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New Day
Surveillance Video Captures Waco Biker Shootout; Bush Blasts Rubio's Senate Voting Record; Best Month In Four Years For Stocks; Comics Deliver Presidential Punchlines. Aired 7:30-8a ET
Aired October 30, 2015 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[07:30:07] MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: The FAA says the pilot who was taxiing behind flight 405 reported that fuel was leaking from the plane before it caught fire.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: The U.S. military launching four U.S. fighter jets to intercept a pair of Russian military planes over the Pacific Ocean. Navy officials saying the Russian planes got too close to the "USS Ronald Reagan" on Tuesday, coming within one nautical mile and did not respond when contacted. It is standard operating procedure to escort planes flying near American warships.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: A former student at the elite St. Paul's Prep School is getting a year in jail and three years' probation for sexual assault. A judge in New Hampshire sentencing 20-year-old Owen Labrie Thursday for his role in what students call a senior salute. That is luring under age classmates into having sex. Labrie must also register as a sex offender now and he's going to appeal the conviction.
PEREIRA: A CNN exclusive this morning, surveillance video of what is being called one of the bloodiest afternoons in the history of American motorcycle clubs. The violence sparked last May, you might recall, when rival clubs, the Bandidos and the Cossacks, opened fire on one another at a restaurant in Waco, Texas. Nine people were killed. So far, no one has been charged.
With the latest from Waco, CNN's Ed Lavandera joins us now. Hi, Ed.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Michaela. Well, a lot has been said about this shootout that happened back in May. But we are going to show you an aspect of it like you've never seen before.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAVANDERA (voice-over): The showdown was like the gun fight at the OK Corral, that's how a witness describes the biker massacre to investigators. You don't have to hear the eruption of gunfire to feel the chaos the moment rival motorcycle clubs unleash a deadly melee.
These videos take you inside the Twin Peaks Restaurant in Waco, Texas, where nine bikers were killed and the parking lot was turned into a raging war zone.
CNN has obtained more than 2,000 pages of documents, crime scene photos, many too graphic to show and surveillance video giving us the most detailed accounts of what unfolded last May.
Some of the very evidence that a Texas grand jury is using to possibly indict the 177 bikers arrested and charged with organized criminal activity.
Restaurant surveillance cameras show the patio area filled with members of the Cossacks club waiting for an early afternoon biker meeting to start. They had already been there for more than an hour.
The Bandido crew rolls in as police and SWAT teams anticipating violence are watching from a distance. John Wilson is president of the Cossacks Biker Club chapter in Waco. He is sitting on the patio when the Bandidos arrive.
JOHN WILSON, PRESIDENT, COSSACKS BIKER CLUB: He was watching. He deliberately steered into one of our prospects and hit him. He wasn't going real fast, but he deliberately ran into him with a motorcycle.
LAVANDERA: The man Wilson is talking about is Clifford Pierce. He refused our interview request and has not been charged. But in a police report, an investigator wrote Pierce said he did not get his foot run over, but may not have gotten out of way fast enough. It didn't matter. The Cossacks believed the Bandido ran into one of their guys and the fight was on.
(on camera): One witness told police a Bandido fired the first shot into the ground. Another witness says a Cossack fired first. And in dozens of police interviews the rival biker clubs point the finger at each other or claim they didn't see anything.
(voice-over): Clifford Pierce says he hit the dirt and was shot. A bullet hits his spine, leaving Pierce paralyzed from the waist down.
WILSON: It was pretty horrific. There were guys getting hit and falling. I realized that I needed to get away from where I was. I looked at the guy to my right, my left, a good friend of mine, and I told him, we have to get off the sidewalk or we're going to die here.
LAVANDERA: Mayhem ensues, a biker running across the patio fires a gunshot caught on camera toward the fight scene in the parking lot. He then stashes the gun. A number of Cossack bikers take cover, some sliding handguns across the grounded to each other.
Restaurant patrons and Twin Peak waitresses are stunned and trapped. The scene plays out in gory detail. You can see a group of bikers pummeling one man just outside the patio area.
Crime scene photos later show a biker's body left dead in that exact spot. This biker runs toward the camera with a bloody face. Another group pulls a wounded man into the patio and they appear to be trying to revive him. He's then carried away.
Several defense attorneys tell CNN the video show that most of the bikers there that day were innocent bystanders.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you going to put us in jail? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everyone's going to jail.
[07:35:01] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The way they handled it with the mass incarceration of people with million dollar bonds, flies in the face of justice and flies in the face of fairness, it's ridiculous.
LAVANDERA: After it was all over, the scene was chaos. Dozens of bikers had run inside the restaurant to the hide in bathrooms and the Twin Peaks kitchen. Police SWAT teams move in to round up the crowd.
They're escorted out with hands up, weapons litter the crime scene, knives, brass knuckles and more than 150 firearms everywhere, some even hidden in toilets.
(on camera): It's been more than five months since the Twin Peaks brawl. All of the bikers are out of jail, out on bond. They were all charged with engaging in organized criminal activity, but not one of them has been indicted by a grand jury yet. No one has been charged with murder.
In fact, it's still not clear who killed whom. One police report says at least three officers fired into the crowd. And one officer wrote he heard suppressed fire from what I believed to be SWAT officers with suppressed rifles.
Several defense attorneys say it's likely some bikers were hit by police bullets, but as far as we know, ballistics reports have still not being completed to determine that conclusively. Police and prosecutors have refused to answer questions about the investigation citing a gag order, but Waco police have defended their actions since the beginning.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a criminal element that came in here yesterday and killed people. They're not here to drink beer and eat barbecue. They came with violence in mind and we're ready for it.
LAVANDERA: These images of the Twin Peaks brawl tell the story of unbridled pandemonium.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All these bikers started shooting. They put us in a freezer.
LAVANDERA: It was a Wild West style shootout in broad daylight.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAVANDERA: And Michaela, as we mentioned, 177 bikers still waiting to hear what their fate will be as this grand jury here in Waco continues to look at the case -- Michaela.
PEREIRA: So Ed, you have your hands on all this documentation, the pages of interviews, the photos and all that surveillance video. What stood out to you in terms of what police were asking the bikers during the course of their investigation?
LAVANDERA: Well, it's interesting. You have to remember, they're all charged with organized criminal activity. It was interesting from the get-go and reading the dozens of police reports, how many of the officers were interested in the motivation behind each of these bikers for showing up at these events.
Many of the bikers say they were here for a biker club style meeting, that this was something that happened routinely. Police say there had been a long simmering history of violence between the two groups in the months leading up to that May 17th shootout.
Many of them believe they came there for nefarious reasons. So the motivation of why they were there seems to be a key question in all of this.
PEREIRA: Yes, it depends, of course, on which side you asked, you get different answers. Ed, great reporting for us. Thank you so much for that.
CUOMO: You know, pictures don't lie. Ed Lavandera has been working that story for a very long time. The videotape definitely advances understanding and it's going to raise a new set of questions. It's not a situation that should be left to go away because biker gangs were involved.
CAMEROTA: Right. I mean, it wasn't just biker gangs, as you saw from the video for the first time, you see all the waitresses gathering and the patrons scattering.
CUOMO: A lot of regular people sitting in there as well. Certainly deserves the scrutiny.
All right, so listen to this, the rival campaigns in the GOP are coming together to fight a common foe. This is highly unusual. We'll tell you what's going on and what's going to happen next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:42:22]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You can campaign or just resign and let someone else take the job. There are a lot of people living paycheck to paycheck in Florida as well. They are looking for a senator that will fight for them each and every day.
SENATOR MARCO RUBIO (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The only reason why you're doing it now is because you're running for the same position and someone convinced you that attacking me is going to help you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: All right, well, that was the moment that is causing concerns about Jeb Bush's future. It may also have had a bigger impact on Marco Rubio than we expected.
Let's bring in Thomas Fiedler to talk about this. He is the dean of College of Communications for Boston University and the former executive editor for "The Miami Herald."
Tom, great to have you with us. There is no one better qualified to talk about these two than you.
THOMAS FIEDLER, FORMER EXECUTIVE EDITOR, "MIAMI HERALD": Good morning.
CAMEROTA: Because you've covered Florida politics for the "Miami Herald" for decades. Start with breaking news. We just got a statement from the Rubio campaign that says he is cancelling his first campaign event in Iowa to fly back to Capitol Hill for Senate votes. That's interesting. Does that mean that that moment where he was called out by Jeb Bush for not voting got to him somehow?
FIEDLER: I think -- well, it may have. It may have. I think in many ways that was a built of a trap that the Bush campaign may have set out for him. It surprised me that this would be the issue that Jeb would actually try to go after Marco Rubio with.
It was predictable but it's pretty weak stuff. The Republican electorate would think not showing up to govern in Washington would be a good thing. Marco Rubio could have gone out and said, look, I'm doing my part to help slow down government.
It was pretty weak stuff. And then Rubio's comeback to Jeb during that debate just left Jeb, I mean, truly deflated. I think it was a decisive moment.
CAMEROTA: You do? Because other pundits have said that as well that that just Marco Rubio hit it out of the park. He was ready for that one. But you say it is weak stuff. It's interesting that you say that because we also have here this just leaked 112-page document from the Jeb Bush campaign. It came out last night and it gives a lot of insight into what their strategy is for attacking Marco Rubio.
FIEDLER: Right.
CAMEROTA: There's one whole page that says they'll try to suggest that Marco is a risky bet. Let me call your attention to the last sentence. Those who have looked into Marco's background in the past have been concerned with what they've found. That's ominous. Does this suggest that Jeb Bush will go there and plant seeds of something suspicious?
[07:45:03] FIEDLER: Yes, I don't know whether Jeb would do that personally. That's really not his style to do it. There's no question that his campaign staff is really just pulling at the bit to try to go after Marco Rubio.
If they see that Marco Rubio would emerge as a real threat, which I think he has, they've got a lot of things that have come up in the Florida media that they'll throw at him, the questionable use of credit cards that Marco Rubio has admitted to and apologized for, the support that he has from largely a single backer, Norman Braman, a major car dealer and football franchise owner. A lot of things like that that I think they're threatening to be able to throw out there, which is why I think the issue about a very poor attendance record was fairly weak. They were laying in wait. I don't know how successful they're going to be unless Jeb personally is willing to take the lead.
CAMEROTA: Let's talk about that, Tom, because as I said, you've covered Jeb Bush in particular, for decades. Can you explain the Jeb that we're seeing this time around on this campaign trail? Is this different than the Jeb who ran for governor?
FIEDLER: I think it's different only in the sense that this is a forum in which he is very, very uncomfortable. When he was running for governor, first of all, he didn't really have a challenge from within the party.
He was the -- he literally was the favorite son. He was able to skate through Republican primaries with any significant opposition. Then he really just dealt in the general election. As you'll remember, he lost that first general election, largely because of his debate performance against then incumbent Governor Lawton Chiles.
When he was successful in the next two terms he didn't really have to fight off any significant opposition. He's now in a forum that he -- it truly is uncomfortable and unsettled in. He said yesterday that if voters want a performance that he's not the guy.
Well, I think the truth is voters do want a performance of some kind. They expect a performance from the president and he's got to show that he's able to do some of that also.
CAMEROTA: Yes, sure, they're looking for the fire in the belly as we hear so often. Thomas Fiedler, thanks so much for sharing your expertise on this with us. It's nice to have you on NEW DAY. Let's get over to Michaela.
PEREIRA: The third GOP debate gave late night hosts plenty of new material. Ahead, we are going to show you how they skewered Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Jeb Bush.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: I'm Christine Romans with "CNN Money Now." U.S. stocks on track for the best month in four years. The U.S. economy stumbled in the third quarter with only 1.5 percent growth. The Dow and S&P 500 both up about 9 percent this month, some of the best performers, Amazon, Google and Microsoft.
[07:50:07] Pfizer wants to buy Allergan, the latest and potentially biggest in a frenzy of health care mergers, but it also thrust these companies to the center of the debate over corporate taxes.
A deal with the Irish, Allergan, would cut Pfizer's tax bill considerably. So called inversions, some decry as bad, corporate citizenship, CEOs say it is just good business. "NEW DAY" returns in a moment. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PEREIRA: Even the music makes me laugh. As you could imagine late night hosts are having a field day with the presidential debates. Apparently no one was safe after the third GOP debate. Here is what you missed if you were sleeping like us.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: During last night's debate Trump said he would feel more comfortable if his own employees brought firearms to work. Yes. When they heard that many of Trump's Hispanic employees said no problemo.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jeb Bush has been trailing by a pretty wide margin. But boy, last night he really came out swinging.
BUSH: You find a Democrat for cutting spending $10, I'll give him a warm kiss.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why does it have to be warm?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: During the GOP debate, Ben Carson was asked what his greatest weakness and he said that he couldn't see himself as president until people asked him to run. He also couldn't see himself as president because he never opens his eyes.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PEREIRA: Goodness, sounds like he's got a bit of a cold there.
CAMEROTA: Yes, he does sound like that. That Jimmy Kimmel as Princess Leia made me deeply uncomfortable.
PEREIRA: I kind of love it.
CUOMO: I like that he kept the beard. It's not easy to dress up as the woman.
CAMEROTA: I know. We heard --
CUOMO: I pulled it off very well people say.
CAMEROTA: You were a busty sort of top heavy woman.
CUOMO: Bucksem is the word we are like.
CAMEROTA: That's the word.
CUOMO: So we are going to get back into this story with what happened with this plane on the runway. What kind of restrictions were in place? What kind of maintenance? We'll take you through what truly was a disaster averted.
CAMEROTA: Also this Sunday at 9 p.m. on CNN's "PARTS UNKNOWN," Anthony Bourdain goes back to Borneo. He will join us live next hour with more, but here is a sneak peak.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANTHONY BOURDAIN, CNN HOST, "PARTS UNKNOWN": Borneo. I came here ten years ago. Heartbroken depressed, sort of a weird cross-roads in my life. I went up river. Hang out with some very nice people in a long house. And I had myself quite an experience.
[07:55:09] And I promised those people I'd be back for the rice harvest festival. It took me ten years to do it, but I came back. Here I am. Saroac Borneo.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PEREIRA: Six-day man hunt ended in a deadly shootout in Kentucky early this morning.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's happening this world? What's going on around us here?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Citizens need to rest and rest assured their law enforcement agencies are doing their job.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If we just saw the fire. People started freaking out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You open the door. Let the chute out. The chute opened to the sides where the flames were.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What happened?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How are you feeling?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Screams and people crying. I didn't know how to react.
