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U.S. Begins Assault on ISIS in Fallujah; White House Confirms U.S. Kills Taliban Leader; Speaker Ryan: Vote for Party, Not Candidate; Trump, Clinton in Statistical Dead Heat; Search for EgyptAir Black Boxes Continues; What's Behind Tragedies at Mt. Everest. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired May 23, 2016 - 14:30   ET

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


[14:30:00] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Tell me what you mean by that.

LT. COL. SCOTT MANN, COUNTERINSURGENCY ADVISOR & FORMER GREEN BERET, U.S. ARMY SPECIAL FORCES: Well, absolutely. I mean, you know, during the Iraqi surge in 2006, our coalition forces worked with many of those same marginalized Sunni tribes that ISIS is leveraging as safe havens. We did the same thing in Afghanistan as I talk about in the book "game changer." Those are the folks that we have to work with. Those are the folks exploited by ISIS, the Sunnis right now, if we don't work with them from the bottom up, the Shia-based military and the Iranian-backed Shia militias are simply going to drive a wedge between those Sunnis and the Iraqi state an makes it so easy for ISIS to tell the narrative that the Iraqi government and our forces are out to get those Sunnis.

BALDWIN: I know we are talking ISIS now and big news over the weekend with Taliban. The highest ranking officer was killed in an airstrike. President Obama calling it an important milestone. You know, already the Taliban is selecting a new leader. Mansour was against peace talks. What about the successor? What do you know about that?

MANN: Well, what I know is this, Brooke, is that I don't want to minimize -- you know, taking a guy like Mansour out, it's a milestone. How many milestones in this war under both administrations? You know, what our nonprofit is pushing out to all of our political candidates right now on both sides of the aisle is, this taking the head off the snake, Mansour, bin Laden, Mullah Omar, it does not win the war. We have to have a broader strategy to help local populations push back and fight back from the bottom up. Until we do that, we can play Whack-a-Mole all day long and will have a short-term effect, but it will not win the war --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: It is a success.

MANN: And they know it.

BALDWIN: Whack-a-Mole or not, it's significant.

MANN: Absolutely. It is a success, but we have had a lot of tactical and even strategic successes over the year. But if we don't change the game at the grassroots level, where these guys embed themselves and mobilize locals against the government, it's just a short-term win. And we keep expending blood and treasure for strategic gain on their part and it feeds their narrative. So in the end, I'm not sure it's a strategic a win as we like to think it is.

BALDWIN: Lieutenant Colonel Scott Mann, thank you as always.

A reminder to you, tonight, Fareed Zakaria with an hour-long special on terror, "Why They Hate Us," 9:00 p.m. eastern here on CNN.

Coming up next, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan suggesting you should vote for a party and not necessarily a candidate. We'll talk to former Republican governor and three-term Senator of New Hampshire, Judd Gregg. Does he support Donald Trump? And what do you think about these new the polls that show Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in a statistical dead heat? A lot to talk to him about, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:37:25] BALDWIN: Welcome back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Listen.

A lot of Republicans are deeply divided over whether or not to support their presumptive nominee, Donald Trump, but if the GOP comes together, Trump could become -- absolutely could become the next president. That's the word from speaker of the House, Paul Ryan. He's been very blunt about the differences with Mr. Trump. Made peace with him earlier this month, met face to face with him in Washington. Now Speaker Ryan tells "Politico" the priority of the Republican Party should be recapturing the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PAUL RYAN, (R-WI), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE (voice-over): I think if we get our party unified and do the work we need to do to be at full strength and offer the count a clear and compelling agenda that it is inspiring, inclusive, that fixes problems, that is solutions based, and based on good principles, then, yes, I think we can win. But I think that this is a "we," not just one person. I think it's a "we."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Joining me now to talk about this, former Republican governor and three-term Senator of New Hampshire, Judd Gregg. He was a ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee. He originally endorsed Jeb Bush in the presidential race.

Senator, wonderful to have you.

FMR SEN. JUDD GREGG, (R), NEW HAMPSHIRE: Thank you, Brooke. Thank you for having me.

BALDWIN: So, let me just -- you know, pull the Band-aid off. And, Senator, now that Mr. Trump is presumptive nominee, will you support him and vote for him in November? GREGG: I think Paul Ryan summed it up pretty well and I'm going to

take his approach and listen. I think it's important to have specific policies and how we're going turn this country around. How we continue to create jobs and how we'll continue to keep America safe. And I think Donald Trump really needs to come out and be fairly specific in those areas, and as he evolves and gets specific, I expect he'll nominate the party behind him.

BALDWIN: So to Speaker Ryan --

(CROSSTALK)

GREGG: At this time, I'm not joining him.

BALDWIN: OK, OK. To Speaker Ryan's point about voting for the party and not the candidate, is that what you agree with beyond the specifics?

GREGG: Voting for the party as long as it stands for what Speaker Ryan just outlined, which is a very definitive, creative, upbeat agenda of creating jobs and making our nation safe. That's what we want and as a party and presenting as the face of the party.

BALDWIN: Let's get your reaction of a couple of new polls out Sunday showing Trump and Clinton a statistical dead heat. And "The Washington Post"/ABC with Trump with a two-point lead over Secretary Clinton. NBC/"Wall Street Journal," Clinton leads by three points. What do you attribute that to? Is it Clinton's Bernie problem? Is it Trump's momentum? Something else?

[14:40:10] GREGG: I think there are two things here. First, the Democratic Party has a very structural, big structural problem, much more so than our party. Our party is a flamboyant nominee, erratic on occasion and believes in the American capitalist market system. He believes in keeping America strong. Their party is going aggressively to the left and you have in Bernie Sanders a person who's running as a Socialist, and that would take our nation in an entirely different direction than we had. It would be sort of a French solution in how you govern, and Hillary is basically trying to out-Bernie Bernie on issues and losing the support of middle of America and a center right population. I think Donald Trump is starting to modulate the message. Today, he met with Bob Corker, probably the leading authority in the Senate on foreign policy and a thoughtful person in the Senate, and that shows me he's going to issues that are critical to our nation by listening to thoughtful people.

BALDWIN: It's significant, thank you, because where I'm going next, Senator, we know that Senator Corker came to New York and met with Mr. Trump at Trump Tower. If there's a Bob Corker on the ticket, Senator, would that sweeten the deal for you as far as saying yes to Trump?

GREGG: I'd vote for Donald Trump if Bob Corker were on the ticket.

BALDWIN: Wow.

GREGG: He is one of the best members of the Senate, and one of the reasons is because he goes places, he goes and meets foreign leaders, the people of various countries, all over the world, and goes to places you would never want to go to, and nice places, and totally understands our position in the world vis-a-vis our allies and enemies, and one of the strongest voices in the Senate on foreign policy.

BALDWIN: All right. That is significant. Noted.

Moving on. You almost foresaw the second headline of the numbers here. I know you wrote a piece for "The Hill," talking about Clinton and Trump are two sides of the same coin. Let me, you know, prove your point with these numbers that we know. According to polls, more than 50 percent of potential voters view Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump unfavorably. Talking about the presidency, no matter which party, first 100 days, a grace period. Right? People give you the benefit of the doubt. And looking at those, basically half the country, they're so polarizing, half the country don't like either of them. This is a first, sir.

GREGG: It's very serious to our culture, in my opinion. That was the point of my piece, because our culture always gives a new president the benefit of the doubt and great optimism, no matter which party the person's from, but that's not the case this time because literally half the people either dislike or distrust whoever wins the presidency. And the first 100 days when the president can move their agenda, that probably won't occur. There will be immediate opposition. And our culture of optimism, which is at the core of America, which makes us so different than the rest of the world, is eroded by a negative atmosphere created by these two candidates running in the negative with the American people.

BALDWIN: That is a major problem. That is a major problem.

GREGG: It is a major problem.

BALDWIN: If either of them are elected, to further your point, what then happens?

GREGG: Well, I think they have to work much harder than most new presidents do to be inclusive and bring people in the process, who clearly are not comfortable with them. Secondly, they have to have an upbeat, positive agenda. They can't be structured in the negative. So much of the campaign on both sides of the aisle has been very, very negative about America. It's been running down our nation in very specific ways. For example, the class warfare of President Obama carried forward by Bernie Sanders and by Hillary Clinton. Or this "everything is rigged" theory that Donald Trump espouses, which is again in the negative. This country is a great nation. And it gives our people more opportunity than any country in the history of the world to give its people and we should talk about that and not the negatives all the time.

BALDWIN: I like your optimism, sir.

Let me ask you, though, I would be remiss not to ask you, you know, back in 2009, you were nominated to be President Obama's commerce secretary. You withdrew, citing irresolvable conflicts with the newly elected president. And then Republicans, you know, people who came and said that you, you know, contributed to the hyper partisanship of the Obama era. How would you respond to critics for saying that?

[14:44:51] GREGG: I would respond to them, I made a mistake, that I should have seen very early before it became public that the president's policy on spending, which was really my expertise. I was chairman of the Budget Committee, and mine were very much at odds. As you know, in the cabinet, the number-one job of the cabinet member is 100 percent in the president 100 percent of the time. It would have been impossible for me. I knew that looking at the stimulus package, not appropriately allocated and I sensed it would get more serious going down the road. Honestly, it was my mistake. I should have seen it earlier and not accepted the job. I always felt badly about it in the sense that I put the president in an uncomfortable position but he -- to his credit, he was very fair and decent about the fact that I did not proceed with the job, and I respect him very much for that.

BALDWIN: All right. Former New Hampshire governor, Senator, Judd Gregg, thank you so much.

GREGG: Thank you, Brooke. Pleasure.

BALDWIN: Thank you.

Coming up next, submarines are now joining the search for the missing EgyptAir plane. And now new revelations of smoke alerts moments before the crash. What does that signify?

Also ahead, four days, four climbers dying on Mt. Everest. What is behind the tragedies at the world's tallest peak? We'll talk to someone who's summated it, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:50:13] BALDWIN: As U.S. Navy scours the Mediterranean Sea from the air, the search for answers into what brought down that EgyptAir flight 804 is headed underwater. Two submarines scouring the two-mile deep crash zone, searching for those all-important black boxes. The Airbus A320 bound for Cairo went down minutes after entering Egyptian air space during an otherwise routine flight from Paris.

Here's what we do know. The moments before it plummeted from some 37,000 feet, the plane sent automated warning messages. Those messages we now know indicated smoke was detected in the front of the aircraft. Malfunction in this of the plane.

Richard Quest is with me, CNN aviation correspondent, and also the author of "The Vanishing of Flight MH370."

On that note, with the smoke detection, the ACARS, remind us what that is and what that indicates.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT & AUTHOR & CNN HOST, QUEST MEANS BUSINESS: ACARS is basically a glorified communication tool which communicates between the satellites and the ground. It sends all sorts of information, everything from flight planning to something that might be going wrong with the aircraft for maintenance and down to which gate you'll be arriving so they can tell passengers. It's nothing more than a glorified information exchange from the aircraft to the ground.

BALDWIN: So what about the smoke?

QUEST: We have got warnings of sensors on the windows, warning of sensors of smoke in the lavatory, and warning of smoke in the avionics bay under beneath the cockpit. Then you have flight control failures and computer failures. We don't -- we know these messages were received. We don't know if they're valid or if they were real smoke or a failure of the system. More importantly, we have no idea what the cause of that smoke might be. We can speculate to our heart's content of an incendiary device and a mechanical failure.

BALDWIN: Looking for the black boxes and the ping, ping -- that's what it is?

QUEST: More of click noise it makes.

BALDWIN: How long?

QUEST: 30 days --

BALDWIN: OK.

QUEST: -- is what the manufacturers guarantee for the batteries. Maybe a bit more. Could be a bit more, in good order. Now we're really back to looking at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea and hoping to find and listen for that ping. You have got about a mile or so where you can hear it. Maybe just a bit less. So you've got to get as close as you can, scour as much of the area as you can, and listening for that ping, a particular frequency and only that frequency. If you hear it, you try and triangulate it and move in on it. What would help greatly is locating the main bulk of the fuselage. Because once you have the fuselage, you then look to the rear of the plane, and when have that, you've can find the boxes.

BALDWIN: Hopefully, the answer for the families.

Richard Quest, thank you so much as always.

Just in to CNN, the head of the Veterans Affairs facing criticism after comparing hospital wait times to the experience of waiting in line at Disneyland? You will hear the comment and the immediate reaction, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:57:30] BALDWIN: This is a deadly week on Mt. Everest. Four people died in four days while climbing the world's highest peak. And we're learning more about the two. 36-year-old Eric Arnold, of the Netherlands, died Friday night after a successful summit. A heart attack is suspected there. And then Saturday, Maria Stidum (ph) died after altitude sickness. The 34-year-old, climbing with her husband. This is the first climbing season, by the way, in two and a half years

after the deadly avalanche in 2014, follow by the catastrophic earthquake in Nepal last year, putting climbing to a total halt.

And joining me is a man that knows Mt. Everest quite well, Alan Arnette, a mountaineer, who attempted to summit four times. He reached the summit in 2011.

A pleasure to have you on.

ALAN ARNETTE, MOUNTAINEER: Thanks, Brooke, for having me.

BALDWIN: Let's get to it. You have a window every year, April, May, when lots of folks flock to Everest for an experience that you have had. When you hear four deaths in four days, Alan, does that seem high to you?

ARNETTE: You know, sadly, it does not. If you go back to 2000 to 2015, which I consider to be modern times, there's an average of seven deaths every single year from a low of 1 in 2006 to a high of 22 last year as you referenced from the earthquake.

BALDWIN: You know, what is pointed this year is the deaths aren't avalanches. It's more altitude sickness and leading to concerns over, you know, bottlenecks, so many people all up there at the same time, and perhaps people not able to climb. You know, groups are lowering rates, therefore, perhaps not up to par equipment, Sherpa concerns. Can you weigh in on that?

ARNETTE: Yeah. There's two or three issues here. You know, Mt. Everest is a huge mountain and can accommodate a lot of people at one time but at this point we're having -- this year we will have somewhere around 500 people to summit just from the Nepal side and 200 probably from the Tibet side and May 19th close to 200 people that summited all in one day. And one particular issue on that one day was that you had a very large team of about 40 climbers on one team and they were going extremely slowly, and so other climbers got stuck behind them. And it's very difficult to pass somebody on Mt. Everest. There's a single nylon rope as a safety line and you're clipped in to it. You put yourself at danger to unclip and so you get stuck behind slow people. And then over time, potentially you run out of oxygen and you go slow, you develop fatigue, you get cold and frostbite so --