Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Russian Plane Broke Apart in the Air; "El Faro" Found; More Inmates Received Reduced Sentencing; A Number Of GOP Presidential Candidates Upset About CNBC Debate; Jeb Bush Says Marco Rubio Has "Given Up In The Senate"; Potential New Baseball Champion In The New York Mets?; New Developments In Winston-Salem State University Shooting. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired November 01, 2015 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:00] FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Emirates Airlines is now rerouting flights to avoid that region. And the co-pilot's ex-wife told Russian state media that he complained about the condition of the plane the morning of the flight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NATALYA TRUKHACHOVA, EX-WIFE OF CO-PILOT (through translator): My daughter had a telephone chat with him just before the flight. He complained before the flight that one could wish for better typical condition of the plane.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Both flight recorders have been found in the wreckage. Reuters say Egyptian officials claim they are analyzing them but the Russian transport minister claims that work has yet to begin. And remains of the victims will begin arriving in St. Petersburg, the original destination of the flight, in about five hours from now.

CNN's senior international correspondent Matthew Chance is in St. Petersburg. So Matthew, how are people bracing for that, when those bodies, those remains arrive?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's obviously going to be extremely emotional. You can see here that these flowers and fluffy toys and candles have been lit in place in memorial out of respect to the 224 people who have died, by family members, of course, and friends and citizens of St. Petersburg who have come here to pay their respect (INAUDIBLE) tragedy for this city, the destination of the plane was bound for.

Within the past few minutes, we've heard from the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry, that the Russian aircraft, carrying up to 162 of the bodies of the victims of that plane crash has taken off from (INAUDIBLE) in the Sinai Peninsula and it's making its way here to Pulkovo Airport, we're told by Russian officials.

From there, the remains will be taken to the crematorium, inside St. Petersburg where there will be more forensic tests and arrangements for the funerals will be finalized. So it's going to be a very emotional few days, it was a day of mourning that was declared nationally across Russia because of this catastrophe.

Russian officials have indicated there will be more national days of memorial in the coming kind of few days or few weeks as the country retries to come to term with what has been the biggest air disaster in its history.

WHITFIELD: And Matthew, there were a lot of families on this plane and even via social media now the world is seeing pictures streaming of family members who are boarding that flight looking forward to a vacation. This image right here of 10-month-old, (INAUDIBLE). She's the youngest victim of the crash. We understand her parents posting this photo before they boarded that flight. What more are we learning about the families that were on board, the victims, what relatives are saying?

CHANCE: Yes, it's absolutely heartbreaking, isn't it, when you see these social media sites with people posting these very upbeat, very optimistic photographs. The photograph, you mentioned, obviously, has gone viral. She was the youngest person on board, just 10 months old. There's been other photographs as well. There was one that struck me of a father holding his three-year-old daughter as they boarded the aircraft in (INAUDIBLE) just before it took off destined for here. And the caption on the photograph was something like, good- bye to Egypt. We're going home.

And, of course, they never got home because 20 minutes or so into the flight it crashed in the desert with the loss of everybody on board. It's interesting when you look at the passenger list as well and I've done that. Many of the names on that passenger list, the surnames are the same. So many families that went on this family holiday to catch a bit of winter sun in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt to see one of the most cheapest and sort of guaranteed places to go for many Russians to get some sunshine. And what is the start of a very bleak winter. So yes, it's really heartbreaking when you see the human face of this tragedy.

WHITFIELD: All right, indeed. Thank you so much, Matthew Chance, in St. Petersburg, where the flowers are mounting there, that make shift memorial, right outside the airport.

All right. Let's bring in CNN aviation analyst, Peter Goelz. He is also the managing director for the NTSB. So Peter, when you hear that this plane broke up, disintegrated in midair, what other possibilities come to mind for you?

PETER GOELZ, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, it narrows it down a little bit but it's still - there are a number of issues that could have affected this plane and terrorism has not been ruled out. It could have been some sort of catastrophic failure perhaps caused by an earlier maintenance problem. It could have been a center fuel tank that might have exploded. They are going to have to go back through the entire maintenance history of this plane to see whether all of the corrections and repairs that have been ordered have been done.

[16:05:09]

But, of course, when they get the black boxes into the laboratory, that will most likely tell a story.

WHITFIELD: So it sounds like yesterday Egyptian authorities did rule out or say that it did not believe - they did not believe it was an act of terrorism, that perhaps it sounds like that that may have been premature, now they are on the ground looking at the debris field trying to understand what they've happened here. So that is still an option?

GOELZ: I would say it's still an option until it's not. If it was a bomb inside the plane, it's apparently a missile that might be, it will leave very clear signatures and will be able to eliminate that.

WHITFIELD: What would those signatures be that they would be looking out for?

GOELZ: It would be, if you'll recall, there were photographs that the Dutch released photographs of Malaysia flight 17, which had been shot down. And you saw a very distinct pattern where the shrapnel entered the aircraft and in that case killed the pilots right off the bat. For a bomb inside the plane, it would leave what hey call gas washing and pitting, a very clear signature of a high-order explosive.

WHITFIELD: Now, the air space, this had been a fairly typical route for many airlines to travel in this northern region. KLM, Air France, Emirates Airline. All of them now are saying they are no longer going to fly over that air space temporarily. Is that out of an abundance of caution or is that a directive? What's your opinion about those airlines that have made that decision?

GOELZ: Well, I think it is an abundance of caution. They don't want to be in any situation that if this ends up being an act of terrorism, that they were putting their passengers in any type of danger. Particularly after Malaysian flight 17, the flight over Ukraine. When airlines, air carriers are passing over conflict zones, they are making very hard decisions now and avoiding these zones completely.

WHITFIELD: Except they weren't avoiding it completely before this plane went down, which is odd, at least, I would believe that would seem to be odd that if this was a territory that was already somewhat lawless, that's the word that many have been describing, why would an airline be flying over that area anyway? I mean, a commercial jet with 200 people on board.

GOELZ: Well, I think the intelligence indicated that the rebels and the terrorists that were running unchecked in that area did not have the kind of sophisticated weapons that could shoot down a plane particularly at altitude, at 31,000 feet, but when you have an unexplained disaster such as this, I think the right thing is to be cautious and divert your planes until there's some understanding of what caused this tragedy.

WHITFIELD: Peter Goelz, thank you so much for your expertise. Appreciate it. GOELZ: Thank you, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right. Next, after a month of searching for the cargo ship that sunk in a hurricane, the U.S. Navy say it believes it has found the wreckage. The challenges investigators now face in recovering it from the deep ocean floor near the Bahamas.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:11:41]

WHITFIELD: A cargo ship that went down in a hurricane exactly one month ago has been found. A deep sea drone is expected to go into the water today to confirm whether the wreckage is that of "El Faro." The U.S. Navy says the object is resting upright and one piece on the ocean floor.

Thirty three people were on board the "El Faro" bound for Puerto Rico when it disappeared with Hurricane Joaquin, near the Bahamas. Only one body has been recovered. Sara Ganim has more.

SARA GANIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, a new development in the search for the "El Faro," officials believe they may have spotted it using sonar technology on Saturday. They say that a ship about its size in a place that was near where the "El Faro" was last spotted off the eastern coast of the Bahamas, about three miles down, images show the ship at the bottom of the ocean floor.

They say it's upright, it is intact and so now investigators with the NTSB and the U.S. Navy are going to deploy this underwater drone, this submarine with cameras, to make sure that with 100 percent certainty it's the "El Faro."

Of course, family members of the 33 crew members who met last month have been dealing with not just the loss of loved ones but also a lack of answer are very hopeful that this will bring much-needed closure. One of those family members, Barry Young, the uncle of one of the crew members, said he would like to see the ship retrieved.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARRY YOUNG, RELATIVE OF "EL FARO" CREW MEMBER: ... pull it up i know it's not an easy situation at the depth there. We hope that something, if nothing else, something can bring us some closure and we would like to see them brought home whatever state it is. We would like to see him brought back home.

The one thing that every parent, every loved one, every family member stated, (INAUDIBLE) they were suspending the search. They all wanted to find a loved one, whether they were alive or not. They want it to have them home. That was their main objective.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GANIM: Now to be clear, the NTSB saying that there's no plans at this point to retrieve the ship from the ocean floor. But if they do find human remains, that there will be efforts made to retrieve those. This process of positive identification could take up to 15 days and that's in ideal weather conditions. It could be longer if weather conditions are not ideal. Fredricka?

WHITFIELD: Sara Ganim, thank you so much.

Let's talk more about the recovery, the possible recovery of the ship.

I want to bring in David Gallo. He's the director of special projects at the Woodshall Oceanographic Institution. He was also a leader of the most recent Titanic expedition and was involved in the recovery operation for Air France flight 447. Good to see you, David.

DAVID GALLO, DIRECTOR OF SPECIAL PROJECTS, WOODSHALL OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTION: Hi, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: We understand that there are plans to send a submersible today but we're talking about this item, this object that may be three miles deep if indeed it is that ship.

GALLO: Right.

WHITFIELD: How much of an endeavour is this to try to get a submersible that low in order to discern this is a ship?

[16:15:03]

GALLO: That's deep. It's certainly not routine and requires the right technology and the curve - that's the robot technology they plan on sending down. It's an excellent vehicle. If it's operated by Phoenix International, that's who I believe they are working with, they know how to do it. But if it's anything but routine, as they said, three miles of water. You've got to have everything working with you to do that right.

WHITFIELD: And then say it does... the images are indicative of that wreckage of "El Faro," then what? How is anything retrieved?

GALLO: Yes, I think, first of all, Fredricka, they will probably do as much - we call it mapping. Really they will be taking video and high-resolution stills documenting that it is "El Faro." I'm pretty sure that it's likely to be "El Faro" but then trying to go to the forensic scientists and try to - what they really want to get back is that voyage data recorder, the VDR, but also to try to find any remains that might be there.

So they will be pouring over those photos and try to mosaic them to get a good picture of what that ship looks like sitting upright on the bottom.

WHITFIELD: And that VDR< I learned in that couple hours ago that there are two possibilities with that, right? One is actually embedded in the ship. And then there is another that has a capability of floating to the surface and if that hasn't happened, you know, the one that would float to the surface - this is the only way in which to learn what kind of problems there may have been on board, what kind of voice recordings that may have been, that would be the object that would be embedded in that ship?

GALLO: Absolutely. It is very possible to do a forensic studies today at the bottom, to do incredible details of the structures, every bolts, every hatch, every gangway and things like that, but the best thing to have is the VDR. You know, the idea, Fredricka, that the ship is upright on the bottom, at that depth, it means that likely if it's in one piece, it didn't implode. Ships are not made to go anywhere three miles deep and usually the ocean will crush them at fairly shallow depths unless they are filled with water which means that if it took on enough water up at the surface, there was nothing, no air spaces for the ocean to crush, the ship would have sank also very quickly and everything I hear light lately seems to point in that direction. The ship must have gone down awfully, quickly.

WHITFIELD: It sounds like this is pain staking. It sounds like this is no easy task, you know, to take the submersible down and then if it identifies it, even to retrieve or try to bring anything to the surface, this sounds like the project that could be months long.

GALLO: It could be. Again, you've got the best - one of the best teams on earth that are handling the project and I would be very confident that if anyone can do it, they can do it. I don't know them to have ever really failed. We worked with them on Titanic. We worked with them -they were the people that actually recovered the black boxes and some of the remains from Air France 447. They are very good at what they do.

WHITFIELD: All right. David Gallo, thank you so much for being with us.

GALLO: Thanks, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right. Ahead, thousands of Federal inmates being released from prisons this weekend. We'll tell you why they are being freed earlier and what authorities and communities are doing to prepare for this massive release, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:22:06]

WHITFIELD: More than 6600 prisoners, all nonviolent federal drug felons are being released this weekend. Their sentences have been reduced to deal with prison overcrowding and severe penalty is given to non violent drug offenders over the last three decades. Although this is the biggest federal inmate release on record, it's just the beginning.

Up to 50,000 more prisoners will be released in the next few years. CNN's Jean Casarez takes a look at what happens when inmates are freed.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fred, it was one year ago that an amendment to the U.S. sentencing guidelines took effect that nonviolent federal drug offenders could get early release. But there was a condition. The community had to have one year to prepare.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CASAREZ (voice-over): Samuel Hamilton spent 32 years in prison. When he got out a year ago, adjusting was difficult.

SAMUEL HAMILTON, FORMERLY INCARCERATED: So many people, you know, - just so many people moving at one time and just crossing the street, I choose everything with caution.

CASAREZ: And even though Hamilton had gotten a master's degree behind bars, it didn't seem to matter as he try to get back to the work force.

HAMILTON: You find yourself not getting the job just because of your criminal history.

CASAREZ: And believe it or not, a job isn't the biggest hurdle after you gain your freedom.

(on camera): What do you see is the biggest challenge?

STANLEY RICHARDS, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, THE FORTUNE SOCIETY: Housing. We see so many people coming home without housing.

CASAREZ (voice-over): This weekend, those challenges will become a reality for thousands of federal felons in this country released to communities around the nation, which could lead to 40,000 out over the next several years. The U.S. Sentencing Commission amended federal guidelines last year to reduce prison sentences of federal drug felons an average of 18 percent. And its target date, November 1st.

Nationwide, Texas will receive the most inmates followed by Florida and Iowa. Cocaine convictions account for almost 50 percent of the inmates to be released followed by methamphetamine, marijuana and heroin.

(on camera): A lot of people think that crime is going to go up with all of these inmates getting out.

RICHARDS: I doubt it but don't know. If it does, it will be because the conditions on the ground in our communities are so dire. We have so much poverty, we have so much hopelessness. We have so much homelessness.

CASAREZ (voice-over): New York Police commissioner Bill Bratton agrees.

WILLIAM BRATTON, NYPD COMMISSIONER: The bureau cannot hire any more parole officers so who is going to watch these people when they go out on parole.

CASAREZ: And it isn't the first time. In 2007, changes in sentencing guidelines from federal crack cocaine convictions resulted in reducing sentences for over 16,000 federal drug offenders. A five-year study by the U.S. Sentencing Commission compared those release early to inmates who had served their entire sentence before the new guidelines were in place.

[16:25:09]

The study found that both groups reoffended at similar rates. So who benefits from a sentence reduction? The prisoner? Or the Bureau of Prisons?

Judge Jack Weinstein is a sitting federal judge in New York who has had to make sentence reduction decisions. Top priority, he says, is safety of the community.

JUDGE JACK B. WEINSTEIN, U.S. DISTRICT COURT, EASTERN DISTRIC OF NEW YORK: The first question the judge asks himself is you have to ask yourself, if I release this person now or shorten the sentence, will he be in grave danger to the community? And the statics say very clearly no.

CASAREZ: Twenty five percent of those coming out are non-citizens. In a statement to CNN, U.S. immigration and customs enforcement tells us it will take 1700 of those released into custody by next week and they will likely be deported.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CASAREZ: Offenders being released will go to halfway houses or released directly into the community. Parole officers tell us that while the influx of inmates will be challenging, it will be manageable. Fred?

WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks so much, Jean Casarez.

Next, the Republican presidential candidates have not held back from bashing CNBC for last week's debate. Now their campaigns are trying to do something about it. Their meeting begins in just a few hours. What they hope to accomplish, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Hello again, everyone. Thank you for joining me. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

Advisers from multiple GOP presidential candidates are meeting in Alexandria, Virginia this evening to talk about how they can get more control. Ben Carson has publicly been one of the most critical candidates of last Wednesday's debate and he outlined some of the changes that he would like to see.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[16:30:04] BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would like to see tighter you know guidelines in terms of people when they respond to questions. You know, some people just pretty much ignore what the time constraints others are very careful to stay within them, and I think that creates inequality. We should have moderators who are interested in disseminating the information about the candidates, as opposed to you know, gotcha, you did this and you defend yourself on that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Chris Frates is live for us now in Washington. Chris, we know that there have been candidates who have complained about the format about these debates for a long time, but the CNBC debate was really the breaking point for many wasn't it?

CHRIS FRATES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly right, Fred. There are still a number of Republican presidential campaigns upset about how CNBC handled Wednesday's debate, but some of that blame is also coming down on the RNC itself. The committee tried to channel some of that frustration on Friday, they now say we are suspending the February debate they had planned with NBC News, but that hasn't stopped some of the campaigns from getting together to talk about how they might take control, take back some control over the debates from the RNC. We heard Carly Fiorina today endorsed the RNC suspension, when she was asked if there should be changes made to the debate format. Here's what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLY FIORINA (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There has to be a consequence when the debate process is abused in the way that CNBC did it. This is a debate series for Republican primary voters. When you don't have a single conservative moderator, when the moderation and earns boos from the audience, I mean I've never seen that before where an audience booed the moderation, and I hope it was a signal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRATES: So Fiorina also says she's not sending a representative meeting among those Republican campaigns to discuss how to change debates, Fred.

WHITFIELD: So in what way was the RNC taking control of the debate cycle?

FRATES: So this is a great question because it goes to where we are right now, and in the past the campaigns themselves have negotiated with the TV networks. But this year, the RNC did the negotiating on behalf of the all of the campaigns because they felt that there were too many debates last cycle. And Republicans felt their eventual nominee who was of course, Mitt Romney, he came out of the primaries pretty battered by roughly -- it was somewhere in the neighborhood of two dozen debates. So this time, the RNC cut the number of debates down to nine and they announced the debate schedule ahead of time.

And it was interesting, when he announced the decision to cut those debates down, the RNC Chairman said he was "trying to limit the opportunity we have to kill each other." But what the RNC couldn't have predicted was the logistics of trying to manage a debate with such a huge Presidential field, Fred.

WHITFIELD: And so how much time is these campaigns spending -- venting these frustrations? FRATES: Well, you know the big event of course is tonight, the

Republican campaign officials are meeting in suburban Washington, D.C. to discuss how to influence and maybe change the debate -- the campaigns have called Ben Ginsburg, he's a top Republican lawyer in D.C., and he's helped negotiate past debates. He worked on Mitt Romney's debate to negotiating the debate with the TV networks for Romney. I talked to Ginsburg this morning. He said he's attending this meeting of campaigns as a facilitator who can provide background on how campaigns have negotiated debates in the past, and here something interesting he said this morning on CNN's State of the Union.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEN GINSBURG, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: In past cycles, it was the campaigns themselves who talked to the sponsors and the institutional matter, if you issue a schedule beforehand and promise debates to news media organizations, you've lost some leverage, so that loss of leverage is something that the campaigns want to talk about -- will talk about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRATES: So the campaigns want lots more leverage with the networks on how these debates are doing and, of course, if the campaigns get more leverage, that gives a guy like Ginsburg much more power as well. The problem, of course, here Fred, is that the campaigns have very different agendas for what they want out of this meeting. The second tier candidates, they want to get the primetime debate stage with the front-runners, not had this earlier less-watched under-card debate, of course front runners like Ben Carson who we heard from, they want less tough questions and more time for talking points, which will be a tough sell to the Television networks, because Carson is basically looking for more of a forum and that really wont fly.

And let's not forget, a lot of this is politics. The candidates are trying to use this moment to influence the process going forward to their full advantage. They are even fundraising off this issue.

WHITFIELD: All right, Chris Frates thanks so much in Washington.

FRATES: Thank you.

[16:35:01]

WHITFIELD: All right coming up, Jeb Bush not backing down on his attack of Marco Rubio. Now he says Marco Rubio has given up in the Senate. Is this a display of Bush's new strategy, details next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Republican Presidential Candidate Jeb Bush said this morning that his fellow Floridian, Marco Rubio, has, "Given up in the Senate."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The basic point with Marco is

not that he's not a good person or he's not a gifted politician. Everybody can see that. I have proven leadership skills. I got to be Governor of a state and accomplished big things, and in this era of gridlock, it's really hard to break through. And I think he's given up, and I think that's the wrong thing to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: And you remember Jeb's attack on Rubio didn't go over that well in the debate according to some. And now some of Bush's supporters are concerned about his campaign, which is why this week his campaign is assuring supporters that he could have done better in the debate and reiterated that everything is fine. So this morning, NBC's Chuck Todd asked Bush a question that a lot of people have been asking.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you still want to be President?

BUSH: I do. I do. I see great possibilities for our country. I honestly believe we're on the verge of greatness. We have to fix some really big, complex things, and I have the leadership skills to do it, and I'm fired up about that. That's what motivates me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You understand why a bunch of supporters think you don't have the -- that there's something missing?

BUSH: No, I don't.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you know why they think that?

BUSH: Probably because they watch the cable shows and they, you know, read the political press.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: And joining me now to talk more about this, Republican Strategist Brian Morganstern, and Columnist and Author Ellis Henican. All right, good to see you guys again. So Brian, one of the challenges for Jeb Bush is convincing the electorate that you can be a good President even if you're not a good campaigner. Is he doing that well?

BRIAN MORGANSTERN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Yeah. They are two very different jobs, aren't they? And something that Chuck Todd was alluding to there is that I think what Governor Bush is doing here is treating symptoms rather than a sort of a disease. At the underpinning of every single campaign of this race on both sides of the aisle, is that Americans are clamoring for assurances that the country is not rigged in favor of the rich and powerful. And what is as important as the message sometimes is the messenger. And when you're the brother and son of a President, it's hard to be a symbol of upward mobility. And so when you have a campaign field full of candidates who largely agree with you on policy but who have that sort of rags to riches background to back it up, like Marco Rubio, like Ted Cruz, like Ben Carson, it's really hard to run a successful campaign. That's obviously not Governor Bush's fault, but that's what he is up against.

WHITFIELD: So Ellis, let me ask you the same question. Can you be a great President but maybe you're not a great campaigner?