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Russia Begins Airstrikes on ISIS in Syria; Senate to Vote on Temporary Spending Bill; Vatican Not Denying Pope Met with Kim Davis; Bill and Hillary on the Race. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired September 30, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

[10:00:27] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

We begin this hour with breaking news in the fight against ISIS and an uneasy alliance that now faces a brand-new test. This morning, we learned that Russia has launched its first airstrike on extremist targets in Syria including military equipment. And adding to the drama, Russia has told the U.S. to ground its warplanes there.

CNN's Barbara Starr is tracking the story from the Pentagon. Bring us up to date, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Carol, this is really a story moving by the hour, by the minute in terms of rising tensions between the Russian military and the U.S. military. A short time ago one U.S. official telling me this is not the way nations conduct military relations.

What happened earlier today was a Russian general went to the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, read a note out telling the U.S. Defense attache, Russia was about to begin military strikes in Syria within the hour. And apparently that is exactly what they then proceeded to do. Four Russian warplanes striking targets in -- near the Syrian city of Homs. Homs is in western Syria. ISIS is not there. This is an area where anti-regime militias are, where these militias are fighting against Bashar al-Assad.

All indications in the U.S. view is that the Russian airstrikes were an effort to prop up Assad, not to fight ISIS. A lot of consternation at the Pentagon right now about this because it was just yesterday that Defense Secretary Ash Carter let it be known that he was beginning to set up mechanisms, procedures to talk to the Russians, military to military, about how to de-conflict operations in the skies over Syria.

The worry, of course, is Russian warplanes flying, U.S. warplanes flying. Nobody wants to see an incident. Nobody wants to see anybody get shot down inadvertently but where those talks go now, very much an open question. Now that the Russians have basically said, we're doing it anyhow -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Barbara Starr reporting. We're getting -- of course, we're getting conflicting reports out of that region right now, Barbara. And I understand the Russian Foreign minister is now holding a news conference. We're monitoring that right now just to make sure it's in English and so that everybody can understand it. In the meantime, I want to bring in general -- Lieutenant General Mark Hurtling. He's a CNN military analyst.

Welcome, General.

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: General, what do you make of this?

HERTLING: Not unanticipated, frankly. I mean, I think anyone who's in the military who has conducted campaigns and operations expected this to happen. Even though the diplomacy and the talks back and forth has said -- Russia has said they are going against ISIS, they are an ally of Assad. He is the reigning government in Syria and legally he can invite the Russians in to do whatever they want.

So I did not anticipate that they would not attempt to stabilize and try to expand the area under Assad's control, which is part of the area that we're talking about. I did not think that they would not go after alliances that are contrary to Mr. Assad. So all of these things I think most military folks -- are expected, but this is now a condition of the battlefield. And it's going to get more tense as the hours go on.

COSTELLO: OK. So I was talking about this conflicting information because I just got this urgent in my e-mail box. So you heard what Barbara Starr reported. That Russia is conducting its airstrikes in western Syria. Not exactly a stronghold of ISIS terrorists.

HERTLING: Right.

COSTELLO: But I just got this urgent, and it quotes a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman who said that Russian warplanes conducted a strike in Syria against ISIS military equipment, communications center, vehicles and ammunitions. Do you think that's true?

HERTLING: Ain't buying it. Truthfully, I'm not buying it. ISIS does not have any strength in Homs itself, and their strength is in other places of the country. And they would not have done some of the things they did in terms of last-minute notification of both elements in Baghdad and the U.S. embassy there. So this is truthfully a support for Assad. They are trying to keep him in power. They have bases in Syria that are critically important to their Mediterranean strategy. So I anticipate more things like this happening, and frankly, I think the military and State Department officials on the ground believe that this will continue as well.

COSTELLO: OK. So the other concern is before these airstrikes began, a Russian official marched into the American embassy in Baghdad and said, look. We're going to conduct these airstrikes, so you need to get your, like, warplanes out of the area now. The United States did not do that, but doesn't that sound like it could become dangerous? [10:05:15] HERTLING: Yes, it sounds like it to the untrained, Carol,

but truthfully, I'm sure there's more conversations than that going on, at least I would hope so. We have conducted operations with the Russians before. Not only exercises but also combat operations in the Balkans about 10 or 15 years ago. They are always difficult to deal with. They always do things without coordination. So I think the military planners and operators out of Central Command and the ones in Iraq and Syria that are working the Iraq and Syria issue themselves are probably attempting to de-conflict and coordinate more rather than less.

But this is something that's problematic. Russia has close to 34 airplanes in Syria right now, and they are not only ground attack aircraft but also air-to-air aircraft. So this is something the -- the military, the coalition military planners to include U.S. have to watch and be very careful about.

COSTELLO: So the United States and Russia are both fighting within Syria, and there are cross-purposes because initially the United States, the Obama administration, says, you know, we want Assad to be out of power. We don't want him in there anymore. We're not helping him. We hope somebody overthrows him. Of course, as you said, Russia wants completely the opposite.

Elise Labott sat down with Secretary of State Kerry -- I think just yesterday, and suddenly he said that this is, well, it could be an opportunity for the United States. So let's listen to Secretary Kerry, and then I want to get your input.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: I think it makes life very complicated for Putin himself, for President Putin, because he's going to side with Assad and with Iran and Hezbollah, he's going to have a very serious problem with the Sunni countries in the region, and that means that he could even become a target for those Sunni jihadis. So this is very complicated for him. He needs to work something out.

LABOTT: But --

KERRY: And I think it's an opportunity, to be honest. I think it's an opportunity for us to force this question of how you actually resolve the question of Syria.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So, General, is it an opportunity for the United States?

HERTLING: Well, I would agree with Secretary Kerry that -- I'm sorry, Secretary Kerry that this is going to cause problems for Mr. Putin. It certainly will. I mean, when you're talking about siding with Assad, with Iran, with Hezbollah in a region of the world that has also Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Egypt and other Sunni governments that do not like the expansion of Iran, he is going to have some of the same challenges we have, quite frankly. I think his initial campaign plan is to stabilize Assad in his main

region and then potentially in the near future expand outward. If that happens and we've got to be watching this very closely the entire time, will it give more power to Mr. Assad? Will there be more diplomatic negotiations that perhaps talk about a power-sharing agreement within the Syrian government with others to attempt to stabilize the situation?

Or, you know, and you also have to remember Mr. Putin has some problems with extremists within his own country as well. You know, he has not tamped down completely some of the extremists in various areas of his nation. So he could receive quite a backlash within his own country from some extremists that don't believe what he's doing in other parts of the world are good.

And truthfully, Carol, there's another issue. He was being strained, quite frankly, with his illegal entry into Ukraine by the military. Now he's got military acting in another country. Is he over-expanding his footprint? Is he causing more things to happen that are going to cause him problems not only on the military front but on the diplomatic front, and in the national political front within Russia? And I believe yes, that's eventually going to happen.

COSTELLO: OK. We'll keep an eye on it.

General Mark Hertling, thanks for your insight as always. I appreciate it.

Also right now, thousands of civilians are fleeing their homes in the northern Afghanistan city of Kunduz. This after Taliban militants took over that key city. Now Afghan forces are struggling to retake it. U.S. forces have conducted airstrikes, and NATO Special Forces are also assisting. But a shortage of ground troops is hindering operations. In the meantime, hundreds of reinforcements are reportedly being blocked by the Taliban in a neighboring province.

At any moment, the Senate will take up a temporary spending bill that would avert a government shutdown, at least for now. You're looking at live pictures from Capitol Hill. Of course, this fix is expected to pass but only extends the deadline until December. House conservatives are pushing to have all taxpayer funds pulled from Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, or they will shut down the government.

Senior political reporter Manu Raju is on Capitol Hill to tell us more. Good morning.

[10:10:08] MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. You know, Carol, this is really just a punt. This is a short-term spending bill that's going to extend government funding until December 11th when the real larger, more contentious issues are going to arise. What the Republican leadership did to try to alleviate those concerns that you referenced about Planned Parenthood is try to separate this issue from -- into a separate battle over the budget. They want to take it out of this must-pass spending bill to keep the

government open and try to move it into a different separate process. Now for right now, that seems to have appeased a lot of those conservatives. But they're going to have to deal with this again in the winter when if that -- if Planned Parenthood continues to get funded, those fights are just going to intensify. In addition to that, there's a big battle that's brewing over the exact level to set government spending limits.

And Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, tried to start negotiations last week. He reached out to the White House to begin those talks. The question is going to be, can both sides come together on something that has really divided the two parties over for years, and particularly in recent years, exactly how much money to spend for the federal government each year. There is no resolution in sight to that, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Manu Raju, thank you very much.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the Pope met thousands of people in the United States including this Pope baby. But how about the controversial Kentucky clerk who's refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses? She said she also met with the Pope, but the Vatican isn't talking. Why?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:15:49] COSTELLO: All right. This news just into CNN just minutes ago. The Vatican said it will not deny that the Pope did indeed meet with that Kentucky clerk in controversial same-sex marriage opponent Kim Davis last week when the Pope was in the United States. Davis says she not only met with the Pope, but the Holy Father thanked her. Davis told "Good Morning America" she was stunned when she got the call from the Vatican. She says the meeting took place in Washington, D.C., while the Pope was in the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KIM DAVIS, ROWAN COUNTY, KENTUCKY CLERK: I put my hand out, and he rushed and he grabbed it. And I hugged him and he hugged me. And he said, "Thank you for your courage." He told me before he left, he said, "Stay strong." That was a great encouragement.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK. So there you have it. With me now, Vatican correspondent Delia Gallagher. She is live in Rome.

So the Vatican initially sent out a statement saying they would not confirm nor deny, and then they tweaked it moments ago, why?

DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I mean, it's progress on their part. In the first instance, they gave a verbal statement saying they're neither confirming nor denying. Now we have the written statement saying they're not denying, but the papal spokesman says he doesn't have any further comment to add. Clearly, if you're not denying, that means that the meeting happened.

You know, it's difficult to parse sometimes, the Vatican language. They like the double negative. They're not going to deny it. Why don't they just come out and say that it happened? I think, Carol, because it's an internal U.S. affair. I mean, she is a federal employee. They probably don't want to be seen to be meddling within those affairs, especially when it has to do with the legal system.

I mean, if we compare it to the fact that when the Pope was in the United States and he met with the group of nuns, the Little Sisters of the Poor, who are also involved in litigation with the Obama administration over the contraception mandate, and that, the Vatican spokesman said, was a clear sign of the Pope's support for them. But that's a group of nuns. And they have already been supported by the U.S. bishops.

The situation with Kim Davis, as a federal employee, is slightly different. So I think the Vatican wants to stay out of the political fray on it, but wanted to show personal support of Pope Francis for the situation of a conscientious objector because we know that when he was returning from the United States on the papal plane, he said that he does support conscientious objection that it is a human right and should be allowed for by governments under religious freedom. And he was specifically asked if that applies also to government employees, and he said yes -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Delia Gallagher reporting live from Rome, thanks so much.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Monica Lewinsky back in the spotlight. Is that bad news for Hillary Clinton, or does it matter? We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:22:51] COSTELLO: It sure sounds like Bill Clinton is about to hit the campaign trail. He's granted interviews like mad and his number one topic, of course, is Hillary Clinton. His number two topic, trashing the Republicans.

CNN's Erin Burnett asked him if Donald Trump could win.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL CLINTON, 42ND PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They're basically all still sort of stalking around, trying to prove their bona fide, you know, who hates the Democrats the most and who can blame President Obama for every bad thing that happened anywhere in the world. Somebody caught a cold in Bali yesterday, I told you, we had no leadership.

(LAUGHTER)

You know, that kind of stuff. And they're -- two of them have dropped out, but we still haven't had any really serious discussions. We've been through five hours of debates, and I watched it all, maybe. But we have many serious discussions about, well, if you were there, what would you actually do about this? So I think I don't know. I was asked if I thought he had a chance to win, and I do because one of the things in a crowded field you have to do is stand out. You have to be able to brand yourself. You have to be able to be identified.

But at some point, you also have to say, what are you going to do? You can't just spend all your time saying everything everybody else did was wrong. And they were all defuses. You can't say that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: In the meantime, Hillary Clinton sat down with Lena Dunham. Yes, that Lena Dunham of "Girls" fame. They talked about Wall Street criminals, same-sex weddings and girl talk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LENA DUNHAM, ACTRESS & CREATOR, "GIRLS": Every line in reader's lips is, do you consider yourself a feminist?

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes, absolutely. You know, I'm always a little bit puzzled when any woman of whatever age but particularly a young woman, says something like, and you've heard it.

DUNHAM: Yes.

H. CLINTON: Something like, well, I believe in equal rights but I'm not a feminist. Well, a feminist is by definition someone who believes in equal rights.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: I don't think everyone believes that. Joining me now to talk about all of this, Democratic strategist and executive director of the Accountability Project, Nomiki Konst. I'm also joined by Democratic strategist Keith Boykin.

Thanks for being here. I appreciate it.

(LAUGHTER)

[10:25:05] You know, you couldn't help but notice, although Hillary Clinton seemed a little loose in that interview with Lena Dunham, but compared to Bill Clinton, he was like -- he's good, right? So will that be a problem again? Because we talked about that in 2008.

KEITH BOYKIN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: The contrast between the two of them?

COSTELLO: Yes.

BOYKIN: I don't think so. I mean, people who know Hillary Clinton is, they know who Bill Clinton is. If you look at Hillary's numbers where they were before the summer started, she had a very favorable impression with the American public. People liked her. I think what's happened is she's had a really difficult summer, but once we start having more debates and start comparing her with the Republican candidates, we'll really have a chance to size her up again and see her in a whole new light. This type of interview helps her, it humanizes it, it shows her as a real person.

COSTELLO: Well, Nomiki, Lena Dunham, very polarizing. Why not sit down with someone like Emma Watson, right? She talks about gender equality at the United Nations. And she's not polarizing like Lena Dunham.

NOMIKI KONST, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: That's a good point. But Lena Dunham has been active in Democratic politics. She's a, you know, strong supporter of Hillary Clinton. And let's be frank here. Hillary is not doing well with millennial women. They're going to Bernie Sanders. Now what's interesting is you see what happened in 2008 when Bill Clinton went out on the trail for Hillary. He didn't actually help her on the trail. He helped Barack Obama later on in 2012 and he did extraordinarily well as the explainer-in-chief but he didn't do well for Hillary Clinton. Now my question is, do millennial women remember the '90s? Do they remember --

COSTELLO: No.

KONST: No. How divisive Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton were, and now, you know, with Monica Lewinsky back out, are they going to remember what happened? How Hillary Clinton treated Monica Lewinsky? Was that very feminist of her? Was the way that we victim blamed Monica Lewinsky, this new wave of feminism? And I don't know if millennial women are going to know that.

COSTELLO: OK. So you bring up Monica Lewinsky, and she was on "Good Morning America" this morning to talk about her anti-bullying campaign, and it did seem like deja vu all over again to quote the late great Yogi Berra. So she was asked one question about Hillary Clinton running for president, and here's what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hillary Clinton is once again running for president. How do you push through it and put it behind you with that constant news cycle?

MONICA LEWINSKY, ANTI-BULLYING ACTIVIST: You know, I think it's really wonderful that we have two women from both parties running for higher office, and I think however it may affect me personally is not something I'm going to talk about today. But the campaign I'm really focused on, Amy.

(CROSSTALK)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK. So I do think women from my generation certainly remember that. And women from generation X, right? Certainly remember it. Will it be a fact -- I mean, isn't it weird she's popping up now, Keith? BOYKIN: Well, she's got an anti-bullying campaign so, you know, she's

got to promote her stuff. I don't blame her. You know, she's been through the wringer. She's had a rough experience from the '90s, and she's trying to rebrand herself, and I appreciate her for that, but this is old news. People are focused on the future, and elections are about the future. It's not about what happened in the past. People don't want to re-litigate the '90s which is the reason why a Bush- Clinton race is the worst possible nightmare for a lot of Americans.

But I think that people want to focus on the future. I think Hillary's proposals about the future will be much more interesting than what Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky may not have done in the past.

COSTELLO: I do think something about when she explains her proposals, she doesn't explain it in the most compelling way.

KONST: Bill Clintonian way.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: No. Not at all.

BOYKIN: She's not Bill Clinton. She's a different person.

KONST: I don't know about that. I mean, I find it interesting that a lot of the things that she's running on, if we don't want to talk about the '90s, well, a lot of it we're dealing with today are the effects of the '90s. So the things that she's running on from tax reform, prison reform, drug reform, these are Bill Clinton policies. And she's running against them right now. And I think that's going to be the biggest issue right now is income inequality that was caused by a lot of the reforms that were Bill Clinton's.

COSTELLO: That's interesting. It will be an interesting Democratic debate especially if Joe Biden happens to get in.

BOYKIN: You bet.

COSTELLO: The door is open. He's not running, but the door's open.

BOYKIN: Yes. Waiting apparently until the last day apparently, right?

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: The suspense is building. Nomiki Konst, Keith Boykin, thank you both. I appreciate it.

Make sure to stay with CNN later today. Jeb Bush joins Wolf Blitzer on the SITUATION ROOM. That's tonight at 5:00 p.m. Eastern. And Donald Trump will talk with CNN's Don Lemon. That comes your way at 10:00 p.m. Eastern.

And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. The U.S. is pulling American spies from China after a massive cyber attack that compromised the personal data of more than 20 million government workers. That's according to a U.S. official. Here's what's troubling, though. That stolen data includes records on State Department employees that could allow hackers to identify U.S. intelligence agents.

Let's bring in CNN justice reporter Evan Perez. He has more on this. Good morning, Evan.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. The concern here really is that the Chinese intelligence agencies can now compare the roster of U.S. embassy employees that they already know in Beijing against this massive database that they now have of U.S. government employees. And so those affected, I'm told, include employees of the CIA, the NSA and the Defense Intelligence Agency.