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Russian Plane Crash; Bush Reboots Campaign; Debate Demands. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired November 02, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00] PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks for being here with me.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Here we go. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being with me on this Monday afternoon.

We start, though, with this terrifying mystery in the skies. This passenger jet crashing. All 224 people on board killed. And right now, no one can say with any sort of degree of certainty how this Russian plane came down over the Sinai Peninsula there in Egypt just 23 minutes after takeoff. Russian investigators are not ruling out terrorism. Even the head of U.S. intelligence agreed after a claim of responsibility already by ISIS.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES CLAPPER, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Well, we don't have any direct evidence of any terrorist involvement yet. ISIL, in a tweet, claimed responsibility for it and there is a very aggressive ISIL chapter in the Sinai. But we really don't know and I think once the black boxes have been analyzed and - which they've recovered, and then perhaps we'll know more.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: But the U.S. intelligence community says it has been through radar, satellite and communication data and has found nothing to indicate a missile or any external event was responsible for bringing down this Metro Jet aircraft. So let's go straight to Arwa Damon. She's our CNN senior international correspondent there live.

And so you just heard him mention the black boxes, Arwa, reviewing them. Tell me where the investigation stands as of this moment.

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, those critical black boxes were actually recovered fairly early on in all of this on Saturday, the same day as the crash took place. We don't know, however, how long it's going to take to extract the data. But based on what we do know, they have not sustained that much damage. So hopefully it will be sooner rather than later.

A few key points here in that both Russian and Egyptian authorities are downplaying, to a certain degree, the idea that this might be terrorism. But, again, still very much early on in the stages of this investigation. Now, Russian state news agency, one of them, citing a Russian source on the ground in Egypt was part of the investigation stating that at this stage none of the parts of the plane that they have tested have tested positive for explosive residue. We also spoke to a medical source who has been helping process the bodies. He said he's seen 175 of them. Sixty to 70 percent of them, according to him, were intact and they did not appear to have suffered any sort of severe burn wounds.

Now, a military source, an Egyptian one, also said that when it comes to whether or not the plane was shot down, this is something that by and large the vast majority of people are saying could not have taken place. And according to this military source, it's because those Islamist (ph) groups who operate in the Sinai do not possess that capability. They can at max, at best take down an aircraft at 15,000, 16,000 feet. This passenger jet was flying at 31,000 feet at the point when it disappeared off the radar. But what's confusing all of this are statements by the airline itself, Metro Jet and by Egyptian authorities that prior to takeoff, the plane underwent the usual maintenance and it was cleared for takeoff and no additional requests for anything else were made at this place.

So it really is at this stage very much a mystery. A lot of authorities, including the Egyptian president, also urging people not to jump too quickly to any sort of conclusion. So we really don't know what happened and one can only imagine just how difficult that is for the families who are dealing not only with the loss of their loved ones, but the fact that they don't know why they died, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Well, it's interesting you mentioned that the plane itself maintenance-wise had been green lit to fly, but didn't we hear from a family member of a member of the crew, maybe the pilot, there were concerns about technical issues on the plane, yes?

DAMON: Right, the co-pilots wife was quoted as saying that she had spoken to her husband and he had expressed his concerns about the maintenance of the aircraft. And that is something that, obviously, is going to have to be investigated.

But here's what we do know about this particular aircraft. Now, it was involved about a decade plus ago in an incident where its tail, upon landing, back when it was owned by Middle East Airlines, its tail on landing slammed down into the runway and it had been repaired since then. It had been cleared for flights.

Now, this particular aircraft is registered to Ireland, which means that the Irish are also involved. And the Irish Aviation Authority did put out a statement saying that their routine check that happened back in May of 2015 found the plane satisfactory. So it really is unclear at this stage. And if there were those concerns by the co-pilot, by the pilot, as to the flying abilities of this aircraft, why were they not voiced prior to it actually be cleared for air. So, again, so many questions, so much contradictory information at this stage, Brooke.

[14:05:12] BALDWIN: OK. Arwa Damon, thank you so much, live in Cairo.

Let's bring in these two guests, aviation and maritime lawyer and pilot Daniel Rose, whose firm represents about 50 families of missing Malaysia Flight MH-370. Also here, Bobby Ghosh, CNN global affairs analyst and managing editor of "Quartz."

So, gentlemen, good to see both of you.

And I just, off the bat, the notion, jumping back a couple of points, that ISIS has thus come forward and claimed responsibility. That means squat essentially.

BOBBY GHOSH, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: It really doesn't mean that much. ISIS has a track record of taking - claiming credit, if you like, for things that they didn't really do. We saw this most sort of prominently in March. If you remember, there was an attack on the museum in Tunisia.

BALDWIN: Yes.

GHOSH: Twenty foreign tourists, many of them British, were killed. ISIS immediately claimed that they were responsible. It turned out it was a splinter group that was connected to al Qaeda and not to ISIS. So just because ISIS, through a Twitter account, claimed it doesn't necessarily make it a fact.

BALDWIN: Can we talk about, though, what's at play on the ground? Sinai Peninsula. Egypt. Tell me about the population. Tell me about ties with ISIS.

GHOSH: Yes.

BALDWIN: Of course we know what's at play in Syria with regard to Russia. So all these factors, though, people are asking questions.

GHOSH: Well, yes. The Sinai Peninsula has been the bad lands of Egypt for a very, very long time. It's a little bit like the wild west. It's a vast area, very arid, very desert like. There are some small towns, small communities, but a lot of space in which extremist groups can essentially run wild. And they have for several years now the Egyptian military has been trying to crack down on these several different groups without a lot of success. The Egyptian military has lost quite a lot of soldiers in the Sinai Peninsula. In fact, it won't let journalists go there freely, which is often a bad sign. If the military government doesn't let you go into a place, that means things are happening there that they don't want you to see. There are different groups involved. Some are simply tribal groups taking out ancient vendettas. Some of them are connected with al Qaeda. Some are connected with ISIS. As you heard James Clapper say there, that there's a -

BALDWIN: But James Clapper also -

GHOSH: Yes.

BALDWIN: Didn't totally bat down the theory that ISIS could somehow be involved. What do you make of that?

GHOSH: At the moment it - with every passing hour, the likelihood looks smaller and smaller. At this point, here's what we know. We said - it seems apparent it was not an external hit. So a rocket attack seems unlikely. As Arwa pointed out, it doesn't look like there is any - is residue from explosions. So a bomb being planted in the plane also looks unlikely. Could it still be a terrorist attack? Yes, it could be. It could be sabotage. But we have no evidence for that yet. And it would go against what we know about ISIS' capabilities in general and certainly ISIS' capabilities in Sinai. They're capable of doing damage to the Egyptian military. They have not previously shown any ability to do something like this.

BALDWIN: Your thoughts, sir.

DANIEL ROSE, PILOT, AVIATION AND MARITIME LAWYER: Yes, no, I tend to agree with that analysis. The only thing I would say is that it's a little bit early to rule out a bomb. You know, the residue analysis that's going to take place is very complicated and very intense. And just because some observers on the ground haven't seen anything obvious in terms of residue, I don't think you can rule that out, which is really the poor terrorist missile.

BALDWIN: Let me stay on that point. Reading deep into this story, the disintegration of the fuselage took place in the air. This is according to experts here close to this. Fragments are scattered around a large area covering about 20 square kilometers. It's about eight square miles. Learning that the plane broke into pieces while in the air helps reduce the list of possible causes of the crash, but plenty of scenarios. So when you hear that and about the fragments, what does that tell you, anything?

ROSE: Well, the frag - in terms of the wreckage, you know, from 31,000 feet, I'd actually expect a much larger area of - where you're going to find different parts of wreckage. So it does tell you that there was some kind of in-flight break up for sure. Bomb is one of the possibilities. The tail is an interesting theory because obviously if the tail failed at some point, the plane doesn't fly. And, in fact, it - it rips itself apart eventually. So there's several explanations for why you see the kind of wreckage distribution that you see on the ground right now.

BALDWIN: I should point it out, they found the black boxes Saturday, so hopefully - there was no kind of distress call. That's the other issue here. Nothing immediately. So, still, tons of questions. I'm sure we'll start to get to the bottom of some of the answers since they do have the black boxes.

Daniel and Bobby, thank you so much. I appreciate both of your voices on that.

Jeb Bush, meantime, Jeb Bush reboots his campaign. So what's new about it? We'll let him explain. That's next.

Also, the room must be 67 degrees or colder, no lightning rounds, no hand raising. The list goes on and on and on. Republican candidates making their demands for these next debates, but is this all politics people?

And a stunning CNN investigation. The question is this, did universities know about hazing before the deaths of three fraternity pledges? Those details, ahead.

[14:10:04] You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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

You know it's a new week, it's a new month and a new attitude from Jeb Bush after his much maligned debate performance. The Republican presidential candidate is rebooting his campaign after denying last week that it was on life support. So he is now kicking off this three- day bus tour through Florida and South Carolina and New Hampshire. Today, Jeb Bush spent a lot of time actually criticizing President Obama. He also tossed a couple jabs at some of his Republican rivals. Here he was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The answer isn't sending someone from one side to the capital city to the other. The solution won't be found in someone who has never demonstrated the capacity to implement conservative ideas. And you can't just tell Congress, you're fired, and go to commercial break. You have to bring people together to solve problems. The challenges we face as a nation are too great to roll the dice on another presidential experiment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[14:15:33] BALDWIN: All right, so jabbing at others and in a more comical ways, taking some jabs himself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: If Lincoln were alive today, imagine the foolishness he would have to suffer. Think about it. Advisers telling him to shave his beard. Cable pundits telling him to lose the top hat. Opposition researchers calling him a five-time loser before he was 50. I've gotten a lot of advice lately myself. More than enough, thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: All right, Jackie Kucinich, my friend and senior politics editor for "The Daily Beast" joining me from Washington.

Good to see you, by the way.

JACKIE KUCINICH, SENIOR POLITICAL EDITOR, "THE DAILY BEAST": Likewise.

BALDWIN: I have a couple of things to get to. But first, you know, it made news when Jeb Bush said the country can't, quote, "roll the dice on another presidential experiment." You know I've thought a little bit about this today and I can think of a few people he's alluding to. Do we know who he was actually talking about?

KUCINICH: You know, he criticized - he's criticized Marco Rubio for not being ready for this. And it seems like if we're talking about, I don't know, a first term senator who's running for president, there's two of those, or three of those actually in this race. So he could have been talking about any of them.

But, you know, Jeb Bush, he made that joke about taking people's advice. He's done that. I mean that's clearly what happened during the debate. It didn't look natural of him attacking Marco Rubio on his voting record. And he didn't look like he was comfortable in his own skin. So he's clearly taking some of that advice and it hasn't really worked out for him.

BALDWIN: Well, so he was saying he's going to return to who he was at the start of the campaign. He's going to be true to himself, be authentic. So then my question is, who is the Jeb Bush we've been seeing the last couple of months?

KUCINICH: This has been a very frustrated Jeb Bush. I - you don't get the impression that this Jeb Bush thought he'd be running this race and be at this place in the polls at this time. He wasn't prepared to run against Donald Trump and Donald Trump got in his head. He got under his skin. And it sort of really knocked him off path. And you wonder, you know, in an alternative universe, if he would be doing as badly if Donald Trump hadn't done what he has done to Jeb Bush in this race.

BALDWIN: Well, thus part of the reasons, thus the reboot.

KUCINICH: Right.

BALDWIN: So he's released this e-book chronicling thousands of his e- mails when he was governor. What is new about - about all of this, this relaunch, Jackie?

KUCINICH: I - it's hard to say what is new about this relaunch. I mean he's trying to be more energetic. In terms of the e-mails, these e- mails have been out there. They've been on the Internet. I mean Florida has extremely open, open record laws. It's fairly easy to get ahold of these. And as someone who's gone through them, it does show Jeb Bush is very responsive. He's funny, he's engaging, even when he doesn't agree with the person that he's e-mailing with.

I did a story a couple months back about some of the exchanges he had about gay marriage with people who didn't agree with him, with people who were gay who wanted to get married. So the e-mails are a good spot for Jeb in a lot of ways because it shows a lot of very positive attributes of someone who was the chief executive of his state. So he wants to go back to that Jeb, the responsive Jeb, the Jeb that was really into constituent services.

BALDWIN: You know I was talking to somebody who used to advise him for years and years and I said, I almost feel like he's - he's almost too nice. Maybe that's what's hurting him. I don't know.

Let me - let me get right to this poll. This is the results of a New Hampshire poll taken after the debate last Wednesday on CNBC. So it covers Republicans. Trump, as you see here, maintains a substantial lead. Rubio moving on up to third place. Jeb Bush stagnant, you see there, with 7 percent. What does he need to do to breakthrough, to push ahead?

KUCINICH: You - it's a really good question. Well the good news for Jeb Bush is when another - a number in this poll is, 50 percent of voters say that, you know, if their choice isn't the (INAUDIBLE) nominee, they'll be fine with it. So these are very loose numbers. They can change. We've seen them move.

But one of the more problematic parts of this poll is, when you look at the second choice, Jeb Bush is the third second choice for New Hampshire voters. So he needs to find a way to connect to them and he hasn't been able to do it. In a state that usually - excuse me, likes the - likes the establishment Republican choice, at least in the last two elections. You had Mitt Romney, John McCain, who did very well in New Hampshire, and Bush hasn't seemed to be able to capture their imagination in that sort of live free or die spirit.

BALDWIN: Jeb can fix it. We'll see if he can.

[14:20:03] KUCINICH: We'll see.

BALDWIN: And his own campaign as well. Jackie Kucinich, thank you very much. Come back, come back.

KUCINICH: Thank you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Coming up next here, rewriting the debate rules. The Republican presidential campaigns meet behind closed doors over the weekend to push for this major debate overhaul listing demand after demand after demand. Just as notable actually, who was not invited to this private meeting? We'll discuss that with our political panel, next.

And we just got some breaking news here involving Bill Cosby and the accusations against him by Janice Dickenson. Those details, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:24:50] BALDWIN: Republican presidential candidates sending a message to their own party committee, when it comes to debates, get out of the way. Representatives from all of the campaigns, minus Carly Fiorina's, met in a not so secret meeting yesterday in Washington. Noticeably not involved, the Republican National Committee. And now here we are less than 24 hours later and we have their demands. Specifically among these demands from these different campaigns, you have no asking a question where candidates raise his or her hands to answer, no lightning round, pre-approval of graphics and biographies, 30 seconds for opening and closing statements and the list goes on. You know, bottom line, they want control, down to making sponsors commit they will keep the temperature in the debate hall no warmer than 67 degrees.

So, to discuss, Matt Lewis, conservative writer, commentator and blogger with "The Daily Caller," Mo Elleithee, former senior spokesman for the Hillary Clinton '08 campaign and former comms (ph) director for the DNC, and CNN's own senior media and politics reporter Dylan Byers. So let's get right to it, shall we? Dylan, you've been the one reporting all this stuff out for us here at CNN, so let's just begin with you. We've rattled off some of the demands. Tell me more, especially the demands involving essentially what seems to me editorial control.

DYLAN BYERS, CNN SENIOR MEDIA AND POLITICS REPORTER: Right. So the demands range from the major to the very, very mundane sort of logistical points. How, you know, warm or cold it can be in the auditorium, how far away are the bathrooms, things like that. But that question about having preapproval over the graphics gets into this whole area of editorial control, which makes a lot of journalists and media executives very uncomfortable.

Look, I just spoke to someone at another media company and said, if this were happening in another country where political candidates could tell media organizations what they could write on their own (INAUDIBLE), that would be a big issue and we'd sort of be laughing at that. And here's something that isn't even getting a whole lot of pushback from media organizations, at least so far. So that's - that, right there, is the only sort of, you know, dicey issue. Other than that, the proposals from the campaign seem very, very modest and very mundane.

BALDWIN: I get the cool 67 degrees. That doesn't bother me. But it's the editorial that, you know, as a journalist, I would definitely take issue with.

Matt, to you, in general, you know, dealing with more than a dozen campaigns and these different networks and the rules here, how has the RNC done with all of this? I mean do you - do you think they deserve a little credit, you know, with what the campaigns sort of getting in the way right now?

MATT LEWIS, SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR, "THE DAILY CALLER": Well - I think, look, I think Reince Priebus inherited a ton of problems and he tried to make things a little better and I think he did. He limited the number of debates. They tried to have some impact. Clearly the CNBC debate was seen as a debacle.

I think there's a frustration amongst conservatives out there that you have people who do not share their world view, who are asking them questions that are not meant to help Republicans decide on a candidate, but are actually meant to spark in-fighting, get ratings and hurt the candidates. So right now it's potentially a mess. You know, look, I think the best case scenario would be for the RNC to adopt some of these recommendations, but for the RNC to be the one negotiating with the networks. But technology has changed it. In the old days this could have never happened. Now it's possible that the candidates really can seize control of the debates.

BALDWIN: I guess we'll see how possible it will be. Although we should be clear, not all the candidates are, you know, on board with these demands. Case in point, Mo, listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Do not count me in the group that's doing this moaning and complaining about this. I mean we went to the meeting yesterday to listen. I support the RNC continuing to make these decisions. And I'm not one of these guys who is going to sit there and moan and complain about it. The presidency is almost never scripted. So we shouldn't have these debates be scripted either.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: You agree with the governor, Mo?

MO ELLEITHEE, FORMER SENIOR SPOKESMAN, HILLARY CLINTON 2008 CAMPAIGN: Yes. Look, I mean, you know, you've got 14 candidates here who can't even agree on the day of the week. I have no idea how these guys are going to collectively negotiate.

At the end of the day, the RNC actually did something that had never been done before. They actually took control of the debate process. If you look at the last three presidential cycles, both the DNC - both the Democratic field and the Republican field, where there were open primaries, had over 20 debates. The parties had constantly tried to have some control, but didn't. It was entirely left up to the networks. For the first time the RNC devises a strategy to actually take control of this and the networks bought into it. These candidates ought to be thanking the RNC because the RNC gave them an out. They gave them an out and it gave them the ability to go out there and focus on their campaigns.

Here's the other thing that's incredibly important.

BALDWIN: Yes.

ELLEITHEE: If you look at the list of demands that these candidates put out yesterday, not a single one of them would have prevented the CNBC debacle that they all - that they all claim it was. These were all small ball, small ball demands that they put out yesterday.

BALDWIN: Dylan, do you agree with that? Because I have like pages of the demands here and wasn't one of the demands about the moderators?

[14:29:58] BYERS: Yes. So there - I mean I Mo's point is right, which is, yes, you have all of these demands, but when you - when you get down to it, the only thing that gets to substance is that they want parody in terms of the amount of questions that each candidate gets.