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A Chilly Congratulations For Netanyahu; Republicans Furious Over Handling Of Israel; Reports Tie Clinton Foundation To Donors To Foreign Governments; Excessive Force Used In UVA Student Arrest?; Number One Kentucky Rolls On, Stays Undefeated. Aired 7:30-8a ET
Aired March 20, 2015 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[07:30:03]
JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT/ANCHOR: What's at play here, two guys who just don't like each other?
MARGARET TALEV, "BLOOMBERG": Well, let's start with that, because that's obviously true. But President Obama is deeply offended by the way Prime Minister Netanyahu has handled this. Beginning with Netanyahu's visit here and speech to Congress and continuing on with the message and what he did in order to win the election.
You have to remember that for President Obama, whose political awakening as a young man came fighting against apartheid in South Africa, Prime Minister Netanyahu's approach in the days before the election has really put President Obama in a box.
JACKIE KUCINICH, "THE DAILY BEAST": Not only that remember when Obama was running, he was all but campaigning for Mitt Romney. He really had, it was made a big deal about his relationship with Mitt Romney. And Mitt Romney was saying, Bibi and I are best friends. So really this goes back so far, the blood is so bad at this point. So I think that's one of the reasons, they really aren't happy.
KING: So the White House says they're going to reassess, but Prime Minister Netanyahu is going to put together a new government. We'll see how does goes forward. Obviously the strategic relationship will continue that goes beyond the names, beyond the leaders at any given moment.
But it will be interesting to see as they reassess their own relationship. To your point, our first African-American president was furious that Netanyahu closed with a public appeal to his base saying the Arabs are voting.
What many, his opponent described as a racist appeal on Election Day. Those voters are perfectly legal voters in the state of Israel. Nobody was cheating. So our African-American president is mad about that, he sees it as racist as well.
He also was troubled at the White House because Prime Minister Netanyahu on the eve of the election says re-elect me, there will not be two states. There will not be peace with the Palestinians. Listen here Prime Minister Netanyahu after the election said, well, I didn't quite mean that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: I haven't changed my policy. I never retracted my speech six years ago calling for a demilitarized state that recognizes the Jewish state. What has changed is the reality.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: He said right before the election, if you want to make sure there's no two-state solution, re-elect me. Now he said I haven't changed anything.
Are we supposed to applaud him for getting back to the place where he at least is open to the possibility of peace negotiations or are we supposed to say -- well we just can't trust anything he says?
TALEV: And President Obama keeps at the U.N. keeps fending off the efforts by the Palestinians to try to make the two-state play at the U.N. by saying, this has to be for the two sides to work out. Both sides have agreed there should be a two-state solution.
So you know, it's difficult for Prime Minister Netanyahu to walk this back, especially since during that interview just before the election, the interviewer said are you saying this is not going to happen on your watch?
And he said yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. So this is really, and the Iran negotiations are sort of predicated on a lot of these premises.
And just, the entire strategy for how the U.S. has aligned itself with Israel is predicated on the notion that everyone is a good-faith player in the idea of a two-state solution.
KING: And yet, it's hard for the president to this morning, the White House overnight released a video of the president talking to the people of Iran, especially young people, saying please pressure your government to come to the table.
It's almost inconceivable to see the president striking that deal with Iran, without at least an understanding of the prime minister of Israel, no matter who that is. This will be fascinating going forward.
It's interesting, Republicans see an opening here. Remember one of the things the president was mad about, was just three weeks ago, behind me, the capital lawn, when Prime Minister Netanyahu came, stood in the well of the House of Representatives and told the Congress and the American people, your president's wrong, don't trust him in the Iran negotiations.
Republicans see the victory by Netanyahu as proof that they should continue to sort of be aggressive in foreign policy. Speaker John Boehner is about to make a trip to Israel. Maybe no surprise there, he's the one who invited Prime Minister Netanyahu to speak.
But he's going to meet with Israeli officials in Jerusalem. Now American presidents don't meet the prime minister of Israel in Jerusalem because that's part of the two-state solution. That's part of the negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
They have those meetings in Tel Aviv normally. That's part of it as well. Listen, a number of the 2016 Republicans criticized the president, when the White House said, they would reassess their relationship. A lot of Republicans were critical of that including Marco Rubio.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SENATOR MARCO RUBIO (R), FLORIDA: This is a historic and tragic mistake. Israel is not a Republican or Democratic issue, if this was a Republican president doing these things, I would give the exact same speech. In fact I would be even angrier.
This is outrageous, it is irresponsible, it is dangerous, and it betrays the commitment this nation has made to the right of a Jewish state to exist in peace.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Just without a doubt, the exclamation point is this is going to continue throughout the next few months, the next couple of weeks, the sensitive negotiations and then throughout the 2016 campaign.
KUCINICH: But Marco Rubio has been trying to stake out this very tough foreign policy, very hawkish foreign policy. This is very much a part of that. I also would watch and see who is fundraising off of this because I think that's next.
KING: That will be part of it as well unfortunately. Welcome to the inevitabilities of American politics, somebody will fund-raise off of this. Hillary Clinton will be in a box about this and she will be pressured to see -- there will be interest to see if she moves away from President Obama on the issue of Israeli relations, as we go forward.
[07:35:08]She gave her last paid speech yesterday before she becomes an official candidate. Go online this morning. There are a number of more additional reports about the Clinton Foundation and its accepting money from foreign sources that she's going to have to deal with.
You might take this implicit criticism of President Obama when Hillary Clinton says, elect me and I'll try to break gridlock.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: You don't build relationships with people and all you do is show up to argue or show up to you know, point fingers. You can't get anything done. From my perspective, you can't do enough of the relationship-building.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: So you could say she's criticizing the Republican Congress, we could also say especially on the relationship part, that she's criticizing her former boss. You're just back from New Hampshire. Is any of this stuff playing out there?
TALEV: Well, what we found was playing in New Hampshire. We did a couple of focus groups this week. Is that even the Democrats who believe she's the inevitable nominee and support her and like her, are really, really unhappy with her handling of the email situation.
And the whole notion of sort of transparency and addressing controversies fully head-on rather than just sort of making them go away. It appears, it's like not scientific, it's talking to a handful of people.
But you get the emotional threads of how people are feeling, which is the notion that as the race is taking shape on both sides, they're trying to have gut feelings about candidates and they want her to be a little bit different.
KING: So as she turns this page that's what she has to address? Be more human, be more out there. Go talk to voters.
KUCINICH: Right. And she was a lot more relaxed in the speech, much more in her environment, it was a controlled environment, in front of people that were cheering it like every single word and laughing at her jokes. The other thing about the speech is she was waxing poetic about the Gingrich years, which was -- you know, is what it is -- the good old days.
KING: #sarcasm. Jackie and Margaret, thanks. Alisyn, as we get back in New York, have to congratulate you, your leading the leader board of the CNN anchors in bracketology at the moment. You have a good day one. Good luck on day two.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks. I'll take your word for that. I hadn't checked my bracket. Let's say it's a team effort.
KING: You had some help, OK --
CAMEROTA: I had a little help.
KING: Well, give Brian a cup of coffee.
CAMEROTA: Will do. John, thanks so much, have a great weekend and make sure to watch John King and his "INSIDE POLITICS" panel break down the best political news of the week every Sunday at 8:30 a.m. Eastern.
Well, the lawyer for that UVA student left bloodied after an arrest speaks out. What exactly happened? He'll be here to tell us his side.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:41:35]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DANIEL WATKINS, ATTORNEY FOR MARTESE JOHNSON: No time throughout the encounter did Martese present as has been reported by some in the media, a fake I.D. Nevertheless, Virginia ABC officers, who were present on the scene, questioned my client about being in possession of false identification.
The conversation resulted in my client being thrown to the ground, his head hitting the pavement, the officers' knees pressed into his back, his face and skull bleeding, and needing surgery.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN BERMAN, CNN GUEST ANCHOR: That was an attorney for Martese Johnson, the University of Virginia student whose violent confrontation with alcohol control agents was caught on video. We call it a violent confrontation. But from what we see it's not much of a confrontation, it's really a one-sided pounding there.
But that's just what we see. Leading to the question of was it a use of excessive force. Let's bring in Mo Ivory, attorney and radio host and Mel Robbins, CNN commentator and legal analyst are here.
Mel, the question is that is just what we see, we see police with this guy, holding him down on the ground, his forehead bloody. What are your questions about what happened before that?
He's been arrested, for public intoxication and obstruction of justice. What would have had to have happened before this video to justify what you're looking at right now?
MEL ROBBINS, CNN COMMENTATOR AND LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I mean first of all, you just asked kind of a loaded question, John, which is to justify that kind of thing. When I see somebody with those kinds of injuries and needing surgery, and multiple stitches to the head, over those kinds of misdemeanor charges to me that's excessive force.
But what would justify it because you've asked the question, is if he put up a fight, if he got belligerent or he got abusive. But there is no evidence of that. But I've got other questions, John. I mean we're talking about St. Patrick's Day. We're talking about a college campus.
I know that people are very concerned about racism and the profiling of young black men in this country is a major problem. But what nobody is talking about is the dynamic in a college town particularly an elite college like UVA.
UVA has got a dynamic like most colleges where you've got the kids that go to school and the perception by the people that work in the town that they're a bunch of elite kids. That think they're better than anybody else. And I think that that's something that was going on. You also have the fact that we had Hannah Graham go missing and then murdered. That was at UVA and that involved alcohol in terms of what was going on that night. And so I'm sure there's also been a crackdown by the campus and by the town, in terms of policing underage drinking and late-night drinking.
BERMAN: So this wasn't the town, and this wasn't the campus, this was the alcoholic beverage control officials here. Cops who make sure kids don't drink underage, Mo.
I want to read you a statement from the Virginia State Police about this incident. A different agency, they say, "We owe it to both Mr. Johnson and the Virginia ABC, the Alcoholic Beverage Control, to be painstakingly thorough in determining the facts of the situation through interviews, evidence collection and analysis and investigative procedure.
Look, the Virginia state police have raised questions. Said they're looking into this. Local police have. The university has. The state government has, there seems to be an immediate reaction from everyone but the ABC that this is necessarily to look into this. Do you think it will be a fair investigation, Mo?
MO IVORY, ATTORNEY AND RADIO HOST: I think they're taking multiple steps to make sure they do the right thing. Any time you see a child, well, you know, a college student, hurt like that on the ground, excessively bleeding, there's got to be a thorough investigation.
I just want to say that I'm not really sure that I follow sort of Mel's thinking on that they approached this kid, thinking that he was an over privileged, elitist kid who goes to UVA.
I just do not believe at all that that is what the police were thinking about this young man. We do not know what happened before, which is correct. So we don't know if he was sort of being aggressive, but from everything that the people around have said, it doesn't seem that that was the case.
And even when you hear him begging on the ground -- why this is happening, why are you doing this? It doesn't seem that there was a reaction of like, OK, I need to calm myself down. More of a, "I can't believe they're doing this to me. Why are they doing this to me?"
So to me it doesn't matter if it was St. Patrick's Day or any other day, it does seem like excessive force.
BERMAN: He was charged with obstruction of justice without force and I'm not a lawyer like you are, Mel, but that seems to me to indicate he wasn't physically fighting.
ROBBINS: You're being mouthy and you're annoying the officers. I'm also not really clear, I've been trying to dig into the jurisdiction that these ABC cops have. Are they working under the arm of the state police or working as a private security force for the government.
BERMAN: They're people who monitor bars. First of all, they regulate sales of alcohol around the state, but they have policing capacity to make sure kids aren't drinking under age at bars in Charlottesville University of Virginia is one of the main areas where you have kids underage drinking.
Now this boy says he was not using a fake I.D., but it does seem he was trying to get into a bar and he was only 20. So technically, he was at least trying to break some law.
ROBBINS: Right and you're not going to get, well actually in some -- I know plenty of college students and in particular I have a story. I'm not going to tell it on national TV to embarrass somebody, but I know several kids that have been arrested and kicked out of universities just this year.
Losing full tuition for the semester because they were caught trying to get into bars or trying to use a fake I.D. Now he's not alleged to have a fake I.D., but I do think that the interchange matters.
If he goes up and he's got an I.D. that was issued a couple of years ago and his mother has since moved and you're a bouncer at a bar, use common sense.
What are you going to do if you're in a college town, if it's St. Patrick's Day, and your job is to make sure that no kid under 21 gets in here, you're going to ask questions? It doesn't mean --
BERMAN: Go ahead.
IVORY: John, I just want to say that it's also not a situation that they don't deal with probably every single weekend as do the ABC officers. So I don't think that you know, my God, this is a new case, a 20-year-old trying to get into a bar.
This is something that they're used to all the time. That doesn't seem to me to warrant the kind of excessive force that they used. It's a kid, on St. Patrick's Day, trying to get into a bar to have a beer. He's one year shy of the drinking age. Officer doesn't know how to handle that without gashing his head open
on the ground? It seems excessive.
BERMAN: They also say he wasn't drunk. Martese Johnson says he wasn't drunk. Probably was drinking, but not officially drunk. Trying to get into the bar there. Does that justify the pounding that he seemed to be taking there and the stitches?
ROBBINS: No.
BERMAN: Mo Ivory, Mel, thanks so much for being with us -- Michaela.
MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Well, Alisyn and I were just checking our brackets. March Madness is living up to its billing on opening day of the NCAA tournament. Madness reigned, huge bracket busters, five games decided by just a single point. All the drama and upsets after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [07:52:40]
CAMEROTA: How is your bracket doing this morning?
PEREIRA: Ouch.
CAMEROTA: Day one of the NCAA tournament, had plenty of upsets, and left many with a busted bracket.
BERMAN: Why do you find this so funny?
CAMEROTA: Because I'm number one. Against all odds, my bracket in the CNN contest is number one. This has never happens.
BERMAN: You don't know what sport this is?
CAMEROTA: I don't.
PEREIRA: What's the shape of the ball?
CAMEROTA: It's round and orange, I know that much, but what else do I need to know, Andy?
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS: Glad to see you're being so modest, Alisyn. You're doing quite well in the bracket pool. Me, not so much. This is me yesterday after watching the round of games. I was one of those people who had Iowa State in their final four. My bracket is in disarray, like a lot of people.
But you know, it was an amazing first day of the tournament. We saw a record five games decided by just one point, 14th seed Georgia State taking on three seed Baylor was one of those games.
Panthers head coach, Ron Hunter, having to sit on a stool to coach after tearing his Achilles while celebrating getting to the dance. Georgia State was down 2.
Time winding down, Hunter's son, R.J. hits the 3. Dad hauled off the stool celebrating. Georgia State pulls off the huge upset beating Baylor, 57-56, and as you can imagine, Coach Hunter, very proud of his son.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RON HUNTER, GEORGIA STATE HEAD COACH: I can't tell you how I feel inside. I mean, that's unbelievable. I wish every dad in America could have that opportunity, what I just experienced with my son.
R.J. HUNTER, GEORGIA STATE PLAYER: I hugged my sister. I hugged my sister and said, we're going to be one shining moment because we always watched that as a family. That's what we watch when your dad's a coach.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHOLES: We had a controversial ending to the SMU/UCLA game. The ponies were up 2 with under a minute to go and UCLA's Bryce Hopper's 3-point attempt was off line. Yanic Moran touches the ball as it was still coming down. He's called for goaltending.
Take another look. It's definitely the right call based on the rule. It's tough for SMU as UCLA will hold on to win this game, 60-59. It's a crushing loss for the mustangs. After the game, Moreira, he offered a very emotional apology for the goaltending.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
YANICK MOREIRA, SMU CENTER: It was all my fault. I should have let the ball hit the ground. I take the blame myself. I shouldn't have made a mistake. As a senior you can't make those mistakes at the end of the game.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHOLES: My heart definitely goes out to him. The game that was not close last night, top seed in the tournament, Kentucky had no problem with Hampton winning 79-56. Up next for the undefeated Wildcats they'll be the eighth seed in the Midwest region, Cincinnati.
[07:55:12] Guess what, guys, we get to do it all over again today, 16 more games on tap. The action tips off at 12:15 Eastern on CBS. You can watch the games all day on TrueTV, TBS and TNT. If we take a look at those CNN bracket standings, Alisyn Camerota is in that first place.
PEREIRA: The only thing that's giving me comfort is I am ahead of not only Andy Scholes, Charles Barkley and John Berman. That's the only thing that's allowing me to sleep during --
SCHOLES: I am in dead last. Dead last.
BERMAN: I find this deeply offensive.
CAMEROTA: I have never won anything sports related, trust me, nothing.
PEREIRA: Early days there, Junior.
CAMEROTA: I'm considering this a win.
PEREIRA: OK, take a win when you can.
SCHOLES: Guys, just to put it in perspective how crazy yesterday was. Out of the 40,000 brackets that were entered in our bracket pool, only five people still have perfect brackets.
BERMAN: All right, Andy, thanks for that.
CAMEROTA: Impossible.
BERMAN: It's 55 minutes after the hour right now. ISIS is now claiming responsibility for the deadly museum attack in Tunisia. How will the violence affect that Arab spring success story? We're going to speak to a former member of parliament who helped draft Tunisia's new constitution.
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