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New Day

CIA Director Brennan Under Fire; Black Congressional Staffer Plans Walkout; Officer in Garner Takedown Questioned; Is the American Dream Dying?; NFL Toughens Policy on Assault and Domestic Violence

Aired December 11, 2014 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Six-thirty in the East. Here's a look at your headlines:

CIA Director John Brennan under fire in the aftermath of that scathing Senate report on the agency's torture tactics. Some lawmakers are demanding he step down. Brennan is going to meet with the media and answer questions about the report this afternoon. The Justice Department also weighing in, insisting there will be no new investigations or prosecutions in the case.

Today, black congressional staffers are planning to walk out of Capitol Hill in protest the Eric Garner and Michael Brown grand jury decisions. Organizers say the demonstration is an effort to support the ongoing national and global protests against police aggression. In the meantime, six mothers gathered in Washington to share their pain from losing their sons in police shootings.

The police officer -- pardon me -- the police officer who a New York grand jury decided not to indict in the death of Eric Garner told investigators he never used a chokehold, that he used a takedown technique he was taught in the academy to arrest someone who was non- complaint. That's what Officer Daniel Pantaleo told internal investigators this week according to his attorney. Cell phone video that we've shown here on CNN shows Pantaleo wrapping his arm around Garner's neck. Medical examiner ruled that death a homicide.

Is the American dream dying? A growing number of people in our country believe hard work no longer pays off.

I want to show you this "New York Times"/CBS poll. Just 64 percent of Americans say it's still possible to start out poor in this country, work hard and become rich. Thirty-three percent say it is not possible any more. That's the highest pessimism rate in 20 years.

I've decided I'm going to do an unofficial MP NEW DAY poll.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: MP, Michaela Pereira.

PEREIRA: Can you work hard and have a good life? I think you know what I mean, start poor, work hard and become rich. Let's bring it here, is my -- ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Just have a good quality of life. Yes,

but I still believe you can start poor, and work hard and become rich, if that's your goal. But the great equalizer has always become education and now that tuition is so prohibitively expensive for people, that's what's making it harder to have -- to lasso that American dream, I think.

CUOMO: Contrast, Facebook, please let us know what you're doing.

PEREIRA: Chime in.

CUOMO: That's we try to incite these types of dialogues. I take the MP position, which is how she lives her own life. She works very hard, but for a purpose that makes her feel good about her hard work. A key for people, very often people work very hard these days for no good reason. I take the MP way.

CAMEROTA: The quality of life part of that.

CUOMO: Yes.

CAMEROTA: All right. I like that.

CUOMO: All right. How about this one -- 67-year-old fisherman lost at sea for near will two weeks -- true story -- back home. And now, his estranged son is preparing to reunite with him. The two have not spoken since the '90s, Ron Ingraham was found alive Tuesday, 12 days after his boat went missing in the Pacific Ocean.

CAMEROTA: Amazing.

CUOMO: It's an amazing story of survival and now a reunion.

Sara Sidner has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Rescuers thought he died at sea, but after nearly two weeks in rough seas, fisherman Ron Ingraham is clearly alive and well enough to crack jokes.

RON INGRAHAM, RESCUED FISHERMAN: I was out of water but I hydrated on fish. I'm a fisherman, so I caught fish and that wasn't as good as the sushi bar, but that's how I hydrated.

SIDNER: A true fisherman's tale that could have ended in disaster.

On Thanksgiving Day, he made this call for help as his 25-foot sailboat was taking on water.

RON INGRAHAM: This is a mayday, mayday. I'm in the middle of Alenuihaha Channel. Small boat in danger of sinking.

SIDNER: He says current sucked his boat 200 miles away from where he was trying to go, in the waters off the Hawaiian island of Oahu.

RON INGRAHAM: I tried all through the night, weather came up. I couldn't make it.

SIDNER: After four days, the Coast Guard called off the search for the boat. They simply couldn't find it. That's when Ingraham's son, Zakary, got a call from the coast guard telling him his dad was missing.

ZAKARY INGRAHAM, RESCUED FISHERMAN'S SON: The commanding officer of the Coast Guard told me they were going to call off the search. Yes, I just, I broke down and started crying.

SIDNER: Miraculously, after 12 days at sea, a Navy ship found the 67- year-old and his boat after the coast guard heard a short mayday call from Ingraham and his son received, yet, another call from the coast guard.

ZAKARY INGRAHAM: I was thinking of an image of somebody you know, floating in the water. And I said well did you find his sailboat, too. And they said, no, we found your dad and the sailboat and he's alive.

I would love to be able to go see him and you know give him a big old hug. Merry Christmas, pop.

SIDNER: Sara Sidner, CNN, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PEREIRA: He said his dad is no tough that Rambo would have a picture of his dad on his wall.

(LAUGHTER)

PEREIRA: I love that.

CAMEROTA: He must be, he must be to survive that ordeal.

Now, what a nice silver lining of all things.

CUOMO: That's right. Whatever it was that kept them apart for all these years -- just faded away when they realized they may lose each other forever. Great story to have.

CAMEROTA: All right. Well, we'd love it hear from you on that story as well.

Meanwhile, critics are calling on the head of the CIA to step down over the Senate's blistering torture report. But CIA officials say the tactics used helped the U.S. find and kill Osama bin Laden. So, we will talk with a former CIA agent who hunted for the notorious terrorist and try to get the answer.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Former Vice President Dick Cheney says the Senate report on the U.S. interrogation methods during the Bush administration is, quote, "deeply flawed and full of crap." But there are growing questions this morning about how effective those enhanced interrogation methods or torture, as the report called them, really were when it came to getting intelligence on Osama bin Laden.

Let's bring in retired CIA officer and author of "Jawbreaker", Gary Berntsen.

Gary, great to have you with us this morning.

Because there are so many conflicting reports about whether or not these enhanced interrogation techniques worked or whether they didn't and whether they did help to find Osama bin Laden -- what do you believe?

GARY BERNTSEN, RETIRED CIA OFFICER: I believe when you're questioning a terrorist, you've got to have a lot of tools. Now, I don't support torture, but I do support something more than the Second Amendment and something more than the army's field manual for questioning people, because what we have there really clearly doesn't cover all eventualities.

CAMEROTA: OK. So, you do believe --

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: Yes, go ahead.

BERNTSEN: In this particular case, you've got to have establishing rapport with some of these people works. In other places, you got to put pressure.

Look, we got terrorists that we capture, that when we capture them, they tell us, when we're released, we're going to kill your wives and your children. They just tell us that. And so, that's the attitude you've got facing these guys.

CAMEROTA: Yes, of course. I mean, look --

BERNTSEN: Some of them you're going to have to put pressure on. You're going to have to have sleep deprivation. You're going to have to have constant questioning. You're going to have to be at them.

And you've got to find a fine line where we don't violate sort of -- you know, all the norms of morality. But at the same point --

CAMEROTA: Gary, I just want to interrupt you, because do you have evidence that any of those stronger techniques you're talking about, the waterboarding, the sleep deprivation, if they did, in fact, lead to information that got Osama bin Laden?

BERNTSEN: I haven't read the specific files, because I was -- you know, I was involved in the invasion and then I was off doing other things around the world. But from a numb of my associates that I spoke to that were involved in the program, they told me, the pressure worked. I've spoken with some of the interrogators. I know you've got some interrogators on television who say it doesn't work. I've spoken to some of the interrogators that actually had 20 years of

interrogation experience in the military speak Arabic and said, yes, he gave us this, this, and this and it was helpful to the overall effort.

Look, they weren't going to pull the trigger on an effort to capture bin Laden and go across that border unless they had information from four or five different, you know, platforms, whether it's interrogations, human intelligence, all of that, because it was a big issue to cross that border.

What I was told and repeatedly by people is that it -- it was a contributing factor in their decision to do this and to proceed in the capture of bin Laden.

CAMEROTA: OK. Let me tell what you the Senate report says about this. As you know, there was a courier who was instrumental and the thinking was, if you find this courier who is a constant companion to Osama bin Laden, you'll find Osama bin Laden. There was a detainee who knew about this courier, and who provided that information.

Let me read to you what the report says. "The CIA detainee who provided the most accurate tier 1 information linking Abu Ahmad al Kuwaiti, that's the courier, to UBL, known as Osama bin Laden, Hassan, that's the detainee Ghul -- sorry -- provided the information prior to being subjected to the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques." "Hassan Ghul, that's the detainee, opened up right away and was cooperative from the outset."

Gary, after that, he was stripped, he was chained to a wall for 40 minutes with his hands over his head and that didn't provide anymore information.

BERNTSEN: In some cases, coercive mechanisms, in others, they don't. It's a mixed bag, Alisyn.

But the fact is you've got to have people to have good judgment, who are managing these programs, and clearly, there were mistakes that were made, but the reality is the people that were doing, that were involved in this process, didn't believe him in the beginning and moved to a second phase.

Was it a mistake in that case? Maybe. But again unless -- the problem with the report is they didn't interview the people involved. If you're just looking at paper, maybe half of what goes on goes on paper. But if you've got a 12-hour interrogation center, do you think they covered every minute? It's going to be 1,000 pages per interrogation.

You've got to talk to the interrogators, the case officers and the chiefs of station that are managing these operations most closely. If you don't interview those, it's not a complete picture.

CAMEROTA: Gary, I want to ask you about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, because there are other reports that say that the enhanced interrogation techniques or torture, as some people call them, actually only produces faulty and fabricated information. So, here is what the report says about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

It says that the interrogators first began threatening KSM's children. On March 9th, 2003, KSM fabricated information, indicating that Jafar al-Tayar and Jose Padilla were planning something because he explained on April 23rd, he felt some pressure to produce information about the operations in the United States in the initial phases of his interrogation. He admits he was fabricating information because he was subjected to some of these tactics.

BERNSTEN: Alisyn, again, I go back to this -- the report was written by a group of people that had a political agenda. It wasn't balanced in its writing and they didn't interview everybody. I mean, it's -- yes, can you read the report all day long and I think that it's, think the report is a hit job on the agency. And I think that it could have been more balanced, there could have been more balance in its writing. They should have interviewed the people.

Yes, based on the report, the agency looks like -- every single line looks like incompetence, brutality and it looks like the program is worth nothing at all. And I refuse to believe, that understanding that throughout the work of my career, during 20 years, I saw a foreign governments using terror against some of our sources and breaking some of them at times. And I've seen governments that were friendly to the United States using coercive methods and getting information that was very useful and allowed the capture of people that saved American lives.

It's a mixed bag in this. You just need to have really smart people managing these programs, good common sense in this. And if you've got information to provide openly, you've got to be able to check that information very, very quickly.

CAMEROTA: Gary, its' always great to talk to you. We appreciate your perspective. We appreciate your service to this country. Thanks so much for coming on NEW DAY.

BERNSTEN: Great pleasure.

CAMEROTA: Let's go over to Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Alisyn.

So, in the wake of Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson in the NFL, the owners unanimously approved a revised personal conduct policy. What is it and does it address the problems the right way? We're going to take a closer look at how this will affect the league. We'll check that out.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGER GOODELL, NFL COMMISSIONER: The vast majority of our players are great men, they're great sons, they're great husbands. They're great fathers. We have nearly 3,000 players in any given year. And we're going to have people make mistakes. And we want to make sure that we do everything to prevent that from happening. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: What do you do when it does happen?

That was NFL commissioner Roger Goodell addressing questions about the NFL's new personal conduct policy, after saying with the early cases we've heard about, he blew it, especially the Ray Rice case.

All right. So, what about this new policy? Is it enough?

Let's bring in people to assess. We have CNN commentator and legal analyst Mel Robbins, and former president of the NFL Players Association, George Martin, New York Giant -- wished he was a Jet. We'll leave that for another day.

Mel, let me ask you this -- Goodell admits he blew it and then says I met with Bratton about the right thing to do. We're going to deal with the machine, let's deal with the man first, did he say the right things? Is he in the right position now?

MEL ROBBINS, CNN COMMENTATOR AND LEGAL ANALYST: Good morning, guys, and I laugh that you just had to get that jab in there, Chris.

CUOMO: Just the truth.

ROBBINS: He did say the right thing. He did say the right thing, Chris. I think it's important that he admit his mistakes and I've got a lot to say about the policy. But in terms of about how Goodell is now handling the press conference, he's doing it a decent job.

CUOMO: All right. So, let's put up what this new policy is. It's very unusual. I spoke to a management consultant who said we would never storyboard our thinking this way. This is the statement from the union, OK? They're saying they're upset because they weren't consulted about what this policy is, they were just given a professional courtesy to review it before it hit the press.

But I also want to put up what the policy is. George, let me ask you about the statement that we just had up. The union's carping, they should have consulted with us, should they have?

GEORGE MARTIN, FORMER NFL PLAYER: Absolutely, without question. I don't think that you can implement a unilateral policy that's going to be as far-reaching as this is, without consulting the people who are going to be impacted and that is the NFL Players Association.

I think the fact that they left Morris Smith out and he did not have an opportunity to give input was a serious flaw on the part of Goodell.

CUOMO: The presumption is that the union would want less, right? They would want to sew their players not be punished as much for things like this. Maybe that's why they were excluded from the dialogue.

MARTIN: Well, that's an assumption that could be true or false, and I think that you run the risk that if he does get it wrong a second time you're going to incur the wrath of not only the NFL Players Association, but the general public once again.

CUOMO: Put the policy back up there again, Mel. And the reason I want it back up there is this management consultant said to me, this flow chart -- here's the problem. It shows they're going to have this procedure they follow but he believes that it's an example of how they're not set up to do this. That they're not set up to investigate potential crimes, they're not set up to punish this type of behavior and its flawed in its premise.

What do you think?

ROBBINS: You know, Chris, it's an excellent question and I agree 100 percent. And, you know, just listening to what George had to say, I think what the union wants is clarity.

What I found interesting about this flow chart is that it illustrates two things. First of all, these cases are complicated, particularly when you have a parallel criminal proceeding. And secondly, I was stunned, Chris, by the fact that there's not a lot that's changed.

CUOMO: Right.

ROBBINS: There's no mandatory suspension.

There's a lot of words like "could" "may do this". And so, I think as a player I'd be feeling a little worried, because I'm not exactly sure what the NFL will do. If somebody gets arrested tonight, Chris, and charged with domestic violence, do we know exactly what's going to happen? No.

CUOMO: There's also this gray area about things they find out that the police don't find out.

This is -- this is -- this is a tough situation, George. I mean, what's the league supposed to do? You could say the policy should be this. If I hear something bad about George Martin, you're out until we figure it out. That's not going to stand with the union, will it, especially if the cops aren't involved?

MARTIN: No, you're absolutely right, Chris. And I think what this policy does, it does create a sort of a double-jeopardy because it's in some cases circumvents the criminal justice system, number one and it also kind of gives you the presumption of guilt as opposed to presumption of innocent. Why should an athlete be charged with something and then later proven innocent of it and he's already been penalized by the league?

I think that's a serious faux pas on their part.

CUOMO: If you're -- if you hit your wife, your girlfriend, OK, and we have reason to believe it happened, the prosecution -- six games. You think that's enough in terms of what this league wants to project about who the men are who put on the helmets? MARTIN: You know, Chris, far be it for me to talk about what's right

and wrong relative to domestic abuse. I don't want to make the same mistake that Roger Goodell has made. I think that there are greater minds should come together and talk about this collectively. I think that you should have input from the NFL Players Association as well as the league and you should have the professionals from the domestic abuse society to help craft this policy because it is so important.

CUOMO: Look, I take your point. But, Mel, at the end of the day, if you get jammed up rightly for hitting your spouse or your child, the penalty is six games. What do you think of that?

ROBBINS: It should be. I think it should be and I think it should be really black and white and the NFL shouldn't be the ones investigating this thing.

CUOMO: But is six games enough?

ROBBINS: Let's take a look at Ray -- yes, I think six games is enough to get the process started. But what I'm concerned about is this -- you got Ray McDonald of the 49ers arrested in August, accused of assaulting his 10-week pregnant fiancee. Guess what? The D.A. didn't dismiss the case, they made a public statement that they couldn't prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. Why? Well, of course, because his fiancee is now not cooperating.

These cases are complicated. Ray McDonald did not sit out a single game. He should have sat out for six games.

I personally believe that you make the policy very simple by saying at the moment of arrest, you're out for six games. You still get paid, but the NFL, Chris, should not be in the business of being like oh, he choked her, that's two more games, oh, he had a gun, that's another four games, oh, he only slapped her? That's two games.

That's ridiculous. It needs to be a clear policy, end of story, Chris.

CUOMO: A lot of people are arguing, Mel, that if you actually do something like that, the fact that you stay in the league is odd to begin with, but we're going to have to see how this plays out, because they're still figuring it out. They have problems with their union. So, let's see what the next phase is.

Mel Robbins, George Martin, thank you so much.

MARTIN: My pleasure, Chris.

CUOMO: All right. Now, the biggest factor in this is how you feel about it, because this is your league, right? They make their money off your desire to watch and accept the players in the games. So, what do you think? Go to Facebook, you do Facebook.com/NewDay and let us know.

This is one of the stories we're following. There's a lot of news this morning, let's get to it. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If another country files an arrest warrant for a U.S. official, the Justice Department would not enforce it.

RICHARD CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: I think it's a terrible piece of work.

BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS: This report says it was not successful.

CHENEY: The report is full of crap.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: This issue is not about them, it's about us.

SEN. MARK UDALL (D), COLORADO: The CIA is lying.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You will do whatever it takes to get him to talk.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of the most wanted terrorists in the world.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Officials say every reason to believe he is still alive. The leader of the group also still alive.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bill Cosby is now facing a new lawsuit.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She has filed a lawsuit attempting to restore her good name and reputation.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to NEW DAY. I'm Alisyn Camerota with Chris Cuomo.

The Justice Department will not take action in the aftermath of the Senate's bombshell CIA torture report they say. But the question is, will the White House?

CUOMO: The head of the CIA, John Brennan, is certainly coming under fire. Some lawmakers are calling him a liar, demanding his resignation. Brennan not backing down, agreeing to meet with the media and take questions about the agency's tactics. That's going to happen later today, and, obviously, we'll cover it.

Let's get to the White House and see what their posture is here and what they're pushing for.

We have our senior correspondent Jim Acosta -- Jim.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris.

That's right. The White House is steering clear this morning of the two big questions coming out of this torture report. Should CIA officials be prosecuted for the harsh interrogations? And did those interrogations even work? The White House just won't say. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA (voice-over): With the debate raging over the fallout of the torture report, the White House is staying on the sidelines.

Press Secretary Josh Earnest refused to weigh in on whether CIA officials should be tried for interrogation tactics the president himself has described as torture.

(on camera): Do those details warrant going back and reexamining whether people should be prosecuted?

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Decisions about prosecution are made by career federal prosecutors at the Department of Justice.

ACOSTA (voice-over): The Justice Department says the federal prosecutors who looked into the program won't be launching a new investigation based on the report from the Senate Intelligence Committee's Democratic chair, Dianne Feinstein.

Trial or no trial, the CIA has some big names coming to its defense from former Vice President Dick Cheney, who blasted the report on FOX News.

CHENEY: I think it's a terrible piece of work. We did exactly what needed to be done in order to catch those who were guilty on 9/11 and to prevent a further attack, and we were successful on both parts.

BAIER: This report says it was not successful.

CHENEY: The report is full of crap.