Saturday-03
Third-Party Run; Obama Slams Trump On Foreign Policy Knowledge;
Sanders Demands Apology From Clinton; 24 Arrested in Brussels; ISIS
Taken Over Mosul University Chemistry Labs; Joe Biden Arrives in
Houston for Final Four. Aired 8-9a ET - Part 2>
ZIMMERMAN: Hold on ...
[08:34:58] BROSTOFF: And that's about getting people who -- sorry, let me just finish the point, Robert. That's about getting people who are excited to vote in a Democratic primary, excited to get in a political process.
(Crosstalk)
BROSTOFF: ... I'll proud of. I think ...
BLACKWELL: Robert, go ahead.
ZIMMERMAN: This distracting moment you're making reference to has become the center piece of the Sanders campaign. There are personal attacks on Secretary Clinton versus talking about the issues where they differ on policy. And I think that's frustrating for I think all of us who want to see an important policy discussion. And if you think these personal attacks are so you call them are inspirational, well, if you come to New York, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I can get you a good deal on. Because what's you're seeing is not ...
BLACKWELL: Hold on, let Robert finish now.
ZIMMERMAN: The personal attack from ...
BROSTOFF: That's a good point ...
ZIMMERMAN: ... the old politics and the politics of desperation.
BLACKWELL: All right, Representative, go ahead. And let me throw this in here. Let me throw this in here. If there is a specific instance in which the Sanders campaign believes that these contributions caused her to change her position or change a policy position, why not say that instead of just giving a number and an industry and letting people kind of connect it for themselves? BROSTOFF: Well, let me answer Robert's point directly. Robert, the simple fact of the matter is, if we want to talk about policy, I'm more than happy to. In fact, that what we should be talking about. And Bernie Sanders has given -- given a one-word answer when it comes to fracking and that is no. He's against it. He's against it nationwide. He's against it for the rest of the world. So if you want to talk about policy, let's talk about policy. He's against fracking and that's an important environmental issue to a lot of the voters in Wisconsin and I think a lot of the voters across the country and that's why he's surging and doing so well as we're coming.
Look, we cut the lead by a third in the delegates. We are winning six of the last seven states. I think we're going to win Wisconsin and moving forward.
(Crosstalk)
BLACKWELL: Robert, I want to comeback -- I'm sorry. Representative, I want to come back to that question and we need to wrap up here. If there is a direct connection between the numbers that Senator Sanders read out according to Greenpeace, according to other studies and a policy position and the reversal that you see, what is it? And shouldn't the campaign say that instead of reading numbers and then just saying connected for yourself?
BROSTOFF: Well, I'm always more interested in giving out facts than talking about whatever, you know, personal inspirations or whatever, ideas people might have on their own. But I think the policy issue behind all of this is fracking and we should be talking about that directly. I would like to hear the same one-word answer coming from all the campaigns which is no, we're universally against fracking and it's bad environmental policy.
BLACKWELL: All right, Representative Jonathan Brostoff and Robert Zimmerman, good to have both of you this morning.
ZIMMERMAN: Thank you, good morning.
BROSTOFF: Thank you very much.
BLACKWELL: And, sir, Bernie Sanders is Jake Tapper's guest on "STATE OF THE UNION" that this Sunday at 9:00 a.m. Eastern right here on CNN, Christi?
PAUL,: After the break, we're learning several arrests have been made in Brussels after a protest got out of hand this morning. We'll have a live report for you. Also, ISIS has taken over Mosul University in Iraq. The reason, access to fully stocked chemistry labs where they can make bombs. How the U.S. is trying to eliminate the threat and what we know about it.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
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(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:43:14] PAUL: Have some breaking news, we want to show to you this hour, 24 people we've leaned had been arrested in Brussels at the square where a temporary public memorial for the victims of the Brussels terror attack have been set up. And this is some of the latest video coming into us now.
BLACKWELL: Now, this is happening after decree banning a plan anti- Islam rally in Molenbeek. The area where several of the terror suspects live. Our CNN's Alexandra Field joins us by phone now. Alexandra, what have you seen this morning? What have you know so far?
ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we saw a fairly large crowd gathering (inaudible) which is not entirely unusual. This is the of course same spot where people have been going to memorialize the victims of the attacks for more than a week now.
But there was clear directive from city officials that there would no demonstrations, there would no public gatherings that kind of sort. So when people were seemingly refusing to disburse, you did see police come in and bring the square. This is different from last week when we saw them in riot gear with crowd disbursal vehicle, quite a different scene. There's a large number of police who came in and some on horseback, some on motorbike. They were moving throughout the crowd asking people to disburse.
Those who refute were detained, put into police vans. We saw at least two dozen people who are taken away. As far as what the crowd wanted, we could hear them shouting various -- shouting various slogans including "We Are All Sons of Immigrants", saying that Brussels with a multi-cultural place and calling for peace, even some playing guitars and singing songs.
But the police were seemingly acting under these orders, the directives from city officials who said they did not want these gatherings to take place this weekend. That order came down after plans were reveal that a group was planning on arriving in that Molenbeek, that neighborhood that you just mentioned planning on organizing this sort of right wing anti-immigrant, anti-immigration protest.
[08:45:06] There were concerns that that could generate clashes, not the kind of things that officials do not want to see in this video at this point, especially when they are continuing to go police resources, to trying to conduct raids, trying to find out who else may have been connected to the Brussels attacks or plotting other potential attacks.
BLACKWELL: All right. We're seeing all the video on the screen now from those arrests earlier in the day. Several people, more than 24, have been arrested. We know Alexandra Field on the phone with us. Alexandra, thanks so much.
ISIS has taken over Mosul University in Iraq using the chemistry labs there to create bombs reportedly, up next. What the U.S. is doing about this?
PAUL: Also, Joe Biden is getting in on the March madness action. We're taking you live to Houston where the vice president will be sit in court side later today and he does have another intention for being there. We'll talk about it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:49:18] PAUL: Following new developments right now in Iraq where a university in ISIS-held territory is being used to by the terror group their manufacture weapons in trained foreign fighters in the science of bomb making. I want to share some new images we're getting here with you. U.S. war planes bombing Mosul University. There have been more than a dozen strikes in recent weeks. The are taking out ISIS instillations across the campus but one critical target is the chemistry lab.
CNN Military Analyst retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling joining us now here. So do we know -- how much do we know, I guess, about what they've made and how much they've stockpiled there?
RET. LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, first of all, Christi, let's talk a little bit about what Mosul University is. This is the second largest university in Iraq.
[08:50:01] At it height, it had about 4,000 professors and about 30,000 students. So this is a very large university, very well- respected. A lot of people from the Middle East travel there. Especially their chemistry department and very well-known in the Middle East. What we've saw when ISIS took over in 2014. They took this campus dispensed with all the activity, disbursed the students. Many of the students have gone into the Kurdish region to continue to try to study. But they have taken over this university with all the equipment to include the chemistry labs.
There were estimates that there were upwards of 50 pounds of various radio active substances in the university and those -- that's a key ingredient for making a dirty bomb. It's not an atomic weapon. It doesn't create a mushroom cloud and have a heat blast and radiation that we see in other atomic weapons but it does spread radiation.
In fact, the experts call this a weapon of mass disruption, not destruction because it causes psychological terror. And the requirement that clean up afterwards. That's the emphasis that ISIS has on the chemistry department in Mosul University.
PAUL: So how confident are you that the coalition forces can keep ISIS from making one of those bombs, particularly in this facility?
HERTLING: Yeah, not very confident at all truthfully. There had been -- ISIS and al-Qaeda before them have been attempting to make dirty bombs for over a decade. There's only been one instance or couple of instances of attempts at exploding dirty bombs, both of those were in Russia. One was in a Moscow training station, the other one in Grozny, Chechnya. Neither one of them happened.
But when those bombs do explode, it's literally an explosive with radio active material wrapped around it. It creates a radio active zone with a lot of requirements to clean up and move people out. It's not that difficult to make truthfully and that's why one of the emphasis of the conference that President Obama held yesterday was how do you secure radio active material if locations all around the world, very difficult to secure that when you're studying and using radio active material for a variety of sources.
PAUL: Is that part of the problem when it comes to trying to take out the facility because if they know where the chemistry lab is, you know, rudimentary you would think just bomb that facility and it's done. That's not the case?
HERTLING: Well, yeah, there's two problems associated with it. First of all, Christi, earlier this morning, we were talking about collateral damage. There is still -- there are still a lot of students in this area hoping class will restart and this is a large campus facility so you don't really know -- you know exactly where the chemistry building is, but I would suspect that the equipment, the uranium or cesium or whatever kind of radio active material was taken over a year ago when ISIS first went in there. It was not a consideration at the time.
So we're basically shooting behind the duck on this. They know that there are some people in that facility, some of them are ISIS. They don't know completely who is occupying that facility, so that's where we have to take great care. And, again, when you bomb a facility that has uranium or cesium in it, you also create a radiation has hazard. So that's part of the problem associated with this as well.
PAUL: OK. Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, so appreciate your insight on this. Thank you.
HERTLING: Thank you, Christi.
PAUL: Always, sir, thanks. Victor?
BLACKWELL: All right. Thank you, Christi.
The White House is representing at the March madness Final Four today. We're live in Houston with the details on Joe Biden's arrival for the big games. Why he's really there?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:57:07] PAUL: Oklahoma star Buddy Hield will not playing in the Final Four until tonight of course. And, you know, we already know he's been coming through.
BLACKWELL: Little something, he's something to say. Andy Scholes has more from Houston in this morning's Bleacher Report. Andy, good morning.
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Good morning, guys. You know, excitement building for tonight's big Final Four game. The first match up, we have Villanova taking on Oklahoma and this will be another chance for a Sooner's star Buddy Hield to shine under the bright lights.
He's been just so amazing this entire tournament. Yesterday, he brought home the Oscar Robertson Player of the Year Award and Buddy has such a great story.
He grew up in the Bahamas. He moved to United States when he was12 years old. And his mom actually gave him the nickname Buddy after Bud Bundy from the show "Married with Children." So that's pretty funny story there.
Head Coach Lon Kruger also had a cool story. He went 22 years in between Final Four appearances at 63 years old, it turns out Kruger's nickname, it's "Slick" but he didn't really want to talk about it yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HEAD COACH LON KRUGER, OKLAHOMA: I have no idea what you're talking about. I'd like to say, it's started because I was pretty smooth, you know, and, yeah, it's probably more about the haircut.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He might make us run for that. That's a good name. He is pretty slick in everything he does.
UNIDENTIFIEDMALE: He might make us run no more (ph) , we've done so much. Talking about.
(END VIDEO CLIP) SCHOLES: Buddy slick and the Sooners tip things off tonight, 6:09 Eastern on TV as against Villanova. That game will be followed by North Carolina taking on Syracuse. And be sure to tune into CNN this afternoon for a behind the scenes look at the NCAA Tournament Fredericka Whitfield and Sports Analyst Steve Smith lead our coverage of the personalities and the celebration that extends far beyond the court. I'll access to the Final Four CNN Bleacher Report Special airs today 2:30 Eastern of course right here on CNN
And Vice President Biden and his wife Jill will be at the game tonight here in Houston. Both of them are actually alumni of Final Four teams. Vice President Biden graduated from Syracuse College of Law in 1968 . The second lady got her Master of Arts in English from Villanova in 1991. The Bidens are here promoting the "It's on us campaign preventing sexual assault on college campuses and supporting survivors of sexual assault.
So, guys, both of them will be here. Obviously, they'll be rooting for each other tonight because Syracuse is playing against North Carolina and Villanova taking on Oklahoma, but it would be very interesting if they ended up being a Syracuse-Villanova final and then it would be a house divided, and they probably wouldn't be speaking much of each other after the game.
BLACKWELL: Happens then? There's some negotiating going on. Bargaining.
SCHOLES: We're showing the pictures of the Bidens. They are all dressed in their suits, kind of looking up to the side. And I was thinking to myself, "I hope they have more fun than that as the game tonight. I hope they enjoy it. All right, Andy Scholes.
PAUL: We know you will, Andy, thank you.
BLACKWELL: Thank you so much.
SCHOLES: All right. I have to go, guys.
BLACKWELL: All right. Well, that's it for us. We'll see you back here at 10:00 Eastern for "NEWSROOM".
PAUL: Yeah, don't go anywhere, though. "SMERCONISH" starts right now.
(Byline: Victor Blackwell, Christi Paul, Kristen Holmes, Jason Carroll, Chris Frates, Alexandra Field, Mark Hertling, Andy Scholes)
(Guest: Jason Johnson, Jim Steineke, Jonathan Brostoff, Robert Zimmerman )
(High: Donald Trump had a rough week regarding comments on abortion and now saying that abortion laws should remain unchanged while earlier this week he had said women who get abortions should be punished. A look at the back and forth between Hilary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. 24 people we've leaned had been arrested in Brussels at the square where a temporary public memorial for the victims of the Brussels terror attack have been set up. ISIS has taken over Mosul University in Iraq using the chemistry labs there to create bombs reportedly. Joe Biden arrives in Houston for the Final Four.)
(Spec: Politics; Donald Trump; Wisconsin; Elections; Hillary Clinton; Bernie Sanders; Brussels; Police; Safety; Sports; NCAA; ISIS; Mosul; Military; Terrorism)