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ISIS Destroys More Ancient Relics; Pope Sparks Turkish Anger; Senator Rubio Launches Presidential Run; Clinton Kicks Off Campaign With Iowa Road Trip; Clinton and Rubio Join Presidential Race; Ancient Artifacts Obliterated. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired April 13, 2015 - 13:00   ET

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

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hillary Clinton on a road trip to Iowa one day after officially announcing her campaign for the White House and Marco Rubio today jumping into the race on the Republican side, both candidates trying to learn the lessons of 2008 and 2012.

ISIS once again using sledgehammers, power tools and explosives to destroy ancient relics, the target this, an archaeological site in the Iraqi city of Nimrud.

[13:00:10] And the pope jumping into a political and historic firestorm. Turkey recalls its ambassador to the Vatican after the pope uses the word, genocide, to describe mass killings of Armenians 100 years ago.

Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 1:00 here in Washington, 6:00 p.m. in London, 7:00 p.m. in Vatican City and 8:00 p.m. in Baghdad. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BLITZER: We start with Senator Marco Rubio getting into the presidential race. He announced it to donors just a little while ago. But later, at an event in his home state of Florida he'll make the more public announcement. This is the senator after the walk-through -- his walk-through at freedom tower in Miami where he'll be holding that event today.

Here are the latest numbers we have. He was tied for sixth place in our last CNN-ORC poll. Stacked up against other Republicans, he pulled in seven percent. He has a 25 percent favorability rating, though nearly 50 percent of people don't know enough about him to have an opinion.

Our Chief Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash is joining us now live from Miami where Senator Rubio will be making his major announcement in a little -- in a few hours. Do we know, first of all, the theme of his campaign? Has he laid that out yet, Dana?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, very much, he has given previews in many of his speeches. And in talking to his aides, he's going to talk about the need for a new American century and that's his way of talking about his world view. Wolf, when he talked to his donors today and told them that he was going to run for president, he said that he was uniquely qualified to be president. What he is going to say in the building behind me which is called the freedom tower, the place where Cuban refugees came and became Americans, is that his own Cuban heritage allows him to think about the world not being under the thumb of tyranny and America needing to be the place to allow them to come.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), FLORIDA: I owe to god --

BASH (voice-over): Marco Rubio's announcement preview, a video of his speeches, the greatest hits.

RUBIO: I've been raised in a community of exiles.

BASH: The son of hard-working Cuban refugees made good has a compelling personal story and Rubio is known for his eloquence in how he tells it.

RUBIO: Our children deserve to inherit the greatest society in all of human history.

BASH: Now building that into a new optimistic Rubio 2016 tag line, a new American century. It's a message Rubio has been honing since he first ran for Senate only five years ago when he rode the Tea Party wave to Washington.

RUBIO: Thank you.

BASH: In 2012, after Mitt Romney lost big among Latinos, Rubio helped craft a bipartisan immigration bill with a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and (INAUDIBLE) to the GOP base. He told us, then, there'd be blowback.

BASH (on camera): Is it a risk for you, politically?

RUBIO: Well, I don't know about for me. Certainly, there are people that are upset. I mean, there are people that I agree with on every other issue who are mad at us for having gotten involved in this issue.

BASH (voice-over): But mad was an understatement. Rubio got torched by conservatives who accused him of backing amnesty.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I liked you a lot and then you lost me. Can you commit if elected president to (INAUDIBLE) hold every single person that's violated our country's laws in the GOP?

RUBIO: I don't think anyone can commit that (INAUDIBLE.)

BASH: Rubio turned his Senate focus to foreign policy, delivering a series of speeches designed to showcase him as a well-versed conservative hawk.

RUBIO: We must be prepared for threats wherever they arise because our nation is never isolated from the world.

BASH: Just 43 years old now, Rubio gained a prominence in Florida at age 34 as the first Cuban-American speaker of the Florida legislature.

RUBIO: In her heart burns the hope everything that everything that has gone wrong in her life will go right for that child.

BASH: His acceptance speech choked up the outgoing governor, Jeb Bush.

GOV. JEB BUSH (R), FORMER GOVERNOR, FLORIDA: Wow. I cannot -- I can't think back on a time where I've ever been prouder to be a Republican, Marco.

BASH: Bush even passed Rubio a baton of sorts bestowing him with the sword of Chang he called a mystical warrior.

BUSH: Chang is someone who believes in conservative principles, believes in entrepreneur capitalism.

BASH: Over the past nine years, whenever the two appeared in public, it was a love fest.

RUBIO: If you look up the words leadership and there's a picture of him in the dictionary.

BASH: It's no wonder many mutual Florida friends are bewildered that Rubio is actually running for president now, even after Jeb Bush, a mentor, made clear he would be in.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH (live): And, Wolf, I'm told Rubio is telling mutual friends that he's not competing with Jeb Bush per se. They're just auditioning for the same job. But you know full well that politics can get very rough and tumble in the heat of a campaign, Wolf.

[13:05:02] BLITZER: And as you also know, Dana, Rubio was the third first-term Republican senator to be running now, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and now Marco Rubio. How much of a problem is that, potentially, for him?

BASH: Well, it could be a big problem, considering the fact that you have had so many Republicans over the past seven years, eight years really, attack Barack Obama, the current president, because of his lack of experience. And the three senators you just talked about, they are all freshmen, just like he -- in their 40s or at least two of them are, just like Barack Obama was when he ran. So, certainly, it is a potential problem.

But what Marco Rubio is going to argue is that he has the kind of experience that other Republicans in the field simply don't had. Sure Ted Cruz's father was Cuban but when it comes to his cultural understanding and when it comes to his, as I said before, world view, the fact that his parents came here, or at least his family did, as refugees has really made him very interventionist when it comes to America's power.

BLITZER: Dana Bash in Miami. You'll be a busy lady today as you were all weekend, of course especially yesterday. Dana, thanks very much.

Marco Rubio's announcement scheduled for 6:00 p.m. Eastern later today. We'll have live coverage coming up in the "SITUATION ROOM." You'll see his announcement live right here on CNN.

Our other big political story we're following, Iowa, here she comes. Hillary Clinton begins her 2016 run for the White House with a road trip. Secretary Clinton officially kicked off her campaign with a video, announcement like she did back in 2007 when she announced she was running for president of the United States. But this time, the focus was on reaching out to middle-class voters.

In the YouTube video released yesterday, Clinton said she's getting in the race to help everyday Americans get ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm running for president. Americans have fought their way back from tough economic times, but the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top. Everyday Americans need a champion, and I want to be that champion. So, you can do more than just get by. You can get ahead and stay ahead because when families are strong, America is strong.

So, I'm hitting the road to earn your vote because it's your time. And I hope you'll join me on this journey.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Clinton's campaign strategy to spend the next six to eight weeks in what's being described as a ramp up period, the plan is for her team and for her to use that time to build a nationwide grassroots organization. Then, in May, she's planning to hold her first big rally.

As we mentioned, Iowa is her first stop for Secretary Clinton's presidential campaign. Already, we've seen her chatting with people along the way. College student Chris Learn tells CNN he ran into Clinton at a gas station in Pennsylvania.

While she's on the road, our Senior Washington Correspondent Joe Johns is already in Iowa. He's joining us live from Des Moines. So, fill us in on the details of what she's planning, this road trip. She is literally driving from Chappaquiddick, New York all the way through Pennsylvania, Ohio on the way to Iowa.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Right, Wolf, and I don't think a lot of people knew when Democrats said she was going to hit the road that that meant she was really going to hit the road. But that is exactly what has happened. Hillary Clinton driving across the country in a black van that has been nicknamed by the campaign Scooby-doo and apparently driven by secret service agents who accompany her everywhere. This was her idea, we're told. And as you did mention, a 19-year-old college student from Penn State University said he saw her in Pennsylvania at a gas station. She still had to make her way across Ohio, Illinois, Indiana to get here to Iowa. And a first event scheduled on Tuesday and there's going to be another one on Wednesday as well.

So, a lot of driving there for Hillary Clinton, and we do expect to see her here tomorrow -- Wolf.

BLITZER: We all remember, back in 2008, she finished third in the Iowa caucuses behind Barack Obama and John Edwards. What does she need to do, what do the Democrats, where you are in Des Moines, elsewhere in Iowa, say she needs to do better this time around?

JOHNS: Well, for one thing, she needs to connect with people. That's what we've heard again and again from Democrats. She needs to have conversations, small conversations, one-on-one with people, to try to win their vote. There was a lot of concern that her last campaign was too big. It wasn't humble enough. So, humbleness really seems to be the watch word here.

And when I talk to people in the streets here in Iowa, some have given me the sense that, yes, the issues of that private e-mail server for the public job when she was secretary of state have raised questions in her mind. Also, Benghazi has raised more questions in the voter's mind.

[13:10:00] There are others who say she just needs to show up in Iowa and that's a good start. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I really don't think that they're going to have anything too, you know, earth shattering to say initially. But, you know, I think that she should be out and talking about issues as opposed to running but not actually being in the race for a long time. So, it'll be interesting to get her out there and start fielding questions that are more relevant to what's really going on.

KATIE BRAUN: Just by being here and connecting with the people because that's what Iowa is about is all the connections that everybody has with each other. We're the small town, you know, people. So, be here and connect with people and just tell them what you're about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: The polls show Hillary Clinton has good support among Democrats here in the state, but people I've talked to say she still has to win their vote and part of that is connecting with them -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Joe Johns in Des Moines for us. Thanks very, very much.

Hillary Clinton certainly is the target of a lot of political attacks from the Republicans. Up next, I'll ask the chairman of the Republican Party, Reince Priebus, how the GOP plans to defeat her if, if she becomes the Democratic presidential nominee.

And later, ISIS bulldozing a path through the cradle of human civilization. Shocking video of a blistering attack on an ancient city that has now been reduced to rubble.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Two more candidates getting into the 2016 presidential race over the weekend. Hillary Clinton posted a video message announcing her candidacy. And, today, in a few hours, the Florida Senator Marco Rubio will make his official announcement. We'll have live coverage coming up during the 6:00 p.m. Eastern hour right here on CNN.

He already spilled the beans to donors on a conference call just a little while ago.

[13:15:03] Let's talk about what's going on. Joining us, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus.

Reince, thanks very much for joining us. You got a tough mission right now. You've got to keep all these Republican candidates, and there are a lot of Republican presidential candidates, basically on message and not fight amongst themselves too much, right, otherwise you're going to be damaged going into a general campaign. Is that your sense?

REINCE PRIEBUS, CHAIRMAN, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: Yes, I agree with that. I actually think a little drama and intrigue is a good thing as opposed to a total yawner like we've got on the other side with Hillary Clinton. But you're right, with that drama and intrigue comes a little special attention which means we got to try to contain the drama so that the process doesn't get out of control. So I've tried to do that. We've -- we're going to limit the debates to a reasonable amount. We're going to have a shorter primary process, an earlier convention. All those things, Wolf, to allow for some intrigue, but also contain the process. So you're absolutely right.

BLITZER: Because I ask the question because yesterday Senator Rand Paul, who's also already announced that he's running for the Republican nomination, he was on "State of the Union" with Dana Bash yesterday and listen to what he said about some of his fellow Republican candidates. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAND PAUL (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: President Obama supported the bombing of Assad. So did the neocons in my party. So really they're together in supporting many of these interventions and I've been the one not supporting these interventions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: And listen to Representative Peter King, Republican from New York, he had some tough words to say about another Republican presidential candidate - Peter King is thinking of running - Ted Cruz. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PETER KING (R), NEW YORK: Now, Ted Cruz may be an intelligence person, but he doesn't carry out an intelligent debate. He oversimplifies, he exaggerates and he basically led the Republican Party over the cliff in the fall of 2013. He's shown no qualifications, no legislation being passed, doesn't provide leadership and he has no real experience.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Those are pretty strong words. You're the chairman of the party. How do you deal with that because it's probably only going to get more ugly, a little bit tougher, as we go - get into this campaign?

PRIEBUS: Well, I mean, some of that stuff are just little jabs. I mean I don't think it's that big of a deal. I mean I think it's one of those things where you know it when you see it and, you know, you got - sometimes you can't always control everyone's mouth but you can control how long people have to kill each other. So I mean that's one of the reasons why you take a six-month slice and dice festival and you narrow it down to 60 days.

But, look, I mean, you heard Lincoln Chafee last week tearing Hillary Clinton apart. You hear Martin O'Malley doing the same thing. You've got Bernie Sanders out there. You've got a group of Democrat activists that are pretty concerned about the fact that the Democrats are putting their eggs in one basket.

I actually feel good about where we're at, Wolf. You've got Hillary Clinton near 100 percent name I.D. losing to our candidates in battleground states with a third of her name I.D. across the country. So I actually like the idea of running against Hillary Clinton. I think if you look really closely, you know, her rollout was nothing but a big bore and actually, Wolf, she had to operate that way because she can't actually get out there in front of a press gaggle. So what does she do? She gets in a minivan, which actually none of you can actually speak to her about. She's now going to have private listening sessions in Iowa. Again, no press, no controversy. You know, it's not going to last long, I can assure you of that.

BLITZER: Republicans, as you know, they've been very sharply critical of President Obama. He was a freshman senator, no real experience. That was the allegation against him. But now you've got three freshmen Republican senators already announcing. What do you say to the accusation, you know what, if President Obama didn't have a whole lot of experience, these guys don't have a whole lot of experience either?

PRIEBUS: Well, look, I mean, everyone brings different talents to the table. And, you know, it wasn't just - it wasn't just Obama's experience that was an issue. It was also the things that he did as a state senator in Illinois and the people that he hung around and the things he didn't do when he was a U.S. senator. So I mean you to take each case one by one.

What we do know though, Wolf, is that Hillary Clinton, in the polling that you see across the battleground states today, this is not my spin, it's the facts, a majority of Americans out there polled don't find her trustworthy, they don't think that she's a product that they want to buy, she's losing to our candidates across the aisle.

And now, you know, I was listening to your report before I get on and they were talking about the fact that she was on this van and they're calling it the Scooby van. The truth is, if you go back to the year 2000, she did the same exact thing in New York. You know what she called it? The Mystery Machine. The Scooby-Doo van. What some of these reporters need to do is actually dig a little deeper and find out that there's nothing new with Hillary Clinton's campaign. It's the same exact thing that she did, what, now, 15 years ago? So there's nothing new there to see.

[13:20:13] BLITZER: Yes, I remember in 2000 when she ran for the U.S. Senate from New York, it was a listening tour that she went on for several weeks before she really went out there and started speaking. Now she's doing a similar thing in this campaign. She's going to have a listening tour, whatever you're going to call it, so that's - it worked for her then. Maybe she thinks that -

PRIEBUS: And it's the same van, Wolf. She calls it the Scooby van.

BLITZER: Maybe she thinks it will - it will work for - work for her now.

Quick question on the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare.

PRIEBUS: (INAUDIBLE).

BLITZER: The Gallup poll is now out with a new poll saying that uninsured - the uninsured rate among adult Americans has now gone down to only 12 percent. It was 17 percent in 2013. It's 14, 15 percent when President Obama took office. But since the Affordable Care Act really went into effect, it has really gone down. How are you going to deal with that if millions more Americans have health insurance that they didn't have before, presumably they like it?

PRIEBUS: Well, I mean, for one thing, Wolf, you have to look at the effect in each individual family. I mean there's a lot of families out there that are now paying double, triple the premiums that they were paying before. So for - so they're obviously are a lot of conversations that need to be had about, number one, Obamacare, but, number two, Republican alternatives to Obamacare completely. It's not just repeal and do nothing. It's repeal and replace with something better. So I think those are exactly the kind of conversations that we want to have. We're willing to have. Nobody on our side is saying repeal and do nothing and go back to the same system.

But clearly, when you have families suffering and paying premiums they can't afford, when you've got kids at 26 and 27-year-old paying for the premiums for other people when they don't actually want to be enrolled in the system, I think that's going to be a problem for people like Hillary Clinton. And so you saw the 2014 elections. You saw what, in fact, in the end, that Obamacare and all of the polling was an albatross around the Democrats' neck. So these are the things we're going to talk about, Wolf. And I look forward to it. And I think we're going to have a great field on our side and I think Hillary Clinton is bringing the same old, same old to the table and I think it's going to become a pretty big yawner very soon.

BLITZER: Well, let's hope it's not a yawner. Let's hope it's a good substantive debate between the republicans and the Democrats on issues like health care and a lot of other substantive issues.

PRIEBUS: Well, on their side.

BLITZER: We don't want a yawner.

PRIEBUS: I agree.

BLITZER: We want good substance debate on foreign policy, domestic issues, taxes, everything else, right?

PRIEBUS: Well, thanks for having me on so we can start that conversation, Wolf.

BLITZER: Excellent. Reince Priebus is the chairman of the republican Party. Appreciate it very much.

Still ahead, more destruction of ancient artifacts by ISIS. We're going to show you the disturbing video that's just been released by the terror group. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:26:33] BLITZER: ISIS has launched an attack on Iraq's biggest oil refinery. The Iraqi government said about 70 ISIS fighters launched attacks over the weekend, and some of them actually made their way inside the refinery. Iraq's oil minister told CNN, Iraqi forces eventually pushed back them with ground troops, air strikes. Iraqi officials say they are now in control of the situation.

Also in Iraq, ISIS has released another very disturbing video of the destruction of ancient artifacts. In this case, in the ancient city of Nimrud, an intense explosion. Artifacts dating back to 900 B.C. reduced to dust in this newly released ISIS propaganda video. Before the blast, militants destroyed historic antiques piece by piece with sledge hammers. The city is located just south of the ISIS controlled area of Mosul. That's the second largest city in Iraq. A city of nearly 2 million people in control by ISIS.

Our senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen is following the latest developments. He's joining us live from London.

Fred, how much destruction has there actually been based on what we know?

FRED PLEITGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it seems as though the site was completely destroyed. And one of the things that we have to keep in mind is that this is really one of the most important archaeological sites in all of Iraq. And we originally heard that the site had been attacked by ISIS in March. And back then it was said that the site had been bulldozed by the militants and now it turns out that everything is actually much worse than anybody had anticipated at the time.

As you said, ISIS militants used heavy tools to first destroy a lot of the artifacts. We're talking about ancient statutes dating back up to 300,000 years ago, frescos, ancient walls that have been standing there and, of course, that have endured all of the turmoil that's been going on in Iraq for over 10 years. And now these militants come and destroyed everything within a matter of hours. And in the end, of course, what they did is they rigged everything with explosives and blew it up.

Now, the ISIS militants also filmed themselves doing it and they also gave statements where they said that they were actually proud of what they were doing because they said that this meshes with their interpretation of Islam, which is, of course, something that the vast majority of Muslims would scoff at. The U.N. has come forward and it says that the destruction of cultural treasures in the conflict in Iraq and in Syria is nothing short of war crimes, Wolf.

BLITZER: It's totally nothing short of war crimes. You're absolutely right, Fred Pleitgen, awful situation. Thank you.

The future of people captured by ISIS is grim as well. CNN sat down with several who survived as prisoners of ISIS and they spoke about life under the terror group, their fears for their loved ones who are still being held captive. We're going to have much more on this coming up in a little while. Arwa Damon has an exclusive report. Stay with us for that.

Also coming up, we'll have much more on the race for the White House and what could be a major obstacle for Hillary Clinton going forward. Does she have an image problem? Her long-time allies give their inside perspective. We'll have that and a lot more coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)