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GOP Candidates Court Evangelical Voters; Clinton on her Rivals; Putin Suspends Flights in Egypt. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired November 06, 2015 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:29:52] REV. FRANKLIN GRAHAM, THE BILLY GRAHAM EVANGELISTIC ASSOCIATION: 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.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: That sounds like a pretty good problem to have.

GRAHAM: It's a good problem to have.

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

GRAHAM: No. I'm staying out of it. And what I'm doing, Poppy, next year I'm going to start on January 5th. I'm going to every state capital and I'm going to hold prayer rallies next year. So I'll go to all 50 states starting in Iowa on the 5th of January calling Christians to gather and to pray for our nation.

Listen, the Republican Party is not going to turn this country around. The Democrats certainly can't turn it around. I don't have any faith in any of the political parties. The only hope that we have is for God to intervene and I want the church to stand up and to vote.

HARLOW: And you will be clearly going after, targeting some of these so-called "nones" that I brought up.

GRAHAM: You better believe it.

HARLOW: The religious folks in the Democratic Party, 28 percent have no religious affiliation. In the Republican party 14 percent have no religious affiliation. That is Pew says in part generational. What else is this about?

GRAHAM: It's about prayer. It's about getting people to pray for this nation. Our nation is in trouble.

HARLOW: But why have so many left the church and left having a religious affiliation?

GRAHAM: Well, first of all, look at our education system in this country. We've taken God out of our schools. We've taken God out of the society. If you pray at a football game, you could lose your job like we saw out in Washington State. And so there's a lot of young people today that have grown up in

a secular education system. And -- and as a result you have a lot of people who are --

HARLOW: But do they need to be mixed? I mean, I went to a school, I didn't have religion in my school, but I got it at home and at church. Do they need to be mixed?

GRAHAM: Absolutely. No question. When I was growing up we still had The Lord's Prayer in our church -- I mean in our schools. The -- the teacher led the classroom and there was a respect for God. There was a respect for --

HARLOW: Whose faith are we teaching when we go to school with Christians and Jews and Muslims?

GRAHAM: Oh, the true faith that there's a God in heaven and his son is Jesus Christ and that's -- and that's what this nation was built on. And --

HARLOW: That's your faith, not everyone's faith.

GRAHAM: Not everyone's faith but I'm an evangelist and I want to stand up for the Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son. No question about it. I respect people of other faiths and I want them to know the truth. I want them to know that there's only one way to God. And that's through faith in Christ. Jesus said I'm the way, the truth and the life. And no man comes to the Father but by me.

HARLOW: Franklin Graham, thank you very much. I'm pleased, you know, your father, I hope you get to enjoy his birthday tomorrow. 97 years old and out with yet another book, his final book by Billy Graham.

GRAHAM: And I'll sign this one for you.

HARLOW: I appreciate it very much. Thank you for coming on to talk to us. We'll see. We'll be looking at what you do starting in January with those prayer rallies. Thank you.

GRAHAM: Thank you.

HARLOW: Thank you very much.

Hillary Clinton speaking about her -- her presidential rival Ben Carson during a stop last night on Jimmy Kimmel. The host asked her what she thought about some of Dr. Carson's recent controversial comments and his rise in the polls. Listen --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, seriously, it really does matter what you say when you are president, and it probably should matter what you say when you're running for president, because people all over the world, especially leaders of friends and foes alike, they pay attention to what presidents say. So, I really know we're in the -- you know, we're in the campaign

season and people are saying all kinds of stuff, some of which they believe, some of which they think will get them votes, whatever the case might be. But then it does have to turn serious.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: CNN's Jeff Zeleny joining us now to talk a little bit more about that and some of these poll numbers. She also, Jeff, had some advice for Jeb Bush which I though was interesting.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: She sure did -- Poppy. You know, she almost sounded sympathetic to the plight of Jeb Bush's campaign -- almost. I'm not sure how genuine it was. But she talked about his new slogan. She talked about the difficulties he's been having on the road.

Let's take a listen to this. So interesting that Clinton and Bush family dynamic here as she offered a bit of advice to Jeb Bush.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY KIMMEL, TALK SHOW HOSTS: When he comes out with a slogan like "Jeb Can Fix It", do you guys like back at the office die laughing? I mean is that, like -- is that amusing to you?

CLINTON: You know -- you know, look -- it's really hard to do this. He's obviously trying to continue to relate to the Republican electorate so --

KIMMEL: It sounds like he's running a handy man business. It should be on the side of a van.

CLINTON: Well, you know, if I were to advise him, I'd say, you know, there's a lot you could do about trying to fix things. And maybe they should put a number on the side of the bus that people can call.

KIMMEL: Yes, that would be nice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: So, she clearly is trying to hold her substantive advice there for Jeb Bush but she was definitely playing along with Jimmy Kimmel there.

[10:34:57] Look, that slogan has come under a bit of ridicule, you know, "Jeb can fix this", because it certainly has a double meaning there. But we saw one side of Hillary Clinton that we don't see a lot on the campaign trail. She's actually very, very funny.

If you talk to her old friends, you know, some of her advisers who really know her, they say she actually is very, very funny, so it's one of the reasons that she's taking the, you know, the turn again at one of these late night talk shows.

HARLOW: Sure.

ZELENY: She's been on three now, so she's very good.

HARLOW: And the viewership is huge. I mean that certainly doesn't hurt either.

Let's dig in to these polls. New CNN/ORC poll out this morning from the critical state of Iowa ahead of the caucuses there. You've got Hillary Clinton at 55 percent, Sanders at 37 percent. O'Malley just at 3 percent. What I thought was interesting when you I dig in a little more is that among likely caucus goers 62 percent are backing Clinton, 32 percent Sanders. Why?

ZELENY: No question. I think people are definitely -- Democrats are definitely coming around the idea that she is more likely to be their nominee than not with Joe Biden out of the race, of course, not jumping in.

You know, even if Democrats -- even the ones who are a little hesitant to her, they still think that she will be the nominee. She also has a lot more support among voters age 50 and older, and she also has a lot of support among women. The gender divide in the Iowa electorate is so significant there. And she also even has a small lead among men here.

So I think we see where this race is heading. And Democrats, many of them, are already looking forward to the general election campaign. She, of course, knows she can't take anything for granted here.

HARLOW: Yes.

ZELENY: But this is a very strong Iowa number for Hillary Clinton.

HARLOW: Hey, it's not over until it's over.

ZELENY: That's right. As she knows well.

HARLOW: Especially when you look back at 2008.

ZELENY: She knows well. Right.

HARLOW: Exactly. Jeff Zeleny, thank you very much.

ZELENY: Thanks Poppy.

HARLOW: Quick break. We're back on the other side.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:41:11] HARLOW: Russia's president Vladimir Putin reversing course, agreeing that flights to Egypt should be suspended. Up until now Russia and Egypt had been very cautious against the U.S. intelligence suggesting that a bomb may have brought down the Russian airliner on Saturday. CNN's Matthew Chance is live for us in Moscow with more. You

know, it's interesting because the UK intelligence came out, U.S. intelligence came out saying, look, this could be, likely was a bomb, but then Putin wouldn't say that they agreed or that they were suspending flights. Now he's totally reversed course. Do we know why?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No, it's really interesting, isn't it? But just yesterday the Russian foreign ministry issued an indignant statement saying that we're shocked that the United Kingdom they were referring to then, but it would apply equally to the U.S., have some sort of information that they haven't passed on to Russia and they were very critical of this U.S. and U.K. move to suspend flights and saying it could have been a bomb.

But, you're right, now they seemed to have reversed the position. It's a major development I think from the Russian point of view because for the first time the Russians now appear to be acknowledging, although they're not saying this directly, that it could have been a bomb that brought down the Metrojet airliner and killed 224 people.

What other reason would they have for suspending flights to the Sinai Peninsula? So, that has been now put into action by the Russian president. He's also said that we need to give help -- Russians need to give help -- to bring Russian citizens back from the Sinai Peninsula right now. And it's a major tourist destination, remember, for Russians.

There is something in the order of 50,000 Russian citizens in the Sinai Peninsula right now. So it's a major logistic operation to get them back before any full ban on flights to Sinai can be -- can be, you know, imposed.

HARLOW: The first funerals are under way right now. And I would suspect that the sense of anger at the lack of answers is growing.

CHANCE: Yes. I mean I haven't detected any anger. But there's certainly a lot of questions being asked, you know, people want to know why 224 ordinary Russians that were just seeking a bit of winter sun, escape from the cold in Russia, lost their lives. And, you know, I think this development today about the banning of the flights gets us a little bit closer in the sense that if it is -- if there this ban, it could have been terrorism, it could have been a bomb. However unpleasant that may be, it will at least provide some kind of answer.

The real interesting thing, Poppy, is what the political consequences will be. Because this is Russia, this is the Kremlin's worst-case scenario, they're engaged in Syria. They've been carrying out air strikes there. It's a very sensitive military operation for public opinion in Russia.

This could jeopardize public support for it, if Russians believe they are now paying the price for the Kremlin policy bombing ISIS in Syria, you know, it could have a blowback impact on the Kremlin.

HARLOW: Right.

CHANCE: I think the government's going to be very sensitive about that.

HARLOW: Absolutely. Again, the headline there Vladimir Putin agreeing and now those flights from Russia to Egypt suspended.

Matthew Chance, thank you very much for us in Moscow this evening.

[10:44:28] Still to come here, stunning new details about an Illinois cop that staged his own suicide. You'll remember the story well -- headlines all over the place a few months ago. Now the police say it is a suicide. Did he also try to hire a hit man? Rosa Flores with that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: A disturbing twist in the investigation into the death of Lieutenant Joe Gliniewicz. Authorities are now revealing that the officer who killed himself in a carefully staged suicide may have tried to hired a hit man to kill a village official who was auditing the mentoring program that he'd allegedly been embezzling tens of thousands of dollars from for years.

Rosa Flores following this story for us there in Fox Lake. This gets more and more bizarre. There was just all of this energy put in to who figuring out who at the time a few months, Rosa people thought had murdered this officer.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And we learn more and more, Poppy, by the day. Sources confirming to CNN that Lieutenant Gliniewicz widow and his son are also being investigated for possibly being involved in the embezzlement of thousands of dollars.

[10:50:05] Now, do you remember those deleted text messages that authorities released a few days ago?

Well, sources confirming that individual one mentioned was actually the widow and that individual two was Lieutenant Gliniewicz son. But like you said, probably the most shocking revelation at this particular time is this -- this notion that Lieutenant Gliniewicz was exploring, possibly planning, to plant a hit on the village administrator. Now, authorities tell us that their first hint of this was a clue that they saw in one of those text messages. Now, I want to read that to you, and I'm going to quote here this text message. It says close to entertaining a meeting with the mutual acquaintance of ours with the word "white" in their nickname. Now, authorities tell us that white is a code word for the name of a high-ranking gang member.

They say they did some police work. They contacted this gang member, and this gang member denied everything. But imagine being that village administrator who learns that there was a possible hit against her. She put her feelings in her own words. Take a listen --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNE MARIN, VILLAGE ADMINISTRATOR: It's very unsettling. Again, you know, my concern is my family. It's quite unbelievable and almost surreal, I would say.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: Now, I asked her about her interaction with Gliniewicz. She said it was always very professional. He always said yes, ma'am, no, ma'am. And then I also asked her what was the first red flag, what did you notice about the explorer program that caught your attention.

And Poppy, she says that there were a lot of red flags, that there was no budget for the explorer program, that there were no schedules, that he just simply had money at his disposal -- Poppy?

HARLOW: And I know that police are saying that Gliniewicz also was -- was allegedly trying to plant evidence. On who?

FLORES: You know, authorities tell me that those were also clues coming from the thousands of messages that they recovered. Gliniewicz, they say, deleted a lot of these messages, but authorities, you know, telling us those deleted messages are still there. They don't go anywhere. It was in those messages that he alluded to planting evidence on the village administrator, according to authorities.

Now, they found cocaine in his desk -- an unmarked evidence bag with cocaine. And so they connected the dots and thought -- that was their theory, that he perhaps was going to plant that cocaine on the village administrator, but they followed that theory, and they never found evidence for it -- Poppy.

HARLOW: All right. ROSA FLORES reporting for us live from Fox Lake. Thank you very much.

Coming up next, a story you do not want to miss. A "Star Wars" fan gets the gift of a lifetime.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:57:23] HARLOW: This just in to us. President Obama will make remarks, we are just learning, at 11:45 a.m. So just about 50 minutes from now, he will make those remarks in the Roosevelt room. The Vice President Joe Biden, will be alongside President Obama.

We've not been told what this is about but, again, President Obama will speak live at 11:45 a.m. in the Roosevelt room. Of course, we'll carry that for you live.

Switching gears in a major way to end the show today. A Labrador pup shows up out of nowhere in the middle of the ocean doggie paddling for his life. His name is Noodle and his saving grace is a passing sailboat.

Here's Jeanne Moos.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is the story of a Labrador retriever retrieved from the sea. It happened off the coast of Italy. Six sailors from the Savoya Yacht Club were sailing the gulf of Naples with no other vessels in sight when something made a beeline for their boat.

RENO GROSSO, RESCUED PUPPY FROM THE SEA: We thought we are crazy. Something this is -- this dog is coming from sky. It's impossible.

MOOS: Reno Grosso shot the rescue. The dog was a three-month- old named Noodle. Though his rescuers gave him another name --

GROSSO: We called the dog Moses.

MOOS: Moses best known for -- parting the sea. The part Noodle's rescuers didn't know was that the pup had been riding a hydrofoil ferry like this with his brand-new owner when he slipped his leash and fell into the sea. The owner tried to get the ferry to stop to go back look for the pup, the crew members refused saying the dog would already have drowned. But half an hour or more later, Noodle was still dog paddling for dear life.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bravo.

MOOS: He was trembling and crying as he was cuddled. And cuddled and rubbed and covered with a jacket. Back on land he was handed over to his new family. There was anger at the ferry crew.

GROSSO: Really wrong thing, because -- because the dog was alive and they didn't try to find him.

MOOS: Now you can find him everywhere.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Noodle.

MOOS: He's the toast of Italy, appearing in the arms of his owner. Noodle may have survived a great struggle with the sea, but two minutes of TV fame left him looking, well, like a wet noodle.

Jeanne Moos CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Thank you so much for being with me today. I'm Poppy Harlow. Carol Costello will be back with you on Monday.

"AT THIS HOUR" with Berman and Bolduan begins right now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: Hello, I'm John Berman.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: Hello everyone, I'm Kate Bolduan. We are following breaking news --