Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

U.S. Very Concerned about Russia Movements; Source: Military Exercises Raise Concerns; Palestinian President to Visit White House Next; "12 Years a Slave" Nominated for Best Picture

Aired February 27, 2014 - 10:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

This morning in southern Ukraine, breaking news to tell you about, chilling echoes of the Cold War, a Russian flag now flies a top of a regional parliament office after armed gunmen seized the building. It is the latest salvo escalating the East-West tension. And according to a senior U.S. official has raise concerns about those Russian troops now holding military exercises near Ukraine's border.

CNN's Phil Black is in Kiev. Phil it's been several days since the president there was ousted. Is there a sense this crisis is now getting worse?

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Certainly in the southern region and to the east of this country, this part of the country that has close ties to Russia and yes. We're seeing clear outbreaks of unhappiness about the events that are taking place here in the capital.

And the number one obviously is the ongoing standoff at the parliament building in Crimea where as many as 50 or so people have stormed the parliament building today, taking control, refusing to negotiate and refusing to acknowledge the local authorities.

And at the same time, not yet declaring precisely what their intention is, what they hope to achieve by doing this. All we know is that they are heavily armed and they are not negotiating -- Carol.

COSTELLO: And just a question for you about U.S. involvement, do the people of Ukraine want the U.S. to get more involved?

BLACK: The people of the Ukraine, particularly those who in the capital, those in the West, those who very much support the changes, the political changes that have been taking place here, they very much want Western and European support, support for the United States in order to stabilize this country. And really, take whatever help they can possibly get. Before the crisis really started to unfold in the south this morning, the number one concern is the economic support. What they need is cash loans from the international community.

The United States has indicated it is willing to help. But this is a country that says it needs $35 billion over the next two years from international loans. So yes, certainly looking for that sort of support and as this ongoing tension increases and as Russia's rattles its sabers on the border, then, yes, certainly political support in the coming days is something that this country would be very grateful for.

COSTELLO: Phil Black reporting live from Kiev, Ukraine this morning.

This fluid situation in the Ukraine may very easily put more of a strain on the U.S. and Russian relations.

CNN national security correspondent Jim Sciutto joins us with that side of the story. So in your mind, does the U.S. have any more plans other than just talking loudly at this point?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's a good question. But I mean in those words, there's a lot of meaning. And the officials uniformly delivering very stark warnings to the Russians you know to be careful not to move in. You heard Secretary of State John Kerry yesterday saying it would be, in his words, a grave mistake if the Russians move in.

Now you have Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel who is traveling he's in Europe saying that U.S. is watching very closely that Russia should not make any moves that could be easily misinterpreted.

So those are -- when they deliver warnings like that in such stark terms you know they are watching closely. And I think we can assume that they are working very much behind the scenes to deliver that message as well. And that shows that they are concerned. What else can they do beyond -- beyond those words, it's a fair question. And we don't know. It's hard to say what else they can do.

COSTELLO: What's -- what's the biggest concern?

SCIUTTO: The biggest concern is that Russia moves in. We've seen -- we've seen this story before. You remember in 2008 when Russian troops moved in to Georgia, as it happens around the time of another Olympics, that during the Beijing Olympics that was when eyes were looking in another direction in another part of the world.

You now it's the view of U.S. officials that putting an outside military force, a Russian force on the ground raises does not lower the tensions. You have very strong emotions there we've talked about this a lot sharp divisions in that country between the East and the West. To put guns, to put boots on the ground, tanks on the ground, it's the view of the U.S. that this would increase the risk of a violent breakup or a violent outbreak there rather than decrease, though.

Now you know it continues to be the U.S. assessment that Russia is moving its troops in position or it has the option of moving in but it continues to be their assessment that is not currently the Russian intention. But they are watching closely to see if that changes.

COSTELLO: Jim Sciutto, many thanks.

SCIUTTO: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, five years after protest rocks the nation the Tea Party lives on. Happening right now the Tea Party is celebrating its fifth anniversary.

So is the Tea Party still a strong force in American politics or is it almost done? We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: The Tea Party is celebrating its fifth anniversary trying to regain the momentum it had in 2009 when the Tea Party was born in dramatic fashion at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICK SANTELLI, CNBC REPORTER: How about this, President and new administration, why don't you put up a Web site to have people vote on the Internet as a referendum to see if we really want to subsidize the loser's mortgages or we'd like to at least buy cars and buys houses in foreclosure and give them to people that might have a chance to actually prosper down the road and reward people that could carry the water instead of drink the water.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rick, that's a novel idea.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What? Who thought of that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are like putty -- they are like putty in your hands. Did you hear --

SANTELLI: No, they are not Joe they are not like putty in our hands. This is America. How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor's mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can't pay their bills? Raise their hand. How about we all -- President Obama, are you listening?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: CNBC's Rick Santelli went on that epic rant after the Obama administration offered to bailout the auto industry and homeowners whose mortgages were under water. Overnight protests pop out around the country and the Tea Party was born. Since those heady days though, Tea Party support has tanked. According to Gallup 51 percent of Americans now have a negative view of the Tea Party the lowest opinion of the movement since creation.

One of the Tea Party patriots joins me now Keli Carender spoke moments ago at the Tea Party fifth year anniversary event in Washington. Also with me to talk about the Tea Party and it's effect on our country Larry Sabato, director for the Center of Politics at the University of Virginia and John Avlon, editor at the Daily Beast and CNN's political contributor. Welcome to all of you.

KELI CARENDER, TEA PARTY PATRIOTS: Thanks for having me.

LARRY SABATO, DIRECTOR, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, CENTER FOR POLITICS: Thank you Carol. Good morning.

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Thanks Carol.

COSTELLO: It's great to have you all here. Kelly, I want to start with you. Why has the Tea Party's image suffered in five years?

CARENDER: Well, we have a lot of people in the media. We have people in the permanent political class; people in the Democratic Party that are trying their hardest to smear us and smear our name but if you actually look at our values when those values are pulled, the vast majority of Americans are with us like for instance, they want a debt- free future. They want to reduce our debt, they want to eliminate our debt and they are on the same page as us.

So who cares what people think about the name.

COSTELLO: Well, it has nothing to do with the Tea Party itself for example the government's shutdown they didn't exactly fit well with the majority in the country.

CARENDER: People want freedom and we stand for freedom. Every time I go out and I'm talking to many people and I tell them what the Tea Party actually stands for and not what they heard about. They agree with me. They say, wow, I had no idea. Everything I've heard about you is different from what you just said. And I said go to a meeting and you'll find out more and people do. And if the press doesn't necessarily go to those meetings and see all of those many people then they can't report it.

COSTELLO: Larry I'll pose this question for you, we watched Rick Santelli just a short time ago. He struck a nerve in 2009 by calling struggling homeowners losers. Since that time, we've learned that many of those homeowners were actually duped by big banks, for example.

JPMorgan agreed to pay $13 billion in settlement claims because of their part of the mortgage crisis. Also, you can see Bank of America, Citibank, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo agreed to a $26 billion settlement due to foreclosure abuse. So those loser homeowners weren't losers after all at least the majority of them. So should the Tea Party tweak its message?

SABATO: Well Carol you know, Rick Santelli gave a rant and like most rants it was one sided and not well thought out. Look that was life imitating art and most of us remember the great 1976 movie "Network". Rick Santelli was Howard Beale on "Mad as Hell" and I'm not going to take it anymore and that fit the mood of millions of Americans for lots of reasons. Upset about a terrible economy, a great recession and their own personal economic situations.

Now, obviously that's changed. Things are getting better, slowly but surely. Parties and factions wax and wane. The Tea Party is a party it's a faction of the Republican Party, it waxed in 2010 when, for example, 10 of their 16 senate candidates won. They waned in 2012 when only two of their 13 senate candidates won. We'll find out how well they are going to do it and whether they wax and wane in 2014. COSTELLO: So John I'll pose that question to you because the Tea Party still has political might in Washington, it does.

AVLON: Sure. Absolutely I mean you know Ted Cruz is a really good example. I mean you know the tragedy of the Tea Party is that it did begin as a principal fiscal conservative protest. People who were frustrated and anxious at the height of the Great Recession, our economy was in free fall and they saw themselves as a move -- as a movement that was across party lines for fiscal responsibility.

But undeniably over time a degree of Obama derangement syndrome sits in there and reflected by a lot of its leaders, people like Allen West, people like Christine O'Donnell, Sharon Angle. And some of those early starts -- Michele Bachmann. So there's culpability for that.

Now Democrats could only see the Obama derangement syndrome. Republicans can only see the fiscal responsibility principle side. And that's the disconnect that exists. But you know the Tea Party needs to understand and appreciate that while it's had a huge impact on American politics, that this consistent tone of its leaders in Congress is not misinterpretation by the media. It's a reflection of the poor conservative populace impulse in the way that that can get ugly and out of hand at time.

Everyone think they're fighting for freedom but you need to be responsible and take responsibility for the people who talk on your behalf when they say unhinge in extreme things.

CARENDER: OK, OK then let's -- then let's talk about when Democrat Congresswoman say that the Tea Party members can go straight to hell. So I want to know if you're going to hold the Democratic base responsible.

(CROSSTALK)

AVLON: Yes that's awful, that's totally uncivil. Let's talk about when Allen West said that there were 80 communist in Congress let's talk about Michele Bachmann almost every day --

(CROSSTALK)

CARENDER: We always talk about Michele Bachmann and Allen West. We never talk about things that are totally unhinged. We don't ever talk about the Democrats. And I'm sure "The Daily Beast" never writes about the Democrats. To say totally unhinged and crass nasty things about American citizens.

AVLON: That's just not true.

CARENDER: Well then send me something I'll be happy to read it.

COSTELLO: All right we have to end it there. Thank you so much.

AVLON: I'd be delighted to send it to you.

CARENDER: Great.

COSTELLO: Keli Carender for the Tea Party Patriots, Larry Sabato and John Avlon all thanks -- thanks to all of you. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: New documents from Edward Snowden detail even more disturbing practices by spy agencies. That's according to a report in the "The Guardian". The British surveillance agency, GCHQ, along with the NSA, has been taking and storing webcam images of Yahoo users, some of them sexually explicit, without their knowledge.

Atika Shubert is in London. You're kidding?

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. This is a pretty incredible revelation from those NSA documents. It was something called Operation Optic Nerve. And basically what it did is that it took the web chats of millions of Yahoo users and took one snapshot every five minutes and stored it in a huge database.

And the important thing here is that this was clearly bulk collection. This wasn't specifically targeted e-mail users, by any means. This was just all swept up from millions of Yahoo users and stored.

Now it looked like this was part of an experimental program where they were trying to test out facial recognition technology and we don't know yet exactly how this information was used but according to these documents, they were all put into a massive database and it was conducted by the British spying service, the GCHQ.

Now we have reached out to Yahoo for reaction. And they gave us a statement saying that "If true, this represents a whole new level of violation of our users' privacy. And it's completely unacceptable. We are committed to preserving our users' trust and security and will continue to expand efforts for encryption across all of our services," so Yahoo, putting out a very angry statement.

But as you mentioned, one of the interesting things about this, because of the bulk collection, a lot of the photos that they were collecting were actually pornography. As much as 11 percent of the photos they were getting involved nudity. And so a lot of these documents from the NSA are actually about how to screen out all of these nude pictures that they were having a problem with when they were looking through all of them.

COSTELLO: That's strange. I'm sure much more will come out about this later. Atika Shubert, many thanks.

Also this just in to CNN President Obama will meet with the Palestinian Authority's president Mahmoud Abbas at the White house on March 17. This follows his meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next week. The president is gearing up to take up a more active role in the Israeli- Palestinian peace talks and will likely put a pressure on both sides to accept a framework laid out by Secretary of State John Kerry to accept a generalized road map for final status peace negotiations. Got all of that? Jim Sciutto is on the phone to parse this out for us. Tell us more Jim.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ENVIRONMENT: Well Carol, I think this is about the president attempting to rescue peace talks that to this stage are going nowhere. The Palestinian President Abbas said last week that he considered the talks so far a failure. That we called them serious and there were reports in the Palestinian newspapers as well that he was enraged that the framework you mentioned -- the framework for the talks so far did not make Jerusalem or east Jerusalem the capital of the future Palestinian state.

This is one of the key issues there -- right. That Israel wants Jerusalem to be its capital, the Palestinians want at least part of Jerusalem to be their capital. And the framework according to Palestinians did not include that and he expressed that anger really to U.S. officials to Secretary of State John Kerry when they met in Paris.

So I think you know, you have a peace effort here that is not going well and I think it's a sign that -- the president is getting involved is a sign that they know they've got work to do.

COSTELLO: You know, the thought comes to mind, has the peace talks ever gone well between these two?

SCIUTTO: It's a good question. I mean they've never reached a positive conclusion. They've certainly been healthier but, as you and I know, over the last 10, 20 years, there'd been a lot of efforts going back to the Oslo Accord in the early '90s that have just not born fruit.

And you know these -- you know, this just -- you know, it's been a great diplomatic effort, persistent diplomatic effort led by John Kerry on this. You know, really an issue that no one else wanted to touch and a lot of folks that looked at him as he was making these efforts that said, really, is it really going to go anywhere this time?

But I mean decide -- if you listen to the public comments from people like Abbas, it doesn't look like it's in a very good place.

COSTELLO: Jim Sciutto reporting for us, thank you so much.

SCIUTTO: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Checking other top stories this morning -- with a stroke of a pen, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer ended a week of controversy. She announced she has vetoed the religious freedom bill opponents call anti-gay.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JAN BREWER (R), ARIZONA: I have not heard of one example in Arizona where business owners' religious liberty has been violated. The bill is broadly worded and could result in unintended and negative consequences.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: The decision to veto was greeted with huge applause by the crowds gathered outside the state house in Phoenix. Now the hope is that the states can move past the controversy.

DEMION CLINCO (D), ARIZONA STATE HOUSE: I think this is a real wake- up call for Arizona. You know, to see a bill even move through the house and senate, and even land on her desk, is really very discouraging for the LGBT community and gay rights throughout not only in our state but really throughout the country. It's really a setback. But in her vetoing the bill, I really feel like hope there's a possible hope for reconciliation within our state and we can maybe move forward past this sort of unfortunate chapter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Supporters of the bill, though, vow to fight on.

Nutrition labels on food packaging could be getting their first makeover in 20 years. The proposed new label focuses on calories and sugars along with a more realistic approach to serving sizes.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, "12 Years a Slave" is up for nine Oscars. CNN's Nischelle turner sat down with one of the nominee, the director, Steve McQueen.

NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Carol, we are just days away from the Oscars. And coming up, we sit down with Steve McQueen and we talk about everything "12 Years a Slave". What he thinks about the movie and what he thinks about his chances going into Sunday Church.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: No black director has ever had a movie win a best picture Oscar. But that could change on Sunday night for Steve McQueen who directed "12 Years a Slave". The film is up for nine academy awards, including best picture. CNN's Nischelle turner sat down with Steve McQueen. Tell us what he said, Nischelle.

TURNER: Well, Carol, you know, "12 Years a Slave" heads into Sunday's Oscar's as one of the most celebrated films this year. He is nominated Steve McQueen for directed for best director. Only the third black person to gain that honor.

Now we sat down at the Oscar luncheon to talk about the movie, the movement that's followed and the effect going forward.

CHIWETEL EJIOFOR, ACTOR: I was born a free man, lived with my family in New York. Until the day I was deceived.

TURNER: We talked to you a lot about how it felt to direct the movie and as a director. But as a man, what does this mean to you, seeing this on the screen? STEVE MCQUEEN, DIRECTOR: It makes me feel good in a way that one could actually engage with a past, an unfortunate past and grapple with it and to share it and to move on and hope for a better future.

TURNER: And I just saw recently that Solomon Northup's work had been re-released.

MCQUEEN: This book has sold more in the last six months than it has in 150 years. So I'm very proud of that. What we want to do with the book is to get it into schools.

TURNER: We've heard a lot of talks this year and the movies that have shown the black experience. Do you think this is going to make a difference going forward in the types of movies that are made?

One would hope so. I mean one would really hope so because of the success of it. I mean for Hollywood financially, it's very important for them, but also critically and -- it's been a fantastic year and I'm hoping that that will just lead the way for more diverse stories about -- not just about the black experience but people's experience.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I said come here.

EJIOFOR: I brought her back just like you --

TURNER: What is it about you and Michael Fassbender?

MCQUEEN: Well, I think there's a definite chemistry obviously. I don't know what it is and I don't question it. It's like falling in love in a kind of strange way but at the same time you want to do the best for him.

TURNER: Have you looked ahead to Oscar night? Do you start formulating in your mind, what if?

MCQUEEN: No. Again, it's just so humbling to be nominated. I'm not just saying -- it sounds like everyone sets the same thing but it is. Where we came from and where we are right now, it's incredible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TURNER: Now, Carol, you heard Steve McQueen say they want to give "12 Years a Slave" into the schools and beginning this fall, the film and Solomon Northup's writings will now be used in curriculum in some of the public schools around the country. So it seems like that the impact he was hoping that the film would have is starting to be realized and, of course, it will go even further if the movie wins best picture and he wins best director Sunday.

COSTELLO: It's still a long shot, right because "American Hustle" was so much more commercially successful and that often matters in these things.

TURNER: Well, it does often matter in these things. But you know, these two pictures "American Hustle" and "12 Years a Slave" have kind of carved out as the front runners for this film. Sometimes with the academy, they do like to go and acknowledge a more -- and I don't want to say "American Hustle" isn't an important film but a film that carries a little more weight. An important film. This film is that.

So I don't know if I'd call it a long shot. I think it has a 50-50 chance on Sunday.

COSTELLO: OK.

Nischelle Turner, many things.

TURNER: OK.

COSTELLO: Thanks for joining me today. I'm Carol Costello.

"@ THIS HOUR" with Berman and Michaela starts now.