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Protests over Met Opera; New ISIS Video Vows to Drape Black Flag over White House, Buckingham Palace; U.S. Losses Track of Senior Terrorists; British Man Walks after New Treatment; Fashion Icon Oscar de la Renta Dies at 82.
Aired October 21, 2014 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: It is a battle of arts versus accuracy. It's playing out in front of the most esteemed opera house in the nation, the Metropolitan Opera House, here in New York City. The latest presentation, the opera entitled "The Death of Klinghoffer," is drawing crowds no cast and crew would ever want. Protesters, including the former mayor, they're against this. A lot of protesters saying this opera grossly misrepresents a real-life event that happened in 1985.
Here's the back story if you're not familiar. Terrorists from the Palestine Liberation Organization hijacked a cruise ship, called the "Achille Lauro." They shot Leon Klinghoffer, this Jewish passenger in a wheelchair, and tossed his body overboard.
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BALDWIN: Among the demonstrators, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Klinghoffer's own daughters wrote this in the play bill of the performance, "This is what you get to walk in and to see this." They write the opera, quote, "offers no insight into the historical reality and a senseless murder of an American Jew. It rationalizes, romanticizes and legitimizes the terrorist murder of our father."
Joining me now, Michael Salberg, the director of international affairs for the Anti-Defamation League.
Michael, thank you so much for coming in.
I walked through the protests last night inadvertently and said, we have to tell this story. You, last night, went to the premiere. You were there for dress rehearsal. You saw it. How do you feel about the Met choosing to have this on stage?
MICHAEL SALBERG, DIRECTOR OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE: We've been -- the first production of this opera was in 1991 in Brussels, made the world premiere. It has been performed in the United States in the past. It was banned in Brooklyn and elsewhere in the U.S.
Our preference all along from the get-go has been that this shouldn't be performed. And while we respect the right of the producers and the artists to go ahead, we appeal to their sense of moral responsibility, sense of conscience. I think the opening that you did with the statement from the sisters really summarizes why it is objectionable and deeply offensive.
BALDWIN: A lot of when you read about this, the criticism is it's inaccurate to history or it humanizes these PLO terrorists. You've seen it. Give me an example. How does it do that?
SALBERG: Structurally, structurally provides the justification for the act of terror. One, the hijacking of the ship. And two, the senseless singling out of a passenger, an American Jew, to be murdered. Now, this was in the pursuit of a grievance against the state of Israel. Why attack an Italian cruise ship, single out an American Jew and murder that American Jew?
BALDWIN: We wanted to make sure we had both sides of the story. We offered another seat to other folks, they couldn't make it.
Let me play two things. First, this is the current New York Mayor Bill de Blasio responding to what we heard Rudy Giuliani's criticism of this opera. Take a listen.
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BILL DE BLASIO, (D), MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY: The former mayor had a history of challenging cultural institutions when he disagreed with their content. I don't think that's the American way.
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BALDWIN: And then just something else, this is a quote I read in "The New York Times." The artistic director of the public theater says, "It's not only permissible, it is required for the Met to do this piece. It is a powerful and important opera."
And one of my thoughts was, for a lot of Americans who, until this moment, or arriving in New York and seeing this opera at the Met, would have no idea who Mr. Klinghoffer was.
SALBERG: I think that's a critical observation, Brooke. And part of what Mayor de Blasio said, we have spent 100 years as an organization defending the right for Americans to express themselves artistically and every other way without interference from the government. And what the mayor was referring to was something about the government interfering, the Met has the right to put this on. The artists have the right to perform it. And the composer had the right to create it. But that doesn't mean that it is the right thing to do. And here the protesters that you observed --
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SALBERG: It's a reflection of how emotional this issue is in New York City on, you know, a cultural institution that is --
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BALDWIN: The Taj Mahal of opera houses. Right.
SALBERG: And what we did in dealing with the Met and expressing our distress about the production going forward was to say, you're going to take this highly visible cultural icon of the Metropolitan Opera and magnify it globally at a time when there's been an explosion of anti-Semitic violence around the world and an explosion of terrorism.
BALDWIN: But as you point out, it is their right. It is their right. And as you, you know, it was ultimately up to the Met and the Met chose to have the opera run.
Michael Salberg, thank you so much for coming in and expressing your side. I really do appreciate it.
SALBERG: Thanks. Good to be here.
BALDWIN: It's so emotional, seeing it with my own eyes. I'm so glad we got you to come in.
Coming up, a teenager accused of joining ISIS vows to drape a black flag over the White House and Buckingham Palace. Here the story of a runaway-turned extremist.
Plus, some breaking news in the war against ISIS. We are getting word the U.S. has lost contact with senior terrorists. Hear why, coming up.
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BALDWIN: A new propaganda video from the terror group ISIS vowing to drape a black flag over the White House and drape a black flag above Britain's Buckingham Palace. But who is doing the talking in the video that's so disturbing, an Australian teenager just 17 years of age.
And CNN's Amy LaPorte has more on the teen that ran away to join ISIS.
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AMY LAPORTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He told his family he was going on a fishing trip. They never saw him again, until now.
The new face of ISIS propaganda. A 17-year-old Australian boy appearing in this video, threatening President Obama and, for the first time, Australia's prime minister, Tony Abbott. "Behead the tyrants," he says, warning that is will never stop fighting, not until it has conquered the West. "Until we put the black flag on top of Buckingham Palace, until was put the black flag on top of the White House, we will not stop."
With his red hair, he's known as the Ginger Jihadist. He reportedly disappeared in June with a friend that he hadn't gone fishing. He boarded a plane from Sydney, then on to Malaysia, to Thailand, their final stop, Turkey. He then crossed the border into northern Iraq, finding a new home fighting under the black flag of ISIS.
His family's home is in the Western suburbs of Sydney, the very same place where, last month, police spoiled a home-grown beheading plot and carried out the country's largest terror raids.
TONY ABBOT, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: These people, I regret to say, do not hate us for what we do. They hate us for who we are and how we live.
LAPORTE: This new video raising more questions about how much Australia's involvement in the U.S.-led war overseas is creating a new threat on their own soils.
Amy LaPorte, CNN, Atlanta.
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BALDWIN: We do have breaking news right now on the war against ISIS, including news that the U.S. has lost track of some senior terrorists.
Let's go to Washington to our chief national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto.
Jim Sciutto, what do you know?
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, I sat down with Matt Olsen, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Stepped down a couple of weeks ago. This is the gathering point for really all the intelligence about terror threats comes into the U.S. It was started after 9/11, particularly for this task and this is the man who briefs the president on those threats.
I talked with him about a number of things, including ISIS, of course. But what struck me, first, was his saying, following Edward Snowden's revelations of NSA surveillance, the terrorists have changed the way they communicate and the way they travel to the point that the U.S. intelligence community has lost track of several senior terrorists because they've gone to ground. That's a tremendous concern.
The other point he made was talking about the Khorasan group. You remember this. At the start of the Syria air strikes, a couple of weeks ago, few weeks now, U.S. officials said they struck not only ISIS targets there, but al Khorasan group, a collection of former al Qaeda leaders, senior members, gathered in Syria and plotting an imminent threat, imminent attack on the U.S. He told me today that those U.S.-led air strikes have not diminished that imminent threat. Not degraded it. Have a listen to how he described it.
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MATT OLSEN, FORMER DIRECTOR, NATIONAL COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER: Everything I've seen, I think that threat is still in the same place it was before. And that is this group was in a position to train, you know, without any sort of interference. They were able to recruit operatives. We saw that they were looking to test explosives. So they were in, you know, the advance stages of plotting. And, again, they had both that intent and what we saw was that capability that put them into this, you know, nearing an execution phase of an attack.
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SCIUTTO: So the Khorasan group still has the ambition and the capability to attack the U.S. and U.S. interests. And that's not been diminished by the U.S.-led air strike.
He did tell me, Brooke, however, that it is believed that there is evidence that some senior al Khorasan leaders were killed in those strikes. But, again, as far as the danger posed by the group, that hasn't changed.
BALDWIN: That is concerning to all of the above, Mr. Sciutto.
Jim Sciutto, thank you so much for that update from D.C. for me.
Coming up, a paralyzed man with no signs of improvement walks again. How new therapy using cells from his nasal cavity. Yep, nasal cavity led to this man's breakthrough. You have to stick around to see this.
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BALDWIN: This is something. This crime cost the man use of his legs. But now scientists say this cutting-edge medical treatment has given him the ability to walk again. Here he goes. Could this lead to a cure for paralysis? That might be getting ahead of ourselves. But he became a paraplegic after a stabbing. Doctors than began this pioneer therapy injecting his nasal cells into the damaged area. He is now able to walk, as you can see, with a frame. Surgeons in Poland performed the work based upon research from the University College Institute of Neurology.
A researcher there says, yes, this is a breakthrough, but much is still unknown.
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GEOFFREY RASMAN, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON: I think we have opened the door to a future treatment. The procedure has worked in rats. This is the first time that a neurosurgeon in Poland has applied it, the exact procedure to the patient, human patient. So it's the very first. Until we repeat this in a number more patients, it's just that, it's one patient.
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BALDWIN: One patient.
I hear that, Elizabeth Cohen, our senior medical correspondent, and I think I have a feeling as to what you'll say, as well. But can you just -- when we hear nasal cells, do we know exactly why or what that means? ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It seems, Brooke,
these cells sort of had an ability, when you put them in a culture, to grow into the kind of nerve cells that would help repair this. We have this graphic. That kind of cut-out semicircle where the knife went through, his spinal cord and where the damage was done. And where you see the lines, that's the new nerve tissue formed from the nose.
There was probably -- seems there was some property in these nasal cells that just allowed them to grow very nicely into the kind of nerve cells that would -- that might help this man's back.
BALDWIN: So put this in context. When we talk about this pioneering technology, is this something where, you know, doctors around the world are all incredibly excited about? Or is this tempered?
COHEN: So, Brooke, 10 years from now, when you and I are having a cup of coffee --
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-- you'll say, whatever happened to that story, Elizabeth? I might say, "Oh, it's exciting, they're now using it with lots of other people." Or I may say, "Oh, that never went anywhere. It was just -- it kind of works, but it kind of works but when they tried it on other people, it didn't pan out."
I'll tell you, this is not the first time that certain kind of cells have helped paralyzed people and you never hear anything about it again.
BALDWIN: Thank you so much. And I'll see you before that coffee, by the way.
COHEN: OK.
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BALDWIN: Elizabeth, thank you very much.
Coming up, have you heard this story? Here's a quote: "Mr. President, don't touch my girlfriend." Those words from a man here in Chicago who voted alongside President Obama as part of early voting yesterday. See how the president responds. We'll talk live with the couple coming up. Don't miss it.
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BALDWIN: His designs have stunned draped on American first ladies and Hollywood stars. Oscar de la Renta, a fashion icon, has passed away at 82. He has dressed women all the way from Jacqueline Kennedy to Oprah Winfrey. Once saying, quote, "There is no sound more feminine than a woman in a taffeta dress."
So we are getting all kinds of reaction from designers, including Michael Kor, saying exclusively to CNN that "Oscar de la Renta's life and work was full of glamour, passion and longevity."
And this from former first lady, Laura Bush. She says, "We will always remember him as the man who made women look and feel beautiful."
CNN's Jason Carroll has the story.
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JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dressing women from the red carpet to the White House for nearly 50 years, legendary fashion designer Oscar de la Renta, has died. The cause currently unclear.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You are stunning in your Oscar de la Renta dress.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you so much.
CARROLL: De la Renta style spanning generations. Hollywood's elite from Taylor Swift to Oprah Winfrey, draping themselves in his couture.
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CARROLL: HBO's hit series "Sex and the City" centered an entire episode around one of his stunning creations.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: Oscar de la Renta. Now that is beautiful.
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CARROLL: The fashion icon's final masterpiece, Alma Clooney's grown for what was dubbed the celebrity wedding of the year.
ERIC WILSON, FASHION NEWS DIRECTOR, INSTYLE MAGAZINE: Oscar de la Renta was the ultimate diplomat for fashion. He was among the generation of designers in post-war America who really came out from the back rooms and put their own names on the label.
CARROLL: Originally from the Dominican Republic, moved to New York in 1965, launching his own label and stitching his way into America's history forever.
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OSCAR DE LA RENTA, FASHION DESIGNER: I am an unbelievable lucky man. I live in the best country any human being can live.
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CARROLL: Though he had a reputation of dressing socialites, he also dressed every first lady since Jacqueline Kennedy.
(CHEERING) CARROLL: Hillary Clinton wore one of his gowns to Bill Clinton's second inauguration, as did Laura Bush for George W. in 2005.
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CARROLL: Even the current first lady, Michelle Obama, could not escape the sultan of suave, donning her first de la Renta just this month.
DE LA RENTA: I see her as a complementary (ph) woman. In the United States, we want to be proud of our first lady and what she looks like.
CARROLL: Jason Carroll, CNN, New York.
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