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At Least 36 Killed, 147 Injured In Istanbul Airport Attack; Presidential Candidates Weight In On Terror; E.U. Leaders Demanding Britain Get Started On Brexit ASAP. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired June 29, 2016 - 05:30   ET

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[05:31:00] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN HOST: Terror in Turkey. Thirty-six killed, 147 injured as three suicide bombers attack Istanbul's busy airport. Dramatic surveillance video capturing the horrific moment. This morning, the airport is reopening. Investigators believe the attack is linked to ISIS.

Welcome back to EARLY START this Wednesday morning, I'm Christine Romans.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN HOST: Good morning, I'm Alison Kosik. It's 30 minutes past the hour and breaking news this morning. Thirty-six people dead, 147 wounded as terrorists hit Europe's third busiest airport, Istanbul's Ataturk International. Three attackers shooting passengers before detonating suicide vests. Two bombs explode in the international terminal, the third in the nearby parking lot.

There hasn't been any immediate claim of responsibility for the attack but Turkey's prime minister says all signs point to ISIS as the likely culprit behind the fifth major bombing in Istanbul just this year. Surveillance video catching the moment one bomb exploded. Witnesses describe this horrific scene.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We heard a blast. It was a big blast. Then a few minutes later another one followed. And then we saw a lot of people running around. They were all covered in blood.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I tried to keep as calm as possible but there was a lot of people falling down on the ground not knowing what was going on. No one was really clear of what was happening.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just chaotic scenes. It looked like someone had gone around with a bulldozer and just shredded the whole entrance to the terminal. And bloody rags just lying around the floor. It's pretty horrific and not much fun being inside the terminal just after it had gone off because no one had a clue which way to run.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSIK: Just so horrific. All right, that Istanbul airport reopening this morning. Let's bring in CNN's Alexandra Field who's there for us live. Bring us up to date on the latest. ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alison, the signs of so much of that bloodshed have been scrubbed away just hours later. It's actually eerie to be inside that airport. I touched down here earlier this morning.

There were very few people who were inside the terminal. But then you get to the arrivals hall, the scene of those deadly blasts, and you can see where investigators have already come in and done a lot of the work. And they're already starting, it seems, almost, to do some of the reconstruction. They've torn out so much of the area where this carnage happened. Where these deadly bombings took place.

We know that there were three suicide bombers who entered Ataturk airport, one detonating his bomb outside the airport, two inside the arrivals hall. This is the first security checkpoint, just behind me. It is the entrance to this very busy airport. You'll see cars that are pulling in, you'll see taxis that are pulling in. Investigators say that the three bombers did arrive by taxi before two of them did make their way to that arrivals hall.

And when you're inside the building you can still see shattered glass. You can even see a hole in the floor on the level above one of the spots where one of the bombs detonated. But again, investigators have been in here through the night. They have done a lot of their work and they are beginning to repair the airport as it reopens to flights this morning.

But the images of what happened here cannot be scrubbed from anyone's mind. There were surveillance cameras that were rolling at the time of the blasts. You do see the explosion. You see people running for their lives and you see them falling, wounded, to the ground in the spot where so many laid and died, Alison.

At the same time, we're also seeing video of a man who was carrying his gun inside the terminal. You see him shot by a security guard, he falls to the ground. Moments later, one of those bombs detonates -- Alison, Christine.

[05:35:00] KOSIK: Alexandra, the initial -- the blast happening in the international arrivals area of the airport. This is considered a very busy airport where security is very -- is very good. Is there any talk right now about what could have been missed -- about what was done -- what could have done wrong security-wise?

FIELD: Look, there's no doubt that there will be incredible resolve to determine how these attackers were able to make their way in through these levels security because if you take a look at that entrance to the airport they do stop cars there. They do check cars there.

This is an airport where a lot of efforts have been made to secure the place for so many passengers who come in and out of here. It's one of the busiest airports in the world, certainly one of the busiest airports in this area and, of course, in Turkey.

So, yes, this is place where they had already stepped up security efforts. This is a place where there were certainly concerns about ways to prevent an attack like this. So, investigators have been in there through the night. They've been looking at the spots where these blasts happened, both inside and outside the airport.

And those are, of course, the questions that are going to be asked today but, right now, really no answers about how they were able to manage to pull off the kind of attack that so many countries and so many airports have worked so hard to try and prevent, particularly in the aftermath of something just like this happening in Brussels just a few months ago, Alison.

ROMANS: And we've seen, Alex, how they have sort of adjusted their message as security has changed. They've adjusted their targets and their message. What's interesting about this, they came in a taxicab, right? So they would have had guns maybe hidden in baggage. We don't know yet. The investigation will tell us that.

One detonating out in a security -- in a parking lot, maybe because he couldn't get through security before the screening process. Maybe that was part of the plan all along. Two inside the arrivals terminal -- the arrivals hall -- international arrivals terminal.

It's interesting -- you do a lot of traveling. You've been in a lot of big airports. You know, when you look at something like this and try to figure out how can you make an airport safe when there are so many people coming and going. By definition, they're carrying a lot of stuff, maybe pushing it on carts, you know. Security experts, overnight, tell us, Alex, you just can't make an airport 100 percent secure.

FIELD: Right, and every passenger who comes in and out of airports that could be considered targets or airports that would be targeted, certainly should be aware and probably is aware of the inherent risk in this kind of travel. Look, we know that, really, across the world so many efforts have been stepped up to try and prevent attackers from boarding airplanes, from preventing weapons to being brought on board, to preventing explosives to be brought on board.

But we do know that the departure hall and the arrivals hall are places that terrorists have looked to target and they've done it in the past. They did it in Brussels. These are spots where people are gathered en masse. You can target, really, an international group of passengers and their loved ones who are coming in and out of the airport. You can figure out the high traffic time.

These are certainly airports that are being watched closely and the airports are looking at these as vulnerabilities, both the departure hall and the arrivals hall. We've seen this before in the departures hall, now you've got this arrivals hall. So, yes, passengers think that they have made their way through a departure hall, they've made their way past security. On board their plane, they've landed on the other side, collected their baggage.

Well, this is going to put to the forefront of everyone's mind that as long as you're in a public spot like this, where you have this international kind of crowd gathering in a spot that could potentially be targeted, that you've got to be reticent something like this could happen. We're going to have to take a look at what kind of additional measures could be implemented by airports to stop something like this, really, from happening.

KOSIK: All right, Alex, at this point no group is claiming responsibility but this attack certainly has all the hallmarks, we hear from officials, that it was ISIS.

FIELD: Right, you're hearing officials here in Turkey and also intelligence officials in the U.S. again, saying these are the hallmarks of ISIS. That they believe this is the style of attack that ISIS would carry out. Again, it bears similarities to the Brussels attack. You're looking at an attack on civilians, you're looking at an attack on an international population, you're looking at a coordinated attack.

Again, you've got three assailants who are coming into this airport together in a taxicab, according to officials, somehow making their way to that area. But, Christine and Alison, you have pointed out one of the questions that investigators will certainly be looking into -- that third attacker. Had he intended to go into the airport or was the plan, all along, to detonate outside the airport? Was that part of the strategy? How busy was that parking lot? That's not something that we've been able to lay eyes on.

What I have seen are the spots inside the arrivals hall where these bombs did detonate. And you can imagine that late at night at a busy airport those were busy places with people being picked up and coming off those planes. But it is really remarkable to see how much has been done in a very few hours to get this airport back open and to get some of this looking almost normal.

I mean, you walk through the terminal and you do see areas where glass has been blown out, just shattered by the impact, but so much of this area has been cleaned up. Portions of the ceiling removed altogether. Portions of the wall removed altogether.

Of course, this would have happened after the investigators came in to do their work, but just a really eerie feeling to walk through that airport and know that this was the scene of carnage for so many people -- so many wounded, so many killed.

[05:40:00] And such a big effort now, not only to clean it up and to get this airport open, but to figure out how this happened here in a place where a lot of efforts had already been made to secure this airport.

ROMANS: So, here in the U.S., Alex, one of the images on the front pages of all the newspapers is just this terrible image of a man carrying a little child through that airport. Just a reminder of just what devastation this has been for the people of Turkey. They've had so many terrorists attacks, and just in this year just really -- just a sad, sad story with a death toll much, much too high. Alex, thank you for being there for us reporting that this morning.

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump reacting to the terror attack in Turkey in very different ways. We're going to bring that to you next.

[05:40:50]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:45:00] ROMANS: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both condemning the terror attack on Turkey, but with very different messages this morning. Clinton releasing this statement. It reads, "Today's attack in Istanbul only strengthens our resolve to defeat the forces of terrorism and radical Jihadism around the world. We must deepen our cooperation with our allies and partners in the Middle East and Europe to take on this threat. Such cooperation is essential to protecting the homeland and keeping our country safe."

This, as Trump spoke to a crowd of thousands in Ohio with a more ominous warning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESUMPTIVE REPUBLICAN NOMINEE: Folks, there's something going on that's really, really bad, all right? It's bad and we better get smart and we better get tough or we're not going to have much of a country left, OK?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: All right, let's break this down -- the latest in the race and how this attack plays into the dialogue with CNN political analyst, Josh Rogin. He's a columnist for "The Washington Post". Good morning, again, Josh.

KOSIK: Good morning, Josh.

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, COLUMNIST, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Good morning.

ROMANS: I'm hearing two different world views, two predictively different world views from these two candidates here. You've got Hillary Clinton saying we've got to cooperate, we've got to talk to our friends and allies, we have to have a policy that is inclusive with our friends and international focus. And Donald Trump is looking right inward, saying we've got to get tough.

ROGIN: Well, that's exactly right and I think out of this tragedy we're seeing much more of a clearer choice for voters than we had following some of the other recent terrorist attacks. And Donald Trump is very clear. He thinks that the best way to fight terrorism is by keeping it off America's shores and there's a lot of skepticism, especially coming from the Hillary Clinton campaign.

But not only coming from the Hillary Clinton campaign, that building walls or having policies like keeping Muslims or keeping people from "terrorist states" of the United States can really solve this problem. Let's remember that the Orlando attackers were radicalized Americans and the Istanbul attackers are not necessarily directed by ISIS, but might have been inspired by ISIS. ROMANS: Right.

ROGIN: So the voters are going to have a real choice here about whether or not they want to just sort of build walls around the United States or whether they want to go into these countries and try to work it out from there.

KOSIK: And one of the questions posed to some Americans in a new poll asking which candidate do you trust to handle terrorism, you see Hillary Clinton getting 50 percent and Trump getting 39 percent. You know, you hear this plain talk with Donald Trump kind of trying to appeal to the anxieties of Americans, trying to capitalize, almost, on these horrific terror attacks. It almost feels like he's invoking scare tactics to get voters on board to his way of thinking.

ROGIN: Well, I agree with that, but I also think that there was a recognition inside the Trump campaign after the Orlando attacks that Trump's reaction to that incident really didn't play well with either Republican leaders or Republican voters. Remember, he kind of took credit for it and he said he called it, and he asked people to stop congratulating him for calling it.

And that just seemed totally tone deaf on that day, considering the scope of the tragedy. So, at least he's backed off of that. He's not making this all about Donald Trump, so now we can get to the discussion of OK, are his policies a) really actionable, and b) really something that the American people will think will work.

We haven't seen the meat on those policies. We're promised by the Trump campaign that he's going to explain exactly what he means, but every time we hear about is it a Muslim ban, is it a terrorist state ban, are there exceptions, does it apply to family members, what's the vetting -- the details just aren't there and I think that's the other thing that has voters really concerned.

ROMANS: Well, the details aren't there and putting meat on the policy -- I mean, you look at the last five terror attacks before this one and Belgian citizens, French citizens, Moroccan, American citizens, you know -- I mean, defining that and being to nuance that is just not -- Donald Trump doesn't do nuance.

ROGIN: Right, it's not just that, it's that there's not a lot of space in a presidential campaign for complicated nuance foreign policy proposals. Even Hillary Clinton is not really talking about what would really be needed to tackle this problem, which is sort of a comprehensive whole government approach that it tackles the ideology of extremism.

ROMANS: Right.

ROGIN: That fights it on that front, right? That also solves the problem of Syria, which means dealing with with Assad, right? These are complicated, multi-layered problems and even though both candidates sort of have laid out broad visions, what would really be needed to really protect Americans from this threat is something that neither one of them is a) contemplating, or b) explaining to the American people at this time.

KOSIK: All right, we will see as the day plays out. The campaign trail overshadowed by yet another horrific terror attack. Josh Rogin, thanks so much for expertise today.

ROGIN: Thank you.

ROMANS: Thanks, Josh.

KOSIK: All right, let's take a look at what's coming up on "NEW DAY". Chris Cuomo joining us now. Good morning, Chris.

ROMANS: Good morning.

[05:50:00] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: Good morning, ladies. You know, in answer to the question that you guys are throwing around right now, and it's the right question to be asking, is that every time we have one of these attacks it is a painfully obvious reminder that there is an obvious enemy in the form of ISIS. And that's where fingers are pointing now and that's why the American voter does not require any subtlety. What they want is the most direct and immediate approach to stopping this threat.

And you're hearing the same thing from Turkey right now. And on the show this morning we're going to put what happened at the Istanbul airport into immediate focus. We're going to show you. There's so much footage of this attack because it was inside the airport.

You're going to see what the M.O. was of these suicide bomb terrorists. You're going to see what the reaction was, and you're going to see what it took to make it out of there alive. The numbers are changing. You know that that is just the status quo on situations like that. You can't tell how many people are going to lose their lives so quickly. There are over 140 people injured.

So, we're going to take you through that immediate effect but then we're going to look at what's going on in response. What was known about the threat level there? What do we know about here at home about similar threat levels at airports? Airports are unique targets of opportunity.

So we're going to look at all those terror aspects and then put it into the context of this election. The candidates are going to weigh in. Whose plan is going to meet with the voters' demands in a situation like this? And the word "plan", as you two guys were just pointing out, Alison and Christine, is a defined term because people just want it to stop. They see an obvious enemy and they want to see who's going to get get them first.

KOSIK: OK, we'll be watching and listening. Thanks so much, Chris.

ROMANS: Thanks, Chris. Happening right now, the E.U. pushing Britain to leave quickly after the Brexit vote as Scotland's leader makes a new plea to stay in the European Union. We are live, next.

[05:51:45] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:55:50] KOSIK: Happening now, the European Union leaders meeting for the second day after demanding in a non-binding resolution that Britain get started on exiting the E.U. as soon as possible. Prime Minister David Cameron present for yesterday's summit, but he's not there today. But, Scotland's leader will be in Brussels to make clear that the Scottish people voted against Brexit and are willing to fight to stay in the E.U.

Joining us now, CNN's Erin McLaughlin, live in Brussels with the latest. So, all of these events going on as the U.K. continues to keep its finger on the pause button to actually begin the process of leaving the E.U.

ERIN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Alison, and today's meeting is really historic. For the very first time, the 27 remaining leaders of the member states are meeting without the U.K.

And last night the British Prime Minster, David Cameron's, very last supper with the E.U. leaders. And it was there that he sort of gave his opinion as to what went wrong from his perspective when it came to the referendum. He pointed to immigration, saying that people in the U.K. were very concerned about the free movement of people and that Europe is going to need to think about that in the future.

Now, in terms of today's meeting, leaders here very much looking ahead. They're looking at ways of bringing the ordinary people in these member states closer to the institutions here in Europe because they realize that what played out in the U.K. could potentially happen elsewhere -- Alison.

KOSIK: All right, we will be watching to see what happens from these meetings. Erin McLaughlin, live from Brussels, thanks.

ROMANS: All right, it's about 57 minutes past the hour. Time for an early start on your money. World stock markets finding their footing after falling off a Brexit cliff. Asian stocks closed higher, European stocks are higher right now. U.S. stock futures are up, too.You know, yesterday the Dow shot up 270 points. That's four days of triple-digit moves. They're showing you that there. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq closed about two percent higher.

The world's second largest telecom company may leave the U.K. Vodafone says it may move its British headquarters after the U.K. voted to leave the E.U. Vodafone says the U.K.'s E.U. membership -- it's been an important factor in the company's growth. Most of its employees are based outside the U.K. It makes about 55 percent of its pre-tax revenue in Europe. Only 11 percent comes from Britain.

A lot of people asking how Brexit matters to them. How they are going to feel here in the U.S. Here's a quick check of that. You're going to feel it first in your 401(k). The average investor lost almost four percent on day one of Brexit gloom. You're going to see a lot of volatility this summer. You're seeing it in lower mortgage rates. Money is flooding out of

riskier stock investments and right into the safe haven of U.S. Treasury bonds. That's pushing interest rates down. You can get a 30-year fixed rate mortgage below 3.5 percent.

And a cold comfort, I think, for British citizens, but vacations to England just got a lot cheaper if you live in the United States. The pound sits near a 30-year low against the U.S. dollar. Three ways you're feeling Brexit right now.

KOSIK: All right, new information in the Turkey terror attack. "NEW DAY" starts now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN breaking news.

CUOMO: To our viewers in the United States and around the world this is NEW DAY and we have new footage and information surrounding the terror attack at Turkey's busiest airport. At least 36 people are dead, more than 140 injured in coordinated suicide explosions.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: The airport was a scene of chaos and carnage hours ago, but it has already reopened to passengers. And we have this breaking story covered the way only CNN can, so let's begin with senior international correspondent, Nima Elbagir. She's live at Ataturk airport in Istanbul. What is the latest, Nima?

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Alisyn, we have some new details for you here. A senior Turkish government official has told CNN that they have begun the process of identifying the attackers. Their bodies are pretty blown apart. They're working with, at the moment, just the lower halves of their bodies.

But all indications, they believe, are that these were foreign attackers which, of course, throws up so many questions about their ability to move in and out of the country. It is early day, but the focus of the investigation now is who are they, where did they come from, and where is that broader network that supported them?