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NASA Probe Orbiting Jupiter After 5-Year Journey; Trump Tweets Fuel V.P. Speculation; Trump Tweet Image First Appeared On Anti- Semitic Site; Is Rio Ready To Protect Athletes & Spectators At Olympics? Aired 7:30-8a ET
Aired July 05, 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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[07:32:20] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Big space news this morning. NASA scientists are getting a closer look at Jupiter.
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(Cheers, applause)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All stations on Juno co-ord. We have the tone for burn cutoff on Delta B. Roger Juno, welcome to Jupiter.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: After a five-year journey spanning more than 1.8 billion miles, NASA's Juno spacecraft is now orbiting the biggest planet in our solar system. So what mysteries will this mission unlock? Here to discuss is Miles O'Brien. He's a CNN analyst and science correspondent for "PBS NEWSHOUR" and, Dr. Fran Bagenal. She is a member of the Juno space team from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Great to have both of you.
Dr. Bagenal, let me start with you. What was all of that excitement? Why was everyone so excited at this achievement?
DR. FRANCES BAGENAL, LAB FOR ATMOSPHERIC & SPACE PHYSICS, UNIV. OF COLORADO, BOULDER: Well, Juno is finally in orbit around Jupiter. We've been waiting for this for five years. It was a very tense moment because we really didn't know how well it was going to work. There are a lot of hazards there that we were concerned about but everything worked flawlessly and we're in orbit now around Jupiter.
CAMEROTA: So, Miles, tell us the significance of this space achievement.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANALYST, SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT, "PBS NEWSHOUR": It's a big deal, Alisyn, on a lot of levels. It's the farthest solar- powered probe ever to go into the solar system. If everything works well it will, maybe, change the way future missions will be designed. But Jupiter, itself, has intrigued us for a long time. There's a lot of mysteries beneath the surface there and Juno is the first spacecraft designed to really look beneath the surface. Galileo orbited Jupiter and its moons for about eight years in the late 90's, early 2000's, but mostly was taking pictures of the surface. We've seen a lot of that red spot -- that big storm that's been going for at least 300 years. What's going on beneath is what Juno is all about.
CAMEROTA: Oh, so Dr. Bagenal, Jupiter is, as Mile's is saying, a very cool place, figuratively and literally --
BAGENAL: Indeed.
CAMEROTA: -- so what mysteries might it unlock?
BAGENAL: Well, it's going to tell us what it's made of inside. We don't know what the composition is of Jupiter. We know it's mostly hydrogen and a little bit of helium, but what we want to know is how much water is inside. How much the heavy elements -- the iron, the rock material and so on, and that's key for understanding how Jupiter formed and how our solar system formed.
CAMEROTA: And also, Miles, is it true that where there's water there could be life?
[07:35:00] O'BRIEN: Well, everywhere we look on this planet where we find liquid water we do, in fact, find life. Now, I don't that -- and many people on the team are hoping and have much expectation that they're going to find anything like that on this mission. But if you look nearby at the icy moons of Jupiter -- the Europa being at the top of the list -- there is an ice-covered ocean there. And so, understanding Jupiter and its systems is all part of the bigger picture of understanding whether we are alone within the universe.
CAMEROTA: It doesn't get any cooler than that. I mean, that is what we're all searching for. Dr. Bagenal, is this a search for life mission? Is it possible?
BAGENAL: No, we're not looking for life on this mission. What we're looking for are the pieces that go into making life. So, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and so on, which we want to know how much there is inside Jupiter and that will tell us about solar system formation and tell us about origins as a planet -- the solar system origins -- the origins of earth and the other planets, and that will be key for understanding life, yes, in the long run.
CAMEROTA: Miles, this is a risky mission. What is so complicated about getting to Jupiter?
O'BRIEN: Well, it -- the spacecraft traveled 1.8 billion miles because it had to kind of slingshot around earth to get a gravity boost to make it because it didn't have enough oomph on its own. So you can imagine the navigational problem to put it from the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, to within 2,600 miles of the largest planet in our solar system. And getting that right -- threading that needle is a huge engineering accomplishment.
You know, when you see those people explode in cheers, I always think of these guys as the riverboat gamblers of scientists. They put all their chips on the table, they invest years and years in their career, and then they just have to sit there and watch and hope the spacecraft does what they told it to do because it was all on autopilot and went off without a hitch, within one second of what they hoped on that critical burn.
CAMEROTA: Oh my gosh. All right, Dr. Bagenal, my co-host here, John Berman, is very intrigued by the fact that it had to crash into the planet. Why did it need a crash landing?
BAGENAL: Well, in the end, we have to decide what to do with the spacecraft and we don't want it to hit Europa which is, indeed, why we think there could well be life under the ice. And so, it's much better to send it into the planet Jupiter and for it to burn up at the end of the mission. But we want to get a lot of data before we do that.
CAMEROTA: Got it. So we will crash-land at the end of the mission, which we understand is February 2018, and we hope to see some images during these next two years there. It's really exciting stuff. Miles O'Brien, Dr. Fran Bagenal, thanks so much for explaining it to us.
BAGENAL: Thank you.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Very cool.
CAMEROTA: Mind blown.
BERMAN: All right, anti-Semitic or a tribute to sheriffs everywhere? And could we be days away from a vice presidential pick? Donald Trump floats names of people he might choose. That's next.
[07:38:10]
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[07:42:20] CAMEROTA: Donald Trump giving everyone some clues when it comes to his vice presidential choice. Joining us now to talk about this and more is CNN political contributor and Hillary Clinton supporter, Hilary Rosen, and CNN political commentator and former Reagan White House political director, Jeffrey Lord. He is a Donald Trump supporter. Good morning to both of you.
JEFFREY LORD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, DONALD TRUMP SUPPORTER: Good morning, Ali and Hillary.
HILARY ROSEN, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR, HILLARY CLINTON SUPPORTER: Hi.
CAMEROTA: OK, so -- and John, as well, is playing here.
LORD: There's John.
CAMEROTA: There you go. OK, so Donald Trump has been tweeting out a storm of possible V.P. picks. I'll start with what he said in terms of who is interested. He tweeted this out. "The only people who are not interested in being the V.P. pick are the people who have not been asked." So, he's suggesting that everyone that he's asking is interested.
Let's start with Joni Ernst, OK, Hilary? He says here, "I look forward to meeting Joni Ernst today" -- this is Fourth of July -- "in New Jersey. She's done a great job as senator of Iowa!" Wouldn't that be a crafty pick, Hilary, because then if Donald trump were to win he, too, would have a history-making ticket?
ROSEN: Well, first of all, we just have to give Trump a little credit here for this process that he seems to be running himself. That he seems to be the one leaking all the names deliberately. That's kind of unprecedented and I don't think it's entirely true, though, that everyone wants to do it. I think, actually, there's been a lot more attention paid to the people who have bowed out.
Having said that, you know, the fact that he's out there all the time talking about how he's considering this is interesting. Senator Ernst --
CAMEROTA: And do you think that Joni would be -- Joni Ernst would be interested?
ROSEN: I don't -- I assume she would be interested because I think that Sen. Ernst is just like Donald Trump in many ways. She's anti- choice, she's anti-pay equity, she's, you know, anti-immigrant. She wants to take the country backwards on health care, so there are a lot of things they have in common. It would be hard for her to explain to people like Gov. Susana Martinez why Trump is so disrespectful to women so often, but you know, that will be her burden.
BERMAN: Jeffrey, you know, Hilary touched on something that I found truly fascinating yesterday, which was in the period of about half an hour Donald Trump just started floating these names. There was Joni Ernst. He also put a tweet out about Tom Cotton, talking about how Tom Cotton was great on "Meet The Press" on Sunday.
Then he talked about his meeting with Mike Pence. "Spent time with Indiana Governor Mike Pence and family yesterday. Very impressed, great people." As Hilary said, Jeffrey, and you are a student of history, this is really kind of unprecedented for the candidate, himself, to just sort of float names of vice presidential possibilities. You have these three -- Cotton, Ernst, Pence. You have others. You know, Bob Corker appearing on the stump with Donald Trump. He's doing this very, very publicly. Why?
[07:45:00] LORD: Well, everything about the Donald Trump campaign is unprecedented, as I think we all realize now. You know, he's putting these names out there for, if you will, public vetting to see what kind of reaction he gets from it that I'm sure he is thinking about himself as he sees that reaction.
I have to say -- I mean, I'm a -- personally, I'm a Newt Gingrich guy on this issue, but I also have to say I am not sure that these candidates for either party add or subtract. I mean, we've candidates on both sides who've added and subtracted and the ones who subtracted never helped their -- or, didn't hurt their nominees who won.
If you think of Spiro Agnew and Dan Quayle, the Republicans, or the Democrats who were given positive reviews, like Lloyd Bentsen or Edmond Muskie didn't help their tickets of Hubert Humphrey and Michael Dukakis win, so I'm really not sure.
I mean, I think what you need is somebody who can actually do the job, who can have the president's confidence, sit in that small study off the Oval Office, and have lunch, and keep quiet, and work the Hill.
CAMEROTA: Hilary, let's look very quickly at the names that have been floated on Hillary Clinton's side. There are some that are more high- profile than others. We have Tim Kaine. Elizabeth Warren has been mentioned. Obviously, people are looking at Cory Booker, people are looking at Xavier Becerra. Which direction do you think this is going to go?
ROSEN: So, I -- I'll just follow-up on one point that Jeffrey just made, which is I think the most important thing that the V.P. selection says is, is this presidential candidate making a decision based on who they think will best serve the country or are they making the decision based on some political calculation? One will end up being more successful than the other.
I think Hillary Clinton really wants a president -- a vice president who will be a good partner in the Oval Office, who can help her on key priorities. And, you know, each one of those people bring something different to the ticket.
CAMEROTA: Yes.
ROSEN: So, really, it ends up being about -- very much about chemistry. There is probably nobody that a president has to have a franker, more important and private relationship with than their vice president.
BERMAN: All right, Hilary, Jeffrey, I want to move away. I want to move away from this area of agreement right now to talk about --
CAMEROTA: Let's get to disagreements.
BERMAN: We'll talk about what's going on, on Twitter, Jeffrey. I know you feel very strongly about this tweet that was removed by the Trump campaign.
LORD: Right.
BERMAN: It came out Saturday morning. It had images of what many people believe is the Star of David over one-hundred dollar bills, calling Hillary Clinton the most corrupt politician ever. Now, I read you. I'm an avid reader of your work.
LORD: Uh-oh.
BERMAN: You look at this and you say it harkens back to that famous 1950's, 1960's show "LAWMAN", and you say this is sort of a tribute to sheriffs everywhere. My question to you, Jeffrey --
LORD: I don't know that it's a -- I don't know that --
BERMAN: You know, harken is a reference to sheriffs. If this was about sheriffs, Jeffrey, why was this image previously on a Twitter feed and also a website, this alt right website, that traffics in sometimes anti-Semitic, sometimes racist information --
LORD: John -
BERMAN: I don't know that they traffic in pro-sheriff or "LAWMAN" --
LORD: John --
BERMAN: -- type of messages.
LORD: John, number one, the sheriff's image is out there everywhere. I mean, this has been around in America for well over a century. When I saw this tweet that is exactly what I first thought of, was that it was the sheriff's badge over money, which meant she was corrupt, which is that Crooked Hillary which is one of the themes of the campaign.
You know, the whole -- all of this -- frankly, I think some of this is a matter of culture. Now, they took it down. I don't think they should have taken it down, frankly. I mean, it just -- I mean, if we're going to talk about anti-Semitism then we need to be talking about why we had people on the Democratic platform committee right now --
CAMEROTA: Yes.
LORD: -- pushing anti-Israel point of views who were put there by Bernie Sanders.
CAMEROTA: But, Jeffrey, hold on one second.
LORD: Why isn't there division over anti-Semitism in the Democratic Party? That's serious stuff.
CAMEROTA: Fine. Before we deflect -- hold on Hilary. Before we deflect to that, just to be clear, this is different than a sheriff's star. The sheriff's star, while six-pointed, has little circles on top of the star.
LORD: No, Ali, that's not true.
ROSEN: It is.
LORD: Ali -- Ali, some do and some do not.
CAMEROTA: Maybe we can pull it up. I mean, the most universal, ubiquitous one that people wear on their -- the sheriffs wear on their, you know -- as their badge have the little stars. That's what we all identify that.
LORD: Ali, I can't -- I can't -- ROSEN: Here's the real problem, I think, and there was an interesting debate earlier on your show with Chris Quinn and Corey Lewandowski. Here's the issue -- is that Donald Trump has exhibited so much prejudice and division over this campaign -- the course of this campaign -- that people actually believed this. That's why it matters, Jeffrey. It's because it fits into this mindset that Trump actually is a divider, not a uniter.
CAMEROTA: What about that, Jeffrey?
ROSEN: And that's why people --
LORD: Well, I --
[05:50:00] ROSEN: -- make this be a big deal. That's, I think, why it's a problem that the Trump campaign -- that Donald Trump, himself, has not said anything about this because it makes him seem more unaccountable like there's some dog whistle to people who hate.
CAMEROTA: Let Jeffrey respond. Go ahead, Jeffrey.
LORD: He has -- he has said something about it. I mean, there's a statement out there this morning which I read. I mean, one from the social media director but one from Donald Trump, himself. So, I mean, I just -- with all due respect, if we're going to talk about division, I mean -- I am always gobsmacked that Democrats like to play this game when they have been the party of racial division, and at the moment, they are --
BERMAN: No, but Jeffrey, Jeffrey you say -- Jeffrey, Jeffrey, hang on. This is -- Erick Erickson --
LORD: -- you know, they've got an anti-Semitism problem on their hands but --
BERMAN: Erick Erickson, (INAUDIBLE), you know, know Iraq. I mean, these were not Democrats.
LORD: They're not, they're never --
BERMAN: Right, but they weren't Democrats, just to be clear.
ROSEN: Right.
BERMAN: So this started -- most of the comments I saw earliest on in this were not from Democrats at all.
LORD: Right.
BERMAN: The Clinton campaign didn't get on this until yesterday.
ROSEN: But isn't it also -- there's also this other bigger problem which is this constant sort of policy by tweeting. This kind of well, let's know how Donald Trump feels because of how he's tweeting is sort of a constant emotion -- what feels like emotional outbursts. And I think that the key issue here is this sort of lack of general accountability. That is not the kind of balanced, thoughtful leadership you want in a presidential campaign or in a president. That's why this thing matters.
You know, Jeffrey might be right that there's not an anti-Semitic bone in Donald Trump's body. I actually can buy that. You know, I know that he loves his daughter and his son-in-law --
CAMEROTA: Yes.
ROSEN: -- but the point is that he plays to hate, he plays to division and that's what doesn't work. And that sort of eruption constantly from his campaign says something about the kind of leader he is and will be.
CAMEROTA: Jeffrey, I'll give you the last word.
LORD: So, Hilary, let me ask you --
CAMEROTA: Hold on, Jeffrey. I just want to show that we did find the sheriff's star that we've been talking about which you can see on the left looks, people feel, more like the Star of David and then the sheriff's badge has the little circles on top each one of the points. Go ahead.
LORD: Well, I just -- you know, if we're going to get down to divisive politics and all this, I genuinely -- I've asked this question before and I'll ask it of Hilary again, or for the first time. Is the Democratic Party, which has written six platforms supporting slavery -- are you finally ready to apologize? If you want to stop dividing the country wouldn't that be a good place to start?
ROSEN: Well, I mean, we've had President Obama, we've had President Clinton. Every Democratic president --
LORD: But they can never apologize for inflicting slavery on the country.
ROSEN: -- has consistently apologized for slavery and regretted it and done everything possible to change social mores, and I don't -- you know, the idea that somehow Democrats have fallen on that is just not true.
CAMEROTA: All right, guys, thank you. We will leave it there before it veers off into another segment that we could certainly do. Thank you very much for both of you.
LORD: I'll send you a link, Ali, to a badge.
CAMEROTA: I will -- very good. I will look at that, Jeffrey. Thank you very much. Hilary, thanks to you as well. Meanwhile, the Olympic security is, of course, under the microscope in Rio, so how much of the show of force is just a show? We are live in Rio, next.
[07:53:30]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [07:56:50] CAMEROTA: We're just one month away from the 2016 Summer Olympic Games kicking off in Rio de Janeiro. This, as the city's mayor tells CNN the state is doing a terrible job with security. CNN's senior international correspondent Arwa Damon is live in Rio for us with more -- Arwa.
ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, and part of those concerns and that terrible job already being felt not just by residents, but complaints from those who are meant to protect all of the Olympic visitors, as well.
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DAMON: Rio's police are marching straight to the international terminal to give not an Olympic welcome, but a warning. We won't be able to protect you. Violence is on the rise here and officers say they haven't been paid in months. The government says the claims are legitimate and is working towards normalizing the situation. But to the officers, it's hardly reassuring.
These two men, Paulo and Joao (ph), not their real names, operate under a different set of orders.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): If I talkI can be punished or even arrested for this.
DAMON: They are with the military police, fighting what they call Rio's hidden civil war.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (through translator): We are numbers, nothing more. You encounter a drug trafficker armed with lots of ammunition and you only have 20 bullets, it's absurd.
DAMON: They risked talking to us because they say they've watched their fellow officers die to preserve Rio's image, not to protect its people.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We have a very common saying here in Brazil, "for the English to see". I believe that the politicians here are doing everything "for the English to see".
DAMON: "For the English to see", meaning put on a show for public consumption. They say the city's scant resources are used to patrol tourist hotspots, like Copacabana, instead of favelas like Mare, where the criminal gangs run the streets.
DAMON: Even in an event like this that is meant to be raising awareness about police brutality we're constantly being stopped from filming, which is just an indication of just how tense things are.Right now there's a lot of concerns about filming armed men.
The government's own statistics show the number of people killed by police, including civilians caught in the crossfire, has nearly doubled in the last year. Human rights groups say the police are not just poorly trained, but trigger happy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): They don't care if there is a child in the middle. They shoot their target.
DAMON: State security officials tell CNN that they have taken measures over the years to expel officers for inappropriate behavior, and say they have decreased the use of heavy weapons. But in Mare, residents say the raids are increasing and indiscriminate.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): It seems like there is an order to put fear in the people so they stay calm. So they don't cause trouble in the city because the foreigners can't see that the city if chaotic.
DAMON: And they probably won't. Over the next month the federal government plans to flood Rio's tourist zones and Olympic venues with troops.
