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Names 9/11 Victims Read In New York; Wreath Laying At Pentagon 9/11 Memorial; 9/11 Memorial Under Way In Pennsylvania; A Year After U.S. Consulate Attacked; Obama Appeals To Americans On Syria; International Impact Of Obama's Speech; Putin Speaks Out Against U.S.; New Jersey Medical Marijuana Access; Nyad Calls Swim "Squeaky Clean"; Anthony Weiner Flips The Bird; De Blasio Tops NYC Mayoral Primary; California City's Foreclosure Fix

Aired September 11, 2013 - 10:00   ET

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

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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I, therefore, asked the leaders of Congress to postpone a vote.

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CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: President Obama, 15 minutes in America's place in the world.

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OBAMA: Sometimes resolutions and statements of condemnation are simply not enough.

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COSTELLO: In the search for clarity, moments of contradiction.

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OBAMA: I have resisted calls for military action.

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COSTELLO: Followed by --

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OBAMA: I determined to respond to a targeted military strike.

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COSTELLO: A winding, some say, confusing response. Obama zigzagged, his serious struggle, the morning after and a message challenged. Ahead, what's changed and what hasn't? You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM. Good morning. Thank you so much for being with me. I'm Carol Costello. Right now, all across the nation we pause to remember the nearly 3,000 people killed in the worst terror attack in our nation's history.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Joseph Amatuccio.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Paul W. Ambrose.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Christopher Charles Amaroso.

COSTELLO: In New York City, the names of those killed at the World Trade Center are being read by family members just like it's been done every year since 2001. Similar scene at the White House, the president, vice president and their wives gathering on the south lawn for a moment of silence for those killed when the first plane struck the north tower.

And last hour, the president traveled to the Pentagon. There he took part in a wreath-laying, and a memorial dedicated to the victims killed 12 years ago at the Pentagon.

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OBAMA: It is here that we affirm the values and virtues that must guide us. We must have the strength to face the threats that endure, different though they may were from 12 years ago so that as long as there are those that will strike our citizens, we will stand vigilant and defend our nation. Let us have the wisdom to know while force is at times necessary, force alone cannot build the world we seek.

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COSTELLO: And in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at the site of United Flight 93 crash, a memorial now under way. Let's listen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Donald Arthur Peterson. Jean Hoodley Peterson.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mark David Rothenberg. Christine Anne Snyder.

COSTELLO: And, of course, it was in this Pennsylvania field where that plane went down, and the passengers and crew tried to wrestle control of the aircraft away from the hijackers, the reading of the names in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

And we cannot forget. It's been one year since the deadly terror attack in Benghazi, Libya, on the night of September 11, 2012, armed men stormed the American consulate. Mortar and rocket fire destroyed much of the complex. U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed, and just last month, criminal charges against the suspects were filed. Today a new explosion ripped through Benghazi once again, a powerful blast on the main street damaged a Foreign Ministry building and a branch of Libya's Central Bank. No one killed.

A call for action and diplomacy, just two of the president's key themes as President Obama made his appeal to the nation last night on Syria.

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OBAMA: In the days leading up to August 21st, we know that Assad's chemical weapons personnel prepared for an attack near an area where they mix sarin gas. They distributed gas masks to their troops and then fired rockets from a regime controlled area into 11 neighborhoods that the regime has been trying to wipe three of opposition forces.

Fighting beyond Syria's borders, these weapons could threaten allies like Turkey, Jordan, and Israel. A failure to stand against the use of chemical weapons would weaken prohibitions against other weapons of mass destruction, and embolden Assad's ally Iran, which must decide whether to ignore international law by building a nuclear weapon or to take a more peaceful path. This is not a world we should accept.

This is what's at stake, and I have a deeply-held preference for peaceful solutions. Over the last two years my administration has tried diplomacy and sanctions, warnings and negotiations. Chemical weapons were still used by the Assad regime. However, over the last few days we've seen some encouraging signs.

In part, because of the credible threat of U.S. military action as well as constructive talks that I had with President Putin, the Russian government has indicated a willingness to join with the international community in pushing Assad to give up his chemical weapons. The Assad regime has now admitted that had it has these weapons and even said they joined the chemical weapons convention, which prohibits their use.

My fellow Americans for nearly seven decades the United States has been the anchor of global security. This is men doing more than forging international agreements. It has meant enforcing them. The burdens of leadership are often heavy, but the world's a better place because we have borne them.

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COSTELLO: Our senior White House correspondent Brianna Keilar is live in Washington with more on the president's speech. Good morning.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Carol. You heard President Obama make a case both for military action, but also against military action pursuing this diplomatic route. To that point, right now when you talk to White House official, really the focus, although they do continue some consultations with Congress, the focus has really turned to this meeting that we're expecting Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to have in Geneva, Switzerland tomorrow.

Kerry is going to be leaving today for that. But it's also important to point out a few difficulties in even if Syria were to agree in a verifiable way to give up their chemical weapons, it's a process that even under the best of circumstances would take several years, and then you consider, of course, that Syria is embroiled in a civil war that doesn't show any real sign of ending at this point.

Now, I've asked White House officials if this diplomatic channel, which a lot of folks and observers, Carol, do doubt ultimately will work. There's just a big deck stacked against it. If that were to fail what, really is the next step? What is the fallback? They say the fallback at this point would then be to go back to military force.

But as you know, we've seen in the Senate, cancelled their vote for tonight, seems like the votes were not there to pass any sort of resolution authorizing military force. So at this point, it's not really clear what the next step is -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Brianna Keilar reporting live from the White House this morning.

Well, we know -- I'm sorry. We are we going now? OK, we were going to Nic Robertson. Apparently we're not going to go to Nic Robertson until after the break. So we're going to take a break bright now. NEWSROOM will come back with much more.

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COSTELLO: We know that a majority of Americans are opposed to military access, but president Obama has said we must do something about Syria or else America will appear weak to the rest of the world. We wondered how this was all playing out in Syria and the rest of the Middle East.

So let's head to Beirut that's where we find CNN senior international correspondent, Nic Robertson. Good morning, Nic. How is the Middle East? I'm sure they're watching this drama unfold in the United States. What do they think?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's divided opinion. Those that are pro-Assad think that this is a good time for Russian diplomacy to play out. Those that are anti-Assad and they think that it is wrong to stall the decision to strike. They believe that he should be held accountable for all the deaths in the region and the majority of people would probably agree here that they're sort of relieved in way, because there was a possibility that tensions over the strike could have spilled over at the borders and caused outbreaks, explosions here in Lebanon, Jordan, other places in the region.

There is, I think you can safely say, a general feeling that the tension has gone down a notch. No one thinks the problem has gone away and everyone here knows that the real issue is the fighting continues. You know, 76 people according to the rebels killed yesterday by conventional weapons. The discussion about chemical weapons, really the fighting on the ground is going on all the time in Syria still -- Carol.

COSTELLO: I was just curious how Syria, pointing this out to its people. What is Syria television telling the people of Syria about what's happening? ROBERTSON: Yes. It's interesting. There is certainly state television that could have run President Obama's speech live last night. Admittedly it would have in the early hours of the morning, but they didn't. What they did do was run a ticker across the screen saying Obama has delayed the vote, but this give a space for Russian diplomacy. And we've heard from the Foreign Ministry now saying that they will allow weapons inspectors to come in to the country. They will show where the stockpiles of weapons are and they will give access to them, obviously.

And an environment where war is still going on, you can only imagine how difficult that would be. Those weapons inspectors in Damascus just a few weeks ago when they first went to try to get to the site of the chemical weapons' explosion, they were shot at. One of their vehicles damaged. So all of those concerns while to get inspectors in, while the Syrians are making it sound really easy, the reality is, it's going to be very, very tough before even the diplomacy of the wording of the language exactly what's going to happen, before all of that is agreed -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Senior international correspondent Nic Robertson, thanks so much.

Tomorrow, Secretary of State John Kerry will meet with his Russian counterpart to hammer out a clear plan for Syria. But Russia's President Putin says the United States may be shooting itself in the foot by keeping the threat of military action on the table.

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PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIA (through translator): Of course, all this won't mean anything if the United States and other nations supporting it tells that they are giving up a plan to use force against Syria. You can't really ask Syria or any other country to disarm unilaterally while military action against it is being contemplated.

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COSTELLO: CNN's Jill Dougherty is in Moscow this morning. CNN's Chris Lawrence is at the Pentagon. Jill, I want to start with you. Will Russia and the United States really be able to agree?

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN'S FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: That is the question, that nobody really knows that, but what they're going to do is give it a big try on Thursday, when Secretary Kerry and Minister Lavrov meet in Geneva. Their task, really is to come up with a workable, concrete plan of how putting these chemical weapons under the control of the international community would actually work in practice, not just theory, and that's, really, going to be tough, because as we've pointing out in the midst of a civil war.

It would be very difficult to do something like that, and it's really up to the Russians particularly to put some meat on the bones, to say how their plan was theoretical at that point publicly at least, can actually work. And, Carol, you know, to give you an idea of the mood here. Really, in the Russian media, is this mood that score one for President Vladimir Putin and for Russian diplomacy.

They feel that essentially the Russian move has really put Mr. Obama in a box, and that it stopped his forward movement on having some type of vote for military action.

COSTELLO: OK. So that brings up the question. Russia wants military action taken off the table. So Chris Lawrence, would the U.S. military, will the U.S. government, as in President Obama, be willing to do that?

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Not if you believe the public statements, which is, the president basically coming out and saying that it's the military pressure, threat of military action that has brought this to the table right now, and got these parties interested in trying to come up with some kind of deal. But, you're right. There does need to be some sort of decision made in the next few weeks.

Some defense officials were telling us there's only so long you can stand in sort of a three-point stance. Keep high level of readiness, and they would need some sort of clarity as to what's going to happen with certain ship deployments. Two of those destroyers that are in the med just arrived in the last four weeks so they can stay for a long time, but the other two deployed since February.

So at some point in the next few weeks, in the next month or so, you're going to have to come up with some sort of plan to perhaps rotate them out, rotate others in, and I've been speaking to some officials here at the Pentagon who say, when you extend these deployments in today's Navy with the limited assets they have, it can really have a ripple effect over time.

COSTELLO: OK, so it's costing the American taxpayers a lot of money, too, because it takes money to keep those ships where they are. So Jill, a lot of people are saying that Russia is only doing this to delay things. These are delay tactics, not really serious about this. So what sort of timetable will Secretary Kerry talk about when talking to the Russian foreign minister?

DOUGHERTY: Well, that's the theory among some people, Carol. Others think that the Russians do want to have something work so that they can avoid military action. But as far as the timetable, they're not specifically setting one and saying a number of days, this must be done, but they're making it very clear at the White House that they want this to move ahead expeditiously. That they fear that if it drags out and if it gets complicated and bogged down that it really will be just a delays tactic, and that's something that President Obama has made clear he's not going to put up with.

COSTELLO: OK. So the last question for you, Chris Lawrence, how is the U.S. military -- I mean, how are they taking this all in? I mean, what do you hear? From people who have boots on the ground here in the United States?

LAWRENCE: I -- you know, Carol, I spoke with someone who's actually deployed in that region. This is just a few days ago. He said that Saturday when everything seemed to be leading up to a strike, he said, we thought we were going. The extra watches were standing, the readiness we were at. Everybody thought we were going. We were shocked when it didn't happen, and he said the tempo went from go, go, go, to almost nothing.

So I think in some ways they're in status quo. They are maintaining a certain level of readiness, but, again, at some point, you would need a clear direction about how long these ships are supposed to stay out there, what, if any, additional assets you're going to bring in. None of this can happen exactly, you know, on a dime, in a moment's notice. So there needs to be some amount of planning, and I think right now, you know, a lot of the military people who are especially those deployed are just rolling with the political punches.

COSTELLO: Chris Lawrence, Jill Dougherty, many thanks.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Anthony Weiner is out of the running for New York City mayor, but his exit wasn't exactly what you'd call graceful. Flip of the bird, next.

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COSTELLO: Checking top stories at 23 minutes past the hour. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has signed a law giving sick children easier access to edible medical marijuana. He actually signed a bill that would make this law. To qualify, children must have parental approval, and the OK from a doctor and a psychiatrist. The new law stemmed from a father's effort to get treatment for his daughter's rare form of epilepsy.

Diana Nyad is defending her recent shark-cage-free swim from Cuba to Florida telling her critics the journey was done in a, quote, "squeaky clean and ethical fashion."

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DIANA NYAD, ENDURANCE SWIMMER (via telephone): Never, ever grabbed on to the boat, the kayak, or the escort board. Grab on to another person for any kind of floatation or support, never, ever get out of the boat. Wear slippers. I would never, ever, never did, never would, and go about, any swim I've ever done including the current one from Cuba, I'm anything but being adamant about the basic tenants of what we think is fair and square.

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COSTELLO: Some skeptics have raised concerns about her speed during the swim, and the lack of food eaten during certain stretches.

Anthony Weiner's comeback bid for New York City mayor ended the same way his career in the House did, with a picture he probably wishes no one ever saw.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the type of people you surround yourself with?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you for showing me the finger.

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COSTELLO: Did you see that? Again, he flipped the bird. Anthony Weiner flipping the bird to reporters as he left that was supposed to be an election night celebration instead he gave his concession speech with his wife. Huma Abedin is noticeably absent. You know who showed up? Weiner's sexting partner and now porn star, Sydney Leathers, the two though didn't get a chance to talk.

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SYDNEY LEATHERS, WEINER'S FORMER SEXTING PARTNER: We went to his campaign headquarters and he decided to rearrange his schedule because apparently he doesn't think he can handle me confronting me or me being in this presence. I thought it only appropriate to make the last stop.

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COSTELLO: Seriously? OK.

It was a better night for Bill De Blasio. Earlier results show him coming in first place in the Democratic primary for mayor. De Blasio still needs 47 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff. Weiner, by the way, came in fifth place with just 5 percent of the vote.

Struggling to survive after getting hit hard by the foreclosure crisis, one California City will try something that has never been done before. It will take over underwater mortgages so people can stay in their homes. Alison Kosik is at the New York Stock Exchange to tell us more. Good morning.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. The city we're talking about is Richmond, California, in the San Francisco Bay area. So the city council there voted last night 4-3 in favor of the controversial plan and basically what this plan is, the city wants to take over some underwater mortgages. That's when you owe more on the loan that you have than your home is worth so the goal here for the city is to keep people in their homes.

Now, what Richmond did try to do, it tried to buy hundreds of troubled loans from investors who own them, but because prices in California have plunged, the offer was for much less than the loan's value. So investors said, no way. Richmond came back and said, wait a minute. Since we're a city, we've got the power to take over these mortgages, if we use what's known as eminent domain, and, yes.

They won the vote. It's a big victory for the city especially when you look at what the problem is like in Richmond. In 2006, the median home price there was $460,000. Now that same home is $206,000. Someone, Carol, who bought that home at the peak of the housing boom could owe twice what the house is actually worth -- Carol. COSTELLO: It's really an interesting idea. I mean -- I can't determine whether it's a good idea or a bad idea. Tell me. What do you think?

KOSIK: I mean, you can see it, sort of see both sides, as you can imagine, critics are lining up for this one. Several other cities tried to pass this same thing but it was rejected. This tried to go forward in Chicago and San Bernardino, California, as well. These critics say it could open the Richmond area up to the possibility of lawsuits or it could even cause banks to tighten up on how much they lend for mortgages.

Because what this basically does is it forces banks and investors to take a huge financial hit. They've got to swallow their losses. Some investors have already sued, but now that Richmond is moving in this direction, it very well could open the door for other cities to give it a try.

COSTELLO: It is interesting, because it does help the city of Richmond, right? They don't have the problem of vacant houses or the upkeep of those vacant houses, because that cost is often passed along to cities, and they still have a tax base with people who can still live in Richmond and don't have the to move out and rent an apartment somewhere?

KOSIK: Right. This could be considered a short-term fix. In the long-term, you're going to do this. Make us take a hit on what we can make on these properties? We're not going to lend any money to you anymore, or people looking to buy houses there, if they know that this very well could happen in the future. So they would be very reticent to lend out money so it could hurt in the long term even though in the short term it could help. So you see why there are two sides to this story.

COSTELLO: Yes, but the banks are already reticent to the lend money and what are they doing to help people in foreclosure, just saying.

KOSIK: OK.

COSTELLO: All right, Alison Kosik, thanks so much. I love debating with Alison.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, all right, we have to get serious here. Did President Obama seal the deal with the American public or will he still struggle with support for a strike on Syria? We're going to break down this primetime speech, next.

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