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Ft. Lauderdale Plane Fire; Republican Debate. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired October 29, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:00:13] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Here we go. Top of the hour. Breaking news. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Here's what we know out of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. I have some pictures for you. A passenger jet here - look at all that smoke, my goodness. A passenger jet caught fire while taxiing for departure. The plane, a Boeing 767, up to 200 passengers on board here and this happened.

I have CNN aviation analyst Miles O'Brien with me. But first to Alina Machado we go.

What happened, Alina?

ALINA MACHADO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Brooke.

Some terrifying moments for these passengers. We've just learned from the Broward Health Medical Center that they are expecting anywhere from six to 10 patients. Authorities in Broward County have said that there were passengers who were injured. Now, we don't know how many exact people were injured, we don't know the types of injuries they have, whether they were injured while they were inside the plane or if they were hurt while they were evacuating this aircraft.

Now, we've learned a little bit more about this flight. We're talking about Dynamic Airlines Flight 405. It was scheduled to take off from Ft. Lauderdale International Airport at 12:30 this afternoon. And it was headed directly to Caracas (ph), Venezuela. Now this plane, as you mentioned, caught fire while it was taxiing for departure. And there are reports that the plane was leaking fuel just before this fire started.

We've also learned a little bit more about this particular Boeing 767. According to the FAA, it was built in 1986. And this seems to be a relatively new route for this airline. In June, Dynamic announced that it was starting to offer nonstop service between Ft. Lauderdale and Caracas. And it's worth noting that there is a rather large Venezuelan population here in south Florida. Many of them live in Durral (ph), Florida, which is a 30 to 45 minute drive from Ft. Lauderdale.

Now, CNN has reached out to Dynamic Airlines, which is based in Greensboro, North Carolina. And so far, the airline is not making any statements about what happened, Brooke. BALDWIN: OK. Not the kind of pictures you want to see as you are

heading - heading out and about on a plane, Miles. I want to get you to respond - we've just turned around some sound. This is - this is from the air traffic control tower regarding this particular plane. Let's roll it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, (INAUDIBLE) contact (INAUDIBLE) 118.17 (ph) and let him know that you need to go back to the gate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, (INAUDIBLE) tango one and we'll - (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Engine's on fire! Engine's on fire!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Engine's on fire. We're calling the fire (INAUDIBLE) now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Miles, do me a favor, weigh in on what you just heard, and also, I'm just curious, I would imagine if, according to these reports, you know, that the pilot of this plane traveling behind reported seeing fuel leaking. Don't they do walk arounds? How was this not caught ahead of time?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, certainly if they were doing the walk around and they saw fuel leaking they would have - that would have been something you'd catch for sure. But what you have to think about is, on those walk arounds, it's not like they're opening up the cowling (ph) of the engine. And even if they did open it up and looked at all the fans and all the connections, there might have been a perfectly fine looking connection which gave way when they tried to start the engine, which is typically what would have been happening as they were taxiing toward the runway. So, you know, generally you start out with one engine going and then you fire up the second one as you get closer to your clearance for take-off, all part of just a fuel saving measure. So it's quite possible this all kind of transpired in the process of starting up that engine.

They wouldn't necessarily know from - there wouldn't be any indication in the cockpit that the fuel was leaking. There's no - no indication of that. I mean eventually, I suppose, you'd see the gauges go down, but that would take a little while. A fire, you would get some indications of. But it's, obviously, in this case, was very helpful that other pilots got on the radio and said, hey, you've got fuel leaking. They were already on their way, apparently had made the decision to go back when the fire began.

BALDWIN: Looks like it was a pretty rapid response there with crews on the ground. What - what's your biggest take away, quickly, Miles?

O'BRIEN: It looks like everything is OK. The only question I have was the left slide. You know, generally you want to evacuate away from the fire. Easy to second guess that, though. I don't know the exact circumstances at the time. You do want to get people out as quickly as possible.

BALDWIN: Yes. All right, Miles O'Brien, always great to have you on, despite the circumstances here. And, Alina Machado, thank you so much as well.

Now to the race for the White House. Will the third strike against Jeb Bush put him out of the presidential contest? For the third debate in a row here, a candidate once thought to be the Republican Party's best bet really failed to break through. Here are some headlines. He came out a clear loser of Wednesday's Republican debate, along with a name that's not even in the running, CNBC, the business network, taking a lot of the heat today for what many say were low blow questions from the debate moderators. And just moments ago, Jeb Bush spoke about the debate during a campaign stop in New Hampshire. Here he was.

[14:05:15] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And right now Washington's not working at all. It is completely dysfunctional. The debate last night was a good example of it. There wasn't any substantive question that - where people talk about the questions around their kitchen table. Very few things that are - that were real. It was all about the horse race. It was all about the - trying to figure out the gotcha question to look people - make people look bad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So who came out on top? We'll soon get to all of that. But first, in case you missed it, a recap.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MODERATOR: What's your biggest weakness?

MIKE HUCKABEE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't really have any weaknesses that I can think of.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I trust people too much.

CARLY FIORINA (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: After the last debate, I was told that I didn't smile enough.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: But if you want someone to drive you home, I will get the job done.

MODERATOR: Is this a comic book version of a presidential campaign?

TRUMP: No, it's not a comic book and it's not a very nicely asked question, the way you say that. First of all, John got lucky with a thing called fracking, OK? He hit oil. He got lucky with fracking. Believe me, that's why Ohio is doing well.

MODERATOR: Well, I'm - I'm sorry -

FIORINA: Becky (ph).

MODERATOR: We need to - we need to -

FIORINA: Becky (ph).

MODERATOR: We're going to try to move on. We have two more here.

FIORINA: Let me just - let -

MODERATOR: Now you're skipping more votes than any senator to run for president. Why not slow down, get a few more things done first or at least finish what you start?

MARCO RUBIO (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes, that's an interesting question. That's exactly what the Republican establishment says too. Why don't you wait in line? Wait for what?

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I mean, literally, the Senate, what is it, like a French workweek, you get like three days where you have to show up? You can campaign. Or just resign and let someone else take the job.

RUBIO: Someone has convinced you that attacking me is going to help you.

BUSH: Well, I've been -

RUBIO: Here's the bottom line. I'm not - my campaign is going to be about the future of America. It's not going to be about attacking anyone else on this stage.

CRUZ: This is not a cage match. And you look at the questions. Donald Trump, are you a comic book villain? Ben Carson, can you do math? John Kasich, will you insult two people over here? Marco Rubio, why don't you resign? Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen? How about talking about the substantive issues people care about?

HUCKABEE: It's like a 400 pound man saying, I'm going to go on a diet but I'm eating a sack of Krispy Kremes before I do.

MODERATOR: Do you believe the people responsible for the switch and the cover-up belong behind bars?

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You bet they do. And if I were the prosecutor, that's exactly where they'd be.

RUBIO: Here's the truth, I didn't inherit any money. My dad was a bartender. My mother was a maid. They worked hard to provide us the chance at a better life.

BUSH: You find a Democrat that's for cutting taxes - cutting spends $10, I'll give them a warm kiss.

MODERATOR: Does that not speak to your vetting process or judgment in anyway?

BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No, it speaks to the fact that I don't know those - see, they know. MODERATE: Given the budget pressures in Ohio and other states, is this

a revenue stream you'd like to have?

GOV. JOHN KASICH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, first of all, we're running a $2 billion surplus, OK? We're not having a revenue problem right now. And sending mixed signals to kids about drugs is a disaster.

HUCKABEE: Let me tell you, Donald Trump would be a better president every day of the week and twice on Sunday rather than Hillary.

CHRISTIE: We have $19 trillion in debt. We have people out of work. We have ISIS and al Qaeda attacking us. And we're talking about fantasy football?

RUBIO: The Republican Party's blessed to have 11 good candidates - 10 good candidates. The Democrats can't even come up with one.

FIORINA: And in your heart of hearts, you cannot wait to see a debate between Hillary Clinton and Carly Fiorina.

TRUMP: Everybody said it was going to be three hours, three and a half, including them. And in about two minutes, I renegotiated it down to two hours so we can get the hell out of here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: All right, so you get it, that's what happened last night. Now in that clip, you saw Jeb Bush go after Marco Rubio and Senator Rubio immediately took the sting out of Bush's offensive. Let's talk about all of the above with Craig Robinson, the former political director of Iowa's Republican Party, and Lisa Boothe, vice president of political polling and public affairs research at WPA Research.

LISA BOOTHE, VICE PRESIDENT OF POLITICAL POLLING, WPA RESEARCH: Hi, Brooke.

BALDWIN: So, awesome having both of you on. Thank you so much for joining me.

And, Craig, to you first. What is going on with Jeb Bush? I mean with that kind of performance, when will money start drying up?

CRAIG ROBINSON, FORMER POLITICAL DIRECTOR, IOWA REPUBLICAN PARTY: Well, I think it's going to start drying - drying up right away. That was a really bad debate performance. And not only did he lose the exchange with Senator Rubio, but the Chris Christie hit on him for talking about fantasy football I thought was especially damaging.

You know, Jeb Bush is saying today that, you know, he wasn't asked any substantive questions, yet last night, you know, he was asked a question that he didn't want, but he - he decided to talk about his fantasy football team. So if Jeb wants to be serious, let's be serious, change the subject. You don't have to answer directly the questions that a moderator poses to you. But it seems like he's incapable of steering the discussion. And in any campaign, you have to be able to do that. And he's shown an inability to really change the subject or talk about the issues that he wants to talk about.

[14:10:15] BALDWIN: We'll - we'll get - I'm so glad you brought up the Chris Christie moment, the fantasy football moment. I'm getting to that.

But, Lisa, first, let me - let me get to you and talk about Ben Carson. You know, this is the lead man going into the debate last night, both in national and in state polls. But might minds change? Take a look at what happened with our correspondent here Gary Tuchman. He was with a handful of Republicans watching in Utah. Here you go.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Five of them told us they were strong supporters of Ben Carson when we came here. Raise your hands, the five of you. Raise your hands high. Now, how many of you are still strong supporters of Ben Carson? So, two of you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Will a bad debate hurt Ben Carson?

BOOTHE: Well, it might, but I would say he hasn't had particularly strong debates in either the CNN debate or the Fox News debate. So it will be interesting to see if those poll numbers change. But I honestly thing who had the worst night were the moderators. I mean you know you have a problem when you're getting hit from the left by someone like Bill Maher, who is a progressive liberal, and when the RNC is sending out a statement saying that the debate did a disservice to voters.

But ultimately I think it was Republicans as a whole who had a good night because what they were able to do was to be able to unite against some of that bias. And I think they were also able to lay out a sharp contrast between Republicans economic vision for the future and that of what we've seen under President Obama and Hillary Clinton. Republicans were able to lay out an indictment of those failed policies where we've seen middle class families are making less now than they did before President Obama took office and -

BALDWIN: We'll get to your moderator point. Let me just jump in. But I'm curious, do you think, you know, a lot of the headlines today about the moderators and about CNBC, do you think that's drowning out one of the would-be headlines, which is the fact that, you know, your two front runners, Trump and Carson, didn't really come to play.

BOOTHE: Well, and you're right, Brooke. And, unfortunately, you know, it is drawing a lot of headlines. And, you know, I think shame on the moderators for presenting questions and framing questions and - with such liberal bias. But I do think that Republican - the Republican candidates, really each of them, did a good job of rebutting and taking down some of the premise of the questions.

If you remember, Marco Rubio called out John Harwood (ph) for his inaccurate question regarding Marco Rubio's tax plan. So I think the candidates did a good job rebutting those points, pointing out when some of those questions were inaccurate. And also, as I mentioned before, laying out an indictment of the failed economic policies that we've seen under President Obama and drawing a sharp contrast between what Republicans vision for our future economically is and that of Hillary Clinton's, which is just the same failed policies that we've seen under President Obama.

BALDWIN: And some of those candidates on the stage certainly drew the lines in the sand with a potential Hillary Clinton administration.

But, Craig, back to your point about Chris Christie. Let me just - just - you know, I feel like he had so many strong moments, you know, but the memorable moment was what you alluded to, the moment that he really stole from Jeb Bush. Here you go.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: Let me say this. WE have a government -

CHRISTIE: (INAUDIBLE) we just talking about getting government involved in fantasy football? We have - wait a second. We have $19 trillion in debt. We have people out of work. We have ISIS and al Qaeda attacking us and we're talking about fantasy football? Can we stop?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: I mean with - Craig, with that, I said this after our, you know, Reagan Library debate in Simi Valley, why do you think Chris Christie doesn't get so much traction after these debates?

ROBINSON: Yes, I think he would have more traction if he had a better foothold in either Iowa or New Hampshire. Chris Christie, his problem is not debating. I think he's had moments like this before. He's really good on the debate stage. He's a naturally gifted politician. And it's frustrating that, you know, he has - he shines in these debates yet - and he's really good on the stump and in town hall settings in Iowa and New Hampshire, but with such a big field, I think it's just hard to breakthrough. All the clutter and all the media attention of all the candidates. And so if he's ever able to get those numbers to start to rise, I actually think he's someone who could really capitalize on it.

BALDWIN: Craig Robinson, thank you. Lisa Boothe, thank you.

BOOTHE: Thank you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Lisa, you picked off a lot of what I'm about to talk about here. Coming up next, the head of the Republican National Committee says future debate moderators are on notice. We will talk about the attacks against CNBC and the moderators from last night. That's ahead.

Plus, just in, speaking of the media, "The New York Times" telling Chris Christie, drop out now. Hear why.

[14:14:51] And the former prep school student convicted of sexually assaulting a younger student in a traditional, quote/unquote "senior salute" is in court today at this hour for sentencing. We'll be right back.

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BALDWIN: I'm Brooke Baldwin. This is CNN.

Republican presidential debate take three. We saw a lot of fireworks, a lot of head-butting as these candidates wrestled to stand apart from the rest of the pack. But there is one opinion apparently they all seem to share, that the mainstream media is the worst.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRUZ: The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don't trust the media.

RUBIO: The Democrats have the ultimately super PAC, it's called the mainstream media.

CHRISTIE: Do you want me to answer or do you want to answer? Because - because I've got to tell you the truth, even in New Jersey what you're doing is called rude.

TRUMP: I don't know. You - you people write this stuff. I don't know what you -

CRUZ: This is not a cage match. And you look at the questions. Donald Trump, are you a villain? Ben Carson, can you do math? John Kasich, will you insult two people over here? Marco Rubio, why don't you resign? Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen? How about talking about the substantive issues people care about?

[14:20:11] HUCKABEE: I know to a lot of people in the media this is just a great big game and we're the players.

RUBIO: This is another example of the double standard that exists in this country between the mainstream media and the conservative view (ph).

CARSON: If somebody put me on their home page, they did it without my permission.

MODERATOR: Does that not speak to your vetting process or judgement in any way?

CARSON: No, it speaks to the fact that I don't know those - see, they know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: CNN's senior media correspondent Brian Stelter is with me. Also Ramesh Ponnuru, senior editor for "The National Review." And Mindy Finn, a Republican political consultant and founder of Empowered Women.

Welcome, welcome to all of you.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Stelter, I'm turning to you first because you've got some news just in from "The New York Times" regarding Chris Christie.

STELTER: Yes. The editorial board of the paper calling on Chris Christie to drop out of the race. To give it up. They say essentially he has no chance and he's got a lot of work to do back in New Jersey, his home state. They say he should focus on his governor job until 2017 when his job is up. Basically this is what we see sometimes with newspapers when you see a very low polling candidate. But it's interesting to see Chris Christie being targeted by this. I have a feeling he'll use this as another chance to call out media bias. So much of what we saw last night was all about the liberal media. Well, they're going to say "The Times" op-ed board is an example of that.

BALDWIN: All right, let's go there with the two of you, Ramesh and Mindy. You know, the Republicans obviously pouncing on the moderators, pouncing on CNBC. Are they justified? Ramesh, to you, then Mindy.

RAMESH PONNURU, SENIOR EDITOR, "NATIONAL REVIEW": Sure. Well, look, I think that the national political press does lean left, has for a long time. I think that what we saw last night from CNBC, though, wasn't so much liberal bias as it was rank incompetence. Just - they just ran a very poor debate. And when you combine those two things in the Republican voting base's low opinion of a lot of the media, it was tailor made for a lot of the candidates to, as you put it, pounce.

BALDWIN: Mindy.

MINDY FINN, REPUBLICAN POLITICAL CONSULTANT: Yes, I absolutely agree. I think among Republican operatives in the Republican base there could be a lot of excitement about a debate hosted by CNBC as an opportunity, even if it wasn't as widely watched, as an opportunity to talk about really substantive issues that haven't been gotten to in the past two debates. Instead, what you came to is really appreciate the hard work and the homework it takes and the effort to run a really great debate, which Fox and CNN did. And we saw the wild contrast with CNBC last night where it looked like, you know, they maybe only had been preparing for it - like someone told them they needed to host the debate two hours prior.

STELTER: And, you're right, it wasn't as widely watched, but the ratings are in, 14 million viewers, which is still outstanding for cable news. So if you had a great night like Marco Rubio, you're feeling really good with those ratings. If you're one of the moderators, you're probably feeling even worse because the ratings were so high and yet people are all talking about how badly you did.

BALDWIN: Well, so the head of the RNC, Reince Priebus, you know, seconds after the debate wrapped blasting the network.

STELTER: Yes.

BALDWIN: Here he was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REINCE PRIEBUS, RNC CHAIRMAN: But I think it was one gotcha question, one personal low blow after the other. It's almost like they tried to design a Rubik's Cube for every question to take the worst element, I think, of what moderators and what the media should bring to the table and all I can tell you is that while I'm proud of our candidates for pretty much sticking together, I'm very disappointed in the moderators and I'm very disappointed with CNBC.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: All right, so he goes from the Rubik's Cube sound bite to saying this. "The RNC won't stand for it. We will fight to protect our candidates. I'm asking you to join me. Let's put the mainstream media on notice."

Mindy, here's the thing, though. You know, this - this is the guy, this is the head of the RNC, who put the Republican candidates in that position. He OKed the rules. He OKed the network. So shouldn't the RNC shoulder some of the blame here?

FINN: It wasn't so much the network. And you can't - you know, the RNC wasn't going to micromanage how the moderators conducted themselves once the debate actually begun. So I think Reince handled it as well as he could have at the end of that debate by not wasting any seconds to come out and be very clear that they were putting the media on notice and how disappointed he was in the network.

BALDWIN: Do either of you disagree?

PONNURU: I think one of the reasons Priebus has denounced CNBC is precisely because he has some responsibility here and he was facing some concern of dissatisfaction over that.

BALDWIN: Stelter, let me ask you about this, this moment. I don't know how often this actually happens, but the campaign manager for the Jeb Bush team, Danny Diaz (ph), banging on the door of the control room on site for that debate.

STELTER: Shocking. Shocking. And demanding more time for his candidate.

BALDWIN: Demanding more time for Jeb.

STELTER: Absolutely. And CNBC tried to shut that down, tried not to be listening to that. You know, when you're in the control room, you want to be able to control it yourself, not have any outside influences. But it goes to show how important a night this was for Jeb Bush and the sense that they had early on in the debate that they were not doing very well.

[14:25:12] You know, CNBC's response to all this criticism today is, listen, these candidates should be able to accept and take on tough questions if they want to be president. That's true, but there were also problems with managing the debate. There were problems with the chaos. It seemed like the moderators let it get out of control and that's what a lot of the criticism is about today. BALDWIN: It seems like it's dominating the headlines.

STELTER: I do not think that in 2015, 2016 they'll be having a Republican debate. I think it was that severe for the RNC last night. CNBC probably not in the debate running next time.

BALDWIN: All right, Brian Stelter, Ramesh Ponnuru and Mindy Finn, thank you all so much.

STELTER: Thanks.

BALDWIN: We'll come back to politics. Thank you. But next, new video paints a vivid picture of the deadly shootout between bikers in Waco, Texas, and police like you have never seen it before. One of the bloodiest days in the violent history of motorcycle clubs. CNN gotten on our hands on new surveillance video showing the moment the shots began to ring out. Do not miss this.

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