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Iran Receives $400 Million Same Day Americans Released; Anger after Trump Refuses to Endorse Ryan, McCain; The Future of Farming; 1st Team USA Muslim-American Olympic Fencer Wears Hijab. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired August 03, 2016 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[14:30:00] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: So, joining me now, "Wall Street Journal" White House correspondent, Carol Lee. She first reported the details in the paper this morning. And with us, CNN national security analyst, Juliette Kayyem, a former Homeland Security undersecretary.
Ladies.
Carol Lee, to your piece first. Just begin with the nitty-gritty details of it was $400 million, in what currencies, and where was it stashed?
CAROL LEE, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, WALL STREET JOURNAL: It was $400 million in Euros, Swiss Francs and other currencies but we don't know precisely which ones. They stacked it in these wooden pallets then loaded onto a Swiss cargo plane and flown into Iran.
BALDWIN: To be precise, we saw the quote of John McCain calling this ransom. The White House is saying, no.
LEE: If you step back, this agreement, this $1.7 billion settlement was agreed to and announced in January. At the time there were charges that there was some sort of ransom going on and the White House denied it then. Now it is being -- those charges are being renewed because of the timing and method in which some of this first installment of this settlement was delivered. The White House and administration had refused to say since January despite being asked by Congress and by reporters.
BALDWIN: So, you can see, though, how critics can say it looks curious as we have these four American hostages who were free right around the same time.
JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Right. So let's explain what "right around the same time" was. It is not just 1979. There is a 72-hour period in January of this year in which three major things are being negotiated. The Iranian nuclear deal which is by one team, the hostage deal which is by another, then the settlement of this debt, which is a big deal because what your viewers should understand is that our failure to pay off the $400 million in court would have meant a lot more. It was basically to pay off a debt from '79 because relations were being normalized. Obviously they are all sort of related because you are having a detente moment with Iran. So all three are related. As the White House says, you can disagree with the Iran nuclear deal, but that's a different argument than money for hostage hostages. There is a bipartisan belief that you don't pay money for hostages. Why is that? It is not because we're cruel. It is because if we start doing it, you have the problem that the French have, which is they start paying for their hostages, guess what? There's 14, 20 more hostages. It's hard to say -- I understand the method issue like sending the money this way --
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: You worked in the Obama administration. You can understand how this looks.
KAYYEM: Right. In other words, I understand how it looks in the sense of 72 hours, a lot was going on. Right? A lot was going on in terms of the hostages, the nuclear deal that had bee withering for months on end and the settlement of this debt. Iranians can call it whatever they want. I think we have to separate the means by which the money was disbursed, as the "Wall Street Journal" is reporting, and whether there is actual proof that says, OK, if we give you this $400 million, we're getting these four hostages. Anyone knows, in any country, you give $400 million for hostages, they are going to take more hostages. That's why we don't do it.
BALDWIN: Why the $400 million in cash --
KAYYEM: That's where --
BALDWIN: -- in different currencies, in an unarmed or unmarked cargo plane?
KAYYEM: That's where --
BALDWIN: Is that risky?
(CROSSTALK)
KAYYEM: Yes. That's where I think there should be an explanation. You can't send U.S. dollars to Iran. There is still an exhibition. So they're trying to figure out a way.
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: But, Carol, why the method and the cash in the pallets on the plane?
LEE: Because of U.S. sanctions, because you can't pay Iran in U.S. dollars. In order to get around the sanctions, it is very difficult for Iran to gain access to the international financial system. So the U.S. administration officials went around and gathered various forms of currency and cash from different banks in Europe and stuffed it all together. You couldn't necessarily go to an American bank and say give me $4 million and send it over to Iran. If they had gone electronic routes it would have taken some more time. One thing that's clear here, Iran wanted some sort of deliverable as all of these three things were going down, the nuclear deal, the release of the four prisoners, and the settlement of the $1.7 billion.
BALDWIN: So there's the explanation from the White House. We know Republicans are jumping on this. We know Donald Trump is speaking next hour. I imagine this will be part of what he gets into. We'll take it live.
Ladies, thank you so much.
Carol Lee, with --
LEE: Thank you.
[14:34:48] BALDWIN: -- the "Wall Street Journal," and Juliette Kayyem, thank you.
Next, stunning developments out of Washington as the Department of Justice says it has now arrested a Washington, D.C. transit officer for alleged ties to ISIS. How FBI informants helped take him down.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: Welcome back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.
Here's a quote for you: "I'm just not quite there yet" -- those words from Donald Trump when a reporter from the "Washington Post" asked him if he would be endorsing speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, in his re- election campaign back home in Wisconsin. They also ran the words of Paul Ryan himself as he struggled to throw his support initially behind Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. PAUL RYAN, (R-WI), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I'm just not ready to do that at this point. I'm not there right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[14:39:52] BALDWIN: So that was back in May with Jake Tapper. Meantime, we are learning, RNC Chair Reince Priebus is pretty furious at Trump's snub of Speaker Ryan, who is also a close personal friend of his.
So got a lot of great voices. Talk show host and author, Charlie Sykes, Republican National Committee member and attorney, Randy Evans. Kristin Tate is with us today, conservative columnist and author of "Government Gone Wild."
Welcome to all of you.
Kristin, first appearance on CNN. Welcome.
KRISTIN TATE, CONSERVATIVE COLUMNIST & AUTHOR: Thank you so much.
BALDWIN: Let me just begin with you.
The news in the last hour, too, is that even though Donald Trump endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan, you have Mike Pence, his V.P. nominee, strongly endorsing him within the last hour. Why are they not on the same page?
TATE: I think they're kind of keeping it real. Right? Mike Pence and Donald Trump are two different people, two different types of conservatives. I think Trump is kind of aligning with the American people when he doesn't fully endorse Paul Ryan. The American people are fed up with the political establishment. They want change. That's why we're seeing such a strong support behind Donald Trump from voters. So I don't think that it is a bad thing that Pence and Trump are not both fully endorsing Paul Ryan. It just speaks to how authentic Donald Trump is. He's not just reading the scripted GOP lines.
BALDWIN: Charlie, Kristin's line, "they're keeping it real," how does that sit with you?
CHARLIE SYKES, TALK SHOW HOW & AUTHOR: Yeah, they're keeping it dysfunctional and crazy because what happened yesterday of course was that Donald Trump threw a hand grenade into his hopes of winning Wisconsin. You can't overstate what a personal and political embarrassment this was for Reince Priebus for Scott Walker or the other Republicans who have fallen in line behind Donald Trump. It is rather extraordinary when you have the vice presidential nominee going in the different direction from a nominee but it is an indication of what a dumpster fire the Trump campaign has become in the last six days.
BALDWIN: Dumpster fire. Back to that in a second.
Randy, let me pick your brain. You're friends with Reince Priebus, the chair of the RNC. We know he has been on the phone the last few days through all of this with Donald Trump. What the heck do you think those phone conversations are like? Colorful four-letter words being used? What do you think?
RANDY EVANS, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE MEMBER & ATTORNEY: No, I don't. But I actually think this is not unique to the Republicans. Both parties have a lot of inherent contradictions. If you think about it, the Democratic convention had Barack Obama say, "Continue to a third term," whereas Bill Clinton said, "We have a change maker here." They kind of have the same problem we do and the Republican side which is we have Donald Trump who is anti-establishment, non- traditional, going to do it his own way --
BALDWIN: Randy, I hear you on the anti-establishment. But at the same time, we're talking about the nominee for president on the Republican side not endorsing the most powerful Republican in Congress.
EVANS: Let me give you this example. Do you know what it was like to try to tell Mickey Mantel how to hit?
(LAUGHTER)
Mickey Mantel said -- wait a minute here, let me get this straight. You want --
SYKES: Donald Trump is no Mickey Mantel.
EVANS: Oh, I would go the other direction. I think he's what every single contest. He swept through the primaries. He's built successful companies. He is a homerun king and he knows how to win. Really the question at the end of the day is which is more important, the method or the result? He's a proven winner. He does it in a very unorthodox way. He doesn't do it by the rules. He does it in ways that people really don't care about. But he does get the job done. I think that's where the real problem is because I think the Democrats can't have that kind of record on their side. They're going to have to talk method, the process, how it's done, because they can't talk about results.
BALDWIN: Charlie, let me ask you this. I'm wondering what Ted Cruz is thinking right now? What do you think?
SYKES: Well, I have no idea what Ted Cruz is thinking. But I would suggest to the Trump supporters, look, you guys need to get a clue here. People keep thinking you can't get worse, but it does get worse. There is a reason we are talking about having an intervention. Donald Trump is not on message. He is not helping his cause. He is making his strongest supporters really, really nervous about whether or not he's ever going to change. Here's the reality and here's what guys like Paul Ryan have to think about, because they've been optimistic that somehow he was going to make this turn, that he was going to grow, that he was going to become responsible, and he's not. That's what's settling in for people, that he's not going to get any better, that it can get worse.
(CROSSTALK)
SYKES: So I do think the reason why in the next 24, 48 hours, either there is an intervention or you're going to see a lot of Republicans just saying, you know what? We are not going to stay on this train. We're not going to continue to support Donald Trump. And the Trump supporters --
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: Let's let Kristin respond. Let me stop you. Let's let Kristin respond.
TATE: You know, there's all this talk about there being a dumpster fire in the Trump campaign and all this division in the Republican Party. There is some of that, but which are I see the real divide is in the Democrat party. Hillary has right now a 47 percent unfavorability rating among Democrat voters and she's struggling to get the Sanders supporters on her side.
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: Why isn't Donald Trump then staying on message, with jobs report recently, this $400 million, even though the White House is saying it wasn't ransom? I know Republicans are jumping on it. He's had items that he could discuss and instead he's sort of stuck his foot in it with what he did with the Khan family.
[14:45:24] TATE: Oh, yeah. Trump has got to stay on message. He's got to stay focused on the issues and he should stay focused on attacking Hillary Clinton because Hillary Clinton is a very weak candidate.
(CROSSTALK)
TATE: She's struggling to get those Sanders supporters on her side. I'm a Millennial. My friends were all Bernie Sanders supporters. They do not like Hillary Clinton. A lot of them are going to Trump. Some are even going to the Independent candidates, like Gary Johnson or Jill Stein. Trump has to refocus his message. The fact that Hillary is so weak presents an opportunity for Trump to shift the focus --
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: We will be listening. He is speaking down in Florida momentarily. We'll take it live.
Charlie Sykes, Kristin Tate, Randy Evans, thank you all so much.
Quick break. We're back after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:50:00] BALDWIN: Farmers face mounting pressure to feed more people with less farmland as earth's population continues to surge.
"CNN Money" Vanessa Yurkevich checks out the future of farming.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Farmers are facing a scary reality. Their land size is decreasing, soil is eroding by 1.5 billion tons per year. It's becoming harder to predict the weather, and harder to predict how much they'll grow. Corn farmers get, on average, 168 bushels an acre. But with better measurement tools, they could be getting a lot more.
MIKE STERN, CEO, CLIMATE CORPORATION: So between this optimal condition where a grower can produce 530 bushels an acre across all 90 million acres you end up at about 168. That's the opportunity. OK. What's going on is it's saying that the corn plant is capable of very, very high yields. Yet all these different variables affect that corn plant on many, many acres that drive the yield average much, much lower.
YURKEVICH: Mike Stern is the CEO of the Climate Corporation. The company helps farmers like Keith increase their production. In two years, he's increased his yields by 10 percent. He went from about 180 Bushels per acre to 200.
(on camera): What would you be checking out this morning?
KEITH GINGENCH, PRECISION A.G. MANGER, GINGENCH FARMS: We'll check to see if there's any red spots in this field that are not usually there.
YURKEVICH (voice-over): The technology shows Keith what's happening live on his 10,000-acre farm, whether it be a germ infestation, too much water in a certain part of the field, or lack of nitrogen. Red means bad, green means crops are growing.
GINGENCH: We begin to get a complete digital picture of their farm.
YURKEVICH: How precise is this really?
GINGENCH: We can begin to farm, you know, on a meter by meter basis as opposed to an 80-acre field basis. That's where we're trying to go on a field by field basis.
YURKEVICH: Is this the future of farming?
GINGENCH: Yeah. It's here to stay. It allows us to shift some of our manpower around and to look at more fields in less time.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:56:51] BALDWIN: In just two days, the eyes of the world will be on Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Summer Olympics. But one American athlete is already making history.
CNN's special correspondent, Jamie Gangel, spoke with a Muslim- American fencer about her Olympic moment and so much more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Under that star spangled mask lies a fierce competitor, who's lightning fast with a ferocious yell.
(SHOUTING)
IBTIHAJ MUHAMMAD, OLYMPIC FENCER: I enjoy having to chase my opponent down the strip in order to score a point.
(SHOUTING)
GANGEL: But 30-year-old Ibtihaj Muhammad is no ordinary member of Team USA. The Rio-bound saber fencer is making history becoming the first American-Muslim woman to compete in the Olympics while wearing a hijab.
MUHAMMAD: I wish that wasn't the case. I wish there had been tons of women before me who had achieved this.
GANGEL: Getting to this point wasn't easy. She grew up in a big family in Maplewood, New Jersey, and as a devout Muslim, only allows her face and hands to show.
MUHAMMAD: My mom was always changing uniform for me by adding long sleeves or adding long pants where my teammates will wear tank tops and shorts.
GANGEL: In most sports that made her look and feel different. Then one day, while sitting at a stoplight with her mom she saw something that would change her forever.
MUHAMMAD: They had on long pants, they had on long jackets, and they had these masks on. I clearly remember my mom saying, I have no idea what that is, but when you get to high school, I want you to try it out.
GANGEL: She did, with huge success.
MUHAMMAD: It was the first time in my athletic career that I could remember being seen solely for my skill set.
GANGEL: Muhammad went on to compete at Duke, a three-time all- American. And win gold as part of Team USA in the 2014 world fencing championships. But she couldn't change how people looked at her off the fencing strip.
(on camera): When you walk down the street, when you travel, when you go through TSA, what is your reality?
MUHAMMAD: Nightmare. I mean TSA is a nightmare. I'm sure it is a nightmare for everyone. Always randomly selected for a special search, always.
GANGEL: Always randomly?
MUHAMMAD: Always randomly selected for, like, special screening. When you travel as much as I do as an athlete that can be frustrating.
GANGEL (voice-over): The current political environment also frustrates Muhammad, driving her to do something most Olympic athletes usually avoid, talking politics. Specifically, she's taken on Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump.
DONALD TRUMP, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE & CEO, TRUMP ORGANIZATION: Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.
GANGEL: Starting with his call in December for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the U.S. Tweeting, "Friends don't let friends like Trump."
(on camera): I say the words Donald Trump, and you say --
(LAUGHTER)
MUHAMMAD: I don't know. What do you say? Where do you start?
GANGEL: Do you think he's dangerous?
MUHAMMAD: I think that his words --
