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More Raids and Manhunt for Terror Suspects; GOP Rivals Back Off Pledge to Support Nominee. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired March 30, 2016 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:33:50] MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Belgian authorities carrying more raids and the manhunt for two fugitive terror suspects tied to last week's attacks in Brussels. The mayor of Belgium's capital saying there is no such thing as normal anymore.

Has the search for those suspects gone cold?

CNN's Alexandra Field is live in Brussels with the very latest on the manhunt -- Alexandra.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Michaela.

The fear and anxiety is palpable. It's ever present for people in this city who have been living under this heightened terror level for months now as these events continue to unfold. Investigators are, of course, targeting two additional bombing suspects from the Brussels attack, a third possible bomber from $e airport as well as a second possible from the metro station.

While they carry out raids to try to find those men or any information about them, authorities have also said that they have identified another eight suspects who they are looking for, people they believe are connected to either the Brussels attack or the Paris attack. It is why you see so many police officers on the streets of this city, it's why you see the stepped up security presence, European Union institutions reopened yesterday after the Easter holiday with heightened security in place.

But the airport where the attacks happened has not yet reopened.

[06:35:02] We are now hearing it could be months before the airport is open again. Efforts to get it open on a limited basis haven't been successful yet -- Don.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Thank you very much for that. We appreciate it.

They all promise to back the eventual nominee. But now, the three remaining GOP candidates are breaking that vow. What does that mean for the party moving forward? We'll discuss that, coming up.

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ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: A major reversal at last night's town hall. All three GOP candidates backing off their pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm not in the habit of supporting someone who attacks my wife and attacks my family. I think that is going beyond the line. GOV. JOHN KASICH (R-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have been

disturbed by some of the things I have seen. And I have to think about what my word and endorsement would mean in a presidential campaign. So I want to see how this thing finishes out.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No. I don't anyway. Look --

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: You don't?

TRUMP: No, we'll see who it is.

COOPER: You won't promise to support the Republican nominee.

TRUMP: And he was essentially saying is the same thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:40:00] CAMEROTA: All right. Let's talk about this. I want to bring in Trump supporter, John Phillips. He's a talk radio host at KABC, and a political columnist for the "O.C. Register". And Cruz supporter, Ben Ferguson, he's a CNN political commentator and host of "The Ben Ferguson Show".

Thanks very much for being here.

Ben I want to start with you. It sounds like all the candidates reneged on the pledge. Though Cruz equivocated somewhat on it. What does it moving forward then?

BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, look, I think what this means is you have to have a different dialogue coming specifically from Donald Trump's campaign. I think that's what that is in reference to. You have an individual is attacking his wife, that has gone to the lowest form we have seen in a Republican primary in decades. I'm not sure even in history we have seen something this bad.

And you also have a guy that last night advocated for nuclear proliferation in Donald Trump while saying we need to get out of NATO. Those are things that are not conservative, and I think that's one reason you're seeing this. Hey, I don't know if I can advocate for an individual who said I want a nuclear country like China but I also want to get on it of NATO. And he also is a guy sitting there attacking a wife personally, lying about his wife, and sending around retweets saying, well, I don't have to be held accountable for other people's words if I endorse them.

That's why you are seeing this, hey, I just don't know if I can support Donald Trump if he continues this type of rhetoric.

CAMEROTA: John, you're a Trump supporter. Some of the positions he took last night trouble you?

JOHN PHILLIPS, TALK RADIO HOST, KABC: No. I think what you saw last night was the tacit acknowledgment of both Cruz and Kasich that the only way they're going to win this is from horse trading going on and brokered convention. So, your opening question was, will you get behind the eventual nominee? At that point the only person that realistically has a chance at that without there being brokered convention is Donald Trump.

And so, these guys don't want to give up the power they have. They don't want to give up the chips that they have by saying, yes, we'll get behind Donald Trump if they plan on winning at a brokered convention and plan on playing dirty pool.

CAMEROTA: We just had one of our political analyst, Errol Louis, on, Ben, I just want to bring this up, who reminded us in a contested convention or the candidates at least duking it out is not an anomaly. In fact, it has happened in the sort of recent past. This is what conventions are designed for, to figure out who will be the party's nominee going forward.

So, you know, Donald Trump says it would be a catastrophe and his supporters would revolt. But maybe this is what the rules say can happen.

FERGUSON: Well, first of all, this is one of those narratives that Donald Trump has been pushing. Look at him say I'm going to sue in Louisiana if I don't get my way there when nothing bad has happened in Louisiana.

The fact of the matter is you have Ted Cruz that outplayed him with the rules on the ground. You also have delegates that have the freedom after Marco Rubio drops out to do whatever they want to do. That is how the game is actually played with the rules of the game that are used in a convention and with delegates.

And this idea that Donald Trump says, well, I'm going to sue you if I don't get my way. Or I'm going to go rogue if I don't get my way. If we go to convention and the rules of the convention are applied to the exact moment when we get there based on the fact that he did not receive the delegates that he needed to win this, you have now Donald Trump saying, well, then I'm going to destroy everyone else's chances and destroy the Republican Party at the same time, that is coming unhinged by Donald Trump pushing a narrative which somehow he has been wrong or something has been stolen from him.

This is the game and you knew the rules when you got in the presidential election. It is normal to have a contested convention. It's actually the entire reason why we have a convention in the first place.

CAMEROTA: John, I want you to respond to that in a second, but first I want to show these numbers, because this is where the delegate count is. Let me draw your attention to Marco Rubio there, who is still holding on to his 173 delegates. So, he can give them I think to who he pleases at the convention and that makes the numbers even more competitive, John.

PHILLIPS: That's right. But when you look at the states that haven't voted yet, you're looking at big blue states where Donald Trump is leading in the public polls. After Wisconsin, the state of New York votes, Donald Trump is right now leading by double digits in the most leading polls. Donald Trump is leading here in the state of California, including by double digits in the PPIC poll.

I live here. I'm a native Californian. I've lived here my entire life. Ted Cruz is going to have a difficult time winning in California. He appeared on stage with the pastor who called for death to gays. Even in a Republican primary, California voters will not put up with that sort of thing. He's going to have a very difficult time living in coastal blue states where Donald Trump has huge leads.

CAMEROTA: All right. Gentlemen, we have to leave it there. John, Ben, thank you.

Let's get over to Don.

LEMON: All right.

[06:45:00] Thank you very much, Alisyn.

The candidates fielding questions about jobs during CNN's town hall, and they have very different ideas on how to help the American workforce. We'll break it down for you, next.

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PEREIRA: All right. It's time for your money, your vote. Chief business correspondent Christine Romans in the money center.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, everybody.

Jobs and the economy, the top issue for primary voters. U.S. losing 5 million manufacturing jobs since the year 2000. Conventional wisdom, America will transition from low skills factory work, to high skills, high-tech manufacturing and service jobs.

But the outsourcing elbowed some people out of the labor market and has created anxiety among working class voters. At last night's town hall, voters asked Donald Trump and Ted Cruz what they would do to get Americans back to work in high skilled factory jobs. Cruz pivoted to education. Abolish the Department of Ed, give the money to states and focus on vocational training. Trump says he would bring the jobs back by renegotiating what he calls bad trade deals -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Christine, thanks so much for that.

Also, the tables have turned. Apple now wants answers from the FBI. The bureau managing to unlock the iPhone of a San Bernardino terrorist with the help of a third party rather than Apple.

Apple is afraid the FBI might have exploited a security flaw that could put customer information at risk.

[06:50:03] The FBI is not showing any interest now in helping Apple.

LEMON: Let's talk about terror now. In the wake of the Brussels' terror attacks, Europe is now on high alert. How widespread a risk does Belgium's flawed security pose? We'll discuss coming up.

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PEREIRA: Europe remains on high alert following Brussels terror attack. The manhunt intensifying for two fugitive suspects in the airport and subway bombings. Can future attacks be prevented?

Joining us now is CNN contributor and co-author of "ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror", Mr. Michael Weiss.

A pleasure. You've been with us so much over the last while, sadly because of all of this. We are still examining it.

Of course, it's been just a little over the week since the attacks in Brussels and we know there are two men at large. One they have identified. One we essentially know nothing about. That makes this problematic.

In terms of the problem that poses for Belgium but also for Europe as a whole, how do they get their hands around that?

MICHAEL WEISS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I think they're scrambling, to be honest.

[06:55:00] You know, Paris was more blamed on the Belgium security services that it was on French counterterrorism officials. This is the kind of open secret among the European CT guys.

Yes, as you say, one guy at large. They had arrested somebody, a few days ago, Faycal C, a man they have accused publicly of being -- I think the quote was something like a jihadi nightmare, jihadi horror story. And they let him good because there wasn't enough evidence to indict this guy, although he is still bizarrely charged.

I don't think they really know what to do at this point. I wrote a story at "The Daily Beast" last week, citing a CIA officer of 19 years plus standing who said going over to Europe and liaising with Belgian counterparts with any E.U. country is like dealing with children. They have not grasped the full magnitude and enormity of this threat.

That person did not just mean by the way, jihadist infiltration from Syria and Iraq. It was also this kind of culture milieu that has been cultivated for decades, right?

PEREIRA: Well, to talk about a bit of cultural milieu, that on top of a situation of foreign fighters returning, five parliaments, four governments, 12 districts within Brussels itself. Each of those has its own police force. You can imagine cross-communication is going to be challenging.

Two languages there, French and Flemish, so there's no one common language. We heard a lot of times they tell us the police there, very few of them if any speak Arabic.

WEISS: Yes.

PEREIRA: And that for districts like Molenbeek, it provides a huge, huge problem.

WEISS: Yes, and cloistering off of communities. And there was some reporting -- "The Guardian" did a day or two ago that people in Molenbeek were getting text messages saying, do not cooperate with the police, don't give them anything, don't inform on your neighbors, this kind of thing.

So, the lack of kind of, I don't know what going euphemism du jure, as you know, communal dialogue or -- I mean, I would call it broken window theory of counterterrorism. Having people from the community of Arab-North African decent, Muslims, join the police force, join the government, bureaucracy, and imbed in the communities and become active members. This is how you gather human intelligence. They don't do that very well.

PEREIRA: Yes, it's problems - it's problematic, absolutely.

Tonight on CNN, Chris Cuomo is taking a look at the Paris attacks, revisiting there to examine the terror that rocked the City of Love. And we have a clip of that that I want to play right now for you to see.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): It's just after 9:30 p.m. when investigators say the black car they believe carries Abdelhamid Abaaoud and other attackers pulls up to Casa Nostra. This surveillance video from DailyMail.com shows the moment a normal Friday turns tragic. As bullets fly and everyone said Casa Nostra ducks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I got a call from one of my colleagues who informed me shots and explosions had just taken place in Paris. So I immediately got on my motorcycle and returned to the hospital.

CUOMO: Outside Casa Nostra, the terror continues. A gunman approaches and aims at a woman lying on the ground. He pulls the trigger. Then, a miracle. His gun jams. And she scrambles to safety.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: Incredible to look at that, a few short months ago. Then we see Belgium. You look at Paris. Has there been any progress there? Is Paris any safer that it was?

WEISS: Well, look, the network that is responsible for this. And again, we're still -- I mean, this is like a vast underground apparatus, a honeycomb structure existing beneath city of both Paris and Brussels, people have been rounded up. People have been identified. I can tell you trying to report on what's really taking place inside ISIS has become a little more difficult. That's good. It means counterterrorism officials, from France, here, Britain, wherever are playing things close to the chest pause they know some of the things involved. I don't just mean operatives that are running around Europe.

I mentioned before on a program, ISIS is now in a sense bifurcating as an organization. There's the domestic apparatus, which is still fighting the war in Syria and Iraq. And then there is the foreign apparatus, the foreign intelligence service.

And the people who are now rising to the top of the ladder are Europeans. In some cases, not even of Arab and North African decent, converts to Islam. That is the problem coming forward because they come from these cities, they come from these countries, and they imbed. They know the landscape.

PEREIRA: Michael Weiss, thank you so much for this.

Again, I want to point you to our special that's airing tonight on CNN, "Terror in Paris", 9:00 p.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.

We are following a lot of news on this Wednesday, fallout from CNN Republican town hall. Let's get to it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Our wives, I think our kids, should be off-limits. They don't belong in the attacks.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I didn't start it.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCOHR: Sir, with all due respect, that's an argument of a 5-year-old.

TRUMP: I didn't start it.