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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Cardinals Bench Player Accused Of Assaulting Wife; NFL's Domestic Violence Policy Still Unclear; Paul Questions Free Syrian Army; Clinton Speaks On Empowering Working Women; Scots Voting On Leaving U.K.

Aired September 18, 2014 - 16:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome back to THE LEAD. We have some breaking news in the Sports Lead right now. Yet, another NFL player has been deactivated over allegations of domestic violence and the guy who could have replaced him on the field was just cut loose, literally, just minutes ago after CNN started asking questions about his violent past for this very story.

Running back Jonathan Dwyer of the Arizona Cardinals was arrested yesterday and charged with three counts including aggravated assault. The charges stem from two incidents back in July.

According to court documents, Dwyer's wife bit him in the lip when he tried to remove her clothes against her will. He then responded by head-butting his wife ultimately breaking her nose.

In a separate incident, that incident Dwyer allegedly punched his wife in the face and then threw a shoe at their 17-month-old son hitting the toddler in the stomach. Dwyer has denied the charges. He's currently out on bond.

While the Cardinals wasted no time benching the player following his arrest, we have now learned that Dwyer's potential replacement also faced domestic violence charges in the past.

CNN correspondent, Sara Ganim, joins us now with more. Sara, you've been working on the story. What can you tell us?

SARA GANIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jake, this is another example of a guy who has been able to play with a history of problems. Running back Chris Rainey was signed by the Cardinals September 9th and he could easily have been Dwyer's replacement on the field but soon after we started asking the Cardinals about him today, the team dropped him about an hour ago.

Rainey has a history of domestic abuse charges and a history of getting kicked off the teams he's played for. His first arrest was when he was in college at the University of Florida in 2010.

That's when he charged with stalking his girlfriend sending her a text message that said, "Time to die, bitch." He pleaded guilty, but that didn't stop his career. He was drafted by the Steelers and arrested twice more, once for defiant trespass at a racetrack and then the next time for slapping his girlfriend. He was charged with misdemeanor battery and this time pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct charge.

But the Steelers had enough of him. They dropped him so the Colts picked him up and then in July, the Colts dismissed him for an unexplained violation of team rules.

Jake, you know, we talk about second chances, third chances, this guy got his fourth chance when he was signed by the Cardinals September 9th. At the time, Head Coach Bruce Arian told a local paper that he had thoroughly vetted Rainey by talking to people who had played with him before.

Well, one of those people who vouched for him, none other than Jonathan Dwyer. The two had played together for the Steelers.

TAPPER: And now the Cardinals just dropped him, Sara?

GANIM: Right. And it's important to note, you know, they signed Rainey on September 9th, and that was before the Ray Rice scandal and all of the conversations about domestic violence and domestic abuse in the NFL.

The Cardinals knew Rainey's history. They knew what they were getting and they still signed him. They only dropped him when Dwyer was arrested and people like us started asking questions.

TAPPER: Sara Ganim, thanks. That brings us to the Money Lead. With more NFL players making headlines for their rap sheets than stat sheets, sponsors are speaking out about the league and even criticizing its handling of these high-profile cases.

Indra Nooyi, chairman and CEO of PepsiCo released a statement, which reads in part, "I am deeply disturbed that the repugnant behavior of a few players and the NFL's acknowledged mishandling of these issues is casting a cloud over the integrity of the league."

She goes on to say, quote, "The reality for Commissioner Goodell and the NFL is that they now have an opportunity to affect positive change with the situation presented to them. I urge them to seize this moment."

McDonalds, Visa, Campbell Soup, Anheuser-Busch, they have all released statements also pledging to monitor how the NFL deals with domestic violence cases going forward.

Joining me now is "USA Today's" sport columnist, Nancy Armour. Nancy, good to see you. Of course, this is a $10 billion a year industry. But let me get your first reaction to the news of the Cardinals releasing Chris Rainey over violent past only after CNN started making calls. Does that seem disingenuous to you?

NANCY ARMOUR, SPORTS COLUMNIST, "USA TODAY": Well, I think it's the state of where we are right now. No team wants to be identified or have somebody on their roster who has a history like that. They can't afford it these days.

Not with what Radisson did the other day in terms of pulling their sponsorship or suspending their sponsorship with the Vikings. No other team wants to be put in that position.

TAPPER: But Nancy, I guess, one of the things that's so odd about this is, it doesn't seem like there's any sort of coherent policy that the NFL or even the team --

ARMOUR: There's not. There's not. They are all trying to figure it out. If you listened to both the Vikings news conference and the Panthers news conference yesterday, it was clear that they were deactivating their players, but they weren't quite sure why.

They kept talking about the right thing and the right thing and the right thing, but the more you listened to them, the more realized that they didn't really know why it was the right thing.

TAPPER: Yes. And also there doesn't seem to be any sort of policy, do you suspend somebody if they have been accused? Do you suspend somebody if they have been convicted?

Obviously, the player that we were asking about Rainey was only let go after CNN started calling, but Dwyer's information already was out there. Now, Jonathan Dwyer's wife came forward after the release of the video showing Ray Rice hitting his then fiancee.

Do you think that the timing of that, since the incident happened months ago, that the timing shows that the women in these situations are now going to possibly be coming forward more either because they have the opportunity to or because they is strength in number or they now have the courage to do so. Do you think that we are going to see more of this?

ARMOUR: I do think we would probably will. If you just look at the numbers for the hotline, just in a couple of days after the Ray Rice videotape became public, their call volume spiked and mostly it was women who were calling saying, I thought I was the only one.

I didn't realize that there were other women in this position and they felt that it gave them strength to come forward. So not to pile on the NFL, but I hope that this does encourage other women who have been victims of abuse to come forward to take a stand and say, no, this is not acceptable and I am not going to hide. I have nothing to be ashamed of.

TAPPER: Obviously Roger Goodell owes his job to the team owners. I'm wondering if this slap dash incomprehensible policy that they have, which is to say there doesn't seem to be any no specific policy, is purposeful.

Which is to say the owners don't want to let go of these players because they are going to help them win games and make money and therefore, they don't Goodell to come forward and say this is what we are all doing for now. Is it on purpose? ARMOUR: I don't know that it's on purpose, necessarily. They've never dealt with this before. They've never had to deal with it before. No one has ever really taken them to task and now all of a sudden they are trying to figure out, what do we do in this situation, in that situation?

So they are kind of bunkering down and I think all of them are just scrambling trying to figure out a cohesive policy and hoping that they can get it tamped down enough that they can come up with something so they've got something cohesive going forward.

TAPPER: Nancy Armour of "USA Today," thank you so much. Appreciate your time.

This just in now, three days after THE LEAD reported that unpatched security holes in software from tech giant, Oracle, could have exposed sensitive information on tens of thousands of people.

We have now learned some more Oracle news. Oracle founder, Larry Ellison is stepping down as CEO, the position he's held since 1977. But he's not leaving the company altogether, of course.

Ellison will hang as the executive chairman of Oracle's board and chief technology executive officer. "Forbes" list Ellison as the fifth richest man in the world.

When we come back, Senator John McCain defending himself over this photograph. Who are these men standing beside him and why is one Republican senator saying that McCain made a huge mistake by posing with them.

Plus, will a kingdom that's been united for more than 300 years soon become the untied kingdom?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. Let's do some politics now with the "Politics Lead" as the Senate prepares to vote on whether to arm Syrian rebels. Republican senator and potential 2016 presidential candidate, Rand Paul, gave an impassioned speech on the Senate floor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SENATOR RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: We don't even know who is in charge of the Free Syrian Army. They voted out one guy and another guy and they didn't know they were voting. There are estimates that half of the Free Syrian Army has defected. Many of them to al Nusra and al Qaeda and to ISIS.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Now Senator Paul has been criticizing not just the Free Syrian Army, but also his fellow Republican Senator John McCain about whom he says, McCain met with members of ISIS and snapped this smiling photo with them. The only problem, it's not true. We checked it out. "The Washington Post" even said the claim deserves four Pinnochios for being so bogus. Let's bring in CNN's chief congressional correspondent, Dana Bush and senior writer for "Politico" and CNN analyst, Maggie Haberman.

Guys, the attack center around these photographs, let's show them, in 2013, a representative from the Free Syrian Army organized a meeting with Senator McCain.

Not only did he call the claims ridiculous, but identified all of those in the picture, he told me who everybody was, members of the Northern Storm Battalion of the secular, Free Syrian Army, a general, a media representative, a guard.

He noted the fact that the Free Syrian Army is a bitter enemy of ISIS. So Dana, why would Senator Paul make such a false allegation?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: He was misinformed, and I guess, and that's probably the only way to answer that, Jake. And he had a very veiled but seemed to me pretty clear repetition of this kind of idea towards the end of his lengthy speech today.

Talking about politicians posing for pictures with people. He broadened it to talk about Syria and Libya and so forth. Look, this is kind of the basis of the way Rand Paul is forming his political philosophy and his political world view as he prepares for his 2016 run.

And that is to different himself from most of the rest of the Republicans on national security by saying that they are just wrong on being so aggressively interventionist.

And it's become very personal for him versus John McCain because for the past ten years, if not more, has embodied that type of view and philosophy within the Republican Party.

TAPPER: The insults have gone back and forth. Hard to argue, though, Maggie, for Senator Paul to argue about the rightness of his cause when he has such a wrong claim in his pitch.

But let's move on from the fact-checking element. What's the larger gain here for Rand Paul and picking fights with people like Senator McCain who is considered an interventionist and also a respected figure in his party talking about national security issues?

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: As Dana said, part of it is differentiating it. The problem with Rand Paul, too, is he seem needs to seem credible on foreign policy.

When he has moments like this, he sets himself back and he's had other problems with this kind of thing where he's said something to not quite be true or he's claimed that he didn't say something that he later said. This does not help ultimately for sort of the party elders for the support he does need at some point.

TAPPER: Dana, I want to move on, if that's OK. Speaking of 2016, former secretary of state and Senator Hillary Clinton spoke at the Center for American Progress today. That's a liberal think tank.

A lot of people think of it as the Clinton campaign in waiting. She still not saying definitively that she is running for president. But she talked a lot today about empowering women in jobs.

What's the larger significance -- Maggie, let me throw it to you. What's the larger significance of a speech like this?

HABERMAN: She talked a lot about women's economic issues and she put in a larger frame of family issues and from family issues, we get middle-class issues and we get upward mobility.

This is something that Hillary Clinton has not talked very much about it all. She gave one real economic focus speech, but largely it's been all about foreign policy and about promoting her book. That's been 2014 for her.

She's gotten criticism for not really starting to formulate a message about what people are likely to settle the 2016 election on despite the messiness going on in the world, which is jobs, the economy.

This is very much the beginning of messaging that you did not see her do in 2008. She did not talk about women overtly that often and she has basically been out of politics domestically when these issues have been coming to the forefront. She is now sort of surrounding herself with them.

TAPPER: Speaking of Hillary Clinton, she got a lot of criticism yesterday, Dana, at that select committee of Benghazi, which had its first hearing and there were a lot of officials who came forward and talked about how the Clinton State Department didn't enough to provide security.

There was a lot of criticism and it looks like there's no definitive end game for this select committee Benghazi. Theoretically, it could still be holding hearings in the think of 2016.

BASH: It sure could be. If there is no end game, there's no end date for this committee. And that was a big Democratic worry when Republicans were pushing to form this in the first place.

That's why there was a very big divide within the Democratic Party, Jake. The rank and file in the House in particular of whether or not they should even participate or boycott it, or whether they should bless it with the participation.

They decided better to be in the room than outside in the hallway streaming. But it is going to be a potential problem for her as they get closer and they are not the only ones.

Rand Paul in that lengthy speech today. He specifically talked about Hillary Clinton again and not just what happened in the days and the weeks after Benghazi, but talking about mistakes that he said she made in the six months running up to that date. So she's going to get it from all sides no matter what. TAPPER: Maggie, before you run, there was a story in "Politico," your newspaper, a pretty scathing article about the chair of the Democratic National Committee, Congressman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat of Florida, had a lot of off-the-record criticisms of her.

A lot of snide remarks about her and serious criticisms. How much of a liability is she to her own party or is this a story that you think will blow over?

HABERMAN: I think we all focus on this a lot more than people in the world do. I don't think most people nationally don't really know who the chairperson of the Democratic National Committee is and the DNC especially under President Obama has become much less the power player. He empowered OFA, his campaign arm --

TAPPER: Organizing for America?

HABERMAN: Exactly. To play much more of a significant role. At the end of the day, it's not that she's a huge liability, but she has few friends in the White House and Congress and then you end up in this position where there are criticisms, there are not many people defending you.

The silence from Obama land today has been pretty deafening. The White House spoke nicely about her, but in very muted terms and what is missing is people saying, she has the president's full confidence.

TAPPER: Very, very tough stuff. Maggie Haberman, Dana Bash, thank you so much.

TAPPER: Wolf Blitzer is here, of course, with the preview of "THE SITUATION ROOM." Wolf, your guest today addressed both the U.S. Congress and met with President Obama, who is it?

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST, "THE SITUATION ROOM": The highlight of his day will be --

TAPPER: You -- an interview with Wolf Blitzer.

BLITZER: Obviously, he addressed the joint meeting of the House and the Senate. We're talking about Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and then went to the oval office for a meeting with the president.

Right now, he's here in our building. He's about to walk into "THE SITUATION ROOM." We're going to have an exclusive interview. Find out, did he get what he wants. Is he going to get lethal military equipment from the United States?

Will the U.S. designate Ukraine a major non-NATO ally? He's asked for those two requests. Did he get a yes or a no from the president?

TAPPER: You don't know because I really want to know?

BLITZER: I don't know. These are good questions.

TAPPER: Apparently, they are giving lethal aid away in Syria. BLITZER: If they are giving lethal aid to the moderate rebels in Syria, why not to Ukraine?

TAPPER: Wolf Blitzer, thank you so much.

Mere moments from now, the final votes will be cast in Scotland either for or against leaving the United Kingdom. It's a toss-up. Will Britain's 11th hour promises sway Scottish voters when we come back?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. Our World Lead, Scottish voters know there is no going back, but it's impossible right now to say, will they stay or will they go? Voters are choosing whether to remain in the United Kingdom with some greater powers or go it alone as an independent nation.

The most recent opinion polls showed the vote too close to call. But the yes side, yes for independence, has gained roughly 20 points in the last month. Despite new offers of semi-autonomy from British leaders, separatist leader, Blair Jenkins told me yesterday that the British government just doesn't understand Scotland.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLAIN JENKINS, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF "YES SCOTLAND": They have been increasingly out of touch and out of time when it comes to people in Scotland. It's been a little too late.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: CNN's Max Foster joins us from Engelsten (ph), Scotland just minutes before the polls are to close. Max, how is turnout so far?

MAX FOSTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it looks as though it's been a very, very strong turnout. Close to 90 percent, based on people's experience during a general election. It certainly looks very good.

The top of the hour, the postal votes will start to be counted. The boxes being brought into the hall behind me and we expect the first results to be done locally so 32 local areas accounting their results.

The first ones are expected in about six hours' time and the final result is nine hours' time. It does depend on any recount so any problems along the way.

Always, Jake, weather is an issue in this Great Britain and there's major fog on the islands. The planes may not be able to bring the ballot boxes in, but it shouldn't delay things too much.

TAPPER: So in about 9 hours, we'll know whether Scotland has broken away from the United Kingdom. If Scotland does go, will Cameron's government fail? Will it fall?

FOSTER: It won't technically fall, but it's under huge, huge pressure and David Cameron in particular and he has already been asked if he will resign if there's a "yes" vote in this.

He does become in that case the last prime minister of Great Britain as we know it and it's seen by many as untenable. He's been blamed. The clip you played really intimating the fact that he left things too late.

It was only in the last month that he started realizing it was a possibility and in this panic that he kept on visiting Scotland, very impassioned speeches. He's not really popular here anyway. So I think he's on the major pressure if it's a yes vote.

TAPPER: In fact, it's the conservative government that many in Scotland where it's more liberal and more progressive saying that England is out of step with Scotland. CNN's Max Foster, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Make sure to follow me on Twitter @jaketapper and also @theleadcnn. You can also check out our show page at cnn.com/thelead for video, blogs, extras. That is it for THE LEAD today. I am Jake Tapper and I now turn you over to Wolf Blitzer. He's right next door in a place we like to call "THE SITUATION ROOM" -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Thanks very much, Jake.