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More Questions than Answers for EgyptAir Flight 804; Speculation that EgyptAir Flight Targeted by Terrorism; Conflict High Between Sanders and Clinton; Donald Trump on EgyptAir Crash. Aired 12- 1a ET

Aired May 20, 2016 - 00:00   ET

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

[00:00:02] DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR, "CNN TONIGHT": Our live coverage continues now with John Vause and Isha Sesay in Los Angeles. Have a good night.

JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everybody. Our breaking news coverage of the missing EgyptAir jet continues this hour. I'm John Vause, live in Los Angeles.

ISHA SESAY, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Isha Sesay.

VAUSE: Dawn is breaking off the Egyptian coast where the search continues for Flight 804. The airline says debris found earlier did not come from the Airbus A320.

SESAY: A terror attack has not been ruled out but so far officials say they have not found any of the 56 passengers on the terror watch lists. We are coving the story for you across three continents. CNN's Max Foster is in Paris. Our Becky Anderson is in Cairo, Egypt.

VAUSE: And our Aviation Correspondent, Richard Quest joins us now from Beijing. Richard, we will start with you.

24 hours on now, Richard, and there are still some very basic questions which we do not have answers to. Officials don't even seem to know where the debris might be.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT, via satellite: Yes; and, John, you know, when you put it like that, you can sort of raise an eyebrow and say, gosh, how can you not know where the plane is? But that's a wider issue in aviation. To any of us who cover this all the time, this is not at all surprising. 24 hours for a plane that's lost over a large body of

water, such as the Mediterranean Sea, is not unusual.

You go back to the last known position. it's going to take you hours to get assets of planes and ships into the area and you are scouring waters for debris which you can then work backwards. If you are fortunate, you find a large piece of fuselage quite quickly. If you are unlucky, it takes days if not weeks; give you two examples. 447 was in the South Atlantic. It took them four days before they found a major piece. AirAsia, they found little pieces of debris to start with. It took them a lot longer to find the main fuselage.

So I can -- the scandal, if you want to go there, the scandal is that in this day and age we are still having such primitive ways of aircraft tracking and aircraft data, but that's a discussion for another day. At the moment, I expect, fully expect, debris will be spotted, whether it's today, whether it's tomorrow, but in relatively short order.

SESAY: Richard, the outstanding question, of course, is what caused this plane to disappear, for it to fall off radar. What we know is it was at 37,000 feet when it suddenly swerved 90 degrees to the left. We also understand it took a 360-degree turn to the right. Let me ask you this, from your experience, from what you know, what on earth could cause a plane do such a thing?

QUEST: I think first of all we need a certain dose of, not cynicism of skepticism, but just a bit of doubt about the 90-degree turn one way and 360 in the other. We don't know if that was a controlled turn or intended turn or if that's the plane falling out of the sky. Anyway, it's only the Greek authorities, the minister from Greece, who has actually said this. We have no radar data other than that which corroborates it. So let's hold off on that for a second, but wind back further and you are talking about that flight level 370, 37,000 feet, the safest part of the flight in the cruise.

Firstly, air traffic control in Greece speaks to the pilots and everything is fine. 30 minutes later, at the moment when they are supposed to hand over to Egypt, they try and call again. This time, the plane doesn't respond. Two minutes later, it's in Egyptian airspace. Seconds after that, this supposed turn and this fall happens. What do we make of it? These are exceptionally unusual circumstances which lead to one of two conclusions: terrorism or mechanical failure compounded by the way the plane was being flown. There is no other reason that that plane would fall out of the sky.

SESAY: Our Richard Quest sharing his expert analysis there. Richard, will be with us over the next couple of hours. Richard, we appreciate it; do standby for us. Thank you.

Let's turn now to Cairo where the plane was supposed to land and where some of the passenger's families are anxious for answers.

VAUSE: Becky Anderson joins us now, live from Cairo. So, Becky, there does seem to be a great deal of confusion right there in Cairo, especially over the last 24 hours. Statements were put out that were incorrect. There were retractions made, contradictory statements as well. What is exactly going on there with officials? Have they got a handle on this crisis right now?

[00:05:01] BECKY ANDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT via satellite: Well it's difficult to say, isn't it? Much confusion, John, still and still more questions than answers for the families of the 66 passengers, the majority were Egyptian and French. We know they were 30 Egyptian passengers onboard the EgyptAir Flight 804 when it disappeared en route from Charles de Gaulle in Paris to Cairo on Thursday, as I say, with 66 people onboard. Incredibly distressing for the families who gathered here for most of the day yesterday.

This an EgyptAir facility at the airport here. They have been taken over, we are told, to a hotel overnight. but, yes, clearly very, very

distressing for those who want and need information about their families.

Now, the early theory of U.S. government officials is that this was terrorism, this plane was taken down by a bomb but frankly, authorities have no evidence to substantiate that. In fact, one source told CNN that this theory is based on conjecture at this point because the plane, they say, fell out of the sky. There's no better way of saying it. There's no smoking gun as of yet.

Egypt's view is that course is more likely to be terrorism than a technical issue. Quite quick to put that statement out yesterday, within 24 hours. Some might have been surprised by that but there has been much discrepancy from authorities as to the details as they know them. As Richard was pointing out, Greek authorities have the plane disappearing from the radar between 2:29 a.m. on Thursday and 2:37, when they say it swerved 90 degrees to the left and 360 degrees to the right before disappearing.

The Egyptian Aviation Minister gave a whole other timeline of the events as the Egyptians understand them. There were reports, again, as we pointed out, the debris had been found. That search is, of course, still ongoing but the details have been rode back on. They say they haven't found debris, as we understand it, from the plane. So what we do know at this point is that the pilots onboard the flight have been identified as Mohamed Said Shoukair and Mohamed Mamdouh Assem. Both very experienced as far as EgyptAir is concerned.

So it is very early in the morning here, just after 5:00 a.m. We would expect the families to once again congregate here in the hope that they will get more information in the hours to come. John?

VAUSE: Okay; thank you, Becky.

SESAY: Thank you, appreciate it. Thank you; we will check back in with you a short time from now. Let's go to Paris where the flight took off late Wednesday night.

VAUSE: Max Foster joins us now from Charles de Gaulle Airport. So, Max, the French investigators, they have opened up their inquiry into this plane crash. Specifically, what are they looking at here?

MAX FOSTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT via satellite: Well if you consider that it might be terror related then that's very much the focus of things here, if that indeed does transpire to be the cause of this because the air -- the airline obviously started here. So many questions about what sort of access there would have been to the plane. So investigation is focusing on the ground crew, for example, the crew onboard, all the passengers, what screening can be done here if they find out about anyone involved in

that plane and also going through all the footage. What is baffling a lot of people here, and a lot of analysts you see on the local networks here, is that this is effectively regarded as the safest airport in the world right now because after the string of incidents in Paris and also most recently in Brussels, security has been ramped up to the highest level here with patrols, with extra cameras.

All sorts of extra security measures have been put in place here and the whole idea that any device could possibly have got onboard here is extraordinarily, but, of course, always a possibility. So looking ahead to a possible cause being terror-related, the investigations here very much focusing on if that does transpire how on earth could anything have got onboard here.

SESAY: Max, it's worth bringing to our viewers' attention the fact that Charles de Gaulle has had an issue of radicalization in the past. We know that information emerged some time ago which led to a number of personnel having security clearances withdrawn because they were found to be on watch lists. Talk to us about what authorities are saying now. I know you say they have ramped up security there at Charles de Gaulle, but how confidence are they in the processes they have in place?

FOSTER: Well very confident, and the most recent ramping-up was around Brussels. You are referring to after the November Paris attacks where the [00:10:01] authorities here screened all staff at the airport and they took away the air site clearance of 70 employees after searching through lockers, after searching through any sort of public details out there on them. So they were worried enough, and it was in link to radicalization, about 70 staff cleared. They took away all that clearance from them. That was seen as very cautious and this is really playing into the point. The authorities here feel they have done as much as they possibly could, in terms of security, but they're trying to find any loopholes in the security system here which may have allowed some sort of terror-related incident to have happened here, if, indeed, that was the case.

SESAY: If indeed that was the case. Our Max Foster joining us there from Paris. Max, we appreciate it; thank you. Do standby for us.

Our breaking news coverage of the EgyptAir disaster continues with correspondents and experts from around the world after this quick break. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) (WEATHER HEADLINES)

QUEST: We're back with our continuing coverage of the missing Egypt Airliner [00:15:01] 804, which was flying from Paris, Charles de Gaulle, to Cairo International when it went missing over the Mediterranean. From an aviation standpoint the search and rescue will continue. No debris has as yet been spotted. Initial reports of debris being seen in the Mediterranean Sea have proven to be incorrect. There's no evidence, so far, of what brought down the Airbus A-320. Reports of distress signals are proven to be wrong. The allegations of bombs and security violations have yet to be proven. So far, all we really know with any degree of certainty is it that a plane is missing and that searchers from many nations are heading to that part of the world to begin the detailed over water search. Becky Anderson is in Cairo where the plane was headed.

ANDERSON: That's right. The majority of those on the plane, Egyptian and French. 30 Egyptian passengers of the 66 onboard and very frustrating for the family members of those, as so much discrepancy in the last 24 hours on the details of what has happened, where that plane might be. Much confusion still and more questions than answers, as we know at this point.

We know the flight disappeared on route from Charles de Gaulle to Cairo on Thursday. The early theory of U.S. government officials, this was terrorism, that this plane was taken down by a bomb, but, frankly, authorities have no evidence to substantiate that. In fact, one source told CNN this theory is based on conjecture. So for the families who will gather here once again of those Egyptian passengers, at least a glimmer of hope that they may get some better news today, but very frustrating for them with these discrepancies to date. Max?

FOSTER: Becky, the questions being asked here are if this was terror- related, could there have been an incident here? Could Charles de Gaulle have been the weak link in this whole chain? The whole idea of that is extraordinary to the people that live and work here because there have been a series of terror incidents in Paris; and even after Brussels, the security levels here were ramped up to the very highest level. The whole idea that any sort of device could have got onboard here is extraordinary.

We know that the plane came in here. All the passengers came off. They were all checked and they were allowed back on. The whole idea of anyone being left on the plane or any devices left on the plane is extraordinary. Whether or not anything could have got onboard is being investigated right now. So what were those possible weak links? Ground crew, perhaps. Air crew, perhaps. We simply don't know at this point. No updates yet, but certainly that's what is the focus of the French investigations. Back to L.A.

VAUSE: Max, Becky, Richard, thanks to all of you. Now, U.S. officials, as Becky mentioned, are working on this initial theory that a bomb took down the flight but they have no smoking gun as of yet.

SESAY: Yes; CNN's tom foreman has why analysts are looking so carefully at that theory.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here is what we know about this plane: we know that it took off from Paris. It should have been a four-hour flight over here to Egypt. For at least 2 1/2 hours everything seemed to have been perfectly normal, before investigators say there was some sort of wild

gyration or dramatic event and the plane disappeared shortly after it entered Egyptian airspace. So what could make a big plane like this simply disappear from the sky like that?

There are several candidates we look at in every case like this. The first one is the weather. Can the weather bring down a big plane? Absolutely; it's happened before. Is it likely in this case? No; because there were no major weather events in the area at the time. So let's push that to the back.

What about structural damage? There have been instances of wings cracking and tails falling off and engines failing. This plane was just been maintenanced. There no sign of any problem. We head no reports in the early part of the flight of the crew saying they had any kind of problem whatsoever. Could it happen? I guess, yes; but there's no mayday call. It doesn't look so positive that would be a likely candidate.

That's why they are looking so hard at the idea of a deliberate act, the idea that maybe someone on the ground got to this plane or did something to it or maybe somebody onboard the plane could have been involved. Remember, it wasn't full but there were two people up here in the cabin and there were five people back here servicing the passengers. There were three security people; we've marked them in red here.

And then, of course, there are the passengers themselves. That's a lot of people onboard this plane, any one of whom might have done something, even [00:20:01] inadvertently, if they were handed a package, for example. This is why they are looking some much at the idea of a deliberate act because the other possibility, while they must be investigated, right now, just don't seem to be offering many clues.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SESAY: Our thanks to Tom Foreman for that. We're joined by CNN National Security Analyst Julia Kiam, in Boston.

VAUSE: And here in Los Angeles, CNN Law Enforcement Contributor and former FBI Special Agent Steve Morris. Steve, let's start with you. If this was an act of terrorism, where does this investigation begin? Where do you go first?

STEVE MORRIS, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CONTRIBUTOR AND FORMER SPECIAL AGENT, FBI: Paris.

VAUSE: Why?

MORRIS: Well, first of all, you don't have the airplane right now to work on, and if you wait until it's determined whether this is a crash or a deliberate act, you are behind the ball. So what you have to do right now is begin as if it's -- you have determined it's a terrorist act. Where was the last place where an explosive device could have been on that airplane? that is Paris. That's kind of like saying the last person to see the victim alive. So that would be number one, but you are going to have to go everywhere else that plane was, probably in the last 48 hours, which includes Brussels and you're going to have to do -- write a biography on the airplane and every single person, not only who had reason to work on it but who could have had access to the aircraft.

VAUSE: This is an incredible amount of people.

MORRIS: Oh, it's massive.

SESAY: So, Steve, let me ask you this. the U.S. is reported to closely monitor the Mediterranean. What assets do the U.S. have at its disposal to detect whether or not there was, indeed, a blast on this flight?

MOORIS: We have substantial resources in the Med and that is going to be (inaudible) cruisers, aircraft carrier task force groups, I believe, may be in the area. You have people off the coast of Libya. You have all this information. They are looking at aircraft. They are looking at air traffic in case they get attacked by other aircraft.

Here is the problem though: an aircraft breaking up in flight, like we saw with TWA 800, will make a large explosion and a flaming debris field just the same as if a bomb happens. So the fact that they may see an explosion in the air, I will bet you they find there was an explosion in the air even if it was something else because at 15,000 that aircraft disassembled itself.

VAUSE: Okay; let's go to Julia. Julia, this plane was on the ground in Paris for just a few hours. Given what Steve has been saying, also there's reports the plane may not have been fully inspected, does that mean Charles de Gaulle Airport in Europe could be the weak link in all of this?

JULIA KIAM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST, via satellite: Absolutely. you are always going to take the destination -- excuse me, place where the plane took off, as the primary focal point. that's when it is most vulnerable. It's sitting there, people can access it. Luggage is loaded on to it. So you are going to start in Paris. You are obviously going to go to other legs of where this airplane specifically was in last 24 hours and that -- Steve was saying, that's thousands of people, of data points, that could have had access to this airplane. So that's why this investigation is so large.

There are limited -- as we have been saying, there are a limited number of theories of what could have brought the plane down. I'm still agnostic, although I'm willing to admit a lot of the data is pointing to a deliberate act. The reason why I'm still on hold is, normally we hear from an organization when they do succeed in a spectacular way as we saw last night. Secondly, there is no evidence of the explosion that Steve was talking about. There is -- no one saw anything. There seems to be nothing that's been picked up on satellite. So we need to just wait for physical evidence. In some ways it's similar to a criminal case. We need to get evidence. Is there bomb debris? How did the plane break up? Is there any other information that is sitting there? Meanwhile, I mean, the shock of it is, we haven't found the debris yet. I find this absolutely remarkable that no debris has been found in 24 hours.

VAUSE: Julia, hold that thought because I want to go to Steve.

MORRIS: Were you -- SESAY: Yes; I saw you shaking your head. Were you disagreeing with Julia there?

MORRIS: No, I think Julia's right most of the time, but if you remem --

KIAM: That's what my husband says.

MOORIS: If you look back at 9/11, the Taliban came out in a statement decrying the attack. If you look at bin Laden, he first denied it. If you look at the Paris attacks, it took almost 24 hours for anybody to claim it. Sometimes they don't even know.

VAUSE: Okay; last question quickly for Julia, if this was, in fact, an explosive device or bomb which managed to get on this plane, does that mean the terrorists found new ways to evade the technology, the bomb-searching technology?

KIAM: Yes, they may have but also I just -- it's worth reminding people, millions of people are getting on and off of airplanes around the globe on an hourly basis. So just the magnitude of global travel right now means that [00:25:02] there's always going to be weak links. We need to close up as many as we can, but unfortunately, it's just -- we're sort of dependent on the weakest link, given the way these airplanes travel, given the way passengers travel and that's the challenge. It's a challenge in the United States and it's the challenge in the global environment.

SESAY: Julia Kiam there in Boston and Steve Moore joining us here in L.A. Our thanks to you both. You both are driving home the point, this is a massive investigation.

MORRIS: Oh, yes.

SESAY: Thank you.

VAUSE: Thanks to you both. Now breaking news coverage for the search for the EgyptAir 804 continues from around the world after a short break. You are watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SESAY: Welcome back, everyone. Our breaking news coverage of missing EgyptAir Flight 804 continues right now. A massive search is under way for any sign of the plane.

VAUSE: The airline says debris found earlier in the Mediterranean did not come from the missing jet. Air traffic controllers lost contract on Thursday, as it flew from Paris to Cairo with 66 people onboard. Speculation has centered on the possibility the plane was the target of a terrorist attack. Most of the passengers onboard were Egyptian and French nationals.

SESAY: We are covering the story for you from right around the world. CNN's Max Foster is in Paris. Becky Anderson is in Cairo, Egypt. VAUSE: And our Aviation Correspondent Richard Quest joins us now from Beijing. Back to you, Richard. All the indications are the debris here is spread over a very, very wide field, across a large area of water. You know, the Mediterranean, it's not the Indian Ocean, which we had with MH370, but still this recovery effort will not be easy.

[00:30:00] QUEST: Well, we don't know yet, John, just to pause there. We don't know yet what the debris field will be like because we don't know how the plane came out of the air. So I mean, it's certainly not going to be a particularly narrow field, but if the plane had broken up in the air, for example, god forbid, an explosion, a bomb, whatever, an MH-17 type of scenario, then, yes, you will have a very widespread debris field. If it, however -- if the plane came down intact and went into the water intact, it will have broken up on impact but the debris field will be much tighter. The gyro-currents in this part of the Mediterranean are not particularly strong and any debris that is on the surface -- because that's where you start. Any debris on the surface will not travel that far away from the initial point of impact.

So we've been through this before but I will remind you, you start looking for debris on the surface. You work backwards by reverse drift from that debris to where you believe the last known place of the aircraft was. we know that from where, of course, it lost radar contact and then your difficulty happens because then you go into water to try and find the fuselage with the black boxes.

We're back to the story of pings, 30-day battery deadlines. The only perhaps encouraging part here finally is that it's the Med. It's about 1500 feet; it's not that deep.

SESAY: So, Richard, earlier in the day we were told wreckage from this flight had been found only to have the vice chairman of EgyptAir walk that back. An incredible correction to have to make, leading some to question the competency of the Egyptian authorities in all of this. Is that something you share? Do you share concerns about competency?

QUEST: Not in this case. Absolutely not in this case. In the case you have referred to, Vice Chairman Ahmed was talking about what he had heard from the Greeks. Now, if anybody is to be faulted so far, it is the Greek authorities because it is the Greek authorities that, first of all, said about the swerving, and we have not heard this from anybody else, and it's the Greek authorities that told the Egyptians that debris had been found. So to some extent, you know, Chinese whispers if you like, A told B told C told D. If the Egyptians are faulted, it's for repeating it.

I am not -- look, I have a huge level of suspicion in any fact that I hear within 24 hours of a plane crashing or going missing. It's simply too soon. The planes and the ships are on their way. it's going to take hours if not days to find it.

VAUSE: Okay; Richard, thank you. With that in mind, let's go to Becky Anderson in Cairo. Becky, some of the experts are saying if this is a crash over water

and there's a debris field and if they do recover the flight data recovers, they may have to be recovered remotely. The Egyptians who are leading this, who are coordinating this, do they have the technical capability to carry out that kind of operation?

ANDERSON: Well it's interesting. There is a huge effort out there. The Egyptians being helped out by the U.S. with P-3 Orion search aircraft, by Britain, by France, who have offered help, and by the Cypriots and the Italians. So it isn't just an effort being conducted by the Egyptians and the Greeks themselves.

I think Richard has pointed out that the weather conditions are decent. So for the families of the 66 people on board, many of whom -- the Egyptian family members, many of whom gathered here yesterday, very composed we were told, will still be assuming or understanding that this is still a search and rescue effort. We know that some of them have been put up in hotels just close to here, the international airport. So one assumes the family members will be back here a little bit later on today. As I say, for those members of the families of the people who were on board this plane, the fact that this is still search and rescue, and such a significant search and rescue effort with all of those countries involved, with all of the capacity that those countries can offer -- don't forget, this is also a very, very, very busy shipping environment for merchant ships.

So there's an awful lot of help on hand in what is this -- as Richard points [00:35:03] out, if you speak to people here, they will say to find anything within the first 24 hours would have been quite remarkable. Very difficult, I'm sure, for the EgyptAir Vice Chair, who had to roll back on that statement yesterday that debris had been found. He said and I quote, "I stand corrected on that. This wasn't debris from our plane."

VAUSE: Yes.

ANDERSON: And as I say, the family members here who, it's reported, were very composed yesterday. They were met here by medics, by doctors. the sense being that EgyptAir were on to this really quite quickly. So there was an infrastructure set up for the family members here who were hoping for some news on their relatives. They found it very frustrating that these discrepancies were going on yesterday, not least on the finding of the debris, but a very composed situation here. One assumes they wake up this morning to find out this is still a search and rescue effort, if, indeed, they slept at all last night, that will be a glimmer of hope for them. John?

VAUSE: Okay; Becky, thank you.

SESAY: Becky, appreciate it. Let's go to Max Foster who is there in Paris for us. Max, let me ask you this: this was an Airbus, a flight that took off from Paris. We know the French are involved in the search. What do we know about any involvement in looking for debris?

FOSTER: Well they sent a team, both Airbus and French air traffic investigators have sent a team to help with the Egyptian investigation to get to the bottom of any of -- any technical difficulties that may have been involved and also offer their expertise. There have obviously been air crashes involving French jets in past. All of the authorities have expertise that can play into this.

One of the investigation lines, of course, is this possible idea that the plane could have been sabotaged. In terms of that side of the investigation, they look at the idea that if there was a device on board, the longer it was on board, the more likely it would have been discovered. So they are looking back at where this plane had been in the previous 24 hours.

We know had it been in Cairo. It had been in Asmara, in Eretria, and also in Tunis. All of those authorities, in all those countries, are coordinating to find out any sort of information, who had any contact with the plane in any of those stops and all the intelligence agencies coordinating on that as well, if it turns out to have been sabotage. They're trying to get the information whilst they can in this early period.

VAUSE: Okay, Max; thank you.

SESAY: Thank you, Max.

VAUSE: More breaking news coverage to come as our correspondents all around the world follow updates on the missing EgyptAir plane.

SESAY: Yes, and in a Hillary Clinton opens up about the EgyptAir tragedy and her rivals, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Do stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:41:01] SESAY: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to our live breaking news coverage. It's just gone 9:40 p.m. here on the West Coast. There is still no sign of EgyptAir Flight 804, missing now for about 30 hours. Search crews are canvassing waters between Greece and Egypt as authorities work to figure out what happened.

VAUSE: U.S. officials suspect a bomb took down the plane but they stress that's early speculation. The special coverage will continue in a moment, but first, some other news of the day.

Within hours of the disappearance of EgyptAir Flight 804, U.S. Republican Presidential Candidate, Donald Trump, was sounding off.

SESAY: He tweeted in the middle of the night, "Looks like yet another terrorist attack. Airplane departed from Paris. when will we get tough and vigilant? Great hate and sickness."

VAUSE: Later in New Jersey he blasted democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: So today we had a terrible tragedy and she came up and she said that Donald Trump talked about radical Islamic terrorism, which she doesn't want to use. She used a different term because she doesn't want to use that term. She refuses to use that term, and I'm saying to myself, 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.

I'm saying to myself, what just happened about 12 hours ago? a plane got blown out of the sky. If anything -- if anybody thinks it wasn't blown out of the sky, you are 100-percent wrong, folks; okay?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SESAY: Well Hillary Clinton isn't holding back about Trump and her thoughts on whether he is fit for the presidency.

VAUSE: Joining us now CNN Senior Political Analyst Ron Brownstein. So, Ron, we just heard from Donald Trump. Let's listen to how Hillary Clinton reacted to the news about Flight 804.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It does appear that it was an act of terrorism. Exactly how, of course, the investigation will have to determine but it, once again, shines a very bright light on the threats that we face from organized terror groups.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: If you listen to the words, they are kind of saying something similar but the tone is just so different.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: The tone is very different, and it does show you the challenge Donald Trump will face because part of what made him appealing to his audience, as a candidate, is that he will say anything. He is unfiltered by traditional political standards. A president has to be more filtered. I think the initial instinct of many Americans is that this is terrorism, and Hillary Clinton reflected that, but to so quickly, unequivocally in the tweet and in the language kind of frame it the way he did, again, it's not the kind of approach you would typically see from someone who actually is president. So it's a reminder of how different he is and might be than the typical boundaries of the office.

SESAY: Differences between them exist but what is -- the commonality is how they are both pointing together other as posing a danger to the security of the country. Critics would say, political watchers would say they say they are harnessing the politics of fear.

BROWNSTEIN: Well, look, they are dealing with the politics of a deep hole that each of them are starting the general election. This is the first time we have two candidates, and Hillary Clinton is, as she pointed out today, all but the nominee, who are starting the race with a majority of Americans viewing them this unfavorably. Their unfavorable ratings are both well above 50-percent. So when you are in a situation like that, in many ways it's making the other candidate less acceptable. VAUSE: Okay; Hillary Clinton trying again trying to divide Donald Trump. She's going after this narrative of a loose cannon and she really ramped up the attacks on Trump today. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR, "NEW DAY": Let me ask you, do you think that Donald Trump is qualified to be president?

CLINTON: No, I do not; and I think in this past week, whether it's attacking Great Britain, praising the leader of North Korea, a despotic dictator who [00:45:02] has nuclear weapons, whether it is saying pull out of NATO, let other countries have nuclear weapons, the kinds of positions he is stating and the consequences of those positions, and even the consequences of his statements are not just offensive to people, they are potentially dangerous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Okay, so why go after Trump like this, why now?

BROWNSTEIN: Well I think Democrats are nervous about what some of the recent polls have been, but I think there's another reason. If you look at Donald Trump's vulnerabilities, there are really two. One is that he has culturally offended a series of groups that are growing in the electorate, millennials, minorities, (inaudible), but the other is the question of his temperament.

New York Times/CBS poll out tonight, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump almost identically weak on honesty; almost identically weak on shares your values; almost identically strong or leadership, but on temperament, who has the temperament to be president, she's +21.

VAUSE: Wow.

BROWNSTEIN: So that I think -- by the way, she's up 47-41 in the overall poll, but that, I think, the question of whether Donald Trump is too volatile, too impulsive, too erratic to be president, that, I think, is going to be one of the biggest hurdled for him to get over and it think that's why she's pushing at that button here today.

SESAY: Hillary Clinton also making headlines today with comments she made about Bernie Sanders, effectively saying the race is over. She's won the nomination. It's time to get on board. Take a listen to what she said.

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CLINTON: When I came out and withdrew and endorsed Senator Obama, about 40-percent, according to polls, about 40-percent of my supporters said they would never support him. So I worked really hard to make the case, as I'm sure Senator Sanders will, that whatever differences we might have, they pale in comparison to the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party.

(END VIDEO CLIP) VAUSE: Okay. This was the reply from the Sanders campaign. "In the past three weeks voters in Indiana, West Virginia and Oregon have respectfully disagreed with Secretary Clinton. We expect voters in the remaining eight contests also will disagree and with almost every national and state poll shows Senator Sanders doing much, much better than Secretary Clinton against Donald Trump, it's clear millions of Americans have growing doubts about the Clinton campaign." Clearly, they are annoyed by what she said.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

VAUSE: Was it a good move to come out and say, I've won; get on board.

BROWNSTEIN: It's frustration, right. I mean, look, at the end of the April, it looked like Bernie Sanders was bringing this in for a landing. Here we are in mid-May and the vitriol and the conflict between them is high as it has been at any point, even as you had a number of polls showing Donald Trump tightening. Democrats are getting uneasy about where this is going.

The fact is, she has won 3 million more votes than he has. We look at the 18 biggest states, she won 14 of them. He has not cracked the diversity of the Democratic Party and he hasn't been able to win big states. She is going to be the nominee. (Inaudible) until the end, but I think it's unclear why they are ramping it up, in terms of the conflict, so high at a moment when the outcome is almost ordained at this point.

SESAY: Ron, always a pleasure to have you with us.

VAUSE: Thank you.

SESAY: Thank you.

VAUSE: A short break here. When we come back, a terror attack or some kind of technical failure? As crews search for that missing plane, Egypt's government says it's probably terrorism.

SESAY: You are watching CNN'S special coverage of EgyptAir Flight 804, with correspondents around the world reporting on every angle. Do stay with us.

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[00:52:21] VAUSE: Welcome back, everybody. Just gone 9:52 here on Thursday night in Los Angeles. This is our continuing special coverage of the missing EgyptAir Flight 804.

SESYA: Greek and Egyptian authorities are searching the waters between those countries for any sign of the jet. The airline says debris found Thursday isn't part the plane. U.S. officials suspect a bomb took it down, but they stress that is a theory in very early stages. Now, Dr. Alan Diehl is a former accident investigator for the NTSB,

FAA and U.S. Air Force.

VAUSE: He is the author of "Air Safety Investigators Using Science to Save Lives One Crash at A Time." He joins us from Albuquerque, in New Mexico. Allen, thanks for being with us.

Couple of technical things I want to get to here, in particular, how would the fall rate play into this? The speed at which the plane or debris falls to the ground, what could you learn from that?

ALAN DIEHL, FORMER ACCIDENT INVESTIGATOR, NTSB, FAA, AIR FORCE, via satellite: Well, of course, the issue is, is it a bomb or was it some sort of mechanical failure, a technical problem. We can't tell a whole lot. unfortunately, the signature of a bomb, as far as fall rate, and the signature of some kind much catastrophic, let's say, depressurization are very similar. So I don't think there's anything definitively we can say.

Clearly we know the plane turned left and then right and then descended rapidly to 15,000 feet. That could be either. Unfortunately, we will have to wait until we have more evidence, John and Isha.

SESAY: Alan, let me ask you this: we have had people on our air today express surprise that they haven't found any debris from this plane yet. Are you surprised?

DIEHL: Somewhat. It's a smaller ocean. It's still an ocean, but you would have thought -- it may indicate that the aircraft went in largely intact. We have seen other aircraft like the air France Airbus that crashed in the South Atlantic that broke up, and a couple days later they found the vertical stabilizer, which is the tail. It's hollow. It floats. So, I am a little surprised, but even there they didn't know exactly where that one went in, like they do with this loss, this airbus. I'm not -- I'm a little surprised but not totally surprised. Of course, this is only the second day of the search, Isha.

VAUSE: Yes; Alan, if this was, in fact, a bomb or some kind of explosion which brought the plane down, would the story be in the wreckage as opposed to the flight data recorders?

DIEHL: It certainly should be in the wreckage. One other thing, and I'm not -- I don't know if it's a bomb. Obviously, the Egyptian government has alluded to the fact they think it's -- it looks like a bomb. Other people in our government have also speculated about that. But if you were going to [00:55:01] blow up an airplane on that particular route, this would be the perfect time to do it because you would be over the central part of the Mediterranean. I think this would go along with the time to bomb, if you will.

Of course, the aircraft is going to be at 37,000 feet. If you rupture the pressure hull, you get what's called sometimes a "zipper affect." The plane -- the aerodynamic forces of 513 miles an hour at 37,000 feet -- so you got maximum air pressure and the inside of the aircraft, like a balloon. Of course once that high speed air pressure impacts on the failing structure, it will pull it apart, almost like peeling a banana. So, again, that's only circumstantial.

Gentlemen and ladies, we really don't know a whole lot yet. That's one thing that makes me kind of suspicious of the bomb theory. Suspicious that it might have been a bomb as opposed to a mechanical failure.

SESAY: Dr. Alan Diehl, we appreciate your time this evening and for that perspective. Thank you so much for joining us.

DIEHL: Thank you, Isha and John.

SESAY: And thank you for watching "CNN NEWSROOM" live from Los Angeles. I'm Isha Sesay.

VAUSE: I'm John Vause. Our special coverage of the search for EgyptAir Flight 804 continues after a short break. You are watching CNN.

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