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Strongest Hurricane in History to Slam Mexico; U.S. Soldier Killed in Iraq Identified; Clinton Mostly Undamaged in 10-Hour Grilling; Ben Carson Surges to Top Against Donald Trump; Interview with Congressman Mike Pompeo of Kansas. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired October 23, 2015 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:01] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Instead of taking their girlfriends to the concert they gave the extra tickets to their local Big Brothers, Big Sisters outfit. How great is that?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good for them. And that's why they will be going solo to all the dances in the future.

CAMEROTA: Time now for NEWSROOM with Carol Costello.

Hey, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Have a great weekend. Thank you.

NEWSROOM starts now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

COSTELLO: Hey, good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

A potentially catastrophic storm, the strongest hurricane ever recorded, is hours away from making landfall in Mexico. Officials are evacuating more than 50,000 people ahead of Hurricane Patricia. Forecasters predict the storm will bring heavy rain, destructive waves and landslides.

Meteorologist Chad Myers has more from the weather center. Good morning.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Carol. And I think it's very good news that we're not trying to evacuate millions of people because millions of people, Carol, don't live there. They are going to try to get the entire population away from the shore. Certainly if you get a wave of -- and a storm surge of 30 feet or more you're going to have to back those people up very, very far.

The wind speeds overnight got to 200 miles per hour. And in fact flight level where air force reconnaissance aircraft was flying, found a wind to 221 miles per hour. And I can't imagine what that flight must have been like last night for those men and women on that plane. And thanks to them for doing that for us to know that this is now the biggest storm ever on record called a hurricane. Now there was one called a typhoon. Typhoon Tip with a slightly less

pressure. Slightly lower pressure than this. But I'll tell you what, we're not splitting hairs here. This is a monster. This is a very bad storm at 200 miles per hour, going to wipe things off the map. Honestly.

You're going to see an EF-4, almost EF-5 tornado that's 12 miles wide. When we talk about the eye wall going around and around and around, and going right on shore. Now the population density here isn't as bad as it would have been had it been Acapulco or maybe Puerto Vallarta which is just north of there. But Manzanillo, Mexico is going to get hit very hard. And even La Patricia is going to get hit very hard as well. Some of this moisture can get into the United States in the next couple of days if it doesn't get all rained out here.

Now you mentioned it, Carol. There will be flash floods, there will be mud slides. There will be all of this water that gets on top of the mountains in Sierra Madre, and has to go back into the ocean back where the people are trying to evacuate and where the initial storm surge came from in the first place. So a very dangerous situation here. Stronger than any storm you can name, including Katrina, Andrew, Francis, Camille. All of those not as big as this is right now.

COSTELLO: Wow. Chad Myers, you'll keep us most posted. Thank you.

New details this morning about a deadly rescue mission in northern Iraq. An American service member was killed in the operation that liberated about 70 hostages from an ISIS controlled prison. The Defense Department has just identified this man as 39-year-old Master Sergeant Joshua Wheeler.

CNN's Joe Johnson has more for you this morning. Good morning, Joe.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Master Sergeant Joshua Wheeler, 39 years old. He's from Rowland, Oklahoma. Had been deployed multiple times in Afghanistan and Iraq.

A number of firsts in this situation quite frankly. He was the first known U.S. service member killed in Iraq since November of 2011. He was also among the first to be involved in a known engagement with ISIS on the grounds. So his name is Joshua Wheeler. Roland, Oklahoma. 39 years old. This was quite an operation to rescue hostages in Kirkuk. Seventy hostages the Pentagon said were under threat of imminent execution. So an important story here partially because it is the first known engagement with ISIS in Iraq.

Carol, back to you.

COSTELLO: All right, Joe Johns, reporting live for us this morning. Also this hour, Hillary Clinton faces a decidedly more friendly audience. She and the remaining Democrats in the presidential race will address their party's women's leadership forum. You see Bernie Sanders speaking there now. Just minutes ago one of Bernie Sanders' and Hillary Clinton's

Democratic challengers Lincoln Chafee announced he is ending his campaign. But back to Hillary, Clinton she may be celebrating a bigger boost to her presidential bid and it arguably came from her chief Republican critics. Clinton weathered 10 grueling hours of questioning in yesterday's hearing on the Benghazi attacks. She emerged without any significant missteps or damage and now rides a new surge of momentum. On Wednesday Joe Biden announced he would not challenge her for the nomination and just last week polls show that most Americans believes she won the Democratic debate.

In many ways of Hillary Clinton's years of political savvy and ambition face their biggest test, though, in one single hearing. Hours of often blistering questions and bitter accusations. What did she know about the deteriorating security in Benghazi and could she have prevented the deaths of these four Americans including the U.S. ambassador.

[09:05:11] Here are more -- here are some of the more memorable moments.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I really don't care what you all say about me. It doesn't bother me a bit.

REP. MIKE POMPEO (R), SELECT COMMITTEE ON BENGHAZI: I'm not asking what the ARB did. I'm asking what you did.

REP. SUSAN BROOKS (R), SELECT COMMITTEE ON BENGHAZI: Did you ever talk to Ambassador Stevens when all of this was going on in the hot bed of Libya?

CLINTON: Well --

BROOKS: That is a yes or no question, Madam Secretary. I'm sorry.

CLINTON: I believe I did. But I --

BROOKS: And when was that?

CLINTON: I don't recall.

REP. PETER ROSKAM (R), SELECT COMMITTEE ON BENGHAZI: Here's basically what happened to their requests. They were torn up.

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D), SELECT COMMITTEE ON BENGHAZI: I don't know what we want from you. Do we want to badge you over and over again until you get tired, until we do get the gotcha moment that he's talking about? We're better than that.

CLINTON: I thought more about what happened than all of you put together. I've lost more sleep than all of you put together.

(END VIDEO CLIP) COSTELLO: So let's talk about this hearing and what it might mean for Hillary Clinton's political future and the future of these Benghazi investigations. So I'm joined now by senior political correspondent Brianna Keilar, who's in Washington, and Larry Sabato, he's the director for the Center of Politics at the University of Virginia.

Welcome to both of you.

LARRY SABATO, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR POLITICS, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: Thanks, Carol.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Carol.

COSTELLO: So it's surprising that Hillary Clinton after 10 hours of questioning has set a campaign event this morning.

KEILAR: Yes, that's right. She is going speak at that event where you saw Lincoln Chafee say he's not running anymore. This is the DNC Women's Leadership Forum -- pardon me, and this is where all of the candidates are going to be speaking today. So it's a little bit of a cattle call so we did expect that she would go and do that. And she has taken a few days off, remember, to prepare for this so -- this hearing yesterday. So she wasn't fundraising. She wasn't campaigning.

Then this afternoon she heads to Alexandria, Virginia. This is right outside of D.C. It's northern Virginia Democratic stronghold. She'll be campaigning with Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe who is a longtime friend of decades so she's going to be in much friendlier territory today -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Much friendlier territory, but, Larry, there are people out there who say Hillary Clinton, her performance yesterday, she took all of those grueling questions. She didn't misspeak. She didn't have one of those moments that Republicans could use in a campaign ad. Some say that was the best campaigning she's done in quite some time.

SABATO: Well, she's had a great month, Carol. No question about it. And actually the hearings plus Biden not running have really put Hillary Clinton back in the position she was in six months or so ago, which is more or less effectively, very probably, the Democratic nominee. What those hearings did. Well, they did three things. They strengthened Hillary Clinton's position with Democrats. Being attacked by Republicans in that fashion got her stronger support among Democrats who will be voting in caucuses and primaries.

The second thing it did obviously is strengthen Republicans in opposition to Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton may be the only thing Republicans can agree on right now. They agree that they dislike her. And the third maybe most important effect is "Saturday Night Live" has its opening skit.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: I think you're right about that. Going back to the matter at hand now. You know, four people did --

four Americans did die in Benghazi and this hearing was supposed to kind of find out what happened and why and how we can prevent another such attack. But even the Chairman Trey Gowdy said little new information was learned from this hearing. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TREY GOWDY (R), CHAIRMAN, SELECT COMMITTEE ON BENGHAZI: In terms of her testimony, I don't know that she testified that much differently today than she has the previous times she's testified.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So, Brianna, are you surprised that Trey Gowdy said that?

KEILAR: Not necessarily because I think he was being honest. I don't think we learned a ton of new things. And certainly what I think was learned was sort of incremental.

What I thought was really interesting and maybe what surprised me a little bit was that we didn't see a more frustrated Hillary Clinton because keep in mind, and this was really her goal. But at the bottom of this she's very frustrated by this process. You can sort of pick that up a little bit. But especially these long hours after hours. And that didn't really come through. Her campaign is thrilled about this that she appeared unflappable.

And to Larry's point this was really something that riled up the Republican base. They certainly feel like they aired -- Republicans do that they aired some complaints about where Hillary Clinton was when it came to security issues. They are trying to paint her as sort of negligent if not really -- sort of at fault in a nefarious way that she was negligent. And also just that her general communication level or involvement when it came to Libya, which was a place where she argued for U.S. intervention, that it wasn't there. So they have sort of put that out there.

But you talk to the Clinton campaign, Carol, I'm told by one source they are ecstatic. And one Clinton campaign aide said to me that was a president sitting there. So they are really thrilled about her performance yesterday.

[09:10:01] COSTELLO: All right. I have to leave it there. Brianna Keilar, Larry Sabato, thanks to both of you.

Stay with us. In just a few minutes we'll talk to two members of the House Select Committee on Benghazi. Democrat Linda Sanchez of California and Republican Mike Pompeo of Kansas will join me live.

On the Republican side, there is a new frontrunner in Iowa. That would be Dr. Ben Carson. He is surging ahead of Donald Trump in not one but two new polls. Carson has 28 percent support among likely caucusgoers in polls from both Quinnipiac and the "Des Moines Register," putting him well ahead of Trump in both but Carson says he's taking his lead in stride. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is a great poll. But it's only one poll. So I'm not going to get too excited until I see that this is really a trend in lots of different places. I know there was one in Wisconsin yesterday that we won also. But you know, I need to see a lot of different things happening. And I also recognize that this is a marathon. It's not a sprint.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: CNN politics executive editor Mark Preston is following the story. So what do you make of these polls?

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Well, there is no question, Carol, that Ben Carson tends to downplay everything. But good morning, there are monumental shifts in Iowa today. Very good news for Dr. Ben Carson. Bad news for Donald Trump. As you noted in the latest Bloomberg Politics-Des Moines Register poll it shows that Carson is surging ahead of Trump by nine points in the Hawkeye State. And here is why.

Let's take a look at the issue of faith regarding Trump. With 32 percent seeing him as a committed Christian, 28 percent not as a committed Christian, and 40 percent not sure. And here is what they love about Carson. When asked about Carson's attributes, 85 percent of Iowans find it attractive that he's not a career politician and 11 percent find it unattractive. 89 percent find it attractive that Carson is guided by his faith in God. And 7 percent unattractive. 96 percent of Iowans find it attractive that Ben Carson approaches issues with commonsense and 3 percent find it unattractive, and finally 42 percent find it attractive that Ben Carson has no foreign policy experience while 49 percent find it unattractive.

And when it comes to which GOP candidate should drop out of the race, Trump is at 25 percent, Jeb Bush at 22 percent, Lindsey Graham 22 percent, George Pataki 21 percent, and the New Jersey Governor Chris Christie at 19 percent -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Mark Preston reporting. And we'll have much more on this in the minutes to come in the NEWSROOM.

Mark Preston, thanks so much.

Still to come, fireworks on Capitol Hill as congressional Republicans grill Hillary Clinton. One of them, Kansas Congressman Mike Pompeo. He joins me next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:16:54] COSTELLO: We want to take a closer look at the Benghazi hearing. What was accomplished and what were some of the key moments from eleven hours of testimony. One headline taking exchange takes place between Kansas Congressman Mike Pompeo and Hillary Clinton.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) POMPEO: Why has no one been held accountable, how come not a single

person lost a single paycheck connected to the fact that we had the first ambassador killed since 1979? How come no one has been held accountable?

CLINTON: The personnel rules and laws that govern those decisions were followed very quickly.

POMPEO: Yes, ma'am. I'm not asking what the ARB did. I'm asking what you did.

CLINTON: I followed the law, Congressman. That was my responsibility.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Congressman Mike Pompeo joins me live from Capitol Hill.

Good morning sir.

POMPEO: Good morning, Carol. Thanks for having me on your show this morning.

COSTELLO: Thanks for being here. I know it was a marathon night for you as well.

Many Americans --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: Yes, absolutely.

Many Americans think you are right. Someone should have been fired. Who do you think should have been fired?

POMPEO: Oh goodness. I don't know they know the answer to that question. What I know is a there's still been no accountability, whether that was Mr. Kennedy, the under secretary in charge of security, or someone at the lower level, I don't know. But I'm not seeing where you had this major an incident where the ARB itself said was grossly inadequate security and yet not a single person even got so much as a counseling statement put in their record.

COSTELLO: The ARB I guess found no one was in derelict of duties so it didn't rise to firing, right?

But I'm curious because two Americans were killed in a CIA compound. They were CIA contractors. Does the committee plan to ask General David Petraeus who was CIA chief at the time to testify at the hearing like Hillary Clinton testified?

POMPEO: Carol, I will say only this. We still have quite a few interviews to go. We will absolutely interview folks from every part of government that was involved in the incident that night whether it's Department of Defense, the White House, the National Security Council, certainly the Central Intelligence Agency as well and we'll bring in senior people from those organizations to understand all that went on that night.

You're right. There were two CIA folks. I actually had a chance to spend time with the father and sister of one of those two warriors who was killed. We owe it to them to get this right and to talk to all the folks who knew about what happened and so we can prevent something like this.

COSTELLO: Well, sir, if this hearing was to find out who was at fault, why wasn't Petraeus part of the hearing yesterday and why wasn't the defense secretary at the time, Leon Panetta, called as well?

POMPEO: Yes, ma'am. With respect to most of the witnesses, we've called just one witness at a time. There were a handful of hearings early with ARB where we have more than one, where we had a panel.

But our practice has been very consistent. We bring in a single witness. We ask them all the questions we have with respect to the materials we have in hand and things that they touched and knew.

[09:20:03] And we'll do that with respect to each of the other witnesses that we intend to call moving forward.

COSTELLO: But this hearing lasted eleven hours. Eleven hours. Even the Chairman Trey Gowdy said not much was accomplished. The conservative blog RedState said, God bless Gowdy for trying but, quote, "we'll go through today's hearing and the GOP will think there were sterling moments of gotcha brilliants. The Democrats will think there were sterling moments of fundraisin opportunity for Hillary Clinton. The press will ignore it all and the 70 percent of Americans not on Twitter or following the hearings today will go on with hair lives. It was all just a political spectacle."

POMPEO: Yes, ma'am. I couldn't disagree with all of that more. We learned an awful lat yesterday and will learn more.

COSTELLO: But the chairman said you didn't. He said very little new came out of that hearing.

POMPEO: Let me give you three examples. We were able to confirm through e-mails that we received only recently that Secretary Clinton new instantaneously and told her family member and the Egyptian leadership this had nothing do with a video.

We learned the cumulative impact of 600-plus security requests never made it to Secretary Clinton's desk and the folks demanding increased security never got it.

And we learned as we said in the opening that still to this day, no one been held accountable. We learned a lot yesterday and will learn a lot more as we move forward.

COSTELLO: Will there be more hearings though?

POMPEO: I don't know. We've done most of the work behind closed doors. We've tried to protect the folks who were coming in to testify such that we could get their full story in a setting that appealed to that.

Secretary Clinton demanded that this be an open hearing yesterday. We should only come on that condition. We honored that request and I think we honored the American people with the work we did yesterday as well.

COSTELLO: What if Democrats decide not to take part in any anymore even closed door hearings. Will they still go on?

POMPEO: Yes, ma'am.

COSTELLO: And I ask that in light of what Carl Bernstein said. And I want you to listen. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARL BERNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: She did great because she was up against a group of demagogues. You have to back to Joe McCarthy to see this kind of demagoguery in a congressional hearing. And what they did was gave her a platform to show what kind of president of the United States she would be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So your response to that?

POMPEO: Ma'am, I served in the army for a handful of years. We've been focused on our mission since May of 2014. Lots of folks will say lots of things. We'll stay focused on covering the facts to make sure something like this never happens again.

There were four Americans killed. That's important. It matters to the American people. And we're going to continue our mission.

COSTELLO: OK. Just one more question. In retrospect, was 11 hours too long?

POMPEO: Carol, we had to get through all of the questions we had. Secretary Clinton to choose to give many answers to yes or no questions yesterday. We honored that. And she committed to staying until we asked all of our questions.

And we're going to continue. We're going to be dogged so when we're finished with our report, we can we did our job, our mission is complete.

COSTELLO: When all is said and done. Taxpayer money, $5 million already spent almost. So how much is Congress willing to spend on this?

POMPEO: Ma'am, whatever it takes. There are four Americans who were killed and we have an obligation to get that right. There is no dollar amount that would be too great. And $4 million, I heard Mr. Cummings last night say $20 million. I think we shouldn't measure this in terms of dollars but in the American lives lost.

COSTELLO: So, $20 million would be okay with you because whatever it takes?

POMPEO: Yes, ma'am. We have an obligation to get the answers. I think that number is wrong. I don't think we spent that much. I think we've actually conducted this investigation in a way that has honored taxpayer money. We'll continue to do that.

COSTELLO: Congressman Mike Pompeo with Kansas. Thanks for joining me.

POMPEO: Thank you, Carol.

COSTELLO: You're welcome.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM: I'll talk with a Democrat from the House Benghazi committee who says it is time to in her words put this sham investigation to rest.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:28:31] COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

By many accounts, Hillary Clinton left the hearing unscathed but critics say the documents threw softballs at the former secretary of state, giving her plenty of chances to say things like this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: I would imagine I thought more about what happened than all of you put together. I've lost more sleep than all of you put together. I have been wracking my brain about what more could have been done, or should have been done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Joining me now, Democrat Linda Sanchez of California, a member of the House Select Committee on Benghazi.

Welcome.

REP. LINDA SANCHEZ (D), CALIFORNIA: Thank you for having me.

COSTELLO: Thanks for being here. Democrats on the committee including yourself made sure Clinton got across that she cared.

But Kate Quigley, who's brother Glen Doherty died in Benghazi, said Clinton seemed fixated on the Libyan people and not the American victims. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATE QUIGLEY, SISTER OF BENGHAZI ATTACK VICTIM: She spoke to my family how sad we should feel for the Libyan people because they are uneducated and that breeds fear which breeds violence and leads to a protest. And, you know, I remember thinking at the time, wow, you know how

selfish of me. I never really thought about the Libyan people. I've been so consumed with my own grief and loss and concern. And, you know, when I think back now to that day and what she knew, you know, it shows me a lot about her character that she would choose in that moment to basically perpetuate what she knew was untrue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)