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Republican Party Panics Over Trumps Likely Nominee Status; Clinton Riding South Carolina Momentum into Super Tuesday; Migrants Broke Through Fence, Met by Police with Tear Gas and Rubber Bullets. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired March 01, 2016 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[00:00:11] JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: This is "CNN NEWSROOM" live from Los Angeles.
ISHA SESAY, CNN ANCHOR: Ahead this hour, has Donald Trump finally gone too far? With voting set to begin on Super Tuesday, the biggest voting day so far, the Republican frontrunner is being slammed from all sides after hedging his comments about the KKK.
VAUSE: Official election results from Iran could be hours away, amid predictions reforms will be swept to power. Are they really the moderates they claim to be.
SESAY: And send in the Delta Force. CNN has learned elite U.S. troops are headed to Iraq and possibly Syria to take the fight to ISIS.
VAUSE: Good morning; great to have you with us. I'm John Vause.
SESAY: And I'm Isha Sesay. "NEWSROOM" L.A. starts right now.
We are just hours away from the biggest day so far on the 2016 U.S. election calendar, Super Tuesday, and the race for the republican nomination, well, it just keeps getting nastier.
VAUSE: Hard to believe, but it is. The latest controversy involves a Buzzfeed report that claims Trump took a softer turn on immigration in an off-the-record interview with the "New York Times" editorial board. His rival, Ted Cruz says Trump's conservative credentials just cannot be trusted; and Trump is also still dealing with the fallout from a CNN interview where he refused to disavow support from the former Klu Klux Klan leader, David Duke, as well as other white supremacist groups.
SESAY: He's tried to set the record straight, but the damage may already be done. Sunlen Sefaty reports.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SUNLEN SEFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: On the eve of Super Tuesday, a chaotic close to campaigning. Trump's raucous rally in Virginia interrupted by protesters.
DONALD TRUMP (R) REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: get them out of here, please. Are you from Mexico? Are you from Mexico?
SEFATY: And a violent scuffle between Secret Service and a news photographer, slammed to the ground after trying to get a shot of the chaos, all while Trump deals with his latest controversy, refusing to disavow former KKK Grand Wizard, David Duke, and other white supremacists backing his campaign.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Will you unequivocally condemn David Duke and say that you don't want his vote or that of other white supremacists in this election?
TRUMP: Well, just so you understand, I don't anything about David Duke. I don't know anything about what you're even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. So, I don't know.
SEFATY: Trump attempting to some damage control, tweeting a video from a previous press conference Friday when he did disavow Duke's support, and pointing to that fact today.
TRUMP, via telephone: When we looked at it and looked at the question, I disavowed David Duke. So I disavowed David Duke all weekend long on Facebook, on Twitter, and obviously it's never enough.
SEFATY: All this giving Marco Rubio another opening to pounce.
MARCO RUBIO (R-FL) REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You say David Duke to me I say racist, immediately.
SEFATY: Rubio, with his voice hoarse -
RUBIO: Trying to get my Barry White voice going here.
SEFATY: -- and Cruz, both keeping up their all-out assault on Trump.
TED CRUZ (R-TX) REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Where was Donald in the "Gang of 8"? Not only was he nowhere to be found, Donald Trump was funding the "Gang of 8".
SEFATY: Meanwhile, despite pressure from some party elders to exit the race, John Kasich says even though he has no hope of winning any states tomorrow, he's staying put.
GOV. JOHN KASICH, (R-OH) REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Marco Rubio is trailing in Florida by 17 points. You know what? Why aren't they telling him to get out and get behind me? I have a better chance of winning in Ohio than he does in Florida.
SEFATY: A new CNN/ORC poll out today shows Trump with a commanding lead of the field nationally. Trump, 33 points ahead of his closest rival, beating his four remaining opponents combined. Faced with this the Republican Party establishment is now in full-on panic mode, fearing that Trump is well on his way to becoming the likely GOP nominee. And Super Tuesday is so important to so many of these candidates, especially Senator Ted Cruz, who has banked so much of his strategy on today, on Super Tuesday. He must do well here, in his home state of Texas. it's widely seen as do or die for his campaign.
Sunlen Serfaty, CNN, San Antonio, Texas.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Well joining us now for more on this controversy, anchor of "CNN Tonight," Don Lemon. Great to have you with us.
DON LEMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thank you. I watch you guys. I sit in my office and watch you guys afterwards, and when I get home.
VAUSE: That's fabulous.
SESAY: We put you to sleep. I know, don; it does.
VAUSE: Okay; on your show and, you know, you've been interviewing Donald Trump many, many times, you've been covering his campaign for a very long time as well and every time there's a controversy like this it seems to [00:05:01] galvanize his supporter and it doesn't do him any harm. Could this time be different? The reason why I say this is it seems that Trump is trying to walk this back a little bit, at least, with a very confusing explanation, but it seems he's trying to back away from it.
DON LEMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It does; it seems so. He should come out -- I think he should come out as President Obama had to do about Jeremiah Wright, as President Obama had to do with his speech about race. I think he should come out and talk about this; and I usually say, you know, just because there's an uproar, online and what you have you, doesn't mean that candidates don't have to respond, but you don't mess around with the KKK. You don't mess around with white supremacists. You don't with Nazis. You don't mess around with anti- Semites. You don't pander for their votes. You don't give answers that are nebulous because you are concerned about possibly not getting that vote or because, as it is being perceived, you're trying to dog whistle to a certain repugnant segment of the American electorate. So I think he should come out and really answer the tough questions about it and give a speech on it. This is different this time.
SESAY: What's your sense of the way his rivals are trying to capitalize on the moment?
LEMON: I'll answer your question, do I think it can hurt him and then I'll answer it.
SESAY: Yes.
LEMON: I think it has the potential to hurt him this time. As Hugh Hewitt says, who is a very well respected conservative radio host and conservative (inaudible), yes, this could be his 47-percent.
VAUSE: The Mitt Romney moment. LEMON: The Romney, the 47-percent. And to you, what was your question; I'm sorry?
SESEAY: How do you see his rivals capitalizing? What have you made on what's been coming out?
LEMON: They're already capitalizing on it because even the staunchest of conservatives are saying this is disgusting. You don't have these circular answers about the KKK. You don't come up with an excuse saying I didn't hear. I had a bad earpiece after you've repeated the question. If you have a bad earpiece during an interview, then you say it in the moment, right? so they're going to capitalize on it. Listen, you're not supposed to give your opponent any ammunition or, you know, and he has given his opponent ammunition.
VAUSE: If Trump does actually go forward after Super Tuesday, and sweep up all the delegates, and then head to get the nomination, which still is pretty likely at this point despite this controversy -
LEMON: Yes, absolutely.
VAUSE: Let's assume he gets the nomination, what's this talk of a split within the GOP? Is this serious talk or is this just talk in the heat of the politics in the moment?
LEMON: No, it's serious talk about a split in the GOP and, listen, I'm not -- I'm not a republican or a democrat; I'm neither. I'm independent and I take it as it comes but I do hear people talking about it within the Republican Party.
VAUSE: Yes.
LEMON: It's serious. You'd have to ask someone who knows more about the Republican Party, but the people who come on my show and talk about it, yes, it is very serious and every person I've had on who is a conservative, I had someone from Mississippi tonight and they're saying, listen, I took a pledge as a republican to vote for the nominee, and the longer this goes on with Donald Trump I am having a concern about that. I'm really going to have to rethink that. That's very serious business coming out of the mouth of -- especially an elected republican official.
SESAY: Let me ask you this: you have interviewed the man himself --
LEMON: At least a half dozen times.
SESAY: -- at least a half dozen times and I know you spent a lot of time with him, eyeballing him and all the rest of it. Does he truly believe the things that come out of his mouth?
LEMON: I have to say that -- listen, I have to take him at his word. You know, if you -- if you say one thing I have to take you at your word. I'm not stupid. People are not stupid. I think Donald Trump, to answer your question, wants to win more than anything. And so if you want to know how he feels about a particular issue, you should research it. If you want to know how he feels about abortion, how he feels about certain rights or certain people or certain topics, then you go back and research what he has said over the years and what he is saying now and then I would ask you to make your own judgment from that. I don't -- I think he wants to win more than anything, because that's his brand. He's a winner.
VAUSE: Okay. Okay, we look at this republican campaign in the last 72 hours or so as we head into Super Tuesday, and just to sort of bring everything that you've been doing here in Los Angeles full circle, this is looking more like "Mad Max Fury Road" right now.
LEMON: And you know what, John, that is a very good way of putting it because "Mad Max Fury Road" surprised everyone. Even said it doesn't have a chance, even I said why is this action movie being nominated for best picture, right?
VAUSE: But this is out of control.
LEMON: It's the same sort of thing. Back in the summer when Donald Trump first declared and when I interviewed him, you know, the first one or two times, everyone started saying it's never going to happen, it's never going to happen. I'm like, I wouldn't be surprised because people would come up to me -- and I've been saying this over and over -- and they'd say, hey, Don, I saw year interview with Donald Trump, and they'd look around and see who's listening and then they'd say I like him.
I don't necessarily agree with everything he has to say, but I'm glad that he has the ability to say it and that's what we need in politics right now. [00:10:00] So I would not underestimate Donald Trump. I would not say
that he couldn't pull a rabbit out of the hat, not that he even has to he has so much support. He doesn't even have to, really, even pull a rabbit out of a hat when it comes to this particular controversy.
I would like to hear from him, as someone who's in the media, and I'm sure other Americans would like to hear from him and get a clear explanation, I don't know if he has to do it in order to do well for Super Tuesday and beyond because of the support he has.
VAUSE: Thanks for coming.
SESAY: Appreciate it.
LEMON: Thanks for having me.
SESAY: And we should tell everyone, it's your birthday on the East Coast.
LEMON: 25 again.
SESAY: And you look fabulous.
LEMON: Thank you.
VAUSE: Thank you.
LEMON: Thank you, guys.
SESAY: All right, well, as Donald Trump tries to shed the racial controversy dogging him before Super Tuesday, his wife is speaking candidly about that issue and her husband's campaign.
VAUSE: Melania Trump told Anderson Cooper at times she disagrees with her husband and she doesn't approve of some of the language he's used.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MELANIA TRUMP, WIFE OF DONALD TRUMP: He's an adult. He knows the consequences so I let him be who he is. I give him my opinions many, many times.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You do?
TRUMP: Yes, and I don't agree with everything what he says but that's his normal. I'm my own person. I tell him what I think. I'm standing very strong on the ground, on my two feet and - and I'm my own person and I think that's very important in the relationship.
COOPER: Do you -- can you say something where you've disagreed with him on?
TRUMP: Oh, many things. Some language of course.
COOPER: Language?
TRUMP: Yes, some language I didn't -
COOPER: Language you hear him using on the campaign trail?
TRUMP: Especially -- I was in New Hampshire when the woman was shouting out the inappropriate word.
COOPER: Right.
TRUMP: -- and I was there and I'm thinking don't repeat it, in my head, just -- for him, don't repeat it. Just don't say it because the next day, media, all they will talk is about that; but he repeated. He's with the momentum. He goes with the flow. He goes with the people. they're having fun, everybody was cheering and he said it and the next day, but he repeated the word. That was not his word.
COOPER: Right. So he heard from you about that?
TRUMP: Yes. I told him that, yes. And you know, he did it. As I said, he's an adult and he will do what he wants.
COOPER: It does seem like a lot of his - "The Wall Street Journal" did a piece about how he makes decisions, a reporter followed him around and I thought it was interesting, and I talked to him about it. He seems to make a lot of decisions from his gut, from his instincts.
TRMP: He does. He does. He is who he is. He speaks from the heart and I think it's very important. He doesn't lie. He is who he is. he doesn't hide anything, and people, they're connecting to that. They really connect with him and they know what he will do for the country. He's self-founding. He's his own person. He will not listen. People: donors, lobbyists --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: If she does end up being the first lady, she'll be the only second foreign born first lady in U.S. history. (Inaudible) and a bikini model.
To the democratic side of the race now, Hillary Clinton is riding the momentum from a huge win in South Carolina as she goes into Super Tuesday.
SESAY: But rival Bernie Sanders is digging in, determined to fight to the Democratic National Convention. CNN Senior Political Correspondent, Brianna Keilar has the latest.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Tonight Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are making their final push to Super Tuesday.
HILLARY CLINTON (D-NY) DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I need your help. I need your help to go and vote tomorrow to bring people to vote with you.
BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT) DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We are listening to the American people and their pain and their needs, rather than hustling all over the country collecting millions of dollars from the 1-percent.
[Cheering]
KEILAR: A new CNN/ORC poll shows Clinton opening up a big lead nationally, besting Sanders by 17 points.
CLINTON: Thank you so much, South Carolina.
[Chanting]
KEILAR: After a huge win Saturday, Hillary Clinton sounds like the presumptive democratic nominee.
CLINTON: I don't think America has ever stopped being great. What we need to do now is make America whole.
KEILAR: She is no longer calling out Sanders by name.
CLINTON: I do have a difference with my esteemed opponent.
KEILAR: Instead crafting her message for the potential fight with Trump, who she is already treating like her eventual Republican opponent. CLINTON: I think we need more love and kindness.
[Applause]
CLINTON: Instead of building walls, we need to be tearing down barriers.
[Cheering]
KEILAR: But Clinton still has one eye on Sanders as her rifle looks to rebound from his bruising South Carolina loss.
SANDERS: Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Tonight we lost. We got decimated. We got decimated, that's what happened.
KEILAR: Sanders says he is looking ahead to tomorrow, hoping to gain ground on Clinton in the delegate count.
SANDERS: On Super Tuesday over 800 delegates are at stake and we intend to win many, many of them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[00:15:05] SESAY: Well CNN is the place for extensive coverage of the Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses. We'll bring you the latest from the candidates and the voters throughout the day, and, of course, all the results throughout the night.
VAUSE: Okay; to Syria now where there are conflicting reports about a ceasefire now into its fourth day. U.N. Secretary General, @@, says the truce is, for the most part, holding and he hoped the remaining violence would soon be contained.
SESAY: Opposition groups claim air strikes have hit their position since the agreement went into effect Saturday. They say the ongoing attacks threaten to unravel the ceasefire.
Meanwhile, Syrian and Russian forces continue to fight ISIS, which never signed off to the truce.
Well, we're joined now by Majid Rafizadah, a Middle East Scholar and Columnist for the "Harvard International Review."
VAUSE: We also have James Gelvin, Professor of Mideast History at the University of California here in Los Angeles and joining us via Skype, CNN Military Analyst, Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona.
Colonel Francona, first up to you, is it possible to know right now if these breaches of the ceasefire are deliberate acts, if they're military error at this point or do you think that the Russians and the Syrian regime are pushing on regardless?
RICK FRANCONA, LIEUTENANT COLONEL, RETIRED USAF: I think the Russians and the Syrians know exactly what they're doing. If you look at where the air strikes have been over the last three days, since the ceasefire went into effect, almost all of them are in positions where there are no ISIS fighters. They're not even (inaudible), al-Nusra or any of these terrorist groups. And as we talked before, john, you know anybody that is against the Russians and the Syrians regard as a terrorist and they're really mounting a lot of strikes.
So I don't chock this up to military error. I think the Russians saw a loophole. They're driving a truck right through it and they'll continue to fight despite all of the repercussions. They just don't care. They're going to continue to do this. I think they have -- they believe they have the upper hand and the Syrian army is on a roll.
SESAY: Professor Gelvin, how do you see it? Do you see it as a smokescreen for them to continue hostilities, this deal?
JAMES L. GELVIN, PROFESSOR of MIDDLE EAST HISTORY, UCLA: Yes, I think that, you know, he's absolutely right, that the Russians are pushing along with the Syrian army. They have the advantage. They've had the advantage over the summer and there's no reason for them, right now, for them to lift the pressure that they have on the opposition. Ceasefires last as long as the myth of the ceasefire lasts, not when the fighting actually stops; when people finally throw in the towel about the ceasefire. I think at this point the United States is counting on the ceasefire, the United Nations is counting on the ceasefire and it's pretty much of a myth.
SESAY: Majid?
MAJID RAFIZADAH, PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL AMERICAN COUNCIL: I think we really have to look at the complexity of the Syrian War. What highlights the complexity of the Syrian conflict is that there are what I call four concentric circles of tension: One (inaudible) you have different rebels who are fighting with their government and fighting with each other; the second circle is the cold war between Iran and Hezbollah on the one side and the other Arabs on the other side; and then the international stalemate between the United States and Europe on one side and China and Russia on the other side; and the fourth circle which is for the first time the emergence of the non- state, like the Islamic State. So we have all these four circles and there are, according to the research that I did in the last few in the last two years, there are more than 1,200 rebels group in Syria, powerful rebel group.
So this ceasefire really does cover only a couple of players. It doesn't cover many of these groups including Islamic (inaudible). So it is, from my perspective, it was doomed to fail from the beginning.
VAUSE: Very quickly, (inaudible) because we're going on to another topic, but the Russians have floated this idea that Syria could become a federal state. Is that a possibility? Could that work? How would it work?
GELVIN: I think the bottom line for the American's is that Syria has to remain a state. I think the bottom line for the Russians is that Syria has to remain a proxy. The two are not incompatible. The idea of a federal state is a possibility. Now this brings the most important question to the table which is Bashar Assad. SESAY: Yes.
VAUSE: Yes.
GELVIN: Bashar Assad is the equivalent of the Jerusalem in the Arab/Israeli conflict. It's one of these things that has mass symbolic importance, particularly with the opposition. He has to go for the opposition. For the United States, for the Russians, they're perfectly willing to finesse it. Maybe over time he'll go. Maybe they'll be a transition in which he's there, or maybe not. But overall basically the two bottom lines, I think, can be met.
VAUSE: I'll ask you to both stay with us because there's another topic here about the refugees and the war in Syria. It's been a major source of (inaudible) of those refugees who have been streaming in to Europe. On Monday frustration among migrants struck in European (inaudible) and that was boiling over, as you can see right here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UIDENTIIFED MALE: Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SESAY: Those are scenes from a camp on the Greece/Macedonia border. Desperate migrants broke through the barbed wire fence. Police pushed them back with tear gas and rubber bullets.
VAUSE: Thousands of (inaudible) authorities began tearing down parts of the [00:20:01] camp known as "The Jungle" and began evicting migrants from there as well.
SESAY: Well let's go back to our guests now. And Professor Gelvin, to pick up with you, it seems extraordinary that given the flow of people and the desperation that they're fleeing from, that Europe has not been able to come to a concerted position on how to deal with this refugee migrant crisis.
GELVIN: Well, neither has the United States for that matter. I mean, look at it this way, I mean, right now there's about 2 million Syrian refugees in Turkey. There's about 1 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon; about 680,000 refugees in Jordan, but those are the registered ones. There's about a million five in Jordan. Now, if the United States took in the equivalent amount of refugees that the Lebanese have taken in there would be 700,000 Syrian refugees in the United States. Obviously that's not going to happen. we're balking at taking in even one.
SESAY: Yes.
VAUSE: And very quickly, Majid, the bottom line here is that the refugee crisis is not going to be solved until the conflict in Syria comes to an end?
RAFIZADAH: Exactly; I think the refugee crisis is the result of the Syrian conflict and we have to adequately address the Syrian conflict. And, you know, as long as the Syrian conflict continues the refugees is going to increase and that's going to really affect the generation of children which is going to have significant impact on national securities of other countries, European countries and even the United States. So I think they have to address issues as soon as possible.
SESAY: And, Gentlemen, it's such a pleasure having you with us. I know that you're going to stay with us in some shape or fashion over the next two hours to keep the conversation going.
VAUSE: And Rick Francona will also be back with us as well. Colonel Francona, thanks to you.
SESAY: Thank you.
RAFIZADAH: Thank you.
VAUSE: Now CNN has learned that a U.S. military is deploying elite Special Ops against ISIS. What they'll be going after, the top ISIS militant leaders; that's coming up next.
SESAY: And, later, official results are pending in Iran's national elections but the political winds already appear to be shifting.
You're watching NEWSROOM L.A.
(COMMERICAL BREAK)
SESAY: Hello, everyone; after weeks of preparation some of the military's most elite military forces are starting to go after ISIS in Iraq.
VAUSE: Their goal is to learn as much about the terror group as possible. Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr has the details.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: In secret locations across northern Iraq, the Army's elite Delta Force is now conducting its first operations, CNN has learned. Today at the Pentagon Defense Secretary, Ash Carter, outlining what Delta and the Expeditionary Targeting Force, ETF, has been ordered to do.
ASH CARTER, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Seizing places and people, freeing hostages, prisoners of ISIL; and the only thing I'll say is the ETF is in position. It is having effect, and operating.
STARR: The timing and location of all operations remains classified. There are about 200 troops in northern Iraq. They've been setting up safe houses, establishing and paying off informant networks and gathering intelligence. The plan? Attack compounds, not just to capture or kill ISIS, but to grab laptops, cell phones, anything that can provide more intelligence and lead to more raids.
RET. COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Special operations forces, have vast experience in Iraq and Afghanistan using these kinds of tactics and techniques.
STARR: New techniques as well, with surprising openness the Secretary of Defense detailed going after ISIS in cyberspace.
[00:25:02] CARTER: To interrupt, disrupt ISIL's commanding control, to cause them to lose confidence in their networks, to overload their networks so that they can't function.
STARR: The ultimate goal? Drive ISIS off the dark web that the U.S. cannot monitor.
CARTER: Sometimes we do drive them to other means but it cuts both ways. Sometimes those other means are easier for us to listen to.
STARR: But it could have unintended consequences.
LEIGHTON: You're going to end up basically not knowing what they're doing. They could be using everything from couriers to carrier pigeons in order to get the job done for them.
STARR: All of this as Carter is considering sending even more troops for the upcoming Iraqi operation to retake Mosul, Iraq's second largest city.
CARTER: Because of our strategy and our determination to accelerate our campaign, momentum is now on our side and not on ISIL's.
STARR: So why telegraph so much information? One analyst says it is because this has become a public relations war, and the Pentagon feels it must
show progress to the public.
Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Colonel Francona is back with us for more on this. So, Colonel, when you look at this development here, how much is this potentially a game changer on the battlefield in Iraq, and also potentially Syria?
FRANCONA: Well, we've been doing it for some time. I think it's just now becoming public, and the reason that Secretary Carter is talking about it now is that we now have enough intelligence to start moving. Remember, we were behind the power curve when we went over there a year ago but in that year we've been able to build up target dossiers; figure out where people are; figure out how they communicate. I think now it's coming to fruition and as he said, the big push now is to are retaking of Mosul. That's going to be a big operation. It's going to require a lot of U.S. support. Part of that support is Delta going in there and trying to decapitate a lot of the ISIS leadership before we actually get boots on you and get Iraqi boots on the ground, going north. so I think it's probably a little bit of a cyop war too. Let them know that we're coming and keep them a little off balance.
VAUSE: Very quickly, looking beyond Iraq and looking towards Syria, this is not without risks because of the Russian element there. The Russians won't know where the Delta Force troops are operating. Is that a hazard or is it more of a risk to tell the Russians where they are operating ahead of time?
FRANCONA: Well I wouldn't tell the Russians because anything you tell the Russians was going to end up in Damascus, it's going to end up in Tehran, it's going to end up in Baghdad. I mean, that's just a nonstarter. So these operations have to be conducted in complete confidence from everybody on the ground and that does raise things.
If you look at the area of operations in Syria, we've kind of divided it up. the Russians are operating in one area and we're operating in another; and I think there's probably an informal handshake that you stay over there, we'll stay over here and we'll both conduct operations. So, as long as we're going after the same target that will work. If we start going after targets that the Russians don't like, say the Regime targets, then that's going to change.
VAUSE: Colonel Francona, good to speak with you. Thank you, sir.
FRANCONA: Nice to be with you, John.
VAUSE: A short break here. When we come back, early election results in Iran show some big gains for reformers. When we come back we'll take a look at what this might mean for President Rouhani and his plans for the country's future.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[00:21:53] VAUSE: Welcome back, everybody; you're watching "CNN Newsroom" live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause.
SESAY: And I'm Isha Sesay; the headlines this hour: Super Tuesday is expected to be a game changing day for U.S. Presidential Candidates of both parties. 12 states and one U.S. territory will hold primaries and caucuses in the coming hours, as states are hundreds of republican and democratic delegates who will determine the presidential nominee for each party.
VAUSE: U.N. Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, says the ceasefire in Syria appears to be holding but opposition groups say air strikes are continuing and the attacks threaten to unravel this fragile truce. The ceasefire is now into its fourth day.
SESAY: The United States is asking the U.N. Security Council to vote Tuesday on new sanctions for North Korea. The draft resolution negotiated with China calls for some of the strongest U.N. sanctions in two
decades. This comes after North Koreas recent nuclear tests and rocket launch.
VAUSE: We're still waiting for official results but early election indications show big support for reformists in Iran, and President Hassan Rouhani. It appears the reformers and moderates swept all 30 parliamentary states for Tehran Province, that's Iran's most populous province. Reformists dominated in that province, which selects Iran's next supreme leader.
SESAY: Voters cast ballots for Parliament and the National Assembly of Experts on Friday with a reported turnout of almost 60-percent. This was the first election since Rouhani signed last year's nuclear deal, limiting the country's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Hardliners in Iran accused Reformers of selling out to the West.
Well, joining us again to discuss the implications of this political shift in Iran, is Majid Rafizadah. He is a Middle East Scholar and Columnist for the "Harvard International Review". Majid, thanks for staying around to talk about this.
So it looks like a different political landscape. Reformist. moderates doing well; but how much power have they gained to effect change in Iran?
MAJID RAFIZADAH, PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL AMERICAN COUNCIL: That's a good question. I think we have to look at the larger picture here. The hardliner still have control over powerful situations in Iran and positions. The Supreme Leader, the Office of the Supreme Leader, the judiciary and the security forces still are controlled by the hardliner. So we're not going to see really fundamental changes in domestic and foreign policy but I think still this is kind of what I call a slow evolution toward the middle from hardline to middle spectrum.
VAUSE: Let's look at this coalition that, you know, has swept to power here, it's called the hope list or the list of hope. It's been pointed out by some that there's quite a few people who used to be hardliners who are actually on this list, who got elected this time around and they're being called reformists or moderates, whatever you like. Someone made the point that, you know, you call someone a reformist or a moderate, that doesn't make them so and that seems to be the case here. So you have to question who has been elected, because, after all, the Supreme Leader did choose who got to run in this election, right?
RAFIZADAH: That's true. So their election is kind of competitive election within a noncompetitive framework. So these candidates were already vetted by the Guardian (Inaudible). A lot of real reformists, they were disqualified.
[00:35:01] So I talked to several Iranians underground in Iran. They all voted and they really don't have - they don't use the concept of reformists, moderate or a hardline. They were going to vote. They were trying to see where does the candidate stand on the nuclear deal, if he's opponent to the nuclear deal or he favors the nuclear deal. So now I think it's shifting, the perspective in Iran's shifting from reformist versus hard liner to more I think whether the person supports engagement with the West, whether the person supports political freedom inside the country or not.
SESAY: And Hassan Rouhani, the President, this is seen as somewhat of a vindication for him -
RAFIZADAH: Exactly.
SESAY: -- and his efforts with the nuclear deal. How much stronger is he now? Where does this leave his position?
RAFIZADAH: Well, definitely it's added to his credibility -
SESAY: Yes.
RAFIZADAH: -- and the parliament is going to support him so I think it's -- he will be more, I think, powerful when it comes to implementing his own -- implementing the nuclear deal or engagement with the West or opening the Iranian market to the western business. But again, I think the hardliners are still in power and they're not going to allow complete (inaudible) particularly with the United States. I think we're still going to see some hostility between the United States and Iran because Supreme Leader there still stands opposed to the United States. So I think we're going to see heated debates, more heated debates in Iran between the hardliners and
Rouhani.
VAUSE: At least their having a debate, which is a good thing. Majid, thank you for coming in.
SESAY: Appreciate it. Thank you so much.
VAUSE: Appreciate your insights.
SESAY: Time for a quick break. A wounded war veteran says he's been given a second chance to fight. His new battle is taking place in the cyber-world against child predators. Next, his story; here on "CNN Newsroom" L.A.
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SESAY: Now to CNN's Freedom Project, which is introducing you to a different type of hero.
Shannon Krieger was a member of the U.S. army's elite delta force. VAUSE: He says he hit rock bottom after he was medically discharged but now he's found a new battle to fight. He's tracking online predators who target children. Here's Paula Newton.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHANNON KRIEGER, COMPUTER FORENSICS ANALYST, HOMELAND SECURITY: You've got costumes. You've got character. You've got culture. You've got tradition. You know, Mardi Gras is wild and crazy and we do some fun things, but it brings a lot of bad things to the city sometimes.
PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Shannon Krieger is a computer forensics analyst for Homeland Security Investigations in his hometown of New Orleans. He works in the Cyber Crimes Division tracking child predators online.
KRIEGER: As child exploitation people, we're busy this time of the year.
NEWTON: For example, monitoring chat rooms to identify people planning to come to Mardi Gras to have sex with children.
KRIEGER: There's a lot to do because of Mardi Gras, because a lot of people are here that aren't normally here, and they bring some really bad habits with them.
NEWTON: Krieger has been doing this work for the past four years, but it's his experience from many years earlier that makes him especially suited for the job.
As a member of the U.S. Army's Special Operations Command Delta Force, Krieger was on the frontline
KRIEGER: That particular type of work is empowering; it really is and you get on the tip of the spear and you get this really giant sense of accomplishment.
NEWTON: All that changed in a heartbeat.
[00:40:03] KRIEGER: Shortly after 9/11 I was involved in the retaliatory strike against al-Qaeda, and I was in a helicopter crash that pretty much took my body and decided that I couldn't do this work anymore. I was, you know, didn't know if I was going to walk normal ever again.
NEWTON: Krieger was medically discharged from the Army in 2004.
KRIEGER: And when I left, I just hit rock bottom. I got taken out of something that I loved more than anything, and surprisingly enough, when I got involved with the Hero Corps, it replaced a lot of what I had missed.
NEWTON: Hero Corps is an initiative that takes disabled Special Forces Veterans, training them in computer forensics, and puts them in field labs across the country, where they work on child exploitation cases.
KRIEGER: I get to fight again. I get to be involved in a cause that matters.
JOHN SCHMIDT, HOMELAND SECURITY INVESTIGATION: He's part of our team now in that he's now from the battlefield to a cyber warrior, and it does a lot for us, on an inspirational side, that he's able to give that extra little notch and click of, you know, a true hero and patriot as part of our team.
KRIEGER: I'm starting to feel like I used to feel. I'm starting to feel empowered. I'm starting to feel motivated again. I'm starting to want to push, because, you know, while it is a new battlefield, it's still a battlefield.
NEWTON: As a husband and father of a 3-year-old, Krieger says doing this work has had an impact on his personal life as well. KRIEGER: I don't know if I'll ever sleep again. The toughest ones are the 3-year-old boys. Those are the ones that just hurt me the most.
NEWTON: The satisfaction he gets putting predators behind bars, he says, makes it all worth it.
KRIEGER: I try not to go, oh, you know, the Hero Corps saved me, but it really kind of did, in a sense, because when you get something back that you never thought you would ever get again, it's a second chance.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Well, next on the Freedom Project you'll meet former U.S. Air Force Master Sergeant Steven Blackstone.
SESAY: He may be retired but he's found a very personal reason to take on this new mission.
STEVEN BLACKSTON, MASTER SERGEANT, USAF: What motivates me is my 9- year-old and 4-year-old kids; and this hero program was the perfect opportunity for me to be involved in this kind of work, trying to stop child sexual exploitation.
SESAY: Hear Blackstone's message to the predator's he tracks when our look at hero's at home continues as part of our Freedom Project, only hear on CNN.
Now, the International Space Station has a new commander, as NASA astronaut Scott Kelly heads back to earth Tuesday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT KELLY, ASTRONAUT, INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION: I would like to relinquish command of the International Space Station to my friend and colleague here, Tim Kopra.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SESAY: Kelly will have spent 340 consecutive days' aboard board ISS when his mission ends; that's a U.S. record.
VAUSE: Russian cosmonaut, Mikhail Kornienko, is also coming back on Tuesday. Kelly and Kornienko's the mission allows researchers to study the long-term physical and mental effects of space travel on the human body. Ultimately they want to try and prepare astronauts for a mission to Mars, but you know, you think that when Kelly gets back he'll take one look at the U.S. election rates and say I want to go back into space.
SESAY: No, I think he's going to say give me a beer.
VAUSE: Or that.
SESAY: Or that.
VAUSE: One of the two.
SESAY: One of the two. It will be good to have him home. I'm sure his family are thrilled. Okay, well, thank you for watching "CNN Newsroom" live from Los Angeles. I'm Isha Sesay.
VAUSE: And I'm John Vause. "World Sport" is up next. You're watching CNN.
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