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Joyce Mitchell Provided Tools to Inmates; Next Phase of Hillary Clinton's White House Run; Obama Hopes Democrats Will Support Trade Deal. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired June 12, 2015 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:32:00] BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: I want to welcome back our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Brianna Keilar, in for Wolf Blitzer.

Back to the manhunt in Upstate New York. As many as 800 police and investigators, corrections officers are scattered throughout the search area trying to find these two convicted killers who broke out of prison one week ago. Investigators believe the two men are still together.

And today, we're learning more about this woman, Joyce Mitchell. She became close to these escaped inmates while working at the prison and now law enforcement sources tell CNN she provided them with hacksaw blades as well as with lighted eyeglasses and drill bits.

I want to talk about these new developments in the search for the convicted killers. They've been on the run for six days and counting.

We have Tom Fuentes with us, a former FBI assistant director and CNN law enforcement analyst.

Tom, you have authorities, they think the men are still together. Why would they be able to tell? What is making them believe they haven't gone their separate ways?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: I think they're guessing. The reason for it would be they might need each other for survival still. That they're still in the escape mode. If they're in the area. If the ride didn't show up, if the plan went awry as soon as they came out of the manhole maybe they still need each other for now. So, yes, they're the type of personalities that would turn on each other in a heart beat and kill each other without a problem but not that they don't need each other.

KEILAR: You can imagine two people are getting tired, they might need a lookout or something like that?

FUENTES: It might be. We're saying that because of the dogs and other information, other spottings that they have to be right in that area. But there's other possibility Wes haven't talked about. One is maybe she was supposed to pick them up. She was there ride. She was their contact. But maybe she was supposed to pick them up Sunday night and they snuck out Monday night, made phone calls to have somebody else come and get them. We don't know.

KEILAR: So I wonder, listening to -- we heard the police chief there from Plattsburgh. It does seem even as we heard reports from reporters, seems like everyone's a little confident. They feel like they've zeroed in on these guys. They feel like a capture is imminent. Why? Is there something we don't know that's going on that makes them confident?

FUENTES: I don't think so. But I think it's because of the dogs that lit up on the mattress and the other debris and some of the sightings of strange people in backyards and that type of thing. So I think that thinking the plan went awry and they here in a survival mode and couldn't get far and they've hunkered down somewhere, maybe gone into one of the vacation home there is that are unoccupied. That may be why they're thinking so confidently. It'd be blessed confidence and say there's still a good chance they slipped out of the net.

KEILAR: Joyce Mitchell, the prison worker we know had some sort of relationship that wouldn't be -- whether it was a friendship or what not, not appropriate between her and one of these men and one of the guys was taken off of her sewing shop detail where she worked. We're learning she gave them hacksaw blades, glasses with lights on them. What do you need those for? How does that happen where someone like this who's been flagged before is able to do this?

[13:35:20] FUENTES: Well, psychotic personalities like that look for the weaknesses a person might have. She might have low self-esteem. We don't know what her personal relationship is with her husband. Maybe they don't get along, don't like each other, haven't talked to each other in years.

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KEILAR: They're playing on her weaknesses.

FUENTES: Yes, they could look at her and go "you're beautiful. You're nice, if only I met you sooner, oh, you're so great." And play to her weaknesses, take advantage, push the right buttons psychologically with her to get her to be their friend.

KEILAR: So assuming all of this is true, essentially then she would be complicit in their escape. She hasn't been charged yet but do you think ultimately she will be or is all of this to try to get a lesser charge?

FUENTES: Well, both. I think she is trying to get a lesser charge. They're trying to encourage her to have the opportunity to get a lesser charge by cooperating and getting all the help. At a certain point, she's going to have told them about as much as she can about what she thought they might do. As I said, there's a possibility they weren't maybe truthful with her and had other plans that didn't include her. We don't think they were going to traipse off to Mexico or somewhere with her as their date. They were using her as far as she was use to feel them and at whatever point she was no longer useful, either kill her or discard her by the wayside.

KEILAR: Great inside.

Tom Fuentes, thanks so much.

FUENTES: You're welcome.

KEILAR: Up next, from round table discussions to the first big rally of her campaign, we will preview the next phase of Hillary Clinton's run for the White House and we'll have a political panel here weighing in.

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[13:40:27] KEILAR: Presidential politics now. Jeb Bush reaches the final stop on his three-nation European tour. Bush arrived in Estonia after visiting Germany and Poland. This is a trip that is aimed at bolstering his foreign policy credentials. Today Bush visited a NATO cyber defense center and it's a trip that comes just ahead of his official campaign kickoff which is on Monday. Advisors and confidantes telling us here at CNN that the strategy is a slow and steady campaign, focused on the long haul. Sort of the tortoise and not the hare.

So if you're looking for Republican presidential hopefuls, try Utah. That's where Mitt Romney is holding his fourth annual Republican retreat. Six declared or likely contenders are taking part. You have Florida Senator Marco Rubio, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, New Hampshire Governor Chris Christie, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Ohio Governor John Kasich, and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, big critic of Hillary Clinton's.

Speaking of Hillary Clinton, big weekend for her. This is her campaign kickoff speech and rally. This time, as we understand it, it's personal. Tomorrow, Clinton holds her first major rally since launching her presidential bid more than two months ago. Until now, her campaign is focused on the small round table conversations and events like you're looking at right now.

I want to bring in CNN political commentator, Hilary Rosen. Her firm consults for the Democratic National Committee. And I want to bring in CNN political commentator and Democratic strategist, Maria Cardona.

So tomorrow, I expected -- as I've been covering Hillary Clinton, she has talked her four fights talking about economy, communities and families, among other things, national security, but it sounds like tomorrow she's focusing on a personal story, right?

HILARY ROSEN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think we are going to see some policy contrasts. She's going to talk about what she thinks matters and what the president needs to address. I think what they're trying to do is take a step back. She's been in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina. She has listened to what voters are interested in. There there's a lot of interest in her and what motivates her. She's been secretary of state, she's been first lady but what is it about that that will take voters to this next level? I think that going back to her experience with her mom who lost her own parents 1259 and counted on a series of older caregivers to help her through. Those sorts of things that made Hillary Clinton who she is. I think people are going to hear some of that. Not the first time she talked about it but it will feel fresh and new.

KEILAR: Since she ran for president in 2008, her mother passed away. So I think she'll be talking about her mother also in a very different way but what do you think? Is she going to get some into some of the nuts and bolts or is it going to be broad strokes instead.

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think tomorrow will be more of the personal story. She will talk about the policies she wants to push forward but she's going to link it to what it is that motivates her.

KEILAR: Why she's running.

CARDONA: Exactly. It goes to the why and who she's fighting for. I think she'll make the connection of the policies she's talked about up until now. Voters understand she is more than anything a policy wonk. A lot of coverage today -- her launch tomorrow about how she's going to be looked at as the wonk warrior. Tomorrow she'll fill in the blank. It has a lot to do with her mother's story. And it has to with voters viewing her not as Bill Clinton's wife, not as the former first lady, not as the Senator, not even as the former secretary of state. All of that will inform the policy pieces she will talk about but who is she at her core and what will motivate her to get up everyday and be that champion she wants to talk about in terms of middle class families.

KEILAR: One of the things I don't expect to hear about are some of the questions about the Clinton Foundation that have continued to linger. She's not going to address those. We heard Bill Clinton in an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper talk about this. When is she going to talk about this? At some point, she'll do interviews, she'll be asked about it. She'll have to wade into this, isn't she?

[13:45:03] ROSEN: At some point, she will on a broader level, but make sure that in those small meetings she's having in Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina, voters are asking her the stuff they care about. And they're talking about education about the economy, their own jobs, their families. And I think from Hillary Clinton's point of view, the more she can talk about what voters want to hear from her and less about what the press wants to hear from her the better off she is.

KEILAR: You think no voters want to hear about the Clinton Foundation?

(CROSSTALK)

ROSEN: It doesn't seem to rise very big on the interest scale.

CARDONA: There might be some but I think they want to hear what it is she will do for them. And importantly what we will start hearing tomorrow also, Brianna, is the contrast between what she's going to offer the American people if she gets to the general election versus every other Republican candidate which have been obsessed with attacking her not what voters want to hear. But also what are their policies going do for middle-class families and those hurting? They are simply focused on all of their old policies which is, you know, bringing yourself up from the bootstraps. What about people who don't have bootstraps? Who's going to be fighting for those people?

ROSEN: And it's a challenge for the campaign, though. They're going to balance this strategy which is kind of a small campaign in the four early states with one of the questions that the national media will focus on and I don't think they've figured out how to make that balance yet but they will have to.

CARDONA: I think they'll get there.

KEILAR: Big day tomorrow. We'll be watching.

Hilary and Maria, thank you so much.

We are watching Capitol Hill right now. We'll have a report after a quick break. Big news coming up ahead on this trade deal that -- I should say trade authority that President Obama is hoping Democrats will swing his way on. We'll have more on that.

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[13:50:35] KEILAR: All right. We are watching some breaking news on Capitol Hill, what is really looking, at this point, to be a serious blow to an economic priority of President Obama's.

Sunlen Serfaty, you were on the Hill, let's talk about -- and Jake Tapper is the new host of "State of the Union," beginning this Sunday. He's here as well with us.

Sunlen, explain to us what has happened.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, first, we saw the defeat of the worker aid bill. That was tied to the Trade Promotion Authority. All week we've heard from House leadership that if TAA failed, they would not give President Obama what he's been asking for on trade. We just saw a massive blow to the TAA. 302 members voted against it, including a significant amount of Democrats. All week we've heard they would not move to take up the trade bill but we just heard from Kevin McCarthy on the floor that they would move to it. A lot of things up in the air. We learned a few moments ago that there was going to be an effort on the part of the Republicans to try to revive this bill, restructure, and go back to the drawing board. Right now, we are not clear how they maneuvered their way in there. We know they will hold a vote on the president's trade authority today.

KEILAR: OK. Two bills that were key, and this one basically said if workers lose their jobs as a result of foreign trade, then they are going to get job training. It's a way to sort try to assuage the trade bill, which is a specific trade bill, sort of hurting those workers, Sunlen. The sticking point is the president's fast-track authority, allowing him to negotiate this trade agreement and then Congress just has to say yes or no to it. You're saying that now Republicans are saying they are going back to the drawing board, trying to figure this out and at some point we'll expect another vote but it's very unclear, right?

SERFATY: It's very unclear and very emblematic of the week that Capitol Hill has gone through, especially in the last few days, this intense lobbying effort and really showing how things are changing by the moment. We saw a significant amount of Democrats vote against the bill. Many of them were advised to vote against the TAA because they wanted to sabotage this trade bill. A lot of Democrats don't want to go along with the White House on this. Even after hearing from President Obama this morning, they don't think it would be good for their constituents. We saw member after member of Democrats coming out saying they don't believe this is the right thing to do. But we're seeing potentially Republicans trying to force this to a vote this afternoon -- Brianna?

KEILAR: Jake, this is not good for President Obama.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST, STATE OF THE UNION: It's not good and it comes on the heels of a similar episode with the NSA powers, remember, when that expired. President Obama obviously is a lame duck. He's in the last two years of his administration, of his final term. And you see the limitations of his appeals to even the Democrats in his caucus voting against something that they support, worker retraining, because that will help them kill something that they do not support, which is fast-track authority for this trade bill.

A lot of Democrats out there, I just have to say, this is based on principle. They think this bill is bad. They think that NAFTA is bad. They, a lot of Democrats up there, think they were told things in the '90s by the Clinton administration about NAFTA that did not turn out to be true. And when you see the Elizabeth Warren wing, the progressive wing of the party, it's not a surprise that this would be a heavy lift. What is a surprise is that President Obama did such little apparent lobbying and big effort to get something passed that he saw as a legacy item.

KEILAR: It was a legacy item. This has been -- you know, we covered the White House together and you would go on these trips with him to so many Asian countries. He's been trying to have this pivot to Asia away from the mid-east region and he's really wanted to beef up the U.S. economy by doing that. So this is something that he's put in so much time to, not just his visit to the Hill. It makes you wonder if the visit to the Hill today, was this just a Hail Mary? Did he really have a shot here?

[13:55:01] TAPPER: Look, everybody who covers this has known this bill was going to be in trouble with Democrats defecting, specifically because of Democrats defecting. We should point out, there were enough votes to get the whole thing over but when it came to sabotaging the bill, it was Democrats pushing it and ultimately I find it somewhat mysterious that the Obama White House was this surprised, apparently, that this was going to be such a heavy lift that you see President Obama last night going to the Congressional baseball game, this morning going to the Democratic caucus meeting, making his case. And it's late and this is not -- this bill is not failing because he doesn't have great relationships with Democrats on Capitol Hill. But it didn't help.

KEILAR: Yeah, it didn't help.

Jake Tapper, I'm very much looking forward to Sunday --

TAPPER: Thank you.

KEILAR: -- when you anchor "State of the Union."

Our new anchor of the Sunday show. And do not miss this Sunday with Jake because he has a great interview with Bill Clinton on "State of the Union" this Sunday at 9:00 a.m. eastern, right here on CNN.

And that is it for me. I'm going to be back at 5:00 eastern on "The Situation Room."

For our international viewers, "Amanpour" is next.

For our viewers in North America, "Newsroom" with Brooke Baldwin starts right now -- or I should saw, starts after a quick break.

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