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Trump and Carson Tied For First In Iowa; Sanders Takes Aim At Clinton; Kanye West Declares Presidential Bid; Upcoming Presidential Debates; Accused Texas Gunman In Court; Search For Flight 370; Shooting Suspect Charged With Capital Murder; Does Iran Nuclear Deal Have Enough Votes?. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired August 31, 2015 - 13:00   ET

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

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there, I'm Brianna Keilar in for Wolf Blitzer. It is 1:00 p.m. here in Washington, 6:00 p.m. in London and 7:00 p.m. in Budapest. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks so much for joining us.

Up first, Donald Trump gets some company in first place. A brand new poll, just released today, shows retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson tied with Trump in Iowa. This is a Monmouth University poll of likely Republican caucus goers. And it shows Carson and Trump both at 23 percent. And then, they're followed by Carly Fiorina. She's at 10 percent. You have Ted Cruz at nine percent, and Scott walker at seven percent. Jeb Bush is at five percent while John Kasich and Marco Rubio are tied at four percent.

I want to bring in our political panel now. We have Chris Moody, Senior Digital Correspondent for "CNN POLITICS", CNN Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash, and CNN Political Reporter Sara Murray. So, you looked at this, Dana, what do you make of where you see Ben Carson? He's tying Trump in Iowa.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: OK, if you are a senator, if you are a governor, if you are a former senator, if you're a former governor, if you are a Congressman, if you are at any elected office, maybe even dog catcher, you are not going to do as well as somebody who wasn't this year. It's just the way it is. Even Ted Cruz, who has worked so hard in his, what, two and a half years in the Senate to be the outsider from within. He's a senator, so it's even tough for him. And the fact of the matter is people are desperate for somebody who is not -- not only anti-establishment but just not a politician.

KEILAR: Take a look at this poll, Chris. You can see that it seems to really reinforce the idea that political outsiders are shaping the race, just as Dana mentioned here. You -- when you look at -- for the next president, these are GOP likely caucus goers who said they need someone who is outside of government two to one. That's what they said.

It is really fascinating, when you look at Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson, Donald Trump. These are the people who are kind of catching fire, right? CHRIS MOODY, CNN SENIOR DIGITAL CORRESPONDENT, "CNN POLITICS": I

think polls like this show that there is evidence that people are so fed up with Washington, they're willing to pick someone who may have never had any opportunity or background in politics. But, honestly, this is really nothing new for Iowa caucus goers.

If you dig back to 1996, the Iowa caucus results, in 1996, 42 percent voted for so-called outsiders. In the year 2000, it was even more, 53 percent voted for the outsiders. And, of course, last year we saw hints -- or in 2008 and 2012, we saw hints of this as well as the rise of Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain and others.

So, I think Iowa caucus goers are a group that, for a very long time, have called for this and shown it, not only in polls months before the caucus but even at the caucus states.

KEILAR: So, that's really the question, right, guys? I mean, does this even matter, we're five months out from the Iowa caucuses. Should we really be looking at this and think that this is going to be determining the future?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: I think it matters, in the sense that you need to know where the electorate stands, where their heads are at. And I think there isn't much more of an anti-establishment sentiment than a lot of these people were expecting. And I think, to be honest, a lot of that came from the really early stories and said, oh, this could be a Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush mashup. And I think voters looked at that and just were like, ugh, really, this? And now, we're sort of starting to see the retaliation from that on both sides of the aisle because it's not just Republicans, it's also this, you know, summer surge of Bernie Sanders.

KEILAR: That's right. And let's take a look at that. You have a "Des Moines Register" and Bloomberg Politics poll. And it shows that Bernie Sanders is gaining on Hillary. This has been the trajectory that we have seen now for some time. Though she still leads Bernie Sanders, but he's really taking on Hillary Clinton by name and that's really key. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I believe that, as opposed to my Republican colleagues who want to cut Social Security, I believe we should expand Social Security by lifting the cap on taxable income. That's not Hillary Clinton's position. I believe that we've got to raise the minimum wage over a period several years to 15 bucks an hour, not Hillary Clinton's position. I voted against the war in Iraq. Hillary Clinton voted for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: All right, he -- this is a change -- this is a change --

BASH: It is.

KEILAR: -- for Bernie Sanders, because he was sort of being this nice competitor before --

BASH: Right.

KEILAR: -- when he first got in. This is very different.

BASH: Well, it's because he sees --

KEILAR: He's got a chance, right? That's what he sees.

BASH: Right. He's sees -- he's not just, you know, sort of way far back only seeing the dust and not her heels. His -- her heels are right here. And so, why not? I mean, why not go after her and be more specific, be more aggressive. I mean, it's kind of what you do.

Now, remember what I said about, if you have a senator in front of your name, you have no chance? That's, obviously, much more so on the Republican side. He has been in elected political office forever.

MURRAY: Right.

BASH: I mean, he was mayor of Burlington, --

MURRAY: Yes.

BASH: -- you know, eons ago. But it's a completely different --

[13:05:01] MURRAY: He doesn't look like your average politician.

BASH: He doesn't look like -- he looks like your average professor. He doesn't talk like your average politician (INAUDIBLE.)

KEILAR: Self-professed Democratic socialist puts him in sort of a different category, right?

BASH: It does. And he's -- and he's say -- and he's saying everything that everybody who is disgusted with Hillary Clinton or anybody who's been in national politics for a long time, they don't want to hear.

KEILAR: OK, real quick, how worried should Hillary Clinton be about Bernie Sanders?

MURRAY: I think they should be worried because this speaks more broadly to problems with Hillary Clinton. I think almost more so than people just falling head over heels in love with Bernie Sanders, I think they're interests. But I think if you're Hillary, you're looking at why aren't the faithful staying with me and what do I need to do about that?

KEILAR: Were you watching the VMAs last night, Chris Moody?

MOODY: When president Kanye made his announcement?

KEILAR: (INAUDIBLE) Kanye, OK.

MOODY: What hath Donald Trump wrought here? KEILAR: Well, we have to show our viewers what this is about. This

is another sort of case of reality T.V., like you said, politics intersecting here. Listen to what Kanye West said at the MTV Video Music Awards last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KANYE WEST: And, yes, as you probably could have guessed by this moment, I have decided, in 2020, to run for president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: OK, now, we should preface this by saying Kanye prefaced that announcement at the end of his rather long speech by saying --

BASH: About (INAUDIBLE) Taylor Swift.

KEILAR: That's why he said that he'd smoked a little something. So, we'll put that out there.

MOODY: He wouldn't be the first president who smoked a little something before being elected to office. So, there's precedent for Kanye getting into the White House having consumed those drugs.

KEILAR: Very nice. First lady, Kim Kardashian?

BASH: It would be the very first lady, the first first lady with a sex tape.

KEILAR: That's true.

BASH: Right? I mean, there could be a lot of firsts.

MURRAY: Hey, and if you think people pay a lot of attention to what Michelle Obama wears, I mean, get ready for first lady Kim Kardashian.

KEILAR: I know, right? That was a --

BASH: Or doesn't wear.

MURRAY: Or does -- or --

KEILAR: That's right. A lot showing there, certainly at the VMAs. But this was kind of funny. You take it with a grain of salt, obviously.

BASH: Well, I don't -- you know what?

KEILAR: I don't.

BASH: Exactly.

KEILAR: No.

BASH: I was saying that this is the Kardashianization of the caucuses. And, I mean, if you have a Kardashian running, which Kanye West is, who knows.

MOODY: When Kanye West flies over Iowa, we're going to keep an eye on it.

KEILAR: All right, we are on it. All right, guys, thanks so much. Chris, Dana, Sara, thanks, guys.

And CNN will be hosting the next Republican debate. This is on September the 16th. The candidates are going to gather at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California. And CNN will also host the first of the six Democratic debates. The October 13th debate will come to you live from Nevada. We'll have it right here on CNN.

Coming up, the man accused of shooting a Texas deputy execution style appearing in court for the first time. We'll have the latest on what his motive may have been.

Also ahead, new developments in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. What French investigators have been told about that piece of debris found last month.

[13:08:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: A suspected cop killer in Texas appeared in court for the first time this morning. Shannon Miles is accused of shooting sheriff's deputy, Darren Goforth, in cold blood Friday night. Police in Houston say it was an unprovoked execution. Miles is facing capital murder charges. In court, the Harris County district attorney said authorities found the murder weapon in the suspect's garage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEVON ANDERSON, DISTRICT ATTORNEY, HARRIS COUNTY: Deputies went and got a search warrant for the garage and inside found the white cooler and a 40 caliber Smith & Wesson pistol in a blue baseball bag. Alongside it was a box of Aguila 40 caliber bullets, the same brand of casings that was at the scene. They took the gun to the firearms lab. Ballistics testing was done on the weapon and it was determined that it was the gun that fired the cartridges at the scene, the 15 cartridges. The gun magazine holds 14 rounds and there was one in the chamber, so he unloaded the entire weapon into deputy Goforth. When the deputies recovered the pistol in the garage, it was loaded again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Our Nick Valencia is following the story for us from Atlanta. Nick, did we learn anything here about the motive at today's court appearance? Did we know if the two men, perhaps, knew each other?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's what makes this case all the more bizarre. According to investigators, they say that these two gentlemen, Shannon J. Miles and Darren Goforth did not have any prior interaction. They did not know each other. That's what's led them to call this an unprovoked execution-style killing. We heard there in the first appearance, the probable cause hearing for Miles, the -- some of the ruthless details of this shooting. You heard there, Devon Anderson, the District Attorney in Harris County, talk about the 15 shell casings that were found at the scene. This handgun that was recovered from the suspect's garage holds 14 bullets in the clip and one in the chamber. Fifteen shell casings found there surrounding the body of Darren Goforth, meaning that this suspect unloaded the entire rounds, all of the rounds in the gun, into the back of this officer. He was, for all intents and purposes, blindsided. This killing captured on surveillance video. Also, a witness saw exactly what happened and also phoned in to police.

We're learning just a little bit more about how they were able to track down that Ford pickup truck he was driving. According to investigators, there was some distinctive markings on that car, including a white cooler sitting in the back of the flat bed, also an after-market hitch that was attached to that red Ford pickup truck. They did a background search on it, Brianna, and then were able to track it, pretty nearby the shooting where this happened. When investigators did show up, Miles was not there. He showed up while they were inside the home. He was questioned, brought into custody and later charged with the deputy's murder -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Do we know anything about his criminal history, about Shannon Miles' criminal history?

VALENCIA: Absolutely and it is a lengthy one. It includes arrests and offenses in the state of Texas, dating back to 2005, including two physical confrontations with police.

[13:15:04] Two times he was arrested for resisting arrest, once in 2005, another time in 2007. Some of these other charges include trespassing, a misdemeanor, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and then in 2012 another case that they're still investigating in Travis County, another aggravated assault charge. But they made it very clear, prosecutors and investigators today at their hearing, they believe that all the evidence points to the man that you were just looking at on your screen, 30-year-old Shannon J. Miles. They believe he was the one that gunned down the ten-year veteran, a veteran that was said to be blindsided by this attack. He just did not see it coming. The family and the community there, still grieving and mourning the loss of one of their own.

Brianna.

KEILAR: Yes, they sure are. Nick, thank you so much.

VALENCIA: You bet.

KEILAR: Up next, we're taking you live to Alaska. That's where President Obama is drawing some criticism for changing the name of the United States' highest mountain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:20:14] KEILAR: President Obama is getting closer to having enough ducks in a row - ducks being senators here - to ensure that the nuclear deal with Iran doesn't die. At last count, the White House is less than a handful of votes shy in the Senate of the deal being veto- proof. The president has been pressuring Democrats to get on board. And later this week, Secretary of State John Kerry will try his hand at persuading the undecideds.

CNN's senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta is joining me now live. He's joining us from Anchorage, Alaska. He's traveling with the president there.

I want to talk to you about that in just a moment, Jim. But first, you actually had a chance to talk to Secretary Kerry about the Iran deal and this need to gather more support. Tell us about your conversation with him.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Brianna. Secretary of State John Kerry is here in Alaska for a conference of arctic nations that will focus on the issue of climate change. But Kerry told us he'll be returning to his sales job of pitching the Iran nuclear deal later this week with a major speech in Philadelphia on Wednesday. And we asked Kerry about that controversial agreement between the international nuclear inspectors and Iran that will allow the Iranians to handle much of the inspection process at one suspicious military site known as Parsheen (ph). Republicans in Congress have seized on this. And here's what Secretary Kerry had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: How do you refute the notion that this is a little bit like Tom Brady inspecting his own footballs?

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, it's nothing - I mean, look, you're going to get a sore point there with me because a lot of us in New England are not very happy with that process. We are satisfied that we will be able to have a process which can get us the answers and maintain its integrity in the process. No matter -

ACOSTA: You trust the Iranians in that part of the -

KERRY: There's nothing in here that is reliant on trust. There isn't one element of this agreement that relies on trust. It is all a matter of appropriate process, appropriate verification, access. If they are not accountable in the way that we expect them to be with appropriate access, then they would be in material breach of the agreement and subject to any and all of the options available to the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Now, President Obama is on his way to Alaska right now to deliver what the White House believes to be an urgent message on climate change. Kerry will be previewing that in his own remarks later today here in Anchorage. He will be echoing what many Alaskans are already seeing here, Brianna, that glaciers are melting, the state is experiencing record high temperatures. They've had one of their worst wildfire seasons in years, scorching 5 million acres, roughly the size of Massachusetts. And the president will be seeing some of this firsthand later on this week. He'll be the first president to actually visit the arctic later on this week, in a couple of days, here in Alaska. So it's something that the White House is very much looking forward to.

Brianna.

KEILAR: And there's been an announcement, tell us about this, that has roiled certainly some Ohioans for sure, Jim Acosta.

ACOSTA: Absolutely. That's right. To sort of make some waves, make a big splash with the president's trip, they let out of the bag yesterday that the interior department had renamed Mt. McKinley, the tallest mountain in North America, Denali. And they did that in honor of native Alaskans. Now, here in Alaska, this is not a controversy. Both Republican senators wanted to see this happen. It's something that the Alaskan people have been working to see happen for many, many years. But Ohioans in Congress have been blocking it every step of the way because President McKinley hails from Ohio. And so House Speaker John Boehner, not surprisingly, released a statement saying he's disappointed in the decision.

But, you know, just to give you some of the history in this, Brianna. You know, a gold prospector named Mt. McKinley Mt. McKinley and for many, many years Alaskans have tried to change it but they've been blocked by Congress every step of the way. So the administration did one of those executive actions in renaming the mountain.

KEILAR: Yes. It will be well received there in Alaska. But also I know this is certainly some of this trip has to do with business, but the president is also going to have a little fun. He's going on a TV show. Tell us about that.

ACOSTA: That's right. He's going to be appearing on that reality show with Bear Grylls, where they run out into the wild and do all sorts of crazy things. I don't think the president is going to get two crazy out here in Alaska. I suppose the Secret Service will be keeping the grizzlies away. But during this glacier tour that the president is going to be embarking on tomorrow, apparently he's going to be doing some taping with Bear Grylls for a special that will air later on this year. It's really going to focus on this issue of climate change. And that is the - that is the big thrust of this trip. This week, Brianna, as you know, the president really wants to focus in on this issue. They consider Alaska to be sort of the canary in the climate coal mine because of all the varying affecting that are really taking place every day here in Alaska as a result of climate change and the president will be seeing that firsthand with Bear Grylls to get sort of a unique perspective on the subject and hopefully they'll survive their time in the wild. The Secret Service hopefully will be close by with all the grizzlies and whatnot roaming around.

[13:25:23] KEILAR: I'm sure they will be. All right, Jim Acosta, what a trip to be on. Here's there in Anchorage for us ahead of the president making his way there. Thank you.

And up next, tracking undocumented immigrants like FedEx packages? Building a wall between the U.S. and Canada? Those are just some of the immigration solutions and considerations that are coming from the 2016 Republican candidates. We'll take a closer look.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:30:06] KEILAR: Donald Trump takes credit for putting illegal immigration on the agenda in the presidential race, and now some of his rivals may be taking a page from Trump's playbook.