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Republican Presidential Candidates Blast Media; Passenger Plane Caught Fire on the Tarmac; German Rapper Who Joined ISIS Killed in a U.S. Airstrike. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired October 29, 2015 - 15:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:32:47] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

U.S. fighters jets intercepted not just one but two Russian aircraft that they were flying too closely to the U.S. Ronald Reagan. This happened in the Pacific Ocean near the Korean Peninsula where the Navy was escorting the warship during joint training exercises with South Korea. Military officials say four armed fighter jets were sent as quote-unquote "standard operating procedure." The Russian jets were flying about a mile away from the USS Reagan and as low as 500 feet in altitude. The Navy says when it signals to the Russian planes, there was no response.

Back to the race here for the White House. The Republican presidential hopefuls, it's not a stretch to say, you know listen, they don't agree on very much. We saw that in last night's debate. But they all have one opinion that they definitely did not hold back. That the mainstream media is the worst.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don't trust the media.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The Democrats have the ultimate super PAC, they called the mainstream media.

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You want me to answer or you want to answer? Because I got to tell you even in New Jersey what you're doing is called rude.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't know. You people write this stuff. I don't know --

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.

MIKE HUCKABEE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I know to people in the media this is a 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 media.

BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If somebody put me on their home page, they did it without my permission.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does that not speak to your vetting process or judgment in any way?

CARSON: It speaks to the fact that I don't know it happened. See, they know.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Joining me know, Buck Sexton, CNN political commentator and Jennifer Rubin, Right Turn Blog "Washington Post." Welcome to both of you.

And Buck, let me just turn to you. The whole thing started with this question. Is this the comic book version of a presidential campaign? I mean, was that just like red meat for those candidates to pounce all over?

[15:35:08] BUCK SEXTON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, that was the start. And then it continued and got a little worse and got a little worse. Each one of the candidates was handed what seem very obviously like a question that was meant to undermine. It wasn't a question that was going to get to in a matter of policy of national or local importance. It wasn't the kind of thing you would expect the candidates to be asked unless there was an active effort to make the candidates look bad.

Ted Cruz rallied them all of. When you look at those questions one after another, it was Marco Rubio, you're not good with your personal finance. Ben Carson, are you good enough to do the math on the issue of your tax plan? Going all the way down the line to Kasich on the end who they were trying to bait and to attack more fellow Republicans, it looked really bad.

You could see on social media as this was happening that explosion that finally happened with Ted Cruz was building up over time and he got them because he was right. Ted Cruz had the best moment of the debate overall. I think Rubio had the best overall debate.

BALDWIN: Jennifer, just quickly, your assessment here of how the debate went down moderator wise.

JENNIFER RUBIN, RIGHT TURN BLOG, WASHINGTON POST: Well, I think it was a mess. Not only because of the reasons we just talked about, but because of what wasn't asked. They are a business network supposedly and they didn't do a very good job of talking about the economy. We didn't have a single question on trade, for example.

These candidates do have differences. It would have been nice to have heard about them on the merits. And they are going to have another debate in another network in about 13 days so we'll get more information. But I just don't think it was very illuminating. It did get the candidates a chance to pop off, which they love to do and some do it better than others.

BALDWIN: What about Reince Priebus, RNC chair, you know, seconds after this whole debate. You know, he jumps on TV, blasts CNBC and says this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REINCE PRIEBUS, CHAIRMAN, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: But I think it was one gotcha question, one personal low blow after the other. It's almost like they try to design a Rubrics 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 that said, Reince is released just part of the statement.

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.

But Jennifer, just staying with you, I mean, listen. Isn't it the RNC who agrees to X, Y, and Z the rules? They said yes o to CNBC. Shouldn't the RNC shoulder some of the responsibility for what happened last night?

RUBIN: Well, that's why he is such a veracious and strong statement there. I think Reince Priebus is under a lot of pressure from people within the party for choosing this outlet. I think he thought that CNBC would be kind of a straight business news approach to things. What I don't know is whether he selects the individual moderators. And he might have been expecting a different line up than the one he got in those particular people decided to be very aggressive and really not to do too much on the economic side which was surprising.

BALDWIN: OK. Buck, to you to this, this moment. We have this teed up. So as we know, during the Democratic debate Donald Trump was tweeting. During this debate Hillary Clinton was tweeting. And here is the gif. Wait for it. Brushing it off her shoulder.

Listen. You could say, hey, that if you're a Democrat, and a Hillary supporter, that's really, really clever. Marco Rubio pounced on that saying it was outrageous that they would use an image of that from the Benghazi hearing. I imagine you agree with the Florida senator.

SEXTON: Well, look. I think that it was clearly intended in a different way. And it wasn't meant to reference the Benghazi hearing. But look. There was a unity of the candidates last night on the stage in that they all recognized, I don't know if some of the media has to sort of continue to let this all play out, that Hillary Clinton is going to be the candidate. And there was a difference in tone from those candidates because not only are they united in a sense against the media, which if you heard the questions last night you understand why. They were also united against the Hillary Clinton opposition that they know whoever it is going to be against.

So instead of the sort of interpersonal sniping and the set of personal attacks that you would have seen in some the other debate, that happened a little bit, but not quite as much. And throughout the course of the debate, I think you saw more united front because they realized that Hillary Clinton is going to be the person they are facing off against. And so, that's a good thing. They also need to have some consolidation recognizing that fact. They needs to happen sooner rather than later. We need some of those candidates to drop out.

BALDWIN: Speaking of Jennifer, I'm sure you have seen "The New York Times" pinning this opinion piece essentially saying to the New Jersey governor Chris Christie, it's time for you to get out. Your reaction to that?

RUBIN: I think it's pretty silly. He had a very good debate actually. And with Jeb Bush going downhill, in fact, I just wrote a piece for "the Washington Post" that he really has a chance to move up. He is focusing on the state of New Hampshire, where moderate Republicans tend to do very well. I think he's hoping to get a bounce in the polls. And maybe it's important to get the donors from the Bush camp. So I think it's kind of a silly proposition. That said, there probably are some candidates who drop out, I just don't think Chris Christie is one of them.

[15:40:17] BALDWIN: OK. Jennifer Rubin, thank you. Buck Sexton, thank you.

Right now, I can tell you that Donald Trump, he is on stage in Nevada. This is his first rally since the debate last night. He will take questions. But we are still waiting for that. He's still speaking. But want to make sure we dip in on the Q&A. We will take that live.

This is CNN, stay with me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:44:56] BALDWIN: Want to take a moment now to just talk about what happened in a church in Queens, New York, where thousands of police officers lined the streets, rain-soaked and shivering, to honor one of their fallen comrades.

Officer Randolph Holder was killed last week after being shot and killed by a suspect he was pursuing. Officer Holder was laid to rest in a gold casket. Fellow NYPD officers acting as pallbearers. And in a tearful eulogy, the police commissioner Bill Bratton read some of Holder's own words. His officer appreciation letter was from the summer of 2010, his highest hopes to serve his community, his ambition and authenticity, absolutely heartbreaking.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) [15:45:40] BILL BRATTON, COMMISSIONER, NEW YORK POLICE DEPARTMENT: My name is Randle Holder, born March 19th, 1982 in Georgetown. Growing up all I wanted to do was to make a difference in my community and become a role model. In November 2002, I migrated to the United States of America to live with father.

When I read this letter, when I saw that term to live with fatter, I was struck with father, not my father, not my dad, not my pop, but father, the respect, sir, that he must have had for you, he think that you to know him that, it denotes that I was just extraordinary touched by that term in this letter. The love that he must have had for you.

My first real job was working as a security officer. Most of the managers were retired NYPD police officers and always talked a lot about how they changed their communities. That's when I decided I could be a role model and make a difference in my community in New York.

In December 2010, I will graduate from the NYPD academy to become a police officer in the greatest police department in the world. For your information, Randolph Holder, probationary police officer, Randy, you were indeed a role model. You made a difference.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[15:51:53] BALDWIN: Want to get you an update now on our breaking story we are following out of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. This passenger plane caught fire earlier today as it was sitting there obviously on the tarmac. We're learning 15 people were injured, one of them with serious burns.

So Alina Machado has been working with us. She joins me on the phone.

I know Alina, you just heard from, what, one of the doctors treating patients. How are they doing?

ALINA MACHADO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on the phone): Well, we have learned a little more about the extent of the injuries and also how many people were injured. We know that there were 101 people on board Dynamic Airline flight 405 when it caught fire here at Ft. Lauderdale international airport. We know that one person, at least one person was seriously hurt. That was the most serious injury it was a burn victim. We also know two others were also seriously hurt. And then the rest of the people who were wounded, who were hurt in this, are described as the walking wounded. Here's what some of the doctor who treated some of these injuries had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have actually received at this point 14 patients including one pediatric patient and one trauma patient here at the emergency department who are currently being seen and evaluated.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Most of our patients are muscular skeletal type injuries. They are stable. We are prepared to handle any -- however many more patients come our way and we are going to take the best care of our patients. But for the most part our patients are stable and we are just handling them as they come.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACHADO: A total of 15 people, at least 15 people were taken to hospitals here in the Ft. Lauderdale area. And it's also worth noting that the airport was expected to stay closed for several hours. So we have just learned that the airport at least one runway is now open. There's still a runway that are shut down. So they are still expecting delays. But things are slowly expecting to start getting back to normal here at FT. Lauderdale airport, Brooke.

BALDWIN: All right, Alina. Thank you so much for that update.

Meantime, we have been watching and waiting to hear from Donald Trump take questions from an audience. Here he is at the Nugget Casino in Sparks, Nevada. He just started talking to the audience here a little Q&A. We'll dip into it live after this quick break.

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[15:58:15] BALDWIN: We are going to take you to Trump, but we've got to get this now breaking on CNN, a German rapper who joined ISIS has been killed in a U.S. airstrike.

CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank joins me right now with some of the details.

Paul, who is he and what happened?

PAUL CRUIKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST (on the phone): Hey, Brooke. Hi.

We're learning from a U.S. official that a prominent German ISIS propaganda, he was once a rapper in Berlin was killed in a U.N. strike on his vehicle while he was traveling in Syria earlier this month. The ISIS recruit, the German recruit was known as Dennis Kuspurt. He once had the rapper name Desert Dog in Berlin. But he was converted to Islam. He was radicalized. And in 2012, he joined ISIS in Syria. He's since then appeared in many ISIS videos including one where he was holding a decapitated head. He has been a big propaganda for ISIS in Syria luring western recruits to the group. So this is a big intelligence success. It appears to the United States in taking out this key propaganda, this key recruiter inside Syria.

BALDWIN: So taken out by U.S. air strike just quickly 20 seconds how this is just happened.

CRUICKSHANK: It appears this may have happened a couple of weeks ago. There was a post from a resident of Raqqa that he might have been killed a couple weeks ago, but we're now able to confirm from U.S. officials that he was indeed killed, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Got it. Paul Cruickshank, thank you so much as always excellent sourcing. Appreciate it.

And thank you so much for being with me here today. I will be here same time, same place tomorrow. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

For now let's go to Washington, D.C. and my colleague Jake Tapper. "The LEAD" starts right now.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Brooke.

Will last night turn out to be the last debate for anyone who was on that stage?

"The LEAD" starts right now.

END