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What Will Netanyahu Say?; Iraqi Troops Trying to Retake Tikrit; ISIS Releases 19 Christian Hostages; Fatal LAPD Shooting Caught on Tape; Russian Opposition Leader Gunned Down

Aired March 02, 2015 - 07:00   ET

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

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: As you know, Netanyahu will be giving two piece speeches, one today at the AIPAC Conference here in Washington and then tomorrow to a joint session of Congress, but the White House is not remaining silent this week.

They're going to put out firepower of their own, National Security Adviser Susan Rice and the U.S. Ambassador. President Obama will be sitting down for an interview with Reuters later on this afternoon.

And you will recall it was Rice last week who said that the set up where Netanyahu is going to be giving the speech to Congress, he arranged this with John Boehner without looping in the White House, rice called all of that destructive. John Kerry sort of dialed down some of that rhetoric. Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: We don't want to see this turned into some great political football. Obviously, it was odd if not unique, that we learned of it from the speaker of the House and that an administration was not included in this process.

But the administration is not seeking to politicize this. We want to recognize the main goal here, is to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. And on that Israel and the United States agree.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Now, White House officials say their other goal this week is to stress the strength of U.S.-Israeli relations, but make no mistake, there are hard feelings inside this White House. I talked to a senior administration official, who said that Netanyahu is turning this week into something of a circus and just making himself the center of attention.

And as you know, the president is not going to be sitting down with Netanyahu, the White House says, because Israel elections are just around the corner, but this official told me don't even expect a phone call.

Back to you guys.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Jim, thank you. The Israel prime minister, by the way, is up for election at home, but he's also being evaluated in the U.S., as well as by this citizenry.

So it's the politicians, and it's the people here. So what kind of trouble is this going to cause in both places for him? That comes down to what he's going to say.

CNN global affairs correspondent Elise Labott has been traveling with the Israeli prime minister, joins us now. What do we know?

ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, the prime minister tomorrow is going to lay out the Iranian nuclear deal shaping up as he understands it. His aides tell us the Israelis have a lot of information about the deal on the table, enough to conclude it's a bad deal for Israel but also for the U.S. and the world.

Now Netanyahu does not believe that Congress has been fully informed on these negotiations, and he's hoping this speech will raise questions. And he's going to urge Congress to pressure the White House to push back that March 24 deadline for a political framework.

Now, his aides say Israel is not against any deal at all, but he feels that there are too many compromises here that will leave Iran able to move toward a nuclear weapon down the line.

But I do get the sense the prime minister realizes this politically fraught partisan tone of the trip. I think he's going to use the speech today to the pro-Israel lobby APAC conference to lower the temperature, talking about how important the relationship with U.S. and Israel is, how it's always been bipartisan, how it always should be.

And as Jim said, you can see the Obama administration also toning it down, Secretary of State John Kerry not only talking about how the U.S. and Israel still need to work together on a deal, but also today defending Israel at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

So I think the White House realizes bickering, placing too much focus on the speech, want to take the wind out of the prime minister's sales as those nuclear talks start in Geneva this week.

Back to you guys.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks so much. Thanks for breaking all that down.

Prime Minister Netanyahu's visit is sparking ago fierce debate among many in the Jewish community. A full-page ad in the "New York Times" had this message for Netanyahu, quote, "Prime Minister Netanyahu, Congress is not a prop for your election campaign."

Let's bring in Jeremy Ben-Ami. He's the president of J Street. That's the group behind that "New York Times" ad. And Rabbi Shmuley. He's the founder and executive director of the group This World. He is strongly supportive of the prime minister's visit and speech.

Gentlemen, nice to see both of you. It's great to have both of you on with your differing perspectives, because you disagree vehemently. In that ad that you put out, you also said the visit will damage U.S.- Israel relations. How so?

JEREMY BEN-AMI, PRESIDENT, J STREET: Well, I think the basis of the strength of the friendship has been that it's been able to be bipartisan, it's been able to cross a whole range of ideological lines to unite behind the notion that Israel's security is a paramount American interest; and the United States and Israel's friendship is rock-solid.

When the prime minister works with the ambassador to Washington and works with the prime minister and Speaker Boehner to set up a speech behind the president's back and does it to the benefit of his own election campaign, to the benefit of Speaker Boehner's efforts to undercut the president, that injects partisanship into this relationship.

CAMEROTA: OK. Rabbi Shmuley, your response to that? I know you support the prime minister coming here, but what about all of those backroom deals?

RABBI SHMULEY BOTEACH, THIS WORLD: The issue of Jewish unit is absolutely secondary to the survival of the Jewish people. Now Jeremy Ben-Ami's ad in the "New York Times" was not against Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has threatened the nuclear annihilation of that state of Israel. It was not against Holocaust denial in Iran. It was against the prime minister of Israel, who is here to warn the world that 70 years ago Jews were marched into death camps where they were gassed to death, including one and a half million children.

Jeremy Ben-Ami's organization is attacking the Democratically-elected leader of the Israeli people instead of the undemocratically-elected demagogue and dictator of Iran that is the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, murdering innocent civilians through Hezbollah, through rockets. This is astonishing.

BEN-AMI: Alisyn, before we go any further...

BOTEACH: I will subordinate Jewish unity any day -- excuse me, Jeremy, excuse me.

CAMEROTA: Quickly, Rabbi.

BOTEACH: Please be a gentleman and allow me to speak.

CAMEROTA: Quickly.

BOTEACH: I will subordinate Jewish unity any day to stopping a second Holocaust. And the threats against the Jewish people in Copenhagen and Brussels and Paris, Jews are dying in too many places.

CAMEROTA: OK.

BEN-AMI: Before we go...

CAMEROTA: Go ahead, Mr. Ban-Ami. Your response.

BEN-AMI: Before we go any further, Shmuley Boteach, your ad this weekend has done more to unify the Jewish community than anything that has happened in this country in probably several decades. I'd like you to take this opportunity here on national TV to say to Susan Rice, the national security adviser to the president of the United States and a good friend of the state of Israel, that you apologize for the ad that you placed this weekend, which was vile and repugnant and has called for apologies from across the board.

CAMEROTA: Here is the ad. Let me show our viewers what you're talking about, because Rabbi Shmuley, your organization put up this ad in the "New York Times": "Susan Rice has a blind spot. Genocide." Rabbi, do you still stand by this ad and its strong wording, or do you want to apologize as Mr. Ben-Ami is suggesting?

BOTEACH: The person who should apologize is Susan Rice, who tried to deny the prime minister of Israel the simple right to exercise what we Americans call a First American [SIC] right to speak out.

She said that his speech alone, his speech alone would be destructive to U.S.-Israel relations, a speech about preventing genocide of the Jewish people.

Now, why is the Obama administration so absolutely keyed up about a speech? Why are they so threatened about a speech? I went to Interama (ph) Church of Rwanda, where those skulls are from, because 800,000 Rwandans died, and the United States, by its own admission...

BEN-AMI: This is one of the most repugnant ads.

BOTEACH: Excuse me.

BEN-AMI: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

BOTEACH: Excuse me. You need to learn to be a gentleman on television.

BEN-AMI: Excuse me.

BOTEACH: And allow other people to speak.

CAMEROTA: OK, Rabbi, finish your thought.

BOTEACH: Genocide is a serious issue notwithstanding how much Jeremy Ben-Ami will minimize it to preserve his access to the White House. Jeremy, your political access is secondary to the Jewish people standing up...

BEN-AMI: It is loathsome.

BOTEACH: ... for its survival. Now, be a true Jewish leader: speak up for your people; attack Iran, not me; attack Iran, not Netanyahu. The fact that you spend most of your time and your money attacking fellow Jews...

BEN-AMI: It is vulgar and loathsome.

BOTEACH: ... is itself repugnant. CAMEROTA: OK, go ahead, Mr. Ben-Ami. Go ahead.

BEN-AMI: It is vulgar and loathsome what you have done. And to proclaim yourself to be America's rabbi and to run an ad like that, putting Susan Rice's face next to a series of skulls, and accusing her of supporting genocide on a personal basis, is really one of the low points in my 30-plus years in American politics that I have ever seen.

BOTEACH: This is astonishing. We said that Susan Rice had a...

BEN-AMI: And if you can't see the absolute moral -- that you have sunk to...

BOTEACH: You -- you -- we said that Susan Rice has a blind spot based on what her successor, Samantha Power, the current U.S. ambassador to the United States, wrote about her. Samantha called her, quote, "a bystander to genocide." It was a 2001 article in "The Atlantic." This is the historical record.

Samantha Power repeated it in a Pulitzer-Prize-winning book called "A Problem from Hell" about genocide. Everyone recognizes what Susan Rice said at the time, that political considerations must take precedence over stopping the genocide in Rwanda or at least labeling it a genocide.

CAMEROTA: OK. Mr. Ben-Ami...

BOTEACH: And that is something that cannot happen again in the United States.

CAMEROTA: The -- the message is that Susan Rice and the Obama administration are ignoring the evils of Iran. What is your response to that, Mr. Ben-Ami?

BEN-AMI: Well, the thing that unites Democrats and Republicans in the United States and Israel, J Street and AIPAC, the entirety of the Jewish community, is that we are concerned about the possibility of Iran getting a nuclear weapon.

The question is what is the best way to prevent it? The president of the United States says that a diplomatic arrangement over the course of the next 10 to 15 years that denies Iran the right to get to a nuclear weapon, that keeps them a year away and has intrusive inspections and limits the amount of uranium and tracks it from the moment it leaves the mine to the moment it's processed and leaves the country, that that is the best way to prevent it. That's a policy disagreement. There's no reason to go after people on a personal basis the way that the rabbi has done it in this case because of a policy disagreement.

CAMEROTA: Gentlemen, we're going to leave it there. Obviously, it's a very heated debate, as it will be for the next 48 hours as we watch the prime minister's speech here. Jeremy Ben-Ami, Rabbi Shmuley, thanks so much for both of your perspectives.

BEN-AMI: Appreciate it. CAMEROTA: Let's get over to Chris.

CUOMO: Right now, Alisyn, the biggest military operation in Iraq since last June is underway. That's when ISIS took Tikrit, and right now Iraqi forces are trying to take it back.

We also have a major and shocking development. ISIS terrorists in northern Syria release 19 Christians. CNN's senior international correspondent, Ben Wedeman, is live in Erbil with the latest.

What do we know on these two fronts?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, as far as that operation to retake Tikrit, we understand that as many as 30,000 troops are involved in that effort. Not just the Iraqi army and the air force, but also Sunni militiamen as well as Shia militiamen.

Now, this is a city of around 300,000. It's predominantly Arab Sunni, not very well disposed to the Shia-dominated central government and army. The worry is, of course, that the city has been sewn with IED's, booby-traps and mines.

But it's a very ambitious goal set by the Iraqi army and a very important step on the road to liberating Mosul, which is about 200 kilometers to the north, which is the stronghold for ISIS in Iraq.

Now, as far as those Assyrian Christians in northeastern Syria, we understand that 19 have been released, 19 who were kidnapped by ISIS earlier last week in addition to one man who was kidnapped a month ago by ISIS.

Now, of the 19 who were kidnapped last week, 16 are women -- are men, 3 are women. We understand that money was handed over to win their release, but of course there's still as many as 200 still in ISIS hands and the worry is that some of them could end up on the slave market for ISIS fighters -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right. Ben, thank you very much -- Michaela.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: A fatal LAPD shooting caught on video, it is raising new concerns about police use of force. This happened Sunday on L.A.'s Skid Row, a robbery suspect confronted by police, and a struggle ensued. It ended when police say he reached for an officer's gun.

CNN's Sara Sidner joins us live from Los Angeles -- Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, the video is extremely disturbing, and it shows a man being shot and skilled on the streets of L.A., as you mentioned, on Skid Row. There's a lot of talk about who this man was. Some of the witnesses saying he was homeless, but police have not confirmed that for us.

But there is an investigation going on as we speak.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER (voice-over): The video taken by a witness in downtown Los Angeles begins with an altercation between police and a man on the street. We don't see what caused the incident to turn violent, but the man appears to throw punches towards one of the four officers on the scene, who were trying to arrest him on suspicion of robbery.

It escalates, ending up on the ground. You hear someone say what sounds like, "Drop the gun." Then the sound of a Taser goes off. Then more shouting that sounds like "Drop the gun" yelled twice. A struggle continues, and five shots are fired.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God.

SIDNER: The suspect lies motionless in the street.

Police say the suspect attempted to grab the officer's gun.

COMMANDER ANDREW SMITH, LAPD SPOKESPERSON: During the attempt to detain him this individual resisted our officers. They struggled with him. They tried to Tase him a couple times. That was ineffective. And eventually, the struggle occurred where the officers were struggling with the individual over one of the officer's weapons.

SIDNER: Police say three officers fired their weapons, including a supervisor. An investigation is underway.

(on camera): There has been criticism there were a lot of officers and only one guy. Why did they have to shoot him? How does the department respond to that?

SMITH: That analysis is based on one video, which shows a portion of the incident that occurred. We want to wait until all the video is in that's available. We want to wait until all the people have been interviewed, all the witnesses, all the officers to determine exactly what happened before we make any kind of judgment whether this was proper or not.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: Now, according to police there are several other videos from different angles. One being from the surveillance camera at the homeless shelter, one being from some of the officers wearing body cams. We have not seen those videos yet. We are hoping to get ahold of hem at some point.

The investigation continuing. There are plenty of witness statements. There's also a statement from the person who initially called 911, who said that they were being robbed, describing the person that police eventually went after, the man who was killed. We do not yet know, though, the identity of that man.

But this video is -- has really gone viral, a lot of folks talking about it on social media. And already there was a small peaceful protest, about 20 or so people, who came out late in the evening to recognize what happened here in Los Angeles -- Michaela. PEREIRA: Yes, Sara, and there's often a rush to judgment when you see

a video like that, but there's a lot of, as you mentioned, surveillance video and that body cam video from the officer that obviously they need to take a look at. Thanks for that. We'll stay following that.

CAMEROTA: Let's take a look at live pictures here. This is Secretary of State John Kerry speaking to the Human Rights Council in Geneva. Kerry is in Switzerland for Iranian nuclear talks. Later this morning, he will meet with his Iranian counterpart for the latest round of negotiations. Iran's foreign minister insisting all sanctions must be lifted against Iran for there to be a nuclear deal. Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington, D.C., to denounce these negotiations.

CUOMO: Law enforcement officials say an upcoming justice report will blast the Ferguson, Missouri, Police Department, but over traffic tickets. It accuses them of targeting blacks in traffic stops, creating years of racial animosity which boiled over after the Michael Brown shooting.

It says the city relied on those traffic stops and the fines they earned to balance the city's budget. Once the report is out next week, Ferguson officials will likely have to negotiate a settlement with the DOJ, or they could face a civil rights suit.

PEREIRA: We have some extraordinary video we have to show you. A skydiving student in Australia suffered a seizure midair. Yes, the dramatic moment caught on video. You can see the hand's instructor here try to grab ahold of Christopher Jones. He was finally able to snag the 22-year-old and deploy his parachute for him.

Fortunately, Jones gained consciousness before reaching the ground, allowing him to make a controlled landing.

Turns out he suffers from epilepsy. Jones's medical specialist apparently did clear him for the jump. What's even more remarkable: this young man was halfway through a training program to be a licensed qualified jumper. Many are asking why somebody with epilepsy would be allowed to get that kind of clearance. It seems like the most dangerous place to be if you have epilepsy.

Terrifying, isn't it?

CAMEROTA: Once he's tumbling away so fast, how did the instructing get down to him?

PEREIRA: He managed to. Luckily he was able to.

CUOMO: Great skill on that guy's part.

It is a legitimate question. You also have to figure, though, that someone gave an answer to it at somewhere along the way, if he was through this course, if his doctor had cleared him for the jump.

PEREIRA: Many are questioning the... CUOMO: So the question is you're going to have to know why they did that to assess the situation. But thank God for that guy who grabbed him.

CAMEROTA: That just took a few years off my life.

Meanwhile, thousands of Russians mourning the slain opposition figure Boris Nemtsov. We're learning more about the man and what may have made him a target for assassination. Did he know too much?

CUOMO: Politics 101: when deciding to run for office, being cagey, respected, dragging your feet tolerated, but when your hunger for office starts to get questioned, it is time to get in or get out. John King has what Hillary's advisors are telling her to do on "Inside Politics."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Man stands up and says, "I oppose Vladimir Putin. What we're doing in Ukraine is wrong." And he winds up getting shot and killed. Are the two things connected?

Joining us now, Ambassador Nicholas Burns. He was George H.W. Bush's director of Soviet affairs and senior director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasian affairs for the National Security Council under President Clinton.

It is very good to have you with us, Ambassador. So Boris Nemtsov, well known in Russia for his opposition to Vladimir Putin. Do you believe this was a political assassination?

NICHOLAS BURNS, FORMER DIRECTOR OF RUSSIAN, UKRAINE AND EURASIAN AFFAIRS FOR NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: We'll never know for sure. I think it stands to reason that someone in the Russian government at some level in that highly-controlled society probably knows something about this.

The other theory, Chris, is that Russian -- extremist Russian national groups might have felt emboldened by the culture of fear that President Putin has created. But you know, in that kind of state, I think the truth will likely not come out. And as you saw over the weekend, the Kremlin spokesmen were pointing the fingers at Chechen terrorists, at the Ukrainian government, at the U.S. government. So I think we're not going to expect truth from Mr. Putin as to what happened.

CUOMO: Putin was very open and loud in his demanding an investigation; basically threw what amounts to his entire investigative agency into this. That could be for show, of course, if you wanted to be cynical. But the more direct question for you is why would it help Vladimir Putin to kill this man?

BURNS: Well, first of all, we don't know who killed him. And I think what's embarrassing...

CUOMO: Well, that's the speculation, right, is that somebody friendly to Vladimir Putin took out an opponent. Why would he need to do that when he's so popular and this guy was really just a shadow voice?

BURNS: The speculation is that it's either someone in the Russian government below Putin or someone outside the government tied to the government through nationalist circles.

What's embarrassing for Putin is that Boris Nemtsov was killed in Red Square right next to the Kremlin in the full ware -- in fact, it's on videotape for all the world to see. It's an embarrassing spectacle for the Russian government. So they're casting around, launching this investigation, pointing the finger at everyone but themselves in an attempt to avoid responsibility.

CUOMO: And if it is embarrassing, again it raises that same question, if they did it, why would they be embarrassed by it?

But now there's the other side of it. And let's given to Boris Nemtsov in his own words, really frighteningly predicting his fate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BORIS NEMTSOV, SLAIN OPPOSITION LEADER: I'm a well-known guy, and this is a safety; because if something happens with me, it will be scandal, not only in Moscow city but throughout the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: He was talking to Anthony Bourdain there, by the way, here of CNN.

Now Ambassador, the speculation is what? That he knew something that the Kremlin didn't want to get out? What could he know that would be so dangerous? I know that's a question that's impossible to answer, but the universe of possibility on it.

BURNS: Well, there are two -- there are two sources of speculation here. One is that Nemtsov was just about to publish an expose about the degree to which Russian troops are involved in dividing Ukraine, fighting in Ukraine. Putin has never acknowledged over the past year that thousands of his troops have crossed the border to support the pro-Moscow separatists there.

The other thing, Chris, of course, is that Nemtsov was a rival to Putin in the 1990s. They both worked for President Yeltsin. Both were the presumptive heirs. Yeltsin ultimately chose Putin, and Nemtsov has been leading a very small, very embattled Democracy Party since then.

So those are the possibilities here. He was clearly someone that the Kremlin detested, but, again, I think the tragedy of this is we're never likely to know the truth, because the Kremlin is not about the truth. It's going to sweep anything under the rug if it uncovers evidence.

CUOMO: And of course, there's a question of whether or not this man and his life wound up being in vain with his death, because obviously, it's supposed to be a call to what the legitimacy of the situation is. But when you look, it's very difficult, with the Internet and the

media even as it exists in Russia, to explain how the Russian people could not know that Russia is so heavy-handed in Ukraine right now.

Does Vladimir Putin's popularity signal that they don't care that Russia is in there banging up Ukraine?

BURNS: That is part of the problem. Since Putin invaded Crimea a year ago, his popularity has soared. There's a rising tide of Russian nationalism. People in the country feel proud. This is fueled by the Kremlin's propaganda machine. They feel proud of what Russia's done in Ukraine.

But he has never acknowledged, Putin, that he has intervened militarily. Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine, and they're trying to cover that up. And apparently, Nemtsov was working on a report to expose that, to start a public debate about that, certainly -- certainly against the wishes of the Kremlin.

CUOMO: Well, look, we know that there is a very heavy investigation going on, but of course, it is compromised with the speculation that those investigating it may have been involved in it. But of course, that's always the Russian paradox in situations like this.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns, thank you very much for the insight into the politics and the dynamics there.

BURNS: Thank you.

CUOMO: Appreciate it -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Chris. Back to politics here at home. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker riding high in conservative popularity polls, but he's also changing his stance on some major issues. John King will talk about it all coming up on "Inside Politics."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)