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RNC Suspends Ties with NBC News for Debate; Iran Attends Meeting in Vienna on Syrian Civil War; Iranian-American Detained by Iran; Obama Announced Special Forces Headed to Syria. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired October 30, 2015 - 13:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:31:29] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: This is just coming in to CNN, the Republican National Committee is going to be suspending ties with "NBC News" for the Republican primary debate that had been scheduled for this coming February in Texas. The move follows heavy criticism of questioning of Wednesday night's debate moderated by CNBC. A letter written for the chairman of the Republican National Committee reads, "I have tremendous respect for the First Amendment and freedom of the press. However, I also expect the media to host a substantive debate on consequential issues important to the American people. CNBC did not."

Let's bring in our senior media correspondent, Brian Stelter, watching all of this.

I don't remember when a debate has been suspended with a major television network. Do you know anything about this, Brian?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT & CNN HOST, RELIABLE SOURCES: It is dramatic fallout. And during the debate, we heard the campaigns complaining about the tone and the questions that were asked by CNBC, and many felt that it was out of control, and the moderators could not be in control of the debate stage, and accusations of liberal biases. Our colleague, Dylan Beyers, reporting on the 7:00 p.m. meeting, cutting the RNC out of the loop, to talk about the future debates. So what we are seeing here is the chairman of the RNC to take control, and suspend for the moment with NBC, and maybe they are doing to be talking to NBC and work it out. This is what NBC says, this is a disappointing decision, but we will work with our partners, Telemundo, and our broadcast partners at Telemundo to resolve this matter with the Republican party the. And also, "National Review" was going to be a sponsor of the debate. And the RNC says that I want to work with them, and have a debate in February, so they may remain working with the Republican Party on this debate if they can reach an agreement, but at the moment, the Republican Party is putting every television network, especially NBC, on notice.

BLITZER: And in a sense that it also tries to send a message from Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican Party, to the various Republican presidential campaign --

STELTER: Exactly. BLITZER: And he is going to be firm and tough, and he going to be undergoing criticism for allowing that CNBC debate to take place?

STELTER: That is exactly what is happening here. And CNBC, for what it is worth, it operates independently of NBC. And it has the letters NBC in the name, but its own office is in its own state in New Jersey, and so it is separate from "NBC News" but it is part of the parent country, and so what we are seeing is a Republican party going after them more broadly than the previous debates. So you can see the ones going after NBC and not the debates on CNN or FOX.

BLITZER: And I thought that the letter released by Reince Priebus, that "NBC News, according to him, promised that the candidates on the stage, all 10 presidential candidates, would be allowed to deliver opening statements and not just closing statements, and they didn't have the opening statement, and they went right to the questions from the moderators. You must have noticed that yourself.

[13:36:14] STELTER: Yes, the first question was, what is your biggest weakness, and what are you doing about it? So in CNBC's mind, that was a version of an opening statement. They believed they were doing what the agreement was set out to the do, but the Republican Party and the candidates clearly disagreed, and it is a source of tension.

And the broader point, Wolf, in order to have a debate and stage the debate, you have to have the networks and the journalists and the candidates all agree. The candidates have a lot of leverage in the situation, and we are seeing them use that leverage right now. And in some ways, the highly used viewership is powerful, and we watched people watch them on CNBC and a channel that rarely has 100,000 viewers, and Donald Trump and Ben Carson are culling in interest in the debates, and so they are using the leverage to get friendlier treatment to get softer questions, and that is challenging for the television networks, because what we need at home and the viewer is tough and pointed treatment but fair treatment from the moderators and they could give 60-second opening statement, and that is clearly, that promise was not met.

BLITZER: Yes, and if the question is what is your biggest weakness? That is not an opening statement. And now, CNBC might have said it is a miscommunication, but it set a bad tone from the beginning, and things went downhill from there

Thank you, Brian Stelter. And we will watch other political news.

But right now, we are following the breaking news. The U.S. is committing, in effect, ground Special Forces into northern Syria, and the number is under 50, but it does represent a change. Much more after this.

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[13:41:08] BLITZER: The U.S. Secretary the State John Kerry is in Vienna, Austria wrapping up talks on Syria's future. This is the first time that Iran has officially taken part in the discussions, and they are taking place at the negotiating table with U.S., Saudi Arabia and Russia and several other countries.

Our senior international correspondent, Fred Pleitgen, is joining us live from Vienna.

And the press secretary has been briefing the news media together with the foreign minister and the representative from Russia. What are they saying?

FRED PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it is very interesting, Wolf, because the talks in Vienna went longer than anybody thought they would. They were scheduled for four and a half hours and they went on for eight hours. Clearly emotional times in the room, and for the first time the Iranians, a part of the discussions to try to the end the violence in Syria, and of course, the Saudis are there as well, and two parties that don't agree on any way forward. And right now, Secretary of State Kerry is briefing the media with Sergei Lavrov and basically what he said is that there was a lot of agreement on a lot of issues regarding the Syrian crisis. He said that all parties agree that Syria should remain unified and secular state. All parties agree, some sort of way to end the violence. He says that all parties have agreed to ask the U.N. to get all of the parties together to get some nationwide cease-fire going in Syria, and however, Wolf, the big stumbling block is the future of Syria's future of Bashar al Assad. And Secretary Kerry said that the sides agreed to disagree. And so now, Saudi Arabia and Turkey said that Assad has no part in Syria at all. And they want some elections to take play, and they believe that Bashar al Assad could be a part of the transition period, and he could stand for elections in the future, so a big disagreement on that front.

However, Secretary Kerry is trying to outline the parts of the talks where the sides have agreement. They have are all decided to meet again in two weeks to try to drive this political process on. It is not something that anybody would say it is a breakthrough in trying to get the peace in Syria, but the fact that the meeting took place, and the fact that some joint statement is issued at the end of it is something that all of the sides see as significant process -- Wolf?

BLITZER: Well, I don't know if it is significant, but neither the Iranians or the Russians are willing to say that Bashar al Assad must go, and the notion of elections when you have four million Syrians who have fled the country, and nine million internally who have been displaced and putting together free and fair elections in a war-torn country is farfetched right now, but that is my initial analysis, and hopefully they can get something done.

There is another important development that Iran is first formally invited into the desk and, once again, an Iranian-American citizen is being held detained in a prison in Iran, and word of that coming today. And he is a businessman and dual citizenship, and was visiting the family in Teheran. And as you know, Fred, he has been detained there. What do we know about the American-Iranian and could it seriously add to tensions of the negotiating table. We are showing pictures of this young man?

[13:45:00] PLEITGEN: Well, it does not help, Wolf. He is someone who has been to Iran a couple of times before, and he is a businessman, and certainly someone who in the past has been in favor of the nuclear agreement between Iran and world power, and also trying to get the U.S. and other businesses to go back into Iran.

There is very little about what and how this happened. Reports in "The New York Times" and that he was detained two weeks ago, and the passport was confiscated before he was detained and imprisoned in the same prison where Jason Rezaian is being held. And usually it is transparent information, but a lot of times the defendants in the cases like this, they don't know exactly what they have been charged with, and certainly, there is very little that the media finds out as well, but it is a key point that this is certainly something that could compliment everything else on the diplomatic front, and of course, we know that the running up to the nuclear agreement, a lot of the progress made there was due to the fact that the Iranian prime mi prime minister and Secretary Kerry have a very good working relationship. We know that in the bilateral meeting that was held here in Vienna, the secretary of state talked about Americans being in Iranian detention, and the many issues that expose the relations between the U.S. and Iran. Certainly, this is a major issue. Now four Americans in Iranian detention, and many felt that Jason would be released after the nuclear deal came to place, but it is not happening at all -- Wolf?

BLITZER: And so now, many thought that they were arresting another American to the up the ante, because they have publicly floated the idea of exchanging with Iranians who are being held in American jails right now, and right now, maybe this is one of the objectives, and we do not know.

Fred Pleitgen, covering the talks in Vienna, thanks very much.

There are other American citizens held in Iran. Jason Rezaian, a journalist from "The Washington Post," convicted on espionage charges, still denies those charges, of course. Amir Hekmati, who was a U.S. Marine, sentenced to death for spying. Saeed Abedini, who was accused of religious crimes. He's a pastor. And former FBI agent, Robert Levinson, went missing in Iran in 2007.

Congressman Dan Kildee, who has been fighting for the release of Hekmati, one of his constituents, and the other Americans, said this about this latest detention of an American, "Reports that Iran has arrested another American are troubling. Iran has repeatedly said it seeks to rejoin the global community, yet I simply cannot fathom how this is possible if it continues to hold American political prisoners."

We will be right back.

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[13:52:00] BLITZER: We're following the breaking news, the Obama administration announcing that U.S. Special Operations forces for the first time will be deployed to northern Syria.

Listen to this exchange that our senior White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, had with the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Jim?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Is this 50 -- fewer than 50 and no more?

EARNEST: The decision that the president has made to add these Special Operations forces to build up the capacity of local fighters in Syria will involve fewer than 50 Special Operations personnel.

ACOSTA: Won't be any other escalations beyond that? Is that what you're saying?

EARNEST: Well, what I'm saying is, what the president -- the decision that the president has made is to send fewer than 50 Special Operations forces to Syria to offer advice and assistance to local fighters on the ground there against ISIL.

ACOSTA: It's possible there could be further deployments?

EARNEST: Well, Jim, I don't want to try to predict the future here. We have been quite specific about what our strategy is. We have shown a desire to intensify our efforts behind those elements of our strategy that have shown the most promise, and building the capacity of local forces particularly in northern Syria has shown some promise. This is a furtherance of those efforts.

ACOSTA: You said these Special Forces could be doing advising, training, assisting. And then to another question, you said, well, I can't get into specifics for operational security reasons. So which is it? Are they going to be involved in some raids in northern Syria, potentially?

EARNEST: The role that they will have is to offer training, to offer advice and to offer some assistance to local opposition fighters on the ground in Syria who are taking the fight to ISIL in their own country. That's the responsibility that they have. That's the mission that the commander-in-chief has given them. On an operational basis, in terms of where they will be operating, with whom they are partnering, I think for pretty obvious reasons those are not details we can get to in public.

ACOSTA: I want to get back to what Christian was asking about, which is -- I want to have a moment of clarity because --.

EARNEST: OK. That's the reason I'm here.

ACOSTA: I think Christian was asking a basic question --

EARNEST: OK.

ACOSTA: -- the question that the American people have, which is this president, this White House, the officials here at this White House, repeatedly, over and over again, have made it clear to the American people that there would be no combat role for U.S. troops fighting ISIS. That appears to be changing. Not only is there this announcement that you're talking about today, that they won't be involved in a combat role, but you're not ruling out the possibility that they may be involved in some sort of combat operation, but on the Iraq side, you have Pentagon officials this week saying we're in combat. So it would be great if we could have a moment of clarity to acknowledge that, yes, this mission is changing, it is not what it was said it was going to be at the onset of this. I just think --

(CROSSTALK)

[13:55:11] EARNEST: To say that would only confuse the situation. The fact of the matter is the mission that the commander-in-chief has given our military personnel is a train, advise and assist mission. We have gone to great lengths to make clear that that in no way diminishes the risk our men and women will be facing. We have also been quite clear that there have been situations where combat boots have been on the ground inside of Syria. We have been candid about that. The president ordered a mission involving U.S. military personnel putting boots on the ground inside of Syria to try to rescue American hostages that had been taken by ISIL. That occurred more than a year ago. The president earlier this year ordered Special Operations personnel to conduct a raid against a high-value target inside of Syria. That raid was successful in taking the leader off the battlefield and recovering significant troves of intelligence. The Department of Defense has had plans in place for search-and-rescue operations. Fortunately, the United States has not been in a situation in which one of our pilots had been shot down or crashed in the skies over Syria, despite the fact they have had thousands of flights. This is a testament to the professionalism of our forces. But there were contingency plans in place for search-and-rescue operations that would have put U.S. military boots on the ground in a fight against ISIL to potentially try to rescue American military pilots.

So we have been forthright about this fact. This is not the first time we are discussing this information. In fact, we have discussed this at some length. And the desire here, Jim, is to try to be as specific and clear as possible exactly what it is that they are doing. Their mission is to train and --

(CROSSTALK)

ACOSTA: You're denying the onset of this military operation against ISIS that the impression was not given to the American people that there would not be a combat role. I recognize there's some potential double negatives in there.

(LAUGHTER)

At the onset of this, I think any rational person would conclude that the impression was given to the American people that there would not be a combat mission. It now appears there are going to be occasions from time to time where there will be a combat element to what U.S. troops are doing in Iraq and Syria.

(CROSSTALK)

ACOSTA: So you're saying that's not the case?

EARNEST: I'm saying the impression that the president went to great lengths to lead with the American people in September of 2014, the president gave a national address on live television in prime time on September 10th of 2014. The president did go to great lengths to make clear that our counter-ISIL strategy would be substantially different, a difference in night and day between the strategy President Obama was implementing to counter ISIL and the strategy of a long-term, large- scale, ground combat operation that the Bush administration pursued in 2003. The president made it quite clear that our strategy is different. The strategy was -- that difference existed then and it exists today. And what the president did in the context of that speech and the numerous other times you all have asked him about it and when he's given other statements about it, the president has been quite clear about the fact they did not have a combat mission. They have a training, advising and assist mission. That does mean our men and women will be in harm's way. It means they are going to be taking risks. It means they are in a dangerous part of the world. It means we owe them a debt of gratitude.

ACOSTA: What about that raid where a U.S. soldier died just last week? That raid?

EARNEST: That was in Iraq. This was a raid led by Kurdish Iraqi security forces. The U.S. military personnel that were there were in an advise role. But when those Kurdish security forces --

(CROSSTALK)

ACOSTA: There's the potential for something like this to occur where they may have to engage people in harm's way. That's -- that's --

EARNEST: That's already happened.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: An important exchange between our Jim Acosta and Josh Ernest, the White House press secretary. More on that breaking story coming up throughout the day here on CNN.

An important programming note before I let you go. On the "State of the Union," Sunday, CNN sits down with John Boehner and Paul Ryan, the outgoing and incoming speakers of the House. Dana Bash has spoken with both of them. Those interviews this Sunday, at 9:00 a.m. eastern and pacific, on "State of the Union" this Sunday.

Thanks very much for watching. I'll be back at 5:00 p.m. eastern in "The Situation Room."

NEWSROOM with Brooke Baldwin starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

[14:00:07] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right here we go. Wolf Blitzer, thank you so much.

Great to be with you on this Friday. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN.

More on our breaking news in the U.S.-led war on ISIS.