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NEW DAY SUNDAY

Officials: Brussels Attackers Planned To Hit France; Fireworks Blast At Temple Kills Nearly 100 People; Sanders Wins Wyoming, Get Boost Ahead Of New York; Cruz Wins Big In Colorado Delegate Sweep. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired April 10, 2016 - 06:00   ET

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


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[06:00:03] CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. So grateful to have you with us. I'm Christi Paul.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Martin Savidge in Victor Blackwell. Good to be with you.

PAUL: It's so good to have you back here with us as we're following some breaking news this morning. In fact two stories, one, a temple fire in India that's killed nearly a hundred people. We are getting new details about the deadly terror attacks in Europe this morning as well.

SAVIDGE: We're going to begin in Brussels where prosecutors say that the terrorist who organized the deadly attacks in Belgium last month initially planned to hit France, again.

PAUL: But as they saw how quickly the investigation into last year's attacks in Paris was moving they switched gears and targeted Brussels instead. These new details coming to us as prosecutors announce charges for the so-called man in the hat you see him highlighted here.

He's the only known surviving Brussels attacker. This is video taken right before and after the airport bombing. He is also the final named suspect in the Paris attacks.

CNN's senior international correspondent, Fred Pleitgen, live for us in Brussels. Fred, what do you know about what's happening this morning there and the raids and what they may have gained from those yesterday?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Christi, there is a lot of information that's come to us over the past 15, 20 hours. But the most important of it is probably the one that's coming this morning from the federal prosecutor's office.

Whereas you said, they have now come forward and confirmed that these -- the terror group that was operating here in Brussels originally wanted to strike in Paris.

I just want to read you really quickly the statement or part of it from that the federal prosecutor's office put out. It says that they can now confirm that numerous elements in the investigation have shown that the terrorists group initially had the intention to strike in France again.

Eventually surprised by the speed of the progress in the investigation they urgently took the decision to strike in Brussels. So there are several things that are interesting about this.

On the one hand, they say there are numerous things in the investigation that have showed that these people wanted to strike in Paris.

Does this mean that the people t high value targets they took into custody on Friday, are they talking or are other elements that the investigators now have that have led them to believe the original plan was to strike in Paris?

And if you recall, after the Brussels attack a laptop was found, where he was saying that after Salah Abdeslam was taken into the custody they felt they might the next to be arrested and felt they needed to strike as fast as possible.

Certainly the new information seems to confirm that. Now the big question, of course, what would they have don't in Paris? We found out that one of the alleged targets that was due to be struck was the finance district in Paris.

The big question is going to be are they going to get more intel as to which target were actually on the list of this cell. So certainly a lot of information that is coming out at this point in time.

It seems as though the investigators here in Brussels are slowly piecing together what this cell has done and possibly also piecing together who else might be involved -- Christi.

PAUL: All right, Fred Pleitgen, thank you so much. We appreciate it.

We are also following this breaking news in India, a fireworks display exploded at the temple during a religious festival.

SAVIDGE: At least 98 people are known to be dead and more than 500 hurt. It happened very early this morning at the (inaudible) temple. It is in the town of (inaudible) near the southern tip of India. Police say that sparks from the display ignited unexploded fireworks causing massive explosions and a fire.

CNN correspondent, Mallika Kapur is live in Mumbai. Mallika, are they still trying to rescue people there?

MALLIKA KAPUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Authorities are still trying to work through the rubble to rescue people. But the situation does appear to be really, really grim.

I spoke to somebody who was at the site of the temple just a short while ago. And she said that even when they are pulling bodies out of rubble some of them are charred so badly that they are beyond recognition. And authorities are going to have to use DNA testing to identify these bodies. So the situation does remain very grim. It was a massive fire as you can see in the footage. The incident took place at 3:30 a.m.

It's not unusual for worshippers to be praying at this time. It's quite common during festivals at Hindu temples for devotees to be praying overnight and they had fireworks as part of the celebrations.

But there were also other fireworks that have been stored in a shed close by within the temple complex.

[06:05:04]And sparks from the first set of fireworks ignited the other fireworks resulting in these massive, massive flames that engulfed so many structures within the temple complex.

Also the impact was so severe it made some of the other buildings close by fall and that is why we have these mounds of rubble. There were ambulances that rushed to the scene. They have taken several people who are injured to hospitals close by.

The Indian prime minister, he's reacted very swiftly. He's on his way to the temple complex, but he has ordered helicopters to be mobilized.

He's ordered Indian Navy ships to be mobilized and to reach the areas carrying relief supplies and medical supplies. He's also taking a team of doctors including burn specialists to help those who have been wounded.

The need of the hour is really is very much to give medical attention to those who have been injured and struggling for their lives at hospitals close by.

SAVIDGE: Mallika Kapur, thank you very much. Such horrible tragedy there in India. We'll continue to follow through you. Thank you.

PAUL: Back here in the U.S., the race to clinch the Democratic nomination for president is tightening this morning. Hillary Clinton still has the most delegates, but it appears the momentum belongs to Sanders.

Sanders won the Wyoming caucuses last night giving him a big morale boost heading into next week's crucial New York primary. The victory is Sanders eighth win in the last nine contests. Now he's making the case that he's the best candidate to take down Donald Trump.

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BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When it comes to our good friend, Donald Trump, last CNN poll had us 20 points ahead of him. We are making a whole lot of progress. And I think the reason is that we're doing so pretty unusual in a campaign. Number one, we are telling the American people the truth.

(END VIDEO CLIP) PAUL: All right, CNN commentator, Bakari Sellers, who supports Hillary Clinton, and Democratic strategist, Nomiki Konst, she supports Bernie Sanders. Thank you both for getting up early on a Sunday. It's good to see you.

Nomiki, I would like to start with you if I could. Sanders won Wyoming. Both candidates earned seven delegates a piece however, even though he won.

What can he do to build on this momentum to take New York and try to cut further into her lead knowing how this process works that even if he wins the votes that are taken or the caucuses, delegate wise, she still cuts into anything he seems to earn.

NOMIKI KONST, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: They are about dead even to where they were about a month ago in delegates. By all means that's actually momentum because she was surging with delegates just a few months ago.

This poll that came out this week that shows that Bernie Sanders is leading Donald Trump by 20 points and he's above Ted Cruz by 12 points while Hillary Clinton is tied with Ted Cruz and only beats Donald Trump by 9 points before the election. That is good for Bernie Sanders.

That is good for the general election. That cuts into her message that she is the inevitable and she is the most electable candidate because with all the scandals behind her, her poor record on a lot of progressive issues that Democrats deeply care about.

She's running a campaign against her own husband's record and I think that is going to be significant in New York State. Where New York voters are particularly informed because we have so many different news publications and so many candidates come through and media figures.

And they are very tapped in and New York is a very diverse state. So the message that Bernie Sanders is putting out there, economic inequality, of prison reform, criminal justice reform.

He has the most comprehensive five-point criminal justice reform being praised by everybody from the former NAACP head to Cornell West. I mean, these types of issues affect New Yorkers.

And I think it speaks very loud to upstate New York where Hillary Clinton has not visited. She's just re-establishing her roots there after being gone for the past decade.

PAUL: I want to bring Bakari into this. I want to give you a chance. You're chuckling so I know you that have something to say here, but also talking about I want to play this from Hillary Clinton as she talks about how much she needs New Yorkers to come out to lock in her nomination.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We are on the path to the nomination, but I need to win big here in New York because -- because the sooner I can become the nominee, I can turn and unify the Democratic Party like I did with President Obama back in 2008, and the sooner we can go after the Republicans full-time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:10:04]PAUL: How much of a difference will that make, Bakari, to the Clinton camp if she can focus on one campaign as oppose to the two fronts she seems to be facing right now?

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN COMMENTATOR: I think it is important and important for the Democratic Party in this country. The sooner we can start focusing on a general election. But the fact of the matter is we still have a primary.

You can't get to Donald Trump or Ted Cruz without winning the primary first. The math is the math. Contrary to what's been said a little bit earlier, this race is not about momentum. It's never been about momentum.

After March 15th, Hillary Clinton came out with five victories and then she proceeded to lose the next couple of states. This election is not about momentum. It's much as about demographics.

The demographics are changing and changing to favor Hillary Clinton in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and so forth and so on.

Yesterday was a perfect example. Bernie Sanders has to win, but he has to win by extremely large margins. Yesterday was a good day for Hillary Clinton because she came out of a date without much diversity with the 77 delegate split.

And just to hit on one point that Nomiki was talking about. The reason Bernie Sanders is trouncing Donald Trump the way he is because he hasn't been getting attacked for the past two and a half decades.

The Republican Party has not ever turned their sights to Bernie Sanders. When that does happen you will see his negatives rise and those numbers shrink.

I still believe that Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton both are the best candidates and both will beat Donald Trump or Ted Cruz. I just had to make sure that fact was known.

PAUL: I want to get to Director Spike Lee. He just released another ad supporting Bernie Sanders and minorities. Take a look here.

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PAUL: What difference do you think celebrities make in urging people to vote for their choice, Nomiki?

KONST: Well, I think that campaigns -- all campaigns have a history of bringing in notable figures to get their message out. And if you can use notable figures in any way who support your cause to get that issue out, more power to them. That's great.

But I think that this ad was very powerful. I was at an event last night, The Apollo, and we had some great people on stage and a very engage audience. They are all discussing issues like how the Clintons have accepted more private prison money than any other candidates in history.

And how the private prison industry has $5.5 billion in stocks and they are the ones who lobbied for the crime bill. They are the one who have been targeting African-American communities and communities of color and that is problem with the Clinton rhetoric.

PAUL: OK. I want to give Bakari a chance for the last word here. Thank you, Nomiki. Bakari, go ahead.

SELLERS: I love Spike Lee. He's a more house brother of mine. The irony is it is a very good ad, but the mothers of those individuals who were mentioned, of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Trayvon Martin.

Those mothers are all campaigning and supporting Hillary Clinton so that's a bit of irony and yes, celebrities do matter. But I do anticipate -- to stay where they are, which is that Hillary Clinton does extremely well in communities of color and diverse communities and that is going to play this 19th during the New York primary.

PAUL: The 19th and then of course, Pennsylvania afterwards on the 26th. We will be watching of course. We appreciate your insight. Bakari Sellers and Nomiki Konst, thank you for being here.

Also Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders both appear on "STATE OF THE UNION" with Jake Tapper this morning at 9:00 a.m. Eastern here.

And Thursday night they both, Secretary Clinton and Sanders, face off in a CNN Democratic debate live from Brooklyn, New York. Wolf Blitzer will be moderating that. Thursday night at 9 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

SAVIDGE: There is much more news ahead on your NEW DAY. Donald Trump makes a surprise visit to the 9/11 museum in New York. It is his first time and he pulled out his checkbook. Was it all politics?

Also much more coverage on Belgium terror. The Paris terrorist suspect, Mohamad Abrini claims that he's the man with the hat in Brussels airport attack. What prosecutors charge him with?

And John Kerry is in Japan. He is talking terrorism and news. Details ahead.

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[06:18:09]

SAVIDGE: New this morning, Senator Ted Cruz won big out west and Donald Trump is back on the campaign trail today hoping to shore up support in New York. Ted Cruz secured all 34 delegates in Colorado and that's helping him to cut into Trump's lead in the all-important delegate race.

Overnight in Las Vegas, Ted Cruz said that a contested Republican convention in July is now all but certain.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SENATOR TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald's path to 1,237 is almost impossible. It means the odds of going to a contested convention in Cleveland have become much must have higher.

If we go into a contested convention we're going to have a ton of delegates, Donald is going to have a ton of delegates and it is going to be a battle in Cleveland.

And let me tell you, in that scenario, I think we will go in with an overwhelming advantage. I believe the first ballot will be the highest vote total Donald Trump receives and on a subsequent ballot we're going to win the nomination and earn a majority.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: CNN politics senior reporter, Stephen Collinson joins me now. Stephen, good morning to you. Thank you for joining us early. Is he right? Ted Cruz sounds a bit like a salesman. Of course, he's going benefit from that kind of talk so is he really accurate in his portrayal here?

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN POLITICS SENIOR REPORTER: He's had a very good week. It's not just Colorado. Remember, he walked off with 36 of the 42 delegates in Wisconsin, and he is right that every race that goes by in which Ted Cruz wins more delegates and Donald Trump doesn't.

It makes it much more difficult for Donald Trump to get to the 1,237 figure by which could win the first ballot to the convention and take the nomination.

What we saw in Colorado was Ted Cruz's political machine and organization was functioning very smoothly and that will go over well for a contested convention.

Donald Trump now needs to win about 63 percent of the remaining delegates to get to 1,237. So he's going have to up his game.

[06:20:06]At the moment, he's been winning about 45 percent of the delegates in the contests so far. But there is one caveat the race is heading east to New York on April 19th and then we have some contests in Pennsylvania, Maryland, places like that where Donald Trump is expected to do very well.

So the race now is all about how many delegates Ted Cruz can peel away from Donald Trump in those states where Trump will do well to make sure he doesn't get to that 1,237 number.

SAVIDGE: Right. Because Ted Cruz is not looking to be doing as well in New York as he's done in other places. Donald Trump back on the campaign trail today we're saying. In New York saturday, this is very surprising to me, made what is reported to be his first visit to the 9/11 Museum.

He was there with his wife and he also made a $100,000 donation to the museum. Sounds like politics at play here, but you give me a read.

COLLINSON: Right. I mean, you can't ignore the fact that this is coming a week before the New York primary. It is also coming in the context of this big debate between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz about New York values.

You'll remember in a debate some weeks back that Ted Cruz condemned New York values can, which he said were not conservative and were liberal values and painted Donald Trump as a much more liberal candidate.

So that's in microcosm the race we are seeing in New York. Donald Trump is positioning himself as the ultimate New Yorker, perhaps going for the Rudy Giuliani New York vote if you like.

Ted Cruz knows he probably can't win New York, but he thinks he has a good chance of running some delegate totals in upstate New York, in western New York, which is a lot more conservative.

That perhaps looks with some suspicion towards Manhattan and New York City and he thinks he can do very well. So by standing up and condemning liberal New York values, it might not be such a bad campaign tactic by Ted Cruz it appears at first sight -- Martin.

SAVIDGE: The "Boston Globe" today published what they say is an imaginary front page, where they envision headlines under a Donald Trump presidency. One says, quote, "deportations to begin," unquote. This was done by "The Globe's" editorial board, which says it was meant to start a conversation. Is this going too far?

COLLINSON: I guess, we should stress this was done by the editorial page and not the news operation of "The Globe" and "The Globe" says it readers will be able to see the difference very easily. It's interesting that this is happening a month after the Massachusetts primary, which Donald Trump won easily.

So it is hardly influencing local politics, but I think it is a sign of something we're going see more and more. There hasn't been that much scrutiny right now so far what Donald Trump would actually do as president.

That's started to change in the last few weeks. He had a rough patch on abortion and foreign policy. He's now being looked at as a potential nominee of the Republican Party. One of the two people who could actually become the president of the United States.

So I think we are going to see much more scrutiny of his positions on immigration, for example, of what that would mean, deportations of illegal immigrants, which he said would be carried out under his presidency.

So I think it is going to be interesting to see how the scrutiny increases on Donald Trump and how he handles the increased pressure because nominees always get under the spotlight the further we go on in the race. It's a very testing time for a candidate.

BLACKWELL: Yes. It is going to become quite intense if it hasn't already. Stephen Collinson, thank you very much for joining us this morning.

And a programming note, CNN hosts a town hall with Donald Trump, Tuesday night, 9:00 Eastern. His wife, Melania, and his daughter, Evanka, will join him. Anderson Cooper is the host of that. That's Tuesday 9:00 Eastern right here on CNN.

PAUL: Well, a former NFL player shot and killed in New Orleans. We'll tell you about that.

Also the suspect in the Brussels and Paris attacks now charged with terrorism. The bomb shell confession he dropped on prosecutors and the effect that it may have on the war against ISIS. We have a full terrorism panel for you straight ahead. Stay put.

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[06:27:41]

PAUL: It's 27 minutes past the hour. I want to share with you some new information we are getting out of Brussels this morning.

SAVIDGE: Belgium prosecutors now have their so-called man in the hat. Mohamed Abrini was arrested Friday in a raid. Officials say he has now confessed to being the man seen at the airport right before the Brussels bombing. He's also the final known suspect directly linked to the bombings last year in Paris. In a few minutes we'll talk more about all this including more raids in Brussels.

Former NFL player, Will Smith, was shot to death overnight after a traffic dispute in New Orleans. Police say he was killed after exchanging words with a driver who rear-ended his car. Smith's wife was also shot and taken to the hospital.

Smith spent his entire nine-year career with the Saints including winning the Super Bowl. The team confirmed the news a short time ago calling it a senseless and tragic loss.

PAUL: Britain's Prince William and his wife, the Duchess of Cambridge starting a weeklong trip to India. The couple began their first visit to the country by paying respects to the victims of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

William and Katherine will also meet with children's groups and mingle with some Bollywood celebrities and take part in a game of cricket. This visit aims to strengthen ties between India and the U.K.

SAVIDGE: Secretary of State John Kerry is in Hiroshima, Japan for two-day meeting of leaders of the G7 nations. This visit aims to lay the groundwork for next month's G7 summit. Key topics for the visit are terrorism, refugee crisis, and nuclear disarmament.

It is the first trip to Hiroshima by a sitting secretary of state. The city was devastated by an atomic bomb at the end of World War II.

PAUL: The pope is making waves among Catholics around the world with a new message about non-traditional families and divorced Catholics. Father Beck is going to weigh in here.

SAVIDGE: Plus the major confession of a key terror suspect just dropped on prosecutors. Details coming up.

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