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Bernie Sanders Continues Democratic Presidential Bid; Donald Trump to Meet with Senator Bob Corker; Submarine Searching For EgyptAir Black Boxes; Flight Data Indicates Smoke Alerts Minutes Before Crash. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired May 23, 2016 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] REP. WILLIAM KEATING, (D) MASSACHUSETTS: We have to continue to up ours in the U.S. domestically, as well as trying to give as much assistance as possible to Europe. Now, at Charles de Gaulle airport, that's one of the most secure in the world. Yet now they found out after doing a little scrubbing there that they found 85 people there.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Congressman Bill Keating, thanks for all the information and being on NEW DAY.

KEATING: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: We're following a lot of news, including new national polls in the 2016 race. Let's get right to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BERNIE SANDERS, (D-VT) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We need a serious discussion about the role of super delegates.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have a process setup that is eminently fair.

SANDERS: If elected president, she would not be reappointed.

HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I will be the nominee.

SANDERS: I don't want to see the American people voting for the lesser of two evils.

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're going to make our country absolutely great again.

CLINTON: There's no evidence he has any ideas about making America great.

TRUMP: Hillary Clinton gets in, I don't know if our country can ever recover.

CLINTON: You have someone running for president who is afraid to release his tax returns?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Welcome to the hungry for power games. Assemble the tributes. Yes! UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I'm in charge, America's going to start

winning and winning bigley.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Remember when I told everyone to stop talking about your damn e-mails? What a schmuck.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota.

CAMEROTA: We'll be playing some of that later. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It's Monday, May 23rd, 8:00 in the east. Up first, Bernie Sanders not backing down, the Vermont Senator slamming his own party and the woman in charge of the DNC. He declares that he would oust Debbie Wasserman-Schultz if he is elected president while also accusing the Democratic establishment of trying to, quote, "anoint" Hillary Clinton. Sanders labeling Clinton the less of two evils, and it appears his bitter primary battle with the former secretary of state may be inflicting damage.

CUOMO: Two new national polls have Clinton and Donald Trump locked in a dead heat. Today, Trump will be in New York meeting with Bob Corker. The question is, could the Republican senator from Tennessee be tapped as Trump's running mate? With that provocative question, we kick off our coverage of the 2016 race the way only CNN can. Let's begin with senior Washington correspondent Joe Johns. Joe?

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Chris, on the Democratic side, it's a sign of bitterness in the race. One of the top candidates suggesting if elected he would get rid of the leader of his party. And then there's that Sanders sound bite, suggesting Americans could be choosing between the lesser of two evils in November. Here is what we know. Some of the latest polling does show sky-high negatives for both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SANDERS: Thank you!

JOHNS: Bernie Sanders coming out strong over the weekend against the head of the Democratic National Committee, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.

SANDERS: With all due respect to the current chairperson, if elected president, she would not be reappointed to be chair of the DNC.

JOHNS: Sanders going as far as backing her challenger for her Florida House seat.

SANDERS: Clearly I favor her opponent. His views are much closer to mine than is Wasserman-Schultz's.

JOHNS: The head of the DNC responding, insisting she'll stay unbiased, saying in a statement, "I remain as I have been from the beginning, neutral in the presidential Democratic primary." Sanders further challenging the establishment, doubling down on charges that the party is unfairly propping up Hillary Clinton's campaign before the primary contests are finished.

SANDERS: You have 400 pledged delegates come on board Clinton's campaign before anyone else was in the race. That's called an anointment process. That's called the establishment talking.

JOHNS: Sanders saying he's the one to carry the party to victory in November.

SANDERS: Virtually every national poll and every state poll, we defeat Trump by larger numbers than does Secretary Clinton.

JOHNS: Pointing out the unfavorable ratings plaguing both Clinton and Trump.

SANDERS: I don't want to see the American people voting for the lesser of two evils.

JOHNS: But quickly walking back that description when pressed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that how you would describe Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump, the lesser of two evils?

SANDERS: No, I wouldn't describe it. But that's what the American people are saying.

JOHNS: Clinton less than 100 delegates shy of officially clinching the nomination.

CLINTON: There's no way that I won't be.

JOHNS: Taking a jab at Sanders' viability on Sunday.

CLINTON: I have been vetted and tested. I don't think he has had a single negative ad ever run against him.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: Everybody is watching the west coast this week as the candidates get ready for the California primary on June 7th. Bernie Sanders is spending most of the week there, and Hillary Clinton heads out west today after a speech in Detroit. Alisyn?

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

Look at this. Two new national polls have Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton locked in a dead heat, Clinton at 44 percent, Trump at 46 percent, that's in the "Washington Post"/ABC News poll. "The Wall Street Journal"/NBC poll basically flips that, Clinton at 46 percent with Trump at 43 percent. This as Trump is set to meet with a possible V.P. candidate. CNN correspondent Phil Mattingly joins us with more. What have you got, Phil?

[08:05:16] PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, Alisyn, the numbers, they certainly are interesting. The Republican Party clearly coalescing behind its nominee. Trump's numbers have shown substantial improvement even as his negatives remain at historic highs.

Take a look at this -- 58 percent of registered voters in the NBC/"Wall Street Journal" poll have a negative opinion of Trump. That is the highest in the poll's history. Yet even in that there's actually some good news. His negatives have improved by 12 points since April. This is something his advisers predicted would eventually happen. These numbers all coming as Trump continues to reach out to the various crucial blocks that make up the GOP as well as its top officials. Today it's Senator Bob Corker, Tennessee Republican, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. His showing up in New York is stoking speculation that perhaps the former Chattanooga mayor may be in the running to be Trump's running mate selection.

Corker is the latest top foreign policy official to meet with Trump, essentially a tacit acknowledgement of Trump's need to beef up his expertise in that area. As to the vice presidential selection, Trump and his advisers continuing to maintain that selection will be announced in July at the Republican National Convention. Chris?

CUOMO: All right, let's go back to the Democrats here for a second. The new polling shows Bernie Sanders beating Donald Trump by 15 points head to head. Clinton beats Trump by just three points on a good day. The numbers are banging back and forth. They're basically in a dead heat, Trump and Clinton.

So let's hear from both sides, CNN political contributor Hilary Rosen, she's a Hillary Clinton supporter, and CNN political commentator and "Daily Beast" columnist Sally Kohn. She supports Senator Sanders. Sally, let me start with you about these polls. We heard the senator himself saying, look at all the polls and objectively, we do better against Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton. Is that a function of the fact that he has not been vetted as Secretary Clinton pointed out? He has never had a negative ad against him? Is there a little bit of that built in.

SALLY KOHN, "DAILY BEAST" COLUMNIST: I think that's probably a factor. I think it's important for voters to realize at the same point in 2008 when Republicans had picked their presumptive nominee, John McCain, but Clinton and Obama were still fighting it out, polls had Obama down in comparison to McCain. So, you know, this is still early in the race. And it is interesting the way that Republicans are now coalescing around their nominee even though massive numbers of them said they didn't him want to be president during the primary.

Look, all along, Democrats have been happy with both their choices, 60 percent, 70 percent, 80 percent saying they would be happy with Sanders or Clinton. So I think either candidate stands a chance.

The larger issue here is I think this is a realignment of elite versus populist political moment. We're moving away from left and right. And Sanders really does speak to that moment in a way Clinton doesn't. And I do think that is his strength in the general election. CUOMO: So what to do, what to do, what to do. Hilary Rosen, when I

was sitting with Secretary Clinton, one of the two things that surprised me -- one, I was surprised that she would say Trump was not qualified. Usually she leaves that up to the voters, right, in her answer to that question. The other was with Sanders. I was making it speculative. The process isn't over. She hasn't won the nomination yet. She cut me off and she said I'm going to win. I'm going to be the nominee. Then she spent the rest of the time in the interview qualifying that, trying to mollify Sanders or maybe his supporters. How do you balance these two things on the Clinton side?

HILARY ROSEN, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Senator Sanders has been saying he's going to win, too. So I just think that's what candidates need to say. They're projecting confidence. But, as we know, the math favors Hillary Clinton.

I do think that everything that Sally just said is absolutely right. Look, I've always thought that this campaign was going to come down to sort of, you know, in the end 47/47, and both Republican and democratic candidates will end up fighting for the middle as they historically have done in presidential election. So I think what we're facing is a Democratic Party that is still adjusting. But I'm confident we are going to adjust when we get to the summer.

CUOMO: Adjusting to what? Do you think it's what you're saying, Kohn, which is this new paradigm that's not left/right? It's kind of insurgency, it's about rejecting the norm? Is that what it is? Because 70 percent of your party says they think it's all good for you guys what's going on with Sanders and Clinton.

KOHN: I think it's all good. I'm not sure Hilary and I think it's good for the same reason, or Hillary Clinton and I think it's good for the same reason. But I think it's all good because we have had a Republican party and a Democratic Party who for too long have been captured by elite interests, big business and this sort of status quo, right? And, let's be clear, we are increasingly a partisan country. But the parties have been -- and the elites of the parties have been pretty aligned on a number of issues, including friendly business policies, trade deals that help big business and hurt --

[08:10:07] CUOMO: No question, money wins.

KOHN: And foreign policy, right? So this I think realignment that's happening in this country -- which, by the way, didn't just start now. You could say it started with the Tea Party, which was, remember, was a movement against bailing out the big banks with taxpayer money. This movement that's happening now is I think starting to transform politics, and depending on the matchup, it could really come to a head in this election.

CUOMO: Now, I'm going to get beat up for this, Hilary, but I have to put it in context anyway. As with when Senator Sanders said if I'm not qualified, she's not qualified, I believe he was responding to something there. He wasn't looking to seed that notion. Once again, I believe he was responding when he said Clinton is the lesser of two evils compared to Trump. I think he was responding to that notion being offered. I don't think he's the author of it.

But that being said, when you have the person you're running against saying that you are the lesser of two evils, that does not speak well of your ability to capture their supporters any time soon. How do you deal with this?

ROSEN: Look, you know, this is still the heat of the primary. I think that Senator Sanders has to be given a little bit of a leeway on those criticisms. Having said that, obviously, Hillary Clinton is extremely qualified, an exciting candidate for a significant portion --

CUOMO: Hilary, you're much more measured today. You told him to stop whining the last time you were on this show. Much more measured today. Have you had a talking to?

(LAUGHTER)

ROSEN: No, I haven't. I've actually come around to this myself.

CUOMO: Oh, have you?

ROSEN: The irony is that I think many of us have been pretty clear. We want him to finish this out. Well, look, Hillary Clinton is going to be our nominee. And I think three things are going to be really important over the next three or four weeks. The first is how she and her supporters treat Bernie Sanders and his supporters, right? So how we mesh those things that Sally just talked about in terms of policy, progressive values and ideals for where we want the country to go. The second, obviously, is her V.P. pick, and the third, obviously, is her convention speech.

So I do think that these are really key moments. And I think Senator Sanders is to get there. I believe that. My problem with Senator Sanders has consistently been when he attacked the party as if something has been -- as if he has been cheated, as opposed to that he's just not really winning. And I feel like that's the negative. That's where I went off on him the other day, because I think that sends a very bad message. I don't think he's being cheated. I think that we just have a majority of Democrats going another way. And that's a key issue for me.

CUOMO: Do you wind up, Sally Kohn, being situated basically like a typical Republican voter? I just wanted to see how high your eyebrows would pop when I say that. There you go. Here's why I say that, when you talk to Republicans about Trump, some of them are wildly enthusiastic. Others are like, they skip right to Hillary Clinton could not be our president, never Hillary. This is our guy. We're going with him. That's for electeds and man and woman on the street. Do you feel that a lot of Berners will wind up in the same situation where when I ask them about Hillary Clinton, they're like, Trump is not going to be president. I'm all in against him. That's all. Do you think it will be like that?

KOHN: So there's no disagreeing there is a portion of Sanders' supporters who feel that way. I think they are smaller than they've been represented, but I think they are very vocal. And again, this is the heat of the primary. The contrasts are going exaggerated. And the truth is -- and so, yes, there are some who will certainly never support Hillary if she is the nominee. And, by the way, there are some who might support Trump. Let's not forget that we tend to think xenophobia and nationalism and this extreme --

CUOMO: No party owns it completely.

KOHN: No party owns it completely and there's some of that on the Democratic left as well. That being said, the huge difference here is Republicans feels there's a deep ideological tension in their party. This isn't just how far do you move to the left or right? This is deep. On the Democratic side, we're talking how progressive should we be? We have two candidates fighting over that, and generally speaking they agree on more than they disagree on.

CUOMO: Hilary Rosen, Sally Kohn, thank you very much. You wore it better than I did. I hate when that happens. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Thanks, Chris.

Listen to this story. A suspected cop killer in Massachusetts shot and killed by police after an 18 hour manhunt. Authorities say 35- year-old Jorge Zambrano shot and killed Officer Ronald Tarantino and fled after a routine traffic stop early Sunday morning. Zambrano later broke into a friend's house to hide, but he was tracked down and killed when he opened fire again on police, wounding a state trooper.

CUOMO: All right, a related story, a Baltimore police officer is going to learn his fate today in connection with the custody death of Freddie Gray. Officer Edward Nero opted for a juryless trial using one of the judge to decide hoping that it would at least be a faster verdict.

Nero could face up to 25 years behind bars if convicted of second- degree assault and reckless endangerment charges. Five other officers are also charged in Gray's death, which sparked weeks of protests in Baltimore as we all remember -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right, watch this, Chris. Texas mom and "Star Wars" fan, Candace Cain bought herself a birthday present at Kohl's and then she shared with America and it broke the internet.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So do you want to see what I got? It's so great. I can't wait to show you. So watch when my mouth actually moves. That's not me making the noise. It's the mask. This is worth every penny!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: It's the laughing Chewbacca face at the end.

CAMEROTA: It's a little scary laughing Chewbacca, I find.

CUOMO: I like the teeth going up and down.

CAMEROTA: Wow! That is a new take on Chewbacca. That is the most viewed Facebook live video ever. More than 130 million people have laughed along with Candace as Chewbacca. Hasbro, the maker of the mask laughing all the way to the bank. Major retailers are now sold out. Kohl's surprised Candace with $2,500 in gift cards and masks for the whole family. That's awesome.

CUOMO: Would you wear that mask?

CAMEROTA: On Halloween I would, not just driving in my car laughing at other motorists.

CUOMO: No, she was laughing with herself.

CAMEROTA: I know, but what happened? After that video, did she drive home with the mask on the whole time?

CUOMO: I don't think she took it off for a long time. She was loving that.

CAMEROTA: I agree with you. She was loving that.

CUOMO: All right, so here's the latest development in terms of trying to find the EgyptAir plane. There is now a submarine searching the depths of the Mediterranean. Why? Because once again we're in one of those situations where we are desperately listening for pingers, OK. We have new details as well as what was going on in that plane. We'll give them to you, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:21:07]

CAMEROTA: A robot submarine joining in the search for EgyptAir Flight 804's black box recorders. Investigators are learning more about the final moments on board that doomed flight.

Here to discuss our CNN safety analyst and former FAA safety inspector, David Soucie and CNN counterterrorism analyst and former CIA counterterrorism official, Phil Mudd. Gentlemen, thanks so much for being here.

David, I want to start with you. We did get some more information over the weekend. French officials released a screen grab of this ACARS system, the automated computer system that sends out alerts about what's going on onboard the plane.

And here you see two troubling things. They detected smoke in the lavatory near the cockpit and then the avionics compartment also near the cockpit had smoke. What do you see here?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Well, the alerting reporting system, remember with MH370, we complained about the fact we have no information from this aircraft at all and now we do. So it's something that we really don't have to complain about. Now we have some facts.

CAMEROTA: This is new?

SOUCIE: No, this is something that they had. It's just that we weren't receiving those signals then because Malaysia Airlines had a different system. They hadn't paid for the full-blown system.

However, this company had and it's available so we can't ignore it. Now what we did there was we jumped from the fact that the anti-ice system in the window on the right side failed first.

To me the only facts we have point to that is the point of origin because that's the first thing reported. We have to look at that and see it progress from that to another window, eventually to the smoke in the lavatory which is right behind the cockpit. Then another window fails and that fail means that it's over heated and then we get smoke from the avionics bay.

CAMEROTA: We do have a graphic of where all these things happen so maybe we can put that up. You can see how close the lavatory is to the cockpit. You could see the fixed windows that we're talking about, the electronics bay underneath the cockpit and then the other window that was malfunctioning.

So David, what do you conclude from just those four data points that we now have from the ACARS system?

SOUCIE: I'm really a little bit unbiased on this because the fact that I did go to London to the manufacturer of these windows many years ago to look at these types of failures because that window is laminated. It has a gold layer between it. We had experienced some failures. Recently in 2006 that happened again. It's started to have these failures. So this has been a suspect area, suspect problem that this aircraft --

CAMEROTA: So what does that mean, if the window has a failure, it starts a fire?

SOUCIE: It can. These windows, as I mentioned, has a gold layer to heat the window to keep it from fogging up. It's 40 below up there so you don't want it to fog up on you. So these things are constantly on and they're creating this.

As it delaminates, that metal can start to fall apart inside making it capacitance charge that when released -- and this is what's happened in the past, can cause an enormous amount of heat. That heat can then contribute to a fire and cause problems in the cockpit.

CAMEROTA: OK, Phil, when you hear all of this new information, does that get you off the scent of terrorism?

PHIL MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: I think we have to put this all in combination with what else we witnessed. That is, we haven't seen anything that suggested anybody on the flight manifest had a history. That's 15 years of collecting data about terrorists. Not a single person came up with a ping. We haven't obviously seen a claim. He talk that somebody like a baggage handler might have been involved, we haven't seen anything that suggests that, after days when security services have been pouring through that information.

Now we get this data that indicates something went wrong on the plane, smoke, heat. It does not indicate, in my mind as a terrorism professional, that someone put a major explosive device in baggage.

CAMEROTA: Why not? I mean, an explosive device would also cause smoke.

MUDD: Sure, but I would say David would know better than I, that the plane would have gone down suddenly. You have to assume that somebody either put a device that operated slowly or created some kind of device that slowly built up heat and smoke. That doesn't make sense to me, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, so David, what about that?

[08:25:02]SOUCIE: Well, when you talk about incendiary device, you have to understand at 37,000 feet, the pressure differential between the inside and outside of this airplane is at 9 psid or greater than that. The aircraft can only stand up to 12 psid.

So any kind of a device where there is just extreme heat over a certain amount of time, which this occurred over two to three minutes. Over a certain amount of time would create such increased pressure in the aircraft that it would explode the aircraft or crack the outside of the aircraft, which we've witnessed in previous accidents before.

When you look at the laptop that blew up, that was at a low altitude, low pressure differential, and that aircraft simply blew a hole out of the side and luckily the only person hurt in that was the person carrying the bomb. That's what happens at low altitude. That is not what happens at high altitude.

CAMEROTA: Phil, something else very noteworthy that we have to take into account. No chatter about this crash. You say in terms of the people who monitor terrorist communications. So, what does that mean?

MUDD: This is really curious. You would expect in the early moments, hours, days after the event that a terrorist group might step back and say let's wait to respond both because we have to confirm it's our guys who did this.

But also if you're operating as al Qaeda and ISIS in places like Yemen and Syria, you have to expect the western response to any claim of responsibility -- that's a bombing campaign. We're now beyond that time period in my judgment.

That is, any terror group that would have conducted this could have sent this people to ground and confirmed whether it's people were responsible for this.

The number of incidents here that we're talking about that would suggest that maybe this is accident versus terrorism is mounting. I wouldn't make a final judgment, but much different than what I would have thought on Friday.

BLACKWELL: So interesting. Let's hope they get those black boxes at some point in the very near future. Gentlemen, thank you. Let's get over to Chris.

CUOMO: All right, coming up next, inside Syria. CNN is going to give you an exclusive look at U.S. military commanders who are on a secret mission in Syria. That's next.

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