High Point For Hillary Clinton?; Bergdahl, Feinstein Calls Out Kerry
MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: And welcome back. Here's a look at your headlines. What drove a married couple to murder three people in cold blood including two Las Vegas police officers? Authorities say the suspects had extremist views toward law enforcement. Those officers were shot while they were sitting, eating lunch. A third person was gunned down at a nearby Walmart before the couple took their own lives. Police say the two had a suicide pact. Breaking overnight, 28 people are now dead. Dozens others injured in an attack in Pakistan's busiest airport. That assault began late Sunday night at the international airport in Karachi. Ten of the dead are militants who stormed the cargo area with guns, grenades and suicide vests. Pakistani Taliban said it carried out the attack as retaliation for an American drone strike that killed their leader. Comedian, Tracy Morgan's publicist says that he is showing signs of improvement following a car crash, but remains in critical condition after that deadly highway crash this weekend in New Jersey. Comedian, James McNair, known as Jimmy Mac was killed in that crash. Three others were injured when police say a tractor trailer slammed into their limo. You can see how mangled the wreckage is. The truck driver, 35-year-old Kevin Roper is due in court today.</s>CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: What a terrible situation. The pictures of that thing.</s>PEREIRA: It's really hard to look at that vehicle.</s>BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: If you've ever been in a limo, do buckle up.</s>PEREIRA: Or even just those vans.</s>CUOMO: You have to. Weeks in the hospital, that's more than broken bones. We wish Tracy Morgan well. All right, a lot of intrigue going on in politics. We've been telling you about it all morning. So let's get deeper "Inside Politics" on NEW DAY with Mr. John King. It doesn't get deeper than you.</s>JOHN KING, CNN HOST, "INSIDE POLITICS": Well, it doesn't get more fun than this week because we've got, I don't know if you guys have noticed, Hillary Clinton, she wrote a book?</s>BALDWIN: She did? Get out of here.</s>CUOMO: Is she going to run? Is there any speculation?</s>KING: We don't know. We're going to try to figure that out right now. With me this morning to sort through those tea leaves, Maeve Reston of "The Los Angeles Times" and Jonathan Martin of "The New York Times." Let's start, Secretary Clinton is doing a whole series, a huge media blitz. This is a very well choreographed roll out. Diane Sawyer of ABC tries to get her to say when will you tell us for sure about 2016?</s>HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: I will be on the way of making a decision by the end of the year, yes.</s>DIANE SAWYER, ABC: But probably not announced until next year?</s>CLINTON: I'm not positive about that, but I think, you know, the way I make decision, that's probably likely.</s>KING: I'll be on my way to making a decision by the end the year. She insists, Meg, that she's not freezing out all the Democrats if Governor O'Malley of Maryland wants to do something or Governor Hickenlooper of Colorado wants to do something, go for it. Get out there. Parallel universe, no Democrat can do anything, right?</s>MAEVE RESTON, "THE LOS ANGELES TIMES": Exactly. The entire world is frozen. But I do think she has the luxury of time here because of the infrastructure that's been built over the Clinton dynasty will spring up around her. And she's got, I mean, that's the real issue, the donors are frozen on the sidelines.</s>KING: Donors, staff, the whole Democratic armada as moved into --</s>RESTON: Right.</s>KING: Armada is a hard word for it. The question, Jonathan, people are looking for, does she say anything in the book or anything in this roll out that gives a hint, I have to say she's leaning in. It's a point-by-point rebuttal of criticisms as her time as secretary of state. It's her point-by-point of things she did wrong in 2008. She is very honest saying I made a mistake in the Iraq war. I regret it. She wouldn't say that in 2008. She tries to be a little more human. The polling numbers for her right now are off the charts. ABC in conjunction with that interview conducted a poll with "The Washington Post," 69 percent of registered Democrats support her nomination. This is interesting to me, 58 percent of registered Democrats want a challenger. So they want her to earn it.</s>JONATHAN MARTIN, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Those numbers are better than what they started with in '08. Keep in mind, she started pretty well in '08. I think your point, in the intro, John, is key. Yes, the content is striking in terms of how cautious she is, in terms not wanting unduly anger anybody. To me, what is more telling in the words in the book is what she and her staff are doing for the so- called rollout. People in public life who have their careers behind them, do not do these kinds of orchestrated pronouncement and leaks for weeks and weeks. They just write the book and it comes out and they go on tour. This is not a book tour. It is an organized campaign frankly ahead of a campaign.</s>RESTON: It's good practice for her. She's been at this for a while. To your point, I mean, the idea, I think some of her people think it would be helpful to have a challenger on the lap to sharpen her up the way Barack Obama did. A lot of her answers are wordy and long. She's got to kind of get back in it.</s>KING: I also think she hopes -- I'm assuming she runs, I believe she's running unless something happens, that she's going to answer a lot of these questions about her record, about the criticisms about the so-called negatives are baggage in 2014. And if a Republican brings it up in 2016, if she's a nominee, she says, I want to talk about the economy. I want to talk about the challenge Americans are facing at home. That's one thing her husband did brilliantly when he was running for president and one of the controversies will be about the Clinton machine as you said, the Clinton dynasty. Bill Clinton when he left the White House made a lot of money giving speeches. Hillary Clinton since she left a foggy bottom. The State Department making a lot of money giving paid speeches. Diane Sawyer asked her why she needs all that.</s>CLINTON: We came out of the White House, not only dead broke but in debt. We had no money when we got there. We struggled to piece together the resources for mortgages, for houses, for Chelsea's education. You know, it was not easy.</s>KING: Fourteen years later -- and it has been 14 years, that's the striking part to me. Look, the governor of Arkansas when Bill Clinton didn't get paid a lot of money. The president now gets paid $400,000. She gave up a lucrative law career to be the first lady. So there's no question they could have been making a lot of money in the private sector. They also had a lot of legal bills. I remember it wasn't just the Clintons, their staff.</s>RESTON: And by bringing that up, that's actually interesting that leads the conversation back to Whitewater. But at the same time, that's a way for her to sort of connect with the average voter who is struggling to put their money for their mortgages together. And she's been floating in the very elite circles for quite some time now and she is going to have to do a lot of that showing people how she can relate, you know, saying she's been through the same kinds of struggles that other Americans have.</s>MARTIN: One of the critiques that I hear from the left, is the fact that Hillary is giving speeches, but she's appearing on Wall Street, talking to some of these firms when they just don't need the money that badly. You hear that critique over and over again. Why would see --</s>KING: It more likely be a challenge from the left than in the general election?</s>RESTON: Yes, exactly. I mean, this will certainly come up, I mean, how the Clintons have made their money. The connections to donors overtime and that will be explored in depth.</s>KING: Let's move on to the Bowe Bergdahl controversy. I was struck yesterday for the second Sunday in a row, the administration has sent out one of their heavy hitters. Last week, it was Susan Rice. She said Bowe Bergdahl served with honor and distinction and she was panned for that. This weekend, it was Secretary of State John Kerry, doing an interview with CNN's Elise Labbot. Listen to John Kerry here. There's been a lot of concern to release these five ranking Taliban, former commanders. A lot of people worried there aren't a lot of restriction on them. John Kerry says don't worry. We got this.</s>ELISE LABOTT, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS REPORTER: How confident are you that the Qataris are able to keep a close eye on these guys?</s>JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: They're not the only ones keeping an eye on them.</s>LABOTT: The U.S. is monitoring them?</s>KERRY: I'm just telling you, they're not the only ones keeping an eye on them and we have confidence in those requirements. If they're violated then we have the ability to do things.</s>KING: But listen here on "Face The Nation" yesterday morning on CBS, Diana Feinstein, a Democrat. The question wasn't even specifically about this and she brought it up to Bob Schieffer saying, sorry, John.</s>SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D-CA), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: So there are concerns over, and I heard John Kerry this morning say, don't worry about them in Doha. You can't help but worry about them in Doha.</s>KING: Democrats, Democrats not just Republicans going out of their way to essentially question the credibility and the candor of top Obama administration officials. What does that tell you about how deep this ditch is?</s>RESTON: I mean, that's very deep. I mean, it's interesting that we don't have a lot of the facts about this deal and what the assurances are. I mean, in that interview, Kerry was very vague about what would be done to monitor these prisoners who have been released. So I think, you have an opening, certainly, Democrats are talking about it, and Republicans to argue, are we safer, is the Democratic administration makes us safer by not telling us how we're going to watch these guys.</s>MARTIN: I think it's the natural result of what has been six years of frustration among Democrats on Capitol Hill towards the Obama administration in terms of information and flow. On a really sensitive issue like this, I think you'll see a lot of those frustrations spill over.</s>KING: Maeve Reston, Jonathan Martin. Thanks for coming in. One more footnote we want to make, guys. The Texas Republican Party has its convention over the weekend. It was an interesting event. One of the things they did was they passed language saying the state should not pass a law, any law, that bans so-called reparative therapy. Those very conservative participants in the Texas Republican Convention making their case that they believe that if you are gay, you can get counseling or some sort of therapy. You see there, we recognize the legitimacy and efficacy of counseling, which offers reparative therapy and treatment for those patients see seeking healing and wholeness from their homosexual lifestyle." Interesting to me, you know, half the country now supports a constitutional amendment allowing gay marriage. It will be interesting to me because you have Ted Cruz, Kate and Chris, you have Rick Perry, the governor of Texas thinking about running for president and the statement from the very conservative Republican convention. It's not a state wide ballot, but if they run for president, does this follow that?</s>CUOMO: Well, I hope so, I guess. I think whenever you're having any litmus-type test on a social issue like this, you want people to be pushed to say exactly where they are on it. I have to tell you, that's going to be very troubling to people. I don't know, John, you'd know better than we do, how do you spin that in a way that's close to neutral?</s>KING: I think they said delegates at the convention said it, we see candidates all the time, Democrats and Republican presidential candidates run from pieces of their party's national platform. What it means when standing on a debate in Iowa, New Hampshire, somewhere else, the question comes up. That's the question for Republicans do we want to keep talking about gay rights or problems with demographics. Young people, for example, I don't think would like that language.</s>CUOMO: Young people? I think it would go broader. Who still thinks that homosexuality is an illness?</s>BALDWIN: There are --</s>CUOMO: I don't know. Hopefully, we turn the corner on that. John King, thank you very much.</s>BALDWIN: I wasn't correct him. The other Bolduan on vacation. Coming up on NEW DAY, a daring escape leads to a massive manhunt after a prisoners uses a helicopter to get away. And a brazen prison break. Not the first of its kind. Find out what authorities are now telling the public.