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Amtrak Train Derails in Philadelphia; Trade Deal with Asia Stalls in Senate; Saudi King Skipping Camp David Summit. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired May 13, 2015 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: -- showing just how instantaneous this was. People inside have been telling us stories about how one moment everything was normal, the next moment it went dark. Some felt leaning. Others were tossed up into the luggage department. Many were left fending for themselves in the dark of night, using their iPhones to light their way to safety. It is amazing how many people made it through. CNN is on the ground here covering every different aspect of it. Here is what we know so far.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: A New York city-bound Amtrak passenger train from Washington, D.C., over 200 people onboard, derailing, rolling on its side on the tracks outside of Philadelphia. Seven cars in disarray, twisted and torn like tinfoil.

MAYOR MICHAEL NUTTER, (D) PHILADELPHIA: It is an absolute, disastrous mess, never seen anything like this in my life.

CUOMO: At least six lost their lives, over 100 hospitalized. Passengers describe the horror as chairs and bags go flying in the air.

JOAN HELFMAN, PASSENGER: This huge red suitcase just came flying at me. Our train was actually on its side. There's many injured people on the train, and they are very, very upset.

CUOMO: This surveillance video overlooking the track shows the moment of impact, and this video highlighting a rescue in process, those lucky enough to walk away in a state of shock.

MAX HELFMAN, PASSENGER: I could see blood on people's faces. They can't move. Luckily I'm still here, I'm still walking. I got really lucky.

CUOMO: First responders in the dark of night combing the area for injured and those unaccounted for.

DERRICK J. V. SAWYER, PHILADELPHIA FIRE COMMISSIONER: I have never seen anything so devastating. They are in pretty bad shape. You can see that they have completely, completely derailed from the track.

CUOMO: Helicopters hover as rescuers sift through the wreckage. Why all this happened still unclear. Amtrak is cooperating with the NTSB which launched a go team to assist in the investigation.

MAX HELFMAN: You always read about this or see this on the news, a plane crashes, a train derails, but you never actually think it's never going to happen to you, and it did.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: So many who are working the scene right now are having trouble describing it as anything other than the worse they have ever seen. If you want to go on social media, one of our producers John Griffin took pictures from up close of what is going on, so you can see what this train suffered through, and that's why it's so amazing so many made it through.

Now, we know that investigators are going to get a lot of help from something that CNN got first, which is surveillance video that shows the moment that this train started to go off the tracks. Sara Sidner has that. She brought it to us this morning. Sara?

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Chris, I want to give you an idea of where we are. We're standing on a roof at CSS international. Just right there you can see the camera that took those photos. I want to go now to that surveillance video. What you will see at the very top of your screen at 9:23:40 is you will see a flash of light. It's the train going by. It's going to, you know, at a regular speed it looked like. And then a few seconds and you will see a flash a light, another flash of light, two more flashes of light, big flashes of light, and that is the moment that the train derailed.

We know that seven cars derailed, and I want to give you a look at the scene right now. There it is down there. The investigators back on the scene. They left for a little while. They are back now. There's a group of them to the left of the camera. You are seeing the end of the wreckage there, the last train car there. And it's askew. You can see that it's leaning way to the right.

And right before that is where that curve is that everybody has been talking about where that terrible accident happened decades ago killing more than 70 people. This time we don't know exactly what caused this accident. That is what the NTSB will try to figure out. That is what the Amtrak folks and investigation will try to figure out, trying to determine what exactly created this disaster. It certainly is one. We now know that six people have died in this wreck. There are several others who are in critical condition. And, of course, you have dozens of people who got hurt, they had broken bones, contusions, scratches. But a lot of people were able to walk out of the wreckage, and it's incredible when you consider the damage, Chris.

CUOMO: Absolutely, Sara. And it's also important to remember, the urgency has not passed. You see over my shoulder, there's so many different responders still going in and out, all 243 people on board not yet accounted for. A lot of people lost their phones and they weren't able to communicate with families, so there are a lot of loved ones out there still wondering what happened. There's a 1-800 number that we'll put on the screen for you for families and loved ones to find out what is going on.

Now, there are some obvious things that are understood in this situation. Speed will be a factor. These trains can go over 100 miles an hour, but they are not supposed to in a residential area like this. Sara referred to a crash that happened on this same stretch of track in the 1940s. That wound up not being about speed specifically, so investigators are going to have to find their way after they figure out where everybody is.

[08:05:02] To be sure, service between Philadelphia and New York on Amtrak is going to be canceled. The tracks are literally in ribbons. So how people are going to deal with that and what it means, let's go to Cristina Alesci for us this morning at Penn Station. Cristina?

CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Chris, that's right. I'm standing in front of Penn Station, which is the busiest rail hub in north America. And it is, as a result of that, a major stop along the northeast corridor, the busiest rail passenger line in the country. And what we are seeing today is a lot of service disruptions, not just from New York to Philly, but throughout the line. And this is creating major problems for travelers, major logistical problems for Amtrak. It hasn't updated its service page since 3:00 in the morning. It's trying to respond to people on social media.

I was inside the train station early this morning at 5:00 a.m., typically a very busy time, and most passengers -- actually, it was kind of quiet this morning. And over the P.A., Amtrak saying there is no alternative to get to Philadelphia except that the New Jersey transit is honoring tickets to Trenton, but that is still 40 minutes away from Philadelphia. So people are going to have a tough time getting around. And there's no real visibility about when it's going to get better at this point.

This is a railway line, if you look at it, stretching from Boston to D.C. that does 750,000 trips on a daily basis. So we are talking about a major infrastructure hurdle, Chris.

CUOMO: That's right. I mean, the northeast corridor, which is what this section of rail is known as, is one of the busiest in the country and it's certainly going to be a problem. But right now getting back and forth to work, the least of the concerns for the first responders who are still going through the scene, all 243 people on the train this Amtrak not yet accounted for. We do know six people lost their lives so far.

Let's bring in Deborah Hersman. She's the president of CEO of the National Safety Council and she's the former NTSB chairman. Deb, we worked a lot of these stories together where you had to figure out what is going on. Let's start with what they are doing right now. We keep hearing from investigators and moments when we're not on TV that they have never seen anything this horrendous in terms of what is happening to some of these cars and that all aren't accounted for you. What is the process? How do they get to the end point?

DEBORAH HERSMAN, FORMER NTSB CHAIRMAN: You know, the most thing for investigators right now is the daylight, to be able to do their work, to gather the evidence, to document the scene, and really making sure that those first responders really have the opportunity to really identify if there are any additional survivors, that's a key priority.

CUOMO: And the surveillance video that CNN got earlier this morning from the CSS company that shows the flashes, when you look at it as a trained eye, what do you see?

HERSMAN: Well, you know, when they gather those videos they're going to be looking to corroborate any of that information that's on the video with onboard information on the recorders. They're going to look to see if there was any emergency braking, where the throttle positions were, any errors that might have been recorded. And they're going to be looking to see if there's any video, forward-facing video on the front of those trains that actually sees what the track conditions are and identifies if there's any problems, not just for this train but all of the trains that came through earlier.

CUOMO: And we want to talk a little more about the implications about this and what equipment was on the train and how it speaks to the infrastructure of the railways. We know this has been an issue. We know that there have been a high number of derailments for Amtrak specifically, so we'll get to that. But stay with the immediate here for a moment. Speed is being mentioned by some of the guys on the scene there, and it's somewhat of an obvious consideration. But a lot of people have experience from this trip from D.C. to New York who are watching NEW DAY right now, and in this area, you are not usually going that fast. Isn't that right, Deb? I mean, not only is it a residential and commercial area but it's not that far from the station, so terminal velocity shouldn't be as much of an issue, should it?

HERSMAN: Well, I think in any situation, looking at the severity, you are going to be paying very close attention to the speed. And so they will be looking at that, how the train was being handled, what the speed restrictions were, and, as far as the overrides, the train really does have some things that if the driver is incapacitated or they're exceeding the authorized speed, there really should be some intervention, so I know they are going to looking very closely at those systems.

CUOMO: And, again, what I am setting up to you kind of is contradicted by how destroyed some of the cars are. It seems like you would have to have a high rate of speed or momentum to create it, but obviously that's the task for investigators.

[08:10:00] This larger concern, Deb, about what equipment should be on these trains, what was not on this train, yet what this means about the infrastructure, what this means about Amtrak, are those legitimate criticisms and concerns going forward?

HERSMAN: Look, across our country we really have to invest in the infrastructure. Railroads are very capital intensive. You have to maintain not just the track bed, the rails, the electrification for Amtrak. You have to have cars and engines that are in good shape, and that they're inspected a lot. And so all of those things are going to be very important to take a look at, but I think it's going to cause a lot of folks, including policymakers, to take a look at not just safety but also investment on the infrastructure side, too.

CUOMO: Now, is that something that just comes up in due course in these situation, or do you believe there are specific areas of concern that fall into why we are worried about something like this, that there is real risk involved that needs to be managed?

HERSMAN: I would say with respect to this investigation and this event, it will be, you know, a single event that they are going to take a look at, and they are going to find out what caused this. They will make recommendations to prevent something like this from occurring in the future.

But I think any time you have a serious event like this, there really is a peeling back of all of the layers of the onion to try and understand not just the proximate cause of this derailment and the crash that resulted in fatalities, but all of the pieces of the puzzle.

CUOMO: You know, I've leaned on you a lot in situations like this and you did a lot of excellent work for the NTSB. Can I ask you something? In your experience, I haven't seen cars twisted up like this, that girder that went through that entire car like that. People keep remarking here, they have not seen things like this, even as first responders with trains, and they can't believe how many walked away from it. How does it size up for you?

HERSMAN: You know, unfortunately we see some really tragic events when we see the worst case scenarios occur, whether it's on the rails, on the highways, or in aviation. There are really catastrophic events, but many of the events many people do walk away from. That's why it's so important to learn the lessons, to build the better car, to make sure people have better opportunities to evacuate safely. We didn't have a post-crash fire, and with all of those injuries last night, people who were hurt or incapacitated, that was a huge life saver.

CUOMO: That's a key point. When it looks as horrible as it does, it's tough to imagine it being worse, but you are saying, that's right, there was no fire afterwards, and I guess that is a silver lining here. Deb, thank you very much. We will lean on you as we start to get more information to get your perspective on this. Thanks for joining us on NEW DAY.

Alisyn, back to you. That's an important point. As horrible as it is, there was no fire. A lot more lives would have been taken if that had been case.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Absolutely, Chris, that is a good point. We will get back to you in one moment as we continue our coverage of breaking news out of Philadelphia.

But first, it has been a trying week for President Obama on two fronts. He is hosting leaders from six Arab nations today even though the kinds of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have backed out, and his sweeping trade deal with Asia is in trouble after Senate Democrats have turned the tables on him. Let's bring in CNN's White House correspondent Michelle Kosinski. There is just a lot not going his way.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Right, Alisyn. On this trade deal, it has been kind of funny to hear the White House for what seems like the millionth time now call this situation a procedural snafu. And snafu of course stands for situation normal all bleeped up.

And really this has turned into a political bleep storm now. You have Republican who normally are happy to oppose virtually everything the president says or does backing him up on trade promotion authority, but it's the leadership of his own party that for now are preventing this from going to a vote. Even the co-sponsor of the bill, they are worried that a trade deal will just send more American jobs overseas, even though this thing passed with, yes, bipartisan support in the committee.

Adding to the president's strange week tonight he's hosting the leaders of six Gulf nations, although now it's only two heads of state to talk about security and the Iran nuclear deal, which they are trepidatious about, despite the White House's protestations some analyst now feel like these no shows are a sign that these leaders, too, are not quite fully onboard with the president's plans. Michaela.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Alright, Michelle, we will be watching.

Officials in Wisconsin are now releasing police dash cam video from the night the unarmed biracial teenager Tony Robinson was shot and killed in Madison, and it comes as we learn that the police officer who fired those fatal shots will not face charges. Ryan Young is live from Madison this morning with how things are shaping up there. Ryan?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Michaela, a lot of people talking about this video. In fact, some folks in the neighborhood it's very shocking to see.

[08:15:01] And we're going to show it to you in a second. Some of this is very dramatic. It happens right at the house behind me, and we will pause for a second to show you the beginning of the video.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

YOUNG: So, you can hear the seven shots. There was three sequences of firing, three shots, three shots, and then one final shot.

Tony Robinson was 19 years old. He was inside that home. Now, it's now come out that he was on drugs, running through the streets, hitting people walking up and down the street.

When the officer arrives he reports he thought somebody was inside the home and he went in to help and he was hit himself.

Now, it's reported that he suffered a concussion, but you see him firing the shots. A lot of questions about this. There will be a rally that will happen at 9:00, and it's going to happen from here and probably a march up to the state capital. It's something that we're standing by for. But obviously after seeing the video, a lot of questions in this community -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely, Ryan. Alright. Thanks so much. Please keep us updated what happens here during that rally.

And we will have much more on the deadly train derailment in Philadelphia ahead. So, what are investigators looking for at this hour, and could that new surveillance video that CNN has just shown you provide some very useful clues. We will go back live to Philadelphia.

PEREIRA: And is President Obama losing influence with Arab leaders? A summit this week is, well, proving to be a bit of a buzz. Are the president's overtures to Iran to blame? We'll take a look at that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[08:20:27] MARIE HART, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON: Nothing could be further from the truth, that there was snub to use the cable news talking point.

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: There has been some speculation that this change in travel plans is an attempt to send a message to the United States. If so, that message was not received because all the feedback that we have received from the Saudis has been positive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Well, that was the Obama administration insisting that Saudi King Salman is not snubbing the president with his decision not to attend this week's Camp David Summit.

So, what's going on with the president's relationship with our Gulf allies?

Let's bring in the vice president for New Initiatives and distinguish scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, Aaron David Miller.

Aaron, great to see you this morning.

AARON DAVID MILLER, WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER: You, too, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK. So, to use my cable news talking points, is this a snub from King Salman?

MILLER: You know, I think we've got to get away from the terms, snubs, resets. I think the U.S.-Saudi relationship is probably too big to fail. But when the president calls a summit meeting in Camp David, presidential retreat, I was there for the one in 2000, with Ehud Barak, Bill Clinton and Yasser Arafat, the reality is that leaders are supposed to show up, and in this case you only had two heads of state.

So, clearly, something is going on. It's not a crisis in the U.S.-Saudi relationship. I think the Saudis are way too dependent on the United States, billions of dollars, military equipment, 35,000 American forces deployed on any given day in the Persian Gulf, Saudi security still dependent on American assurances and guarantees.

But there's no question -- and the Saudis don't play these things out publicly -- there is no question there is a lot of concern, deep concern, over what the Saudis believe to be, let's use the word, a pivot towards Persia. The Persian pivot, the perception that the Obama administration, in an effort to cut a nuclear deal with Tehran, will ultimately open up the floodgates, billions in sanctions relief, and allow or acquiesce Iranian expansionism and influence building in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Yemen, which is Saudi Arabia's backyard.

So, you know, I buy the administration's notion this is not a crisis, but the fact is there is a dysfunction in the U.S. and Saudi relationship.

CAMEROTA: So, Aaron, help us understand this, what is more important to the U.S., the Iranian nuclear deal or the long relationship with Saudi Arabia?

MILLER: I think that rightly or wrongly, the administration is pursuing what I would call an Iran-centric policy, because the president's primary objective in the Middle East, primary objective in the Middle East over the next 18 months, is to avoid a military conflict over the Iranian nuclear issue. So, you cut a deal with the Iranians, you preempt any possibility of an Israeli military strike and you make an American military strike virtually unnecessary.

I think as far as that goes, that's fine, but the consequences of this deal which essentially will provide the Iranians of freed assets, open for business resources, combined with the fact that Iran does have regional aspirations and is demonstrating those now in places like Iraq and Syria and in Yemen is a legitimate problem.

And the Saudis and the Israelis are two long-standing allies in this region, and both relationships emerged at the same time in the 1940s are really concerned about what they either see as the administration's naivety on Iran, or it's basically mendacious, that it is in fact decided to create a new vocal point for its policy. Iran is the key power in this region, not Saudi Arabia.

CAMEROTA: Given the U.S. has decided to pursue this with Iran, what does it need to do to prepare its relationship with Saudi Arabia?

MILLER: Well, I think that their -- the single most important thing the administration might do but won't do is to centrally adopt steps to counter spreading Iranian influence in the region, particularly in Syria, where the administration has willfully avoided militarizing the American role. I think if, in fact, the administration could figure out a way to demonstrate that this is not just a set of talking points but they are really are interested in limiting Iranian influence in the region, it would begin to reassure the Saudis and, of course, the Israelis that, in fact, this Iranian- centered policy is not true.

[08:25:05] The problem is, you have six to go. They're trying to cut a deal with the Iranians and the last thing the administration's going to do right now is to pick a fight with Iran either in Yemen or in Syria.

CAMEROTA: It's not just the Saudis that are not sending their top leader, Bahrain, Oman, the UAE. So, what's going to come out of this Arab summit this week?

MILLER: I think there will be a lot of smiles, handshakes. There'll be enhanced security cooperation, joints exercises, cooperation on cyber, additional training, and perhaps additional weapons transfers.

No, I think the faces here will be fairly happy ones, but, again, the U.S./Saudi relationship is, unlike the Israeli one, is not going to play out publicly and the kind of bickering and public tick- tock. The Saudis are upset, however, and I'm not here to write a brief for them for sure. They don't share our values and it's an imperfect relationship.

But the reality is, there is a sense throughout the entire region that in fact the administration has made a judgment that to end these sources of instability in Yemen, in Syria, in Iraq, you really do need not just Russian cooperation, and John Kerry was there the other day, but you need Iranian cooperation. And that is something that is fundamentally troubling to the Gulf states and the Saudis and the Israelis.

CAMEROTA: Aaron David Miller, thank you.

MILLER: Always a pleasure, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: You, too.

Let's get back out to our breaking news in Philadelphia with Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right. We are still seeing a lot of heavy equipment and first responders coming in and out of the area, and they brought in the equipment to right a couple cars that are still on their side and still have not accounted for all 243 people on board, this track went down off the rails here in Philadelphia, on its way from Washington, D.C. to New York.

So, we will give you the latest on the investigation and the fate of so many onboard.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They were thrown out of their seats. One girl slammed into, you know, one of the seats.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The aluminum shell has been destroyed and they have been overturned completely.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)