drowning.

CABRERA: My gosh. And how do you find a spot that you know is safe when you're out there chasing these storms?

ADAIR: Honestly we scout the area out a little bit so we came in a little early. And when it comes to flash flooding, we're not going to go in the water. That was some swift-moving current so we just kind of stationed and set up on the outside of the moving water in an area we were not blocking traffic and we weren't in the way of law enforcement or emergency management officials. And what we saw unfold, we just couldn't believe.

CABRERA: No kidding. Well, we do hope you stay safe. And thanks for being our eyes and ears out there. Keep those videos coming. It really does help us put some perspective for those who aren't in that region.

Brett Adair, reporting. Thank you.

Let's bring in meteorologist Chad Myers.

And, Chad, we heard Nick Valencia say the rain is still falling. The rivers haven't crested yet. When can we expect this to end?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, some of the rivers may crest, you know, two weeks from now to be really honest. There's a lot of water up the hills, up into the Piedmont, what we call upstate in South Carolina. Now the rain today has moved into North Carolina, Wilmington and the like but the flood warnings are all the way from Charleston now, flash flood warning all the way from Charleston all the way up to Wilmington and even points north from there.

So, I mean, here's where we go for today. The rain moves a little bit farther to the north. We get a little bit of a break here across parts of the Carolinas today. Zoom in there and show you that's just going to be cloud cover. And the low is going to move to the northeast so the rain will eventually move to the northeast, and everyone across the southeast will dry out. Maybe an inch or two of rain today, but that will be it.

The issue is that we already have so much rainfall on the ground. There's Joaquin. It moved over very close to Bermuda. But attached to a second low out here, not really even that tropical, all the tropical moisture went around and around and around, and continued to pour into South Carolina the entire weekend. And that's how we got such high rainfall numbers because the rain numbers, it was like a garden hose that just kept pouring on shore in one spot, and that one spot was South Carolina.

We'll keep watching North Carolina as well today -- Ana.

CABRERA: All right, Chad Myers, thanks for staying on top of it.

We do expect an update from the Coast Guard next hour on the search for that missing cargo ship, El Faro. The ship carrying 33 people, including 28 Americans, disappeared near the Bahamas last Thursday, just as Hurricane Joaquin passed over. It was en route to Puerto Rico. Search crews say they have discovered a 225-square mile debris field, including life jackets, containers. They've seen an oil sheen. But they still can't be sure that it came from El faro.

CNN's Alexandra Field is joining me with the latest on the search effort. Are they still calling this a search and rescue mission, Alexandra?

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely, Ana. And you frankly have so many families who are counting on that because this is a very large search area. You've got more than 70,000 miles that have been searched in the Caribbean sea. And really you've got searchers throwing every possible available asset at this.

You've got the Coast Guard, the Air Force, the Navy, all joining forces, trying to locate the ship that went missing while it was making what should have been a pretty routine trip from Jacksonville on down to Puerto Rico.

Again, the last contact coming on Thursday, as Joaquin was bearing down over the Bahamas. At that point, it was believed that the ship was about 35 nautical miles northeast of the Bahamas. So that's the area that you've had searchers focusing on. But they did get two really major breaks just yesterday. The Coast Guard came out last night, announcing that they had uncovered this 225-square mile debris field with Styrofoam, wood, cargo.

That announcement came a few hours after an oil sheen was discovered along with some life jackets and containers. You've got the owner of this ship, El Faro, saying that the container had come from that ship. The Coast Guard not confirming that at this point, but a lot of these families waiting for more information. They knew that their loved ones were headed into the path of the storm. In fact, we have one mother who we're hearing from who is reading aloud from the last e- mail that she received from her daughter who is on board El Faro.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAURIE BOBILLOT, DAUGHTER ON BOARD EL FARO: Not sure if you've been following the weather at all, but there is a hurricane out here. And we are heading straight into it. Category 3. Last we checked, winds are super bad and season not great. Love to everyone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FIELD: We know this has to be an excruciating wait, a painful wait for all of these families. Again 33 people on board the ship, 28 of them Americans, five Polish nationals. And some of our CNN affiliates are reporting that at least four of these people have ties to Maine. We know a lot of them have ties to the Jacksonville area where the ship is based.

Again, Ana, we're waiting for more information next hour from the Coast Guard.

[09:10:09] CABRERA: All right. Thanks for the update, Alexandra Field.

The campus of Umpqua Community College reopens this morning for the first time following last week's deadly mass shooting. Classes will not be held, though, at all this week. Counseling services will be available. And CNN's Dan Simon spoke exclusively with the mother of one survivor

who says her son was ordered by the gunman to sit in the back of the classroom. He was given a package to deliver to police. And he was forced to sit and watch as his friends and classmates were executed one by one.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): There were people being shot around him.

SUMMER SMITH, MOTHER OF SHOOTING SURVIVOR: Yes.

SIMON: And at a certain point, the shooter singles out him.

SMITH: Yes.

SIMON: Is that correct?

SMITH: 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. 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 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)

CABRERA: CNN also spoke to the gunman --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IAN MERCER, GUNMAN'S FATHER: He's my son, you know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: What he thinks is to blame for the massacre -- guns. We will bring you his interview in about 20 minutes.

And still to come right here on CNN, faceoff on Capitol Hill. And this battle is between Republicans. But can the party fix the rift?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [09:16:17] CABRERA: For Republicans, a critical election lies ahead. But this has nothing to do with the White House. I'm talking about the race to be the next speaker of the House. Who is going to take the reins from John Boehner?

Now, front runner, current House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, is getting some competition from Jason Chaffetz. Chaffetz is viewed as a long shot, but it hasn't stopped him from throwing his hat into the ring.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JASON CHAFFETZ (R), UTAH: You don't just give an automatic promotion to the existing leadership team. That doesn't signal change. I think they want a fresh face and a fresh new person who is actually there at the leadership table. And the speaker's role, you've got to speak, you've got to able to articulate the Republican message to the American people and take that fight to the president, but you also have to bridge internally. And that's where we've got some conflict going on right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: CNN senior political reporter Manu Raju is joining me now.

Manu, you wrote a piece for CNN.com, saying this race could turn ugly. Explain.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, this is a really -- we're headed into unchartered territory on the House floor and largely because, right now, no candidate has what the -- is the critical vote threshold, which is 218 votes, to become House speaker.

Now, I've spoken to officials close to Kevin McCarthy, who is the leading candidate in the race. And he has around 200 votes and making him by and away the favorite in this race.

But Jason Chaffetz has been saying both publicly and privately that there are about 50 votes or so that are people who will never vote for McCarthy. So, he's trying to assert himself in a way to prevent Kevin McCarthy from getting to the 218 vote threshold. That is what you need to become House speaker. And things are going to get pretty contentious behind the scenes this week, when we head into the critical Thursday meeting in which Republicans have to nominate who they want to be the next speaker. And it's going to come down to these two men.

And one of the things that Jason Chaffetz has been talking about is that he would be a better communicator for his party, seizing on the gaffe that McCarthy made last week, in suggesting the Benghazi oversight committee was a political committee that was meant to tarnish Hillary Clinton. Kevin McCarthy got bashed for that by Republicans and Chaffetz has seized on that.

And here's what he said yesterday when talking to some reporters just after that FOX News. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHAFFETZ: Look, I want to have a speaker who can actually speak and make the case to the American people. But, again, the major impetus, the major understanding, has to be that Kevin McCarthy can't get 218 votes on the floor of the House. That's the fundamental problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Now, the big question for Jason Chaffetz after this Thursday leadership election vote, what he will do? Because he's not going to have enough support within the Republican conference to nominate him for speaker.

So, assuming that he does not have enough support, does he get behind Kevin McCarthy? Does he actively push Kevin McCarthy to get over the threshold in the act of uniting his party, or does he try to make some play on the House floor to essentially get McCarthy out of the running and try to position himself as the unity candidate?

So, all eyes are going to be on these two men as we head into this critical and uncertain future for the Republican Party in the leadership in the House -- Ana.

CABRERA: Very quickly, I want to follow up with what happens if neither of these guys get the 218 point vote threshold?

RAJU: Well, it's going to be really an unpredictable situation.

[09:20:00] What we're probably going to see is there will be multiple bouts to choose the next speaker of the House. But if we keep getting to a situation where no one gets to that point, there are probably going to have to be some deal cutting on the floor, to figure out some sort of leadership structure that could work.

We're really in a place that we haven't seen before, and, of course, all spawned by the very sudden resignation announcement by John Boehner, who is going to leave that post on October 30th. We're watching around that October 30th date for that floor fight to actually happen.

CABRERA: Yes, the clock ticking, just a few more weeks. Manu Raju, thanks so much.

I want to bring in two people who know a lot about the inner workings of Congress. Tara Setmayer. She's a CNN political commentator and the former communications director for Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher. Also with us, Amanda Carpenter, a CNN political commentator and former communications director for Republican Senator Ted Cruz.

All right, ladies, lots to talk about. Let's start with this House speaker race.

I want to start with you, Tara. This fight, exposing the ongoing rift within the party, but we also heard Jason Chaffetz says there needs to be someone to bridge the gap that is internal among the GOP. Is the rift deeper than we first thought?

TARA SETMAYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't think so. This isn't new. I mean, we know that this rift has been going on for several years now under Boehner's leadership. I mean, John Boehner squeaked by in the leadership elections last January.

So, this has been going on. I think what people thought, perhaps, was that we -- the Republicans would be able to get through this so that they could be the leadership slate could be settled going into the next big battles coming up, with the debt ceiling, with the budget coming up. So, there are major fights upcoming on the floor, and the Republicans didn't want to have this battle happening internally going into those things in a weakened position dealing with the president.

Now, what I find interesting about this whole thing with Jason Chaffetz is that even during his FOX News interview, you could hear he wasn't necessarily in this to win it, per se, because he said that he will get behind whoever the speaker, whoever that may be if it's not him. That tells me that what he's doing here is he's bringing up the frustration and the very valid frustrations of the conservative Tea Party out wings of the Republicans who are sick and tired of our leadership rolling over and not fighting for what the American people sent them to Congress to do.

So, he's bringing up these points, and he is a very good communicator in that respect. Saying, listen, we're not going to just sit back and allow this. Kevin McCarthy has made some mistakes. Is he necessarily the best guy? I don't think so. But that's why I'm throwing my hat in the ring, so I can bring up the areas and aspects of the conservative side that people are frustrated with and this is what we're going to do, because there hasn't been a second ballot vote since 1923. So, it's been a long time.

CABRERA: Let's give Amanda a chance to respond here too.

I know you're laughing at this.

AMANDA CARPENTER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Well, I just got to say, God bless Jason Chaffetz for getting into the race to be a spoiler candidate. The comments that Kevin McCarthy made about Hillary Clinton and the Benghazi committee are disastrous. And anyone thinking of giving him the bully pulpit, to be speaker of the House, and have that incredible platform when he messed up the message in his first trial for the job, should really rethink their position.

Tara is right, Jason Chaffetz is great at messaging. Since he came to the House in 2008, he's been known for running his government reform committee well. He has a great shtick. He's sleeping in the House to save money. He's a good guy and he's really stepped up to the plate when other people didn't. We had other folks like Paul Ryan declined to get in it. Four years ago, he was campaigning to be vice president.

(CROSSTALK)

CABRERA: So, Amanda, do you think Jason Chaffetz has a chance to become the next speaker?

CARPENTER: Well, he certainly can be a spoiler candidate. We can force the speaker's race into having a robust election where people compete because Republicans believe in competing, and not just giving someone proxy as the next, you know, Boehner light, which Kevin McCarthy would be.

So, if Jason Chaffetz is successful in making this last a couple weeks, getting McCarthy out of the race, that is a win in itself.

CABRERA: I wanted to quick talk about the new poll we're seeing in the Republican race for president, showing Trump still leading in both Iowa and New Hampshire. The first voting states, but the lead is shrinking. In Iowa, trump lost five points. In New Hampshire, he's down seven points, all this in the last month.

Signs he's losing his appeal, Tara?

SETMAYER: I don't know necessarily that he's losing his appeal. I think that he's peaked. Where else is he going to go now?

People, I think, are now, as we get further into the presidential election campaign season and start talking about substance and what's really going on in the real world, it's forcing Trump now to have to come out with policy positions, and people really have to give him a good hard look and say, is this guy capable of governing? Is he going to be able to actually do these things and does he know, instead of just speaking.

So, as you see that happening, you know, Trump has been on a steady decline since August, which is where his peak support was.

CARPENTER: Yes.

[09:25:04] SETMAYER: And it's been on a steady, steady decline. And other people like Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, they've been gaining because people aren't taking another look at them because of strong debate performances. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues.

CARPENTER: One thing that should concern -- I've got to say, one thing that should concern everyone is that the lead that Donald Trump has really maintained in the race since he entered in July. Before that, Jeb Bush was the front runner. Since Trump has been in, he's been at the top of the ticket.

This time in the last 2012 cycle, we saw more movement. We saw Newt Gingrich at the top. Herman Cain at the top. Mitt Romney, Rick Perry. But we don't see that now.

And the fact that Donald Trump is between 20 percent and 30 percent in a divided field, he's cruising very well right now. That should concern a lot of folks in the GOP.

CABRERA: We don't have much time, but why should that be concerning? If you're a Trump, obviously he has a lot of supporters and backers, they're hearing you say, that's concerning, but why?

CARPENTER: Well, he's only 30 percent of the vote, at that. That means 7 in 10 voters are not supporting Trump. I don't see that he can draw people supporting Bush or other people in the field. The Trump supporters are unto themselves. They might go for another outsider candidate but I don't see him unifying the field down the road.

CABRERA: All right. We have to leave there ladies.

Amanda Carpenter, Tara Setmayer --

(CROSSTALK)

SETMAYER: As we get closer to pulling the lever --

CABRERA: We have to go. Thank you both for offering your opinions and your expertise.

And still to come, the Oregon shooter's dad speaking out. What he says is to blame for the deadly attack.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)