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Deadly Flooding In Missouri; Interview With Mike Huckabee. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired December 29, 2015 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00] LUKMAN FAILY, IRAQI AMBASSADOR TO THE U.S.: ... setting any support from (inaudible) and all others that all Iraqis are responsible, where we have this responsibility of the state on them to make sure that we can to all of Iraq. We're setting any support from international coalition, neighboring Arabs and others to make sure that we cleanse Iraq and the region from the venom of ISIS. And this is...

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN GUEST HOST: What...

FAILY: This is a key issue for us.

KEILAR: It's very key for you, and I want to know when it comes to the U.S.-led coalition, and obviously, you talked about a number of parties in that, what is the role that you want to see going forward that is essential to the success of Iraqi voice (ph)?

FAILY: I guess to thank them for all they have done and all they are doing and we hope as well all they will continue to do. Make sure that there is a clear cooperation and intelligence, and making sure trainings and making sure that some of the logistics help we need and certainly making sure that the skies is under control of the Iraqi army and with the coalition support.

So to that effect, it is ongoing cooperation, close cooperation. I think that we also need to keep focused on that issue. As we said, it is not an overnight project, it requires months and months of training and preparation and support.

KEILAR: This is I said heralded as a victory by your country, there's a lot of optimism here in the U.S. and among other partners with Iraq on this. There was a lot of criticisms several months ago of Iraqi forces. Do you feel like this is the turnaround in a way?

FAILY: I think it's a symbolic victory for us in a sense of retaking -- it's also symbolic and -- it's the most strategic in making sure that we are able to clear one of the main cities which was predominantly Sunni by the way. So, make sure that we have the buy-in of the locals, and make sure that the close cooperation, and to show everybody that we care for their lives of the Iraqis, we care for the dignity of Iraqis and that is where we need the close cooperation of everybody. This project has to be focused, all have to focus on, all stakeholders.

Ambassador Lukman Faily, thank you so much, the Iraqi ambassador to the United States. We appreciate you joining us today.

FAILY: Thank you for having me.

KEILAR: And now, back to that deadly flooding, a bit is happening right now in Missouri. We just learned that at least three people have died today alone. And now the town of West Alton is being evacuated as we speak, because water there has now topped a levee. West Alton sits in between the Mississippi River and the Missouri River. This is just north of St. Louis.

We're going to go live to the region after this quick break. Stay with us.

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[13:35:58] KEILAR: We are following Breaking News right now out of Missouri. This is where residents in one area of the state are being told to evacuate because of imminent flooding elsewhere. We are seeing flooded homes and businesses. You can see here the water through the windows of that business there in Union, Missouri.

These are pictures from just moments ago. This McDonald's is completely overcome. This parking lot around these businesses a lake.

Now, we have also learned that at least three people have been killed in the flooding there, just today alone, adding to the casualties in the area that we have seen in the recent days. All of these, the result of strong storms that have swept across the country.

Joining me on the phone now is Chief Richard Pender. He is with the Rivers Pointe Fire District in St. Charles County.

Chief, thank you for talking to us. I know that you are sort of in the calm before the storm, right? You are expecting things really to get worse as you expect more levees to overflow?

RICHARD PENDER, CHIEF, RIVERS POINTE FIRE DISTRICT: Yes, ma'am. That is the point where we're at now. So sections of levees are, some spots are overtopping, and we have concerns with the overtopping that is going to fill in areas that our residents need to evacuate from.

So we've sent out a final warning of the voluntary evacuation notice for the folks that aren't able to stay in in what we call flood-ready homes that, you know, now is the time for you to leave. Things are just getting to the point where it's going to be unsafe.

KEILAR: What scenarios are you preparing for, and what resources do you have ready to deal with those scenarios?

PENDER: Well, right now, any type of scenarios we have, we are -- we are ready for would be any water refuse that occurs with anybody that has not heeded any warnings that we have with our fire district, and neighboring fire districts as well as reaching out with our partners throughout St. Charles County and the regional teams. Not only because of our, you know, our piece of the state that we're protecting here but I know there is other fire districts throughout the state that are having flooding issues and even flash flooding issues.

So what chiefs have been doing is taking and staging water rescue assets throughout the state, you know, for the past few days. And now, with the situation that we are in, we are now plugged into that plan to use for the possibility of the -- if there is a levee that actually breaches and forces water on to us rather than a slow overtopping of the levee.

KEILAR: Yeah.

PENDER: You know, we could have the possibility of folks getting stranded if they haven't heeded warnings.

KEILAR: All right, Chief Richard Pender with the Rivers Pointe Fire District in St. Charles County, this is north of St. Louis, Missouri, thank you so much for joining us.

I do want to head now to talk to Mike Livengood, he is the mayor of Union, Missouri, this is west of St. Louis, not too far from West Alton, the area north of St. Louis that is facing flooding as well. Thank you so much, Mayor, for being with us. Tell us what is happening in your area.

MIKE LIVENGOOD, MAYOR, UNION, MISSOURI: Well, we -- naturally, we have had record-breaking down flood because we went about a foot over our 1982 flood, and that was our record. You know, we topped out at about a foot above that. And this is (inaudible) that we did crest, so that's a good thing, you know, where the water is starting to recede, so now we can get to the -- and once we get back in these community, I mean into the homes and get back and with defense so we can help them to recover, there's a lot of water.

KEILAR: So there sure is. We are seeing live pictures. I don't think you can see it, but we are looking at live pictures out of, pardon me, these are I believe from just moments ago out of Union, Missouri. There where you are. So you said it's a foot over what you saw in 1982. You are trying to get back into homes?

LIVENGOOD: Correct.

[13:40:13] KEILAR: The river has crested, but have you seen any levee breaches, have the levees just been overtopped?

LIVENGOOD: We honestly do not have levees around here, we are just getting our water just down from the Burgess River and the Merrimack (ph) that goes into the Merrimack and that is where the issue comes in here with the Merrimack backed up the way it is. It's taking forever for the water to get out of this region and get away and that is why we have the flooding here. We are very familiar with it, yes.

KEILAR: OK. Had -- Now, people have been -- are you confident that people have evacuated or you're sort of waiting as the water recedes to really survey the damage?

LIVENGOOD: Well, we notified the people in which we mean -- well no, national weather, you know, forecast told us we were going crest at 28 feet. Well, we didn't feel that was right, you know. We didn't mean, you know, knew it wasn't.

You know, we thought we would going to crest more at 35 feet which we almost crested at about 34 1/2. And we were able to warn the citizens -- warn the citizens, we don't point that no (inaudible), we got no reports in the injuries, just everybody who have the time within the time to get their stuff out of their homes. That's a plus. We finally had about 25 homes in (inaudible) that were affected by this flood. And then we have about nine of our major retailers, like you said you seen the pictures and others, you know, major flooding down by the rivers or retailers.

KEILAR: Well, we are certainly glad to hear that you don't think there have been any injuries. That is great news. Mayor Mike Livenwood there at Union, Missouri, thanks for talking to us on the phone.

I want to get now to CNN Meteorologist Tom Sater for more on this.

That was fascinating, Tom, to hear what the mayor said there. He said that the National Weather Service told them to expect the river to crest at 28 feet, and they just have this feeling that it wasn't going to be that, they thought it would be more like 35 and in the end it's -- perhaps they were correct if it crested at 34.5 feet.

TOM SATER, CNN METEOROLOGIST: And we're seeing still arise. But we've got to clarify something, Brianna, because when you look at the images of St. Louis, we're not talking about one area. We're not talking about one river. The Mississippi, the Missouri River, the Merrimack and several other small tributaries of flooding community.

So, again, it all started last week. An unprecedented storm system that dropped days and days of rainfall, in fact, we had record rainfall over 8.5, even 10 inches. So, yes, that is why they were expecting some of the rivers to rise. What's interesting here is when you talk about the historic levels of 1993, that was mainly the Missouri and the Mississippi, we are going to be see on those rivers the second highest crest ever recorded. It will not surpass those of 1993, but we are going to see on the Merrimack River record crests and that's in areas such as Union, possibly in Pacific, we'll break it down for you, that's along the Merrimack.

Now, the Merrimack records go back to 1982. Let me break this down for you just a little bit, and to clarify in a few regions what we are seeing here. Let's take this if we can pull and give everybody a good idea of where we are.

Downtown St. Louis is here. Yes, there is flooding along the cobblestones, the landing, city parks get flooded. Now, the record in St. Louis from 1993 was 49.6 feet. They are expecting by Thursday morning 44.8. So it is far from the record, but it is the second highest level. North of the city, right in between the Missouri and the Mississippi is West Alton. That is where we are also seeing records. Now, in Alton, is it 33 feet? It's expected to get to 38, that's the second highest level. But then you have St. Charles and that's where we have areas along the Missouri River that are flooding.

Interstate 70, a major interstate was closed a couple of days ago, eastbound traffic and a little bit westbound. They are expecting that to maybe happen again. But also another major interstate out along the Merrimack, you get out toward Union, Interstate 44, 141 goes underneath it, it's already flooded, 44 is expected to flood and get even higher.

So the Merrimack River, the pictures you're seeing in St. Charles County and areas from Union, that will flow along the Merrimack to the Pacific. That will go to Fenton and then to Arnold. So, this again, where St. Louis meets, if you ever seen the city flag, it's got the three rivers and that is exactly the problem. So again, in some cases, not as bad as '93, and the other cases along the Merrimack, the worst ever, and those records go back to 1982.

So, again, the waters are going to continue to rise, Brianna, that's why this is going to be a prob for the next couple of days.

KEILAR: All right, we will continue to follow this. As we really expecting to get worse here, even in the coming hours. Tom Sater, stay on standby for us as we monitor this story.

Just ahead, will the Iowa or bust for Mike Huckabee will ask the former Arkansas governor what happened if he doesn't do well in the Iowa caucuses. He will be joining us for a live interview. Next.

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[13:48:10] KEILAR: We are monitoring -- breaking news. Flooding out of Missouri, we've also seen some flooding in North Western Arkansas thunderstorm flood warnings. These are pictures that we just turned around moments ago out of Union, Missouri which is west of Saint Louis. You're seeing all of the rivers in the area, the Merrimack River, the Missouri River, the Mississippi River.

This is a sort of an area where you have tributaries coming off of those rivers and so much water backing up and creating flooding really outside of Saint Louis. We have been talking to officials there on the ground. They're actually bracing for things to get worse before they get better.

As we expect the rivers to rise even more and we're already hearing word that some levis (ph) have over-topped north of Saint Louis.

I do now want to bring in former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee. He's also a presidential candidate. He's live with us from Little Rock, Arkansas.

And, Governor, obviously you have experienced dealing with emergencies like this. I want to talk politics but first I want to talk about what's going on there in your home state. Because I know that in Northern Arkansas there are number of flood warnings, and we're actually expecting the Arkansas River to reach a flood stage by noon tomorrow. This is going to get worst in your state before it gets better.

MIKE HUCKABEE, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, it is. And floods are the most gut awful thing I think you ever deal with this natural disaster. Because some of the damage, you don't really see from weeks if not months after the flood water recede. And there's nothing you can do really to stop the flood, and people don't take seriously enough the dangers.

So of all the kind of emergencies that I think governors managed, it's one of the most devastating, one of the most ominous, one of the most deadly. More people are killed in floods every year than are killed in tornadoes.

[13:50:00] And it's the kind of thing you see these pictures.

I know the Arkansas River in Little Rock is moving at 400,000 feet per second right now, 400,000 feet per second at 70,000 feet per second small craft advisories are out.

So that means the water is just pouring through at the rate its going. There's probably going to be water topping to dams along the Arkansas River. That's bad news for a lot of people and probably some evacuations.

KEILAR: Yeah. And what see them dealing within Missouri now, that's going to be certainly the story going in to tomorrow for your home state.

I do want to talk politics with you. I want to turn to the 2016 race.

Donald Trump has been stepping up his attacks on the Clintons as well as some of his Republican rivals. In the latest back and forth that we've seen with the Clintons, Trump is claiming that the Obama campaign called Bill Clinton a racist during the 2008 presidential race.

Here's what he said this morning in the "Today" show interview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, REPUBLICAN: They called him a racist. I don't believe he's a racist, if you want to know the truth. But they called him a racist that was miserable campaign. He did very poorly and they had been bringing him out again. He's being wheeled out and we're going to see what happens.

But frankly, he did very, very poorly. He was not good for her and obviously she lost to Obama and that was the end of that but they brought them out before.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: You said, Governor, on Fox News that in this battle between -- in a battle, I guess, could say a hypothetical match up between Donald Trump and the Clintons that your money would on Trump.

Do you think this is an effective strategy that he is pursuing in attacking not just Hillary Clinton but Bill Clinton? And how might this effect the Republican race for other candidates? HUCKABEE: I don't think it's going to have a big effect. Ultimately, the race is not about Clinton, it's not about Trump, not about me. It's about what people are feeling. And people are angry because they know their paychecks aren't going very far. I think they're going to be voting for their frustrations, voting for their sense of disconnect with the Washington elite who continue to poor dead on top of them. There is a complete I think disregard for the struggles that people have.

I heard the president say the economy is getting better. And I'm thinking, well, he needs to go stand in the layaway line at Walmart just before Christmas because I think he have a very different assessment of how great the economy is, if he talked to the people who barely got through Christmas. And the average American is living off about $1000 worth the savings. That means that the average American family is a root canal away from disaster.

So, yeah, there's a lot of personalities and all of it is an immense amount of fun to kind of watch your sport. But I believe when people are going to vote they're going to be voting for their frustrations and voting for somebody that might be listening to what they are going through.

KEILAR: And some people wonder if that person could be Senator Ted Cruz. We've seen him rising in the polls but you criticize him. You said that he's not consistently Conservative. What do you mean by that?

HUCKABEE: Well, he said somethings in Manhattan that are very different than his been saying in Iowa. I'm just saying that I think people are looking for a candidate that doesn't wake up and look at the map and say, "Let me see if my message today is going to different because of where I am.

I believe, ultimately, folks want authenticity. They want people who know what they believe. They wake up everyday believing the same thing. They don't have to say what are the latest polls say, what are the trends, where am I, that will determine my message. But to the message is going to be consistent. And it's going to be about the American people and about what's hurting them, what's causing their lives to be so challenge as so many people are feeling today.

They are frightened of terrorism. They're frightened of the economy. They're scared for the kids' future. And, ultimately, I think that those things matter so much more than the horse race and the process that we often even those of us who are candidates, we sometimes get sucked into.

KEILAR: If you judge Donald Trump in a similar way, would you say that he's consistently Conservative?

HUCKABEE: Well, he's consistent. You know, one of the things I think that...

KEILAR: Consistent but maybe not consistently Conservative in a time where you said people want someone who's genuine. HUCKABEE: Yeah.

KEILAR: Maybe it doesn't matter if they are Conservative?

HUCKABEE: I think people are less concerned about where the folks are on the horizontal scale of left to right Liberal, Conservative, Democrat, Republican -- but they're looking for somebody who campaign as I've said for 26 years. People ultimately vote vertically not horizontally. So dependents we're looking every thing horizontally, are you left, you're right, Conservative, Liberal.

Average Americans are asking, are you going to take us up, are you going to take us down? And they see that our country is going down and what they want to know is somebody going to take us up. And they're far more interested in the vertical direction of the America than they are in horizontal direction of America.

[13:55:00] They can live with things on the horizontal spectrum a little differently. They can't continue to see this country go down and national security go down in its culture, go down in its economic opportunities for the Americans.

People are angry and they're frustrated because they see Washington arguing over horizontal issues and they're struggling to keep their heads above water to sue a flood metaphor considering that we're looking at some horrible things. And when the flood waters come, you are not trying to figure out, you know, what are you going to have for dinner. You just want to survive. And survival mode is where a lot of Americans are right now.

KEILAR: Real quick, very quickly before I let you go. You've indicated, if you don't do well in Iowa that could be it for you. How well do you think you can do, how well do you need to do to stay in the race?

HUCKABEE: I think we're going to do great there. I think we're going to surprise people. We're going to spend virtually the entire month of January.

And, Brianna, the fact is at this stage of the game, in the last two election cycles, things have changed over 20 points. The frontrunner at this point never wins and there's always a surprise.

I was the surprise eight years ago. Rick Santorum was fours years ago. We poll 5,000 people in Iowa last week, 75 percent of them have not made up their minds yet. We think there's going to be some surprises on February 1st.

KEILAR: Yeah. And we will see. I know IOWA certainly has a spot in your heart Governor Huckabee. So we'll see you what happens, what shakes out there -- here in the next month or so.

Governor Mike Huckabee, thank you so much, always good to see you.

HUCKABEE: Thank you, Brianna. Happy New Year!

KEILAR: All right, Happy New Year to you as well. That is it for me. I'm going to be back here at 5:00 Eastern on the Situation Room.

For our international viewers (inaudible) viewers in North America Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin starts right after a quick break.

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