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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Release Of Report On CIA Enhanced Interrogation Technique; Interview with Senator Angus King About The Report; Uber Backlash Spreads Overseas; Flood Warning For Boston Metro Area

Aired December 09, 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: Back to our top story, a new FBI/DHS bulletin warning law enforcement to be on alert for any possible homegrown violent extremists who may be reacting to the Senate's release of the so-called "torture report." Are any senators who supported the release of this information now concern that they may have put Americans at risk? I'll ask one next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to "THE LEAD." I'm Jake Tapper. The politics lead now. An already polarized Congress responding today to the release of the contentious report from the Democratic majority on the Senate intelligence committee, plus one Republican and one independent senator. The report finds the CIA not only used enhanced interrogation techniques, commonly referred to as torture, but the Democratic chairwoman of the committee, Dianne Feinstein, called the CIA's tactics, quote, "a stain on America's values and history." The majority on the committee also stating that the techniques did not work and that the CIA repeatedly lied about them.

Now, Republicans on the committee are firing back saying Democrats went into this process with preconceived biases, charging that key individuals were not interviewed for this report and calling its conclusions factually inaccurate. Joining me now from Capitol Hill, CNN chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash. Dana, we heard from Senator McCain today who was supportive of the release of the report, but not many Republicans share his view, right?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Not at all. He is in the minority when it comes to Republicans. Most think that the Democrats who wrote this report are living in kind of an alternate reality, that they don't remember the context in which these techniques were used. A post-9/11 context. And as you said, these Republicans, particularly those who are on the committee -- remember, this generally is a very bipartisan committee. Everyone's used to partisanship up here on Capitol Hill. Intelligence committee generally does work across party lines. But not in this case. Listen to what the top Republican on the committee said about this report.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. SAXBY CHAMBLISS, (R) GEORGIA: The majority side of the intelligence committee has spent the last five years and over $40 million focused on a program that effectively ended over eight years ago while the world around us burns. This is a 6,000-page report and not one single witness was ever interviewed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Now, the Democrats on the committee say that they didn't interview witnesses, they didn't interview CIA operatives who were involved in these techniques torture because they weren't allowed to, the Justice Department was - had an ongoing investigation but they did read the interviews done by other officials of these officials. So, by and large, Republicans say that it's just inaccurate and that it is not fair to take the conclusions from this as something that is reflective of reality.

TAPPER: Talk about the timing of this, Dana. Certainly we've been expecting this report for months and there was talk of maybe they wouldn't release it at all. What are you hearing?

BASH: And that's right. That's another big Republican criticism. Why now? Why do this when there is such a tinderbox out there that this can just throw a match on? And the answer, I actually asked Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the committee, personally why do this now, does it put American lives at risk? And her answer was effectively, there's no good time. This could always potentially put Americans' lives at risk and it is more important to have transparency, to get this information out there to show the world that the U.S. is different from regimes like North Korea and others. And she also very candidly admitted that another reason is because Democrats are going to lose control of the Senate. She won't be chairwoman very, very soon. And so they wanted to get this out now. They have been fighting for months, maybe even years to do this earlier and this was their last chance.

TAPPER: All right, Dana Bash on Capitol Hill, thank you so much.

Many Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee, as we said, say that the report is flawed, that the Democrats' biases made it impossible to produce an objective report. Senator Marco Rubio along with others questioned the timing, saying the release causes potential danger to American men and women serving abroad as well as our alliances. Many critics also say this is just about embarrassing George W. Bush.

Joining me now from the Hill to counter that opinion, Maine Senator Angus King and independent Senator King. Thanks for being with us, we've just learned about this bulletin from the FBI and Homeland Security warning about potential attacks following the release of this report. Is there any credible threat that you know of?

SEN. ANGUS KING (I) INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Not that we know of. There were predictions made that there might be as a result of this. That was obviously -- that weighed very heavily on our minds. And the ultimate decision was made that this was important for the American people and important for the world to know that America does, in fact, subscribe to ideals and principles and that there's a lot of data here that needs to be gotten out. So I have not heard any credible intelligence.

There were assessments done. People were put on alert. I think that's prudent. But, for example, they did a report on Abu Ghraib, the Armed Services Committee, back when that was current. And there were 100,000 American troops in Iraq at that moment. But that didn't deter us from trying to get the truth out about something that just is inconsistent with who we are.

TAPPER: When there have been instances in the past of things that might ignite the anger of the so-called Arab street or the Muslim world or whatever, even though I'm not - you can't really compare that movie, that anti-Muslim movie about Muhammad and you can't really compare it to the pastor in Florida who was talking about burning bibles. But when there are concerns about igniting the passions on the Arab street, how do you make that decision behind closed doors like, yes, even if people die, we need to get this out there?

KING: Well, as I said, it's absolutely a difficult one. And there are no guarantees. On the other hand, Jake, these people don't seem to need much excuse for committing atrocities on Americans or anybody else. They've been killing people and beheading people and bombing people and doing terrorist acts for, you know, the last 10 or 12 years and certainly in the last year. This - it's important to note that this report was completed almost two years ago, was given to the CIA for their response and then was given to the White House last May. And by the way, just all this business about being - this is entirely partisan -- the vote to approve the report was 11-3. It was a bipartisan vote. And then it's been since last May to now to finally get all the redactions and national security concerns taken care of. So why is the timing now? Because we just had the final version back from the administration about four days ago.

TAPPER: Republican members of the committee also allege that there are inaccuracies in the report. One example that they cite is Abu Zubaydah, an alleged member of bin Laden's inner circle who was subjected to numerous sessions of torture, such as waterboarding and sleep deprivation. The Democrats say that he never gave the CIA any substantive intelligence. But Republicans say he did. Can you be absolutely sure that these tactics didn't work at all?

KING: Jake, absolutely sure it is a pretty high standard. But I think there's a little bit of semantic slight of hand going on here. What I've heard people saying in the last couple of days and I've watched a lot of the interviews of the people that are trying to justify this and saying, you know, the report shouldn't have been released or whatever, they're talking about the program produced good intelligence. And that's true. The program was the detention of bad guys and they were interrogated and we certainly gained a lot of intention - a lot of good intelligence. The real issue is, how about these particular, what they call enhanced interrogation techniques? Did they produce actionable intelligence? And I think the record is very strong in the report -- I sat down and took an entire week to sit down and read the 500 pages, page by page, the 2,000 or 3,000 footnotes and I was convinced that the case that had been made that it was effective simply didn't hold up. And here's a really interesting point. The CIA for years said we got intelligence, it helped us to get bin Laden, all these kinds of things, there were all these assertions, in fact, what you're hearing right now. When we gave them the report and then they responded, you know what they said about whether it worked? It's unknowable. That's the official CIA position right now. It's unknowable whether it worked. The fact that it migrated from absolutely certainty to, well, it's unknowable, whether it worked, I think that speaks volume.

TAPPER: Let me ask you one other question, Senator. Today an official from the United Nations called on the U.S. government to prosecute those responsible for the deeds laid out in this report. What do you think?

KING: Well, that decision, I think, was made some years ago. It was made by the incoming Obama administration that they weren't going to proceed with prosecutions. I think prosecutions at this point is not really the point. The point is, we've got to have a national discussion about torture and whether it's something that we countenance and whether it's effective. I have got to tell you, Jake, I hope you guys can run a significant part of John McCain's speech this morning. Every American schoolchild should hear that speech, every member of this body should hear that speech. It's about who America is and it's also about whether or not this kind of activity, this essentially torture, works as a matter of good intelligence gathering. And he makes a compelling case that it doesn't. So I think -- I'm less concerned about prosecutions than they are about, then I am about let's not let this happen again.

TAPPER: Senator, were you surprised that according to CIA records referred to in this report, President Bush was not given a full briefing on these tactics until they'd been in use for four years?

KING: Yeah, I was surprised by that. And that's why I'm a little surprised by the Republicans saying this is some kind of political hatchet job because if it was, they would have gone -- the report would have gone much further in trying, if it was political, to implicate President Bush or Vice President Cheney. As a matter of fact, the bottom line of the report is they were misinformed. The Justice Department was misinformed. The Congress was misinformed. This does not lay a lot of blame on President Bush and his administration. It was a small number of people in the CIA that were continually misrepresenting this program and its effectiveness. And unfortunately a lot of that is continuing as of today.

TAPPER: All right. Senator Angus King, Independent of Maine, thank you so much.

Our Tech Lead today, things just keep getting worse for Uber, at least two more countries have now banned the car sharing tech company. The city of Portland is suing. Is it enough to bring the tech giant down?

Plus, canceled flights and huge delays at several airports as a major storm is drenching the east coast. Now several cities are under flood watch. We'll tell you where ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. The Tech Lead now, Uber is one of Silicon Valley's fastest growing start-ups. But as the company's reap spreads abroad so do efforts to put the brakes on the ride-sharing service.

Today, a judge ordered a ban on all Uber operations in Spain, Spain now joining New Delhi, India, and Thailand on a list of places to outlaw the app overseas.

New Delhi put its ban in place yesterday after a woman accused an Uber driver of rape. And while the company was recently valued at $40 billion, there are questions over whether the company can live up to the hype if it continues to run into regulation issues not just internationally but here in the United States.

Let's bring in CNN technology correspondent, Laurie Segall. Laurie, thanks for joining us. Uber is being sued everywhere from the Netherlands to Portland, Oregon. Can they overcome most of these issues, you think?

LAURIE SEGALL, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: I mean, the magic number here is $40 billion valuation. They raised $1 billion recently and the idea was to expand internationally. You have to be able to justify that valuation.

As we've seen in the last week, they've had a lot of trouble, Jake. I mean, they're able to do their numbers -- listen, I talk to Uber investors all the time. They say these numbers are staggering. Their growth is insane.

One investor said he cited rocketship numbers. But as you see when they are going abroad, they're dealing with different governments, different types of regulations, different types of background checks and it's not as easy as they thought it would be.

That being said, Uber is very aggressive. They ask for forgiveness. They don't ask for permission. I spoke to Travis, the CEO, a couple of months ago and I asked him how exactly they handle this. And he likened it to a political campaign. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRAVIS KALANICK, UBER CEO: We really started out as you see with a lot of start-ups, a bunch of techie kids trying to make something interesting happen. We're now in a political campaign that we have to tell our story and persuade politicians and city officials about why our story is important.

Why drivers are making better incomes and we're creating a whole bunch of jobs and why riders -- why it's better for citizens to have this transportation alternative. So that becomes a political campaign. We have to get the story out there. We have to persuade politicians. And when mud is thrown, we have to combat it with facts.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SEGALL: Uber has hired a former adviser to President Obama to make this happen. And Travis recently said they're looking to create a million jobs in 2015 all around the world. They're beginning to try to tell their side of the story, too -- Jake.

TAPPER: Laurie Segall, thank you so much.

Now let's turn to our Money Lead, new competition for eBay, kind of, Amazon just launched a new feature called "make an offer." It will let you place a bid instead of outright purchase an item.

But Amazon says it isn't like eBay, you don't have to win an auction to get your new stuff instead you can haggle privately with sellers. The goal is to bring down prices. You'll never have to pay a price higher than what is advertised, they say. Amazon's new feature launched today with 150,000 items. How about a

Michael Jordan Bulls jersey for $1,700 or an autographed James Taylor guitar for less than $400? Wolf Blitzer, how about an autographed James Taylor guitar?

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST, "THE SITUATION ROOM": Or a Jake Tapper cartoon for thousands of dollars. That's possible, right?

TAPPER: Millions. On "THE SITUATION ROOM," you have the woman of the hour, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein just issued this report.

BLITZER: Right. She's going to be joining us live. We have lots of important questions. She seems to be totally in disagreement with the CIA right now. We're going to go point by point where she stands, where the CIA stands. We'll hopefully get some good answers.

TAPPER: Looking forward to it. Wolf Blitzer in "THE SITUATION ROOM" coming up in 6 minutes.

When we come back, cities up the east coast including Boston and New York bracing for potential flooding. Heavy rain moves in and snow could be on its way next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. The National Lead now, a nor'easter is bringing a wet, nasty mess to the east coast. Just hours ago, the National Weather Service issued a flood warning for the Boston area and there are warnings in place just north of New York City.

This nor'easter is already causing travel nightmares. New York's LaGuardia Airport is reporting delays of more than four hours. Let's go right to meteorologist, Jennifer Gray, live in the severe weather center. Jennifer, how bad is this going to get?

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. This is just beginning, Jake. If you're watching from the airport, you have been there a while. Look at these delays. All of the New York airports have been delayed three to four hours or more. Philly airport, about an hour and a half. Also in Boston, about an hour delay. Those are expected to get a little bit better as we get later into the evening because the winds are supposed to die down. We have had incredible amounts of rain and we have had very, very gusty winds.

All of these rainfall totals are daily rainfall records. So we had 2 to 3 inches of rain all over New York City and then even into Boston and Philly, quite a bit of rain as well. Look at these wind gusts.

JFK Airport, 47-mile-per-hour wind gusts, 44 at LaGuardia. That is why you see those delays. Here's the radar. The rain's pretty much pushed out of New York City. We see a little bit of rain on the outskirts of Boston.

But you can see where the rain and snow line are. The snow is well to the north, places in Vermont, New Hampshire, even into Northern Maine, getting that snow. It is all rain right now from New York City all the way to Boston.

But it could be changing into snow just a little bit over the next couple of days. So the storm system is going to linger. So we still have those winter storm warnings in place all across the northeast. Still have the flood watches in place around the coastal areas.

This is not going anywhere at least until Friday and possibly Saturday. We could see 8 to 12 inches of snow during the next 48 hours, 2 to 4 inches of rain outside of Boston, dealing with a mess the next few days across the northeast.

TAPPER: Jennifer Gray, thank you so much. Make sure to follow me on Twitter @jaketapper. Check out our show page at CNN.com/thelead for videos, blogs and extras. That's it for THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. I now turn you over to the able hands of one Mr. Wolf Blitzer right next door in "THE SITUATION ROOM" -- Wolf.