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Perception of Muslim Religion's Role in Terrorism; Angry Backlash Against Oscar Nominations

Aired January 16, 2015 - 08:30   ET

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

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Sleeper cells activated and ready to strike in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. This chilling discovery made after major terrorist attacks thwarted in a deadly raid in Belgium.

Meanwhile, at least a dozen people arrested in Paris as part of the investigation into last week's terror attacks. The suspect said to be associates of this man, Amedy Coulibaly. They are accused of providing logistical support.

Here at home, the 20-year-old Ohio man who allegedly planned to bomb the U.S. Capitol, he's making his first court appearance today. Christopher Lee Cornell was arrested Wednesday during an FBI sting.

Well, that flu shot, only 23 percent effective this season according to the Centers for Disease Control. Researchers say the virus mutated, makes it harder for the vaccine to work.

For the second time in a month, Muhammad Ali has been hospitalized. A spokesman says the Champ is getting follow-up care after a severe urinary tract infection. We send our best regards.

We always update those five things to know. Make sure to go to newdaycnn.com for the latest.

Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: The Paris terror attacks and the threats across Europe are raising not just questions about military action and investigations but of perception. Does the Muslim faith have anything to do with the violence? Now, some will say that's an obvious answer, yes, it does. And others will say, no, the faith is getting a bad rap and this is much more subtle than that.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Also, controversy erupting less than a day after the Oscar nominations are announced. Do the nods prove that the Academy is out of touch when it comes to race and gender?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: One issue we're dealing with is what to call terrorists, right?

CAMEROTA: Yes.

CUOMO: Another is whether or not Muslims are getting a bad rap being identified as part of the terrorism problem at all. So the question becomes, is the world dealing with a Muslim terror threat or is that a false perception? We have Dean Obeidallah, he's a columnist for "The Daily Beast" and host of Sirius XM's "The Dean Obeidallah Show," and Buck Sexton, CNN political commentator, former CIA counterterrorism analyst and national security editor for theblaze.com.

So, Dean --

DEAN OBEIDALLAH, COLUMNIST, "THE DAILY BEAST": Yes.

CUOMO: Why - you, you know, sparked us being here today. You wrote a piece saying, hey, you think a lot of these terrorists are Muslim? Not even close. Make your case.

OBEIDALLAH: Sure. I mean, and one thing I want to make it clear, I'm not saying there are not a threat of Muslim terrorists out there. in fact, I wrote an article for CNN yesterday, 88 percent of the victims of al Qaeda are Muslims. So Muslims are the biggest target of al Qaeda and ISIS, whose view does not submit to Islam or ISIS or al Qaeda (INAUDIBLE). Statistically I'm talking. So we're fighting the perception. When people say -- even enlightened people will say, well, I know all Muslims aren't terrorists but all terrorists are Muslim. That's not true. Even in the E.U., the last five years, Europool (ph) said 2 percent of all terrorist acts in the last five years have been Muslims. Same thing in the U.S. from - over the last 10, 12 years, about 94 percent are non-Muslims. Thirty-seven Americans have been killed by Muslim terrorists in America since 9/11, 37. We've had 190,000 murders in that same time. My point is not to tell people do not be fearful of Islamic terrorists. My point is to say, let's put it in context. Let's look at the real threat.

CUOMO: Right, but the push is, is your context creating definitions and parallels that aren't fair ones, Buck?

BUCK SEXTON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I think the context is wrong because you have to look at different acts of terrorism as what they actually are. When you add lethality into the statistics he's talking about, then all of a sudden Islamic terrorism, jihadist terrorism is far and away the leader. In fact, more than half of all terrorist attacks in 2013, based upon the State Department's counterterrorism reports, occurred in three countries, three Muslim countries, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. He points out that Muslims are primarily the victims of terrorist attacks. So I think it's not useful for anyone to point out that, well, there are these other acts. But, yes, somebody lighting a trash can on fire because they're an ego terrorist or some SUVs is not the same as somebody trying to blow up an airliner or take down an entire building. There are differences, there are distinctions that should be made.

CAMEROTA: But, Buck - well, good point, but there's -- this is where I always get stuck. And maybe you both can help me with this. When the Westboro Baptist Church does something odious at a military - a fallen military man's funeral because they hate homosexuals, no one asks real Baptists or real Christians to apologize for that. Everyone recognizes that they are a separate, extreme, strange group. Is it time to say -- have a different word rather than Muslim extremists or rather than Islamic radicals, a different word for this other cancerous group that's doing these things?

SEXTON: Well, yes, I think I used it. I think jihadist is probably the most appropriate term. It's somebody who's decided to engage in what is basically a death call and does have a pretty straightforward and cohesive world view and it's about conquest in the name of Islam. And this is concurrent among jihadist groups all over the world still, from Morocco to Indonesia.

CUOMO: But that's still counting them as Muslim. And that word that the -

CAMEROTA: No, jihadist separates it. I mean --

SEXTON: It is the -- no, it is still Muslim, but it is a strain of Islam. It's not all of Islam, obviously.

CAMEROTA: OK, does that work for you?

OBEIDALLAH: Muslim jihad just doesn't mean someone wagging a holy war. It also means someone trying to get self-realization, fulfill themselves. So it means two things to Muslims. Using the word Islamic terrorist all the time paints a picture for the average person that Islam is part of what they're doing.

CAMEROTA: Right.

OBEIDALLAH: These people are Muslims. I have no doubt. I cannot deny they're Muslims. Nothing they're doing is based in the faith. They're fabricating things and saying, we're doing this in the name of Islam. It's not connected. If a Christian - if someone is Christian and commits a horrible act, I don't call them a Christian terrorist unless they're doing something based on the Bible.

CAMEROTA: Oh, got it.

OBEIDALLAH: Saying we are born (INAUDIBLE) because our religion proceeds (ph) it.

CAMEROTA: OK, so should we just say jihadist? Is that what we should do to help the Muslim community (INAUDIBLE).

OBEIDALLAH: Jihads would be better. I think that's a nice move.

SEXTON: Jihadist is still Muslim and they obviously think, and I think you actually can see this, that they are implementing Islam and there is a whole lot of people who are apparently very confused about where they're getting (INAUDIBLE) from if it has nothing to do with Islam. You see terrorist groups all over the world that are engaging in the same kinds of acts for the same purposes against the same victims, against the same parties.

OBEIDALLAH: They're not doing it. But they're not doing parties (ph).

CAMEROTA: But, yes, as we've learned this week, some of what they say they're fighting for is not in the Koran.

OBEIDALLAH: It's made up. That's exactly -

CAMEROTA: They've made it up.

OBEIDALLAH: It's like their own religion. They are Muslims - it's very effective. If people think that al Qaeda was offended three and a half years ago by cartoons in Paris by "Charlie Hebdo" and sat around for three years and planned this, you're kidding yourselves. This is a decision by them, a political decision. ISIS eclipsing them. ISIS getting the press, getting them money and getting the recruits. Without that, al Qaeda fades away, withers and dies. This was a decision made recent for a political agenda for (INAUDIBLE) -

SEXTON: But this notion - this notion that - right, but this notion that jihadists are this fringe group that have no support, they just pop up, individuals here and there -

OBEIDALLAH: They're all a fringe group. (INAUDIBLE).

SEXTON: They're a fringe group but when you start to actually look at the iceberg of jihadism and go below that, there is actually - there's state support for them. There's a tremendous amount of money that goes into these groups. There is the exports of Islam from Saudi Arabia, from all over the world and so that's --

CUOMO: So where does it leave us?

OBEIDALLAH: (INAUDIBLE).

SEXTON: But this is a global threat and a global issue. So the notion --

CUOMO: But they can't' both be true. Both of these propositions can't be true. It can't be that these are all one-offs, loners who say they are part of a faith but they're not practicing it and that you have a growing number, it's organizational, it's state sponsored all in the name of Islam.

SEXTON: They actually have a doctrine called talk fear (ph), which is where Muslims say that other Muslims, because they don't believe what the jihadists, what the hard liners or the extremists believe, are no longer Muslims and that actually allows them to attack fellow Muslims, which is why you have more Muslims killed in terrorist attacks than any other group around the world.

OBEIDALLAH: ISIS doesn't care about Islam. ISIS slaughtered - they're Sunnis. They slaughtered Sunni imams, nurses, children who would not submit to ISIS. It's not about the - it's about profits (ph). That's what terrorism does. There's a political agenda, not a religious agenda. To me, an Islamic terrorist would be, if there's five pillars in Islam, on is charity. If someone goes around killing --

SEXTON: And when you see Boko -

CUOMO: Wait, hold on.

SEXTON: What Boko Haram did over the past week, that's not about -- OBEIDALLAH: Boko - there's nothing in the Koran - but there's nothing

in the Koran - that's a war. That's a civil war.

SEXTON: That's not about -- that's not politics. That's not politics.

OBEIDALLAH: It's a single, political agenda.

SEXTON: They're not using - they're not putting a suicide vest on a 10-year-old girl because of politics, because they want a separatist agenda.

OBEIDALLAH: What are they doing it for? That's a - you think that's in the Koran? I'm a - show me what part of the Koran it's in and then we'll have the discussion.

SEXTON: They - they - they believe - I'm just telling you what they believe. They -

OBEIDALLAH: I don't care. They think - they make up anything.

SEXTON: They're (INAUDIBLE) real Islams.

CUOMO: Could be. If they believe - because, you know, Buck is not just an expert, right? He's not just a CIA guys. It's that a lot of people that you want to address feel this way in the United States.

OBEIDALLAH: I agree. I know that.

CUOMO: Which is, the guys say they're Muslim. They say they're killing because of what's in the Koran. And then they're going and killing people.

OBEIDALLAH: Yes.

CUOMO: That's a problem. And it's a Muslim problem. How do you address it?

OBEIDALLAH: I agree with you 100 percent. It is perception. That was the point of my article, to try to have a conversation about this. One, give people statistics. At least maybe that alleviates some concern.

Our biggest problem in America, and you talked about the Westboro Baptists -

CAMEROTA: Yes.

OBEIDALLAH: Sixty-two percent of Americans don't know any Muslims. There was a survey this summer. So all you know about us is horrible images on TV, you're not going to like us. They don't have a Muslim friend. I will be their Muslim friend. I have no problem - I could help them move. But I'm there for them as their Muslim friend. I would rather answer their questions then let people on the right, who don't know anything about us or have an agenda to demonize answer those questions.

CAMEROTA: Yes, of course.

OBEIDALLAH: That's part of it. Not having a human connection gives you no counter balance. So all you see is negative.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. So what's the answer? I mean other than you being friends with everybody.

OBEIDALLAH: Getting in the media more. Making it clear Muslim groups have gone out -- come out and denounced this. We're not apologizing. We have no connection. We're denouncing it. We're saying these people have nothing to do with our faith.

SEXTON: But they just -- I understand all this. But the point is that if you downplay the threat of radical Islam, if you downplay the threat of jihadism, if you start to compare it to separatist groups in Europe or ego terrorists or people that put a pipe bomb in front of a police station somewhere, you're not actually addressing the threat. I constantly hear from Islamist scholars about the need for a reformation. And then the moment a discussion opens up, everyone says, don't be Islamaphobic. We don't want to actually talk about this.

CUOMO: This does say -

SEXTON: If we don't talk, it doesn't change.

OBEIDALLAH: Well, I agree with that, that -

SEXTON: And the people who are - the people who are suffering the most are Muslims.

OBEIDALLAH: Yes.

SEXTON: And this jihadist strain is a part of Islam. It is right now.

CUOMO: There is certainly -

SEXTON: Maybe it won't be in the future.

CUOMO: There's certainly a point of view from experts like Buck and obviously you qualify as an expert also, Dean.

OBEIDALLAH: Thank you.

CUOMO: You've been writing about this for a long time. And when you're in the region, they say, there is a war within Islam. There is a fight over what the mainstream or the faithful be (ph), even though the numbers don't suggest it. You have 1.6 billion Muslims and certainly nowhere near that in terms of who we're dealing with as terrorists. But it does play into this issue we just had with the White House. What do we call them? If you ignore the notion of being Muslim in connection with this terrorism, I think it feeds the phobia of Muslims in general because it seems like you're avoiding the obvious.

SEXTON: You increase distrust when you say you can't talk about an issue.

CUOMO: Right.

SEXTON: Or when you say the discussion of an issue is Islamophobic or is even racist, which is just ridiculous because Islam is not a race, as we would all agree.

OBEIDALLAH: Right. And that's -

SEXTON: It's a belief system which must be open to criticism, interpretation and debate.

OBEIDALLAH: And I agreed about this. We have to have an honest conversation. Not name screaming, not yelling, calling each other names, but having a conversation. Let's get to the point of it. There are some horrible Muslims out there. I hate them. I wish they did not exist and I'd love to do what I can to help counter them. And all I can do is through my writing and media appearances. And people in our Muslim community are standing up.

CAMEROTA: We're doing it this morning. We are having that conversation.

OBEIDALLAH: We are.

CAMEROTA: Buck Sexton and Dean Obeidallah, thanks so much for being on with us.

OBEIDALLAH: Thank you.

CUOMO: Very helpful. Thank you, fellas, and have a good weekend.

OBEIDALLAH: You too.

CAMEROTA: Let's go over to Michaela.

PEREIRA: All right, Oscar nominations announced yesterday. Today, an angry backlash following those announcements. The reason, a lack of diversity among nominees. So, is the academy out of touch?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: And the award for the least diversified field of Oscar contenders in two decades goes to, the Academy. The Oscar nominees in all of the major categories this year, mostly white, mostly male. In the acting categories, all 20 nominees are white. That hasn't happened since 1995. The five directors and 14 screen writers nominated, yes, you can guess it, all men. The last time that happened, 1999. This is not just me that's noticing this, okay?

Here to discuss Christopher J. Farley the senior editorial director features at "The Wall Street Journal." and Larry Hackett, the former managing editor of "People Magazine." Gentlemen, oh, what a difference a day makes. All of the nominations have sunk in, and I was thinking about this. Chris, I'll get you to respond to this. It's such a year for terrific diversity in film, in topics, in the actors, in the directors behind the scenes and the nominations reflect the exact opposite of that. CHRISTOPHER J. FARLEY, SENIOR EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, DIGITAL FEATURES,

"THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": Yes. This tends to happen every year. I mean, obviously last year, "12 Years a Slave" kind of made people think maybe there's a break through here because it won. Because the numbers are so low, if one film doesn't break through, not seeing any films out there. This year, of course, all of the major nominees for acting are white and also gender diversity is something you have to talk about. All of the major films that were nominated - -

PEREIRA: I'm talking about diversity across the board.

FARLEY: All - - eight of the films are centered around men. I mean, there's some female protagonists in there somewhere, but for the most part they're about the experiences of men. You have to wonder what's going on with Hollywood. Box offices are down 5 percent, perhaps a little diversity might help the fortunes.

PEREIRA: The question is not just about Hollywood, but perhaps about the Academy. We'll get to that in a second. Larry, here's a question about Ava DuVernay. So many people believed she was a shoe in, no nomination for her. People are wondering what happened? What is your assessment of what went wrong there?

LARRY HACKETT, FORMER MANAGING EDITOR, "PEOPLE MAGAZINE": The Oscar campaign is like politics. You can look at the Golden Globes as being the Iowa caucuses of (INAUDIBLE), an incredibly small number of people with an inordinate amount of influence, right? The nominations are kind of like the convention when the films come out. The space from Iowa to the convention in politics and from the Golden Globes to the Oscars, it's politics. It's a campaign. You have to have a ground game, you have to have a media game. You may have seen Ava DuVernay on some - -

PEREIRA: She was out there, she was everywhere.

HACKETT: But was she talking it up to people? Was Paramount doing enough to get her a nomination? This is all part of what goes on. The nominations are done by categories, so directors nominate directors and actors nominate actors. I'm sure Paramount and others are looking and saying, did we do enough to make this thing happen? This is not about necessarily always a good movie and meaningful topic, a wonderful, inspiring film, it's about getting voters to vote for your movie.

PEREIRA: Okay, those voters, and this is an important thing to talk about, those voters are the members of the Academy, the voting members, 94 percent white, 77 percent male. Does that --

HACKETT: Over 55 percent over 60.

PEREIRA: Over 60. So, in terms of having diversity of thought and ideas, could that be playing into it in your estimation?

FARLEY: That could be part of it. I mean, the fact is that in the best director category, only four women have ever been nominated, only one woman has ever won. So, of course it wasn't much of a shock when Ava DuVernay was not nominated this year. It's funny because this one is counter to one of the main themes in one of the most acclaimed movies of the year, "The Imitation Game," instead (ph) of all about diversity. There's a line in there that really strikes me where they say, "Sometimes it is the people that no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine. And that's a call for people like Alan Turing, who was gay, to be part of the discussion, to be part of creating great things. It seems the Academy is not taking the advice of one of the greatest movies of the year.

PEREIRA: I'm curious what you both think and, Larry, I'll start with you, one of the things that we heard about with "Selma" is there was some criticism about the historical inaccuracies. Gasp, what a shocker, a Hollywood film that is not true to history, this could have bitten the film in the butt, or - - We've seen this before. Why would it have played a part in this story and not others?

HACKETT: We have seen it before and it was mentioned with other films that were nominated, but if you noticed, I saw Ava DuVernay on Jon Stewart, he mentioned it. Lawrence O'Donnell, while praising the film, he mentioned it. It's out there, so I think it was attached to it and probably attached more to people who didn't see the film or ask to nominate than - -

PEREIRA: You think it might have been an echo in the back.

HACKETT: It became a comma, (INAUDIBLE) of "Selma," comma, which has been dogged by controversy, comma. I mean, that's the way it got to be seen. Again, what happens in political campaigns? These kinds of things, right? Someone tries to maybe take down something else. This is all part of what goes on.

PEREIRA: It's kind of interesting, Spike Lee sounding off on it, and I'll paraphrase, because he used some colorful language, our Spike Lee did, but basically saying to Ava, like, hey, don't worry about it. You made a good film. Keep making good films. That's all that matters.

HACKETT: Well, not only that, but now you have the voting. The nominations are over. Now you have 6,000 members of the Academy who are going to vote. Maybe this helps. Maybe people will see "Selma" as having been unfairly treated and maybe that will change the voting.

FARLEY: I remember when Ben Affleck was not nominated for "Argo" people were up in arms about it. "Argo" ended up winning best picture. So, maybe things could end happily for "Selma."

PEREIRA: Okay, so now here's a question. We also heard some rumblings about issues with the screeners, Paramount, Chris, apparently had some sort of delivery issue with the screeners. Could that have come into play? What do you know about that?

FARLEY: Well "Variety" had a report saying that maybe the screeners weren't distributed in as a timely fashion as they could have been so people could watch it, react to it, vote for it. But, you know, Ava DuVernay, she was everywhere, she held a number of smaller get togethers so people could get to know her, get to know the cast, get to know the themes of the movie "Selma" that I thought were very effective. I went to one of them - -

PEREIRA: Do you think she should have been nominated?

FARLEY: I heard about some of the reactions from the others. Well, her movie, "Selma," on an objective basis had a 99 percent rating from "Rotten Tomatoes."

PEREIRA: That never happens.

FARLEY: It's the highest rating for any movie that was nominated for best picture this year. So certainly there was huge universal claim for this film, that's why it becomes sort of a shock that she did not get nominated for best director.

HACKETT: I also think, you know, if you are of a certain age, and clearly the Academy voters are, you read about this film, you're like yes, I know this story. However, if you see it, it is incredibly powerfully rendered. So, the fact that the screeners didn't get to people, even though they heard it was a great movie and even though she was doing media hurts (ph), again, I don't belabor this political analogy, but the ground game is part of this. If you can't get the movie to people who vote, you have a problem.

PEREIRA: But then I can give the flip side. Angelina was everywhere. "Unbroken" was - - there was a lot of buzz about "Unbroken" and it didn't get the love at the Oscars.

HACKETT: I think there was almost a paypol (ph) rollout of this movie and I think that put a bad taste in some people's mouths.

PEREIRA: Well, #oscarsowhite trending now on Twitter so it's not just us having this conversation here. Larry and Christopher, always great to have you. We have so many discussion to have leading up to Oscars. Let us know what you have to say. Tweet us @NEWDAY or go to our Facebook.com/NEWDAYpage.

Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Okay, Michaela. Take a look at this rug. In dog we trust, it says.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

CAMEROTA (voice-over) That's not what it's supposed to read, so what is one sheriff's office doing about this now? It's the Good Stuff.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: It's Friday. The world is bubbling with trouble, so we need the Good Stuff and here it is. Title: a typo is a blessing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO (voice-over): Back story, the Pinellas County sheriff's office orders a custom rug for their lobby, it says, "In God we trust." Beautiful. Sits there a couple of months, then an eagle-eyed deputy notices it actually reads, "In dog we trust."

(LAUGHTER)

CUOMO: Woopsie, that's $500 of good old government money down the drain-o. Right? Incorrecto. The sheriff's office promises it will not sweep the error under the rug as it were, decides to auction off the corrupt carpeting for a local animal rescue charity.

PEREIRA (voice-over): Well, how about that.

CUOMO: Take a listen.

SHERIFF BOB GUALTIERI, PINELLAS COUNT: And whoever the high bidder is will get this rug that is definitely one of a kind. I can tell you that there's probably - - there has never been and will never be a rug like that again.

CUOMO: As most auctions do, they go to the highest bidder. Sheriff says that bid's really high. Interest from around the world, bidding right now over $2,000.

PEREIRA: Come on.

CUOMO: Rising all the time. Why? People love their pets.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PEREIRA (on camera): They sure do. I am a little concerned that it would have cost $500 originally for the mat.

(LAUGHTER)

PEREIRA: Can't you get it for $20?

CAMEROTA: Yes, right? I agree.

CUOMO: And it was a tight twill there.

PEREIRA: Tight twill.

CAMEROTA: It will go to a dog lover who will give it a good home.

PEREIRA: Talk about making lemonade out of lemons.

CUOMO: A lot of news on this Friday, let's get you to the "NEWSROOM" with Ms. Carol Costello in whom we trust.

CAMEROTA: Have a great weekend.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: I like that. Have a great weekend, thank you so much. NEWSROOM starts now.

CUOMO: Thank you, ladies.