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Aftermath of Hurricane Michael; Hospital Scrambles to Evacuate Patients. Turkey Has Evidence of Murder; Trump Cites Arms Sales. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired October 12, 2018 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00] DANA BASH, CNN: Thank you so much everybody for joining me. Thank you for watching INSIDE POLITICS today.

Wolf Blitzer picks up right now.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 1:00 p.m. here in Washington. Thanks very much for joining us.

We start with utter devastation and desperation in the Florida panhandle. Hurricane Michael leveling entire blocks, homes and businesses alike smashed to splinters. People just now seeing what's left. And for so many, there's nothing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My home was taken off the foundation, cracked in two, and was floating away with my cars. Mexico Beach is devastated. It's -- I've -- I mean it looks like a war zone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The cars started floating by. All the debris was in the air and the wind was just so tremendous, so strong.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you do, you know? Where do you start? That's the thing about, where do you start? Because I came here and I walked inside and looked and, like, that's somebody else's couch in my house. It's not even mine.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was bad. It was bad.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Didn't what to leave what we had. And basically we had no choice. Everything I had was right there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So the stuff that I thought I had, this stuff that I (INAUDIBLE) is even gone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Take a look now at the before and the after. The damage we're seeing in Mexico Beach is the exact reason you evacuate as ordered ahead of a storm like this. It wasn't just the 155 mile per hour winds, it was also the ocean rising up as an angry force, laying waste to pretty much anything in its way.

CNN correspondent Brian Todd has gotten a firsthand look at this really unbelievable devastation.

Brian, you've spoken to so many residents. You've heard their stories. What can you tell us about what you're seeing and what people there are now going through?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, they're going through shock and just sheer heartbreak as they're coming back to their homes for the first time since the hurricane hit, even though many of them are now advised by the mayor and others, don't come back yet, it's not quite safe.

What really is incredible is you walk around the rubble here in a place like Mexico Beach, that's been so devastated, is the personal aspects of people's lives that are just kind of chaotically strewn about. This is a young child's game of Boggle that got tossed over here. This thing over here is an ice shaver for, you know, ice -- you know, shaved ice and flavored ice and ice cream and things like that. It's very heavy. It's got a motor on it. This was tossed, you know, we don't know how many yards.

We have furniture from some people's homes that ended up in other people's homes, Wolf. That's how powerful the storm was. And when I go wide, our photojournalist, Adolpho Adbara (ph), can start to go wide a little bit from where I am, and you can just see the scope of what happened to this -- just this neighborhood in Mexico Beach. Look at it. It's got basically every structure right immediately behind me was completely flattened. You can see some of the other structures that did kind of make it through. But even they are uninhabitable right now. There's really no structure that we've seen that made it that is inhabitable at the moment that we could see.

A short time ago I spoke to Governor Rick Scott. He is touring around this island. And I asked him about some of the operations now that are being undertaken to try to help some of the people who survived this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RICK SCOTT (R), FLORIDA: We're still -- we're still going through, you know, and so what you do after this is you go building by building and that -- and we're still doing it, just trying to make sure there's nobody that -- that's stuck and needs help.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TODD: And a short time ago I also spoke to the mayor of Mexico Beach, Al Cathey. I asked him in particular, you know, is there anyone who might still be trapped under some of this rubble? He says, we think we've got a handle on that. But, again, he had to hedge that information, Wolf, because first responders are still coming through here.

A big part of their challenge, Wolf, is again having to sift through all of this rubble and debris. You've got it for as far as the eye can see in some places and they've got to -- there are even larger parts of it than what you see behind me. There are roofs, there are, you know, sides of buildings that are -- that they've got to move by bulldozer. It is an incredibly difficult task and you don't know that when you move something like that there might be someone underneath it. That's what they've got to really kind of painstakingly go through right now. It tells you what the scope of this recovery is going to be like. This place not -- may not be inhabitable for months.

BLITZER: Yes, utter devastation over there.

Brian Todd, thank you very much.

For some, evacuation wasn't an option as Hurricane Michael roared ashore. Those include patients at the Bay Medical Sacred Heart Hospital in Panama City, Florida. The hospital suffered extensive damage, lost power, leading to the evacuation of many of those patient who were there.

Our national correspondent, Dianne Gallagher, is there in Panama City, Florida, for us.

Dianne, so what are you seeing there now?

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And, Wolf, we were just at Bay Medical Sacred Heart. We're about a mile away at Jinx (ph) Middle School now, which also suffered a lot of devastation basically because, like everybody else here, we're having a hard time using our cell phones to get out and communicate. So we came to a location where we could.

[13:05:05] But, look, Brian is in Mexico Beach and Bay Medical is the only trauma center between Pensacola and Tallahassee. So they get patients from all over. And they were preparing and hoping after Hurricane Michael passed to be able to assist in that. But it turns out they're having to evacuate the patients now because they're running on generators. They do not have running water in Panama City. We saw ambulances from as far away as New Mexico and Michigan, Louisiana and Georgia who came in to help transport all of those patients who rode the storm out to different hospitals that are safer right now. Those patients road the storm out with the doctors, the staff there, and all of their families. One of the doctors talked to me about just how terrifying it really was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. AMIR HAGHIGHAT, CARDIOLOGIST, BAY MEDICAL SACRED HEART: I had my children, my puppy, my wife. And I had a good number of patients in this hospital during this storm. And these are patients that I have carried for a long time. And there was a time when I worried that, could the whole structure collapse? And when would people be able to get in to help us? If they would be able to help us if it wasn't too late. So I have to admit, there was a time in there where I wasn't sure. But I'll tell you, everybody had their game face on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER: And that game face that he's talking about, apparently it worked, because, Wolf, there were no injuries. There were no death. There was a lot of moving patients around, but nobody was hurt during the storm, miraculously.

BLITZER: Yes. Truly miraculously.

All right, Dianne, thank you very much.

We're going to have more on the disaster in Florida, but there's other important news we're following.

The release of an American pastor could be a sign of warming relations between the United States and Turkey. After two years of detention, Andrew Brunson is now free. He had been charged with helping to plot a coop against the Turkish president, Erdogan. Today, the court sentenced Brunson to three years and one month in prison, but chose to release him based on his time already served. The case has seriously strained relations between Turkey and the United States. President Trump had threatened further sanctions if Brunson was not released.

There are also some new and startling revelations emerging right now surrounding the disappearance of the prominent Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi. A course close to the investigation tells CNN that Turkish authorities have audio and video evidence that shows Khashoggi was murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last week. That falls in line with another report that Turkey had planted listening devices inside the consulate.

Reuters has also learned investigators are examining Khashoggi's Apple watch. They believe it may provide important clues as to Khashoggi's whereabouts or what happened to him. And the BBC is reporting that Khashoggi said he didn't think he could return to Saudi Arabia just days before he went missing.

Our senior international correspondent, Sam Kiley, is in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for us.

Sam, with the latest developments, has the Saudi kingdom responded?

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, they have, finally. They have, just through the state news agency, issued a release, a statement, and that's all we've had. We've had no public figures, no members of the kingdom speaking on camera, for example. But they have put out a statement saying that they -- Saudi Arabia welcomes Turkey's approval to a joint investigative team to investigate Khashoggi's disappearance.

Now that, Wolf, refers to the arrival in Istanbul of a team that is supposedly working alongside the Turks to investigate what went on or did not go on inside that consulate and where on earth is the missing "Washington Post" columnist?

Now, the Turks have given the Saudis until the end of the weekend to deliver on the significant information as to his whereabouts, but the official position here is that they have nothing to do with Saudi Arabia. As far as they were aware, he safely left the consulate.

And this is also being seen, Wolf, by Saudi Arabia's allies, notably the United Arab Emirates, who have put out a statement through their foreign minister, Wolf, saying that anybody who says otherwise, who says -- implies in any way that Saudi Arabia is behind this disappearance is committing a calumny (ph). On top of that, of course, Saudi Arabian-backed newspapers are suggesting that this may be some nefarious plot behind -- organized by Qatar.

And as you know, Wolf, of course, Qatar is close to Turkey and they are standing in rivalry for sort of Sunni dominance over the Middle East at the moment. And Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are actually involved in an embargo against the small island nation of Qatar. So there's a lot of regional rivalry coming up to the fore here and still no real information about the whereabouts of Mr. Khashoggi.

[13:10:05] BLITZER: You know, the Saudis could clear this up very quickly. We know there are closed circuit television cameras all around the consulate in Istanbul, Sam. And we did see the picture of Khashoggi walking into the consulate. If, in fact, he left the consulate, as the Saudis claim, why don't they release evidence of that, pictures of him leaving the consulate?

KILEY: There has been rather mixed reporting on that, Wolf. Suggestions from the Saudis, unconfirmed by CNN, but nonetheless carried by Turkish media organizations that maybe the CCTV was turned off. But the counter argument to that, of course, is, if, and only if, the Turkish allegations that they have audio and visual representation, or images of what happened to the missing communist and, according to many sources, both talking to CNN and other media organizations, those videos show some pretty horrific murder allegedly, then somebody had control of the CCTV inside the building.

BLITZER: Yes. It sounds -- it sounds pretty farfetched to think that they turned off that CCTV for whatever reason. But that's what's -- let's see what happens on that front.

Sam Kylie, thank you very much.

Sam's in Riyadh.

Let's take a closer look at the geopolitical implications of this case. With us now CNN military and diplomatic analyst John Kirby.

John, thanks very much.

So this raises all sorts of major strategic questions for the U.S., which has a long standing, very close, strategic partnership with Saudi Arabia. This is a political tight rope right now for the president.

REAR ADMIRAL JOHN KIRBY (RET.), CNN MILITARY AND DIPLOMATIC ANALYST: Absolutely. Saudi Arabia is one of our most staunchest, most powerful allies in the region. So there are real implications here for the relationship. And it's hard to imagine this relationship not being affected some way, no matter how this comes out.

What are some of the implications? Well, there could be sanctions against members of the royal family and members of the Saudi government. We're heard members of Congress talk about that. Arm sales. The president protest, doesn't want to touch arm sales. He might not have a choice. Congress may force him to do that. They've already been nervous about that over Yemen.

Speaking of Yemen, the military relationship with Saudi Arabia could also be affected, including our support to Saudi operations in Yemen. And, of course, look, we rely on the Saudi Arabians to really help us counter Iran's malign influence in the region. This is something the Trump administration really wants to be aggressive on. That could also be affected.

BLITZER: And remind our viewers why Saudi Arabia's influence in the region is so important to the United States.

KIRBY: Well, they are a very, very powerful country in the region economically, military. And we have been lauding and praising some of the reform efforts that the crown prince has been enacting, socially, politically and economically as well. Those reform effort, which we want to see succeed, could very well be put in jeopardy by -- and the credibility of those reforms could be put in jeopardy by this investigation.

Foreign investment and corporate support. You know, the Saudis are getting ready to have a big summit in a couple of weeks. The Foreign Investment Initiative. It's their Davos in the desert. Already we're seeing CEOs pull out of that. And the Saudis have right to be concerned about potential foreign investment problems in their country as they begin to try to diversify their economy. And, of course, they see themselves as the Islamic leaders in the region and the world. That also could come under some doubt.

BLITZER: Steve Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary of the United States, he's still planning on attending this event in Saudi Arabia --

KIRBY: Absolutely.

BLITZER: While others are pulling out.

So what about the fallout for Turkey?

KIRBY: Yes.

BLITZER: Turkey's a NATO ally, but there have been such serious strains between Turkey and the U.S. and other NATO allies in recent years.

KIRBY: Great question, Wolf. We're not really talking as much about Turkey in this incident as we should. President Erdogan is trying to find a way to get in better graces with the United States. We saw that with the release of the pastor today. He sees his status in the Islamic world as a rival to, if not a successor to Saudi Arabia. So he's in this ideological conflict with King Salman of Saudi Arabia and he sees this as a chance to sort of boost Turkey's status. That's why he's been very sharp in his rhetoric about this incident in the consulate there in Istanbul. But he's only going to go so far because his economy's in tatters, inflation is rampant, the currency is being devalued. He needs foreign investment. He owes like $200 billion in foreign debt. Some of that debt is owned by Saudi Arabia. So I think you're going to see him temper his rhetoric as this investigation moves forward.

BLITZER: The leaks from Turkish government sources have been incredibly damaging to Saudi Arabia.

KIRBY: Yes.

BLITZER: And they're doing it, obviously, very, very deliberately.

John Kirby, thank you very much.

KIRBY: You bet.

BLITZER: Up next, how the missing Saudi journalist is putting the president's close ties to the Saudis to the test and raising red flags among top lawmakers.

Plus, major developments in the Russia investigation as the president's team prepares its answers to the special counsel, Robert Mueller's, questions.

And, the first lady gets candid on her marriage and her husband's multiple alleged affairs.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:19:11] BLITZER: The unexplained disappearance of a U.S. resident, the journalist, "The Washington Post" contributor Jamal Khashoggi, has produced business backlash for Saudi Arabia. Very serious backlash. A number of foreign investors and high profile CEOs, such as the British billionaire Richard Branson, are distancing themselves from the crown prince at a very critical time. The kingdom is preparing for a lavish event described as Davos in the desert. But President Trump isn't quite ready to take that step.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I will tell you up front, right now, and I'll say it in front of senators, they're spending $110 billion purchasing military equipment and other things. If we don't sell it to them, they'll say, well, thank you very much, we'll buy it from Russia, or, thank you very much, we'll buy it from China. That doesn't help us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Al right, let's discuss this and more with my next two guests, CNN national security analyst Samantha Vinograd, and CNN political analyst David Gregory.

[13:20:07] Samantha, you worked -- you went to Saudi Arabia. You spent extensive time working with the Saudis when you were in the U.S. government. When you hear the president making that assertion, what do you think? SAMANTHA VINOGRAD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, he's not

wrong. We get a lot out of our relationship with Saudi Arabia. And every relationship is about tradeoffs. Successive U.S. administrations, it's not just President Trump, have made the decision that economically, and in terms of defense cooperation, we get more out of Saudi Arabia by staying an ally and by not criticizing their human rights record.

Saudi Arabia didn't become a gross abuser of human rights overnight. They didn't become ranked 169 out of 180 in terms of press freedoms overnight. We have made the decision that we are going to not turn a blind eye but not prioritize everything Saudi's been doing wrong because of defense sales, because we're working with them in Yemen, because they're part of a counter ISIL campaign, and because they're very heavily invested in the United States economically.

BLITZER: Because the president keeps making the point over the past couple days, David, that the U.S. is selling to Saudi Arabia about $110 billion worth of military equipment (INAUDIBLE) aircraft among that military equipment, and if the U.S. were to stop selling it, the Russians or the Chinese would pick up those -- those sales.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, that -- that may be the case, but this is a time when the president's got to be bigger. He's got to be thinking about America's role in the world. He's got to be thinking about the importance of the presidency right now. I think it's exactly the wrong time to start talking about the economic ties we have in Saudi Arabia, talking about that they can buy aircraft from other countries.

What he needs to be focused on is how to send the strongest possible message to our ally, Saudi Arabia, to come clean on this. If they assassinated a journalist and dismembered his body on foreign soil, it is so appallingly wrong. The United States has a take a firm stand.

And this is not a political issue. You've got Republicans and Democrats who are sending that message. This is a time when the president should be strong, but mostly silent on this, except to get answers. And I'm actually surprised that he's not being stronger about getting answers. This is not a president who exercises restraint in any other time. Why do it here? He should be demanding -- especially given our close ties -- that they come clean and that Saudi Arabia not get away with this.

I mean you're exactly right in terms of our relationship. But at the same time, Saudi Arabia cannot have this record, cannot abuse the world and good will from 9/11 onward and get away with it.

BLITZER: You know, the U.S. has had a very close, strategic partnership with Saudi Arabia, not just during the Trump administration, during the Obama administration, the Bush administration, the Clinton administrations, for years and years and years, despite, as you point out, the horrendous human rights record that exist within Saudi Arabia.

VINOGRAD: That's exactly right. The most frequent visitor to the West Wing when I was there was the Saudi ambassador, (INAUDIBLE), who's now the foreign minister, in fact. And, David, to you point, I wholeheartedly agree, the game the Saudis are going to play here is to show, oh, you want to know what? You're going to point the finger at us. We're going to have a call with Vladimir Putin. We are going to consider buying arms from them. You don't want to be close with us. We'll go to the other team.

And we are already seeing countries pick sides. The UAE just announced and said publicly, don't you dare blame the Saudis. It's Qatar. Let's blame everything on Qatar. Now is the time for every country to come forward and say, we want a thorough investigation. Want to see this intelligence that the Turks are referencing, the video and audio footage. And arm sales and everything else are secondary to upholding human rights around the world.

GREGORY: And I agree with that. And I think that, look, there's a couple of things. You have a president of the United States who calls the press the enemy of the people, which is all BS, frankly. He needs to show that. If there's a journalist who lives in the United States, works for "The Washington Post," who's been assassinated, he needs to be on the forefront saying, that's not going to happen and we're not going to let that happen.

Plus, you can't have any kind of authoritarian regimes doing these kinds of things at -- with impunity. And, you know, I think back to when the president was interviewed about Vladimir Putin murdering political opponents and the president not condemning that and saying, well, you know, we don't have a great record either. This is where he needs to be big, realize he's president of the United States now and do the right thing. This is separate from some of these other areas where there's a left/right debate. Here he's really got to assert American values.

BLITZER: And let's not forget, the first country that President Trump visited after he became president was Saudi Arabia.

GREGORY: Right.

VINOGRAD: Was Saudi.

BLITZER: We know that his senior advisor, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has a very close relationship with the Saudi crown prince, the 33-year-old, Mohammad bin Salman, who, you know, for all practical purposes, really, I think, runs that country right now. And there's -- there's -- and so much of what Kushner has been trying to do the Middle East is based on that close partnership with the Saudi crown prince.

VINOGRAD: Well, we actually know -- there's been leaked intelligence on this. It's no accident that Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman decided to get himself close to Jared Kushner. I think he thought that he could manipulate him and let him think that he was a reformer, he could come to the United States, wine and dine with the highest levels of the private sector and the public sector and, again, get this administration to turn a blind eye to what's happening inside of Saudi Arabia. [13:25:17] Yes, women can drive. That's a step forward. Yes, Mohammad

bin Salman is somewhat of a reformer. Their human rights record has not gotten better under Mohammad bin Salman and his father. The State Department put out a report in 2017, talking about their (INAUDIBLE) judicial killings, their torture and their targeting of dissidence. That hasn't changed. The only thing that's changed is that Mohammad bin Salman perhaps is better at PR. That's really what it boils down to.

GREGORY: And, as you well know, the real issue here, beyond standing up for the free press, for the safety of reporters, not just the ability to operate freely, or about human rights, are what are the strategic concerns. And the Saudis are still Sunni Muslims who are going to help the United States counter the Shia Muslims and the regime in Iran. And that is the priority. And that will, I think, supersede concerns about Saudi Arabia. But, right now, that calculation and then the president speaking so openly about arm sales versus getting the facts in this particular case, it looks pretty bad.

BLITZER: Well, let's see if they get the facts and let's see what happens. It should not be that complicated to find out precisely what happened.

VINOGRAD: Some video.

BLITZER: Yes. Well, we'll see if we see that.

All right, thank you very much, guys. Appreciate it.

GREGORY: Thank you.

BLITZER: We're keeping our eye on the markets right now. U.S. stocks rally after two days of sell offs. And with the midterms just weeks -- weeks away, the Russia investigation is now back in the spotlight as the president's legal team prepares answers -- written answers to Robert Mueller's written questions. We're going to discuss which ones are at the top of the list. We'll be right back.

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