Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Egypt Air Flight 804 Debris Is Discovered; French Interior Ministry Doing Its Own Investigating and Security Tightening; Clinton says Trump is Not Qualified To Be President. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired May 20, 2016 - 10:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:32:20]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, I'm John Berman in for Carol today. A big break for investigators, and heartbreak for the families of all those onboard. Egyptian military says it has found debris from Egypt Air flight 804. This debris includes human remains and plane wreckage.

CNN's Atika Shubert has more on the 66 people onboard that flight. Atika is in Paris at Charles de Gaulle Airport for us this morning. Atika, what are you learning?

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well we're learning more about all the people aboard. Of course, there were 66 people onboard, 56 of them passengers, 3 were children. We know a little bit more, as well, about the pilot and co-pilot. The pilot was Mohammad (Supair) and he had 6,000 flying miles in the A320. And he's described as being very well trained, very disciplined.

His copilot, Mohammad Mamdouh, had about 2,000 miles as well on the same plane. So very experienced crew. As for the passengers onboard, we have now got confirmation from family and government sources, Ahmed Halal was one of those onboard. He was actually working in front -- (AUDIO BREAK)

BERMAN: All right, we appear to have lost Atika Shubert. Atika's at Charles de Gaulle right now talking about the 66 souls onboard that flight -- Egypt Air flight 804 that took off from Paris headed to Cairo and now, we understand, crashed into the Mediterranean. I believe we have Atika back, Atika?

SHUBERT: I got you. But my (IAP) just dropped.

BERMAN: All right, we are -- we will reestablish Atika -- communication with Atika when we can. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:38:45]

BERMAN: All right, debris from flight 804 is now being recovered. Two seats, suitcase or suitcases, as well as human remains being found in the Mediterranean. This from Egyptian officials as well as Greek officials involved with this search. This could be key in accelerating the investigation into what caused this crash. Is there a connection to terrorism at this point? Joining me now from Washington, CNN Justice Correspondent, Evan Perez. Evan, obviously trying to trace who had access to this plane will be a key part of this investigation.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John. This is a natural place for investigators to begin. We've known for some time -- and certainly national security officials here and in Europe have known -- that this so-called insider threat is a major, major hole in our security system and how we secure the international aviation system.

James Woolsey, the former CIA Director, was on NEW DAY this morning. And he had touched on this. Take a listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES WOOLSEY, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: The whole focus seems to have been from avoiding terrorist attacks on TSA. And let's add more TSA people standing around as we walk through the magnetic detectors. That strikes me as perhaps not front and center of the things one needs to do. The hard thing about -- in many aspects of law enforcement and intelligence -- is that you simply have to get into people's backgrounds.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREZ: And John, the French authorities say that there are about 85,000 people who have access to secure areas of this airport where this flight took off from. And they've been doing some work in the last few months to try to review the backgrounds of some of those people. To make sure that people who have extremist backgrounds aren't able to access secure areas. So we'll see what this turned up in another review that they're going to be doing as a result of this crash.

BERMAN: All right, Evan Perez in Washington, thanks so much. Joining me now, Alan Diehl, former Accident Investigator for the NTSB, FAA, and Air Force. And Michael Weiss, CNN Contributor and co-author of "Isis: Inside the Army of Terror." Gentlemen, welcome to you both. You know, Michael, as we sit here today more than 36 hours after, still no claim of responsibility. Still no official claim of responsibility. You have insight into that.

MICHAEL WEISS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well look, it's bizarre. I've said before, ISIS tends to claim credit for things they haven't done. And you know, after metrojet it took about four hours for them to say, "Yeah, we did it." And there was some confusion as to how they did it. Some speculation it might have been a missile. And now, according to their propaganda and investigations that have taken place, we know it was a soda can bomb installed into the fuel line of that airliner.

Look, I don't know. It could well be a different organization, it could be Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has been working quite assiduously to learn how to infiltrate these international airports and the security checkpoints at global transportation hubs. And build bombs that can take down airliners. You'll recall when the U.S. went to war in Syria, purportedly just against ISIS, we were also bombing the Corazon Group. Which was an affiliate of Al Qaeda that came over from Central Asia.

Well these guys, the reason we went after them is, they were plotting to smuggle chemically laden clothing. Shirts that could be detonated, ignite onboard commercial airliners to do exactly what may have happened to this plane. But look, there's another phenomenon here as well. I keep talking about the Europeanization of ISIS, right? Their security structure's increasingly being led and commanded by native sons of Europe. The head of the Amn al-Kharji, their foreign intel branch, is a French guy he was born in Paris, educated in France. His wife and two kids are all French citizens. They came over to Syria, he presented the plan for the Paris attacks to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his promotion was to lead what is essentially ISIS's CIA.

Now that is terrifying. And it also is unprecedented in this history of this organization. It has always been Arab-born men leading the upper echelons of what was known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq, now ISIS. That is beginning to change and with that change will come people inside the West not making the migration over to the so-called caliphate, but being recruited and radicalized in their home cities.

Now when we talk about, who are the extremists that might have been working at Charles de Gaulle? They might not have been extremists when they got hired for that job. This has been a 4 to 5 year civil war in Syria. It has brainwashed and changed the outlook of so many people, including non-Muslims, frankly. Many of whom are driven into the ISIS fold just because they're attracted to the ultra violence and the geopolitical breakdown of the Middle East, so ...

[10:43:15]

BERMAN: And Alan, and Alan Diehl, we heard from CIA Director, former CIA Director, James Woolsey before. He of course -- and we don't believe he has any evidence that we don't have, but -- he thinks, or speculates, that this could be an inside job. Inside one of the airports involved here which Michael was just talking about. Listen to what Woolsey said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WOOLSEY: I think on -- it's still a very high probability that it is terrorist. And a pretty high probability that it is an inside job in the sense that something got put in on the ground. And it could have been soft drink size, it doesn't have to be big if it's put in the right place.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Uh-huh.

WOOLSEY: So the search for trying to find out what airline employees, maintenance workers and so forth, might be from the Mideast, which is what the French are going through right now. Maybe something that we're going to have to do something like that here in this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So Alan Diehl, tell me about the levels of security involved to keep that from happening. You know, not just in Paris at Charles de Gaulle, but here in the United States.

ALAN DIEHL, AVIATION SECURITY CONSULTANT: Well obviously Michael and (Vistetter) is much more -- are much more expert at that than I am. But we know that there's human intelligence, electronic intelligence, listening for chatter. And also the preventive measures they have -- looking at backgrounds of people boarding the aircraft, more sniffer dogs. I don't know if there were a lot of those at Paris, but there are multiple levels -- and of course, we know the Israelis are the experts at this and we may want to visit with them to learn more about what we should be doing here in the West.

BERMAN: Alan, we're getting a first word of the pieces, the debris being found right now in the Mediterranean. Two seats, a suitcase or suitcases, human remains. So you've been involved in these investigations, what do these initial findings tell you?

DIEHL: Well of course, the good news is they're finding the debris and the remains. Bad news is it looks like this may have broken up. If the suitcases came from the cargo compartment -- a high likelihood -- and of course, obviously the seats were in the passenger compartment, we may have a very disrupted wreckage scene on the bottom. There's also another possibility that'll -- that could complicate this. If the aircraft broke up at altitude, we know about the -- 15,000 feet seems to be where they lost the electronic signals -- those two black boxes, recorders, are in the tail of the aircraft. And if that came off, we may have multiple debris fields.

And of course the pingers are where the black boxes are. So we may be able to recover the tail section with the black boxes more quickly. But we'll still have to recover the rest of the wreckage to know if, in fact, it was either mechanical or terrorism. The black boxes will give us a large clue of that, of course. And they can hear explosives -- the recorder -- voice recorder can actually pick up explosive -- supersonic explosive waves. So good news and bad news, John.

BERMAN: Yes well at least they now have a starting point, having recovered at least the initial few pieces of debris and they can track back from there. Alan Diehl and Michael Weiss, thanks so much guys for being with us, appreciate it. Up next, flight 804 took off from Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris before crashing into the Mediterranean. Now the French Interior Ministry says it is time to reinforce airport security.

[10:46:50]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:50:45]

BERMAN: In the wake of the crash of Egypt Air flight 804, security procedures and personnel at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris are under heavy scrutiny. CNN's Jim Bitterman just spoke with an official at the French Interior Ministry. Jim joins me now with more. Jim, what are they saying?

JIM BITTERMANNN, CNN SENIOR EUROPEAN CORRESPONDENT: Well John, they're saying basically that they are not going to wait around for the results of the investigation that's going on -- or at least started, now that they've found some debris from the flight. They're not going to wait around until some cause has been established. They're going to go through the security procedures and the personnel at the airport that were in contact -- the people that were in contact with the flight before it took off. Just to make sure that the problem was not one of terrorists planting some kind of a bomb while the plane was here in Paris.

There are 86,000 employees at the airport. Last year they lifted 85 passes, security passes, of some of those employees because they felt they were security risks. And it's a kind of thing they've been concerned about for some time. So the spokesman for the Interior Ministry told us a little bit earlier in the day that this is just a precaution that they're taking. But they are going through all the records and talking to as many people as possible right now. Even before there's any determination of what was the cause of the crash. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SPOKESMAN, INTERIOR MINISTRY, FRANCE (via translator): Of course we must take a maximum amount of precautionary measures straight away. Without even waiting for the conclusions of the international investigation, and without even being sure of what actually happened. We can still conduct other investigations and continue to reinforce security measures on our side. This is not only a necessity but a principle of precautionary measures. This is not a judgment nor an assumption there was a failure. But it's a way to continue, as we always have done, to make sure our citizens are safe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BITTERMANN: And John, one of the things I should say is the French are really concerned about this image that's being generated by the idea that the airport might have been responsible for the crash of that plane. Because of the fact they've got so many big sporting events coming up here, including the Euro Cup and the Tour de France, and others. And if there's still a cloud hanging over the airport and its security procedures when these events take place, it could drive away spectators and tourists. John?

BERMAN: That's why they're trying to get out ahead of the investigation into this crash. Jim Bitterman, interesting, thanks so much. Still to come, the war of words between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. It gets even hotter as he strikes back hard at her claim that he isn't fit to be President.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:57:40] BERMAN: Donald Trump is ramping up his outreach to Conservatives. Today he addresses the National Rifle Association. But will Trump, maybe trying to play nice with fellow Republicans, he is showing no sign of backing down from his likely rival in November, Hillary Clinton. CNN's Phil Mattingly joins me now with more. Phil, a lot of attacks going back and forth.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, no question. And no matter what they're talking about, attacking one another, never very far from the surface. But the most interesting thing has been using the response to the downing of the Egyptian aircraft as kind of a window into two diametrically opposing views on foreign policy and national security. Two views that track almost identically with how they want their campaigns to be run.

And it's an interesting thing. Hillary Clinton using this to fit very nicely into her narrative, that Donald Trump is simply not ready to be President. Take a listen to what she told CNN's Chris Cuomo.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I know how hard this job is. And I know that we need steadiness as well as strength and smarts in it. And I have concluded he is not qualified to be President of the United States.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: You don't ...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: And Donald Trump wasting very little time firing back, pointing out that Hillary Clinton's lack of willingness to call this terrorism -- to even really weigh in heavily on the flight before investigators come to conclusions -- shows weakness on her part. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And it's a terrible thing. And he -- essentially, shouldn't be running for office, he doesn't have the right to run for office. And I'm saying to myself, "what just happened about 12 hours ago? A plane got blown out of the sky." And if anything -- if anybody thinks it wasn't blown out of the sky, you're 100 percent wrong, folks, OK?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Now John, what this really shows here is really the two views on foreign policy. Donald Trump, willing to be quick to the trigger, get out in front, attack immediately, say what everybody was probably thinking when they saw it. Hillary Clinton sitting back, letting the investigators, the foreign policy hands handle things before she's willing to cast judgment.

Clinton's team thinks this makes her look good. You don't want to get over your skis when it comes to issues of foreign policy. But in a large way, this tracks exactly with how Donald Trump has operated throughout his entire campaign.

BERMAN: This is a fight that both campaigns think they are winning, by the way ...

MATTINGLY: Absolutely, no question about it ...

BERMAN: Very interesting to see. Unusual sometimes, in politics. Phil Mattingly, great to have you here with us, thanks so much.

All right that is all for us today on NEWSROOM. "AT THIS HOUR" with Berman and Bolduan starts now.

[11:00:00]