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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Interview With Louisiana Congressman Steve Scalise; Israeli Prime Minister Addresses Congress; Deadline to Cut a Deal Approaching

Aired March 03, 2015 - 16:00   ET

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

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Prime Minister Netanyahu called the Iran deal a deadly "Game of Thrones," but instead of dragons, it's nukes.

I'm Jake Tapper. This is THE LEAD.

The world lead, relations between the president of the United States and the prime minister of Israel at an historic all-time low, as Netanyahu insists Obama's paving the way for Iran to develop a nuclear bomb. But President Obama asks, hey, what's Bibi's alternative?

And the sound of his voice usually means something horrible is about to unfold. But now in new recordings alleging to be Jihadi John, you hear the ISIS terrorist denouncing the very thing he does for a living.

But the politics lead, we always wondered what she was typing on that BlackBerry. But now e-mails from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have some in Congress asking whether she broke the law.

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

We're going to begin today with our world lead.

Hours ago, a visibly miffed President Obama said that Israel's prime minister of Israel had -- quote -- "nothing new to say."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a joint meeting of Congress that President Obama is essentially greasing the rails for Iran's nuclear dreams.

After the speech, President Obama, who says he did not watch his Israeli counterpart, but did read the transcript, insisted Netanyahu had, what's the word, chutzpah to repeat the same chorus he's been shouting for some time now on Iran without laying out any alternative solution, any possible way to stop the Iranian regime.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The prime minister didn't offer any viable alternatives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Netanyahu started today's address by borrowing a page from House and Senate members in attendance, calling President Obama a true friend to Israel, before skewering the Obama administration's negotiations with Iran.

Netanyahu repeated his view that this is a bad deal, that it would give Iran an easy path to the bomb, and that no deal would be better than this deal.

CNN global affairs correspondent Elise Labott is here to talk about this.

Elise, you were in Israel covering the prime minister when he got this invitation. He said today that if Israel has to stand alone on this issue, it will. But you heard about President Obama reacted. And things just between the Obama White House and Netanyahu's government seem at an all-time tense high, I mean, just awful.

ELISE LABOTT, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, any time you think it can't get worse, it does, Jake.

And although the prime minister started with a glowing praise of President Obama, once he got going, he began a blistering critique that has the White House fuming.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LABOTT (voice-over): He made a grand entrance usually reserved for American presidents. And then the Israeli prime minister delivered a blistering assault on President Obama's Iran policy and his attempt to strike a nuclear deal with Iran.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: We've been told that no deal is better than a bad deal. This is a bad deal. It's a very bad deal. We're better off without it.

(APPLAUSE)

LABOTT: Tonight, President Obama is firing back.

OBAMA: Prime Minister Netanyahu has not offered any kind of viable alternative that would achieve the same verifiable mechanism to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.

LABOTT: There were a series of standing ovations, but some icy glares, as Netanyahu painted a picture of a militant Iranian regime extending its reach throughout the Middle East with what he calls Iran's tentacles of terror.

NETANYAHU: So, at a time when many hope that Iran will join the community of nations, Iran is busy gobbling up the nations.

LABOTT: With Secretary of State John Kerry in Geneva meeting with Iran's foreign minister to hammer out the very deal he was criticizing, the prime minister portrayed the Obama administration as weak negotiators.

NETANYAHU: this deal has two major concessions, one, leaving Iran with a vast nuclear program, and, two, lifting the restrictions on that program in about a decade. That's why this deal is so bad. It doesn't block Iran's path to the bomb. It paves Iran's path to the bomb.

LABOTT: President Obama said he has no illusions about the Iranian regime, but he's focused on the more serious Iranian threat.

OBAMA: It's not whether Iran engages in destabilizing activities. Everybody agrees with that. The central question is, how can we stop them from getting a nuclear weapon?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LABOTT: And the prime minister warned the deal on the table would spark a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, turning an already dangerous region into a nuclear tinderbox, Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Elise Labott, thank you so much.

Dana Bash is live on Capitol Hill, where some Democrats skipped out on Netanyahu's speech.

Dana, but some Democrats who attended the's address are quite upset about it, it seems.

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The lead Democrat in the House, you're exactly right, Nancy Pelosi.

And if you got any glimpses of her on the floor sitting on the House floor watching the prime minister, she was visibly miffed, just sort of like the president looked shortly after. She was agitated, and she put out a statement shortly after, saying that she was nearly in tears, near tears, throughout the prime minister's speech, saddened by the insult to the intelligence of the United States.

And let me actually play for you as well what she said afterwards when those of us in the press corps tried to get her to elaborate on that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: The United States of America has as one of the pillars of its national security and foreign policy to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. And that's what we do.

And that's what the president is doing in negotiations. And if the good -- the deal isn't good enough, we won't accept it. I don't think we needed any lectures on that. But that's just my view.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Now, I should be clear that she is in one camp of the Democratic Party. Many of those actually didn't even show up. She had a different kind of responsibility because she is the House leader.

But there are a lot of Democrats, and I know you have heard them all day today, Jake, you saw them applauding very energetically, that agree with the prime minister. And they don't think that this deal that their fellow Democrat in the White House working with the allies is going to down the right path. There's very much a split here about the reaction to, not just whether the prime minister should have given the speech, but, more importantly, now that it's given, whether the message was accurate or even frankly offensive.

TAPPER: Dana, just hours after the speech, the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, made a legislative maneuver that could potentially throw a wrench into the talks. Explain that.

BASH: That's right. He's going to try as soon as next week to put a bill on the floor, bipartisan bill, that would give Congress a role.

Right now, Congress doesn't have an official role in either thumbs up or thumbs down for these talks, should they actually be finalized at the end of the month. So this, if this passes, it could give Congress a role to have hearings, to potentially approve it or say that the U.S. won't participate. This is controversial, but there actually are a number of Democrats who might want to actually sign onto that.

Ultimately, the question is when this vote is going to happen, now or if they are going to wait until after the deal is actually done at the end of the month.

TAPPER: Dana Bash on Capitol Hill, thanks so much.

I want to talk to Republican Congressman Steve Scalise. He's the majority whip in the House of Representatives, part of the leadership team that extended this invitation to Prime Minister Netanyahu to deliver the speech.

Sir, thanks so much for being here. I guess just to start, can you understand why some Americans are troubled by the notion of the U.S. Congress inviting a foreign leader to speak at our Congress to undermine very sensitive nuclear negotiations President Obama is trying to work with Iran, along with Russia, China, Germany, France, the U.K.?

Can you understand why, just as a principle, some people are bothered by that?

REP. STEVE SCALISE (R-LA), HOUSE MAJORITY WHIP: Well, Jake, what I have seen, not only throughout Southeast Louisiana, where I represent, but in talking to my colleagues, Democrat and Republican alike across the country, you saw incredibly intense interest in the prime minister's speech, not only in the House chamber, where I haven't seen this kind of demand for tickets. It was standing room only.

You had not only members of Congress, but former members of Congress who came back, a completely packed chamber, very electric atmosphere, and incredibly powerful words by Prime Minister Netanyahu, because I think most Americans recognize that Iran is working towards developing nuclear weapons capability.

Our sanctions were working incredibly well to bring their economy to the brink. And right when they were brought to the table, the president let off the gas, eased back on the sanctions. And the prime minister rightly raised real concerns about that earlier, over a year ago.

I know many in Congress, Republicans and Democrats, shared those concerns when it started to ease off the sanctions. But today he laid out some very specific problems with this deal that's being developed that could cause real long-term implications throughout the Middle East if this kind of bad deal is agreed to.

TAPPER: Well, I understand that it was an exciting speech, especially for House Republicans.

But you didn't really answer my question, which is, can you see understand why some people found the principle of the invitation to try to undermine something President Obama is trying to do, why that principle can be seen as disrespectful?

SCALISE: No, it's a small group of people, I think, that might have opposed it.

I think most Americans embraced it. The president himself, I think, tried to inject politics into it. But I thought the prime minister did a really good job tactfully at the very beginning of his speech at defusing some of those political implications. And you saw not only Republicans, but Democrats, standing up, giving standing ovations.

Might have been more standing ovations than I have even seen for State of the Union addresses. And I'm not just talking about Republicans, all Republicans, all Democrats standing up multiple times throughout the prime minister's speech.

I think it was incredibly well-received by both parties. And I think people across the nation now have an even deeper understanding of just how volatile this is, this whole idea of Iran developing a nuclear weapons capability and how important it is for the United States to not only keep our foot on the gas, but actually increase pressure, so that we don't end up with a bad deal; we end up with the ability to have Iran dismantle their nuclear weapons program.

And the prime minister actually laid out some really good alternatives.

TAPPER: Well, the idea of Iran giving up its nuclear enrichment for what it describes as a peaceful nuclear power program, the White House says no one other than the United States even supports that in the P5- plus-one, in the negotiating partners, that that is a pipe dream, that there's no agreement that is going to end with Iran shutting down all of their nuclear reactors, their nuclear sites, getting rid of all their uranium, all the plutonium.

That's just never going to happen. It's not realistic.

SCALISE: Well, the centrifuges were specifically brought up by Prime Minister Netanyahu.

And he talked about the danger of the thousands of centrifuges that are there that would still be there after this deal and the ability for them to move forward in 10 years, which is not that long when you talk about the history of nations, where 10 years from now, they can continue with those centrifuges to ramp it up even more.

He said -- Prime Minister Netanyahu, who offered as an alternative, don't allow any deal to expire until Iran has dismantled their nuclear weapons program. And President Obama himself has even said that Iran shouldn't have nuclear capabilities.

Well, then it's time to actually hammer out a deal that ensures that. He doesn't need other countries to go along with that. Our U.S. sanctions were bringing their economy to their knees and forcing them to the table.

TAPPER: Yes.

SCALISE: This isn't the time to ease off. It's the time to actually make Iran dismantle their nuclear weapons program.

And this is a country that sanctions terrorism throughout the world.

TAPPER: Right. No, I...

SCALISE: This is not a good actor out there. This is no ally of the United States.

TAPPER: No one is arguing that.

SCALISE: They call us the great Satan.

TAPPER: No one is arguing that.

Before you go, I just want to get your reaction. President Obama has been making the case quite strongly that Prime Minister Netanyahu was wrong in 2013 with all of his dire predictions about the interim deal that was made then.

I want you to take a listen to these sound bites of Netanyahu talking about the Iranian program.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NETANYAHU: The most dangerous of these regimes is Iran, that has wed a cruel despotism to a fanatic militancy.

If this regime or its despotic neighbor Iraq were to acquire nuclear weapons, this could presage catastrophic consequences, not only for my country and not only for the Middle East, but for all of mankind.

From there, it's only a few months, possibly a few weeks, before they get enough enriched uranium for the first bomb.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Now, I know you can't see the screen, but just to let you in, the first bite was Netanyahu in 1996 issuing a dire warning, and then again in 2012 saying that Iran was close to obtaining a nuclear weapon.

What do you say to critics who say that basically Netanyahu is the prime minister who cried wolf?

SCALISE: Well, Iran is making it clear that they want to move forward and enrich uranium and ultimately develop a nuclear weapons capability.

You have heard other countries in the Middle East say, if Iran has got a nuclear bomb, then it will escalate a nuclear arms race in the entire Middle East, the most volatile region in the world. So, we have got to be more aggressive with sanctions that were working, to actually ratchet those sanctions up right now, and stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapons capability, because that's what they want to do.

And they have said they want to eviscerate Israel from the planet. One of the things the prime minister said was, at a minimum, Iran's got to stop saying they want to eliminate Israel from the face of the earth. They ought to say that they're going to stop -- and back it up with actions -- that they're going to stop sponsoring terrorism throughout the world.

Those are some very basic things they should do that they still refuse to do this day.

TAPPER: Congressman Steve Scalise, thank you so much. Appreciate your time.

SCALISE: Thanks, Jake.

TAPPER: Let's just say there wasn't applause on the streets of Tehran as Benjamin Netanyahu gave his controversial speech. But what kind of effect did it have on the talks going on right now in Switzerland as the nuclear deadline with Iran quickly approaches? Our own Jim Sciutto is there live, and he's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

Continuing now with our world lead -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's controversial address to Congress, accusing President Obama of supporting a deal with Iran that not only would not prevent the regime from getting a nuclear bomb but would -- in his view -- pave the way for Iran to do so.

CNN chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto is traveling with Secretary of State John Kerry in Montreux, Switzerland, where negotiations with Iran are continuing.

Jim, what was the reaction there to the prime minister's remarks?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Jake, the reaction was state department officials making a point of saying that Secretary of State John Kerry did not listen to or watch the speech because he was in their words busy negotiating with the Iranians over this nuclear deal. In fact, we noted that the afternoon session began about a half hour

before the prime minister spoke, continued an hour, hour and a half afterwards. That was the third two-hour-long meeting today, the fifth in the last 24 hours. So, I think that's the clearest demonstration as to what their focus here remains.

I asked the Iranian foreign minister earlier today whether the Netanyahu speech would have an effect on the talks. He said, the Israeli prime minister is drying to inject conflict into the talks but he said as well there is a seriousness in his words about addressing the issues and trying to get to a deal.

TAPPER: Jim, have they impacted the negotiations at all? Or they're saying it's as if it's in a vacuum?

SCIUTTO: They're saying it's as if it's in a vacuum. I think there's -- you could take that as truthful. Secretary of State John Kerry is here under the direction of the president, and the president is clearly deciding to move forward on these talks in the face from the negative counsel from his close ally in Prime Minister Netanyahu. So, that's where they get their orders and how they're proceeding.

From the Iranian side as well, I think that, you know, Iranian officials would tell me they're used to this kind in their words bluster coming from Israel. So, they don't feel the effect.

But, listen, let's be honest. We do know and all sides know it could have an effect in Congress. Do they push for more sanctions, either as a deal gets agreed to or if it gets extended or down the road? That's where the power lies and that frankly could have an effect over time.

TAPPER: Jim Sciutto, thank you so.

Here to discuss the politics of today's speech, Jeffrey Goldberg, national correspondent for "The Atlantic," and Karim Sadjadpour, he's a former chief Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group, and a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment.

Thanks to both of you for being here. Appreciate it.

So, so much has been said about the friction between Obama and Netanyahu.

Jeff, let me start with. Lasting damage between the relationship between the two done today you think?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, "THE ATLANTIC": Yes. But I think it was done before the speech as well. I think there's no trust between the two of them. I think Obama feels that Netanyahu is actively trying to subvert one of his foreign policy goals, and I think it goes deeper than that, because I think that they want to on the one hand share intelligence, share analysis, but they feel that the Israelis are going to leak this out in order to subvert the talks.

So, in this coming period, where there's going to have to be intense dialogue between these two allies, Israel and the United States, there's zero trust between the two leaders.

TAPPER: Karim, what kind of impact do you think a Netanyahu speech has on the negotiators? I know the official line is it has no impact whatsoever. But that can't -- we heard Zarif talking about it. They know of that. Do you think it helps the Americans make the case, hey, this is the alternative if you don't do a deal?

KARIM SADJADPOUR, FORMER CHIEF IRAN ANALYST, INTL. CRISIS GROUP: No, I frankly think it makes it that much more difficult for the Obama administration to sell this deal to the U.S. public and it makes it that much more difficult for the Iranian negotiating team to take this case to the supreme leader and say that we got the best deal possible. I think frankly the people who are happiest today are the hard-liners in Tehran, because the hard-liners in Tehran have thrived in isolation. Further political, economic isolation is more a carrot for them than a stick. And I think they will now -- if the deal doesn't happen -- have a pretty good pretext to say, we showed flexibility. It was the Israeli prime minister and the U.S. Congress which blew this deal out.

TAPPER: Interesting.

Jeffrey, Netanyahu said the world should hold out for a better deal.

GOLDBERG: A better deal.

TAPPER: Of course, we're all in favor of a better deal.

GOLDBERG: Right.

TAPPER: But he said that the deal would need to not leave Tehran with, quote, "a mass nuclear infrastructure and no easy path to the bomb." Is that deal possible?

GOLDBERG: No. I mean, that's the problem here is that what he didn't do -- he laid out a very eloquent case that Iran is a bad actor, but we've got that.

TAPPER: Yes.

GOLDBERG: We know that. He made a case that it's dangerous for them to have nuclear weapons. We got that.

What he didn't say was, how do we get negotiations to actually work? He wants to expand this. He wants to talk about -- he wants negotiations to deal with Iran's support for terror groups and Iran's support for aggressive insurrections across the Middle East. Well, that's fine, but that's going to blow apart the negotiations. So, that's a choice. And he knows that. He knows it's going to blow apart.

SADJADPOUR: Jake, this is very important, because what animates members of Congress most about Iran is actually not the nuclear program. It's their role in the Middle East, in particular their rejection of Israel's existence, Holocaust denial, support for groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic jihad. GOLDBERG: And Assad.

TAPPER: Right.

SADJADPOUR: And Assad.

So, in the last couple of years we've seen some Iranian flexibility on the nuclear file. We haven't seen any Iranian flexibility on the regional file. And so, I think many members of Congress are already cynical because they say, why take the boot off their neck if their only going to have more funding to continue to do what they're doing?

But the follow-up to that is, what's the alternative, the other better solution?

TAPPER: Right.

SADJADPOUR: Netanyahu didn't present one today.

TAPPER: Right. And, Jeff, as you know better than I, some of the people who also think that the Obama administration is being naive when it comes to Iran, are people like Saudi Arabia, the government of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey. They view not only through the Sunni/Shia prism, but they also view a nuclear Iran as a threat to the entire region, and there likely would be a nuclear arms race.

GOLDBERG: You basically have a situation where every American ally in the Middle East thinks that Obama is being naive. And Obama's response to that is, look, do you want the Middle East to have a nuclear arms race or not? This is -- it's not emotionally satisfying, it's not viscerally satisfying, but I'm your best shot at getting Iran to denuclearize or at least be a year away perpetually from being a nuclear power.

But again it's a very, very hard sale in a region where Iran is making so much mischief.

TAPPER: And, Karim, one of the other issues has to deal with the credibility of the Israeli prime minister because as has been pointed out by progressive publications and also President Obama, past things Netanyahu has said about Iran's nuclear program being imminent, being weeks away, being months away, have not come true.

SADJADPOUR: For 20 years, Jake, Netanyahu has been saying Iran is a few months or a few years away. So, I think he does appear in many quarters to be the man who continuously cries wolf.

I think there's another point in here which is worth mentioning which is the Iranian people who we're not talking about. You know, the population of over 75 million people, desperate to emerge from political and economic isolation. In the past, they're blamed their own leadership -- their own leadership that puts ideology before national interest.

I think there's a danger now if this deal doesn't happen that they start to put the blame on the Israeli prime minister. Up until now, Iran has had the least anti-Semitic, the least anti-Israeli population in the Middle East. I'm worried now that that dynamic can start to shift.

TAPPER: Very interesting. Karim Sadjadpour and Jeffrey Goldberg, thank you so much. Really appreciate your time.

Up next on THE LEAD, he's one of the world's most wanted man after leaking secrets about America government's spy program. Now, Edward Snowden says he may be ready to come out of hiding if the U.S. will meet one crucial condition.

Plus, a gruesome new display from Boko Haram. Is the terrorist group out to prove it can go toe-to-toe with ISIS?

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