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Truck Bombing Kills Dozens in Southern Iraq; Massive U.S. Jet Refuels Airborne Planes; Report: Trump Skips Most Daily Intel Briefings. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired November 24, 2016 - 13:30   ET

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


RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So, the fact he had a gun and went home and had dinner after the shooting had also made some people shake their heads obviously with him being able to eat after shooting this teen.

[13:30:05] BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: It certainly does.

All right. Ryan, we know you will continue to follow that and try to get to the bottom of this.

Up next, we will be talking about this story: 57 people have been killed today near Baghdad. This was after a truck bomb exploded at a gas station. We're going to take you to Iraq for the very latest after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: ISIS is claiming responsibility for a bloody and horrific attack in southern Iraq today. At least 57 people were killed when a truck bomb exploded at a gas station.

CNN international correspondent Phil Black is live for us in Irbil, Iraq.

And, Phil, tell us more about this attack.

[13:35:02] PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, this took place in an area, as you say, south of Baghdad, and it appears very likely that the targets here were Shia pilgrims. Shia Muslims who had recently were returning from a large pilgrimage, an annual religious event in the nearby town of Karbala, a huge event, there are millions that gather there every year. It's been targeted in the past by Sunni extremists. But you have to say, rarely with such a bloody result.

As you said, the death toll so far is around 57, but it is expected to climb higher still. There are indications that it will go much higher indeed. And we have what we believe is a statement of responsibility found by SITE Intelligence, which is an online jihadi monitoring group, that found a statement from ISIS, in which it says it carried out this attack and it did so to spread the battle, the fighting that is taking place here in the north of Iraq around Mosul to other parts of the country as well, including the capital, Baghdad.

Now, it is along-standing ambition of ISIS to try and inflame full- blown sectarian civil war in this country. They are a Sunni extremist group, as I say, the victims here with Shia Muslims, frequently the target of ISIS attacks, and it is yet another sign that ISIS, while still under great pressure here in the North, while its territory, its control on this ground is being wound back every day, it still has the ability to lash out on another front, a long way away, in another part of Iraq, taking many lives and causing further instability in this country -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Even when the assessment is that they are being pushed back or they are losing, it certainly doesn't feel that way when you see something like this happen today.

All right. Phil Black for us in Iraq, thank you.

While many Americans spend time families this holiday season. Many U.S. service members will be very far from home.

CNN senior international correspondent Frederik Pleitgen introduces us to one Air Force team fighting ISIS from the sky.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brianna, you know, it's so difficult for many of the men and women serving overseas to be away from their families on this very special day. But, of course, even on Thanksgiving, there cannot be a letup in the fight against ISIS.

And if anything, America is actually intensifying its efforts, and that's something that we saw when we went along on a mission with the crew of a KC-10 extender refueling aircraft.

(voice-over): This Thanksgiving, Americans are in harm's way fighting ISIS on the ground and in the air.

We're on board a KC-10 extender refueling jet flying over Iraq and Syria.

Captain Clark Palicka commanding the massive airborne gas station.

CAPT. CLARK PALICKA, U.S. AIR FORCE: Dynamic airspace, challenging environment. But it's very rewarding.

PLEITGEN: The first batch of planes, two F-15 Eagle Strike aircraft, getting them hooked up to the tanker at around 400 miles per hour, a challenge for the crews of both planes, boom operator Uriel Escamilla says.

STAFF SGT. URIEL ESCAMILLA, U.S. AIR FORCE: It is two moving aircraft, but they are moving around the same speed. So, at the end, it just -- the rate of closure the aircraft has toward you when they stop and when you're able to actually give them that contact. PLEITGEN: The KC-10 refuels planes from all members of the U.S.-led

coalition against ISIS, including C-130 Hercules transporters and the mighty A-10 Warthog with its massive cannon and many bombs clearly visible through our window.

(on camera): Without the help of these tankers, the planes that are flying missions against ISIS could only stay in the area of operations for about an hour, maybe an hour and a half. But thanks to the tanker airplane, they can get fuel in the sky and stay in the area to fight ISIS for up to seven hours.

(voice-over): So, instead of turkey and football, for the KC-10 crews, it's eight to ten-hour missions hovering over this key battlefield. The pain of being away from their loved ones mitigated by the contribution they're making to the war against terror.

1ST LT. TYLER JOHNSON, U.S. AIR FORCE: I love flying, so I wouldn't rather be doing anything else. It is hard being away from family, but I love this job and I enjoy supporting our country.

STAFF SGT. JOHN LOERA, U.S. AIR FORCE: I'm honored to be here. You know, being away from family, they understand that we work. I'm home. But right now, it's my time to be out here and just happened to be serving.

PLEITGEN: Around Mosul, we see billowing smoke of oil fires ISIS has started to try and distract coalition planes. But thanks to the tanker jet, U.S.-led aircraft can stay airborne as long as it takes to find their targets and take them out.

(on camera): Now, Brianna, there are some special activities on this day. There's a 5K run that takes place in the morning and then, of course, there's a turkey dinner in the evening. But, of course, for most of the guys who are serving here, it is business as usual, and that means very long, very intense missions over what is a very, very dangerous battlefield -- Brianna.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[13:40:12] KEILAR: Frederik, thank you so much. We certainly do appreciate their sacrifice and also that of their families.

Donald Trump's nomination of Nikki Haley has brought diversity to his potential cabinet but also some new concerns. Why her lack of experience in foreign affairs is raising some eyebrows, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Donald Trump is steadily building his cabinet but there are concerns over whether his selections have the right experience. Trump has named South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. But Haley has virtually no foreign policy experience.

Billionaire philanthropist Betsy DeVos has been picked as education secretary. She's not been a teacher, her kids attend private school. Also, Ben Carson who just last week said he didn't have -- well, he did say that, I should be clear -- his business manager said he didn't have enough experience to serve as HHS secretary, something that his business manager said he wasn't interested in doing, now mulling whether to accept the position of Housing and Urban Development secretary if it's offered to him.

[13:45:02] He seems much more amenable to that.

I want to bring our panel back in.

OK. So, Nikki Haley -- when I think of Nikki Haley, I just think of that moment with the Confederate flag in front of the statehouse in South Carolina and I don't think anyone can say she wasn't incredibly diplomatic which is the skill. So, is it that -- Doug, is it that she can be an executer but what about the substance, what about the broad base of international affairs knowledge?

DOUG HEYE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, it's two things. One, that moment wasn't just watched by all of us in America or people in the South, the whole world watched that moment. And they saw Nikki Haley act with poise and grace and in an incredibly difficult situation.

She goes in there where everybody knows who she is and everybody's already impressed by her before she says hello to anyone of them. But she also has that foreign policy experience. As governor, she's led trade missions to India, to Sweden, where she helped secure a Volvo factory in South Carolina. Those things aren't insignificant.

LAUREN FOX, TALKING POINTS MEMO: And I think at this point, we should be talking a little about temperament and ability to learn on the job. Obviously, Governor Haley has that. She's going to be able to go out, to learn very quickly, hopefully, about sort of foreign policy. I think that there are other places in the Trump administration where we might be better talking about, you know, experience --

HEYE: I mean, as the daughter of Indian immigrants, her being in that position helps broadcast the power of America's story to the worldwide stage. That's something we really haven't had before.

KEILAR: She certainly does have that.

I want to turn and talk now about intelligence briefings, and that we know that Donald Trump, since being elected, has only had two. Mike Pence on the other hand seems to have been taking full advantage of this offering of a daily intelligence briefing. He's also someone who has a lot more experience in this.

I am, I'm stunned by this, and maybe I'm stunned by this because he doesn't exactly have the reputation of taking in a lot of information. In fact, I look at the book by "The Washington Post" reporter and they say he never read a biography of a president.

Why isn't he trying to push back on what people that he's not interested? KIRSTEN POWERS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Because think he's a

delegator. Who knows what he's going to do when he actually becomes president. I think it's entirely possible he'll continue doing this.

KEILAR: Can you delegate this if you're the decider --

(CROSSTALK)

POWERS: I don't -- I don't think so and this is highly unusual. We should just point that out that, you know, every other president- elect, and the three presidents, got daily briefings as soon as they could so it's highly unusual.

But, you know, he -- when Donald Trump Jr. had offered this was reported in "The New York Times," had offered John Kasich basically to be vice president and they said, "You're going to be responsible basically for everything," and the person said, "Well, what is Donald Trump going to be doing?", and they said, "He's going to be making America great again."

So, the point is this has always been sort of his plan, is to delegate things out to other people. It's not surprising that Mike Pence is getting daily briefings because he's probably delegated this to Mike Pence.

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: This is something that should concern us all and this is where I think the big criticism of him or one of the big criticisms of him should come, because this plays into the fear that so many people who look at him as a possibility of being commander in chief, and now it's come true, the fact that he doesn't really care.

It's not that he's just not getting these briefings. I think the indifference is a huge piece of this. I know my that friend Tom Fuentes was on earlier saying --

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: He did not see the indifference.

CARDONA: I could not -- and granted, he has a lot more experience and is an expert in this field -- I could not disagree more, because this plays into exactly the view that people have of Donald Trump, of somebody who doesn't really care about national security. The "Saturday Night Live" skit was so on point where the person --

KEILAR: He said you're going to do everything --

(CROSSTALK)

CARDONA: He's like, yes, sir. When a "Saturday Night Live" skit is on point, that's really scary.

KEILAR: Well, I think, you know, this idea of delegating -- fine, except that if something happens --

FOX: He still has to make decisions.

KEILAR: But it's not just that. If something happens, if he relies on the counsel and knowledge because he's maybe not -- we don't know at this point, all right, we're going to give him time and see how he goes into January. But if something happens, he's accountable.

So, I wonder what you think, Doug. Is he doing himself a disservice by not doing this? Because in the end, I mean, it comes down to him, whether or not he got bad advice or what.

HEYE: Yes, absolutely. The buck stops here. Well, it isn't just Harry Truman's phrase. It's something that Donald Trump has lived and breathed his whole life.

I agree with Maria about the perception problem. We should remember, though, we're still two weeks into this. If we're two months into the transition process, we're in a totally different story.

But the anecdote that Kristen related to that was reported by the great "New York Times" reporter Robert Draper speaks to that attitude that he's just going to be a delegator in chief. They need to start a course correction on that sooner rather than later.

FOX: But this is somebody who doesn't have a lot of foreign policy experience. So, yes, we're only two weeks in, but if you were Donald Trump and you were going to become the commander in chief, you should want to know everything you can know. I mean, this is a very --

CARDONA: But let's remember, he knows more than the generals.

[13:50:02] KEILAR: I would just say -- I'm going to have the final word here. I would say if all of a sudden I had access to the daily brief, I would be geeking out on it, right?

CARDONA: We all would.

KEILAR: Amazing information.

CARDONA: He doesn't care.

KEILAR: So, well, we will see. He has been busy. We will see what he does going forward.

All right. Guys, thank you so much.

HEYE: Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. Appreciate you being here.

Up next, worried about politics being the main item on the menu today? Wolf Blitzer here to help.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Everybody, everybody, quiet.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We build the wall.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Excuse me, excuse me. Everybody, quiet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: President Obama presided over his last Medal of Freedom ceremony this week. Among them, comedian and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres getting honors.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[13:55:06] KEILAR: So, a number of Medal of Freedom honors there and many of them have made significant contributions. The president applauding DeGeneres for her kindness and light.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Ellen DeGeneres has a way of making you laugh about some thing rather than at someone. Except when I danced on her show, she laughed at me.

(LAUGHTER)

But that's OK. It's easy to forget now when we've come so far, where now marriage is equal under the law just how much courage was required for Ellen to come out on the most public of stages almost 20 years ago. Just how important it was not just to the LGBT community but for all of us to see somebody so full of kindness and light, somebody we liked so much, somebody who could be our neighbor or our colleague, or our sister, challenge our own assumptions. Remind us that we have more in common than we realize. Push our country in the direction of justice.

What an incredible burden that was to bear, to risk your career like that. People don't do that very often. And then to have the hopes of millions on your shoulders.

But it's like Ellen says, we all want a tortilla chip that can support the weight of guacamole.

(LAUGHTER)

Which really makes no sense to me.

(LAUGHTER)

But I thought it would break the mood because I was getting kind of choked up.

(LAUGHTER)

And she did pay a price, we don't remember this. I hadn't remembered it. She did, for a pretty long stretch of time, even in Hollywood.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: And speaking of Ellen, as many families remain divided over politics in the election results, she has one idea on how to keep the post-election peace -- cue Wolf Blitzer. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELLEN DEGENERES, TV HOST: I really love that people come together for the holidays but I know there's a lot of tension out there right now. So, if you're planning a family get-together, there's a new service I think you should know about. Check it out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The one of the most divisive in history. And there's one more big political clash still to come, your holiday dinner. Instead of coming together, your family gathering is sure to explode into a bitter shouting match that ruins the season for everyone.

Luckily, mobile moderator is here to help. Using your phone, you can order a professional moderator to manage your meal. Choose from seasoned pros like Anderson Cooper, Megyn Kelly and Wolf Blitzer.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Of course, he should build a wall. They are coming across by the millions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's nowhere near a million --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hillary should be in prison.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Mrs. Douglas, Uncle Lou, if we could just please get back to the original question. Could someone please pass the salt?

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Your moderator will restore civility to the conversation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This broccoli casserole is so good. I think it's actually --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wrong.

BLITZER: Lucas, don't interrupt your sister.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Better than the sweet potatoes --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wrong.

BLITZER: Leslie is speaking.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And he'll make sure everyone gets an equal opportunity to talk.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My feet were so sore. They were swollen and red. You should have seen them. Think looked like beets.

BLITZER: All right. You have five seconds.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: All right. Aunt Pearl, that's enough. That's enough, Aunt Pearl. You are out of time. Aunt Pearl, you are out of time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But they also help with the odor. Did I tell you that the odor the --

BLITZER: Aunt Pearl, you are out of time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Plus, your moderator can serve as the fact- checker.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I heard that Barack Hussein Obama made it legal to steal things.

BLITZER: That is completely false.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, then, who stole my glasses?

BLITZER: Your glasses are on your forehead.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Order your mobile moderator today.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And why don't you tell us who you voted for in the election?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I voted for Gary Johnson.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, ah.

BLITZER: All right. Everybody. Everybody, quiet.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Rebuild the wall.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm still with her.

BLITZER: Excuse me. Excuse me. Everybody, quiet.

I'm Wolf Blitzer.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Maybe pass the turkey and hold the politics.

A very happy Thanksgiving to our viewers in America. Thank you so much for sharing part of it with me. That's it for me.

For our international viewers "AMANPOUR" is next, and for our viewers in North America, "NEWSROOM" with Brooke Baldwin starts right now.