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Hurricane Joaquin Threatens Bahamas; Russia Launches Airstrikes in Syria; Interview With Former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum. Aired 3- 3:30p ET

Aired September 30, 2015 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:01]

RICK SANTORUM, GOP PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And yet we're -- we're taking this as some sort of -- it's a valid determination of who's going to be president. It's not.

What's going to happen is, the people of Iowa are going to vote first. And I think we're going to do exceptionally well there. And then it will be off to the races once the real polls come in. And that's what we're planning on.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Let me pivot and talk Kim Davis.

SANTORUM: Yes.

BALDWIN: In the news that we have just learned, Kim Davis, she's the Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk who didn't want to sign the same-sex marriage licenses. She went to the detention center. She's been out.

She actually, we have now confirmed, met with Pope Francis. It only took until the pope returned home to Rome before the nation really learned about what happened. I think there have only been scant photos of the meeting.

And I'm curious, why do you think we haven't heard much about that meeting?

SANTORUM: Well...

BALDWIN: I imagine you support their meeting.

SANTORUM: Yes, I do. And I will tell you that the pope did some off- the-record things, and the one off-the-record stop that he made was to the Little Sisters of the Poor.

The Little Sisters of the Poor are the ones who are right at the center of the Obama administration pushing Obamacare to deny them their religious liberty when it comes to their insurance products. So, he came here to talk about a lot of issues, not just the ones that the press likes to focus on. But he came here for the World Meeting of the Families and I think he made a very strong message on that.

And he talked even in front of the president in front of the White House about the importance of religious liberty, and meeting with the Little Sisters of the Poor, privately meeting, because I knew -- I think he probably knew it would be a distraction if that was a public meeting.

BALDWIN: OK.

SANTORUM: And so I think he played it, I think, very wisely. He's a lot more savvy with the American media than I think a lot of people in politics here in America are.

BALDWIN: OK. OK.

Final question, just quickly. I just want to mention your daughter Bella. He blessed her.

SANTORUM: Yes, he did. It was an amazing thing.

He -- we got an invitation actually last minute a couple of days before he came to Philadelphia to be at the departure ceremony at the airport, where Joe Biden -- where he met with Joe Biden. You may remember that.

And I was out of town, but even if I hadn't, I was going to -- my wife, who is such a strong and great believer, and our kids, and we wanted the opportunity to have the pope bless Bella, who's our little girl who struggles with health issues.

And so, we had tickets. And we were there. I guess they were there for four or five hours before, and a couple noticed Karen and Bella and said, no, you have to get up in the front row here so the Holy Father can meet Bella. And he held her and kissed her and blessed her, and we have some just amazing memories and pictures as a result of that. And it's something that we feel incredibly blessed to have had that opportunity.

BALDWIN: How phenomenal.

SANTORUM: Yes. Yes.

BALDWIN: Senator, thank you so much for stopping by. I really appreciate it.

SANTORUM: Thank you. You bet.

BALDWIN: We will catch you next time.

SANTORUM: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Let's continue on.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: We are back with our breaking news here at the top of the hour. I'm Brooke Baldwin, this dramatic turn of events in the U.S.- led war on ISIS, Russia claiming it is going after the terror group inside of Syria unleashing, its first round of airstrikes in the city of Homs. But all is not as it seems. A U.S. official telling CNN these bombs

being dropped from Russian warplanes are not intended for ISIS at all, but instead could be targeting rebel fighters, enemies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a close ally of the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin,, and a man being Assad known to the United States for barrel bombing his own citizens.

Russia even admitting the strikes were ordered by Assad himself. The U.S. secretary of defense, Ash Carter, speaking just in the last hour from the Pentagon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ASHTON CARTER, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: This is one of the reasons why the result of this kind of action will inevitably simply be to inflame the civil war in Syria and why, therefore, it's ill-advised to take this kind of action in support of Assad only.

Fighting ISIL without pursuing a parallel political transition only risks escalating the civil war in Syria, and with it the very extremism and instability that Moscow claims to be concerned about and aspire to fighting. So, this approach -- that approach is tantamount, as I said then, to pouring gasoline on the fire.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: These are locations where bombs were dropped today here you see on the map of Syria, most of them north of the city of Homs. The question is, how close are these strikes really to the ISIS-controlled areas?

I want to begin with Tom Foreman to show us. Really, obviously the question, this is what Ash Carter was sort of addressing, are the Russian strikes anywhere near the rebel-controlled areas, Tom?

[15:05:05]

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What's a real clue here? We can see video of the bombs being dropped, we can see the reaction.

How do you know in the chaos that is Syria today who is being hit by it? And the real first clue has to come from basic geography. If you look at the Russian presence in the country, where they're largely operating from over here, you can also see all of this sort of purple- pinkish area, that is what is under control of the Assad regime.

You know that basically as long as you get over here toward the far Western edge, that's where they're in control. Out here is where you see the other control. If you wanted to look where ISIS really has a lot of support, it's going to be out in this area. They have a lot of influence throughout, but here they're quite strong out in here.

So, you might expect the bombing to be over here. But when I say look at the geography, look at this. Here's where the bombings are. The map sort of shifts here. But look at this. The bombings are largely over here in that area that we first described. This is the purple sort of pink area over here, and most of this is

actually happening in the areas that Assad already controls, only a little bit out over here, and nothing up in this region where you would expect a lot of pressure. So, simply put, Brooke, the minute these bombs were dropped, even if we knew nothing else, that's one of the reasons that officials would have said, this looks like it may just as well be hitting the al-Nusra Front or the Free Syrian Army or all sort of groups out there other than ISIS -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Tom Foreman, thank you so much with the map and walking us through that.

I can tell you that Senator John McCain today saying that what's happening in Syria is because of failed leadership by the Obama administration.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: It's a time that President Obama woke up to the realities in the world and reassert American leadership. And that does not mean that we're going to send thousands of ground troops back into Iraq or Syria.

But it does mean that we develop a policy. In the case of -- I am told that these bombings, that the American government has said that American planes should not fly and that we have somehow approved of these airstrikes.

I do not know if that's true or not. I hope that it's not true. What we should be saying to Vladimir Putin is that you fly, but we fly anywhere we want to when and how we want to, and you had better stay out of the way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Want to go straight to Christiane Amanpour. She is standing by there at the United Nations. Christiane is with me. Also, Elise Labott is with me as well who spoke with John Kerry, Secretary of John Kerry, about this just yesterday.

But, Christiane, first to you. And you heard the secretary of defense speak last hour. You're getting reaction from the U.N. What is your read on all of this?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we have got reaction coming in fast and furious. It's turned chilly here, perhaps matching the cold, hard reality of what has just been unleashed in Syria.

Now, the head of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, has told reporters that he is very concerned that what Russia has done is not targeting ISIS so far, but especially, he said, no real effort by Russia to deconflict its operations with those of the rest of the coalition.

That means no real attempt or effort by Russia to make sure nothing goes catastrophically wrong between Russian planes and missiles and the strikes that other aircraft U.S.-led coalition are doing. So, that is a real concern, not to mention the very real tragedy of Russia, which said it was going to fight ISIS. Nobody think that it has fought ISIS in its first round of airstrikes at this time.

We also know that the Syrian opposition have said that their own people are being hit and they feel that they are under increased attack now, not just from Bashar Assad, but from the Russians as well, and we have also -- I just spoke to the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, who's also taking part in the strikes against ISIS in Syria. And he was just scathing about the reports of what Russia has hit today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAURENT FABIUS, FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER: If it is the case, it means that this Da'esh attack is a pretense and in reality the only aim is to support Mr. Bashar al-Assad.

And we have a very precise position about it. We think that supporting Bashar al-Assad and presenting him like the solution for the future, not only from a moral point of view is not acceptable, because he's a criminal against humanity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So, as he was saying, morally, they consider Assad a criminal, in other words, has committed crimes against humanity.

But efficient -- from an efficiency point of view, he also said that any more strikes on civilians or the more moderate opposition or the opponents of Bashar al-Assad will simply drive more people into the arms of ISIS.

[15:10:00]

So, on day one after Russia told President Obama and all the assembled leaders here that they were going to fight ISIS, on day one of their military operations, we see where they are going -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: I have one more for you, Christiane. But let me just turn on that point to Elise.

You know, one day, two days after. Did President Obama get played by Putin?

ELISE LABOTT, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly, President Putin was holding his cards close to his chest. But this is what President -- Secretary Carter was basically saying. This is the Russian military acting very unprofessionally.

And, look, Putin is the commander in chief of that military. To not...

BALDWIN: They spoke together for 90 minutes behind closed doors.

LABOTT: There's a lot of talk about deconflicting. The Russians are not trying to -- not only are they not trying to deconflict. They are trying to ground the U.S.-led coalition. They told them an hour before.

BALDWIN: Get out of Syrian airspace.

LABOTT: Get out of Syrian airspace and didn't tell them where they were going, and unless the U.S. wants some kind of confrontation, they have to be very careful.

And so, I mean, Russia has control of the battle space right now, and it's pretty obvious that the U.S. is going to have to find some accommodation with Russia. They certainly have the momentum. They have created this new facts and new realities on the ground.

I think one of the things that really struck me about Secretary Carter's address is when he was talking about what he wanted to talk to the Russians about, none of those things -- it was about sharing information, making sure it doesn't interfere with U.S. operations against ISIS.

BALDWIN: What didn't he say?

LABOTT: What he did not say was more important, was he did not say, we want to make sure that they're not going after opposition targets, which really -- you know, these opposition were supposed to be the opposition not only fighting Assad, but to be going after ISIS.

Now he's basically left them to say, what we're really concerned about is our operations of ISIS and what the Russians could do to that.

BALDWIN: Quickly, just to follow up to Christiane, as I'm hearing all of this, the people of Syria, we have seen these streams of refugees fleeing, risking life and limb to leave Syria, Christiane. I'm just wondering, this will get worse.

AMANPOUR: Well, it will. I mean, it's obviously going to get worse.

And, as you know, for years now and even today, they are calling for some kind of buffer zone, some kind of safe haven to protect themselves from now the multiple assaults, the assaults by Assad and his barrel bombings that have gone on unstopped since there was a so- called deal between the United States and Russia to end chemical war and to end the chemical weapons.

Well, Assad moved his chemical weapons into barrel bombs, i.e., chlorine gas and the like, and he is still using them against the people. You have got that. You have got the ISIS attacks in certain civilian areas. You have got now the Russian attacks. Where are these people meant to do? There's no buffer zone. They have crammed and filled to the gills all the refugee camps in Turkey, in Lebanon, in Jordan.

And at the same time, international funding for those camps is slowing down, in some cases drying up. So, then the spillover comes to Europe, across the sea, on to Greece, into Italy, through the Balkans, through Europe and creating mayhem and an unmanageable situation there.

So, this is all this inexorable development from allowing Assad to carry on for four-and-a-half years and now -- now to watch him being bolstered by President Putin. And we have heard today from all sorts of officials who want to remind us, including President Obama and John Kerry, the secretary of state, reminding us all that the bulk of the atrocities committed against the people of Syria have been committed by the president and the government of Syria of Bashar Assad.

And this must not be forgotten. The Russians are trying to twist that and say that it's all ISIS. No. For four-and-a-half years, it's been Assad. That's what it's been for four-and-a-half years. And the Americans are trying to say, well, you know, we tried to set up a few fighters, but we couldn't and therefore all of you who said we should equip and train are all wrong, are all fantasies, our critics were wrong.

The fact of the matter is that they didn't and they weren't able to do it, A, because they didn't do it soon enough and, B, when they started, they have been putting impossible conditions. We will allow you to equip and train, but only if you fight ISIS.

Well, for people fighting for their lives against Bashar Assad, they're not going to say, we're just going to fight ISIS. We're going to fight whoever fights us, including Bashar Assad. And that's what they're telling us, the fighters on the ground.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Right. Right. Christiane Amanpour, thank you very much. Elise Labott, thank you.

We are getting more breaking news. We're getting word that the White House's message seems to be a bit different from that from the Pentagon.

You're watching CNN's special live coverage. I'm Brooke Baldwin -- back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:19:15]

BALDWIN: This is CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

We have just heard from Secretary of Defense Ash Carter speaking from the Pentagon just within the last hour on these Russian airstrikes in Syria, giving the Pentagon's take. But the message from the White House is a little different.

So, let's go to our White House correspondent. Michelle Kosinski is joining me with the White House. What is the White House saying here two days after President Obama met with Putin?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. That's what makes it so interesting, because of this sit-down meeting,

the first time the two leaders spoke face to face in two years. And the message that came out of that meeting was about trying to coordinate and at the very least communicating, agreeing to communicate military to military on what they were going to do against ISIS in Syria, talking about how Putin's priorities did seem to be against ISIS and on communication with the U.S., if not full-on joining that coalition.

[15:20:07]

But there was some optimism after that. And now this seems to have come at some degree of surprise, although the White House and the Pentagon don't want to say that. They insist that this is not surprising, given that Russia has backed Putin -- has backed Assad in Syria for a long time, and given that Russia has moved its equipment in.

So, they have seen airstrikes coming. It just seems that two days ago when we heard from the White House it seemed like Putin really was focused on ISIS, and now we hear from the Pentagon that he seems to be striking in areas where ISIS is not.

The White House, though, doesn't want to weigh in with too much detail. They say let's wait and see what all the analysis shows before we jump to conclusions as to what Putin's goal really is there. They don't want to criticize too much or say, you know, we know what the intention is. And as for the communication, too, obviously no coordination coming with Russia before these airstrikes began, but, again, the White House is saying they have set up the means of communicating now with Russia, that there has been contact of, OK, let's talk about this.

But it didn't happen before the airstrikes started. So, they're saying, let's wait and see what that communication does show before we really start questioning what Russia's intentions are going to be moving forward, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Michelle Kosinski, thank you.

I want to stay on this, bring in another voice, Daniel Drezner. He's an international politics professor at Tufts University and a contributing editor for "The Washington Post."

So, Daniel, thank you so much for being with me.

DANIEL DREZNER, TUFTS UNIVERSITY: Thank you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: You essentially say -- from what I have read from you, you say Vladimir Putin wants Russia to engage in the Middle East. Good luck with that, that there is -- quote -- "no need to get worked up about Russia's Syria policy."

After today, do you still believe that?

DREZNER: I still believe it, with the caveat that I am somewhat worried about the fact that Russia gave such a short time window to U.S. forces and the U.S.-led coalition to get out of Syrian airspace.

I think the biggest risk that comes from Russia's operations in Syria is an accidental conflict or an accidental skirmish with the U.S.-led ISIS coalition. But it's worth remembering that a year ago we were talking about Barack Obama and his decision to actually decide to use airpower in Syria as a way to somehow combat ISIS. And it's a year later, and at the time, it looked like it was an aggressive show of force.

And we know that a year later, it didn't work out terribly well. So, I would say that the question about whether or not Putin's actions in Syria will actually lead to what he wants it to lead to is unclear now. And my hunch is, a year from now, he's probably going to wish that he hadn't gotten involved.

BALDWIN: That's interesting.

Let me follow up with you also were sort of grading the relationship with Obama. You say, oh, the Obama administration gets an F for its handling of Syria and a D for its handling of Vladimir Putin. I'm wondering why you didn't give that an F as well.

DREZNER: Because, as much as Vladimir Putin has been a thorn in the side of the United States, it's also worth pointing out that Russia actually has paid a significant price for some of its actions, particularly with respect to Ukraine.

BALDWIN: You mean sanctions?

DREZNER: It's worth remembering that three or four years ago, Vladimir Putin had a very loyal ally in charge in terms of Ukraine. And now, while he successfully annexed the Crimea and he has some forces in Eastern Ukraine, he also has an implacably opposed Ukrainian government based in Kiev that very, very much wants to be part of Europe and part of NATO.

And, furthermore, the Russian economy has paid a deep price over the last year for its actions in Ukraine. And you can argue in some ways that what Putin is doing now in Syria is potentially a way to distract the Russian population from a combination of its worsening economy and from the fact that its forces are bogged down in Eastern Ukraine.

BALDWIN: Professor Daniel Drezner, thank you so much.

Ahead, we're staying on this, this major development here, the fact that Russia has apparently targeted Syrian rebels, not ISIS, Syrian rebels, in these new airstrikes today. We will speak live with a former U.S. ambassador to Syria about what it means for those on the ground.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:28:34]

BALDWIN: All right, breaking news. Hurricane Joaquin, only the third hurricane this season, churning toward the Central Bahamas, Category 1 storm expected to hit the island chain later today or tomorrow, getting steadily stronger.

Let's go to Jennifer Gray tracking this.

Where is Joaquin right now?

JENNIFER GRAY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hi, Brooke.

Yes, Joaquin is just to the east of the Bahamas. In fact, they should be feeling the effects within the next 24 hours or so. Winds of about 85 miles per hour with gusts up to 100, moving to the southwest at six miles per hour. Still a lot of question marks as to where this storm is going to go.

It is expected to meander right around the Bahamas for a day or two, intensify and could possibly become a major storm in the next 72 hours or so, and then lose a little bit of strength as it travels to the north. This cone is very, very wide, this cone of uncertainty. And so you have to be on guard if you're anywhere from the Carolinas all the way up through north of New York into portions of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and you have to keep in mind that this storm may miss the U.S. completely.

So, that's why you have to be aware, but yet stay tuned to the forecast because a lot of changes in this over the coming days. Here's where most of the models agree.

Over the next 24 to 48 hours, they do agree that it is going to stay just to the east of the Bahamas, travel to the north, and then beyond that, a lot of them are starting to take it a little more of that western track, even impacting portions of South Carolina, North Carolina.

And then we have a couple of outliers that are taking it straight out to sea.