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New Day

Scotland Votes No on Independence; Senate Approves Arming Syrian Rebels; ISIS Releases New Hostage Video

Aired September 19, 2014 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID CAMERON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: The people of U.K. have spoken.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news, the United Kingdom still stands. Scots reject independence. Why? And what now after the bitter campaign to break away? We have what comes next.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: War path. The Senate approves the first phase of the battle against ISIS, arming and training Syrian rebels to fight against them as the terror group releases another hostage video. We're live with the latest.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Air scare. Look at this video. A JetBlue cabin filling with smoke. Passengers forced to put on oxygen masks as the plane makes an emergency landing. We're going to hear from those on board.

CUOMO: Your NEW DAY starts right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Kate Bolduan, and Michaela Pereira.

CUOMO: Good morning. Welcome to the TGIF edition of NEW DAY, September 19, check, 6:00 just about. Check. Scotland wins independence? No check.

A historic vote could have broken up America's closest ally, but in the end, the United Kingdom remains united. Scotland rejecting independence in a dramatic referendum, hence the tears from that young man.

The race, too close to call in the days leading up to the vote. A lot of bad blood certain to remain. So we begin with chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, who has the latest on the historic decision from Glasgow, Scotland. And let's be honest, Christine (sic), in some ways, for all the drama, the vote, Christiane, may have been the easy part. How does this country now really unite in the aftermath?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, you're absolutely right. It's been determined as a political earthquake. And not because they voted for independence, but because they did not. And that's because of all the promises that the prime minister has made, David Cameron, to keep the Scottish people inside the United Kingdom.

The whole of this country is now going to change. He made it very clear in his speech shortly after the vote was final. Remember, it was 55 percent voted to stay inside the United Kingdom, 45 percent voted for independence. Cameron said he was delighted. Alex Salmond, of the Scottish Nationalist Party, conceded defeat but said, "This is now over for a generation."

But lots and lots and lots of change coming to America's strongest and most trustworthy ally. Because this whole political situation is going to change, with power deinvolved not just to Scotland, but to Wales and really probably functionally to Northern Ireland, and even around England itself. Nobody quite knows what's next. Chris?

CUOMO: Christiane, thank you very much. And obviously something we have to follow going forward because the strength of that united country very important to the U.S. in so many different levels and obviously important to itself.

Christiane Amanpour, thank you very much for being with us this morning. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Let's turn to the fight against ISIS. The president's plan to degrade and destroy the terror group is moving forward now that the Senate has approved a measure to train and arm Syrian rebels to fight back against the terror organization. The House signed off on the measure just a day earlier. But support among lawmakers for the ISIS campaign remains shaky.

Let's bring in senior White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, for more on this. What are we hearing from the White House this morning? They got what they wanted. They got that vote.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Despite some nose-holding up on Capitol Hill, Kate, that's right. President Obama's plan to defeat ISIS has cleared a major hurdle. Congress has bought into the president's strategy, at least the part they could vote on.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The joint resolution is passed.

ACOSTA (voice-over): Just before speeding out of Washington for the mid-term elections, Congress gave President Obama the green light to arm and train Syrian rebels in the war on ISIS.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The strong bipartisan support in Congress for this new training effort shows the world that Americans are united in confronting the threat from ISIL.

ACOSTA: The Senate approved the measure attached to a must-pass spending bill by an overwhelming margin. But potential GOP presidential contenders were divided, with Senator Marco Rubio voting yes and Ted Cruz and Rand Paul saying no. Noting that Congress declined to authorize the president's overall strategy, Paul dubbed Mr. Obama's battle plan "one man's war".

SEN. RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: He was running against the wars of the previous administration. And people voted for him for that very reason and he became part of the problem.

ACOSTA: Despite the endorsement from Congress for at least part of the president's strategy, lawmakers were voicing doubts to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If this plan doesn't work, what is the alternative? What does it look like in the Middle East then?

CHUCK HAGEL, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Well we always have plan Bs and Cs; that's what the military does as well as anybody in the world. But we believe this plan will work.

ACOSTA: The Obama administration is pointing to the stepped-up air campaign against ISIS that U.S. military officials say took out a terrorist training camp in some of the latest strikes.

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: I can tell you that I don't think these guys are ten feet tall, and the intelligence tells us as we've begun to hit them, we've been able to prove that to some degree.

ACOSTA: President Obama welcomed France's decision to join the coalition in conducting air strikes on ISIS, a sign that battle against the terrorist group is just heating up.

OBAMA: As Americans, we do not give in to fear. And when you harm our citizens, when you threaten the United States, when you threaten our allies, it doesn't divide us, it unites us.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA (on camera): And the French government has confirmed in just the last several minutes that its war planes are now conducting air strikes alongside the U.S. As for the president, he'll be pushing to expand that coalition when he makes the rounds at the United Nations next week in New York. This weekend, he heads to Camp David where he's likely to receive more updates from his national security team on the fight against ISIS. Kate.

BOLDUAN: Yes, much more to learn on what role those 40-plus countries are going to playing in this campaign. That's for sure. Jim, great to see you; thanks so much.

ACOSTA: You bet.

BOLDUAN: Chris?

CUOMO: You hit it on the head, Kate. I mean, that's what everybody's waiting for. That's why this feels so unusual even in the discussion going on in Congress. So let's get better sense of this. Let's bring in Paul Begala, CNN

political commentator, Democratic strategist, senior adviser to Super- PAC Priorities USA, and Mr. Doug Heye, one-time deputy chief of staff to former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and former communications director for the RNC. Gentlemen, thank you for joining us on NEW DAY.

DOUG HEYE, FMR. DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF TO ERIC CANTOR: Thank you. Good morning.

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMETNATOR: Thanks Chris.

CUOMO: Mr. Begala, this doesn't feel good, what's going on here. The Democrats aren't really running up behind the president the way they usually do. There's a lot of uncertainty, even more than we've seen in the past in our forays into the Middle East. What do you make of the situation?

BEGALA: I actually think it's a very healthy thing. But the president got a bipartisan majority. He got a majority of Republicans, a majority of senators, majority of the House and a majority of the Senate. He's even got the French. But -- and I was on the Hill yesterday, met with a bunch of congressmen and senators.

You're right. But I think that's a good thing. I -- look, those of us who oppose the war in Iraq didn't like the way we all sort of marched into it without asking tough questions, or enough tough questions. So I like it; I think this is a big win for the president. At the same time, the American people -- you know, we're not schizophrenic as Angus King said on air a couple of weeks ago, the senator from Maine. What we are is Goldilocks. You know, we don't ground troops but we don't want to just sit back and let these animals attack Americans, so we're trying to find a middle ground and trying to find some allies. I think that news out of France is huge.

CUOMO: You know, Mr. Heye, correct me if I'm wrong, but Goldilocks went into a house she wasn't supposed to be in, ate everybody's food, wound up asleep in a bed, and almost got killed by three huge bears. Do you think that's the right metaphor to be using for this?

(LAUGHTER)

HEYE: I don't know, maybe we could talk about a Jolly Green Giant. But, look, this was a win by the president, bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate.

But we've talked so much over the past couple years about divides with the Republican Party and the Tea Party and the Republican Party moving right that we've kind of lost sight on a Democratic Party moving left. And this is what we saw over the past two days in the House and Senate. And the Elizabeth Warren kind of wing of the Democratic Party has a real divide on what the role of America should be.

In moving forward, if I'm an Iowa Democratic caucus-goer and I'm a liberal progressive, this is an issue that's going to affect Hillary Clinton, if she's running for president. It's going to affect the Democratic Party over the next two years, just as it will the Republican Party, where there's a divide on this issue as well.

CUOMO: See, but I also think -- look, the analysis sounds spot on and obviously that's something that has to play out through the elections, but it's also dangerous on a level to even analyze this this way. And this is -- I'll bounce it back to you, Paul. This is about war, OK? Not about the spin game and who gets more seats in Congress. It may have that impact. Heye is right about that.

However, the big problem here is that, fundamentally, the United States is entering into a situation where it seems, more and more, it is the only one that is willing to fight. What can come that's good in this situation for us down the road?

BEGALA: Well, I think that's right. First off, that's the tough question we should have been asking more back in 2003.

CUOMO: Wait until you hear the interview we did with Muasher, the guy that was the foreign -- the Foreign Minister for Jordan; now he's an analyst for us in the Middle East. He doesn't even flinch when he says that Jordan is not going to put boots on the ground. He doesn't even flinch. He says, you know, this is complicated for us. You are the guys who want to use military, talking about the U.S. I thought this was their fight, Paul? That's what the president says.

BEGALA: Well, I think that's exactly right. As I said, I think it's really good news that the French, who never did want to join with us in the last war in Iraq, are already in and have skin in the game. They are risking French lives right now to attack ISIS and that's an important thing from an important ally and a sometimes reluctant ally.

But we've got to build it out. And the most important allies will be those Arab nations in the Middle East. We're not going -- the president is really clear about this -- the United States is not going to put boots on the ground because that's not the solution here. It's burden-sharing.

CUOMO: But then who does? Who's going to put the boots on the ground? Who's going to --

HEYE: I think ultimately we will. And that's the challenge we face as we're trying to build this coalition.

I would agree with Paul; the news of the French joining us, which obviously just happened, is great news. We've got bipartisan praise of France here, which doesn't happen very often.

But we have real splits between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party on this that isn't about politics. You know, if you watch Rand Paul and John McCain yesterday, that wasn't about politicking for votes; that's about what the foreign policy of the Republican Party -- and we see the same thing on the Democratic Party -- is going to be for the next generation. These are very serious things.

CUOMO: Now, let me ask you this, though, Doug. Here's one point of criticism, because the Republicans are driving so much of the state of play in Congress right now -- on not just because of numbers, but where we are politically.

This vote or stay, you know, fix or stay, which we're trying to get going as a hashtag again like we did with the shutdown, the irony here is, the good news out of the vote yesterday is, they voted to fund the government for a few more months. So that's good that they didn't threaten to shut down the government.

HEYE: That doesn't always happen, by the way.

CUOMO: Right. That's good news. Take good news where you find it.

However why aren't they debating these issues and having an up or down vote, not just on arming whoever, the Free Syrian Army turns out to be down the road. But why not having a vote on really what we're doing here? Why are they allowed to skirt the issue?

HEYE: I wouldn't disagree with you.

CUOMO: Rand Paul is strong saying this is one man's war right now, because you guys in Congress, especially on the Republican side, aren't doing the job of voting.

HEYE: Well, I think on a lot of issues, we are doing the job of voting. Where we've had so many jobs bills, which obviously is not the topic you're talking about --

CUOMO: No, I mean on this, on this.

HEYE: But on this issue, I think we should debate this more, and we're going to continue to debate this more. This is going to be a long process.

CUOMO: No, it should start now.

HEYE: The House stood behind the president. And I can tell you --

CUOMO: It should have started now. This is easy, the funding of THE -- we know that although we're just funding a step right now, You know this isn't one step; this is the step. And why wasn't this a vote right now? Why wasn't it taken seriously? Is it because of midterms?

HEYE: No, I think it's the first step and we're going to continue do debate this, not just in the lame duck session, but in the next session as well.

CUOMO: Paul Begala, is this the first step or was this the step? Once this begins, can you turn back?

BEGALA: No, I don't think can. And I think that's why this president has been so reluctant. You know, a lot of people say he was dithering. I'm the chairman of the dithering caucus. I want my president to think carefully before he does it. But he did get authorization that he needed from the Hill.

The other thing he did this week, and I know e covered it, but Wednesday, the president went to Tampa to meet with General Lloyd Austin, the head of the Central Command. Now, when the president -- having worked in the White House, when the President of the United States gets on Air Force One and carries himself to Tampa, it is not to play beer pong with General Austin. You're going to see, I suspect, real -- what the military people call kinetic action, that is a really aggressive attack in that region, or the president wouldn't have gone down to CENTCOM to get briefed by his top commanders. This thing's about to get very real.

CUOMO: It's already very real.

Paul Begala, thank you very much. Doug Heye, great to have you on NEW DAY.

Goldilocks reference, weak. Beer pong, strong. But it certainly has started, guys. Have a very good weekend.

A lot of news out there, let's get you over to Mick.

PEREIRA: So you're clear, no beer pong, right? That's off the table?

CUOMO: No, the beer pong, very strong.

PEREIRA: All right, let's look at your headlines, 11 minutes past the hour.

We start with Ebola. The entire nation of Sierra Leone is in lockdown for the next three days. Six million people have been ordered to remain in their homes while door-to-door searches are conducted for victims who are hiding. This outbreak seems to be spiraling out of control in West Africa. There are over 2,600 deaths now reported.

Police investigators in the town of Belle, Florida, are trying to figure out why a grandfather killed his daughter and six of his grandchildren before taking his own life. Those children ranged in age from three months to ten years old. Authorities say 51-year-old Don Spirit had a criminal record; he served time for shooting his son in a hunting accident back in 2001, and later for a firearms conviction.

Suspected cop killer Eric Matthew Frein has been placed on the FBI's ten most wanted list. A massive manhunt is under way in Pennsylvania for Frein. Authorities believe he ambushed state troopers a week ago, killing one of them. The FBI is now offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to Frein's arrest. Police around the nation, meanwhile, attended the funeral for Corporal Brian Dickson in Scranton on Thursday.

Police have released now a sketch of the man they want to speak to about a missing UVA student. A witness says Hannah Graham was approached by this man at an off-campus pedestrian mall. I was hoping we'd have the sketch there, sorry. But they say he is almost six feet tall, heavy set, with a close-shaved head and goatee. The video that they have is the last known evidence, here it is, of Graham's whereabouts. A man has come forward saying he was the one seen following Graham. He told police he wanted to help her, but he walked away after another man approached her. It is official, the Home Depot credit card breach is larger than

Target's, much larger in fact. The home improvement giant confirming that hackers compromised a stunning 56 million credit cards in a five- month-long security breach. 40 million cards were hit in the Target breach. Home Depot's CEO issued an apology to customers for all the quote-unquote, "inconvenience and anxiety". The company says the malware has been eliminated from its payment systems.

BOLDUAN: Hard to wrap your mind around those numbers at this point.

PEREIRA: 56 million.

BOLDUAN: 56 million, 40 million, I mean, my gosh.

PEREIRA: And that it went on for five months, too.

CUOMO: The easy thing is to blame the company. I mean that', my instinct, I'm at Home Depot a lot.

PEREIRA: But we want to fix it, right?

CUOMO: And it could be any of them. I mean, that's what we're seeing is that there's just a fundamental vulnerability here.

BOLDUAN: Agreed, but I think they deserve a little blame.

CUOMO: All right.

BOLDUAN: OK?

CUOMO: I changed my mind, I've evolved.

(LAUGHTER)

PEREIRA: Have you? What?

BOLDUAN: Shocking.

CUOMO: That's crazy talk.

BOLDUAN: This morning, a new message from ISIS delivered in what amounts to really a propaganda video. It features a British hostage who's been held for almost two years. We're going to have the details on this next.

CUOMO: And boy, you'd never want to see this -- smoke filling the cabin on a JetBlue flight or any flight, for that matter. This was JetBlue passengers panicking, many convinced they were going to die. So what happened and how did they make it through? We'll tell you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: Welcome back to NEW DAY.

A new video from ISIS with the message coming from a Westerner. British journalist John Cantlie presents what he says is the first in a series of messages from the Islamic terror group. It's a major change from the gruesome execution-style clips ISIS posted in recent weeks.

CNN's Brian Todd is taking a look for us at the new message and the man delivering it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): John Cantlie says he's been abandoned by his government and has nothing to lose, the British journalist who identifies himself as a prisoner of ISIS for two years, sits in front of a camera wearing an orange jump suit. He appears calm but emphasizes he's a prisoner, he admonishes British and American audiences.

In the video, he says, quote, "after two disastrous and hugely unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, why is it that our governments appear so keen to get involved in yet another unwinnable conflict?"

Cantlie promises a series of programs where he'll explain ISIS' motivations, and how he says the Western media twists and manipulates the truth.

AKI PERITZ, FORMER CIA OFFICER: Perhaps one of the ISIS leaders decided that it's much more effective to reach out to the British and American publics by having somebody not be murdered and actually explain the ISIS perspective.

So, this actually might be their next evolution, their next phase in doing something like this.

TODD: Since Cantlie is delivering ISIS propaganda and makes clear he's under duress, CNN has decided not to show the actual video. John Cantlie is reported to have been captured in Syria with American James Foley in 2012.

But this wasn't the first time he'd been abducted. In July of 2012, jihadist militants captured Cantlie near Syria's border with Turkey, and held him for only a few days. He spoke to Britain's Channel 4 News about that experience.

JOHN CANTLIE, BRITISH JOURNALIST: There were two Syrian prisoners, we were handcuffed this them. We were blind-folded and we were told we should prepare to meet our maker.

TODD: Cantlie escaped, he said, with the help of a moderate Syrian rebel group. As a journalist, he'd taken these photos of scenes of Syrian civil war. In the new ISIS video, Cantlie says many Europeans were held hostage by ISIS and later released, saying it was because of their government's actions, quote, "They negotiated with the Islamic State and got their people home, while the British and Americans were left their people behind."

He doesn't mention the American and British governments have policies against paying ransoms. Contacted by CNN about this video, a British official said the foreign

and commonwealth office is assessing the production, considering its implications and trying to contact John Cantlie's family.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BOLDUAN: Let's continue this discussion. Brian Todd, thank you so much.

But let's continue this so much with Daveed Gartenstein-Ross. He's a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracy.

Daveed, thanks so much for coming in.

DAVEED GARTENSTEIN-ROSS, SENIOR FELLOW, FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: My pleasure.

BOLDUAN: Of course, I want to ask you your take. I've seen the video, you've seen the video, we're not showing the video, that's important. It's a very different look. It's a very different video. This is not something, it's not a beheading, this is not Jihadi John wielding a knife making broad statements about how ISIS is going to take on the United States and this is a retaliation for U.S. involvement in Iraq and Syria. Very different tone.

What do you make of this change in tone?

GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: It's a very different video. From my view, it's potentially much more macabre than the other videos.

BOLDUAN: I agree.

GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: Bear in mind it's supposed to be a series of videos, we don't know how it ends yet. When I look at it and look at the narrative arc, one thing he mentions is that the U.S. and the U.K. won't negotiate. It seems to me like potentially, what the script is doing is setting up his death at the end. Making him walk through the series of propaganda pieces and then executing him -- setting up the narrative that it's the U.S. and U.K. to blame.

BOLDUAN: It seems more twisted, when you lay it out that way, because I absolutely agree with you. Why do you think they would change this tactic? Because the gruesome beheading videos were getting a whole lot of attention.

GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: It may be because they think it's more effective to have a Westerner talking to a Western audience. Another possibility is that there's an element of revenge. As the piece that set up this discussion notes, he had previously been held by -- by extremists in Syria.

And after Cantlie was held, he actually fingered some people involved. This has been reported in the media. So there actually may be an element of revenge in walking him through this gruesome series of videos.

BOLDUAN: You have this element of -- it's also a different type of message. They're not threatening retaliation. They're not threatening to come after the United States. The way that it's laid out and Brian used this line of it in the piece, they talk about why would our governments appear so keen to get involved in yet another unwinnable conflict.

What are they trying to do here? What's this message?

GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: I think there's a few different messages here. One is a message to the people of America and Britain, saying your governments are getting involved in unwinnable war, trying to reduce the legitimacy and the reduce the legitimacy of the action or to create public pressure against it.

BOLDUAN: On that exact point, though, does it almost show, I hate to say their savvy, but how attuned they are to Western mentality. It's almost like they're playing to the polls.

GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: To one extent, but to another extent not. To most reasonable people watching this, they'll understand that it's somebody literally under duress at the barrel of a gun. And so, to a large extent, it's not going to resonate the way that they hope.

It's set up very well. He appears calm. He's in a newscaster's position, that's what he is. He's an anchor for this program.

But the duress and the fact that they just released three beheading videos makes the coercion behind his words very clear.

BOLDUAN: It seems pretty understandable and reasonable to think that Cantlie will suffer the same ending, the same death at some point that the other videos that we've seen, that we saw in the other videos.

Do you think there's a real impact here of this video, though, on the U.S., on the west?

GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: I don't think there's a huge impact in terms of policy. I think there may be an impact, you know, his words may resonate to some extent and may help to produce some dissatisfaction and then there's the general demoralization or just horror of having someone walked through having to be a propaganda piece for this outfit and then if he is killed, let's hope he is isn't, but if he is killed at the end, having that grisly end as well.

BOLDUAN: Yes. Make no mistake: this is another way they are terrorizing, another way that this group is trying to spread their terror. There's nothing less gruesome about it, just because we're not seeing a beheading on camera.

Daveed, it's great to see you. Thanks so much.

GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Of course. A JetBlue flight forced to make an emergency landing after the cabin fills with smoke. The panic was captured on cell phone video -- just look at that. What passengers are saying now about the flight that some thought would be their last.

And, it could have spelled the end of the United Kingdom, but Scottish voters rejected independence, opted for the status quo. We're going to talk to Christiane Amanpour about what it means going forward.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Some of the passengers on board JetBlue flight 1416 say they thought they were going to die and here is why -- this is just minutes after takeoff Thursday from Long Beach Airport in California. Smoke filling the cabin. A passenger whipped out their cell phone so you can get a sense of it all.

We now have the answers to why it happened.