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P.M. Netanyahu Arrives in U.S. on Divisive Visit; Russian Police Hunt for Male Suspect; Genocide Ad Called "Revolting", "Perverse"; Netanyahu Speech Exposes Political Rift; Is Shroud of Turin an Authentic Image of Jesus?; Iraqi Forces Massing Near Saddam's Hometown; Not Your Average ATM

Aired March 01, 2015 - 18:00   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Poppy Harlow, joining you from Atlanta, 6:00 Eastern.

And the prime minister of Israel is now in our nation's capital, Washington, D.C., for what is the most controversial visits of a head of state to our nation in quite a while.

Let me bring in our global affairs correspondent, Elise Labott. She traveled with the prime minister to Washington, D.C. She joins me now on the line.

Elise, you spent 12 hours on the plane with Benjamin Netanyahu. What was it like? What was he doing?

ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Well, he was working on that speech the entire time. You know, the journalists in the back watching some movies, and it was interesting. We were kind of finding whether there was any symbolism in the movies that we were watching.

We watched "The Imitation Game", which as you know is the award- winning story of the genius who cracked that Nazi code and save Hitler -- Europe from Hitler, and indeed, the prime minister does see himself as making this kind of last-ditch effort as Churchill, the former British prime minister, did in 1939, warning about the Nazis.

You know, I talked to Israeli analysts and they say he sees himself faded in that way and we were, you know, talking in the back, the journalist aides came back and talked to us about what the prime minister was doing and he's holed up and really trying to make that speech stronger. In fact, one of the pilots on the plane said that he heard coming out of the cabin that the prime minister was yelling stronger, stronger -- no, that's not strong enough. Obviously, the prime minister sees this as a really important moment for him, Poppy.

HARLOW: That's really interesting color into what these moments were like as he prepares the final touches on his remarks to Congress. Let me ask you this, Elise. So, much of the pushback on this has been on the timing. Look, even Secretary of State John Kerry saying, yes, he's welcome to come, but his timing is odd and he didn't address the White House about it.

His election, his own election in Israel is March 17th. The deadline for the nuclear negotiations between the U.S. and Iran is March 24th. Any talk about the timing here and why he didn't come after his election if he wins?

LABOTT: Well, you know, in Israel, the election on March 17th doesn't really decide who the next prime minister is. There's a lot of horse trading because it's a parliamentary system, and they come in days after about who will form the government. So, he doesn't win or lose on March 17th and he felt that the deadline was coming up.

Israel might not even know who the prime minister is by March 24th and so, he felt that this was important to do it now. A lot of Israelis, whether it's analysts, whether it's officials or journalists do believe that he would have been doing this anyway, whether there was an election or not. Certainly, this does give him an election boost because he is -- this is his issue. This is --

HARLOW: Right.

LABOTT: -- he is seen as a one-trick pony in Israel, the security issue. And the more he can keep the Iran issue alive, the more he can get Israelis talking about it. That makes him seem strong in their eyes. It could backfire, as you said.

HARLOW: Right. Let me ask you this -- so, a group of Democrats in Congress reached out and asked if he would meet with them privately, he said no and also a group of Republicans, and he said no to both . So, he didn't want to look like he was playing politics here. That's not actually getting a lot of attention. But should it?

LABOTT: Well, I think he understands the kind of the way that this has been partisanized and what officials say is that he wants to de- partisanize it, which is why he declined invitations to speak to conservative think tanks as he also did to Democratic groups and Democratic senators. In the end he will be meeting with a bipartisan group of senators, people from both parties in the Senate. I think that he understands how partisan this is and not only that this has become an issue in his election as you said, but also that the Israel issue has become partisan in the United States and the support for Israel has always been a bipartisan issue, and he understands.

And I think that's what he's going to say in his speech to AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby on Monday at their big conference. I think he'll try to mend fences a bit and say he understands that Israel needs to be a bipartisan issue and always has been and always should be.

HARLOW: We'll be watching. Our Elise Labott, our global affairs correspondent, thank you very much for the insight. No doubt you've been up for many hours on that plane, that long trip over here to Washington. Thank you, Elise, very much.

To Russia now, where Vladimir Putin, his critic, Boris Nemtsov, was supposed to lead a huge, planned rally today, an opposition rally in Moscow, protesting Russia's involvement in Ukraine. But Nemtsov, as you know, was murdered less than 48 hours ago.

Today's rally in many ways turned into as you see, a huge tribute to him, tens of thousands of demonstrators marching throughout Moscow, some left leaving flowers at the shooting scene, his assassination taking place right on the bridge just yards away from the Kremlin.

Putin has vowed to find and to punish whoever is responsible for this murder. Russian police looking for a male suspect with short hair, wearing blue jeans and a brown sweater. Authorities say the shooter likely used a Russian-made pistol. Let's talk more about this and put it in context historically.

Joining me now "Foreign Policy" columnist Michael Weiss. He interviewed Boris Nemtsov back in 2013.

When we were speaking last hour, Michael, you made the point that you were surprised to see how strongly Vladimir Putin came out condemning this murder. Why?

MICHAEL WEISS, COLUMNIST, FOREIGN POLICY: Usually when critics of his government are killed under very suspicious circumstances, Anna Politkovskaya for one, he doesn't mention them by name. His preference is to sort of relegate them to the ash heap of history as sort of irrelevancies in terms of Russian culture and society. In this case he did come out, I mean, very swiftly to say that, you know, this was a provocational-seeming crime that needs to be punished and, you know, he's personally, meaning Putin, will oversee the investigation.

Look, a lot of observers of Russia, contemporary and historical Russia, have -- myself included, have made the assassination of Sergey Kirov in 2004. This was a crime committed against actually a high- party official, quite very much a communist, probably almost certainly orchestrated by Joseph Stalin as a way to inaugurate a kind of political dragnet of all the remaining opposition figures in the country, namely the Travskys (ph).

So I've seen a lot of people, Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of Russia, make this claim and people inside Russia are thinking along the same lines and that just goes to show you the level -- the climate of fear and paranoia and uncertainty that now persists in Russia. What's next?

HARLOW: The dream the Boris Nemtsov had to make a difference, as he described it in a "Newsweek" article, to even get a few seats, to assert whatever power possible. Do you believe that this assassination in any way lessens that dream becoming a reality or do you believe that other opposition leaders knows that this can come unfortunately with the territory of opposing power if that was part of what led to his death?

WEISS: Certainly what Nemtsov dedicated his entire political career to has not come to fruition unfortunately within the span of his own life, and I think it's very silly to make predictions. If you had asked anybody in 2010, can you imagine 100,000 people lining the streets of Moscow to denounce the party of crooks and thieves in a stolen parliamentary election and they would have said no, and then that exact thing happened a year later.

In this case, I've seen a lot of harping on the actual numbers to turn out at this event with the pro-Nemtsov rally.

HARLOW: Right.

WEISS: I think that's kind of beside the point.

Look, you know, there is a mass feeling in Russia now that, you know, that this government, Vladimir Putin, he's going to be in power for a very long time and he might actually outlast Stalin, in terms of continuous tenure.

There is a sense that, you know, there is a news circling around the neck of all free-thinking and critically minded Russians. I talk to a lot of these guys a lot of the time. They say the worse they've ever seen it since Putin came to power. I've seen people in Western government circles describe the re-Sovietization of Russian society. Again, these analogies going back to the 1930s, the curtain raiser on the great terror. They might seem a little ostentatious and certainly, I mean, Russia is not a totalitarian state. It's definitely an authoritarian one, but a lot of the circumstances are sort of pregnant with history.

I mean, you have essentially -- our U.S. State Department described it as a virtual mafia state, quoting actually a Spanish counterterrorism magistrate who was involved with Alexander Litvinenko was, of course, the Russian spy defector who now according to London courtroom is showing -- was almost certainly ordered assassinated in the streets of London in 2006 by the FSB and probably with the permission or the direct order of Mr. Putin himself, given that he was irradiated with a nuclear isotope.

This is a very dark time in Russian history and what happens here on out as they're going to be internal coup? Is there going to be a revolution?

the direct order of Mr. Putin himself given that he was e radiated with a nuclear isotope. This is a very dark time in Russian history and what happens here on out as they're going to be internal coup? Is there going to be a revolution? How does the country implode or fall apart? This is something on everyone's mind they talked to inside and outside Russia. So --

HARLOW: But we'll see inside Russia. This is a president who is enjoying an 86 percent approval rating. So, all things considered.

WEISS: Right. But I mean, the circumstances of that have to be interrogated as well.

HARLOW: Sure, sure.

WEISS: When everyone is getting their news from television and television, you know, says that --

HARLOW: Is spouting what the government -- WEISS: And compares the U.S. ambassador of Russia to a pedophile and

says that the CIA is responsible for everything, you know --

HARLOW: Michael --

WEISS: Yes?

HARLOW: We're out of time, I'm told, but I can talk about this forever with you. Thank you.

WEISS: Thanks, Poppy.

HARLOW: We appreciate it as always.

WEISS: Sure.

HARLOW: Boris Nemtsov had a very fascinating conversation, a candid one with our own Anthony Bourdain last year. He told Bourdain he was increasingly concerned over how President Putin could be undermining the Russian political system. You're going to see this discussion that's ever aired on television tonight, 7:30 Eastern, right here on CNN, the Bourdain interview special with Boris Nemtsov.

Also, coming up, an ad in "The New York Times" is being called by some -- revolting, perverse, outrageous. It targets an Obama adviser likening her to genocide. Take a look at that. We're going to talk about this with the rabbi behind the ad, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: In a full page ad appeared in "The New York Times" this weekend, an image of national security adviser Susan Rice is paired alongside this phrase, "Susan Rice has a blind spot: Genocide."

The ad was taken out by American rabbi Shmuley Boteach, by his organization. Now, the White House is slamming the ad. A senior administration official told -- at the White House told CNN, quote, let me read this to you, "The ad is being widely met with revulsion that it deserves. Frankly, the ad says more about those who supported it than it says about Susan Rice."

The rabbi joins me now. He is defending this ad.

Thank you for being with me.

For a lot of people looking at this and a lot of people in the Jewish community who have spoken out about this, they call this incredibly disturbing. And I'm wondering, first, why did you do this? And do you think it is constructive?

RABBI SHMULEY BOTEACH, FOUNDER, THIS WORLD: THE VALUES NETWORK: Firstly, what's truly disturbing is that the administration is negotiating with Iran without first asking them to publicly repudiate the genocidal intent --

HARLOW: Sir, we're going to get to that in a moment, but I would like you to answer my question.

BOTEACH: Which is, was this helpful?

HARLOW: Yes. Why doing it in this way was constructive?

BOTEACH: Well, think about it. Susan Rice was on Charlie Rose the other night, and she said that the prime minister of Israel even speaking out to oppose a deal that would leave Iran within 12 months of a breakout to a nuclear weapon can destroy the fabric of the America-Israel relationship, that has to be responded to.

If the national security adviser of the United States of America has an issue with the leader of a nation with a leader of a nation who experienced a genocide simply defending this nation that has to be responded to.

Now, we all have a blind spot when it comes to genocide, which is why we had Cambodia and Rwanda, and Srebrenica and Kosovo, et cetera. But she's a public official. Now, we have seen way too many people slaughtered and this administration needs to step up and do something.

Now, Iran is threatening the annihilation of the Jewish people. It is perverse that these negotiations are taking place without a demand that Iran first totally renounce their genocidal intent against the Jews.

HARLOW: The American Jewish Committee called this revolting. The Anti-Defamation League called it spurious and perverse. The Jewish Federation of North America called it outrageous.

I think what I'm wondering is, what is your goal? What do you hope that this ad accomplishes?

BOTEACH: I want -- we have to raise consciousness in America to the indiscriminate slaughter of innocents that takes place around the world and America in action. We quoted Ambassador Samantha Power who was Susan Rice's successor as saying that Susan Rice in 1994 refused to label the Rwandan genocide a genocide for partisan political purposes. Now, therefore, Susan Rice should go out of her way, having been quoted as saying that by her own successor in a Pulitzer Prize- winning book to be extra sensitive to the mass indiscriminate slaughter of innocents to genocide.

We have Iran lying to the world about a nuclear program for more than a decade and the United States is in the midst of negotiations with that government without first demanding that they renounce their intentions to destroy the Jews.

HARLOW: And we're going to talk about this more after the break and with this ad, and let me pull it up so our viewers can see it, with this ad, the image that you place right there, Susan Rice next to skulls and with this, "Susan Rice has a blind spot: Genocide." What is the goal, the action that you expect to be taken, or what you would like to see taken immediately in response to this, because you even -- you even had Madeleine Albright coming out and speaking about this is saying, you know, anyone watching history can see Ambassador Rice as a patriotic public servant, conscientious voice versus genocide and staunch ally of Israel.

What do you want to see happen, sir?

BOTEACH: We want the American public to stand up to our government, be a Democrat or Republican , and demand that we use American power to protect innocents that are being slaughtered in places like the Central African Republic, Darfur, and Iran's genocidal intent against Israel.

How can Madeleine Albright say that when the immediate successor to Susan Rice, who's currently in office, Ambassador Samantha Power quotes Susan Rice as saying in a national security meeting in 1994 that we cannot label Rwanda a genocide because it will affect Democrats in the midterm elections? That is a historical fact.

And the reason those pictures are there, those are skulls from Ntarama church in Rwanda, just outside Kigali, the capital. I was in that church, 800,000 people were hacked to death. The United States did nothing.

We have to begin to intervene in genocides. God gave us this military power and all of these resources in order to protect African children who are being hacked to death.

HARLOW: Are you -- what is --

BOTEACH: -- and in the Middle East or anywhere else, that is our responsibility.

HARLOW: Are you at all surprised by a reaction by these organizations, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Federation of North America, all speaking out against this? Are you surprised? Did you expect their support in this?

BOTEACH: We don't do -- our organization doesn't have its principles and convictions determined by popularity or by praise. We believe in the infinite value and dignity of human life. We believe that the United States has to intervene when it comes to genocides.

We believe that Susan Rice should not be condemning the leader of a tiny little Middle Eastern country, which is facing a nuclear threat from the foremost sponsor of terrorism around the world. She should not be saying on national TV that he has no right to speck out and if he does he will harm the relationship with the United States. That's a form of bullying. It's unfair.

This country believes in freedom of speech, let the prime minister speak and agree with him or disagree with him. But don't silence him.

HARLOW: We have to get a break and stay with me. More with the rabbi after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: All right. Before the break, we were talking about this ad. Let's pull it up for you. It was in "The New York Times" this week and it's an image of national security adviser Susan Rice, paired alongside the phrase, "Susan Rice has a blind spot: Genocide".

Let me bring back the rabbi whose organization put out this ad, back with me.

Also with me now, Yousef Munayyer, executive director of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.

Thank you, gentlemen, for both being with me, as well.

Let me get Yousef in here, and, Rabbi, then I'll get back to you, as well. What is -- what is your take on this ad? What do you make of this ad?

YOUSEF MUNAYYER, EXEC. DIR., U.S. CAMPAIGN TO END THE ISRAELI OCCUPATION: I think it's unfortunately part of an effort to really attack an administration that is attempting to act in the American national interest to resolve an issue of international concern with its partners on trying to make sure that Iran is in line with its obligations under the non-proliferation treaty, and what we've seen instead is this effort by folks like the rabbi and by Benjamin Netanyahu to undercut the effort by the administration to advance this agreement which would be in the American national interest.

So, it's really, I think, inappropriate and, in fact, dangerous when we have foreign leaders coming to the United States, to challenge a president who is trying to keep the United States out of war. The reality is the American people are tired of going into wars in the Middle East, which could be completely avoided. And what is happening today is that this effort and this ad and Mr. Netanyahu's speech and other things like that are trying to make the path to a far more hasty and trying to make confrontation far more likely and Americans are just tired of this.

HARLOW: Yousef, I do -- if we have the sound, I do want to play for you what Susan Rice did say on PBS this week, talking about -- we don't have the sound -- but what she said is she believes that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu coming to speak and address this joint meeting of Congress is destructive to the fabric of the relationship between the United States and Israel. The rabbi is saying, look, this is a response to that comment which he and others found deeply offensive.

MUNAYYER: Well, it's not just him speaking here that is destructive to the fabric of the relationship. It's the policies that he represents, right? It's the policies that he represents in -- in the occupied Palestinian territories where he runs a regime that's denying the basic human rights of Palestinians. The expansion of Israeli settlements against international law and stated U.S. policy, the hasty move towards confrontation with Iran despite the fact that America is working with its allies around the world to try to avoid that.

These are the things that are putting Mr. Netanyahu in direct confrontation not just with the White House, but with an American people who is tired of this approach and is also growingly concerned about what is happening to Palestinians at the hands of this Israeli state.

HARLOW: Let me bring in the rabbi in. Rabbi, I know you were with me before the break. But your response to Yousef.

BOTEACH: You know, in 1938, Czechoslovakia was dismembered by England and France and Germany, Nazi Germany in a conference that they were not allowed to attend. Just imagine that. Everything was about their future and their security and they weren't allowed to be there.

Iran is negotiating with the United States, and Israel is not allowed to be at those negotiations, even though Iran is in close proximity to Israel and threatened the annihilation of Israel.

Now, the prime minister of Israel says, listen, if you won't let me be at the negotiations, let me at least come and talk to the legislature, and the national security adviser of the United States says that speaking out, that just talking will destroy the fabric of a relationship? Do we not believe in the First Amendment? What is going on here?

Why are they attempting to silence the prime minister of Israel? That's the only question. Why is this administration so threatened by what he's going to say? It's only a speech? Is anyone threatened by what I'm saying? Yousef and I having a dialogue, don't agree, but we don't silence each other.

Susan Rice's attempt to silence the prime minister was outrageous. And our ad was a direct response to that, that you have a government threatening a Second Holocaust of the Jews, 6 million Jews who live in Israel, and we are not going to be silent. We were silent in the 1930s and '40s and that resulted in 10,000 people being gassed a day in Auschwitz.

Jews do not walk into gas chambers anymore. We will rattle the cage and we will be vocal that we are human beings who deserve to live. We are tired of Jews shot and killed in Europe, Copenhagen, Brussels and France. We are just tired of it and we are going to be vocal. And if it makes people uncomfortable, we're sorry.

HARLOW: Rabbi, thank you very much. Yousef Munayyer, thank you very much.

We have to get a quick break in. I'm back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: This just in to us here at CNN from South Korea confirming that North Korea has fired a pair of missiles. Taking a look at the map there, South Korean officials telling us that the two missiles fired from North Korea were short range ballistic missiles. They landed in the sea.

The timing not a complete surprise. United States and South Korea just beginning a 45-day training exercise this weekend. We'll keep an eye on this. We will update you on any other developments that we get.

Also, let's continue to talk about the top story of the day. It is a high-stakes speech by a U.S. ally, but his visit is exposing major division in our own political system in Washington. Republicans, House Speaker John Boehner inviting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to talk about his concerns over nuclear negotiations with Iran in front of a joint meeting of Congress on Tuesday morning.

President Obama, though, not consulted about this invite. The president will not be meeting with the prime minister. The White House really saying they wished that they were consulted.

Let's talk about this with "Atlantic Media" editor Peter Beinart.

Thank you for being with me, Peter. I appreciate it.

PETER BEINART, EDITOR, ATLANTIC MEDIA: My pleasure.

HARLOW: I read a lot of what you've been written recently about this, and one thing that stood out to me is the sort of more historical context here. So I'd like you to address it. You wrote that you believe that the president, President Obama understands Israel through the lens of liberalism while Netanyahu understands it through the prism of security and strength.

Do you believe that that is fundamental to the difference and the divide between these two men right now?

BEINART: To some degree. I mean, Benjamin Netanyahu comes from a political tradition in which Israeli permanent control over millions of Palestinians who lack citizenship, the right to vote in the country that controls their lives in the West Bank who live under military law is considered normal and acceptable and justifiable on Israeli security grounds.

Barack Obama going back to, you know, when he ran for president starting in 2000 has always been very, very uncomfortable with that morally, as many Israelis are, but Benjamin Netanyahu is not. So I think they come from a very, very different kind of political tradition and now you're seeing this difference in world view playing itself out in Iran.

HARLOW: So I want you to listen to this sound this morning from Senator Dianne Feinstein. She's going to hear the address. She's not a supporter of the timing of it. She is an American Jew, and here's what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D), CALIFORNIA: He doesn't at all --

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Does that bother you when he says he speaks for all Jews?

FEINSTEIN: Yes. I think it's a rather arrogant statement. I think the Jewish community is like any other community. There are different points of view. So I -- I think that arrogance does not befit Israel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Peter, what do you make of those comments?

BEINART: I think she was referring to Benjamin Netanyahu's claim that he speaks for the Jewish people.

HARLOW: Right. Yes.

BEINART: He doesn't. He was elected by Israelis inside what's called the Green Line, inside original Israel. Outside of the Green Line most people don't have the right to vote, but he was never -- he was never elected by American Jews or French Jews or Australian Jews, so no, we may be interested in what he says. We may -- many Jews like me feel a very strong connection to the state of Israel, but there's been a longstanding principle going back to virtually the creation of the state of Israel that Israeli leaders do not have the right to speak for Diaspora Jews.

We are citizens of the United States. We participate in the election that elected Barack Obama. He's not our president. Benjamin Netanyahu is not our prime minister.

HARLOW: It's interesting. Some have said why isn't this relationship between our president now and Benjamin Netanyahu more like the relationship between Yitzhak Rabin and President Clinton, or Ariel Sharon and President Bush.

Do you think in the next two years at the end of our president's term that we can get to that place or should we expect it?

BEINART: No. Because are because Yitzhak Rabin, like Bill Clinton, wanted the creation of a Palestinian state. He was serious about that. He was in the beginning of a negotiating process that I think had Rabin stayed in power might have moved us in that direction. Even Ariel Sharon was closer than Benjamin Netanyahu is.

There's a larger ideological gulf between President Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu. Plus Benjamin Netanyahu has been playing some pretty strident politics with the Republican Party. In 2012 when he invited Mitt Romney to come speak in Israel. So there is a partisan gulf here that you see between a Democratic president and a Likudnik prime minister who's very aligned with the Republican Party that you didn't see back with Sharon or with Yitzhak Rabin.

HARLOW: Peter Beinart, thanks for joining me tonight. I appreciate it.

Quick break. We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: When it comes to Jesus and the history, how do we separate fact from fiction?

Well, a new series on CNN premiering tonight attempts to do just that. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An unprecedented CNN event. He didn't vanish without leaving a trace.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For the first time in history we're able to place these relics.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And grasp something that changed the world.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is really the moment of truth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the story of Jesus.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The rock upon which the church was built.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An icon of scientific obsession.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is extraordinary to find an archaeological piece.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What do we really have here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why did Judas betray Jesus?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Somebody chose to write this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The science does matter. Is this the burial shroud of Jesus.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What are the clues he left behind? Faith, fact, forgery.

"FINDING JESUS" premieres tonight at 9:00 on CNN.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: That is a sneak peek of a fascinating new series kicking off tonight on CNN, "FINDING JESUS."

Let me bring in our guest John Jackson, he's founder and director of the Turin Shroud Center. He joins us now from Colorado Spring.

Thank you for being with me. You are part of this premiere episode. And I saw it and it is absolutely fascinating because you go down to literally the fibers of the Shroud of Turin. What was the most difficult part of your research in all of this?

JOHN JACKSON, FOUNDER & DIRECTOR, TURIN SHROUD CENTER OF COLORADO: I presume you're talking about our scientific expedition back in 1978.

HARLOW: Right.

JACKSON: I think the hardest part was to try to choreograph and to make sure the protocol for getting all the science that we were there to get would happen. As leader of that team at that particular time it was a very difficult effort to accomplish, but we did it. We got the data that we wanted.

HARLOW: What was interesting is that was back in 1978 and since then science has improved a lot, since then carbon dating has been done of the Shroud of Turin, another significant cloth that is said to have wrapped Jesus' head is also tested, and the blood stains from both are matched on to one another. There are a lot of questions here.

When you leave watching this first episode, and I don't want to give it away to our viewers, but what are you left thinking? Are you left thinking yes, we have the answer, that this was indeed the cloth that wrapped Jesus or are we still questioning that?

JACKSON: Well, I think that this is something that everybody should engage themselves with to become part of the process of understanding what we have here because the very possibility that we might have the burial cloth of Jesus in actuality is something that we have to get this one right, and so we have to insist upon the best science and historical inquiry that we can.

HARLOW: Finally, before I let you go, what do you make of why people find this particular -- the Shroud of Turin and the subject of this first episode so fascinating? Why does it fascinate believers and non-believers so much?

JACKSON: Well, I've had the privilege of being able to get over 2,000 presentations on the shroud in my time here, and I -- my thought is this, that the shroud touches, if it's authentic, it touches the central Christian belief in the resurrection which is Christianity's answer to our human mortality which I think is something that drives human nature at a very fundamental level.

HARLOW: Thank you so much. It is fascinating. Everyone should watch is tonight. Appreciate you being with me, sir.

"FINDING JESUS: FACT, FAITH, FORGERY" tonight, 9:00 p.m. Eastern only right here on CNN.

Back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: All right. The Iraqi military has launched a mission to retake the city of Tikrit from ISIS. It's not the biggest city in Iraq but it symbolically is very important. It's a former cradle of power for Saddam Hussein. Iraqi political leaders and military commanders are in Iraq this weekend. They are overseeing the start of what they call a liberation of cities north of Baghdad.

Let's talk about this with our experts Michael Weiss who just wrote a big book on ISIS who's with me. Also retired Lt. Col. James Reese, our global affairs analyst.

Let me begin with you, Colonel Reese. Let's talk about north of Baghdad, how significant this is because we've watched ISIS so successfully spread through Syria and Iraq.

Is this just important rhetoric coming from the Iraqi government or is this really important action you think could be effective in tackling ISIS.

LT. COL. JAMES REESE, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Poppy, good evening. No, this is really effective what we have to do against ISIS. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of western reporters covering this, as a matter of fact, I don't think there's any north of Baghdad in the Samarra-Anbiya Province and so the problem is there's a kind of a lack of communication coming out of there.

This is big. The prime minister was up in Samarra. They actually kicked this assault off to move to Tikrit which actually really began about the 11th of February that brought this piece in. So right now you've got Iraqi Security Forces along with Peshmerga military units up there and really kind of surrounding Tikrit. We've gotten back Speicher FOB that most of our listeners will remember from the Iraq war, we had a large American presence at Speicher.

And right now this will be the next piece. We take Tikrit and then they keep walking their way up toward Mosul.

HARLOW: All right. I want our viewers to hear some of this interview from our own Fareed Zakaria, an exclusive interview with King Abdullah of Jordan. And Fareed asked him, is a Western fight? Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST, FAREED ZAKARIA GPS: Should -- how should the West handle it? Should the response to ISIS be essentially an Arab response, a Muslim response or should the West be in the lead?

KING ABDULLAH II, JORDAN: This has to be unified. I mean, I've said this to leaders both in the Islamic and Arab world and to the world in general. This is a third world war by other means. This brings Muslims, Christians, other religions together in this generational fight that all of us have to be in this together. So it's not a Western fight. This is a fight inside of Islam where everybody comes together against these outlaws, so to speak.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: What do you think of that? I thought it was very interesting to hear King Abdullah's entire interview, talking about how really Islam and Muslims have to fight against the perversion of their own faith?

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: To Michael Weiss?

MICHAEL WEISS, CO-AUTHOR, "ISIS: INSIDE THE ARMY OF TERROR": Sorry. Well, the first thing I would say is that it kind of puts pain to the idea that there is absolutely nothing about the Islamic State that has to do with Islam. I mean, if the king of Jordan is saying that Muslims have an obligation to, you know, confront these terrorists, arming these terrorist organization, I mean, he's kind of giving the game away a little bit there.

I think he's quite right. You know, look, he saw one of his pilots emulated in the most brutal fashion in a cage exhibited in a video around the world. You know, Jordan has absolutely taken on the right rhetoric and the right tone about confronting Daesh. My question, though, is, you know, are all of the Arab countries and the coalition, do they have the stomach for this fight? Because eventually I do foresee ground forces being deployed.

If I might just back up a little bit about the siege of Tikrit that's under way, I have to differ with the colonel a little bit here. This is not a fight that's going to be led by the Iraqi Security Forces or the Kurdish Peshmerga. I wish that were the case. In fact it's going to be led by the Popular Mobilization Committee which is a consortium of Shia militia groups built by Iran, consisting of some entities that have been designated U.S. terrorist organizations.

All over social media right now, there's a photograph of Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran, standing in Camp Speicher, as the colonel pointed out, a former U.S. military base, essentially rallying the troops.

I see this as it's going to be a very bloody, very nasty fight because essentially you have these Shia militia groups some of whom have been accused of ethnic cleansing and atrocities against Sunni, going into Saddam Hussein's hometown.

HARLOW: Right.

WEISS: This is going to be nasty.

HARLOW: I do want to get the colonel back in.

You're shaking your head. Colonel Reese, your response.

REESE: Yes, Michael is right. I mean, it's really a three-pronged attack by both the Iraqi Security Forces, the Peshmerga and there are some Shia militia up there. As a matter of fact there's several of them up there. And some of the local villages northeast of the Tikrit have asked for some of those militia to come up as the Iraqi Security Forces.

So I think we need to be careful who we're kind of throwing the rocks at here. It's a three-pronged attack. Everyone is trying to work together. It's not a pretty picture, but the Iraqi Security Forces and the prime minister are really trying to push this thing together and Muqtada al-Sadr actually pulled back some of his Shia militia after the Shia senior -- senior religious leader was killed in Baghdad a couple of weeks ago.

HARLOW: All right. Michael Weiss, Colonel James Reese, thank you both very much.

You should, everyone, log on to CNN.com/fareed, watch his entire interview -- exclusive interview with the king of Jordan. It is absolutely fascinating.

All right, coming up next, we're going to switch gears, talk about ATMs transforming the banking business. Now your phone is already transforming the way we all bank. Is it going to mean the end of the ATM?

Our Cristina Alesci joins me live straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: All right. Welcome back. Your run-of-the-mill ATM could look very, very different soon. It's not a new device that prints money, but it could make banking a whole lot easier for a whole lot of people.

Cristina Alesci from CNN Money joins me now from New York.

What are we talking about?

CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT: We're talking about the biggest bank in America, Chase. It's rolling out some very new technology. It says it serves 50 million households and businesses, some of those customers could be seeing some pretty cool upgrades when they walk into their local branch in just a few months.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALESCI (voice-over): For Chase customers an ATM card could soon be a relic. The bank is testing technology that will let you withdraw cash by tapping your phone, then swipe your finger, enter a verification code and your PIN and get access to your account.

Chase says these layers of protection add security for customers. This flashy ATM is also a bid to keep up with consumer demands in an age when people expect better, faster and more convenient banking.

And the bank isn't stopping there. It also has a pilot program called Chase Pay which will work much like PayPal does on retail Web sites, but it will be linked right to Chase accounts and credit cards. And it's encrypted for security much like Apple Pay.

Chase says customer card numbers are never shared and merchants don't have the ability to store information.

All of this new technology actually saves Chase money. That's because 42 percent of customers still use tellers to deposit money versus 48 percent at ATMs and 10 percent on mobile.

The last is the fastest growing of the three. Up 25 percent year over year and it's also the cheapest for Chase to process. Just 3 cents per transaction. That's huge because customers make hundreds of millions of them each year.

Chase calls it the branch of the future, but it feels more like what customers want right now. Speed, technology, and ease without extra cost. (END VIDEOTAPE)

ALESCI: Now, Poppy, just to put this into context, the bank is making lots of changes to reduce cost in its vast retail network. It has 5600 branches across the country and it's planning to close 300 by the end of 2016.

HARLOW: And of course, when you look at technology like this you wonder, jobs, right? And fewer people needing bank branches. I know we have a big update on the job market coming this week, things have been getting better. What are we expecting to see in the jobs report?

ALESCI: Well, look, investors and economists and the Fed itself wants to see the continuation of additions to the job number. We're expecting 230,000 jobs to be added to the economy, but that is not the only headline that investors are going to be looking at. They're also going to be looking for wage growth.

HARLOW: Right.

ALESCI: That stagnated last year. We want to see more of that and that's really important, Poppy.

HARLOW: It's so important. So important, not just that headline number. I know you'll have the news for us on Friday morning.

Thank you, Cristina, I appreciate it. Good to have you on the program.

And as she just talked about wages and that gap, income inequality, we hear a lot about it and we're going to hear more likely as the presidential campaigns start to get more on track.

The CEO of Goldman Sachs sat down with me and I asked him about income inequality and he said look, this country doesn't have a problem creating wealth. Here is the problem. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: You have said that income inequality is destabilizing. A destabilizing factor in this country. And I'm wondering what you think it could mean if there is not improvement in, say, the next five years. We saw what the lack of economic opportunity has done in the Middle East, for example.

LLOYD BLANKFEIN, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, GOLDMAN SACHS: Listen, we're not --

HARLOW: Are you worried about social uprisings?

BLANKFEIN: Look. No. The American culture is not that way. Look, we went through a great depression with unemployment rates at 25 percent. We're not -- you know, we're not there. If this -- we're not destabilized. It is destabilizing. You know, when people aren't happy, when people think the economic system isn't working for them, we've done a better job in this country at creating wealth than we have at distributing it.

And we have to do a better job and it behooves everybody to join in. And by the way who are the beneficiaries of the economic progress aren't necessarily the cause of it. In other words, if you ask people to vote are you for inequality? Everyone would say no. It's just there've been a lot of factors in the world that had evolved, that skewed the world that with rise of technology, a winner-take-all market, I think we all have to get together and work on this problem. It's everybody's problem.

HARLOW: So other than growing the pie, what can be done? Where does the responsibility lie?

BLANKFEIN: Listen, one of the things that we have to do which is I think the easiest thing is I think we have to supply to the general public and cheaply or freely, freely, all the things that the very well-to-do can buy for themselves that the poor don't, that are the predicate for success later in life, so training, education, housing, those are things that the wealthiest people have and the poorest people don't have and if you don't have it you lose your access to the escalator that can take you up and through the middle class and higher.

And so what we have to do is if you collected revenue from the whole which means in a progressive tax system the wealthier people and not write checks to people, but rather invest it in education, housing, those benefits will disproportionately, to the neediest elements of society.

HARLOW: I just feel like people know this, but it doesn't happen.

BLANKFEIN: Well, you know, we have a political system that's a little bit stuck and it's very, very hard to -- it's very, very hard to move things along. Harder than it should be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: All right.

We talked about a lot more -- China, oil prices, Hillary Clinton. By the way, Blankfein's not on Twitter. Just go to CNNmoney.com/investing, click on the Blankfein interview. You can see the whole thing right there.

7:00 Eastern and you are in the CNN NEWSROOM. A lot of news this Sunday evening.