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New Day

Baby Survives in a Utah River; ISIS Destroys History; Hillary Clinton E-mails; Iraqi Forces Advance

Aired March 09, 2015 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking this morning, America's top general, Martin Dempsey, is now in Iraq. His mission is to control what happens after ISIS is hopefully removed from areas hoping to stop the kind of retribution and ethnic cleansing by Shia forces that helped create ISIS in the first place and could take this situation from bad to worse.

Meantime, the leader of Boko Haram pledging loyalty to ISIS. This as ground and air forces from Niger and Chad launch a new offensive against the terror group in northeast Nigeria.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Two suspects have been formally charged, three others are being held in the assassination of top Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov. Reports say one of the people charged is a former Chechen military commander and he confessed to his role in Nemtsov's murder. Russian authorities say a sixth suspect blew himself up as police went in to arrest him.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: A key finding in a new report about missing Malaysia Air Flight 370. Investigators reveal that the plane's locator beacon battery in the flight data recorder expired a year before the flight disappeared last March. The report also reveals nothing unusual turned up about the flight's pilots and crew. The team also interviewed relatives of the people on board and found nothing. The jetliner vanished a year ago yesterday.

PEREIRA: A tremendous story here. A baby girl in Utah has defied the odds. She survived a crash that claimed her mother's life. After some 14 hours, the 18-month-old baby girl was found alive by a fisherman, still strapped to her car seat upside down in a freezing river.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PEREIRA (voice-over): Survival and tragedy along the Spanish Fork River in Utah. This 18-month-old baby girl, Lilly, was rescued from an overturned car submerged in frigid waters, suspended in her car seat for more than 12 hours. Her mother, 25-year-old Lynn Jennifer Groesbeck, was killed after the vehicle she was driving veered off the road into the river the night before. A fisherman alerted authorities the next afternoon after spotting the vehicle upside down in the water.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where the car was at, you couldn't see it from the roadway.

PEREIRA: First responders jumping into the icy river, working quickly to turn the car over.

OFFICER BRYAN DEWITT, SPANISH FORK POLICE: As we did that, it became apparent that the driver was deceased. But we also noticed that there was a small baby in the backseat.

PEREIRA: Incredibly, the young baby girl, who was trapped inside, was unconscious but alive.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Got the baby in my arm, raised it up -- raised its head up out of the water as I tried to release the seat belt.

PEREIRA: Rescuers acting quickly, passing baby Lilly from one responder to the next.

OFFICER JARED WARNER, SPANISH FORK POLICE: The child was passed to me and I just ran up and climbed in the ambulance with the child.

PEREIRA: According to officials, the mother was believed to have been headed home Friday night when her vehicle struck a cement barrier before careening off the road and plunging into the river. The officers responding to the scene all say they heard a distinct voice from inside the car calling for help.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I remember hearing a voice that didn't sound like a child just saying, "help me."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PEREIRA: That is the thing that we can't get over. Four different responders say they heard a voice saying "help me, help me." The mother was already dead. She was submerged in the water. The baby's only 18 months old.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh, it's eerie. And I can't believe the little girl survived.

PEREIRA: They had to be treated for hypothermia and she survived. I mean it's incredible. An incredible story.

CAMEROTA: All right, we're praying for her.

PEREIRA: Yes.

CAMEROTA: All right, well, priceless artifacts dating back centuries destroyed in the blink of an eye by ISIS. It continues its cultural and ethnic cleansing campaign. What can the international community do?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: Good to have you back with us here on NEW DAY.

ISIS being condemned this morning for destroying yet another cultural heritage site. The Iraqi government says the terrorist group has razed the ancient city of Hatra, latest historical landmark to be demolished by the group. But what exactly is their motive? Let's learn more with CNN global affairs analyst Bobby Ghosh. He's also the managing editor of Quartz.

Good to have you here with us.

And we show the video here of the destruction that's going on. We really need to point out, the human cost is immeasurable. This is things -- this is history, important, but the human lives obviously are the most vital thing that we -- we should be placing value in, and we do. But this is really concerning.

BOBBY GHOSH, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Yes, and this is -- this is ISIS' way of telling the west, in particular, that even when we don't have people that we can behead and make videos of, we can hurt you. We can hurt you by damaging what you consider the root of your civilization.

PEREIRA: Yes, we place value in that, don't we?

GHOSH: That's right.

PEREIRA: Yes.

GHOSH: This is our common patrimony (ph) and therefore this is them saying, we can hurt you even so.

They're also sending another message to the Muslim population, to they -- what they would regard as their constituency, that, look, we -- we are -- we are very pure. Everything that is pre-Islamic, we're -- we're -- we're destroying because that is -- got nothing to do with Islamic culture and is therefore Haram (ph), which is to say it's impure and therefore can be destroyed.

PEREIRA: So it has a lot to do -- we can take a look at the one city that was recently -- we've seen some of the damage that's done. This is pre-artist rendition before the destruction.

GHOSH: Yes.

PEREIRA: This is Nimrud, an important town historically.

GHOSH: Fifteen -- 1,300 years before Christ. That's when this town was created. A Syrian empire. Some beautiful works of sculpture. I've actually seen that in that town. Again, the same thing, this happened before Islam and therefore, to this particular interpretation of Islam, it has no value and so it can be destroyed.

PEREIRA: But it's not just the cultural campaign and sending a message to western --

GHOSH: Yes.

PEREIRA: To the western forces and western people. It's more than that, is it not? They see these symbols as idols. GHOSH: Yes, that's right. They're -- they are -- the -- ISIS group

sort of their version of Islam is similar to the one that's practiced in Saudi Arabia. It's Wahhabi Islam. And they say any physical manifestation of the faith whether -- sometimes even a mosque. We've seen them destroying mosques. Even a mosque can be regarded as a form of idolatry. And that -- that is taboo in -- to their way of thinking.

This is not uncommon among Wahhabis. The Saudis, for instance, even in a place like Mecca, the holies city in Islam, had -- will bulldoze ancient structures which many other Muslims would consider holy or at least would not like to see them destroyed. But the Saudis will destroy them and replace them with modern high-rise buildings.

PEREIRA: We move to Hatra. And, again, it is important to point out, this is not original to ISIS.

GHOSH: Yes.

PEREIRA: So this is before destruction. You can see what a beautiful sight it was. But, again, it -- this has survived several -- over the centuries. Not just from recent U.S. Army action there --

GHOSH: Yes.

PEREIRA: But back centuries ago, the Romans destroyed parts of this city.

GHOSH: Well, yes. That -- and part of war, it was very common to raise entire cities back in Roman times and Hatra suffered that fate. These ruins did survive and they were -- they were quite stunning to look at but they have no value to these people. And you make an interesting point that this is not just ISIS doing this. Iraq has a history of this. In 2003, the Museum of Mosul, which they're now threatening to destroy, the museum in Baghdad was looted by people of Shia as well as Sunni persuasion. In 2004, down in Nasiriyah, the great museum and library was destroyed by a Shiite militia. This is a mosque being destroyed by ISIS. To my point, that it doesn't matter whether it's a Muslim structure or a pre-Islamic structure, as long as they decide that this is a form of idolatry, they can destroy it.

PEREIRA: This is -- this -- we should point out that this is the mosque that supposedly contained the grave of Jonah.

GHOSH: Yes.

PEREIRA: Of course, the biblical figure, surviving swallowed by a whale.

GHOSH: Which the Muslims called (INAUDIBLE). Yes.

PEREIRA: Again, significance to Muslims as well. That's why it's so shocking to see.

And you -- I think it is worth repeating the fact that you said that this is not original to ISIS. We've seen this kind of thing happen. We look at Hillah -- GHOSH: Yes.

PEREIRA: Ruins of Babylon here.

GHOSH: Yes. Well, Saddam Hussein essentially committed what most historians and archeologists would consider a form of vandalism. He tried to rebuild some of these Babylonian palaces by using bricks that his -- had his name stamped on them, which is -- which is a hideous idea. But, you know, we've seen this, for instance, in Bamio (ph) there, Afghanistan, where the Taliban famously destroyed this stunning Buddha's, which are built during the Buddhist period of Afghanistan history. Again, it was a message they were also sending to the world. Look how little we regard what you regard as important.

PEREIRA: We regard what you hold precious. And what can be done? Because the fact is, I know that archaeologists and residents are quickly trying to take pictures on their cell phones, trying to digitize some of these images and documents. But is there anything to be done? They're calling for air strikes, some of the cultural attaches there.

GHOSH: Yes. Unfortunately, not a lot. We've not been able to do anything when tens of thousands of people have been butchered by ISIS.

PEREIRA: Right. Right.

GHOSH: It's unlikely that we can do anything to save these things. To save their memories is pretty much the best we can hope for right now.

PEREIRA: Is the best thing. Best course of action.

Bobby Ghosh, thanks for walking us through this.

GHOSH: Any time.

PEREIRA: All right, Chris, over to you.

CUOMO: All right, Michaela, thank you very much.

Hillary Clinton is staying silent so far about the controversy over her e-mails, but the talk is getting louder and louder around her. Even friendly Democrats saying she should talk. We'll get into it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TREY GOWDY (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: There are gaps of months and months and months. And if you -- if you think to that iconic picture of her on a C-17 flying to Libya, she has sunglasses on and she has her handheld device in her hand. We have no e-mails from that day. In fact, we have no e-mails from that trip.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: What do those sunglasses mean? That's Congressman Trey Gowdy heading up the committee investigating Benghazi, claiming that key e- mails from Hillary Clinton are not there. You heard him in his own words. But a lot of major players spoke up about Hillary's private e- mail mess over the weekend. Clinton herself remains silent. Why? Let's discuss. We have CNN political analyst and editor in chief of "The Daily Beast," Mr. John Avlon, and CNN political commentator, Republican consultant and Sirius XM host Margaret Hoover.

CAMEROTA: Good morning, guys.

MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning, guys.

CUOMO: A lot of intrigue, but I would like to take one step back from the intrigue to the rule, Margaret. Why isn't the focus of our consternation, of our upset in this about the rule? Hillary was dealing with a rule that those before her and she dealt with, has no timeline for when to give things in, doesn't really make it easy to say she did something wrong. Why isn't there more focus on the rule?

HOOVER: Well, I think the problem is not that she broke the law, but she broke the rules.

CUOMO: But how did she break the rule?

HOOVER: And now this is about -- this is about the spirit of the law and the spirit of the regulations versus did she or didn't she break the law, because I think we know --

CUOMO: What did she do wrong?

HOOVER: The spirit of the law is that e-mails will be preserved in the appropriate agency. That they will be on secure systems. That they will be preserved and that they -- frankly the White House rules are that they will all be designated and conducted on whitehouse.gov servers.

CUOMO: But they're allowed to use personal e-mail.

HOOVER: They are allowed to use personal e-mail for personal business, not for official State Department business.

CAMEROTA: Well, I mean, tell that to Colin Powell, who was out over the weekend as well. And let me just play -- let me just play for you how he said he didn't even preserve his e-mails.

HOOVER: I got this.

CAMEROTA: Listen to this.

CUOMO: I got this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLIN POWELL, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: I don't have any to turn over. I did not keep a cache of them. I did not print them off. I do not have thousands of pages somewhere in my personal files. And, in fact, a lot of the e-mails that came out of my personal account went into the State Department system. They were addressed to State Department employees. And the state.gov domain, but I don't know if the servers at the State Department captured those or not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOOVER: So what he said right before that was, remember, when he arrived at the State Department, state.gov e-mails were so antiquated that he had to put computers on every single desk in every single agency in the State Department across the world and start getting people to use the state.gov e-mails. So he used personal e-mail as it started. But then started using his state.gov account as an example to everyone else as it transitioned and modernized the system. Remember, 2001, it seems like not that long ago, but the systems of e-mail were just totally inadequate and totally different --

CUOMO: A different generation of e-mail.

AVLON: Yes.

CUOMO: Yes.

HOOVER: But -- and the question is, why did Hillary Clinton use a different system when she required all of her employees at the State Department to use the state.gov accounts, and it seems perfectly adequate for her successor, John Kerry.

CAMEROTA: John.

AVLON: Well.

HOOVER: Sorry, I filibustered for too long on that.

AVLON: Look, it's very important to occasionally get a good Castro- esque sort of rant in in the morning and I think this is --

CUOMO: No, but because we've got to start with the rule.

HOOVER: Oh, my God, Castro?

CUOMO: Yes, you look like Castro.

HOOVER: What?

AVLON: Not at all, thank God.

CUOMO: That's -- that's why he married you for your strong resemblance to Fidel Castro.

HOOVER: And my good status (ph).

CUOMO: Everyone knows and I'm glad it's in the open.

AVLON: She does have a very good (INAUDIBLE). I'm glad we could air that. No, look, I mean the reason this is resonating is because we're in a pre-campaign stage in politics perception. The problem that Hillary Clinton has with these e-mails is a question of security, because this home -- you know, potentially a home brewed (ph) system, if you're secretary of state, that is an invitation to hackers and we don't have the full information on that. It's an issue of posterity. You know, what -- how -- how do we know what the full volume of e-mails is. And then, of course, there's the political liability, which is anticipatable. Politics is perception and the Clintons have historically had a problem with being totally transparent. There's a perception that, oh, maybe they act like the rules don't apply to them. And all of a sudden what this is doing, it's telegraphing back to people, in the absence of a campaign or a coordinated response, oh, there was something they didn't like about them at the time because they've looked so good for a decade. So it's doing a lot of heavy lifting for their enemies and their -- and the GOP opponents and that's why they keep banging the drum on this.

CAMEROTA: But in terms of the nuts and bolts of it, can we get back to what Trey Gowdy said for a second.

AVLON: Sure.

CAMEROTA: Because she says -- I mean basically her camp says, I -- they've released 55,000 e-mails. Here, everybody, you can take a look at them. But Trey Gowdy is saying, but none of the ones connected to Benghazi.

AVLON: Uh-huh.

HOOVER: Well --

CAMEROTA: That's a problem, right, John?

AVLON: It's a problem because --

HOOVER: (INAUDIBLE).

AVLON: Because Trey Gowdy's in a -- and this panel's in a potential situation like Whitewater where all of a sudden it becomes a fishing expedition and it gets much bigger. But if all -- if we know that there are iconic moments where she's clearly sent an e-mail and there's no e-mails, that becomes a problem. If there's no e-mail related to Benghazi, that's one of the reasons why there's going to have to be a moment of total transparency.

HOOVER: I think -- I just think the only way she can actually clear the air, you can't actually delete things from hard drives or without a record. There's a -- there's a track record. So, I mean, she could hand over her hard drive for a forensic accounting and that would really clear the air in terms of were e-mails deleted, were e-mails sent --

CUOMO: Would that be enough? If you control the data and I want to know what you have and it's up to you to tell me what you have, will I ever really trust you about this? HOOVER: Chris Cuomo, you just got to the crux of the problem for

Hillary Clinton.

AVLON: How about that?

CUOMO: I mean that is what it is, right?

HOOVER: That is the problem. And -- but you can -- you can track a hard drive. You can see what has been done to a hard drive. You can tell whether e-mails have been deleted. So, if she were being fully transparent, she wouldn't just say, here, look at these 55,000 e-mails that I have hand-selected for you to reveal. She would say, here is my hard drive.

CUOMO: Well, and, Alisyn, you pointed this out when this started. Alisyn, when she said -- Hillary Clinton's camp or whoever said it, hey, the State Department should release those e-mails. Alisyn said, well, wait a minute, she has all of the e-mails, why is she saying the State Department should remove them -- should release them? John, isn't that a fair point?

AVLON: It is a fair point. From what they've said all along was essentially what Colin Powell said, that when I was e-mailing people with the state.gov address, I assumed those were being archived. The problem is, it doesn't address the question of why she decided to do everything on a home server at first, and, secondarily, given that she was using this home e-mail, the one element of a manufactured scandal here is that people, presumably at least 55,000 of them, have been getting e-mails from a Clinton e-mails rather than a state address from her. So that is bizarre that this hadn't come out before and didn't raise a flag.

HOOVER: You would notice.

CAMEROTA: Speaking of which, can we talk about the president's reaction --

AVLON: Sure.

HOOVER: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Over the weekend when the president was asked --

AVLON: Great segue.

CAMEROTA: What did you know about this? And he said, um, I just learned about it through the news reports.

HOOVER: (INAUDIBLE).

CAMEROTA: This is the president's pat response. He said the same thing about the VA scandal. He said the same thing about the IRS scandal. He said the same thing about fast and furious.

HOOVER: His poker face.

CAMEROTA: Is his -- no, but is his staff not briefing him well enough?

AVLON: It --

HOOVER: Well, is he not personally e-mailing with Hillary Clinton? I mean that -- didn't you -- one would presume --

CUOMO: That I would believe.

HOOVER: One would presume that they --

CUOMO: That I would believe, given the historic tension there.

HOOVER: At least passed a couple of love notes to each other like, hey, thanks for the meeting or hope your son's doing -- or hope your daughter's great, you know, and then notice -- I just -- it seems a little weird.

I'd like to make one point, though. A lot of people liken this to Jeb Bush. Well, Jeb Bush had a private e-mail account. Why -- how is this any different? There are different federal regulations and state regulations. The National Archives and Records Administration is a federal agency meant on casting sunlight and total transparency on the executive branch of the United States. There are different rules and that's why they're different.

CAMEROTA: We're going to leave it there. John, Margaret --

AVLON: Good to see you again.

CAMEROTA: You too.

CUOMO: What do you think, controversy or non-troversy (ph)? We're having the discussion for you. This is just one story. There's a lot of news this morning. Let's get to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: The Nigerian terror group Boko Haram now swearing allegiance to ISIS.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This gives ISIS an arc of allegiance that stretches from one coast of North Africa to the other.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: The Oklahoma chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon has been shut down.

CUOMO: Chapter members joining in a racist chant.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do we want?

CROWD: Justice!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When do we want it?

CROWD: Now!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My son has never been a violent person.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was unarmed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She needs to step up and come out and state exactly what the situation is.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The policy of my administration is to encourage transparency.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota, and Michaela Pereira.

CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to your NEW DAY.

We do have some breaking news now because the battle for Tikrit heating up. Iraqi troops on a mission to retake the birthplace of Saddam Hussein from ISIS, as America's top general arrives in the region to help control what comes next.

CUOMO: It's a big moment because how Iraq controls areas it retakes from ISIS is very critical. Past abuses helped create ISIS. Remember that. But, still, ISIS clearly the focus of all energy. Systematically bulldozing ancient Iraqi cities in an attempt to erase the country's history.

Let's get to CNN's senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman, who's outside Tikrit. He's got the breaking details.