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Hundreds Feared Dead in Capsized River Cruise; Kerry to Undergo Surgery on Broken Leg; Poll: 57% Say Clinton Not Honest, Trustworthy; American Held by Houthi Rebels is Free; Senate to Make Key Vote on NSA Bill Today. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired June 02, 2015 - 07:00   ET

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

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's right, Chris. It's been a terrible day here in China with scores, in fact hundreds stuck under the hull of that river cruise.

[07:00:01] Some of them tapping back when they tapped on the hammer -- with the hammer, as you described. They've had divers. They've had military here. They had all sorts of personnel all in the area, rushing to the scene to try and get people out.

And certainly, the weather is not helping, Chris. It's been raining and raining steadily for hours since we arrived on the scene, and they have been trying to get people out. Only a few they've managed to pull out, including a 65-year-old woman who they brought out stunned but alive from this cruise but still hundreds.

And as the hours tick by, certainly, the hope is fading fast. And as you say, the engineer and the captain escaped, it seems, from the sinking. It seems to be some kind of weather event, a blast of wind which tipped the ship on its side and underneath.

It had more than 100 vessels here conducting the search, and I have to say the military, the Chinese military is all over this place. But they say the hope is fading as the light fades -- Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, David, thank you so much. You can see in these pictures how the ship is moving down the river because of the strong currents.

Why is the big question right now. Again, David is reporting that the captain says it was weather. However, he and the engineer were taken into police custody.

In other news this morning, Secretary of State John Kerry returning to Boston for surgery this morning on the leg he broke in a cycling accident. It's not clear how long Kerry's recovery will take or how that recovery will affect state business.

So let's go to CNN's global affairs correspondent, Elise Labott; has more from outside Massachusetts General Hospital. And that's where Secretary Kerry is going to be treated this morning. And of course, the negotiations with Iran loom large.

ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris. Secretary Kerry arrived here at Massachusetts General Hospital late

last night. He flew over from Geneva with his surgeon, Dr. Dennis Burke, who flew to Geneva to accompany him back. They came back on that C-17 military transport plane that was outfitted with a team of doctors and a lot of medical equipment.

Later this morning, Dr. Burke will set Secretary Kerry's broken leg. He broke that femur when he had that bicycle accident in Geneva.

But first he started the day calling into that ISIS conference in Paris. That's why he was on that trip to Europe. And he's missing that conference. His deputy, Tony Blinken, and the special envoy to the ISIS coalition, John Allen, sitting in for him.

But Secretary Kerry, his aides say he's adamant to get back to work, resume his travel schedule, in particular those Iran nuclear negotiations. I think the State Department really trying to tamp down the idea that Secretary Kerry's injury would affect those negotiations. Not sure how realistic that is.

Of course, no one questions his determination. Obviously, he's very physically fit, as you've seen from those bicycling pictures, but he did suffer a very serious injury with that broken femur. He had a previous hip replacement in that same area. And he's not a young man, so I think it's going to be a pretty steep road to recovery despite his obvious determination to get back to work -- Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK. Elise, thanks so much for all of that background. Let's bring in now State Department spokesman John Kirby.

Hi, Admiral.

ADMIRAL JOHN KIRBY, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: Good morning.

CAMEROTA: So, what can you tell us about Secretary Kerry's condition at this hour?

KIRBY: The secretary is here at the hospital, Massachusetts General, as Elise just reported, and he is preparing for a surgical procedure later this morning to set that leg, that right femur that he broke in a biking accident there near the French Alps.

But as she also reported, he's been very active even this morning. I mean, at roughly 4:45 in the morning he was on the phone with his deputy, Tony Blinken, who is in Paris at this coalition meeting against ISIL. And then a few minutes later, he joined that same conference by phone. He was on the phone for more than or about an hour, before -- before he jumped off to begin his preparations for this surgical procedure.

During that time, he spoke for a full 20, 25 minutes, reinforced the five lines of effort that the United States and our coalition partners are taking against ISIL. So want to give you a frank summary of the progress, that we have made some progress and there's been some success. But I was very honest and candid about some of the challenges that remain ahead. So he's very much engaged even -- even this morning.

CAMEROTA: Man, he is dedicated to be on a long conference call when no doubt uncomfortable. Let's talk about how complicated this surgery will be. What will it entail?

KIRBY: Well, I'm not a doctor, and I don't want to speak for his surgeon, but the leg, the right femur is broken, and it does need to be reset.

There is a surgical procedure that will be performed to set that leg. I'm not an expert. I can't tell you exactly what that's going to look like or feel like, but Dr. Burke is a -- is a renowned orthopedic surgeon. He's the one who worked on Secretary Kerry's hip replacement surgeries. So a very, very good relationship there, and we're all going to be watching it throughout the morning.

[07:05:09] CAMEROTA: How long do you expect him to be out of commission? And what does this mean for his travel schedule?

KIRBY: I think the answer to your first question is I don't. The secretary has not been out of commission since the moment he fell in that accident. And I don't expect that he's going to be out of commission even later today.

Now, obviously, he knows that, you know, when you break a leg this size, there's a recovery period. There's physical therapy that has to be done. I think the way I would describe his approach to that is he's going to be responsible in terms of that recuperative effort. But he's also going to be robust. He's not going to slow down. He's going to stay engaged. He's still the secretary of state, and he needs to do that -- that job every single day.

CAMEROTA: I mean, obviously, there's no convenient time to break your femur, but this seems like a particularly bad time, given the whole Iran nuclear deal. So how will he be able to be fully engaged with that?

KIRBY: Well, he -- first of all, he is going to be fully engaged. He's going to remain in the lead for the negotiations. Nothing has changed about our intent to see the June 30 deadline for this deal met. He's absolutely committed to that.

The particulars of how we were going get to June 30 actually are still being worked out anyway. Even if he hadn't broken his leg, there was still a lot of work that had to be done to set the agenda for meetings to get to the June 30 deadline. So there's still a lot of work to do by everybody, not just by our team and Secretary Kerry with respect to this injury. What I can tell you, though, is he's going to remain in the lead. He's going to stay very active.

CAMEROTA: Well, let's talk about that June 30 deadline. How likely is that? I mean, how far apart did we last leave the two sides?

KIRBY: We're still committed to that deadline; and we still believe that it is practical, achievable goal. No question about that. Now also no question about it that there are still some differences

that have to be worked out. Some on the technical side, some on the political side. There's some work being done right now. Secretary Kerry met with his Iranian counterparts in Geneva, with Foreign Minister Zarif while we were there just a couple of days ago, and fleshed out some more issues. There's a lot of work that still has to be done and everybody knows that.

CAMEROTA: OK. But you're hopeful, you think that by June 30, there will be a bona fide deal?

KIRBY: That is -- that is our expectation, and that's the plan we're driving at.

CAMEROTA: All right. John Kirby, great to see you. Sorry it's in the driving rain there. And please keep us posted on Secretary Kerry's health and the update after the surgery.

KIRBY: I will, Alisyn, thank you. Thanks for having me back.

CAMEROTA: Great to see you.

Chris.

CUOMO: All right. New headline in politics. Hillary Clinton's poll numbers heading in the wrong direction, according to a new CNN/ORC poll. She also has a new nemesis in the GOP field, and another potential contender on that side having issues of his own with his family name.

Let's bring in CNN's senior Washington correspondent, Jeff Zeleny. What do you see in the numbers?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Chris.

You know, Hillary Clinton, of course, is still the dominant force in the Democratic presidential race. But some of the controversies over the last two months are starting to take a toll on her campaign. Now let's take a look and break down some of these numbers here.

More people have an unfavorable view of Clinton, 50 percent. That's the highest point since 2001. And here's why.

Only 49 percent of people say she inspires confidence. Only 42 percent of people now say she's honest and trustworthy. And only 47 percent of people say she cares about people like you.

Now across the board, these numbers are down significantly from March right before she announced her candidacy.

But Chris, there are also warning signs for Jeb Bush, too, in this poll. More than half of the people, 56 percent, say the Bush family name is not an attribute and his connection to his brother and his father, say it is not a reason to vote for him.

Now all presidential elections are about the future. So we asked this. Which candidate represents the future? Take a look at these numbers. Marco Rubio, 58 percent. Rand Paul, 53 percent. Hillary Clinton, 51 percent. Jeb Bush only 34 percent say he represents the future. This may be the biggest political surprise so far of the year. Jeb Bush is entering the summer in a much weaker position than most Republicans assumed, and as he is set to formally jump in later this month, he certainly has his challenges and work cut out for him -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. All right, Jeff. Thanks so much for that.

Well, an American being held by Houthi rebels in Yemen is now free. Let's get right to CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr, live with the latest. Do we know how this happened, Barbara?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Alisyn.

This American, a freelance journalist, Casey Coombs, now back in Oman, being freed by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. But how he got free may be the story here.

U.S. officials, administration officials confirming to our Elise Labott a story overnight in the "Wall Street Journal" that senior administration officials met secretly with the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. They were there to discuss a number of matters with them, trying to get a cease-fire, trying to get a political solution with the Houthis taking over in Yemen. But the talks devolved into discussing getting a number of Americans freed out of Yemen.

[07:10:22] Coombs now in Oman, getting medical treatment. Will make his way back home. But there are a number of other Americans, not exactly clear how many, also said to be held by the Houthi rebels.

The U.S. now in these secret talks last week with the Houthis for the first time, direct talks with them. They got this man out. They are working to get the others out, obviously.

Unclear about the status of these Americans. One of them a dual national, Yemeni-American; others said to be American citizens. The Houthis perhaps detaining them, perhaps arresting them. Not clear if they really are being held as hostages, if there are any demands for their release. But it's been a very much an under-the-table secret negotiation with the Houthis. They've now gotten one American out after these direct secret talks with them. There is hope that the other Americans will be coming home -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right. Barbara, thank you very much for the latest on that.

Another headline. The acting TSA chief is out. Why? Too many lapses in security, recently highlighted by an undercover homeland security investigation. The results? Weapons and fake bombs getting through security. How often? Ninety-five percent of the time. As a result, homeland security chief Jeh Johnson now ordering the TSA to revise screening procedures, re-evaluate screening equipment and conduct new training. CAMEROTA: A daring escape caught on video. Two suspects try to evade

police in north Houston following a traffic stop. They both, as you can see, out of that black car at the height of rush hour. They cross six lanes of traffic, and then they jump off the freeway. Then they vanish into a wooded area. After a 90-minute search by air and ground, police found that duo and arrested them.

Wow. They wanted to get away from something.

CUOMO: That's right. And they didn't. More importantly.

CAMEROTA: There you go. There's the lesson.

CUOMO: All right. So the debate over restarting NSA surveillance bogging down in the Senate. A political logjam is nothing new. However, you're going to hear why this delay could be jeopardizing your safety. Legit cause for concern? Coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Check your clock. It is now 31 hours and counting since key provisions of the Patriot Act expired. The Senate is preparing to take up the USA Freedom Act, which is similar but different, certainly when it comes to surveillance. However, it would restore most of the provisions, and that is a very important thing say people in the intelligence committee -- community.

One very important person who has to say that is Mike Rogers, former Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, now a CNN national security commentator.

Very good to have you on, as always.

MIKE ROGERS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY COMMENTATOR: Thanks, Chris.

CUOMO: Let's take a look at the numbers and set the table for why we're even in this debate in the first place. OK?

Should Congress renew NSA surveillance program? Sixty-one, 36 yes. Those are even better than your polling numbers back in the day, Mike Rogers. Now let's look at this as a party breakdown. Republicans, 73. Democrats, 63. Even independents, 55. Why are we having this debate?

ROGERS: That's a great question. And unfortunately, I think it has more to do with presidential politics than it does the national security of the United States, and that's what worries me.

CUOMO: But how did we get here? I get Snowden. I get the dump. I get Greenwald and all those guys and then the push back that they let out too much information. And he's a felon, and he flies to Russia. And everybody is looking, and Big Brother at my phone calls, Mike Rogers. And I don't like it.

But then we find out they're not looking at my phone calls. It's just megadata. Well, maybe it's effective; maybe it isn't, but it's not what I thought it was. And yet, here we are. What happened?

ROGERS: Well, a whole host of things. And I think the Snowden, when he went public with the stolen information that belonged to the American public, it created a huge misinformation campaign that started and even, candidly, the media fed into it.

Mass surveillance. When you hear those kind of terms, people thought, "Hey, they're listening to all my phone calls or recording all my phone calls. Or they're recording all my e-mails and then reading them when they want to." None of that was true.

And I think over time, the facts came out. People realized, hey, this is exactly what you put on an envelope that you put in the mail that you give to the U.S. government, the post office every day, the to/from. That's what they were holding.

So there were changes made last year to say, OK ,the NSA isn't going to hold that information. We're going to keep it at the phone companies. We'll go do it that way if that makes the public feel better.

CUOMO: Right.

ROGERS: So all of those accommodations happened. I think the public said, "Yes, that sounds fair." No abuses were publicized. Obviously, people were not getting abused by this. It was very judiciously used. And I think the politics now is still wrapped up on this notion that this is mass surveillance. If I say it enough, people will still send me $12 contributions.

CUOMO: Certainly, if you're named Rand Paul, that's what you'd be saying. He wants the attention. Let's give it to him but for the right reason. Which is he's holding up his phone. He's saying they're going to take your privacy. He's holding up his hand, and he's saying, "Look, we now know from the courts it's unconstitutional. Why do we even have it?"

The courts did not find it unconstitutional.

ROGERS: That's right.

CUOMO: They found it illegal on the basis of how the statute, Section 215, was written, which means just rewrite the law. You exceeded what you expected in this current statute. Is he to blame for this?

ROGERS: Well, I think he certainly shares the blame. And there's a lot of politicians that use this issue to try to say, "We're the only ones that care about your civil liberties. It's only us. And you have to be for us."

And they took that ideological hard ground, not realizing that the American public was fast ahead of them. They understand that ISIS, when they pick up the phone in Syria and try and call the United States, we ought to have an investigative tool to figure out who that is.

CUOMO: Now here's what...

ROGERS: By the way, they're smart enough to know when they're -- they call them burn phones, Chris.

CUOMO: Yes.

ROGERS: This is really important. So we saw this in criminal activities when I was an FBI agent, and certainly, terrorists are on it. They'll use a phone for a day, maybe two days. Then they throw it away.

The changes that they allowed to lapse would make the FBI have to go back to court every time they threw away a phone, even if they knew the number. That's ridiculous. And it doesn't account for modern technology. It means terrorists get to keep ahead of the game every single day, and that's just wrong.

CUOMO: That's what I was going to ask you about. So thank you for filling us in on that. It's not just about the metadata. It's the warrants that are needed by the intelligence community to track up new numbers. And as you just said, burn phones make that a very realistic capability for people. And you have to have the ability to stay on top of that.

So now you get into, well, what is this doing to us from a security perspective? Help me with this, because I'm getting two different ideas coming at me. One is, "Hey, every day that I can't do this stuff, I'm farther behind the guys I was chasing before." And then I'm getting the other one is, "I've got to tell you, metadata was a real headache for me anyway. It's not really the way I'm going after bad guys."

What do you think, Mike?

ROGERS: Any time you take an investigative tool -- so the metadata, you know, they say, well, there was no smoking gun on metadata. Let me give you a real quick example.

There was a case where they called from overseas. A known terrorist called into the country to somebody in Colorado. They used -- the FBI then went out and got warrants, all the things they're supposed to do to try to figure out, well, who is that guy? Then they call up the second hop. They figured out that that guy called somebody in New York City, and that person in New York City, the FBI did know who they were. But -- and they had some suspicion they were terrorists.

Come to find out those were the guys that were trying to blow up the subway trains in New York City. If you didn't have that first clue, you didn't get the second clue. You never would have stopped that case, that Azzazi (ph) case, where they were getting ready to blow up trains in New York City.

It's an investigative tool. And so you have to have all of those tools if you're going to stay ahead of the terrorists.

What I worry about is maybe it doesn't happen today or the last three days. Maybe you don't miss any clue. But what if you do miss that clue that gives you the second hop to some operation that's getting planned? That's what I worry about.

And we just shouldn't be in this spot. There's no reason that we had to do it this way. It seems to me it was more of a political temper tantrum to get attention for somebody's political ambitions, versus how do we work through this, make sure that our civil liberties are protected and oh, by the way, we catch people who are trying to slaughter innocent men, women and children in the United States?

CUOMO: Let's see if they can get it right in their debate right now, because if they question the Freedom Act and change it too much it's going to have to go back to the House, and then we're going to have a whole cycle in front of us.

Mike Rogers, thank you very much for the perspective on this. Much needed -- Alisyn.

ROGERS: Thanks, Chris.

CAMEROTA: OK, Chris. Well, could a couple of months of questions over the Clinton Foundation funding be taking a toll on Hillary's campaign? We have just released CNN polls, and John King will give us all the findings on "Inside Politics."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:25:33] CUOMO: We're following breaking news. Crews right now are working furiously to find survivors after a river cruise ship sank in China. CNN has learned 458 passengers were on board the Eastern Star when it capsized Monday night in the dark during horrible weather.

At this point five bodies have been recovered. That means hundreds and hundreds of people are unaccounted for.

Now, as you saw there, the man is lying on the hull. He hasn't collapsed. He's pounding with a hammer. They say they are hearing people in the hull. So they are trying to get to the survivors.

The waters are moving too quickly and there is too much ship underneath the water to do it just with divers. So they're doing it that way, using cutting instruments to try to get through the hull.

The engineer and the captain are both in police custody. They say they got hit by something like a tornado.

This is a reminder of the South Korean ferry that sank last year, killing more than 300 people. Most of them were high school students. You'll remember that. So we'll stay on this and give you the latest.

CAMEROTA: It's just terrible.

Well, another story: there's been a shake-up at the TSA after stunning failures by airport security screeners. The acting chief of the TSA being reassigned following an undercover operation that showed 95 percent of dangerous items getting through security, including weapons and fake bombs. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson directing the TSA to revise its screening procedures now, conduct new training and re-evaluate screening equipment.

CUOMO: Headline from the Supreme Court: You may not feel like it's right to do it, but it doesn't mean you don't have a right to do it. The court siding with a Pennsylvania man who posted violent messages on Facebook. His name, Anthony Elonis, convicted under a federal threat statute after posting several vicious rap lyrics on his social media account when his wife left him. The justices ruled in his favor, saying there was not enough evidence to prove his intent to carry out the threats in the lyrics. Being mean not enough.

CAMEROTA: That's an interesting case.

All right. Take a look at this video. It's a little boy left alone in the back seat of a running truck. This is in Florence, Kentucky. This is a parking lot. This has gone viral. And it's triggering outrage from parents and a warning from police.

A witness shot the video and confronted the father when he returned to the vehicle. And that triggered a brief argument before the dad drove off. Police have now seen the tape and are investigating.

CUOMO: All right. Quick debate. Which side are you on?

CAMEROTA: Well, I don't know.

CUOMO: Got to take a side.

CAMEROTA: I think it's OK to leave your child -- here I go. I think it's OK to leave a child in a car for five minutes while you run into the pharmacy to pick something up.

CUOMO: Windows up, windows down?

CAMEROTA: Windows cracked.

CUOMO: OK. Not a hot day?

CAMEROTA: Not on a hot day.

CUOMO: I say stop telling me how to parent. Worry about how you parent. I think that sometimes you see an illegal situation, report it. That's great. I think the line, the line is too far.

CAMEROTA: So a child can be left alone, not on a hot day...?

CUOMO: It's up to you. I think it's up to you. Obviously, you don't leave a kid in a hot car. You don't leave a kid alone when you don't have to. But people make different decisions with their lives. A lot of citizen policing out there where we don't need it.

CAMEROTA: OK. Thank you?

CUOMO: What do you think, John King, as we get "Inside Politics" on NEW DAY with John King? You see my kid in a car, are you going to pull out your cell phone?

JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT/ANCHOR: I'm not going to pull out my cell phone. True story: couple months back there was a kid in the car and I pulled into the CVS. And I sat there until the parent came out of the CVS and drove away. I didn't want to see someone else jump in the car.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh.

CUOMO: Were you arrested for being creepy?

KING: I was not arrested for being creepy. I sat there for about five minutes. I wasn't creepy.

CAMEROTA: And you know what, John? I thank you for watching my son for that time. Thank you. Very much.

CUOMO: That's right. While you were getting your nails done. Shockingly.

CAMEROTA: Thank you. Very nice.

KING: All right. We're going to go "Inside Politics." We're going to move past creepy parenting or creepy people or whatever it is we're talking about.