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Airbag Maker Expands Largest Recall in U.S. History; North Korea Cancels U.N. Chief Visit; ISIS Moves East After Ramadi Takeover; Clinton Takes Questions on Campaign Trail. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired May 20, 2015 - 07:00   ET

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


TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The most serious accidents have occurred in Hondas, but the recall also involves Fords, Chryslers, Mazdas, BMWs.

[07:00:05] In all, 11 manufacturers and parts suppliers. And there could be more.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How long is this going to take? Nobody knows that yet. There is no question it could be some years.

FOREMAN: The manufacturer issued a statement saying it remains committed to consumer safety, but like the government, it does not yet know why the airbags are exploding. Although Takata has devoted tremendous resources to these efforts with some of the leading researchers, it is clear that this is a complex issue which takes time to fully evaluate.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN: I'm hearing that it may take up to a year for all the replacement parts to even be in place.

But to your second question, Chris, how do you know if your car is involved? Go to the website SaferCar.gov. SaferCar.gov. There you can put in your vehicle identification number, the VIN number. And that will tell you whether or not your car is involved.

But I do want to repeat what I said earlier today. You may have to go back more than once. I did this last night. And it even warned you at the end to say this is an ongoing story. It's developing. You may find your car's not on the list today, but maybe tomorrow it will be.

So this is going to be a problem that's going to be with us quite a while on the road during our commute, Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Headline, Tom Foreman has difficulty finding his Lambo on the site, discussing whether or not his airbag is...

FOREMAN: Yes, right. CUOMO: Let's bring in Mary Schiavo, former inspector general of

the Department of Transportation. You understand these issues very well. For all that is complex according to Takata, I think there are two things that are very simple that need to be addressed.

The first is, Mary, isn't it true that this recall is as big as it is, because this company was fighting it for so long?

MARY SCHIAVO, FORMER INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPT. OF TRANSPORTATION: Absolutely. Because it was fighting it for so long, and I think the media gets some credit, because there was information that came out not only they were fighting it. But they might have known this back in 2004 and ordered the tests that showed they were defective and the evidence destroyed.

Now, that's debated. That's -- they say that's not true, and it's debated. But that was an important turning point, too.

CUOMO: Does the government not have enough teeth? Were they slow? Were they too accommodative? Why didn't they get this out there sooner?

Well, I think they were too accommodating. And in fact, I think that the GM ignition recall probably kicked this one, the Takata airbag recall, into high gear, because NHTSA was under tremendous criticism for giving the manufacturers too much leeway, too much time, puny fines and not getting tough.

And so also the state lines here, you know, they said, "We're going to do the airbag recall in these states but not others," it made no sense. I mean, the cars don't respect state lines. They cross them. So that made no sense either.

CUOMO: Another thing that needs to be exposed here, is this in part true because of the consolidation of suppliers? As bigger businesses gobble up smaller ones, you're having fewer and fewer people make these parts. And is that a precarious situation?

SCHIAVO: It is. And Takata was such a huge supplier. And, you know, there's a term that is applied to Japanese automakers. And that's they're koretsu (ph). And they use certain suppliers, and they have a relied supplier. And they go back to that supplier and pretty soon that supplier has a huge part of the market.

And now we're in the situation where Takata cannot manufacture enough airbags to meet this recall. And for example on the NHTSA website, you see useless information such as, well, don't drive that vehicle or disconnect your airbag. Well, most people can't do that. They can't just park their vehicle or go disconnect their airbag.

CUOMO: Now, we can't stop the consolidation of business, but we can check what they say. There is an adage in the law that, when you are troubled by the specific, go to the general. They say humidity may be the cause, and that covers what's going on with all these different vehicles and types that they're putting the bags in. Do you buy it? SCHIAVO: Well, to a certain degree, yes. Because what happened

was it was the moisture in their accelerant. They used a different kind of accelerant. In other words, the explosive chemical that causes the airbag to basically explode out protect the driver or the passenger or occupant of the car. And it was moisture that degraded that. So yes, I mean, that's a very logical explanation, one that many people say they had back in 2004.

So that makes sense, except as we all know, moisture is in all 50 states. So limiting it to Florida and Georgia, that made no sense. And that's another reason why it's nationwide.

CUOMO: So the troubling question for people they want to find out if their car's on there. They also want to know, more specifically, if the bag's going to blow up in their face, and shards of metal are going to enter them.

So Mary Schiavo, what do we to keep the Schiavo visage as beautiful as it is, seeing how we rely on it so heavily here at CNN?

SCHIAVO: Well, what I would do -- and we're facing this, you know, one of our vehicles is -- the VIN number doesn't come up yet but I've instructed my daughter to take her vehicle immediately this morning to the dealership, because remember, the dealers and the manufacturers, Honda and some of the others, then started issuing their own recalls when Takata wouldn't act.

Get your car to the dealership. And then if the dealership says, "Oh, no, you're not on the list," or we don't have the airbags or we don't have the parts, you have added another responsible party.

[07:05:07] So I just wouldn't rely on the website, because Takata itself has admitted they don't really know where all these airbags are. And they can't tell you for sure whether or not you have one.

Best thing: take it back to the manufacturer's dealer rep, the official one, and also because they don't track how many times a car's been sold, you may never get a notice and have a bad airbag.

CUOMO: And even though the chances are very small that the bag will be defective, it can happen at low-speed crashes and things like that. It's better just to be safe.

And it is troubling that Tanaka [SIC] doesn't know where the bags are exactly, which speaks to the problem of big businesses buying up all the smaller producers.

Now, when we're talking about Takata, what is the right remedy here? You know, when you have a problem, you hope that it gets better the next time. Do you see that in a situation like this?

SCHIAVO: Well, this one is particularly troubling again, because how long it took them to respond. And because of the reports -- again they dispute them -- but because of the reports that they knew so many years ago, a decade ago and then hid and destroyed evidence, I think probably the best remedy overall is going to be coming out. Congress had hearings, and they actually ordered the Justice Department to start a criminal investigation.

When I was I.G., I found that a very effective tool for particularly belligerent perpetrators. And if you won't respond to the civic responsibility and just keep people safe, I think that the threat of this criminal investigation, this is very important, because that's part and parcel what we do. We prosecute people who've done something criminal.

And I think the opening of the criminal investigation is also going to be very important. And if they do find intentional wrongdoing and false statements to the government, 18 United States Code Section 1001, it's really easy to prosecute, I think that should also be applied if appropriate and if there's probable cause to go forward.

CUOMO: All right, Mary. And we're talking about Takata. Big names are involved: BMW, Chrysler, Daimler Trucks, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota. The big names out there could be any of them. So please do your due diligence and go to the dealer, as Mary Schiavo suggested.

Mary, thank you very much.

So again, if you think your car could be on the list, why not just check anyway? Go to SaferCar.gov/R-S/Takata. That's complicated. We'll put it on the website for you. But remember, dealers have to replace the airbags for free as parts become available. That last part will be the trick for you -- Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: I will be checking that website momentarily.

Meanwhile, we have some breaking international news overnight. More threats from North Korea. This time it's about its nuclear arsenal. Pyongyang's National Defense Commission saying the country is close to placing a nuclear warhead on a missile which could be launched towards the United States.

CNN's Will Ripley has more from Tokyo. What do we know, Will?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is, of course, North Korea's latest effort to step up the military rhetoric, rhetoric that was in full swing when I was on the ground there just a couple of weeks ago, Alisyn. That's when North Korea claimed that they had launched and test-fired a ballistic missile from a submarine. Of course, later some of the photos that they released turned out to be doctored.

But there is no disputing the fact that North Korea is investing a considerable amount of money in their nuclear program. They claim they have a ballistic missile capable of striking the United States. A top official told me that. And now brand-new, they're also saying that they have the technology to miniaturize nuclear weapons, to make them small enough to put them in one of those missiles and fire at their No. 1 enemy the U.S. But also, potentially putting in danger India, Japan, South Korea, all the regional allies of the U.S. here that have to watch North Korea's every move with great caution.

North Korea also apparently isolating itself even further, abruptly canceling a planned visit by the U.N. secretary general. It would have been the first in more than 20 years, but it's not happening anymore. North Korea instead threatening more military development in their nuclear program -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Will, I don't have to tell you that North Korea is famous for its wild claims and its saber rattling, how do we know if this one is true?

RIPLEY: Well, the United States and the Pentagon was just talking last month about the fact they do believe that North Korea has the technology to miniaturize nuclear weapons. They know that North Korea has a growing nuclear arsenal. This is a country that is spending a tremendous amount of money. More money than they're spending to feed their own people, they're spending on developing their military, specifically their nuclear program.

It's not going away. It's an unstable regime, unpredictable and very troubling to the global community, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Will, thanks so much for all of that information -- Michaela.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: We turn now to Iraq where ISIS is tightening its grip on Ramadi and now pushing east. Top Iraqi government officials are hoping to stop the terror group's advance by moving in even more fighters into the area.

Senior international correspondent Arwa Damon is tracking the latest developments for us. She's in Amman, Jordan -- Arwa.

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Officials in Ramadi and the small units of Iraqi security forces that were trying to fight ISIS. There has been warning as far back as November that, without additional reinforcements, the city would fall, and it did. Unable to stand up against relentless wave after wave of ISIS suicide bombers.

[07:10:02] And ISIS now seems to be confident enough in its grip over Ramadi that it is continuing to push farther east, targeting various towns that the Iraqi government says it has been able to defend so far.

But the government is really crippled by a lack of capable fighting forces within its own ranks, calling on more Shia paramilitary units to join the battle. The U.S. also forced at this stage to revise its so-called strategy that thus far has comprised of, yes, some airstrikes. None of which have really stopped the advance of ISIS. And also an attempt to retrain and rearm, restructure the Iraqi security forces.

The U.S. also saying that it is going to be expediting weapons shipments to Iraq. But all of this is really coming too late. The Iraqi government is going to be bogged down for an extensive period of time in various front lines in al-Anbar province to try to prevent the terrorist organization from approaching the capital Baghdad and potentially threatening it.

Back to you.

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

We're going to turn to Hillary Clinton now, because she's doing something she hasn't done for nearly a month. You know what that is? Talking to us. The former secretary of state took a sparse five minutes' worth of questions during a campaign stop in Iowa.

So let's bring in CNN senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny, traveling with Mrs. Clinton, joining us from Chicago.

Jeff, is it true that she said to the reporter, "I've missed you the way the desert misses the rain"?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Chris, she said exactly that to me, and it was very genuine. No, she took five questions.

All this criticism has been dogging her for the last month or so, and it finally built up so much they thought that they had to address some of these questions, because they were threatening to overshadow her campaign message.

But she focused on the release of those e-mails, some 55,000 pages of e-mails that we've been talking about for so long. And she said she would like to see them released as soon as possible. Of course the State Department is now saying they may need until January. She actually said that's not soon enough. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have said repeatedly I want those e-mails out. Nobody has a bigger interest in getting them released than I do. I respect the State Department. They have their process that they do for everybody, not just for me. But anything that they might do to expedite that process, I heartily support.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: And one of the reasons, of course, she heartily supports it is because this issue is going to follow her throughout the campaign.

But it's important to keep in mind here that her staff and she hand-picked all these e-mails that will be released here. So she would like to get this out of the way, not likely to happen.

And a new report in "The Wall Street Journal" this morning raises even more questions about the transparency at her State Department. The report says that some of her top aides were actually slow-walking the release of some other public records requests. So that's one more example that this transparency questions are

going to follow her throughout the rest of the campaign -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: And reporters will follow her, as well, trying to ask those. Jeff, thanks so much for that.

Well, there's an uneasy calm in Waco, Texas, this morning just days after that brawl between rival biker gangs left nine people dead. At least 170 are in custody.

"The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram" reporting that one of the gangs, the Cossacks, has agreed to a police request to cancel their annual rally this coming weekend. And that would have brought as many as 400 more bikers to the area.

PEREIRA: More tension in the waters off Yemen. An Iranian ship is threatening to dock there in Yemen before being inspected in Djibouti, as required by the U.N. It is believed that the ship is carrying humanitarian relief. No intelligence suggests that weapons are aboard.

But the U.S. does not want the Iranians to break a Saudi-led naval blockade. The U.S. is said to be back -- to be, rather, in backchannel communications to get Iran to comply with those U.N. guidelines.

CUOMO: David Letterman signs off for the last time tonight. That will be three decades in late night for him. The second to last episode featured Bill Murray, who popped out of a good-bye cake, of course.

PEREIRA: Of course he did.

CUOMO: Murray was Dave's first guest and has been on with him more than 40 times. The pair chugged vodka before Murray got about as serious as he ever gets.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL MURRAY, ACTOR: I know that you've had the heads of government here. Bill Clinton was here. George Clooney was here, various -- he was here for a long time.

DAVID LETTERMAN, HOST, CBS' "THE LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN": You're here.

MURRAY: I'm here. And all -- everyone's trying to get you to stay. We want you to stay and not give up. We just want more, Dave. Just more.

LETTERMAN: More.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: We do, Dave. We just want more. Aww, that was heartfelt. An end of an era. CAMEROTA: I know.

PEREIRA: Three eras, I guess...

CAMEROTA: You're tearing up.

PEREIRA: I am. I mean it's -- you know.

CUOMO: He's doing what we all hope to be able to do in this business, though, which is...

CAMEROTA: Go out on top.

CUOMO: He's been there a long time. He's set a standard, and he's getting to go out the way he wants.

CAMEROTA: I mean, and the reports are that, you know, he's really tried to avoid the sentimentality of this.

CUOMO: Too bad.

CAMEROTA: His guests keep, you know, injecting it.

[07:15:10] CUOMO: Don't have three good-bye shows.

PEREIRA: But only three, like it could have been like a year- long good-bye.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Well, I can't wait to watch tonight.

PEREIRA: Me, too. Well, it's past our bedtime.

CAMEROTA: I'm going to tape it.

All right. Meanwhile, after the fall of Ramadi, President Obama's ISIS strategy coming under fire. What can the U.S. do to stop the terrorist advance in Iraq?

CUOMO: And a new report is raising more questions about Hillary Clinton's transparency. What does it mean for her campaign? We'll tell you the report and dig, dig, dig on "Inside Politics."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Are we going to light our hair on fire every time that there is a setback in the campaign against ISIL?

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-KY), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: We know that hope is not a strategy. The president's plan isn't working.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: All right. Well, that's the debate raging in Washington over the U.S. strategy on fighting ISIS after the fall of Ramadi. Is the strategy working or not?

Let's turn to Philip Mudd. He's our CNN counterterrorism analyst and former CIA counterterrorism official.

Phil, great to see you.

PHILIP MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: Good morning.

CAMEROTA: Is the strategy against ISIS working or failing?

MUDD: I don't think we can say it's working. We just lost Ramadi. But remember last summer, last fall we were talking about the rapid advances of ISIS. Those advances have slowed. The government's had, I would say, modest success. Remember they took Tikrit. The Kurds have had some success.

I think, though, we're missing a basic question here. There are conversations we can have around the margins, whether we have an independent avenue of arms going to the Kurds, for example. Whether we have forward-deployed spotters for the military attacks that the U.S. is taking in support of Iraqi ground operations.

[07:20:08] The fundamental question they hear, though, is pretty basic, and that is: in insurgencies, if the home team -- that is the Iraqi military -- can't win the game, the away team over the course of time can't win it for them. We're trying to pretend like there's some secret solution here that would allow us to sort of substitute for the Iraqis somehow. If they don't want to bring it to ISIS, I don't think we can change the scenario to -- to implement a strategy it's a lot different.

CAMEROTA: So what does that mean? How do the Iraqis get Ramadi back? Or do they give up?

MUDD: I don't think they give up. We're focusing on half of the puzzle. That is the military half. If you're looking at insurgencies, the way you kill insurgents -- that is ISIS -- is you've got to drain the swamp where they swim. And right now that swamp is occupied in Anbar province by Sunnis.

We've talked repeatedly about the fact that we have successive Iraqi Shia leadership that is not bringing in either the Kurds or the Sunnis. The solution here will not be whether the military strategy is better. The solution will be whether the Iraqi leadership figures out a way to give up some power to Sunnis.

We saw the Iranian Shia defense minister fly into Baghdad this week. That's another signal to me that one reason the Iraqi military won't prevail soon is that a government hasn't gotten the message that they can't be all Shia all the time.

CAMEROTA: I sat down with presidential hopeful Rand Paul this week. And he talked about how he believes that the fight against ISIS must be waged on the ground between the Iraqis and the Kurds fighting them.

Listen to a piece of his strategy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The Kurds are good fighters. I would go one step further. I would arm the Kurds. And I would also offer them a homeland. If you will fight and if you will fight to keep people out and to push out these marauders, I'd give you a homeland.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Is that a powerful enough inducement to make them fight harder?

MUDD: Alisyn, you're looking at 18 months of headaches if you want Philip Mudd commenting on presidential candidates. But let me...

CAMEROTA: I mean the strategy, which you are good at.

MUDD: A quick comment here. Look, Iraq has three basic segments. You have roughly -- and there hasn't been a census in forever. Roughly two-thirds you're talking about Shia. The rest divided between Sunnis and Kurds.

The Kurds have held their territory well up north. They can't be the deciding factor against the Sunni ISIS operation.

Couple things, I'd say, on the Iraqi comments by Senator Paul. The first is, if the question is, "Hey, the Iraqi leadership hasn't prevailed here, they haven't been very effective. Should we have an independent avenue of weapons to the Kurds?" I'd say sure, that's one way of telling the Iraqi leadership, "Look, if you're not going to play, we'll force you to play."

The second question I disagree with. You take a step further and give the Kurds independence, look, we already broke eggs and made an omelet. It's an Iranian omelet. And now we're saying, "Let's break some more eggs to see if that works." I don't get that. The law of unintended consequences, if you give the Kurds independence, is hard to predict. So I'd say no to independence, yes to weapons.

CAMEROTA: We see the law of unintended consequences all over that region, but meanwhile, here's what the Iraqi prime minister said yesterday in terms of what he believes will help to win.

Let me read to you the press release that he put out. He's calling for voluntary recruitment to add new forces in the Army, especially in the squads, which have shortages in the number, including the 7th Squad in the west of Anbar, in addition to terminating the contracts of escapees. What does all that mean?

MUDD: One of the problems the military is facing and the government's facing is, when you look at the offensive up in Ramadi, you're talking about the inclusion of Shia militias. I was talking earlier about the importance of draining the swamp in insurgencies by eliminating local support. The local support up there is Sunnis. As soon as you bring in

Shia militias, if you're a Sunni villager up there, what are you going to say?

Here, the Shia coming again and the military is not an inclusive representative body of the government. I think the government's trying to say maybe there's another way to recruit people in that's more inclusive. But the message, by sending Shia militias, "Hey, we're a divided country, and we're going to remain divided." That can't win in an insurgency.

CAMEROTA: It's all so complicated, Phil Mudd.

MUDD: No, it's not.

CAMEROTA: Well, not for you, but it sounds complicated in terms of the answer. But thanks so much for being on NEW DAY.

MUDD: Take care.

CAMEROTA: All right. Let's get over to Michaela.

PEREIRA: All right. Hillary Clinton finally taking questions from the media. She has plenty to say about those e-mails on a private server from her days as secretary of state. We'll take a look at all of that, "Inside Politics."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:28:18] The largest auto recall ever in the United States now underway, thanks to embattled airbag maker Takata. Thirty-four million cars being recalled, nearly doubling the previous number. The airbags have turned deadly with shrapnel flying into the faces of drivers, even passengers. Cars from 11 automakers are impacted. Take a look on your screen. Still no word from Takata on how it plans to fix that problem.

CUOMO: To Iraq where ISIS is tightening its grip on Ramadi and now pressing east. Iraqi government officials are planning to move even more fighters into Anbar province as a result, hopefully to stop ISIS. Those fighters will be mainly Shia.

Now, the problem with that is it may be exactly what ISIS wants, because it could inflame sectarian tensions. Anbar is largely Sunni.

CAMEROTA: And the hunt resuming this morning for the person who torched a Washington, D.C., mansion, killing four people inside. Investigators now reviewing new video showing the victim's Porsche burning in the parking lot of a Maryland church. You're seeing it there.

Police are looking for a person of interest seen racing away from the house last Thursday, wearing a hoody and carrying a large white object.

PEREIRA: With all due respect to Mr. Fitness over here, check out the first lady giving him and the president, even, a run for their money in her new "Give Me 5" video. Oh, yes. Jumping rope. Working the medicine ball. She's lifting weights. Even boxing. The first lady shows what she is made of.

She was responding to the president's own video, which took a bit of a softer approach here. Take a nice light jog with the vice president sipping some water.

The "Give Me 5" challenge is part of the first lady's Let's Move campaign. I think I'm allowed to say this in cable,: she's bad-ass.

CAMEROTA: Wow. I think so, too. Those are some moves.

PEREIRA: Respect?

CAMEROTA: Yes, do you do those? Do you jump up on the bench?

CUOMO: I respect everything she's doing, trying to get people to move more.