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Convoy Flees Canadian Town Ravaged by Fire; Airstrike in Syria Hit Refugee Camp; Trump Critics Push for Third-Party Candidate; Penn State Legendary Coach Allegedly Knew About Sex Abuse in 1976; Guessing Game Over Trump's VP Pick. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired May 06, 2016 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:31:01] PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, thousands are trying to flee a massive fire in Canada that just keeps growing. This morning, officials are leading several convoys, each with hundreds of cars, right through the fire as we see right here, ravaged town of Fort McMurray. A helicopter flying above them tracking the flame and they are trying to get men, women and children, who have been trapped north of the fire to emergency services just south of the blaze.

Paul Vercammen is live in Edmonton, Alberto, with the latest -- Paul.

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And Pam, many of those evacuees that you allude to will wind up here at the expo center in Edmonton, where about 1800 evacuees spent the night in cots.

What did they flee? They described it as this enraging inferno, an orange monster of flame.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VERCAMMEN (voice-over): From the epicenter of the fire, one harrowing image after another, nearly an entire town engulfed in flames, residents fleeing for their lives.

This dashcam video shows a wall of smoke and flames just feet from the road. The remaining daylight consumed by smoke as ash and embers rain onto drivers trying to flee the inferno.

Michel Chamberland was in the middle of it all.

MICHEL CHAMBERLAND, ESCAPED WILDFIRE: It's like driving through hell. Those flames, they were bright, they were big. The smoke, the embers; try not to bump into anybody.

VERCAMMEN: From a distance, the wildfire looks like an imposing thunderstorm. From above, it's even worse. Billowing smoke made the blaze tough to battle, forcing firefighters to move their command center overnight. Residents who left everything behind, now kept in shelters hours from home.

JOANNE BATES, FORT MCMURRAY RESIDENT: It's not fair. They didn't even let us take our things when we asked. So we lost everything.

VERCAMMEN: The satellite image captures the wild scope of the fire and so do the grim statistics:. 1600 structures destroyed, 80,000 people evacuated, hundreds of square miles burned so far. Perhaps the only good news, no one has been killed.

DARBY ALLEN, WOOF BUFFALO REGIONAL FIRE: The people here are devastated. Everyone is devastated. The community is going to be devastated.

VERCAMMEN: The welcoming town of Fort McMurray now urging everyone to stay away. With so much already lost, more than 1,000 firefighters are now trying to save what little remains.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VERCAMMEN: And back here live, look at more like 50 fires in all, seven of them still out of control as they battle these blazes across Alberta.

Back to you now, Pam.

BROWN: Paul Vercammen, thank you so much for the latest there in Alberta.

Another deadly by the way in Syria. An air strike targeting a refugee camp. This tent city right here, once home to women and children who fled the violence, now charred beyond recognition. At least 28 people were killed.

CNN's Jomana Karadsheh is live in Amman, Jordan this morning with more.

Jomana, do we know who is responsible for this?

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pam, so far no one is taking responsibility for this devastating attack. Reports are that it was unidentified jets that dropped the bombs on this refugee camp near the Turkish border.

We've heard in the last few hours, the international community condemning this attack. France calling it a crime against humanity, calling for an impartial investigation. The United Nations says it could amount to a war crime.

We've also heard from the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: There is no justifiable excuse for carrying an -- carrying out an air strike against innocent civilians who have already once fled their homes to escape violence. These individuals are in the most desperate situation imaginable. And there is no justification for carrying out military action that's targeting them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KARADSHEH: And Pam, this attack taking place during what is meant to be a cessation of hostilities in Syria, and going through the aftermath video of this attack, it is truly heartbreaking and you also hear those who survived the attack, they say they blame the Syrian regime and its allies.

[09:35:11] But the Syrian regime for its part coming out in the last few hours, denying anything to do with this attack, Pam.

BROWN: Just horrible what these people are having to go through. And Syrian regime forces have also taken a hit in Aleppo. Who are they fighting?

KARADSHEH: Well, in the past 48 hours, Pam, the Syrian regime forces have been battling Al-Nusra Front. That is the al Qaeda affiliate in Syria. About 70 forces killed from both sides in this fighting, south of Aleppo, and Al-Nusra Front and its coalition of other Islamist fighting groups say they have managed to capture a number of villages and town from regime forces.

Now what I critical about this yet, this is coming during that 48-hour brokered truce that was brokered by the United States and Russia for Aleppo because the situation there was really escalating, getting out of control as it was described more than 300 civilians were killed in the past two weeks of fighting. So that truce came into effect on Thursday. But Al-Nusra Front, the al Qaeda affiliate, is not part of this truce.

Now the concern here is what are the implications of these gains by Al-Nusra, what response will we see from the Syrian regime and if this could jeopardize this much needed and desperately needed truce in the city of Aleppo -- Pam.

BROWN: Jomana Karadsheh, thank you very much for that. We appreciate it.

And by the way, a town controlled by ISIS just weeks ago is now filled with music.

Take a look right here. A Russian orchestra performing inside the ruins of this Roman amphitheater in Palmyra less than two months after ISIS fighters were taken out. The Syrian army backed by Russian forces retook the city back in March and since then Russian experts have dismantled and removed 18,000 explosive devices planted by ISIS. Syria's National Orchestra performs there tonight.

And still to come on this Friday, Donald Trump hoping for a first place finish in November, but could a third party candidate stop him? Some conservatives hope so. We'll be back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:41:31] BROWN: Well, Paul Ryan's reluctance to back Donald Trump is giving a boost to the conservative movement looking for another option. In fact anti-Trump Republican activists met last night scrambling to come up with third party candidate options.

With me now to discuss is CNN political commentator and op-ed columnist for "The New York Times," Ross Douthat.

Ross, thank you so much for coming on. You wrote this article saying that basically Trump's win in the primary is a sign that true conservatism is defeated. How so?

ROSS DOUTHAT, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, what I mean was that I use true conservatism as sort of a technical term, with a capital T and a capital C, if you refer to the theory that basically what Republican voters want is the most conservative candidate, the purest candidate, the most sort of ideologically rigid candidate, the candidate who will oppose, oppose, oppose no matter what.

And that was Ted Cruz's theory of the primary campaign. And it got him to about 30 percent of the vote. But in the end, it turned out that there were lots of conservative and Republican voters who were very happy to vote for Donald Trump's vision of conservatism which is much more ideologically flexible, let's say. And you know, you've seen it already since he sort of clinched a delegate path to the nomination, where he is flip-flopping, talking about potentially raising the minimum wage, saying that he wants to re-jigger his tax plan and so on.

Basically it turned out that the constituency for the vision of sort of the conservative movement, that ideological vision within the Republican Party was a lot smaller than conservatives that wanted to think.

BROWN: And you called this new movement with Donald Trump Trumpism. Beyond being ideologically flexible, as you say, what exactly is Trumpism?

DOUTHAT: Trumpism is basically a kind of populist nationalism. On foreign policy it - you know he's used the language of America first which is language that goes back to people in the 1920s and 1930s who wanted to keep America out of European wars after the experience of World War I. He talks a lot about basically getting our allies to essentially do more for us, while we do less for them in effect, and cutting deals with powers like Russia and so on, that a lot of conservatives would normally oppose.

And then domestically, it's a mix of different things, but he wants to reduce immigration. He wants to protect entitlement programs. It's focused heavily on I think the sort of interests of older white voters, voters who are about to get Medicare and Social Security, and don't want those programs touched. So it's a kind of -- it's a right- wing politics that's more sympathetic to the welfare state and less interested in sort of maintaining a kind of tax Americana overseas.

BROWN: And there is a currently a divide right now, Ross, in the Republican Party. We heard Paul Ryan come out yesterday, the speaker of the House, saying he is not ready to back Trump. And when you look at the past several months and how everything played out, in your view, do you think that Ted Cruz was just too conservative? How dramatic is this GOP shift happening right now?

DOUTHAT: I mean, I think it is -- it's clear that Cruz was not ideally positioned to be the guy who beat Trump in the end. And you saw this especially in the northeast where it wasn't just that he got beaten by Trump. Everybody expected that. But he just got hammered. He couldn't win, not just sort of moderate Republicans, but what you might call moderate conservative Republicans. He won them in Wisconsin, which people thought might be a turning point but then he couldn't win thereafter.

[09:45:06] So that's -- I mean, look, if you are a -- if you're somebody who thinks that basically Ronald Reagan's vision for the Republican Party is still exactly the right vision today, then you have to look at Trump as a significant threat to your world view and a candidate who if -- and I think this is very unlikely, but if he were elected president would radically transform what the Republican Party stands for and what right-wing politics in America stands for.

BROWN: Yes, I think there's a lot of soul-searching going on right on the Republican Party.

Ross Douthat, thank you very much for that. Do appreciate it.

And still to come on this Friday, a scathing new allegation against Penn State's former football coach, Joe Paterno. How long did he know his assistant coach was abusing kids? We'll answer that, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:50:17] BROWN: Welcome back. A bombshell allegations against former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno. An insurance company involved in a lawsuit with the university is now claiming Paterno knew his assistant, Jerry Sandusky, was molesting children as early as 1976. That's more than a decade before what was believed to be the first known incident of abuse by Sandusky.

Let's bring in our Sara Ganim who has been following this case from the very beginning. What is the latest here, Sara?

SARA GANIM, CNN INVESTIGATIONS CORRESPONDENT: This is a huge revelation, Pamela. This line in this court order in a lawsuit between Penn State and its former insurance company over whether or not they should have to pay victims of Sandusky, this is huge because up until now what the squabbling over Joe Paterno's legacy has been about is whether or not he knew certain vague details that may have been relayed to him in 1998 during a failed police investigation or details that were relayed to him in 2001, much, much, much earlier than this date.

This date is 1976, shortly after Jerry Sandusky would have become an assistant football coach at Penn State. This is a very vague line. It basically just says that a boy reported to Joe Paterno that he was abused by Jerry Sandusky, but I want to tell you, Pamela, not completely out of left field in the reporting that I have done over the last four or five, six years.

There is another man out there who has told me on the record that he was abused back as far as 1971, and he also said that he reported it to Joe Paterno and was blown off by Joe Paterno. This is something that we'll be continuing to report out here at CNN throughout the day, but not completely out of line.

Now I do want -- with what we know. I do want to say that the Paterno family has released a statement saying that they are continuing to defend the former legendary coach's legacy. They said that this is -- they want a full public review of the facts and they say that this is a single sentence in a court record of an insurance case, and that Joe Paterno's reputation has once again been smeared with an unsubstantiated 40-year-old allegation.

Again they're asking for this full review. We likely will see something like that in the coming weeks. This is a sealed document. The full details are part of a sealed record, but it wouldn't be out of the ordinary here for us to see Penn State go back and try to clarify what exactly this means because this is such a big deal for people in Pennsylvania, for the fans of Penn State, for fans of Joe Paterno to know what it is exactly that he knew.

It's been such a back and forth having these gray areas. People want to know and hopefully this will start to give them some answers -- Pam.

BROWN: And people want to know how this insurance company was able to dig up this evidence that these allegations stem all the way back to 1976 when there is a separate investigation, an independent one, that didn't find this.

Sara Ganim, thank you very much for that. We do appreciate it.

And coming up at the top of the hour, a party divided. House Speaker Paul Ryan telling CNN he's not ready to endorse Trump, at least not yet. So how did Trump react and what will it mean for their meeting next week?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:57:47] BROWN: Well now that he's a presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump's weighing his options for VP and his potential picks for a running mate are already sparking a reality TV-style guessing game.

Jeanne Moos reports on Veepstakes Mania.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: It's time to name that veep.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gingrich is a really interesting wildcard.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think Christie is the favorite.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Governor Martinez of New Mexico.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ben Carson.

MOOS: What? Or could a guy who's been --

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Little Marco.

MOOS: -- grow up to be Vice President Rubio.

TRUMP: It could happen.

MOOS: Trump veepstakes mania has hit.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He should run as the first father-daughter ticket now that his girl Ivanka run with him as a VP.

MOOS: Prepare for VP survivor.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On Vice President Island, 20 amazing Trump supporters in a battle for the ultimate prize.

MOOS: Even the current VP joked about it.

JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I am anticipating he will ask me to be vice president.

MOOS: The Donald seems to drop hints.

TRUMP: Somebody maybe that's even been a senator.

MOOS: Former Senator Scott Brown spent an hour and a half with the Donald last month.

(On camera): Some would-be running mates seem to be running away.

GOV. RICK SCOTT (R), FLORIDA: I'm going to pass, I like my job.

MOOS (voice-over): When "The New York Times" asked a Jeb Bush adviser about Jeb being VP, this was the written response. And John Kasich passed the buck to his interviewer.

GOV. JOHN KASICH (R), OHIO: There is zero chance. Erin, there's more chance of you being Donald Trump's vice president than me.

MOOS: But Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallon gushed, "I would be very honored if I were to receive a call saying, I need you to help make America great again."

And Chris Christie didn't say no?

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: I'll decide in my heart what I wanted to do.

MOOS: But what's the Donald want?

JIM FALLON, ACTOR: Someone who compliments me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You mean someone who has a different skill set than you?

FALLON: No, I mean someone who literally compliments me. Like Donald, you're great. MOOS: Get out the popcorn.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who will advance and who will be kicked off the island?

TRUMP: Gary, you're impeached.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Vice President Island, this summer on every cable news channel.

MOOS: And every late night comedy show.

Jeanne Moos, CNN --

CONAN O'BRIEN, HOST, "CONAN": He said he wants a qualified running mate. When asked why, Trump said opposites attract.

MOOS: New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM begins right now.