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Former Israeli President Shimon Peres, 93, Dies; Trump Touts Debate Performance; California Police Shoot & Kill Black Man. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired September 28, 2016 - 06:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

[05:58:22] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, welcome to your NEW DAY. it is Wednesday, September 28, 6 a.m. in the east, and we do begin with breaking news.

The man known as Israel's warrior for peace, Shimon Peres, has died. He was 93 years old. He spent more than half a century in public service. He was in many different ministerial capacities. He was prime minister; he was president. And he also shared in the Nobel Peace Prize for forging a deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Peres died after suffering a massive stroke two weeks ago. And this morning, leaders from around the world are remembering this visionary statesman. Let's begin our coverage with CNN's Oren Liebermann. He's live at the hospital outside of Tel Aviv -- Oren.

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, the list of leaders, the list of world leaders coming to attend the funeral of Shimon Peres is a testament to his legacy, to a building of peace and of trust, in a region that's certainly not known for peace and trust.

Listen to this. This is from Israel's foreign ministry, some of the world leaders expected to attend the funeral: President Barack Obama; John Kerry; Bill and Hillary Clinton; U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki- Moon; English -- England's prime minister, Teresa May; Prince Charles; German Chancellor Angela Merkel; French President Francois Hollande.

That is a testament to how much Shimon Peres meant, not only to Israel but to world leaders and to the world itself.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LIEBERMANN (voice-over): The story of Shimon Peres is the story of modern Israel. He was the longest serving politician in Israel's history. Peres was there from the very beginning. In government, he held virtually every major cabinet position and was prime minister three times but never won an election.

ETHAN DOR SHAV, SHALOM CENTER: Never got the public love that he was yearning for. He was never hugged by the populace of Israel as our leader. He was hated as much as he was loved. LIEBERMANN: In 1993 Peres signed the Oslo Peace Accord at the White House, which recognized the possibility of a two-state solution with the Palestinians for the first time. It won Peres the Nobel Peace Prize, but a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings and other attacks, which followed, left him struggling to defend the peace process.

SHIMON PERES, FORMER ISRAELI PRESIDENT: I know that we are moving in a world full of dangers, but they know, also, that this is the right road, the best road, the only road upon which we have to move.

LIEBERMANN: Ultimately, the increase in violence cost him the 1996 election. Israelis turned their backs on Peres in favor of the hardline conservative Benjamin Netanyahu.

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm very grateful to him for a lifetime of thinking big thoughts and dreaming big dreams and figuring out practical ways to achieve them.

LIEBERMANN: He never stopped striving for peace. He believed in a two-state solution up until the very end.

PERES: Maybe in the conversation, some people will say this and that, but the official position and the real desire of Israel is to have two states, an Arab state and Israel state; and I think that's also the conclusion of the Arabs.

LIEBERMANN: After nearly 50 years as a member of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, Peres became the country's president, serving until his retirement in 2014.

But when asked how he wanted to be remembered, he didn't mention a life of civil service.

PERES: I would like that somebody would write about me that they saved the life of a single child. This will satisfy me more than anything else.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIEBERMANN: Condolences pouring in from all over the world. This from President Obama: "A light has gone out, but the hope he gave us will burn forever. Shimon Peres was a soldier for Israel, for the Jewish people, for justice, for peace and for the belief that we can be true to our best selves -- to the very end of our time on Earth. For the gift of his friendship and the example of his leadership, todah rabah, Shimon." Thank you, Shimon Peres, from President Obama.

That is how much he meant to the president, and that's how much he meant to many other world leaders, who saw him as a visionary for peace, a dreamer and a believer in peace between Israelis and Palestinians and beyond -- Alisyn and Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Oren, thank you very much. Very well reported there.

I've never seen President Obama write a condolence letter with the depth and the breadth of this one. It's worth your finding it and reading it.

Let's discuss the life and legacy of Shimon Peres with CNN's chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour.

Christiane, it's hard to find an analogy to Shimon Peres in our own politics. Seventy years of service, and the depth of service, as well. What do you think he meant to Israel and to the peace process?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, listen, Chris, I think that, you know, people will remember him with a smile on their face, because he was a pretty amazing person, and he will always be linked forever with the word "peace." And all the tributes today come from world leaders and ordinary people with that vital word right there front and center.

He was also, as you know, started out fairly divisive figure in his political career when he came, and he's one of the last of the founding generations which created the state of Israel. But he came to what was then Palestine as an 11-year-old boy from Poland with his parents and then, with Ben Gurion, the first ever Israeli prime minister, joined the creation of the state of Israel.

His great initial service to the state was building up Israel's defenses. The IDF, even Prime Minister Netanyahu acknowledged that he also built up the Dimona reactor. There is a very, very strong defense legacy in Shimon Peres's life, as well. He was a hawk who then turned to become a peacemaker. And as all complex, fascinating people, they always have these mixed backgrounds.

And so, I think that what people really understand about him is that he tried to put aside what was the sort of impetus at the beginning of his career, and then to try to bring peace to Israel, certainly, with his Arab neighbors, first and foremost, the Palestinians.

When I have met him many, many, many times -- I interviewed him many times in Israel, in Washington, in London. I was also invited several times to the Shimon Peres Peace Center and the conferences he did annually. But I met him the last time for a formal interview after President Obama had bestowed the Medal of Freedom on him. And I asked him what he thought his legacy would be, and he responded in the typical sort of self-deprecating way that he could in public.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: What do you think your contribution to history has been?

PERES: That's one of the things I can't understand. I really don't know. I'm trying to do my best in my life. But, you know, it came to me as a total surprise. I was sitting in the AIPAC governing. All of a sudden the president stood up and announced. I looked down. My God, what happened? What did I do wrong? What is the mistake? I don't have the slightest idea.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:05:20] AMANPOUR: So, self-deprecating in public there. He was known to have a very, very sharp wit, as well. Came back with zingers all the time. And many people also found him a little bit arrogant, a little bit sort of proud.

But he always wanted to reach out and stretch that hand. And he quoted many things that I think speak volumes about him. He quoted, according to one of his obits, the Greek philosophers, saying, "In war the old bury the young, but in peace the young bury the old." And he said, "I felt that if I could make the world a better place for the young, that would be the greatest thing I could do."

And to that end, the former British prime minister has said, you know, he understood the importance of negotiation, because he understood the cost of war. He was not an idealist for peace out of vision alone but because he had lived through many, many years of conflict.

So, it wasn't just, you know, sort of Pollyannaish. He knew that bridging peace, particularly in that part of the world, was vital. And as we know, it has not been achieved yet.

CAMEROTA: No. And Christiane, let's talk about that moment, that monumental moment at the White House that so many of us remember in September of 1993 when he helped orchestrate the historic handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat that so many people thought would be impossible, but, you know, he believed in, obviously, bridging the divide and reaching out to one's enemies.

AMANPOUR: Well, indeed. And if you see that picture and actually play the video, you'll see that it's Shimon Peres who's signing the Oslo Accords there and that Prime Minister Rabin and the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, was looking on. Peres was always one to try to get the handshake, and obviously, along with President Clinton, they both literally body-languaged that handshake. It wasn't a natural thing for Prime Minister Rabin to do after all the history and the bad blood between the two sides. So that was an incredibly important moment.

And obviously, Oslo was so important, because he was the one who persuaded Prime Minister Rabin that they must try peace now, after that first Intifada. And, you know, it was the second Intifada that started in 2000 and led -- lasted until Arafat died that the legacy of that has never recovered, and there's been no real serious ability to forge peace ever since.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Christiane, thank you for sharing all of your reporting and memories of him with us.

AMANPOUR: Thanks.

CAMEROTA: Turning now to our other top story. That, of course, is the presidential race. Donald Trump is back on the campaign trail, attacking Hillary Clinton and claiming victory after the first debate.

Trump's campaign reports a big post-debate fundraising haul. CNN's Sara Murray is live in Orlando with more. Give us the latest, Sara.

SARA MURRAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. Well, after spending a lot of yesterday blaming the debate moderator,

blaming his microphone, Donald Trump seemed to have gotten his groove back a little bit more when he was campaigning in Florida last night. He, of course, declared himself the victor of the debate, even though even some of his own supporters believed he missed some opportunities; and he did admit he could have unloaded a little bit more on Hillary Clinton.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: For 90 minutes, I watched her very carefully. And I was also holding back. I didn't want to do anything to embarrass her. But I watched her, and she was stuck in the past.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MURRAY: Now, even if Donald Trump did miss some opportunities on that debate stage, it's clear that at least donors felt OK about his performance. In less than 24 hours following the debate, the campaign says they raised about $18 million. And while Donald Trump was on stage last night saying, basically, all of it came from low-donor dollars, that's not exactly the case. There were a lot of the very traditional high-dollar Republican fund-raiser, establishment folks we've seen from previous campaigns at Trump Tower yesterday, dialing for some pretty big bucks.

Back to you, Chris.

CUOMO: No question, Sara, that there's a big thirst for change. The question is, is Trump the right change agent? That proposition dealt a little bit of a blow in that debate by anybody's standard. Thank you for the reporting.

Meantime, Hillary Clinton basking in the glow of her strong debate performance. Today, Clinton is teaming up with Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire, hitting on the controversies marring her rival's debate performance.

CNN correspondent Joe Johns live in Washington with more. And our understanding is that it's not a gaffe parade. It's that you got to see him. You got to weigh him and measure him, and he should have been found lacking, Joe.

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's what the Clinton campaign wants voters to think right now. They're projecting an upbeat image one day after the first debate, with more help on the way, as you said from Bernie Sanders to try to get younger voters, who are just seen as critical, motivated for this election.

Sanders will be appearing in New Hampshire with Secretary Clinton today to stem any further departure of millennials, who could be turning to Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson.

[06:10:12] Meanwhile, yesterday in Raleigh, North Carolina, Hillary Clinton giving every indication that her and her campaign are riding high. Listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Did anybody see that debate last night? Oh, yes. One down, two to go.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS (voice-over): The Clinton campaign is also hoping for another day of free media coverage of the Miss Universe controversy that their candidate lobbed over the fence of the Trump campaign at the end of the debate.

This is about Alicia Machado of Venezuela, who was publicly berated by Donald Trump for gaining weight. The Clinton campaign hoping their highlighting the issue will serve as a motivator for at least two important demographics. That would be Hispanics, as well as women voters.

And Machado pressing the case with her own media appearance, as well as on social media with supporters weighing in, along with a noticeable amount of trolling that just promotes her name and the story that has now taken a life of its own.

Clearly, no accident. A planned, calculated attack by the Clinton campaign, which almost immediately came out with a web video, en espanol, featuring Machado.

Back to you.

CAMEROTA: OK, Joe. Thanks so much for all of that.

Joining us now to discuss it all, CNN political commentator, political anchor of Time Warner Cable News, Errol Louis; CNN Politics executive editor Mark Preston; national political reporter for "The Boston Globe" Matt Viser; and CNN political reporter Sara Murray also rejoins us. Great to have all of you here this morning.

So Errol, Donald Trump has decided that he won the debate. He -- this is despite polls, legitimate polls that show that that's not how the viewers saw it. But he has cited all sorts of online polls that most news organizations do not use, to say that he won. What -- what are we to make of this?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think it's -- look, in the last six weeks of the campaign, it does no good to sort of give some sort of nuance, neutral opinion to your own troops about how you did. People can watch, and they can see for themselves.

The reality is you've got to keep the morale going. You've got to give people a reason to get up every day and go and fight, especially in those battleground states. So it was inevitable that both sides were going to claim victory.

It is a little interesting to see the media get swept along with it. And you know, as sort of a pro tip to our colleagues, they should realize there is a huge difference between a real poll and a survey where, as we've already seen some reporting on this, people can just kind of get a bunch of their friends and get organized and go and vote again and again and again.

CAMEROTA: You mean there are some news organizations that are touting it as real.

LOUIS: Sure, sure. Yes, I mean, they're taking the headline, "Trump Claims Victory," and they sort of put up all these numbers.

CUOMO: Because it seems like pure representation. We're going to put the question out on the Internet, ask it. It drives a tons of traffic to their websites. You know, so there's something gratifying about that. CNN, I think, is the only one who took the time to do a telephone poll, and people don't get the distinction. So, that gives Trump a little bit of cover to say, "See, the media is against me."

But here's what he can't get cover from that was evident to everybody who watched that debate. He does not take the tough questions well. He doesn't want them. That's why you won't see him on this show. And when he is asked them in the debate format, he struggles. And what he does is he doubles down on the criticism of the question. Has that gotten tired for voters, do you think?

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICAL EXECUTIVE EDITOR: It's got tired for me. And I think it's gotten tired for a lot of us who practice journalism.

But I do think that, for some reason, that he's getting away with it. I mean, his support is so strong right now, it's not eroding from those who are with him.

What we will find out, though, perhaps as early as Friday morning, maybe late Thursday night, is that the fact that he knew, really, no policy when he was at that debate, had that actually hurt them and will that hurt them? That's when we'll see a -- likely see a new national poll from a polling organization that is scientifically done, not something you go on your computer and just keep on hitting return, return, return, return. So we should know that.

But I can't imagine he came out of that debate and -- and was stronger for it. There's no way that could have happened.

CAMEROTA: Well, Donald Trump has his own rationale for why he wasn't stronger in the debate. He says that he was holding back so as not to hurt Hillary Clinton's feelings. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: For 90 minutes I watched her very carefully, and I was also holding back. I didn't want to do anything to embarrass her. But I watched her, and she was stuck in the past. For 90 minutes on issue after issue. Hillary Clinton defended the terrible status quo. Well, while I laid out our plan...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Did he lay out his plan in the debate? [06:15:19] MATT VISER, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, "BOSTON GLOBE":

No. And I mean, I think some of the best moments for Trump was when he was characterizing this as a status quo, versus change election.

And talking about Hillary Clinton's decades in Washington, decades in policy, not inflicting change. And those moments were few, though. I mean, those were at the very beginning of the debate. And once it changed into a discussion of whether Donald Trump is fit to take that change, he sort of lost control.

Once it became the issue of over his taxes, over Iraq War, over his truthfulness or lack thereof, he sort of lost it a little bit. And Hillary Clinton did a much better job, you know, sort of making it about Donald Trump and putting the debate on her terms rather than Trump's.

CUOMO: Look, in one sense, Errol, he had a tougher task than Hillary Clinton. We know what Hillary Clinton is. And I mean "what" on purpose. Now "who" but "what." You know that 50 different ways, she has weaknesses. She has flaws. She has imperfections.

He is trying to cast himself as a change agent. But he is not a change agent. He has never been a change agent in any way of public service. He can't show any proof of it. So, he then goes into trying to make that case, can't make the case.

And it's coupled with his inability to take criticism. The proof is Miss Universe situation. No politician with a scintilla of common sense would stay on this. He said stupid things about her that are debasing to women. He should stay away. But he can't. He gets called out for it: "You called her these things. It's wrong." He goes right back at it, goes on television just to talk about it. And where is the virtue in this, except feeding his own need to fight back?

LOUIS: Well, this is -- and I don't know how much of it is personal. Always with Trump the personal and the professional sort of get mixed together.

CUOMO: Here's the professional angle of it. You said the things you said. So he doubles down. He says, "She gained a lot of weight. It was a real problem."

LOUIS: Well, this is -- that's the owner at the time of the pageant. This is a commercial dispute for him, which again, also becomes a personal dispute, because his name is on everything. But it's a commercial dispute, and he says she didn't live up to her end of the contract. Once that happens, we know what to expect from Donald Trump. It's all guns blazing. There's no backing down; there's no apologizing.

And so even, you know, 20 years later, he still wants to go after her. "You didn't do what you were supposed to do. You put on weight. It was a real problem for us." On and on and on. It's him being a businessman, or his kind of businessman, and not being a politician. CAMEROTA: Sara, you know, Alicia Machado is not going away either. I

mean, she basically says that when this happened, when she was Miss Universe 20 years ago, and she gained some weight, that Donald Trump publicly humiliated her and denigrated her. He called a press conference, where he invited reporters to watch her work out, because he was forcing her to work out. So she was on Anderson Cooper's show last night. Listen to what she had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALICIA MACHADO, FORMER MISS UNIVERSE: He was really aggressive. He was really rude. He was a bad person with me. And that is the story I need to share, for my community.

We can accept -- we can accept more insults for my Latin community. I know very well Mr. Trump, and I can see the same person that I met 20 years ago.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So, this is not going to help with female voters, we can assume, but as Errol said, you know, he can't disengage from this fight.

MURRAY: Well, right. I think Donald Trump really determines how effective of a surrogate Alicia Machado is for Hillary Clinton. And he's doing a pretty good job of ensuring she's not going to go away by continuing to go to battle with her, continuing to talk about her gaining weight.

It would have been very easy for him to just say, "Look, this is show business. This was television. This is something we were doing for the cameras. And was I a little bit insensitive? Yes. And for that, I apologize." And then to move on.

But he really just took the bait over and over again when it came to his business practices. And that was an area of frustration for some of his supporters that we've spoken to, some of the people who are donating money to his campaign. They actually do feel like he can make the change argument. He does stand for some policies that are not traditional Republican establishment policies.

But he needs to not get bogged down in these personal battles. But Hillary Clinton knows how hard it is for him to pass up something like that, and he just could not manage to do it on that debate stage.

CUOMO: Last word, Mark.

PRESTON: I just think, look, it's a sign of character. Right? He lies; he denies. He goes out, he attacks; he doubles down. These are very important issues. And "The Arizona Republic," a very conservative newspaper who has never endorsed a Democrat over a Republican, is now endorsing Hillary Clinton. And one of the reasons is because of his temperament, and they don't feel that he is safe as a commander in chief. [06:20:04] CUOMO: And just one quick qualifier. Sara is, you know,

using terms of art that we use in journalism, but he did not "take the bait." He is not being baited. Things are presented to him, and it's his desire; it's his mode of how he responds to them. This is no trick. He is no victim. It's important to recognize that.

CAMEROTA: Panel, thank you very much.

We have a quick programming note for you. President Obama is going to sit down with Jake Tapper tonight to discuss challenges facing U.S. veterans and his legacy as commander in chief. So join us tonight for a CNN town hall. That's 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific. All right.

CUOMO: All right. Now, all too common and troubling headline. A black man killed by police, this time in California. But, is it a case of excessive force or justifiable shooting? We have a closer look at the evidence, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: We do have some breaking news. There's been another deadly police shooting of a black man, this time in the suburbs of San Diego. The chief of police in El Cajon claiming that this 30-year-old suspect held up an object with both hands, both arms; and that led police to open fire.

CNN's Paul Vercammen is live in El Cajon with the breaking details. What have you learned, Paul?

[06:25:04] PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, lots of questions in the air tonight as they try to solve what happened here. This is what we understand from what police told us.

The call went out for a man who was acting erratic. He was apparently, as they said, in traffic and was a danger to himself and motorists. By several accounts, his sister called police and wanted them to respond as quickly as possible. Police say it took them 50 minutes.

And here's what happened when the sister found that her brother had been shot.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just called for help and you came and kill him. Oh, my God, you killed my brother! I called you guys to come and help, not to kill my brother!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VERCAMMEN: Now, police say that, basically, the suspect drew a firearm, or something that they believed was a firearm, concealed in the pocket of his pants. He placed both hands on this object and extended them rapidly towards the officers, taking up what they are calling a shooting stance. The police chief later said that they did not find a firearm. The two officers are on administrative leave.

And, of course, all of this led to some protests in the -- in the San Diego area here in El Cajon. Hundreds of the people angry, tensions rising but right now very peaceful here.

Earlier behind me, we saw some people holding hands and quietly mourning and grieving. And they are still, obviously, going to possibly release some key cellphone video later. Police say that this will prove their point that this man took up what they again call some sort of shooting stance.

Back to you now, Chris.

CAMEROTA: All right. Thank you very much for the reporting. We're going to talk more about this story coming up. There's more information, this perspective on what the police did in this situation, what they had to do.

Another headline for you this morning: SpaceX founder Elon Musk is reaching for the heavens. What does that mean? He says he's going to be ready to send passengers to Mars soon. Could there be a seat for you? The big plans and the price tag, next on NEW DAY.

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