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New Day

Tsarnaev Defense Admits "It Was Him"; Iran FM: Netanyahu's Speech Had "No Effect"; Clinton: I Want the Public to See My Email; U.S. Ambassador Attacked in South Korea

Aired March 05, 2015 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: He did it, not something you usually hear from a defense attorney. But that's exactly what happened in the Boston marathon bombing trial. The defense attorney saying simply, it was him. The question now for jurors will be why and whether or not he should die for what he did.

CNN's Deborah Feyerick has the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In opening statements, the defense team for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev made one thing perfectly clear -- it was him. Hoping jurors will now focus on the influence his brother had, to carry out the senseless attack and spare Dzhokhar the death penalty.

The jury also saw four never before seen videos of the bombings.

Bloody bodies laying on the ground. First responders scrambling and the shock and dismay of onlookers, these videos shown in court yesterday during the trial, images that make an impact.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can move. I'm with her. Here you go.

FEYERICK: This point of view video on the ground level revealing scenes of terror, with some images too gruesome to show.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tourniquet, tourniquet.

FEYERICK: Legs shattered by shrapnel from the pressure cooker bomb lay on the ground. Their blood staining the pavement.

In court some of those victims testify about the blast.

Sydney Corcoran, a high school senior, told the jury she could feel a tingling in her body. "I was getting increasingly cold," she said, "I knew I was dying." Her main artery had been severed. Her mother lost both legs in the blast.

Besides the violence and the explosions, these new videos show people rushing to help the injured. This was the scene inside Marathon Sports. A running store located at the finish line. The blast shatters windows causing confusion in the store. You see people running out. Some bombing victims stagger inside and clothe something grabbed off the store shelves to make tourniquets to save so many who simply came to watch a race.

Deborah Feyerick, CNN, Boston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Some stunning images there.

The U.S. ambassador to South Korea is in stable condition this morning. Ambassador Mark Lippert is recovering after being attacked with a knife, slashed. He was jumped from behind, cut in the face and arm by a knife-wielding man as he was about to deliver a speech in Seoul. The ambassador was in surgery for more than two hours. He needed 80 stitches to sew up those injuries. The president of South Korea calls this an intolerable attack on the South Korea/U.S. alliance.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: So from Texas to Massachusetts, 90 million people under some sort of winter warning, watch or advisory, thousands of flights have been grounded or canceled. School districts forced to close.

Take a look at this. That's a FedEx truck, right? Jackknifed because of the ice on the road in Texas, just hanging off the side of the bridge. Fortunately, enough of it was on there to keep it stable. The driver, OK.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: First, you don't see it hanging off, it's really terrifying.

Abid Naseer, a Pakistani man accused of conspiring with and supporting al Qaeda, has been found guilty by a U.S. jury of plan doing bomb a British shopping center. Prosecutors say the 2009 Manchester plot was part of a three-pronged plan that included attacks on New York City subways and on a news room in Denmark, none were carried out.

BERMAN: New information may lead the NTSB to reopen the investigation of the 1959 plane crash that killed rock and roll legends, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. A retired pilot says equipment failure and other errors may be to blame, not operator error as was first concluded. Now, a lot of people in subsequent generations know all about this from a the song "America Pie." That, of course, was the day the music died.

PEREIRA: Amazing to think that long after a crash, that kind of information can come to end.

BERMAN: Yes, what can they find out at this point?

PEREIRA: Right.

CUOMO: But the legacy for their pilots family what they lived with and obviously, the musical legacy was --

BERMAN: That's a really good point.

COUMO: The truth can never come you know whenever it comes, it's good enough for them.

All right. So, listen to this, the Iranian foreign minister says a nuclear deal with the U.S.? Very close. Christiane Amanpour sat down with the foreign minister with an eye-opening interview. Why is Iran more optimistic than the United States?

PEREIRA: Hillary Clinton responding for the first time to reports she used a private email account to conduct business as secretary of state. Critics claim she's hiding something. We are going to tell you what the former first lady had to say about it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Just two days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the United States against a nuclear nightmare with Iran, Iran's foreign minister is accusing Netanyahu of hysteria and has signals there maybe real progress in the nuclear discussions between the United States and Iran.

I want to turn to CNN's chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour.

Christiane, you just interviewed the Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif. He's the man in the room. Any news to break this morning? Where does he say the talks are, any progress?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, he says they have made some progress, and important progress, all sides, he said to me he described it as close to an agreement. Though, of course, as we all know, there's no agreement until every issue is decided. He talked about the need to from their point of view, agree to lift sanctions, he said, you know, you can't have sanctions and an agreement.

But he also spoke about the effect or the lack of effect that Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech had on the negotiations. I asked him, as they were deliberating, what was the fallout from the speech at the U.S. Congress?

This was his answer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAVAD ZARIF, IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: Well, there was no effect on the negotiating table. But I can see that he is trying and some people who associate with him try to create an atmosphere, that of -- an atmosphere of hysteria, an atmosphere of fear-mongering, based on lies and deception, that try to prevent a deal from taking shape. And I do not see why, because, I -- the only reason, the only explanation that you can have here, is that some people consider peace and stability as an existential threat, because a deed cannot be threatening to anybody unless you want conflict, intention and mistrust and crisis.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So, that is the view from Iran. He says everybody is making a good-faith effort to get this done. The foreign minister, I guess including Secretary of State Kerry, are leaving the formal negotiations and now it's the working groups who will continue. And then he said, he'd be back in Geneva, Switzerland, March 15th, to continue.

Of course, we have an end of March deadline for a framework. Just to see whether a proper agreement can be signed by the formal deadline in June -- John.

BERMAN: No, there's not much time left. I mean, they're getting back at March 15th, the 24th also a date to watch here. I'll come back to this in a moment.

But before we talk more about the nuclear discussions, I want to talk about what's going on in Iraq right now, because the Iraqi military around, along with some Shiite militias are trying to win back the city of Tikrit. This is a Sunni-dominated city, which has been under ISIS control for some time. There are talks that there are serious Iranian involvement, if not Iranian direction of this assault on Tikrit.

What did the foreign minister have to say about that?

AMANPOUR: Well, John, there is Iranian involvement. You know that the pictures are being broadcast around the world of the chief Iranian general, Qassem Suleimani, he is a notorious and infamous figure for many, many reasons, but he is directing the fight against ISIS. He's directing the Shiite militia, he's I guess trying to help the general Iraqi forces and there are many Iranian advisers.

This is what the foreign minister had to say about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZARIF: We've been assisting the Iraqi people. Everybody knows that without their assistance, things would have been different, in Iraq. We are in Iraq, in terms of advisers and other support but without military personnel underground, fighting forces underground as you say, boots on the ground, in order to help this very serious global fight against these extremist and terrorist groups. We hope that this could unite all Iraqis.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: John, this is really interesting, because at the highest levels of the U.S. government as well. They are saying that the Iranians are doing precisely as the foreign minister said. Although I think people think there are Iranians in the fight. But they are saying, for instance, General Dempsey told Congress that if this Iranian involvement can push ISIS back, it will be a positive impact, but as long as it doesn't create sectarianism. In other words, as long as the result isn't a Shiite-dominated Iraq and the Sunnis left out in the cold again at the end in all of this.

BERMAN: You know, I want to go back to the nuclear discussions, it has a little bit to do with this right now, Benjamin Netanyahu said a lot of things that a lot of people, including President Obama disagreed with. But he also said some things that I imagine the White House does agree with, that Iran is a sponsor of terror or certainly supports questionable regimes throughout the world. He talked about the idea that Iran -- one of their state the purposes is to continue to annihilate Israel.

Did the foreign minister address any of those concerns that Netanyahu voiced in his speech to Congress?

AMANPOUR: Not in this interview, but I asked him that many times before. They claim they don't have any intention of going against Israel, annihilating or invading or any other way, that rhetoric, they call it rhetoric, has got nothing to do with their foreign policy.

Look, you're right, all of these are -- all of these other things, like sponsoring of terrorism, like the effect they have for instance in propping up Bashar al Assad in Syria, all of this is something that the West, the United States does not like. Plus, this whole idea of an Iran/Sunni conflict, a Shia/Sunni conflict and balance of power in that region is very destabilizing and concerning.

But to that extent what most experts say is, that let's get the nuclear deal done, because that is the most important thing to do. There is no way that we can do what Benjamin Netanyahu wants, which is a complete overhaul and change, in one fell swoop of Iran's foreign policy.

BERMAN: Christiane Amanpour, look forward to seeing that entire interview. It is a pivotal moment in this discussion, a key interview to have right now. Thanks, Christiane.

Chris?

CUOMO: All right. Thank you, JB.

Hillary Clinton speaking out for the first time since it was revealed she has her own email account, even her own servers, she says she wants the public to see her emails. So, why doesn't she release them? Is it that simple?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Hillary Clinton breaking her silence about using personal email during her four-year tenure as secretary of state. She said she's asking the State Department to release her personal emails to the public. If she has them, why won't she just release them?

Let's bring in CNN political commentator Marc Lamont Hill, and CNN political commentator and host of "The Ben Ferguson Show", Ben Ferguson.

Marc Lamont Hill, answer that very simple question -- if you've got your own servers, release them. You got your own servers.

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I agree. You know, this is not a good situation for Hillary Clinton. I think she's managing it at best she can by saying, look, I have 55,000 emails, I'm willing to release all of them, I want the State Department to vet them, I want to see what's going on before I release them.

CUOMO: She has more. That's what she released, was the 55,000.

HILL: No, exactly. And that's what's curious about. She could release everything. She's still doing some sort of vetting about what she's releasing and what she isn't.

It was a really bad move on her part. Not just because it makes her look less than transparent, but because it brings Benghazi back into the equation. It brings all these things back into the conversation, that she wants to run as far away from as possible.

PEREIRA: Ben, on the flip side of this, the argument could be made, that if she was doing State Department business, conducting business with other officials, all of that would be on their email servers. So, it's not -- all is not lost.

BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, you also have the issue that many people are saying that they that her chief of staff had a private email account as well. So, how many people are using private email accounts? If you have Hillary Clinton who is deleting her emails and you don't know every person she sent an email to -- I mean, there's no way that the State Department can figure out every person she emailed. Whether it be inside our government or outside our government.

I would assume there's a lot of emails that Hillary Clinton wrote to foreign leaders and people in other governments, you think they're going to call America or call Congress with a subpoena and say, hey, we've got 33 emails we found or five emails or 100 emails from Hillary Clinton and this is putting her in an incredibly bad situation. For her to say, I'm requesting the State Department to release emails, America isn't that naive or dumb. She's the one that has the emails and a lot of them have probably been deleted from her server and we'll never see them.

HILL: We don't know that.

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: What don't we know?

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: Hold on a second, Ben.

What do we know?

HILL: We don't know Hillary Clinton's intentions. We don't know what Hillary Clinton deleted. We don't know that she's somehow exacting Pyongyang or she's somewhere contacting Iraq, you know, and from her AOL account. That's sort of the narrative that people are spinning.

And we don't know that. Let's not overstate what Hillary has done.

CUOMO: Right. Look, the problem with this is we don't have a clear premise of a legal foundation, right, Ben? That's part of the problem, this 2009 law, what happened after she left. There's no real time line. You know, the duty of -- to record those certainly on her.

FERGUSON: But also, there's also reports coming from cybersecurity experts that say, that they were warning her staff that her email account was not going to be safe. It could be monitored. It could easily be hacked. And so -- and they basically said, we don't care. In fact, some of them even said, Hillary probably didn't even know about it because this was a strong decision on her point to put a server in her house and to make sure that she ultimately control the emails on what America would see. And she knew this when she was doing this.

She's a lawyer, she's smart, she understood why she chose to do this, that was to protect herself so that we could not see transparency with her time in office.

PEREIRA: And final note, Marc. I mean, the fact is that the Clintons are very savvy. They are very, very calculating. It's really hard to suspend the disbelief that they could not possibly have understood what was going on.

HILL: And I think they completely understood what was going on. I also think Sarah Palin understood what was going on. Mitt Romney understood what was going on. Lots of politicians --

FERGUSON: Sarah Palin had nothing to do with it.

HILL: Other politicians have been caught using private email accounts, including Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney, which is why I mentioned their names. They do have something to do with this conversation. But my point is, lots of politicians do it. That's not to excuse it. I think it's a problem for everybody. I think Hillary Clinton has an issue here.

But I'm less concerned with the substance of the issue and more concerned that it drags Hillary back into a messy conversation she doesn't want to be part of.

CUOMO: All right. And, look, part of the Clinton side, they're going to say, yes, everybody super-scrutinizes us, too, and they come after us all the time. That's why we have to be savvy.

But let's now pivot to somebody who really shouldn't be making that argument was Dr. Ben Carson.

Dr. Ben Carson, as you now know, we did an interview here, he came out with his thoughts about being gay being a choice. Let's take a listen as a reminder.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CUOMO: You think being gay is a choice?

DR. BEN CARSON, AUTHOR, "ONE NATION": Absolutely.

CUOMO: Why do you say that?

CARSON: Because a lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight and when they come out, they're gay.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: OK. That was his supposition.

Marc Lamont Hill, he said you won't disagree with that. I didn't want to disagree with that I didn't want do give any validation to such an absurd premise. Sometimes when someone says something that wacky, you let it go.

Secondarily, I don't know who goes into prison, who comes out, maybe they were gay in the outside, they didn't know until they went to prison -- I just didn't want to engage. But that as a basis for homosexuality, how does someone as smart as a Ben Carson, maybe one of the best pediatric neurosurgeons ever, arrive at that conclusion?

HILL: It gives rise to the idea that he may be brilliant at this one thing, right, not anything else, because every comment he's made about homosexuality seems to defy any kind of rigorous scientific training, any kind of, any normal understanding of how things work.

He's confusing desire and practice, because people have sex in prison doesn't mean that they're gay necessarily. And if it does mean they're gay, it doesn't mean they're transformed into gay into prison.

CUOMO: Look, there's no validity to the premise. The science is there, the understanding is there. Here's what matters politically, though, Ben, and this is for you, the next piece of sound, is, you know, some Christians are coming out. He's got a lot of supporters saying he's just living his faith. He says he was set up. Listen to this.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

CARSON: It was a 25-minute interview, they chopped and you see what part they emphasize. We talked about some really important things, none of that was brought up. But I did learn something very important, for certain networks, never do a pretaped interview. I'm not going to talk about that issue any more, because every time I'm gaining momentum, the liberal press says, let's talk about gay rights and I'm just not going to fall for that any more.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

CUOMO: Ben, I did not edit a word of that section of the interview and we covered several topics. Should this be an end to his presidential aspirations or do you think he just lets time heal with his base? FERGUSON: I think time is going to heal this. I think welcome to the

big leagues. One of the reasons why Ben Carson is so popular, is because he's not a scripted politician. He's not a guy that sits in a room with 35 people and goes over and over again and answer so he's like a robot.

But now, he's probably going to become that, based on the fact that he was trying to have a blunt conversation and he did not articulately well describe his feelings. I think his later statements in the day showed certainly he had a different real thought on this.

But this is Ben Carson's fault. I think he'll be able to overcome this. I think he's a very smart guy. And in politics, unfortunately, we claim that we really want blunt people that can sit back, relax and have a conversation. But you know what, Mitt Romney and those guys like Jeb Bush that people say you know, you already know what they're going to say before they answer -- well, this is exactly why they have that strategy.

HILL: No, but I mean, that almost --

PEREIRA: We have to leave it there, gentlemen. Sorry.

We've got a lot to get to go this morning. Ben Ferguson, Marc Lamont Hill always a pleasure to have you with us.

HILL: Pleasure.

CUOMO: A lot of news, as Mick just said. So, let's get to it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: The U.S. ambassador to South Korea slashed in a bloody knife attack.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The host country is responsible for the security of the ambassador.

BERMAN: A monster storm is slamming much of the nation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The roads are slick, pretty bad.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm outraged. You're targeting people.

ERIC HOLDER, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Ferguson police officers routinely violate the Fourth Amendment.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Never before seen videos of the bombings.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His own defense attorney going as far as saying it was him who took part in the bombing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the guilt phase of the trial. The evidence is overwhelming.

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota and Michaela Pereira.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Good morning. Welcome back to your NEW DAY. Alisyn Camerota on assignment. John Berman joining us, though.

And breaking overnight, the U.S. ambassador to South Korea slashed by a man spewing anti-American comments. The North Koreans quickly jumping on the situation and hailing the attack as deserved punishment.

PEREIRA: Ambassador Mark Lippert needed 80 stitches to close a four- inch gash to his cheek. The knife-wielding suspect known well to South Korean official who are now expressing shock and deep regrets this morning.

I want to go straight to CNN's Andrew Steven in Hong Kong with the very latest for us -- Andrew.