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Obama to Outline ISIS Plan to American Public Tonight; Women Speak Out on Domestic Violence; Ted Cruz Warns Democrat Bill Would Affect "SNL"; Diving into a Volcano

Aired September 10, 2014 - 10:30   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Before we get into the multinational partners, I wanted to ask you, too, about this idea of air strikes over Syria because supposedly that's going to be brought up in the president's speech tonight, too. It's kind of a scary proposition because the government of Syria has air power of its own.

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, they do. And it is a scary proposition. I think that's why the president has delayed in terms of addressing what he might or might not do. But right now we've got some areas within Syria that is -- that are ungoverned spaces and when you have key targeting potential, when you have more intelligence about what's going on on the ground, then you have to be able to develop a plan that might strike freely. And I think that will be part of the president's observations tonight when he gives his presentation.

COSTELLO: All right. Well, let's talk about possible allies in this war against ISIS. Several countries have been named as possible allies -- Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Turkey. "The New York Times" labeling some of them, particularly Turkey and Saudi Arabia, as reluctant partners. So what are the challenges in getting them to agree to such an alliance? And can we trust them?

HERTLING: Yes, and I think you can. It's coalition building. It's ugly. We've done it before and, again, I'll go back to what the president said the other day about how we have learned an awful lot in the last 12 to 13 years of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the things we've learned is how to blend various elements of coalitions with their various national caveats. We've also been able to blend conventional and special operating forces along with air power.

So all of those things are going to contribute to the fight. There are going to be some challenges. Turkey is one. I mean, certainly they have some of their diplomatic and consulate staff being held hostage by ISIS. And at the same time the Kurds in this region, which we've been so successful near Erbil and Dahut (ph), also extend along the southern line -- excuse me, the northern line of Iraq and into Syria. And there's concern by the Turks that, should the Kurds get a little too frothy, as it were, that they might do things the Turkish government doesn't like. They've been dealing with the PKK threat, another terrorist organization, a Kurdish terrorist organization, over the last few years. So there's concern in Turkey about a couple of issues. I'd also include, by the way, on your list of potential contributors,

as the president came out of the NATO summit last week, I'm sure he generated a lot of support from many, many NATO countries -- there were several named, Poland, Estonia. All of those forces have very good special operations capabilities. They've developed those over the last ten years in partnership with us in Iraq and Afghanistan.

COSTELLO: Interesting. And, so I'm just curious, as a military guy, what do you want to hear President Obama say tonight?

HERTLING: Well, I want to hear all about the coalition building. That's a critical piece. Having spent a lot of time in this part of the world, over three years, I know we cannot do this alone. We will not be accepted, because we are both culturally and linguistically challenged. So we've to get support from an entire international community. That's critical.

I think he's going to give freedom of maneuver to the combat and commander, General Austin, on the ground, to determine where the key intelligence is. And if we find key intelligence on strategic or operational targets, he's going to give them permission to strike those.

And I think the criticality of training, additional training to Iraqi forces now that the government has advanced in Baghdad, as well as some of the Free Syrian forces, are all going to be part of what I'm looking for.

But the most important thing I'm going to look for, as a member, a former member of the military, is he's got to prepare the American public that this is going to be a long campaign. This is not something that can be solved in a week, in a month, or even a year. This is going to take a lot of concentrated effort to eliminate this evil.

COSTELLO: Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, thanks so much for your insight; always appreciated.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the NFL commissioner says the NFL doesn't have a clue about dealing with domestic violence. Now he's facing calls to step down. And the wife of a retired NFL player is talking to CNN about what she went through and what the NFL needs to do today.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: A lot of people have been asking why the woman we saw Ray Rice punch in that elevator stayed with the former NFL star after that blow to her face and marry him. Well, we're seeing an outpouring of answers to that via Twitter. They're being tweeted with the hashtag #whyIstayed and I want to share those tweets you now.

This is from @TatePhoenix (ph), she tweeted, "I thought wasn't worry of any other kind of love."

@alwaysjen tweeted, "Because he had already shredded my self worth with his words in a hundred subtle ways."

And @masterpierce, "The more you hope he changes, the deeper you sink into believing it."

So let's talk about this. I want to bring in CNN's Jean Casarez and Katie Ray-Jones; she's the CEO of the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Welcome to you both.

KATIE RAY-JONES, CEO, NATIONAL DOMESTIC VIOLENCE HOTLINE: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Thank you for being here. Katie, I want to start with you. You wrote an opinion piece for "The New York Daily News". You say it's the abused victim who often gets blamed in cases like this, not the abuser. Why is that?

RAY-JONES: Domestic violence is a very complex issue, and for those of us who've not lived in a violent relationship, it's hard to fathom that if someone was to assault us that we would stay. However, there are a lot of factors why women stay in relationship.

I've been so inspired by the stories that we've been hearing with #whyistayed and #whyileft to hear about women speaking about those complexities. The fear that is present in relationships where there's domestic violence, the threats that are made that we know from stories we hear everyday that are real, that women are killed by their partners, children are killed, partners sometimes kill themselves. The blame that a victim feels in the relationship that she is somehow responsible for the abuse that is happening.

And many women say that they love them. We have to remember that, when someone meets someone that is their partner, they don't identify as being abusive. They don't tell them that I'm going to hurt you three months, six months down the road. There's a huge sense of love this person feels and they still see glimpses of that person throughout the relationship between abusive encounters.

COSTELLO: And women are so nurturing. I mean, some women really think they can change these men and often you can't.

Jean, I want to turn to you, because we're concentrating on the NFL and how it punished Ray Rice or didn't punish him enough. But we're not concentrating enough, in my opinion, on the legal system itself because, let's face it, the prosecutor and the grand jury saw this video and they sentenced, what, Ray Rice to counseling.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There's so many levels to this and you bring up such a good point. The grand jury -- the grand jury indicted Ray Rice. They indicted him on third degree aggravated assault. And that made him very eligible for the pre-trial intervention program, because he did not have a record.

And it was agreed to by the prosecution, it was agreed to by the judge, but here's something a lot of people are forgetting. Pretrial intervention doesn't mean the charges are dismissed. It means that they're allowing him to rehabilitate himself, right, with courses on anger management. But one false move in the next year, those charges will become active again. He can face them and he can face three to five years in prison. So he's not off scot-free.

COSTELLO: What if he had punched someone else in a bar the same way he punched his then-fiancee?

CASAREZ: And that's a good question because it began with disorderly conduct, like a misdemeanor, and then third degree aggravated assault, pretrial intervention. Did he get special treatment? I've seen in the courts time and time again that money, notoriety, it can help you immensely.

COSTELLO: Jean, what do you think about that? You have a lot of experience with domestic violence victims. Does this often happen that the abuser gets off easy? Katie?

RAY-JONES: Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you said Jean.

COSTELLO: Sorry.

RAY-JONESS: I think we've lots of experiences when I've worked in shelter where, as an advocate, I've been disappointed to hear her story and what she encountered and then to hear that he was ordered probation. To hear women talk about she went to get a protective order and it wasn't awarded. To hear she asked for the firearms to be removed from the home and that didn't happen.

So there are times when the system feels like it's not working in the best interest of victims, and I think many victims and survivors hear those stories and it makes them fearful to actually make that choice to leave. So there's a lot of work we still need to do as victim advocates and communities in general to say that we really want to hold abusers accountable and push the system to follow through with the laws that are in place to protect women.

COSTELLO: All right, last question for you, Jean, and I mean Jean this time. So now this video is out and there's a whole bunch of controversy surrounding it and a whole bunch of outrage. Is there any possibility that it might be readjudicated?

CASAREZ: Well, since he's entered into a pretrial diversion program, that will continue. I don't think that can be revoked unless he does something to revoke it, which, as I said, can happen.

But I think what we have to look at now is can change be effectuated -- I mean, through this, through all levels? And the NFL, they focus on team camaraderie, they lecture all the guys about violence and anger management, but what about the women, their wives that are victims of this? What does the NFL do for them? Not much, I don't think. And maybe they feel there hasn't been a duty. Maybe that will change.

COSTELLO: Who knows? I hope there's some kind of positive change.

Jean Casarez, Katie, thank you so much for joining us. Katie Ray- Jones. I appreciate it.

Be sure to check out my op-ed at CNN.com/opinion, "Blaming Janay Rice is an Outrage."

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, could a newly proposed bill on campaign contributions really put shows like "SNL" at risk? And why is Ted Cruz doing his best Dana Carvey impression? Oh, you've got to see it.

Athena Jones is live on Capitol Hill with more. Good morning.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. That's right, Republican Senator Ted Cruz says that a campaign finance reform effort by Democrats would, if successful, be really bad for comedy shows. Why? We'll let you know after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA CARVEY AS GEORGE H.W. BUSH, COMEDIAN: None of us want war in that whole area out over there. But as commander in chief I'm ever cognizant of my authority to launch a full scale orgy of death there on the desert sand. Probably won't. But then again, I might.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So awesome. Oh yes, Dana Carvey on "SNL" doing his best George H.W. Bush impression. But wait. Why is Senator Ted Cruz on the Senate floor doing his best impression of that impression?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: Who can forget portrayals of Dana Carvey's George Herbert Walker Bush? Not gonna do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: That was pretty good, right? Cruz said a Democrat-backed bill would add a constitutional amendment forbidding corporations from making political speech, put limited on their campaign spending, and, since NBC is a corporation, those political skits on "Saturday Night Live" could be a big no-no. That's why I'm telling you all of this.

Athena Jones is live on Capitol Hill to tell us more. Good morning.

JONES: Good morning, Carol. This is pretty interesting stuff and, let's admit, it's also pretty entertaining. And he's not just talking about what this constitutional amendment would do to corporations like NBC, but all kinds of corporations. But he really drives home the point with these pop culture references.

Let's go ahead and play another clip of what he said about "SNL" producer Lorne Michaels if this amendment passes. Let's play that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRUZ: Under this amendment 49 Democrats have signed their named to, Congress would have the power to make it a criminal offense. Lorne Michaels could be put in jail under this amendment for making fun of any politician. That is extraordinary. It is breathtaking. And it is dangerous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: Now, of course, Senator Cruz says this is not hyperbole; Democrats would beg to differ here.

The point is that this amendment, this constitutional amendment, isn't going to go anywhere. There's supposed to be another procedural vote today that we expect Republicans to block. And even if the bill passed the Senate, it wouldn't pass the House and it certainly wouldn't be ratified by 75 percent of the states as it would be need to be.

So this is about political messaging by the Democrats, in this case, trying to get big money, like money from the Koch Brothers corporation, out of politics. And so it's not surprising to see Senator Cruz do a little bit of messaging of his own. And we've seen him use pop culture in the past. You'll remember last year, during the all-night filibuster he made during -- for a provision on Obamacare, he read from Dr. Seuss' "Green Eggs & Ham". So he knows how to strike a chord, get attention for himself. And remember, Carol, this is someone who might want to be president one day and so it's good for him to kind of get press attention, he might think. Carol?

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: I think you're right. Athena Jones, thanks so much.

In just a matter of hours, President Obama will lay out his game plan to the American people on how to destroy ISIS. Beating him to the punch, former vice president Dick Cheney, who just wrapped up a speech in Washington on U.S. foreign policy. Cheney's speech comes just one day after he met with GOP lawmakers slamming the president's strategy.

Let's bring in CNN's national correspondent, Suzanne Malveaux. She's live in Washington at the American Enterprise Institute where Cheney just wrapped up his speech. What did he say, Suzanne?

SUZANNE MALVEUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, obviously it was a friendly audience. And this is a speech that he gave -- he said it had already been pre-planned, but essentially saying that, look, the war, the tide of war has not diminished, it has increased, that the threat is dire from is.

There are a couple things he wants to hear from the president tonight. He outlined them specifically, saying that phasing in forces would not suffice, that it should be a hard hit going after ISIS, not to recognize the border between Iraq and Syria because ISIS does not. To hit headquarters and also provide intelligence and you need a coalition, you need partners to do that.

These are just some of the things he looking for in the president's speech tonight and here's how he put it earlier today. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DICK CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESDIENT: When you have a president whose primary concern is never to, quote, "elevate America", it's no surprise that we also have a Defense Secretary in a serious state of alarm. The world, as Secretary Hagel said a few weeks ago, is exploding all over.

I'm here to tell you that there's a connection between these problems, between a disengaged president and some very volatile situations abroad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEUX: And, Carol, here's the thing here, it's all about credibility, whether or not people are going to be listening to the former vice president or not. We heard from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who said that really -- that he doesn't have that kind of credibility because there were so many mistakes that were made in the Bush administration. Vice President Cheney, former vice president, saying today it was five and a half years of the Obama administration engaged in what he called retreat, withdrawal, and indifference and that the U.S. has lost a lot of credibility because it doesn't have the kind of robust leadership at least that Cheney believes that they had in the past.

So clearly a debate, Carol, over who you're going to pay attention to. But everybody's going to be paying attention to the president tonight. One thing that they do have in common that they agree on is that ISIS is a dire threat and that it is a very dangerous situation in the Middle East right now. Carol?

COSTELLO: All right, Suzanne Malveux reporting live for us this morning. Thank you so much. I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: 600 degree temperatures, molten lava, and a climb that's the same height as the Empire State Building. Two adventurers went into a volcano for one unbelievable journey. Jeanne Moos shows us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Did you ever feel the urge to climb down into a volcano? Me neither, but this guy did.

GEORGE: You cannot physically get closer to this lava without swimming in it.

MOOS That's George Kourounis in the heat resistant suit along with his accomplice in adventure, Sam Cossman. George is the teeny-weeny figure at the bottom of a volcano pit in the South Pacific.

GEORGE KOUROUNIS, RAPPELED INTO VOLCANO: It's also one of the most dangerous and difficult to get to. MOOS: They rappel down 1200 feet, a depth equal to the height of the

Empire State Building. It took two hours to descend about 50 feet above the churning lava. Even wearing a fire-resistant suit, George could only stand there a couple of minutes at a time.

(on camera): Really hot? Are you sweating in there?

KOUROUNIS: Oh, yes, absolutely. The heat from the volcano is sapping the energy out of you.

(voice-over): They used a laser thermometer to measure the temperature of flying rocks.

KOUROUNIS: It says 600 degrees.

MOOS: Look out for the lava.

KOUROUNIS: Parts of it splashed me and melted my jacket.

MOOS: And the noise?

KOUROUNIS: I call it the sound of Satan's washing machine. This churning bubbling gurgling.

MOOS: George says it was unlikely volcano would erupt. They were more worried about the edge of the crater above crumbling and raining rocks down on them.

(on camera): George doesn't just rappel into volcanoes; he got married on one.

KOUROUNIS: Enough messing around. Time to get married.

MICHELLE KOUROUNIS, GEORGE'S WIFE: Awesome!

KOUROUNIS: You say that now, but wait until lava bombs start falling within ten feet of her.

MICHELLE KOUROUNIS: Shut up.

MOOS (voice-over): To the sounds of a conch shell, and periodic eruptions of Mount Yasser, they exchanged vows back in 2006.

MICHELLE KOUROUNIS: You've been my supporter, my wall, my rock.

MOOS: Michelle may have melted his heart, but it took this volcano named Marun (ph) to melt his camera when he set it down on a rock. He'll never get over that mesmerizing orange glow.

KOUROUNIS: To me, it doesn't even look real and I'm the guy that's in the shot.

MOOS (on camera): But boys will be boys, even deep in the mouth of a volcano.

(voice-over): Why settle for a selfie when you can horse around with a rubber mask, as long as it doesn't melt.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Oh, needed a laugh today. Thank you, Jeanne Moos.

Thank you for joining me today, I'm Carol Costello. "@THISHOUR WITH BERMAN AND MICHAELA" starts now.