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FBI: White Supremacists Planned "Race War"; GOP Candidates Face Off In Fourth Debate; What Is The Current State Of The V.A.? Aired 7:30-8a ET
Aired November 11, 2015 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: -- this will give the U.S. a direct look at the evidence for the first time, this as U.S. officials familiar with the latest intelligence tell CNN it is possible terrorist planted a bomb with a timer on that plane. It was planted perhaps by someone who had access to the plane.
When Syrian peace talks resume in Vienna this weekend, the rugs will come to the table with a plan, according to the "Associated Press," it calls for a drafting of a new constitution for Syria in the next 18 months followed by an early presidential election.
It does not stop Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad from running. The measure also calls on the U.N. to initiate talks between the Syrian government and a delegation of opposition groups to set up a transitional governing body.
The FBI has foiled rather an alleged plot by two white supremacists to incite a race war. It included plans to bomb black churches and Jewish synagogues.
Our justice correspondent, Pamela Brown, is live in Washington with all the details for us. So fortunate they thwarted this.
PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. The details are disturbing, Michaela. The FBI arrested these two alleged white supremacists in Chester Field, Virginia who the FBI says plotted to kill businessmen and then used the money to prepare for a race war.
This criminal complaint says that they planned on, quote, "shooting or bombing the occupants of black churches and Jewish synagogues conducting acts of violence against persons of the Jewish faith and doing harm to a gun store owner in the state of Oklahoma."
These two men, Ronald Cheney and Robert Doyle allegedly met with an undercover FBI agent acting as an illegal arms dealer. The FBI says these men placed orders for automatic weapons, explosives and a pistol with a silencer.
The FBI says it was given information through confidential sources and surveillance that the men were concocting a plan to kill a jeweler and use that money to purchase land, stockpile weapons and train for the coming race war.
Another man was arrested for conspiracy to commit a robbery and the details, of course, in this complaint are especially alarming in the wake of the killings of nine black church members in Charleston, South Carolina by Dylann Roof, who also shared this race war ideology.
One official I spoke with says that this type of chatter, this race war chatter is common among white supremacist groups that the FBI keeps an eye on.
In recent events post Ferguson has only fueled that. In this case, I'm told these two men in particular were a long way from targeting a religious facility, but the FBI didn't want to take any chances -- Alisyn.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks so much for that story and law enforcement.
Let's talk more about last night's debate and let's get some reaction to the Republican debate. We're joined now by Sean Spicer. He is the chief strategist and communications director for the Republican National Committee.
Good morning, Sean, you look relieved and happy this morning. How are you feeling?
SEAN SPICER, CHIEF STRATEGIST AND COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, RNC: Relieved and happy, thank you. Happy Veterans Day.
CAMEROTA: You, too.
SPICER: I know that a lot of people were watching how it was all going to unfold last night and if there were -- if there was going to be an attack on the media, be attacks between the candidates. A lot of attention was trained on Jeb Bush. How do you think he fared last night?
CAMEROTA: I think all the candidates -- I say that because the format was done in a way that allowed each of these candidates to focus on the issues important to American voters and to put them to provide a forum to present the solutions for the problems of the country.
CAMEROTA: John, our John Berman, has said that fault lines emerged last night in the Republican Party in terms of how the candidates feel about important issues, in particular, let's start with immigration. And there was this moment, testy exchange between John Kasich and Donald Trump. Let me play that for you.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We either have a country or we don't have a country. We are a country of laws. Going to have to go out and they'll come back, but they'll have to go out and hopefully they get back.
JOHN KASICH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: For the 11 million people, come on, folks, we all know you can't pick them up and ship them across -- back across the border. It's a silly argument. It's not an argument that makes sense. (END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: So Sean, what about those fault lines? How is the party going to find common ground with this issue?
SPICER: It's not the job of the party. I think what we saw last night, why last night was such a success is because each of these candidates had an opportunity to make distinguishing policy differences with each other. It's up to the voters now to decide which of those candidates best represents their view on how to move forward with those key issues.
CAMEROTA: Hillary Clinton was apparently watching the debate last night and she had her calculator out. It seems, because this is what she tweeted. She said number of times Republicans offered helpful ideas for the middle class, zero.
Times Republicans attacked Hillary, we lost count, #GOPdebate. What were the helpful ideas for the middle class that you heard that maybe she didn't?
[07:35:07] SPICER: There was a ton of them. One after another got up there and talked about differences, whether it was trade, taxes, growing jobs. Over and over again, that's what the problem is. With Hillary Clinton and the Democrats focus on is how much money are you going to spend, how bigger is government going to grow?
We are talking about a real solution for Americans back to work, increase livelihood, take away some of the burden from like educational cost, health care reform. Those are the kind of things that we talked about.
That's the difference. It made a difference between the Republican debate and a Democratic debate. Her idea is how much closer to socialism can I edge towards? How much closer, further to the left to Bernie Sanders can I go?
CAMEROTA: Sean, moving forward, what did you take away from last night that worked so well that perhaps you or the candidates will insist upon for the future debates?
SPICER: Well, there are a few things that were really helpful last night. Number one, the promises and commitments that Fox Business made to the candidates, they upheld. That was important. I know that sounds petty, but I think candidates have a right to know what they're about to walk into.
CAMEROTA: What promises?
SPICER: Just everything in terms of how the opening was going to go, how long the responses were going to go, how long the closings were, the actual format, the topics. It was supposed to be a debate about the economy, taxes, financial matters, it was. The moderators stuck to it.
Number two, the moderators weren't trying to get you with trick questions or silly, stupid questions. They stuck to intense questions about issues that American face. That's what debates are supposed to be about.
The third thing, the moderators weren't the subject last night. That's what they promised and that was the case. The focus last night was on the candidates, not on the moderators. That was the model that needs to be going forward.
CAMEROTA: OK, Sean Spicer, thanks so much for taking time for NEW DAY. We will speak again soon. Let's get over to Chris.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Alisyn, we'll have much more on the Republican debate, but first it is the day to honor our veterans and make sure they're getting the care they deserve.
The V.A. says it is cleaning house but is it? Is it nearly enough if there is anything going on? We'll talk with the secretary of Veteran Affairs straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:41:12]
CUOMO: It is Veterans Day, thank you for the service of our fighting men and women. Thank you to the families who sacrifice as well. On this day, the Obama administration will call on Congress to help veterans get easier access to health care, disability and educational benefits.
All to improve the way the U.S. treats its heroes to act on a promise that is too often said without anything coming after it, which is that we support our troops.
Now despite billions of new additional dollars poured into the VA, internal documents obtained by CNN reveal some VA facilities still make veterans wait months or more for critical treatment.
Joining us now is Robert McDonald, the new secretary of Veterans Affairs. Thank you for joining us and happy Veterans Day to you.
ROBERT MCDONALD, SECRETARY OF VETERANS AFFAIRS: Good morning, Chris, and Happy Veterans Day.
CUOMO: I want to play for you what was said at the debate last night, shockingly, very little about how to improve treatment of veterans in the main debate, most of it came on the undercard. Yes, Jeb Bush did sum up by saying he was going to help. Here's what was said on the undercard last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICK SANTORUM (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The bottom line is, the VA is antiquated. There is no need for a VA health care system as it existed. BOBBY JINDAL (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We need to fire some of the VA bureaucrats. Somebody should go to jail over these scandals. It's a crime.
MIKE HUCKABEE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What would happen if the Congress and the president had to get their health care from the VA? We would fix the problem and we would fix Congress.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: Mr. Secretary, your response?
MCDONALD: Well, Chris, I would say that we're making progress at the VA, but we're not where we need to be yet. Since the crisis over the last year, we've completed 7 million more health care appointments for veterans.
That's 4.5 million in the community, 2.5 million in the VA. Average wait times are down to four days for primary care, five days for specialty care. Three days for mental health care.
We've driven the backlog of disability claims down by 88 percent from its peak and we've driven homelessness down by over 30 percent, veteran homelessness.
Having said all that we need progress, but we still have pockets around the country where veterans are moving where we still have increased demand that we have to solve.
Similarly as we've improve the system, more and more veterans are coming in to use the system because they like it so much.
CUOMO: I have heard that there is increased flow. Let's unpack this one at a time. If you talk to human service agencies, homeless agencies, they will say veterans who are homeless and distressed are on the rise.
If you look at wait times, again, we know you're new there, trying to implement change. You got a lot of money and you've had some time. That's why we want to look at it critically.
There's the controversy over the new measuring calculations that you use in terms of figuring out whether or not help is delayed. Is that really the way to focus your energies right now in changing the formula of how you measure a delay versus changing the delays?
MCDONALD: What we've done is hired more doctors. We've hired over 1,400 more doctors, over 2,300 more nurses. We've increased our space by over 1.7 million square feet. We've gone to after evening hours, weekend hours.
We've also done other things to improve productivity. Productivity of our providers is up 8 percent. That's all designed to get more people into the system.
We've announced that next weekend we're going to start taking the people on those wait lists, making sure we get those into our system, having what we call an access standup, using our scale nationally with our medical school partners, our third party partners, our private care partners in order to address those needs.
I have to argue with you a little bit on homelessness --
CUOMO: Please.
MCDONALD: -- because the numbers on homelessness, we just finished our January 2015 point in time count. It is showing a 36 percent reduction in veteran homelessness --
[07:45:10] CUOMO: What does that mean --
MCDONALD: -- since 2010.
CUOMO: -- point in time. What does that mean?
MCDONALD: That means, for example, I went out on the streets of Los Angeles in January of 2015. We actually went on skid row and counted the number of homeless people, counted them, and determined which ones are veterans and which ones aren't. We got those who are veterans into urgent care. We are making progress on housing veterans --
CUOMO: Mr. Secretary, you understand the scrutiny comes from this being a very high bar. These are the men and women that we have to help the most. I'm not talking to you as head of United Health Care. I'm talking to you as the head of a system that we want to ensure that's the best that there is.
MCDONALD: I'm a veteran.
CUOMO: I know you are.
MCDONALD: If there's one veteran on the streets any given night, that's one too many.
CUOMO: You know what the reaction will be.
MCDONALD: It's a very high bar and we need to deliver that high bar.
CUOMO: Absolutely because you know what the scrutiny will be. They went to skid row in L.A. and they think they have their hands around the homeless situation, what's good and what's bad?
MCDONALD: No, Chris, we want that high bar. That's why we publish our information on the internet every two weeks. We opened it up to scrutiny. He we want the scrutiny. That will help us get better. I want to hear from veterans. I want to know what we have to do to improve. That's what customer service is all about. That's the business I've been in for 40 years.
CUOMO: In August, there were more than 8,000 requests for quick care that had wait times longer than 90 days at the Phoenix VA according to these documents that CNN got. You know that's unacceptable. Let me ask you this, instead of beating you over the head with
what's wrong, how do you make it right? What do you still need? What still needs to happen that we can come together as a society and make right?
MCDONALD: We're in the midst of our most aggressive transformation ever. We call it my VA because we want every veteran to think of the VA as their own.
There are five strategies, number one put the veteran at the center of everything we do, provide delightful experiences for the veteran.
Number two, provide good experiences for employees. We have to take care of employees if they're going to take care of veterans. Number three, improve our internal support services. Some of our I.t. systems date back to the 1970s and 1980s.
Number four, create a culture of continuous improvement, number five, create strategic partnerships. Last night I was at the Woodruff Foundation in New York. It was a great opportunity to celebrate the partnership we created with them.
All of that needs legislation and what we've done is we've met with members of Congress, given them a long list of legislation that we need to get this done. The president reiterated that last night.
And we need that legislation because it's Congress that says what the benefits are the veteran gets and it's Congress that gives us the money. If those two don't match, which is what happened in 2014, we have a real problem.
CUOMO: Mr. Secretary, I was with you there last night at the Woodruff Foundation. We'll be talking about it later in the show. I want to thank you for your service as a veteran and what you're doing for veterans.
It's something we need to focus on every day, not just Veterans Day. That's why the VA is such a hot button issue. We'll stay on this story, please, look to us to let us know what impediments there are to progress.
MCDONALD: Thank you, Chris. Happy Veterans Day.
CUOMO: Thank you, sir -- Michaela.
PEREIRA: All right, Chris, while the Republican candidates were battling it out on the debate stage in Milwaukee last night, late- night comics had some fun at their expense. We'll bring you the highlights ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:52:39]
PEREIRA: On the debate stage last night, Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, and Ben Carson, all said they would not hike the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Chief business correspondent, Christine Romans is here for CNN Money now. Ben Carson in particular had strong words against it.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: He really did. You know, Ben Carson said a higher minimum wage would actually backfire.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Every time we raise the minimum wage, the number of jobless people increases.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Not exactly, we looked at those numbers in 1997 the minimum wage rose and unemployment fell steadily each month several years and it's happened several times as well. On top of that economists debate endlessly the linkage between minimum wage and job loss. So that claim is false.
That's not what low wage protesters were hoping to hear, by the way, as well, "Fight for $15" organized strikes around the country Tuesday, the fastfood workers, home care, child care workers, all taking to the streets.
New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo just announced a $15 minimum wage for all state workers. So the conversation is about raising the minimum wage, how high? It's different around the country but Republicans don't like it -- Michaela.
PEREIRA: Certainly, it's going to continue. Thanks so much for fact checking a lot of that for us, Christine.
Meanwhile, the Republican candidates may have been (inaudible) the debate stage, but in the late night shows they certainly made for some pretty great punch lines. Even the president didn't escape. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jeb bush said if he could travel back in time he would kill Hitler as a baby, adding "you got to step up man." and it's comments like those that have a lot of people telling Jeb, "you got to step down, man."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Obama has a personal Facebook page where he says he wants to have real conversations about issues. In other words he's new to Facebook. What is he talking about?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thought it was just to call each other fat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald Trump said that he is thinking about boycotting Starbuck's because Merry Christmas isn't printed on the red holiday cup. Trump was like everything should have one of two things written on it, Merry Christmas or my name. Fair enough. I agree with him. (END VIDEOTAPE)
PEREIRA: The Facebook comment is one you made yesterday.
CAMEROTA: I believe somebody may have stolen my line.
CUOMO: It was funny when they said it.
CAMEROTA: I know it was funnier.
CUOMO: No, it was funny.
[07:55:08] CAMEROTA: Mine was poignant.
CUOMO: That's good. It cauterized opinions on the subject.
CAMEROTA: Don't inveigle me. Meanwhile, a heated exchange between Bobby Jindal and Chris Christie last night, what was going through the New Jersey governor's mind when his rival offered him a juice box? We'll find out when we talk to Chris Christie live on NEW DAY.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TRUMP: We either have a country or we don't have a country.
KASICH: Come on, folks, we all know you can't pick them up and ship them back across the border. It is a silly argument.
MARCO RUBIO (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Either they win or we win. We better take this risk seriously.
CARLY FIORINA (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would not be talking to Vladimir Putin right now.
RAND PAUL (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think it is particularly naive and foolish to think that we're not going to talk to Russia.
TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Do you think defending this nation is expensive. Try not defending it.
CARSON: I have no problem with being vetted. What I do have a problem with is being lied about.
JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We to have to win the presidency and the way you win the presidency is that practical plans.
CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton. What Hillary Clinton is talking about doing? Hillary Clinton is coming for your wallet everybody.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
