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New Day

4 Dead After Series of Bombings Rock Thailand; Trump Ramps Up False Claim Obama "Founder of ISIS"; Michael Phelps & Ryan Lochte's Unique Rivalry. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired August 12, 2016 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:31:22] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking overnight, at least four people are dead, dozens hurt in Thailand after a series of bombings. Police say at least 11 explosions have rocked some of the most popular resort cities. Police are calling it local sabotage, saying there's no evidence of international terrorism. Police also say the blasts are not linked to the bomb attack at a Bangkok shrine nearly a year ago.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Police in Canada say a terror suspect may have been less than 72 hours from attacking a busy urban center in Ontario before officers shot and killed him. The suspect is confirmed as Aaron Driver (ph). Police confronted him as he was getting into a cab in front of his sister's house on Wednesday. Officers shot him after he detonated an explosive device in the car. The FBI tipped Canadian authorities thwarting a possible attack.

CUOMO: Investigators are trying to determine how a toddler fell from a roller coaster in Pennsylvania. Authorities say the 3-year-old fell somewhere in the middle of the ride. They say he was conscious and alert before he was flown to a Pittsburgh hospital. Right now, though, the kid's condition is unclear.

This is the fourth amusement park accident to happen in the U.S. in just five days. Now, of course, this is the time of year people are in amusement parks here. But, you know, we've been doing the stories. These parks are not overseen the way many of us might assume.

KEILAR: They're not. And I think what we've learned is you almost have to take it upon yourself to really observe the ride, make sure any apparatus is working properly. If it's not, you really have to pipe up and immediately just don't assume that it's going to work.

CUOMO: And it's supposed to be a fiction that the excitement is a function of danger, but now, it's turning out sometimes it actually is.

KEILAR: All right. Ahead, we're talking about another Donald Trump firestorm. He's doubling down on that claim that President Obama is the founder of ISIS. So, why does he keep repeating it if it's obviously not true? We'll tackle that next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:37:18] CUOMO: Donald Trump doubling down on his obvious false claim that President Obama and Hillary Clinton are the founders of ISIS.

Listen to Trump on the Hugh Hewitt show. Hugh is trying to give Trump an out, to call it sarcasm, to call it something about being symbolic as opposed to literal and here's what he says.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

HUGH HEWITT, RADIO HOST: Last night, you said the president was the founder of ISIS. I know what you meant. You meant that he created the vacuum, he lost the peace.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: No, I meant he's the founder of ISIS. I do. He was the most valuable player. I give him the most valuable player award. I give her, too, by the way.

HEWITT: But he's not sympathetic to them. He hates them. He's trying to kill them.

TRUMP: I don't care. He was the founder.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: All right. Let's discuss. Retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, he's a CNN military analyst and the former Army commanding general in Europe and Seventh Army, and Jeffrey Lord, CNN political commentator and former Reagan White House political director. He's the author of "What America Needs: The Case for Trump."

Jeffrey, before you launch --

JEFFREY LORD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning --

CUOMO: Jeffrey, my brother, before you launch into a very pained defense of Donald Trump, I must tell you, he's watching --

LORD: No pain at all.

CUOMO: He's watching the show. Good morning, Mr. Trump. Thank you for watching NEW DAY.

And he said that we don't get his sarcasm. That he's being sarcastic here about this, Jeffrey Lord. So which is it? Is he saying, no, they're actually the founders, or is he doing what everybody else would do, which is being sarcastic?

LORD: Chris, let me say before I depart on my vacation to New York -- to Long Island, New Yorkers, as my entire family demonstrates, have a sarcastic sense of humor.

CUOMO: Really? See what I did there?

LORD: Really. Exactly. Exactly right.

Chris, I understand you exactly when I hear you talk because you're a New Yorker. I understand Donald Trump.

Donald Trump is exactly right about this. He was, to borrow from President Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs, Barack Obama was the responsible officer of the government. He was in charge.

It was his decision to remove those troops. It was his decision that launched what is now ISIS. There is no question about it. He and Secretary Clinton were and are the responsible officers of the government for this decision.

CUOMO: Why didn't he just say that, Jeffrey? One theory as to why, especially when he said Barack Hussein Obama, was that it was a little bit of a dog whistle effect. It's a little bit of, let's make our president feel like a traitor, like he was trying to do during the birther movement. You know, what about that whisper?

LORD: Chris, Chris, Chris, A, that's the president's name. I mean, I don't see anything wrong with it.

But the point that he's making here -- and frankly, Chris, look, this is the American left in foreign policy since at least George McGovern. They assured us that if we got out of Vietnam, there would be peace.

[06:40:01] Instead, there was mass murder.

I mean, on and on and on this goes. This is the stated position of the Democratic Party, the American left. They got to put this in practice. And now, the world is a mess. It is a disaster.

CUOMO: All right. Let's get to the general for some perspective.

LORD: Secretary Clinton as secretary of state is responsible for it.

CUOMO: All right. Let's go to the general and get some perspective.

Now that we've talked about the political bi-play here, General, I won't burden you with that. But just for clarity's sake, in 2007, Donald Trump told Wolf Blitzer, we should get out of Iraq immediately, get out, declare victory and get out. And he has in the past blamed George Bush for being responsible for ISIS. Now he's saying it's President Obama.

What is your take on why ISIS exists today? If you were going to ascribe some blame.

LT. GENERAL MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, this gets to the point, Chris. First of all, Mr. Trump is semantically incorrect in describing all this. Secondly, it shows he's patently uninformed about the rift between the Shia, and the Sunni, and the governments in the Middle East. He's also shown repeatedly the inability to understand this is a complex issue. That's part of the problem. But, finally, going to Jeffrey's point, his ability to communicate.

I'm married to a New Yorker too. Unfortunately, the whole world doesn't come from New York. A leadership requirement is to communicate correctly. And Mr. Trump has failed to do that to others in the world outside of New York. And I'm one of those.

But to go to the Shia/Sunni rift, you know, there have been experts on your program and others that talk about who is responsible for the rise of ISIS. It was Zawahiri in the recent environment. But this goes back decades and even centuries in terms of what has generated this problem. And, you know, you're talking about terrorism that relates back to the '60s, the '70s, the '80s in this part of the world.

And, yes, have different politicians to include President Obama perhaps contributed to all of this because of their actions? Yes. If Mr. Trump would have said that, it would have been a different story, and he was given that option by Hugh Hewitt, as you showed a little while ago and he refused to take it.

Instead, it's a complete slash and disrespect to the president -- another issue that I have with him in terms of his leadership qualities. But it also appeals to a bunch of people that don't really understand how complex this issue is and the number of people like me who have fought against elements like ISIS.

CUOMO: Jeffrey, we hear --

LORD: Chris, if I could --

CUOMO: Please, go ahead.

LORD: If I could just agree with the general on one thing. This problem does go back centuries. On September 11th, I believe, of 1683, Islamic forces were at the gates of Vienna, and saying they were going to behead people and rape the women, et cetera, et cetera, trying to take over what was then, you know, the gate of the Western world. This has been going on for centuries, which is explicitly why the president's refusal to call it radical Islam and deal with its roots is so troubling.

CUOMO: Jeffrey, we hear that Donald Trump is going to give a talk of some kind about how to defeat radical Islam. What do you think we're going to hear in terms of hard ideas for how to battle what is a very complicated concept?

LORD: You know, in candid, Chris, I don't know. I would just suggest this based on his performance with his economic speech the other day. He does have a series of advisers. I'm sure he will be consulting them carefully. And I'm sure it will be a very thorough presentation here of his views, which of course, you know, is what presidential candidates do.

So, I do expect that to come, but I just want to say, you know, Chris, presidents of the United States, and I worked for one, are responsible not only for their own actions but eventually there are reactions to what they do. President Kennedy and one of my heroes as a kid was given much credit for averting nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis.

But, in fact, later, historians realized he might have instigated it with his botching of the Bay of Pigs, doing nothing -- having a bad summit with Nikita Khrushchev and doing nothing with the building of the Berlin Wall, which led Khrushchev to think he could put nuclear missiles in there in the first place.

What presidents do counts. President Obama has been the commander-in- chief. He made the decision to withdraw these troops from Iraq, do it the way he did. And the situation is now as we find it. He's the responsible officer of the government.

CUOMO: General, thank you. I appreciate the perspective on this. I'm out of time for right now. This is going to be a conversation that keeps going.

Jeffrey Lord, General Mark Hertling, thank you very much for your perspective. Appreciate it.

LORD: Thank you, Chris.

CUOMO: Brianna?

KEILAR: Chris, a disaster in the suburbs of Washington, and explosion and a fire leveling an apartment complex. Two people are dead. Five others, this includes two children are still missing. The search is continuing. We'll have more, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:48:44] KEILAR: Just a terrible scene at a Silver Spring, Maryland apartment complex. Federal investigators still trying to determine the cause of Wednesday night's deadly explosion and fire that killed two people. It injured more than 30 others. And at least five people are still missing. This includes two children. Emergency responders were forced to stop their search for victims last night because the site is just too unstable.

CUOMO: Police in Massachusetts are pursuing new leads in the murder of a jogger in the town of Princeton last weekend. They say the 27- year-old Vanessa Marcotte fought with her attacker and could have left him with scratches, cuts, scrapes, or bruises. So, police have asked for the public's help in their investigation. They're also looking to any possible connection to the murder of Karina Vetrano. She's a jogger that was killed in New York City just days before Marcotte's death. More on that story when we get it.

KEILAR: And we are making a turn to a much lighter noted. President Obama unveiling his summer play list. Some of the jams that are making the daytime cut, "So Ambitious" by Jay-Z featuring Pharrell, along with Prince's "You Got the Look." And what's a good play list without "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys.

At night, the president gets down to the likes of Billy Holiday's "Lover Man" and "I Get Lonely" by Janet Jackson.

[06:50:02] CUOMO: Oh, so what do you do you see anything in this list? Is there any revealed about the president?

KEILAR: I was surprised by the presence of Fiona Apple's "Criminal." Which is just sort of a good throwback.

CUOMO: What a voice.

KEILAR: Great song. And there's DeAngelo.

CUOMO: Eclectic.

KEILAR: Very eclectic. Just sort of get in the mood music.

CUOMO: I like to see the killers in there.

KEILAR: I love the killers. They were not in there. Maybe next year.

CUOMO: Nobody is perfect.

So, a busy night in the pool, including the end of a friendly rivalry. Long-time teammates Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte swimming against each other one last time. We're going to talk to Lochte's mom about what really is a unique and golden friendship.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: The world watched Michael Phelps race toward his 22nd gold medal with his long-time friend and competitor, Ryan Lochte racing against him. Phelps took the gold 200-meter individual medley with Lochte finishing in fifth.

But the Olympian is already a winner in Rio. He won a gold medal earlier this week in the relay, making him the second most decorated male Olympic swimmer.

And joining us now is the mother of U.S. Olympic gold medalist Ryan Lochte, Ileana Lochte with us now.

Ileana, congratulations. I know you must be so excited for your son as you're watching this Olympic Games.

[06:55:02] What has it been like to be there watching him compete? You've been at other Olympic Games. I wonder how you feel about this one.

ILEANA LOCHTE, MOTHER OF RYAN LOCHTE: Really, it was just another Olympics. It was wonderful. That he actually made it. So we're really proud to be here that he actually made it.

So, we're really proud. There's no other words. His swim was okay.

KEILAR: Certainly. And I know he may be disappointed by that swim last night, but he did win a gold with the team, which certainly is very important for him and all of his teammates.

One of the things that people are looking at, one of the things that people are looking at is just this rivalry. This is something that has dominated U.S. swimming now for so many years. Tell us about this and about how it's evolved, this partnership and this rivalry between Michael Phelps and your son.

LOCHTE: It's basically run for about 12 years, and it's great. They're friends out of the water and in the water they're just competitors. They both love to compete. So it just makes it fun.

Even getting up to the starting blocks, they fool around, they joke, but once they get on the starting blocks, it's serious. And it's great.

KEILAR: It is, and it's really something to behold.

LOCHTE: It's great for swimming too.

KEILAR: And that's really the point, right. It is great for swimming. It seems like these are two athletes who have been able to a level of performance, right?

LOCHTE: They have. I don't think Ryan would have been where he's at if it wasn't for Michael and swimming against Michael. I think Michael's times have gotten, you know, better also because of that.

So, I think they both push each other, and it's wonderful, it really is. It shows that you can be friends and still compete against each other.

KEILAR: Yesterday, to the point where you said they make each other laugh, I know that before this race, such good friends, but they're competing for this incredibly important event where they've kind of gone back and forth between world championships and Olympics. I know your son stepped on the back of Michael Phelps' shoe. Made him laugh a little bit. We've seen a lot of Michael Phelps being incredibly focused.

But it seems like with your son, they really have sort of a special place for each other, right?

LOCHTE: They do, and I don't understand it. But they seem to be getting along fantastic for these 12 years. It's sad to see it end, really.

KEILAR: It certainly is. This may be the last time we see this. How do you approach that when you think about it, that this be the last time we see what has been an incredible partnership in swimming?

LOCHTE: I don't know. You know, you just have to -- I don't know. I have to react when it comes. But yesterday was sad. I was very happy for Michael. I'm always happy that he does what he does because he's incredible.

So, I'm just happy that Ryan is able to go close to him. KEILAR: Your son has said that he may be getting out of the sport.

Is that right? Or he's taking a break.

LOCHTE: I heard that yesterday for the first time, that he was taking a break. He always takes a break, really, after the Olympics. He goes with his friends and makes up for some of the stuff that he wasn't able to do during the season. I think he may be moving. So, if he moves, then he needs time to get everything together.

KEILAR: Ileana, I have to ask you, because I once dyed my hair a weird purple color. Drove my mom nuts. And so, we see your son with this sort of crazy green hair. What do you think about it?

LOCHTE: It was white when it started. I saw it and I almost died. And then I figured, this is Ryan. You know, I can't do anything. It's better than the grills. When I first saw the grills, I thought there was something wrong with his teeth.

And then, you know, I'm used to him doing these crazy things just before a championship. So --

KEILAR: Yes, big part of his sort of performance element.

LOCHTE: He looks good.

KEILAR: He looks great, Ileana. Thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. Congrats to your son and to you as well.

LOCHTE: You're so welcome.

KEILAR: And we're following a lot of news. So, let's get to it.

LOCHTE: Thank you for having me.