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Wolf

Will Joe Biden Enter Presidential Race; Wall Street Surging After Monday's Big Losses; RNC Digs for Dirt on Clinton; U.S.: Turkey to Begin Air Strikes Against ISIS; ISIS Claims Destruction of Ancient Syrian Temple. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired August 25, 2015 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00] ALEX CASTELLANOS, CHAIRMAN, PURPLE STRATEGIES: For now. But at the end of the day -- right now, he's a good vehicle for Republican frustration but, at the end of the day, is he going to be the guy Republicans turn to, to lead the country when he can't even maintain a good relationship with FOX News?

(CROSSTALK)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Let's turn to Joe Biden, vice president of the United States.

Let's start with Hilary.

Will he be on the stage at the first Democratic presidential debate in Nevada in October?

CASTELLANOS: Yes.

HILARY ROSEN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.

CASTELLANOS: I think he will be. And I think that that if he picks Elizabeth Warren as a V.P., he could run the table and make himself a serious contender in the general election as well.

ROSEN: My heart says that he will be but my head said he won't be.

BLITZER: Why.

ROSEN: I think there's a long way from here to there. I think he's depending on a faltering Hillary, which I don't think -- given the polls -- a "USA Today" poll yesterday -- says is really true, Democrats aren't looking for an alternative.

CASTELLANOS: I would disagree.

HILARY: I want the vice president to do what's in his heart and I think he would be a great president but I think ultimately if --

(CROSSTALK)

CASTELLANOS: But if you're Joe Biden, if you're watching, somebody other than Hillary thinking, why not me?

BLITZER: We'll see if he's on the stage at the first Democratic debate in Nevada in October.

Thank you.

For the latest in politics and all the presidential contenders, head over to CNNpolitics.com. That's where you get the best information.

Still to come, we'll find out what's behind the turnaround on Wall Street after yesterday's stunning losses. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:36:11] BLITZER: Let's get to today's dramatic turnaround on Wall Street. There you see the Dow Jones Industrials up 223 points right now. Yesterday, was one of the biggest single-day swings in the history of the market, dropping more than 1,000 points early in the day before closing down almost 600 points.

Our business correspondent, Richard Quest, is joining us.

Richard, some big news by the Chinese government, over night, cutting interest rates, again promising to pumping more than $20 billion into their economy. Is that what's turning things around for investors in the United States?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN HOST, QUEST MEANS BUSINESS: Not really, Wolf. That was part of the story but the reason you've seen a large bounce- back is that the realization that the falls of thursday, Friday, and Monday were largely overdone and things were looking cheap in time to come back into the market. Look at that graph, Wolf, and you see what I see when I look at it. The market goes up over 300 points and then for most of the session has remained within quite a tight band, which means that the market is still trying to decide where the medium-term direction goes. Into that aspect, you can certainly put the Chinese decision to lower interest rates and to reduce reserve requirements. Asia was down. China was down so the Shanghai market, the Nikkei was down, Hong Kong was down. But everywhere else if you look at Australia, if you look at Europe, if you look at all the others, with the exception of the Shanghai market, which has given back all its gains and more, everything else was up.

BLITZER: How much does this trickle Dow down? Our viewers in north America, what does it mean to them specifically as we see the ups and downs, this rollercoaster going on.

QUEST: On a day to day basis, nothing other than a bout of indigestion and the best chance to ignore it with a strong drink. That's the honest truth about this, Wolf. When you see the market rise for a full 500, go up 300, you are best ignoring it in the short term. Now, in the medium term, you have to take advantage and look and decide what does this mean for my portfolio? Do I think, for example, that China's woes are going to wash up on the shore here? And then you choose the moment to rebalance your portfolio? In this short instant knee-jerk reaction of day to day traders and vast portfolio movements by computers, it really -- it has to be ignored.

BLITZER: But even with this bounce-back of about 200 points, let's not forget, over the last week or so, the Dow has dropped more than 1500 points.

QUEST: Exactly. Exactly the point. And once you feel that there's an element of equilibrium, once you feel that -- remember, you missed selling last Wednesday or Tuesday before the fall happened. If you sold on Friday you are far worse off by Monday because of the -- and if you sold on Monday, you're even worse off. So you've got to watch out the way in which you -- sorry, I meant if you sold on Monday, you are much worse off than if you just hold on a little longer and wait to see the direction. See what people are saying in the longer term. This is not a time to take a knee-jerk decision for ordinary investors.

BLITZER: I think investors around the world who are watching right now, they see an uptick, at least today on the Dow Jones Industrials on Wall Street. That's encouraging for them as well. What happens here in the United States has a huge impact in Europe and Asia.

QUEST: Yes. Absolutely.

[13:39:50] BLITZER: Richard, thanks very much.

Still ahead, Republicans preparing for a hard fight in the event Hillary Clinton does win the Democratic presidential nomination. According to a new report, one man may provide them with some ammunition. The author of that report, Jackie Kucinich, is joining us next. Stand by.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Here in the United States, the Republican National Committee is building up its arsenal against Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. According to a new report in "The Daily Beast," one lone staffer is charged with combing through the archives at the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas, looking for any contradictions or embarrassments from the candidate's past. It's a rather tedious task. Out of 750 boxes, the RNC staffer is only allowed to go through one box at a time. From that one box, he's only allowed to look at one folder at a time. From that folder, he's only allowed to look at one page at a time. His activity is monitored by a library staffer as well as closed-circuit staffers.

Jackie Kucinich is the senior politics editor for "The Daily Beast." She's here with me right now. She wrote this article.

Jackie, thanks very much for coming in.

[13:45:26] JACKIE KUCINICH, SENIOR POLITICS EDITOR, THE DAILY BEAST: Thanks for having me.

BLITZER: How did you get this idea to go down -- you went down to Little Rock and watched what was going on.

KUCINICH: I was curious how they're digging up the dirt on Hillary Clinton. Everybody involved gets e-mail. You see the stuff they pulled. I was curious who they had station there had to go poring through the research. So I went down there and I followed the staffer around for a couple days and just got to see how he did his work. It is a very tedious process. The national archives and library have very strict rules and he was very careful about following them and explained them to me so I didn't run afoul of the rules when I was there. He's going through box and box. He wants to go through all 750 very deliberately to find anything from Hillary Clinton's days as first lady that they might be able to use against her in this campaign.

BLITZER: It's called opposition research.

KUCINICH: Indeed.

BLITZER: All campaigns -- almost all campaigns, I should say, do that. I got a statement from the RNC, "We found a lot of useful stuff. We know what we're looking for and who we are looking at. It's a piece of a larger engine."

When they say "useful stuff," what does that mean specifically?

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Is there, like, something that's already been released or are they holding it to see what happens down the road?

KUCINICH: It's a little bit of both. He's found things that have turned around and become press releases, it depends on what's in the news. When I was there he found a statement from Hillary Clinton from her days as first lady that looked like she was contradicting remarks she's made on immigration. He sends that off to the RNC and they haven't used it yet. So we'll see when they use it. They flag it to the necessary teams. This is a huge operation and he is just a part of it. And so whether they use, it's up to them whether they use it right away or whether they hold it for the general election.

BLITZER: We didn't get a statement from the Clinton campaign. We did get one from a pro-Clinton group saying this, "If Republicans think that you're time is best spent rehashing the false attacks their own party planted at the age of M.C. Hammer instead of, say, improving the GOP's extreme positions, their priorities are misplaced."

But every presidential candidate should assume, whether it's the same party or the opposite party, people are going through almost everything they did in their public life.

KUCINICH: One of the most interesting things about that is the RNC, this effort, was born out of what American Bridge did when Mitt Romney was running.

BLITZER: A pro-Democratic super PAC.

KUCINICH: Yes, a pro-Democratic super PAC. They had a pile on Mitt Romney's record before he was even the Republican nominee. So every attack they had came quickly, fast, and they really whittled away at his record. So as a result they've set up this massive effort to do basically the same thing to Hillary Clinton. BLITZER: And I assume that Republicans, Jeb Bush's campaign, other

campaigns, the super PACs that support them, they're going through all of Donald Trump's record right now, because he's emerged, as we know, as the clear Republican front-runner right now.

KUCINICH: You'd have to imagine but there has been a hesitance to attack Donald Trump, run ads against him, even from super PACs, because you don't know if it will come back at you if you're that candidate. All the other attacks, so far, it hasn't dinged him. He's been Teflon in a way. So we'll have to watch and see when they start using any research that they've done, and just how they go about it so they don't end up hurt.

BLITZER: What they usually do, if it's sensitive, that I leak it to a news organization and they try to make sure that their fingerprints are not seen on that. The news organization checks it out, and if it's true, they report it.

KUCINICH: Right.

BLITZER: At least in the past that's what's often been done.

Jackie, good work.

KUCINICH: Thank you very much.

BLITZER: Jackie Kucinich, of "The Daily Beast," reporting.

Coming up, horrifying pictures out of Palmyra in Syria that appear to be showing ISIS fighters using IEDs, roadside bombs, to completely destroy an ancient temple.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:53:28] BLITZER: We've got breaking news coming out of the Pentagon. Turkey is ready to begin air strikes against ISIS along the border with Syria. The Pentagon announcing today that it has worked out a new agreement to, quote, fully integrate Turkey into the coalition fighting ISIS."

Our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr, is standing by.

Barbara, are we getting specifics about what is involved in this new agreement with Turkey?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: At the moment we are not, Wolf. The Turks have been talking about it in the last couple of days as a comprehensive strategy against is. The Pentagon going so far as to say indeed they did reach an agreement. Turkey will now participate in the air strikes against ISIS targets, presumably in northern Syria. So that's the air component of all of this.

But Pentagon press secretary, Peter Cook, went on to say there's -- they are not being too subtle about it -- more work to get Turkey to control the border. That is one of the big outstanding issues right now. The U.S. view is clearly that Turkey is not controlling the border enough. They want to press very hard to get Turkey to crack down on the flow of ISIS fighters and weapons across that Turkish border into northern Syria.

The Turks have also talked about a safe zone. The U.S. is against a safe zone. In other words, a zone on the ground along the border that would be patrolled from the air. The U.S. doesn't feel that that is very workable. The Pentagon wouldn't go so far today. Cook would not go so far today as to definitely rule out a safe zone. But no reason to expect that the U.S. policy has really changed.

So the Turks will conduct air strikes when they find ISIS targets. Don't look for this to be old-style shock and awe. They will go after those targets when they are assigned to them by the command of the coalition. But again, the real issue on the table here for many in the administration is to get the Turks to crack down on the ground on the border control -- Wolf?

[13:55:34] BLITZER: Just to be precise, Barbara, this is seen as a push to get Turkey more involved, right?

STARR: It is. It's important to get Turkey involved. Not to minimize this at all. They want Turkey doing air strikes in return for the U.S. Getting access to U.S. air bases. The Turks provide a very close geographical point from which to launch air strikes but the Turks have some conflicted priorities here, to say the least. The Turks have the definite priority of going after the PKK terrorist group of Kurds in northern Iraq that they feel threatened in their country. The U.S. doesn't disagree with that but the U.S. wants the Turks to pay a lot of attention to ISIS more on the Syrian side of the border -- Wolf?

BLITZER: Barbara Starr, thank you very much. Barbara Starr reporting from the Pentagon.

Meanwhile, a 2,000-year-old historic ruin is now gone. ISIS claimed to destroy the Baal Shamin Temple in Palmyra in Syria. This is a picture before the attack and then after the attack. Apparently, blown to pieces by ISIS

Let's go to our senior international correspondent, Ben Wedeman.

Ben, you spent a lot of time in that part of the world. ISIS, as we know, it's all about propaganda. What's the point of blowing up these antiquities, these ancient temples?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, really, this is part of their shock-and-awe policy, so to speak. They have done this in here in Syria, Iraq, time and time again. It's not just artifacts that date back towards Islam. They have destroyed Christian churches and Shia shrines as well. They are driving home the message that they will destroy everything that doesn't fit within their very narrow vision of Islam.

Now, of course, for many Syrians, for instance, at the moment they have other things to worry about. We heard, for instance, today from UNICEF that five million people are suffering from a water shortage. There have been continued barrel bombings throughout Syria. People are suffering from disease, from lack of food. So really at this moment, Wolf, before horsemen of the apocalypse are loose in Syria, few Syrians really have the luxury to ponder the significance of the loss of an old building -- Wolf?

BLITZER: So far, Ben, we've got these still photos. Have they released any video and how do we know these are really authentic?

WEDEMAN: Well, we did hear from the director of antiquities who saw those pictures and said, yes, that is the temple. This is the temple of Baal Shamin. There's a very good chance that at some point they will put out video as well as they did, for instance, in the case of Nineveh in Iraq, the Mosul museum where we saw ISIS fighters going through the museum and just tipping over ancient statues. If we go by previous experience, they will come out with a video version of this vandalism.

BLITZER: Quickly, you've actually been there. Years ago, you actually went to this historic site, right?

WEDEMAN: Actually, I've been there many times. The first time was October 1974 when I was living in Beirut, and been back many times. Of course, obviously, they were more peaceful times. You had complete full reign of the area. And before the beginning of the uprising, the Syrian tourism industry was booming. More than 100,000 people were visiting Palmyra. Now, of course, nobody is visiting. And we don't know how much longer those ruins, the rest of those ruins will actually be there -- Wolf?

[13:59:57] BLITZER: Ben Wedeman, reporting for us. A sad story, indeed. Thanks very much.

That's it for me. The news continues next on CNN.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Wolf Blitzer, thank you so much.