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New Day

Massive 7.5 Earthquake Rocks South Asia; Cowboys' slide Continues, Tempers Flare; Murder Charges in Deadly Parade Crash; Ambassador Pickering Defends Benghazi Review. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired October 26, 2015 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00] JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: But, Jeb Bush is the establishment favorite. The question now is, can Rubio raise the money? And can he go to the next level in the polls?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: You are coming back at 8:00. You asked very interesting questions I have not heard him answer before, in terms of what kind of music he listens to, some pop culture thing.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Ooh.

CAMEROTA: Yes, he reveals an interesting side of Marco Rubio that you wouldn't expect.

GANGEL: You know you are interviewing the youngest candidate in the field when he gives you a lesson on hip hop and electronic dancing.

PEREIRA: You don't feel like that's on Bernie Sander's playlist much really?

GANGEL: You'll never know. We are going to ask him next.

CAMEROTA: That's right. Jamie, thanks so much. Great to see you.

What's your take on all of this? You can tweet us #NewDayCNN or post your comment on Facebook.com/NewDay.

PEREIRA: All right. Four people killed in Stillwater, Oklahoma, at the homecoming parade. The suspected drunk driver who ran them down is due in court today. Her lawyer is speaking out. We'll tell you what he claims happened on that deadly morning ahead on NEW DAY.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:35:02] CAMEROTA: We are following breaking news for you right now.

There's been a massive 7.5 earthquake that has rocked South Asia. It hit northeastern Afghanistan, about 158 miles northeast of Kabul. It was felt hundreds of miles away in India and Pakistan. "Reuters" reporting at least four people have been killed and scores injured in northeastern Pakistan. And this comes ten years to the day that a powerful 7.6 earthquake killed 75,000 people in that same region. PEREIRA: Also breaking this morning, a military barracks in Belgium

coming under attack. Shots were fired. No injuries reported at this time. "Reuters" reports a gunman wearing a balaclava tried to force his car through the gates of the military barracks there.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Five people lost their lives when a whale watching boat sunk off the coast of British Columbia. Search and rescue operations concluding just a few hours ago of Vancouver Island. There were 27 people on board, 21 of them rescued, one still listed as missing. It's not clear what caused the ship to go down, the weather was good. The boating company says it is cooperating with investigators.

CAMEROTA: The Kurdish government releasing new video from last week's raid in Iraq that caused that elite U.S. soldier his life. This video captures the rescue of dozens of hostages from an ISIS-controlled prison in northern Iraq. The Pentagon says they went in after spotting mass graves, suggesting the hostages were facing imminent execution. The raid raising new questions about the role of U.S. forces on the ground in Iraq.

CUOMO: All right. America's team not doing so hot. Dallas Cowboys dropping four in a row. Greg Hardy, controversial, making headlines again for all the wrong reasons.

Andy Scholes has more in the bleacher report.

What do you have for us, my brother?

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Hey. Good morning, guys.

You know, remember, Greg Hardy was suspended for the first four games of this season for domestic violence. So, you'd think he'd be on his best behavior. But that was not the case yesterday. Cowboys and Giants tied at 20 in the fourth quarter when Duane Harris fielded the kick off and the former Cowboy returned this kick off 100 yards to give the Giants a 27-20 lead.

Now, after this touchdown, check out this video. Hardy slaps the clip board out of a special team's coaches' hand. Teammates had to pull him away. Dez Bryant and Hardy would get in each other's faces to exchange words. After the game, Hardy said, no comment, next question every time he was asked about both incidents.

All right. Some very sad news to report: Minnesota Timberwolves coach and president Flip Saunders passed away yesterday after a battle with cancer. Saunders announced in August that he was battling Hodgkin's lymphoma. Doctors at the time considered it very treatable and curable. Saunders however suffered a setback in September.

Kevin Garnett posted this pic of himself sitting in Saunders' parking spot, with the caption, "Forever in my heart".

Saunders coached in the NBA for 17 seasons. He was 60 years old.

There is more tragic news to report in the world of high school football. Seventeen-year-old Andre Smith died Friday morning as a result of a hit on the field during his team's game Thursday night. Smith played for Bogan High school in Chicago. The hit happened on the last play of the game.

Smith walked to the sidelines before collapsing. He was unconscious but breathing while being rushed to the hospital. An autopsy confirmed that Smith died from a blunt force head injury.

And, Michaela, this is the seventh high school football-related death this year. So unfortunate.

PEREIRA: Giving some parents pause, you know, when they consider if they are going to let their teen boys play or not.

SCHOLES: Absolutely.

PEREIRA: Terribly sad. Our hearts go to that family and that community.

There are tears and anger meanwhile in Oklahoma. A toddler was among four people killed by a suspected drunk driver who plowed into a crowd of people at a homecoming parade. We have the latest on the suspect and what her lawyer claims really happened, when NEW DAY continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:43:23] PEREIRA: The woman who is accused of plowing her car into a crowd of people at the Oklahoma State homecoming parade, she will appear in court today. The 25-year-old Adacia Chambers now facing murder charges after four people were killed in that horrific crash, including a 2-year-old.

CNN's Nick Valencia is live in Stillwater, Oklahoma -- a place probably trying to grapple with understanding why this happened.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Just a horrific tragedy over the weekend here, Michaela, in Stillwater, Oklahoma. And in just a few hours, we expect 25-year-old Adacia Chambers to make here first court appearance since being accused of crashing her car into a packed crowd at a homecoming parade. The locals here say it's one of the most wholesome events in the country. But on Saturday, it was anything but.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VALENCIA (voice-over): This morning, the suspect in that horrific homecoming parade accident at Oklahoma State University due in court. Twenty-five-year-old Adacia Chambers charged with four counts of second degree murder and driving under the influence.

TONY COLEMAN, ATTORNEY: There was a period where I think that, for a better lack of terms, she could have been blacked out.

VALENCIA: Her attorney claims she wasn't drunk when she allegedly plowed her car into the crowd of onlookers Saturday, but may suffer from mental health issues.

COLEMAN: She only remembers, from what was communicated with me, the end of the crash, people removing her from the car, shards of glass being everywhere and her being extremely confused, trying to maintain the ability to cooperate.

VALENCIA: According to her attorney, Chambers, a fast food worker, has recently been unable to sleep and felt uncertain about her future.

[06:45:03] MARK MCNITT, STEPSON OF VICTIM LEO SCHMITZ: The only thing I could relate it to is maybe of some type of bombing or something. A crazy 24 hours.

VALENCIA: In this cell phone video, you can hear her car, as it busts through the parade barricade around 10:30 a.m. Saturday. The horrific screams from the unsuspecting crowd.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean, it just came 40, 50 miles an hour.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The car hit me, like as it was stopping, I flew over strollers.

VALENCIA: Along with the four dead, nearly 50 more injured, some in critical condition.

Overnight, the university community gathering in prayer, mourning those lost. The youngest victim, Nash Lucas, was just 2 years old.

PAUL WECKLER, FRIEND OF VICTIM OF DR. MARVIN STONE: The relationships and sense of community we have, we're just a small college town.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VALENCIA: Chambers was initially charged with driving under the influence. So, police have not said what they suspect her of being under the influence of. Meanwhile, Chris, those four charges of second degree murder could carry up to 10 years to life in prison for each account -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right. Big case obviously. The lawyers are going to argue incapacity there. We'll see what happens when she goes to court today. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

All right. So, if you watched the Benghazi hearing last night, you heard this man's name again and again. Ambassador Thomas Pickering. Well, he is here to respond to Republican attacks. What does he say the truth of Benghazi is and the truth of the select committee?

We'll hear from him straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:50:51] CUOMO: Former Ambassador Thomas Pickering's name kept coming up again and again at the House Benghazi hearing. Pickering ran the investigation, the first one in the Benghazi. That effort coming under big-time Republican fire. Pickering's name mentioned so much, Democrats on the panel felt

compelled to defend him and the work of the ARB.

Ambassador Tom Pickering joins us now.

Ambassador, thank you very much for joining us.

Let's just set the table with what Congressman Trey Gowdy has to say about the work of the review board.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TREY GOWDY (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Somebody can be a good person and I have no doubt that Mr. Mullen and Mr. Pickering both are. My point is not that the ARB did a bad job or good job, my point is from a standpoint of a serious investigation, it was an inadequate job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: It's interesting. He wasn't referring to you as ambassador or Mike Mullen as an admiral. He was referring you as gentlemen. You said it was an inadequate job.

What is your response to this implication that it was inadequate work at best and compromised at worst?

THOMAS PICKERING, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED STATES: One has to go to the specifics and the specifics there that I believe he put in place were things like we didn't do a transcript. Well, we didn't, but we did a record of the meetings. We were not a judicial inquiry nor were we a court of law.

We were there to make recommendations on security. Was it at fault? Did people handle it badly? And how should it be improved? And that's exactly what we did.

There were some allegations we didn't see all the right people. We saw all the people we could find who were available to us who participated. I understand the committee may have some people, but people have told me they were individuals who left Benghazi a year before the incident, so their relevance might be questionable.

(AUDIO GAP) thing that I think came up about allegations of inadequacy. Look, I have been around for a few years. I have done a lot of investigations. If there is new information, I'll be first to join the line and how it should be interpreted and telling you whether we should change the kind of recommendations we made. Of course, we can't do that since we went out of business as soon as we made our recommendations.

CUOMO: One of the members of the Select Committee said it's not even close in terms of the amount of proof, evidence, documents that the ARB had versus what the select committee has, specifically they pointed to the e-mails you didn't have then-Secretary Clinton's e- mails. You didn't have Stevens' emails.

Fair criticism?

PICKERING: We had some of that. I'm not sure we had it all. The interesting thing, will the criticism hold up because the committee, during eight hours of continuous testimony with Secretary Clinton produced a lot of new information that should change our conclusion? So, I don't believe that's happened yet.

CUOMO: Well, one of the big conclusions that the committee members would say they drew is that Hillary Clinton told one story to people immediately after the attack and another story to the American people about what had happened.

PICKERING. Well, with all respect to everybody, that was not the purpose or the subject of our inquiry. So, I won't make an opinion on that. That's something else. That didn't have anything to do with, was the security preparation adequate, did people make mistakes in that regard, and what should they change to prevent these incidents from happening in the future?

CUOMO: Wouldn't it be fair to expand the nature of the inquiry to the motivations involved, of the key players, certainly the secretary?

PICKERING: I think that we did and we had those. But, our question that the Congress asked us to ask in the legislation and in their comments on the legislation was who made the decisions? Where were they made and the Congress, quite politely told us, please don't make it a thing that if the cabinet secretary takes responsibility, which Secretary Clinton did, in a kind of pro forma, it's my job, it goes with my job way, that's sufficient.

They said it is not sufficient that you merely accept that as the basic reason. Please go to where the decisions made. We went to where the decisions were made. We went to where the supervisors of those people were and how and what way that played out in our investigation of where were the security lapses and who was responsible.

[06:55:00] CUOMO: The suggestion is that the then-secretary set up the ARB and that the motivations of the committee, while pure in terms of finding ways to get better, that it was not about criticizing and holding accountable Secretary Clinton and therefore that made it jaundiced.

PICKERING: Quite the contrary. Of course, the Congress provided Secretary Clinton appoint four members of the ARB and the director of intelligence one.

Two members of the ARB, out of the three, or three of the members out of the three had nothing to do with the State Department. They were from completely outside the State Department. One from academia, one from the intelligence community. And as you know, Admiral Mike Mullen, who I believe is one of the finest public servants I have been associated with.

And a man who would question Admiral Mullen's integrity is really taking on a big job. I don't think there's a hint of a scintilla of evidence that he was in any way prejudice and I hope in fact that people conclude the same about me, because that was my sole intention.

CUOMO: Well, certainly, you know, you have been ambassador to multiple countries, Israel, Russia and India among them. The main theory of the case, and, of course, not a judicial body as you point out, the ARB, nor the select committee, is that Hillary Clinton lied. That there was distraction, there was deception and manipulation of what happened in Benghazi to suit political aims and people's lives were compromised in that before and after their deaths.

Is that fair criticism?

PICKERING: I don't believe so. I'm forming my own opinion on something I didn't investigation, however. And so, I think that's a question that, at the moment, you know, there's an old thing called a Scotch verdict, not proven. I think it fits that old legal, put it this way, maxim.

CUOMO: Well, look, it's hard to prove anything, right, because though they did have subpoena power, they're not a judicial body. This is politicians talking about other politicians. There's a compromise there.

But their main criticism was you went too light on the situation. You did it in a constructive way, but not a way that held people accountable. And that was done as a favor to Clinton.

PICKERING: Well, I think we had one of the toughest sets of conclusions, 29 recommendations. If anybody thought they were kind and gentle, please go back and read them again. The State Department and my colleagues in the State Department believed, in fact, we went to where the problems were. We described them very, very carefully. No one I know came along and described them any better.

And the fact that you, Chris, conclude that there was a political motivation in the hearings in themselves is certainly neither shocking or very surprising. One could see that from the very beginning of the process, and that was not my process or the ARB process, our process in the ARB. Ours was to find and do our duty as the Congress charged us to, as to where the security issues were and how to rectify those. And we hope we have made a major contribution.

And again, as I said, if somebody comes up in the scope of our hearing, and tells me there's new information and says X, Y and Z, of course, as a rational and I hope reasonable human being, I will try to evaluate to the best of my knowledge if that changes our conclusion.

CUOMO: Understood, Ambassador, about what the scope of the ARB was. To be fair, to use the word you use used, there were supportive words given by multiple congressmen about your work as well. Thank you for joining us, Ambassador.

PICKERING: Thanks, Chris.

CUOMO: We look forward to coming back to us if we learn more, if we do.

PICKERING: Good. It's always great to be with you. And thank you for your time.

CUOMO: Appreciate it.

A lot of news this morning, let's get right to it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Earthquake hitting northeastern Afghanistan felt hundreds of miles away.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We could feel a fair bit of shaking. This region has a history of earthquakes.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Ben Carson is lower energy than Jeb. We need strong energy.

BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Republicans are there trying to destroy each other.

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If this is how we are going to fight to get nothing done, I don't want any part of it.

PEREIRA: Five people are dead after a whale watching boat with 27 people aboard sank off of Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are some big swells out in the ocean, but we just don't know anything about what may have happened.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

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

We do begin with breaking news out of South Asia. A massive 7.5 earthquake rocking the region. The epicenter was northeast of Kabul and it was felt hundreds of miles away in India and Pakistan.

CUOMO: At least nine people confirmed dead so far. These numbers are very early. Dozens and dozens injured in northeast Afghanistan. Everything is going to change. It's going to take time to find things out. Logistics are compromised in the best of circumstances.

Some context for you: this quake comes nearly ten years to the day after a deadly quake in the same region that claimed 75,000 lives. Aftershocks are still being felt.

Let's get to CNN international producer, Sophia Saifi, forced to run for cover in Islamabad when the quake hit.

What's the current situation?