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Vladimir Putin Agrees to Suspend Flights to Egypt; Ben Carson Defends Claims About Violent Past; Chicago Priest Helps Find Killer of 9-year-old Boy; Interview with Franklin Graham; Aired; GOP Candidates Court Evangelical Voters. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired November 06, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:02] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: It is 10:00 a.m. Eastern. Thank you for being with me this morning.

A striking about-face from Russia's president. Just last hour Vladimir Putin said his country should hold all flights to Egypt until we know what caused last weekend's crash of that Russian airliner. Until now Russia and Egypt had batted away U.S. intelligence that suggested a bomb may have brought the plane down.

Let's go straight to Nima Elbagir. She is live in Sharma el Sheikh, Egypt with the latest.

Why is Vladimir Putin coming out now and saying this?

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is on the advice of the Russian national anti-terrorist committee who say that Russia should wait until the findings of the investigation into the causes of the crash have been released.

And you can see behind me, Poppy, President Putin's words have had a pretty immediate effect. Those are Russian tourists standing outside the departure terminal here. President Putin has said that not only should flights be suspended but Russian tourists should be given every help they need to be extracted out of Sharma el Sheikh.

This comes as the UK Ministry of Defense announced that they have a small team, they're calling it, of military personnel here at Sharma el Sheikh airport. They have now arrived and are helping with the security arrangement and the broader needs of this investigation. A really confusing and difficult time for these stranded tourists. There really is as yet no sense how, what, and why.

All they're getting is this picture that is coming together of really a -- a very scary situation. We've had a lot of commentary in the last few days from the Brits, the U.S., and now Russia, and all of it is building a picture that this is not a secured zone. So in addition to all the concerns that they're having, a lot of them traveling with young children, Poppy, in addition to all of that, many of those we spoke to said fundamentally they don't feel safe here, Poppy.

HARLOW: Nima, thank you very much for the reporting live from Sharma el Sheikh. We will bring you the latest on that, of course, as we have it. Also to politics and, quote, "a bunch of lies." That is what

Republican hopeful Ben Carson said firing back after questions have surfaced about his violent past. A CNN team traveled to his hometown of Detroit this week. They spoke with a number of people who knew Carson growing up. Many said they were surprised by his claims, including the claim that he once tried to attack someone with a knife. Earlier today, though, Dr. Carson doubled down during his interview with Alisyn Camerota.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is a bunch of lies. This is what it is, it's a bunch of lies attempting, you know, to say that I'm lying about my history. I think it's pathetic.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Well --

CARSON: And basically what the media does is they try to get you distracted with all of this stuff so that you don't talk about the things that are important because we have so many important things. And, you know, I'm not proud of the fact that I had these rage episodes. But I am proud of the fact that I was able to get over them.

CAMEROTA: Look, of course --

CARSON: My message has been that you can escape from that kind of anger.

CAMEROTA: Yes. People are resonating with that message.

CARSON: And you know, some of the victims were members of my family. I understand that. I will not let them be victimized again by the media. And if you choose to believe that I'm incapable of these acts I guess that's kind of a compliment.

CAMEROTA: But, Dr. Carson, your story has changed, for instance. First, you say that Bob was your close friend, who you almost killed. And then yesterday you said well, actually his name wasn't Bob. I changed the names and that's fine. People do that all the time, Dr. Carson, in their memoirs.

CARSON: I've changed names throughout all the books.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

CARSON: Even of patients because --

CAMEROTA: People --

CARSON: And unless I have specific permission from them to use their names that is an appropriate thing to do.

CAMEROTA: Of course. And people change the names in their memoirs all the time. But they note that. They note that at the beginning if they say the fictitious names are going to be used. But nevertheless then you change it to say that he was not actually your close friend. He was a family member. So --

CARSON: He was a family member.

CAMEROTA: OK.

CARSON: And, you know, I really don't want to expose him further. You know, I've talked to him. You know, he would prefer to stay out of the media and I think I want to respect that.

CAMEROTA: Look, Dr. Carson, I know you call this tactic. It's called vetting in politics. You know it well just from the short time that you've been involved in this campaign.

CARSON: Is that what was done with the current president? Is that what you guys did with him?

CAMEROTA: Yes. As a matter of fact --

CARSON: No, you did not. Give me a break.

CAMEROTA: President Obama's autobiography, "Dreams of My Father," was also vetted, you will recall, Dr. Carson.

CARSON: Give me a break. Are you kidding me?

CAMEROTA: Don't you remember that there was a whole question --

CARSON: No.

CAMEROTA: -- about his girlfriend. And that people went back to try to find the president's girlfriend and it turned out that she may have been a composite character and that was revealed then the president had to talk about that.

CARSON: So far vetting that you all did with President Obama doesn't even come close. Doesn't even come close to what you guys are trying to do in my case. And you are going to just keep going back trying to find -- he said this 12 years ago. He said -- you know, it is just garbage.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[10:05:09] HARLOW: Meanwhile, a new CNN-ORC poll out this morning shows that in Iowa voters there are embracing political outsiders, frontrunner Donald Trump and Ben Carson now battling it out for the top spot. Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz falling behind.

Let's bring CNN political reporter Sara Murray.

So, Sara, look, Ben Carson is pointing to the media, blaming the media. We've seen lot of candidates do that to their benefit. That resonates with the public, doesn't it?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. You're very -- you're totally correct, it's a very popular thing to do to attack the media. And you know, look, there are plenty of times when candidates say that the media is biased. We saw that after the last CNBC debate. But in this issue with Ben Carson it's sort of interesting because we aren't the ones who brought this story, you know, his past violent acts to light. It was the candidate himself who has talked about his history of violence and then finding Jesus and then how it's changed him, and he uses that as sort of a corner stone of his biography on the campaign trail.

It's part of the reason that he's been able to resonate so well with evangelical voters in Iowa. We see that in our latest poll today. And so the fact that he's now so upset that Maeve Reston and Scott Glover went to try to corroborate his story and then found, you know, no one who recognized that violent Ben Carson is a little perplexing when it's a story that he's clearly very fond of telling.

HARLOW: Do you think, Sara, with all of your political experience and being on the trail, that these questions surfacing will hurt him, or will he effectively be able to play them off as the media is doing this to me, it is unfair, it is not right?

MURRAY: Well, I'm sure with Republican primary voters this will be very popular. You know, I'm not sure that these questions about his past will move them one way or another, but, you know, I do think that we have to keep pressing him and his campaign. And I know that we at CNN are continuing to do that to get some of these answers about these stories and get a better understanding of what happened.

Look, this is part of vetting a presidential candidate. You want to know where they stand on a variety of issues, but you also want to understand their temperament, you want to understand what they're like under stressful situations and that's all part of preparing to be president and running for president. And so, you know, I think that's the broader question, is will there be other questions about Ben Carson's past about this transformation and how will that sit with voters in Iowa.

HARLOW: Sara Murray from Washington, thank you very much.

Let's talk more about this with Ryan Lizza, he's a Washington correspondent for "The New Yorker." Also with us, editor in chief of "The Hill" Bob Cusack.

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. What an interesting morning in politics. I hope you were able to hear the interview that Dr. Carson gave with Alisyn Camerota this morning.

Bob, to you, what's your reaction?

BOB CUSACK, EDITOR IN CHIEF, THE HILL: Well, I think it's a very strange story that he's defending his rageful past, but at the same time in that interview you saw some fire in the belly from Dr. Carson. And I think --

HARLOW: Yes.

CUSACK: I think voters need to see that. I think it's -- whether this helps him or hurts him, I think it's how he plays it, as Sara mentioned, bashing the media is always popular. I thought he played it pretty well, but it's an unusual story. But I think that if he shows that he is tough, he's been a bit mild mannered in the debates, I think that has translated into good numbers for him, but I think it's good that he's showing some fight.

HARLOW: Ryan, I think it's really important to also point out here how much President Obama's book "Dreams of My Father" before he became president was indeed vetted. Dr. Carson said in the interview with Alisyn that basically the media doesn't hold the president to the same bar that they are holding Carson in terms of what he wrote in his book. But I want to read you part of what the president said in an interview with "Vanity Fair," once he was in office about what really happened in his book and about this, quote-unquote, girlfriend in New York.

He went on to say, "That was not her. That was an example of compression. I was very sensitive in my book not to write about my girlfriends partly out of respect. So that was a consideration. I thought that the anecdote involving the reaction of a white girlfriend to the angry black play was a useful theme to make about sort of the interactions that I had in the relationships with white girlfriends."

Then the media took him to task for this. And for Jeremiah Wright.

RYAN LIZZA, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Absolutely right. There's another example from Obama's book that is almost an exact parallel with what's going on with Carson. If you remember in that book he talked about how -- Obama talked about how, you know, the wayward period of his youth and he talked about drug use. He talked about smoking a lot of pot, but then there was also a line where he said, maybe a little blow, talking about cocaine.

People went back and looked at that. And nobody could remember Barack Obama ever using cocaine. So this very strange situation where he seemed to be suggesting his drug use was a little further out there than maybe it actually was. Very similar with Ben Carson talking about his violent past, maybe exaggerating or at least people not remembering it was that bad. So there's almost an exact parallel with the way that Obama's book was vetted.

[10:10:09] And as Alisyn pointed out this morning, that's fine. People do that in memoirs, but if you are a memoir writer and you are presenting something as nonfiction, you need to disclose that.

HARLOW: I do want to get your take, both of you, on the GOP debate coming up, right? You've got, Bob, candidates like Governor Chris Christie we learned this morning, also Mike Huckabee bumped to the undercard debate. They both came out and said on Twitter or in interviews, that's fine, not a big deal. I'm happy to debate the issues anywhere. What does this mean for them?

CUSACK: Well, it's interesting, Donald Trump just tweeted that he thinks they should be both on the main stage. That's very interesting.

Listen, I think that Christie has done well in the debates, Huckabee certainly less so. The base just doesn't trust Christie. Huckabee -- remember, Huckabee finished second in 2008. So -- to John McCain. And he has just not been able to capture that magic. You know, I think it's a tough road for these guys to come back.

LIZZA: It's -- yes.

HARLOW: Ryan, to you, about that, but also about Iowa.

LIZZA: Yes.

HARLOW: You know, we heard Donald Trump a few weeks ago sort of pleading with the voters in Iowa, half jokingly, half seriously, saying, you know, come on, support me, Iowa, what do you think lies ahead for Trump in Iowa?

LIZZA: Well, he's -- you know, Iowa's electorate is very populous, it's very conservative. Evangelical voters are a big percentage of that electorate. And so he's got to figure out a way to appeal to that segment of the electorate without changing who he is. He's not a guy who wears religion on his sleeve and a lot of Republican candidates that do successfully in Iowa do, they talk a lot more about social issues than Trump is comfortable talking about.

On the debate stage, you know, it's pretty deadly for Huckabee and Christie. Nobody has been able to break through at those undercard debates. If you're not on the big stage it's like you're not competing. And I know it's tough for the networks to come up with criteria that is outside of the polls. But, boy, to me it just seems so strange that Carson and Trump, because they are doing well in the polls get to be on that main stage but a governor like Christie or a former governor like Huckabee just gets relegated to the sidelines.

You know, I feel like they -- it's much better to mix these debates up a little bit, maybe just randomly pick the candidates, and maybe add something into the criteria that's just not the polls which frankly are not very predictive of who's going to win anyway.

HARLOW: I just had this vision, Ryan, of, like, us picking names out of a hat. I don't think --

LIZZA: Why not? I mean --

HARLOW: I don't --

(LAUGHTER)

LIZZA: That's one of the things that people have proposed. The issue is you have --

HARLOW: I don't think that would play very well either. I don't know the answer.

LIZZA: Because the problem is you have a lot of really fringe candidates who --

HARLOW: Yes. LIZZA: You know, hundreds of people file to run and the idea is you

want to keep those people off the stage which is understandable.

HARLOW: Yes. Understood.

Ryan Lizza, Bob Cusack, so nice to have you both this morning. Have a great weekend.

LIZZA: Thanks, Poppy.

CUSACK: Thanks, Poppy.

HARLOW: Thank you.

Still to come here, a tragic story out of Chicago. He calls the murder of this 9-year-old little boy an execution. I will speak live with the Chicago priest who is taking extraordinary measures to find his killer.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:17:34] HARLOW: You're taking a look at live pictures of a courtroom in Plattsburgh, New York. This is where attorneys are arguing in a restitution hearing they want Joyce Mitchell, that prison seamstress who smuggled in hacksaws and blades used by two convicted murderers when they broke out of prison, they want her to pay a restitution to pay back about $120,000 part of the cost related to the multimillion dollar manhunt upstate.

Mitchell has been sentenced to up to seven years in prison. One of the inmates she helped escape, Richard Matt, died when he was shot by police officers while on the run. The other, David Sweat, is now back in prison.

Turning to Chicago. A Chicago family preparing right now to bury their 9-year-old son. It is an unimaginable task for any parent. You see him right there Tyshawn Lee, 9 years old, killed earlier this week, an apparent victim of his father's gang ties. He is just one of the 391 people -- 391 people -- in Chicago murdered this year alone. That is an 18 percent increase over last year. And it is just one week into November.

Meantime, a priest on Chicago's South Side laments the tragic turn his beloved city has taken, writing on Facebook, "What have we become, Chicago, when a 9-year-old boy can be executed in an alley at 4:00 p.m. in the afternoon?"

We are joined by that priest, Father Michael Pfleger. Thank you for being with me.

FATHER MICHAEL PFLEGER, SAINT SABINA'S CATHOLIC CHURCH: Thank you, Poppy.

HARLOW: You know the pain of this all too well. A son that you fostered at 18 years old back in 1998 killed in gang crossfire. Why does this keep happening? PFLEGER: You know, I think one of the reasons, Poppy, is that we have

not had the courage to not just deal with the violence but to deal with the causes in the society and the realities that keep giving birth to this violence. We've got broken homes, broken neighborhoods. We've got high unemployment. We have no jobs. We have poverty. We have racism. We have poor education systems.

We create the perfect storm. And -- but this is a new level, where we've just gone to a new low. When you now -- what kind of human being can execute a 9-year-old boy? What kind of a creature is that and what kind of society produces people like that?

HARLOW: We know, we're looking at pictures of beautiful little 9- year-old Tyshawn, and his funeral will be held at your church on Tuesday. Have you spoken with his family?

[10:20:02] PFLEGER: Yes. I've talked to his mother and his father both over the last number of days and his aunties and the grandmother. The mother we had to take to the hospital the other day because she was just laying on the ground in the place where he was killed for hours. And we finally got her to the hospital to get some help and some sedatives. She hadn't slept since Monday.

The father is angry and hurt simultaneously. And no matter what the father has done in the past or what he's involved in or what connection this may be, you know, the reality is he was not there when this happened. That if you execute -- if you're mad at the father and you take it out now on children -- there used to be a day where there was a code. You didn't kill children. You didn't kill mothers. You didn't kill grandmothers. That code is removed. There's -- there is no boundaries. There's no moral center.

HARLOW: Well, let's listen to part of what you said about Tyshawn's death yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PFLEGER: There's an execution of a baby took place on our watch in the city of Chicago. We must now put the code back. We've got to draw the line back. We've got to put the barriers back saying this here is not going to be tolerated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: What did you mean by bring back the line? Where is the line?

PFLEGER: We've got to bring a line back. First of all, I mean, I would love to get the line back to saying we don't kill each other, you know, we can disagree, we can fight, we can argue. We have minds. We have mouths. We can speak to each other. But there was a code -- it was several years ago, Poppy, that if a person, gang member or not, killed a child on the street, they had to be worried about themselves not being killed by the street. And when they went to prison not being killed, because them were just things you didn't do.

And now we've said that this has now become a new normal? No. We have to somehow draw that line and say, no, this is not going to become a normal.

HARLOW: Well --

PFLEGER: This is not going to be acceptable.

HARLOW: And you are doing something extraordinary for a civilian. I mean, you're offering to relocate people that come forward with any information about who could have killed Tyshawn.

PFLEGER: Right. We have a reward fund that's now $35,000. But I said yesterday, because the question keeps coming up of the fear. And I understand that. I think somehow sometimes our -- doing the right thing has to overcome our fear. But if somebody says, hey, I'll do it, I'll I.D. him, but I need to be able to move out of state, I will personally do that. I will help them relocate out of my own pocket, some other city, some other place for their safety if that's what it takes in order for them to come forward. We need to put this person in jail.

HARLOW: Father Michael Pfleger, for us from Chicago this morning. Thank you very much for your time and for all you're doing for your city.

PFLEGER: Thank you, Poppy.

HARLOW: Still to come, Ben Carson getting strong support from evangelical voters. What is behind this mass appeal? I will speak live with Reverend Franklin Graham ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:27:19] HARLOW: Republican presidential hopefuls Ben Carson and Donald Trump muscling it out for the top spot. A new CNN-ORC poll out of Iowa shows the two candidates pretty much neck and neck. Carson doing especially well among evangelical voters. 31 percent now say they back Carson. Religion will no doubt play a very important part in this election.

According to the Pew Research Center interesting fact here, 28 percent of Democrats say they now have no religious affiliation. They're the biggest group now of Democrats and they've become known as NONES. N- O-N-E-S. The Republican Party, you say, half of them -- half of that, 14 percent, have no religious affiliation.

With me to talk about this and a lot more, president and CEO of Samaritan's Purse, Reverend Franklin Graham. He's of course the son of legendary evangelist, Reverend Billy Graham who turned 97 tomorrow.

REV. FRANKLIN GRAHAM, PRESIDENT, THE BILLY GRAHAM EVANGELICAL ASSOCIATION: Tomorrow.

HARLOW: Thank you for being here.

GRAHAM: Thank you, Poppy.

HARLOW: You've got your father's book. GRAHAM: It's his last one.

HARLOW: He's 97 years old. His last book.

GRAHAM: Just finished it. Yes.

HARLOW: How is he doing?

GRAHAM: Poppy, he's doing pretty good. His -- you know, his mind is clearer. He just has a hard time hearing and, you know, just seeing. His eyes have gotten a little dim, but we're just so grateful that his mind is with us and he still wants people to know that God loves them and that Jesus Christ came from heaven to this earth to take their sins and if they would confess and repent and believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the bible says God will forgive our sins and heal our hearts.

And he still wants to preach that more today than ever. And this book is about -- it's about eternity. It's about heaven. And it's about hell. And I think it may be the best book that he's written because he took the most time on it.

HARLOW: Really?

GRAHAM: Yes. Over three years to write it, but it's a great book.

HARLOW: Wow. "Where I Am,: Heaven, Eternity and Our Life Beyond."

GRAHAM: Yes.

HARLOW: So moving beyond that let's talk about some of these poll numbers that I just showed. Ben Carson, for example, is resonating so well in Iowa, especially among evangelical voters. What do you think it is about him that touches so many people on the religion front?

GRAHAM: Well, first of all, I've known Ben for a long time. I've been in his home. Dr. Carson's just an amazing man. The story of his life, to come out of where he came from to be a neurosurgeon, pediatric neurosurgeon, one of the leading neurosurgeons in the world, separated the Siamese twins, that guy is an incredible guy.

A great story but he is a kind man, a very nice, gentle person and I think that resonates with a lot of people. He's very committed to his faith. And I've known Donald Trump for a number of years, and he's a -- he's a sharp, nice guy. Good guy with a lot of great ideas for the country.

And the Republican field, their problem is they've got a lot of capable, good men out there that could lead this country.

HARLOW: It sounds like a pretty good problem to have.

GRAHAM: It's a good problem to have and --

HARLOW: Are you supporting Ben Carson or Donald Trump --