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NEW DAY

Shootings Mark Anniversary of Brown's Death; Trump Defends Megyn Kelly 'Blood' Comment; U.S. Lawmakers in Israel to Talk Nuclear Deal; U.S. Fighter Jets Join ISIS Fight in Turkey. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired August 10, 2015 - 07:00   ET

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: No word on it, but let's get the latest from Sara Sidner. She's been on the scene all night; witnessed the gunfire.

[07:00:05] Sara, you were interviewing the new chief for the county when all of a sudden this happened. Take us through it.

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. He was talking about patience as we were talking to him; trying to heal the community. And suddenly, as he's speaking, we hear the sound of gunshots ring out.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(GUNFIRE)

SIDNER (voice-over): Gunshots ring out on the streets of Ferguson on the one-year anniversary of Michael Brown's death. Erupting into chaos overnight when gunfire sent protesters and police running for cover.

Watch as this video captures another angle the moment the shooting breaks out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The suspect engages them with gunfire. The plainclothes detectives returned fire from the inside of the van.

SIDNER: St. Louis County police say officers were involved in heavy gunfire in two shootings Sunday night. In one incident, police say a suspect shot directly at plainclothes officers with a stolen .9 millimeter.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There were four officers who were in that van. All four fired at the suspect, and the suspect fell there. He is in critical, unstable condition.

SIDNER: I captured some gunshots on camera as I interviewed Ferguson's interim police chief.

(GUNFIRE)

SIDNER: Angry protesters clashing with police, hurtling bottles and bricks at officers. Police deploying tear gas to disperse the crowds. Two businesses were damaged and looted. These images capture

bullet holes in unmarked police cruisers caught in the crossfire.

The night of unrest following a day of peaceful vigils to remember Brown's death and the movement it started.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... two, one!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... two, one!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... two, one!

SIDNER: Demonstrators marched and observed four-and-a-half minutes of silence, the amount of time [SIC] Brown's body lay on the street after he was shot.

Brown's killing sparked outrage and protests nationwide. Though the officer was later cleared by both a grand jury and the Department of Justice investigation, anger bubbled over. Violence then...

(GUNSHOT)

SIDNER: ... mirroring violence now, one year later.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Our thanks to Sara Sidner.

We want to turn to Robert White. He is the pastor of the Peace of Mind Church of Happiness. And we spoke to you very frequently during those early days.

Pastor, thank you so much for joining us.

I can imagine the words "Shots fired in Ferguson" after the day you had yesterday marking the first anniversary of Michael Brown's death. I'm sure that your heart sank.

ROBERT WHITE, PASTOR OF PEACE OF MIND CHURCH OF HAPPINESS: Yes, we -- one thing we want to say this morning is that we're not going to allow what 20 minutes or so of last night that happened, the violence that took place, to earmark or to be the memory of the hard work and dedication that has taken place over the last 365 days.

There's been too much work. There's been too much sacrifice and too much hard negotiation and change that has taken place in this city and in the surrounding municipalities to allow those few moments to be what is the image of Ferguson and St. Louis right now.

PEREIRA: I hear that, and I respect that. So you really feel that yesterday, the events of last night, those shootings, that those were outliers, that was not a true sense of what is happening and what the feeling is in Ferguson today?

WHITE: You guys have had reporters here all week. You've seen the work that's been going on behind the scenes. The Ferguson Commission. You've seen what the churches have done, the schools have done. In about an hour, we're going to have some of our local schools that are going to open up for back to school.

And so this community, this city, even the Brown family, I mean, yesterday they had marches. They had celebration, fundraisers. There's been so much hard work going on. And we refuse to allow the least of us to represent all of us.

And so yes, there was violence. Yes, there were some unfortunate happenings, but the image of St. Louis, the image of Ferguson is that change is on the horizon. And we have to allow that change to take place. We look forward to what the citizens have done in electing a new chief, electing new board members. They have a new city manager.

So there's a lot of great things that are going on in this community. We have churches who have never been out in the community knocking on doors, serving their community at large. So it's so much more greatness that's going on in this community, and that's the image that we want to portray.

PEREIRA: Powerful words that you're making. And I -- and we have been watching the movement. We are watching the progress with you.

I'm curious what your thoughts are about what needs to continue to happen. It is momentum you talk about. What needs to continue to happen, because the fact is, as I know you'll recognize, there is a problem of gun violence in the community. What are some of the steps that you think need to be taken?

[07:05:03] WHITE: Well, the biggest thing is to allow the work that the local organizers are doing to continue to work and to allow the relationships that have been established to continue to grow.

And when you talk about gun violence, I mean, America is under siege from gun violence all across this country, whether you have a license to carry or not. Gun violence from black-on-black crime, gun violence from police brutality. The guns are out of control in this country.

So we have to educate those who are carrying guns on when to use our constitutional right to carry, when to fire, and when to use it for protection.

And so what has to happen is the work that's been done in the school systems where the education of the youth; the work that's been done in the community to help get jobs back into the community; the restoration of the homes and businesses being restored, we just have to be patient. There has to be a message of patience, because Ferguson didn't happen overnight. Mike Brown's death sparked a movement, but this movement is years, decades in the making; and those of us who understand history, we have to be patient, and we have to let change take its course.

PEREIRA: Leadership is so key, and they have a leader in you, Pastor White. Thanks so much for joining us this morning. And thank you for your good words.

WHITE: Thank you for having us this morning.

ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Donald Trump insisting he has no issues with women. In fact, he says he cherishes them. But the Republican front runner is under new criticism this morning for what many consider a crude, over-the-top comment he made about FOX debate moderator Megyn Kelly.

And let's get the latest developments from CNN's Athena Jones in Washington. I guess one thing that's consistent here at the end is Donald Trump continues to dominate the political discussion.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Ana. That's right: another week, another controversy with Donald Trump at the center.

Look, he's offended Hispanic immigrants. He's offended veterans, former prisoners of war. And all of this without hurting his standing in the polls.

So the question now is whether these latest remarks will do any lasting damage to his candidacy, particularly with women.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONES (voice-over): Donald Trump on the offensive.

TRUMP: All I was doing was referring to her anger. I said nothing wrong whatsoever.

JONES: The latest controversy surrounding the billionaire erupted after he said this about FOX anchor Megyn Kelly, one of the moderators of Thursday's debate, to CNN's Don Lemon.

TRUMP: She starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions; and, you know, you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.

JONES: Trump was upset with what he calls unfair questioning from her during the Republican primary debate.

MEGYN KELLY, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: You've called women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals.

JONES: The GOP frontrunner appeared on four Sunday shows to defend himself, including CNN's "STATE OF THE UNION," saying he never intended to suggest Kelly was having her period, as many interpreted his comment.

TRUMP: I was going to say nose and/or ears, because that's a very common statement, blood pouring out of somebody's nose. It's a statement showing anger. Do you think I'd make a stupid statement like that? Who would make a statement like that? Only a sick person would even think about it. JONES: In a sign of growing concern in some GOP quarters, Trump

was disinvited from a conservative Republican gathering over the weekend after the comments about Kelly.

Many, but not all of Trump's GOP rivals, criticized the remarks.

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Do we want to win? Do we want to insult 53 percent of all voters? What Donald Trump said is wrong.

CARLY FIORINA (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They were completely inappropriate and offensive comments, period.

JONES: A comment that drew fire from Trump on Sunday, when he tweeted, "If you listen to Carly Fiorina for more than ten minutes straight, you develop a massive headache."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JONES: Now over the weekend Trump's campaign lost a top political adviser, roger stone. They say they fired him. He says he quit over concerns about the campaign's direction. Now Trump's next public event is tomorrow night in Michigan -- Ana.

CABRERA: All right. Athena Jones live in Washington for us this morning, thank you. What's he going to say next? You'll find out tomorrow right here on NEW DAY for Donald Trump's first interview with us. Tune in.

CUOMO: So nearly 60 members of Congress from both parties are in Israel today to talk about the nuclear deal with Iran. Lawmakers have until the middle of next month to approve or reject it. President Obama says he's anticipating Congress will approve it. Is that optimism?

CNN White House correspondent, Michelle Kosinski live this morning in Martha's Vineyard. That's where the first family is on vacation. How are you doing this morning? What do you think the numbers are in terms of the votes? It's all about the votes.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Right, you know, that's the million-dollar question. But you're right. The White House has expressed confidence repeatedly, not necessarily that it won't be a vote of disapproval by Congress, but that the White House still has those votes to sustain a presidential veto.

[07:10:04] So yes, the president is on vacation here, or at least trying to be. But there's been a lot going on. I mean, on the one hand, you have groups strongly opposed to the deal spending literally tens of millions of dollars buying ads and lobbying against it.

You have all these members of Congress going to Israel on a visit funded by the charitable arm of a group staunchly opposed to it. And they're visiting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who may be the most vocally opposed person to the deal in the world. So the White House over the last couple of weeks has been trying

to match that effort on their own. They've been holding briefings, some of them classified, one-on-one meetings between the president and members of Congress.

But while the president is here, the White House said, well, there might be a phone call or two, but don't expect that same intensity of outreach. That could be an indication that they know they have those votes, and they have that level of confidence.

But the president has been doing, though, is giving these interviews before he went on vacation here. Those interviews are coming out now. And in it, he doesn't back away from the criticism of his opponents that some in both parties saw as pretty harsh. In fact, he's explaining it and reinforcing it -- Michaela.

PEREIRA: All right, Michelle. Thank you for that.

It is a new phase in the war against ISIS. The U.S. sending in new resources to fight the terror group. Six F-16 fighter jets now on the ground at an Air Force base in Turkey to support the U.S. coalition against the terrorists in Syria.

Let's bring in CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr, live in Washington for us.

Good morning, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Michaela.

The planes now in southern Turkey at Incirlik Air Base, ready to go to strike targets inside northern Syria. Arriving over the weekend, six F-16s, about 300 additional U.S. military personnel to support them right out of Aviano, Italy, a fighter squadron there.

Very interesting when you look at the photos at the Pentagon, at least of the planes on their way, they all had missiles under the wings, ready to go.

So it's been about a year now since the coalition began. Airstrikes starting with airstrikes in Iraq. Where does all of this stand? In Syria, reading of the tea leaves, those planes are there to strike inside Syria. They are there to try to close off the border and keep ISIS from bringing fighters in, because the assessment is that ISIS, still a year later, can bring fighters in faster than the coalition can kill them.

In Iraq right now, still struggling to retake Ramadi and watching as ISIS masses its forces around the all-important Baiji oil refinery. Some people are saying it's a stalemate still a year later -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right. Barbara, thank you very much.

Another big situation to tell you about. Tensions are flaring up between North and South Korea. The South announcing it will resume what they call psychological warfare against the North one week after two of its soldiers were wounded by land mines in the DMZ. Now, South Koreans accused the North of planting those mines and plan to use powerful new speakers to broadcast audio messages into North Korea, something they haven't done in more than a decade.

PEREIRA: No verdict yet for "The Washington Post" reporter jailed in Iran for more than a year now. Final hearing was held today for Jason Rezaian. His lawyer told French media she presented the defense for the first time, and she expects a decision within a week now. Iranian authorities accuse Rezaian of being a spy. "The Post" maintains his innocence. This morning, the executive editor called the trial a sham and called for Iranian leaders to free him.

CABRERA: All right. Come take a look at this. This is something you hopefully will never see through your windshield. Watch that, that center spot right there. A tornado sweeping away the minivan that's right in front of this driver.

CUOMO: Wow.

CABRERA: You can see there's also a person, if you look there closely, there kind of crouching down on the right side on the ground as the twister is blowing over. This all happening in Taiwan, reportedly over the weekend after the typhoon hit this region and then launched several tornadoes as it moved inland.

CUOMO: Wow.

CABRERA: Yikes. And then to be out of your car and safe?

PEREIRA: Where is safe? I man, at that point if you're already there...

CABRERA: What do you do?

PEREIRA: I don't know.

CABRERA: You lie down?

PEREIRA: Crouching down is not going to help.

CUOMO: The randomness, right? A minivan, right some 4,000 pounds, gets picked up. We don't even know where it landed.

PEREIRA: We don't know who was in it.

CUOMO: And then there's somebody on the side of the road...

PEREIRA: Just standing there. Or crouches there.

CUOMO: ... who winds up stays in place.

CABRERA: Is OK.

CUOMO: That's what makes it so frightening.

PEREIRA: Incredible.

CUOMO: All right. So controversy, Donald Trump, too much of an equation these days. But he denies he was being sexist when making those "blood" comments about the FOX moderator. But do Americans buy it? Has he finally gone too far?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:18:12] CUOMO: Donald Trump not backing off his controversial comments about the FOX debate moderator Megyn Kelly. He said she was angry, and he said she was angry, and that she was bleeding out of her eyes and in her, quote, "and wherever" during the debate. He says he was talking about her nose or her ears, but it's been meant to be a hormonal statement and that people are getting after him. And it's shedding a light on the issue of the GOP with women in general.

So let's discuss. Jeffrey Lord, CNN political commentator, former Reagan White House political director; Paul Begala, CNN political commentator, Democratic strategist, now advising a pro- Hillary Clinton support PAC. G

Gentlemen, thank you. Let's take the Donald at his own word. Here is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: She starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions, and you know, you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: All right. One step at a time. Begala, do you believe that that was necessarily a comment about her being hormonal? Or do you agree with Donald Trump's defense that he was saying her eyes, her nose, her ears, whatever; he was not making any hormonal thing, and he'd be sick to do so?

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I cannot divine Mr. Trump's -- I can't divine anybody's intention, but certainly not Mr. Trump's.

What matters in politics is not always what you say but what folks hear. And boy, a lot of people heard something very offensive in that. And that's the problem that Mr. Trump has.

But the larger problem is the Republican problem. Not everybody insults people the way Mr. Trump does, but up and down that debate stage, Republicans were saying things that are going to hurt them with women voters in the fall.

Governor Bush, a former governor of Florida, said that he doesn't think we ought to spend a half a billion dollars on women's health. Marco Rubio in your interview says there should be no exceptions for a woman who's been raped or the victim of incest. If she wants to choose an abortion, she should have no right to do that. Those things are going to matter a lot more over time.

[07:20:07] CUOMO: Jeffrey.

JEFFREY LORD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, sir.

CUOMO: When you take a look at this, the point that Begala is setting up is, you know, people chasing after Donald right now. He says he's going to come on NEW DAY tomorrow. He'll discuss it for himself, defend himself and also make a case for why he's good for women himself.

He says he'd be better for women than anybody else. He's hired a lot of them. They are at the top of big construction jobs. He was one of the first to do that. Do you believe he can make the case that he is better for women than anyone else on the GOP slate?

LORD: Sure. You know -- you know, Chris, I mean, we're all wrapped up in this, but I have to say it's, what, barely the middle of August of 2015. There's a long way to go here in this. And we're going to have a lot more upsets, some of them maybe involving Donald Trump, some of them involving other candidates. I just think that we're -- I understand why we're all sort of hyped about it, but it is way too early to make sort of definitive judgments about this kind of thing until we get, you know, really right on top of the primary season and then into the general election.

CUOMO: Well, it's never too early to hold you accountable for what you say, but again...

LORD: Right, sure.

CUOMO: ... we'll let Mr. Trump say what he meant and what he didn't mean.

But the party in general, Marco Rubio says he's the candidate of the future. He is not for a rape or incest carve-out. Now you know, from being with Ronald Reagan, who had a very stiff position on this issue, that is still a very rare position. And he was resistant to the idea of forming a consensus as to when we do have a person in the place of the unborn and says it's at conception. Do you think that those types of positions raise a real challenge for courting women in this election?

LORD: You know, I don't, and I'll tell you why. I have been hearing this argument for decades. I heard it when Ronald Reagan was running for president, and he won in two landslides. I just really think that other issues -- you know, I'm on here with Paul Begala, and I don't think I have to remind Paul of that famous phrase "It's the economy, stupid."

I think that when it comes down to this election, the economy well -- may well be the lead issue. It generally is. And I think abortion will play a much smaller role in this.

CUOMO: You know, and on your side, Paul, you have an opposite problem, which is that your frontrunner is a woman. And from the beginning, it has been assumed that women are going to vote for her, certainly Democratic women, because she represents the first.

Do you think that that is enough in the analysis of why she gets the woman's vote?

BEGALA: Absolutely not, no. And that's really important. I think this is a critical difference in the way Hillary is running this time than the last time. I do think the last time she ran the campaign gave a sense of almost entitlement and then, of course, Senator Obama came and beat her.

his time, I think she's very interested in trying to earn and deserve every single vote, especially from women like herself, especially women who have been working moms, like she was when I first met her.

And that's why, like today, according to "New York times," she's going to go out and propose how to change how we pay for college so that more middle-class kids, more poor kids can go to college without being crushed by debt. That's the kind of economic argument that Mr. Lord is talking about.

But at the same time, Republicans all opposed tough new laws to protect women on equal pay. They opposed that. Now they all say they want to defund contraception, which is written into the law in 1970 by a congressman from Houston named George Bush.

CUOMO: You're talking about by defunding Planned Parenthood?

BEGALA: And defunding Title X entirely. I don't want to get too wonky, but Title X...

CUOMO: Right.

BEGALA: ... of the Public Health Services Act was actually co- sponsored by George Bush of Texas. It funds contraception for women, helps protect their lives; it helps protect their health. It's a really great thing that the government does. Republicans want to end that. Those kinds of issues, I think, are going to be very important in the fall.

CUOMO: So what do you think, Jeffrey? Is the party up against it when it comes to doing the things that you need to do to make women want to vote for you?

LORD: No, I don't think so. And, you know, when I listen to what Paul was just saying, it occurs to me, you know, we're almost, as Donald Trump says, reminds -- and he's certainly not the only one -- almost $19 trillion in debt.

And I -- years ago I worked for a congressman who was on the budget committee. And you perpetually get into arguments where everybody agrees that we need to cut our spending and -- and do those kind of things to preserve the future for our kids. And yet on the other hand, they don't want to cut this program and that program and that program. This is but the beginning of that kind of discussion, and it's

going to involve issues all the way across the board. And I mean, I think the economy is about the future. And I think that's going to be very important for women as well as every other voter.

CUOMO: Well, look, I mean, we know that it's fact. CNN, to the extent that you can divine fact from polls, the -- CNN had a poll up there. What do women care about most? They care about the economy. They're working; they're raising their families. Sometimes they're having to do them both alone. So they care about the economy.

But, you know, there's selectivity within that, Jeffrey, right? So it's OK, Paul Begala cares about the economy, and Mrs. Begala cares about the economy. But they may care about different things within it. And Paul is highlighting issues that may matter to women within economic standpoints. And Title X could be folded into that, even though it's -- you know, it's about the privacy -- the extension of privacy rights about your own reproductive rights. But you're going to have to cater to each special interest group. Right? And each voter base should be a special interest group.

[07:25:18] LORD: Well, to some degree that may be true. Now, you know, we've been talking about Carly Fiorina here this morning, or you guys have, and that she's surging. If Carly Fiorina is on this ticket in some fashion, either in the first or second spot, I think it's going to be hard to say that this is an anti-woman...

CUOMO: Just because she's a woman? That's what I was saying to Begala. Is being a woman enough to say, "I'm for women"?

LORD: Well, it's more than enough to say that -- to not say they're anti-women. You know, I mean, I've heard this argument before. And I must say, as a conservative, what happens here is I always hear my Democratic friends say, "Well, you need to have diversity. You need to have more minorities," et cetera, et cetera. Well, we have two Latinos in this race, Senator Cruz and Senator Rubio.

If we had -- let's just posit here -- a ticket of Carly Fiorina and Marco Rubio, suddenly, I'm sure we would be hearing all sorts of things that, "Well, they're not really representing all women or Latinos."

So there's a game here that gets played with all of this kind of thing. I think we have to realize it, and I think that, you know, stick with these issues and stick with the economy. And I think that's what carries the day.

CUOMO: Well, the more...

LORD: And again, this card was played against Ronald Reagan, and he won in a landslide.

CUOMO: Well, the more we hear about what they'll actually do, the more we'll be able to assess it. Jeffrey Lord, thank you very much. Paul Begala, nice rep tie today, red and blue. Wouldn't it be

nice if they went together the way they do on your tie?

BEGALA: Trying to bring people together.

CUOMO: Respect it. Respect it. All right.

BEGALA: Happy belated birthday.

CUOMO: Thank you very much. I was 45 yesterday. Begala loves that, because it makes me old.

All right. So tomorrow Donald Trump is going to be on his first interview on NEW DAY. We look forward to asking him about this and why he'll be good for women and anything else he wants to discuss.

CABRERA: Not done with Trump yet today. The 2016 candidates taking on the billionaire businessman. Will it change the race or will he hold onto his top spot in the polls? John King is going to take a look on "Inside Politics."

And we're also going to go back live to Ferguson for the very latest on those shootings overnight. We've now learned of a third shooting that happened there in Ferguson during what was peaceful protests. What we know, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)