Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Clinton, Sanders Clash as Iowa Vote Nears; Ted Cruz Back on the Campaign Trail; Three Americans Vanish in Iraq; New Details on Iran's Detainment of U.S. Sailors; Doctors Now Examining Freed Americans; Interview with Roxana Saberi. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired January 18, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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


[10:00:00] COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS: We have to show you the wackiness that was from the Packers-Cardinals game Saturday. Fourth quarter, time running out on the clock. Aaron Rodgers has no choice, throws the Hail Mary deep into the end zone. Jeff Janis with the amazing catch. That would send it into overtime.

That's where a coin toss, it gets a little crazy. Ref throws it in the air, but the coin never flips. Never seen this before. Watch it again. The Cards can't believe it. They talk about it. The Cards would eventually get the ball in overtime. Larry Fitzgerald scores for the game winner there.

The Cardinals now romping their way into Charlotte against the Panthers in the late game next Sunday for the NFC title game. That is your quick highlights for NFL action -- Pam.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Great round-up there. Coy Wire, appreciate it.

And the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM begins right now.

Good morning to you. I'm Pamela Brown in for Carol Costello on this Monday. Thanks so much for being here with us.

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are battling to succeed President Obama in the White House but during last night's debate in South Carolina, the two sparred over the future of one of the president's signature initiatives, the Affordable Care Act. Clinton hitting Sanders hard claiming his just released health care plan would end Obamacare as we know it. The Vermont senator forcefully pushing back saying he only wants to modify it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There are things we can do to improve it, but to tear it up and start over again pushing our country back into that kind of a contentious debate I think is the wrong direction.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No one is tearing this up. We're going to go forward. We're not going to tear up the Affordable Care Act. I helped write it, but we are going to move on top of that to a -- (CROSSTALK)

SANDERS: -- Medicare for all system.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: CNN's Phil Mattingly joins me now with more highlights.

So, Phil, this debate focused not just on health care but also on gun control and Wall Street. Right?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Pamela. It wasn't so long ago that Hillary Clinton wouldn't even mention Bernie Sanders' name on the campaign trail now unloading on him on a number of attacks. The most notable on guns. This is something her campaign has been pushing him on over the last several weeks, an area where they believe Bernie Sanders is at his weakest as a rural senator from -- a senator representing a rural state in vermont. Some of his votes particularly on immunity for gun manufacturers have left him open. The campaign trying to seize on it. Last night Bernie Sanders trying to respond. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANDERS: Well, I think Secretary Clinton knows that what she says is very disingenuous. I have a D-minus voting record from the NRA.

CLINTON: I have made it clear based on Senator Sanders' own record that he has voted with the NRA, with the gun lobby, numerous times. He voted against the Brady Bill five times. He voted for what we call the Charleston loophole. He voted for immunity from gun makers and sellers which the NRA said was the most important piece of gun legislation in 20 years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: As you can see, Pamela, Hillary Clinton definitely has done her research on this issue as it relates to Bernie Sanders. The reason is this, they feel like, the campaign that is, that this is an area where they can reach base voters, voters that they've had difficulty riling up for Clinton's support.

Also African-American voters, this is an issue that resonates heavily with them. They are crucial to Clinton maintaining a firewall, particularly in South Carolina. Another one of those early primary states that should Bernie Sanders upset Clinton in Iowa and take New Hampshire, Clinton will desperately need South Carolina to hold, Pamela.

BROWN: All right. Phil Mattingly, thank you so much for that.

And joining me now for some perspective on last night's debate, Jennifer Granholm, senior adviser to Correct the Record, a pro-Hillary Clinton super PAC, and Bob Cusack, editor-in-chief of "The Hill."

Thank you both for coming on. Do appreciate it. JENNIFER GRANHOLM, SENIOR ADVISER, HILLARY CLINTON SUPER PAC: You

bet.

BROWN: Jennifer, I want to start with you here because Hillary Clinton clearly sharpening her remarks on Bernie Sanders, and as Phil just said, she barely even mentioned his name in the beginning of her campaign. Clearly last night the strategy has changed and "The New York Times" is now writing over the weekend, advisers to Hillary Clinton, including former President Bill Clinton, believe that her campaign made serious miscalculations by foregoing early attacks on Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. And failing to undercut his arch liberal message before it grew into a political movement.

So, Jennifer, how do you respond to that?

GRANHOLM: Well, first of all, everybody knows that campaigns tighten up in the end, and the Clinton people knew that this was going to tighten up in the end no matter what. It's only now that people start to focus on these issue contrasts. Previously people were just sort of starting to get to know the candidates. Now the voters start to focus and hone in. So the race has tightened, as everybody expected it would, and now they're focused on these differences between them, which are not insignificant, especially in the Democratic primary.

[10:05:06] The focus on guns is really important for those who want to make sure that gun safety measures are adopted and feel like you can trust somebody who has been advocating for that for decades is really important. And the same thing goes with, you know, who can you trust to be able to make progress on health care, and so Bernie Sanders puts out his plan yesterday right before the debate starts.

And while he says he's not ripping up the Affordable Care Act, he certainly is eliminating that and replacing it with something else, but the something that he's replacing it with is something that will never get through, unfortunately, this Congress that he will have. It's got -- honestly a snowball's chance in hell of doing that, and so the question for voters is, do you want to be supporting somebody who is a visionary and gets things done, or do you want to be supporting an idea which doesn't really have any chance of getting done? And that's what it's going to come down to.

BROWN: But, Bob, Bernie Sanders, his message is clearly resonating with people in Iowa and New Hampshire, especially those young voters, right?

BOB CUSACK, EDITOR IN CHIEF, THE HILL: Oh, absolutely. I mean, he's doing very well in Iowa and New Hampshire and six months ago if you said, wow, Bernie Sanders can win both of them, which is within his reach, he can do this. However, he's got to worry about the states that follow that, but that would -- he's hoping to just change this whole race by winning the first two contests and that's where Iowa is very important.

Remember, Hillary Clinton finished third in Iowa in 2008, and I do think that they could have gone after Sanders earlier especially on guns. Those attacks are resonating. Hillary Clinton I think got a weakness on her ties to Wall Street. Sander's weakness to the base is guns. So I think they both landed some major punches last night, but Hillary Clinton still remains the frontrunner.

BROWN: And while she remains the frontrunner nationwide but not in Iowa and New Hampshire necessarily, it's very, very close. Actually a new CNN poll of polls show Clinton and Sanders tied in Iowa I should say but she still has a double-digit lead nationwide.

Jennifer, is there a disconnect here between voters in this key state and then the rest of the country? What's going on here?

GRANHOLM: Well, I mean, you know, both Iowa and New Hampshire are not representative of the full electorate because they are non-diverse states, and, in fact, there was a Bloomberg poll that was out in the past couple of days that demonstrates that the Iowa Democratic electorate is more progressive than the rest of the country. In fact, there's something like 43 percent of them self-identify as socialists.

So, you know, there's clearly a much more progressive base in Iowa. Nonetheless, I think the Clinton team feels very strongly that with their ground game in Iowa, that they have been preparing for this. They have been preparing for the fact that they knew it was going to be a close race, and they've got an incredible organization on the ground. Not that Bernie Sanders does not have an organization on the ground, he does, too, but their depth, the depth of their endorsements, the depth of their presence in all of those counties I think will overcome what the polls might demonstrate to be a tie. I think she's going to pull it out in the end.

BROWN: OK. Bob, lastly to you, you know, what I think observers noticed last night not only was Hillary Clinton more focused on Bernie Sanders, but also she aligned herself with President Obama. That's not something that we've seen in the past necessarily.

CUSACK: Right.

BROWN: Before she sort of distanced herself, but there's a change here. Why is that?

CUSACK: Yes. I think, I mean, she has distanced herself on some foreign policy decisions the president has made, but certainly last night she was holding the president very tight, and that's her big advantage in this race. It's with minority voters. That's where Sanders has really struggled, and that's why he's not doing well in the states that are not Iowa and New Hampshire.

So I think that's going to be a trend going down the line where Hillary Clinton is going to be defending President Obama and the Affordable Care Act. I don't know if those health care attacks are really working because everyone knows that Bernie Sanders certainly wants single payer, been pushing for single payer for a long time, but it is a good point that the governor raises is that that would not get through Congress, certainly not through this Congress.

BROWN: All right. Jennifer Granholm, Bob Cusack, thank you very much for sharing that perspective. We appreciate it. GRANHOLM: You bet.

CUSACK: Thank you.

BROWN: And looking at the other side of the aisle now for Republican Ted Cruz, the road to the White House may wind through New Hampshire this week where the Texas senator is embarking on a bus tour.

Cruz planning to visit all 10 of the state's counties this week. And the surging Republican seems to be taking a page out of his rival Donald Trump's political playbook talking tough on border control, vowing to build a wall to fight illegal immigration.

CNN's Sunlen Serfaty is traveling with the Cruz campaign. Sunlen, good morning.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Pam. Well, this backdrop to Ted Cruz's bus tour here in New Hampshire really is this intensified feud between him and Donald Trump, something we saw play out all weekend, really ratcheting up with the tensions all weekend and continues to play out on the ground here in New Hampshire.

[10:10:05] Ted Cruz really honing right in on the message, arguing to voters that Donald Trump, he thinks, is not a true conservative, and trying to use Donald Trump's own words against him. Cruz over the weekend tweeting out, "Even Donald Trump himself says New York values are different from the values in Iowa and across the country," and tweeted out this clip from Donald Trump's appearance on "Meet the Press" in 1999.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How about gays serving in the military?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It would not disturb me -- I mean, hey, I lived in New York City and Manhattan all my life, OK. So, you know, my views are a little bit different than if I lived in Iowa perhaps.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: Now Donald Trump wasting no time really addressing that sort of label that Ted Cruz is trying to pin on him. Trump tweeting out over the weekend, quote, "Is this the New York that Ted Cruz is talking about and demonizing?" And now that -- that was also a picture of the World Trade Center as you saw just on the screen, falling after the 9/11 attacks.

It's interesting, Pam, as Ted Cruz hits the ground here in New Hampshire, last night the first question at his first town hall right off the bat was about Donald Trump. Later he did get a question about this New York values controversy, so clearly this sort of rivalry that is intensifying is really resonating with voters as they move towards making their final decision if they're in this same conservative lane. They're trying to choose between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. These arguments are resonating with the voters here -- Pam. BROWN: Yes. Clearly the bromance between the two is now over.

Sunlen Serfaty, thank you so much for that.

And happening right now a security operation is under way to rescue three Americans who have gone missing in Iraq. That's according to Iraqi officials who are urgently trying to locate the three contractors. They were reportedly grabbed by a group of gunmen in Baghdad's southeastern Dora neighborhood and taken away in a convoy of several vehicles.

Of course we will keep you posted on that.

And still to come right here in the NEWSROOM, the brother of freed American journalist Jason Rezaian speaks to CNN. What he says was the first thing Jason Rezaian asked for after his dramatic release from an Iranian prison.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:16:33] BROWN: Well, today three of the four Americans freed in a historic prisoner swap with Iran, including "Washington Post" reporter Jason Rezaian, are one step closer to reuniting with family and friends. Right now they're being examined by doctors at an American military hospital in Germany.

The exchange, part of a groundbreaking deal 14 months in the making. Earlier today CNN spoke to the brother of Jason Rezaian.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALI REZAIAN, JASON REZAIAN'S BROTHER: He seems in good spirits. He's, you know, together. He's really -- can't wait to get out there and see people, meet people, but right now he's got to focus on getting himself better and getting out there.

The first thing he asked for was some information. He feels like he's been starved of information for the last 18 months. Having to live off of the Iranian state TV and getting your news from there isn't where you want to be as a reporter. And he just wants to see what's going on in the world. I think he was surprised and shocked at the amount of attention that this was getting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: And according to an internal memo from "The Washington Post," Jason Rezaian tells staffers he's, quote, "a hell of a lot better," than he was 48 hours ago.

Let's get right to CNN's senior international correspondent Frederik Pleitgen in Germany with more on this.

So, Fred, you're right near the hospital where these Americans are being treated. What's the very latest?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the latest is that they are still being treated at this point in time, and it's interesting because, Pamela, they want to get the reintegration of these three men going obviously as fast as possible, but at the same time they don't want to rush things.

One of the other things that we've heard is that, for instance, Ali Rezaian has not even been able to speak face-to-face with Jason yet. He's been able to speak on the phone with him but has not been able to meet him because the doctors here don't want these three men to be overwhelmed at this early stage.

You can imagine, there's a lot of family members, there's a lot of friends, there's a lot of supporters of these three men who are pouring in here at this point in time. However, the doctors here are saying let's take things very slowly because, of course, aside from the physical state that was a great concern while these men were in detention, the psychological state is also something that is a great concern as well, and is certainly part of the recovery process, and is something that can actually take quite a while.

We have to keep in mind, for instance, that Jason Rezaian, one of the things that "The Washington Post" said was that for a long time he was in solitary confinement, and he also said that that was the thing that was most difficult for him to deal with was that isolation. So they're trying to take things very slowly. They're obviously very professional about it here. They've done this many, many times.

Bowe Bergdahl, for instance, was one of the ones who came through here as well. But at the same time, of course, they want to reunite these three men with their families as fast as possible -- Pamela.

BROWN: Fred, it has been a hectic few days to say the least between the U.S. and Iran on a number of different fronts.

PLEITGEN: Yes.

BROWN: What is the State Department saying about all of this?

PLEITGEN: Yes. It's been a long time since there's been this much communication between Iran and the U.S. in a very, very long time it seems like. One of the things, of course, that we have to keep in mind is while this agreement, this deal to swap these prisoners was apparently in its final stages to be implemented, you had, of course, that incident that happened there in the Persian Gulf with those 10 U.S. sailors that were taken into custody by the Navy of Iran's Revolutionary Guard.

That, of course, was an international incident. It was something that could have derailed this entire process. It was something that could have caused a great deal of grief between these two nations.

[10:20:04] And one of the things, of course, that happened there was that as this incident was being dealt with by the State Department, by the others, was that you had Secretary of State Kerry who was in direct contact with the Iranians and here is what he said about what was going on.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: I was very angry. I was very, very frustrated and angry that that was released. I raised it immediately with the Iranians.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Did you -- did you send a message essentially that said, if you don't release these sailors, then all bets are off, with the implementation of the nuclear deal?

KERRY: I'm not going to discuss what I said or didn't say, but suffice it to say that I made it crystal clear how serious this was. It was imperative to get it resolved.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: So a lot of fronts where all of this could have all gone bad and the release of these two men would have been jeopardized but in the end obviously it all worked out and certainly if you talk to the families of the three men who were released, they are, of course, very grateful that they will soon have their loved ones back, Pamela.

BROWN: Yes. I can only imagine. Fred Pleitgen, thank you so much.

And with me now to talk about all of this, CNN chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto and we're also joined by Ambassador John Limbert. He is the former deputy assistant secretary of state for Iran. He also spent more than 400 days in captivity during the Iran hostage crisis, including nine months in solitary confinement.

Thank you so much for being here with us to both of you.

AMB. JOHN LIMBERT, FORMER U.S. HOSTAGE IN IRAN: Thank you.

BROWN: So, Jim, I want to start with you because you actually had a chance to speak with Jason Rezaian's brother, and you asked him about those final moments on the tarmac before the Americans left Iran where there was this delay. Walk us through what happened.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's interesting, Pam. I have been speaking to the Rezaian family for months now, and during Jason's captivity there, there are many things they couldn't say in public. They didn't want to disturb the process in any way. They didn't want to make it less likely that he would be freed.

Now that they're out they're able to speak a bit more honestly and open, and particularly about those final moments. What Ali said is that Jason's mother and wife wanted to be on that plane with him out of Iran, and the Iranians were pushing back. They said they weren't on the manifest, they weren't going to let them take off, but Jason and the U.S. State Department, Ali said, stood their ground. Listen to the way Ali described those final moments.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REZAIAN: Yes. He had been told repeatedly by the interrogators that they won't going to let her leave with Jason, and that's what caused the problems. The U.S. stuck to its guns. They had said that, yes, she had to come along with Jason. The Iranians as they have done all along continued to manipulate them, continued to try and mess with them, and prevented Yeganeh from leaving for some period of time, but thanks to the Swiss and thanks to the Americans, she came home with him as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Right there you hear him say, as they have done all along, the Iranians continued to manipulate them. So you can see the frustration that the family has had.

I will tell you, Pamela, it has been an ordeal, of course, most of all for those prisoners, Jason Rezaian among them, but also for the families because they just didn't know how this was going to end, and they had so many false starts throughout this when they thought they might be freed and they weren't. So tremendous relief for them as well.

BROWN: And you imagine just in these final moments on the tarmac if the thought crossed their mind is this actually going to happen, are we actually going to be able to leave? And they did, now they're in Germany.

Ambassador, to you, because you know what it's like to be held captive particularly in Iran. You were among a group of diplomats who were held hostage essentially in Tehran more than 30 years ago. So tell us, walk us through, what goes through your mind once you're free?

LIMBERT: Well, first of all, I mean, it's wonderful to get out. I mean, you know it's going to end at some time but you don't know when. You're not aware of the negotiations or the details of what's going on to get you out, and, frankly, you really don't care that much about the arrangements. I mean, if there's -- I know people have -- some people have criticized the swap and they said this wasn't a good idea, but if you're on the inside, a swap whether it's for 10 people or 20 people seems like a perfectly reasonable idea if it's going to get you out of captivity.

BROWN: And on that note, are you surprised, though, that this prisoner swap went through, that it was successful in the sense that we now have the Americans who have been freed from Iran?

LIMBERT: No -- no, I'm not. I mean, this was spoken about a long -- this has been spoken about for a long time. I mean, these people were -- why they were taken, for what reason, we really don't know. Part of it was internal Iranian politics, an attempt to embarrass President Rouhani and his team, but part of it also looking -- holding these people as bargaining chips to get some advantage and they got these six or seven Iranians out.

[10:25:21] As I understand the original list was much longer. What I also understand is that these were very long and I think 14 months of negotiation which began with the Iranians doing what they very often do in these negotiations and reciting their laundry list of real or imagined grievances that go back 40 or 50 years.

BROWN: And then on that note, Jim, toward the tail end of this and you have the situation with the 10 American sailors, walk us through how that may have played into all of this and also these sanctions that were imposed after the Americans left on these 11 Iranian individuals. A lot was going on there. I imagine a lot of calculations being made.

SCIUTTO: No question. Well, in public we weren't aware that there were these negotiations, secret negotiations, going on for the release of Rezaian, Abedini, Hekmati and the others, so close to -- nearly coming to a head as those sailors were taken. So you can imagine on both sides the alarm, the nervousness when those U.S. sailors are taken, how that could disrupt the whole process. They've been working at this for months. Not to mention we did know that implementation of the nuclear deal was nearing just as those sailors were taken.

So you had all these diplomatic strands converging and, frankly, could easily have blown up. I mean, yes, you have two years, 2 1/2 years now of new diplomatic contact between the U.S. and Iran, and we saw some of the benefits of that, but these were sensitive issues. You had the military involved. You had Americans involved. As Ambassador Limbert made the point, you have factions inside Iran who are very much opposed to detente with the U.S. if that's what we would call it, easily this could have been a bad result this week. And somehow all those strands came together and you got certainly for those families a satisfying result.

BROWN: Absolutely. Ambassador John Limbert, Jim Sciutto, thank you so much for that really interesting discussion there.

And still to come on this Monday morning, while Donald Trump is set to speak in moments from now in Virginia courting -- evangelicals, rather, British lawmakers are preparing to debate whether or not to ban the real estate mogul from the UK for his, quote, "hate speech."

We'll be back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)