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New Republican Debate Rules?; Federal Inmates Released; Plane Crash Investigation. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired November 02, 2015 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:02]

CHARMAINE YOEST, FORMER REAGAN ADVISER: She's doing a great job of projecting that kind of power and authority. And that's really why the women of "The View" are wanting to tear her down.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: I will be watching Friday. Maybe we do -- maybe we do this again Friday afternoon to see how it goes.

YOEST: Let's do it.

BALDWIN: Can we just -- can I just say, ladies, let's please not tear each other down? I don't care if you're Republican, Democrat, or who knows what. Let's bring each other up, bottom line.

MARIA CARDONA, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Amen, sister.

YOEST: Thanks, Brooke. Great to be here.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Thank you both so much.

All right, here we go. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Let's begin with this passenger jet crashes to the ground, all 224 people on board killed. Two days later, and still in one knows why. Here's the ticktock on your screen. The latest theory in this whole aviation mystery, terror.

The head of U.S. intelligence saying that, while unlikely, ISIS factions operating in the Sinai peninsula there in Egypt could possibly be to blame.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES CLAPPER, NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE DIRECTOR: 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 have recovered, then perhaps we will know more.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: All right, the U.S. intelligence community says it has been through radar and satellite and communication data and thus far has found nothing to indicate a missile or any kind of external event responsible for bringing down this Russian Metrojet aircraft.

So our go-to guy on all these sorts of issues, Richard Quest, our CNN aviation correspondent and also host on CNN International.

Richard Quest, there are all kinds of theories floating out there, as there are on any sort of story like this. Can you just bring us up to speed on facts? Where does the investigation stand right now?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: We don't really know, Brooke, and that's half the problem.

We know that they have recovered many of the bodies, and thank God they have been -- many have been repatriated to Russia. We believe the black boxes -- we know the black boxes have been recovered, but we don't think the analysis has begun yet or the downloading of the data has begun.

We're not sure where that's going to take place anyway, whether Cairo or in Russia or elsewhere. But the core fact remains these. The plane was flying at 31,000 feet when it dramatically fell out of the sky. And it's speed just about vanished.

At the same time, we know that there's a debris field which suggests an in-flight or in air-breakup of the aircraft, maybe not a complete explosive breakup, but the breakup of the aircraft, and that's really all you know. And once you have taken those facts, you then try to see which ones of them best meet the various options.

BALDWIN: What about mechanically speaking, history of the aircraft? Aren't there reports that the wife or was it the co-pilot said he called her up and was worried about the tail of the plane? What happened there?

QUEST: Right. So the wife speaking on NTV television in Russia, she said that the co-pilot called up and said there were technical deficiencies with the plane and he wasn't happy with it.

But we haven't got that. We have heard it. We have heard her. We have heard her say it. But we don't know what she was talking about. And certainly there's a huge gap between saying just I'm worried and I think the thing is going to fall out the sky.

The repair that you're alluding to goes back to 2001, when there was a tail strike on the aircraft when it was being operated but Middle East Airlines landing in Cairo. Now, everybody we have spoken to says that the repair was done. It was done properly. And nobody has got any reason to doubt that, except there have been examples of repairs such as this going wrong many years later.

As for a mechanical failure, to get that sort of instant descent, falling out the sky, you're looking at catastrophic failure. You're looking -- or like Air France 447, something in the way the plane was flown.

BALDWIN: OK. Richard Quest, thank you so much.

While the world is really scrambling to figure out exactly what happened to this plane, the families of the victims, they are not just grieving, they are also lashing out in frustration.

Our senior international correspondent, Nic Robertson, has this story on Russia in mourning.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR (voice-over): A mother arrives, lays flowers, bares her heart.

[15:05:00]

"I have just arrived from Siberia," she says."My daughter was on the plane."

She almost collapses before being helped away.

In her grief, she is not alone. Sunday, declared a day of national mourning. Flower upon flower piling up outside the terminal where Metro Jet flight 2968 was due to land.

Yevgeny lays his flowers, crosses himself. His friend was aboard. He tells us his friend had been waiting five years to make the trip. He had gone with his wife and 6-month-old child. Yevgeny is shocked and devastated.

At a hotel near the airport, families wait for news. Government officials on hand for information and help.

VYACHESLAV MAKAROV, CHAIRMAN, ST. PETERSBURG LEGISLATIVE AUTHORITY: The investigators are currently conducting genetic tests and questioning the relatives of the victims. Tests aside, every individual is being offered medical and psychological support.

ROBERTSON: In St. Petersburg Cathedral --

(SINGING)

ROBERTSON: -- a service to remember the victims. The outpouring of sympathy and support, a measure of how deeply the pain is being felt here.

And back outside the airport, the steady stream of support becomes a flood. The tributes grow. Among the flowers and toys, heartfelt messages and photos of victims.

Nic Robertson, CNN, St. Petersburg, Russia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Let's stay on this. Let me bring in Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, CNN military analyst in person. What a pleasure. Justin Green, thank you for being here, aviation attorney, private pilot and former military pilot.

Gentlemen -- General, let me just begin with you, because I think a lot of people, Americans may not be as familiar when we talk Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula. Bobby Ghosh was on last hour sort of describing this is the badlands and there are definite al Qaeda and ISIS ties in this part of the world, because, obviously, we're talking Russia and we know what Russia is doing in Syria.

Tell about the Sinai.

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: They have been in the badlands for the last couple of years.

That's all as a result of some of the things going on with the Arab spring. For about 30 years, Brooke, we had the Multinational Force Operations there, the MFO, Colombian, American, Fiji, major battalions there doing peacekeeping operations since the 1970s when President Carter signed the treaty with Egypt and Israel.

BALDWIN: Oh, wow.

HERTLING: They have been there conducting peacekeeping operations and it's been very smooth.

Within the last couple years, it's bubbled up a little bit. Basically, an organization called Velayat Sinai. It is an al Qaeda affiliate attempting to get into the realm of ISIS. They have done some things in the past. Over the last two years, they have claimed responsibility for about 30 different events.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: By the way, when they claim responsibility for something, i.e., what happened in Tunisia, that doesn't necessarily mean that ISIS did it.

HERTLING: Only about a third of the number of things they have claimed responsibility for actually happened.

But they're still some pretty bad dudes and they're trying to get a lot more technology. They have Russian Kornet missiles. Within the last month-and-a-half, they have fired missiles at Egyptian tanks and they have fired missiles Egyptian ships in the waterway there. So these individuals are active. This is an active terrorist organization.

BALDWIN: So, that said, what's happening on the ground? What are some possibilities that could have taken this plane down?

JUSTIN GREEN, FORMER MILITARY PILOT: At this point, there's endless possibilities. What's really I think important is not to speculate too much, because you could have an in-flight breakup that has nothing to do with terrorism, has nothing to do with the mechanical aspects of the aircraft. It could be pilot error. (CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: There was no distress call.

GREEN: There's no distress call. That doesn't -- very often, there are no distress calls in -- after accidents because pilots are trained to aviate, fly the airplane, navigate, navigate the airplane. Communicate is the last thing.

If you have the airplane under control and you have time now to tell someone on the ground, who is not going to be able to do anything for you, so that's the last thing you do is communicate your problem, unless you're doing a landing and you want someone to come out and do something to the runway. There's nobody on the ground that will able to help you. It's up to the pilots.

BALDWIN: When you hear about the debris field, plane broke into pieces while in the air, reducing the list of possible causes of the crash, how would that narrow it down, what you know about how it broke apart in the air? Someone was saying last hour they are surprised it actually wasn't a larger debris field.

GREEN: The higher up it breaks apart, the larger the debris field.

If it breaks apart 100 feet, you're going to have a pretty narrow debris field. The fact that the tail section is that close, it's not so far away, that suggests to me clearly it broke up at 33,000 feet. That's another possibility. The airplane was intact until lower altitude when just g-forces had a profound effect on the aircraft.

BALDWIN: Are you surprised that national intelligence, Clapper, he's not saying definitively no way on terrorism, although other people are sort of batting that down?

[15:10:05]

HERTLING: The indicators are that this Velayat Sinai does have some technology, one of which is a shoulder-fired weapon, an SA-18.

But that has an altitude of about 1,600 or -- 16,000 feet.

(CROSSTALK)

HERTLING: This was 30,000. So it's not going to take that.

To bring down an aircraft of this size at that altitude, you need a major weapon system, much like we saw in Ukraine last year, the BUK system.

There's nothing that is shoulder-fired that can hit an airplane at this distance.

BALDWIN: What questions would you be asking?

(CROSSTALK)

HERTLING: The investigation is going to show, but, certainly, I would not say terrorism is not a factor.

It should be one of multiple things that the investigation should look at. And if there was an explosion on board the aircraft, they can tell that when they do the investigation. The thing that concerns me, Brooke, is both the Egyptian and the Russian government, both of them who are investigating this flight have both been shown in the past not to be completely forthcoming with information, especially the Russians.

And the very fact that they said from the very beginning, hey, it's not airplane error, it's not pilot error, that tells me the investigation could be flawed.

BALDWIN: A little too quick for you.

(CROSSTALK)

HERTLING: A little bit too quick, yes.

BALDWIN: Finally, just thinking of the families. You have represented families. What's happening with these folks?

GREEN: Yes.

They are going to go through a very terrible time. And I think, before, I saw on the screen some of the luggage and some of the personal effects. That all has to be collected. It has to be inventoried. It has to repatriated to the families. The families are going to go through a prolong, just unbelievable period of mourning and coming to grips with their loss.

I would just say the one thing that the families, they want answers, but they also don't want to hear the wrong answers. So someone coming out, like the airline apparently did, and saying, oh, we're excluding all these things, when it hasn't been excluded yet, I think Clapper was correct to say, I'm not excluding anything. I think the investigators should not exclude anything. We have to consider all the factors to keeping people safe.

BALDWIN: We will stay on it with our crews in this part of the world, obviously. General Hertling and Justin Green, thank you both so, so much to both of you.

GREEN: Thank you.

HERTLING: Thank you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Next here on CNN, how about this demand? The room must be 67 degrees Fahrenheit or colder. No lightning rounds, no hand- raising, the list goes on and on. I have multiple pages of this letter of these demands. Republican candidates making these very specific demands for the next debate. Is this all politics? We will talk to one of our former moderators here at CNN.

Also ahead, Jamie Foxx defending famous filmmaker Quentin Tarantino here when he suggested last weekend in New York at a rally that some police officers are, his word, murderers. Hear what the actor says Tarantino should do.

And right now, President Barack Obama defending his decision to release more than 6,000 inmates who will be walking free today. Critics say this is a risky move. We will debate that ahead. I'm Brooke Baldwin. This is CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:17:11]

BALDWIN: It is a new week, a new month, a new attitude from Jeb Bush after his much-maligned debate performance, the Republican presidential candidate officially rebooting his campaign after denying last week it was on life support. Here he is. He is kicking off a three-day bus tour through Florida, South Carolina and New Hampshire.

And today Jeb Bush spent a lot of time bashing the president, also jabbing 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 of 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.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

BUSH: 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)

BALDWIN: With me now, I have chief political correspondent Dana Bash and our senior Washington correspondent, Jeff Zeleny. Great to see both of you.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Dana, I go to you because I can still see you covering when Jeb announced five months ago. Here we are, this reboot, new slogan. I want you to tell me, what is new, Dana?

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

BALDWIN: You laugh. I'm serious.

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No, I'm laughing because it's a great question, because in terms of the content of what he's saying, the main thrust, which is I'm a leader who can get things done, look at what I did in Florida, I can do that in Washington, nothing is different.

The only difference is the most important one. We are months out from his announcement and he is sort of languishing. He's in the middle of the pack, not the top of the heap, where he thought he was going to be and a lot of people thought he was going to be.

And I think the biggest reason for giving this speech is in part what you just heard, him kind of trying to dis some of the other candidates, whether it's Donald Trump or Marco Rubio. But it's also to say I know didn't do great in the last debate. I know I'm not a performer. But he even said if Abraham Lincoln were held to the standards I'm held to, we would never have probably had the kind of leadership we had from him.

Trying to sort of give everybody context for who he is and what he delivers and trying to make light of the maybe superficiality of today's media and the medium of television to be able to communicate your message. Whether or not that is going to make a difference, who knows. But that was definitely the main reason for the reboot.

BALDWIN: On the jabs, to Jeff Zeleny, I was curious what you thought. He said the challenges we face as a nation are too great to roll the dice on another presidential experiment.

[15:20:03]

When he said experiment, was he alluding to Rubio who he has been hitting or was he alluding to Trump or Cruz? Who do you think?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, I think all of the above, but I think Rubio first and foremost, because Marco Rubio is directly in Jeb Bush's lane of traffic, if you will.

BALDWIN: Yes.

ZELENY: He is directly sort of emerging as this new, fresh face from Florida. Jeb Bush never thought that that would happen. And these two guys are so close. Jeb Bush was his mentor.

There's no question. He's referred to him -- his campaign behind the scenes has referred to as the Republican Barack Obama. I think he was definitely referring to Marco Rubio today in that speech. But it could equally apply to Ted Cruz, it could apply to Donald Trump. He's basically saying we don't need someone from one side of the Capitol to try and fix the other, so basically someone from outside of Washington.

But the challenge here for Jeb Bush is the reality that he faces. He's running in 2015-2016. We are a dynamic society by -- connected by social media, television, other things. So this is his challenge. Maybe it will work for him. Maybe not. But he definitely has to reboot here. But by sort of obliquely taking on Marco Rubio like that, I'm not sure if that's tough enough. We will just have to see.

BALDWIN: OK, from reboots to revolts, Dana. Here you are on this whole debate rules. You have helped two of our CNN debates here. You know how it works. You know all the work behind the scenes and going to the questions and doing all the digging and the research on threat candidates. We know that the candidates and the campaigns really met behind closed doors yesterday. Can you walk me through some of these demands, what they want?

BASH: At the end of the day, the demands weren't so great that the viewers at home are probably going to see much of a difference. Remember...

BALDWIN: Some of them were editorial, though.

BASH: Some of them are editorial. They want control over graphics, which we can talk about whether that's actually going to happen or even legitimate.

But I think the main thing to keep in mind here, Brooke, is that certainly their gripe in some ways was with the media, but it's largely with their own party chair and their own party structure and the way that they were handling this debate, and a series of debates.

The idea is they wanted more say and they wanted more communication with the media outlets in terms of how these debates go down. But let's just talk turkey here.

BALDWIN: Let's do it. Bring it.

BASH: And talk about what this is all about.

BALDWIN: Yes.

BASH: I talked to John Kasich yesterday, maybe one of the more mainstream candidates. He says, I don't want to talk about this. Why are we talking about this? Who cares? Ask me whatever you want. It's a nonissue, the debates. Chris Christie, same thing. Jeb Bush, even though he I think objectively sort of got hosed in the last debate because he had so few minutes compared to the others, he is even like let's talk about something else.

BALDWIN: No, it's the outsiders more or less. Yes.

BASH: Exactly. It's the candidates who succeed more and more by slamming the liberal media and by stoking the red meat base. This is a political tactic as much as anything else. And we have to keep that in mind.

BALDWIN: I'm glad you pointed that out because that's where I was going to go next. You read my mind.

Dana Bash, thank you so much. Jeff Zeleny, I appreciate you jumping in as well. Thanks to both of you in Washington.

ZELENY: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Coming up next here, President Obama paving the way for thousands of people in federal custody to be released. Some call it a crucial step in our criminal justice reform. But on the other side, other folks say it makes us all less safe. Let's make sure we hear from both sides, and we will next.

Later, CNN goes on the front lines with the brave men and women fighting for their lives against ISIS. You will see this exclusive reporting here on CNN. Back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:26:58]

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

Today, President Barack Obama taking steps to make good on his promise to reform the nation's prison system. He announced plans to rehabilitate and return thousands of federal offenders back to their communities.

Take a look at what's in the works here. We're talking 6,000-plus people in federal custody expected to be released from prisons, halfway houses, that kind of thing. More than 16,000 offenders could be released within a year and possibly 40,000 over the next several years.

Obviously, this is a great idea for some, not so great for others. Here's New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton voicing reservations today on the radio.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

WILLIAM BRATTON, NEW YORK CITY POLICE COMMISSIONER: When people go to jail, oftentimes, they go to jail with negotiated charges, if you will. So that somebody that's in jail that seems -- that they are nonviolent drug offender may in fact have crimes of violence in their record. We have to be very concerned about who we're letting out.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Joining me now, California prosecutor and former defense attorney Wendy Patrick. Also with me, Simone Weichselbaum. She's a staff writer with the nonprofit nonpartisan news organization called The Marshall Project and has spent more than a decade covering urban criminal justice issues.

Ladies, welcome to both of you.

Simone, let me just to turn and ask you first.

SIMONE WEICHSELBAUM, THE MARSHALL PROJECT: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Thank you.

We're talking 6,000 people, all federal offenders, all been in prison for more than a decade, nonviolent offenses. What will -- since you have been covering these issues for years and years, what will the first couple of days even just be like for them?

WEICHSELBAUM: We sort of have a three-tier release going on.

You have some people leaving prison. You have some people leaving a halfway house. And you have others who are leaving home confinement. We did an interview last week at The Marshall Project in conjunction with WYNC talking to inmates from the state -- on the New York level from their prison system.

And some of the things they describe is actually pretty shocking. Certain gentlemen said they couldn't even ride the subway. They were scared to take the bus. They felt if someone bumped them, a stranger in the street, they would react as if they were in prison still and perhaps punch them out.

So they gave little tidbits of advice. Their family, trying to reconnect with children, a lot of their children didn't want to speak to them.

BALDWIN: We have some of that audio.

WEICHSELBAUM: Yes.

BALDWIN: I think it's important to hear it from their own words here, these former inmates here in New York. Take a listen.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

SAQUAN DUBOSE, JAILED FOR GUN POSSESSION AND SELLING DRUGS: Everybody is not out to get you, that you can trust people, especially here.