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New Day

Governors Don't Want Refugees; U.S. ISIS Strategy; What the Attacks Mean for Muslims in France. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired November 17, 2015 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Very much for joining us. Please, make the case for your action.

GOV. ROBERT BENTLEY (R), ALABAMA: Well, it's my responsibility, as the governor of Alabama, to make sure that the people of Alabama are safe and secure. And we have too many unanswered questions related to the refugees. And when we have those unanswered questions by the federal government, we can't take the responsibility on the state level to bring people in. They only have to be right one time, terrorists do, and we have to be wrong one time. And so we can't take that chance. And that's why we've made this decision.

CUOMO: And the pushback would be, well, then you wouldn't let anybody in the country from anywhere because you never know with full certainty that a population is going to be harm free and that the vetting of these refugees is not only layered and extended, but is exhaustive as any.

BENTLEY: Well, I have been told by my law enforcement agency, by Homeland Security, that there have been some major threats against the United States after 9/11. And all of those individuals came out of refugee programs.

CUOMO: You have been told that all of the people who would want to harm the United States have come from refugee programs? Is that what you're saying?

BENTLEY: Major threats that have occurred since 9/11. Not necessarily all, but the major threats that have been stopped, those individuals come out of refugee programs. That's what I've been told.

CUOMO: And so that informs your position that the refugees are the exact group that you want to target in terms of whom to keep out of country?

BENTLEY: Well, right now. If - we - you know, we just have to make a decision on each individual situation. And right now the situation is that we have to protect the people of our states. Do we have the authority? Yes, we have the authority to do that.

CUOMO: Well, the authority, that's going to be a separate conversation, right? Obviously, immigration is federally done. This comes down to what funding you can provide or not provide in your state. You then have the complication that even if they're not allowed in Alabama but they are allowed in Florida or Mississippi, they have rights of movement as, you know, temporary citizens in the country so they could just move into your state. All of that would have to be dealt with.

But I think this main question of whether or not to allow them at all is worth some more focus. You know the numbers show that this perception that what you're letting in, in this refugee population, are warrior age males kind of doesn't get supported by statistics. It's 50/50 male/female. Most of the people who want to come in is 1 percent of the refugee population that the U.N. directs towards U.S. consideration are really young boys, girls, women and young adult men. Does that change your opinion?

BENTLEY: Well, you know, my heart says that we should let these people in simply because they are fighting ISIS and have been displaced by ISIS, just like the - the - you know their - ISIS is our enemy also. So my heart says that we should let them in. By my head says that I have to protect the people of the state of Alabama and keep them secure.

CUOMO: Well, in reconciling your heart with your head, does your head tell you that this is essentially a religious test that you're putting on this population? That simply because they are Muslims fleeing Syria that you don't want them here even though there's all this layered vetting and considerations of who's getting let in and it's a relatively small slice of the overall population?

BENTLEY: Well, let me say that the vetting is not done very well because the head of the FBI himself said that we cannot vet these people completely. And we just can't take a chance on it right now. We need to be protective of the people of our state and that's exactly what I'm doing.

CUOMO: I understand that. Now, what Comey (ph) said was that if they haven't made any mark where they are, they're not recognized as a threat in the system. No amount of vetting would change that. And that's certainly a concern. But isn't this a major decision to make to say that this entire group of people, some four million fleeing for their lives, cannot be considered to enter the United States because of the concerns you have? Think about the implications that that might reverberate across the world? The message that America would be sending that we won't accept any of these people who are literally running for their lives?

BENTLEY: No, I - and I said, in my heart, I feel that way. I feel that we should look into allowing them a place to go. But just like Condoleezza Rice said yesterday when I was with her, she said that the areas that need - where they need an area is really in the region where they live. It's not here in the United States.

[08:35:21] CUOMO: And as you know, the overwhelming majority are going exactly there. They're either in Turkey or in a regional entity. We're dealing with a very small slice that are being passed along by the U.N. to the U.S. for consideration. But, obviously, this is a debate that's going on because it's definitional about what the country wants to be about, not just how it vets these refugees. But, governor, thank you very much, to make the case. We'll continue this conversation as it starts to move along in terms of what the options are. Thank you, governor, for joining us on NEW DAY.

BENTLEY: Thank you, Chris.

CUOMO: All right, President Obama, for his part on this, says drawing the conclusion not to let in Syrian refugees would be a religious test and would be wrong. He's also saying boots on the ground in Syria, U.S. boots, would be wrong. He's defending his strategy. We're going to talk to a congressman, Tulsi Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran and a fellow Democrat who says the president has got it all wrong. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:40:22] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: So what is President Obama's strategy against ISIS and is that strategy working? Iraq War veteran and Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard says no. And Congresswoman Gabbard joins us now. She's also a member of the House Committee of Armed Services.

Congresswoman, thanks so much for being here.

I want to talk about what the president's strategy against ISIS is and what he actually believes the status of ISIS is. On Friday, hours before the Paris terror attack, he sat down with ABC News and explained what he thinks of ISIS and their status right now. So let me play you just a very short clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't think they're gaining strength. What is true is, is that from the start our goal has been first to contain, and we have contained them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Congresswoman, he said "we have contained them." Well, how can the president make - I mean, obviously, hours later, that was proven tragically wrong. Why did he make that claim?

REP. TULSI GABBARD (D), HAWAII: Good morning and aloha, Alisyn.

You know, this is such an unconventional enemy that I think you can't think of it within the context of so-called containment. As we saw with this horrific attack in Paris, this is something that, you know, was planned and executed in a place far away from the war in Syria.

What I am amazed by is how few people actually understand what's happening in Syria. The reality is that the United States right now is waging two wars in Syria that have opposing goals and opposing objectives. The first war is the war against ISIS, against al Qaeda and these Islamic extremists, where we're working in concert with local ground fighters, like the Kurds and other allies on the ground, with our coalition and U.S. air strikes, and we've seen this probe to be very effective in places in Iraq, as well as in Syria.

The second war that has an objective that is completely opposite to the first is the one that Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States are waging against the Syrian government of Assad, working towards the exact same objective as ISIS, as al Qaeda, as al Nusra, these other groups in Syria. So this second war is illegal. Congress has not authorized us to go to war against the government of Syria. And it's counterproductive because it's actually strengthening these groups. It's strengthening ISIS and al Qaeda and helping them to achieve their objective. And that's why I feel so strongly that we have to stop that war - stop that war against the government of Assad and harness our resources and focus our strategy and execute it well and effectively to defeat ISIS and defeat al Qaeda, our enemy.

CAMEROTA: Congresswoman, thank you for spelling that out. You're right, it is so complicated and there are so many different alliances.

Now that Russia and France have said that they will provide a more robust response to ISIS, and, in fact, we've seen that over the past few nights with their air strikes on ISIS targets in Syria, what do you think happens now with the U.S. and this alliance?

GABBARD: I think we need to work with them. We need to work with other partners and focus solely on defeating ISIS? We need to work with partners on the ground and partners in the region, again, solely to defeat ISIS. But we cannot accomplish that objective if we are simultaneously working to oppose it by strengthening our enemy and the overthrow of the Assad regime. And that's where - while there's a lot happening in the region, there's a lot of different groups at play here, we've got to remain very focused on what our mission is.

Our mission should be to defeat our enemy, the perpetrators of these attacks, the perpetrators of 9/11 found in al Qaeda and ISIS, al Nusra, and all of these other groups that are working on the ground towards their goal of removing the Syrian government of Assad so that they can take over all of Syria. If that is allowed to occur, we will see a humanitarian disaster unlike anything else and we'll see a greater threat not only to the region but to the world. So we've got to stay focused on what our mission is and stop this illegal counterproductive war to overthrow the Syrian government of Assad.

CAMEROTA: And very quickly, in just the few seconds that we have left, do you think that France, Russia, the U.S., the coalition can accomplish this with air strikes or must boots be on the ground?

[08:44:45] GABBARD: There need to be ground forces to hold the territory. The air strikes are proving to be very effective. We've seen how this has work in places like Kobani in Syria, working directly with the Kurds on the ground there. But the Kurds on the ground have been the ones who have been fighting that ground fight, have been doing it with very little resources. We need to provide support and resources to those ground fighters and work with them along with our air battle and our air forces.

CAMEROTA: OK. Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, thank you so much for being on NEW DAY and for all the information.

GABBARD: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Great to see you.

All right. Well the terrorist attacks here in France making it harder for peaceful Muslims to be heard. So how will this impact the Muslim community in Paris? I had a chance to talk to some of them. We'll show you that when we come right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Chris and I have spent the past few days here at the Plaza Republique. As you can see behind me, there has been a huge cross- section of Parisians who have come out here since the attacks to be together, to mourn, to show solidarity. We had a chance to talk to some of them, including young Muslim men about how they feel today.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CROWD: (Speaking French).

[08:50:01] CAMEROTA (voice-over): In the public square, strangers coming together in prayer saying they stand for liberty and long live France.

CROWD: (Singing).

CAMEROTA: And they sang France's national anthem. Christians, Jews, Muslims, here they hold hands. But elsewhere a young Muslim man tells us they point fingers.

CAMEROTA (on camera): He tells me that he's Muslim, and so what is his life like today?

(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People are pointing him by fingers and he's scared about that and they are insulting him.

CAMEROTA: So you feel people's anger?

(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Their anger -- they are angry against Muslims. It doesn't matter whether I'm Muslim, I'm a Jew, or Christian or Hindu, whatsoever. We are all together. That is it.

CAMEROTA (voice-over): Nearby a group of students coming to the Plaza Republique straight from school to show strength.

CAMEROTA (on camera): What message do you bring here or what did you hope to get when you came here?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think they want the French people to split and we have to be united.

CAMEROTA: You live near the attacks.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. CAMEROTA: Are you scared today?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.

CAMEROTA: Why not?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because we are not allowed to be scared. We just can't.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We believe in humanity and freedom. Those people don't have humanity. Maybe they are stronger than us because they don't care if someone dies in their camp, but humanity always win -- whatever -- humanity always win.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: That is a beautiful note. I hope that that's true. There are about 6 million Muslims living in France.

CUOMO: Well there is only a small fraction of them that have any connection to what is now known as radical Islamism. But those facts aside, every time there's an attack like the one that just happened in Paris, a shadow is cast over all of Islam.

Now let's discuss that with author of "In the Land of Invisible Women." Her name is Dr. Qanta Ahmed and she's a friend of the show and here in Paris delivering a speech on Islamism and hate.

Now Doc, you've helped up with this before, but every time you have to restart the conversation because the people who did this call themselves Muslims, are Muslims, and it makes people think, who aren't Muslim especially, this is what they are about and they are out to get the rest of us. What is the space between?

DR. QANTA AHMED, AUTHOR, "IN THE LAND OF INVISIBLE WOMEN": I understand. There is denial all around. Denial on the part of Islam that Islamism emerges from within us. You are right. Islamists are Muslims. Denial that Islam is not monolithic. We are a huge diverse population, most of whom don't subscribe to this ideology. And denial that there is actually a growing unprecedented hatred directed at Muslims. Forget what's happening in the United States with these governors, which is unimaginably un-American, in my opinion, but also that the Syrian refugee has become the amorphous shape, the embodiment of anti-Muslim sentiment.

These people have turned into and merged with the idea of the attackers that committed these atrocities here in France. That shows a lack of nuance all around, which is very dangerous. That we're seeing it coming out of the lips of high level politicians in the United States only feeds into one beneficiary and that is Islamists themselves. Islamists benefit on the idea that Muslims are under siege, that the West has a war on us. That secularism is really a Zionist conspiracy.

So when we have U.S. governors saying no Muslims allowed in, no Syrian Muslims allowed in, that absolutely ignites that in a way that is far more dangerous. I think ISIS could not have imagined that kind of incendiary repercussion from even these huge events. It's astonishing.

CAMEROTA: So what is the answer? We've heard here in Paris how insulated the Muslim community is. There is not a lot of assimilation. What is the answer?

AHMED: Exactly. The U.S. is so tremendous at allowing people to have their own identities and encompassing them in our society. Ghettoization and citizenship only in document and not in spirit is very prevalent, at least in Britain and France that I've seen, and other Western European.

One is giving people full embodiment of citizenship in whatever way we can. But the other is empowering civil Islam. This issue of radical Islamism or Islamist terrorism is actually a ten-century old tension between civil Islam, Sufism, the Islam that existed in Kosovo before the war, other kinds of (INAUDIBLE) Islam and the imposition of orthodoxy, which began with a rejection of that thought, rejection of Islamist rationalists and now into the fact that Islamists that convict these attacks that have happened in Paris define every single one of us, 1.7 billion, in the eyes of the onlookers. That's deadly. That's much more dangerous than Islamism itself.

[08:55:02] CUOMO: How much of this is a war for the soul of Islam, for Muslims like yourself to take back your faith from those who are defining it now as a perversion?

AHMED: I think it is absolutely a battle inside Islam. And whether we have a soul left or not, I believe we have, but it is being engulfed and parasitized by Islamism. It is almost immaterial how many Islamists there are. And remember, Islamists can be violent, as we've seen here in Paris twice this year or several times this year, and non violent which gives the engine, the ideological basis for this violence. It's almost a material that they are a numerical minority, which they are. They enslave millions of Muslims around the world. Iran is an Islamist so-called democracy, one that the United States has chosen to partner with. Pakistan is already corrupted by Islamism in its democracy. So hundreds of millions of Muslims are subjugated by it already. But yes, this is a violent upheaval inside Islam that's pulling the external world into it.

CAMEROTA: Qanta Ahmed, we always appreciate getting your insights into this. You educate us every time you come on. Thank you so much for being on NEW DAY with us here in Paris.

CUOMO: All right. CNN is going to have continuing coverage. There are new leads in the investigation. There is a tangential story about what brought down that Russian plane. Very covering all of it. Please stay with us right after this short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)