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Vanuatu Devastated After Monster Cyclone; Loretta Lynch Nomination in Limbo; Where is Vladimir Putin? Aired 6:30-7am ET

Aired March 16, 2015 - 06:30   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: CNN's Ivan Watson joins us now live from the capital city of Port Vila. Ivan, what's it look like there?

06:30:00

IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, John, Vanuatu is often described as a home to some of the happiest people on the earth because of the incredible beaches here, the beautiful waters, the tropical climate.

It's hard to try to figure out why -- what these people made to deserve getting hit by what they described as the worst storm they've seen in generations. A cyclone that the government here predicts may have left 70 percent of the population homeless.

(voice over): The tiny South Pacific Island Nation of Vanuatu devastated after monster cyclone Pam tore through the remote chain of islands for most of a 24-hour period between Friday and Saturday. The unrelenting storm leaving a trail of utter destruction in its path, homes flattened, buildings reduce to rubble.

The government declaring a state of emergency as the death poll continues to rise. With more than 30 injured, thousands in need of shelter, food, and water, including some 60,000 children. A near total communications blackout across the other provinces making it nearly impossible for officials to determine the total scale of injuries and damage.

Aid workers calling this 'one of the worst disasters to ever hit the region'. A beautiful island paradise attracting road travelers now hardly recognizable. In some areas where winds up to 165 miles per hour and torrential rains had stripped roofs and decimated buildings in the Capitol. An estimated 90 percent of the city's infrastructure wiped out.

As search and rescue operations continue, authorities believe that it will take days to understand the extent of the misery cyclone Pam left in its wake.

(on camera): Now, not only has this been a much prized resort, a destination for foreign tourists, but this is one of the poorest countries in the Pacific. A lot of people here rely on basically subsistence farming to feed their families, and the government now is predicting that a lot of these people, their small gardens, their farms have been destroyed by the rains, by the floods, by the winds. So people are spending the little money they have to buy a little bit of rice (inaudible) of what comes next.

And the scariest thing of all, it's hard for the authorities to even reach parts of the island I'm standing on right now, much less some of the dozens of other islands scattered across this island nation. This has been a big disaster for a small country that des not have a lot of resources.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Certainly does not. And the communications issues we're having you just indicative of what they are dealing with there as well. Thank you so much. It was really important for us to see that devastation first hand, Ivan.

Aid healthcare workers are back in the U.S. after coming in contact with an American aid worker who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone. Three others are due to arrive today. The Centers for Disease Controls said so far all are symptom-free. They will be monitored, in-house and isolation, in three different states at hospitals that have treated Ebola patients.

The infected aid worker arrived in the U.S. Friday and is in serious condition of the National Institutes of Health in Maryland.

BERMAN: All right. So, let the madness begin. The NCAA men's basketball field all set. Kentucky, the top overall seed because they don't ever lose. The Wildcats trying to become the first team since 1976. Indiana Hoosiers, the first power (ph) division team to finish season undefeated. The other three top regional seeds are Wisconsin, Duke and Villanova. Tournament tips off Tuesday and Wednesday with the play-in games.

You want to get your brackets ready and keep looking at cnn.com because you can see it again all of us and make us all bad. Actually, we'll make you look good because we look bad...

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA : Yeah.

ALYSIN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: I spent the weekend with somebody from Kentucky. It was just loud. It was just loud. I should had earplugs. He was so happy.

BERMAN: They're good.

PEREIRA: Yes, they are. It's very exciting.

CAMEROTA: All right. At this time, for CNNMoney Now, business correspondent Alison Kosik is in our Money center. Alison, what's going on with crude oil today?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. We are seeing oil prices heading lower. They've actually even hovering around $44 a barrel, even falling as low as $43.67 earlier this morning. That's the lowest this year. An extra supply of crude has forced energy companies to cut back production and lay off workers as well. What investors are looking for is a bottom, so far no bottom for those prices yet.

Do you drive a Tesla? Looks like you'll be able to go even farther on a single charge. CEO Elon Musk hinted on Twitter that a new software update will end what's known as range anxiety. The standard Model S gets 208 miles per charge but Musk didn't say how much the battery life will increase by.

Good news. If you're a binge watcher, you may able to stream Seinfeld soon. Sony is in talks to sell streaming rights to the hit NBC sitcom from the 1990s for almost a half million dollars per episode. That's at least according to the Wall Street Journal.

<06:35.09> Hulu, Amazon, and Yahoo are all in talks to buy the right to stream the show. Handover the popcorn.

PEREIRA: (inaudible) is doing a marathon already as its fans have runs almost -- doesn't it?

BERMAN: 90 different stations, 24 hours a day.

PEREIRA: Exactly.

CAMEROTA: Can't get enough of it of it.

PEREIRA: All right. Alison, thank you so much. Well -- those excellent...

CAMEROTA: Mike Kramer (ph) is...

PEREIRA: Very impressive.

More finger pointing going on Capitol Hill over the stalled nomination of the Loretta Lynch, the President's pick to be the next Attorney General. Senate Republicans are threatening even more delays. So how do these two parties end the stand off?

BERMAN: And seriously, what's going on with Vladimir Putin? He hasn't been seen in public in 11 days. So is he sick? The conspiracy theories abound.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: It's been more than four months since President Obama nominated Loretta Lynch to be the next attorney general, and it looks like she'll have to wait even longer to be confirmed.

<06:40.03> Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, telling CNN's Ms. Dana Bash that the Senate will not vote on Lynch until a controversial human trafficking bill is passed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: We are not going to be able to finish the trafficking bill until this gets resolved and that this will have an impact on the timing of considering a new attorney general. Now, I had hoped to turn her next week. But if we can't finish the trafficking bill, she will be put off again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK. So here to weigh in, CNN political commentator and Republican strategist Tara Setmayer, and Democratic strategist and former Director of Communications at the DNC, Karen Finney. Ladies, thanks so much for being here.

TARA SETMAYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Tara?

SETMAYER: Hey.

CAMEROTA: Can you explain how these are connected? Why is Loretta Lynch's nomination connected to this controversial human trafficking bill that has an abortion provision in it?

SETMAYER: Well, the way that Senate - the Senate, you know, with the average people look at how things go. We think, "Oh, it makes sense. We can do this schedule, that schedule and move on to the next one." But the Senate is a strange beast (ph), even that for me working on the Hill we're going to House side, oftentimes we don't understand how the Senate calendar works. It's a very particular way that things are run. So, when you're - when you have - you have certain bills, you have certain amount of time to get things done, so they just...

CAMEROTA: So they're just scheduling it?

SETMAYER: It's a scheduling issue. They can - you know, they use it politically. Harry Reid did all the time. If you want something done on a certain bill, well, you want this nomination or you want this bill brought to the floor. We're going to finish this first. It's just a political game that people play.

CAMEROTA: Right.

SETMAYER: We may not like it that's just the way it goes.

But I just want to correct something about the human trafficking bill. It's not that there's a controversial abortion provision in it, this is a nice talking point that the (inaudible) thrown in there, because all of a sudden they think that the Hyde Amendment which has been it passes a writer to many appropriations bill since 1976 pretty standard, all of a sudden the Hyde Amendment which does not allow federal funding for abortions is objectionable, since when?

Now the Hyde Amendment still has the provision where you're allowed to raise incest and life of the mother, that's allowed.

CAMEROTA: OK.

SETMAYER: So what all of a sudden is the objection by Democrat...

BERMAN: Well,

SETMAYER: ... I'm not quite sure. That's it's not quite...

BERMAN: So first of all, you know, controls the schedule the sense...

SETMAYER: Yeah. Right.

BERMAN: ... to blame it on some mysterious scheduling thing that they had to cooperate...

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's the Majority Leader who just control that. But Karen Finney, before I let you just get away with this...

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: ... plain sigh (ph) right there...

KAREN FINNEY, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Yeah.

Male: ... what about the point that Tara is making? That we're talking about the Hyde Amendment there which was...

FINNEY: Yeah.

Male: ... in the bill in plain writing...

FINNEY: That's right. Right.

Male: which just get it, you know, Minority Whip Dick Durbin just admits, "You know what, hey let me read this. What do you want me to tell you? We missed it."

(OFF-MIKE)

BERMAN: And let him secure a reference clearly if it have been Franklin (ph) Center, we want to call it. That's like thing that dog ate my homework here...

FINNEY: I completely agree. I agree with you on that. I mean, when it comes to Democratic excuses about why they didn't say this language, I can tell you many Democrats and progressives are disappointed because -- and I think most Americans think that actually it's your job to read the legislation that you're voting on

(Off-MIKE)

FINNEY: So that is unacceptable. But that beings said, I thought that Durbin, unless he was honest I guess, you could say. But here's that problem that Tara -- I wanted to just correct what she's saying about the Hyde Amendment. What Senator Cornyn put in here is actually an expansion of the Hyde Amendment because we're not just talking about federal funding. We're actually talking about what his -- what this legislation would create is a private fund that would help victims of human trafficking. This would be private money that would be used towards abortion. And again, these are women -- obviously these women being trafficked had been raped.

And so, this -- the reason that Democrats see this as a problem as an -- because it's an expansion, and then the House, they pass the version of the human trafficking legislation without this, with the standard language that is been in there for a long time with no additional abortion language. So, it's the expansion to say that Hyde Amendment now would also apply to private funding, that's problematic for Democrats on this one.

SETMAYER: But they had 60 (inaudible) close as this.

(OFF-MIKE)

SETMAYER: It went through committee. It went through the judiciary committee and voted out unanimously. There are 10 Democratic host (ph) sponsors of this bill. So either were saying that they're incompetent which means, none of the 10 Democrats senators who (inaudible) on the bill write it or neither to their staff. And then why did Harry Reid reject the amendment process? They could have worked this out through amendments and he said no. So they're politicizing this, so it's...

(CROSSTALK)

FINNEY: I think the problem was that through the amendments process, Cornyn and the Republicans made it clear they were not going to take this out. And look, I don't disagree. We got to a place -- we shouldn't be at this place. Democrats should have had their act together. But we are here now. And let's be very clear, this has to your first question Alisyn has...

CAMEROTA: Yeah.

FINNEY: ... nothing to do with Loretta Lynch. And if we're going to talk about timing, it is unprecedented how long they have made this woman wait. And she is overly qualified.

CAMEROTA: Yeah.

FINNEY: Traditionally, with judicial -- with nominations like this for Attorney General, it's about the person's qualifications. This is someone who came into this process with everyone thinking she's going to sail through because she's got the support of law enforcement, both sides of the aisle.

<06:45.06> My goodness, she was just part of the deal that brought down, three would be terrorist in Brooklyn. I mean, this woman has a sterling reputation. She is overly qualified for the position and so this is clearly politics, you know, Mitch McConnell.

CAMEROTA: Yeah. Hold on.

FINNEY: And look, both sides to do it. I'm not going to say they don't.

CAMEROTA: Yeah.

FINNEY: But that's why these two things have been tied together. The Senate can walk and she's on at the same time.

CAMEROTA: Yeah. And Tara, you're shaking your head. You don't think you don't like her for an Attorney General?

SETMAYER: I think there are legitimate questions for why that -- and some of the answers that's she has given, that she gave that's why we have a nomination process, that's why you go...

CAMEROTA: Such as? What don't you like?

SETMAYER: Well, the biggest one being the fact that she ask me. The biggest one being the fact that she said that she thinks that anyone has a right to work in United States regardless how they got here, which means people who came to this country broke our laws, are living here even...

FINNEY: No.

SETMAYER: ... breaking our laws. That's what she said. That to me, you're going to be the number one law enforcement, top law enforcement official in this country, you need to uphold and respect the laws regardless of your political winnings (ph) on that. And the other thing about her, the timing of this and trying to blame that Republicans are holding her up because of whatever the various reason.

Well, Senator Pat Leahy had the opportunity to bring her nomination forth (ph) when he was still the chairman of the judiciary committee when the Democrats control...

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: I need to correct that point. I need to correct this point that...

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: I need to correct this point that...

(CROSSTALK)

SETMAYER: Hold on. I just want to bring that point that the Democrats had a change to do this before Republicans took over and they chose not to.

Male: Your thought Karen?

FINNEY: Actually, the -- well, the Republicans and the Democrats worked at a deal because the Republicans ask because they were doing judicial nominations, could we move this to the next session?

SETMAYER: Right. So-- (CROSSTALK)

FINNEY: Hold on Tara. Hold on Tara. Now, the point that is a great right winning talking point but I need to correct you. She actually went back and said, she did not -- she has said, I am not saying there's a federal right to work. She said, I'm talking about the work ethic that was passed down to me and my family. She was speaking as an African American, meaning if you came here on a slave ship, it doesn't matter.

(OFF-MIKE)

FINNEY: You still have to work. You still have the--

SETMAYER: She clarified it after she was--

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: Right.

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: Let's give you a break here.

BERMAN: (Inaudible) Tara Setmayer, I think there may be no conclusive answer to this debate but I thank you for being here with us this morning. There's also maybe no conclusive answer to this. Where's Vladimir Putin?

CAMEROTA: Good question.

BERMAN: Eleven days now, he is not seen (inaudible) nor hair of the Russian leader. And this is extremely rare for Vladimir Putin. There are all kinds of conspiracy theories right now. We're going to talk to a senior diplomat with vast experience in Russia about the worldwide implication of this missing leader.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

<06:51:32> BERMAN: So where is Vladimir Putin? The Russian president has not been seen in public since March 5th. All eyes around St. Petersburg today where the president is expected to schedule at least to meet with the president of Kirgizstan. The question is, where has he been all this time? Really show up to this meeting. We want to bring in former U.S. Ambassador to Russia as well as ambassador to so many other countries. Now, a distinguished fellow at the (inaudible) Institute, Ambassador Thomas Pickering.

Ambassador, thanks so much for being with us. Eleven days may not seem like a long time not to see Vladimir Putin, but this is a guy who was basically on T.V. nearly 24 hours a day in Russia, (inaudible) to propagandist to not to see him for this much time is significant. What do you think is going on here?

THOMAS PICKERING, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA: I do think it's significant. And obviously John, we don't have reliable information on President Putin where he is or what might be happening to him. There are some reports now that he might be at his country place in Valdai, halfway between Moscow and Saint Petersburg, but that's only a report. There was an effort to show him on television. I think you have that footage with the Supreme Court President Lebedev not too long ago, but there are questions about that including the fact that he appeared to be wearing a suit that he appeared in much earlier this month. And whether that is an old picture and that we don't know, that can't be verified. It's not in Russia's interest to continue to have Mr. Putin remain in a mystery status for such a long time.

He's a proud man probably, not interested in portraying any weakness at all, including any illness he may be undergoing, and that's another speculation that always arises when things like this happen. And then it raises in the background the deeper question of succession in Russia where he actually to disappear from the scene. I hasten to add there's no evidence of that at all. But Russia does have problems with state succession. A strong dictatorial leader always does because he doesn't like to appoint people who might be succeeding him. It reminds him of his (inaudible) as a human being that he won't be here forever on the one hand. And secondly raises the prospect to perhaps competing leadership on the other. So, all of these are factors that suddenly come to mind...

BERMAN: Right.

PICKERING: ... when somebody like President Putin is not appearing on the scene on a regular basis. And we will have to see today whether he shows up in Saint Petersburg where the president of Kirgizstan as you mentioned.

BERMAN: Now there's still evidence that there's anything that (inaudible) is going on but there is evidence that the government is at least trying to project the image that he's not missing. They has sent out official tweets showing pictures of Vladimir Putin in a couple of meetings but it turns out people have pointed out that these actual pictures which are puts out during this mysterious absence actually come from before he disappear from the scenes. So there's something just admittedly very strange here. And you bring up a key point. Well, first let me say there are three theories about what's going on here. One, is that he's sick and just they doesn't want to see him weak. Two, there are people speculating. This is all this conspiracy theories that his girlfriend is having a baby and he was there to watch the birth of his child. This was being reported right now. And the third thing is as you say, the idea there are some kind of government shake up going on right now. What is next after Vladimir Putin?

PICKERING: Well, it's very hard thing to say, Prime Minister Medvedev was president in between Putin's successive terms when Putin run out of let's put it this way, constitutional authority, to continue his president. He isn't seen necessarily as someone who could readily step into the position, nor is he being treated necessarily is that person. But as I said before under President Putin, it's not likely we will have a well-identified clearly defined ready to hand this, a successor in place. BERMAN: Ambassador, I want to shift gears now to a subject that it's sort of embroiled Washington over the last few weeks, the issue of Hillary Clinton's e-mails from when she was Secretary of State. Now, you help her on the committee looking in to what happened at the U.S. (inaudible) in Benghazi, the attacks there. Do you feel like you had access to all the information you wanted from Hillary Clinton's e- mails when you're not running that committee?

PICKERING: We did not. As far as I know and I've just rechecked of course, see those e-mails. I would not say however there was any evidence we had that would have pointed us toward those e-mails. The e-mails we saw, we saw it because we were interviewing individuals connected with the investigation. As you might recall we were enjoined by the act of Congress passed a dozen years before Benghazi that we were not to accept the view that cabinet heads, department heads by accepting their responsibility as part of their job would be a suitable reason to find they had responsibility under the accountability review board rules.

<6:56:37> We were enjoined to find where the decisions were made and that's what we did and that's the reason why we felt quite confident with the information we had in hand and interviews that we had that we had identified the people who had made the decision and made recommendations to the Secretary of State in that regard.

BERMAN: You didn't have the e-mails do you think and retrospect those e-mails might have been helpful?

PICKERING: I don't know. We don't know. And I never speculate on unknowns until those e-mails are released and the issue is cleared up. What I would say was that we had no evidence in everything else that we saw including e-mails from lots of people who were the people that we felt it was necessary to interview because they were involved in the decision making. There was no such evidence related to the Secretary of State which is the reason why we didn't pursue investigations in that direction further.

BERMAN: Ambassador Pickering, great to have you here with us on...

PICKERING: Thank you very much.

BERMAN: I appreciate your time sir very much.

PICKERING: Thank you. Sure.

BERMAN: Probably a lot of news this morning. Let's get straight to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Negotiations between the U.S. and Iran has begun.

JOHN KERY, SECRETARY OF STATE: It's wrong. It's unprecedented. This letter was absolutely calculated directly to interfere with these negotiations.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Critical, following in the election in Israel.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Netanyahu saying that there's foreign money trying to influence these elections.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His right wing party nearly thrills the (inaudible) union.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Robert Durst apparently confessing to three murders on national television.

ROBERT DURST, REAL ESTATE HEIR: What the hell did I do? I killed them all, of course.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That building (inaudible) was gone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible) is one of the poorest country in the Pacific.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thousands of people are without homes, without clean water.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is New Day with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota, and Michaela Pereira

PEREIRA: Beautiful skyline of New York City. Good morning. Welcome back to your NEW DAY. Chris has today off. We are joined by Mr. John Berman. Good to have you.

Secretary of State John Kerry back at the bargaining table with Iran trying to hammer out the final details on agreement with two weeks to go before the deadline.

CAMEROTA: And the White House trying to keep Congress out of these talks but the freshman Republican senator who author that controversial letter to the Iranian, doubling down saying he has "No regret about that (ph) yet." CNN's Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson is tracking all the developments live from London. What do we know at this hour, Nic?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, talks have been underway for a number of hours this morning Alysn which in and of itself might be indicative that things are going well. Yet yesterday Secretary Kerry is supposed to sit down with this kind of talk the Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif yesterday evening that didn't happen. It's sort of direct reports that had meetings earlier in the day and it was decided just to brief them separately that sitting down to that meeting this morning. But they're both saying slightly different things. The Iranian is saying, "Look, we believe that they talk some more about technical issues right now." Of course the deadline for this framework agreement just two weeks away and Secretary Kerry is saying, "Look, although there are some technical issues that is to discuss here really this is about a state of political judgment. So there's (inaudible) to be a different sort of opinions here both sides and the Iranian foreign minister (inaudible) later today to brief the Europeans as well.

CAMEROTA: And Nic, Secretary Kerry said something surprising this weekend about a different topic.

<07:00:02> He described a willingness to sit down with Syria's Bashar al-Assad. Listen to this.