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Army Chopper Crash: 7 Marines, 4 Soldiers Missing; Could GOP Letter to Iran Derail Nuclear Deal?; Hillary Clinton Breaks Her Silence; Fraternity Brothers Apologize for Racist Chant

Aired March 11, 2015 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Seven marines and four soldiers are now missing.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: A search and rescue mission underway on the Florida panhandle.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of the two students expelled issued an apology.

BERMAN: Shocking new video has emerged.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That word --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We believe it's harmful to America's national security.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Republicans may have broken a little applied law.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I did not think it was appropriate for us to write to the ayatollah.

HILLARY CLINTON, FMR. SECRETARY OF STATE: Looking back, it would have been better that I simply used a second email account.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Government employees don't have private servers in their homes.

CLINTON: At that time, this didn't seem like an issue.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It's Wednesday, March 11th, just before 6:00 in the east. And we do have breaking news, an Army Blackhawk helicopter from Eglin Air Force Base has crashed in the Florida panhandle. This happened during a night training exercise.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Seven Marines and four soldiers are missing at this hour. Let's get right to our John Berman. He has all the breaking details. BERMAN: Yes, Alisyn, this is what we know right now. Seven Marines, four soldiers now missing after this nighttime training exercise something went horribly wrong. It happened near Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida panhandle.

A spokesman there confirms to CNN that a Blackhawk helicopter was reported missing around 8:30 p.m. last night. Search and rescue crews found a debris field early this morning on a remote swath of beach between Pensacola and Destin.

Too early to know what caused the crash, but they now do say that weather could have been a factor.

The missing Marines are part of a Special Operations group based out of Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. The soldiers are from a National Guard unit based in Hanna, Louisiana. Their names right now being withheld, pending notification of their families. And again, the search is still going on.

An Elgin spokesman says they are still considered missing at this time.

Now, there was a second helicopter involved in that training mission, not involved in the crash, and all the crew on that second helicopter safe and accounted for right now, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right, John. Thanks so much for all of those developments.

Let's bring in CNN's military analyst, Major General Spider Marks.

General Marks, you just heard all of the details. There are very few at the moment. What do you think happened here?

MAJ. GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Alisyn, clearly, there was an immense tragedy that the Marines, obviously, will get to the bottom of and the United States Army, as well. And it's not unusual for Marines and for Army National Guard units to work together. We have a long history of having that type of interoperability.

It's a National Guard helicopter. MARSOC, Marines Special Operations, command Marines, I would assume was the unit that was involved. And routinely, there is training that takes place down at Elgin Air Force Base there on the Panhandle of Florida.

I'm sure it was a weather incident. It might have been a mechanical failure of some sort. Clearly, two birds were in flight together on a routine mission.

So I think the thing here is that we need to get our arms around, clearly, what happened. But it's not unusual, and we shouldn't attribute the fact that you have National Guard units, and you have Marine Special Ops units that are working together. That's routine. That happens all the time.

So what will take place now is a very, very deep investigation to find out what happened.

CAMEROTA: And of course, Spider, the search-and-residue mission is still under way. We understand there has been some debris found. This can't be a very big debris field. This was a helicopter.

MARKS: Yes, absolutely. Training down at this part of the panhandle of Florida is a routine location for Special Ops units, so the type, the profile of the mission, the type of mission that was taking place, this is -- this is what happens all the time down there. And so a tragedy like this clearly attributable to some factor that might have been weather at this time of year. Not unusual. Clearly, we can't jump to any conclusions.

But you're absolutely correct. A debris field like this, again, depending upon the profile, could be spread out a little bit. But there will be a narrow search corridor. There was another bird that was used in tandem with this one. So clearly, some other folks, there's a live sighting of where this debris field is. They probably saw that bird go down.

So they're on it right now, getting to the bottom of it.

CAMEROTA: This was a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter. What do we know about their safety record?

MARKS: This is phenomenal. This is an aircraft that's been in the inventory of the Army since the early 1980s. It was an incredible aircraft. Mission profiles over the course of the last three decades, it's been improved over the years. The avionics are magnificent. The ability to fly at high speeds just over the terrain, that allows you to insert -- and a Special Ops mission like this really pushes the limits and the boundaries of this equipment. But it's -- again, it's a matter of routine. We do this all the time.

And the Blackhawk helicopter is a great platform. It does exceptionally well. It has been tested in combat over the course of the last 12 years and, certainly, decades before that, as well. But bear in mind, this is a platform that has been improved, so we have the very, very latest models that are out there in use right now.

CAMEROTA: Again, this is still a search-and-rescue mission at this hour and everyone hoping for some sort of good outcome there on the ground.

General Spider Marks, thanks so much for being here.

CUOMO: We have another developing story this morning. The fallout from the infamous letter to Iran more clear now. The obvious is the complete division of the political parties in D.C. There's also the speculation that the actions of the 47 Republican senators may have been illegal, but most concerning, indications that any chance of a deal with Iran may have been damaged.

Let's get to the White House. Sunlen Serfaty has more on this political fallout. What do we know? SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Chris, well, just as

important is whose names were not on that letter. Seven Senate Republicans were approached to sign on, and they refused to put their name on it. And they're now speaking out, explaining why they chose not to do so.

And they say it's not that they don't agree that the Congress should have more say in these negotiations, but that they just don't think this is the best way to go at it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: I just didn't think it was appropriate for us to write to the ayatollah and try to explain to him our constitutional system of government.

SEN. BOB CORKER (R), TENNESSEE: I didn't view the letter as helping achieve an outcome that I'd like to see.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: Meanwhile, while all this is going on, on Capitol Hill, there's some real legal questions being asked, whether senators broke the law, potentially, by sending this letter directly to Iran.

Now this is an arcane law. It's called the Logan Act, and it forbids any U.S. citizen from communicating without official U.S. entity with another foreign government while there's negotiations going on.

Now DOJ and White House officials tell us that there's really no appetite in the government to press any charges to go and look at, sort of, this legal authority. They say, quote, this is a political issue, not a legal one -- Michaela.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Sunlen. Thank you for that. We'll be watching.

Meanwhile, another story we're watching, Hillary Clinton. She defended her use of personal e-mail while she was on the clock as secretary of state. The presumptive Democratic front-runner in 2016 calling it a matter of convenience, but admitting that, looking back, would have been better to use a second e-mail account or device. She also raised some eyebrows, though, by returning to turn over that personal -mail server.

CNN Senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny is here with the latest, making his NEW DAY debut.

Welcome to the family. Good to have you.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

Now Hillary Clinton said she did nothing wrong, and she vigorously defended her right to keep private emails private. But even though she's broken her promise, she's not swept away the controversy that's overshadowing her campaign in waiting.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZELENY (voice-over): On the eighth day, she talked.

CLINTON: Looking back, it would have been better for me to use two separate phones and two e-mail accounts. I thought using one device would be simpler, and obviously, it hasn't worked out that way.

ZELENY: She defended her use of private e-mail, insisting any mistakes were innocent ones.

CLINTON: Even if I'd had two devices, which is obviously permitted -- many people do that -- you would still have to put the responsibility where it belongs, which is on the official. So I did it for convenience.

ZELENY: But Republicans weren't buying that defense.

SEN. JIM RISCH (R), IDAHO: She talks about convenience. All of us carry at least two cell phones, at least two communicating devices. That really isn't much of an excuse.

ZELENY: At the United Nations on Tuesday, Mrs. Clinton took questions for nearly 20 minutes. The same two words came up again and again.

CLINTON: Looking back.

Again, looking back.

ZELENY: But now she's looking ahead to a second presidential campaign, and she finds herself in the middle of a new political firearm, with Republicans smelling new blood on a favorite old target.

Congressman Trey Gowdy, chairman of the committee investigating the Benghazi attacks, said he would call her to testify at least twice. Mrs. Clinton has already said she would appear, but said she had already deleted her personal email and has no plans of turning over the private email server for an independent review.

CLINTON: When the search was conducted, we were asking that any email be identified and preserved that could potentially be federal records. And that's exactly what we did.

ZELENY: But this doesn't necessarily put the questions to rest. Mrs. Clinton was policing herself, making her own determination of which emails should be turned over. With the presidential campaign just weeks away, she dismissed the criticism.

CLINTON: I went above and beyond what I was requested to do, and again, those will be out in the public domain; and people will able to judge for themselves.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZELENY: But long before voters can judge for themselves, she faces more Republican criticism and demands for even more answers. One thing is clear right now: all this is certain to carry over into her presidential campaign, which I'm told is only weeks away.

CAMEROTA: Jeff Zeleny, thanks. We'll get more analysis from you shortly.

Meanwhile, another story to tell about, because there are new developments in the racist fraternity video rocking the University of Oklahoma. The students seen leading the racist chant on the bus now apologizing, saying it was, quote, "wrong and reckless." And the parents of a second student involved say their son made, quote, "a horrible mistake." The university taking swift action, expelling both students. Their Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity shut down for good at midnight.

Let's get right to CNN's Nick Valencia. He's live on the campus in Norman, Oklahoma, with all of the breaking details.

What is the latest on campus, Nick?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

More than 72 hours after that video was first posted, the fallout here at the University of Oklahoma continues, with one student seen in the video apologizing. So are the parents of a second student.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can hang them from a tree, but they'll never sign with me. There will never be a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) at SAE.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can hang them from a tree, but they'll never sign with me. There will never be a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) at SAE.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can hang them from a tree, but they'll never sign with me. There will never be a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) at SAE.

VALENCIA (voice-over): The swift fallout continues over this racially-charged chant in this now-infamous video. Two Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity members at the University of Oklahoma, expelled.

This student, seen leading the racist chant, identified as 19-year-old freshman from Dallas, Parker Rice. In a statement he says alcohol likely played a role in his behavior, stating in part, "I'm deeply sorry for what I did Saturday night. It was wrong and reckless. I made a horrible mistake by joining into the singing and encouraging others to do the same."

Though the name of the second student accused of taking a leadership role has not been released, the campus newspaper, "The Oklahoma Daily," identified him as Levi Pettit. His family apologizing for their son's behavior in the SAE video.

O.U. president David Boren citing a zero tolerance policy for such "threatening, racist behavior."

DAVID BOREN, PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA: As they pat their backs, I hope they think long and hard about what they've done.

VALENCIA: The Sigma Alpha Epsilon frat house, shuttered, the Greek letters, gone from its facade. All fraternity members given until midnight Tuesday to get their things out.

Founding member Jay Vinekar, says that it really is not what SAE represents.

JAY VINEKAR, SAE FOUNDING MEMBER: I'm, you know, fighting back tears right now. It really is horrifying.

VALENCIA: And as the scandal widens, a new controversial video from 2013 surfacing of house mom Beauton Gilbow, "Mama B." Gilbow says she's heartbroken that she would be portrayed as a racist and that she was innocently singing along to a Trinidad James rap song. The firestorm over the video extending far beyond the University of Oklahoma, to a Dallas community, where this sign was placed in front of expelled student Parker Rice's home.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VALENCIA: And it's unclear if any more students will be punished. But the University of Oklahoma president, David Boren, has promised that the fraternity will have nothing to do with the university during his tenure if he can help it -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right. Thank you very much for the reporting. We also know of a just-released ISIS video appearing to show a child killing an Israeli Arab hostage. The terrorists claim the victim was working as an Israeli spy, but Israel's defense minister says the 19-year-old had no ties to Israeli intelligence. The boy's father says he did all he could to get his son home.

CAMEROTA: And a man facing federal charges this morning, accused of shooting and killing a U.S. marshal. Deputy Josie Wells was killed Tuesday outside a Baton Rouge hotel after getting into a shootout.

The suspect was wanted on state murder charges, linked to a double homicide last month. He is in the hospital after being wounded in that incident.

PEREIRA: A city manager of Ferguson, Missouri, has resigned following that scathing Justice Department report. It found Ferguson officials, including city manager John Shaw, saw residents as sources of revenue. That report found widespread racial bias in the police department. And in the court system.

Now, in his resignation letter, Shaw said he never instructed the police to target African-Americans or the poor, calling the report's finding simply false.

CAMEROTA: More fallout. And it will continue.

PEREIRA: Absolutely.

CAMEROTA: Well, a photo of a blood-stained letter introduced as a key piece of evidence in the case against Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Why prosecutors are telling jurors to consider this a confession.

CUOMO: And Hillary Clinton says using a private e-mail account was all about convenience and about using just one phone. But did she change her story? And the big question, why won't she release her server?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Hillary Clinton finally speaking out about using personal email, while secretary of state. She says it was more about convenience. Not everyone is satisfied with that explanation. The question is, what will happen next?

To weigh in, CNN senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny; as well as CNN political commentator and Republican strategist, Tara Setmayer; and senior fellow at Media Matters and former director of communications at the DNC, Karen Finney.

Let's set the table here with what Hillary Clinton said in her own defense yesterday. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: At the end, I chose not to keep my private personal emails. They had nothing to do with work, but I didn't see any reason to keep them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Mr. Zeleny, compelling as an apology? Does it count as an apology and does it hold?

ZELENY: It's about as close to an apology as I think we'll ever get from Secretary Clinton. She said any mistakes were innocent ones, but the problem with this is, she opened the door to so many more questions that she is policing this herself.

She turned over some 30,000 emails, but there are 30,000 more that she deemed personal. So what was in those personal e-mails? Were they political? Was she talking about the new president, who was her former rival? What are in those? What does she deem personal? It seems like a lot of personal emails, you know. Half of them, 30,000 were personal, 30,000 were government. That's the question here. And Congress says they want to see them.

CAMEROTA: Tara, you don't think she did herself any favors yesterday with this press conference?

TARA SETMAYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No, not at all, from a number of perspectives. Even just from her disposition, it came across very arrogant. She wasn't making eye contact. She was reading off of talking points, clearly, that that this is what she wanted to say and she was sticking to it. That doesn't pass the smell test as far as authenticity is concerned. She basically wanted everyone to just, "Well, trust me. Because you

know, why would I?" And that doesn't fly. We're talking about the Clintons here, and they're not exactly known for being the most forthright trustworthy individuals. That's their reputation, and then on top of this, the other larger question -- you make a good point, but other larger question is security purposes.

I mean, you know, Wire.com right away came out and said, hey, you know, the cybersecurity community, once this was revealed, is that this was terribly insecure, anyone who knows when you have a private e-mail server like that, they're open to hacking. And her domain server was hacked in 2010. The company that her register was named with, the company...

CAMEROTA: The company.

SETMAYER: The company -- yes, it was, it's documented. The company that she registered her domain with was hacked in 2010.

KAREN FINNEY, MEDIA MATTERS: That's not correct.

SETMAYER: And then in 2014, her emails between herself and Sidney Blumenthal were also hacked. So this is a more important issue, is the cyber security aspect of it that no one has yet to really push her on.

CUOMO: Right. The check on that is there is no indication that anything was hacked during the time that she was secretary of state.

But you...

SETMAYER: You have the oversight...

CUOMO: But you can't say they're concerned with security, but nothing wound up happening with it, and now she's no longer secretary of state.

Karen, what's your point about why the 2010 hacking isn't relevant?

FINNEY: As I understand it, the hacking was Sydney Blumenthal's email account was hacked, and that's when her e-mail address was revealed and then she had to change it.

SETMAYER: Prior to that, prior to that.

FINNEY: Can I just say something to the security. You guys have been reporting all morning about the State Department e-mail having its worst hacking ever last year. So I mean, there's a little bit of an irony there that we're talking about, uh-oh, she could have, the safety and security. Well, don't forget, it's a server that she served with a former president of the United States of America. So the level of security that we're talking about is different than if I just ran up to Best Buy to buy something for myself.

SETMAYER: The NSA monitors our dot gov security measures. They have teams of people. I worked in the federal government. I know this. They have teams of people. So then you know that the NSA was not monitoring private e-mail servers on Clinton.com or whatever their server was. They don't have the same level of security. You know that it's not the same level of security. It's a misnomer.

FINNEY: As she said, nothing has happened and I just decided, the State Department has been hacked. But I think there's a couple of other points that are really important.

You know, I actually think she did a good job. Because there was nothing that she could have said yesterday that was going to put a fine end point on this.

And we saw almost immediately, Trey Gowdy says, "Oh, I'm going to need more subpoenas, and I'm going to need more." You know, have her come testify more. That's exactly, frankly, what I expected.

So I mean, I hear what you're saying in terms of it may have raised more questions, but I think that was going to be the case anyway. And I think it's important to note that she essentially -- you know, people accuse her of thinking she can follow a different set of rules.

What she talked about was she followed the rules. She followed exactly the rules that were laid out in front of her. She did -- and also given that Colin Powell also had personal email, also made the same assumption that Hillary Clinton did, that anybody you e-mail with a dot gov at the end of their e-mail address, that is captured on the server.

So as Colin Powell said, he threw his away, because he didn't think he needed it. Hillary Clinton actually kept them and then handed them over 55,000 pages.

CUOMO: Let's get to another issue. Go ahead, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Well, let's talk about that.

That Trey Gowdy has come out and said, yes, she did turn over some emails, but there are large gaps. There are weeks' worth of gaps or months' worth of gaps. And in fact, he wants to go after now her aides' e-mails, because if she sent it from her private e-mail account to her aides' private e-mail account, then the government didn't capture it at all.

ZELENY: Right, and that's where this is spreading. CNN's Dana Bash is reporting that Trey Gowdy, Congressman Gowdy is wanting to subpoena the private e-mails of her aides, whoever else was on that server. This is a key question here. Remember the time frame. It was January of 2009, February of '09. She is just joining this administration.

So many tensions at the time between the White House and the State Department. I was covering the White House at the time. I remember it very well. A lot of tensions between the Clinton camp, the Obama camp.

So potentially the most interesting stuff will come out of this are the political conversations. Trey Gowdy that wants to find out who of her aides were, who she was communicating with. So we'll see if he gets those.

CUOMO: Hold on one second. Let's set the table before you eat the meal. The point is there are a lot of issues that came out of this. A lot of concerns. A lot of it is going to be speculative.

However, whether or not she is being consistent in what she said in the past is a main issue when you're going to come out and clarify something. Let's play what she said just a couple of weeks ago about how many devices she has.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So I want to ask the big question.

CLINTON: OK.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: IPhone or Android?

CLINTON: IPhone. OK. In full disclosure...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: BlackBerry.

CLINTON: And a BlackBerry.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: OK. So in full disclosure, she says she's used two devices. Yesterday she said she only used one out of convenience. Karen Finney, you're laughing. But, you know, that is troubling.

FINNEY: Come on, Chris.

CUOMO: Why? Why?

FINNEY: She had -- she said yesterday, "I had one device as secretary of state." I happen to know that the iPhone that she got, she got last Christmas. So yes, in three years later, she has an iPhone and a BlackBerry.

CAMEROTA: Why couldn't she have her personal e-mail and her government e-mail on one device like we all do?

SETMAYER: You can't do that. You can't have -- a secure BlackBerry can't have personal e-mail on it.

FINNEY: That's correct.

SETMAYER: And a non-secure BlackBerry cannot have secure e-mail on it.

(CROSSTALK)

SETMAYER: But Hillary Clinton -- let's be honest here. She has a team of handlers around her. You're telling me that, as secretary of state, she didn't have -- she couldn't have someone that carries her bags, that carries her papers, her folders. Also carry her personal device, if she wanted to separate them? I think that's just ridiculous.

FINNEY: Just because she has somebody to carry them, she could have had two?

SETMAYER: Yes. That's correct. But she said it was about convenience. I'm sure she's not carrying all her bags herself. That's why it's a bogus argument now.

The Colin Powell comparison is not fair. First of all, the Federal Records Act and these requirements were set in 2009, so there was much -- there were much clearer standards and directives once Hillary Clinton took office compared to Colin Powell. He did not have a private server in his home. He was not the full arbiter of those e- mails. That is the difference.

FINNEY: He was the arbiter of what e-mails he turned over.

SETMAYER: "The Washington Post" gave that talking point three Pinocchios because the circumstances are not comparable.

CAMEROTA: OK, Karen, last question: was this for all intents and purposes, Hillary Clinton's official announcement that, yes, she is running, because otherwise, why would she have gone through this press conference?

FINNEY: Look, I think she recognized that there were legitimate questions out there. And so I think she wanted to respond to that.

I want to respond to one thing that -- a point that Jeff made. So if you're talking about e-mails, you're curious to see e-mails from when she first transitioned into the administration. That's a fishing expedition. That is not under the scope of what is being investigated around Benghazi.

And so I think as we go through this, we need to make sure that we're keeping the facts straight and keeping the timeline straight about what happened when. And again, in the Federal Records Act, actually, the reason that they gave a printed-out copy is that the statute actually says you have to give us a printed copy, because we can't take the electronic copy.

CUOMO: Here's the thing, though. Here's the thing. What you can't control in this situation is her control. In terms of understanding it, the fact that she has the e-mails, she has the server, is going to fuel doubt about whether everything was released. And is she being self-selecting. And that means, it's a nice way of saying is she hiding? Isn't that a mistake? Shouldn't she turn over the server and say, "I have nothing to hide. Take it."

SETMAYER: A third party. Third party.

FINNEY: I think where we are, that's a decision she -- I think that's a decision every voter, should she run, will have to make. Do they believe -- she's come forward and said, "Here's why I did it. Here's what I did." And every voter will have to make a decision based on that and a multitude of other pieces of information and things that they care about, when they decide who they want to elect president of the United States of America. Period.

CAMEROTA: OK. Tara, Karen, Jeff, thank you so much. Thanks for the debate.

All right. Day three in the Boston Marathon bombing trial, it is in the books. Jurors getting to see a blood-stained letter written by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the moments before he was captured. Could this be the key piece of evidence that the prosecutors need to get a murder convection?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)