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Evaluating TSA Security Measures; Fiorina's Feud with "The View" Heating Up; Sudden Sound Just before Flight Disappeared; Kurdish Troops Share Meal, Insight; Amazon's New Leave Policy. Aired 10:30- 11a ET

Aired November 03, 2015 - 10:30   ET

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

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[10:30:53] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

Congressional investigators are on Capitol Hill this morning to talk about the effectiveness of TSA security measures designed to protect us and stop a would-be terrorist at the airport.

Rene Marsh is our aviation and government regulation correspondent. She joins us now from Washington with more. Good morning.

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Good morning -- Carol.

TSA, as you know is the agency in charge of protecting aviation from terror attacks. And they will be getting a lashing from some agencies on Capitol Hill shortly, from lawmakers as well as from the Government Accountability Office. We know that the Government Accountability Office plans on testifying this morning about some shortcomings they have found with the agency.

One of those shortcomings, TSA has not evaluated the effectiveness of new screening technologies. TSA has no consistent performance measures for its secure flights program, which essentially matches passengers' names against terror watch lists and the GAO will also tell Congress that TSA failed to use data to identify opportunities to make improvements to their programs.

As you know, since September 11th, billions of dollars have been spent on aviation security and what the GAO is preparing to tell Congress is that they really have not taken the time to analyze the methods that they use to determine the degree to which they are effective -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Rene Marsh -- reporting live from Washington -- thank you.

Donald Trump hit a nerve again when he called the Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz a crazy, highly neurotic woman who is a terrible person. What is it with the name calling? It's not just Donald Trump. It's the ladies on "The View", too.

A few days after calling Carly Fiorina's smile demented Whoopi Goldberg took aim again after Fiorina appeared on Fox News.

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WHOOPI GOLDBERG, TV HOST: On Fox News Republican candidate Carly Fiorina got a little pissed off with us. You know, she said about something we were talking about after last week's debate and she was asking if there was a double standard for conservative women. Take a look.

CARLY FIORINA (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think there's a double standard. It's funny. I was on "The View" several months ago. They said none of that to my face. There is nothing more threatening to the liberal media in general and to Hillary Clinton in particular than a conservative woman. So, of course there's a double standard. And conservative women from Sarah Palin to Michele Bachmann to Carly Fiorina are long used to this.

It will not stop me. It will not scare me. And maybe the ladies of "The View", if I come back on again, let's see if they have the guts to say that to my face.

GOLDBERG: Well, here's the deal.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I love that.

GOLDBERG: Carly will be here on Friday. I will not -- but I do want to point out, Carly, that the last time you were here, and you'll see b roll running (ph), we welcomed you to our table. We helped raise your profile so you would be included in the sea of men.

There were no -- you weren't worried about, you know, any kind of Republican backlash. Nobody was backlashing. We were respectful and gave you your due. So, just so we're all clear, you have to know the difference between when somebody's coming for you and when somebody is paying you a compliment and when somebody is saying here's my observation. If you can get that together, maybe you can be president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right then. As you heard Fiorina is set to appear on "The View" on Friday. With me now: Star Jones, former host of "The View" and now president and national spokesperson for the Professional Diversity Network. Welcome -- Star.

STAR JONES, PROFESSIONAL DIVERSITY NETWORK: Thank you for having me Carol. We were sitting here just enjoying the back and forth.

COSTELLO: Yes. There's nothing I hate more than pitting conservative women against liberal women.

JONES: I don't like pitting women against women.

COSTELLO: Exactly. Why?

[10:34:57] JONES: Well, "The View" has always been sort of the water cooler topic show. They're always going to push the envelope. I am disappointed, quite frankly, that the first real juicy topic of conversation surrounding the impact of "The View" and the two women who are running for president of the United States happens to be a controversy about who has a demented looking face.

That does not bode well for women in America with the issues that we're facing in 2016. Think about it for a minute. We should be talking about equal pay for equal work. What is your position on women's health? And are you going to protect the productive rights of women? What are you going to do for kids? Can't we get some additional scholarships? The issues that actually will impact on women.

What we look like, how we dress, should we be wearing pants? Should we wear a skirt? If we stood in heel for three hours. Whatever the hell --

COSTELLO: But even going back to pitting conservative women against liberal women. Of course we have differences. Women are different -- we're all not the same, right. That's like a misnomer. We're all different. And it doesn't mean we can't talk about things like grownups and why can't they do that on "The View"?

JONES: Well, see, the problem is the show, just like any other talk show, is designed for people to disagree. It's one thing to disagree. It's another thing to be disagreeable. And the test is to be able to sort of thread that needle.

Conservative women, as you can imagine with liberal co-hosts, are probably going to get a much harder time. But they served Carly Fiorina a silver platter for her to do her talking points. She had a wonderful time. It's never going to get any better for Carly Fiorina. They should just say yes, thank us for what we did for you, Carly.

When in reality it was a silly poke at another woman. And I much prefer we do policy poking rather than personality and face poking.

COSTELLO: You know what I wish would happen because a lot of people malign women's looks and my looks have been maligned. You get it online all the time. But in the end, who cares?

JONES: At that point everybody that called me fat, I would have punched everybody in America by now.

COSTELLO: Don't you just say -- don't you just want to say, give me something good. Is that all you got? Really?

JONES: Actually, I think we should say that. You know, I represent 775,000 professional women at NAPW, 200 chapters across the country. We only exist for each other's success. The only reason for us to be there is to promote each other. That's the attitude that I come from. I cannot understand how I'm not supposed to be supportive of you

and your hopes and aspirations. And I have to be envious or I have to take a shot or I have to make a dig. I think that gives men the upper hand because then it takes away the issues that we should be discussing and holding them accountable for.

COSTELLO: You're so right about that. We perpetuated ourselves by watching shows like the housewives of wherever.

JONES: Girl, you watch that. I don't watch that.

COSTELLO: I don't watch that.

JONES: I don't watch that -- no. Are you kidding me? The last thing I want to do is see women running across the table and cursing at each other. Those are not the women that I know.

I know women who go to work every single day. I know women who go to networking events and they're looking to advance themselves. That's what I do every single day.

COSTELLO: Do you wish you were still on "The View"?

JONES: Oh, absolutely not, absolutely not. I don't think my shareholders at Professional Diversity Network would like to see me on the television every single day unless, of course, I'm talk about women empowerment.

2016 is going to be amazing for women. And I look forward to getting back to a policy discussion.

COSTELLO: Me too.

Star Jones, thanks for stopping by.

JONES: Thank you.

COSTELLO: It was fun. I'll be right back.

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[10:43:08] COSTELLO: All right. This just in to CNN. There's a new Russian media report claiming new details of one of the black boxes -- of course those black boxes came from that crashed Russian airliner.

CNN's Matthew Chance is in St. Petersburg. He has more for us. Hi -- Matthew.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey -- Carol. That's right. These latest reports coming from the Interfax News Agency, which is a privately-owned Russian news agency but it's very close to the Kremlin. It's quoting an unnamed source in Cairo, the Egyptian capital, referring to the contents of the flight data recorders on that crashed Metrojet airliner that was lost in Sinai Saturday morning, killing all 224 people on board. This is what that source says. There were uncharacteristic

sounds on the flight recorder before the plane was lost. The sounds described as unexpected and nonstandard. An unexpected and nonstandard emergency took place, according to the Interfax News Agency, which would have accounted for the fact that the pilots were not able to send an emergency signal or alarm signal.

And so the Interfax News Agency describing the contents of the data flight recorders which have not been made public yet to the general media saying it was some kind of non-standard event that was so instant that it didn't leave time for the pilots to send an alarm signal -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Matthew Chance, reporting live from St. Petersburg, Russia this morning.

In other news this morning, a controversial Iraqi politician who once fed information about Saddam Hussein to George W. Bush has died. A senior Iraqi military source tells us 71-year-old Ahmed Shalabi had a heart attack. Shalabi's credibility took a major hit after claims about Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction failed to produce any concrete evidence. That information influenced America's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

[10:45:12] Shalabi, who spent years lobbying against Saddam Hussein denied providing the U.S. with bad intel, even though weapons inspectors said Saddam's WMD program ended years before the invasion.

According to the United Nations, more than three million refugees have poured out of Syria, trying to escape a nation at war -- a nation that's crumbling around them. This next story is about the journey to get inside Syria.

CNN's Clarissa Ward shows us a side of the conflict we rarely see.

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CLARISSA WARD, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Our journey into Syria began on the banks of the Tigris River that separates the Iraqi Kurds from the Syrian Kurds.

We're here in Iraq and Syria is just over there across the water. But this entire area is controlled by Kurdish forces. Now we need to get all of our gear onto one of these boats to get over to Syria.

Families weighed down with belongings cross in both directions. It was a very short ride. And then with a bump, we were in Syria.

So we've now arrived in Syria, or Rojava, as the Kurdish people who live in this area call this region. And we're now making our way along the Turkish border driving through the countryside on some pretty bumpy roads to meet up with our guides from the YPG.

These rickety mini buses are how most Syrian Kurds get around, listening to patriotic songs cheering on the YPG fighters. We were accompanied by a female fighter who was just 18 years old.

The Kurdish parts of Syria have a very different feel to the rest of the country. Many women here are uncovered and the security situation is relatively calm in towns along the Turkish border.

But the famous Syrian hospitality is very much in evidence here. Even when we visited fighters on the front lines, we were invited to share their lunch. On this day goat and bread was on the menu. You simply can't refuse.

The highlight, though, was an impromptu dance performance by our host as we prepared to leave. Months of heavy fighting has not quashed their spirit.

The days are long, hot and very dusty, and you're never quite sure where you're going to end up.

Since we've been in Syria we've been sleeping in a different place every night, but this is our accommodation for the night. You can see the team here. Everyone's getting ready for bed. And it's certainly not luxurious, but you don't have hotels, really, in this area.

We've been relying on the kindness of strangers. And every night people have been opening up their homes to us, so we're very grateful. And honestly, when you're in Syria, anywhere with a roof over your head and a nice mattress is perfectly comfortable for us.

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[10:53:06] COSTELLO: Wow. That was Clarissa Ward reporting. A footnote to add to this story -- in addition to the three million refugees who have fled Syria, the United Nations says there's another 6.5 million Syrians who are now displaced within their own country.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, big changes for new families at Amazon and it's not just for white-collar workers either.

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COSTELLO: Giant online retailer Amazon is going old school today opening its first actual bookstore in Seattle. The company is also making history with one of the most liberal leave policies in corporate America. Beginning next year, new mothers will get up to 20 weeks off with pay. Fathers are not forgotten. New dads will get up to six weeks off at full salary.

CNN business correspondent Alison Kosik is covering this for us. Good morning.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

So I think this is a situation where you see these tech companies trying to recruit and retain really good talent. And that kind of starts with the perks -- whether it's free food, free dry cleaning, flexible work schedule or in this case, Amazon extending its parental leave policy.

But you can't talk about Amazon without thinking about what happened with the "New York Times". "New York Times" in August did that scathing article about what it's like working at Amazon. You heard stories about people crying at their desks. There was no work/life balance.

Now for its part, Amazon has pushed back at this story, saying it was shoddy reporting. The "New York Times" stands by its story. However, the fact remains, it's out there -- the vivid picture of Amazon's difficult and tense work environment. We all remember that article. So, you can kind of read into this expanded parental leave policy as kind of a pushback at that article saying listen, we're a kinder, gentler place to work at.

And let's go over what Amazon is doing. Amazon is going ahead and giving 20 weeks fully paid to new moms, six weeks to dads. And employees can share their parental leave with a partner who doesn't get paid leave so, Amazon really coming out on top with this one.

COSTELLO: But why 20 weeks for new moms but just six weeks for new dads?

KOSIK: Oh, you know, I guess take what you can get at this point. We think of it this way. I mean the U.S. is the only advanced country in the world that doesn't offer paid maternity leave. I mean federal law gives 12 weeks for maternity leave but only to companies that have 50 employees or more and it doesn't have to be paid.

So, you look at 20 weeks, you look at 6 weeks, hey, I'll take it. You know, with my second born I had only three months. I was crying on the way to work. I was like -- oh. So, there you go.

[10:55:11] COSTELLO: I know. I admire you. I just don't know how you do it. Alison Kosik -- thanks so much.

And thank you for joining me today. I'm Carol Costello.

"AT THIS HOUR" with Berman and Bolduan after a break.

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JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: A Donald Trump news conference just minutes away. How does he explain his new drop in the polls and what secrets lie in his new book released just today?

Breaking news: a midair explosion, a U.S. satellite sheds new light on the air disaster in Egypt and raises new questions about a possible bomb on board. This, as we get word from Russia of uncharacteristic sounds just before the flight disappeared from radar.

[11:00:06] Plus, why line up and take your shoes off at all? A new report says that TSA screenings -- they may not be effective.