Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Contradictory Statements on "Imminent" Iranian Threat Requiring Airstrike; Iran Vows "Crushing Response" to U.S. & Its Allies; 2020 Democratic Candidates Speak on Targeted Killing of Iran's Top General. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired January 03, 2020 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:34:09]
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: A re-election campaign and impeachment trial. And now an unprecedented action, killing the top general of Iran's military, drew fierce criticism from leaders of that nation, Iraq, some issues on President Trump's agenda on just the third day of this very New Year.
Michael Smerconish, our CNN political commentator, the host of CNN's "SMERCONISH."
Always a pleasure. Happy New Year my friend. A lot to talk about.
We heard several contradictory statements about the strike. Secretary Pompeo saying it prevented an imminent attack. Bolton said this was a long time in the making. Pompeo claiming Americans in the region are safer, but Americans in the region are ordered to evacuate.
What do you make of that, Michael? Does this hurt the White House credibility on the need to really take this action?
MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR & CNN HOST, "SMERCONISH": I feel a little foolish already on January 3rd because yesterday was my first return day on radio and I said to my producer, Brooke, I think it will be a quiet week. I don't think --
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: You jinxed us.
[14:35:06]
SMERCONISH: -- back in the mix. And I think we'll have a quiet two days. Wow, was I wrong.
BALDWIN: Yes.
SMERCONISH: Everything you just said is accurate. But it takes whatever oxygen may have been remaining for impeachment out of the room, because now our focus is shifted to this Iranian situation, because of the stakes. I will tell you, I had a number of wag-the-dog telephone callers
today. People who see a cause and effect between the two. I'm not necessarily buying into that but that it's on people's mind is interesting.
BALDWIN: What are people telling you? What are your callers saying?
SMERCONISH: People are telling me that they wonder whether it's a deliberate situation so that the attack came now. I mean, you're asking the question of, what was the specific intel of an imminent attack that made this necessary now.
I listen to the Secretary Pompeo interview on "NEW DAY" and didn't hear a direct response. I don't know that we ever get on to that.
BALDWIN: Right.
To your callers' points, a reminder, two decades ago, December '98, President Clinton launched a strike on Iraq after the U.N. reported that Saddam Hussein was blocking the agency from conducting inspections for weapons of mass destruction.
We went into the CNN archive. Show you a clip the night it happened, December 1998.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Now this surreal international policy and domestic politics continued tonight.
BERNARD SHAW, FORMER CNN CORRESPONDENT: An impending impeachment vote in the House. American military forces ordered into action. The question: What concerns this president most at this late hour of the evening?
KING: Bernie, the president retired to the White House residence. Aides say his focus on the military operation, that he's receiving periodic updates, but we know, through the day, he did speak with his political advisers about impeachment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: So vintage John King for all of us on this 3rd day of January.
The point is, as a result of those strikes in '98, the impeachment vote in the House delayed, put off inevitable momentarily. How might this play in Washington, this being the impeachment process, if this escalates, Michael?
SMERCONISH: I think Mitch McConnell is running out the clock. I paid close attention today to what we had had to say, what Chuck Schumer had to say. No resolution as to timeline.
I think the delay of the process benefits the White House. I don't sense there's a momentum in the country for impeachment. And as you well know, one month from today, the Iowa caucus. So if,
in fact, there's an impeachment trial playing itself out against the backdrop of Americans voting, I think that benefits the GOP argument that this all ought to be settled at the ballot box.
So the lack of any clarity, the lack of any resolution, I think is to the president's advantage.
BALDWIN: You said it would be a quiet top of the year. We have quite a busy -- quite a busy next month ahead of all of us. Extraordinary times.
SMERCONISH: Absolutely.
BALDWIN: Michael Smerconish, thank you very much.
SMERCONISH: Thanks, Brooke.
BALDWIN: Coming up, thousands of troops just deployed to the Middle East as tensions continue to rise in this part of the word.
Plus, targeted by Tehran, the head of a U.S. think tank, who has been the focus of Iran in the past, will join me live.
You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:42:50]
BALDWIN: "A crushing response" -- that's the word from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps describing how they will retaliate after a U.S. airstrike killed top general, Qassem Soleimani.
Iran also issued a dire warning that Soleimani's death, quote, "injected new blood," in the fight against America and its allies.
So now we're left to wonder what that crushing response might be.
Mark Dubowitz is the CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Mark, thank you so much for coming on.
I want to talk to you specifically because you and your organization knows all too well what it's like to be a target of Iran. And I know I read your organization described it as a badge of honor. And you, through this ordeal, were in touch with the FBI.
What was it like to have that kind of bull's-eye on your back?
MARK DUBOWITZ, CEO, FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: Brooke, thanks for having me on.
Look, Brooke, it was obviously, concerning when the leading state sponsor of terrorism, responsible for assassination and terrorist campaigns around the world for decades, puts a bull's-eye on your back and believes a guy who run as think tank represents a national security threat to the Islamic Republic in Iran.
We're hardening our defenses. We're in touch with the FBI. We're taking it seriously but also redoubling our efforts to explain to Americans why this is such a dangerous and threatening regime.
BALDWIN: Since you have that experience, you see what's happened. Also you tweeted Soleimani's death is bigger than the deaths of Osama bin laden and Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. And you called him irreplaceable. Given the stakes now, what kind of consequences could the U.S. be facing here?
DUBOWITZ: Obviously, the consequences could be quite severe. Iran has been at war with us for 40 years, since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. We haven't taken that war as seriously as we need to.
They've killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Middle Easterners and Europeans and others.
Their abilities in the Middle East are quite profound. And Qassem Soleimani represented that. He was, in some respects, a combination of the CIA director, foreign minister, secretary of state and the commander of Joint Special Operations Command. He had all of those roles together. So he was really was uniquely and profoundly important to the Islamic Republic.
[14:45:10]
Their ability to strike back at us will be undermined by his death but they certainly retain some pretty good warring capabilities.
BALDWIN: I suppose the obvious question is: Is this administration prepared to handle it? You have worked with this White House on Iran policy in the past. Do you think they have a plan for whatever the next steps may be?
DUBOWITZ: I worked with three administrations on Iran policy and certainly three administrations have had plans. I've also seen plans go out the window facing as they've seen increased Iranian escalation.
I think this administration has a plan. It's called maximum pressure. They've been implementing that plan quite vigorously over the past three years.
What we saw, which was surprising, a couple days ago, the maximum pressure campaign, really an economic campaign, doubling down on the sanctions pressure, has turned into one using military force and trying to re-establish the military deterrence that I think has been so significantly undermined over the past three, if not more administrations, as we didn't respond to Iranian violence with proper measures and proper deterrence.
BALDWIN: Sounds like we don't know, only the administration knows if they have a plan moving forward and what that retaliation might look like.
Mark Dubowitz, thank you so much, at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Appreciate your insight.
DUBOWITZ: Thanks a lot.
BALDWIN: Here's a quote for you: "Dynamite into a tinder box." Joe Biden just one of the 2020 presidential candidates condemning the strike that took out Iran's top military commander, warning stability in the region is officially in jeopardy. Full reaction, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:51:14]
BALDWIN: This developing crisis between the United States and Iran brings a new element to the 2020 presidential campaign. Keep in mind, Iowa is one month away.
Presidential candidates are weighing in and pretty much all agree no American should mourn Qassem Soleimani's passing but there should be questions about how the administration even got to this point.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES & DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The question is: Do Donald Trump and his administration have a strategy for what comes next? Have they thought through and planned for a wide range of retaliatory and asymmetric actions that will almost certainly be seen from Iran in the near-term?
SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ): We still have a lot of questions to be answered with the use of military force.
PETE BUTTIGIEG, (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE & FORMER SOUTH BEND MAYOR: One thing I am certain of this right now is this, this must not be the beginning of another endless war.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Let's get smart perspective from Ron Brownstein, CNN's senior political analyst, and senior editor at "The Atlantic."
Happy New Year, my friend.
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Thank you, Brooke.
BALDWIN: Thank you so much for coming on.
BROWNSTEIN: Sure.
BALDWIN: All of these 2020 Democrats making the case this president hurt the U.S. national security. Any of them would do a better job than Trump.
Is there a particular candidate, Ron, do you think who benefits most attacking the president on all this?
BROWNSTEIN: First, I think you can really see the dividing line between the parties on this, on this specific strike, and more broadly, foreign policy, I think in two words.
How many Republicans, John Bolton, Lindsey Graham, others, praised this today by calling it decisive. The phrase, Trump was decisive.
From all Democrats, the presidential candidates, as well as Senator Mark Warner, top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, the question was: Was it deliberative? That's what you heard from Joe Biden there.
Republicans -- the priority of the Republicans put, and have for years, whether George W. Bush calling him the decider, on decisiveness, versus Democrats who emphasize thinking things through and second- and third-order effects -- remember what President Obama's motto was for American foreign policy post-Bush: Don't do stupid stuff. And "stuff" wasn't his word.
It's a difference between the parties. Probably this plays to Joe Biden's strength. But again, Bernie Sanders, who spoke today, camped out a very different position than the others that were --
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: Let me jump in.
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: Let me jump in before --
BROWNSTEIN: Yes.
BALDWIN: -- you say too much more about Senator Sanders. If people have not seen what he said, here it is.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes, here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): I make no apologies to anybody. When I was a young man, before elected to anything, I opposed the war in Vietnam. And when I was a member of the House, I help lead against the war in Iraq.
I'll tell you something right now, I'm going to do everything I can to prevent a war with Iran.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: I don't know what's happening with the "B" track under his message but that's a whole other conversation.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes.
BALDWIN: But not only an attack on the president but an attack on the former Vice President Joe Biden.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes.
BALDWIN: Is that effective for Bernie Sanders?
BROWNSTEIN: In his lane of this race, it is.
BALDWIN: Yes.
BROWNSTEIN: Bernie Sanders is not trying to speak to the entire Democratic coalition. He's trying to hold roughly one-third of the Democratic coalition.
And I was struck today that, while Buttigieg and Biden and others were critical in questioning whether the president thought out the implications, they didn't say he shouldn't have done it. Sanders was much closer to that and Sanders was much more unequivocal.
And you noted, he kind of used this as he did with his statement in Iowa to criticize, by implication, Joe Biden for supporting the war in Iraq.
So this is another one of the dividing lines between them, like Medicare For All and so forth, and something that would be I think raised in relevance if we end up with the two of them as finalists in this race.
[14:55:10]
BALDWIN: Yes. While I have you, let's talk money. We have new fundraising numbers from some of these camps. From Senator Elizabeth Warren, she raised $21.2 million in the fourth quarter. Bernie Sanders, and behind Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden.
What do you make of Senator Warren's numbers?
BROWNSTEIN: First, a little down for her and reflects kind of the blows she's taken in the race this fall.
The bigger point is just the sheer amount of money that the leading candidates have raised. Well over $100 between them. That points towards a long race. It's be hard to force anybody out of the race for lack of money, which is usually one way that people are pushed to the sidelines.
BALDWIN: Ron Brownstein, thank you very much.
Again, Iowa caucuses, one month away.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes.
BALDWIN: Still to come here on CNN, U.S. cities on high alert in the wake of Soleimani's death. How police from New York to Los Angeles are preparing.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
