Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Awaiting Netanyahu Address; Interview with Rep. Luis Gutierrez; Iran Speaks about Netanyahu Speech

Aired March 03, 2015 - 10:30   ET

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


WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: All right -- Kate. We're going to get back to you obviously. Get more Israeli reaction. The elections in Israel exactly two weeks from today -- it's very, very tight if you believe all of the public opinion polls in Israel right now.

Let's bring in Democratic congressman Luis Gutierrez of Illinois. He's joining Jake and me right now. Congressman, you have decided and I don't know if you ever thought this would happen that you are going to boycott a speech by the visiting prime minister of Israel.

REP. LUIS GUTIERREZ (D), ILLINOIS: Well, look, I'm going to skip the speech. I'm going to be visiting with some friends from AIPAC. They're coming by the office -- friends that I've had for decades. We're going to have a dialogue and conversation as we have had in the past.

I think that's the prudent and wise way to go about this. I think the prime minister could have gone to AIPAC or spoken there and, you know, and all of the lobbying forces could have come and talked to the members of congress.

Look, people have developed relationships over decades. We shouldn't let a backdrop of very conservative political leaning parties in Israel and very conservative political leanings here in the United States to kind of craft what it is we're thinking and we're talking about.

BLITZER: And we're showing the viewers -- Congressman, here's the prime minister of Israel. You can see him walking by. Maybe he'll stop.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: There's Ron Dermer, the U.S. Ambassador.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Are you concerned Mr. Prime Minister, are you concerned about classified information?

BLITZER: Good try by Dana. But unfortunately he didn't want to stop. He's walking by Dana. But he did speak yesterday at that AIPAC event. What I hear you say is you're going to meet with some of your friends. Are you going to watch the speech in your office?

GUTIERREZ: Of course, I'm going to watch the speech. I'm interested in hearing what he has to say. What I'm not going to do is allow the House of Representatives and that chamber to be used as a political backdrop, as a prop.

Look, I don't care if they come to speak to me in English, Spanish or Hebrew. It shouldn't be used as a political backdrop and unfortunately the prime minister has used in political commercials speeches before the Congress of the United States. And I fear that that is a lot of what is going on right now.

TAPPER: Congressman, the prime minister of Israel argues he views an Iran with nuclear weapons as an existential threat to the state of Israel meaning that it would wipe out Israel potentially. Do you doubt that that is why he's here giving this speech to congress?

GUTIERREZ: Here's what I doubt -- that we don't have the same commitment that he has and that the people of Israel; that we have a relationship that is an important relationship, an international relationship. And we shouldn't let partisan politics -- look, that invitation that Netanyahu received is based on a very false premise as you know.

It says, Mr. Netanyahu, "I invite you on behalf of the bipartisan leadership of the House and the Senate". Now, you know, the Speaker spent last week telling us we should shine our shoes. We should make sure we have nice ties on. Comb our hairs and have proper decorum. I think the first thing we should do is make invitations that are based on truth. That one wasn't.

TAPPER: Beyond your disagreements with Republican leadership of congress, do you doubt that the reason Netanyahu is here is because he is afraid this deal could potentially jeopardize the existence of Israel?

GUTIERREZ: Here's what I see. I see not only the prime minister of Israel. I see a candidate that's in a tough re-election effort. And both of you would question anybody that would come here two weeks before an election to make this kind of speech because that's what you do and that's what we do in America is bring out democracy and bring out the truth and try to say those things.

But look, here's my point of view. We are not going to let a deal that lets Iran have nuclear weapons. I guess my point of view is this. Why don't we give peace, negotiations, and the ability of living with Iran? War is always an option. You know what isn't always an option? Peace and harmony and being able to say that we can fix this.

I'm a member of the House Intelligence Committee so last year when it started -- you know, this whole conversation started in the House -- right, and in the Senate about whether we should have a deal. I said, "You know, I get pretty good information." I asked Speaker Boehner then to invite all of the members of the House down so we could have a briefing by the intelligence services. It did happen.

I thought that was good because I want the members of the House to understand that our intelligence services feel very, very confident that they can monitor this. So at any point if we have to go to war if we have to use missiles, that's an option that's very quickly used. BLITZER: After all the other options have been exhausted.

(CROSSTALK)

GUTIERREZ: Of course, and let's just try to have a verifiable agreement. Look, it's not only us. It's Germany, it's France, it's England -- it's an international community.

BLITZER: All right. Congressman, thanks very much for coming in. I want you to get back and watch the speech at least in your room in your office on television.

GUTIERREZ: I don't want to be (inaudible)

BLITZER: I hope you watch it on CNN. Thanks very much.

While Prime Minister Netanyahu is pressing for no deal with Iran right now, Iran is already reacting. You're going to see what the chief Iranian diplomat is now telling CNN in an exclusive interview. Our own Jim Sciutto caught up with Iran's foreign minister in Switzerland just a few moments ago. What the foreign minister said about Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech is very important. You'll see it only here on CNN.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: The Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu is now up on Capitol Hill. He's getting ready to address the joint meeting of the United States Congress -- a meeting where about 50 or 60 Democrats are boycotting. They're opposed to his decision to try to address this joint meeting of congress only two weeks before the Israeli election.

The President of the United States is not talking to the prime minister while he's here in Washington not even picking up the phone to welcome him in a phone conversation. The vice president decided to be out of the country today so he won't be attending. He normally would be sitting right behind the prime minister with the Speaker of the House since the vice president of the United States also serves as the President of the United States senate.

Even while all of this drama is unfolding in Washington, there's very intense drama unfolding in Switzerland right now as these negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program continue and enter a critical stage. Jim Sciutto is our chief national security correspondent. He's joining us from Montreux, Switzerland with the latest on the talks. What are the latest? Because I know you had a chance to actually check in with the chief Iranian diplomat.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well Wolf, we've been watching over the last 24 hours this energetic, high-paced shuttle diplomacy between the U.S. and Iran as Secretary of State John Kerry goes back and forth a half a dozen times just in the last 24 hours to meet the Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif. The Iranian foreign minister telling us earlier in the day in his words, that there's a seriousness about moving forward in these talks. And for all the politics back in Washington they are focused here on trying to narrow what are serious gaps remaining between the two sides.

But I did ask the Iranian foreign minister, if Netanyahu speech is interrupting things here. Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Does the Netanyahu speech affect that talks at all?

JAVAD ZARIF, IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: Well, he's trying to but I don't think trying to create tension and conflict helps anyone.

SCIUTTO: Thank you, sir.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Trying to create tension and conflict. The other way that those talks are seeping or rather the politics in Washington are seeping into the talks here are those concerns about what will Prime Minister Netanyahu reveal about the talks here? But frankly Wolf that they have been doing a good job and I've been covering these for more than a year now about keeping most of the details under wraps. How much will he reveal today?

Fact is secretary of state, his aides, may not know exactly how much until Prime Minister Netanyahu starts speaking there in congress.

BLITZER: And he's going to be speaking right near the top of the hour. What do we know about the remaining sticking points in these negotiations, Jim?

SCIUTTO: There are big ones. Let's just get to the public ones first. One is on Iran, fessing up in effect with past work on weaponization. We heard the IAEA say yesterday, you still haven't answered those sanctions. Remarkable considering you have three weeks to political deadlines.

Another is the relief of sanctions. Iran wants all those sanctions lifted at once. That's a nonstarter for the U.S. That's a major issue to still have on the table this late in the negotiations.

But the other and the in details about how you get to this one-year breakout period. It's been described to me as a Rubik's Cube. So many things affecting not just the number of centrifuges this number 6,500 is out there but how advanced are they? A key issue I'll tell you Wolf is that Iran wants to be able to continue research and development on advance centrifuges that can spin uranium, enrich it up to higher grade of 10 to 15 times the rate of others. You need a lot fewer of them. They want to continue that research. They won't be able to build them. That's still a major sticking point along with the sanctions, along with past weaponization work. That's a lot of work to get through. Those are big gaps to close in three or so weeks remaining before the end of this month and that deadline.

BLITZER: That's a deadline. Let's see if they can meet that deadline. It's no guarantee they will as the President himself said yesterday. I want to go from Montreaux, Switzerland to Tehran, Iran.

Our senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen is now on the ground there. What are you hearing on the ground in Tehran -- Fred?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi Wolf. First of all, I think it's important to note that actually Benjamin Netanyahu's speech is also the biggest item on Iranian media today. Of course they're not going to show the speech because it's unthinkable that the speech of an Israeli prime minister would ever be broadcast here in Iran. But I can tell you that every single person we spoke to on the street today said that they're going to try and find out what exactly Netanyahu said.

Of course, they are very apprehensive toward Benjamin Netanyahu. I spoke to one young man who said he feels that Netanyahu is going after Iran. He said, quote, "Netanyahu wants to ban us." With that, of course, he means Netanyahu is trying to cut Iran out of international relations.

There was another man who said that for five years the Iranians feel that Netanyahu has been going after them and trying to stop a nuclear deal from happening. The nuclear deal, the nuclear negotiations, Wolf are the biggest issue currently here in Iran. There was a recent poll actually where 70 percent of Iranians said that they believe that their country should have nuclear capabilities and interestingly enough, they would even quite, a large minority that thought a weapons forum of nuclear capabilities is something that might be on the table.

However, of course, we know that the IAEA has it still has not gotten answers from the Iranians that will prove that Iran's nuclear program is solely for civilian purposes. There's still a lot to talk about here in Iran. But I can tell you many people are going to be watching what's going on in Washington today even right here in Tehran.

BLITZER: I'm sure they will find ways to hear what the Prime Minister of Israel has to say even if it's not going to be broadcast live on Iranian television.

We're going to get back to you, Fred Pleitgen and get reaction from Iranians. But joining us here in Washington is Naftali Bennett. He's Israel's economy minister and I know you have strong views on what's going on.

Jake Tapper is with us as well. Jake, you have a question.

TAPPER: Thanks so much for joining us.

One of the things that's come up in the last few weeks about the Prime Minister's address to Congress is the fact that he's been issuing dire warnings about the Iranian nuclear program for literally decades. Not all of them having been realized and in fact President Obama in an interview with Reuters just yesterday made this point when discussing the 2013 interim deal with Iran. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When we first announced this interim deal, Prime Minister Netanyahu made all sorts of claims. This was going to be a terrible deal. This was going to result in Iran getting $50 billion worth of relief. Iran would not abide by the agreement. None of that has come true.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: What's your response to that and the accusation that Prime Minister Netanyahu is constantly crying wolf about the Iranian nuclear program?

NAFTALI BENNETT, ISRAELI ECONOMIC MINISTER: Then the wolf will come and bite. Prime Minister Netanyahu has been absolutely correct in Iran's ultimate goal, which is achieving a nuclear weapon. Netanyahu has been correct about the fact that they're making progress and if a deal slows them down on one route, they progress in another route.

For example, developing very advanced centrifuges that can spin and generate at 16 times the amount of uranium than the old ones. So they keep on making progress. They are very clever, right. They have these delay and deceit tactics.

The bottom line is clearly they are out to achieve a weapon. There's no reason they should be enriching even one gram of uranium. There's many countries out there that have nuclear civilian power and don't enrich uranium -- Mexico, Canada, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden -- you don't need that.

TAPPER: The Obama administration says they cannot arrive at any deal that has this position of no enriching uranium. That there's no way that the British, the Germans, the French, not to mention the Russians and the Chinese would ever agree to something like that. That's just pie in the sky.

BENNETT: I disagree. I think it's a matter of leadership. Why -- look, Iran violated six consecutive Security Council resolutions over the past decade. All right. So they've been violating and cheating again and again including this very week they're cheating.

So now IAEA is demanding them to disclose information and they're not disclosing information about advancing their weaponry. These guys are very adept and they believe that the west will be weak. The west will be exhausted. They are just going to wait us out. Unfortunately this is happening.

This is one of those moments where 100 years from now people are going to ask, what were they thinking? How did they legitimatize? How did they allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapon? We can still stop it.

BLITZER: Minister, I want you to stand by because we're showing our viewers life pictures now. This is the chamber of the United States House of Representatives. There will be a joint meeting. Inside members of the United States Senate and member of the United States, House of Representatives. They are all gathering right now. They'll be welcoming the prime minister of Israel, he will be introduced or walk through the chamber.

Eventually make his way to the podium. He will stand in front of the speaker of the House, John Boehner, and senior senator from Utah, Orrin Hatch and he will deliver his speech.

You see Debbie Wasserman Schultz -- the Democratic Party chair, remember the House of representative. She's standing there. She's already -- getting ready to welcome the prime minister of Israel.

But there will be 50 or 60 Democrats who are boycotting this event. They are angry that the prime minister has come here. They're accusing him of using the congress as a political prop only two weeks before an Israeli election.

Christiane Amanpour is our chief international correspondent. Christiane What's going on right now as far as the negotiations with Iran? There's a lot of concern, including from the President of the United States, there might not even be a deal.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's extraordinary that he's actually saying that. It's less than 50 percent. I've been talking to diplomats and foreign leaders here this side of the Atlantic and they are hoping that there will be a deal after all because the real huge big picture around this is either this is going to be solved diplomatically and politically or it's going to be solved militarily.

And it's so interesting that we made a big deal about John Boehner, the Speaker, giving Netanyahu as bust of Winston Churchill. Who is the president who said the world? Jaw-jaw is better than war-war.

That is what all this is about. And the Israelis have been persuaded and they've been tried to -- you know told that interim deal is actually working. And the question really is if there isn't a deal, what next? That's achieved by the end of March and then ratified in June.

What next -- we understand that Benny Gants, the former Israeli IDF chief has basically said in so many words to channel to channel 2 in Israel that he prevented or he strongly advised against any Israeli military action against Iran.

We know that the Mossad who leaked documents to Israel's intelligence service has a different view of the time line of any Iranian capabilities and Prime Minister Ten Prime Minister Netanyahu.

But beyond that, if the whole deal collapses, do we go back to the status quo ante? Will the interim deal remain in effect? If not, then what? Because then Iran may go forward with its program and very big concerns in Europe that these sanctions which have been so effective for so many years, not the unilateral U.S sanctions but the U.N. and European sanctions will not be able to be maintained indefinitely. That's a very, very real worry about how one proceeds if a deal doesn't go through.

BLITZER: Stand by. We're showing our viewers live pictures. Members of the United States Senate are now walking into the House of Representatives. There you see Orrin Hatch on the right of the Speaker, John Boehner, on the left. They'll sit right behind the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, once he's welcomed into the U.S. House of representatives.

Fareed Zakaria is standing by as well. Fareed, you look at these live pictures of what's going on. Give us some thoughts.

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST, "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS": Well Wolf, it's worth remembering that Bibi Netanyahu came to this congress or to the United States congress 19 years ago. He made a speech in which he talked about Iran's nuclear weapons. He predicted at the time that the deadline was extremely close. He defined what he meant by that deadline by how close it was a couple years earlier to the Knesset, the Israeli parliament where he said Iran would have nuclear weapons in three to five years. That was 25 years ago.

Bibi Netanyahu has been talking about Iran's imminent nuclear program for 25 years. Just as a factual matter with respect to my friend, Naftali Bennett who is a friend he's just been wrong for 25 years. He's said Iran is three to five years away. In fact for the last 15 years, he's said that Iran is one year away. In some cases he said several months away. WikiLeaks has these documents all on a wonderful website, the intercept.

You have a list of the very claims Netanyahu has been making about Iran's nuclear time line and he's been wrong. As Christiane said Israeli intelligence has repeatedly leaked that it does not believe that the time line is the one the prime minister is presenting.

So I think that's partly what makes people worry that this is a political speech and not a foreign policy or national security speech. There are other motives involved and one of the things the prime minister I think will have to deal with is that perception. He's going to have to give a speech that feels a little bit more credible than 25 years of predictions that have been wrong.

BLITZER: Fareed, I want you to standby as well. We're looking at live pictures from the U.S. House of representatives. You see Senators who are already inside. More are on the way. There are 435 members of the House of Representatives; 100 U.S. Senators. We'll see how many actually show up to hear the prime minister of Israel.

We're told at least 50 or 60 Democrats will not be attending. They're protesting this entire visit by the prime minister of Israel. It's very interesting that the Speaker of the House will be behind the visiting guest, that would be the Prime Minister of Israel. Orrin hatch will be representing the senior leadership of the United States senate.

Normally Joe Biden the vice president who also serves as serves as president of the U.S. senate would be standing or speaking behind the speaker in this particular case Biden decided he has to be out of the country right now.

Let's bring in experts who can help us better understand what's going on. Ari Fleischer was a White House press secretary under President Bush. Martin Indyk was the U.S. ambassador to Israel, also we have a senior Middle East investigator for Obama. Aaron David Miller worked in the state department for many years;

He's now at the Woodrow Wilson International Center. Have you ever seen anything like this before? You served in the United States Congress. You were a legislative aide in the congress. 50 or 60 members of the congress would not be attending a speech by a visiting prime minister of Israel? I mean that's pretty awesome.

ARI FLEISCHER, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Actually Wolf, usually hundreds of members of congress don't attend these speeches because the speeches are --

BLITZER: But not because they're protesting the guest.

FLEISCHER: That's right. President Obama elevated this speech by objecting to it. When he objected to it all of a sudden it made it a partisan event. If he said, fine -- he can give a speech anybody can do that. We wouldn't be tuned in the way we are right now and Democrats wouldn't have to boycott.

It's a shame because Israel has been bipartisan. Israel needs to be bipartisan. This is going to expose some of the rifts in the Democratic Party when it comes to support for Israel. The substance is more important than politics of who is there. The judgments the American people will make about threats from Iran is what we need to hear from this speech.

BLITZER: Do you agree?

AARON DAVID MILLER: No, think that the original comes from Speaker Boehner who decided to cook this up.

BLITZER: You think he cooked it up or the Israelis cooked it up -- Netanyahu and his aides cooked it up and they convinced him to give this invitation?

MILLER: I think there was a common interest in doing this behind the back of the President of the United States.

BLITZER: But the original idea probably came from the Israelis, right?

FLEISCHER: I'm not sure, Wolf. I think there was a common interest. This was a way to use the prime minister of Israel against the President of the United States on the issue of Iran with Republicans and Democrats not agreeing or Republicans don't agree with the President.

And on the other side for the prime minister of Israel to use the applause of congress and photo-op for his electoral purposes two weeks from his election and heart of the problem here is both sides in this regard injected their politics into the politics of the other side. And U.S./Israel relationship became a partisan issue as a result -- on both sides.

BLITZER: Who do you think cooked it up Aaron?

MILLER: I think, well, given politics surrounding this and that you have Republican controlled congress for first time in seven years and the Israelis are really sensitive to the fact that we're now in the end game with Iran, I think actually it was an idea that both believed they could exploit and like the spider and the fly, they may both become trapped in a web of their own making.

TAPPER: Here's what I don't get. I saw a correction in the "New York Times" that said that the administration was told about the speech ahead of time. It didn't say by whom, it didn't say who --

(CROSSTALK)

FLEISCHER: But my point is nobody has really run this to ground from the White House -- did you know or not. And I think people have just accepted this as controversial. It's unclear --

BLITZER: The White House says, they were told as a fait accomplice -- after it was already a done deal. There was no opportunity to have a dialogue.

FLEISCHER: But if they were told ahead of time then protocol was honored.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Democratic congressional leaders were not told either. They were informed even though it went out on a letterhead that made it seem as if they were all onboard with this. That is -- do you think that's appropriate at this moment? I don't think it's appropriate.

FLEISCHER: When Democrats ran congress they didn't exactly give Republicans a courtesy of heads-up.

ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Also, you know, the Israelis say listen, it's the job of Speaker Boehner to inform the administration and we don't want to get in the middle of that. But if you talk to former Israeli diplomats and Martin -- you know, that there's a back channel between the State Department and the Israeli government or the ambassador and Israeli government.

You know, Ron Dermer or, you know, the foreign minister could have said listen, you'll hear this from Speaker Boehner. Let's tell you what's going on.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: This conversation proves an important point I think. This issue, the Iran nuclear negotiations, one of the biggest global security challenges and this relationship, one of the world's most important, are now caught up in, to Ari's point, the Democrats used to do this too. Caught up in the politics as usual in Washington -- that's kind of dangerous. BLITZER: Hold on one second. I want to go to Dana Bash, our chief

congressional correspondent. You just had an interesting conversation.

BASH: Well, I tried. I tried to talk to the Israeli prime minister who walked by here. Obviously he was not into talking to me. He's obviously preparing for his big speech. I wanted to actually just give a little bit of background of what you all are talking about how this came to be.

I asked the House Speaker pointblank if he gave the White House a heads-up about this. He said no. That was the reality of what happened. More importantly when we first reported this, the day that the invitation was made public, the Republican aides who we were talking to were very clear, almost frankly eager to make us know that this was not something that usually happens. It usually is in coordination with the White House but they on purpose wanted to have this invitation go out there over the objection of the White House because Republicans for the most part disagree so vehemently with the White House on this Iran deal and agree with the prime minister.

The politics aside, (inaudible) for the substance though. there's no question that there may be backtracking because it's blown up so much but in realtime, Republicans knew what they were doing and were pretty open about talking about it.

BLITZER: All right. Dana, I want you to standby because we're only about a minute or so away from the top of the hour. We're expecting the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu to be formally welcomed, to be formally introduced.

This is Orrin Hatch, he's the senior senator representing the Vice President right now. Let's listen in to hear what he has to say.

SEN. ORRIN HATCH (R), UTAH: The senator from Kentucky, Mr. McConnell; the senator from Texas, Mr. Cornyn; the senator from South Dakota, Mr. Thune.

BLITZER: All right guys -- what Orrin Hatch is doing is welcoming the so-called escort committees. These are very important special guests who will have special roles during the course of -- members of the house and senate. These are escorts who are now being introduced by Orrin Hatch from the state of Utah. They have a very elaborate procedure Jake, that they walk through for any visiting speaker.

TAPPER: That's right. And this is not a joint session of congress -- that's only when the President speaks. This is a joint meeting of congress. This is only the second time in history that a foreign leader has addressed the congress for his third time.