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Rushing to War; Free After Three Decades; Opening Day for the NFL; "Lady Valor" Premieres Tonight

Aired September 04, 2014 - 09:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

Our top story this morning, President Obama and other western leaders are attending a most important NATO Summit in years. The military alliance faces two growing threats, Russia's military incursion into Ukraine and the advance of ISIS fighters into Syria and Iraq. Great Britain's prime minister says the Islamic extremism poses, quote, "a generational struggle."

Of course, the brutal execution of a second American by ISIS militants has sparked outrage and disgust across our own country. Can you hear them, the war drums, because they seem to be beating ever louder this morning. I bring you Vice President Joe Biden.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When people harm Americans, we don't retreat. We don't forget. They should know, we will follow them to the gates of hell, until they are brought to justice, because hell is where they will reside.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: The libertarian Republican senator, Rand Paul, who was once a noninterventionist, is doing a complete 180. Paul told the Associated Press, quote, "if I were president, I would call a joint session of Congress. I would lay out the reasoning of why ISIS is a threat to our national security and seek congressional authorization to destroy ISIS militarily." Are we getting a tad hysterical or is all of this warranted? CNN political commentator and Republican strategist Kevin Madden is here. I'm also joined by CNN political analyst Josh Rogin. He's also a senior national security correspondent for "The Daily Beast."

Welcome, gentleman.

KEVIN MADDEN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning.

So, Josh, I have this feeling of deja vu all over again and ISIS hasn't even carried out an attack directly on U.S. soil. JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, it's really confusing and

really hard to tell exactly what the level of the threat is. Part of that is to blame on the administration, which in some interviews seems to describe it as an imminent threat against U.S. national interests, as Chuck Hagel described last week, and in some interviews says that, oh, it's a manageable problem that really only affects the region. So Americans, journalists, administration officials, everyone is really wondering what the real level of the threat is.

Chuck Hagel said there's a hundred Americans fighting with ISIS. It only takes one of them with an American passport to come back and cause huge problems for us. Whether or not we're on top of that, whether or not ISIS really intends to strike us, these are all huge unknowns.

And the administration has contributed to the confusion by putting out contradictory messages for over a week and by signaling that they're planning to do a lot more on ISIS and then telling us that they don't actually have a plan to do so. So I think the confusion adds to the hysteria, which, of course, benefits ISIS, which makes its business on promoting confusion and hysteria.

COSTELLO: And this visceral reaction is coming from all corners, Kevin. You know, when you interview the "Duck Dynasty" guy about national security, I think that's a little too much though. Listen to what transpired on Sean Hannity's show.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHIL ROBERTSON, STAR OF A&E'S "DUCK DYNASTY": In this case you either have to convert them, which I think is -- would be next to impossible. I'm not giving up on them, but I'm just saying, either convert them or kill them. One or the other.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK, so I guess the visceral reaction, but is it possible to talk about what to do with passion and some degree of logic, Kevin?

MADDEN: Well, look, first of all, I don't think many people are turning to Phil Robertson to sort of get their national security status, sort of set for the country (ph).

COSTELLO: Man, I hope not.

MADDEN: Yes. I think, look, what's happening right now is that the American people are sort of gauging where these very -- the warnings -- the warning dangers are coming -- or the warning signs are coming from. When they hear intel chairs up on Capitol Hill from both parties, you know, offer these warnings, when they hear the secretary of defense say that ISIS presents an imminent threat to the American people's national security interests, and when they hear the attorney general say, this is a danger like nothing we've ever seen before, they take those warnings and they measure them against what they see happening overseas. And they see beheadings, and they see a group like ISIS taking over half of Syria and half of Iraq, and that's when they turn to their elected officials to look at a plan of action or some sort of answer about what we're going to do to confront this threat.

And Josh makes the most important point. What they're seeing right now is a certain level of incoherence from their president, from their commander in chief. In one moment he says that he wants to degrade and destroy them. The very next moment, he calls it -- he says that one of the goals is to make it a, quote, "manageable problem." So I think that's what really feeds into this level of -- this level of anxiety that the American public currently has about the situation.

COSTELLO: I can't disagree with you, Kevin.

So, Josh, is it time that when the president returns from the NATO Summit that he addresses a joint session of Congress and lays out a plan and talks to them and brings the conversation into the public arena so we can understand?

ROGIN: Right. The president and the administration knows that going to Congress is a rabbit hole and that if he actually sought a congressional authorization for what he's already doing in attacking Iraq and possibly later inside Syria, that it would become a mess. There's only two weeks of congressional session in September. There's almost no prospect that Congress, both houses, would actually hold a vote on authorizing the war. If they did, it would be highly contentious and put every single member of Congress who's running for re-election in November in a terrible position of choosing between endorsing a war or endorsing a retreat from a terrorist -- or that's how it would be perceived (ph).

COSTELLO: That's their job! That's why we elect them, to make these important decisions.

ROGIN: Yes, but -- the point here is that Congress, like the administration, likes to talk tough and then act little. There's no -- let's remember, when we attacked Libya, Congress didn't even vote. They could have, but they didn't. When we were about to attack Syria, they avoided that vote as well last year. So of course Congress wants to maintain its prerogative and its rights under the Constitution to oversee the president's war power, but in practice, they don't actually want to do it because then they'll be bought into the president's war --

MADDEN: Yes.

ROGIN: And it will be on them, as well as on him.

MADDEN: And to that --

ROGIN: So it's really a lot of -- a lot of miss (INAUDIBLE) --

COSTELLO: Kevin -- Kevin, weigh in, because this is making me a little nauseous.

MADDEN: Well, just -- well, just real quick -- no, I'm going to agree with Josh and I'll actually go one step further. One of the big problems that this White House has and this president has is that the most vocal critics that are emerging of his lack of a strategy are inside his own party. When you have a liberal Democrat such as Dianne Feinstein saying that the president has been too cautious, that's a sign of a much bigger problem that the president has inside his own party. So if he doesn't -- if he can't even marshal support from his supposed political allies on Capitol Hill, how is he going to marshal a wider degree of support amongst the entire Congress, the House and the Senate?

ROGIN: Yes, I would just say that the most vocal critics actually are in the Republican Party. They come from people like John McCain and Lindsey Graham. There are some critics inside the Democratic Party, but the most vocal critics inside the Democratic Party are those on the left, who actually don't want Obama to head into a war without a plan and without something -- some congressional endorsement. So both parties are split on this. There's no consensus in either party on whether or not we should ramp up the war against ISIS. This is another reason we're not likely to see any action and we're not likely to see any real congressional oversight until or at least until we have a real plan from the administration that people can actually judge one way or the other. And we don't have that plan yet. It's really amazing.

COSTELLO: Josh Rogin and Kevin Madden, thanks so much for your insight. I appreciate it.

MADDEN: Thank you.

ROGIN: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Still to come on the NEWSROOM, freedom. After 30 years behind bars for a crime they did not commit, what two North Carolina men are saying now as they try to rebuild their lives.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: It is a day they will never forget. Two North Carolina half- brothers became free men on Wednesday after wrongfully serving three decades behind bars. And even after all that time, the men had pledged nothing but forgiveness for those that put them there. George Howell has more for you from Raleigh.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GEORGE HOWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Stepping out into the world a free man after 30 years on death row for a crime he did not commit, Henry McCollum did not show anger, did not seem bitter. His first message to the cameras --

HENRY MCCOLLUM, CONVICTED FOR CRIME HE DIDN'T COMMIT: There ain't no anger in my heart. I forgive those people and stuff like, but, you know, I don't like what they done to me and my brother, because they took 30 years away from me for no reason. But I don't hate them.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, son.

HOWELL: An emotional reunion with family is just the beginning for this man, who has so much to catch up on. Even the simple things, like how to put on a seat belt. A photo journalist on scene shows him how.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've got to pull it over like that, and then you pull it down like that, and clip it into the belt buckle there.

HOWELL: Fifty-year-old McCollum and his half-brother, 46-year-old Leon Brown, spent most of their lives in prison. But yesterday, a judge in North Carolina handed them both their freedom. McCollum and Brown, both teenagers in 1983, when arrested for the rape and killing of 11- year-old Sabrina Buie.

But 30 years later, the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission discovers inconsistencies in their confessions, raising the possibility that the two may have been coerced by investigators.

They also determined DNA evidence from the crime could not be traced to either of the men. Instead, the commission concludes the evidence, on cans and cigarette butts, matches the DNA of a convicted rapist and murderer who lived less than 100 yards from where the victim's body was found.

PRISCILLA MCCOLLUM, HENRY MCCOLLUM'S STEPMOTHER: Our prayers are out for the Sabrina Bowie family. We're praying for them and we are so glad this justice was served is and the truth finally came forth. We thank god for that and we're going to go on with our lives.

HOWELL: Released from his life sentence, this photo captures Leon Brown's first steps of freedom, just outside the prison walls. Their father never gave up hope.

JAMES MCCOLLUM, HENRY MCCOLLUM'S FATHER: We waited years and years. We have kept the faith. Waited on god to make a move. He made a move and they're released.

HOWELL: Two men, three decades in prison, finally free. And now not looking back.

George Howell, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Are you ready for some football? Well, don't worry, tonight is just the start of a steady diet of the NFL. Tonight's game Green Bay at Seattle, but that's just the star,t as I said. There's Thursday night football, Saturday night football, Sunday afternoon football, Sunday night football, and Monday night football. So when you put it like that, maybe Mark Cuban was right when he said the NFL is getting hoggy.

Of course, all of that action may distract from the many controversies the NFL has faced this past year alone -- bullying, poor pay for cheerleaders, concussions, and lame penalties for domestic violence. The latest accused player, Ray McDonald, who allegedly beat up his pregnant girlfriend. Will he face the NFL's new stiffer penalties for domestic violence? (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGER GOODELL, NFL COMMISSIONER: Well, I think the first thing you have to do is let the process play out, get the facts, and make sure you understand all the circumstances. And we don't right now. And we're obviously following it very closely. But the policy will be applied uniformly across players, coaches, executives, commissioners. I think we made that very clear in the policy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So happy first day of football. CNN sports guru Rachel Nichols is here. She's also host of CNN's "UNGUARDED". Hi, Rachel.

RACHEL NICHOLS, CNN SPORTS: Hello.

COSTELLO: OK, well, let's talk a little bit about the NFL getting hoggy. That's a lot of football over five nights of the week.

NICHOLS: Yes, absolutely. And, look, I can say that your Tuesdays and Wednesdays are safe for now. However, the NFL is expanding its Thursday broadcast schedule so you are going to see more NFL games on Thursday nights available to more people.

Look, Mark Cuban was talking about the idea that the NFL is getting so ubiquitous they might make people really just saturate the market, just bored of it. I don't think we are close to that yet. However, the saturation point holds, because the NFL soon may run out of people. The league said that last year, 205 million viewers watched an NFL game. I'm going to do the math for you there. That is 70 percent of Americans. You can't get 70 percent of Americans to do anything else in this country, literally. And you got to think the other 30 percent, hey, Carol, might not be far behind. That's your saturation problem.

COSTELLO: I will say, though, there was an interesting op-ed in "The New York Times" and it said that sometimes our sports leaders don't realize that they've reached the tipping point, i.e. , baseball, right? I.e., car racing, NASCAR. Everybody said, oh my gosh, this is going to be the great, the most popular sport in America, and then it started slipping and nobody realized when exactly that began.

NICHOLS: Yes. And it is about changing and morphing and continuing to appeal to a larger number of people. And you've seen the NFL try to do that. They've tried to expand their internet business, realizing the fragmentation of the web is going to what sheds viewers. So they've tried to make more clips available on the internet.

Fantasy football obviously has been a huge boost for the NFL. You've seen other sports try to get in on that action. So that's been continuing their brand in new places. And really if the NFL continues to succeed could depend on part if they can find new ways to attract more people. Right now, they got a lot of people that are attracted to.

COSTELLO: They do. And, you know, attract different kinds of people as in women, right? That's why this domestic violence issue resonated so much with the NFL, that it knew it had to do something.

NICHOLS: Absolutely. And, look, that was a short-term hit for the NFL because they took care of it quickly. Roger Goodell strengthened the domestic violence policy almost immediately and came out, maybe more importantly, and said I was wrong, I made a mistake. That's something he rarely does that resonated with a lot of female viewers and, frankly, a lot of male viewers as well.

The longer term hit they might take is the concussion issue. Parents who might not want to see their kids get hurt in football; they're worried about the long-term effects. If less young kids play football and that -- that population starts to dwindle, in 20 years, you could see an effect on the NFL. That's something they're going to have to watch.

COSTELLO: It's all up to the moms.

All right. I'm a Detroit Lions fan. Give me your prediction. Will they really wind up in last place?

NICHOLS: Here's the best part about Opening Day, Carol, everyone is a winner.

(LAUGHTER)

NICHOLS: Is that a good nonanswer? That's a pretty good, right?

COSTELLO: I'm going to hold on to that really tightly. Rachel Nichols, thanks so much.

NICHOLS: Thank you.

COSTELLO: A reminder, you can watch "UNGUARDED" with Rachel Nichols tomorrow night at 10:30 Eastern right here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: All right. This just in to CNN. A grand jury in suburban Atlanta could hand down its decision as early as today against Justin Ross Harris. Harris has been charged with felony murder and second- degree child cruelty for leaving his 22-month-old son Cooper all day in a hot car in June while he went to work. As you know, that little boy died. We'll keep you posted.

To fellow teen members former, Navy SEAL Christopher beck was as tough as they come. He put himself in harm's way, some considered him reckless, almost suicidal. But while Beck was plowing head first into dangerous missions in faraway lands, his biggest battle was being fought from within. It's a story Kristin Beck now wants to share.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KRISTIN BECK, TRANSGENDER EX-NAVY SEAL: I just wanted to tell someone my story and maybe set an example for some of the younger generation to say I'm still a human being and I deserve dignity and respect. We're Americans and we are part of our country. It's another mission

because there's a lot of freedom I'm defending by doing this. And in some ways, this is way more mentally and physically rigorous than many things I've done in my past. It's been a struggle.

Everything is so hot right now.

It's okay, Bo. We've got it. Going to shift. You keep shifting for me. Got to keep it in drive, Bo. I had a good career. After I retired, I was working at the top levels. I was briefing at the Pentagon. And my civilian level was the equivalent of one-star admiral.

But I make some people uncomfortable because of all this. I know it. I would rather start all over again from scratch, just to have my own life and live the way I thought was best. And now I'm starting over.

Face it, in our country, there are many people that go about their daily lives and they never meet someone who's gay or lesbian and they really never meet anybody who's transgender. I'll talk to people, just hang out, just be a regular person. If they start doing that prejudice or that bigotry or whatever, I just try to be friendly, and I say, hi, how you doing? Good to meet you. I was a Navy SEAL, you know, transgender. You might have seen me on TV. And they go oh, wow. And then they realize that maybe trying to get in a fight with me wouldn't be a good idea. Maybe they should be nice.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Maybe so. Be sure to watch "LADY VALOR: THE KRISTIN BECK STORY". Premieres tonight, 9:00 p.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.