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How Zoos Prepare For Animal-Related Emergencies; Trump Vs. The World?; Can Trump Be Perpetually Combative As President?; Iraqi Forces Battle To Retake Fallujah From ISIS. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired June 01, 2016 - 07:30   ET

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

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[07:31:00] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: An update on the Cincinnati Zoo story now. Police are investigating the family of that little boy who fell into the gorilla exhibit at the Cincinnati Zoo that, of course, led to the death of Harambe, the gorilla. But just how prepared are zoos across the country for emergencies like this one?

Ron Kagan is the executive director of the Detroit Zoological Society. Mr. Kagan, thanks so much for being here.

RON KAGAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, DETROIT ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY: Good morning.

CAMEROTA: I was fascinated to read that zoos around the country do perform drills all the time -- emergency drills for worst-case scenarios. So, are zoo officials preparing elsewhere for the possibility of a 3-year-old falling into a gorilla enclosure? Is that one of the worst-case scenarios?

KAGAN: Well, absolutely. I mean, you never want either an animal to get out of its enclosure and you never want a visitor to get in an enclosure. So among the many types of emergencies that all of us train for, this is certainly one of them. Like any other accredited zoo we do dozens of emergencies drills every year from potential terrorist incidents, to lost children, to animal escapes and things like that.

CAMEROTA: OK, so in those drills -- during those drills what other options are there, rather than killing the gorilla, for when a child falls into an enclosure?

KAGAN: Well, again, every situation is different but the three main efforts involve the potential of immobilization, so all of us have emergency immobilization teams that are trained to dart animals. You also have another course of action which happened, obviously, in Cincinnati. So we have an emergency weapons team for when you have to use lethal force, which is incredibly rare, obviously.

Your first course of action though, hopefully, is to try to get the situation to calm down and to be able to get the animal to come indoors. To release -- if it has a person or child, to actually release it, and I think they were successful in getting the two female gorillas to come indoors. CAMEROTA: Right. Yes, and by the way, part of why animal rights activists think that the zoo may have acted hastily or too dramatically is because there were these past incidents where a child's fell into an enclosure -- twice we've seen this -- and the gorilla picked up the child, acted tenderly towards it, once even delivering it zookeepers. So is there a certain amount of time that zookeepers are trained to wait to see how it unfolds?

[07:35:00] KAGAN: Well, to a certain extent, but first of all every situation is different. The last incident, which I believe was about 20 years ago -- a child fell into an enclosure in the Chicago Zoo. That was a female gorilla. She was, frankly, being very motherly and very tender. This is an adult male silverback.

I want to be clear. It's incredibly unusual for a male gorilla to in any way want to be aggressive to a human being. I think, clearly from the video, the animal was very agitated and my guess is it was very unusual, obviously, for a child to be in the enclosure. And secondly, you had a lot of visitors who are yelling or screaming and that must have made the male very, very nervous.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

KAGAN: I think he was probably intending to be somewhat protective of the child, but the unintended consequences of the 400 pound plus gorilla potentially really harming the child or killing the child, again unintentionally, was certainly very clear.

CAMEROTA: Yes, and you make the point that decades ago zoos were basically like prisons. Animals were behind bars and it was safer then. But in the interest of becoming more humane to the animal, now they have much more habitat-like enclosures that, frankly, are more vulnerable to people or kids getting into. So, what's the answer?

KAGAN: Well, I am fearful that this incident will make people do what, for instance, the San Francisco Zoo did when a tiger got out about 10 years ago. And so they ended up essentially building a fortress, which is not good for animal welfare and it's not good for visitors in terms of looking at nature and understanding nature.

So, there is a kind of unwritten agreement between the public and zoos. Just as you don't walk off a sidewalk into a road, it's very important for people to not leave pathways when they go somewhere, whether it's a farmyard and there's a corral with horses or whether it's in a zoo. It would be very unfortunate if we turn the clock back and we build enclosures that have animals behind bars.

So, this was obviously a really tragic accident. That zoo has probably had 30 million people go through that facility over the years. This is the first time anything terrible has happened. One time is one time too many, but the answer is not to build old style exhibits.

CAMEROTA: That's great perspective. Ron Kagan, from the Detroit Zoological Society, thanks so much for joining us.

KAGAN: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: What is your take on all of this? Please tweet us @NewDay or you can post your comments on facebook.com/NewDay -- Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, so Donald Trump is making it clear his latest tirade on the media will not be his last. But if he's elected president, what does that demeanor actually do for the United States? Does it help, does it hurt? We're going to discuss with people who know, ahead.

[07:38:15]

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[07:41:45] CUOMO: Going at the media, that's nothing new for politicians. Donald Trump does it well but he didn't invent it. More importantly is that he says look, I'm not going to change. This is who I am. So, what does that mean? What is Trump's temperament and how can that help or hurt with adversaries? Is there reason for concern?

Let's bring in two men who understand this world and this question so well. Carl Higbie, former Navy SEAL, Donald Trump supporter. And, Aaron David Miller, vice president for New Initiatives at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, author of "The End of Greatness: Why American Can't Have (and Doesn't Want) Another Great President".

A real dose of optimism right there, ADM, thank you very much. You wrote a piece about what Donald Trump's temperament, being perpetually combative, can mean. Let's put up one of the first excerpts about it and I'll read it to the audience and then we can get your take and Carl's response on it.

"His own campaign manager Paul Manafort, suggested last week 'You don't change Donald Trump,' he told Howard Fineman of the Huffington Post. But the world is a place in which America probably can't afford to be in a constant state of counterattack, and where every challenge isn't a nail that requires a hammer."

Carl, your quick -- what's your quick instinct to react to that?

CARL HIGBIE, FORMER NAVY SEAL, CONSERVATIVE PUNDIT, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Well, I think what we need to look at here is we've had a president that has not taken a firm stand, that has apologized, that has gone out and tried this limp-wristed foreign policy.

And now you have someone like Donald Trump who is the polar opposite. He projects strength and he wants peace, but he's going to do it through strength and he's not going to take anybody's B.S. over it. And when people attack him he attacks back twice as hard, and that's what we're seeing here.

And I think Paul Manafort is right. We need somebody like that coming into the oval office right now because the world doesn't respect us anymore.

CUOMO: That's the plus -- the potential plus to the attitude. What's the potential minus?

AARON DAVID MILLER, WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER, AUTHOR, "THE END OF GREATNESS": Yes, first, full disclosure. I voted for Republicans and Democrats. I worked for Republicans and Democrats. I'm not associated with anybody's campaign, Chris, and I'm not interested in running for anything, but I've worked with secretaries of state and been around more than one president.

And the reality is the qualities that make for effective leadership, prudence, curiosity, emotional intelligence, the capacity to rise above personal insults and pettiness. To not allow the interests to be defined by your own personal interests. And by that, I don't mean commercial or financial.

By that, I mean the capacity not to have the need to insult, to counterattack, and to basically have such a brittle personality that you feel the need, in essence, to respond combatively. You hit me, I'm going to hit you ten times harder. The world's a dangerous place. We have to kill before we're killed.

I don't think, frankly, if you look at any number of presidents -- FDR, even Jack Kennedy -- prudence, restraint. Eisenhower, George H.W. Bush -- these are the kinds of qualities that we need, I think, to cope with a cruel and unforgiving world. Leadership is a thought experiment without literally being punctuated by these kinds of qualities.

HIGBIE: But also, I think that a lot of guys today weren't facing the same social media onslaught. They didn't have the same -- you know, people couldn't access something anonymously behind a computer, lashing out. The media has gotten exponentially more powerful down the line through social media and things like that.

[07:45:00] A president now is facing a completely different enemy than he was even eight years ago, 10, 12, 15 years ago. So you need to see a president who's willing to stand up a lot more for what he believes in.

CUOMO: Carl, let me ask you something. I know you well. I know your record and I know what you do now. One of the things that makes the SEALS great and why they're being used more and more to special operators is the discretion, is the wisdom, right? Very often, special operators are even a little bit older than guys who are in the field. Why? The maturity, the ability to know when to be a hammer and when to be a scalpel.

HIGBIE: Right.

CUOMO: Those qualities make you great. Shouldn't they be reflected in that temperament of the people who are giving you the orders?

HIGBIE: I think so, and if you look at Donald Trump, his restraint -- he only hits if someone hits him. And the one quality about SEALS, which is far and beyond, is the level of force we can provide in an instant if we need to, and that's what I see in Donald Trump. I see that same strength and conviction. The guy who says I'll wait until you hit me, but when you hit me I'm going to crush you.

CUOMO: Strength is the term that you hear, whether it's from someone sophisticated, like Carl, or just people in the street who are saying look, I don't like the way America's perceived and --

HIGBIE: Sophisticated --

CUOMO: Oh, come on. If you're not sophisticated, who is? The idea that you can crush my head like a coconut doesn't mean that you're not sophisticated. You know, when they say look, we don't seem strong in the world right now, we seem weak. And Trump projects strength and that's comforting. What do you see in that?

MILLER: You know, by and large, I see a dysfunctional relationship at times between the projection of American military force and the attainment of objectives. The issue is not whether America can be powerful. The issue is whether or not we can attach to our military power a set of sustainable goals that keep us out of trillion-dollar social science projects like the Iraq war.

That, essentially, have presidents not creating public baselines that they can't measure up to. Our current president fell into that problem with respect with the so-called Syrian "Red Line". Mr. Trump has already made clear that he's going to destroy ISIS so fast and so quickly, and he's now created a benchmark that most military analysts think is probably unrealistic.

So what do you do? You're a president with a big ego, a great sense of grandiosity, and you've demonstrated that you want to achieve this goal. Now you have to deliver. Presidents should mean what they say and say what they mean, I agree, Chris. But, prudence and discretion and one more point, curiosity, is really important.

When I was a lowly analyst at INR in the 80's, sitting at my desk one morning. The phone rings. It's the White House sit room. It's George H.W. Bush on the other line calling a lowly INR analyst to ask a question about Lebanon. I mean, Kennedy used to call the Vietnam analysts and it's that kind of curiosity, knowing what you don't know and being in a hurry to find out, that is critically important.

I think Carl would agree when it comes to operational security and planning asymmetrical counterterrorism operations. Discretion, Chris, particularly in this world, is critically important.

HIGBIE: I think discretion though is like -- look, Donald Trump didn't want to go into Iraq. He didn't agree with that war, largely, because there was no goal defined. We didn't have a desired end result. So, you talk about being level headed and being reserved, and things like that.

I think Donald Trump is absolutely the guy you want with his hand on the nuclear weapon because look, he's not going to use it unless all other options have been exhausted. So I think that Donald Trump does show that discretion. He's proven it by his lack of support for the Iraq war, despite a lot people at the time, after 9/11, wanted to go in. CUOMO: Aaron David Miller, Carl Higbie, coming at this from

different directions, no insults. Well done.

HIGBIE: Wow.

CUOMO: Well done. There's a low bar in America these days for rational discourse. You made it over very easily. Thank you, fellows, appreciate it.

HIGBIE: Thank you.

CUOMO: Ana.

MILLER: Take care, Chris.

ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Chris. The battle to retake Fallujah from ISIS intensifying this morning. Scores of innocent civilians caught in the bloodshed. Who's winning the battle and what about the role of American forces? We'll discuss with Lt. General Mark Hertling next.

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[07:53:00] CABRERA: The battle to retake Fallujah intensifies this morning in Iraq with Iraqi forces saying they've not taken back the territory surrounding the city. They're working toward the city's center. But U.N. officials say scores of civilians are now caught in the middle of this onslaught as ISIS tries to defend its turf.

Let's talk more about this critical operation and the U.S. role in it with CNN military analyst Lt. General Mark Hertling. General, this sounds like good news on one front, but bad news on another. Let's begin with the current fight. It sounds like there could be challenges that officials are facing as they've now entered Fallujah. What are your sources hearing?

LT. GENERAL MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, I'm hearing -- good morning, Ana, first of all. And secondly, I'm hearing that it's a tough fight. All of us who've watched this fight, who have fought in Iraq, knew it was going to be a tough fight.

Fallujah is a very symbolic city. The Iraqi Army and police force, as well as the popular mobilization fronts have really surrounded the city over the last several months. But we've got to remember that ISIS has been in that city for almost two years now.

It is going to be just a fight to the death in terms of the kinds of defensive positions that ISIS has put in place. They are using human shields and there's an unbelievably intense humanitarian crisis going on in the city itself, Ana.

CABRERA: Given those challenges that is the most difficult news, perhaps, coming out of this, is that there are 50,000 plus people who are innocent civilians trapped in the midst of all this, including 20,000 children. I imagine that would, perhaps, alter the approach if you are Iraqi forces and if you're the U.S. advising those forces going in.

HERTLING: Well, not only the forces going in on the ground but also the air support for those forces. When you get a targeting indicator -- the Iraqi forces on the ground are passing through their observers hey, we've got this target of ISIS forces in this building or in this location. Bring in the aircraft for the air support.

[07:55:00] You really have to be careful if you're a coalition aircraft, a U.S. aircraft, in terms of hitting civilian targets. So it's not only what's going on on the ground, it's what's going on in support from the air.

But yes, there have been reports over the last several weeks that ISIS has been using up to 500 human shields, both men and children, to prevent attacks by the Iraqi security forces. And that's challenging for any force that's going into combat.

CABRERA: Do you think that those children are also at risk of trying to be recruited by ISIS? Given an ultimatum if you don't join us then you'll die?

HERTLING: Yes, that was the initial indicator about a week ago that the reports coming out of the city was, in fact, that ISIS was going to different houses recruiting men and boys, saying you're fighting with us and if you don't fight we're going to kill you, and they did.

There are reports of executions from the Iraqis that came out of the cities. Remember, there's about 2,000 Iraqis in displaced personnel camps in and around the city of Fallujah that were able to escape, but there's many more that weren't able to escape and they're giving reports of the kind of techniques that ISIS is using to attempt to recruit not only fighters from the local population, but if you don't fight then they're going to use you as human shields.

CABRERA: We're hearing ISIS is using suicide bombings, RPG's. When you're dealing with that type of a thing how do you get humanitarian aid into help the people who are in dire need right now, having to survive on dates, we're hearing, for food?

HERTLING: Well first, I want to address the suicide bombing because I heard something for the first time yesterday through intelligence sources that ISIS actually used a suicide bomb fire truck. So they actually used one of the emergency service vehicles from within the city of Fallujah and attempted to counterattack the Iraqi security force counterterrorism unit with a fire truck made up like a bomb.

But what you have to understand is the Iraqi government is being watched, as well -- the central government in Baghdad -- because they have to establish push packages of humanitarian assistance. Food, water, propane for cooking, medical supplies. And those are all on the outlying areas waiting to be pushed in. That's a normal technique.

In fact, we used it when I was there in Iraq -- that the Iraqi government would supply those kind of pieces of aid to be ready to go into the city as soon as the security forces secured the area. Unfortunately, these fights are taking much longer. There've been reports of house borne explosive devices -- devices inside homes that when the Iraqi troops go in the roofs fall down on top of them.

They've had Humvees that they've put suicide bombs in. RPG's, snipers, all sorts of things. This is going to be an extremely tough fight. The Iraqi security forces said they could clear this area in two days back on Monday. I was suspect then. I continue to be suspect that that's not an ambitious comment and it's going to take much longer to secure this most important city on the Euphrates River Valley.

CABRERA: Lt. General Mark Hertling, thanks for joining us with your expertise.

HERTLING: Thank you, Ana.

CABRERA: We're following a lot of news, including Donald Trump slamming the media. Let's get to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Let me tell you, these people are losers. You're a sleaze. Excuse me, excuse me, I've watched you on television. You're a real beauty.

CLINTON: It took a reporter to shame him into actually getting the money to veterans.

TRUMP: I have never received such bad publicity for doing such a good job.

SANDERS: We're all in agreement on one issue. Trump would be a disaster.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wild animals are very unpredictable. It's very hard to tell what he was going to do.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They had no other choice. I don't believe Harambe was going to give that little boy up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A fresh scandal. Brazil faces a political crisis. Do you think there's a lot of corruption in this room?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think, I'm sure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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

CUOMO: Good morning. Welcome to your new day. It is Wednesday, June 1st, a new month but the same old situations in the election. We do have Ana Cabrera, though, and that's always a nice plus.

Up first, Donald Trump unloading on the media once again. Scrutinizing the money trail brings a lot of anger from Trump. This veterans' fundraiser in Iowa raised millions of dollars. That's what this press conference was supposed to be about but Trump wound up, when being questioned, calling reporters sleazy, dishonest, and the worst human beings he's ever met. It really clouded the occasion.

So, he also said he could be more presidential but don't count on it. This, as a judge unseals the cutthroat playbook used by his high- pressure sales team at the now defunct Trump University.

CAMEROTA: And, a CNN poll of polls released earlier this morning shows Trump and Hillary Clinton locked in a virtual dead heat. And now, Clinton is criticizing Trump for having to be shamed -- those are her words -- into cutting checks for those veterans' charities.

Clinton also scored a big endorsement ahead of next week's California primary, so let's talk about it all. We have the 2016 election covered the way only CNN can.