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Guilty Verdict in 'American Sniper' Trial; McConnell OK's Vote on 'Clean Bill' to Fund DHS; ISIS Abducts 150 Christians in Syria; Interview with Sen. Angus King

Aired February 25, 2015 - 07:00   ET

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

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, I was in the courtroom when Taya Kyle gave that testimony, extremely powerful. The jury was deeply moved.

Should point out that Taya Kyle was not in the courtroom when the verdict was read. She had stormed out during closing arguments. She had been made so angry as a result of things that the defense said regarding the death of her husband, Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: It's so hard for the family, Martin, to have to hear anything that in any way might justify such a tremendous and irreplaceable loss. Thank you for the reporting.

Let's try to make more sense of how they got here so quickly and what this may mean going forward. We have CNN senior legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, Jeffrey Toobin. Always good to have you.

So what we've done here, now that they've released everything, these are the big moments, and you'll get to hear and see it for yourself now, the way the jury did. So let's start with what the prosecution had on its side. Right? One, they had the confession, right? I would tell them, "I'm so sorry for what I've done." How important was this under Texas law?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: This is probably the single most important piece of evidence in the case, because it is immediately after the shooting. And here you have Routh, basically saying, "I know what I did was wrong. And I'm sorry." And right and wrong is the standard under Texas law. Does the defendant know that what he did was wrong? The jury said yes, and here it seems to me is the key piece of evidence.

CUOMO: And that's why it's hard to fault this jury in any way. They applied the law. That's why it was so quick. Doesn't mean they didn't do their job.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Then, the purchase was for two bean burritos, which the cost was $2.18. Add 18 cents tax, and the total was $2.36.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: So he bought two burritos. Oh, that doesn't mean anything. It could mean everything. Because...

TOOBIN: Because it again shows he is acting rationally. He is not someone who is out of touch with reality. This is someone who had his wits about him, if you can call it that; was not under some sort of delusions of what he was doing.

CUOMO: Now the defense argued that the other way, which is that it's proof of how out of touch he is, that after doing something so grisly and horrible to someone he knew cared about him, he actually did something so routine, showing that he didn't have that upset of emotion that killers often have, whether sane or not.

Then the chase. They watched this chase, and the prosecution was very strong on this. Because they said, and as we heard in the sum up put in a very indelicate way by the prosecutor, "Crazy don't run." What were they saying?

TOOBIN: Flight. Flight is another very key point in this case. If you don't think you are doing anything wrong, you don't flee. If you do think you did something wrong, if you think you committed a crime, you run away from the police. He ran away from the police.

CUOMO: And the defense wasn't able to continue his delusion into that the cops chasing him meant something different to him. So that hurt him.

Then we get into the things that matter for the defense.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... your son?

JODI ROUTH, MOTHER OF EDDIE RAY ROUTH: Absolutely I did. On Thursday, they called me at school and said, "We're releasing Eddie. You need to pick him up."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You begged the U.S. government not to release your son.

ROUTH: Yes, sir.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: We hear this again and again. I've been saying from the beginning. This trial is about things that are bigger than just the facts of this case. Congressman Tim Murphy out of Pennsylvania has a bill, families can't get help for people who are mentally ill.

The defense was saying, they knew he was sick. He had been put inside four times, voluntarily and involuntarily. Why didn't that matter enough?

TOOBIN: Well, this was the strongest defense evidence in the case. You had the family pleading with the V.A., saying, "Keep him in the hospital."

CUOMO: And the V.A. having recognized and diagnosed extreme mental illness.

TOOBIN: Right. And this is one of the many reasons why this case is so sad. Is because everyone knew that Routh was a very troubled person. Now, whether he fit the exact category of legal insanity, that's what the trial was about. But just in a humanitarian way, this was a case about a young man who was in terrible trouble and obviously didn't get the help he needed.

CUOMO: It is no small irony that Chris Kyle was trying to help this man in a way that he will never get helped again. Because now he's in jail for rest of his life. And we know that's not a place about mental health rehabilitation. Then this...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At the time, we had had decorative ninja swords by our front door. So when we got towards the front door, he grabbed one of those swords and said, "No, we're not going anywhere," and proceeded to insist that people were out to get us and we needed to stay in the apartment, because the apartment was safe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: It's not that he was a bully. It's his girlfriend saying he thought, typical paranoid schizophrenia. And he wound up being diagnosed with it. Why wasn't this enough?

TOOBIN: Juries don't like insanity defenses. You know, we ask a lot of jurors. It's hard to diagnose people. it's hard to explain why anyone does what they -- does what they do, even sane people. And yes, he was troubled. But juries don't like to give someone a break who did something so horrible.

CUOMO: And also, look, it's a statement of where we are as a society also. Mental health is not given the respect of other illnesses. It just isn't.

TOOBIN: We don't see it like cancer or heart disease.

CUOMO: We see it as an excuse. And they said exactly that.

This is him...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EDDIE RAY ROUTH, CONVICTED OF MURDER: Been so paranoid all day...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: ... where he's saying...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

E. ROUTH: I don't know if I'm insane or -- sane. I don't know what's even sane in the world right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: So, he's saying the right kinds of things, but the prosecutor said, this guy is saying what he needs to say. He said it before, and it got him off the hook. And look at his demeanor: he's not crazy.

TOOBIN: Right. Well, I mean, that is a very -- that to me was the most peculiar piece of evidence in the case. Because at one level, it does show mental illness. But the almost matter of fact way he's talking about paranoid schizophrenia, it makes it seem like he's almost setting up his own defense, which a jury would not find sympathetic.

CUOMO: And look, we know -- It is so obvious that the prosecution case was resonating with the jury. They are giving statements now, the actual jurors, and they are saying, "We questioned whether it was legit."

That is a big obstacle that has nothing to do with the law and everything to do with how society sees mental illness. They see this man -- and they hear what he's saying.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

E. ROUTH: ... pigs. I've been smelling it this whole time, you know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: And, you know, to look at that, if you were a clinician, you know, if you were a doctor, a psychiatrist, you'd say, "Whoa, if this is consistent, this guy has a real mental problem." But people aren't there when they see this, and this verdict reflects it.

TOOBIN: Indeed. I mean, it's just -- the overwhelming -- at least my overwhelming reaction to this case is just pure sadness. Obviously, mostly because these two people lost their lives. But also because Routh is a -- at least a lost soul, as well as a bad person. And we -- we just don't have a way of treating them or helping them. And now it's over for him, as well.

CUOMO: It is over for him, and it's just, you know, it's a demonstration of for all that was lost, there's something else at play, also. The way we see the mentally ill and the way we see them under law are two very different things.

TOOBIN: Very different things.

CUOMO: And the price that's been paid by the families in this case are the victims. For them, there will never be any good solution to what comes out of this. Thank you for helping us understand how they got to this verdict so quickly -- Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, Chris. On to politics. Republicans and Democrats at a legislative impasse over the funding for the Department of Homeland Security. So Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell proposing a two-vote solution to avert a partial shutdown of the agency. CNN's Jim Acosta is live at the White House with the details for us. Tell us more, Jim.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. And President Obama will be ramping up pressure on Congress to get this done. Later on today, he meets with immigration reform advocates and then holds a town hall on the subject later on this afternoon. And as you mentioned, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, he's crafted this proposal for two separate bills, one to fund the Department of Homeland Security, so that department does not run out of money at the end of the week, and then another bill that would allow Republicans to vote against the president's executive action on immigration reform.

But of course, Mitch McConnell says he needs help from Democrats to get this done. Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), MAJORITY LEADER: I've indicated to the Democratic leader that I'd be happy to have his cooperation to advance the consideration of a clean DHS bill, which would carry us through until September 30. With Democratic cooperation, on a position they have been advocating for the last two months, we could have that vote very quickly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Now, of course all of that depends on whether or not the House of Representatives, which is also controlled by Republicans, will pass that legislation, if it gets out of the Senate.

And speaking of legislation getting passed, a bill was passed by the Congress and sent over to the White House yesterday. But it was vetoed. That was the bill to force the president to approve the rest of the Keystone Pipeline. The president using that veto pen, something he hasn't done very much.

Let's put something up on screen for you to show that the president has only vetoed three bills during his entire presidency. The Keystone bill was really the first major piece of legislation. Contrast that with the other presidents that came before him. And so that is why you're hearing from the White House officials, saying that this may be a new era in the Obama presidency, many more vetoes before he leaves office. But of course, all of that, Michaela, depends on whether or not Congress actually passes legislation.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Absolutely. That's the big question, whether he's going to get a chance to exercises that pen or not.

All right. Jim, thank you.

Let's turn to ISIS and the battle there. Terrorizing Christian villages in northeast Syria. The terrorists have kidnapped as many as 150 Assyrian Christians in predawn raids. Hundreds more forced to run for their lives. Our senior international correspondent Nic Robertson is tracking the very latest for us from London -- Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, hey, good morning, Michaela.

What we understand at the moment is that this is an ISIS operation that's still under way. That the numbers keep creeping up of the people that have been captured. In the early hours of this morning it was 70 or 100 captured, now 150.

There are reports that they're being taken to the ISIS capital, if you will, Raqqah, which is really an indication that they plan to keep these people that they are kidnapping, bargain them perhaps in some way, as we've seen in the past.

Among those kidnapped there are women; there are children; there are elderly people. There are even priests. There are some 3,000 people forced from their homes, about 700 families on the run. And what we understand from an Assyrian network based outside of Syria, they're telling us that 600 of those people could be holed up in a cathedral very close to the town where all this is happening.

So their concern at the moment is what is ISIS going to do? What do they plan for the people kidnapped? How can they get them free? And what we've seen from ISIS in the past when they've kidnapped Christians in this way in the past, they either force them to convert or they kill them. And that right now is the concern for all these missing people -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Of course, it is usually a gruesome outcome, and we will be talking more about that were Senator Angus King, as well. Thanks so much, Nic.

Well, an American missionary has been kidnapped in Nigeria. Police say masked gunmen abducted Rev. Phyllis Sortor from her work place and are demanding a ransom of more than $300,000. Officials say this is a purely criminal act. They have not identified the group responsible. Sortor is a missionary for the Free Methodist Church. She runs an organization that educates children in the region.

CUOMO: Four students at Wesleyan University in Connecticut have been arrested in connection with a rash of overdoses in the school. They're being held pending a bail hearing in early March. And police say 11 people hospitalized over the weekend all appear to have taken the drug Molly. It's another name for Ecstasy. It's what's hot on the synthetic drug market right now, and this batch may have been laced with a dangerous mixture of designer drug chemicals.

PEREIRA: Got to show you some stunning video of a truck literally -- look at it -- driving off the upper deck of a highway in Boston. We'll show it again. Police say the man behind the wheel now faces drunk driving charges. His license has been suspended. You can see the truck going over the guardrail. It then smashed into a light pole and plunged from that elevated section of Interstate 93 to the concrete road below.

Amazingly, the driver only suffered a broken nose. What's amazing is that he didn't hit any other vehicle or cause any other -- casualties at all. He could have landed on another vehicle if there had been traffic stuck below. CAMEROTA: There usual is traffic on 93, by the way, in Boston.

PEREIRA: I've seen this time and time again. I don't know if you guys remember in your times reporting these accidents, oftentimes inebriated drivers are the ones that are the least hurt...

CAMEROTA: That's right.

PEREIRA: ... in these kinds of accidents.

CAMEROTA: Yes, you're right. That is so -- so fascinating. He only got a broken nose. That's amazing.

CUOMO: Well, probably because of how safe the cars are now, and not the fact that being drunk insulates them from any way. We don't want to encourage people.

PEREIRA: I'm not. It's not meant to encourage. It's injustice, you know what I mean? We see -- sadly, we see people die in this kind of situation.

CUOMO: Hopefully, they use it as a moment of, this is it. This is bottom, turn.

PEREIRA: He's in trouble now.

CUOMO: He is. He is, for sure.

CAMEROTA: All right. The clock is ticking. Will the Senate agree on a deal to fund homeland security before the agency runs out of money on Friday? We'll talk with Senator Angus King about the chances.

CUOMO: Hillary Clinton sounding more and more like a candidate for president of the United States. John King has the tells that may have been in her speech, suggesting what she has to offer you. Coming up on "Inside Politics."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: One of our top stories this morning: ISIS abducting 150 Christians from villages in northeastern Syria, most of them women, children and the elderly. How will the coalition respond?

Let's bring in independent senator from Maine, Angus King. He's a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the intelligence community. Senator King, nice to see you this morning.

SEN. ANGUS KING (I), MAINE: Good morning, Alisyn, how are you?

CAMEROTA: I'm well. But when we hear about 150 Christians, women, children, the elderly, being abducted by ISIS, and we fear that they'll meet the same gruesome fate as the last round of Christians they kidnapped did, being beheaded, it sure doesn't feel like the coalition airstrikes are working.

KING: Well, there are lots of evidence that they are. I mean, these are kind of individual actions that are taking place. There's going to be a lot of work, Alisyn, to get these guys out of these towns where they're essentially holed up.

But the airstrikes have taken out a lot of their infrastructure. They've taken out some of these small oil situations that they've been able to use to fund themselves. Their trucks, their heavy equipment.

But you know, you've still got some very bad people that are -- they seem to take not only pleasure, but enjoy the publicity of these gruesome killings.

But what they're doing, and I think this is important, is really turning off the rest of the world, particularly the Arab world. And they're becoming more and more isolated. The coalition is growing. The Arab nations that are participating are becoming more actively involved. And I think these guys are going to implode, basically, by virtue of their own brutality. But it's going to take some time, and it's going to take more airstrikes. It's going to take concentrated power.

And it's also going to take people on the ground, from the region. Not Americans. They have to be, it seems to me, Muslims and Arabs to take this fight to these guys in Mosul and in Raqqah and in Syria, wherever they end up being concentrated.

CAMEROTA: And as you know, Senator, the Egyptian president, el-Sisi has called for an Arab force to fight ISIS. Do you see any evidence of that actually coming together?

KING: Well, I've heard a lot of talk, and in several of the countries, not only Egypt, but other areas in other countries in the gulf, I think they are getting there.

I'll tell you, I was with King Abdullah of Jordan about an hour after he learned of their pilot being burned alive, and I've never seen anybody so determined as he was. And they immediately upped the ante in terms of their activity. So -- and that's what it's going to take. It's got to be a coalition. It's got to be Arab and Muslim troops, and then we've got to keep up the air pressure.

But you know, what we've got here, Alisyn, are people with seventh- century ethics and 21st century weapons. I mean, they're -- these guys are living in the Middle Ages; and they're dangerous. They're dangerous to us, and they're certainly dangerous to everyone in the Middle East.

CAMEROTA: As you know, Senator, back here at home the president has asked Congress to authorize the fight against ISIS. What's your problem with the AUMF?

KING: Well, No. 1, I don't have a problem with the fact that we're at least finally having this debate. I've been arguing that Congress should have a role in this decision since last summer, since the first airstrikes into Syria. Nobody wants to go to war.

I think the president has submitted a realistic and a good base for discussion.

What's really hilarious, if you can find any humor in the situation, is that, in this AUMF argument, the Republicans are arguing that the president isn't asking for enough authority, and the Democrats are arguing that the president is asking for too much authority. And it's sort of the reverse of what we see in a lot of these other issues.

But I think Bob Corker and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee are going to take a close look at that. And this is a piece of legislation the American people can really take a look at themselves. It's literally one page long. And it really gets down to what should be the definition of the president's power.

And I think the important thing, the most important thing is for Congress to step in and make a decision and not just kick it over to the president and the executive as we've been doing for so long. This is our constitutional responsibility.

CAMEROTA: One of the issues with the AUMF is that some people thought that it was too vague. The word "enduring" seemed unclear to people. Secretary Kerry tried to clarify that yesterday. Let me tell you how he defines it.

He says, "If you're going in for weeks and weeks of combat, that's enduring. If you're going in to assist somebody and fire control, and you're embedded in an overnight deal, or you're in a rescue operation or whatever, that is not enduring." Does that clarify it for you?

KING: Well, it helps. I mean, I think this is a new term that we don't have any experience with.

But what the president is trying to do and what the Congress is trying to do is to define what the limits are of American involvement. How far are we committed. And of course, the concern is very few people, including me, want to commit large numbers of American troops for a continuing period. A kind of 100,000 people for a ground war for, you know, in Afghanistan, it turned out to be 13 years. So we're trying to find what the right limits are.

The president has suggested this term "enduring offensive combat operations." Maybe that's not the right language. But I think we're going to have to continue to wrestle with what the definition is.

But the idea is to not write the president a blank check. If you do that then, really, there's not a lot of reason to go through this -- this process.

So I think, you know, we're going to -- we're going to work out some language, I hope. But as I say, the irony is you've got -- I've been in committee meetings where the Republicans say, "Well, we don't think there ought to be any limits on the president's funding authority." Funny they don't say that about the Affordable Care Act or immigration. And the Democrats are saying, "No, no, it's too broad. It is a blank check." So hopefully we're going to be able to find a reasonable path through it.

CAMEROTA: Senator Angus King, we always appreciate getting your assessments here on NEW DAY. Thanks so much.

KING: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Let's go to Chris.

CUOMO: Another big story, the U.S. suggesting it is closer to a deal with Iran on nukes. Is that a good thing? We have both sides of the proposition debating, and you get to decide.

PEREIRA: Is Wisconsin governor Scott Walker the Republican to beat? We're going to tell you what a new poll out of Iowa says about his chances if he were to throw his hat into the presidential ring. In fact, John King will share the results of that poll, "Inside Politics."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Breaking overnight, a guilty verdict in the "American Sniper" murder trial. A Texas jury of ten women and two men took just two and a half hours to reject defense claims that Eddie Ray Routh was insane. The verdict: guilty in the shooting death of Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield. The judge immediately sentencing Routh to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

PEREIRA: ISIS is terrorizing Christian villages in northeastern Syria, going door to door, and abducting 150 Assyrian Christians in predawn raids. The terror group is expected to release a message today, threatening to kill those they have held captive. ISIS has targeted Christians before. Last month it slaughtered nearly two dozen members of Egypt's Coptic Christian minority in Libya.

CAMEROTA: The FAA agreeing to allow 128 Southwest Airlines planes to keep flying, even though they missed mandatory inspections. The airline had grounded the Boeing jets after revealing that it failed to inspect back-up hydraulic systems used to control the rudder if the main system fails. Now, overnight the FAA approved a plan that would let the planes keep flying for five days while the checks are completed. Is that a good idea?

CUOMO: I don't know. That will require further discussion.

Hey, right now look up in the sky. You know what you can't see? Two NASA astronauts on a spacewalk of the International Space Station. But it is happening right now.

PEREIRA: Cool.

CUOMO: These are live pictures...

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh.

CUOMO: ... of the second of three space walks.

Let's take a good look there.

CAMEROTA: I don't know what I'm saying, but it's cool. PEREIRA: A hand.

CUOMO: That's a hand, in space.

PEREIRA: A hand in space.

CAMEROTA: A space hand.

CUOMO: Everything's cool when it's in space.

CAMEROTA: Totally.

CUOMO: That's his iPad right there. He's pushing it in.

CAMEROTA: Wow.

CUOMO: Same stuff you're doing right now. Getting your purse ready. Got to get ready. Got to get out, put your books in the bag without the Teflon gloves.

They're actually doing some tricky cable work. We've had astronauts on the show say how hard it is to work with those gloves and how much they have to practice. This is actually a pretty big deal. They're preparing the space station to make sure that these new capsules that are coming will be able to dock there. So this is really important stuff. But let's watch for just one more second.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've reached inside.

PEREIRA: That's really impressive, isn't it?

CAMEROTA: That long shot is better than some of ours outside of our headquarters.

PEREIRA: I know. It's really remarkable. Again, it's hats off to those guys that do that. You know, we talk about doing home improvement around the house. Imagine trying to do it with a spacesuit. Something I bet John King could do. Nice transition to "Inside Politics."