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U.S. Sending 600 Troops To Iraq To Retake Mosul; Wells Fargo CEO To Face Grilling On Capitol Hill Over Fake Accounts Scandal; Russia Ready To Resume Syria Peace Talks With U.S.; Clinton Teams Up With Bernie Sanders To Woo Millennials. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired September 29, 2016 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00] GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), FORMER NATO SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER: -- U.S. grounds troops and having a lot of causalities and committing ourselves to a decades-long occupation is something the United States cannot and should not do successfully.

I haven't seen Donald Trump's strategy. I haven't seen him address any particulars. But insofar as it would involve a big commitment of U.S. ground troops, infantry and armor into Iraq, I think that would be a mistake. So --

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All rights, Generals --

LT. GEN. MICHAEL FLYNN (RET.), FORMER DIRECTOR, DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY: Go back -- you know, go back and look at it. Go back and look at his speech --

CLARK: -- I think it's a long-term, sustainable strategy that will bring success. That's what you're looking for.

CUOMO: All right, gentlemen -- I've got to leave it here, gentlemen.

CLARK: A long-term, sustainable strategy --

FLYNN: Well, I'm going to tell you. Go back and look at the speech that he gave and I will tell you that this strategy is not working right now. You can't have this drip, drip affect.

CLARK: The strategy is absolutely working.

FLYNN: I understand that -- I understand that Iraq --

CLARK: It's absolutely --

CUOMO: Generals, I need to go right now. I appreciate the perspectives from both sides. We're going to have this conversation again, unfortunately. Probably many times.

FLYNN: Let's do it.

CUOMO: Thank you very much, both of you -- Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Up next, the head of Wells Fargo heading back to Capitol Hill over the scandal that has cost thousands of jobs. How will lawmakers hold the CEO accountable? We will ask the chair of today's Congressional Hearing that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Wells Fargo's CEO is heading back to Capitol Hill for another beatdown. He'll be testifying before a House committee. So what are lawmakers going to do to hold him accountable or is this just going to be another grandstanding session?

Joining us now is Republican congressman Jeb Hensarling. He's the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

Congressman, I appreciate you joining us this morning.I don't mean to sound cynical but there is not a lot of reason to believe anything will change. We hear about bad acts from the banks all the time. Nobody goes to jail, nobody gets punished. What will be different this time?

REP. JEB HENSARLING (R), TEXAS, CHAIRMAN, FINANCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE: Well, you're right, and the American people are rightly outraged. I mean, too often, it feels like deja vu all over again. You have some institution engaged in illicit behavior and they end up paying some fine that makes a big headline for a regulator, but it's a rounding error in their earnings statement. And yet, no individual is held accountable.

So we intend to get to the bottom of this. And what are we in the business of doing in Congress? Frankly, making laws. Our committee has passed something called the Financial Choice Act that would increase fines and penalties on wrongdoers for fraudulent and deceptive behavior and, in many cases, we'd increase the fines two and three times as much.

[07:35:10] In addition, we would ensure that Wells Fargo and any large bank would never, ever qualify for a taxpayer bailout. That's one of the things that we think encourages this egregious behavior. But the bottom line is millions of Americans just got ripped off by their bank, probably let down by their government, and it's the responsibility of Congress to get to the bottom of it.

CUOMO: We do understand that some people are calling for an SEC investigation. What's your take on whether or not this may be a criminal matter or some type of civil fraud, or something that should be investigated with some type of penalty and litigation?

HENSARLING: Well, I think very well it does need to be investigated. I mean, potentially, there have been violations of the Truth in Lending Act, the Truth in Savings Act, the Electronic Funds Transfer Act, possibly Sarbanes-Oxley, several different securities law violations.

Again, it just is beyond belief that you could have, over the course of five years, 5,000 employees dismissed, two million fraudulent accounts, and somebody up the food chain -- somebody in upper management didn't either direct it, condone it or turn a blind eye to it, and an individual has to be held accountable. Again, it's not just enough -- at the end of the day it's not a bank

that committed this fraud. It was some individual -- group of individuals -- and the American people demand justice and fairness and accountability under the rule of law. So very well there could be securities laws violations here that Wells has to answer for.

CUOMO: Even the laws that you say that you're designing in committee, it's about money, it's about penalties. They have money. You know, I'm sure they don't like giving back $41 million in bonuses but they have money. It's jail that what the punishment for crime is supposed to be. The laws are not designed well enough to send people who commit these kinds of acts to jail. You hear from prosecutors all the time these cases are really tough, we're trying to fit them into categories. Why don't you design laws that punish this stuff criminally with jail time?

HENSARLING: Well, it's something that our committee will look at. I'm not necessarily --

CUOMO: Why look at? Why not just do it?

HENSARLING: Well, one, because I'm not necessarily convinced of the proposition. I want to know -- we have laws on the books now. This is criminal activity. Fraud is fraud. Theft is theft. And so there's a question, again. Have the regulators let us down?Why haven't they pursued this? Why haven't they prosecuted it? What is it that they need?

I'm not convinced we don't have the laws on the books, Chris. It's not always a matter of changing laws that are on the books, although that may be necessary. Quite often, it's a matter of figuring out why weren't they enforced in the first place. And so we've got a lot of questions. For example, why were there examiners embedded by the federal government -- embedded in Wells -- and yet it took the "L.A. Times" to break the story?

CUOMO: Yes.

HENSARLING: Why was it almost 18 months later before the CFPB launched their investigation? So why is it if we're paying all these federal regulators to do this, were they asleep at the wheel? I mean, I don't know the answer to the question yet. Maybe they deserve a pat on the back, but maybe they deserve a swift kick in the pants as well for being asleep at the switch.

CUOMO: Fair point, no question. You're right about one thing, Americans are outraged by this and how it seems to continue to come to bear. We'll watch the hearings today with great interest. Congressman, thank you for joining us, appreciate it.

HENSARLING: Thank you.

CUOMO: Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Well, Russia says it's ready to discuss a peace deal in Syria but a senior U.S. official says Russia is bluffing. So what is the chance of any breakthrough to stop the violence? We discuss that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:42:10] CAMEROTA: Russian officials say they are ready to resume talks with the U.S. to renew a ceasefire deal in Syria. This, as the State Department says Sec. Kerry threatened to end the talks with Russia because of attacks on civilian targets, including a hospital.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KIRBY, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: The message to the foreign minister today was that we're perfectly willing and able to move forward on those kinds of steps. Steps that would end up in the suspension of U.S.-Russia bilateral engagement on Syria unless we see some significant steps taken by Russia in the very near future to show that they mean what they say when they say they support a cessation of hostilities and a resumption of political talks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Joining us now is a senior fellow for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross. Great to have you here, Daveed.

DAVEED GARTENSTEIN-ROSS, SR. FELLOW, FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES, COUNTERTERRORISM EXPERT: Good to be here.

CAMEROTA: Great to have you in New York. Welcome to the studio.

ROSS: Thank you, first time.

CAMEROTA: I know it is. So you heard John Kirby there. Is it possible -- is it realistic for the U.S. to work with Russia on this in Syria?

ROSS: Kind of. I mean, I think it's realistic for them to have talks and to try to reach an agreement on paper. But this really reminds me of a kind of Cold War-era deal where you have great powers that are coming in and signing an agreement on behalf of their proxies.

I don't think that the U.S. has enough control over the rebel forces on the ground to really enter into a deal with Russia -- and I think that we understand that -- but that, overall, the State Department thinks it's still worthwhile to just have a talk there and to get things rolling.

CAMEROTA: You heard John Kirby there. He said we need to see significant steps from Russia. What are those?

ROSS: Well, you know, there's the bombing of Aleppo which has been utterly barbaric, including hospitals, schools, aid convoys, and I think that's what he's pointing to specifically. When you look at what's happening in Aleppo right now from the Russian perspective there's probably several things that they're doing, one of which is repeating something we saw in the early 1980s. That's the bombing of the city of Hama when you had a Muslim brotherhood uprising against Assad's father. They basically left that as a signal to other cities that were uprising.

But I think another thing that they're probably doing is engaging in this massive bombing campaign, in part, to drive rebel groups into the hands of extremists in order to make the rebels all the more unattractive to the international community.

CAMEROTA: So in other words, the U.S. and Russia are working at cross-purposes. I mean, the U.S. is trying to fight ISIS. That's not what Russia is trying to do.

ROSS: Well, I would see the ISIS part of it as somewhat different part of the conflict, right? The U.S. is fighting ISIS but the U.S.'s position, vis-a-vis the Assad regime for a while, has been that Assad needs to go. I mean, Kerry has on more than one occasion compared Assad to Hitler.

[07:45:00] At this point it seems that the U.S. has softened on the Assad regime without really announcing that it's done so. It's not clear to me at all what the U.S.' goals are with respect to the Assad side of the conflict and that's one of the reason why I think there's so much confusion about U.S. intentions. And even within government you have people who have really mixed views as to what the U.S. is trying to accomplish.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about what Russia is trying to accomplish here in the U.S.

ROSS: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Let's move on to the U.S. election. There are all sorts of allegations that they -- Russia is meddling and hacking into, at least, the DNC computers. The director of the FBI, James Comey, talked about this yesterday. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES COMEY, FBI DIRECTOR: Obviously, as you know, we are doing an awful lot of work through our counterintelligence investigators to understand just what mischief is Russia up to in connection with our election. That is work that goes on all day, every day, about which I'm limited in terms of answering questions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Daveed, what does Russia want?

ROSS: That's a great question. I think that Putin is looking at this through a lens where he has a number of different goals, one of which is quite obviously he wants to weaken the Democratic Party. If you look at who the hacks have favored and where they've been hacking and what they've been released to, including WikiLeaks, DNC leaks, and the like, it's been explicitly designed to hurt Clinton and to help Trump.

CAMEROTA: Because he wants Donald Trump elected president?

ROSS: I think so. I mean, I think that's the only conclusion one can draw from the evidence when one looks at what Russian-backed hackers are doing.

CAMEROTA: Because Donald Trump has complimented Putin? I mean, is it really this simple?

ROSS: No, I don't think it is. I think part of it is that he thinks that Trump is less experienced. I think that he believes that Trump would be less pro-Western unity. I mean, Trump has criticized NATO. He'd be a very controversial president, more so than Clinton, although they both would be controversial.

And so I think that when he looks at Russia's position in the world, with a Trump presidency and with reduced confidence in government -- something which the hacking that's been aimed at voting systems is designed to do -- he thinks that Russia will be stronger in comparison to the United States. That seems to be the calculation.

CAMEROTA: You know, there's always talk about an October surprise --

ROSS: Yes.

CAMEROTA: -- and what do you think the chances are that Russia has something up its sleeve for October.

ROSS: Overwhelming. Absolutely overwhelming. I would certainly put money on that. Look, I'm saying this -- it's the end of September. I could easily be proven wrong, so let's see how I do. But when you look at the amount of material that they've hacked, when you look at the way that past hacks have been framed --

When WikiLeaks rolled out the DNC hacks just before the Democratic Convention that had a significant impact. It had an impact in terms of demoralizing Sanders supporters, creating a lot of tension within the convention, and also it resulted in Wasserman-Schultz stepping down as the head of the DNC.

So -- and a lot of that is really the packaging. The DNC is not adjudicating the election. What they're trying to do is find the best candidate. And so a lot of people would argue that what was leaked was not actually improper, but it looked bad.

And so it's not even so much whether there's dirt there, but whether there's something that can seem like dirt. I believe that the chance is actually sky-high that there will be an October surprise and in less than a month we'll see if I'm right.

CAMEROTA: Yes, we will. On that note, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, thanks so much for being here. Great to talk to you, as always.

ROSS: Likewise.

CAMEROTA: Let's get over to Chris.

CUOMO: Did you know that there were more millennials that voted in the last election than minorities, so it's a very important voter base. Hillary Clinton is going after them. She's using the man on your screen and the woman on your screen. Sanders and Obama -- will that be enough for Clinton? We ask young voters from both sides of the aisle, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:52:35] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I want young people to leave school excited about the future. The new businesses they'll open up, getting married, having kids, buying a house. Not being saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in student debt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: All right. Well, Hillary Clinton's biggest supporters, including Bernie Sanders, hitting the campaign trail to make a pitch to millennials. Will that help Hillary Clinton? And what is Donald Trump doing to attract those young voters?

Let's discuss it with Kevin Burk. He's the president of the University of Pittsburgh College Democrats. He supports Hillary Clinton. And we have Scott Meyers. He's co-president of the University of New Hampshire College Republicans. He supports Donald Trump. Guys, great to have you here.

KEVIN BURK, PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH COLLEGE DEMOCRATS, CLINTON SUPPORTER: Good morning, Alisyn. Nice to be with you.

SCOTT MYERS, CO-PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE COLLEGE REPUBLICANS, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Thanks for having us. Great to be here.

CAMEROTA: Kevin, let me start with you. You supported Bernie Sanders but now you say you're 100 percent behind Hillary Clinton. So what do you say to your friends and fellow millennials and students who are having trouble making that shift?

BURK: I think you should definitely look at Hillary Clinton's plan on college affordability and student debt. You just played that clip of Bernie Sanders talking about so many people being saddled with student debt. With Hillary Clinton's plan I know that I won't be saddled with student debt for the rest of my life. And she has an actual plan to combat student debt and make sure that college is affordable for the middle-class and for everybody.

CAMEROTA: OK. Scott, to you. What is it that Donald Trump would do for millennials?

MYERS: I think Donald Trump -- what Donald Trump does for millennials is give them a new look into what Washington can be. I think Donald Trump is not the establishment candidate. I think Donald Trump gives a brand new look to what millennials want. Millennials want something done and things in Washington haven't been good -- that nothing has getting done.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

MYERS: I think with Donald Trump and with his charisma and with what he can do, he can get things done.

CAMEROTA: But let me stick with you, Scott -- such as? I mean, what do you think is your biggest issue?

MYERS: In regards to education, in regards to the economy, or just any issue at all?

CAMEROTA: I mean, when you say that millennials want something done, what does that mean? What do you want done?

MYERS: I want -- I want him to be able to get the economy going again, which I think he can, because I'm a senior in college and as a senior in college I plan every single day to better my future and get ready for the real world. And I think that when I get into the real world Donald Trump is going to give me the best opportunity to find a job in the economy.

[07:55:00] CAMEROTA: OK, so the economy. Kevin, what do you think is millennials' biggest issue? Is it college affordability?

BURK: Yes, I think definitely it is college affordability. You have so many people that are stuck with 20 or 30 years of student debt right as they graduate from college. I know I want to start saving for my retirement once I leave college. I don't want to be stuck with student debt for so long. So, yes, I think it's definitely making sure college is affordable so we all have good opportunities coming out of college and that we're not saddled with student debt.

CAMEROTA: OK. So, here's Hillary Clinton trying to make an appeal to you guys and particularly to people like you, Kevin, who had supported Bernie Sanders. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, Bernie's campaign energized so many young people. And there is no group of Americans who have more at stake in this election than young Americans because so much of what will happen will affect your lives, your jobs, the kind of country we are, the kind of future we want to build together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So, Kevin, did that fire up the crowd the way that Bernie Sanders used to?

BURK: Yes, it may have. I think that, really, she just wants to make sure everyone knows the importance of voting, not just in the presidential election but in every single ballot, every single race. Everything has importance when it comes to all the races so I think she just wants to make sure every is out there to vote.

CAMEROTA: Hey, Scott, how did you think Donald Trump did in the debate this week?

MYERS: I think that in the very beginning of the debate he did a very good job. However, if you're asking me who I think won the debate, I think -- to be honest with you, I think America lost and the media won.

The media got what they wanted. They got two candidates that fought back and forth. Neither candidate told us why we should vote for them. All they did was argue about why you shouldn't vote for the other candidate. So to be honest with you I think the media got what they wanted and the American people lost. But I think, especially in the first half hour, the winning can go to Trump.

CAMEROTA: Scott, I don't like your depiction of the media as blood hungry or bloodthirsty. We actually want -- we want real information as well, Scott.

MEYERS (LAUGHING): I'm sorry, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Yes, I think that you should reframe your talking point on that one. But listen, guys, I do want to ask you about Gary Johnson, OK, because we keep hearing that millennials are drawn to this third- party candidate and you guys are looking for something different. I don't know if either of you saw -- Gary Johnson was on television yesterday and he could not name his favorite foreign leader or one that he respected. Let me show you this moment very quickly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST, MSNBC "HARDBALL": OK, name a foreign leader that you respect.

GARY JOHNSON, LIBERTARIAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I guess I'm having an Aleppo moment in the former president of Mexico.

MATTHEWS: But I'm giving you the whole world.

JOHNSON: I know, I know, I know.

MATTHEWS: Anybody in the world you like. Anybody. Pick any leader.

JOHNSON: The former president of Mexico.

MATTHEWS: Which one?

JOHNSON: I'm having a brain -- I'm having a brain freeze.

MATTHEWS: Well, name anybody.