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CNN NEWSROOM

Hungarian Police, Migrants in Tense Standoff; The Human Toll of Growing Disaster; Biden Potential Run Depends on Family; Migrants Trying to Walk to Austria from Hungary. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired September 4, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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


[10:00:00] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And as we get ready for the regular season, be sure to tune into CNN's "PRO FOOTBALL PREVIEW" with Rachel. She'll be joined, as she said, by co-host Dan Marino and special guests like quarterback Peyton Manning and Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll. That's Sunday afternoon, 3:30 Eastern right here on CNN.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, the boy on the beach laid to rest this morning as we hear his family's story.

TIMA KURDI, AUNT OF DROWNED MIGRANT BOYS: I did all in my power to save them. I couldn't.

COSTELLO: The desperation outweighing the danger for thousands more migrants.

ADHAN, SYRIAN REFUGEE IN HUNGARY: No food. No water. No meal. Nothing.

COSTELLO: Where are they going to go?

Also, kisses, hugs and soon wedding bells in Kentucky. A clerk denying gay marriage licenses, in jail this morning. But her fight isn't over yet.

Plus, Jeb Bush's fighting words.

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When he attacks me personally or disparages my family, you damn right I'm going to fight back.

COSTELLO: Why he says Donald Trump cannot insult his way to the White House.

Let's talk. Live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. He has become the face of a humanitarian crisis. His small lifeless

body the symbol of desperation to flee war and poverty. This image made the world stop and pay attention, and these images capturing the promise and hope that has unleashed a flood of refugees across much of Europe and into danger. A few hours ago the family of the 2-year-old Syrian boy watched him being buried alongside his mother and 4-year- old brother. They, too, drowned. The family -- the father of the family, the sole survivor, returned with them to Syria, the war-torn country they were try so desperately to escape.

"Everything I was dreaming of is gone," the father says. "I want to bury my children and sit beside them until I die." His sister in Canada who was awaiting their arrival is haunted by his description of watching his son die.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KARDI: So he close his eyes and he let him go. He look around for his wife. She was floating in the water. It's like a balloon. He said, you should see how she looked like. He said, I did my all in my power to save them. I couldn't. Nobody else could save them. Everyone in the boat tried to save their life. I told him, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't send you the money to go. If I didn't send you the money, you won't go. And he said, don't blame yourself. I know you did to help us a lot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: The migrants are finding many European countries overwhelmed and unwelcoming, frankly. This is the scene near Budapest, Hungary. Desperate migrants asking, where is the world?

And right next to them tensions are building in a standoff between police and migrants. Just moments ago Hungarian police began pushing migrants back on a train where they have been holed up for more than 24 hours. The migrants, for their part, are demanding safe passage to Germany.

CNN's Frederik Pleitgen has witnessed it all and he joins us now with more. Hi, Fred.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. Yes, we witnessed that scene unfold. What was going on basically throughout the better part of the morning was that these migrants who were on that train which has been stationary here at this station for well over 24 hours now were obviously very angry, very frustrated. They started speaking to us and then what the Hungarian police did is they took another train to block the view towards the train that the migrants were on and then sent in I would say a little over 100 riot police to then secure that train.

And what they have done, we actually have pictures of that right now because we're overlooking the scene. What they've done is they pushed all the migrants back on to the train. They seem to have sealed all the windows as well. We saw those riot police running around there. And now it appears as though that standoff is going on there right now and continues to go on and it appears as though the riot police are not letting anyone off the train anymore.

As you can see, that entire platform is now full of police officers where before the migrants were at least allowed to mingle. They were allowed to go outside because also I have to say, it's very, very hot and sunny here today, so people were, of course, very hot, very weak. Many of them very frustrated, but throughout the course of the morning they've been talking to us. They've been asking us for help and that was certainly something that many of the authorities here didn't like.

So now what they've done is, again, they've blocked our view and they brought in these well over 100 riot police to then seal off these rail cars. We're waiting to see what happens next, whether or not they're going to maybe storm this train or whether or not this train might be going somewhere else.

[10:05:07] Right now it really is up in the air, but the standoff has certainly once again escalated within this of course tragic situation that's unfolding all over Europe -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Frederik Pleitgen reporting live for us near Budapest, Hungary.

We want to now take a closer look at the human toll of this crisis. Craig Mokhiber is with the United Nations Human Rights Office. He's leading the work on migration issues. He joins us live from Geneva, Switzerland.

Welcome, Craig.

CRAIG MOKHIBER, CHIEF OF SOCIAL ISSUES, U.N. HUMAN RIGHTS OFFICE: Thanks, Carol. Good to be here.

COSTELLO: Nice to have you here. Why is Hungary treating these migrants like this?

MOKHIBER: Look, we think this is a part of a greater failure which, indeed, is global, but certainly is manifest very strongly in Europe at this moment. A failure to really develop migration policies that are based on the one hand on evidence, the real situation on the ground, and the other hand on the values and the norms of international law.

This really is what happens, we believe, and it's happening in so many countries when migration policy is determined on the basis of base politics, lowest common denominator politics, and let's face it, sometimes a great deal of xenophobia, hatred, and racism makes its way into the mix as well.

There is no migration crisis in Europe, just as there is no migration crisis in the United States, for example. This really is just a massive failure of empathy, a failure to look at the evidence and to come up with solutions that work, and it's a failure of migration governance from Hungary --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: And -- and can I --

MOKHIBER: -- to the opposite side of the continent.

COSTELLO: I can understand what you're saying that because I'm going to read a quote from the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban. He said, " We don't want to criticize France, Belgium, any other country. We think all countries have the right to decide whether they want to have a large number of Muslims in their countries. If they want to live together with them, they can. We don't want to and I think we have the right to decide that we do not want a large number of Muslim people in our country."

So does that mean he's eventually going to send these people back to Syria, back to Iraq?

MOKHIBER: Well, I think it's very telling when you have politicians making statements so directly xenophobic and racism. It's what really is behind the problem that we're seeing now. You know, migration is a fact of life for all people, including for Europeans. There were -- there are about 28 million European citizens who migrate out of Europe every day. There are a dozen or so European countries where you have more emigrants than immigrants on an annual basis.

And yet what we're really seeing here is a push back not against migration in general, not against refugee in particular but really against groups of people identified on the basis of their nationality, their race and their religion. And that's just not acceptable, it's not acceptable also, by the way, under international law.

COSTELLO: And of course a lot of people look to the United States in times of crisis like this. And a reporter asked Donald Trump, one of the men running for president in this country, if he's open to allowing Syrian migrants into the United States. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COKIE ROBERTS, MSNBC: Should we be letting some of those people into this country?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: So horrible on the humanitarian basis when you see that. It's like incredible what's going on but, you know, we have so many problems and the answer is possibly yes, Cokie, possibly yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK. So he says possibly yes. Do you think at some point the United States will be expected to take in some of these people?

MOKHIBER: Well, I think the United States has an obligation to admit refugees under the 1951 convention. It also has obligations to respect the human rights of all migrants regardless of their status or where they come from. But I think really what's important here is you see a slight shift in the debate. You know, it's very easy for politicians to use xenophobic rhetoric and sound like the hardest hardliner when it comes to admitting people in need from other countries.

But now it's become more difficult this week, and I think we have to say that the absolute horrific tragic of Aylan Kurdi and his family and, by the way, thousands of others who have died in the Mediterranean just in the past year, has done something very important. It's pulled back the curtain that has been put up by politicians and others with xenophobic rhetoric that has been trying to demonize and paint migrants and refugees as somehow being horrible creatures, waves of invaders or interlopers, and when people see the body, the broken body of that small child on the beach, Aylan, with his small fragile hand, he's pulled back the curtain, and no politician it seems to me can challenge that image with xenophobic rhetoric and get away with it in the way that perhaps they could have only a week ago.

COSTELLO: Craig Mokhiber from the United Nations, thank you so much for joining me this morning. I appreciate it.

It's being touted as a significant new lead in the hunt for those three men accused of killing an Illinois police officer. Footage taken by a home security camera that police believe may show the three men suspected of gunning down that beloved officer. But so far exactly what's on that video camera has remained a secret.

[10:10:04] Rosa Flores is in Fox Lake, Illinois. So why has it remained a secret?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Carol. You know, that video is their most promising lead. That's what investigators are saying because let's not forget that the only description that we have of those suspects right now comes from the radio exchange that Lieutenant Gliniewicz had with police dispatch, his last radio exchange, and there we learned that these three suspects are two white males and a black male. That is very, very vague.

And so now we have the surfacing of this surveillance video which authorities are hoping will give these cop killers a face.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF GEORGE FILENKO, LAKE COUNTY MAJOR CRIME TASK FORCE: The video was turned over to us by a third party individual who is a police officer. And based on his description about what he was told was on that video, it matched the description of two male while subjects and a male black subject walking past this camera. Again, we don't believe in coincidences. However, we still don't know and I can't verify exactly whether this video is relevant to the case. But at this point it's probably one of the most significant ones we've recovered.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: And as you might imagine, this community still on edge. There are about 100 agents in this region that are sifting through video. Other videos that have been turned over, following leads, looking for clues, trying to figure out who these three suspects are. And, Carol, we've also learned that on Monday the funeral for

Lieutenant Gliniewicz will take place at about 10:00 a.m. Eastern. There will be a viewing and then later that afternoon he will actually be laid to rest, and he's a father of four and also a husband -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Rosa Flores reporting live for us this morning.

In Sacramento, California, police are hunting for a gunman who killed one college student and wounded two others at Sacramento City College. Classes resumed today at the school which was on lockdown yesterday as police went from classroom to classroom looking for the shooter. One student remains in the hospital with serious wounds. A third student suffered a minor flesh wound. Police say it grew out of an argument in which one person pulled a knife and the other person pulled a gun.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, will he or won't he? Vice President Joe Biden has a lot to say about whether he'll enter the race in 2016.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:16:45] COSTELLO: Vice President Joe Biden is more than toying with the idea to run for president. The words would not hesitate and viable campaign left his lips at an event in Atlanta.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Unless I can go to my party and the American people and say that I'm able to devote my whole heart and my whole soul to this endeavor, it would not be appropriate, and everybody talks about a lot of other factors, the other people in the race, and whether I can raise the money and whether I can put together an organization. That's not the factor. The factor is, can I do it? Can my family?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Vice President Biden says he's still gauging his family's emotional energy to join the race calling it the most important factor in his decision-making process.

With me now to talk about this, CNN politics reporter Jeremy Diamond and Susan Ferrechio, she's the chief congressional correspondent for "The Washington Examiner."

Thanks to both of you for being with me. So, Jeremy, Mr. Biden, he appeared at a synagogue. He was speaking to Jewish leaders about the Iran deal. And you see he was wearing a yamaka. At times he kind of sounded presidential as he talked about that deal.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Definitely. And the interesting part is that this speech was billed as him, you know, defending the Iran deal, selling it to the Jewish community, but he took a long time to actually get there. Before that he was touting the administration's record on foreign policy, everything from gaining momentum against ISIS to other key foreign policy issues, and all the while touting his movement in those decisions saying -- you know, playing up his role in boosting the pro-Israel community, saying that he takes a backseat to no one when it comes to Israel.

So it was definitely interesting as -- as Vice President Biden is considering a 2016 run to hear him tout the administration's record and his involvement, his role in that record, successes as he would call them.

COSTELLO: And Susan, you heard Joe Biden mentioned money because, you know, he's not worth $10 billion like Donald Trump. He can't run without raising money, and he's way behind. So is it feasible he could catch up?

SUSAN FERRECHIO, CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT, WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Well, he says it is but in reality Hillary Clinton has a massive head start. She's already raised $47 million in the first quarter. She has rounded up many of the big donors, but there are some who are a little nervous given her situation with the Benghazi hearings and her e-mail server controversy.

There are those out there who are saying, hey, we need to have a backup plan or maybe they want to look toward another candidate with Bernie Sanders catching up with her in the polls. So I think Biden is correct in that it's viable for him to be able to round up the money to do this. It would be really hard though, Carol, and he is running out of time. He would need to really make a decision quickly, and I thought that speech yesterday, as Jeremy said, he was touting the administration and his role in that, but I got a mixed signal from him. He sounded like he was trying to decide if his own heart would be in this effort, and it doesn't sound like he's made up his mind yet.

[10:20:06] COSTELLO: All right. Susan Ferrechio, Jeremy Diamond, I've got to cut it short because we have breaking news coming out of Hungary. Thanks to both of you. I appreciate it.

So let's go live to Budapest, Hungary now because the migrants there have just decided to go ahead and walk to the Austrian border, you know, forget about the train because Hungarian authorities won't let that train move. You can see Arwa Damon walking with these migrants.

Arwa, what can you tell us?

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Carol, there are thousands of people, most of them refugees from the war in Iraq and Syria, who a short while ago decided that they weren't going to wait any longer. They were not going to wait for any sort of political decision. They were not going to wait for anyone to come to their assistance. They were simply going to try to walk to their final destination, and that is first off the border between Hungary and Austria and then if they have to, they say, onwards to Germany.

Pretty much everybody who was at that Budapest train station just waiting decided to pack up. Parents have been carrying their children on their shoulders. Others have been walking. You see some of them carrying bottles of water, Carol. And I have to say this has been heartening for us to see because the Hungarian government and security forces have been fairly hostile towards the migrants and refugees. These bottles of water were handed out to them just a few miles ago down the road by ordinary citizens, people who were so upset by what they were seeing. Many of them upset at the fact that their government was treating these people like this that they came and met them on the highway, handing out water to them.

People say that they've already walked so far. They've come so far across Europe that if walking is what it's going to take to get them where they want to be, then, fine, that is what they're going to do. It does seem as if this may have taken the police a bit by surprise. They have not been able to stop this flow of humanity, and we are on the main highway that links Budapest and Vienna. Instead, they have set up something of a security barrier.

The police is walking alongside them making sure that cars do stay a fairly safe distance away, but it's all fairly dramatic when you think about it. When you think about the desperation that drives someone, especially a person, a parent with little children, to just keep walking, and when you think about the fact that these people want nothing more except just to get out of Hungary and have this chapter that so many of them say was filled with such misery and inhumane treatment to be over.

COSTELLO: It's a long way to Berlin, though, Arwa. A long way to Germany. That's thousands of miles.

DAMON: It is, and when you say that to them, and I don't know if you can pan over, there's a woman who's walking with her little baby, walking this entire way. They've already come thousands of miles. They started their journey remember in Turkey. They took a boat across the Aegean. In some cases they took a boat across the Mediterranean. They then walked through Greece. They walked through large chunks of Macedonia and Serbia. They walked across borders. They have camped out in forests. They have slept in the streets.

So for them, they say that given everything that they've been through, they will do it. They will do this walk, Carol, if that is what it is going to take for them to finally get to the Europe that they've always imagined it because so far, they say, the experiences that they've been through, that cannot be Europe. They cannot accept that a part of the world that upholds human rights, that upholds and respects an individual's dignity would have treated them like this, and they are so determined -- and look at another person carrying these kids on their shoulders.

So determined, especially the parents, that they're going to give their children that life that they believe their kids deserve. A life that doesn't exist for them, Carol, back in their homelands.

COSTELLO: All right. Arwa Damon bringing us some powerful pictures out of Budapest, Hungary. Those people saying, you know what, they won't let the trains leave the station so guess what, we're going to walk to the Austrian border, maybe we'll walk all the way to Germany. We just want a safe place for our children and a chance at a new life.

Arwa Damon bringing us some powerful pictures this morning. I'll be right back.

[10:24:35]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

An historic day unfolds in Rowan County, Kentucky. This morning the embattled clerk's office there issued its first marriage license to a same-sex couple, the pair I talked with yesterday. You see them there. The clerk had blocked their license and defied the U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Well, the clerk responsible for that wakes up in jail this morning.

CNN's Alexandra Field is outside of the clerk's office in Morehead, Kentucky, to tell us more.

Good morning.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. A lot of Kim Davis' supporters are here outside of the county clerk's office while she is in another county's jail, but at the same time there are also marriage equality advocates who came out for the day that they had been waiting forever ever since the Supreme Court ruled back in June that marriage equality was the law of the land.

We spoke to one couple, William Smith and Jim Yates, who say that they have come to this clerk's office five times to try and get a marriage license but they were denied that license ever since Kim Davis ordered her staff not to issue marriage licenses following the decision made by the Supreme Court in June. Today they came back for the sixth time. We talked to them just before they went inside.