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CNN NEWSROOM

Tension Rise as Refugees Flood Europe; GOP Presidential Candidate Visits Jailed Kentucky Clerk; Migrant Crisis: Refugees Break Past Border Security; Clinton: No Need to Apologize for Email. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired September 8, 2015 - 09:00   ET

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


[09:00:02] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: Because I want them to get the recognition to be in the good stuff.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN HOST: There it goes.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Fantastic. All right. Time now for "NEWSROOM" with Carol Costello.

Good morning, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Thanks so much for bringing us that story.

NEWSROOM starts now.

And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. We begin with the escalating migrant crisis.

Moments ago refugees broke past a security line along the Hungary- Serbia border. Our CNN crew was on the ground the moment it happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We're running now with these migrants and refugees who just broke out of the holding area right along the border with Serbia. The police are literally right behind them -- CNN. The police are literally right behind them and in front, trying to bring them under control.

There are hundreds of them that staged this breakout because they were fed up at the conditions they were being held in. They couldn't take it anymore. Young, old, men, parents with families, all breaking through. And now also being pursued by the police force through this cornfield.

This all kicks off about half an hour ago. And there are people who have been carrying their children. There are some elderly among these crowds. These are people who at this stage are literally running for their lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: CNN's senior international correspondent Arwa Damon will join us in just a minute. But first hundreds of families trying to escape poverty and war clashed with police in this same area just one day earlier. Hungarian officials unleashing pepper spray as people try to storm past a police line. Overwhelmed by the flood of refugees coming in, Austria and Germany are now calling on their European neighbors for help. All of this as the United States weighs options on how to deal with crisis.

The images are heartbreaking. Children with nothing but the clothes on their back, sifting through a carpet of donated shoes. Parents cradling their babies as they leave everything behind. And the danger is enormous. With violent attacks against refugees on the rise. There are also major concerns that ISIS militants could try to hide among the migrant crowds.

We're covering this story from all angles in Berlin. CNN's Atika Shubert, she's at a refugee center. And in Vienna CNN's Frederik Pleitgen.

I want to start with you, Frederik. What's it look like from your vantage point?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Carol. Once again today here in Vienna there have been hundreds of migrants who have been coming in here to the railway station in Vienna. And Vienna of course is one of those focal points because a lot of the migrants in that Arwa just was in Hungary, they come through Hungary, they comes into Austria and then the first place they come to is right here.

And from here the vast majority of them want to catch trains to go further onto Europe, most of them of course then to Germany. And many of them had told us about the horrifying experiences they have had along the way. Of course it's a very long walk for many of them. Many of them with children.

There are truly some heartbreaking scenes that we have been hearing about. But there's also a lot of volunteers here in Vienna, a lot of people who are helping the refugees, who are trying to help them come to terms, and especially they're trying to guide them on the right way to make sure they have an easier time reaching European. But of course the big problem in Europe is still what are the countries going to do to come to terms with all of this.

And as we've noted, there is on the one hand countries like Germany and Austria that are taking in a lot of refugees but there's other countries that don't necessarily want to do that. However now, the Obama administration is also becoming involved. The issue is really one that is very important to the Obama administration at this point in time.

I just want to give you a statement from the head of the National Security Council. It says, "The administration is actively considering a range of approaches to be more responsive to the global refugee crisis, including with regard to refugee resettlement. And of course that's been the big issue here in European over the past couple of days with Britain, for instance, pledging to take in some -- 20,000 refugees from Syria over the next five years.

But just to give you an idea how big the problem is, those 20,000 -- Germany has taken in about 20,000 over the past five days. So that's how big this crisis is right now -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Unbelievable. Frederik Pleitgen, thank you so much.

Now to Atika Shubert in Germany. And Germany has been generous in accepting the huge numbers of migrants, but some in Germany say enough is enough. Why?

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, as you can imagine, you're seeing upwards of more than 10,000 in some cases coming in every day into Germany. And some people are asking when does it stop. What Germany has said is that it's willing to take in about 800,000 refugee applications.

[09:00:06] And right now I'm at a refugee shelter. And this is the kind of temporary home that they're trying to build. They're trying to build 150,000 of them. They're made out of shipping containers. But inside it's like a one-room apartment. And you can sit a family inside pretty comfortably. They're small with a little kitchen and a toilet but it's enough for a family especially when they're fleeing.

But as you point out, even though there's been such a warm welcome for so many refugees here and we see many volunteers, there is a segment of society that is not happy with the state of affairs. In fact, just yesterday a shelter like this was burned down. And there's suspicion that that was a right-wing attack. In fact we asked the Ministry of Interior and they gave us some data on this. They say there have been more than 340 attacks, everything from vandalism to hate speech to arson attacks.

And they believe that most of these attacks are carried out by right- wing extremists that are angry at the influx of refugees they're seeing come in. And while Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, has spoken out very strongly against it, there is no doubt that the authorities are very worried to see rising tensions the more refugees come in -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Atika Shubert, reporting live from Germany. Thanks so much.

That jailed Kentucky clerk who refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses gets a high profile visitor today. Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is about to meet with Kim Davis behind bars. Afterward he'll lead a rally in her support. A rally that could get so big five school districts have already called off classes for a thousand students over traffic congestion fears.

CNN's Martin Savidge live at the Carter County Detention Center with more. Good morning, Martin.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Yes, Grayson is not that big a town so there are concerns that with the traffic, with all the people that want to attend this rally that maybe it's best that the students stay home. So that was the decision that was made. And you can see the preparations were already well underway. The stage is set where -- I should say the truck is in place.

And that is where Mike Huckabee is going to be addressing this crowd. There are a number of other speakers that are going to be there as well including the attorneys that represent Miss Davis. So we'll have an update.

I think right now the attitude of most of those who are going to be attending are clearly strongly in support of Kim Davis. She has remained inside the jail here ever since Thursday. There are efforts that are underway by her legal team to try and get her out, including an appeal that's been filed in federal court. But at the same time there is also an appeal that's been made to the governor of the state, who at this particular moment doesn't seem too anxious to want to get involved.

And there were a number of rallies that were held, some of them held right outside this facility over the weekend. Several hundred people showed up for that. And then you had demonstrators that also showed up outside of the judge's house. This is the judge who put her in jail for contempt of court. So emotions are pretty strong here. And it seems that the support for Kim Davis is in the majority of that feeling -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. We'll get back to you. Martin Savidge reporting live from Kentucky this morning.

Joining me now, Davis's attorney, Roger Ganim. He joins me now from Florida.

Welcome, sir. And thank you for joining me this morning.

ROGER GAMIN, ATTORNEY FOR KIM DAVIS: Thank you, Carol.

COSTELLO: Do you think that Mike Huckabee's visit will help?

GANIM: Well, it certainly can't hurt. Kim Davis has been overwhelmed by the amount of support she's receiving. And the fact that a presidential candidate will take time out of a busy campaign schedule could come not only visit Kim but then to lead a rally on her behalf, it can only help raise awareness about the injustice of Kim Davis sitting in jail for no more than believing that marriage should be between a man and a woman.

COSTELLO: Did you guys reach out to Mike Huckabee or did Mike Huckabee reach out to you?

GANIM: No. This was Mike Huckabee's own act here. He's the one who wanted to come visit Kim and wanted to throw this rally in her behalf. We're thrilled that he's coming and that he's visiting Kim in jail. But this is all his doing.

COSTELLO: You want Kentucky's governor to accommodate Davis's religious convictions and exempt her from issuing marriage licenses. That's your compromise. But it's unlikely the governor is going to do that. Why should he?

GANIM: Well, it's his duty under Kentucky law to accommodate the sincere religious beliefs of all persons, including elected officials. Kentucky's Religious Freedom Restoration Act makes it clear that all persons have the right to act or not act according to their religious beliefs. And for Governor Beshear to say that he doesn't have the power to do anything, it's really beyond the pale. He's already changed the marriage licensing form once since the Supreme Court ruled in June.

There's nothing stopping him from making additional changes to that form to accommodate Kim Davis or other like-minded clerks. And there's also nothing stopping him from issuing an executive order to reorganized the marriage licensing scheme in Kentucky until the general assembly can meet again in January.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: But again, sir --

[09:10:06] GANIM: If he's not going to call a special session --

COSTELLO: But again, sir, why should he do that? When Mrs. Davis took the job as county clerk, she promised to uphold the Constitution. If she can no longer uphold the Constitution, why doesn't she just resign?

GANIM: Miss Davis made an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and Kentucky and Kentucky laws. And she's doing exactly that. Remember, accommodation --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: She's not. She's not following -- the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage is legal. It's a constitutional issue. So she's not upholding the Constitution if she won't sign marriage licenses for same-sex couples.

GANIM: The United States Supreme Court said that states must treat same-sex marriage on the same terms as different sex marriage. But the United States Supreme Court has never said who has to issue marriage licenses. The states are free to implement their marriage licensing laws however they see fit. And you see a diversity of laws throughout the states. For example, in North Carolina --

COSTELLO: But right now in the state of Kentucky --

GANIM: -- the legislature --

COSTELLO: But right now in the state of Kentucky, Mrs. Davis is required to sign marriage licenses for all.

GANIM: Right now in the state of Kentucky the law is that religious accommodation must be accommodated. And that's the law in Kentucky that Miss Davis is seeking to be accommodated under. She has the highest respect for the law. And what she's doing right now is not in defiance. It's simply requesting a reasonable accommodation which the governor has the power to give.

COSTELLO: Well, of course the governor disagrees with you, sir. But I'm just wondering about one more thing. If Mrs. Davis really feels strongly about this, why doesn't she resign her position and then run for the state legislature and then she can change the law?

GANIM: Well, right now Mrs. Davis is sitting in jail. I don't think she's thinking about running for legislature. The fact is that she was elected to do a job and she does it well. Marriage licenses can be issued in the state of Kentucky without Miss Davis signing them. That's all she's asking for is a reasonable accommodation and she has a right to ask for that.

COSTELLO: How long is she willing to stay in jail?

GANIM: Well, Miss Davis's conscience is not going to change. And unfortunately the trial judge's order was open-ended. He essentially said she has to stay there until she changes her mind. But Miss Davis can't act against conscience and so she's going to sit there until either a court rules otherwise or until the legislature or the governor takes action.

COSTELLO: All right. Roger Ganim, thank you so much for being with me this morning. I appreciate it.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Hillary Clinton says she's not sorry for using that personal e-mail account. Is that going to be a problem for her campaign moving forward? Some say absolutely yes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:16:50] COSTELLO: All right. At the top of the show, we told you about those desperate refugees in Hungary. They actually broke past border security to try to run into the neighboring country.

Arwa Damon and her CNN crew were on the ground when it happened. As you can see, she still is.

Set the scene for us, Arwa.

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, these people broke out from something of a holding area that is very close to the border. It's where they're taken to wait to be transferred onto these transit camps. They broke out because they were sick and tired of the wait and the way they were being treated while they were having to wait for hours. Some of them had been there for days.

They bolted through the fields, through the corn, through the sunflower patches. And now, they're basically following the train track and it's unclear at this stage if they're the ones deciding that they want to follow this course, or if the police have managed to herd them, because they did catch up. They did encircle them as they were running through, eventually slowing them down.

It was really hard for the women, especially those who had kids and the families to keep up with the pack as they were running through. And they really didn't know where they were going. A lot of them still don't know exactly where they're going or what's going to happen to them. This really is just one of the many desperate acts that we've been seeing the refugees undertake as they have been going throughout this entire process, because they reach a certain point where they're just so mentally, physically, emotionally exhausted, worn down, beaten down that they can't keep waiting for the authorities, for the various different European governments to come up with some sort of a decision that is going to be impacting their lives.

And so, we do see these occasions, but increasingly so over the last few days of the refugees just taking matters into their own hands. There was a group that broke out of a transit camp yesterday. We have this group that broke out of the holding area just a few short hours ago. More and more of them fully aware of the reception they're going to be receiving in Germany and really looking forward to that sense of relief, that sense of finally having made it. That is also driving them perhaps to take these fairly drastic measures.

But it's quite heartbreaking to be here alongside them because it is exhausting. They are running for their lives. They are eventually forced to slow down. Many of them have discard add lot of the few belongings they had with them so they could run faster. You see some of them with the children. There was one family whose two children had both lost their shoes.

They were walking on this very uneven ground. It's rock. It's the railroad track. They were walking on it in their bare little feet. But again, this is what people do when they're desperate and think they have no other option.

COSTELLO: All right.

[09:20:00] Arwa Damon reporting live from the Serbia-Hungary Border. We'll get back to you a little later in the NEWSROOM. Arwa Damon, thanks so much.

Hillary Clinton says she did nothing wrong by using a private e-mail account. So that means no apology. Clinton's comments come as the "New York Times" reports that a new intelligence review finds that top secret e-mails were send to her e-mail account that she used when she was secretary of state.

Our senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny joins me now to tell us more.

Good morning, Jeff.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

So, even as she promises a reboot of her campaign, I can tell you this e-mail controversy continues to hang over the Clinton campaign. This morning, as you said, a new intelligence review confirms a report earlier this summer that two e-mails Secretary Clinton received on that private account contained classified top secret information. But here's the catch. It's unclear whether they were marked

classified at the time. Clinton says they were not, but that is one of the central parts of this probe that's underway. But yesterday, in an interview with "The Associated Press" in Iowa, Clinton was asked why she will express regret for making the decision to use a private e-mail account, but she won't say she was story.

She said simply what I did was allowed. It was allowed by the State Department.

But aides are now acknowledging, Carol, they were slow to respond to this criticism, that they didn't take it seriously enough, which has allowed all of this to fester. Now, of course, she's going to testify before that committee on Benghazi, and this is going to keep going.

But the campaign did not want to dominate the discussion. So, she's stepping up her visibility and her fight because clearly she is in a big fight for the fall campaign with Bernie Sanders and, of course, even Vice President Biden if he would happen to get into the race.

COSTELLO: There's also word this morning that the Clinton team is undergoing sort of a reboot. What exactly does that mean?

ZELENY: It's a great question.

Campaigns when they're sort of a -- you know, having a tough period, which she certainly has, they like to send a signal to donors, to supporters, to elites, maybe even the reporters, that they're doing a reboot. So, what the campaign is saying on the pages of "The New York Times" and then telling other reporters as well that she's going to try and campaign with more humor. She's going to try to be in a more humanizing situation.

But, Carol, it sounds very similar to what they said at the beginning of this campaign, that they're going to show her more as the funny person she is behind closed doors. So, a campaign reboot is always a little easier to promise and harder to actually pull off or measure the effects of any type of reboot.

COSTELLO: Maybe we'll see the Scooby van again.

ZELENY: We'll see, we'll see. I mean, she's certainly out there campaigning. But I can tell you, this fall fight is underway. They know it is, but, Carol, she's always at her best when she's on her heels, when she's up against the fight. We saw that before. So, the real campaign is kind of underway now, now that Labor Day is finally behind us.

COSTELLO: All right. Jeff Zeleny, many thanks to you, I appreciate it. Just remember, in just over a week, the Republican presidential hopefuls will take part in their second set of debates. Those debates happen at the Reagan Library. It all starts at 6:00 p.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM: think Stephen Colbert will lose his political edge now that he's hosting the late show? Well, think again.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:27:24] COSTELLO: Former Vice President Dick Cheney ripping the Iran nuclear deal again. This time, he says it would be catastrophic.

Cheney is speaking right now at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. Here's what he said just moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: I know of no nation in history that has agreed to guarantee that the means of its own destruction will be at the hands of another nation, particularly one that is hostile. What President Obama is asking the United States Congress to do is unique, historically and dangerously unique. The results could well be catastrophic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right. As you know, Dick Cheney has a new book coming out, co-authored with his daughter.

Also, this just into our NEWSROOM, the woman shot on live television alongside a reporter and a cameraman has left the hospital. Vicki Gardner who was being interviewed when the shooting happened is now recovering at home. But, as you know, both journalists were killed in that shooting. Gardner underwent two surgeries after the bullets came within centimeters of killing her.

Another side that Pope Francis is trying to create a more welcoming and merciful Catholic Church. The Vatican today announcing major reforms by the pope, making it easier and cheaper for Catholics to get a marriage annulment. The new process allows for bishop to fast-track annulments, and even grant annulments themselves in some cases. The process is now free except for some small administrative fees and should only take about 45 days. The pope said last year, he believes the annulment process was too burdensome and too expensive.

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

A late night show with a political punch could be a successful formula for Stephen Colbert. It always has been, right? Colbert returns to TV tonight with a debut on CBS. And he's getting a little help from Jeb Bush, or should I say, Jebrow.

Senior media correspondent Brian Stelter is outside the Ed Sullivan Theater here in New York City, Colbert's new home.

Good morning, Brian.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

A couple of months ago, we were out here for David Letterman's last show. Tonight, Stephen Colbert's first show, and Jeb Bush will be among his guests.

Colbert hasn't done much press. He hasn't given many interviews, but he has hinted that he wants to get serious sometimes. Now, some serious talks, including with presidential candidates and other politicians. We know Joe Biden will be here later in the week

Here's what he told "CBS Sunday Morning" correspondent Mo Rocca about giving up his Comedy Central identity and actually play, well, himself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT": I worked really hard to be that other guy for ten years. But my hope -- and thank God you know who I am. I hope they find out pretty quickly that the guy they saw for ten years was my sense of humor the whole time.