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Early Polls in 2016 Presidential Race; Rumors Swirl About Another Government Shutdown; Al Shabaab Claims Responsibility for Killing 36; Hearings on Countering Terror to U.S. Homeland; Obama Considered Visiting Ferguson, Missouri; Interview with Rep. Ros- Lehtinen

Aired December 02, 2014 - 13:30   ET

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

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer, reporting from Washington.

The race for the White House in 2016, who's in, who's out, who leads in the early polls. On the Republican side, Mitt Romney, yes, Mitt Romney is still the front-runner. But the two-time presidential candidate keeps on saying he is not a candidate. That would put another former governor on top of the Republican polls, at least right now. That would be Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor. He says he is considering a 2016 run.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEB BUSH, (R), FORMER FLORIDA GOVERNOR: I don't know if I'd be a good candidate or a bad one. I know -- I kind of know how a Republican can win, whether it's me or somebody else. And it has to be much more uplifting, much more positive, much more willing to be practical now in Washington world, lose the primary to win the general, without violating your principles. It's not an easy task, to be honest with you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Let's bring in our chief national correspondent, John King.

Walk us through these new CNN poll numbers on the Republican side.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You say, Mitt Romney says he's not going to run. He says that. But if Romney runs, he would be the front-runner if you look at the numbers. 20 percent for Romney, you see Governor Christie, Governor Huckabee. If Romney does not run, then Jeb Bush is at the top of the pack at 14 percent. Ben Carson still right there. Dr. Carson, his FOX News platform as a commentator, his books are popular among evangelicals, like Mike Huckabee. These are well known names to conservatives. The most important thing from the Republican side is this is name recognition. But we've always known who's next. John McCain was next, Bob Dole was next, George W. Bush came in, then it was Mitt Romney's turn. Forget that. This is a wide-open Republican race. These poll numbers in some ways are meaningless because no one is far ahead. But in other ways, they're very consequential. If you're Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, especially those governors, you're looking around, can you build a staff, can you raise enough money? You have to make those decisions over the next several weeks to several months. And when you look at this crowded field, no front-runner on the Republican side makes those decisions harder.

BLITZER: I bet a lot of our viewers are surprised by Dr. Ben Carson, a brilliant neurosurgeon at John Hopkins University Hospital, a pediatric neurosurgeon, if you will. And all of a sudden, he's at the top tier.

KING: Again, a prominent role as a FOX News commentator. Very popular among the conservative base. A harsh critic of this president. An African-American conservative who says push the social issues, also push for fiscal conservatism. Very popular. What's working for him, too, is he's not a politician. Republicans and Democrats, if they share one thing, it's disgust with politics as usual. He's a new face as a nonpolitician, it helps him. He's going to be a factor if he runs in this race and he is actively exploring it right now. Can he be the nominee? That would take on Obama-like lightning bolt.

BLITZER: He was a FOX News contributor, but no longer, because he is actively thinking about running for that Republican presidential nomination.

Walk us through what our polls show on the Democratic side?

KING: Again, no clear front-runner.

(LAUGHTER)

65 percent -- look at, this Hillary Clinton, 65 percent. The Republicans look at a muddled field. The Democrats look at crystal- clear clarity. She's the overwhelming choice of Democrats. 65 percent support Hillary Clinton. 10 percent, Elizabeth Warren. 9 percent, Joe Biden. Senator Bernie Sanders at 5 percent. Governor Andrew Cuomo, of New York, at 1 percent.

Another thought, we assume Hillary Clinton is running. We'll know that answer within a month or two. If you look at this, if Hillary Clinton doesn't run, it gets interesting. Loyalty to Joe Biden, the vice president, jumps to the top at 41 percent. But look at Elizabeth Warren. She doubles to 20 percent. A clear signal to Senator Warren, who's said flatly, repeatedly, I'm not running. If Secretary Clinton does surprise us and bow out, there's a huge opening right there.

BLITZER: Everybody thinks she is going to run, though?

KING: Yes. Everybody thinks --

(CROSSTALK)

KING: There are two or three people might say not. But just about everybody else -- (CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: All of her activities are designed to get that in motion very soon.

KING: Democratic activists, Democratic fundraisers, Democratic staff, all parked out in Camp Clinton, waiting.

BLITZER: John, thanks very much.

John King reporting for us.

There have been numerous rumblings about the possibility of another government shutdown here in Washington as deep rifts continue on spending issues in Congress. Today, Republican leaders from both the House and the Senate gathered to talk about their strategy going forward.

Let's go up to Capitol Hill. Our chief congressional correspondent, Dana Bash, is joining us.

Dana, walk us though what's going on during, first of all, this lame- duck session.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The headline is that Republicans are really determined not to allow the government to shut down. Nine days from now, December 11th, is when the government runs out of money. So time is ticking here, Wolf. And what House Republicans did this morning was have a meeting to figure out how to try to keep the government running and still appease many conservatives who say, if you want to push back against the president's excessive order on immigration, which most Republicans want to try to do, the best way to do it is with the power of the purse, and to do that without taking it to the level that we saw last year, which is government shutdown.

Listen to a conversation that I had with one of the rank-and-file conservatives about this in the hallway.

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BASH: Was there any discussion in there about needing to avoid shutting the government down?

REP. DENNIS ROSS, (R), FLORIDA: That's not even a topic we're going to discuss at this point. I don't think it's an issue we're going to address. We're not taking that bait.

BASH: Why is it bait?

ROSS: Well, that's been the president's biggest bully pulpit, trying to scare the American people into thinking we're going to shut down the government.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BASH: So in practical terms, it means there's going to be a bill that is going to be passed before Congress leaves, before this lame-duck session is over that's going to fund the government for the most part through the next fiscal year, next September. But they're going to carve out the part that deals with homeland security and do a stop-gap measure on that to preserve the ability, maybe in the next Congress, to try to deal with that, with the immigration issue via the power of the purse. But basically, they're kicking the can down the road, which isn't making conservatives happy. But it's just the reality that Republicans know they're facing here with the Democratic Senate still and, more importantly, a Democrat in the White House.

BLITZER: Dana Bash, up on the Hill, thanks very much.

Still ahead, a massacre overnight along the Kenya/Somalia border. Why are Christians now being targeted?

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BLITZER: Now to the Kenya/Somalia border where the terror group, al Shabaab, has claimed responsibility for killing 36 people in a quarry. Similar to ISIS, al Shabaab is an anti-Western terrorist militant group devoted to establishing an independent Islamic state.

For more, we're joined now by Nima Elbagir, in London. She's done a lot of reporting on al Shabaab in the area.

Nima, what happened?

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was the early hours of the morning, Wolf, in a very remote mining quarry near the Kenya/Somali border. The survivors say they were overcome, these attackers came in. We understand they lined them up, they were divided into Christians and Muslims. The Christians were asked to repeat the basic tenets of the Islamic faith. When they couldn't, they were gunned down, they were executed and some beheaded. And they left in that quarry to be found by Red Cross workers a few hours later after the sun came up. It's another attack where Al Shabaab had divided out the Christians from the Muslims and sent that message that if you are Christian in any of the areas that we are able to get to, you are not safe -- Wolf?

BLITZER: Sometimes we hear those reports that if you're a Christian, they will give you a chance to, on the spot, convert to Islam to save your life. But apparently that didn't occur this time, right?

ELBAGIR: Yes, in the beginning, perhaps in an attempt -- a P.R. coup, they were saying, well, we will allow you to convert to save your life. Sometimes they were gunned down because they were told, you can convert, now they would decide it wasn't convincing enough. But increasingly, we have this horrible attack at the beginning of last week when Christians go home for the holidays around this time in Kenya. Buses were full. They attacked a bus. They brought people down. Again, it's this awful, kind of methodical, almost psychopathic nature of going one by one, are you a Christian? And then shooting at point-blank range. BLITZER: It's a shocking, shocking development. They divide up the

people. They ask who the Christians are, who the Muslims are, and then they go ahead and execute, as you point out, occasionally, behead the Christians. A shocking development.

Nima, we'll stay on top of this story. Thanks for joining us, and keep up the excellent work that you've been doing for CNN.

Let's get more now on what's going on with these radical Islamist terror groups like ISIS, al Shabaab. Is there really a threat also that they could affect the states? Just a little while ago, the House Foreign Affairs Committee finished a hearing to examine what the Obama administration is doing to counter the threat.

Let's talk about all this with the chair of the Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

Congresswoman, thank you for joining us.

REP. ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, (R-FL), CHAIR, MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA SUBCOMMITTEE: Thanks, Wolf. Thank you.

BLITZER: You heard that report from Nima Elbagir. Al Shabaab, they go ahead and divide these people into two groups, Christians and Muslims, then they go ahead and execute the Christians. It's shocking. What can the United States do about this?

ROS-LEHTINEN: It is shocking. It's horrific. It's grotesque. It's barbaric. Terrible crimes that have happened in the not-so-distant past in the world. These Islamic terror groups will stop at nothing to establish their extremist caliphate throughout the world. They will accept nothing other than their hateful ideology as a sign of true Islam, which is a perversion. And it doesn't matter what form it takes. Whether it's al Shabaab, whether it's al Qaeda, whether it's the Taliban, whether it's ISIL, they have one global jihadist network at play and that is anti-Western, anti-democracy, anti-Christian, and it's to establish this extreme caliphate throughout the world. So we've got to be ever-vigilant.

We held a hearing, Wolf, on foreign fighters, and that's alarming, the number of foreign fighters that are joining this fight for ISIS to destroy everyone's way of life. It's frightening.

BLITZER: So what can the United States do about all of this?

ROS-LEHTINEN: Well, first of all, we need to continue to work with our allies. Clearly, many of our allies are not doing enough. Turkey, for example, claims to be in this fight with us. But look at all the flux of the foreign fighters coming through Turkey into Syria, into Iraq to join the fight in ISIL. Other countries that are very worried about this -- we just met with the king of Jordan and he tells us he's very worried about the influx of foreign fighters to join in this enemy fight. So it's a problem worldwide. We need to get more of our allies into the fight. We have Jordan. We have other allies. But how are these foreign fighters getting to Syria and getting to Iraq? Because they have country leaders that are willing to look the other way. And we've got to be honest with our allies and say, Turkey, you're not doing enough, you're not stemming the flow of these foreign fighters. Some of them, sadly, are even coming from the United States, not as many. Most come from the Middle East and for Western fighters, they're coming from U.K. and France. But, still, there are over 100 who have come from the United States. We need to make sure that these foreign fighters don't come back to the United States to do us harm.

BLITZER: One final question. You have confidence in the likely new secretary of defense nominee, Ashton Carter, to replace Chuck Hagel?

ROS-LEHTINEN: Well, I think a lot of it will come out in the hearing. Is he willing to buck the president? Will he be an independent thinker? Is he going to be a yes-man? Because it seems like the president is not looking for anyone to disagree with him but to follow his dictates. I think the president made a lot of hay at the beginning of having a team of rivals around the table. Now he's getting -- assembling a team of yes-men and women around the table. We don't want that. We want someone who will really stick up for U.S. interests, the interests of the military, and to bring the fight to ISIL to get our allies involved, not to be a yes-man for the president.

BLITZER: Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen --

ROS-LEHTINEN: Thank you.

BLITZER: -- thanks very much for joining us.

ROS-LEHTINEN: Thank you, sir.

BLITZER: Thank you.

Still on the way, the Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson testifying before the House Homeland Security Committee on the president's controversial immigration reform plans.

And should the president make a trip to Ferguson, Missouri? Our political panel standing by to weigh in.

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BLITZER: No shortage of topics for our political panel this hour. CNN now learning the White House debated sending President Obama to Ferguson, Missouri. Decided the trip, at least right now, is too difficult to get it right.

The Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, he's also been testifying today at a sometimes testy hearing on immigration reform.

And some early polls in on the 2016 presidential race here in the United States. Who's really running?

Joining us now to discuss all of this and more, our chief political analyst, Gloria Borger; our CNN political commentators, Paul Begala and Newt Gingrich. Newt Gingrich, of course, the former speaker of the House of Representatives.

Newt, let me ask you quickly, you think the president should go to Ferguson, Missouri, and meet with the Michael Brown family?

NEWT GINGRICH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No. I think the president has failed to take honest statements about some -- what I think are some obvious facts. He ought to be saying to people, don't rob stores, don't push around storekeepers half your size, don't disobey the police. This whole totally one-sided version, which, by the way, requires repudiating a local grand jury that had three black members. I think this is a very one-sided story. And I think the president, frankly, would simply stir more trouble if he were to go to Ferguson. I think he ought to stay out of it. There's no case to be made here that I think is not one-sided on the president's case.

BLITZER: Paul, you agree?

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No. The president's the president of all America. And there's a role to heal. I think the timing is problematic right now. Give it a few weeks, a few months. He's bringing people to the White House. There is a set of policies here. When he was in the state Senate, he wrote a law that required that interrogations in a police station be taped. That protected cops from false charges of abuse. And it protected people who were accused of crimes. The kinds of things he's talking about now, putting body cameras on cops, the notion, by the way -- like Newt Gingrich, the notion that somehow the lesson here is "don't mess with the cops," how about "don't shoot a kid in the street who is unarmed." I think that's kind of a good lesson, too.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: I think, at this point, the president, who, by the way, is African-American -- can we forget that? -- understands the anger of the African-American community, understands the distrust that that community has for the police department in Ferguson. But, at this point, he also understands, as a constitutional lawyer and as president of the United States, they've got two Department of Justice investigations going on right now. At some point, he's going to Ferguson, and I think he should go to Ferguson. Right now, he's acting as a president should act.

BLITZER: Let's get to some politics.

Newt Gingrich, I want you to react to these new CNN/ORC polls.

On the Republican side, you heard John King report a little while ago, Mitt Romney doing very, very well, even though he says he's not running for the Republican nomination. Dr. Ben Carson, he's well known in conservative circles right now, not necessarily well known across the country. He's doing well. And Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, doing well right now.

I know it's still early, a year or so before all of the debates get underway in Iowa and New Hampshire but, that year, as you well know, Newt, that goes very quickly.

GINGRICH: Well, Paul Begala will remember better than I do, but I believe, at this point in 1991, Governor Mario Cuomo was probably the front runner and the leader of the Democratic Party was Dick Gephardt, was doing well. And Bill Clinton was relatively weak compared to all of these guys. I think these polls are nonsense for the moment.

I will say I do think Dr. Carson is doing sort of an astonishing job of becoming none of the above. He's becoming -- if you don't like regular politicians and you don't like regular politics, he's beginning to really gather those votes. And I'm told that in Iowa, he now has a chairman in all 99 counties, which is a nontrivial achievement.

BORGER: I think Ben Carson's going to attract some attention. He already has. He's had a perch at FOX News. But I also believe -- and, Newt, you would know this better than any of us, you went through this last time -- everybody gets their 15 minutes. And his is coming a little early. And it may continue. And I think these polls at this point are all about name recognition. And the Republican base knows who Carson is right now.

BEGALA: It's not just name recognition. You talked earlier about Ferguson and anger in the African-American community. I think it's there, but it's pain, too. There is anger among right wing white people. I'm quite sure it's misplaced, I have no idea why, but it is there. And Dr. Carson is speaking to that. Dr. Carson compared the United States of America, he said -- this is a quote -- "It's very much like Nazi Germany." Holy smokes! That's some serious anger. He's tapping into that anger. And there's a lot of it out there. I think 10 percent is the beginning for him, not the end. I think he's going to go much higher.

BORGER: You know how these things go. In the last election, we saw up and down, and up and down. Newt Gingrich was the beneficiary.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: I know. But I don't think --

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: I think Newt Gingrich could take them all.

Newt, I don't want to lose you, but you could take these guys.

(LAUGHTER)

GINGRICH: No, no. I think we have lots of runners in the Republican Party. We have no front runners. And I mean, Romney, I think, nominally, is a front runner because of the name I.D. But I think there are lots of candidates out there. And my guess is we'll have 10 or 12 candidates before this is over. And nobody today could tell you with any accuracy which of them is going to survive the gauntlet and be the nominee in early -- early 2016.

BLITZER: I think everybody else is right. It's still very, very early in the process. We still like looking at the polls.

(CROSSTALK)

BORGER: OK, so Newt, you're not running, right? You're not running, right?

GINGRICH: I haven't totally closed the door, but certainly not opening it.

Let me just say, I do think Carson is something more than just expressing anger. I think there are a lot of people out there who are looking for somebody different. They're tired of traditional politics and politicians. And he is a pretty good vehicle for expressing that. Whether or not he can survive, who knows at this stage? But there are also a lot of very competent people, Governor Kasich, Governor Walker, Governor Perry, Huckabee. There are going to be a ton of people playing before this thing is over.

BLITZER: Well, let me just be precise. Because, of course, you said something just intriguing, Newt Gingrich. Are you thinking about running once again for the presidential nomination?

GINGRICH: No, I think it's very implausible. It's a big mountain to climb, and I doubt very much I'll end up in that game. But I think it tells you how early it is. People could decide as late as early as September or October of next year. So all this pressure to get people out there tells you as much about the news media need to talk about it as it does about the actual calendar. There are people who are very serious. I think Governor Perry has some 500 people coming to Austin this month. Clearly, Rand Paul is ramping up a serious campaign. Scott Walker is automatically a serious contender if he wants to run. So this will be quite a season.

BLITZER: Well, good stuff for us to talk about.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: We'll have plenty of time, but we've got to go right now, unfortunately.

Guys, thanks very much.

That's it for me. I'll be back 5:00 p.m. eastern in "The Situation Room."

For our international viewers, "Amanpour" is coming up next.

For our viewers in North America, "Newsroom" with Brooke Baldwin starts right after this.

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