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Dow Tries to Recover From Steep Loses; Americans Who Tacked Terror Suspect Honored; Jeb Bush Visits the Border. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired August 24, 2015 - 15:00   ET

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


[15:00:02] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: This has been -- listen, it's been a whiplash sort of day for the U.S. market. And let's just take a look at how the day started, shall we?

Take a close look and you'll see a picture we don't often see. Thank goodness. You see those numbers, quadruple digits down more than a thousand points just in the first couple of minutes of trading. And the U.S. was not alone, I should point out. Concern that China's growth is slowing down, sending markets into worldwide free fall.

We'll take a look now at the numbers. Currently you can see the Dow down, well, it's down quite a bit more than when we saw a little while ago down 644 points here. This is really the time, this is when you could see the volatility, these final 60 minutes, as people are buying and selling. So we'll watch this. Let's begin watching with Alison Kosik, she's been really in the thick of this all day long at the New York Stock Exchange.

Sixty minutes to go, Alison. What's the mood there?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: The mood beginning to get even more sour than it was when we spoke an hour ago. That's because, as you said, we are seeing the Dow drop a little more as each passing minute goes by. Very different, though, than what happened this morning when traders told me they were in absolute shock when they saw the Dow dropped literally 1,000 points, a little over that, when the Opening Bell rang.

Though many traders are telling me a lot of that was overreaction, one saying that the selling there at the open was foolish and robotic and computer driven. And that's really what's making the selling really pick up steam. Even as we're talking now, we're seeing the Dow drop to 600 -- down 651 points. It's that electronic or computer-driven trading that's moving things so fast.

Now keep in mind, though, that the open, the Opening Bell is what I'm talking about, when we saw the Dow drop so hard and so fast, a lot of that may have just been the reaction to what happened to the Chinese markets overnight. Its main index fell 8.5 percent. So that reaction may not have necessarily been about China's economy.

Keep in mind, though, there is still a lot of concern, a lot of worry and a lot of fear about what is going to happen as the Chinese economy doesn't pick up steam. We've seen the Chinese government try to get involved and devalue its currency and get in there and try to prop up the markets. None of those efforts have worked. That's beginning to really worry Wall Street.

It all came to a head on Friday, Brooke, when that big manufacturing report came out of China showing the biggest drop in manufacturing that that country has seen in 6 1/2 years -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: All right. Let's stay in close contact. We'll monitor the mood, the sour mood, that you describe here, as we're watching those numbers sort of take a tumble, bouncing back and forth just a bit.

Alison Kosik, thank you so much. Let me bring in CNN business correspondent Richard Quest and I have Joanne Lipman with me, the former deputy managing editor of the "Wall Street Journal."

So great to have both of you on. Thank you so much.

I mean, when she talks about the sour mood, and you and I chatted just about an hour ago, the numbers were hovering around 300, 350, and I know you said this is when we get into the tricky territory and we're getting closer to that 4:00 closing bell. What are you thinking?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: I'm looking at the -- I'm looking at the way that the market has moved throughout the course of the day. You have a very sharp -- can I just put this to one-day mark movement. You have --

BALDWIN: Today.

QUEST: Yes. You have a very sharp --

BALDWIN: That's the drop. Yes.

QUEST: Full, and at the open and you have a middle of the day that doesn't do much where people are clearly looking for any form of direction or looking for any information, any particular reason to go one way or the other. In the absence thereof, as the day comes to an end, you start to see the selling. And it would not surprise me if the selling accelerates into the last half hour before because people do not want to go into tonight with money on the table or being long in position.

BALDWIN: Do you agree?

JOANNE LIPMAN, FORMER DEPUTY MANAGING EDITOR, WALL STREET JOURNAL: I do agree. I do agree. There's a lot of nervousness right now about China in particular because so many of the major companies, particularly all the companies in our indexes, are looking toward -- you can hear them talk about where is the expansion, they're all talking about China. They have been for the past several years. And there is some concern if China slows down, what happens to them.

BALDWIN: Right. But --

(CROSSTALK)

QUEST: Volume is very high --

BALDWIN: No one sat down over the weekend.

QUEST: Volume is very high as well today. The NYSE composite volume of about at 3.4 billion shares changing hands. Now that's running 90 percent above the one-month average. So we've got very high volume. And that -- I mean, this isn't people trading. This is not mom and pop moving their 401(k)s. These are vast computer algorithms that are moving into the market, adapting to very minor moves and moving out again.

BALDWIN: But if so much of this is about China, we've been watching China for a while, and -- Alison mentioned the manufacturing report that came out on Friday and I know we always want to touch on -- have something tangible to be able to understand why this is happening. But what doesn't China step in?

LIPMAN: So China has tried to step in. And I think that is where the fear is coming from. China stepped in two weeks ago, it devalued its currency, stepped in on Friday, and I think the concern is, you know, China doesn't have the same history that the United States does of these open markets of a consumer driven market. And so it doesn't have the experience and you add to that the fact that China is an opaque country to us. We just don't understand it as well as we would like, as well as we understand our own economy.

[15:05:09] BALDWIN: Right.

QUEST: And look at that China economy. Look at it. Look at how the market has gone up in China. That's a one-year growth. So take year- to-date. Today was the first time that all the games for the year-to- date had disappeared from the Shanghai market and the Dax market in Germany, the Dax index, which is the equivalent of the Dow, that went into bear territory. So that's now a loss of 20 percent.

BALDWIN: But help me understand, this is someone -- listen to me, I have money in the market, I'm sure we all do to a degree. I don't maybe watch this as closely as you two do. But the bottom line, we've been in this bullish market. Right? And I keep hearing people saying today, this is OK long term, it's OK, this is market correction.

Can you please try to make me feel better? Because I am with the people who are watching, thinking, I'm nervous.

LIPMAN: Right. So here's the thing. Don't panic. That is the main message. If you're an individual investor, you have money in your 401(k), if you don't need it tomorrow or next week --

BALDWIN: Don't touch it, don't do anything.

LIPMAN: Don't even look. Right?

BALDWIN: Don't even look.

(LAUGHTER)

QUEST: And if you are --

BALDWIN: Blind. Cover your eyes.

QUEST: And if you are heading towards retirement.

BALDWIN: OK.

QUEST: You have been re-balancing your portfolio or you should have been for some years away from more risky equities, towards safer and fixing bonds and so, look, it is very nerve-racking to see markets and to go home tonight and work out that you are X thousand dollars poorer or less money than you were on Thursday or Friday. But in the longer term, you've only got to look at the map, or the graph. In the longer term, the market does retire.

BALDWIN: Evens out. OK.

LIPMAN: Can I add from historical perspective here?

BALDWIN: Sure.

LIPMAN: Think about this, in 1987, which is when I was a cover reporter.

BALDWIN: OK.

LIPMAN: The market crashed.

BALDWIN: OK.

LIPMAN: And everybody thought it was the end of the world.

BALDWIN: Right.

LIPMAN: Fast forward to 2008, same thing.

BALDWIN: Right.

LIPMAN: Everybody thought it's the end of the world. Who are the biggest losers in those two periods? They were people who panicked and took their money out. Because everybody else who stayed in, the markets rebounded and they did very well.

BALDWIN: OK. Duly noted. Blinders on. Not looking at my numbers anytime in the next couple of days.

Joanne, thank you so much. Richard Quest, I appreciate you very much as well here.

I do want to pivot and talk about this breaking news we're just getting here, we're watching -- ooh. We're looking at these pictures together for the first time here. This is Queens, this is one of the boroughs here in New York, where this bus -- I'm trying to look to see what kind of bus it was. Can't quite tell. Crashed head on into a building. We're told there were about 40 passengers on the bus.

We do know the driver of the bus was trapped. But firefighters and rescuers managed to pull him out. We're waiting for word, of course, on injuries. You see multiple ladders near there the bus, obviously there to help get folks out to safety. We're going to keep a close eye on the scene in Queens, New York, and as soon as we get any more information, we will bring it you, try to figure out the building, what about people inside, et cetera. We've got that for you.

Coming up next, though, here on CNN, this massacre averted. Three extraordinary Americans honored as heroes today in France taking down a gunman on this high-speed train bound for Paris. This as we are learning more about the intentions of that suspect and just vulnerable soft targets are these days, places like trains.

And one month after Donald Trump went down to the U.S.-Mexico border today, it is Jeb Bush's turn, making a visit to Texas. Is all the talk on immigration because of Trump?

And also, what about the news about Joe Biden today? We'll explain all of that -- explore all of that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:13:01] BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

We now have new details about what it took to stop this massacre onboard a Paris-bound train. Today these three Americans and a British man were given France's highest award, the Legion of Honor, praised as heroes after tackling and hogtied the gunman who emerged from the train's bathroom with ammunition, weapons, including an AK-47 he apparently was not equipped to use. This is according to one of the Americans who took him down. His gun jammed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEK SKARLATOS, SEIZED TRAIN GUNMAN'S RIFLE: Clearly he had no firearms training whatsoever and, yes, if he knew what he was doing or even just got lucky and did the right thing, he would have been able to operate through all eight of those magazines and we would have all been in trouble and probably wouldn't be here today along with a lot of other people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So one of the updates we're getting now is this suspect's attorney is saying, no, no, this wasn't a terror attack. He says his client was hungry and this was simply an armed robbery. But authorities who are now digging into his past may have just found some concerning ties to terror.

Let me bring in Paul Cruickshank, our CNN terrorism analyst who's given us a lot of details here as this is sort of starting to emerge.

You just got off the phone with investigators. What did they tell you?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: They tell me they're still trying to map out his extremist networks in Europe, potentially overseas. They're in the early stages of that. They haven't yet figured out where he got his weapons. They're still working on that round the clock to try and figure that out. But there's a lot of scrutiny on a trip he made to Turkey.

BALDWIN: Yes. Talk to me about that.

CRUICKSHANK: They say that he took a flight from Berlin to Istanbul in May of this year. They believe he was doing that probably to go and try and join ISIS in Syria. One lead line of inquiry is whether he connected at some point with a group of French ISIS operatives --

BALDWIN: In Turkey?

CRUICKSHANK: In turkey who previously directed an Algerian student to launch an attack on Paris churches and also discuss with that student the possibility of attacking passenger trains. So they are looking at all of that trying to figure out who exactly he was connected to. But they are looking at the ISIS thing very, very closely now.

[15:15:07] BALDWIN: But you just heard the sound bite from one of those Americans, Alek, who was saying, obviously, he didn't know how to fix the jammed gun. And so he didn't have firearms training. So does that tell you -- and we don't know, by the way, but perhaps he did not get training, did not get into Syria, thank goodness, for everyone's sake on board that train.

CRUICKSHANK: Well, that's right. They don't know whether he was able to reach Syria and the fact that he would seemed to be somewhat amateur aboard that train, didn't know quite how to fire the gun, fix the jam in the gun suggest that he was not somebody that did a lot of fighting in somewhere like Syria.

There's obviously a lot of concern that there are trained killers back in Europe from places like Syria and Iraq --

BALDWIN: Who have been trained.

CRUICKSHANK: Up to 6,000 European extremists suspected of traveling to Syria and Iraq, and there are hundreds and hundreds back in Europe. Some are being detained but dozens and dozens still at large. A lot of concern that one of them may strike at any moment.

BALDWIN: But back to the point that you said he was in Turkey perhaps meeting with this French -- a French cell? Was he loosely affiliated with some French cell?

CRUICKSHANK: Well, they are looking at that possibility very, very closely.

BALDWIN: OK.

CRUICKSHANK: And that they do believe that there is this group of French operatives who are present in Turkey. And what they're trying to do is redirect these European extremists who are trying to get into Syria through Turkey, telling them, don't bother going to Syria, go back home, go back to France, United Kingdom, wherever, launch attacks there for ISIS. We want you to do that. Find any way possible. And so that's -- you know, a greater concern now to officials that you're starting to see Turkey as a staging point for terrorism.

BALDWIN: Launch any attack possible. It's frightening.

Paul Cruickshank, thank you so much.

Coming up here, hear how these three heroes describe those harrowing moments when they took that gunman down. We have more on that story. More on that train terrorist.

Also ahead, Jeb Bush visiting the U.S.-Mexico border today, joining the list of candidates talking about border security, talking about immigration. But one of the questions we're wondering, is this all because of Donald Trump? Jeb Bush expected to speak moments from now. We'll watch that.

You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:21:21] BALDWIN: I want to take a quick look here at the markets we're watching very, very closely here. We're 40 minutes away from that closing bell. The Dow Jones Industrial Average down 636 points.

If you were watching, as many, many people I know were this morning after the opening bell, it plunged some 1,000 points. You can see the sort of up and down and up and down there in the red today. A lot of this because of the rattling over China's economic slowdown and selloff. And so we really all want to see what it looks like, that picture at 4:00 Eastern at that closing bell for a lot of you, I know. So stay tuned. We have much more coverage today on the markets.

But let's talk politics.

Right now not too far from the U.S. border with Mexico, Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush is talking border security and the immigration situation, and getting a briefing from the local officials in McAllen, Texas. So let's first go to our reporter there, Polo Sandoval, standing by at the Palenque Grill in McAllen, where we're watching and waiting to see Jeb Bush.

Can you just first tell me why did he choose to take this trip?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, Brooke, it's obviously going to be a very crucial move here and a very crucial visit for Jeb Bush campaign because this is essentially one of the centers of this immigration debate and already even without him making his first public appearance here, we're already beginning to see the punches flying. In fact this morning we heard from the local Democratic Party chair here responding to Bush's use of that controversial term that we've been discussing, anchor baby.

Gilberto Hinojosa, the local chairman here, calling the use of that term, quote, "disgusting," and even called on Bush to apologize to millions of U.S. citizens, immigrants and the Latino population here in Texas. And back to what we mentioned, really the main discussion here is

expected to focus around border security and immigration here in McAllen, Texas. We were here just last summer when we saw roughly over 65,000 undocumented and unaccompanied children pouring across the border, crossing that international boundary illegally. It became a major issue really not just here but across the country. And so now former Florida governor visiting here, speaking with U.S. officials, speaking with border officials.

But what's interesting here, though, Brooke, there is no visit scheduled to the actual border. If you get in your car, you drive six miles south from where I'm standing, and you will actually be overlooking the Rio Grande and Mexico, which is the actual border itself. So a lot of people have asked exactly why that is not on the agenda. The Bush campaign saying he is very familiar with the dynamics of the border and a visit to the actual border itself. Today it isn't necessary. They say their candidate is fully aware of what is happening -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK. Polo, I'm going to ask you to stand by. I know we're watching and waiting to see the podium with a lot of microphones. Well, we'll we dip in and take a listen once we see Jeb Bush, but for now let me bring in Buck Sexton, former CIA intelligence and analyst, national security editor at the Blaze.com, and also with me, I have Margaret Hoover, Republican consultant here with -- joining us at CNN.

So great to see both of you. Ladies first. I want to ask you about this move. I mean, obviously, listen, immigration has been a huge issue. If Donald Trump were sitting here, allow me to channel him --

(LAUGHTER)

BALDWIN: I mean, hearing him --

BUCK SEXTON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I want to see this.

BALDWIN: Hearing him so much, I think he would say, as we've him say multiple times, listen, he's driving the agenda, he's sort of talking about immigration so everyone else has started talking about immigration. And so here, you know, I feel like one could say, is this just a move out of the Donald Trump playbook?

MARGARET HOOVER, REPUBLICAN CONSULTANT: And Ben Carson was at the border a few days ago and now Jeb Bush is there. And all of this is because of Jeb Bush.

BALDWIN: What's going on?

HOOVER: I mean, I'm sorry, all of this is because of Donald Trump.

BALDWIN: You're talking about Donald Trump?

HOOVER: Of course, of course. Except that Jeb Bush actually wrote a book about immigration reform called "Immigration Wars" in 2014 and has been talking about this issue for a very long time. [15:25:04] He's actually married to a Mexican woman. He is intimately

acquainted with the policy issues surrounding these challenges around the southwestern border.

BALDWIN: Yes.

HOOVER: His brother was a governor of a southwester state. It's crazy for Donald Trump to truly believe that the only reason people are talking about this is because of him. People have been talking about immigration for a very long time. George Bush tried to push it through the Senate in 2007. Multiple Republicans have run on immigration reform. Marco Rubio, another candidate for the presidency, forged immigration reform solution through the Senate two years ago.

This is not new. What's new is celebrity putting their name behind immigration reform.

BALDWIN: OK.

SUXTON: Look, she has a very different take, though. And she's mentioning people like Marco Rubio, for example, who learned the hard way that when you decide you're going to have a path towards citizenship which conservatives refer to as a path towards amnesty, that's not popular with the base and Jeb Bush's positions on these issues are also not popular on the base. And I don't think he's going to do himself any favors by talking about how now he's the sort of the anti-Trump.

Last week of course he said anchor baby. He sort of felt like maybe he needed to at least give some conservative credentials out there.

BALDWIN: Right. Right.

SUXTON: Speak about these things, and honestly and openly. But the fact of the matter is that Donald Trump has exposed that most of the GOP candidates, when they talk about this issue, they're always speaking about more h1b visas, expanding the things -- expanding these programs, making them better. They don't talk about enforcement. And if you're not actually talking about enforcing the law and securing the border, conservatives do not want to hear it.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Respond to that. Respond to that.

SUXTON: They just don't want to hear it.

HOOVER: Yes. But you know what, you know who doesn't want to hear what Donald Trump is suggesting? Let's just like think about what Donald Trump's solution looks like. Donald Trump's solution is --

BALDWIN: Do we know?

(CROSSTALK)

HOOVER: Get everybody out --

SUXTON: I've read his entire plan.

HOOVER: I have, too, actually.

SUXTON: Right. No, I know. I've just read it.

BALDWIN: OK.

HOOVER: Here we go.

BALDWIN: Two well very well-informed guests.

HOOVER: Deport everyone, get everybody out, build a wall, you can put my name on it if you want to. Do you know what that looks like in terms of the cost? It is the federal government kicking in doors in American homes, taking people out of their beds and taking them over to the border and dumping them.

(CROSSTALK)

SUXTON: But see, the big problem is that that's --

HOOVER: That is the most fundamentally un-American thing I can imagine.

SUXTON: But U.S. federal law -- but U.S. federal law already says that much of what Donald Trump is suggesting should have already been done. See, this is one of the big problems we have here, is that Congress allowed these laws to be in the books. If you're here illegally, you are in fact supposed to be deported. That is the law. If you try to come here legally, you are turned back and come here a second time, there are severe penalties for that. That is --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: I love how we started talking about Jeb Bush and we just did --

SUXTON: Well, look, but this --

HOOVER: But Jeb --

SUXTON: The reason that Trump sucks all the oxygen out of the room with these issues --

BALDWIN: Yes.

SUXTON: -- that he speaks about it openly and honestly in a way that people respond to because they've been told for years, secure the border. They had John McCain saying build the dang fence. He was just saying that because he wanted to get elected and Republicans now have betrayed their base in the midterm election once again on this issue and so we look at this and say, at least there's one guy who's saying enforce the law. Everything that doesn't enforcing the law is more of the same. It's more de factor open borders and it's just pandering.

BALDWIN: Respond to it and then I want to move on.

HOOVER: Here's -- I mean, here's what's pandering. What's pandering is oversimplifying it so much that you can pretend that you can just get rid of 11 million people that have been here for, in some cases, a decade. The problem with Trump and this sort of, quote-unquote, policy solution is that it's not actually a feasible solution. It's not something that actually can be implemented in a way that is all American or consistent with our values. You just -- you just can't do it. And so it's the sin of over simplifying something that is inherently nuance and quite difficult actually. Otherwise it would have already been done.

SUXTON: The Democrats, there's agreement that there should be a secure border. I mean, we do have to tell people that they actually can't come into this country. Everyone seems to agree on that, right?

BALDWIN: Right.

SUXTON: This is just a question of what the numbers are and what laws on the books you'll actually enforce. Employers are not supposed to hire illegals. That is not enforced. People are not supposed to stay in this country and get benefits illegally. That is not enforced.

When everyone looks at the totality of immigration law, people pretend like these things are taken seriously but the reality is that it's all swept under the rug, the Democrats do it for political purposes, Republicans do it because of the Chamber of Commercial and other groups that want to benefit from this. And it's time we actually are honest with the fact that we're either open borders or we have to tell people they can't stay.

BALDWIN: OK. OK. We'll watch and see how Jeb Bush takes this on in McAllen in a matter of minutes. But here's what I also wanted to move along to because I was reading a lot about all these ways -- this Biden option. The Joe Biden option.

Looking at you as two Republicans, here's what I wanted to know because we know that he had this Elizabeth Warren meeting at his home over the weekend. We know -- we heard Josh Earnest speaking about this today. In fact we do have a sound bite, I believe, guys. Let's go to that. This is part of the White House daily briefing hearing him weigh in on this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president has indicated his view that the decision that he made I guess seven years ago now to add Joe Biden to the ticket as his running mate was the smartest decision that he's ever made in politics. And I think that should give you some sense of the president's view of Vice President Biden's aptitude for the top job.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: So to you, sir, who would make Republicans more nervous to be the Democratic nominee? Would it be Joe Biden or would it be Hillary Clinton?

SUXTON: I think Hillary Clinton makes them more nervous, assuming that what's going on right now doesn't actually come to anything. Meaning that assuming that the e-mails as they're going through all this, they don't find enough classified material that somehow it seeps into the American consciousness that this was a reckless and irresponsible thing, if not a criminal thing.