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EgyptAir Hijacking; Capitol Visitor Center Lockdown; DOJ Drops Apple Case; Trump's Contentious Interview With Wisconsin Radio Host; GOP Candidates Eye "Critical" Wisconsin Primary; New Details Emerge In Brussels Attack Investigation; Salah Abdeslam Not Asked About Future Plots While Detained. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired March 29, 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] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: All right, we want to update you on this breaking news situation. There is an active hostage situation after an EgyptAir flight was hijacked and diverted to Cyprus. Most of the 81 passengers have been released. However, seven people are still being held on board. Officials say the hijacker is upset over his ex-wife. This is not believed to be terrorism. The flight was heading from Alexandria to Cairo when the hijacker threatened to detonate an explosive belt, which officials do not believe is real. We will have updates for you throughout the morning.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN HOST: Meanwhile, we turn to a scary situation at the U.S. Capitol yesterday when a man took out what appeared to be a weapon at the Capitol visitors center. That suspect is now facing charges. It is not his first run-in with capitol police. Senior politics reporter, Manu Raju, live from the Capitol with more of what we're learning about this individual known to capitol police.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICS REPORTER: That's right, Michaela. Barry Russell Dawson was charged last night with two crimes. One was charge with assault with a deadly weapon, another assault on a police officer while armed. Mr. Dawson allegedly entered the Capitol visitor's center complex and he was holding his firearm when security detectors actually picked up the fact that he had a firearm. The alarm went off. He waved around his gun and he was shot. After he was shot, he was taken to a local hospital. Surgery was performed on him. A woman, an innocent bystander also was injured because of shrapnel injuries that she sustained but after being treated for minor injuries, she was released from the hospital. Now as you say, Mr. Dawson is well-known to capitol police. In October 2015, he actually disrupted house proceedings when he -- disrupted the orderly house proceedings when he screamed out, I am a prophet of God. At that point, he was arrested and removed and told not to return to Capitol grounds. Obviously he did that yesterday when he brought back his firearm. The Capitol went into lockdown for several hours during that very, very tense situation. And now what we are hearing is that Mr. Dawson, after he becomes healthy, he's going to face his charges at D.C. superior court. Don --

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you, Manu. Appreciate that. After months of struggling, the FBI says it has unlocked the iPhone belonging to the San Bernardino terrorist. The bureau unlocked the device with the help of a third party after Apple pushed back, a top official saying, in part, and I quote here, my law enforcement partners and I made a commitment to the victims of the December 2 attack in San Bernardino and to the American people that no stone would be left unturned in this case. The Justice Department now dropping its case against Apple which now says the case should have never been brought.

CAMEROTA: All right, so stay with CNN for all of the breaking developments from that hijacking of EgyptAir flight 181. We'll bring those to you as soon as we get them. Plus, Donald Trump tangling with a Milwaukee radio host. We'll play you that radio interview, and also what we can expect during tonight's town hall. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[06:37:23] CHARLIE SYKES, RADIO HOST: Mr. Trump, before you called into my show, did you know that I'm a #NeverTrump guy?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: That, I didn't know.

SYKES: OK, because I thought it was interesting, and people were wondering, does Donald Trump know what Charlie Sykes has said about him in the past?

TRUMP: No, no.

SYKES: And I would give you credit either way on it but I was wondering --

TRUMP: No, no, I understand.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Well that was a doozy of an exchange. An anti-Trump radio host in Wisconsin interviewing an unsuspecting Donald Trump yesterday. This sets the stage for tonight's CNN Republican Presidential Town Hall in Milwaukee one week before the Wisconsin primary. So let's bring in our senior politics editor of "The Daily Beast", Jackie Kucinich, and CNN political analyst, David Gregory. Great to have both of you guys. So Jackie, before we get to the substance of the radio interview, the fact that Donald Trump's staff, campaign staff, didn't know Charlie Sykes' past and what he had, that seems like an oversight.

JACKIE KUCINICH, SENIOR POLITICS EDITOR, THE DAILY BEAST: Yes, it kind of could have been cleared up by a simple Google search. Charlie Sykes is a very prominent conservative radio host in Wisconsin. It's not like he's sort of an off the beaten path local reporter. So they really should have known he is a Cruz supporter, he's part of the never Trump movement, but the thing about this interview that was really interesting is that he wasn't angry about the fact he was asking Donald Trump these questions. They were very contentious questions but the way he sort of systematically dismantled Trump's argument that Ted Cruz was the one who sent around this controversial photo of Melania, which he didn't, it was an outside group, it was a PAC -- it was really interesting to listen to and the kind of Wisconsin nice the way he did it.

LEMON: Midwestern nice. But David, Sykes is the conservative radio host in Wisconsin, right? And listen, let's talk about this. Because Donald Trump has some explaining to do when it comes to Wisconsinites, because he said some things about Scott Walker. He said some things about Wisconsin. And this was Charlie Sykes quoting, he said, you said that Wisconsin is doing terribly in its turmoil, that it projected a $1 billion surplus and it turns out it had a deficit of $2.2 billion. The schools are a disaster. The hospitals and education here is a disaster. And then Donald Trump says, you know what, here's how he explained where he got his information from. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I can tell you, I got that from "Time" magazine. If you read the story from "Time" magazine from the time that the statement was made, that's exactly what they said. It was taken out of there verbatim. It was actually taken out of "Time" magazine on the story of --

[06:39:59] SYKES: OK, but you said it, Mr. Trump. You're running for president. Do you stand by what you said about Scott Walker?

TRUMP: I can only say what I took out of "Time" magazine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: PolitiFact, David, rated that information mostly false. How is this going to sit with voters in Wisconsin?

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think it's unique to Wisconsin that you have the sitting governor who was running against Trump earlier in this race and got out a long time ago because -- and I was surprised when Governor Walker got out because he had a lot of enthusiasm in the grassroots and among younger conservatives but he did get out and I think there's some lingering resentment in the state among conservatives who were supportive of Scott Walker and I think that's something that makes this much more of an interesting race in Wisconsin than we've seen in other contests. You see Cruz with some advantage in the polls and a lot of stumbling blocks for Donald Trump here. Some of the things he said, the coarseness of his own rhetoric and the kinds of things he said about Ted Cruz's wife and all the rest and that plays out in that interview that you saw there. So I think, yes. I think these issues -- and the fact that you have a candidate who says, well, I just read this in a magazine. It shows you the off- the-cuff nature, not that anybody would be surprised by that of Donald Trump.

CAMEROTA: Scott Walker, by the way, is set to endorse someone. It's a mystery as to who it will be, and about three and a half hours from now. Jackie, I want to --

LEMON: On Charlie Sykes' radio show today. He's going to do it on Charlie's radio show.

CAMEROTA: Yes, you're right. Charlie Sykes is quite relevant today, Jackie.

KUCINICH: Well yes, and Scott Walker and Charlie Sykes have always had sort of a very close relationship. I believe it was Charlie Sykes who had a phone that was a Scott Walker phone to call in. So they are very -- this is a radio host that was always very supportive of Scott Walker, so it makes sense. I do wonder though, I don't know, but it seems like Charlie Sykes is a Cruz supporter. Perhaps that might be a hint.

LEMON: That's what I wanted to ask you, David. Do you think because -- obviously it won't be Donald Trump. Do you think it's going to be Ted Cruz?

GREGORY: Well, if you look who Sykes has supported, I think there's something to that. I think Scott Walker is more of a conservative than Kasich. I would probably go in that direction. But this goes to a bigger issue here for Ted Cruz. There aren't a lot of plays left here as he's chasing Donald Trump. He's got a much more difficult fight, in other words, to get to the math that he needs in this race. And with the town hall tonight, it's very simple. If he's got to say, he's got to kind of out-tough-guy Trump to his own supporters to try to say, look, the guy's not conservative, he's a fraud. If you want somebody who's going to kind of break up the international system, our foreign policy, and all the rest, because don't forget, Cruz is pretty out there too on some of the things he said. (ph) Surveilling Muslims in American communities and so forth. He's got to try to disqualify him in that way or he's got to really make a move to say to the rest of the party, look, we've got to stop this guy. He's got huge negatives. He's going to be a huge liability to congress, to keeping the senate, to keeping the house, and so forth, and try to consolidate the rest of that vote. It's really one of those two ways and he's got to begin to establish in Wisconsin.

CAMEROTA: All right, we'll be talking more about this throughout the program. Jackie, David, thanks so much for giving us all that background. Don't forget, tonight on CNN, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, and Donald Trump take part in a GOP town hall in Wisconsin. That means real questions from real voters.

LEMON: You really don't want to miss this one.

CAMEROTA: The timing of this seems particularly relevant. This is a primetime event. It's moderated by Anderson Cooper at 8:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

LEMON: And also tonight, Senator Bernie Sanders sits down with CNN's Erin Burnett on OutFront, 7:00 Eastern, of course right here on CNN.

PEREIRA: All right, we'll have much more on the hijacked plane situation in Cyprus ahead. Seven people we know are still being held on board. We have updates to ocme for you. Also, authorities in Belgium, did they miss a chance to stop that terror attack because they didn't ask vital questions when they captured a key Paris terror suspect? We'll have that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:48:00] PEREIRA: A bit of turmoil within the terror investigation in Brussels. We've learned that officials did not even ask the newly captured Paris terror suspect about imminent threats when he was caught just days before last week's bombings. How badly is this investigation being botched? Joining us now is POLITICO's senior E.U. correspondent, Ryan Heath. Also with us is our senior international correspondent, Nick Paton Walsh. Nick, I'll begin with you. Why don't you bring us up to date on what you are learning from your sources about the investigation. Are they any closer to tracking down those two suspects that are still on the loose?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Sadly, Michaela, hour by hour, they are further away from that key goal. Obviously finding the man in white in the airport CCTV video and the man they believe was the accomplice, the metro bomber, is the most urgent task, as well as dismantling the cell that assisted them, for investigators here. But yesterday, in the afternoon, it emerged that a man called Faycal C., who had incorrectly and widely, across Belgian media, been identified potentially as the man in white, was released for a lack of evidence. They simply didn't have enough to hold him effectively, in the eyes of the investigation. Now, that of course has led to a great lack of confidence in how they are progressing. There has been a sigh of relief that maybe one of the two was now in custody. They're set back daily, and it appears, to mount every day, Michaela, the number of clues they had. Remember, we're talking about men who had Interpol notices out against them, who were deported from Turkey, who went on to be the bombers. There's a real sense here, I think, of an investigation in crisis, Michaela.

PEREIRA: An investigation in crisis. I mean Ryan, we look at what is happening in the last few days. We have seen all of these raids in and around Brussels. We've seen a number of people. I think there was nine people were arrested. Then several of them were released, as Nick was telling us, not enough to hold them. Does that mean they're innocent? Does that mean they don't have sufficient evidence? What is your assessment of what's going on here?

[06:49:57] RYAN HEATH, SENIOR E.U. CORRESPONDENT, POLITICO: Well, Michaela, we have really gone from the tragic to the urgent and now into the surreal. In the case of Salah Abdeslam, for example, they had three chances to capture him. Just after the Paris attacks, a couple of days after the Paris attacks in Belgium, and again with information that just wasn't put into a critical database in December. Three chances before they finally go him, and they're not asking him the questions about what they thought could be in the planning when they did get him.

PEREIRA: Well that's interesting because we understand that when they had Abdeslam, they had him in custody, he was with police but he had to be in a hospital because he was recovering from an injury from the raid -- when they finally did get him, they didn't ask him about any imminent attacks. To all of us, even lay people, that seems inconceivable.

HEATH: That's absolutely right. And the journalists here are feeling it as well. And I think it really gets down to the fact that there are many shades of gray between black and white. So the fact that he was in surgery, everyone can understand, you can't interrogate someone in the middle of surgery. But the difference between one hour of questioning out of 96 hours, and 96 hours of questioning, is a big gap. There's somewhere in the middle. The same with the searches in Molenbeek. You can either search every house in Molenbeek or 38,000, or you can search 120, or maybe you could search somewhere in the middle. There's a big gap between 120 houses and 38,000 houses being searched over the course of 120 days.

PEREIRA: And Ryan's just written this incredible article in POLITICO highlighting some of the 12 missteps, by your estimation, that were sort of perpetrated in the investigation, not acting on warnings from Turkey, insufficient resources to track these foreign fighters, and the idea that you can't search houses between 9:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. which, to Americans minds, that just seems ludicrous. Nick, I'm curious. What's your assessment of how things are going to move forward from here? Do you think we're going to see the same, casting a wide net, sifting through, releasing suspects, releasing people that they don't feel they have enough evidence on?

WALSH: Well I think the scope of the arrests we've seen, there is perhaps a feeling of, maybe some of the usual suspects are being picked up and then subsequently released. We don't know really the intimate detail of how Belgian investigators are pursuing, if they have leads, they are simply not letting people know about them. Day by day, the amount of evidence that they seem to have missed ahead of these attacks is staggering. We were literally at the apartment where the brothers prepared much of the chemicals for the bombs. One man there told us that the chemicals were so badly handled, they leaked from the top floor to the floor below, just a mere ten days before the blast. That was how obvious their behavior was. They even, in fact, one man there said he saw the key ISIS bomb maker, Najim Laachraoui -- a man who was on an Interpol wanted list -- head into that apartment at one particular stage. His expertise would have been vital to help make the bombs. The amount of evidence ahead is staggering. It is always easy to have 20/20 hindsight and say different things should have been done, that a greater sense of urgency should have been applied to the potential future threat to Belgium, but I have to say, it is remarkable at this point quite how much, simply as the media weren't able to unearth about the signs that were missed beforehand, Michaela.

PEREIRA: Unease, I'm sure, among the Muslim community there in Brussels, and especially Molenbeek, where those suspects hailed from. Nick and Ryan, thank you so much for your tremendous reporting and insight. Thanks for joining us. We should point out that tomorrow, right here on CNN, Chris Cuomo, he's returning to Paris, investigating the terror that stuck there just a mere the four months ago. You can see his special report. It will air Wednesday at 9:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN. Don --

LEMON: Thank you, Michaela. We look forward to that. We are tracking the latest on that hijacked EgyptAir flight. What we know about the hostage situation and what we are learning about the man who commandeered the plane to Cyprus.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:57:37] PEREIRA: All right. It's time for CNN money now. Chief business correspondent, Christine Romans in the money center. This could have been a battle of the ages, however --

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You're right. The U.S. Government says it will not need Apple's help after all. For weeks, the government has pressed Apple, even sued Apple, to help it unlock an iPhone belonging to the San Bernardino gunman. They have done it with the help of an unnamed third party instead. It's not clear if the FBI will alert Apple to the vulnerability that let them get into that phone.

New York could be the second state to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour. The answer could come as early as a vote on Friday. The governor wants to raise New York's minimum to $15 in five years. Yesterday, California Governor Jerry Brown announced a deal that would raise California's $10 minimum wage to $15 over the next six years. Michaela --

PEREIRA: All right. Thanks so much for that, Christine. We are following breaking news on the hijacked plane in Cyprus. Let's get to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An 8320 with 81 people, roughly, on board, was hijacked.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This sends a chilling message how easy it is to hijack an airplane.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Officials are saying that this is not terrorism related.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The manhunt continues.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're looking for eight suspects in total that they believe are connected.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police have carried out raids every day since the attacks.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They still don't know who that third bomber is.

GOV. JOHN KASICH (R-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's time for grown-up leadership.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Every vote is pivotal.

TRUMP: Ted is a very concerned puppy.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald prefers to communicate in 140 characters or less.

TRUMP: He's trying to steal things because that's the way Ted works.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Wait a minute. After we're done getting mad at everybody, what are we going to do?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN breaking news.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. Chris is off this morning. Don Lemon joins us.

PEREIRA: Don.

CAMEROTA: That's Don Lemon. I got that. And we do have breaking news for you because there is a hostage situation in Cyprus. A man claiming to have an explosive belt has hijacked an EgyptAir flight with more than 80 passengers and crew on board, some of them Americans. Seven people are still being held hostage at this hour.

LEMON: That's right, it is still unfolding. An official in Cyprus says the suspect is an Egyptian national who hijacked the plane over his ex-wife. The situation now, questions being raised again about global airport security. Will negotiators be able to resolve this peacefully? That's the question. Let's bring in now our international coverage and CNN's --