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CNN NEWSROOM

Clinton Launches 2016 Presidential Bid; Turkey Summons Vatican Envoy After Pope's Comments; Russia Intercepts U.S. Military Plane; Explosion at Garissa University; Deadly Pesticide Used Illegally in the U.S. Virgin Islands; Jordan Spieth at the Masters . Aired 6-7p ET

Aired April 12, 2015 - 18:00   ET

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


[18:00:09] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Six o'clock Eastern this Sunday evening and you're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Poppy Harlow, joining you from New York.

And it is official, Hillary Clinton is running for president. The former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state has formally announced her 2016 plans in a video released on social media.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Everyday Americans need a champion, and I want to be that champion. So, you can do more than just get by. You can get ahead and stay ahead because when families are strong, America is strong.

So I'm hitting the road to earn your vote because it's your time, and I hope you'll join me on this journey.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: But even before Clinton's announcement today, Republicans were on the attack. Here's Senator Rand Paul.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AD NARRATOR: What path will America take? Will it be a path to the past? A road to yesterday to a place we've been to before?

Hillary Clinton represents the worst of the Washington machine, the arrogance of power, corruption and cover-up, conflicts of interest and failed leadership with tragic consequences.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: That is from a Web site "Liberty, Not Hillary" that Rand Paul set up and it just went live this morning.

Jeb Bush also not wasting any time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JEB BUSH (R), FORMER FLORIDA GOVERNOR: It's critical we change the direction our country is heading. We must do better than the Obama- Clinton foreign policy that has damaged with relationships with our allies and emboldened our enemies. Better than their failed big government policies that grow our debt and stand in the way of real, economic growth and prosperity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: And just moments ago, likely Republican candidate Carly Fiorina, former CEO of HP, attacked Clinton's, quote, "record of accomplishment", saying Hillary Clinton is not the woman for the White House, posting a one-minute video on Facebook.

A lot to discuss. Let me bring in CNN political commentators Ben Ferguson and Mark Lamont Hill, CNN senior media correspondent here with me in New York and host of "RELIABLE SOURCES", Brian Stelter, CNN political commentator and "Daily Beast" columnist, Sally Kohn, Republican strategist Lisa Boothe.

Thank you all being here.

Let's begin with you, Brian. The strategy here -- the Hillary video and the response videos that we've seen. It's all about social media.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: We saw a prebuttal, and then some rebuttals after 3:00 p.m., when her video went online. This was launched on Facebook and on Twitter, and it's been reaching a wide number of people online.

Of course, lots more we'll see on television, where we're talking right now. But what's beautiful about Facebook is it's very shareable. We saw 50,000 re-tweets of her announcement on Twitter, it's been viewed more than 3 million times.

And this speaks to the celebrity quotient here, Poppy. Rand Paul's announcement on Twitter earlier in the week, it never shared more than 4,000 times each.

So, this goes to speak to the level of interest around Hillary Clinton. It's already racked half a million Facebook fans as well. All of this will count down the line, of course, because she's signing more people off her email list, getting more people on board, and she'll be able to reach out to them for the, what, 20 months to come.

Do you know exactly how many days it is?

HARLOW: I bet you know.

STELTER: Five hundred seventy-five days. I'm counting down already.

HARLOW: OK. Of course, Brian.

Sally, to you. Former Rhode Island senator and governor, Lincoln Chaffee, launching this exploratory committee and saying Clinton is, quote, "too Bush-like" when it comes to foreign policy. Your response to that?

SALLY KOHN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, look, it's no secret to folks who know me that I tend to agree with that. I think Hillary Clinton has historically been too hawkish on foreign policy, too cozy on Wall Street, is she the right candidate and contender for the sort of populist, fed up with war, fed up with economic policies that only benefit the rich moment we're in in America?

Look, has she been historically? No. May she be going forward? I've got to be honest, as a skeptic I think she struck the right tone in this video today. It was about the middle class. It was about the voters and the people of this country not just about her.

You know, that's the challenge. Can she be different than the -- you know, her establishment past?

HARLOW: And, Lisa, to that, I love your take on this video, because she doesn't appear until the end. It's all about other people. It's all about other people. She appears for about for about five seconds on camera at the end. At the same time, she announced her campaign in the video, different video, but a video back in 2008.

What's your take early on here?

LISA BOOTHE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Right. Well, look, I think Hillary Clinton is being forced to announce early, right? You know, not only are Republicans attacking her because she's this inevitable candidate right now, but she's got a lot of self-inflicted wounds. And as a result, she's trying to build a campaign infrastructure to try to protect her from some of those attacks.

And if you look at the polling in key states like Pennsylvania and Florida and Iowa and Colorado, you know, she's losing to one or more of the GOP candidates. And additionally, voters don't trust her. They view her as dishonest.

So, I think her launching today is a product of having to, to be forced to, to try to protect herself from these continued attacks that she's going to see.

[18:05:05] HARLOW: Ben, jump in here.

BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I think there's one thing very telling about this announcement and that's her vulnerabilities. I think her campaign obviously realizes that her foreign policy is a huge vulnerability. I mean, she just stopped being the secretary of state, which is all about foreign policy and not at one moment in this video did she ever mention anything about her foreign policy accomplishments, her connections to leaders around the world, her working on problems around the world.

I mean, she was in charge of the video or her campaign was. They could have easily put something in there and I think they see this as a vulnerability for her, and that's why they said, hey, we're going to stick with solely with middle class, we're going to stick with "we feel your pain 2.0" and take from her husband, instead of actually looking at what she just did which was all foreign policy. Not one mention of it in the video.

STELTER: I would suggest that's partly because the country cares more about economic security.

HARLOW: Brian Stelter, quick, and then I want to get to Marc.

STELTER: We may be in an isolationist period in terms of the American public's interest, economic security might be a stronger argument and, of course, there are some implicit critiques of the Obama administration in her messages.

HARLOW: I want to get Marc in here.

STELTER: If your biggest job was s foreign policy, hold on one second, if your biggest job, you just have is foreign policy, don't you at least give it three seconds in a video?

BOOTHE: What does she accomplish as secretary of state? What are her accomplishments to point to?

KOHN: Plenty!

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, her accomplishments as secretary of state are, one, opening up Myanmar --

BOOTHE: Russia reset?

HILL: Russia reset. The tightest sanctions on Iran we've seen. And, Ben, you're laughing, but maybe you remember this Israel-Hamas cease- fire last summer?

BOOTHE: Rise of ISIS.

KOHN: What the heck have Bush or Cruz accomplished on foreign policy?

HILL: I think it might be problematic to blame Hillary Clinton for the rise of ISIS. I mean, come on, that's absurd. And Carly Fiorina's argument that the Middle East is a mess -- when was the Middle East not a mess? When was this moment when the Middle East was in peace before Hillary Clinton showed up? I think it's problematic --

BOOTHE: Clinton doesn't just solve problems on national security issues. She also has problems with the middle class. Middle class families have been left behind under President Obama and Hillary Clinton is an extension of that administration.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: So, Sally, I think it was an interesting point. Let me get to Sally here with that question.

Sally, it's an interesting point that Lisa brings up because you've got -- she has to walk this line by not pointing at President Obama and saying, look, wage growth has been stagnant under you, the income gap, income equality has worsened since 2008, how does she do that effectively and resonate with those middle-class voters and Main Street America?

KOHN: Well, first of all, she's embraced a number of things that President Obama has done, including Obamacare, including some of his environmental actions, including some of his economic policies. I mean -- she stands with raising the minimum wage, closing the wage gap for women, all of these things.

And let's be clear, you know, the country is in an economic tough time. It has been in an economic tough time. It was before President Obama took office. There have been 53, 54 straight months of private sector job growth. So, it's on the right course.

The question here is -- this is actually going to fundamentally be a Democrat versus Republican election, and voters don't exactly trust Republicans to do any better about this, they're the ones who put us in this problem in the first place.

BOOTHE: No offense, Sally, I find it hard --

(CROSSTALK)

BOOTHE: -- for a candidate who pays her female staff $72 to a man's dollar as a senator. I have a hard time believing that she's going to convince Americans that she's for equal pay or that she's going to convince Americans that she's for the middle class when they've been left behind under President Obama.

HARLOW: Marc, you mentioned earlier --

(CROSSTALK)

KOHN: -- Hillary's fan in the world, her inevitability is her strongest asset and the fact that everyone is trying to put a target on her back just goes to show what a strong candidate she already is.

FERGUSON: You make a better argument --

(CROSSTALK)

FERGUSON: Hold on a second.

HILL: An aura of inevitability.

FERGUSON: Sally, you made a better case for Hillary Clinton than she did in her own video. That is also I think, a big problem because you seem to be proud of Obamacare, even though a lot of Americans don't like it.

Hillary Clinton didn't mention it. She could mention it. She could have talked about bringing health care to everyone. But it's not popular right now. It's a vulnerability and that's why I think she didn't bring it up.

HILL: Wait a minute. I think it's amazing that suddenly we're dissecting Hillary's video for what she didn't say in a minute and a half video -- FERGUSON: She's running for president, Marc.

BOOTHE: Let's look at things she's also said.

HILL: Let me finish the point, Ben.

Ted Cruz is also running for president. Marco Rubio was also running for president. What I'm saying is when you look at their videos, they also don't go by point by point every single dimension of their accomplishments --

FERGUSON: On the big issues, they're talking about foreign policy.

(CROSSTALK)

BOOTHE: Hillary Clinton, the out of touch elitist is going to have a hard time convincing middle-class Americans that she understands them, when she, you know, said she was dead broke upon leaving the White House, despite the fact $6 million book deal.

HILL: Oh, God. Bingo, right.

[18:10:00] KOHN: Oh, my God.

(CROSSTALK)

HILL: Right. So it goes to the Bushes.

HARLOW: Marc, I want to ask you this because you mentioned earlier -- Mark, you mentioned earlier in the program in the last hour that you think that if Hillary was a man attacks about her record of the accomplishment wouldn't be happening. Let's talk more about that. Why is that?

HILL: Because I think there's a pattern here. We have a deep assumption that women are less qualified. It's the same reason why we have the wage gap. It's the same reason why we educational attainment gap. And so, when someone like Hillary Clinton emerges, what we see is a set of attacks that are unfair.

When Hillary Clinton, excuse me, when Sarah Palin for vice president --

FERGUSON: What attack is unfair?

HILL: -- we saw a -- Ben, let me finish here.

FERGUSON: What attack specifically about Hillary Clinton was unfair?

HILL: OK, the point that she doesn't have a record of accomplishment. When you look at her record as a senator, when you look at her record as first lady --

BOOTHE: What had she done?

HILL: -- and record as secretary of state, there is -- OK, well, let's look as a first lady she pushed for creation of adoption of Safe Families Act. SCHIP, we're going down the list. As secretary of state, she sponsored or co-sponsored 54 bills, including some significant legislation like pediatric drug testing and like No Child Left Behind and I'm not even an NCLB fan. But certainly, parts of that bill were significant, including highly trained teacher recruitment. She was on that bill.

When you talk about secretary of state, she helped tighten sanctions on Iran and she helped negotiate a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. You can look at significant accomplishment. You may disagree with everything Hillary Clinton has ever done, but it's inaccurate to say that she hasn't done anything.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: All right, guys, we have to get a break in here. Guys, I'm going to jump in. We have to get a break in here.

Brian Stelter is going to have the first word when we're back with more of this in just a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: From the time that she arrived in Washington 22 years ago, Hillary Clinton made one thing very clear. She values her privacy. Some White House staff of the Clinton era described her and the former president as paranoid to the point that they rewired the phones in the White House.

[18:15:04] Now, the recent flap over her private email account during her time as secretary of state has this question top of mind -- is the issue of transparency going to be a big headache for her in this campaign?

Let's bring back in my panel, fiery panel we have on the show this evening.

Brian, I'm going to start with you. Her relationship with the media.

STELTER: Well, "The New York Post" cover might say it all today, "Oh Hill, No!", it says, and it says, no, no, no, no, no, it just keeps going on there.

Now, that's "The New York Post". It's a Murdoch paper, you sort of expect that on launch day. But there's been this concentrated attempt to really have a restart in relations between the press and this campaign. They released secret off-the-record meetings on Thursday and Friday night, in CNN New York, between campaign aides and reporters from anchors, some from CNN, some from other outlets, a real attempt to have a restart.

Now, at the same time, we're not going to see her do big interviews. I was told by aides today, there's no plan yet for a first big sit- down interview with Hillary the campaigner.

It's very different from Marco Rubio. Marco Rubio is going to do FOX, CNN, ABC, NBC, and CBS on the next few days. So, I do wonder how long she can go without doing interviews.

HARLOW: All right. Let's take a look at this poll number, a Bloomberg poll found 53 percent of voters believe that she purposely withheld emails from her time as secretary of state or was not truthful about them, and juxtaposed it with this, the CBS poll finding 65 percent of voters said that email scandal didn't change their opinion of Clinton.

What does that mean? Did they expect it? Do they not care about it? Which is it?

To you, Ben, on that, what's your assessment of that?

FERGUSON: Look, I think there are a lot of people that expect this is how the Clintons act. This is what they've expected from them. They're not very transparent. Hillary Clinton is not going to be transparent. And I think her campaign is smart to keep her off this big interview.

There's too many questions that will come up in a big interview if she did one tomorrow that are going to be negative because of all of the issues she's had recently with lack of transparency. You can't do an interview without talking about her emails. That will be the big sound bite. So, from a campaign standpoint --

STELTER: Or the foundation.

FERGUSON: Right. And the foundation of foreign funds coming in, from foreign country, was she double-dipping while she was secretary of state?

Those are issues that I honestly think her campaign is being incredibly smart on. Keep her out of that situation because it's not going to help the campaign. It's going to get them off message and so, if you can put out a video and just smile and raise money right now when you don't really have another candidate going up against you in the Democratic Party, that's the best decision you can make for her because the liability is too big.

HARLOW: Let's listen to what Rand Paul told CNN about exactly that issue that you bring up, Ben.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: I believe and have been told that there's going to be information about donations to the Clinton Foundation that may or may not have had or could possibly have had influence over who gets to do business in various countries around the world. Some of these countries are very sensitive to our national security.

The question here is, are they skirting election law, are they taking money, and potentially getting influence bought by foreign countries through a foundation?

(END VIDEO CLIP) HARLOW: Lisa, to you on that, right? He talked about it this morning with this interview with our Dana Bash as well, pointing to Saudi Arabia, et cetera, with the human rights issues, women's rights issues and saying the Clinton Foundation run by her and her husband and the whole family is taking this money from these, you know, foreign countries and it is just not right.

My question to you is do you think that that resonates with the average voter?

BOOTHE: Well, absolutely. We know it does. I mean, look at the Quinnipiac University poll recently that shows that these scandals have actually hit voters in critical key states like Iowa, like Colorado and Virginia. So, it's absolutely having an impact.

It's reached beyond the Washington, D.C., political bubble and it's hit voters at home. And that's going to be problematic for Hillary Clinton. And why it's problematic for her is not only is she a flawed candidate, but this further perpetuates this notion that Hillary Clinton is entitled, that she's above the law, that she's above the rules and above the regulation.

This is someone who in 2008 had said she is one of the most transparent public figures, but we're finding out that she's anything, but, and every time she goes to Iowa, every time she goes to New Hampshire, she's going to get questions about her private server. She's going to get questions about the Clinton Foundation. She's going to get questions about Benghazi.

HARLOW: So, she's going to Iowa this week on Tuesday.

Sally, to you, look, Iowa was sort of the beginning of the end for her in 2008. She came in third there. What does she need to do differently this time around to prevent exactly what Lisa just pointed to?

KOHN: Look, I think it seems to me she's doing the right things or the things she needs to do which is when voters are asked, look, she's overwhelmingly the leading candidate and very strong favorables, you can tell by the slings and arrows Republicans are desperately trying to dig up.

[18:20:01] You know, what she needs to do is --

FERGUSON: I don't know if it's desperate.

KOHN: -- reshape her image to directly -- to directly connect with voters and I think it's great that she started online and I think it's great that she'll do these smaller conversations and not do big events and she'll try and present herself more as this direct person to person -- because to be honest, the actual biggest thing that hurts her right now is the sense that her candidacy is inevitable and everyone inside the campaign knows that. They're trying to be very caution -- they're saying a lot of caution that that is not the case and that they don't want to act that way, because the more that they act that way, the more the right is mobilize against her and the harder it is to mobilize her own base because you want an enthusiastic base of supporters.

HARLOW: So, Marc, to you. It's an interesting column by Maureen Dowd in "The New York Times" this morning, talking about how she's really playing up, Clinton, you know, being a grandmother. She wrote this new epilogue to her memoir "Hard Choices". She talks about being a grandmother.

And Maureen Dowd wrote this, quote, "This was designed to rebut critics who say she's too close to Wall Street and too grabby with speech money and foundation donations from Arab autocrats to wage a sincere fight against income inequality."

How does she -- how does she do that effectively?

HILL: Well, I think being -- first of all, those types of critiques are going to come in primaries. They're not going to come in general elections. No GOP candidate is going to suggest that Hillary is too close to Wall Street.

Because Hillary is the prohibitive favorite in the Democratic pool, I don't think that's that big a deal as most people think. I think the biggest deal that Hillary Clinton has to wrestle with is the foundation question, not the Wall Street question, because there is no Elizabeth Warren-type figure running up against her, it's going to be the foundation questions, it's going to be the email question. It is not going to be the Benghazi question.

Hillary has attempted essentially over the last few months and really last year to transform herself. That's why the video had her at the end. She wanted to show herself as someone who is a person of the people, as a fake populist message. She wanted to show herself as someone people liked.

These people naturally don't like Hillary Clinton. She's trying to become more likable and the grandmother thing is something that Americans can relate to, it makes her a person again, and that's what she's trying to do. And I think it can work a little bit and at the end of the day, people don't like Hillary Clinton and they don't trust the Clintons. And that's going to be a significant challenge for her in the general election.

I think she can win, but it's going to be an uphill battle.

FERGUSON: This is always an issue -- it's always an issue with big candidates. I mean, when Mitt Romney, when people kept saying about Mitt Romney, you've got to be more personable, you've got to be more average Joe. It didn't work and sometimes people are smart enough to realize what they look at you as.

If Hillary Clinton tries to overplay this, I'm a sweet grandmother, it will backfire on her the same way that when, you know, Mitt Romney was trying to be the average guy that you want to drink a beer with. He's not that guy, and Hillary Clinton in the eyes of the majority of the Americans is not a sweet tender, loving, kind grandmother. She's a hard core politician, very partisan, very private, and somewhat shady on her everyday life in politics. And that's how they're going to look at her.

KOHN: Look, this is --

HARLOW: Guys, thank you. Everyone, we're out of time. Appreciate it.

But I promise you, we have 575 more days to talk about her. Is that the right number, Brian?

(CROSSTALK)

FERGUSON: Is that all?

HARLOW: Thank you all very much. I appreciate it.

Quick break on the other side, we're going to talk about what the pope said at mass in the Vatican this morning that has Turkey furious.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:26:51] HARLOW: Pope Francis used the word "genocide" during mass this morning to describe the killings of Armenians more than a century ago. Officials in Turkey are furious. The service was commemorating 100 years since the Armenian massacre under the Ottoman Empire.

Turkey has always denied it was genocide, blaming World War I for deaths on both sides. Almost immediately, Turkey's foreign minister took to Twitter, accusing the pope of inciting hatred and the country has now summoned its ambassador back from the Vatican for consultation in Turkey.

But Turkey's former ambassador says that that does not mean diplomatic ties are over.

Let's talk about it with CNN senior Vatican analyst John Allen who joins me now.

What do you make of this in terms of the big picture here, the relationship between Turkey and the Vatican?

JOHN ALLEN, CNN SENIOR VATICAN ANALYST: Well, Poppy, this is a very important relationship with the Vatican. I mean, one of Pope Francis's big picture in social and political objectives is to try to encourage moderates in the Islamic world to stand up and be counted in the struggle against violent extremism and he sees Turkey as a potential partner in that effort.

When he visited Turkey last November, the Vatican emphasized how important the outreach to that country was, and how important a potential partnership between Pope Francis and President Recep Erdogan might be. But Erdogan basically offered the pope a deal, saying if you fight Islamophobia in the West, I will fight anti-Christian persecution in the Middle East, the Vatican wants to pursue that.

Now, that said, I think everyone on the Vatican side knew that if he used the G-word, that is if he invoked genocide today, there would be blowback from the Turks. And I think he felt that on this occasion when you have the leadership of the Catholic and orthodox churches of Armenia in attendance in the ceremony in the Vatican, when you have the country's entire political class there, and at a time when anti- Christian persecution is a source of growing concern around the world, who let's not forget the vast majority of Armenians who died a century ago were Christians, I think on this occasion, frankly, the pope felt he simply couldn't blink.

HARLOW: Do you think -- knowing what we know about this pope being an unconventional pope in all ways, do you think he will stand by his comments, or do you think after this backlash, what we've seen that he might step back a little bit?

ALLEN: Well, Poppy, this pope's pattern seems to be that when he says something that irritates a particular constituency, he never backs away from that comment, but he often looks creatively for other ways to reach out to them. You know, we've seen that inside the church, for example. Last October when the Vatican held a high-profile summit on the family, and there were things the pope did and said that there was concern that the church's conservative wing, he didn't back away from those initial moves, but he did find ways to reach out to those folks.

I expect he's going to find ways in the coming days to make clear to Turkey that he sees them as a friend and not an enemy.

And listen, let's remember that recalling an ambassador is a fairly common way in diplomatic circle for one country to say to another that you've done something that irritates us. It doesn't mean a complete breakdown in relations.

[18:30:04] In fact, Turkey recalled its ambassador in 2001 when John Paul II referred to the Armenian genocide --

HARLOW: Right, in that statement.

ALLEN: (inaudible) and the Vatican were no longer talking to each other. I'm sure it's important to Francis to keep this relationship green.

HARLOW: John Allen, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Coming up next, we're going to switch gears and talk about this story that is getting a lot of attention. A Russian fighter jet buzzing a U.S. military plane in the skies over Europe, putting the U.S. crews at risk, says the U.S.

We'll tell you what this country plans to do about it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: The United States says it will now formally protest a dangerously close encounter between a U.S. reconnaissance plane and a Russian fighter jet. It happened on Tuesday in international airspace over the Baltic Sea.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

HARLOW (voice-over): Russia claims the American military plane was intercepted because it was approaching the Russian border with its transponder turned off, meaning you can't detect it. The United States says that's just not true.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

HARLOW (on camera): CNN military analyst, retired Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona joins me now from Eugene, Oregon. Also with us here in New York, Jonathan Gilliam, a former U.S. Navy SEAL and a former FBI agent.

Colonel, let be begin with you because you've flown in this very model of aircraft hundreds of times on missions, and the United States says, look, it's not upset that the plane was intercepted, but the reckless manner they're describing the Russian pilot interacting with the jet, flying right by it, circling it a few times to get the tail number.

What are the rules here?

COLONEL RICK FRANCONA (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, the rules are that you don't interfere with safety of flight, and it appears that that's what this Russian pilot did. Now, this is not uncommon to be intercepted. In fact, when we used to fly these missions, as you said I've done this about 400 times, there are times when you're intercepted, most of the times you're not, but when they come up, airmen dealing with airmen.

They stand off at a respectable distance, they take down, they -- you know you're being photographed.

[18:35:00] They take down all the information on the aircraft. They may fly a barrel loop around the aircraft. And then they go back to their base. It's always done. We do it to them, they do it to us. It's when they get too close and they start interfering with your own flight that it becomes dangerous.

You will recall what happened when we had the same thing happen between a Chinese pilot and the U.S. Navy reconnaissance aircraft was forced to land in Hainan because of damage sustained in a mid-air collision. So, this is very dangerous when they get too close, but what will happen about this? Probably very little. We'll make a diplomatic protest and it will probably die down for a while.

HARLOW: Do you agree that this is just sort of rhetoric? We'll make this diplomatic protest, we don't like what you did, and then nothing comes of it?

JONATHAN GILLIAM, FORMER U.S. NAVY SEAL: I do, and I think the colonel is absolutely right. You know, this is something that's ongoing. It even happens off our coast where the Russian bombers, long-range bombers, will come by our coast and we'll send up aircraft to fly close to them, but in a way that the colonel was just describing. What bothers me, though, about this is that everything that Putin does it seems lately is increasingly more aggressive and these flights, there's four, they've had four more, or four times greater number of these intercepts and they've become more and more aggressive.

That, to me, is Putin flexing his muscle and, you know, in the FBI, we've shown that when you give criminals, I'm not calling Putin a criminal, but his behavior a lot of the times is very suspect, and when you give people the room to flex their muscles, they will and they'll start doing it in a predictable manner. And I think we're starting to see that prediction happen over and over again.

HARLOW: And just to be here, Colonel Francona, we're talking about a U.S. spy plane.

FRANCONA: We prefer the term reconnaissance, but I take your point. Yes. I mean, these aircraft operate every day along the coast of many nations, not just the Russians. We do this all over the world, it's one of our primary sources of electronic intelligence. And as Jonathan said, he's absolutely right, they do this to us. All of these Russian bombers, many of those are outfitted with electronic intercept equipment and they're doing the same thing.

So, it's a long, time-honored way to collect intelligence. We've been doing it for decades, they've been doing it for decades, and so far, we've had very few incidents. There have been shootdowns when there's misunderstandings. So, this is not completely safe, but it's something we feel we have to do to gather the information we need to develop the information about the Soviet or, I'm sorry, the Russian air defenses.

HARLOW: So, to you, Jonathan.

FRANCONA: I'm kind of dating myself there.

HARLOW: Final word here. How should, you know, if you take the U.S. account at hand, how should the Russians have responded to this? Not circled the plane, not tried to get the tail number?

GILLIAM: Well, like the colonel just say, there is a predictable manner that pilots go through. It's pilot, you know, versus pilot and it's not aggressive in nature, it's more a show of force. We know that you're here and we're going to follow you until you get out of space.

HARLOW: Can they talk to one another?

GILLIAM: I don't know. The colonel would have to answer that question.

HARLOW: Colonel, can they talk to one another?

FRANCONA: No, they don't.

HARLOW: Now.

FRANCONA: First of all, there's the language barrier and for the most part we're not going to acknowledge that they're there. Now, the pilots will do hand signals simply acknowledging that they're there, I see you, I understand, and there are international ways for the pilots to communicate non-verbally. And you primarily don't want that to be happening because normally what the pilot in the fighter is going to tell you to do is to follow me, and that you don't want to happen.

HARLOW: Jonathan and Rick, thank you for that. Stick around. We're going to talk about this story. Panic breaking out among university students in Kenya.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

HARLOW (voice-over): This is days after that massacre at the university by Al Shabaab. Students fearing for their lives, trying to run to safety. We'll tell you what happened next.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

[18:38:47]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW (on camera): A big scare at a university in Kenya.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

HARLOW (voice-over): Ten people, ten days, rather, after 147 people were slaughtered by Al Shabaab terrorists who attacked a university in Garissa. An explosion rocked the university in Nairobi earlier today. Students were so scared some of them jumped out of the window, others were caught in a stampede as some were trying to escape the halls. One person was trampled to death. More than 100 people were injured.

The blast was caused by a faulty electrical cable, but here's the thing, many people thought they were under attack again. Their reaction just highlights the fear gripping the region.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

HARLOW (on camera): Let's talk about it with Jonathan Gilliam and former FBI Assistant Director Tom Fuentes.

Jonathan, to you first. You're a former Navy SEAL, when you look at this, how scared they were, because they just saw 147 people die at another university attacked by Al Shabaab, what does that tell you about what seems to be the lack of ability to get a handle on Al Shabaab, especially in Kenya right now?

GILLIAM: Well, I don't know about the lack of ability to get a hold of them. I do think we should be in this area tactically a little bit more. Our troops should actually be in there assisting. I know that they're there, but they should be assisting at a greater level, because this is a place where the actual group of Al Shabaab, I think, could be managed in this area and pushed back.

I think, though, what you're seeing now as terrorists change their tactics and look at soft targets, you see the people reacting to this, and I'd really like to know how the authorities reacted to this. I think that's just as important of a fact that people are realizing sheltering in place in Kenya may not be a good idea.

HARLOW: Yes. And Tom Fuentes, to you, former FBI, when you look at sort of how you handle a situation like this from a government level, the Kenyan government, and how they get a hold of this increasing risk from Al Shabaab, what is the answer to make people feel safe at their universities, at the shopping malls, et cetera, sort of unless you make everyone go through metal detectors, unless you basically make these universities into compounds?

TOM FUENTES, FORMER FBI ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Well, I think, Poppy, the best way to make the people feel safe is to show competence when you deal with a major crisis. The response at the Westgate Mall attack almost two years ago, the response that the Garissa university attack recently, has been pitiful, and that's why the people have no confidence.

And it's dangerous enough to begin with for any government, because they have a large land border that's completely porous and they have a continuous beach front on the Indian Ocean, so terrorists can come by boat like we've seen with the Somali pirates.

So, you know, they're completely vulnerable, but the authorities in Kenya have showed very little competence in responding to these, to preventing them, or dealing with them when they happen.

[18:45:04] HARLOW: Well, when you look at the mastermind of the Garissa university attack where 147 people died, Tom, a bounty, a very big bounty has been put on his head there and they haven't had success yet.

What's lacking? .

FUENTES: Well, I think a lot of things are lacking, and one of it is they can't control their border so there are safe houses within Kenya where Al Shabaab members have come down. They're able to bring their weapons with them and, you know, the so-called mastermind, as Jonathan will tell you, it doesn't take much of a mastermind to hand machine guns to four people and a couple of grenades and tearing them loose.

I mean, I think Jonathan and I can train a handful of people to do ten times that much damage in four hours. So, I think we over credit these guys with being geniuses at terrorism when it's just, you know ---

HARLOW: Thugs.

FUENTES: -- a couple of people turned loose.

HARLOW: Yes. So, Jonathan, the government of Kenya launched these air strikes on Al Shabaab targets following, the day after. Do you think that air strikes are not effective enough right now in Kenya?

GILLIAM: You know, air strikes are another tactic that we use to battle insurgents, but I just don't think it's going to be, you know, really reliable here. In the way that Mr. Fuentes was just talking there, you know, it wouldn't take a whole lot to really build up forces that can push back and repel Al Shabaab.

At the same time, you have to start looking at these different soft targets from an attacker's perspective, and the authorities can forward think where it's probably going to happen and set up better defenses. And I totally agree with Mr. Fuentes, I think that they just dropped the ball when it comes to not just reacting, but pre-thinking these things.

HARLOW: So people feel safer at their universities, for example.

GILLIAM: Right absolutely.

HARLOW: All right, Jonathan, thank you very much.

GILLIAM: You got it.

HARLOW: Tom Fuentes, thank you, as well.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

HARLOW (voice-over): Still ahead, the new concerns about a deadly pesticide used at a very popular tourist donation (sic). We're talking about paradise here and near death. How many vacationers could have been exposed?

(END VIDEOCLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:50:43] HARLOW (on camera): Right now, U.S. officials are trying to track down tourists who have been to the Virgin Islands recently because they're extremely concerned that some may have been exposed to a deadly pesticide used illegally there. It is the same pesticide that has been blamed for putting an entire Delaware family in the hospital.

Here's Sara Ganim.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA GANIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Two teenagers are still in a coma after they were exposed to a deadly pesticide while on spring break with their family. Now CNN has learned the same chemical was likely illegally used multiple times according to government officials. Governor Ken Mapp told us that even his own condominium complex was fumigated with methyl bromide without his knowledge in 2013.

GOV. KEN MAPP, VIRGIN ISLANDS: What these companies did or appear to have been doing is clearly a violation of the law, and they'll be held accountable for it.

GANIM: The EPA investigation has already found evidence that Terminix may have illegally used methyl bromide at least four times, including the day before Thanksgiving on a vacation villa on St. Croix and the Saranusa (ph) villas on St. John last fall. Authorities are now tracking down the residents who stayed at the villas, but Terminix didn't want to talk about it.

GANIM (on camera): I spoke to a government official who said that you guys had used this substance inside at this resort before this incident involving this family.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just don't understand what part you didn't understand what I said before.

GANIM: What part?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The part that I cannot talk to you.

GANIM: I'm giving you guys the chance to respond.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can't, I'm afraid not. You understand. (inaudible) to discuss it.

GANIM: All right. yes.

GANIM (voice-over): Terminix issued a statement saying that it is, quote, "committed to performing all work in a manner that is safe," and is, "looking into this matter internally and cooperating with authorities." Pest control companies are supposed to document use of methyl bromide. The governor says that if in fact they were falsifying records --

MAPP: That's a clear and malice violation of the law.

GANIM: But federal documents and public records show on the island there were serious management problems. The EPA oversees the local department of planning and natural resources, and last year designated it a, quote, "high-risk," saying it does not meet management standards.

That came after a top official with the DPNR was convicted of using the agency to run drugs, the second high-profile scandal involving the agency. The EPA says the inspector general is also investigating the DPNR, but the governor, who just took office in January, says the agency's issues have nothing to do with what happened to the Esmond family. He blames the pest control companies.

MAPP: It occurred because someone was cutting corners, thought they could enhance their profit margin, and that they could get away with it. And apparently, even in my own residence, someone had been getting away with it for quite some time.

GANIM (on camera): Federal authorities are now seizing all remaining canisters of methyl bromide across the U.S. Virgin Islands and shipping them off island.

Sara Ganim, CNN, on St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Sara Ganim, thanks so much for that.

Coming up next, we're going to talk about how Hillary Clinton with this announcement today via video, via social media, how she's going to use social media to try to help soften her image. We'll discuss next.

[18:49:00]

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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

HARLOW: Breaking news from Augusta, Georgia, and the Masters. Let's go straight to Don Riddell who joins me there.

So, did he pull it off?

DON RIDDELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He certainly did, Poppy. I think within the last few days and certainly in the last few hours we have witnessed the future of American golf. Jordan Spieth has won the Masters, at a canter in the end.

The young man (AUDIO GAP) has broken record after record over a few days and he has just wrapped it up, beating Justin Rose by four strokes. The winning score, 18 under par, that ties the winning record that Tiger Woods managed back in 1997. He also has scored more birdies than anyone else over the four days in the history of this tournament. Remember, he'd already shot a record score over 36 holes and over 54 holes as well.

In the end, he looked relieved rather than ecstatic to have actually won this, so much pressure on a young man having built up such a huge lead going into the final day. And, of course, he was in this position this time last year, and that in itself is incredible, that at the age of 21 he has been in contention for both Masters tournaments in which he has played.

This is his first major win, his fifth professional career victory, but earlier in the week Tiger Woods referred to the fact that Jordan Spieth was in diapers when Tiger won his first major here in 1997. That young man has grown up now and many are expecting a very, very bright future ahead for him, Poppy.

HARLOW: He certainly has. I know some very emotional embraces with his family members there in Augusta, Georgia. Very quickly, what is it about this guy, many people didn't know his name until just recently, just a meteoric rise.

RIDDELL: Oh, absolutely. I mean, he had a phenomenal amateur and junior career, second only to Tiger Woods, to be honest, before he turned professional, but everybody that's met him, myself included, is just blown away by how mature, and calm, and composed, and thoughtful he is.

[19:00:06] And that certainly translates to his golf game.

A lot of that is a credit to himself, of course, but also to his mom and dad and his family situation at home. The future of American golf in so many ways in good hands, Poppy.

HARLOW: Wow, absolutely. Congratulations to him, Jordan Spieth. As you said, maybe the future of golf in this country. Appreciate it.