Jeb Bush Gets Help from His Big Brother
HOWELL: This year alone an estimated 83,000 refugees have landed in Europe. The E.U.'s military force is trying to curb the flow of migrants who making that dangerous journey by sea into Europe. Their goal is to target human traffickers. CNN's Phil Black has been on a warship off the Libyan coast to find out more about the mission.</s>PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We've been at sea in the Mediterranean with Italian and Spanish naval forces for about five, six days now. This is part of the E.U. naval operation against people smugglers operating out of Libya. We started when we were first transferred to the Italian aircraft carrier Cavour. It is the command ship for this entire operation. It is big, it's pretty new and it's really very impressive. From there, we came here to the Numancia, the Spanish frigate. And in pretty big seas, we've been carving through the south of the Med. These conditions here have been too big, the swell too rough, the winds too strong for people smuggling boats to put to sea. So in the meantime, the crew of these vessels, they need to train. And so we witnessed the Marines aboard the Numancia conduct a boarding exercise. The Marines are the ones responsible for approaching, making the initial approach to the migrant vessels, giving a security assessment, making sure that there is no threat. During our time at sea, we spent a lot of time clambering in and out of helicopters. Aboard the helicopter here on the Numancia, we were able to get very, very close to the Libyan border. Through the haze, you can see the Libyan coastline in the distance, with 12 nautical miles away at the very edge of Libyan territorial waters. This is as close as these forces can get to where the people smuggling operations are based. But living aboard a frigate built in the 1980s, the late 1980s, it takes some getting used to, but it's also really good fun, at least for a few days in the way that we're doing it. But you get a real sense of just what a challenging environment this would be to live in, in the long term. So, it is, of course, incredibly narrow. The confined space, we got lost a few times. Actually we're on the wrong deck. The hallways narrow, passing people all the time. We were warned that the single most dangerous thing aboard the ship are these narrow, steep ladders and stairs that separate the decks. And this is where they control the ship. And it's a pretty extraordinary view. To get a sense of where this ship has been operating, where we are and what we're waiting for, this is a map of the southern area of the Mediterranean. I'm not allowed to show you the area that shows the coast of Libya. But the people who run this operation, they talk about the Lampedusa triangle. So if you imagine the coast of Libya down here, there is Tripoli on the eastern side of the map. To the left, heading towards the border with Tunisia. It is from here, they say, this stretch of coast, the boats leave and head out north. That's the triangular shape heading towards the Italian island of Lampedusa, more towards the center of the map. So today as the ship has been plowing through seas much bigger than what you see here now, this is pretty flat. The winds are pretty gentle by comparison. They've come down a long way. This, the crew believes, makes it more likely that you're going to see some sort of migrant boat movement. But where we've been positioned for a couple of days now, we've been holding a pattern to the northwest of Tripoli, probably just to the northwestern side of the Libyan coast in international waters, waiting here in a position the crew believes is beyond the detection of the people-smuggling crews and operators back on the Libyan coast itself.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will arrive at 15 nautical miles.</s>BLACK: This is one of the Marines stationed aboard a 50-caliber weapon trained to the side. He is looking out and ready for the possibility of some sort of attack from a smaller vessel. What the commanding officer describes as asymmetrical terrorist attack.</s>HOWELL: Now to the race for the White House. U.S. Republican candidate Donald Trump is threatening to sue his rival Ted Cruz. Trump sent out this tweet earlier threatening to take Cruz to court over whether he's a natural born U.S. citizen. That is if the Texas senator doesn't stop running negative ads against him. Trump is questioning Cruz's eligibility to become president since he was born in Canada. The Cruz campaign hit back saying that Trump needs to go to, quote, "the time-out chair," and think about his choices. Fellow Republican candidate Jeb Bush has been struggling in the polls but is now getting a little help from his big brother. That would be the former U.S. president George W. Bush who will be campaigning for his brother in the state of South Carolina this week. CNN's Athena Jones has this report.</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER UNITED STATES PRESIDENT: I know Jeb.</s>ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): George W. Bush is back.</s>G. BUSH: Experience and judgment count in the Oval Office. Jeb Bush is a leader who will keep our country safe. He respects the military. He honors their families.</s>JONES: And Jeb Bush couldn't be happier about it.</s>JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He's the last Republican that was president. He is the most popular Republican alive. I'm a proud brother of George W. Bush.</s>JONES: Bush, whose campaign logo doesn't even include his famous last name, and who began his run thrusting he would be, quote, "his own man," has been embracing his family more with each passing day.</s>J. BUSH: I'm Jeb, exclamation point, proud to be a Bush.</s>JONES: The mother Barbara Bush joining him on the stump in New Hampshire. The brothers will be campaigning together for the first time Monday. Until now W has been helping out behind the scenes.</s>J. BUSH: This is the first time that he's really kind of stepped out in the political realm since he was president. I think there'll be a lot of interest in what he has to say.</s>JONES: It was once the younger Bush who was thought to have a head for politics, but his older brother beat him there, winning a governorship first and later the White House.</s>G. BUSH: I, George Walker Bush, do solemnly swear.</s>JONES: Eight years during which Jeb Bush has said he never disagreed with his brother on policy.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Not one time did you call up and say, you know what, don't do that?</s>J. BUSH: I'm not going to start now. It's just until death do us part.</s>JONES: The assist from W won't come without criticism.</s>DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Your brother and your brother's administration gave us Barack Obama because it was such a disaster those last three months that Abraham Lincoln couldn't have been elected.</s>J. BUSH: You know what, as it relates to my brother, there's one thing I know for sure, he kept us safe.</s>JONES: Donald Trump has repeatedly bashed the elder Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq.</s>TRUMP: And I see he's bringing his brother.</s>JONES: And the GOP frontrunner says he'll be ready with some more choice words for the Bushes in the coming days.</s>TRUMP: Now he's bringing in his brother. I won't say anything. I'm going to save that for after his brother makes a statement because there's plenty to say about what happened.</s>HOWELL: That was CNN's Athena Jones reporting for us. Meanwhile, on the Democratic side of the race, the candidates are trying to boost their support going into the next round of primaries. And Hillary Clinton just picked up endorsements, big endorsements, from newspapers in the states of Texas and Florida. The "Dallas Morning News," "Houston Chronicle," and "Tampa Bay Times" all published editorials praising her record and stances on issues. But they had complaints about her, too. The Florida paper called Clinton, quote, "an imperfect candidate with political baggage that would sink most other politicians." Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders is under fire for claiming that race relations would be better if he is president than under the current president, Barack Obama. Atlanta's Democratic mayor, Kasim Reed, spoke to our Erin Burnett earlier and called Sanders' comments dismissive and disrespectful. We should also note that Mr. Reed is a Clinton supporter. Still ahead here on CNN NEWSROOM, a group of school children in the United States have messages and questions for Pope Francis. Find out what they had to say and whether their words reached the Catholic leader. Plus, the Zika outbreak continues to cast a shadow over Brazil. The government's latest plans to fight the virus. Broadcasting from Atlanta and live around the world this hour, you're watching CNN.