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Secretary Kerry Addresses Belgium; Belgian PM: Americans Among The Dead In Attacks; 6 Detained In Terror Raids As Manhunt Intesifies; 3 Detained Outside Belgian Federal Prosecutor's Office; Cruz Calls Trump A "Sniveling Coward"; Cruz And Trump Go To War Over Wives. Aired 6:30-7a ET
Aired March 25, 2016 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[06:30:00] JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: -- rising to meet this particular challenge. It's also important that we respond to the killers' inhumanity by underscoring our own basic decency and humanity ourselves. We should learn from the example of an American doctor, Laura Billett, who had just left the airport here in Brussels when she and a friend heard the bombs go off. She ran to a nearby police station and started to triage victims. She tended to any victims who came through the door. Doing what she could to treat shrapnel wounds, burns, and other injuries that she had never seen before.
She had a few supplies, very few, but that didn't matter to her. There are people hurt, she said, and I'm going to help these people. I am going to help these people. No statement could be simpler and yet no statement could really be more powerful. No commitment could be more directly opposite to what Daesh and similar groups represent. Mr. Prime Minister, your nation has suffered a cruel and unfair tragedy this week. People are hurt. But we are all of us going to help. No act of terror can undermine the foundation of our friendship or the values that define our alliance.
Our fundamental openness, tolerance, and diversity, our pursuit of justice, our dedication to preserving the blessings of freedom for ourselves, our children, and generations to come. On Tuesday, lives were viciously cut short and hundreds were injured. It is with irreplaceable loss in mind that we will renew our vow to come together against a common enemy in order to keep our people safe. And it is with their memory in our hearts that we must always stand in solidarity as friends, as allies, and partners.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We have been listening to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry talk about how the U.S. will lend support here in Belgium and about the shared solidarity at this time. We also, just before Secretary of State Kerry began speaking, we heard the Prime Minister say something for the first time that we hadn't heard before and that was confirming that Americans were killed in the attacks. We feared that, but that was not confirmed. Do we have any information, Clarissa, about who they were?
CLARISSA WARD, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we only have what we heard from Secretary Kerry which is, he mentioned among the dead, an American personal trainer on his way home for Easter vacation, presumably. Previously, we knew that a dozen Americans, roughly, had been injured. We knew that there were several missing, but there hadn't been any confirmation up until this point that they were actually dead, and that is of course because of the very grim nature of trying to identify the bodies after a bombing like this. Obviously it's a very difficult process to try to identify the dead, so we should be finding out more about who these Americans were, exactly, who died.
CAMEROTA: Nima, Americans that we've spoken to have been holding out hope that their missing loved ones were perhaps in a medically induced comas somewhere, their identification wasn't near them, maybe they couldn't be identified, sort of that hope that still existed that maybe they were in a hospital, but we did also get confirmation, I think from the U.S. State Department that everyone who is in a medically induced coma today has been identified.
NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.
CAMEROTA: And so it seems as though, the people who are still missing, it might just be the worst news.
ELBAGIR: Yes. And when you listen to the doctors describe the injuries that they were dealing with, this was a nail bomb. This was a very large amount of explosives, and having to try and piece together people's identity, one doctor described, said from fragments -- I mean, this is worst-case scenario in a civil disaster like this, but it now puts Secretary Kerry's visit and his offer of cooperation and support in a very different light. This adds so much more urgency to the fight, and really to the questions that are going to be asked about how these failures happen. Why is it that Europe is still unable to come together in an effective fashion?
CAMEROTA: Nima, Clarissa, thank you. Stand by, we'll be talking to you throughout the program. We will be live in Brussels all morning. We're going to take a quick break and NEW DAY will return shortly.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:38:47] CAMEROTA: I'm Alisyn Camerota live in Brussels and we do have some breaking news. We've just learned, Reuters is reporting that two Americans have been confirmed to have been killed in the Brussels attacks here on Tuesday. We also just heard in a press conference with U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, the Belgian Prime Minister confirmed that Americans were among the dead. This is what victims' families had feared, we had feared all along. Americans, we knew, were among the missing, but now we know that two have been confirmed dead. We will bring you more on their identities as soon as we have them. Now we want to go to a CNN exclusive for you. This is the moment that the parents of a Brussels attack survivor, Mason Wells, an American, got to see their son for the first time since the attacks. He was a Mormon missionary from Utah and he suffered shrapnel injuries and burns over his body. So watch his parents reuniting with him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mason! Love you, son. (END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: Amazingly, this was Mason's third brush with terrorism. We will speak with him later in the program. Mason was injured when dropping off his colleague, sister Fanny Clain, at the Brussels Airport on Tuesday morning. Fanny is 20 years old. She was headed to the U.S. as she was inside the departure hall just feet away from the blast. She was badly burned but she spoke to us from her hospital bed last night. She had come out of surgery. She was sleepy and sedated but she felt strongly that she wanted to tell her story. Here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FANNY CLAIN: We found a place to check in, and it was a big and glass part. So we went through and we start the line in front of the, like computer where you put your passport in and behind us starting the line a woman carrying his newborn baby in one hand and in the other hand pushing the stroller and then I head back and I was starting to talk to something and it was all black and I was laying down on the ground. It was all ashes all around was all gray. It was really stinky because of the burn and I was all brown on my coat, it was like a sticky brown thing and my hands was burned and my head. So I quickly, then I realized it was a bomb and I was laying down. Then I opened my eyes and woke up and go away, so I walked as fast as I can crying.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How do you make sense of how people could have done this?
CLAIN: To me, sounds like craziness. I don't know what happened in their childhood but I'm pretty sure that it was really weird and it's like brainwashed maybe. I don't really know. I think it's just like sad people and other more sad people who came together and wanted to make something huge. But all this sadness became into craziness and then they want all the world to be sad as well as them.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Have you been able to talk to your family and your friends and your loved ones?
CLAIN: Yes, I talked to them. They were all shocked and panicked.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Of course.
CLAIN: It's normal. They were not there and my family is very far away so I understand that it is kind of complicated to handle the situation. But I'm okay. The doctors are really nice with me and I don't feel so bad. I don't have so much pain. Sometimes, yes, but it's normal.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But you're going to get better.
CLAIN: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you for sharing your story. It means a lot to everyone to hear from the survivors and to hear how well you're doing. You're doing amazingly well. CLAIN: Simple, God is with us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[06:44:46] CAMEROTA: Fanny is originally from Reunion Island. We know how far away that is across the globe so her family can't make it to her hospital room but one of her sisters, her fellow colleague from the mission, was there with her last night and Fanny is going to be physically OK, the doctors tell us. She should be released about a week from now from the hospital but obviously what she saw there in the airport will last a long time. If you're just joining us, Secretary of State John Kerry and Belgium's Prime Minister just held a press conference in which they confirmed moments ago that Americans are among the dead in the Brussels attacks. That's the first time we've had a confirmation. Meanwhile, there were anti-terror raids and operations in Brussels overnight. At least six people had been detained in connection with the Brussels attack. So joining us now is senior correspondent for POLITICO Europe, Ryan Keith. Ryan, thank you so much for being here.
RYAN KEITH, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT, POLITICO EUROPE: My pleasure, as always.
CAMEROTA: What can you tell us about the raids last night and who was arrested?
KEITH: Well, we don't have a lot of information at this stage and one of the strangest elements is that three people were arrested outside the federal prosecutor's office. Now, I think that may explain some of the reasoning about how we got these raids to be happening throughout the night into midnight, because we all know about this law where you can't conduct raids after 9:00 p.m.
CAMEROTA: But hasn't that law, what I had heard was that that law, they had softened that law after the Paris attacks and realized that maybe at nighttime would be a good time to do some raids. So maybe they had already begun changing that.
KEITH: Yes, that process has certainly begun, that's absolutely for sure, but what we haven't done is completed that process. And we always have these missing gaps of information when these raids are conducted. We also have this morning reports of an arrest of a second individual who was seen on footage with the suspected metro bomber. So we don't have any information about exactly what has come can as a result of that activity but that's being reported widely by Belgian media now, and something that's quite disturbing but where we haven't been able to confirm any details is an accusation has been made in a Belgian magazine that a senior police officer in the town of Mechelen just outside of Brussels, they are accused of withholding crucial information about Salah Abdeslam's whereabouts during the last four months. So we don't know what may have been withheld, we don't know who may have withheld it, but I understand that there will be a press conference coming up soon to try and clarify some of those details.
CAMEROTA: That would be very helpful. We've heard about the intelligence gaps. We've heard that sometimes the Brussels authorities are ill-equipped to share intelligence, but if they somehow did it intentionally, that would be a different story.
KEITH: That would be a real game changer. And so that's why I think we have to treat that information very carefully. I think that you would have to have somebody really coming forward and admitting in clear detail what had happened before you could really say that that has happened. But if somebody has known over an extended period where Salah Abdeslam could be, then that is really taking us into territory that is beyond being overwhelmed with resources, beyond incompetence. That is going now into willful negligence and a lot of other nasty things.
CAMEROTA: Despite all of these developments, has Belgium lowered its terror alert level?
KEITH: Yes. So the official committee that looks at how alert we should be and what we should do to respond to those alerts, last night they reduced the threat level from the highest level 4 to level 3.
CAMEROTA: How does that make sense?
KEITH: In my opinion, that doesn't make sense. But I am trying to stay objective here as a journalist. I think it may be related to how you shift the resources around in order to protect people. At level 3, you have a bit more flexibility about who you can deploy in what situations.
CAMEROTA: I see. So it may be more about bureaucracy than it is about the actual terror threat?
KEITH: But it doesn't send a comforting signal. You haven't captured the key suspects you're after. The authorities acknowledge that this terror cell or cells is bigger than they originally suspected and now the threat level comes down. There's a gap in that logic.
CAMEROTA: Because two of the suspects are still unidentified and still on the loose?
KEITH: Yes.
CAMEROTA: And those are the ones that we saw from the airport with the hat and the light colored jacket. We don't know who that person is still?
KEITH: No. But this repeats a pattern we saw in November, when the city was in full lockdown for four days. So eventually a city has to come back to life. You can't keep schools closed forever. You can't keep the metro locked down forever. So without capturing any of the key suspects, such as Abdeslam, the threat level was taken back down to level 3. So it was at some level necessary but never logical. And I think we're in that same territory now.
CAMEROTA: Ryan Keith, thanks so much for all of the information. Also, we want to get back, we will update you as things develop here as they have been minute by minute from Brussels. We want to go back to New York and John Berman. JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks so much, Alisyn. We'll get back to
you with the news in just a moment. Meanwhile, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in a war of words over their wives. The Texas senator calling Donald Trump a "sniveling coward". How will this affect the race?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:53:06] BERMAN: The two top Republican presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, taking things to a new low. The campaign wives in the campaign crossfire now. Donald Trump retweeted this unflattering photo of Heidi Cruz which infuriated Ted Cruz. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's not easy to tick me off. I don't get angry often. But you mess with my wife, you mess with my kids, that will do it every time. Donald, you're a sniveling coward. Leave Heidi the hell alone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Joining us now with reaction, CNN political commentator and professor at the City University of New York, Peter Beinart, and CNN senior political analyst and senior editor for "The Atlantic", Ron Brownstein. Ron, sniveling coward. I mean, we've all seen a lot on the campaign trail. I haven't seen one candidate call another a sniveling coward before. That's pretty out there.
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, we have not seen the language that Mitt Romney used about Donald Trump a couple weeks ago either. Look, I mean, this is an extraordinary episode. I think, both for the substance of it and the potential and the likelihood of deepening the troubles that Donald Trump faces with women that we see already running 10 points weaker among women voters in the Republican primary, 73 percent unfavorable among women in the CNN/ORC poll, 82 percent among college educated white women who are the top target for Democrats in November, but I think the larger point is the contrast between what we are talking about at this moment and what we have been talking about for the last 15 minutes. I mean, this erupting at a moment of such gravity in kind of global affairs is just, I think, a reinforcement of what has been I think Trump's biggest single hurdle which is the doubts among many voters, even in the Republican primary, especially beyond it, that he has the temperament, the skill set, the personality to succeed as president.
BERMAN: It's a stunning juxtaposition, isn't it? I mean, this is essentially playground talk and what's going on in the world right now is anything but recess. I mean it's very, very serious, but to Ron's point, Donald Trump has some serious problems among women, Peter. You look at the polls, the latest CNN/ORC poll is a 74 percent unfavorable rating among women right now.
[06:55:05] There's an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll which is a stunning number also where you see 47 percent of women polled, Republican women, say they can't see backing Donald Trump ever. PETER BEINART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Right. And I think this is
why this idea that people are sometimes throwing around that he's going to be a strong Republican candidate because he's going to win over Reagan Democrats in the upper Midwest is so wrong. First of all, Reagan Democrats include women as well as men, right? So we have this idea that even among -- if you look at white working class people, even if you were to do well among white working class men, better than Mitt Romney, and there are questions about that, I think he's going to do significantly worse among women. This seems to be partly, just from a political tactician point of view, the problem with having a candidate who shoots from the hip so much. If Donald Trump actually consulted with people, would anyone have told him to retweet that disgusting photo that he did of his wife looking attractive and the other candidates -- I mean, it's so juvenile and pathetic, and it's a kind of symptom of the way he operates.
BERMAN: What he's able to do with a retweet, which is one click, is essentially take over the rhetoric in the campaign for two days. And, Ron, there's another thing here which you talk about healing. Donald Trump, in theory, this is the time during the campaign when he wants to unify the party. Yet you have Ted Cruz who was flat out asked if he would support Donald Trump as the nominee, if Trump becomes the nominee. Up until this point, Ted Cruz has made pretty clear that he would. But this is how he answers the question now, which seems to be a little different. Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So will you support him as the nominee?
CRUZ: I'm going to beat him for the nomination. He is not -- I am answering the question. Donald Trump will not be the nominee.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's leading right now.
CRUZ: Donald Trump will not be the nominee.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You say Donald Trump is a coward. Will you support him as the nominee?
CRUZ: Donald Trump will not be the nominee.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Now he said, Donald Trump will not be the nominee, but Ron, it was almost that pause, that three second pause before he said anything that spoke volumes. I mean, how do you support a guy you called a sniveling coward?
BROWNSTEIN: Yes, it is. By the way, to underscore Peter's point, every one of those Midwestern battle grounds, the non-college white women in 2012 were a larger share of the vote than the non-college white men. So if you're struggling there, that is a real limit on your ability to max out on your working class white support which is the key to any Trump general election strategy. But I think to your point, this really continues, I think, the story of the past month. Think about how this month started. Donald Trump won Arkansas and Massachusetts, Georgia, and Vermont. Any other candidate, we would have seen at that point the beginning of a consolidation around him, both by voters and elected officials. And instead, what do we have? We have the debate where he defended the size of his hands. We've had the upsurge of violence at his rallies, including in North Carolina where the protester was sucker punched and the full scale kind of breakdown in Chicago, and now we have this. And so you have this extraordinary situation where Trump still is a plurality front-runner. He has a bigger piece of the party than anybody else but he is not growing. You have got all of these warning lights blinking in terms of the general election with his extraordinary negative numbers in the CNN poll and other polls. Really unprecedented for someone, I think, at this stage of the nomination. Over 80 percent, for example, among nonwhite adults. So you have the party kind of paralyzed here where Trump is clearly stronger than anyone else and yet the resistance and the concern is not abating and if anything, it may be intensifying.
BERMAN: Well, maybe it will take a break for this holiday weekend. Ron Brownstein, Peter Beinart, great to have you with us. Thanks, guys. We are following a lot of news, not about candidates' wives and that back and forth. No, we're now getting word that Americans were killed in the Brussels terror attacks. Let's get right to it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN breaking news.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to your NEW DAY. We do have breaking news. I'm Alisyn Camerota live in Brussels. Michaela Pereira and John Berman are in New York this morning, but here is the breaking news. Two Americans have been confirmed to be among the dead in the Brussels terror attacks. Secretary of State John Kerry, along with Belgium's Prime Minister, delivering the grim news moments ago. This as Belgian police conducting multiple raids throughout the country, detaining at least six suspects in connection with Tuesday's bombings. This happened overnight. This manhunt, though, for the two unidentified attackers that you have seen the picture of from the airport, it is intensifying this morning. And Belgium's interior minister now admitting they should have heeded Turkey's request. It came last June to keep one of the suicide bombers in custody. We're also just learning that a man arrested overnight by French police in Paris for an advanced stage, they say, terror plot there is also linked to the November Paris attack's ringleader. It is a lot to get through and we are covering every one of these breaking developments for you the way only CNN can. So we want to begin with senior international correspondent, Nima Elbagir. Nima, a lot's happened last night and this morning, take us through it.
ELBAGIR: Well, this sad news about two Americans being amongst the dead really casts a different light on Prime Minister Michel's acknowledgment right at the top of that press conference that we --
