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At This Hour

Kerry Works to Build ISIS Coalition; Congress to Debate Military Action; Interview with Sen. Mark Kikr; Rice to Appeal NFL Suspension; Three NFL Players Accused of Domestic Violence Sit Out Weekend Games; Hillary Clinton for 2016?

Aired September 15, 2014 - 11:00   ET

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

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JOHN BERMAN, CNN CO-ANCHOR: Building a coalition to beat ISIS, Secretary of State John Kerry meeting with world leaders, we will tell you who is on board but who is not. That might surprise you.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN CO-ANCHOR: Discipline or child abuse? That's the discussion at this hour as parents across the country debate whether it's OK or not to spank your kids.

One NFL player allegedly hit his child so hard with a switch it left cuts and bruises.

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HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: It is true, I am thinking about it.

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BERMAN: Thinking about what exactly, do you think? What could she possibly be thinking about? Hillary Clinton ventures back to the place where she finished third among some brand-new, surprising CNN polls.

Happy Monday, everyone, I'm John Berman.

PEREIRA: And I'm Michaela Pereira. Those stories and much more ahead @THISHOUR.

In Paris right now, a fragile coalition appears to be taking shape against the terror group ISIS, but the threat posed by these Sunni militants is so unprecedented that it's not at all even certain the world even knows how to deal with it.

What we do know right no is that about 40 nations have agreed to take on some sort of limited role. France today began surveillance flights over Iraq, Saudi Arabia has offered to help train Syrian rebels, and Great Britain says it will help arm Kurdish forces in Iraq.

BERMAN: Now, in some quarters, the urgency to do something greatly ramped up over the weekend when ISIS beheaded its third Western hostage, British aid worker David Haines. ISIS is believed to be holding at least two other Americans as well as several other people from other countries as well.

Western nations joining the fight against ISIS include Canada, Germany, France, Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Denmark, New Zealand and Australia, all at differing levels, but perhaps even more telling are some of the Middle Eastern countries who have now expressed a willingness to get involved -- again, at different levels -- as ISIS runs rampant across much of Syria and Iraq.

PEREIRA: For many skeptics, this sounds early familiar, like the mad dash to the Iraq war of a decade ago. Secretary Kerry tried to dispel that yesterday on CBS's "Face the Nation."

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JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: This is not a war. This is not combat troops on the ground. It's not hundreds of thousands of people. It's not that kind of mobilization.

But in terms of al Qaeda, which we have used the word "war" with, yeah, we're at war with al Qaeda and its affiliates, and in the same context if you want to use it, yes we're at war with ISIL in that sense.

But I think it's a waste of time to focus on that, frankly. Let's consider what we have to do to degrade and defeat ISIL and that's what I'm frankly much more focused on.

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BERMAN: We're joined now by our chief national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto.

Jim, we just heard from the secretary, putting together this coalition. It seems to me there are 40 different nations contributing at 40 different levels, probably for 40 different reasons here.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: The reason might be the same here because you see with a rarity that you rarely see in the Middle East now that a diverse group of countries, both Sunni and Shia, Arab and Western, do see ISIS as a threat.

But I think you hit the nail on the head there, that all these countries are willing to give a different level of support. And, from what I understand, that support is not yet defined.

I heard from an Arab diplomat a short time ago who said that the commitments from his country haven't been made yet. They have not been made in writing, so a lot of these public pronouncements of support so far are in general terms, kind of amorphous terms.

You've had Secretary Kerry say that some countries are willing to put ground troops in, but won't specify who those are. He also said that some Arab countries willing to take part in air strikes, but what hasn't been defined yet is what does that mean? Does that mean dropping bombs? Or does it mean doing surveillance flights? Does it mean, for instance, doing refueling flights, etc.?

It seems the administration is defining pretty broadly what participation will be in air strikes in the whole military campaign, which gets to your point, John, that, yes, to some degree every nation's going to give exactly what it can, and I think that the U.S. and the West would be willing to accept that.

PEREIRA: The big question is what about boots on the ground? Because many of our military experts have said that air strikes alone won't do the job.

To another point that we know that the president is getting heat about is this notion that he revealed too much when he outlined the U.S. strategy towards ISIS, to the point that commanders may have already -- of the ISIS people may have already essentially taken countermeasures.

What about this thought that the president overdid it the other day?

SCIUTTO: I think this is one of those points where you're kind of dammed if you do, dammed if you don't.

PEREIRA: Right.

SCIUTTO: Remember a couple weeks ago when the president said he didn't have a strategy for Syria, clearly it was partly in response to that, wanting to come to the American public and say, indeed I do have a strategy, and here are the steps I want to take.

They don't want to violate operational security and give the time and place and the air assets and the kinds of bombs they're going to drop, et cetera, but they do want to let the American people know that they're acting.

And I suppose that's one of those troubles that we have, you know? We live in an open society here, so you can't do everything in secret. The president answers to the public, to Congress, et cetera, so he's got to give something in public.

But he's not going to give the secretive stuff in public. He's not going go that far.

BERMAN: That's a good point, Jim. What's your strategy? What's your strategy? Then why did you tell us your strategy?

SCIUTTO: Exactly.

BERMAN: It's a tough situation. Jim Sciutto, great to have you here with us. I really appreciate it.

Coming up in a bit, we're going to have Senator Mark Kirk, Republican from Illinois. We're going to ask him why doesn't Congress want to get involved in this? Why not vote to either support or oppose the air strikes? We'll ask the senator what he intends to do here. PEREIRA: Also ahead @THISHOUR, reports that Ray Rice will appeal his

suspension from the NFL for domestic abuse.

We're going to look at how the league has changed, with four of its players in trouble right now.

And an actress from "Django Unchanged," the film, she was cuffed after refusing to give police her identification when they questioned her about making out with her boyfriend in public.

Her boyfriend, by the way, happens to be white; she's black. We're going to hear her side of the story, coming up.

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BERMAN: While the United States and its allies debate about what to do about ISIS, there's one body that we haven't heard from much, the United States Congress, although that could change over the course of the week as it debates military action.

PEREIRA: Republican Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois is the ranking member of the appropriations subcommittee for military construction and veterans affairs, and he joins us this morning from Chicago.

Senator, thank you for joining us.

SEN. MARK KIRK (R), ILLINOIS: Thank you for having me.

PEREIRA: There is this question -- why is Congress not necessarily jumping at the chance to get on record and have any hearings or authorization votes? What are your thoughts?

KIRK: Congress is a very risk-averse. When you put a difficult issue in front of senators and congressmen they don't want to be forced to decide.

In this case they should be forced to decide. We should have a vote on this mission. The American people should see their representatives in Congress make a decision on that critical national security question.

BERMAN: And, to be clear, Senator, you want the vote to be on whether to launch air strikes against ISIS in Syria or not, not this separate issue of perhaps training the so-called moderate Syrian rebels in a different country. You want a vote on the military action at hand, the whole shebang.

KIRK: Right. There is a military reason for having a vote. The vote enlists the American people in the question to understand something military and big, expensive which could possibly be bloody.

You want to make sure the American people understand very much what the mission is, understand why American blood and treasure should be expended on this mission.

PEREIRA: I think there's a lot of people saying, gosh, this reminds us of many years back now of the last time we found ourselves in this situation in Iraq.

If the president were to change his mind or to change course and change directions and said, yes, I want to call for U.S. forces on the ground in Iraq, would you be supportive of that?

KIRK: I want to change the debate when we talk about air power only. Let's talk about air power as boots in the air, because there are lots and lots of Americans who would be at risk, especially if their mission expands to Syria, which has a very large, incredible air defense system. If we're taking on targets at Syria, expect us to take losses.

BERMAN: Senator, I'm curious, again, about what you said at the beginning here. You said Congress is very risk-averse; they're hesitant to take on controversial issues.

To me there's no more important issue than the issue of war and peace. I don't think there's a more central issue that Congress is supposed to decide on than war or peace.

Depending on what you read today, there's some suggestion that the issue of authorization for more serious military action, it may wait until after the midterm election.

Isn't that to a certain extent just political cowardice?

KIRK: It is. There should not be whippishness in the Congress. We should make -- you know, sometimes I say when you're in a very high office, you should be ready to take on the big issues and look your constituents right in the face and tell them why you've made the decision that you've made.

BERMAN: You might be a lonely man these days on Capitol Hill.

Senator Mark Kirk from Illinois, we appreciate you being here with us. Thanks so much.

PEREIRA: We appreciate it.

BERMAN: There are other stories we're following right now @THISHOUR.