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Egyptian Military: Plane Wreckage Found; Clinton: 'I Will Be the Nominee'. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired May 20, 2016 - 07:00   ET

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

CAMEROTA: ... hours after the plane vanished from radar on its way from Paris to Cairo.

CUOMO: We still don't know why, and that's the question that the families of the 66 onboard care about most. U.S. officials are operating under a theory that a bomb brought down the aircraft. But with no claim of responsibility from any terror group, the question becomes, where does the evidence lead?

We have this story covered the way only CNN can. Let's begin with Becky Anderson. She's live in Cairo International Airport. We start there with the breaking details -- Becky.

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Are we still with us (ph)?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON (voice-over): A sign EgyptAir Flight 804 has been found. An Egyptian military spokesman says passenger belongings and parts of the aircraft have been located north of the coastal city of Alexandria. As the French foreign minister insists that the Paris airport from which the Airbus 320 departed was completely secure.

JEAN-MARC AYRAULT, FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER (through translation): The government strengthened all its measures following the January attacks. Everything has been done to reinforce everywhere.

ANDERSON: U.S. government officials serving as analysts in the investigation are operating under the theory that a bomb brought down the missing jet, but they have yet to find any indications of an explosion.

JOHN KIRBY, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: I'm not aware of any sensors that the U.S. military has or deploys that picked anything up on this.

ANDERSON: The French foreign minister also cautioning that terrorism is currently a suspicion, not based on any concrete evidence.

AYRAULT (through translator): We need to give the maximum amount of information in order to give the truth. We owe this to the families.

ANDERSON: The plane last contacting Greek traffic controllers at 1:48 a.m. but not responding to repeated calls just 40 minutes later. And after another 2 minutes, completely dropping off the radar. Egypt aviation, pointing to this strange communications pattern, says it seems more likely to have been a terrorist act.

SHERIF FATHI, EGYPT'S AVIATION MINISTER: Having a terror attack is higher than the possibility of having a technical.

ANDERSON: And Greek officials say the plane swerved, then plunged, before apparently falling into the Mediterranean. The U.S. officials say the swerving may just be the pieces of the plane in the sky picked up by the radar, supporting the theory there was some kind of explosion 37,000 feet in the air.

AHMED ADEL, EGYPTAIR VICE PRESIDENT: The aircraft scheduled maintenance was done on time. There was no snags or anything that was earlier reported.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON: And just moments from here, EgyptAir officials have just visited with friends and family who had gathered here over the last 30 hours in what is a makeshift crisis center, hoping for some good news about those people, those 66 people on EgyptAir Flight 804.

Sadly, EgyptAir passes on their condolences, offering support, offering to answer any queries or questions friends and family have and the president here offering regret and condolences in a statement to relatives, as well -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: So sad, sad, to imagine what they are experiencing. Becky, thank you for that.

Well, the number of those helping in the search effort is growing in hopes of locating the plane's recorders and more victims. CNN international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson is live in Greece with more. What's happening there, Nic?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Well, the Greek authorities on the island of Crete here operating two military air force cargo C-130 aircraft and part of that sort of surveillance to try to find where the debris field is, how big the debris field is, direct some of the vessels underneath towards where the debris is being recovered.

And of course, that is absolutely critical. What caused this plane to go down? Obviously, a bit of fuselage or debris picked up that shows some signs of an explosion, of some force from inside the aircraft, ripping and peeling back the fuselage, that of course, would be huge at this stage, early, early stage of the investigation. It would be a very important pointer.

So the Greeks involved in that. They have a surveillance aircraft out over the sea, as well. The United States is contributing an Orion P-3 surveillance aircraft. The British military have a naval vessel in the area, as well. Greek authorities here on the next large island to this one here have two helicopters on standby that can be deployed direct to help those actually lifting material from the water. So they're on standby to get involved. We understand the Italians and the Cypriots also are involved in this recovery effort. Looking out at the scene here, earlier today, it was mill pond, calm.

The wind is beginning to pick up. It's going to get stronger through the day, rain through the night. And the conditions are relatively clear visibility at the moment. But actually, at sea, a slight swell closer to land here, likely to be much tougher, deeper, bigger swell further out to sea where the recovery is going on -- Chris.

[07:05:12] CUOMO: All right. And obviously, there is a big concentration of effort also in bringing home these victims, as well. And that's going to be a big part of the coordinated effort. Different layers of this investigation.

There are big questions now about airport security. Who had access to this plane while it was on the ground in Paris? There's also another factor. The jet made several trips in its final 24 hours, including to some areas considered hot beds of terrorism. For that part, let's go to CNN's Max Foster live at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris -- Max.

MAX FOSTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Chris, the airplane sat on the tarmac here for an hour and a half before it departed for Cairo. Previously, it had been to Tunisia and Eritrea, but as we understand it, there was some level of security clearance, a sweep of the aircraft, as it sat here before it departed. All of the passengers that had been on the plane came off and didn't go back on.

So the working theory here is, while the investigators, while we try to find out what happened here, to try to work out who had access to that aircraft whilst it was standing on the runway.

And consider this, Chris: 86,000 people have security clearance to go air-side at this airport. So a lot of people to go through. They're poring through the video. They're going to the ground staff, wondering who had access on the ground, which airline staff had access to the aircraft and also the passengers, as well.

So a huge, huge operation. And you've got to think here that it's not a terror investigation yet, because nothing's been recovered. That doesn't actually officially start until you find some victims and the assumption is made that it's terror. So this could be ramped up to a whole new level.

And also consider the people here, the security analysts in this country, saying this is the safest airport in the world, simply because we've had these terror incidents in Paris, and also in Brussels, and every time this happened, security levels here have been ramped up a level.

Even today, they're checking bags going into the terminal. The entrance has been ramped up again. So people find it extraordinary that any device could have got onto the plane.

Having said that, French intelligence working with American and Egyptian intelligence to try to get whatever information they can, if it does, indeed, turn out to be sabotage.

CUOMO: All right, Max, thank you very much.

A lot on the table this morning. Let's discuss. Miles O'Brien, CNN's aviation analyst and science correspondent for "PBS News Hour"; David Soucie, CNN safety analyst and a former FAA safety inspector; and Paul Cruickshank, CNN terrorism analyst and the editor-in-chief of "CTC Sentinel."

Miles, starting with you. How do you prioritize the different layers of questions here in terms of priority?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, there are layers of access to the aircraft. You've got the passengers. We know the drill we all go through to get on an airplane. You've got the flight crew themselves. We have to trust the bus driver. Right? But we have to screen them.

And then you have the back door of the airport: the people, the caterers, the baggage handlers, all who have tremendous access to the aircraft. And when you hear about Charles de Gaulle, 86,000 people with a clearance you realize the challenge. Can all of those people go through the kind of screening we get at the front door of the airport? Should they? Is that a practical thing?

I think we should focus more on the security we don't see more than the so-called security theater. The front door of the airport.

CAMEROTA: David, we just heard Max say Charles de Gaulle Airport is the safest in the world. I mean, that's what we've been hearing since the Paris attacks and the Brussels airport attack. They really ramped up things. They weeded out people that had any sort of connection, they thought, to radicalization.

Give us context. Is it as, say, is the security there what we have and what we've experienced here in the U.S.?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: How do you measure safety? That's really the core question here. How do you measure safety? What's the safest place in the world? Is it the safest place because they've done more things to improve safety? Or is it the safest place because what they have is the safest in the world?

So if you're talking about the first, it's that they've done much more than any other airport, because they've been vulnerable, because they've had all of these issues go on. So they've screened their 87,000 employees, and they've laid off and they've fired about 12 or 13 of them that they found some things in their lockers.

CAMEROTA: Eighty-five, actually. I mean, that's the latest number. We heard that 85 of them had some sort of tie to radicalization.

SOUCIE: They did. But a lot of those, about a dozen or so of those were actually fired from their positions. The others because of French law, they remained in positions. They just had their access to the tarmac taken away. And so they're still at the airport. They might have different jobs, might be doing different things.

CAMEROTA: That's troubling.

SOUCIE: They're not allowed past that line. Now, although that has to be put in context as well, because what was it they found? Maybe they found some ISIS leaflets or something like that in their locker. Does that mean that they're terrorists? Not necessarily, but it puts them suspect. So you're -- you just can't change the law and say, "You had this leaflet so you go jail."

CUOMO: Miles is making a good point here. It's not just about the people. It's about the places and the things. You know, where they have access to and what they have access to.

[07:10:07] Remember, it was like a soda can or something that was used in one of these events. Are all of these checked? If so, how so?

Now Paul Cruickshank, the idea of the ascribing of the motive of terror to this situation, are you comfortable with that at this point? Where should we be in terms of our speculation?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: The French foreign minister this morning said that there is no theory that has been privileged at this point. There is no solid evidence pointing to terrorism right now.

There's been some speculation from the Egyptians and, frankly, speculations from American officials as well. But no solid evidence that may now come in the hours ahead, but very intriguingly, there has been no credible claim of responsibility whatsoever from any terrorist group, and that includes ISIS. They've put all out kinds of statements on all sorts of other operations in Syria and Iraq, but a deafening silence on this event that has taken place in the Mediterranean, Chris.

That's very interesting indeed, given the fact that also that MetroJet was bombed out of the sky by ISIS in the Sinai Peninsula in October of last year, it took them just five hours to put out a statement. From al Qaeda, they've taken sometimes longer to put out statements. The al Shabaab took 11 days to claim that attack on the Somalia airliner over Somalia back in February, but that was a failed attack, because the aircraft managed to get back on the ground.

One extra point here about Charles de Gaulle Airport, about European airports in general. The regulations are very strict in Europe in terms of airport workers and their access to secure areas, sensitive, critical parts of the airport.

They have to go through screening machines to get to those areas in Europe. The rules are stricter in Europe than they are in the United States, where they rely much more on background checks.

So it would be a very big feat indeed, even for an airport worker, to get a bomb on a plane at Charles de Gaulle Airport. It would be very, very, very surprising, a huge accomplishment from the terrorist point of view. So that, if you think it's terrorism and you're looking at a more likely scenario that, at some point earlier in the plane's voyage, in the developing world -- Cairo, Tunis, Eritrea, some of the other stops of that plane -- was that to get a bomb on the plane, because the security systems are not as well-advanced there.

CAMEROTA: Miles, let's talk about the investigation. You and I were talking yesterday about whether or not there should be some concern that Egypt is at the helm of this investigation, given that sometimes their time line for conclusions has been slower than, certainly, the U.S. would be, and their transparency. So where are you now, 24 hours later, with whether or not they can do this job the way we expect?

O'BRIEN: Well, since we spoke, and we were talking about EgyptAir 990, which we both covered in 1999. At that time, it was very clear to everyone -- the NTSB, anybody who listened to the tapes, me who flew the simulator -- that the second officer dove that plane in a suicide mission. There's no question about it.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

O'BRIEN: The Egyptians, to this day, have not accepted that theory.

However, yesterday after we talked in the context of a news conference, the Egyptians said, "Terror is at the top of our list." So maybe there's a shift.

CAMEROTA: That was heartening to hear.

O'BRIEN: That was. Well, I think that debate has been a long time, and there's been a lot of water that has gone over the dam here. So maybe, just maybe, that they've moved on; and they're willing to look at these things in a more honest way.

CUOMO: Your eyebrows go up.

SOUCIE: Well, there's a couple of things about that. One is that was many years ago and, yes, things have changed. A lot of things have changed. ACAIO has been very involved with adapting that culture in Egypt to more security and safety culture and less socio -- or politically-driven things.

However, is that really true? They say that it is terror because of the fact that it came from Paris, which takes the shift of blame away from Egypt and puts it on Paris? So is that what's happening?

What I would expect next is that they're going to ask -- Egypt is going to say, "We need to have our own independent security team go to Paris and go to de Gaulle and do our own security analysis." And Paris can't say no to that. Why would they?

CUOMO: What do you have to do in an investigation like this?

SOUCIE: What type of audit would they do?

CUOMO: What does that do? Does that help, having another team?

SOUCIE: It doesn't -- it's nothing wrong with doing that. What again it does is it takes the shift off of Egypt, because now Egypt is saying, it wasn't us. It had nothing to do with us. We're going to protect our tourism. We're going to blame it on Paris. CAMEROTA: OK, Panel, thank you very much. Great to get your

expertise and have you here with us on NEW DAY.

We'll get back to more details of the breaking news with the plane momentarily, but we have to talk about politics. Hillary Clinton says it is now a done deal. She will be the Democratic nominee. That's her take.

[07:15:00] How does Bernie Sanders feel about that? We'll have much more of Chris's interview with the Democratic front-runner, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Bernie Sanders isn't buying it, but Hillary Clinton claims the race for the Democratic nomination is over; and she is a lock to win it. Does that help the goal of party unity, with Sanders still winning primaries and vowing to take the fight to the convention? Certainly two sides on this. Here's Clinton's.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: So you get into the general election if you're the nominee for your party.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I will be the nominee for my party, Chris. That is -- that is already done, in effect. There is no way that I won't be.

CUOMO: There is a senator from Vermont who has a different take on that.

CLINTON: Well...

CUOMO: He says he's going to fight to the end.

CLINTON: Yes, that's right.

CUOMO: And there seems to be a change here, as Donald Trump is trying to galvanize his party, the Democratic Party, seems to be going the other way. His supporters have become more aggressive, feeling that the system is rigged against the senator. We saw what happened in Nevada. When you saw that, did you believe that Sanders responded the right way to that situation?

CLINTON: I was very disturbed by what went on there. But I am confident...

CUOMO: By him or with the supporters?

CLINTON: Well, what we saw; what we saw there.

CUOMO: The supporters?

CLINTON: Well, what we saw was disturbing. And, you know, I -- I have every confidence we're going to be unified. [07:20:15] CUOMO: Where does that confidence come from?

CLINTON: Well, in part from my own experience. You know, I went all the way to the end against then-Senator Obama. I won nine out of the last 12 contests. Back in '08, I won Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia. So I know the intense feelings that arise, particularly among your supporters, as you go toward the end.

But we both were following the rules, just as both Senator Sanders and I are following those rules. And I'm three million votes ahead of them, and I have an insurmountable lead in pledged delegates, and I am confident that, just as I did with Senator Obama where I said, "You know what?" It was really close, much closer -- much closer than it between me and Senator Sanders right now.

CUOMO: Vote wise.

CLINTON: Yes. Vote wise and delegate wise. I said, you know -- in fact, it depends on how you evaluated, I had more popular vote, but I had fewer delegates. And the name of the game is how many delegates you have. Right?

So when I came out and withdrew and endorsed Senator Obama, about 40 percent, according to polls, about 40 percent of my supporters said they would never support him.

So I worked really hard to make the case, as I'm sure Senator Sanders will, that whatever differences we might have, they pale in comparison to the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party. Name an issue you care about, domestic or international, and clearly, we are much closer, Senator Sanders's supporters and mine, than either of us is with Donald Trump.

CUOMO: Why don't you reach out directly to Senator Sanders and do the work of reunification, of unification for the party, however you want to see it? I ask this because Senator Sanders has said to me in the past and to many others, "It's not my job to get my supporters to vote for Hillary Clinton. Clinton has to make the case to these supporters."

And given what you're seeing, with this increase in hostility and antagonism towards the process in the primaries on the Democratic side, should you reach out to Bernie Sanders and say, "Let's -- let's start doing this the right way. Let me start talking to supporters"? From your perspective, have you done that? Have you thought of it?

CLINTON: I've said many times what I've just said to everyone, including his supporters. And I am absolutely committed to doing my part, more than my part, but Senator Sanders has to do his part.

That's why the lesson of 2008, which was a hard-fought primary, as you remember, is so pertinent here. Because I did my part. But so did Senator Obama. He made it clear he welcomed people who had supported me. He made it very clear -- we went to Unity, New Hampshire, together, appeared together, spoke together, and made it absolutely obvious that I was supporting him. He was grateful for that support. I was reaching out to my supporters. He was telling his...

CUOMO: You nominated Senator Obama at the convention.

CLINTON: I did.

CUOMO: Bernie Sanders is saying he's going to fight all the way through the convention. It's different.

CLINTON: He has to do his part to unify. He said the other day that he will do everything possible to defeat Donald Trump. He said he'd work seven days a week. I take him at his word.

I think the threat that Donald Trump poses is so dramatic to our country, to our democracy, and our economy, that I certainly expect Senator Sanders to do what he said he would.

CUOMO: Any thought to your making the first move and reaching out to make that process happen now, as opposed to months from now?

CLINTON: Well, we have -- we've had lots of conversations between people who know me well and support him...

CUOMO: But not directly?

CLINTON: Well, he knows exactly what I'm saying. He hears it all the time. Because I have said the same thing. I respect him. I understand the very passionate advocacy he feels for the issues he's been really pounding away at for years.

CUOMO: You know what would bring you two together very quickly? If Bernie Sanders became your vice president? Is there any chance of that?

CLINTON: Well, I'm not going to get into that. That's something down the road.

CUOMO: We're here in your hometown. Make some news, make an historic...

CLINTON: What will bring us together is Donald Trump. I think that's what's brings us together.

CUOMO: Is he even in consideration? Is he even on the list?

CLINTON: I'm not going to answer that question. Good try though, Chris.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: You had a lot of good tries there. Had a lot -- you don't like that. Nope. You don't like when you just take a stab at that and it doesn't work.

After Chris's interview, the Sanders campaign put out a statement responding to all of Clinton's comments in there. I'll read it for you. It says, "In the past three weeks, voters in Indiana, West Virginia and Oregon respectfully disagreed with Secretary Clinton. We expect voters in the remaining eight contests also will disagree. And with almost every national and state poll showing Senator Sanders doing much better than Secretary Clinton against Donald Trump, it is clear that millions of Americans have growing doubts about the Clinton campaign."

[07:25:23] They're like, "Please. Our obituary is quite premature," they think.

CUOMO: There is a fundamental disconnect in logic here. You have a Gallup poll that says 70 percent of Democrats say that this in- fighting is not a bad thing.

CAMEROTA: That's a new number. I mean, because some people have thought that it is the demise of the party to have this kind of in fighting. So the fact that people will get over it and believe that they'll get over it, that's pretty significant.

CUOMO: But how you fight winds up mattering. You know, we have different ideas. You debate the ideas, and then we move forward. We find out we're together, which should be more than we're apart.

But this isn't that. This is him saying, "No, no, no. I'm actually better. This would be a problem if it's her."

I think that's going to be a tougher weave at the end than it's being suggested.

So that is one part of the interview. Please, feel free to weigh in on social media, about what you think about this, @AlisynCamerota, Alisyn with a "Y."

CAMEROTA: Chris reads mine and hacks into it in response.

CUOMO: Yes, I do. All the responses actually come from me. Tweet her.

Coming back to the breaking news of the day. U.S. officials are working an initial theory. They say it looks like a bomb brought down EgyptAir Flight 804. Well, why do they think that? What is the idea of how a bomb got put on the plane? Are airport employees the vulnerability? We'll take you through it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)