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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Donald Trump's Perspectives for Presidential Debates; Debris of Airplane Washed Ashore; Louisiana Fired Police Officer Claiming Self- Defense. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired July 30, 2015 - 20:00   ET

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

[20:00:23] ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Good evening.

We begin tonight with breaking news on the two biggest questions in the mystery of Malaysia airlines flight 370. Where is it? And what happened to it?

We have word tonight from two U.S. officials who say that American intelligence agencies think that someone in the cockpit deliberately moved the plane off-course. We'll have more on that in a moment.

Meanwhile, more debris has been found on a remote island in the western Indian Ocean which seems to be part of a suitcase washed ashore this morning. That obviously is now part of the investigation.

The source tells CNN that Boeing is confident the other debris that was found, part of a wing, does come from a 777, the same model as flight 370. That debris will be sent to investigators in France tomorrow. The investigation is separate from what we're learning about the U.S. intelligence assessment on the cause of the crash.

CNN justice reporter, Evan Perez, joins me now with that part of the story.

So explain this intelligence assessment, what it means, what you know about it?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, this is an assessment that was done by U.S. intelligence agencies. And it says that someone in the cockpit of Malaysian airlines flight 370 deliberately directed the aircraft's movements before it disappeared. Now, this assessment is based on satellite and other available evidence. And analysts looked at multiple course changes of the aircraft made after it deviated from its scheduled course, from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Now, the analysts determined that it's most likely someone in the cockpit deliberately moved the aircraft, to specific way points, crossing Indonesian territory, and eventually toward the south Indian Ocean.

This was an assessment that was done for internal U.S. government purposes, and it's separate from the investigation that's being led by Malaysian authorities, which the FBI and the NTSB have been assisting with.

COOPER: And we should point out, this assessment is not coming in the wake of the new discovery. This was prepared a while ago, right?

PEREZ: That's right, this assessment was done a while ago, based on pretty much just what the available evidence that the U.S. government has. You know, the only evidence they have is the movement of the aircraft, and that leads them to believe that someone had to deliberately pilot this aircraft towards the south Indian Ocean.

We should mention that the Malaysian government issued a report in March that said that there's no proof of wrongdoing by the airplane's crew. We have a quote from there that says quote "there were no behavioral signs of social isolation, change in habits or interests, self-neglect, drug, or alcohol abuse by the captain, the first officer, or the captain's -- by the cabin crew."

The hope here, Anderson, is that finding this debris finds them closer to some answers.

COOPER: All right. Evan, thanks very much.

Joining me now is CNN aviation correspondent, Richard Quest, CNN aviation analyst and pilot Miles O'Brien, and CNN safety analyst and former FAA accident investigator and inspector, David Soucie, author of "Malaysia airlines flight 370."

So Richard, let's look at this board here. How does this assessment jive with what we already know from the data that was out there?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: The important thing here is the assessment is based on that data. So, if we run the animation, you'll see the way the plane comes up over Malaysia, it's on its way to Beijing, and this is the crucial point here. The site of last contact. It is at this point that a variety of events take place. Firstly, a cast is disabled. Secondly, the transponder is switched off. Thirdly, you get the good night, Malaysia 370. And that all happens at around 1:18, 1:19, 1:20. And then at 1:21, the plane makes this U-turn. And as it makes the U-turn, it flies back over Malaysia and during that particular flight, nobody notices. The radar doesn't notice at all.

And what the intelligence assessment is saying is that all these events, that move, this flight, and then crucially, as it goes over, out of here, this turn, all of which is monitored by primary radar, not secondary radar, these various altitude changes are suspect. Nobody really believes they actually took place. And then, finally, that turn. And it's this long turn, straight away down, that they now say, when you look at those facts, when you compute that, it could only have been done deliberately. And by deliberately, we assume they mean nefariously.

COOPER: And do we know how long, I mean, from the first turn, the first mysterious turn to the last-known mystery turn, roughly how long that is?

[20:05:01] QUEST: Yes, this was 40, this comes about 10 past 1:00 in the morning, 20 past 1:00, it comes back and takes about 40 minutes to come back across over towards 2:00, and at around 2:22 is when you get this last radar. And then this is very suspect. We don't know the exact route that it took, but we do know it's seven hours later, that at finally 8:11 in the morning, that it finally does this.

COOPER: Miles, I mean, I've heard you and Richard having a very healthy discussion, shall we say, about this earlier, this assessment. You buy it and all along you thought it could be pilot sabotage, right?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: It could be a pilot, it could be someone else. But it is a deliberate action. It's just very --

COOPER: You have no doubt it's a deliberate action.

O'BRIEN: Yes, I can't come up with a scenario that would cause what appears to be a very cataclysmic event in the airplane that would cause all those systems to fail so suddenly, which allows the airplane to fly along for another seven hours. That's the thing that's difficult to square. And I know Richard continues to suggest that there's some sort of mechanical issue, but what is that mechanical scenario that makes that at all possible?

COOPER: What is the mechanical failure?

QUEST: There are a variety of them out there. And I agree, all of them have, they have a weak point in them. Every single one has a weak point, from fire in the bay, explosion of the oxygen tank that's also in that part, the lithium batteries. There's a whole variety, a scenario of hypothesis. There's a variety of legitimate, although, as Miles would point out, they do all have holes in them. And the biggest hole is, how does the plane keep flying? I can argue this either way. If there is a major fire, how does it keep flying without falling out of the sky?

COOPER: David Soucie, what do you make of this assessment, what Richard and Miles discriminate they have, where do you stand?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Well, where I stand on it is, there's nothing -- first of all, it's established that there's no given yes or no. There's no black and white to this. But my best assessment is that there was a mechanical failure. There's a history of the oxygen tank in this particular model of aircraft that's failed before, that's caused a rapid decompression but a break in the hull, that would have caused a rapid decompression. So this has happened before. It could have easily happened again. Luckily, before it was happening on the ramp where it would have stopped at that point.

And there's also a history of another airplane in which everyone on board the aircraft died of apoxia and one singular person stayed alive on the aircraft using medical oxygen and then was able to make his way forward while the f-16s thought the aircraft was disabled, and everyone was dead onboard the aircraft. Followed this airplane and noticed someone was moving in the airplane. That person pulled the pilot out of the cockpit, got in the seat, and was ready to navigate and communicate back to the ground when the fuel -- the aircraft ran out of fuel and it crashed.

COOPER: Miles, why does that not convince you?

O'BRIEN: Well, in the case of Helios, first of all, there were radio calls indicating there was difficulty before they lost consciousness. Secondly, why the route changes? If, in fact, this was the ghost plane scenario, in theory it would have fly the pre-programmed route to Beijing. Why would it have made that security's route to the south? I'm supposedly come up with a scenario where they were trying to come back to a field.

COOPER: Richard, you read the map here, Richard. Why the changes?

QUEST: Well, both gentlemen know the arguments and the way they're put forward. And the argument is, it's actually flying back west towards Penang where there is a maintenance base. Something has happened here, the pilot has turned the aircraft around. It's now flying west across Malaysia. Something could have noticed, but they didn't, that's the biggest mistake of the whole night and it goes over Penang and at this point they succumb and the confusion at the moment. This is the difficult bit to all of the theories. Why it takes that hook around Indonesia.

COOPER: And David, we should point out, the Malaysian authorities did investigate this and they have determined, according to them, and their investigation, that their pilots were not involved in this in trying to bring down the aircraft, correct?

SOUCIE: Yes, that is correct.

O'BRIEN: But they also --

SOUCIE: That's a psychological analysis.

COOPER: Sorry, Miles? Go ahead.

O'BRIEN: Well, they also indicated it was a deliberate act. They believe it to be a deliberate act.

SOUCIE: No. You're putting words into the mouth of the report, there, Miles. What they said is that it was movement by a human hand. That doesn't mean it was deliberate or nefarious, in any stretch of the imagination.

Now, let's put yourself in the cockpit. You've gone and made this turn. The pilot's made the turn, now everybody's dead on the aircraft. Let's look at the Helios. You've got one survivor. The survivor is looking out the cockpit window. What's he going to do or she? Continue to fly over where all the lights are, knowing this airplane could fall at any moment and kill people, hundreds of people on the ground, or do you find the less-damaging route, and look down and all you see is lights and stay above the dark and take it north?

[20:10:03] COOPER: Still to be learned, David Soucie, thank you. Richard Quest, Miles O'Brien as well. Stay with us.

Up next, we are going to go to Reunion Island that we have a report there for the latest on new debris that's been found. They found more, thought to be part of a suitcase. We will also going to look at what's happening to the wing part right now.

Also ahead, a new look at that traffic stop in Cincinnati that left an unarmed man dead and an officer charged with murder. What new body cam video shows and we'll talk to the officer's lawyer, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:14:15] COOPER: Our breaking news tonight is from a remote island in the western Indian Ocean, where more debris has been found and where the attention of investigators all over the world is now focused. Debris washed ashore this morning that is thought to be part of a suitcase and is now part of the investigation into Malaysian airlines flight 370 which of course disappeared in March of 2014 with 239 people on board.

Meanwhile, a source tells CNN that Boeing is confident the other debris that was already found, part of a wing, does come from a 777, the same model as flight 370.

CNN's Nema Elbagir is on Reunion Island. She joins me now.

So Nema, it is almost dawn on Reunion Island. What is the latest on the search?

NEMA ELBAGIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the focal point, Anderson, is going to continue to be looking for any new debris. The debris that washed up yesterday morning, that brought a lot of hope that perhaps this could be part of the that broader countercurrent that people are starting to theorize is what's bringing these objects so far from where it was presumed to be, the original location of that search site, if, in fact, this is, indeed from MH-370. So authorities are telling that as soon as it's first light, they are going to be back out there on the shore, in boats, and flying low in helicopters, looking for anything else that might be washing up.

[20:15:32] COOPER: And do you know the process here? I mean, if a suitcase washes up, do they instantly open it up? Is it -- do they wait for certain people to do that? I know the debris is being sent to investigators in France at some point.

ELBAGIR: Well, that's been one of the complicating factors here, is that, of course, when the first lot of debris arrived, people didn't really know what it was, and it was only absolutely, luckily, that one of those responsible for the cleanup on the beach said he just got a sense that actually, maybe this is something important.

One of the first bits of debris had been cleaned up. They were moving a lot of that growth, the barnacles, and the stuff that the investigators rely on to try to get a sense of where this debris had been. They'd already started dismantling that. And it was just this one man who luckily thought, you know what, this looks like it could be part of a plane. And he called the investigators in.

So, now there is still a little bit of that disarray and with so many people wanting to be part of the search, investigators are having to reach out to people and say, if you find anything, please bring it to us. And from here, they are hoping to get it to Toulouse in the south of France. We don't yet have confirmation that it is on its way, but we know that will be the final decision.

COOPER: Nema, thanks so much.

With me again, CNN aviation analyst and pilot, Miles O'Brien and aviation correspondent, Richard Quest.

This new piece of debris believed to be part of a suitcase, does it give investigators something that part of the wing does not?

QUEST: Unlikely. Arguably, you may be able to spot something in it. It may have some form of residue on it, because it was in the hold, I've heard one argument. But the truth is we don't know, first of all, if this is part from the plane. If it has a straight forward name tag or property, then you can, or something, then you can very quickly tell. Otherwise, you really have no hope of it.

COOPER: Although, Miles, I mean, I guess I don't understand why they don't already know whether or not this flapper on this piece of the wing is from MH-370. I mean, shouldn't they know by now, based on serial numbers on this wing?

O'BRIEN: I am going to guess, Anderson, they do and we just haven't heard it yet. But with all the jurisdictions involved, including the Malaysians, which don't have a track record for being forthcoming, frankly. So this might be a situation where everyone's saying, well, who gets to announce.

COOPER: Richard, do you agree with that? It's very likely they already know?

QUEST: I would be staggered if at this point they don't know that this is -- but you've got to work out, the BEA from France is now involved in this particular aspect, Malaysia is still the lead investigating authority, Australia is the searching authority. They want to get it right. And then, of course, you have this criticism there's been about the way they've dealt with the families over this. Well, now imagine how they actually have to make the announcement that it is from MH-370. Do they decide to tell all families first? Simultaneously, with telling the press? How do they massage and manage that announcement?

COOPER: And Miles, does -- I mean, if these two pieces don't necessarily, if they are from 370, don't necessarily tell hutch of a story about what happened to the aircraft, do they then move into this area to search more fully for any other pieces of debris? I mean, I would assume they would have to do that, no?

O'BRIEN: Yes. I think, you know, whatever you do here, you continue the underwater search off the coast of Australia. That continues and that continues now with some confidence that a plane has crashed in the Indian Ocean, which we didn't know until a day or so now. So that's one thing we have to keep clear.

It is worth the effort to put some aircraft in the air, near the location of where this debris has been found, to see if there are other pieces floating there. If there's one piece of that plane there, it is likely there will be other things floating, whether it's a suitcase or where's the other flapper-on, for that matter. So there are likely to be other pieces in that vicinity.

Miles, thanks very much. Richard, stay with us.

Just ahead, renewed focus tonight on the captain and first officer who were flying the plane when it disappeared. Both, obviously, were the focus of the investigation from the start. We'll dig deeper on what investigators have so far uncovered.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:23:50] COOPER: Well, the breaking news we've been covering, additional debris, what's believed to be a shredded suitcase has been found on a remote island in the western Indian Ocean. It's unclear if it has any link to the missing airliner flight 370.

Meantime, a source telling CNN that Boeing is confident that a piece of a plane wing found on the same island does come from a 777, which is the same model as flight 370. There's also word tonight from two U.S. officials who say that American intelligence agencies think someone in the cockpit of flight 370 deliberately moved the plane off- course the night it vanished nearly 17 months ago. Tonight, this new information is renewing focus on the captain and the first officer.

Randi Kaye has a closer look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Good night Malaysian 370, the last words from the cockpit of the doomed flight. Spoke by captain Zachary Jamad Shah. The captain was 53, married with three children. He and his wife lives in this gated community in a suburbs of Kuala Lumpur. He had been flying with Malaysian airlines for 33 years and was also reportedly a flight instructor. Zachary was so passionate about flying, that he had a flight simulator at home. He posted it on You Tube. He built it himself.

Friends told CNN he built it so he could practice in case the thinkable happened. Zachary, who had more than 18,000 hours flying, also gave tips on You Tube about tinkering with the refrigerator an air-conditioner.

At Zachary's home, no suicide note was ever found by police to suggest he had ever planned to take MH370 down nor did a preliminary review of his flight simulator hard drive turn up anything suspicious, though some files were deleted in the month before the flight.

[20:25:35] SHAWN HENRY, FORMER EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, FBI: If you were just deleting files off of the hard drive, in order to provide more room, then you would delete it once. You wouldn't go through the extra effort to completely destroy the file and make it irretrievable. KAYE: It did not appear to officials then that the pilot had tried to

scrub his hard drive when he deleted files. Copilot Fariq Abdul Hamid's hard drive was also found not to be suspicious.

HISHAMMUDDIN HUSSEIN, MALAYSIA'S ACTING TRANSPORT MINISTER: I would like to take this opportunity to state that the passengers, the pilots and the crew remain innocent until proven otherwise.

KAYE: Fariq was 27 and lived with his family. He joined the airline in 2007 and had transitioned to flying the 777 after wrapping up his simulator training. Mh-370 was his first unsupervised flight in the jumbo jet's cockpit.

A month before the plane disappeared, CNN's aviation correspondent, Richard Quest, visited Fariq in another cockpit. That day, his captain described Fariq's landing as textbook perfect. And he turns out the first officer had entertained other guests in the cockpit too.

This woman took photos while she was in the cockpit with Fariq, where he and his colleagues smoked cigarettes. After the crash, Malaysian airlines said they were shocked by the allegations.

By the time those final words were spoken from MH370's cockpit to air traffic control, the airline said someone had already started to alter the flight plan, so was it the pilot? Did he disable the plane's communication systems and turn off the transponder? The transponder helps those on the ground locate the plane. If this wasn't just a terrible accident, whoever did this never wanted to be found.

Randi Kaye, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Joining me right now is Gary Kay, a clinical neuropsychologist, who developed a cognitive test for pilots that's used by the FAA and airlines around the world. Also with me, CNN aviation correspondent Richard Quest.

Gary, I mean, there was, as Randi said, no suicide notes from either of these pilots found. I mean, you look at the Germanwings crash, and very quickly in that investigation, a lot of evidence started to come out about the psychological profile of the person responsible. None of that has emerged in the more than a year since this crash for these pilots.

GARY KAY, CLINICAL NEUROPSYCHOLOGIST: Right. Although we don't have a suicide note. Still, I think, a lot of people suspect suicide is high up on the list of possible explanations here. And then with today's additional news, of a deliberate, you know, action in the cockpit that adds to that suspicion.

COOPER: Would you expect, though, if -- I mean, obviously, family members say, look, I never expected this person to commit suicide, or usually that's what people say. Would you expect, though, by now, for some pieces of data to have come forward about life changes. I mean, there's usually some, at least signs that you can see in retrospect that somebody has some sort of suicidal ideation.

KAY: You're absolutely right. In fact, when you're asking this question, and I'm recalling a similar question you asked me before we had all the story about Lubitz and the German air wings, and I said I suspected more information would come and it did. And in this case, you would have expected by now that there would be some, you know, thing in the history, some conflict, something mental health wise, that would have shown up. So it is very irregular, very unusual, very mysterious.

COOPER: Yes. I mean, Richard, what do you make of this? I mean, there's no red flags that have been found in these pilot's background?

QUEST: You know, I'm firmly of the view that it wasn't the pilot. Based on, firstly, nothing has been found. There's been four major incidents. Silk air, Egypt air, there's one lack, and Germanwings. And in all those cases, what happens is, evidence is found, but the actual moment of attack or suicide is very fast. They get the other person out of the cockpit and the nose goes straight down. There's no convoluted, almost bizarre setting of things and letting the plane fly for hours. There's nothing like that. And I would be interested to hear, if I may, from the conductor, whether you think that is at all relevant. That because, normally, they commit the act quickly, is that something that we should be looking out in terms of what happened here?

KAY: Well, suicide in general is generally an impulsive act. It is something which occurs quickly when there's a lot of time to consider, you can avert suicide. And I think that Richard, your analysis, is really on target, because beyond even those crashes that you've just mentioned, there are others involve involving suicide that have been reviewed. And a situation like this has not occurred before.

COOPER: I mean I guess the counterargument to that would be, someone who is somehow unsure, tentative in their planning, debating whether or not to actually do this.

QUEST: I would agree with you on this, except for one crucial point. The method of execution of this attack, if it was ...

COOPER: Right.

QUEST: ... disabling the acorns, you don't do that overnight. You have to go through the menus and - knowing where the exact point upon which you're going to do it, between Malaysian and Vietnamese air space. The level of planning. And crucially, you had to assume, you had to bank on the fact that you weren't going to be spotted as you crossed Malaysia. And that was pure incompetence by the Malaysians that led to that happening.

COOPER: As always, there's more questions than answers. Still, Richard Quest, thank you. Gary Kay, agree to have you on again, thank you.

Up next, Donald Trump's lead growing. He seems all but certain to be on the debate stage next week in Cleveland. It seems impossible to believe he wouldn't be. He says he's not doing anything special to prepare. Is he underestimating the stakes or is this as he has said, he just plans to be himself? He is what he is, as he said. We'll talk about that with our panel and hear from him, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:35:49]

COOPER: One week from tonight, the top ten Republican presidential candidates will face off in their first national and televised debate. Now, the five most recent national polls will be averaged to decide who gets on stage. There's virtually no doubt tonight that Donald Trump will make the cut. In a new Quinnipiac poll he tops the field at 20 percent, trailing him at 13 percent with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Jeb Bush is third at ten percent. His next closest rival is tied at six percent.

Here's how the top ten cut looks in the latest CNN poll of polls. Trump leads at 19 percent, followed by Jeb Bush at 13, Scott Walker at 12, everyone else in single digits. I want to dig deeper with our Democratic strategist, Donna Brazile, former Reagan White House political director and contributing editor for the American spectator Jeffrey Lord, and Brett O'Donnell, who's currently working with Lindsey Graham's campaign.

Jeffrey, we've already heard Donald Trump sort of trying to tamp down expectations for his debate performance, saying look, I've never done this before and these other guys have done this plenty of times. How critical do you think this debate is for him? How high are the stakes? Or because it seems like a lot of his supporters don't necessarily want to hear specific policies from him or care whether or not he gives out specific policies, at least at this stage?

JEFFREY LORD, FORMER REAGAN W.H. POLITICAL DIRECTOR: I think they want to hear message from him and vision, if you will, and that's his strong suit. So I'm pretty sure he's just going to go right on being Donald Trump. He's not going to get into, you know, ten-point plans for this and three-point plans for that, I wouldn't think. So, and one other thing I would caution, you know, in the past, we've seen debates where everybody jumps to interpret the minute the thing is off the air. And in fact, the sort of impression of what happened, it takes a while to settle in with the watching public. So I think we need to be careful before we jump to any conclusions, no matter what happens that night.

COOPER: Brett, Dana Bash just talked to Donald Trump about his thoughts on the debate and I want to play some of that for our viewers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have to be who I am. You know, these other people, I know they all have their debate coaches and they all have their pollsters and they don't say anything without the pollsters. I watched Mitt Romney, where he locked himself in a cabin for a week and he came in for that second and third debate and he wasn't able to speak. I am going to be Donald Trump. I think if I'm not Donald Trump, it's not going to look good. I'll do my best. I've never done it before.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Brett, you know more about debates than a lot of folks. Is that the right thing for Trump to do? To not be reading policy papers? To not be - trying to change anything?

BRETT O'DONNELL, GOP STRATEGIST/DEBATE COACH: Well, I mean, I think it's curious that Donald Trump is trying to downplay expectations on him, when he has made a living of up playing expectations on everybody and himself.

(LAUGHTER)

COOPER: That's true.

O'DONNELL: And so, I find it curious that all of a sudden, now he's a terrible debater, when, you know, he's made a living of being on TV. So, you know, I think the stakes are incredibly high for him. Debates are a moment where audiences get to make head-to-head comparisons between the candidates, to decide not just who they like, which is where I think people have been landing with Donald Trump, but also who's competent. Who's ready to be president of the United States? And that judgment is a little bit tougher. And so I think that's why he's sort of feeling the pressure, going into these debates, and wanting to lower the bar on him. I mean you take a person like Lindsey Graham who's an expert on foreign policy, who has had years of experience dealing with those issues, and compare him to Donald Trump and his experience, I think that it would be very difficult for Donald Trump to have a foreign policy debate with a Lindsey Graham or several of the others that will be on that stage.

COOPER: I should point out, you're advising Lindsey Graham. Donna, do you agree with all of that? Do you believe that, you know, I asked Donald Trump the last time I talked to him, I guess, last week, whether one -- if he becomes president, if he would change his tone. And he said he thinks he would, that what he's doing now, he's running in a race, being president is something different. Do you think there's a risk for him being on a stage that he doesn't come off as presidential?

DONNA BRAZILE: Well, absolutely. Look, the presidential - his temperament, his tone, his ability to, you know, convey his ideas and not just call someone an idiot, a stupid, some of the invectives that we've heard.

[20:40:07]

BRAZILE: I think voters who are interested in Donald Trump are going to be listening to his message, but also look at the way he presents himself. His substance. And what about there's really any policy behind some of the things that Mr. Trump has been saying on immigration. So this is a very crucial debate for him. And he's leading the polls right now. But will that translate into actual voters going out to vote for him next year?

O'DONNELL: It won't be enough for Donald Trump to go on stage and just attack every other candidate. He's going to have to articulate a vision.

BRAZILE: Right.

O'DONNELL: He's going to have to articulate a message. And if he's unable to do that, and if he's unable to do that at the level of specificity that's demanded from our presidential candidates, I think Republican primary voters, the people who will be watching this debate, will have a hard time seeing him as ready to be president of the United States.

LORD: I really do disagree. I don't think they want, you know, minutia and specifics from him. I mean that's ...

O'DONNELL: But Ronald Reagan ...

LORD: They got that kind of thing from Jimmy Carter and they went the other way.

O'DONNELL: After Ronald Reagan failed to win the nomination in 1976, he spent years studying foreign policy, studying -- and let me tell you, he may have been a Democrat long before he became a Republican nominee for president, but Donald Trump is no Ronald Reagan.

BRAZILE: But you know, the other thing, this is no longer Ronald Reagan's America. This America is more diverse, younger, and, you know, I don't understand how you're just going to preach to the choir without realizing the congregation has changed. So I appreciate the Ronald Reagan analogies, but Donald Trump is not Ronald Reagan.

LORD: Well, the choir is going to select the nominees, I mean to use your phraseology here. I mean, he's not - I mean he's pitching to the Republican electorate first.

BRAZILE: That's correct. I agree.

LORD: And that's what anybody has to do.

COOPER: Brett, what would you tell the other candidates about dealing with - I mean it is one thing what Trump has to do. I'm very curious to see what all the others have to do about Donald Trump. What is your advice to them? Do they take him on?

O'DONNELL: I think that's a great question. And I think the one thing that we have been doing or the media has been doing is, we are making Trump all of the focus. If I was advising other -- and I am. I'm advising Lindsey Graham. My advice would be, you know, the two people that are most celebrating every day we talk about Donald Trump in the Republican Party are Hillary Clinton and President Obama. And so, if my advice to any candidate would be, you know, take on Trump when he takes you on, but don't make him the center of attention. This is about running against a president that has failed our country and a third term for that president who his secretary of state is running. So that's my advice to candidates, to refocus the debate here.

BRAZILE: But you know, the Republicans ran that campaign in 2012 and look where that landed them. I think going back to the vision thing, what are you going to do differently? How are you going to pay for the programs that you are talking about, when Mr. Trump mentioned the border security and building a wall and saying Mexico will pay for it? So I think this debate is crucial, and sizing up not just who's leading the polls, but whether or not they have ideas that will take the country in a different direction in the 21st century. And I guarantee the Republicans are going to come up short once again.

COOPER: Well, it's going to be a fascinating debate, no matter what side of the aisle you're on. Donna Brazile, Jeffrey Lord, Brett O'Donnell, great to have you on, thank you.

BRAZILE: Thank you.

COOPER: All right. Just one week.

Up next, the fired University of Cincinnati police officer who shot to death a man during a traffic stop claims he did it in self-defense. A lot of people say the body camera video shows a different story. I'll talk to the officer's attorney tonight.

And we'll get a look at newly released body camera video from two other officers who were on the scene.

[20:44:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: University of Cincinnati police officer who shot and killed an unarmed black man during a routine traffic stop is out of jail tonight after posting bond, just hours after he pleaded not guilty to murder and involuntary manslaughter charges. 25-year-old Ray Tensing claims the shooting was in self-defense. The prosecutor and others certainly are not buying it. Tensing was fired Wednesday after a grand jury indicted him. In a moment, I'm going to speak to his attorney. There's no disputing Tensing shot 43-year-old Samuel DuBose in the head when he stopped him last week for missing a front license plate. The confrontation was caught on body cameras worn by officers on the scene, including Tensing's. Before we show you the deadly scuffle, we warn you, it's difficult to watch and we want to remind you the prosecutor has called Tensing's actions asinine and senseless. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAY TENSING: I'm trying to figure out if you have a license or not. Go ahead and take your seat belt off.

SAMUEL DUBOSE: (INAUDIBLE)

TENSING: Go ahead and take your seat belt off. Stop! Stop!

[gunfire] (END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Now, here's newly released body camera video from two other officers who were on the scene. This could shed more light on what happened. The two officers had both been placed on administrative leave while the shooting is under investigation. As you can imagine Samuel DuBose's family is heartbroken. Here's his sister.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TERINA ALLEN, SISTER OF SAM DUBOSE: Sam would have never did to that police officer what that police officer did to Sam. That's what I can tell you. Sam would have never done that to him. He would have saw another human being. Sam does not like negativity, he does not like violence, and he loves his family and he loves his children. And his children will not see their father. And they are breaking my heart every day, watching them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Joining me tonight, the fired officer's attorney, Stewart Mathews, also CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, Sunny Hostin.

Mr. Mathews, you say you were shocked that your client was indicted yesterday on a murder charge. What shocked you about it? Was it completely unexpected?

STEWART MATHEWS, RAY TENSING'S ATTORNEY: No, I was not shocked by the indictment, I was shocked by the severity of the offense charge. I did not expect that he would be indicted for a murder charge.

COOPER: Because you think, frankly, the videotape of the incident just does not rise to that level?

MATHEWS: Well, absolutely. In Ohio, the law says that in order to be guilty of murder, you have to have purposely taken someone else's life.

[20:50:03]

MATHEWS: And there's, you know, there was absolutely no purpose or intent in what happened here in this case.

COOPER: So, was -- I mean, your client shot this man in the head. Was that an accident? Did he not mean to discharge his weapon?

MATHEWS: It was not an accident. It was an act of self-defense, is what it was. He was being dragged by the car, and ready to be, in his mind, sucked under the car and run over, so he acted to save his own life.

COOPER: I want to play some of the video from the body cam after the shootings, as other officers are arriving, just for our viewers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TENSING: I think I'm OK. He was just dragging me. I thought I was going to get run over. I was trying to stop him. He was dragging me. Yeah, he took off and my hand was caught inside. He took off on me. I discharged one round.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: So, when he says that he was being dragged, do you believe that's what the video shows? Because, it looks like it twists him and he's knocked away from the vehicle. Is there any evidence he was actually being dragged prior to shooting?

MATHEWS: Well, I have -- the video is very difficult to decipher, in my opinion, but I -- we will eventually have an expert look at it and analyze it, but, you know, I think there's a second body cam from an officer Lindenschmidt that I think corroborates the fact that Officer Tensing was, in fact moved from the location where the traffic stop occurred.

COOPER: But even after shooting this man in the head, the vehicle continued, so if your client was actually being dragged -- I mean, your client actually wasn't dragged. He shot this guy in the head, but the vehicle continued, so it didn't actually stop the vehicle, and it appears as if he fell away from the vehicle?

MATHEWS: I'm not going to argue with you, but I think this video, when you combine it with Officer Lindenschmidt's video, you can see that he's farther up the road than the point where the traffic stop took place, and he's picking himself up off the ground. Somehow he got up there.

COOPER: Let me bring in Sunny. Sunny, I mean obviously, a grand jury looked at this video and they returned this indictment. What do you make of the new video that's come out? Does it change your mind?

SUNNY HOSTIN: It doesn't change my mind, and I'm sure that the grand jury was able to review all of the videos and I'm sure that the prosecutors in this case reviewed all of the videos. I think what is interesting to note, timing is going to be very important here. And the bottom line is, when I view these videos, it appears that he shoots prior to the car moving. And that is going to be, quite frankly, very crucial. I don't see the threat here that this driver posed to this officer. And so, you know, while I think his attorney is how every good attorney is, a wonderful word, Smith, we would have to not believe what we are seeing to believe this officer's version of events.

COOPER: The original police report about the shooting, Mr. Matthews, many have said a number of commentators and the like have said that they don't believe those statements reflect what we see in the video. Do you believe the statements are an accurate description of what happened? Both the statements by your client and by the other officers?

MATHEWS: I do. And the reason I do believe that is that those statements are made right at the end when the car crashed, they didn't have time to come together and fabricate this.

COOPER: Sunny, it's an interesting point he's saying. That there wasn't time to kind of shape a story. These were utterances made in the moment.

HOSTIN: But the problem is, Anderson, is that this officers, or former officer Tensing's statements, are belied by the very video. They are lies. They just aren't true.

COOPER: But he's saying, but he's saying, a closer analysis of this video, he believes the vehicle was moving before the shot went out. I mean it's going - to experts.

HOSTIN: Well, then my eyes are deceiving me. Because I don't see that. The grand jurors didn't see that. The prosecutors didn't see that.

COOPER: Mr. Mathews, do you know how many times the grand jurors saw this tape? Did they have experts giving testimony?

MATHEWS: I'm not privy to what happened in the grand jury room. I found the prosecutor's news conference, what I saw of it yesterday, totally unprofessional and I was appalled by the things he was saying.

COOPER: And Mr. Mathews, there's also been questions raised about the level of training your client had as a university police officer versus, you know, a city police officer. Do you know what the different levels of training are?

MATHEWS: I know at the University of Cincinnati, the officers undergo rigorous training and they do continuing training all the time.

COOPER: Mr. Mathews, I appreciate you being on, and obviously you are incredibly busy. I appreciate talk to us. Sunny Hostin as well. Thank you both.

MATHEWS: Thank you for having me.

COOPER: Well, a quick programming note. Stay tuned, at the top of this hour, just a few minutes, a new episode of the CNN original series "The Seventies." Tonight's episode looks at how the decade gave - to the modern age of terrorism. That's coming up at 9:00 p.m. Eastern here on CNN.

Still to come though, our broadcast and an update on the breaking news, the new debris found that could be from Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.

[20:55:03]

COOPER: What's believed to be a shredded suitcase? Plus, what a U.S. intelligence assessment is now saying about the disappearance of the 777.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COOPER: A recap now of our breaking news. New developments in the mystery of Malaysia Airlines flight 370. More debris found today on a remote island in the western Indian Ocean. Now, it appears to be part of a shredded suitcase, and obviously, is now part of that investigation. The discovery, of course, coming just a day after a piece of a plane wing was found on the very same island. That piece is being sent to investigators in France.

Tonight, a source tells CNN that Boeing investigators are now confident that the wing does come from a 777 aircraft, which is the same type of the Malaysian Airlines flight. While the chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau says he is highly confident, his words, that the debris is from MH-370. Another new development, two U.S. officials say American intelligence agencies think someone in the cockpit deliberately moved the plane off-course. Intelligence officials made that assessment months ago, this is separate from the investigation into the debris. Tonight, it's renewed focus, of course, on the captain and first officer of the flight who Malaysian officials concluded were not at fault. There's still no proof that they intended in any way to destroy the plane. We are going to have more on all of that through the night here on CNN including 11 p.m. when we'll be back with another addition of "360". Right now, though, a premiere episode of the CNN original series, "The Seventies" starts now.