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Plane Crash Victims Coming Home; GOP Candidates Plot Debate Changes Without RNC; Kurdish Fighters Struggle to Hold Liberated Areas; Former U.S. Senator Fred Thompson Dies at 75; Paul Ryan Takes Gavel as House Speaker; Do Happier Workers Mean Higher Profits?;. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired November 01, 2015 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:05] POPPY HARLOW: They want radical changes.

Also, as the U.S. sends troops on the ground in Syria, cities liberated from ISIS are learning the scars of the group's reign of terror could linger for a very long time.

It is Sunday evening, 6:00 Eastern. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Poppy Harlow in New York.

This hour, crucial details on that deadly Russian airline crash that claimed the lives of 224 people. In a couple of hours, a plane carrying the remains of 162 of the victims will land in Russia. It is the first plane to bring back those remains to their homeland and to their heartbroken families.

And take a look at this image of a little girl. This is 10-month-old Darina Gromova among the youngest victims. Her mother took this photo before the family took off for that trip to Egypt. The little girl, her mother and her father were all killed.

I want to bring in Matthew Chance. He is in St. Petersburg for us this evening.

And, you know, when you look -- I mean, wow! Looking behind you, just seeing how much that makeshift memorial has grown there, what are people saying on the ground?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, it's obviously deeply, deeply sad, the atmosphere here. And even now, what is it, 2:00 in the morning here local time in St. Petersburg, people are still coming out, and they are paying their respects and laying flowers. A gentleman over here doing exactly that, lighting candles, putting children's toys at this memorial outside the arrivals gate at the Pulkovo airport where the plane was destined to come, was supposed to be coming.

Obviously it's become the focus of those sad commemorations, of that tragic loss of life, 224 people killed as a result of the crash. At the investigation, though, still very much in its early stages, Poppy. There's been one Russian aviation official who has given us some sign of clarity. He said that the aircraft broke into pieces at altitude in the skies over the Sinai Peninsula and then spread debris over an area some 7 1/2 square miles.

And so that gives us an indication, a first glimmer of an indication of what really took place in the skies over the Sinai Peninsula. The good news, I suppose, if there is any good news is that the black boxes are in the hands of the authorities now. And the data from those flight recorders will most likely give us a good indication of what took place with that Metro Jet airliner, Poppy.

HARLOW: Matthew, were there any concerns over safety connected to this airline, Metro Jet?

CHANCE: That's a good question. I mean, there were a couple of strands of the investigation under way at the moment.

One of them is certainly that some kind of, you know, maintenance issue, some kind of problem with the pilots could have been a factor. In fact, Metro Jet, have been in the past, castigated, criticized by the Russian government for their maintenance issues, in a different kind of aircraft, FFF-154 which is an old Russian-type aircraft. Back in 2010/2011, that whole fleet of airlines -- airplanes was grounded because of a problem with fires breaking out in them. And that was focused around the Metro Jet company as well.

This was an Airbus A321, a very different type of airliner. But again, it casts, you know, some doubt on the maintenance issues with this airline. But again, maintenance is just one of the strands. The fact that a Russian aviation official has suggested that the plane broke up at altitude provides another sort of strand as well. I mean, the authorities here in Russia and in Egypt are trying to rule out the idea that this was terrorism-related. But, of course, we won't really know until the investigation is more progressed.

HARLOW: Matthew Chance live for us this evening in St. Petersburg -- thank you very much, Matthew.

As he said, so many questions still remain about why this happened, especially when the plane was cruising at above 30,000 feet. Why did it suddenly disappear from radar?

The pilot apparently never called for help. No signal of trouble. No SOS call, and now this is what remains in Egypt's Sinai peninsula.

Aviation analyst Mary Schiavo joins me now.

Mary, when you look at this, just hours after the crash, the Egyptian government declared there says no sign of terrorism here, nothing nefarious. How would they know that so far?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, usually they know because no one has taken credit or they haven't seen any obvious signs of it.

[18:05:01] It would -- in this case, it would have to be a bomb or a missile if it was a terrorist attack. The two threat factors typically introduced onto an aircraft. And they just don't have any information that occurred.

I think they cannot rule it out at this point. They certainly can't rule out an on-board bomb at this point, but because they have no credible threat information. They're saying it doesn't appear likely.

HARLOW: This is a plane that had 56,000 hours of flight logged, and you look at what the Russian aviation officials are saying today, and that is that they are saying definitively they don't know what caused it, but what they do know is that it broke apart in midair. How would you determine that, Mary?

SCHIAVO: Well, because of the flight track -- you know, whenever I look at a plane crash, I always start a plane crash investigation, I look back to previously crashes and what caused those, and there are two things that jump out here. As this plane was climbing, the altitude track is what changed dramatically. The air speed remained constant. So, the engines were still working, and they were still producing power.

But in a one minute -- had just one minute, something very, very dramatic happened. The plane pitched up and dramatically climbed and then fell from the sky. In previous crashes, that has meant the loss of a structural member. For example, in Alaska Air, it lost the horizontal stabilizer, the part of the tail that controls the nose up or nose down. In American Airlines 587 in 2001, prior damage to an Airbus was significant because it lost part of the tail as well.

So, with this kind of a flight track other than an explosion or bomb, like TW 800 or Pan Am 103 which also part of the plane pitched up, other than that, it looks like some kind of a loss of the control structure.

HARLOW: Yes, now we know that at least three major carriers Air France, Lufthansa, Emirates all saying they will not fly for now over that part of the Sinai Peninsula.

Mary Schiavo, thank you very much for your analysis.

SCHIAVO: Thank you.

HARLOW: Coming up next, to politics -- imagine if the presidential debates were mostly just the candidates giving speeches, a lot less back and forth, more talking points. Well, that is what some of the candidates want. We will talk about their big meeting tonight in Washington and about some of these proposals that frankly some are calling out as unrealistic, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:40:34] HARLOW: To politics and some of the Republican presidential candidates not happy with their own party and how they're running the debate process. They want changes and not just a few tweaks. Some of them want to change the format entirely.

Tonight, the campaigns are meeting in Washington to try to coordinate their demands that they will then send to the Republican National Committee, part of the fallout from Wednesday night's debate on CNBC. The meeting was organized by Ben Carson who offered this criticism on ABC's "This Week."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We should have moderators who are interested in disseminating the information about the candidates as opposed to, you know, gotcha. You did this. And, well, you defend yourself on that. You know?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Well, here are just some of the other changes Carson wants to see. Two-hour debates where each candidate gets five minutes for opening and five minutes for closing statements. And with 14 candidates on the stage, that means more than half of the debate would go to individual statements. That would leave just about three to four minutes for each candidate to actually debate, and that's if you don't have any commercials.

I want to bring in our CNN political commentators, Marc Lamont Hill, a professor of Morehouse College, and Ben Ferguson, host of "The Ferguson Show".

Also, guys, we just got this note in that Shawn Karencross, the chief operating officer of the RNC and former chief counsel will take the central role in the debate process as they try to hash all of this out and the demands that come to them from the candidates tonight.

To you, Ben, first. What do you make of Carson's demands? Are they just unrealistic?

BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I don't even think he thinks he's going to get this. This is one of those leverage issues where you go in with an extreme idea and then you agree on something that's more realistic afterwards. And I think this is a proof that all the campaigns are really looking to take back this process. They do not feel like the RNC has done a good job. In fact, most of the campaigns I've talked to over the last couple days have said that they think the RNC's lost control of the debate process.

So, I think when you set this bar high, no one thinks there's going to be five-minute closing/opening and half the debate, you know, this kind of -- here's who I am and this is what I want. Voters would not really want to see that at all. It would be incredibly boring, you know, pre-rehearsed and just dull.

I think this is more of a play for, hey, you'd better start listening to us and pay attention. We're probably set on one minute, we're fine with that, but we're not going to take a beating like we did during this last debate.

HARLOW: It's interesting, Marc, because Carson has also called for fewer debates. And when you look back, historically, I mean, just look at the last election, 2012, there were 20 Republican debates in the primary. This year, there are 11. You would think that maybe someone with less debate experience like Carson would want more debates.

What do you make of that?

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think Carson is trying to play to his strengths. He wants five minutes in and five minutes out in terms of statements because his statements are pre-prepared. They're settled. They're clear. And he doesn't have to engage the rest of his interlocutors on the dais.

So, for him, it plays to his strength. For him having fewer debates play to his strengths. Ben Carson has managed to be wildly successful without necessarily doing well in debates. So for him, it makes sense. Somebody like Marco Rubio, quite oppositely, would say, hey, wait a minute. We should have more debates, and they should be a public as possible.

Carly Fiorina would say, hey, let's have as many televised debates as possible because that's the only way I can stay on the national kind of radar. So, each candidate is asking for adjustments that make sense based on their weaknesses and based on their needs. So, I'm not surprised that Ben Carson would ask for fewer debates and I'm not surprised that he would ask for them to be largely based on prepared statements rather than engaging the other candidates. It all makes sense.

I think what has to happen, though, is that the RNC at some point has to wrest back control of these debates so that it doesn't look like a free-for-all and they cannot allow what happened on CNBC to happen again where it becomes essentially a battle royale that even the party itself finds distasteful.

HARLOW: We heard from John Kasich, interesting interview with Dana Bash this morning on "STATE OF THE UNION," and he seemed fine with the questions, but he did have an issue with the response times. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KASICH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's too short, but it's what you deal with. I mean, sit around and, you know, criticize everybody. It's just not my style on this thing. I will criticize programs and plans that I think are goofy.

[18:15:00] Here's what I do know: I know that Harry Truman couldn't get elected president with explaining United States of America's health care plan in 30 seconds.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: It's a good point. I mean, Ben, we in the media get criticized a lot for asking people to, you know, tell me everything you know in 30 seconds. How much time should they have?

FERGUSON: Every campaign that I've talked to since the last debate it seems to have one agreement amongst all of them. They want more time to hash out and discuss ideas, not only for remarks but also for responses. And I think this last debate really, the way that CNBC did it, there

was no structure to ideas. No structure to foreign policy, domestic policy. It was more of I'm going to table -- you know, have a question, go directly to this person and kind of this I gotcha way.

And so, all the candidates, regardless of where they are in the polls, have said they do want a grand conversation. Not so much of a debate on what you did or didn't do but more of a conversation on ideas.

HARLOW: But --

FERGUSON: And I think that will come out of this meeting.

HARLOW: Before we get into the break, I want to get marc in here one last time because I keep struggling with this because when I -- you know, as I said last hour, when I or anyone goes through a job interview, you don't lay the ground rules. I mean, how much power should they have?

HILL: I think they have to have some control over this because if the candidates don't play ball, then we all lose. They could all essentially -- although it wouldn't likely happen -- they could all walk away from this and just go on the campaign trail.

And remember, I agree with you. It is a job interview but it's not the only phase of the interview. Candidates can lay out their full platform not at the debate, but in their town hall meeting when they hit the ground running for Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina.

FERGUSON: But I think it's testing of them. I think that's the best part.

HILL: I agree with you, Ben, but what I'm saying is you shouldn't be able to lay out your whole health care plan in a debate. You should be defending your health plan at a debate.

FERGUSON: Totally agree.

HILL: You should be on the campaign trail. I think these candidates are depending on these debates too much and using them almost as a crutch.

HARLOW: Ben, Marc, thank you. We'll see what happens. They're meeting right now in Washington.

We'll see what the demands are. Thank you, gentlemen.

FERGUSON: Thanks, Poppy.

HARLOW: Ahead, we head to the front lines in the fight against ISIS. Our very own Clarissa Ward visiting towns and villages under the rule of ISIS. People scared about what could happen. What is their future even after ISIS is driven out?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CLARISSA WARD, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Dozens of villages like this one that were liberated from ISIS months ago are now still completely deserted. Now, that's partly because the ISIS militants, before they retreated, planted land mines and booby traps all across this area. But it's also because many people here aren't convinced that ISIS won't be coming back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:21:25] HARLOW: Now to the latest in the war against ISIS. The new U.S.-backed alliance in Syria announcing it is in the midst of an offensive targeting the terror group's strongholds near the border with Iraq. Coalition forces say parts of one Syrian province have been liberated, but there is plenty of evidence that ISIS is not far away.

Our very own Clarissa Ward traveled through the region and found a landscape scarred by battle and haunted by fear.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WARD: Well, Poppy, we spent time in areas that were recently liberated from ISIS control, but you won't find anybody celebrating there, and that's because the extent of the devastation that has been left behind by the fighting is enormous. And the future for many people is still so uncertain.

(voice-over): Weeks ago, these dusty planes were held by ISIS. This is what's left of its presence now. The charred remains of a training camp hidden in a pine forest. It's where ISIS trained an elite unit of suicide bombers that attacked Kurdish positions with devastating effect.

Kurdish fighters known as the YPG took this entire area from is in August, but holding it, along a front line more than 400 miles long, is a huge challenge.

In the shadow of Mt. Abdulazeez, Commander Zinar told us he had lost 30 of his fighters in a recent battle when ISIS came down from the mountain.

CHIEF ZINAR, YPG COMMANDER (through translator): The enemy attacked us with a large number of fighters, using heavy weapons. They took control of three villages and after that, the clashes lasted for hours until we were in control again.

WARD: Zinar is a battalion commander, but this is the size of his battalion, a handful of poorly equipped men. The nearest friendly forces are miles away.

The cost of pushing ISIS out has been enormous. Streets here are draped of the flags of fighters killed in battle, along desolate roads, through abandoned villages, we saw scene upon scene of devastation. The wreckage of months of fierce fighting and relentless coalition airstrikes.

(on camera): Dozens of villages like this one that were liberated from ISIS months ago are now still completely deserted. Now, that's partly because the ISIS militants before they retreated planted land mines and booby traps all across this area, but it's also because many people here aren't convinced that ISIS won't be coming back.

(voice-over): In the tiny village of Mekhlouja, we met a Wadha, who's lived her all her life. She told us she was too afraid to leave home when ISIS was in control, that they beat and killed people and brought misery upon the community.

"There were no air strikes before they arrived and then the strikes started. There was one next to me. We were scared of everything. Not just ISIS."

Are you still afraid, I ask? She says not, but glances warily at the Kurdish YPG fighters with us.

The Kurds question the loyalty of many of these villages, claiming they harbor ISIS sympathizers. The killing may have stopped, but there is no peace here.

(on camera): The main problem you have in Syria right now is that those sectarian and ethnic divisions have been deepened by years and years of fighting. We drove past one village where a boy was chanting "God bless ISIS" and then, Poppy, the next moment we'd talk to a Kurdish fighter who would say, "You know, we're Syrians, but we are Kurds first."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[18:25:00] HARLOW: Clarissa Ward, fascinating reporting from the front lines, thank you very much.

Coming up next: could an accident more than a decade ago be to blame for that deadly plane crash in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula? Aviation experts zeroing in on an incident 14 years ago that may be linked to this tragedy. Our expert weighs in next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: The Russian plane that crashed killing everyone on board, those 224 people returning from vacation in Egypt, that same plane was involved in a previous incident we've now learned 14 years ago. According to the aviation safety network, it was operated by a different airline at the time, and it reported a tail strike incident in 2001 while it was landing in Cairo.

Let's bring in "Daily Beast" contributor Clive Irving, also an expert on aviation, author of "Jumbo: The Making of the 747."

You wrote extensively about this in your piece today, and you talk about that tail strike, but it's hard for me to get my head around how a 2001 event on a plane that's repaired and goes on to fly for 14 years, how could that be tied, you think, to what happened yesterday? CLIVE IRVING, THE DAILY BEAST CONTRIBUTOR: Well, the first thing to

realize is it's highly unusual for a plane to break up in the air like this. It's very rare. Normally planes break up in the air only if they hit another plane or if they're hit by a missile.

HARLOW: Right.

IRVING: And the way -- the nature that this plane fell, in such a sudden and dramatic way, I felt yesterday when I looked at the circumstances that it could have been only something so extreme and sudden that the pilot had no chance to report what had happened. And then I started thinking about what kind of technical structural failure could have occurred to create something as devastating as that.

I looked at the plane's record, as you've talked about.

[18:30:03] And found that it had this incident in -- I think it was 2001 in Cairo where a tail strike is when the plane comes in to land too-far-nosed-up attitude and the tail strikes the tarmac. And this is not an unusual event, but apparently this one was very violent, and it caused severe structural damage. So I started to look at the rear end of the plane and what the consequences of that could be.

Now obviously it was repaired and put back into service. And obviously, it would have had very rigorous safety checks, I assume, on a regular basis. And if there had been any recurring sign of damage at that end of the plane, it ought to have been detected. But there's a very critical piece of equipment at the back of the plane which is called the rear pressurization bulkhead. And the airplane cabin itself is a pressure vessel.

It's like a submarine in reverse in that the air pressure inside the plane is higher than the pressure outside the plane. So there's always the pressure to break out. And obviously, airplanes are built with great care to satisfy all the very strict standards there must be for structure and integrity to make sure that something doesn't happen that ruptures the skin of the plane. This was such a sudden event that it must have been a very forceful explosion.

And the wreckage on the ground is a clue to this because the tail apparently has been found three miles away from the nose. Now it seems that the tail broke away from the rest of the plane. And therefore, I related that fact to the fact that this tail strike -- and it seemed to me that it's quite possible that some kind of structural damage went undetected or it may simply have manifested itself very late after the last inspection and not been detected.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Wow, it's an incredibly troubling thought, considering how much so many of us fly all the time.

Clive, thank you very much.

For those of you who want to know, you can read Clive's article about exactly this today. Just go to the dailybeast.com. Thank you, Clive.

IRWING: You're welcome.

HARLOW: It is a phrase that we have all heard before, a house divided against itself cannot stand. That is exactly what new speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, has inherited in Washington. He begins his full week as speaker tomorrow.

Can he make a difference? Is this a new day in Washington? Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

[18:36:23] HARLOW: I have some sad news to bring you this Sunday evening. Former U.S. senator and Republican presidential candidate, also actor, Fred Thompson, has passed away. You know that face. You know that smile very well.

According to a statement from his family, he died today after a battle with lymphoma. His family said it is with a heavy heart and a deep sense of grief that we share the passing of our brother, husband, father and grandfather, who died peacefully in Nashville surrounded by his family. He enjoyed a hearty laugh, a strong handshake, a good cigar and a healthy dose of humility. Fred was the same man on the floor of the Senate, the movie studio or the town square of Lawrenceburg, his home.

And while younger generations know Thompson for his role in "Law & Order," his political career spanned decades. As an attorney he helped lead the Watergate investigation, leading to the resignation of Richard Nixon. He then served as a U.S. senator from Tennessee for eight years.

You'll recall in 2008 he ran for president, coming in third in Iowa. He eventually dropped out. In his book he said it was the first time ever he couldn't accomplish something that he set out to do.

Fred Thompson was 73 years old.

Joining me on the phone, David Gergen, CNN political analyst, and also a former adviser to four presidents.

David, it is a very sad loss. Only 73 years old. A long battle with lymphoma. He was diagnosed in 2004. What do you remember him most for?

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: He was one of the most talented and versatile people I can remember in public life. But I must say what made a lasting impression on me was his service to the country, really, and during the Watergate hearings.

HARLOW: Yes.

GERGEN: There was a special committee formed in the Senate in which Howard Baker of Tennessee, the senator, was the minority leader as a Republican. And it was Fred Thompson, he brought in as minority counsel, the general counsel to the Republican side. And Fred was the man who was thought to have come up with a question that he gave to Howard Baker, what did the president know and when did he know it?

And that framed much of the hearings, famous hearings, and very importantly in the midst of those hearings, the Republican side learned from Alex Butterfield as recounted by Bob Woodward in his new book on Butterfield. They learned that Nixon had a taping system. And three days later after they learned that, it was Fred Thompson on national television who asked the question of Butterfield in testimony, was there a taping system in the White House? And Butterfield said, yes, sir.

That was the pivotal moment and brought the downfall of Richard Nixon because once the tapes came out, he was done for.

HARLOW: Yes. He is survived, of course, by his wife, Geri. He is father to five children. When you look at his ability to resonate on screen in terms of -- as an actor, I mean, he was in the "Hunt for Red October." He was in "Law & Order" a lot.

GERGEN: Yes.

HARLOW: How did he carry that into politics?

GERGEN: Yes, he was -- you know, it was in his -- he served for a term in the Senate and in his last months when he was in the Senate, in Tennessee, he signed this contract with "Law & Order." And, you know, he became even more of a household name there, of course. And he was a fine actor. He went on to do that. He also, you know, had been an attorney. Because he had been an assistant U.S. attorney after graduating from Vanderbilt.

He, by the way, was the first person from his large family who went to college. So he came out from a hardscrabble background and he made something for himself. But you know, it was only a few months ago we were seeing him in advertisements for things like the Super Bowl and things like that.

HARLOW: Right.

[18:40:04] GERGEN: So he's been a public figure, think of that, from the mid-'70s right through now. That's a long, long span of time when he's been out there and seen as a principal as well as warm and gregarious man.

HARLOW: Yes. I think a lot of people will remember that smile of his, someone who had quite a full life at 73 years old. Fred Thompson has died.

David Gergen, thank you very much.

GERGEN: Thanks, Poppy.

HARLOW: Also staying on politics, Paul Ryan getting ready to begin his first week -- full week as speaker of the House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI), HOUSE SPEAKER: Thank you. Thank you very much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: He officially took the gavel on Thursday after easily winning the election. Succeeding retiring speaker, John Boehner, he promises to wipe the slate clean, saying this will be a new day in Washington. But there are some enormous challenges. Even Ryan admitted the House is broken.

CNN political commentator Peter Beinart is with me.

Thank you for being with me.

PETER BEINART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Sure.

HARLOW: Before we get to Paul Ryan, your thoughts on Fred Thompson.

BEINART: You know, it's interesting, when he ran in 2008, there was a moment when it looked like he might even be the frontrunner. What a lot of people said is, you know, he could be the next Ronald Reagan.

HARLOW: Sure.

BEINART: Ronald Reagan was an actor turned politician. It turned out it didn't work for Fred Thompson, but if you think about this moment now with Donald Trump, we are seeing again this return of the idea that someone who has made a career of celebrity on -- you know, on screen that that can be transferable to politics. It seems to me Fred Thompson was an interesting moment in that evolution towards Trump.

HARLOW: Yes. And that famous question during the Watergate investigation that David Gergen brought up, what did the president know and when did he know it? No matter when you were born.

BEINART: Yes.

HARLOW: You know that moment.

Let's talk about Paul Ryan. I thought it was interesting because a lot has been said about the fact that Paul Ryan did not want this job.

BEINART: Right.

HARLOW: At all, as speaker.

BEINART: Right.

HARLOW: John Boehner is the one who finally convinces Paul Ryan to take it. Let's play how he described that moment of convincing Ryan to our Dana Bash.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)