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The Lead with Jake Tapper

U.S. Coalition Bombs Syrian City 21 Times; Democrats Going Dark In Kentucky

Aired October 14, 2014 - 16:30   ET

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

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome back to THE LEAD. In our continuing coverage of the fight against ISIS, that vial jihadist group continues to advance not just in Syria, but in Baghdad's backyard. ISIS terrorists today surrounded one of the largest air bases in Anbar Province, which is just adjacent to Baghdad according to an Iraqi police captain.

The Jihadis appear ready to rain down mortars and RPGs on the base from both flanks. They already control an estimated 80 percent of Anbar Province, this as a chorus of U.S. officials continue to insist that Baghdad is not in any danger.

The president at this hour is meeting with the secretaries of defense from the 22 nations that have pledged support in the ongoing fight against these terrorists.

The one conspicuously absent party from this who is who of those who have pledged air support and training tools and medical supplies, the Syrians actually fighting the war, the Free Syrian Army not given a seat at the table.

Joining me now is CNN chief national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto. Jim, it's not as if the invitation got lost in the mail. The White House deliberately did not invite the Free Syrian Army to this meeting. Why?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: The explanation is this is for sovereign nations, 22 sovereign nations. Free Syrian Army is still a rebel group. It's not a sovereign nation.

You can be sure that U.S. officials will share with them whatever is decided in this meeting and we do know that on the table is discussion of further training of Syrian rebels, which will take place not just in Saudi Arabia now, which we've known for a number of weeks, but will also take place in Turkey, right across the border from Syria.

TAPPER: I was going to say, one of the 22 nations at the table is Turkey. What are they going to do? There's been a lot of question about are they going to let the U.S. and the coalition use one of their military bases? Do we have any more clarity?

SCIUTTO: It's a pretty embarrassing public disagreement. U.S. officials saying, yes, they have allowed us to use their bases and Turkish officials say, actually no, we have not allowed that. So you have Secretary of State John Kerry saying today, well, they have agreed to let us use their facilities.

So I spoke to a senior military official who said, listen, at the end of the day, it's still being negotiated. Yes, they will allow some facilities, but we need to find what those facilities are or indeed what they will be used for.

But I am told that on the table is using the airbase, which will be, you know, a tremendous advantage for allied forces to launch airstrikes from there, just that much closer rather than coming from gulf countries or the Med or the Persian Gulf.

TAPPER: Meanwhile, we keep being told by the Obama administration that Baghdad is not in danger, despite the fact that they have sent Apache helicopters and now gunships are supporting Iraqi troops. Of course, American troops while not, quote/unquote, "on the ground," there are American troops embedded with some Iraqi forces. How dire is the situation?

SCIUTTO: Well, you can't say it's not in danger because clearly it's in danger. If you have ISIS forces so close, as they are today and gaining more ground in that Anbar province, the other question is, what are the chances of Baghdad falling?

I've spoken to a number of officials over recent days and they say not high because they have confidence in those units that are defending Baghdad, frankly a lot more confidence than the units that have been defending Anbar.

And frankly either running away or getting cut off, et cetera. So greater proximity to Baghdad cannot be a good thing and has to put the city in danger. Is it in danger of falling? I'm told today, no, it's not because they have confidence of the units inside the city and around the city.

TAPPER: Let's shift over to Syria. There is obviously Kobani, the town on the border in Syria right near the Turkish border and we've been hearing a lot about Kobani being close to falling, 21 airstrikes in the past few days over Kobani. Is there anything that we're hearing that might suggest that Kobani isn't going to fall? What's the status?

SCIUTTO: No one is going to say it's not going to fall and clearly, ISIS has been making advances there, every day you hear they control a little more of the city. Now, airstrikes have been helping because I think you hear from fighters on the ground, without those airstrikes, the city would have already fallen.

But administration officials are playing something of an interesting game here because as you say, 21 strikes, 21 out of the 23 strikes in the last 24 hours in Iraq over Syria, have all been around Kobani.

TAPPER: Right. TAPPER: Officials have been saying, for two weeks, though, administration officials, that, well, Kobani doesn't matter. It's not strategically important. You are just paying attention to it because you can see it across the border and yet the U.S. is devoting an enormous amount of air power to defending it now.

But even as they are doing that, they are saying, well, you know what frankly air power alone is not going to save the city. There are some pretty incredible expectations actually going on even as they drop a lot of bombs.

TAPPER: Confusing. Great reporting. Jim Sciutto, thank you so much.

ISIS is already infamous, of course, for their unspeakable acts of brutality, quoting their own twisted reading of Islam's most sacred text, the Koran to justify their savagery. They have slaughtered entire villages of women and children.

They have beheaded journalists and aid workers as the world watches and horrified. Now they are further distorting God's law to sanction slavery. Here with more details is CNN national correspondent, Suzanne Malveaux.

Suzanne, ISIS has already clearly done abominable things, but they are talking about justifying sex slavery?

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, absolutely. When you think about this, Jake, sadly, the practice of kidnapping and trading women and girls as sex slaves, it's not uncommon especially as a tactic of war.

I spoke today with Human Rights Watch, which says what makes this different is that ISIS is using this as a propaganda tool to promote and continue enslaving those who refuse to embrace their extremist agenda.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX (voice-over): ISIS captured the world's attention and threw it into a bitter conflict by using barbaric tactics, beheading journalists, destroying religious shrines and executing its prisoners. Now ISIS is bragging about another heinous practice the terrorist group has embraced, slavery.

SARAH LEAH WHITSON, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: I think it's a tragedy and a repulsive atrocity that we are seeing now in fighting groups who not only are abusing and subjecting women and girls to sexual assault and forced marriages, but that they are taking pride in justifying their conduct rather shamelessly.

MALVEAUX: In its fourth edition of the group's English language digital magazine called "Dabiq," ISIS justifies kidnapping and turning women and girls into sex slaves.

Considered by many Islamic scholars to using a perverted interpretation of Islam to make its case saying one should remember that enslaving the families of the infidels and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of the Sharia or Islamic law.

The women ISIS has been targeting are of the Yazidi sect, an ethnically Kurdish minority living mostly in Iraq. The terror campaign began in August when ISIS scored many of the Yazidis towns and cities forcing tens of thousands of them to flee their homes.

Hundreds of Yazidi women and girls were sold or given to ISIS militants as spoils of war. Human Rights Watch unveiled their stories in more than 70 interviews including this woman.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): They separated the men, women, and girls. They put the girls in three cars and took them away. When we were able to leave the house, we saw that our men had been killed. We started screaming.

MALVEAUX: And those much younger, too.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): They killed my husband in front of me as well as my brother-in-law and father-in-law within minutes. Now my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law are under their grip. The Islamic State were looking for women and they took them for themselves.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: So what can the international coalition do to stop the slavery or even rescue these women and children? Well, Human Rights Watch says that it is complicated. Airstrikes alone don't address human trafficking and boots on the ground soldiers may actually set off a revenge campaign from ISIS.

So human rights advocates tell me that the best option for the U.S. and its allies to support the women and children who have managed to escape, but that is the best that they can do right now.

TAPPER: It's just heartbreaking. Suzanne Malveaux, thank you so much for that report.

Now for our Buried Lead and the search to discover what and who make us who we are. My personal story is probably no different than many Americans, except for one little thing, the ancestor I have who fought for the wrong side in the revolutionary war. Really. My roots, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. Time now for our Buried Lead, and a look back at where we all come from, our origin story, CNN has been looking into the family histories of several of its anchors and these journeys are interesting.

Not because they tell the story of folks you see on TV but really because these stories are so distinctly American. Here's my little slice of our shared journey. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER (voice-over): This is where I'm from, Philly, and it's not just cheese steaks and Rocky Balboa. Philadelphia is to me very much about America. Mom and dad put down roots just around the corner from here, Independence Hall, where the founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

And the truth is I never really cared that much about my ancestry. Where was I from? The answer was always Philly.

(on camera): My childhood neighborhood still looks as though George Washington slept there. Everything about growing up during that time was Americana, even the names of the sports teams, the 1776ers, the Eagles and American to its core.

(voice-over): My dad side of the family is Jewish, immigrants from Eastern Europe.

(on camera): Why did grandmother Tapper and grandfather Tapper's families leave the old country?

DR. THEODORE S. TAPPER: For a variety of reasons, I think a lot of it was economics.

TAPPER (voice-over): My mom's, Scotch-Irish via Canada.

ANNE TAPPER: My parents brought me here when I was 3.

TAPPER: There is a myth that our side of the family came to North America and objected to slavery and so they went to Canada because there was slavery in the United States.

ANNE TAPPER: I would like to believe that but I don't. I think they left for other reasons.

TAPPER: Looking into those other reasons with ancestry.com, I found out I have colonial roots, though it's not exactly what I might have hoped for. It all starts with my seventh great grandfather who jumped ship in the U.S. and ended up in Fishkill, New York so that where I went to find out more.

He was born sometime in the 1600s either 1637 or 1687 in Norway and apparently he made quite an impression. He was described later in his life as having been something of a local celebrity for his scholarship and dashing horsemanship. This is the local historian, the keeper of the secrets.

My seventh great grandfather, Englebert Huff, was here at some point?

WILKA SKINNER, FISHKILL HISTORIAN: Yes.

TAPPER: What can you tell me about him?

SKINNER: All I know is that he farmed and lived to be the age of 128 years.

TAPPER: At 128?

SKINNER: At 128.

TAPPER: Do you believe that?

SKINNER: I don't know. I don't know. There's some question about that.

TAPPER: Yes.

SKINNER: When he was about 120 years old, there is a story that he courted a young lady who was 21 years old.

TAPPER: Yes.

SKINNER: I don't know how true that is. This is a special communion tanker.

TAPPER (voice-over): Huff made such an impression, his story is inscribed in this communion tanker that the church still uses. We searched in vain for Englebert Huff's grave, but we did make another discovery.

SKINNER: The Fishkill Church has a record of the family of Englebert house.

TAPPER: Willa has this record showing Englebert's grandsons, Paul and Solomon Huff, were involved in the American revolutionary war where America's founders were fighting for independence from the British.

(on camera): So Paul Huff --

SKINNER: Joined the British Army in 1777.

TAPPER: So he fought in the American Revolution, but he fought on the wrong side?

SKINNER: Right.

TAPPER: I could not believe it. My ancestors were on the side of the British. My great-great grandfather was on the wrong side of the American Revolution War. It was like poison on my lips. When the American revolutionary war broke out, Solomon continued to work his 200-acre farm.

But it became unbearable at the end of the war resulting in the lead and joining British forces and then they went to Canada so no wonder there were not that many Huffs in here. They fled to Canada.

SKINNER: They fled.

TAPPER (voice-over): So we chased Solomon Huff, my great-great-great- great grandfather to the Bay of Quint where the royalists landed, a three-hour drive from Toronto. (on camera): I can't relate to it at all. It's so antithetical

to who I am. I mean, I admire Solomon staying true to who he is, to side with King George III over Thomas Jefferson and James Madison is crazy to me.

And this is where Paul Huff landed?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, with the loyalists.

TAPPER: There was an organized group?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

TAPPER: These are people who fought for the British during the war and then were fleeing the colonies?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For the most part.

TAPPER (voice-over): This is Peter Johnson, a loyalist re-enactor and, as it turns out, a distant cousin of mine.

(on camera): Why are people so proud to be descendants of loyalists?

PETER JOHNSON, LOYALIST REENACTOR: If you happen to favor a constitutional monarchy, you're proud to say your ancestors supported the king.

TAPPER: But I guess that's my question, why would anybody as opposed to a thriving democracy in the republic, why would anybody want to have a monarchy?

JOHNSON: Well, at the time of the revolution, it was very unclear what direction things were going to go.

TAPPER (voice-over): But we all know how things turned out with independence and all. But Canada still has a relationship with the royal family. The Huffs were a family of faith.

We met up with historian, Cathy Staples at old Hay Bay Church, the first Methodist church in Canada. After fleeing the Revolutionary War, Solomon had to restart his life and this church played a big role.

(on camera): So one of my ancestors, Solomon Huff, his brother was Paul and Paul fought for the British. He came here. This was his land?

CATHY STAPLES, HISTORIAN: Yes, it was. He was given 200 acres. He donated the corner of his land to build the church.

TAPPER: It sounds like this was really the frontier.

STAPLES: It was.

TAPPER: There were not a lot of amenities, not like there were in the 1700s anyway. It was a tough life for --

STAPLES: Extremely.

TAPPER: -- for tough people.

STAPLES: And they had left an organized way of life in the colonies.

TAPPER: The winters must have been brutal.

STAPLES: Some didn't make it through the first winter.

TAPPER (voice-over): But those tough Huffs managed to thrive here.

(on camera): True to king and country, coming from America, this isn't something to brag about in America. These guys were on the wrong side. They did not want independence.

STAPLES: That's right.

TAPPER: They did not want independence.

STAPLES: That's exactly right.

TAPPER: We have an independence day in America.

(voice-over): It's all so weird to me, raised in Philadelphia, the birth place of our nation, during the bicentennial, how could this be my roots? These walls put up by my family tell a story I never expected to find. As it turns out, neither did mom or dad.

(on camera): How do you feel about having these folks in our history?

ANNE TAPPER: I asked my mother about it, she pointed out that I was direct descendant to someone who was loyal to the crown, but I didn't tell anyone.

TAPPER: It's a little embarrassing. It really is.

ANNE TAPPER: Yes, I thought so, too.

TAPPER: I know this isn't your part of the trade. When you look at the Huffs, you don't think loyalists?

DR. THEODORE S. TAPPER: They were traitors to the American Revolution and I am a supporter of the American Revolution.

TAPPER: For the record, mom and I are, too. Just so we have that established.

(voice-over): Finally, it was another war that helped me sort this out in my own mind. Long before the U.S. joined the battle, the Canadians were fighting in World War II, including descendants of the Huffs, like my mom's father and her uncle who died on a bombing raid in Germany in 1943. They were on the right side. (on camera): So I guess with this perspective of looking back at

the Huffs through the prism of World War II, I have my history and I have my peace. I can be proud of where I came from.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: And make sure to tune in just a few hours from now at 7:00 p.m. You'll see Erin Burnett's long winding road home from a tiny farm in Maryland to a remote Scottish island. That's 7 p.m. on Erin Burnett "OUTFRONT."

Coming up, a fiery debate that got personal on both sides and today, Democrats are saying their candidate might have made a critical mistake by refusing to answer one simple question. Our Politics Lead is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. Turning to our Politics Lead now, Kentucky is bright red on presidential campaign maps. Mitt Romney, you may know, carried the state by more than 20 points.

This year, however, it's tinted purple on some election maps with a relatively competitive race going on between Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Democratic challenger, Alison Lundergan Grimes, the Kentucky secretary of state.

CNN chief congressional correspondent, Dana Bash, has been following that race for us. She has some breaking news that could be a possible turning point in the race.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. A significant development and that is National Democrats have decided not to spend money in Kentucky on television ads for the rest of the campaign until Election Day. There are lots of reasons for this.

Big picture, it is maybe not a great sign for Grimes on the one hand but on the other hand, it really does illustrate how stretched Democrats are in defending their own seats to try to keep control of the Senate.

They can't afford to spend money to pick up a Republican seat, even the Republican leaders. Still, Grime sources I've talked insist they are fine without the National Democrat's help.

I'm told that Grimes has $4.4 million on hand. That's a lot more than other Democratic candidates, but it was the free TV time in last night's debate that's creating today's buzz.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BASH (voice-over): It was her one and only chance to debate the Republican Senate leader and Democratic challenger, Alison Lundergan Grimes came out swinging.

ALISON LUNDERGAN GRIMES, KENTUCKY SENATE CANDIDATE: You don't want to take any responsibility for the loss of the jobs here in the state?

BASH: While Mitch McConnell responded in his classically calm manner, but for Grimes it was her refusal to answer the easiest question of all that left a lasting impression, she would not say if she voted for President Obama.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why are you reluctant to give an answer on whether or not you voted for President Obama?

GRIMES: Bill, there's no reluctancy. This is a matter of principle. Our constitution grants here in Kentucky, the constitutional right for privacy at the ballot box for a secret ballot.

BASH: The real answer may be political, not principle. In 2012, Obama got crashed in Kentucky and is even more unpopular now, but Grimes' evasiveness has played heavily in news coverage, local and national. Several frustrated Democratic strategists tell CNN not answering was a mistake, one that takes away from an otherwise strong performance.

DONNA BRAZILE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: We know who she voted for. There's no secret here, Victoria.

BASH: But McConnell stumbled, too, trying to navigate the politics of Obamacare.

SENATOR MITCH MCCONNELL, MINORITY LEADER: The best interest of the country would be achieved by pulling out Obamacare root and branch.

BASH: That's his long-held position, but Kentucky's health care web site Kynect has been successful in signing people up for insurance. That, he says, can continue.

MCCONNELL: I think it's fine to have a website.

BASH: Keeping up a website used for a law he opposes, that's a contradiction, one that Grimes jumped on.

GRIMES: The fictional fantasy land that Mitch McConnell is in, it doesn't show the statistics here in the state.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: Three weeks to go. Dana Bash, thank you so much. That's it for THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. I now turn you over to Wolf Blitzer in "THE SITUATION ROOM" - Wolf.