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President Obama Concludes Iran Deal News Conference; Discussion of the News Conference; Mike Huckabee Comments on Iran Nuclear Deal, Bill Cosby; Dramatic Exchange Between Reporter, Obama; Sen. Tom Cotton Talks Iran Nuclear Deal, American Prisoners. Aired 2:30-3pm ET

Aired July 15, 2015 - 14:30   ET

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


[14:30:00] BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And by the way, we haven't given away any of our military capabilities. We're not in a weaker position to respond. So -- so even if everything the critics were saying was true, that at the end of 10 years or 12 years or 15 year Iran now is in a position to decide it wants a nuclear weapon, that they're at a breakout point, they won't be at a breakout point that is more dangerous than the breakout point they're in right now. They won't be at a breakout point that is shorter than the one that exists today.

And so why wouldn't we at least make sure that for the next 10, 15 years they are not getting a nuclear weapon and we can verify it, and afterwards, if they decide -- if they've changed their mind, we are then much more knowledgeable about what their capabilities are, much more knowledgeable about what their program is and still in a position to take whatever actions we would take today.

QUESTION: And none of this is holding out hope that they'll change their behavior --

OBAMA: No.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

OBAMA: No. Look, I'm always hopeful that behavior may change for the sake of the Iranian people as well as people in the region. There are young people there who are not getting the opportunities they deserve because of conflict, because of sectarianism, because of poor governance, because of repression, because of terrorism, and I remain eternally hopeful that we can do something about that, and it should be part of U.S. foreign policy to do something about that.

But I'm not banking on that to say that this deal is the right thing to do. Again, it is incumbent on the critics of this deal to explain how an American president is in a worse position 12, 13, 14, 15 years from now, if at that point, Iran says we're going to pull out of the MPT, kick out inspectors and go for a nuclear bomb. If that happens, that president will be in a better position than would happen if Iran, as a consequence of Congress rejecting this deal, decides that's it. We're done negotiating. We're going after a bomb right now.

The choices would be tougher today than they would be for that president 15 years from now. And I have not yet heard logic that refutes that. All right?

I really have to go now. I think we've hit the big themes, but I -- but I promise you I will -- I will address this again, all right? I suspect this is not the last that we've heard of this debate.

[14:33:17] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. There he is, the president of the United States, more than an hour, actually 68 minutes, by my count, the president there making his opening statement, answering reporters' questions, most of the questions, of course, being on Iran nuclear deal, a few other questions, including one very sensitive question involving Bill Cosby, whether revoking that Medal of Freedom that he did receive.

Let's get to the Iran nuclear deal, though, first. I want to get some immediate reaction, the president very forceful in trying to make the case for this deal.

Let's get some Republican reaction. Mike Huckabee is the former governor of Arkansas, a Republican presidential candidate. He's joining us live right now.

He says the burden is on you, Governor. Go ahead and make the case. What would you do? Would you launch military action to try to deal with the Iranian nuclear program?

MIKE HUCKABEE, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE & FORMER ARKANSAS GOVERNOR: Well, Wolf, first of all, great to be with you.

And here's what I think the president should have done is kept the sanctions going. They were working. They were putting pressure. They were making it difficult for this government to afford to spend money on Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist activities around the world. We've just essentially allowed them to go to the bank and pick up $120 billion so that they can finance more of their nefarious actions. This whole deal -- and I've read all 159 pages of it -- I think what's troubling is that it's all based on the assumption that we are going to trust the Iranian government. Now why would we do that when they have not done one thing over the past 35 years to give us any indication that they could be trusted? They have killed Americans. They have kidnapped Americans. They have sponsored terrorism and suddenly they are going to change their behavior, and I want to point out, they haven't even changed their rhetoric much less their behavior. They are still chanting death to America and vowing to destroy Israel. And we still have American hostages stuck in their prisons. I -- I can understand why they are dancing and why Congress is divided over this, Wolf, I really can.

[14:35:24] BLITZER: The president is saying that the U.S. is not trusting the Iranians. He's saying don't trust the Iranians but verify, make sure that all the commitments that they have agreed to are honored, and he says there are specific details, you read the 159 pages, where the U.S. and its specific partners can verify that the Iranians are complying. Your reaction?

HUCKABEE: Well, once again we have to trust that they are telling us where every one of their activities are. We have to make sure that we can believe them when they say, oh, this is all we have. Again, if -- if we're willing took out on that limb, we're doing something that none of the neighbors of the Iranians are willing to do, not Israel, not Egypt, not Jordan, not the Saudis, not the emirates, not Kuwait, so those of their neighbors who live closer to them, who know them best, they don't trust this. Why should we?

BLITZER: The president says, Governor, that the Iranians will pay a severe price if they cheat. Listen to this little clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If Iran violates its commitments, there will be real consequences. Nuclear-related sanctions that have helped to crippled Iranian economy will snap back into place. Without a deal we risk even more war in the Middle East and other countries in the region would feel compelled to pursue their own nuclear programs, threatening a nuclear arms race in most volatile region in the world.

BLITZER: He says that those sanctions could be reinstated, snap reinstatement of those sanctions. What do you say?

HUCKABEE: Well, through the sanctions they continue to sponsor terrorism. They continued to be responsible for the deaths of a lot of innocent people, so I'm not sure how the president can make the case that if we relax the sanctions, give them $120 billion to buy arms, which by the way will enrich the Russians who plan to sell them a great deal of that material, giving the Russians more money to go and do some of their own activities of invasion -- invading into Crimea and Ukraine, I'm -- I'm missing the logic here, because it doesn't make sense. What we're doing is we're rewarding bad behavior with the assumption that rewording their previous bad behavior they will start giving us better behavior. None of us raised kids that way. None of us train dogs that way. I don't know why on god's earth we'd practice diplomacy that way. I just don't.

BLITZER: One final question unrelated, but the president was asked, and I'll ask you if you were president would you revoke Bill Cosby's presidential medal?

HUCKABEE: No, because he hasn't been adjudicated. Look, if he did what has been alleged and what he's even admitted to, it's a horrible, horrible thing. I did find it interesting that the president said a don't comment on

things like this, and then he went ahead to comment on it, and I'm thinking the whole time, Mr. President, you commented on Trayvon Martin, you commented on Ferguson, Missouri, you commented on Baltimore, all before there were civil and/or criminal actions that were still pending. So disingenuous for him to pretend he doesn't comment on these things when, in fact, he's commented on nearly every one of them that has surfaced out there in the public square.

BLITZER: Governor Huckabee, thanks very much for joining us.

HUCKABEE: Thank you, Wolf. Great to be with you. BLITZER: Let's get some more reaction now to the president's speech,

more analysis. I want to bring in Gloria Borger and our panel here to discuss what's going on, Elise Labott, Dana Bash. Fareed Zakaria is joining us as well.

How did the president do, Gloria?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: This was the first press conference a watched where the president asked and answered his own question. It was clear that he was eager to defend this Iran deal to the extent to where he didn't get the questions he wanted, he took this little list out of his pocket and said, OK, well, a didn't get to this, and a didn't get to this point or that point. We didn't hear anything new in terms of his defense, I would argue, on these points. He said we'll in a stronger position ten years from now. The next president will be. We're not here to reform Iran. Understand, that we're here to contain Iran's nuclear program. He talked about the global consensus for all of this, but this is a president who clearly is relishing this fight, and he sounded much more like a teacher teaching, you know, nuclear disarmament 101, at times than -- than somebody who was going to have to negotiate with Congress. But he -- this is a president who is deeply involved in these negotiations, as can you tell, and wanted to get into the weeds to the extent that he asked himself the weedy questions when the reporters did not.

[14:40:25] BLITZER: Reporters started asking questions and I'll answer that.

(CROSSTALK)

BORGER: I'll answer that. I have some other things.

BLITZER: Clearly, Elise, he wanted to come in and defend this agreement.

ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: This is the Barack Obama that we saw when he was on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and asked these very lawyerly questions. Clearly enjoys litigating the science of the deal and what do you think is the biggest threat posed by Iran? President Obama says, you know, this is the nuclear threat. This is what was, you know, my charge to do, and a have a scientific agreement that does that. Now you're hearing the arguments from Congress and from the Israelis that say, no, this deal is actually going to allow Iran to do some of its other nefarious activities in the region, and that's where President Obama doesn't have a persuasive argument. He basically admitted he doesn't think this is going to change Iran's behavior, and we're in the going to know, you know, until President Obama's gone whether this agreement is really going to change Iran, and what is the president going to do if there a terrorist attack against Israel where Hezbollah is responsible? It's all going to come back to this agreement and the president is saying these were very separate but they are linked in many ways.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And one of the moments during this press conference was when Major Garrett, of "CBS News," stood up and asked a question that a lot of Republicans and even some Democrats have been asking, which is, how do you make a deal like this without even acknowledging the fact that there are four Americans detained in Iran and we don't know what's going to happen with that?

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Hold on for a minute. You know, a want to play that clip.

BASH: Sure.

BLITZER: This is the White House correspondent for "CBS News," Major Garrett, this very dramatic exchange with the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAJOR GARRETT, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, CBS NEWS: As you well know, there are four Americans in Iran, three held on trumped-up charges, according to your administration, and one whereabouts unknown. Can you tell the country, sir, why you are content with all the fanfare around this deal to leave the conscious of this nation, the strength of this nation unaccounted for in relation to these four Americans? And last week the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, under no circumstances, should there be any relief for Iran in terms of ballistic missiles or conventional weapons. It is perceived that that was a last-minute capitulation in these negotiations. Many in the Pentagon feel you've left the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff hung out to dry. Could you comment?

OBAMA: I've got to give you credit, Major, for how you craft those questions. First, the notion that I'm content as I celebrate with American citizens languishing in Iranian jails, Major, that's nonsense, and you should know better. I've met with the families of some of those folks. Nobody's content. And our diplomats and our teams are working diligently to try to get them out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Dramatic exchange, indeed. Not included in the deal, as a lot of our viewers here in the United States and around the world know, the release of those four Americans being held in Iran, "The Washington Post" reporter, Jason Rezaian; the Christian pastor, Saeed Abedini; and former U.S. Marine, Amir Hekmati; and the retired FBI agent, Robert Levinson. He's missing in Iran. He disappeared in Iraq. The Iranians say they don't know where he is but a lot of people in Washington don't believe the Iranians.

It was a dramatic exchange between a White House correspondent and the president of the United States.

Brian Stelter covers the media for us.

What did you think, Brian, of the exchange?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT & CNN HOST, RELIABLE SOURCES: Clearly the most tense moment of the press conference, something that struck so many people. Some people think this seemed disrespectful, to question the president, but a lot of people thought Obama's response wasn't responsible, a finger-wagging response to say you should know better. Generally, a want to see tough questions of the president, the kind we like to see at these press conferences so it was important to see Major Garrett, of CBS, challenge the president on this issue. We did get a little bit of information from the president about these four individuals. He said that the U.S. government will continue to work diligently for their release.

But, you know, a thought it was really notable what Mike Huckabee said to you a few minutes ago. He called them hostages. We have used that word across television, across the Internet in recent days, especially since the accord was announced yesterday. Hostages is not a word that the State Department would use in this case but it is a word a lot of critics of the Obama administration are using, and a suspect this issue will take on even more residence now that the accord has been reached. Jason Reziain's family is expressing hope that he'll be freed. Next week, it will have been a year since he was put behind bars in Iran. And journalists all around the world are calling for his release.

[11:45:] BLITZER: Brian, stand by for a moment.

Quickly, Dana, go ahead.

BASH: I wanted to add, you've been a White House reporter. I've been a White House reporter. You know what it's like to stand up and ask the president a question. And you do want to be tough, but there's a fine line, especially -- maybe I'm old school -- standing in the East Room, a fine line between asking a tough question and maybe crossing that line a little bit and being disrespectful. I think that happened there.

One other quick thing I wanted to add, I've never seen a president or any politician stand up at a press conference and ask themselves questions. And maybe if the president would have given answers that were not quite as long, more reporters would have been able to ask those very questions.

(CROSSTALK)

BORGER: That was in character, the long questions and answers we're used to, right?

BLITZER: Hold on for a moment.

Senator Tom Cotton is joining us right now. He's a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, as well as the Armed Services Committee. He's a Republican from Arkansas and an Iraq war veteran as well.

Did you accept the president's answer explaining why there wasn't direct linkage releasing those four Americans from Iranian prisons as part of this deal?

SEN. TOM COTTON, (R), ARKANSAS: Wolf, first of off, it should have been a pre-condition for deal. We should have been in a position two years ago not where we were asking Iran to come to the deal but where Iran was pleading with us to come to the deal and a pre-condition to doing that that they release all their hostages. This gets back to the fundamental problem with this agreement, is that we are making a nuclear agreement with an outlaw regime that hates America and sponsors terrorism around the world and holds Americans hostage, and they can get a nuclear weapon whether they break this deal as they have done with most major agreements in the last 36 years or whether they follow every detail of the deal.

BLITZER: But the president says, for all practical purposes, Iran's program is going to be dramatically diminished, any effort that they are going to try to do to develop some sort of nuclear weapon for the next 10 years, maybe 15 years, give this an opportunity to succeed, he says.

COTTON: Wolf, it's simply not the case. Think about what's going to happen in the short time, putting aside their nuclear program. In the coming months Iran is going to receive up to $150 billion of sanctions relief, that they are going to use to support known terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas. The president himself acknowledged that. The arms embargo will be lifted so they will be able to re-arm their conventional military and then ultimately they might get nuclear weapons by breaking this deal at covert sites or might get nuclear weapons in eight to ten years. Maybe their behavior will change in nine years, Wolf, but nine years ago Iran was trying to kill me and to kill my soldiers. We were lick, but over 500 American soldiers were not. We shouldn't be making a nuclear arms agreement with that kind of outlaw regime.

BLITZER: Assuming the legislation is vetoed by the president, the legislation of disapproval to ban this deal, to reject this deal, will the president have enough Democrats in the U.S. Senate to override a veto?

COTTON: Wolf, I believe that Congress will kill this deal because the American people will repudiate this deal. Yesterday was probably the best day that this deal had. As the details come to light it's not going to get better with time. For instance, we now know that the commander of the Quds force which is responsible for killing Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan will receive sanctions relief as will the Quds force. We also know that the United States has committed to helping protect Iran's nuclear facilities that from sabotage. What in the world could that possibly be except trying to stop us and stop our partners from undermining Iran's race towards a nuclear weapon? As more and more of these details come to light, a do believe that the American people will repudiate this deal and Congress will kill the deal with a veto proof majority.

BLITZER: We'll see what happens.

Tom Cotton, of Arkansas, thanks so much for joining us.

We have a lot more analysis and a lot more reaction coming in. George Pataki, another Republican presidential candidate, is standing by live. We'll take a very quick break. Much more right after this. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:51:12] BLITZER: Welcome back. Most of the president's hour-plus news conference focused, of course, on the Iran nuclear deal, but a reporter, April Ryan, did ask the president if he would revoke Bill Cosby's Medal of Freedom. Here's what the president said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: With respect to the Medal of Freedom, there's no precedent for revoking a medal. We don't have that mechanism. And as you know, I tend to make it a policy of not commenting on specifics of cases where there may be if not criminal but civil issues involved. I'll say this. If you give a woman, or a man, for that matter, without his or her knowledge, a drug and then have sex with that person without consent, that's rape.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Very strong statement from the president.

I want to bring back our media correspondent, the host of "Reliable Sources." Brian Stelter.

That was a powerful moment, indeed.

STELTER: Sure was. Will make a lot of headlines even though the president wants the focus to be on the Iran deal. If you think about the trajectory of this terrible story involving Cosby, all of the revelations that have happened over the past seven or eight months at this point, this might be that final moment because now the president of the United States has actually weighed in for the first time on Cosby. I think he said pretty much as much as he possibly could. Clearly he was trying to choose his words carefully and focus on the broader issue of rape, but because of the recent revelation, the recent disclosure from court documents that Cosby was describing the use of Quaaludes it did open up this new discussion about the use of the drug, about the alleged rapes. We've heard from many of the victims again recently. Now to hear the president comment on it, you know, a saw a lot of responses on Twitter and Facebook saying this is the end of the road for Bill Cosby. There's really no way to come back, fine there was before today, this is another final step in Bill Cosby's public career. There's simply no coming back perhaps, perhaps, from a moment like this.

BLITZER: But the president did say, you know, he doesn't really want to comment on these kinds of issues and then he went on to actually comment on these kinds of issues. What did you make of that?

STELTER: You know, my sense of it, he had a long time as he was talking about other issues to think about the answer to the question that he was asked there. A lot of reporters asking multiple part questions in order to be able to use the time effectively. Frankly, a think the president would have had to say something. Bill Cosby, one of the most famous people alive, one of the most famous entertainers of all time. At some point he was going to get asked about this and if he hadn't thought about this I'd be surprised. Something I'm sure he's discussed with his family, for example, or with some of his friends because this has been such a public story and stunning change for Bill Cosby. Something like the Presidential Medal of Freedom, this honor that was given, one of so many honors for Bill Cosby. Now everything is being rethought, everything is being seen in a new light, so he would have had to say something, a think.

BLITZER: It was a very dramatic news conference by the president, lasting for more than an hour. I've covered a lot of presidential news conference. I haven't often seen a president come into a news conference like this. Obviously, he wanted to make certain points. And if the reporters didn't ask those specific questions, the president himself decided he was going to ask himself those questions --

(CROSSTALK)

STELTER: These were some of the longest answers. Have you ever heard answers that long before?

BLITZER: This president does give long answers. If you watch that 46-minute interview he granted Tom Friedman of "The New York Times" yesterday, he gave long answers to all of Tom Friedman's question as well. This president, former academic constitutional scholar, when he taught law school, gives long legalistic kinds of answers.