Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Houston Floods Force Schools & Mass Transit To Close; Saudis Threaten To Sell U.S. Assets If 9/11 Bill Passes; Sanders & Clinton Spar Ahead Of N.Y. Primary; Interview with Brian Fallon; More Female Soldiers Deploying To Persian Gulf. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired April 18, 2016 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:33:00] MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Flash flooding wreaking havoc in Houston this morning. In fact, the situation is getting worse by the hour. Schools are shut down, bus and rail service halted because of this torrential rain. So far this morning emergency crews have already performed at least 90 water rescues.

Our meteorologist, Chad Myers, joins us now with an update. It's increasingly bad.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It is. Officials are saying just don't go on the roads. They are that bad. There's nothing that is that important to risk your life to get on the road for today. That's how bad these warnings are. That's how high the water is. Above the tops of cars in parking lots.

You can go onto Twitter and just search Houston because it's trending, and you'll be able to see all of the incredible pictures of what 20 inches of rainfall will look like. Now, if you're northwest of the city, like Katy and those areas, those are the areas that really have picked up the most. But it is now really raining hard in Houston, as well, so that flooding is going is going to get into the downtown area.

Hundreds of flights to Houston today are going to be canceled, already about 100 on the map right now. But most of them are going to be done because there's no way to get to or from the airport once you get there. That's how bad this flooding is. Never before seen levels are some of the words being used by the weather service out there -- guys.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Wow. We'll keep a close eye on it with you, of course, Chad Myers. Thank you so much.

Meantime, let's talk about Saudi Arabia warning that there will be severe economic consequences for the United States if Congress passes this bipartisan bill that could hold the Kingdom responsible for any role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

This comes, actually, just a couple of days before President Obama touches down in Saudi Arabia. So joining me now to discuss is Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN's "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS". Good morning, and thank you so much for joining us.

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST, "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS": It's a pleasure. [07:35:00] BALDWIN: First of all, just in terms of the potential, if this bill were to pass and the White House -- you know, we don't know if the president would veto. They're not commenting, as they say, on a hypothetical. Saudi Arabia threatening to sell off billions of dollars of American assets. Secretary Kerry has said this would be a terrible precedent. How damaging do you think it would be?

ZAKARIA: Pretty damaging. Look, this is what happens when Congress gets involved in foreign policy. You always cringe because you know it's a highly-partisan involvement of very complex issues. Look, the problem with Saudi Arabia is, on the one hand, there's no question that Saudi Arabia has funded and exported a very extreme intolerant version of Islam that has, in some ways, been at the heart -- the ideological heart of al Qaeda, and even ISIS.

On the other hand, these guys, the terrorists, have also been attacking the Saudi government for 20 or 30 years, so the Saudi's have, at a security level, been trying to fight them. They've been one of the United States' closest allies. It's almost like they created a Frankenstein's monster, somewhat unintentionally, and are now reaping the consequences.

In that complexity, to say that they are legally liable as a government for actions that some of their citizens participated in 15 years ago strikes me as both politically very, very difficult, but also borderline unconstitutional. I mean, how does that work that you're going to hold people liable for wrongful acts that happened 15 years ago?

BALDWIN: Which is precisely what a number of these victim's families would say. Yes, that they should be able to sue countries like Saudi Arabia for any kind of involvement. They've never been formally implicated in 9/11. They've long denied any involvement, but when you look at the number of hijackers -- what is it? Fifteen out of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals. You talked to the head of the 9/11 commission. What did he say?

ZAKARIA: So, now what this kind of revolves around is that within the 9/11 --

BALDWIN: The 28 pages.

ZAKARIA: Within the 9/11 commission report there is said to be 28 pages that were not released. Now, this was not actually in the 9/11 commission report. This was in an earlier congressional report that finished its work in 2002. But, I called up the director of the 9/11 commission --

BALDWIN: Which is classified.

ZAKARIA: It's classified, and he explained why it was. And I want to put up the quote --

BALDWIN: Sure.

ZAKARIA: -- because it's really an important -- it's important to understand exactly what he's saying. "The '28 pages' is based almost entirely on unvetted, raw material that came to the FBI, materials which then was written up in FBI files as possible leads for investigation. Before completing its work, the congressional panel never had a chance to check any of these leads.

It never conducted any interviews on this material. That is why the '28 pages' have not been released. They are not traditional classified material. The concerns are more in the nature of (those) covered by grand jury secrecy rules, because the unvetted leads appear to implicate people in serious crimes without the benefit of follow up investigation to determine if such charges are valid."

Now, it's very, very important to understand what that means in this context. There clearly was some Saudi involvement in 9/11, but by Saudi, one means Saudi citizens. It is not clear -- in fact, it was is very unclear that the Saudi government in any way was involved. And, by and large, it wasn't because, as I say, al Qaeda was trying to depose the government of Saudi Arabia, among other things. It's highly unlikely that the Saudi government was in any way involved.

BALDWIN: President Obama lands in Saudi Arabia, I believe it's Wednesday, and meets with the king and a number of other Saudi government officials. Is this any sort of topic of conversation or not at all?

ZAKARIA: Oh, it will be -- I'm sure it will be front and center. The Saudis are very worried about this. Their threat is, frankly, too blunt an instrument. They shouldn't be talking about it in that way. You know, it's one of those classic cases where if you owe the bank a million dollars it's your problem. If you owe the bank a hundred million dollars it's their problem.

The Saudis can't really sell. They own hundreds of billions of dollars of U.S. assets. You try and sell that, the value of it all will plunge. The Saudi economy will be thrown into turmoil. I think it would certainly mean that the Saudis would have a much weaker relationship with the United States, would invest less in it, would buy less of its treasuries going forward. I'm not sure that they could actually carry through their threat to sell.

That's not the reason it's a bad idea. The reason it's a bad idea is it hijacks American diplomacy from the president. It puts in jeopardy American soldiers. And Americans -- remember, we have a big footprint all over the world. We've done stuff all over the world. If every other country were to start suing the United States for things that, particularly, were done by American citizens or companies, it would be a disaster.

And, as I said, the role of Saudi Arabia is very complicated. I've been a critic of Saudi Arabia from day one after 9/11 for feeding this ideology. But I think it's unfair to say that the Saudi government, which has been the target number two in many ways for many of these groups, was actually implicated, itself, as a government.

[07:40:00] BALDWIN: OK, Fareed Zakaria, thank you so much.

ZAKARIA: Pleasure.

BALDWIN: Thank you.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, the big primary tomorrow here in New York. We're not talking about the polls. You know why? Because they don't matter at this point. It's all about which campaign can turn out the vote. Yes, Clinton has a double-digit lead in the polls but can she make it count at the ballot box? We're going to go through the strategy next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:44:00] CUOMO: Hillary Clinton is up in the polls heading into tomorrow's big New York primary, but it's all about how to get it done on the ground. Her campaign is saying what you will see tomorrow is a metaphor for the big states to come. Let's check in with Brian Fallon, press secretary for Hillary For America. Also, former spokesman for the Department of Justice.

Brian, good to have you. Why do you believe that tomorrow is going to be a big day for Hillary Clinton? What are you seeing on the ground?

BRIAN FALLON, PRESS SECRETARY, HILLARY FOR AMERICA: Well, thanks for having me, Chris. We do think that we'll be successful tomorrow in New York. I do think that the margin will probably be a little tighter than people might expect but we think we're going to pull this out. And that is going to be a very meaningful victory because despite what his campaign may now say, New York is truly a must-win for Sen. Bernie Sanders if he is to contend for this Democratic nomination.

For weeks now, after Hillary Clinton won a series of big states like Ohio and Florida, the Bernie Sanders campaign said just wait until New York. New York is the state where we're going to begin to mount our comeback. And right now they do face a significant delegate gap of about 220 delegates.

[07:45:00] New York is one of the few states that has enough delegates at stake for them to make up that difference. If they don't make it up in New York it's hard to see how they have a path forward so it's truly a must-win for Sen. Sanders. And if we prevail tomorrow night we think that that will put us that much closer to clinching the nomination.

CUOMO: All right, so that's the challenge on the Sanders side. Let's deal with a couple of the challenges on your side. The big, ugly number that you see in the polls is the unfavorables, right? You've got 56 percent, I think, of people who are going to vote here, a lot of them Democrats, are saying unfavorable.

You see the numbers we're putting them up for the audience right now. Favorable, unfavorable -- in April, 32-56, now 38-51. You can see that it's trending the right way but still a big number there. Now, why do you think that number persists?

FALLON: Well, I think that even though we're in a primary right now you've seen outside groups on the Republican side spend millions of dollars attacking Hillary Clinton already because she is the candidate that they fear in a general election.

And lately, unfortunately, despite promising to wage a campaign that would avoid negative personal attacks, the Sanders campaign has been getting into the game and you've seen Sen. Sanders question her qualifications and her credibility.

But I think that there was a very important moment in the debate last week where Sen. Sanders was pressed on a central criticism he has made of Hillary Clinton of late. He was asked, you know, you suggest that she has been compromised by financial contributions she has received. Can you point to a single vote or a single issue where you believe that those contributions have at all influenced her?

And he couldn't name a single example. And the reason was because there isn't one. So, while we know that these attacks are going to persist and these false criticisms are going to be made, I think at the end voters see through them.

CUOMO: At the end of the day, though, money is just a problem in and of itself. Even George Clooney, who was raising the money for you guys this weekend, he says it's for the whole ticket, not just for Hillary Clinton. But even he calls the money in the business of politics, right now, obscene.

Errol Louis was on the show this morning and he made an interesting point. He says advisers from the campaign are saying that you know, this isn't just about a lot of money going into negatives. It's that Hillary Clinton is a woman. Did you see them throwing dollar bills at her in the car? Why dollar bills? Was that some type of reference to some kind of sex trade reference? And did you hear that guy say Democratic whores? Do you think that's a coincidence?

Now, to hear it from the other side, they say yes, it is a coincidence. They're throwing money and the guy apologized for saying whores and said he was talking about Congress, not Hillary Clinton. Do you believe that there is sexism involved in her negative number?

FALLON: I'll let others make that judgment. I just think, in general, that Sen. Sanders and his campaign has an obligation to conduct themselves in a way that sends a signal to their supporters that we should keep the discussion here in our Democratic primary on the issues so that it won't impair our party's ability to come together and unify when this nomination contest is over.

In 2008, at the end of a very spirited contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton endorsed President Obama, gave a stirring speech at the Democratic Convention, urged all her supporters to back him for president over John McCain. And I hope and I'm optimistic that Sen. Sanders, at the end of this long process, will do the same thing.

CUOMO: Donald Trump just came out with a new -- what would you call it? I guess a nickname for Hillary Clinton. Crooked Hillary, he's saying. Now, the merits of it you can put aside. Obviously for you, you're working with the campaign but this is a window into what is to come if you get the nomination. How big a challenge do you think that will be? It's going to be all personal by the indications of that.

FALLON: Of course, of course. And I think that is actually the second or third nickname that he has cycled through because the others just haven't stuck. Look, we are fully aware that because Hillary Clinton has called out Donald Trump at every turn, condemned every one of his outrageous positions and insults that he has thrown at immigrants, and women, and Muslims, that he is going to return in-kind with personal insults, slinging mud, and crude personal attacks.

That is not going to silence her. He is not going to put her on her heels. She's going to continue to call him out and challenge him. And I think that Donald Trump has a lot of work to do within his own party before he needs to start worrying about Hillary Clinton.

Right now we're seeing a historically divided Republican Party. Donald Trump, if he is indeed the nominee at the end of potentially a brokered convention, will enter a general election with, possibly, historically high negatives. So he has a lot of work to do in his own side before he starts to worry about defining a general election with Hillary Clinton.

CUOMO: All right, Brian, it's all about the groundwork going into tomorrow morning. Good luck, as we wish all the campaigns. A big chunk of delegates and superdelegates to be had. Talk to you soon.

FALLON: Thank you. Thank you, Chris.

CUOMO: All right, so you hear it from the Clinton perspective. What about from the Sanders perspective? There is the senator himself. He's going to be joining us live in the studio to go through what matters. Stay with us for that -- Brooke.

[07:50:00] BALDWIN: Meantime, an operation to take on terror. It is, by no means, a man's mission. We are going to introduce you to several women putting their lives on the line. They're in the Persian Gulf. What drives them? I found out. I had two-day embed with the U.S. Navy week before last in the Middle East. We'll share the story with you, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:54:00] BALDWIN: Recently, the U.S. Navy invited me to witness firsthand the war on terror against ISIS, so four flights and thousands of miles away I landed on the USS Harry S. Truman, the aircraft carrier in the middle of the Persian Gulf. I interviewed a number of sailors during my two-day embed, including several women. Here are just some of their stories in a CNN exclusive.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: This is the U.S. Navy's frontline of the war on terror in the Persian Gulf. Lieutenant Commander Kate Batten deployed two weeks after the Paris terror attacks and her resolve only deepened after the recent bloodshed in Brussels. KATE BATTEN, LIEUTENANT COMMANDER, U.S. NAVY: That is exactly what we're out here. If anything, it gives us that much more purpose and resolve to ensure that we're doing things the right way and that we leave this region better than we found it.

[07:55:00] BALDWIN: When you put on your flight gear what does that feel like?

BATTEN: It's interesting because it's a routine now. It's something I do every day so a lot of times I don't think about it. But when I sit back and think what does this really mean, I still get goosebumps every time I take a catapult off.

BALDWIN: Operation Inherent Resolve is by no means a man's mission. Batten is the senior female aviator on this hulking aircraft carrier, the USS Harry S. Truman, full of fighter jets ready to strike ISIS.

This, right here, is a bomb. It's not live. It's held just before the F-18 takes off and oftentimes these pilots don't know what the specific ISIS target is until they're already in the air. Batten flies an E-2, protecting those jets. Her aircraft, one of the most essential for carrier operations. Acts like air traffic control in the skies above Iraq.

For those pilots who are getting the coordinates to drop the bomb, how serious do they take their job?

BATTEN: We do meticulous planning every day for whatever mission that we're performing and I know they don't take their responsibility lightly.

BALDWIN: Orchestrated, coordinated terrorist attacks happening in the west.

REAR ADMIRAL BRET BATCHELDER, U.S. NAVY: Right, right.

BALDWIN: Is that frustrating to you -- discouraging, given everything happening out here in the Gulf?

BATCHELDER: Yes, I would say it's disappointing. It's disappointing that we have human beings that would do that to other human beings. On the other hand, it's motivating and is assuring that the mission that we're on is very righteous.

BALDWIN: What does, ultimately, success or victory look like?

BATCHELDER: Yes, I think it looks like violent extremism being eradicated and I don't know that we achieve that on this deployment.

BALDWIN: Here on the USS Harry S. Truman, this is what's known as a cat shot. There about 90 (INAUDIBLE) of these F-18's per day and when you feel the afterburn of these jets, let me tell you, it makes your teeth rattle.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PEREIRA: That is incredible, Brooke.

BALDWIN: I mean --

PEREIRA: What an incredible --

BALDWIN: It was the -- of my 17-year career in journalism, it was the most important to me. My grandfather was in the Navy for 43 years so it meant a lot for me personally. But just to be out there, I walked away with such a profound appreciation.

We report on the war on terror, but to see the -- you know, they're all color-coded on an aircraft carrier and to see the guys in the red shirts rolling the ordnances to the F-18's to then watch them take off knowing they were headed over Iraq and Syria, it was phenomenal. And that's just the beginning of a three-part series.

PEREIRA: Oh, wow.

BALDWIN: Thank you for allowing me to roll this out on your show.

PEREIRA: Are you kidding? It's such a privilege.

CUOMO: It's important to remind people that you, basically, have a floating city out there of Americans that are risking their lives every day.

BALDWIN: Every day.

PEREIRA: Resolve -- that word sticks with resolve.

BALDWIN: More today on my show at 2:00 eastern.

CUOMO: There's a lot of news. That was an important look for you, but we've got the headlines and deeper, so let's get to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Well, it's a rigged election.

REINCE PRIEBUS, CHAIRMAN, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: I find it to be rhetoric and hyperbole.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're in a battle. A nationwide battle for delegates.

TRUMP: They didn't come out for lyin' Ted Cruz. They don't know who Kasich is. Nobody does.

GOV. JOHN KASICH (R-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I mean, come on. Act like you're a professional.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Welcome to the political revolution.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't think there's been a more important election. SANDERS: We made less money in a given year than Sec. Clinton made in

one speech.

CLINTON: My opponent talks about taking on the interests. Where were you? I mean, really.

PEREIRA: Devastating earthquakes, both in Japan and Ecuador.

BALDWIN: Hundreds are dead, thousands more injured.

CUOMO: Rescue crews are still racing against time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota, and Michaela Pereira.

CUOMO: Good morning. Welcome to your new day. It's Monday, April 18th, 8:00 in the east. Alisyn is off. Brooke Baldwin is here --

BALDWIN: Hello.

CUOMO: -- fresh from the aircraft carrier.

BALDWIN: You like that?

CUOMO: Good to have you here with us.

BALDWIN: Happy Monday.

CUOMO: And we have big news for you this morning on a lot of different fronts. Politically, you've got Donald Trump doubling down on his war with the RNC one day before this very important New York primary. Trump, calling out party leaders for what he says is a rigged system. Now, he also lost again this weekend and he's upset about it. People say he's whining. Trump insists he's been robbed because of the way Wyoming went. All 14 delegates to Ted Cruz.

BALDWIN: So, that's the Republican side. We also have to talk about the Democrats this morning. Hillary Clinton is hoping to finish off Bernie Sanders with a decisive win come tomorrow. Senator Sanders drawing enormous, enthusiastic crowds in Brooklyn.