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Law Enforcement Captures Suspect Wanted for Murder in Washington D.C.; ISIS Takes City of Palmyra; Interview with Senator John McCain; California Officials Step Up Oil Spill Cleanup; Mansion Murders Suspect Captured. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired May 22, 2015 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:03] MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: U.S. Marshals nab that suspect, leaving a D.C. area hotel with five alleged accomplices. And now we are hearing from the victims' family for the first time. Our coverage begins this morning with CNN senior Washington correspondent Joe Johns, such a difficult time for these families.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Alisyn and Michaela. Daron Wint is expected to make his first court appearance in this case in D.C. superior court sometime this afternoon. He is facing first-degree murder charges. This appearance follows a cat and mouse came that started here in the Washington, D.C. area, extended all the way up to New York City, and then came back to D.C.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were able to take him down and arrest him.

JOHNS: Breaking overnight, the multistate manhunt is over, police arresting six people, including 34-year-old Daron Wint in what they called a great takedown in D.C. around 11:00 p.m. It's unknown who is being arrested here. Wint, on the run for a week, charged for the slayings of a prominent CEO, his wife, their young son and housekeeper, allegedly torturing the 10-year-old, killing all four of them before setting the house located in an upscale D.C. neighborhood on fire.

ROBERT FERNANDEZ, U.S. MARSHAL COMMAND: New York Police Department did a fantastic job getting us vital information last night.

JOHNS: U.S. Marshal Robert Fernandez says investigators worked 48 straight hours, first tracking Wint all the way up to New York City Wednesday night, just barely missing him. Police believe Wint saw himself identified on the news and took off. Investigators then located the suspect back in Maryland the following night at a Howard Johnson's motel, 20 miles north of the White House.

FERNANDEZ: When we were approaching, we realized he was in a vehicle. They started going northbound on Route 1. We followed him for four or five miles.

JOHNS: The task force, including 20 vehicles and a county helicopter tailing two vehicles, a sedan were Wint was identified in the backseat. The small moving truck sources told CNN affiliate WJLA, a large amount of cash was found inside, police arresting a total of four men and two women.

FERNANDEZ: They are the most amazing investigators I have ever seen. It's incredible what these guys are capable of doing.

JOHNS: Forty-six-year-old Savvas Savopoulos was the president and CEO of American Iron Works, a multi-million building materials manufacturer. Wint once worked for that same company and according to one source allegedly stole $40,000 that was delivered to the home before setting it afire.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: The Savopoulos family put out a statement this morning thanking police for bringing about an arrest in this case. That statement also says in part "While it does not abate our pain, we hope that it begins to restore a sense of calm and security in our neighborhood and to our city. We are blessed to live in a community comprised of close circles of friends who have supported us and grieved with us." So far no word on whether those other individuals arrested with Daron Wint had anything to do with the murder that happened at this house in northwest Washington. Back to you, Alisyn and Michaela.

CAMEROTA: OK, Joe, we will have much more on that story coming up in that story and try to get some of those answers. Thank you for that.

Over to Capitol Hill. The Senate may have to delay the start of its holiday recess, members scrambling to save key provisions of the Patriot Act due to expire on June 1st. A showdown looms over competing proposals over whether to extend the NSA's controversial bulk collection of phone data. CNN's Dana Bash is live for us in Washington with all the latest. What is going to happen?

DANA BASH, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. It's anybody's guess at this point. Ever since the public learned about the post 9/11 secret data collecting that you were just talking about, it has been very controversial. That's why when the Republican led House passed an extension of the program this weekend, there were changes and reforms to the program. The problem is many Republicans who control the Senate think those reforms went too far and rendered the program inadequate for its main mission, which of course is national security.

And here's another problem, the calendar. These surveillance programs expire on June 1st, and that's little more than a week from now. And guess what, the House, they are gone. They passed their bill yesterday. They left town for the entire week of Memorial Day recess. They won't be back until June 1st, which is deadline day. And here's what Independent Senator Angus King told me about the latest Congressional dysfunction.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) SEN. ANGUS KING, (I) MAINE: Frankly it's disappointing to me that here we are at the deadline. I guess the only excuse is which among us, who among us did our book report before Sunday night. But this is serious stuff. And we have known about this deadline for years, and this should have been taken care of a long time ago. But here we are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Now the Obama administration is begging Congress to find compromise. The attorney general herself, she says this is really key to their ability to -- it's a vital tool, rather, for national security in their arsenal.

[08:05:09] The problem, Alisyn, is a lot of Republicans and Democrats, they don't buy it. They say this infringes on civil liberties. It is unconstitutional. And last week a federal court and the appeals court agreed, and that's why Congress is trying to reform this before the deadline strikes June 1st. Michaela?

PEREIRA: All right, Dana, we will be watching. Obviously you have a long day ahead of you. Thanks so much.

ISIS terrorists are making stunning advances, taking over the last Syria-Iraq border crossing controlled by Syrian troops, and their ruthless conquest of Syrian town Palmyra comes just days after they seize that key Iraq city of Ramadi, sparking a mass exodus of civilians. Senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh is live in Beirut watching this all. Nick?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, we are looking at a devastating 72 hours of advance by ISIS. People now in Palmyra, looking to the ruins that have given that town its life for millennia, to see if ISIS will destroy them, and also to see who in the population there will continue to execute, gruesome pictures of beheaded regime loyalists in the streets there.

But also oil fields, gas fields on the outskirts of Palmyra seized by them, and as you mentioned that vital border crossing between Syria and Iraq fulfilling what ISIS sees as part of their mandate, destroying the old borders of the Middle East to create their caliphate.

Some news just in though. The coalition here led by the United States vowed in a press release, saying they cleared a way to the oil refinery, and that's a key part of Iraq's energy infrastructure. They are saying now Iraqi forces can get in there and contest the areas around it where ISIS is. It's been long fought over, perhaps this a bid by the U.S. to sound like they are making progress on the battlefield despite 72 hours in which it seemed like purely ISIS had momentum and frankly the White House is struggling to explain how they even viewed the responses. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Nick, let's talk about the White House response to all of this. Right now we want to bring in Senator John McCain. He's the Republican chairman for the Armed Services Committee which just yesterday held a hearing on U.S. policy in Iraq and Syria. Good morning, senator.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, (R) ARIZONA: Good morning.

CAMEROTA: OK, so this weekend has been a bad one in the fight against ISIS. They've captured Ramadi, they've captured Palmyra in Syria. Let me read what the president, President Obama has said about these losses. He just gave an interview to the "Atlantic" magazine yesterday, and he says, "No, I don't think we are losing. There's no doubt there was a tactical setback." Is that how you see these losses?

MCCAIN: It's just mind-boggling that the president to could keep saying, and his spokesperson and others in the administration could keep saying what they are saying while thousands of people are being butchered, burning bodies in the streets, executions, beheadings. And when you look at Palmyra, not only is it a scene, a place of incredible antiquities, but it's also in a key area that connects different parts of Syria. This is a disaster. It was predicted by me and Senator Lindsay Graham, and it's going to go on until we develop a strategy, and a strategy that will be implemented to stop this advance of ISIS and, of course, the chaos and slaughter that is going on, which is terrible.

CAMEROTA: Senator, we hear your frustration, but what is the U.S. role here? Your colleague and friend, Lindsay Graham who you just cited, he thinks it's time for U.S. ground troops to fight is. Do you agree with that?

MCCAIN: Well, we had a hearing yesterday, and among witnesses were the two architects of the surge, General Keane and Fred Kagan, who convinced the president to reverse the strategy that was losing in 2006. And look, it's not massive American troops, but it is additional American troops.

CAMEROTA: How many. Seriously, how many?

MCCAIN: I would say 10,000. But they have to be on the ground, and they've got to be on the ground. And 75 percent of the flights, the combats sorties, are returning to the base without dropping a weapon. Do you know why? Because they don't have anybody on the ground to give them the targets that they need. This is an ineffectual air campaign, among others. And if we don't train and arm and equip and have people on the ground and military presence with these units they will continue to disintegrate, particularly the Iraqi government army, and the Iraqi army, which is now nonexistence.

CAMEROTA: OK, so you agree with Lindsay Graham that there should be 10,000 troops on the ground. We had the former governor of New York George Pataki on NEW DAY this week. He also believes that there should be ground troops. His idea was you go in quickly, you take out their training facilities, and you get out. That sounds nice. That's always the goal, but we have seen how hard that is to accomplish. How long do you believe ground troops would have to be in Iraq to fight is?

[08:10:11] MCCAIN: First of all, remember what the ground troops -- you keep saying ground troops are going to do. They are trainers, they are equippers, they are forward air controllers. They are intelligence people. They are people who can coordinate the military power and train and equip and get this done. So it's not as if we are sending in the 82nd airborne to fight and leave. If we did that, as soon as we left the situation would be deteriorating to the situation where it was before we came.

It has got to be a strategy that over times incrementally defeats ISIS and is able to also take on Bashar Assad and also make sure we have a strategy in Syria, of which there is none, including training the Free Syria Army, which will be harder and harder because of our failure to act in Syria while we watched that devastation take place.

CAMEROTA: Look, this is devastation, senator, but is it our fight? Is it up to the U.S. to try to squash whatever sorts of uprisings and terror in the Middle East?

MCCAIN: Yes, that's a good idea, let's leave it alone and let's let ISIS train and indoctrinate these people and send them back to the Europe, send them back to the United States. Their objective is not Iraq and Syria. Their objective is us. And they are a cancer, and that cancer will spread unless it is checked. And don't believe me. Listen to Mr. Baghdadi and what their objective and goal is. They are recruiting over the Internet, they are inspiring people because they are winning to join their banner by the thousands and thousands, and they are a direct threat, according to the head, the director of the FBI, a direct threat to the United States of America.

CAMEROTA: You and Senator Ground believe there should be ground troops. Do you sense your idea taking root at all in the capital?

MCCAIN: Well, 73 percent of the American people in a recent poll said that they thought that some American troops on the ground are necessary. And one thing is clear to the American people, the president's strategy is certainly not succeeding, in fact it's an abject failure. And somewhere along the line beheading Americans is going to have an impact on the American public opinion, as it already has.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about what else is going on in the capital, and that's the Patriot Act and the NSA's bulk collection of phone records. One of your colleagues, Rand Paul, took to the Senate floor for 10- and-a-half hours to try to kill these provisions. Let me play you a portion of what his argument was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAND PAUL, (R) KENTUCKY: The collection of the data is the infringement in itself. The whole idea that we could put one name on a warrant and collect 100 million records goes against everything we believe in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Does this NSA surveillance go against everything we believe in? MCCAIN: What most of us believe in is that we that won't want a

reputation of 9/11, and we have to use means at our disposal to prevent that from happening. If we had the means and the efforts we have today we may have been able to prevent 9/11, and the fact is that what Senator Paul did yesterday, in all due respect, is just delay what we are eventually going to do for 11 hours while he was on the floor of the Senate. We have to come together and there may have to be changes. But to do away with the entire program that is being conducted by the NSA would put the security of this nation at risk.

CAMEROTA: You say most of us believe in this program. However, there is a new Pew Research Center poll from May of this year, 65 percent of Americans believe there are not adequate limits on the telephone and internet data that the government collects. People are not altogether comfortable with what the NSA is doing?

MCCAIN: And I understand that, and the Snowden revelations obviously fed that cynicism, and all of us, particularly people like me who are very cynical and suspicious of the role of government. So it has to be explained better to the American people. That is a job for those of us in Congress, and it's also a job for the president of the United States.

CAMEROTA: So are you all going to extend -- not take your recess and are you going to vote on this on Saturday?

MCCAIN: You know, one of the things I found out, as the weekend approaches, particularly the beginning of a recess, the spirit of conciliation and compromise rises to the surface.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: Funny how that works. So what is going to happen tomorrow?

MCCAIN: I think we're going to work out some agreements on votes and get out of town.

CAMEROTA: Yes, but I mean, is it going to be extended? Is the NSA phone collection going to be killed or extended?

[08:15:02] MCCAIN: I think it's going to be -- I would think it's probably going to be extended. And remember, the House is going to come in for a few hours, and when they come back it's a few hours before the expiration on June 1st.

I think one thing that we are all in agreement in, we can't shut down the entire operation, so that leads one to the conclusion that some kind of compromise will be reached, even if it's a short term extension.

CAMEROTA: Senator John McCain, have a nice Memorial Day and thank you for your service to this country.

MCCAIN: Thanks. Thanks for having me on.

CAMEROTA: Let's go over to Michaela. MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right. We want to turn to California, where crews there are working tirelessly to clean up the mess left from that massive crude oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara. The scope of the damage may not be realized for years to come. The accident is also raising new questions about the pipeline operator.

CNN's Stephanie Elam has more from Santa Barbara.

And, Steph, I understand it's worse than originally thought.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is worse than originally thought, Michaela. When you take a look at the coast here, as the sun is just starting to come up over the horizon here, you can see little spots of oil, but this is really not where we may be seeing most of the damage as the water is pushing some of the oil further west.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELAM (voice-over): The images are staggering, wide swaths of oil slicks coating a nine-mile stretch of ocean on California's golden coast. Bucket after bucket of black goo lining the once pristine shore of Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County.

California officials saying more than 100,000 gallons of crude oil have leaked from a ruptured onshore pipeline. That's enough to fill up nine of the world's largest tanker trucks, 21,000 gallons of it estimated to have spilled in the Pacific Ocean.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oil continues to dissipate. It is going offshore and spreading out, which will make it a little bit more difficult to collect.

ELAM: Houston-based Plains All American Pipeline, the company responsible for the spill, has been fined before for safety violations. Stemming from 10 oil spills between 2004, and 2007 in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Kansas.

CNN's Sara Sidner pressed them on the issue.

PATRICK HODGINS, PLAINS ALL AMERICAN PIPELINES: We deeply regret what has happened and we will continue to work with the federal state and local agencies to mitigate this quickly as possible.

ELAM: A distressed sea lion, its body shiny and oil stained. Six brown pelicans drenched entirely in black, all recovered from the contaminated waters. Other vulnerable wildlife, not as fortunate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There will be some environmental impacts, including oiled birds and oiled shorelines.

ELAM: This stretch of coast widely regarded as one of California's ecological treasures --

CROWD: Get oil out! Get oil out!

ELAM: -- now replaced by slick oil and muck.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's heartbreaking. For it to happen there, and it's extremely significant in the sense of what that could mean long term.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ELAM: And just to give you some perspective here on how much oil this is, we're talking just about over 100,000 gallons in this spill that they believe has gone into the ocean and on the coastline here, think back to 2010 with the BP spill, that we see there, that was around 210 million gallons. So, just to give you a sight of the scope, not that it makes it any better, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Yes. I know, that is good perspective, Stephanie. Thank you for that.

Well, indictments handed down against six Baltimore police officers in connection with the death of Freddie Gray. The list of charges is changing though. Some charges have been dropped, but all six now faced an additional charge of reckless endangerment.

Officer Cesar Goodson, who was driving the van with Gray in the back, still faces the most serious charge of second degree depraved heart murder.

PEREIRA: Reality TV star Josh Duggar resigning from his position at the Family Research Council, after reports surface that he allegedly had molested young girls nine years ago. Duggar is the eldest of the children on a TLC show, "Nineteen and Counting". He posted an apology on Facebook saying, quote, "As a younger teenager, I acted inexcusably for which I am extremely sorry and deeply regret." Quite a bombshell and lots of the fans of the show are obviously sounding off. So, we want to hear what you have to say. Tweet us using the #NewDayCNN, or you can post some comments on Facebook, on our Facebook page there.

CAMEROTA: All right. Major breaking news to tell you about in that gruesome D.C. quadruple murder case. The suspect is in custody this morning. So, what's next in the investigation? Our legal experts weigh in.

PEREIRA: And China sending a stern warning to U.S. surveillance plane hovering over the South China Sea. The U.S. is not backing down. So, what does all of this mean for China and U.S. relations? We'll discuss it ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:23:23] PEREIRA: So, we are following this breaking news that Daron Wint, the suspect in the gruesome quadruple murder in Washington, D.C., is now in custody, rather. Wint has been charged with first degree felony murder while armed.

Where does the case from here?

We want to discuss it all with -- Tom Fuentes is with us today. He's CNN law enforcement analyst and former FBI assistant director.

Hello, Mr. Fuentes. Good to have you with us today.

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Good morning, Michaela.

PEREIRA: So, all right. We know the arrest happened. Wint and along with five other people were taken into custody after some really amazing police work.

What does it tell you that this guy was not alone at the time of his arrest? They were in two vehicles. There was a box truck with them, a large amount of cash was found.

What does that tell you?

FUENTES: Well, first of all, Michaela, I want to congratulate the U.S. Marshal Service who led this fugitive task force on just a tremendous investigation in this case to get Wint into custody. So, I think we should say that first and foremost, that it was great law enforcement effort on everybody's part and great leadership on the part of the marshals to bring this off.

But, you know, there is a great deal of investigation that has to be done in this.

PEREIRA: Sure.

FUENTES: We have not heard what is the relationship of Wint to Mr. Savapoulos at the company, at American Iron Works. You know, we know that Wint apparently worked there for some period, but what were the circumstances, how long did he work there? Did he actually meet Savapoulos there at the time? Was he fired? Is there anger? Is there some reason that he would want revenge or retribution against him and then use his family to do it, you know, torturing his child, and you know, killing his wife and housekeeper, and then him eventually?

[08:25:05] So, that part of investigation is still, you know, going to be requiring an extensive amount of work. They are still going to have extensive work in that house with the forensics to try and determine if anybody else was involved. Do they find other DNA in the house that hasn't been identified? Was it already in a database?

You know, when you are occupying somebody's house for 12 hours, and you are dropping DNA off your skin and your hair, fabric, material, all day, all the time.

PEREIRA: Right.

FUENTES: So, everywhere that he would have been in that house, he or others would have been leaving a trail of DNA to be analyzed, not just on the pizza crust.

PEREIRA: Well, and it's such a gruesome thing to even consider, when you think of all the events that happened in the course of this commission of this crime, the crime scene will be a lot to go through, but then the fact that he has been on the run and was found with the sum of money on him, and we don't know how much money, because we know there's a big sum of money that was taken from the home.

Does that indicate to you -- he was there apparently after an assistant for Mr. Savapoulos dropped off his $40,000, does that indicate to you that there might have been another insider, somebody else acting as an accomplice?

FUENTES: It's possible. I think all of these things are possible. There were somebody else inside the company that may have been a friend of his that he facilitate it. But how that person would have access to the money with Savapoulos permission or knowledge, you know, it would seem that likely what happened is that he was torturing the son and saying, I'm going to keep doing this and your wife and the housekeeper until you get money. And that he made Mr. Savapoulos made a phone call, and somebody was able to come up with the cash, deliver it to the house with the idea that it might save the lives of his son and the others, but it didn't.

PEREIRA: Hey, Tom, I want to look at this guy's rap sheet, if we can pull that up. We actually had a former lawyer for Mr. Wint on a little earlier. And he said, despite all these charges that were against him, restraining orders, even the family asked for a restraining order, all sorts of charges, but said -- this attorney said he was never convicted of anything.

Well, he was convicted of a domestic battery charge in 2009. Sometimes when there is smoke, there is fire. This guy, there are a lot of red flags, yet the attorney says, no, he was very kind man and would trust him with my grandmother. You know, that's what defense attorneys are -- it's their job to do.

FUENTES: Yes, all I say to that is just what you said, consider the source.

PEREIRA: So, in terms of that, were regular flags missed with the guy like this?

FUENTES: Well, I don't know what -- what do you mean by the red flags being missed? What could you do with him? If he's out free, there's no charges pending, he is not identified as being involved in a current crime up until this event, so what could the authorities do? I am not sure what you are asking here?

PEREIRA: Well, no, just in terms of this guy seems like a bad dude. But, anyway, we'll -- we have to run now. That's as much time as we have for this segment. We're going to --

FUENTES: A lot of bad dudes out there, Michaela. That's a sad --

PEREIRA: Fair point, Tom. Fair point. That's a very fair point.

All right. Tom Fuentes, we appreciate your expertise. Thanks so much.

Alisyn? FUENTES: You're welcome.

CAMEROTA: OK, Michaela.

Now to this story: could tension in the skies lead to hostilities on the ground between the U.S. and China? We'll address the concerns being raised after the Chinese navy issued a stern warning to a U.S. surveillance plane with CNN onboard.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Foreign military aircraft, this is Chinese navy. You are approaching our military alert zone. Leave immediately.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)