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Walker Denies Comparing Protesters to Terrorists; Has Netanyahu's Personal Relationship with Obama Hit New Low; Jordan's King Warns ISIS; Brutal Attack on American Blogger, Wife in Bangladesh; Boko Haram Carries Out 2 Bombings in Nigeria.

Aired February 27, 2015 - 13:30   ET

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

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Governor Walker was criticized when he didn't disown Rudy Giuliani's statements about President Obama not loving America. And later, Governor Walker said he didn't know whether Obama was even a Christian. A spokesman later backtracked on that. And earlier in London, he got into some political hot water when he said politicians shouldn't have to weigh in on various issues. He punted, for example, when he was asked what his thoughts were on evolution. Once again, he later having to clarify that, saying he does believe that faith and science are compatible.

Gloria, is he ready for primetime, as a lot of the political junkies like to say?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: He's a newbie. He hasn't run before. That's why sometimes it takes a couple of times to get it right. I don't think any of this hurts him with his base. In that room at CPAC yesterday, he was loudly applauded. People believe that he's kind of a crossover candidate who can appeal to the right wing of the party as well as the more moderates in the party and that he's socially conservative enough and has an economic reform message. So, yes, these are mistakes. He's new. You don't want to be clarifying your remarks all the time, as he's been doing in the last week or two. But, again, with Republicans who are voting in the primaries, this is not a problem.

BLITZER: But he's pretty popular still out there with that base, Peter, the base that's at this event, right?

PETER HAMBY, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Absolutely. And Walker was again here this morning sort of working the hallways. He did some conservative radio interviews. In the halls, he had sort of a coffee meeting with activists. And the crowds were big. They followed him everywhere. That rhetoric, controversial or not, outside of this building, works here.

But I would say it's OK for Walker to make some mistakes now as he learns to enter this national campaign environment. You'd rather make those mistakes now than later. He's got to learn about the issues. He's got to learn, as successful as he's been in Wisconsin, he's got to learn about the national media. Yesterday, for example, Walker was asked his thoughts on the neutrality decision, he didn't have any thoughts on that and deflected to saying he supports freedom and then kind of moved on. So he's sort of using this moment, this pre- campaign moment to figure himself out. And maybe it's better to get these mistakes out of the way early than, say, in November, December, right before the Iowa caucuses.

BLITZER: We'll see how Jeb Bush does in his speech, that's coming up.

Guys, thanks.

Still ahead, a trip already straining U.S./Israeli relations. A trip to Washington by the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, is getting ready to address a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress. His item on the agenda, the nuclear negotiations with Iran right now. Has his relationship, though, his personal relationship with President Obama hit a new low? We'll discuss when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer, reporting from Washington.

Some have called it brazen. Others have said it's destructive, a dangerous gamble. Some have said it's brave. We're talking about the diplomatic storm ahead of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's controversial visit to the U.S. capital. Netanyahu will be speaking before a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress Tuesday morning. The substance of his remarks will be Iran's nuclear ambitions. He's expected to severely criticize the White House, his efforts to negotiate a deal, a position that's put him at very serious odds with President Obama and his entire administration. The prime minister will also, Monday morning, address AIPEC, the pro-Israel lobbying group up on Capitol Hill.

Let's dig deeper with what's going on. Joining us, Aaron David Miller, former Middle East negotiator, now with the Woodrow Wilson International Center here in Washington; and David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and National Security, also in Washington.

They'll have to, at some point, repair this relationship, this damage that's going to be caused, that's already been caused between the U.S. and Israel, between Netanyahu and the Obama administration.

Let's look ahead, Aaron. What do they need to do immediately after this speech Tuesday morning?

AARON DAVID MILLER, WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER: I think the speech is only a midpoint in the current crisis, atmosphere that's affecting both sides. The crisis point will come, Wolf, in effect, if there is an agreement between the U.S., Iran and the P5-Plus-1.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: And that's supposed to be done by the end of March?

MILLER: End of March in terms of laying out the provisions. Maybe by July 1 in terms of dotting all the "I"s and the details -- BLITZER: So what you're saying, as bad as it is right now, within a

few weeks later, assuming Netanyahu, on March 17th, is reelected the prime minister of Israel, it could get a whole lot worse?

MILLER: I think the personal relationship between the two -- there's no reset there. It's going to require the departure of one or both to reset the broader frame of the relationship.

But the relationship itself will recover from this because, as I mentioned earlier, unlike Lehman Brothers, this one really is too big to fail. We have interests. We have allies. We need friends in the region. And the Israelis, despite the anomalies, imperfections in their own policies, are an ally of the United States.

BLITZER: At the substance, David -- you're an expert on those Iran nuclear negotiations under way right now. How far apart would you say the Obama administration's position is on what Iran needs to do as opposed to the Israeli position as advanced by the prime minister?

DAVID ALBRIGHT, PRESIDENT, INSTITUTE FOR SCIENCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY: It's hard to tell. The U.S. and Iran and the allies of the U.S. are keeping this very secret right now. I mean --

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Based on what we know publicly?

ALBRIGHT: They're getting closer, no doubt about.

BLITZER: Who's getting closer?

ALBRIGHT: I think both sides to the --

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: The U.S. and the P5-Plus-1, as it's called, the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, China, Russia, France, Britain, plus Germany, are getting closer to a deal with Iran. So the question is, how far apart is this deal that's in the works from the Israeli perspective? How angry do you believe the Israelis will be about this deal?

ALBRIGHT: I think there are key parts of the deal that haven't been settled. Some of those, like how much verification will be done, will Iran settle with the international inspectors, over did they work on nuclear weapons in the past, will they let the inspectors go places and get to the bottom of things. Those are key Israeli concerns and they're not resolved. There are critical issues that affect Israel that remain to be settled. I think part of how I view what Prime Minister Netanyahu is doing is to try to put pressure on the U.S. for a better deal. There's all kinds of problems that could be raised about him coming here. But on a substantive level, I think he wants a better deal.

Now, on the zero centrifuge versus some amount of centrifuge, I think the train's left the station. If you have zero centrifuges in Iran, you're not limiting their capability to making them. Instead you're really talking about, instead of the year breakout time, as the administration talks about, maybe you'll have two, three-year breakout time. So it's really a difference in degree, not a qualitative change in what's going on.

BLITZER: Why would the Israelis allow the U.S., the other members of the Security Council and Germany, to see if they could come up with a deal and, at that point, they could either like it or not like it?

MILLER: I think in the end, that's going to be the case. Nothing the prime minister can do here next week is going to fundamentally affect, in one way or another, the substance of this agreement. It will be determined on whether or not Iran and the U.S. can find a balance of interest on their core needs and requirements. And even if there is a deal, I'm not sure there's a whole lot the Israelis are going to be able to do, or if they did act, it would be in defiance of both the United States and the international community. They're really in a tough spot.

We can accommodate ourselves, we, in Washington, through the uncertainties and risks inherent in any agreement. And David has laid them out. The Israelis have a smaller margin for error, full stop. And I think, no agreement, you are going to face the problem what to do about Iran if they accelerate their program. With an agreement, you still are going to set the stage --

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: You think there will be an agreement?

ALBRIGHT: I don't know. Some important issues haven't been settled. We're only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

BLITZER: They only have a few weeks.

ALBRIGHT: Technically, they have until the end of July. Everyone says no extension, but if they've made substantive progress -- and this round, they appear to be making much better progress than the two previous rounds where very little was accomplished. And Iran does seem to understand now the kind of concessions it has to make. That's an advancement. Now, do they want sanctions relief enough to get those? We'll see. But I think if a deal is on, well along, I think it would be a mistake to just arbitrarily cut off --

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: In other words, there's supposed to be -- like the framework is supposed to be announced by the end of March but you're saying they could do the crossing of the "T"s and dotting the "I"s by the end of July --

(CROSSTALK)

ALBRIGHT: Or maybe the end of August.

(CROSSTALK) ALBRIGHT: Well, I would say to leave room for that.

BLITZER: Yeah, all right. We'll see what Netanyahu has to say Tuesday morning when he addresses Congress.

Guys, thanks very much.

There's no doubt there's a serious, serious strain in U.S./Israeli relations right now.

Coming up, a tough warning to ISIS from Jordan's King Abdullah. He's speaking out in an exclusive interview with CNN's own Fareed Zakaria. We'll hear what the king is now saying about the terror group's killing of a Jordanian pilot.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Turning now to the war against ISIS. Jordan's King Abdullah has vowed to fight back hard against ISIS after the terror group brutally killed a Jordanian pilot, posted a gruesome video showing him being burned alive in a cage.

King Abdullah sat down in Amman with our own Fareed Zakaria for an exclusive interview. Here's part of what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST, FAREED ZAKARIA, GPS: This is the first time you're speaking to the world since the death of the Jordanian pilot and that brutal video. Tell us, what was your reaction when you first saw the video?

KING ABDULLAH OF JORDAN: Well, in actual fact, I didn't see the video. And many of us refuse to see what I think is propaganda. Obviously, I had a detailed brief of what happened. We couldn't escape seeing obviously pictures of the newspapers. Disgust, sadness to the family. I had met the family on many occasions. My heart went out to the father, the mother, the brothers and sisters, his wife. They'd only been married for five months. Anger as a son of the Arab army, the Arab forces. Muath, God bless his soul, is a brother in arms. So I think all Jordanian soldiers, past and present, were angered and disgusted by the brutality of what Muath was put through.

And I think if ISIS, or Daesh, as we call them, tried to intimidate Jordanians, I think it just had the reverse effect. If you look at our history, we're a country that's used to being outgunned and outnumbered. And we've always punched way above our weight. And I think, if anything, Daesh has now gotten a tiger by the tail. It motivated Jordanians to rally around the flag, and the gloves have come off.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Fareed is joining us from New York.

Fareed, the king seems very determined, obviously, to fight ISIS, and for good reason. What are some of the key points you got from him during this exclusive interview?

ZAKARIA: It was a fascinating conversation, Wolf. I asked him what he thought of this controversy here as to what we should call groups like ISIS and should we call them Islamic or should be do what President Obama is doing? He very much endorsed President Obama's approach, that he didn't think that we should confer on them the mantel of Islam because they're what he calls outlaws or renegades of Islam.

He talked very much about how this was an Arab fight. He said it's our fight. We have to do it. We want your help. We want the international community's support. He's very grateful I think for American troops and air strikes being involved but he didn't seem to want American troops on the ground. He wanted to fight this as an Arab fight. He's working very hard to make that happen.

The day before I saw him, he was in Saudi Arabia. An hour after I saw him, he went to Egypt. He's trying to rally an Arab coalition, Arab troops and a kind of ideological war. He's trying to get people to describe them, as I said, as outlaws and renegades. He's trying to get various preachers and imams involved as well as governments.

There's a lot of fight in him. He's a military man. He understands exactly how to do it in military terms, but he really did say several time, this is our fight, this is a fight within Islam. You can help, the outside world can help, we want your help, but we have to fight.

BLITZER: We're looking forward to the full interview, Fareed.

Thank you very, very much.

Our viewers here in North America, you can see Fareed's full interview with King Abdullah here on CNN. This Sunday morning, tune in at 10:00 p.m. For our international viewers, turn in at 7:00 a.m. eastern or 3:00 p.m. eastern on Sunday to catch the full interview.

Still ahead, activists in Bangladesh are protesting a horrific murder. An American blogger targeted and attacked for promoting secular freedom. We're going live to the region.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Now to Bangladesh and a brutal attack. An American blogger was killed and his wife seriously injured as they walked through the streets of the capital Dhaka Thursday night. He was allegedly targeted because he spoke out against religious extremism.

Our New Deli bureau chief, Ravi Agrawai, is joining us now live.

Ravi, tell us what we know. What happened here?

RAVI AGRAWAI, CNN NEW DELI BUREAU CHIEF: Hi, Wolf. What we know is that on Thursday night, this person, Avijit Roy, he'd been condemning secular extremism for a while. He was at a book fair in Dhaka, the capitol of Bangladesh, and he was going home from the book fair with his wife when he was attacked. We're still piecing together what happened. But it seems like there

were a group of men who attacked them both with machetes.

We have this sound from an eyewitness. Listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAZI SHAWKAT ARA, SCHOOL TEACHER & WITNESS (through translation): I saw an unknown person bring out a big knife and first hit him from behind on his head and then on his shoulders. I shouted for help from the people, but nobody came to save him. No one came. A lady was with him. She was his wife. She was also hit on the shoulder.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AGRAWAI: So, Wolf, as you heard there, you know, Roy was killed in that attack. His wife, however, did survive. We've been in touch with the police in Bangladesh. She's seriously wounded. They think she's going to pull through. When she does, they think she'll be able to identify the suspects.

I do want to say one more thing. One year ago, when Roy launched his book called "The Virus of Faith," he started receiving death threats primarily because of his writing. One of the people posted on Facebook saying that, "Avijit Roy lives in America and so it is not possible to kill him right now, but he will be murdered when he comes back." It looks like that's what happened.

BLITZER: He lived just outside of Atlanta.

George (sic), what a horrible story that is.

Ravi, thanks very much for that report.

Meanwhile, Boko Haram is believed to have carried out two bombings in Nigeria that killed at least 35 people. Troops from Chad are moving in to Nigeria to try to defeat the militant group.

CNN's Arwa Damon was invited to join Chad's military as it chases down Boko Haram.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT): The weather conditions have reduced visibility forcing these helicopters to fly quite low. We'll be passing over Cameroon as we head towards one of Chad's front lines with Boko Haram in Nigeria.

(voice-over): We're in one of the region's most feared military forces and also apparently one of the most effective. Some say heavy handed.

After coming under attack by Boko Haram in neighboring Cameroon, this Chadian unit gave chase following, the militants right across the border into northern Nigeria.

We were invited along with the Chadian top brass. The convoy to the front is massive, heavily armed, packed with jubilant troops.

(SHOUTING)

DAMON (on camera): This is one of Boko Haram's positions. That's what the soldiers were just yelling as we were driving by.

(voice-over): Chad's well-equipped and battle-hardened army joined the fight in January helping Nigeria reclaim a chunk of territory.

(SHOUTING)

DAMON: We pass through an abandoned town. It was firmly under Boko Haram's control until the Chadians arrived just a few weeks ago.

(CROSSTALK)

DAMON (on camera): The area we're heading to, this soldier was saying, on Tuesday is where they were attacked.

(voice-over): We see a handful of women as the convoy speeds past. The remains of motorcycles often used by Boko Haram.

(GUNFIRE)

DAMON: We can't see what the Chadians are shooting at.

(SHOUTING)

DAMON: Then the distinct hissing of bullets close by.

(SHOUTING)

DAMON: Our vehicle moves forward, past a body they tell us is that of the Boko Haram militant who had been shooting at our convoy. We don't see a weapon. Soldiers say they grabbed it.

Chad claims to have killed 200 Boko Haram militants here this past week. We see about half a dozen bodies left to rot.

The Chadian soldiers find a child. They want him to tell them where the Boko Haram fighters have fled to. Perhaps 7 or 8 years old, he seems terrified and confused. The soldiers view any survivors here with suspicion.

Arwa Damon, CNN, Nigeria.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: What a horrific story that is as well.

Thanks to Arwa Damon, a courageous journalist, for reporting that news. That's it for me. Thanks very much for watching. I'll be back 5:00

p.m. eastern in "The Situation Room."

For our international viewers, "Amanpour" is next. For our viewers in North America, "Newsroom" with Ana Cabrera starts right now.