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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Obama Rejects Keystone Pipeline; Carson Admits Fabrication. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired November 06, 2015 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00] BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Some of the reasons why the State Department rejected this pipeline. First, the pipeline would not make a meaningful long-term contribution to our economy. So, if Congress is serious about wanting to the create jobs, this was not the way to do it. If they want to do it, what we should be doing is passing a bipartisan infrastructure plan that in the short term could create more than 30 times as many jobs per year as the pipeline would, and in the long run would benefiting the economy and our workers for decades to come.

You know, our businesses created 268,000 new jobs last month. It created 13.5 million new jobs over the past 68 straight month, the longest streak on record. The unemployment rate fell to 5 percent. This Congress should pass a serious infrastructure plan and keep those jobs coming. That would make a difference. The pipeline would not have made a serious impact on those numbers and on the American people's prospects for the future.

Second, the pipeline would not lower gas prices for American consumers. In fact, gas prices have been falling steadily. The national average gas price is down about 77 cents over a year ago. It is down $1 over two years ago. It's down $1.27 over three years ago. Today, in 41 states, drivers can find at least one gas station selling gas for less than $2 a gallon. So while our politics have been consumed by a debate over whether or not this pipeline would create jobs and lower gas prices, we have gone ahead and created jobs and lowered gas prices.

Third, shipping dirtier crude oil into our country would not increase America's energy security. What has increased America's energy security is our strategy over the past several years to reduce our alliance on dirty fossil fuels from unstable parts of the world. Three years ago I set a goal to cut the oil imports in half by 2020. Between producing more oil here at home and using less oil throughout our economy, we met that goal last year. Five years early. In fact, for the first time in two decades, the United States of America now produces more oil than we buy from other countries.

Now, the truth is, the United States will continue to rely on oil and gas as we transition, as we must transition, to a clean energy economy. That transition will take some time. But it's also going more quickly than many anticipated. Think about it. Since I took office, we've doubled the distance our cars will go on a gallon of gas by 2025, tripled the power we generate from the wind, multiplied the power we generate from the sun 20 times over. Our biggest and most successful businesses are going all-in on clean energy. And thanks in part to the investments we've made, there are already parts of America where clean power from the wind or the sun is finally cheaper and dirtier conventional power.

The point is, the old rules said we couldn't promote economic growth and protect our environment at the same time. The old rules said we couldn't transition to clean energy without squeezing businesses and consumers. But this is America and we have come up with new ways and new technologies to break down the old rules so that today homegrown American energy is booming, energy prices are falling, and over the past decade, even as our economy has continued to grow, America has cut our total carbon pollution more than any other country on earth.

Today, the United States of America is leading on climate change with our investments in clean energy and energy efficiency. America is leading on climate change with new rules on power plants that will protect our air so that our kids can breathe. America is leading on climate change by working with other big emitters like China to encourage and announce new commitments to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions. In part because of that American leadership, more than 150 nations representing nearly 90 percent of global emissions have put forward plans to cut pollution. America is now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fighting climate change. And, frankly, approving this project would have undercut the global leadership. And that's the biggest risk we face, not acting.

[12:05:08] Today, we're continuing to lead by example because, untimely, if we're going to prevent large parts of this earth from becoming not only inhospitable but inhabitable in our lifetimes, we're going to have to keep some fossil fuels in the ground rather than burn them and releasing more dangerous pollution into the sky. As long as I'm president of the United States, America is going to hold ourselves to the same high standards to which we hold the rest of the world. And three weeks from now I look forward to joining my fellow world leaders in Paris where we've got to come together around an ambitious framework to protect the one planet that we've got while we still can.

If we want to prevent the worst effects of climate change before it's too late, the to act is now. Not later, not some day, right here, right now. And I'm optimistic about what we can accomplish together. I'm optimistic because our own country proves everyday one step at a time that not only do we have the power to combat this threat, we can do it while creating new jobs, while growing our economy, while saving money, while helping consumers. And, most of all, leaving our kids a cleaner, safer planet at the same time.

That's what our own ingenuity and action can do. That's what we can accomplish. And America is prepared to show the rest of the world the way forward.

Thank you very much.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: The president of the United States walking out of the Roosevelt Room in the West Wing of the White House with the vice president and the secretary of state. The president making important news right now after a seven-year consideration, the president has decided to reject going ahead with the Keystone XL pipeline. Years of debate. The project would have carried some 800,000 barrels of oil a day from the tar sands of western Canada 1,200 miles to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer reporting.

Supporters of the pipeline called it a boon for jobs and energy. Opponents called it an environmental disaster in the making. The president now agrees with the opponents. Approval fell to the State Department since the pipeline crosses a national border and the secretary of state, John Kerry, as you just heard, briefed the president this morning on the long-awaited decision just before the president came out and addressed the American people, indeed the world.

It's a huge development right now. There's going to be a lot of disappointment among some, a lot of support among others.

Let's discuss what's going on, the significance of all of this. Our senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta is standing by, along with our global affairs correspondent Elise Labott, our chief business correspondent Christine Romans, and joining us from Ottawa, CNN's Paula Newton. There's a significant impact on Canada as well.

Jim Acosta, walk us through the decision making process. Took the president seven years to make this decision.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right.

BLITZER: Only a few weeks ago, the Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton announced she opposed the pipeline. Walk us through what we know, how he finally came to this decision.

ACOSTA: That - that's right, Wolf, this has been going on for a lone time. Way back to 2008. Longer than President Obama has actually been in office. And, you know, the president has said for years now that this had to go through a process - of a process whereby the State Department would have to decide whether or not, you know, this was in line with the president's thinking on climate change, whether or not the Keystone pipeline project would contribute to climate change. And this become essentially a political football for several years.

Hillary Clinton was the secretary of state when this was moving through the State Department. She made statements from time to time indicating that she might support that project. And, you know, eventually she came out against it and said recently that it wasn't a flip-flop on her part.

But basically, Wolf, this, in the last couple of years, was boiling down to the president knew that politically this was going to be very difficult for him, even though he doesn't have any more elections to run in, to come out in favor of this project and approving this project. As you heard him say just a few moments ago, the price of gas has been plummeting, the economy is doing well, unemployment is down to about 5 percent. So he's rejecting the notion that this would have been a huge infrastructure boon to the economy.

But at the same time, he just went to Alaska. As you know, last month, Wolf, I was there with the president when he was touring these melting glaciers in Alaska. He's going to the Paris climate summit he just announced a few moments ago later on in December, late November, early December. And it just would have been difficult politically from an optics political standpoint for the president to go and do all of these things to really hold himself up as this big transformative president on climate issue and then approve this project. The progressive base of the Democratic Party was just deeply, deeply against this and so this was - there was really just no political alternative for the president to do this.

[12:10:12] And having said all of that, Wolf, we should point out, climate change is perhaps the number one domestic priority for this president in the last year or so that he has in office. When he went to Alaska, I was right there with him. You can - you can see it on his face, you can hear it in his words, you can hear it when you talk to administration officials, this is something he knows he can't tackle with the help of Congress. He has to do it administratively. And this was one of the last weapons in his arsenal to strike a bow, as they might feel over at the White House, in favor of this changing climate that we have, Wolf. And so I don't think this was a big - a big surprise at all.

BLITZER: Jim Acosta at the White House. A dramatic announcement from the president after seven years of deliberation. The president announcing he rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the - through the United States to the Gulf of Mexico. Standby.

Elise Labott is watching what's going on.

Elise, the diplomatic fallout from all of this. It was a - obviously, a major consideration. It was deeply deliberated inside the State Department back in 2010, as you remember, the then secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said she was inclined - inclined to go ahead and support it. She changed her mind since then. She has formally rejected it only a few weeks ago. Walk us through the diplomacy of this decision.

ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, as you know, it's been a very long time coming. This is - a decision was widely expected. Both Secretary Kerry and, as Jim said, the president have longstanding commitments to climate change, and so we knew that they were leaning in the direction.

But, look, this has been an exhaustive process. There have been public hearings at the State Department. There have been less - no more than a dozen studies on the environmental impact of this decision. Secretary Kerry obviously talking a lot to the Canadians.

Now, the previous prime minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, was, you know, a very strong, maybe the biggest supporter of this project. But, you know, the new prime minister, Justin Trudeau, also said that he supported it, but had also a very strong commitment to climate change. In the end, the studies were kind of mixed that, you know, there wasn't going to be a huge boon for the jobs, but there could be some jobs. And there wasn't going to be a massive environmental disaster. If you listened to the president, he said, this would not be a silver bullet for the economy nor a environmental disaster that environmentalists predicted.

So, in the end, it was down to, I think, the administration's commitment to lead on climate change. Secretary Kerry thought that that was very important that the U.S. continue to lead on this issue. As Jim said, they're going ahead towards this U.N. summit. And so I think that they took a, you know, cost/benefit analysis in terms of whether there was something to cooperate with Republicans on, on jobs, versus the environmental commitment and they came on the side of the environmental commitment.

The Canadians will be very disappointed. But I want to just conclude by saying, this project is not fully dead. TransCanada, the company that proposed the project, had - this week asked to, you know, push the decision back. The president decided not to do that. But they are betting that a Republican president could take office and the project could still go ahead, Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes, the Republican presidential candidates seem to support the Keystone XL pipeline.

LABOTT: All of them.

BLITZER: The Democrat presidential candidates all oppose it. Standby.

Paula Newton is joining us from Ottawa right now.

Almost the first words out of President Obama's mouth, you heard, Paula, was that he just got off the phone with the new prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, and explained his decision. While Trudeau said he was disappointed by the decision, the president promised that there would be new efforts to strengthen the U.S./Canadian relationship. What's the reaction there in Canada?

PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Certainly it's not expected. I mean as everyone's been saying, we expected that it would be rejected. But I have to tell you, the climate here in Ottawa and throughout the country has completely changed. Justin Trudeau just sworn into office on Wednesday.

What he is saying is saying, look, if we have a different relationship with the United States, and I have to say although Mr. Trudeau builds himself up as a great environmentalist, and he wants to go into Paris on that kind of posture, he also supports this pipeline. Canada needs markets for the - its oil and it wants to come to the United States with it. Having said that, Trudeau believes with a better relationship, something that they accuse the Harper government of not doing with President Obama, that there are different ways, perhaps different modes, different pipelines, different avenues to get that oil into the United States. And so this is not over even if a Democratic president lands in the White House next year.

BLITZER: Paula, I want you to standby as well. Christine Romans is joining us.

Christine, let's talk about this deal. It would have been a huge deal, obviously. There would have been jobs, a lot of oil involved, production. Walk us through the economics of this rejection.

[12:15:06] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Well, the permanent jobs would only be 35 or so our fact-check finds. You know, you'd have thousands of jobs while the pipeline was being constructed. But to operate a pipeline long term once it's built, you don't need that many people to walk it through. So the jobs part of the argument for the pipeline has really crumbled in recent years. And, in fact, when you look - the fact that this happens on a day when the president - when we find out that 271,000 net new jobs were created last month, the U.S. economy is creating - is creating jobs, you know, more than 200,000 on average every month now. So the jobs part of the argument for the pipeline is just - it's not that powerful as it was in the early days of pushing the pipeline.

And then the president pointed out the gas prices part of this equation. I mean several years ago you'd hear people - proponents saying, oh, well, you know, if you can just increase the flow of oil into the global market of the energy markets, that will, long term, bring down gas price. Well, while they've been waiting for this pipeline, gas prices have come down considerably as the U.S. has increased output and raised its standards for fuel efficiency of cars. So two of the big proponents have sort of withered away and the president owning that.

BLITZER: Christine Romans, thanks very much. Elise Labott, Jim Acosta, Paula Newton, thanks to all of you. Thanks to our international viewers.

Much more news coming up here on CNN, including a stunning admission from the presidential candidate Ben Carson, reportedly now admitting he lied about a West Point scholarship. Stand by.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:21:01] BLITZER: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. Once again I'd like to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world.

We're learning the campaign of Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson is now admitting he, quote, "made up" at least part of a personal story in his book "Gifted Hands." His campaign telling Politico, the story about the 17-year-old Carson, at the time, applying and getting accepted into the U.S. military academy at West Point was, in fact, fabricated. This, of course, after CNN began questioning other parts of Dr. Carson's story, including details of his violent past as a youth when he was only 14 years old.

Our national political reporter Maeve Reston is with me here. She's reporting on all of these developments. She's been doing a lot of investigation into what was the truth, what wasn't the truth and all of this. But this is going to adding an additional bit of strain on the Dr. Ben Carson campaign if, in fact, he suggested he had been accepted at West Point, got a scholarship, as all cadets would get, to go to West Point. But, in fact, he never apparently even applied to West Point.

MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Right. And I need to make it clear, Wolf, that - that Scott Glover and I, when we were looking into Dr. Carson's high school in Detroit years, did not look into what he said about the West Point experience.

But, you know, right here in his book he says that he met with General Wes Moreland (ph). Later I was offered a full scholarship to West Point. This is his book "Gifted Hands." I didn't refuse the scholarship outright, but I let them know that a military career is not where I saw myself going. So he clearly has talked about this incident in the past.

I think, you know, this just sort of raises a new dimension of questions for the Carson campaign. So far they have not cooperated with us in trying to learn more about his years in Detroit and these violent episodes that he's described, that he said led to a moment of spiritual redemption where God helped him get over his violent outbursts. So I think it's raising alto of questions and, you know, it has potential to - to scramble the race at this point.

BLITZER: He did spend a half an hour, though, on CNN this morning talking about, you know, his recollection of what happened when he was 14 years old when he did have that violent past, throwing a hammer, he said, at one point at his mother.

RESTON: Attempted to -

BLITZER: Attempted to throw a hammer at his mother, used a knife, but it hit the belt buckle of his friend. Now he says that was actually a relative of his.

RESTON: Right.

BLITZER: Fortunately, the belt buckle prevented any serious injury or anything along those lines. He says he doesn't want to reveal the names because these people want their privacy.

RESTON: Right. That's right. You know, we went to the campaign originally and asked them for help to find some of the people who were involved in these violent incidents that he's described that were more than 50 years ago when he was 14. They - we wanted to the talk to friends of Carson. The campaign did not cooperate with us at any point. And so when we talked to friends and classmates, they couldn't recall any of these episodes of violence with the exception of one person who said he had a vague memory of a potential stabbing incident.

So we're just really hoping that the Carson campaign will come forward here and help us by finding some of these classmates who will know about these experiences. And this is, obviously, part of, you know, exploring any presidential candidate's background. BLITZER: Yes, but, obviously, if now the campaign is acknowledging

that the story of West Point was fabricated, that's going to cause some - presumably cause some political grief for the campaign.

RESTON: I mean I would say that - certainly that Dr. Carson did not back away from the violent episodes. He said this morning to us on air that they happened and, you know, other people that we've talked to say they believe him.

BLITZER: Yes. And he's not backing away from - from those suggestions that he wrote extensively about in his book -

RESTON: Correct.

BLITZER: That how religion changed his life when he was 14, 15 -

RESTON: Correct.

BLITZER: And he turned around and eventually became, and it's a great story, of one of the world's greatest pediatric neurosurgeons at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore.

RESTON: Exactly.

BLITZER: And so it's an amazing story and that's why you - you went into investigate what was really going on once he had that transition.

[12:25:04] RESTON: Exactly.

BLITZER: All right, Maeve Reston, good work. Thanks very much for that.

RESTON: Thank you.

BLITZER: We're going to have much more on this coming up in our next hour. Stay with us. A special thanks to our international viewers right now. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. Randi Kaye picks up our coverage after a quick break and she'll have the latest on the investigation of the crash of that Russian airliner.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Randi Kaye, in for Ashleigh Banfield. Welcome into LEGAL VIEW.

How do you fly people out of a place that you're afraid to fly into? That is the dilemma facing Britain and now Russia as suspicion grows that someone slipped a bomb onto the Russian airliner that broke up over the Sinai Peninsula last Saturday. Within the past few hours, Russia halted all flights to Egypt, even while insisting that bomb theories or any theories at this point are mere speculation. The Kremlin is said to be working on a plan to bring Russian vacationers home, a process now underway on a small scale with the Brits.

[12:30:05] Eight flights are due to leave Sharm el Sheikh today for London now. That is down from 29 that were planned. Part of the holdup seems to be a ban on some checked luggage. The