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President Obama Not to Meet With Iranian President; Ted Cruz Speaks Out Against Obamacare

Aired September 24, 2013 - 15:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Will he and the new Iranian president meet? In fact, we are just now getting word the answer to that question, at least as far as today goes, is no.

Let me know when we have Jim Acosta ready to roll, guys.

And in the meantime, I am going to tell you this. This is from the domestic travel pool traveling with the president. This is CNN reporting. Two senior administration officials have clarified that this Iranian meeting question, they reaffirmed the White House signal at the staff level that they were open to an informal meeting between Obama and Rouhani on the margins of the U.N. conference.

So, it sound thus far even though many people -- Jim Acosta, you're joining me now -- many people watching, waiting for the handshake that could be, is not happening, at least today. Am I hearing that correctly?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: There will be no handshake today. There will be no face-to-face encounter between Presidents Obama and President Rouhani. That is now off. That is not going to happen, Brooke.

We're just getting word from senior administration officials and as a matter of fact, I have just heard from a White House official who has confirmed this independently to CNN that this is not going to happen because -- quote -- "This was just too complicated for the Iranians."

They were open to a brief informal encounter with Rouhani, but because they say this was just going to be politically too complicated for the Iranians, it is just not going to happen. From a practical standpoint, the president of the United States was running out of time. He's here at the United Nations for just about another hour. He's supposed to meet with the Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, within the hour, but then he heads across town to give a health care speech over at the Clinton Global Initiative.

He has an event with the Democratic National Committee later on this evening and then he heads back to Washington. So they were basically running out of time. And then earlier today, as our Reza Sayah was reporting -- and you know this, Brooke, there was a lot of expectations that perhaps President Rouhani might go to a luncheon that President Obama was supposed to be at here at the United Nations earlier this afternoon. But our Reza Sayah reporting that because alcohol was being served at that luncheon, President Rouhani decided not to attend. That might have been the last best chance for these two leaders to I guess run across one another and perhaps have that brief handshake, but the word now coming from White House officials, administration officials, it's not happening.

BALDWIN: OK. So, Jim Acosta, thank you very much. Jim with the word that isn't happening.

Let me bring in two voices, Michael Crowley, chief foreign affairs correspondent for "TIME," and Frank Gaffney Jr., president for the Center for Security Policy and former assistant secretary of defense under President Ronald Reagan.

Gentlemen, welcome to you. Here we have it. Word just in to CNN that they will not -- not be meeting, no handshaking while they're there in New York this weekend. Michael, your reaction to that?

MICHAEL CROWLEY, DEPUTY BUREAU CHIEF, "TIME": Well, you know, I think expectations got built up for the handshake, and I think people were ready to believe that it was going to happen. It's not.

But it was going to be really complicated. Just the pure logistics of getting the two guys in the same room at the same time, I think they would have liked to have done it without a lot of press around to make sure that there was no awkwardness or weird photo-ops. So finding that moment where you can thread that needle. Then you have little problems like alcohol being served at the lunch.

It becomes almost insurmountable. But I just -- the last thing I would say that that is not -- that was not going to be the substantive thing that would happen. It will happen when John Kerry sits down with the P-5 plus one nuclear negotiators and the Iranian Foreign Minister and nuclear negotiator Zarif will be there. That's when they can really talk some Turkey. A simple handshake would have been purely symbolic today.

BALDWIN: So the needle will be threaded. As you point out, though, there does appear to be some sort of breakthrough.

But, Frank, reading your piece in "The Washington Times" and your first graph and this metaphor about evoking Charlie Brown and Lucy with Barack Obama and Rouhani, do me a favor and explain where you were going with that.

FRANK GAFFNEY, FOUNDER & PRESIDENT, CENTER FOR SECURITY POLICY: Well, let me just first of all say thank God for alcohol. I think it's important that we not have had this even symbolic gesture of an opening of relations with Rouhani.

This is a man, after all, who is presiding over a regime that is still engaged in terrorism, still engaged in various acts of subversion, including in our own hemisphere, still engaged in efforts to build and proliferate chemical weapons, biological weapons, even nuclear weapons. We're seeing the president say, well, he sent a nice tweet or letter or op-ed, done some interviews. That's the basis on which we're going to now end effectively, symbolically at the very least, the isolation that this regime has been, I think properly, exposed to. And Lucy and the football is a metaphor everybody is familiar with. They promise again and again and again these Iranians, whichever variation you wish, to be better, to be more tractable, to enter into negotiations.

But as with poor Charlie Brown, who keeps winding up flat on his back, we're going to see this football swept away again, and more to the point, the nuclear weapon that will be inevitably brought to fruition in the Iranian Islamic Republic coming, I think, to pass and unfortunately probably being used.

BALDWIN: Michael, Frank is not alone in his deep skepticism. You hear from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying, listen, Rouhani is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Is there anything we know about Rouhani that might suggest otherwise, that he is being genuine, that Barack Obama will not end up flat on his back wishing he had the football, to go with the metaphor?

CROWLEY: Right. It's very difficult to say what his true intentions are. He has done everything so far that would be consistent with someone who's being sincere and who wants to deliver and who wants to make a deal.

But, you know, if you listen to the rhetoric from it the Obama White House, they're not kind of swooning here. They're not being starry- eyed. I think they're very careful about not coming across as naive. I thought the president's speech today was a little bit cooler on the idea of a breakthrough, of the possibility for diplomacy than it might have been.

He was definitely -- there was definitely real wariness in his comments, just as there has been even as White House officials talk about the possibility that there could have been some kind of meeting in New York this week, a lot of caveats. They always come back to the idea of deeds being more important than words and wanting to see whether the Iranians have substantively changed their negotiating position.

I think that just remains to be seen.

BALDWIN: I think on that point, Frank, you get the last question, which is, you know, talk about words vs. deeds. What is it that Iran, what is it that the president of Iran here would need to do to perhaps change your view, not rhetoric, not promises, but what actions would you need to see for U.S., for the administration to be able to trust him?

GAFFNEY: Two things. To speak to your previous question to Michael, this is a guy we actually do know something about. He's bragged in the past on Iranian television about having bought time for the Iranian nuclear program to be completed by going through precisely the kind of subterfuge he's engaged in right now. What would it take to make a difference? I'm a little reluctant about getting into John Kerry mode about Syrian chemical weapons. But let me just say if we he were to actually rip up by the roots this nuclear weapons program -- and that's what it is. Only the most fatuous and naive believe this is still just about peaceful nuclear energy.

The centrifuges, the secret facilities in which many of them, I believe, are house, the plutonium program, on and on, the ballistic missile program, the sorts of thing -- sarin gas Reza Kahlili talked about in a piece yesterday that's actually being produced by the Iranian regime -- all of these things are the sorts of things that would be tangible manifestations of a real change.

The problem is Rouhani doesn't run the Iranian republic. The supreme leader does, and until and unless Khamenei says something different, we're going to see more of the same, more of the bait and switch, more of the Charlie and the football from Rouhani.

BALDWIN: Frank Gaffney and Michael Crowley, thanks to both of you for the back and forth on what could be and what may not be.

Now let me take you to Washington, back to some pictures here of Senator Ted Cruz, Republican senator from Texas, speaking, continuing to speak. He's been going for about 20 minutes here on the Senate floor, giving his opinion on why Obamacare is bad for the country. He says that he will keep talking until he can't stand there anymore. Take a listen.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: I intend to speak in opposition to Obamacare.

I intend to speak in support of defunding Obamacare until I am no longer able to stand, to do everything that I can to help Americans stand together and recognize this grand experiment three-and-a-half years ago is quite simply not working.

BALDWIN: Chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash there watching.

Dana, what's happening? Is this a filibuster or no?

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: To be honest with you, we're trying to sort out what exactly to call this, because it seems as though technically it might be a filibuster in terms of what the parliamentarian might call it or maybe even the Senate historian, because Ted Cruz is holding things up, but he's not holding anything up by speaking beyond what he was already doing.

He is on the Senate floor. He is talking. He made it very clear, as we just heard, he's going to talk and talk and talk. But whether he was on the floor talking or in his office or at home sleeping, that wouldn't change the clock that is ticking towards the first key procedural vote, which is tomorrow.

So, no matter what you call it, he's definitely trying to make a very clear point. And what is fascinating and what happened just before you and I talked about 10 minutes ago is just as he was going on the Senate floor, his very own Republican leader was out talking to members of the press, effectively saying, we wish he wouldn't do this, saying that it would be much better to limit the time, to give back some of the time, to not use all of the procedural tools in his toolbox and let this go on to the House, because he is running up against opposition from many, many people in his own party who are not supporting him, who don't think that this is the right way to go, who are very concerned -- and we know this from talking to Republican senators who were just in meetings that just broke up -- that the conversation now is about the split in the Republican Party, not so much about their substantive view of Obamacare and why it should be defunded or just dismantled completely.

So they're not very happy about what's going on. But you know what? Ted Cruz doesn't care, to put it bluntly. He believes that this is the whole reason he came here. We heard a little bit in the last hour live on CNN him saying there's something in the water in Washington. People make campaign promises, and they come here and they don't keep them.

His argument is, and he's certainly speaking to a very, very important constituency for him, the conservative grassroots, that he's keeping his campaign promise. He's not negotiating. He's sticking to principle. That's why at least for now he's not giving into his own party leadership to give back time and let's just kind of end this back and forth.

BALDWIN: All right. Well, filibuster or not, we know that vote is happening tomorrow. We will see how long he manages to speak until then. Dana Bash, thank you so much.

Five months, numerous witnesses, and hours and hours of testimony right now closing arguments started in the Michael Jackson trial. Jurors are deciding whether a concert promoter contributed to his death.

And we will listen in on the lawyers' final statements, their emotional remarks from Los Angeles, next.

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BALDWIN: For five months, jurors in the wrongful death lawsuit filed by Michael Jackson's heirs against concert promoter AEG Live have heard testimony.

And just last hour, the closing arguments in the highly publicized trial got under way. The attorney who represents Michael Jackson's family talked about the relationship between Dr. Conrad Murray and the executives at AEG.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Look, Murray shut down his practice, moved to L.A., treats M.J. may to June, tells AEG he's performing in good faith, talks and meets with Ortega, Phillips, Gongaware, works with Phillips and Ortega on rehearsal attendance schedule and asked to be paid. Those are all the facts of the conduct of Murray. But what about AEG Live? Randy Phillips, Gongaware, Ortega call and meet with Dr. Murray. They write an e-mail. We want to remind him that's it's AEG, not M.J., who is paying his salary.

Why would you want to do that if you hadn't hired someone? Do they go around telling, we didn't hire you, but you better remember who is paying you? Murray put it was in the budgets, even after the death. They got housing for Dr. Murray.

They made Dr. Murray responsible for M.J.'s rehearsal schedule and attendance along with Mr. Phillips, the CEO. Why would you do that for someone you didn't hire? They asked Murray (INAUDIBLE) assistance for the insurance.

And then they asked DiLeo and Tohme to approve the $35 million they that were out after M.J. died. And lo and behold, guess who's on there? Dr. Murray. They think it's good for them they can do that to get their $35 million. When they want to be held to hiring, it's not good enough. Randy Phillips said he hired him, but we got to spend a lot of time on this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: This trial has focused on these two questions. Did the promoter hire and supervise Conrad Murray, the doctor who gave Michael Jackson that fatal overdose of propofol? If so, how much should it pay to Jackson's mother and his children?

CNN's Alan Duke joins me just outside that courthouse in Los Angeles.

Alan, for those who have not been following this case as closely as I know you have, what is the critical piece of evidence in this case?

ALAN DUKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's a lot of e-mail and then there's testimony, e-mail, including one from one of the top AEG Live executives, saying remind Dr. Murray who is paying him and who he answers to, it's us, not Michael Jackson.

The first question the jurors have to decide is if AEG Live actually had a contractual agreement, a hiring arrangement with Dr. Murray. They say there were three ways that they did, one, an oral contract, two, implied in fact contact. That was what all those actions were. And there was a written contract. It's just it was only given to Dr. Murray the day before Michael died, so everybody didn't sign it.

Those are the crucial questions. Did they hire him, and was it negligent?

BALDWIN: OK. Alan Duke for us in Los Angeles, I know possible compensation here if the Jackson family wins this thing is in the billions of dollars. Alan Duke, thank you.

Twitter, Facebook, Vine, the Internet is filled with sites where you can share your pictures and messages. Those sites can be land mines to teenagers who may not think twice before posting embarrassing items online. Now the governor of California has signed a law giving kids a get out of jail free card. We will explain.

But, first, a quick look at the Dow. Pretty flat, just down about four points as we're about 40 minutes away from the closing bell. There were some new housing numbers for July, showed its best 12-month price gain in almost eight years. We will be right back.

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BALDWIN: We have all -- I say we, maybe some of us more than others have felt the regret the nanosecond your fingertip hits enter or tweet or post and the bad word or photo sent in your moment of thoughtlessness has become a permanent fixture online.

But now kids in California get what we all want, an Internet eraser of sorts. There's now this new law required starting in 2015 that Web companies remove online activity if someone under the age of 18 requests that.

So, to discuss this, we have CNN digital correspondent Kelly Wallace and criminal defense attorney Darren Kavinoky.

First, Darren, as the lawyer, how does this law exactly work?

DARREN KAVINOKY, ATTORNEY: If somebody under the age of 18 makes the request and they have to be the owner of the photograph, then the company that has it has to take it down.

But this is well-intentioned, but tough in the execution. Obviously, you have got to be owner of the photograph, so if somebody else has taken a photograph of you --

BALDWIN: Posted on their wall of Facebook.

KAVINOKY: Yes, forget it. Of course, this is a California law, not a federal law. So that opens up a whole other can of worms about how companies are going to regulate this. So this is going to be troublesome.

BALDWIN: And it also doesn't apply to adults. We have misgivings of our youth.

(CROSSTALK)

KAVINOKY: Anthony Weiner. Yes, it's not just youth that have that. Yes.

BALDWIN: So this got me thinking, Kelly Wallace, of something we were e-mailing about the other day, something -- a little clip you and I saw on "Conan" on Friday night, comedian and dad Louis C.K. talking about his kids and smartphones. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LOUIS C.K., COMEDIAN: These things are toxic, especially for kids. It's just this thing, it's bad. They don't look at people when they talk to them. And they don't build the empathy. Kids are mean. And it's because they're trying it out. They look at a kid and they go, you're fat. And then they see the kid's face scrunch up and go, ooh, that doesn't feel good to make a person do that.

But they have to start with doing the mean thing. But when they write, you're fat, then they go, hmm, that was fun. I like that.

(LAUGHTER)

CONAN O'BRIEN, HOST, "CONAN": That tasted good.

LOUIS C.K.: Yes, exactly. You need -- the thing is, you need to build an ability to just be yourself and not be doing something. That's what the phones are taking away.

O'BRIEN: Yes, yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Kelly, you have kids. You say you haven't had to deal with this whole smartphone conundrum yet, but do you think Louis has a point?

KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I thought he was right on. He said it in such a funny way.

Later on in that segment, Brooke, which you and I both have seen, he talked about how adults, even all of us grownups, how addicted we are to our phones. And he talked about, you know, when you're driving and all of the sudden you start feeling alone and lonely and thinking about how sad your life is. What do you do? Let me see if I got a Facebook post or someone tweeted me.

He really touched on something that we as grownups can't quite get away from our devices and we're looking at our kids who seem to be addicted to these devices too. And what are the consequences, besides the fact they're more distracted, potentially? But in this report that we're talking about, perhaps they're even posting things they wouldn't be posting if they weren't so addicted to their smartphones in the first place.

BALDWIN: Exactly.

You have an 11-year-old daughter.

KAVINOKY: I do. She has a --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: She's on the Instagram.

KAVINOKY: Yes, she is, although it's an account that I protect and I monitor very carefully.

But the point that Louis C.K. was making about that consistency that these smartphones are in our lives constantly, it's bad. I have had the experience of being out to lunch with my wife and my daughter and looking around a restaurant and seeing not just the three of us on our smartphones, but everybody in the restaurant. It's almost like that face-to-face communication, the art of it has been completely lost.

BALDWIN: I don't know what it was about that clip, but it woke me up in a way. We're all walking around CNN like this. I think just every so often, be present, put it away.

Darren Kavinoky, thank you. Kelly Wallace, thank you both so much.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian leader, became well known to Americans because of his numerous clashes with the United States. But what do you know about this man? This is Iran's new president. Depending on who you ask, he's extending an olive branch to the U.S. or just setting up a big trap. More on our breaking news. We have now learned in the last few minutes that he will not be meeting with President Obama this week in New York. That's next.

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