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U.S. Airstrikes May Have Taken Out A Top Leader In The Terror Organization. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired March 8, 2016 - 15:30   ET

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


[15:30:00] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: So, Scottie, as the Trump supporter, as a woman, and you do know some of what Mr. Trump has said, how would you defend him?

SCOTTIE HUGHES, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, USA RADIO NETWORK: Well, think it's very interesting that the Democrats are already try to take out Mr. Trump and we have not actually made him our primary winner yet. So that just shows how scared they are of him. And when you look at the commercial that they are playing, the words and phrases that he is saying is not necessarily in regards to women or tearing down women. They are actually express --.

BALDWIN: That's a different ad, let's be clear. That was from the conservative super PAC. Let me be clear. That could have been confusing. But they are actually putting together a separate ad. Sorry. Continue.

HUGHES: Right. And we don't know the details of what they are going to say in that ad. But like everything else in this election, actions speak louder than words. And yes, there are people angry. There are people frustrated. So when they hear commercials like that, that just says yes, you are right. I wish I could curse at what's going on in America today as my family is hurting and suffering. It possibly could have a reverse effect and help and just secure his base even more.

BALDWIN: I was talking to someone just this morning, Marcy, about, you know, putting together campaign ads and making the point that, you know, sometimes these negative ads truly backfire and specifically have negatives for women. Do you worry about that at all with this?

MARCY STECH, COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, EMILY'S LIST: Not at all with Donald Trump. I mean, there really is -- he has entered new territory when it comes to Republicans. In 2012, we saw the largest gender gap in that presidential between Obama and Romney that were 20 points. In the latest CNN poll, between Trump and Hillary, we are looking at 41 points, potentially double that gender gap.

Donald Trump has a problem with women that has been decades long of these types of remarks towards women. He is going to have to wear these to the ballot box. He is going to have to wear these for the rest of his candidacy and campaign. I know that a lot of women, quite frankly, a lot of Republican women, who will either stay home or they'll cast a vote for Hillary Clinton because they want someone who is actually going to offer some solutions to the challenges that they're facing in their lives --

BALDWIN: Scottie, I see you shaking your head. I'm listening to Marcy closely, but I'm distracted. What are you thinking?

HUGHES: Well, because I'm listening to her talk. And I'm sorry. I would vote for somebody more than just because they have a uterus in them. You look at Mr. Trump and you look at Ivanka, you look at his wife, Melania, You sit there and you look at all the women he has more people head of the company that are female than most fortune 500 companies do.

His actions actually show that he supports women. And so, instead of just sitting there and saying we already know the other side, no matter who criticizes Hillary Clinton, was going to play this feminist card. With saw him do it against Bernie Sanders the other night. But let's put a little bit more substance to it. Let's just not just look at words but actually see if their actions back that up. And when you look at Hillary Clinton, her treatment of women has been far worst in her actions than anything Mr. Trump has actually done.

BALDWIN: Well, let's give Emily's List a bit more credit here. It is just more than having a uterus, please.

STECH: Absolutely. Look. It's hard to take someone seriously when they use words like dogs, bimbo, fat pigs. These are words that Donald Trump has used to describe women in the past. It is something that we know --.

HUGHES: But he also insults men too.

STECH: You know what? Look, we at Emily's List --

HUGHES: But he insults men too, it is not just women.

STECH: At our sister organization, American women did a poll, 73 percent of Republican women who we talk to said that they wouldn't even think about voting for a candidate who's used those words against women if they supported those policies of that candidate.

We are in unchartered territory. I'm sorry, this is not about gender politics. This is about someone whose character is just completely out of line when it comes to women.

BALDWIN: It is uncharted territory. It is unprecedented. That is fact. So many different ways you can cut it for now.

Ladies, Marcy and Scottie, thank you so much. Different perspective, always wanted right here on CNN.

Next, the country's biggest tech CEOs reportedly gathering for some sort of secret meeting over the weekend about Donald Trump. I'm talking about heads of Apple and Google and Space X, all in the same room with Karl Rove. We have the details on what went down behind closed doors.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [15:38:35] BALDWIN: In the war against ISIS, breaking news here. CNN has learned U.S. airstrikes may have taken out a top leader in the terror organization. U.S. officials say his name is Omar the Chechen. The strike happened Friday in Syria and was targeting an ISIS commander wanted by the U.S. state department.

Meantime, a top U.S. commander telling lawmakers today that he needs more troops to recapture key cities in both Syria and Iraq.

So let's get you straight to the Pentagon, to our correspondent Barbara Starr for the latest on both of these developing stories.

But Barbara, first to this airstrike, tell me what you know.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Brooke.

What we do know is that on March 4th, the U.S. was targeting Abu Omar al-Shashani, also known as Omar the Chechen, just as you said, a top ISIS leader. U.S. airstrikes moved in over the town of Sadati. This is an area between the Syria -- on the Syria/Iraqi border, a town ISIS often uses as a border crossing. Fighting had been heavy in that area. We don't know what intelligence the U.S. had that drew them there, thinking that Shashani was there but they did target him there.

Now, U.S. intelligence agencies and the U.S. military are looking at the results of the strike, trying to determine once and for all if they did get him. That is often very difficult to know from airstrikes. If you don't have troops on the ground, it may be difficult to know if you were successful in exactly killing the person you were going after. But clearly they were going after him. Top operative, $5 million reward on his head by the U.S. state department. Somebody that was said to have been involved in holding foreign hostages and ISIS'financial operations, and it really does come full circle. As you just pointed out, the top U.S. commander for the war against ISIS was on Capitol Hill toy saying if you want to retake Raqqah, ISIS' capital in Syria and Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, still under ISIS control, he's going to need more help, more troops, more special operations, to make all of that happen -- Brooke.

[15:40:42] BALDWIN: Barbara, thank you so much. Barbara Starr at the Pentagon.

Ahead here, word of the secret meeting among some of America's business giants and powerful lawmakers talking about Donald Trump. Why, what are the results of the meeting. We have that for you next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:45:08] BALDWIN: Today is the second super Tuesday in this presidential election season, with today's primaries, four of them, among the most critical thus far, because they could determine who among those still standing in this race will survive to fight another day or who's next to fall out of the race and head home in defeat.

CNN's John King shows us what's at stake as both parties close in on the nominee -- John. JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Four states with

primaries on our second super Tuesday of the campaign, two for the Democrats, four for the Republicans, Hawaii, Idaho, Mississippi and Michigan, 166 Democratic delegates at stake, 150 delegates at stake on the Republican side. Just Mississippi and Michigan voting on the Democratic side.

Now let's look at the state of play right now in the Republican side. Donald Trump with the delegate lead, but Ted Cruz, after a good weekend, closing in on second place. He says he has momentum. Marco Rubio won Puerto Rico over the weekend. He says he's still in the hunt. A lot of questions about that.

Let's just take a look. On our second Super Tuesday if Trump sweeps with about 35 percent of the vote in those wins, he will start to pull away a little bit. Ted Cruz hoping to run at least second everywhere and also hoping for maybe a surprise in Mississippi, maybe a little closer than you would expect in Michigan and watch the smaller battles in Hawaii and in Idaho. Sometimes if you do get a surprise, that's where you get it. But if Trump sweeps, which is his belief going in, he will start to pull away a little bit on the delegate side.

This is why it matters. Donald Trump has won 43 percent of the Republican delegates to date. If he can win 54 percent from here on out, he will he'll clinch the nomination. Now, that's not as hard as it looks in the sense that we begin to move next week into winner take all, big prizes like Florida, big prizes like Ohio. If you can win them all, you will add to the numbers. A little steeper hole for Ted Cruz. He was won 33 percent so far. He needs 60 percent. And you see Marco Rubio in third place. And John Kasich in fourth place. They need to change the dynamic of the race fundamentally if they could ever make the map work. But Trump and Cruz right now at the top of the pact looking for tomorrow and beyond to show they can add up some more delegates.

Let's switch to the Democratic side. Come back over here. Here's where we start. This is pledge delegates. Hillary Clinton with a 200 delegate lead over Bernie Sanders. She's favored in both contests tomorrow. If she picks them both up, number one, she'll start to stretch out her delegate lead. Number two, she'll send a very important message to Bernie Sanders. I'm beating you in the south and now I'm proving I can beat you in the big industrial northwest. So Michigan is a huge test for Bernie Sanders not only for momentum and for the message of the Midwest but also because of the math.

If you look at the Democratic map, Hillary Clinton has won nearly 60 percent of the delegates to date. If she wins 59 percent, the same percentage of the pledge delegates meaning on primary and caucus day here on out, she'll clinch the nomination. Bernie Sanders has a much steeper hill. He has only won four in ten. He needs to win 66.

And this math for Hillary Clinton is actual a tad misleading. This she would clinch if she won only the pledge delegates. She also has some super delegates in her back pocket so Bernie Sanders needs to make a statement and make it soon. The Michigan contest and the Midwest would be right place to do that but the polls show Clinton with the lead.

BALDWIN: John King, thank you so much.

Also today, we are learning about this top secret meeting where tech CEOs, billionaires and top members of the Republican establishment met in secret to discuss how to stop Donald Trump. This elite circle gathered over the weekend on a remote island off the coast of -- excuse me, coast of Georgia. "The Huffington Post" is reporting this hush, hush gathering was attended by Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google founder Larry Page, Tesla and Space X founder Elon Musk, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and house speaker Paul Ryan just to name a few of the folks in the room there in Sea Island.

Let's talk about this with one of the authors of that "Huffington Post" story Ryan Grim joining me from Washington. He is a Washington bureau chief for "the Huffington Post" and Rona Foroohar is here with me, CNN global economic analyst and of course wonderful over at "Time" magazine, assistant managing editor.

So Ryan to you first, tell me more about the -- what were the meetings about exactly?

RYAN GRIM, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE HUFFINGTON POST: Sure, you know, this is the kind of thing that every powerful person in the United States was at this meeting. Something like 54 private jets were needed to fly these --

BALDWIN: Wow!

GRIM: I guess that's kind of a loose understanding of the word "need." That's the way they decide to show up at the island. So, you know, they spent a lot of time talking about a lot of things. But if you get five people in a room anywhere in America today, they are going to talk about Donald Trump. And that's what was dominating the conversation from what people told us. There were kinds of two camps. There was the camp of starching their heads, wondering how did this happen. And there was the camp of what we can do to stop it. And the form is kind of a musing trying, you know, flying to a private hedge fund island on a private jet, meeting with a lot of billionaires, to try to figure out why people are so angry in this country.

But on the other hand, you had Karl Rove there who presented a lot of the attendees with his ideas for how they could undermine Trump going forward.

[15:50:02] BALDWIN: So here's what I'm curious, and wouldn't that have been funny picture to see at airport, side note.

Rona, I'm turning to you. Why, though, when you think of Elon Musks and Tim Cooks talking politics and the whole conversation on Donald Trump, why -- why were they --?

RONA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: Well, it's interesting because usually you think about those guys as being in the Democratic camp.

BALDWIN: Sure.

FOROOHAR: A lot of Silicon Valley money is liberal. But these are exactly the people that would be affected by a Trump foreign policy that might ignite job overseas.

BALDWIN: Jobs overseas.

FOROOHAR: Trade policy. I mean, can imagine a Donald Trump presidency and what that would mean for China, and trade, and currency? I mean, these guys are afraid we're going to have a trade war or a currency war that could kill their businesses overseas. So I think that they're very much worried about this.

BALDWIN: So Ryan, just so I'm clear, did all of the folks get together specifically to discuss Donald Trump or that was sort of inherently how the conversation turned?

GRIM: No, this is an annual gathering.

BALDWIN: OK.

GRIM: One senator actually told me it's his favorite weekend of the year. Everybody looks forward to it. Even though they keep it as private and secret as possible. And so it just happened that it coincided with this period. Although Karl Rove, you know, obviously he did plan a presentation and he did plan to talk about Donald Trump and so did a lot of the other Republican senators.

BALDWIN: What are, Rona, do you think some of the unanswered questions that these, you know, mega-tech leaders would have for Donald Trump.

FOROOHAR: Yes. Well, what U.S. trade policy going to look like in a Trump presidency? What is that going to mean for the ability of a company like Apple, for example, to keep putting jobs in China and to keep selling products there? What's going to mean for intellectual property law? What is it going to mean for visas? You know, we heard Trump kind of come out both sides of the immigration and be the question. Now he is saying maybe we need more visas for high-tech workers. Previously he has been saying no way.

I mean, frankly, they don't know. And nobody knows who his economic advisers are as well, which I'm sure to these guys who like to be way out in front of everything and spending a lot of money lobbying in Washington, that's extremely anxiety provoking.

BALDWIN: I was just talking to someone the other day, Ryan, about how a lot of these teams are being formed, you know, especially on foreign policy in Washington, ahead of a potential nomination and I haven't heard much about any sort of Trump team. When does that need to start happening?

GRIM: I mean, legally, I guess when he's sworn in. You're right, he doesn't -you know, a lot of these presidential campaigns, they create all of these advisory committees. Partly that's a way to reward donors and bundlers, you know, if you raise enough money here, you can be on this committee and you can tell people that you advised me.

But it is also intellectual infrastructure for a campaign which Trump doesn't have, you know, because he feels like he has the answers already. And if he doesn't have the answers, he'll give you one anyway. And if he doesn't like that one, he will come back a couple of days later with a different one. He often will say, well, why did you say x? He said, well, that was the first time I was asked about it, as if that excuses never having thought about it, never having advisers to tell you what the different options are to choose from.

BALDWIN: You know, listening to you, Ryan, makes me wonder, Rona, if this is something we have our big CNN Republican debate Thursday night. And the fact that all of these mega, mega leaders got together over the weekend and this is how the conversation went, I wonder if this is something that could be brought up on the debate stage.

FOROOHAR: I hope it will be brought up on the debate stage. I mean, I think that is the big question for the business community, anyway. And what they want to know is, the Republican Party used to be party of business. I mean, big business in particular.

Trump is presenting an entirely different base, right. He is the populist side of the Republican Party and I think that is very worrisome for big multinational businesses that have depended on Republicans to stick up for their trade agendas, for their tax loopholes, et cetera. Who knows what Donald Trump's going to do? I mean, just so we have no idea what his platform truly is or who his advisers are. So I think these are big questions.

BALDWIN: Tapper will try. Knowing that Jake Tapper.

Rona Forrohas, thank you so much. And Ryan Grim, thank you as well.

Again, just reminder, that Miami debate this Thursday night.

Hours from now, polls will be closing in four states. We are live on the campaign trail with all six candidates still competing to be the next president of the United States. Hear what's at stake for each tonight.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:58:39] BALDWIN: He may be the Republican front-runner thus far, but Donald Trump has been toying with the idea of running for president two decades when they formed an exploratory committee back in 1999. CNN went out to see what people then think of a Donald Trump candidacy. And it turns out some of the same qualities that make him popular today were massive turnouts back then.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's the most ridiculous thing. What makes him be eligible and qualified to run the country?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Idiotic. He has no experience in politics.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A lot of celebrity and well-known people are starting to do this. It seems to be like it's in fashion.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't think so, no, sorry, Donald.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stick to the casino.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any way possible you'd ever vote for him?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think overall I'm pretty tired of people with a lot of money getting into politics.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't trust him. He's rich, you know, then works deals, and he's a power broker and I don't trust him. I would never, never vote for Donald Trump.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think he'd be good, Republican. That's big business all of that sort of thing. I would - I would vote for him.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: 1999, how about that?

Thank you so much for be with me. I'm Brooke Baldwin here in New York.

We are going to take you to Washington. Jim Sciutto sitting in for Jake Tapper. "The LEAD" starts right now.