Container Ship Caught in the Middle of Hurricane Joaquin; Donald Trump Still Leading Republican Pack
COOPER: As we continue to follow the unfolding disaster on the flooded ground in South Carolina, we're learning more tonight about the storm tragedy that struck at sea. A container ship caught in the middle of hurricane Joaquin in the El Faro with a crew of 33 including 28 Americans, the search for survivors now underway. Now, the latest from our Alexandra Field.</s>ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In empty life boat, the lifeless body found by searchers who say the cargo ship El Faro sank. It is now likely thousands of feet down on the floor of the Caribbean Sea.</s>LAURIE BOBILLOT, DAUGHTER ON BOARD EL FARO: Not sure if you have been following the weather at all but there is a hurricane out here and we're heading straight into it, category three. Last we checked winds are super bad and seas are not great. Love to everyone.</s>FIELD: That's the last email from one of 33 people aboard the ship that lost contact on Thursday just as hurricane Joaquin slammed into the Bahamas. Winds raging at 140 miles per hour, waves crashing 50- feet high. The high winds and huge waves hampered early efforts to find El Faro which left Jackson to Florida on Tuesday and was scheduled to arrive in Puerto Rico by Friday.</s>CAPT. MARK FEDOR, U.S. COAST GUARD: If the vessel did sink on Thursday and that crew was able to abandon ship, they would have been abandoning ship into a category four hurricane.</s>FIELD: The one recovered lifeboat is damaged and no signs anyone was ever in it and still no signs of El Faro's other lifeboats. Search crews are still hoping they will find survivors in two debris fields where they spotted cargo and life preservers. One, northeast of the Bahamas, El Faro's last known location. The other 60 miles north of that. So far only one body has been spotted floating in a survival suit unidentifiable and unable to be recovered.</s>FEDOR: The science is really just busy</s>FIELD: The coast guard says the ship lost power Thursday morning. But officials haven't explained why leaving it vulnerable to the force of the waves, previously taken on water and was already leaning over. Twenty-eight Americans and five Polish nationals all on board a ship piled high with 391 containers plus 294 vehicles. Among them according to the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, graduates of the school, Keith Griffin and Jeffrey Matias.</s>TO BUSHY, MASSACHUSETTS MARITIME ACADEMY: Mariners don't fear too much, I don't think. But fear this, when their shipmates, their schoolmates, their friends, their family members are involved in a marine tragedy.</s>FIELD: The main maritime academy says there are reports four of their graduates were also on board. Alexandra Field, CNN, New York.</s>COOPER: It is just terrible. We'll of course, be following this and all storm-related stories throughout the night. We turn now, though, to politics and new polling that shows Donald Trump still leading Republican pact but by a slimmer margin these days. The latest NBC News/"Wall Street Journal" Marist university numbers out of Iowa showing a five-point Trump lead over Dr. Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina in third place. A month ago he was up seven points in the same poll over Dr. Carson with Jeb Bush in third. The Trump's also lead continues in New Hampshire with Fiorina in second, Jeb Bush in double digits at 11 percent. Again, though, Trump's lead shrunk from a month ago from 17 point over the leading rival back then to just five points now. As always, a reminder, early polling may not predict much. On the other hand, to CNN's Dana Bash discovered for a candidate like Donald Trump who places so much stock in its numbers, polling could say a lot about his campaign's future.</s>DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What would it take for Donald Trump to drop out of the race?</s>DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm not masochist. And if I was dropping in the polls where I saw that I wasn't going to win, why would I continue? I'm a realest. I'm doing great in the polls right now.</s>BASH: Hot on Trump's heels, Carly Fiorina campaigning today in New Hampshire the old fashioned way at a Rotary Club.</s>CARLY FIORINA (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Here in New Hampshire, we are all revealed. And that is because this is a place where campaigning is intimate.</s>BASH: There is nothing intimate about Donald Trump's campaign style, a lot of interviews and social media. Then there was this, a "Saturday Night Live" impersonator leading the season's premiere.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is very simple. I get in there, taxes go down, everybody gets a job, salaries go way up, we build a wall, it's huge over in China, they are going to say now that's a wall.</s>BASH: The real Donald Trump set his sights today on Bernie Sanders tweeting senator Sanders communism is a further development or higher stage of socialism. Bernie Sanders wants to turn America into a hippy commune. And trump went after his GOP rival Marco Rubio retweeting a boyhood photo of the 44-year-old senator that also refers to him as little Rub and says he doesn't have the swagger to run the country. But Rubio is on the rise from three percent to ten percent in New Hampshire. No response to Trump but he is defending himself against criticism from his former mentor Jeb Bush who told us Rubio is inexperience as a first term senator was reminiscent of President Obama.</s>JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have a president who came in and said the same kind of thing, new and improved, open to change.</s>BASH: Today Rubio pushed back saying it's about ideas, not experience.</s>SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If he had been in the Senate for 50 years, I think he still would have met some of the failures. He's meeting because his ideas don't work.</s>COOPER: Dana joins us now. I mean, it seems as if the race is tightening. But obviously, a lot can change between now and February.</s>BASH: So much can change. I was just looking back at the polls thinking about the distance in time between now and the Iowa caucus is February 1st. Four months ago, if the caucuses were held then, guess who would have won the Iowa caucuses? Scott Walker. He's not even in the race right now. So that I think is a very eliminating way to answer the question. And also, just look at the poll that you were talking about in New Hampshire. John Kasich did very well in the first Republican debate, and his numbers got much better in New Hampshire which is where he's putting most effort. But in this new poll they cut in half in the past month because the second debate maybe he didn't leave as much of an impression. So it's very, very volatile. But one thing does seem to be consistent at least in the past several months, Anderson, those never before elected officials candidates who have never been in public office, they are still doing pretty well.</s>COOPER: Yes, legal way. Dana, thanks very much.