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Pope Visits the U.S. Carson on Muslims; Military Overlooked Rape of Boys. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired September 22, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:05] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there. I'm Brooke Baldwin. And you're watching CNN's special breaking news coverage of a moment that will go down in history. The pontiff, dubbed the people's pope, is about to set foot on U.S. soil for the very first time in his 78 years. And we will be there as President Barak Obama greets him at Joint Base Andrews.

Pope Francis will be arriving first in our nation's capital in Washington, D.C. You see the schedule ahead of you, before coming here to New York and then on to Philadelphia. Five days of history expected to draw crowds by the hundreds of thousands.

And with those massive crowds and really a fearless pope comes one of the biggest security challenges this country may ever face. The Secret Service on high alert, all hands on deck to protect Pope Francis.

Let's go to Jim Sciutto, CNN's chief national security correspondent standing by live at Joint Base Andrews there in Maryland, anticipating the pope and the president and the first family and kids, and we have at the White House Jim Acosta, our senior White House correspondent.

So to the Jims off the top, great to have both of you on.

And, Jim Sciutto, you're up first. I love all the e-mail here back and forth about precedent setting trips and which presidents have been at, you know, at Andrews to greet a pope. Ann as we mentioned, this is the first time Pope Francis has ever stepped foot on U.S. soil. This is so, so significant. Tell me who will be there.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: I'll tell you, it's a pretty remarkable range. Let's start at the top. As you said, the president will be here with the first lady, his two daughters. They're going to have a private meet and greet with the pope just as he arrives here at the VIP terminal here. But you also have the vice president. To our knowledge, the first time you've had a president and vice president greet any world leader as he travels to the U.S. You have had presidents greet previous popes. George W. Bush, for instance, greeted Pope Benedict in 2008. But to have the two of them here, Biden and Obama, the president and vice president, truly remarkable.

But reflecting the pope's personality, he is, as you know, someone who shies away from pomp and circumstance. You also have 300 children greeting him here. Many from local catholic schools. There's a high school band that we've just seen pull up here. They're setting up their instruments over here to the right of me. And that really reflects the kind of pope he is. He wants to connect with children. He's going to meet with some 3,000 children while he's here in D.C.

And then you have, of course, the security apparatus greeting him here. We've seen them line up and we've been here since the morning just running the security gauntlet ourselves. But you have D.C. Police, you have the U.S. Secret Service that is in charge here. You have TSA agents who have been drafting into the security system here to keep this pope safe. It's been deemed a national security special event, an NSE, and NSSE, which is a determination of the DHS, which makes it a high - the highest really security kind of event. The security that you would reserve for your own president.

But the real challenge is going to be to, one, of course, keep this pope safe, but at the same time, allow him to be the man who he is and allow him to carry out the trip that he wants to carry out. And for him, as you know, Brooke, that involves interacting with people. And often times, you know, in the midst of crowds, mingling with crowds, and maybe even to the surprise of his security service. They want to allow both those things to happen. It's an enormous challenge intention there, keep him safe, it's an event that they believe is the target of terrorists, but also allow him to connect with the American people as best he can and let him be himself. A real challenge, but it's one that they're very much focused on making happen.

BALDWIN: Security has to be nimble. They have to be ready to call audibles. We'll get into choreographing such a massive event here in the United States in just a moment. Jim Sciutto, don't go too far from that camera. We'll be coming back to you of course.

Jim Acosta, to you at the White House. We know from that greeting there at Andrews, you know, the big Oval Office meeting will take place tomorrow -

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Right.

BALDWIN: And then we'll get on to the pope addressing Congress Thursday. But talk to me about what sorts of topics should be expected between President Barack Obama and Pope Francis?

ACOSTA: You know, that is the question, Brooke. And we were just peppering White House Press Secretary Josh Ernest. I just did an interview with Valerie Jarret, the president's senior adviser. They are keeping their pope cards very close to the vest, Brooke. I think in part because they don't want to let the cat out of the bag in terms of what issues are going to be discussed. But also because this pope is so unpredictable.

You know, last year, Brooke, you know, I was at the news conference with President Obama and Italian Prime Minister Renzi in Rome after President Obama met with Pope Francis for the first time. We were all expecting that the pope and the president talked about contraception because it was one of those controversial issues in Obamacare. And the president said, you know - when I asked the question the president said, you know what, we didn't talk about that. We talked about income equality. We talked about immigration. We talked about the Israeli Palestinian conflict. And so I think that the White House is bracing itself for some surprises.

[14:05:18] But I do want to point out, Brooke, there's some other firsts or near firsts happening here at the White House with Pope Francis.

BALDWIN: Sure.

ACOSTA: I was just talking to Valerie Jarret. She said that the president and Pope Francis, when they meet behind closed doors, presumably in the Oval Office, it will be a one-on-one. It will just be President Obama and Pope Francis, perhaps some translators, but it won't be the vice president, secretary of state and administration officials and Vatican officials all crowded into the room. It is going to be an intimate one-on-one encounter that White House officials here are very much looking forward to. And we'll also hear comments from - remarks from both President Obama and Pope Francis on the South Lawn when they have 15,000 - an estimated 15,000 people on the South Lawn of the White House for the pope's arrival ceremonies. So it's not going to be - there's never going to be a dull moment the entire time I think Pope Francis is on the ground here in the United States, certainly here in Washington.

BALDWIN: We will be glued to the coverage. And that's interesting you point out the translators. I know English is not one of the pope's actually top three languages. So, Jim Acosta, fantastic details. We'll come back to you there at the White House.

Let me also point this out here as we know that the pope - the papal plane, Shepherd One, if I am, is somewhere en route between Cuba and Washington, D.C. I don't know if there's wi-fi on board. Perhaps Pope Francis tweeted this before he hopped on that plane. But he did tweet this. "Thank you to the Cuban people. Thank you from my heart."

We talked about security and we have to go into detail now because for months and months U.S. Secret Service agents have been pouring over tapes, just like this one, studying them, trying to figure out exactly how they will protect a pope who refuses to stay in his Popemobile. He's the people's pope. You've seen him in crowds. He loves interacting with the throngs of adoring supporters.

So joining me now I have Michael Balboni, former Homeland Security director here in New York, and senior fellow Homeland Security Policy Institute, and Deborah Feyerick, our CNN national correspondent.

So great to have both of you on.

And we had talked just briefly last week how you really oversaw when Pope Benedict came to the city. So you're so familiar with the challenges of a pope because it's one thing to have to protect a president, right, and we have the president, obviously, D.C.'s familiar with how to protect a president, but obviously here in New York. How is this such a different challenge?

MICHAEL BALBONI, FORMER HOMELAND SECURITY DIRECTOR, NEW YORK: Well, first of all, what you have is, as you've been talking about, this is an engaging individual. Now that's not necessarily a new thing when you have a protectee who wants to get into the crowd. But what's obviously so dramatic here is the numbers associated with this. A million people estimated to come into the mass in Philadelphia. Just the movements, it's just thousands and thousands of people.

And, you know, a lot of people sit there and say, well, what are you doing differently? There is a playbook. It's an intelligence-led operation. It's all about information. It's all about being able to anticipate, detail the threats, develop a counter measure for them and then be able to implement and execute flawlessly at the time.

BALDWIN: What are the routes he's taking when he's in, let's say, D.C. and New York?

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, he's taking a number of them. And one of the ways that this is done and one of the ways it's handled is everything is structured. Everything - you used the word choreograph. That's the perfect word. Everything is so careful choreographed.

So they have been planning this for nine months. You've got Secret Service agents who have been going over all the different routes, along with local police departments, because it's really the local police departments who are going to be the ones who are shutting down the streets. They call it bleeding out the intersection so that when you know the pope is on the move, basically, the call goes out and all the intersections shut down so that the pope and his motorcade can move very quickly and very easily.

So you have - he's going to be going to Congress. Then he's going to be going to the United Nations. All of these roads have to be shut down. And it ends in Philadelphia. Philadelphia is the big event. And the Catholic church has been promoting this. It's the World Meeting of Families. And that's going to be probably the most open event to people. But even there, they are closing down what amounts to a three- mile radius in order to control the flow of traffic in and around the pope.

So it's unbelievable. Every building has been screened. Every building has been looked at. Those in Central Park. You know, people have gone into the building. How do you get up? Who's got access? Do the windows open in, do they open out? You're going to - everybody you see physically, there's going to be a whole group of shadow agents and security people behind who are ready to act if something happens.

BALDWIN: The variables, because as I have to imagine in security, you have to anticipate those blind spots, right? When you think of the pope walking through crowds, you see items being thrown, trinkets, whatnot.

BALBONI: Right.

BALDWIN: I was reading this morning in the paper, no selfie sticks are allowed. In New York, no drones. There will be massive staging areas for those throngs of people who do want to see if they can get as close as they possibly can. Screening for explosives, for weapons. How do they do that with all those people and how thoroughly will they be checking?

[14:10:07] BALBONI: So a lot of what this is, is not the elimination of risk. It is the anticipation of risk and the management of it. So that you - there's no way you can tell everybody's emotions that are going to be there. And you can't look into someone's mind and say, is this a problem or are they not. So they rely on video surveillance of everybody, facial recognition. Folks, as Deborah said, in the crowd who are undercover, who are really feeling what the temperature is, what are people saying, is there any aggressive movements.

But then, you know, we talk about this and people have said to me, is it OK to talk about the security for the pope? And there is a really good thing as long as you don't cross over the line of actually give specifics of what the counter measures are going to be. And that's deterrence. So by talking about this, probably the most incredible security operation we have ever seen for a protectee -

BALDWIN: Right.

BALBONI: You're telling everybody, deterrence. Guys, you know, you're not - it's not going to be easy to effectuate something.

FEYERICK: Yes. And one very interesting thing, to bounce off that, and that is, look, all eyes are going to be focused on the pope. They're also going to be focused on the 170 presidents and prime ministers and other dignitaries in town for the United Nations. All of them have their own security detail. It is so well planned that there are actually teams outside of the secure zone, outside the secure perimeter, in other places that if there is secondary attack, let's say in a shopping mall, right?

BALDWIN: Yes.

FEYERICK: Why are you going to go after the pope when, in fact, there's so many other targets.

BALDWIN: Right.

FEYERICK: These are these resources that will - are specifically designated to respond and to be mobilized to those locations should there be another attack. So table top to the extreme in all of the possible scenarios.

BALDWIN: What a week it will be here in the United States.

FEYERICK: Yes.

BALDWIN: Michael and Deb, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

And please join us and tune if for this special report this evening. It's called "The People's Pope." It airs tonight at 9:00 Pacific and Eastern Time here on CNN.

Next, let's talk politics here. Ben Carson now changing his position on whether a Muslim should be president. Well, changing, sort of. He's trying to clarify. We'll talk about who he's blaming and get context there.

Plus it is one of the most dangerous places in the world, terrorists, a dictator, nations fighting for power in Syria. And now Russia is really ramping up its military force there is. But why and what's next?

Also the pope scheduled to touch down very, very soon in Washington, D.C. His very first steps on American soil ever in his 78 years. History in the making. We are watching it unfold, live, right here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:16:53] BALDWIN: This is CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

After initially doubling down, Ben Carson is sort of walking back his comments that he would not, quote, "advocate from a Muslim being president." Today at a campaign stop in Ohio he said his statements were taken out of context, saying it's the media to blame, and the retired pediatric neurosurgeon gave a scenario in which he would support a Muslim in the White House, but he also confirmed there is one way he would treat a Muslim candidate differently from a Christian one. Here he was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I said I would support anyone regardless of their background, if, in fact, they embrace American values and our Constitution and are willing to place that above their belief.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But, Dr. Carson, doesn't that play into an underlying suspicion that Muslim-Americans are prone to radicalism? Why should they have to outright denounce (INAUDIBLE) Sharia law, for example, when a Christian is not asked to do the same?

CARSON: Because Sharia law is completely ampathetical (ph) to Americanism. That's why.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: All right, Arsalan Iftikhar, a senior editor for "The Islamic Monthly" joins us again.

Arsalan, very nice to see you, sir.

ARSALAN IFTIKHAR, SENIOR EDITOR, THE ISLAMIC MONTHLY: Thank you, Brooke. Any time.

BALDWIN: Listen, I know how you feel about this as a Muslim here in America, but here's what I want to know, where do you think these views come from? I mean Ben Carson talking about Muslims inserts Sharia law into this whole conversation. What do you think is the biggest misperception about your faith from folks like Dr. Carson?

IFTIKHAR: Well, Brooke, I think, you know, a lot of times when you're dealing with Republican presidential primaries, essentially you have them, you know, running to the right and pandering to sort of the lowest common denominator in American society. And, you know, when you have recent polls that show that 54 percent of Republicans today in the United States believe that Barack Obama is still a Muslim in the year 2015, you know, any time somebody says that Barack Obama's a Muslim, I feel like Jerry Seinfeld should jump out and say, not that there's anything wrong with that. I mean Muslim has become a slur in America today and clearly Ben Carson, you know, has never read Article VI of the United States Constitution which says that no religious text shall ever be required for any office or public trust under the United States. So not only should he drop out of the presidential campaign, he should probably retroactively fail 8th grade social studies class.

BALDWIN: I was quoting Article VI to two of my guests just yesterday. I do want to play a little bit more from Ben Carson. You know he tried to explain what he thought Chuck Todd from "Meet the Press" was asking him over the weekend when he made the initial statements on a Muslim in his opinion not becoming president. Here he was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARSON: Then he was saying, well, what about somebody who is of a faith that does not traditionally separate church and state. That traditionally has a theocracy that traditionally treats women in ways different than we do, treats gays in different ways than we do, subjugates other religions. Obviously, that would not be something that would be consistent with American values.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Is there, Arsalan, some truth to that in the sense that, you know, Islam is a faith that does not traditionally separate, as we do, I shouldn't say we, Christians, church and state?

[14:20:10] IFTIKHAR: You know, Brooke, I find it absolutely hilarious that the Republicans are talking about the separation of church and state when they have absolutely no problem imposing Christian Sharia here in the United States with Kim Davis in Kentucky. You know they - you know it's absolutely unbelievable. When people talk about the fact that, you know, Muslims are coming to take over America, I always ask them, you know, what gave us away? Is it our two members of Congress? Is it our zero senators, our zero Supreme Court justices, our zero governors.

I mean, you know, in 1960, you know, the Republicans said that we should never have a catholic as president with John F. Kennedy because he was going to have his political strings pulled at the sinister behest of the Vatican. In 2008, people said that we should not have a black president. And now we're having, you know, this debate about whether we should have a Muslim president or not. Keep in mind that people who say that we should not have a Muslim president would probably oppose having a Mormon person, a Jewish person, a Hindu person, a Buddhist person, pretty much anybody who doesn't fit into their traditional right wing Christian Evangelical world view.

BALDWIN: Well, there have been other - you talk about how, you know, other Republican candidates, there are other candidates who have, you know, disavowed what Dr. Carson initially said. You have Jeb Bush. You have Carly Fiorina, Rand Paul, you know, all essentially saying that religion cannot be a test for office. You mentioned Article VI of the Constitution and so have they.

And moments ago, Ben Carson responded to the fact that other candidates are also now weighing in on what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARSON: Probably because they're being political. You know, people like to do what's political expedient, not necessarily what's right. And they sort of put the finger up in the air and say, well, let's see, what can I say that won't get me in trouble. You'll notice that I don't do that a whole lot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So maybe you'd agree with him there. I mean you pointed out that it is, you know, campaign season. You said he's being political. He says the other candidates are political. Does he have a point?

IFTIKHAR: No, no, not at all, Brooke. I mean, again, I don't need a lesson in constitutional law from a medical doctor. I am a constitutional lawyer. My father is a surgeon. And if my father said that, you know, somebody of any faith should not be a president of the United States, I'd say, dad, you're not fit to be president of the United States yourself. I mean Article - Section II of Article VI, one paragraph above the no religious test clause, is that the Constitution shall be the supreme law of the land. It's called the supremacy clause, which says that no other law can ever trump the Constitution. So anybody, again, who says that Islamic law is coming to take over America not only should not be president but, again, should retroactively fail 8th grade social studies class.

BALDWIN: Arsalan Iftikhar, have a little bit of a sense of humor about this. I appreciate it.

IFTIKHAR: Any time, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Arsalan, thank you so much. Thank you.

IFTIKHAR: See you next time.

BALDWIN: Next, the Pentagon faces some pretty tough questions amid allegations that American soldiers were told to ignore cases where Afghan allies were involved in the sexual abuse of young boys. So I'll talk to the father of a fallen Marine speaking out now about what his son revealed to him during their final phone conversation.

Also, we are watching and waiting for the pope. Live pictures here from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. The red carpet has arrived. We're just now waiting for Shepard One as he's left Cuba en route to the Washington, D.C., area, his very first steps on American soil, making history here live on CNN. Do not miss a beat.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:27:35] BALDWIN: This next story is so entirely disturbing on so many levels. What you will see here, it's called Bajabazi (ph). Translated it means boy play in Afghanistan. Reports are surfacing that U.S.-backed Afghan officials are taking young boys as sex slaves. Disturbing enough. But then there's this new stunning allegation that the U.S. military ordered U.S. service members to essentially look the other way and they did this according to multiple reports to maintain good relations with U.S. allies, the Afghan forces. So "The New York Times," PBS, CNN have all been reporting on this. Here is an excerpt from my colleague Jake Tapper.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I had a boy because every commander had one.

JAKE TAPPER, ANCHOR, CNN'S "THE LEAD": In a 2010 PBS documentary, a former Afghan commander of the Northern Alliance spoke openly, shamelessly, about this sick practice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If I didn't have a boy, I couldn't compete with the others.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: When confronted a about this type of open abuse, two U.S. soldiers say they used physical force against an Afghan police commander and one of those soldiers, former Army Captain Dan Quinn told his story to Jake Tapper.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAPT. DAN QUINN, U.S. ARMY (RET.): The competition turned physical and I picked him up and threw him on to the ground multiple times and Charles did the same thing. We basically had to make sure that he would - that this was not going to happen again. That he fully understood that if he ever went near that boy or his mother again there was going to be hell to pay.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Captain Quinn says he and the other soldier were relieved of their duties shortly afterward. And then there is this. An American father says during his final conversation with his own son, his son who's a Marine, on the phone before his son was killed, Lance Corporal Greg Buckley Jr. told his father he was troubled by the screams he himself could hear coming from boys being sexually abused by Afghan police officers on a U.S. base. So he is with me now. That Marine's father is Greg Buckley Sr. The attorney for the Buckley family is Mike Bowie (ph).

Thank you so much for, both of you, coming on.

We have met through the television several times.

BUCKLEY: Yes.

BALDWIN: It is an honor and a privilege to have you on again, sir.

BUCKLEY: Thank you.

BALDWIN: And, again, I am so sorry about the loss of your son. We talked in 2012. Just - we were covering green on blue attacks.

BUCKLEY: Yes.

BALDWIN: And so that was the context of our conversation. Little did perhaps, certainly not myself, or even you really know at the time, connecting some of these dots. So can you just fill me in on some of the conversations, what you're willing to share, that you had with your son and what he told you about this abuse.

[14:30:07] BUCKLEY: Well, the abuse goes on but we are told that they're told to look the other way. And it's disturbing to my son, who was only 20 when he went over there.