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NORAD Surveillance Balloon Untethered; Paul Ryan Elected Next House Speaker. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired October 28, 2015 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00] TOM SATER, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Across northeast Maryland into Pennsylvania, where in Pennsylvania we're not sure. Extreme northern New Jersey and then possibly extreme southeastern New York State. Maybe make its way into parts of New England and Connecticut, Massachusetts. But if you follow the wind, they go across the northeast and then get into Canada Maritime. This is where they may decide if they want to shoot the system down and let it fall to get into a safe zone. But think about this. 16,000 feet, all the airports across this region are going to be high alert. It will give fits to air traffic controllers at 16,000 feet across LaGuardia, JFK, up toward Logan. So it will be interesting to find out exactly where this is. But again, we're not sure what the material is, that mean as lot if they decide to let it go to several thousand feet up in the air.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: My goodness, I hope this doesn't affect people flying anywhere in the northeast area. What a mess!

Spider Marks, Major General Spider Marks, I've got you now. Let me try it again. We're talking about potentially shooting this thing down. How? From the F-16s?

GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, frankly, the short answer is sure, you could. But the issue is these JLENS have kind of a self-correcting and self-feeling system. They were designed -- we first put these things in place when we were in Baghdad so we could tether them to the ground and have a 24/7 persistent hang from the bottom of these things various censors that would give us a good sense of the signals profile on the ground or we could take some great imagery, some good pictures, et cetera.

So they're a really great intelligence collector. That's what they're not used for so the key thing is, if you want to shoot this thing down. To try to also primarily recover the intelligence collection on the bottom, which has a lot of in this case since it was used here in the United States traffic data, radar data, and it's important that we capture that data. So it's got a pod and you're going to try to secure that thing. Now, bear in mind also that the intelligence and everything that was processed through that has now been downloaded into it and it is recoverable. So the point is, you might be able to write this thing off, but you've got a pretty powerful sensor capability that you might want to try to preserve. So really don't want to shoot it down, just recover it and tether it again?

BALDWIN: I'm listening to all these possibilities. General Spider Marks, don't go too far. I have so many more questions

for you as I know we're tracking this military blimp 243 feet in length, huge, somewhere over Pennsylvania.

Meantime, I've got to switch gears and go to more breaking news from Capitol Hill. I have Jeff Zeleny standing by.

What's going on, Jeff?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, I tell you, just a few moments ago, Representative Paul Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, has been elected to be the next Republican speaker of the House. He still faces a full vote tomorrow by the entire House of Representatives because this is a constitutional office. They are tallying the votes as we speak, but he's succeeded threshold of the amount needed to become the next House speaker. This caps a month- long frenetic activity. Just a month ago, Speaker John Boehner decided to step down. Kevin McCarthy we thought would be the speaker of the House. He stepped aside. So Paul Ryan, the reluctant speaker in many respects, did not want the job, he is now on the verge of being elected by the entire House. He just won the vote from Republicans today. Brooke, he would be the youngest -- the second youngest Republican House speaker ever. But the youngest Republican House speaker in 170 years. He's 45 years old. His family played a big role in this consideration here. We're expecting to hear from him shortly, Brooke.

BALDWIN: I am sure there is a position ready to role. We'll take it. Obviously we'll hear from the now speaker of the House. Lit me just ask you this. Do you have any color from behind the scenes or what's been happening there today?

ZELENY: Sure. A lot of members I was struck by, Brooke, bringing their families in. Young children were in the room when the voting was going on. Paul Ryan is a very popular member of the House of Representatives, really on both sides of the aisle, Republican and Democrat. Of course, he came into the national spotlight when he was Mitt Romney's running mate in 2012. He was the vice presidential candidate. Consequently, the only person who's been on a presidential ticket to serve as speaker of the House. The color of the room as we talk to people going into the room, they say they are ready to try to show they can govern. They say they want to show that they can be functional. The first test really is coming up later today with this budget vote, the agreement that's been reached sort of by all sides. Conservatives don't like it still. We expect Paul Ryan when he assumes this position to have a clean deck to get started. John Boehner leaves him that. He's cleared the lane of all of the partisanship.

[14:35:09] BALDWIN: Jeff, stay with me.

Matt Lewis let me bring you in.

Matt Lewis with "The Daily Caller."

No huge surprise after all of this wrangling behind the scenes, would he, could he, what about the back-and-forth, his demands, et cetera. First, just your response to this?

MATT LEWIS, CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR, THE DAILY CALLER: I think this is a huge opportunity. It's been since Newt Gingrich that Republicans had a speaker who was a policy wonk, a solutions oriented charismatic leader. Not just a vote wrangler but somebody who can sell conservatism to the nation. I think Paul Ryan could be a historic figure going forward.

BALDWIN: House Freedom Caucus for one as a challenge. I know they had met before and he had issued those demands. How do you think he will be able to unify the party moving forward?

LEWIS: Well, it's going to be a challenge. There's no doubt about that. I think pat of the key will be returning to remember order, passing things not rushing things. Not making these conservatives feel like all of a sudden there's a vote tomorrow and they're under the gun to read the bill. I think that he can go a long way by just restoring that regular order. But there's no doubt there's going to be problems. There's going to be clashes along the way. But at the end of the day, I do think that Ryan is poised to be a very, very important figure. And this is just astonishing. If you had told me two months ago -- remember, Ryan wasn't even thought to be in the running.

BALDWIN: Not at all.

LEWIS: It was Boehner and then it was going to be McCarthy. A year ago you thought it might be Eric Cantor.

BALDWIN: Right.

LEWIS: Yeah.

BALDWIN: My goodness, what a month. What a difference a month can make.

Matt, stay with me.

I have Manu Raju standing by as well. He's been chasing all of this for us for CNN.

Manu, what kind of color do you have behind the scenes?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Paul Ryan actually got 200 votes we're told, his next competitor got 43, that's Daniel Webster of Florida. 43 Republicans voted for him. One voted for Marsha Blackburn from Tennessee and one voted for Kevin McCarthy. Now, Mr. Ryan was nominated speaker because he only needed 125 in order to win the nomination. Well more than enough but not enough to get that 218 votes that he would need on the House floor as of Thursday. Now, we expect a lot of those people who voted for Daniel Webster to vote for Paul Ryan tomorrow so he should be no problem for Ryan to get elected. But it still shows there's a sizeable bloc of conservatives that Mr. Ryan will have to deal with when it comes time to legislate, folks in that House Freedom Caucus who said they would support Daniel Webster who wanted something different in the House Republican leadership. So clearly there is still some consternation on the right. Mr. Ryan was not able to convince some of those guys to come over and back him. Still, I should caution, we do anticipate Mr. Ryan to be elected speaker tomorrow. But he'll have to worry about the various factions of this party going forward. Legislating is not going to be easy, as we've seen for so many years here -- Brooke?

BALDWIN: We were just talking about that.

Manu, thank you.

We'll take a quick break. When we come back, much more news on the soon to be House speaker, Paul Ryan.

And also the blimp on the loose. Breaking news. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:42:52] BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. We'll get you back to the U.S. military blimp somewhere flying over the skies of Pennsylvania after being untethered, presumably accidentally, from its moorings this morning in Maryland. We'll get you an update on that in just a second.

I want to take you back to Capitol Hill as the House has officially nominated Congressman Paul Ryan to be the House speaker.

My colleague, Jeff Zeleny is standing next to someone who didn't vote in favor of Paul Ryan.

Jeff, the floor is yours.

ZELENY: Hey, Brooke. I am standing here with Congressman Trent Franks. He did support Paul Ryan today.

But I'll ask you, Congressman, take us inside the room. He got about 200 votes we believe. He needs 230 votes tomorrow on the floor. Why is today different than tomorrow. How will he get the votes? Why is today different from tomorrow?

REP. TRENT FRANKS, (R), ARIZONA: Today was the Republican primary. Tomorrow is the general election. So I think that most of those who voted a different way today will come together and vote for Mr. Ryan tomorrow because they understand that the alternative, of course, is to see an opportunity for Democrats to try to demagogue or divide the process. So I think that you'll see Republicans come together. It won't certainly be a unanimous vote, but I think he will prevail handily tomorrow.

ZELENY: But Paul Ryan said he would only do this job if he had the support of the full Republican conference. Do you think he actually has that?

FRANKS: I do. I think that we all understand the moment in this country. We understand that we have a president that holds himself unconstrained to the struggles to the truth of his own words and we have been stalemated here primarily by Democrats in the Senate that won't allow bills to come to the floor in the Senate. The House has passed almost every bill that the Republican base wanted us to pass only to see it not even debated in the Senate. That's the reason for the dissention in this House and consequently we need a communicator like Paul Ryan that can properly delineate that to the American people.

ZELENY: He will be the youngest House speaker in more than 170 years. Take me inside the room when people were voting for him. What is the sense of the moment in there? And how much do people respect and like Paul Ryan?

FRANKS: Paul Ryan, along with Daniel Webster, is a totally, deeply revered and respected individual in this Congress. And I love both of them. Both of them would have made good speakers. Both of them would make a good pallbearer for a man like me. They're that dear to me.

[14:45:13] ZELENY: Congressman, thank you very much.

Brooke, that's the words from one congressman who was in the room. Again, he only got 200 votes so several dozen people did not vote for Paul Ryan. But by all accounts he will be elected tomorrow by this full House as the next speaker of the House, the 54th speaker of the House -- Brooke?

BALDWIN: 200 votes. Webster with 43 and Blackburn and McCarthy with one.

Jeff, thanks.

Back to the blimp. I have someone with me on the phone, Barry Glassman. He is Harford County Executive in Maryland.

Barry, I understand you were the first one -- this is where the blimp is moored, there in your county in Maryland. You were the first to realize, uh-oh, the blimp is missing and you need to call the first responders. How long ago was this, this morning?

BARRY GLASSMAN, HARFORD COUNTY, MARYLAND, EXECUTIVE (voice-over): Well, we got a call from the Aberdeen proving ground military noon with some general information that one of the blimps had become untethered and was loose. So at that point we do have civilian areas around the military base, and this is a military operation but we had to activate our emergency operations center to begin notifying our emergency operations volunteers and our EMS folks out in the field.

BALDWIN: What does the blimp look like?

GLASSMAN: It looks like a -- pretty much looks like just a large balloon, sort of like a blimp that you always see, Goodyear blimp or blimp you've seen growing up.

BALDWIN: Pretty big, 240-ish feet long.

GLASSMAN: It is.

BALDWIN: How was it tethered? Multiple tethers? How difficult would it be to become unconnected?

GLASSMAN: That I can't really speak to. You know, our main concern was looking out for our citizens because initially we had gotten some indication that the tether was dragging. So, you know, as a public official, we didn't know where it was heading and, in fact, if it was going to land in one of our civilian areas and create a hazard to local residents. So we wanted to begin to activate in case in fact it had come down somewhere in my county. Later on, we were notified that, in fact, it had left our air space and was traveling towards Pennsylvania. So we were able to step down our activation.

BALDWIN: That's right. It sounds like it has long left where you are in Harford County in Maryland and is now somewhere in the skies over Pennsylvania and would likely continue northward toward New York and potentially Canada.

Barry, thank you so much for calling.

We may actually be talking to someone in just a moment who actually has just spotted the blimp in the skies.

Quick break. Back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:52:20] BALDWIN: So back on the blimp here, before we hear from the likely House speaker, Paul Ryan, I have Mary Schiavo back with me on the phone.

Mary, we've just gotten a picture -- not on the phone, with me on Skype. We've gotten a picture of the blimp apparently in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. Here's the photo from high above the skies, someone's home there. You know, as we've been discussing this, what is the likelihood it would be potentially shot down versus intentionally deflated versus what other options there are?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, it's probably not too likely it will deflate on its own at this point, and the government has already said the trailing cable is about 6,700 feet long but had been deployed as high as 10,000 feet. So my guess is the cable has somehow either came detached midway or broken because the 6,700 feet of cable is not the full extension of that cable.

So my guess is because it contained equipment that tracks incoming missiles, aircraft, et cetera, it's very sensitive equipment, equipment that has not worked well, I might add, but because it has sensitive equipment, I can't imagine defense would allow the blimp to escape the United States air space. And it is compartmentalized. It's not just one big balloon. Is it has compartments of air so they could take out a compartment at a time if they can get a good shot. But you can't grab the cable because it's very strong and whoever tries to do that, it's aerodynamically not stable like an aircraft. It can bob and go from place to place. So it would be very tough to try to snag a cable, if you will. I don't think that will work.

(CROSSTALK) BALDWIN: OK. Let me interrupt you.

Let me go back to Capitol Hill to Congressman Paul Ryan who has just been elected as the next speaker of the House. Let's watch.

REP. PAUL RYAN, (R-WI), HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER & NEWLY ELECTED HOUSE SPEAKER: Thank you, everybody.

This begins a new day in the House of Representatives. John Boehner served with humility and distinction, and we owe him a debt of gratitude. But tomorrow we are turning the page. We are not going to have a House that looks like it's looked the last two years. We are going to move forward. We are going to unify. Our party has lost its vision, and we are going to replace it with a vision. We believe that the country is on the wrong track. We think the country is headed in the wrong direction. And we have an obligation here in the people's House to do the people's business, to give this country a better way forward, to give this country an alternative. We are going to respect the people by representing the people.

And I want to thank my colleagues for bestowing onto me this great honor. Thank you.

[14:55:26] BALDWIN: All right. I think that lasted less than 60 seconds there, but there you have your likely next U.S. Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, talking about -- Jeff Zeleny, let me bring in, as I sum it up.

Talking about unity in the party, his Republican party has lost vision, help define a new vision. Your response to his pretty snappy statement.

ZELENY: Well, Brooke, that was short and sweet to say the least. It's clear he paid homage and respect to Speaker Boehner. But then he said very bluntly, it's time to turn the page, it is time for a new moment, a new way of how things work here in Washington. And he said that Republicans will be unified. No matter how good of a legislator Paul Ryan has been, no matter how strong his relationships are with a lot of members up here on Capitol Hill, he still faces a daunting, daunting challenge of corralling the various strains of conservatism in his Republican House conference. You can tell by his own election tally, he only won 200 votes. There are 247 House Republicans. He initially said he would only do this if the entire majority of people were behind him so there's no question that it is a different moment. But the question, Brooke, is anything going to change in Washington? Is there really going to be a new time? Or is he going to sort of be able to corral this herd of Republicans who span the gap from the tea party conservatives to more moderate, more business-minded conservatives. Brooke, also this is coming right in the middle of a very heated Republican presidential campaign. There's a debate tonight. These things are linked, tied together. So the fortunes of the Republicans winning the White House are connected to this vote. So a new moment. We'll see if it's the same old day for Republicans here in Washington -- Brooke?

BALDWIN: Matt Lewis of "The Daily Caller" is still with me. How do we know it's not the same old day to Jeff Zeleny's point? When

will we know? What will be the litmus test, I suppose, whether or not Congressman soon to be speaker Ryan will be able to corral that massive spectrum that make up the Republicans there in the U.S. House of representatives?

LEWIS: Well, I think we'll know in short order. Look, something Paul Ryan said in that very brief statement that I think is important, he talked about being an alternative. That's different than being an opposition party. He wants to be an alternative. That means Paul Ryan wants to put forward a conservative vision, a conservative policy. We're going to talk about things like tax reform. We're going to talk about things like entitlement reform. It's important to note something else. John Boehner on his way out the door cleaned the barn for Paul Ryan. What that means is, he's not going to have to worry about things like continuing resolutions and debt ceilings. I think he's going to have time to possibly, possibly turn this around. If anybody can do it, Paul Ryan can.

BALDWIN: Matt Lewis, thank you so much.

LEWIS: Thank you.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Back with our breaking news, we are tracking this U.S. military blimp that is still on the loose. We're told it broke loose from its moorings somewhere over Maryland earlier right around lunchtime. Now it's flying somewhere over Pennsylvania. That's at least the latest we have. F-16 jets we know have been scrambled.

We have our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr, who is working this.

But first, Mary Schiavo, let's go to you, aviation analyst.

I don't know how much of an expert in blimps you are. But you tell me how they could bring this thing down.

(CROSSTALK)

I'm sorry. Forgive me. Back and forth. Got a lot of voices.

Barbara Starr, to you first. You have some reporting on the blimp.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Let me break in for a minute. Local officials are now reporting that there have been potentially some power outages in this area, Columbia County, Pennsylvania, northeastern Pennsylvania, because of dragging mooring lines from the blimp. Now, I just got off the phone with a military official who is tracking this moment by moment.

And in fact, they haven't gotten word of those power outages yet, but they are very concerned about the cables. First up and most important, he says, is the U.S. military wants to warn the public in that area to stay away from the blimp and any of these dragging cables that they see, that this could pose a hazard to public safety. They believe at the moment -- this is the U.S. military talking -- that the blimp is low to the ground, it has lost altitude. They don't know that it's landed. They don't know how low to the ground. They're trying to get as much information as possible as we speak.