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President Nominates Hagel for Defense, Brennan For CIA; Colorado Theater Shooting Suspect in Court; Fashion Mogul Missing Mid Flight

Aired January 07, 2013 - 14:00   ET

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

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM.

We're watching the president's nomination of two key national security positions. Just moments ago, the president nominated Chuck Hagel, the former Republican Senator from Nebraska to be the next secretary of Defense, succeeding Lean Panetta.

And he nominated John Brennan, counterterrorism Homeland security adviser in the White House to be the next director of the CIA, succeeding the acting director, Mike Morell, who took over in November when John David Petraeus stepped down following an extramarital affair with his biographer.

The president made it clear he wants the Senate to confirm these nominations quickly, especially Chuck Hagel, because there has been some controversy over the nominee. Listen to the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Chuck recognizes that American leadership is indispensable in a dangerous world. I saw this in our travels together across the Middle East. He understands that America stands strongest when we stand with allies and with friends.

As a successful businessman, he also knows that even as we may tough fiscal choices, we have to do so wisely, guided by our strategy and keep our military the strongest fighting force the world has ever known. Maybe most importantly, Chuck knows war is not an abstraction.

He understands that sending young Americans to fight and bleed in the dirt and mud, that is something we only do when it is absolutely necessary.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Let's go to Brianna Keilar, our White House correspondent. Brianna, the president knew there was going to be controversy over these past few weeks in the build up to this nomination.

There have been a lot of statements made about Chuck Hagel, his positions not only as far as Iran and Israel, Syria, other countries concerned, but on other unrelated issues including his position on gay rights back in 1990s. But the president said he's the right man to succeed Leon Panetta. How difficult of a decision was this for the president?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I think speaking to what John King said before, I think part of the issue here was that Chuck Hagel certainly is someone that the president has familiarity with.

And talking to sources here at the White House, Wolf, for how much controversy there is around this nomination, this is something that those close to President Obama feel good about, that they feel ultimately he will be able to clear the Senate and this was something obviously that was out there for some time.

And that this was a decision that the president came to perhaps not too difficultly. But I think something that struck me and we just heard what President Obama said there, was that when he referenced that Chuck Hagel knows America stands strongest when it stands with allies.

That seemed to be answering that criticism that some have had about his position on Iran, some critics particularly Republicans saying that he's been soft on Iran, that he hasn't been a friend of Israel, the White House has been emphasizing that while Hagel has been skeptical as they put it of unilateral sanctions against Iran.

They have been stressing his votes, supporting sanctions against Iran and the context of a coalition including the U.S. sort of opposing Iran with the sanctions. And that is obviously something he'll emphasize in his confirmation process.

But the other thing, Wolf, I think this factored into the decision to choose Chuck Hagel to be secretary of defense is the changing role as we see that troops -- the 68,000 remaining troops in Afghanistan will be coming home.

The White House sees this as a changing role for the Defense Department that a lot of the future role will be geared towards supporting troops and obviously the issues that we have seen following combat already that they have had in recent years.

And that military families have had and they feel the president felt that Hagel, having experience with the U.S. and with the Department of Veterans Affairs that he was well equipped and of course, obviously his personal experience as a soldier, Wolf, that he was well equipped to tackle those issues.

BLITZER: He was a sergeant in the U.S. Army during the war in Vietnam, enlisted, the first enlisted man, hard to believe, who will be secretary of defense assuming he is confirmed. Brianna, stand by.

Let's go Capitol Hill. Jim Acosta is up on the Hill. Jim, the confirmation process is going to begin. There is going to be a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing as far as Hagel is concerned.

A Senate Intelligence Committee hearing for John Brennan to be the CIA director, Foreign Relations Committee will deal with John Kerry as the next secretary of state. Those guys up -- and gals up on the Hill will be busy.

So what does it look like now? We're already starting to get reaction in to Chuck Hagel and John Brennan.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he came out with a statement saying that he does support the nomination of Chuck Hagel, Dianne Feinstein also came out with a statement saying she's in support of Chuck Hagel.

So we're starting to see some Democrats coming out of the wood work here to offer up their defense for this nomination for second of defense. But, Wolf, I just had a few moments to talk with Dan Coats, the seminar from Indiana, Republican who had served here on Capitol Hill for a long time, took some time off and came back to the Senate just recently.

And he once was nominated or not nominated, but it was in the running for secretary of defense, that nomination eventually went to Donald Rumsfeld. But I had a chance to talk to him about all of this and he said, you know, a lot of times it will seem like you're a shoe-in for one of these positions and then if may not work out that way.

But specifically about Chuck Hagel and about whether or not he's going to reserve judgment on that until the confirmation hearings until the hearing occur. He said he is very concerned about some of the positions that Chuck Hagel has taken on a number of issues.

I asked him about the comments that Chuck Hagel made back in 2006 talking about pro-Israeli groups here in Washington as being part of the Jewish lobby. He said that those comments are a concern. That he wants to hear Chuck Hagel's explanation for those comments.

But he is sort of taking a wait and see posture in terms of what he will eventually do in terms of that nomination. So not quite as stridently against this nominee as we heard from other senators, Senator John Cornyn who said he'll oppose this nomination and Lindsey Graham who made tough comments on the Sunday talk shows yesterday.

We're seeing the spectrum here, Wolf, of -- in terms of how the senators are responding to this nomination as just going to show you how very intense and how the fireworks might be flying a little bit once these confirmation hearings get going -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Jim Acosta, thank you. Peter Bergen is our national security contributor. Let's talk about John Brennan for a moment. John McCain saying he's going to have serious questions about where John Brennan stood as far as those enhanced interrogation techniques were concerned dealing with detainees at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, the critics call it torture. You study this closely, Peter.

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CONTRIBUTOR: I think John Brennan will be in an interesting situation when he goes to the confirmation hearing because on the one hand, there are plenty of people in the CIA who would claim enhanced interrogation techniques are helpful in the war against al Qaeda.

And so if he says, well, they weren't, that is something that won't go down too well with some of his future colleagues at the agency assuming he's confirmed. On the other hand, you know, if he says that these techniques produced useful information.

That may not go down very well with the Senate Intelligence Committee, which after all has publicly said, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the leader of the committee, saying the techniques have nothing to do with how Osama Bin Laden was finally captured.

So that's going to be a kind of fine line to kind of walk. And as Fran Townsend -- on other hand, Wolf, as Fran pointed out, when John Brennan was at the agency, he wasn't making policy. He was the executive assistant for George Tenet, the CIA director.

But I didn't mean he was in charge of policy, but I think it is -- he's really the first nominee for this position who was at the agency and a relatively senior position when the things were happening.

Previous nominees have been outsiders like Petraeus, or Bob Gates who -- sorry, Petraeus or others who didn't necessarily -- weren't involved at the time when this was going on in any senior position.

BLITZER: Stand by, Peter. I want to go to Barbara for a moment, Barbara Starr, our Pentagon correspondent. What kind of feedback are you getting from folks over at the Pentagon -- Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, at the Pentagon, Wolf, they know one of the major issues that Chuck Hagel is walking into when he comes there will be the budget, how to cut defense spending.

And, you know, this is not -- this is a Pentagon political issue inside the corridors of the pentagon. It requires managed expertise. Does the secretary of defense really understand where the various political levers are in the pentagon that he needs to work on? Where the influence is?

How a budget is formed? Who has the power? Inside the military, in this very complex process and can he impact it? When you hire a secretary of defense, to some large extent you are hiring someone for that management expertise.

The Pentagon is one of the largest organizations in the world, and you need somebody who knows how to run it. That's what a secretary of defense does. The other big issue that he's walking into that people will be watching very closely, how he will advise on committing the use of military force.

You know, we're talking about all these big grandiose issues. What if the first day on the job the Syrian regime implodes and you have a crisis where chemical weapons might theoretically be on the loose, heaven forbid? What is Chuck Hagel's advice, how does he advise president Obama, how do they determine what is going on? In Washington, the best laid plans tend to go awry because sometimes, some day, reality intercedes and you have a crisis. How Chuck Hagel will deal with all of that and the day to day management will be the key issues that everyone will be watching.

BLITZER: And he's been on the defense policy board, so he's very familiar with all of these issues. Stand by. I want to play a little bit more of what the president had to say about Senator Hagel.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Chuck Hagel is the leader that our troops deserve. He is an American patriot. He enlisted in the army and volunteered for Vietnam as a young private and a sergeant. He served with honor alongside his own brother. When Chuck was hit by shrapnel, his brother saved him.

When his brother was injured by a mine, Chuck risked his life to pull him to safety. To this day, Chuck bears the scars and the shrapnel from battles he fought in our name. Chuck Bagel's leadership of our military would be historic. He would be first person of enlisted rank to serve as secretary of defense.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Let's talk to someone who knows Chuck Hagel rather well. Steve Clemons is a friend of Senator Hagel's. He is with the new America Foundation, a think tank here in Washington.

Steve, thanks very much for coming in. Give us the single best reason why you support this nomination of Chuck Hagel to be defense secretary?

STEVE CLEMONS, PUBLISHER, "THE WASHINGTON NOTE": Well, I think that a defense secretary in this age needs to revision the Pentagon and figure out how you going to create security deliverables for the United States and the world, in a time of budget austerity.

And I think that he understands the roles and missions of the Pentagon. I think he understands and has the stature and command competency to wrestle with the generals and admirals, which he's going to need to do. I think he knows the ins and outs of Congress.

So I think in this time that national security is really at a vital turning point and it is very, very important at the end of the day that the United States reinvents its leverage in the world and not send the signal that it is diminishing and pulling out of many of its vital interests. I think Hagel will be able to walk that very fine and complicated line.

BLITZER: One criticism he's been getting is that he really doesn't have the experience in managing a huge bureaucracy like the Pentagon. Is that a fair criticism?

CLEMONS: I think -- you know, he was president of the USO. I wouldn't call it a huge operation. He saved the USO from bankruptcy. He was the president of it in 1987 to 1990. He has -- he's one of the bluntest people I know, blunt may not always be great, but he's very blunt.

He's very fair. He's judicious. He's unsentimental in the sense that he doesn't let emotion get the best of him. He calculates what is I think in the best interests of the organization he's running and frankly, I think of the United States and thinks in a strategic way.

We're often captured in our media, our TV, trying to think about this issue or that, siloed off from many other equities the United States may have elsewhere and it requires a strategic sense to figure out how and when you're going to deploy power.

It takes a strategic sense to advise the president of the United States to some degree on how to best work through this rebalance from the wars we have had in South Asia and the Middle East to Asia.

And I think Hagel will have the sense of how to work with the command staff and the joint chiefs in -- to achieve the kinds of strategy and strategic direction that President Obama is taking the country.

BLITZER: Steve Clemons, thanks very much for joining us.

I want to quickly bring in Gloria Borger. Like Steve, I've known Senator Hagel, Gloria, for a long time. You've known him as well, very smart guy. He's obviously highly qualified.

There will be confirmation controversy no doubt, but in the end, given the fact that the president refused to be capitulated, refused to back away from this nominee, I suspect that Hagel will be confirmed rather handily.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. Well, and in the end there are people who are going to oppose Hagel who believe the president ought to be given the right to nominate whoever he wants as the secretary of defense.

They may oppose Hagel in theory, but may in the end, end up voting for him. I want to add, Wolf, we have just gotten an interview that Chuck Hagel has given to the "Lincoln Journal Star" in Nebraska in which he says his record has been completely distorted by his critics and that he looked forward to having an opportunity to set the record straight.

And he says, quote, "There is not one shred of evidence I'm anti- Israel and not one senate vote that matters that hurt Israel. So we look forward to hearing him explain his record.

BLITZER: There'll be a lot more of that during the Q & A, during the testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Gloria, thanks very much. That's it for me. I'll see you 4:00 p.m. Eastern in "THE SITUATION ROOM." Our special coverage, though, will continue with Brooke Baldwin right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: The man President Obama has chosen to keep America secure is a lightning rod on both sides of the aisle. You'll hear from Chuck Hagel's supporter and his detractors who cannot stand him. I'm Brooke Baldwin. The news is now.

One of the people closest to the president set to lead the nation's spies. What John Brennan's election would mean for the so-called kill list.

Plus, as James Holmes appears in court, a warning to the families of the aurora movie theatre shooting, be prepared. It's about to get graphic.

And his clients include Katie Holmes, Cameron Diaz, Nicole Richie, and you. Now a fashion icon is missing after his plane suddenly disappears.

Hi, everyone. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Good to be with you on this Monday. I promise we'll get you much more on the president's national security choices in just a moment. But first, really a gut wrenching scene unfolding right now in a Colorado courtroom, prosecutors are laying out some of the gruesome details of last summer's mass shooting inside an Aurora, Colorado, movie theatre.

Alleged gunman James Holmes is not expected to enter a plea today. He's charged with murder, attempted murder, weapons violations, 166 counts in total here. This preliminary hearing they say should last multiple days. You remember this story.

Twelve people were killed, at least 58 were wounded, 22-year-old Steven Barton was one of them. He is now an advocate for tighter gun control. And earlier today he talked to CNN about what he hopes to get out of today's hearing. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN BARTON, AURORA THEATER SHOOTING VICTIM: I obviously don't want him to walk. But, you know, as long as he doesn't see the light of day again, doesn't really much concern me beyond that. To me, I see the trial as being an opportunity to learn more about what happened that night beyond just my own personal recollection.

The trial won't change the fact that it happened. It is in the past as far as I'm concerned now. The best things to do is move forward now and ensure that with strong gun laws, with mental health reform, that we don't have these issues in the community in the future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: We want to take you straight to Centennial, Colorado, Casey Wian covering this for us today. Casey, I hear the court just now going into recess, but bring us up to speed what has happened so far today.

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Very dramatic testimony, Brooke. They are in a recess right now. The testimony at this preliminary hearing began right away with several police officers who were at the scene. The first officer to be called was named Jason Obiatt. He was on a routine traffic stop, rushed to the movie theatre, encountered a man in the parking lot behind the movie theatre. He initially believed, he testified, was another police officer.

He was wearing a helmet, a gas mask, military style clothing, then as he got closer, he realized that something was wrong, something was different. He saw who he testified was James Holmes with his hands on top of this white vehicle with a handgun on top of the car.

He ordered James Holmes to put his hands up, drew his gun on the suspect, and he says that James Holmes immediately complied with everything that he and other officers requested.

Now what is key about this is that the defense attorney who also questioned this officer was very interested in this testimony because the officer testified that Holmes seemed very out of it. He did not put up any kind of resistance at all, even when being dragged away from the scene.

The officer said normally people stiffen up. He said he was completely relaxed and he seemed completely detached from the entire experience. So that could be the type of testimony that a limited mental defense type of defense could use to their advantage.

Now, more officers took the stand, really heart wrenching, graphic testimony, the kind of testimony that victims' families were warned would happen in the preliminary hearing. Justin Grisle, he choked up when describing the scene.

He said there was so much blood on the floor of that theatre that officers were slipping -- to his car who were so bloodied, he couldn't even tell their race, nor their sex.

He also talked about a man and his wife who he pulled out of the theatre, that both of them were shot, either in the head or the face. Kept asking for their young daughter, where she was.

At this point, the audience members in the courtroom started to get choked up as well. A third officer came and took the stand, testified that he was the one who found that little girl, found that she had no pulse and she had been killed -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: It is awful. Awful for us to hear the details, let alone a family member who lost someone or someone was injured. We'll be talking next hour to the stepfather who lost his little girl, and he'll talk about why he chose not to go to the courtroom.

Instead, he is apparently getting updates through texts. We'll ask him about how this is affecting him today. We'll also talk what happens next, that legally speaking here in this case in Colorado. It has been missing since last Friday.

Today, hundreds of people are searching for the small plane carrying the director of a popular Missoni fashion label, his wife, others were on board. A live report next on the search and the future of the brand as well.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Today search teams are crisscrossing the Caribbean, looking for Vittorio Missoni, the heir to the iconic Italian design house. You see he and his wife were on this small plane carrying six people when it went missing just off the Venezuelan coastline on Friday.

They were heading from the exclusive island of Los Racos to the capital of Venezuela, and this was in the middle of the day here, couple of minutes after takeoff, the plane vanished from the radar. Known for its signature zigzag design here, Missoni line has some big name clients.

You have Nicole Richie, Katie Holmes, Cameron Diaz. Its line is also at Target stores. In fact, if you remember this, it sold so fast, Target's website crashed.

I want to go to CNN international security correspondent Paula Newton who joins me now here. Paula, this route here apparently this route is a well known drug smuggling route. Do police at all suspect foul play?

PAULA NEWTON, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: No, not yet. A lot of these rumors actually are coming from people close to the family. And this is the case, Brooke, you can imagine in their position, you're holding out any hope you can.

And the reason is that there has been no wreckage found and no reason that the plane would have gone down. No bad weather, so they believe that perhaps maybe the plane was somehow involved in some kind of sky jacking, kidnapping, but at this point they're really grasp agent straws.

The problem is still searching in this area, even though the weather has been good, Brooke, searching a needle in a hay stack. Six people on board that plane, nothing found yet to give them any clues as to what might have happened to it.

Most here suspect it would have been some catastrophic mechanical failure. The family, as I said, in a statement saying that they refused to give up hope.

BALDWIN: So the family not yet giving up hope. I want to ask about the brand, as we mentioned, this is a massive global brand. We know Missoni was on his way to Milan to Italy to unveil this new collection there. Are there plans to cancel the collection? If the worst case scenario ends up being true, what happens to this family empire long term?

NEWTON: You know, this is a large, close knit iconic Italian brand and family. Luka Missoni is here in Venezuela. He's a pilot. He's -- though he runs the Missoni empire with his brother and sister, he's looking for his brother.

They are a close knit family. They're saying the show will go on. They expect to go on with the fashion show this weekend. This brand isn't going anywhere, but of course, what a devastating thing to have to go through for this family.

And clearly he was a linchpin. What was going to happen and what Vittorio was hoping to launch in the next few years was to really take this brand further and really get into a point where they could actually double, triple, quadruple revenue.

And really make it an iconic brand. Doesn't mean it won't happen, but for now this family dealing with quite a tragedy.

BALDWIN: Paula Newton, thank you so much.

Coming up next here, how John Brennan at CIA could mean big changes in President Obama's drone program. We brought back someone who talked extensively here about this so-called kill list. You've done extensive investigating, Tom Juneau, good to see you, sir. Welcome back. Talk in just a moment.

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