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Homeland Security Orders Security Enhancements; Obama Rejects Keystone XL Pipeline; Carson Slams Reporting On Past Violence; Replay of Carson Interview; Carson Not Proud Of Past Rage Episodes; Carson Slams Reporting; Politico Questions Carson's Story. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired November 6, 2015 - 13:00   ET

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


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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 1:00 p.m. here in Washington, 8:00 p.m. in Cairo, 9:00 p.m. in Moscow. Wherever you are watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us.

We begin with breaking news. The U.S. secretary of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, has just issued a major statement about changes to aviation security for U.S. aircraft around the world, pending the investigation of the crash of that Russian metro jet airliner.

Our Aviation and Government Regulation Correspondent Rene Marsh, she has details now on what the secretary of Homeland Security has just announced. Tell us all about this, Rene.

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION AND GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, this is the first time we are hearing from the Department of Homeland Security since this plane went down. And so, this is the headline coming from the statement. We are -- or we will see changes specifically at overseas airports with direct flights to the United States.

The Department of Homeland Security secretary, Jeh Johnson, saying they plan are expanding the screening of items on aircraft, they plan on assessing foreign airport security structures, security measures, and then they go on the say that there will be other measures seen and unseen.

So not a lot of detail in this statement here. Not hearing very dramatic changes but, nonetheless, they are making changes, security changes, enhancing what's already in place at overseas airports. Although they don't give a lot of detail, what one can expect, most likely more random checks at those overseas airport. Also, perhaps more canines, more officers, more hand swabbing, looking for residue. In many cases, these measures are truly intended to deter people and that is why they go with so many random measures so no one knows exactly what to expect when they arrive at these airports.

But, Wolf, the headline, again, we're hearing from Homeland Security the first time. One of the key items at the top of the list, they will be expanding screening of items on aircraft and assessing the security structure at foreign airports with overseas flights flying directly into the United States. We know that there are some 275 airports worldwide with direct flights to the United States.

So, all of them will be getting scrutiny to make sure that they are -- that they have TSA-level screening measures in place because, of course, we know that is a requirement. If you have flights flying directly into the United States, you must have TSA-level screening measures in place. You must abide by the TSA rules. If you do not, you cannot fly to the United States -- Wolf.

BLITZER: And one line specifically jumped out to me, Rene, in the statement from Jeh Johnson, the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, released. At this time, he writes, these security enhancements are intended only for certain foreign airports in the region, suggesting it's not going to be all foreign airports but certain foreign airports. They didn't specify which foreign airports would get this extra scrutiny, did they?

MARSH: They did not. I mean, one would imagine that, perhaps, these are Middle Eastern airports. But you're right, they are very light on details. And this is usually the case when we get these statements from the Department of Homeland Security. And they usually say because of security reasons, they don't want to reveal too much.

But you're absolutely right, one could only guess there would have to be a lot of focus being spent on those airports within the Middle East. But it does not specifically say that, at this point, Wolf. So, of course, we're going to dig down and see if we can find out more specifics. But you're right, we don't have that specific at this hour.

BLITZER: If we could get the list of those airports, those certain airports, the foreign airports in the region that will get enhanced scrutiny, that would be good. He does point out directly, of course, that there are no direct commercial flights from Sharm El Sheikh to the United States. But there are direct commercial flights from Cairo's International Airport to the United States.

MARSH: Right.

BLITZER: I assume that Cairo airport will get additional scrutiny right now.

MARSH: I would assume so. I mean, JFK, for example, has a direct flight, Egypt Air flying directly from Cairo to JFK. I believe that flight goes about four times a day. So, there is concern there, even if this is not a U.S. carrier. There is concern because it does fly directly into the United States. So, yes, Cairo would fall under this list of airports that will get this intense scrutiny, this enhanced screening, this enhanced look, from DHS and TSA.

[13:05:01] Again, as we point out, you know, all airport security is not the same. However, when you have an airport that flies directly to the United States, they do have to abide by TSA rules. And so, TSA has a certain standard for screening and that applies at the airports. Sharm El Sheikh for example, they don't have direct flights to the United States, so they don't have to follow TSA-level screening measures. So, because Cairo does have that direct flight to airports like JFK, they will be affected by this announcement that just came out from DHS.

BLITZER: They certainly will be. All right, a major announcement by the Department of Homeland Security. Thank you very much. We're going to get back to you, Rene.

Much more on this story coming up later this hour, including Russia's latest moves to suspend flights to Egypt as well.

But now, there's another major story we're following. Following a seven-year political fight, a huge political fight pitting oil companies, Republicans against environmentalists and a whole lot of Democrats. Now, it looks like the battle over the Keystone XL Pipeline done, at least for now.

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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Several years ago, the State Department began a review process for the proposed construction of a pipeline that would carry Canadian crude oil through our heartland to ports in the Gulf of Mexico and out into the world market. This morning, Secretary Kerry informed me that after extensive public outreach and consultation with other cabinet agencies, the State Department has decided that the Keystone XL Pipeline would not serve the national interests of the United States. I agree with that decision.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: The proposed pipeline would span 1,200 miles across six U.S. states, more than 500,000 -- excuse me, 800,000 barrels of carbon heavy petroleum would move daily from Canadian oil sands through Nebraska to refineries in the Gulf coast.

Let's go to our Global Affairs Correspondent Elise Labott. She's been covering this for about seven years. An extensive, exhaustive process, the studies, the hearings, but the President ultimately rejecting it. Not a huge surprise but certainly an important decision.

ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf. This exhaustive process was widely expected to come to this conclusion. Both Secretary Kerry and President Obama long-standing commitment to climate change and to helping the U.S. lead on developing clean energies. We're just going through Secretary Kerry's determination right now. And he says that this pipeline would have a negligible effect on the economy, on U.S. oil security. Basically, there would not be a lot of jobs created which a lot of the proponents, particularly the Republicans and oil companies have suggested.

And it all came down, Wolf, to the fact that Secretary Kerry and President Obama feel that the U.S. needs to continue to voice leadership on the climate change issue. This announcement ahead of a very big U.N. summit on climate change next month where President Obama wants to broker an international agreement on reducing carbon dioxide admissions. So, this is a very bold statement in advance of that summit -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Hillary Clinton opposes the Keystone Pipeline. Although, back in 2010 when was secretary of state, she said she was inclined to support it. Senator Bernie Sanders strongly opposes the Keystone Pipeline as does Martin O'Malley. The Democratic candidates all oppose it. The Republicans candidates support it, by and large, and presumably if a Republican is elected, this decision could be reversed.

LABOTT: That's right, Wolf. It's not a permanent decision. TransCanada, the company that proposed the pipeline and it has spent over $2 billion already on this project. In fact, was expecting this, asked the State Department this week to push back the decision, to withdraw the permit request and wait for more studies. And the charge by the White House that this was politics. They were betting that, perhaps, a Republican president could come in and vote in favor of the project. The State Department denied that request. Secretary Kerry said a lot of work has already gone into this study. And so, they decided to go ahead.

But, certainly, the people in favor of the pipeline, and particularly the Canadian government, the new prime minister, was also in support of it. It has a 50 percent chance that a new Republican president will take over and, in fact, let the project go ahead.

BLITZER: Elise Labott, thanks very much. An important development today, the president of the United States formally rejecting the Keystone XL Pipeline.

When we come back, much more on the breaking news involving the Egyptian airline crash. Today, a dramatic move by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to suspend Russian air traffic at all of -- to all of Egypt. We're going live to Moscow. We're also going live to Sharm El Sheikh.

[13:10:00]

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BLITZER: Let's get to the race for the White House. Dr. Ben Carson, he's getting increasingly assertive now in rejecting questions that have been raised about his violent teenager years. CNN reporters, including our own Maeve Reston, have attempted to corroborate incidents that Carson describes in detail in his autobiography as well as in interviews and public statements. But Carson blasted the reporting, launched into an aggressive attack on the media. Here's part of his interview earlier today with CNN's Alisyn Camerota.

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DR. BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (via telephone): I think it's pathetic. And, basically, what the media does is they try to get you distracted with all of this stuff so that you don't talk about the things that are important because we have so many important things. And, you know, I'm not proud of the fact that I had these rage episodes, but I am proud of the fact that I was able to get over them. ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Look, of course.

CARSON: And my message has been that you can escape from that kind of angry.

CAMEROTA: Yes, people are resonating with that message.

[13:15:00] CARSON: And some of the victims were members of my family, I understand that and I will not let them be victimized again by the media. And if you choose to believe that I'm incapable of these acts, I guess that's kind of a compliment to me. That's good.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Look, people are - believe - it is fascinating to hear about your story of transformation, how you went from an angry young man to the soft spoken doctor, renowned surgeon that we see today. But what's interesting is that our reporter did go to your campaign to ask, can we talk to these people? And your campaign wasn't willing to make them available. This is the Seminole story of your youth, of how you -

CARSON: So why - why would they -

CAMEROTA: Why not? Why can't we talk to them?

CARSON: Why would they -- why would they want to victimize these people by exposing them to you?

CAMEROTA: It's not victim - how is it victimizing them by saying, well us more about this story, we're interested?

CARSON: The - the story is well documented. If you choose not to believe it, if it doesn't fit the narrative that you want, that's fine, OK. Let's let the American people decide.

CAMEROTA: But, Dr. Carson, your story has changed. For instance, first you say that Bob was your close friend who you almost killed and then yesterday you said well actually his name wasn't Bob. I changed the names. And that's fine. People do that all the time, Dr. Carson, in their memoirs.

CARSON: I - I - I changed - I changed names throughout all the books -

CAMEROTA: Yes.

CARSON: Even of patients -

CAMEROTA: People -

CARSON: Because - and unless I have specific permission from them to use their names, that's an inappropriate thing to do.

CAMEROTA: Of course. And people change the names in their memoirs all the time, but they note that. They note that at the beginning if they say that fictitious names are going to be used. But nevertheless, then you change it to say that he was not actually your close friend, he was a family member. So - CARSON: He was a family - he was a family member.

CAMEROTA: OK.

CARSON: And, you know, I -I really don't want to expose him further. You know, I've talked to him. You know, he would prefer to stay out of the media. And I think - I want to respect that.

What I really want to do is - is help people, American people, although they seem to understand it a lot already, that one of the tactics that is used by you guys in the media, particularly when someone is doing very well, is, let's find a way to get them distracted and get all the people distracted so that we can get away from the real issues. And I'm simply not going to allow that to occur.

CAMEROTA: Look, Dr. Carson, I know you call this tactics. It's called vetting in politics. You know it well just from the short time that you've been involved in vetting - campaigns.

CARSON: Is that what was done with the current president? Is that what you guys did with him?

CAMEROTA: Yes. As a matter of fact, it -

CARSON: No, you did not. Give me a break.

CAMEROTA: President Obama's autobiography, "Dreams of My Father," was also vetted. You will recall, Dr. Carson, that people -

CARSON: Give me a break.

CAMEROTA: Dr. Carson -

CARSON: Are you kidding.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, let's bring in CNN's Maeve Reston and Nia-Malika Henderson. Also our justice reporter Scott Glover. He's joining us from Los Angeles.

Scott, in that NEW DAY interview, Alisyn asked Dr. Carson about variations in his account of some of those incidents when he was, what, 13, 14 years old. What are some of the discrepancies?

SCOTT GLOVER, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, he's described Bob - again by the first name of Bob, which he very recently said was a fictionalized name. He's described him as a friend and as a classmate and now he is describing him as a close relative. That's new information. And it's information that would have been helpful to us when we went to the campaign initially in a very transparent way and said that we were reporting on these incidents and asked for their help in, you know, identifying some of the people.

There's another incident regarding an attack on his mother. He writes in "Gifted Hands" about having an argument with her about what clothes to wear and attempting to attack her when her - his brother intervenes and stops that from happening. He has subsequently spoken of an incident involving an argument over clothes where he attempts to attack her with a hammer and his brother intervenes. Now, I don't know if these are two separate incidents in which he attempted to attack her over, you know, an argument over clothes, but we've asked for some clarification on that, are they two incidents, are they one, you know, things off this nature.

And Dr. Carson has said that, you know, we've not talked to people from various points of his life and said that the rock throwing incident that we had written about occurred when he was seven or eight. Well, we have spoken with people from earlier periods in his life, but with due respect, it's in some ways beside the point because he says that he committed various acts as a teenager, including hitting people with bricks and rocks and bats. The stabbing attempt happens around that time. According to this most recent version of events, the attack on his mom happens around then.

And we certainly have talked to people who knew him as a young teenager and people who, in fact, lived next door to him. And again, no one is directly challenging what he has said. They're just saying that they don't recognize him as that person.

BLITZER: Maeve, what he does say, what he told Alisyn, was that in his book he changed the names not only of these young people with whom he had these violent encounters, if you will, but also with patients down the road to protect their privacy, to protect - so their identity wouldn't be disclosed. When you were researching this article for cnn.com, did the campaign tell you that they were - that he had - which is not all that uncommon in autobiographies, sometimes people change the names to protect people's privacy, protect their identity - had they told you that?

[13:20:25] MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: They had not and as Scott just said, you know, we sent them a list of questions more than a week ago saying that we had contacted Jerrys and Bobs who went to school with Dr. Carson, could they give us the last names, et cetera. They refused to provide any information at all, but they certainly didn't say that - that the names at that time were fictitious. Same when we went to them with our findings before we published our story on cnn.com. Again, there was no mention of these being fictitious names. And I will note, you know, in "Gifted Hands" that - that while it is true that you - that often authors do try to protect the identity of people in their books, that Dr. Carson's book does have some notations in it. For example at one point in an introduction he changes the blood type of a patient that he's talking about. There's an asterisk next to that saying, changing the blood type to protect this person's identity. We did not see any stars next to Bob or Jerry's names, so that's what we've asked for further clarification on from the campaign.

BLITZER: He said he also says if these people, and he spoke to one of them as recently as yesterday, if they want to go public, that's their prerogative -

RESTON: Right. BLITZER: But he's not going to share their identity because they want their privacy.

RESTON: Right.

BLITZER: All right, stand by, guys, we're going to have much more on this coming up.

Also, some new questions surfacing today about another part of Dr. Ben Carson's past, a story about West Point. His business manager and good friend, Armstrong Williams, is standing by. We're going to discuss these latest developments with Armstrong when we come back.

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[13:26:13] BLITZER: There's another explosive story today, this one in Politico, with the headline, Ben Carson admits fabricating West Point scholarship. Armstrong Williams is Ben Carson's business manager and close friend. Armstrong is joining us on the phone right now.

Armstrong, thanks very much for joining us. I know you had a chance to speak with Dr. Carson about this Politico story, and I'd like you to walk us through what Dr. Carson says about it.

ARMSTRONG WILLIAMS, BEN CARSON'S BUSINESS MANAGER (via telephone): Well, you know, it's in his book. First off, the campaign, Barry Bennett, spoke with Politico. And if you read the entire Politico story, there are contradictions in the story. If you read below, Barry Bennett makes it clear that Dr. Carson was at an event, he can't recall where the event was, but one of the highpoints was that General Westmoreland and somebody associated with him were there and they were honoring someone, and afterwards there was a meeting where they discussed the fact that he had very good grades as an ROTC person, and that he should apply to West Point. Because all of us know that anybody who applies to West Point, if you're accepted, it's an automatic scholarship. Dr. Carson was flattered. He beat - he beat his chest. He never followed through. He never applied because he knew medicine was his calling.

BLITZER: Because in - in his book he writes - and this is the book "Gifted Hands," he writes about that meeting he had with General William Westmoreland, who was the top U.S. general during the Vietnam War. It was a - it was a meeting that he had with his own Sergeant Hunt (ph), who was his high school ROTC director. And - and Dr. Carson writes, "he introduced me to General Westmoreland and I had dinner with him and the congressional medal winners. Later I was offered a full scholarship to West Point. The question is, who offered him that admittance and full - everybody who goes to West Point, all the cadets, get a full scholarship. They don't have to pay tuition clearly. But he does - he doesn't say in the book who offered him that full scholarship to West Point.

WILLIAMS: You know, Wolf, he has been telling this story for a long time. It has been in his books. This was so long ago, all he knows is that he was encouraged to apply for the scholarship, to apply for admission to West Point. He never applied. And so it was a big moment for him in terms of boosting his confidence. You know, as a kid, he remembered that as one of the pivotal moments in his life.

BLITZER: And it certainly - and in fairness to Dr. Carson, he was one of the top ROTC cadets in the Detroit area. He was a student at Southwestern High School. He was active in ROTC, became, I think the top ROTC cadet in that program in Detroit. And that's why he was invited to that Congressional Medal of Honor dinner in Detroit when General William Westmoreland came to Detroit.

How did Politico come up with the headline from your perspective that he fabricated this West Point scholarship? The Politico - the lead of story, and I'll read it to our viewer, "Ben Carson's campaign on Friday admitted in response to an inquiry from Politico that a central point in his inspirational personal story was fabricate, his application and acceptance into the United States Military Academy at West Point." In this particular case, there was no application, there was no acceptance. There was a discussion presumably he had with General Westmoreland who encouraged him to go ahead and apply. Is that your understanding?

[13:29:55] WILLIAMS: Yes, and it's clearly in the book. It's clearly his recollection. And, obviously, you know, sometimes people like to print headlines to get people to read.