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Rice Response On Bergdahl Deal; Taliban Source: Bergdahl Tried To Escape; CNN Poll: Recovery Will Take Five Plus Years; Obama, Putin Meet Face-to-Face In France

Aired June 06, 2014 - 10:00   ET

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

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CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. National Security adviser, Susan Rice, makes no apologies for calling Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl's service honorable. For the first time since Rice stirred the hornet's nest on national television, she sat down with CNN's senior White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, in France where ceremonies are now under way to honor soldiers that invaded the beaches of Normandy effectively bringing an end to World War II.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: I realize there's been a lot of discussion and controversy around this, but what I was referring to is the fact that this was a young man who volunteered to serve his country in uniform at a time of war. That is itself a very honorable thing and --

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Honor and distinction.

RICE: Jim, really, I mean, this is a young man whose circumstances we are still going to learn about. As all Americans, he's innocent until proven guilty. He's now being tried in the court of public opinion after having gone through enormously traumatic five years of captivity. His parents, the same. What we need to care most about is his health and well-being and recovery.

There will be an opportunity and the military has committed to review the circumstances of his capture. If there is a consequence that results from that, that will be delivered. In the meantime, let's remember this is a young man who volunteered to serve his country. He was taken as a prisoner of war.

He suffered in captivity. He's now trying to begin the process of recovery. Let's let that happen. And then let's know the facts including his side of the story and then we can make a judgment.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: It is interesting to note Rice did not repeat the assertions, the strong assertions she made about Bergdahl on ABC last Sunday. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICE: He's going to be safely reunited with his family. He served the United States with honor and distinction.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So you can see the difference between the two remarks. CNN's senior White House correspondent, Jim Acosta is in France, as I said, and our chief political correspondent, Candy Crowley, is in Washington.

Jim, I want to start with you because you also asked Rice about the White House's new story line that the Taliban would kill Bergdahl if a swap wasn't made. What did she say about that?

ACOSTA: She didn't exactly confirm what we heard yesterday from congressional sources that the administration gave this briefing a couple days ago up on Capitol Hill and told senators that if word had leaked out, if they had notified Congress, a word have leaked out about this deal to trade Bergdahl for those five Taliban prisoners, that Bergdahl would have been killed.

She didn't exactly confirm that, but she did say that there was a concern for his life and that the president, the national security team had no regrets about the deal that freed the former POW. Here's what she had to say.

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RICE: We're very concerned about the well-being of Bergdahl. He had been in captivity for five years. We had indications that he may be fragile. There was a sense of urgency to obtaining his freedom. The president had the opportunity to do so and it was an opportunity that could well have been fleeting.

He chose to take it and he feels very strongly that that was the right decision. All of us on the national security team were unanimous in supporting and recommending that we take this opportunity.

ACOSTA: But was that the reason why you didn't notify Congress because there was this threat on his life if word have leaked out?

RICE: We had reason to be concerned about his life, but also reason to be concerned the 30-day period that would normally be honored was too long. Had we waited that long, we may have well missed what General Dempsey called the last best opportunity to bring him back? We don't leave anybody on the battlefield regardless of the conditions of their capture. As a prisoner of war, Bowe Bergdahl deserved and we had the obligation and commander in chief had the obligation to do what was necessary to bring him home.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: And Carol, so Susan Rice really echoed what we've been hearing from senior administration officials all week. One senior administration official may have put it the most succinctly yesterday when that official told reporters that if President Obama had to do it all over again, he would -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Jim Acosta reporting live from France this morning. I want to bring in CNN chief political correspondent, Candy Crowley now. Candy, a question for you. Because the administration appears just to be swimming upstream at this point. Why not get ahead of this? Come out and say like he may have been a deserter and we knew that all along. Why not say it now?

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Clearly they knew that all along. I think the stories about how the White House is stunned by the reaction, the reaction they were expecting was anti- Taliban. Why are you negotiating with terrorists because it was more than the Taliban? It was the Haqqani network, which is listed by the State Department as a terrorist group.

So they seemed prepared for that. They did not seem prepared for the kind of blowback and indeed at least one senior administration has told me and I think others, we didn't expect they would go after Bergdahl and we didn't expect they would go after his parents.

COSTELLO: Seriously? Because there are charges of desertion out there they didn't think people would notice that?

CROWLEY: Well, the fact is that the one thing that appears to have happened and you know, there are documents about this that none of us have been able to see, is that he was AWOL. He was off the base without leave. What happened in that time, no one knows. They looked at the circumstances and said this guy is a U.S. soldier.

He is in captivity and they just didn't expect that that would be questioned like why would he -- the underlying message why would we save him and let five terrorists release for a guy that left?

COSTELLO: Most Americans get that part. What they don't get is Susan Rice going on national television saying he served honorably when he clearly went AWOL more than once.

CROWLEY: Again, I don't think they thought that's where the focus would be. Understand this comes off a fairly bad VA, Veterans Administration, those problems are going on. They clearly -- or they wouldn't have a Rose Garden ceremony. Didn't expect people would say, wait, was he worth it.

Why she said that, I'm not overly sure because it didn't have to come out like that. She could have said he was serving. He was a member of the service and you know, we needed to bring him home. So why she went that step further is unclear to me?

COSTELLO: Candy Crowley, thanks as usual, for your insight. Right now, Bowe Bergdahl remains in Germany at a military hospital. We hear he is now speaking more English and he is eating better, but his psychological state remains tenuous.

At the same time, Bergdahl's platoon mates continue to accuse him of desertion. CNN military analyst, General "Spider" Marks joins me now. Good morning.

JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Hi, Carol. Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning. There's little doubt Bergdahl is being tried in the public eye. Last night his platoon members appeared on national television accusing him of being a deserter, accusing him of worse things actually. In your long military career, is it unusual that so many members of a soldier's platoon would talk publicly about a fellow soldier?

MARKS: It is in this case. Clearly the fellow soldiers see this as something far greater than just Bergdahl and his condition and they see this as how it affected the team and fundamentally that's what every military organization is all about. It's about the team, carol. So that's their view of all of this.

But a lot of what we get from platoon and they have every right and they know to it to speak up and to state their mind so God bless them for that right. But at the same time, a lot of that is chatter. The military specifically has not come forward and said this is the result of our investigation as it pertains to the capture of Sergeant Bergdahl.

So that has to come out. Everything we do is we're kind of jumping from Lillie pad to Lillie pad intellectually trying to figure this thing out. What needs to take place is we need to go straight to the Army and say, what are the results of this thing called a 15-6 investigation? What does the investigation look like? What do we think the circumstances around his capture?

COSTELLO: Nobody seems to talk about the leadership here. Bergdahl left his post twice before. He came back. He obviously did not gel with his platoon members. Why was he still serving in a battle zone after leaving his post twice? Where's the leadership?

MARKS: Well, the leadership is all over that, Carol. I mean, you have soldiers all the time in every organization that need additional care and additional focus. They need to be able to continue to work toward what we call a successful outcome. Because he's having a hard time working in, it's the obligation of the leadership to work through this to ensure that he can work in and integrate and be a functioning part of that organization. In this particular case, I don't think leadership had enough time to get that accomplished because he unilaterally decided he was going to depart. We don't know that. We need to --

COSTELLO: I want to ask you this question, General. I'm not passionate?

MARKS: And I'm not.

COSTELLO: We've had conversations. I know. In the spirit of telling the whole story, these shots are from a British filmmaker, they were published in "The Guardian." They show there was trouble in Bergdahl's unit. They show soldiers without helmets and body armor. That would be flouting Army rules? An Army source says discipline in this platoon was not there.

MARKS: If there's a problem of leadership, you're exactly spot on. You go straight to that platoon leader, company commander, battalion commander, you figure out what's going wrong in this organization. Also, let's compare it to what's going right. It's very early for us to start to draw those conclusions. It's absolutely inappropriate for a soldier within that organization to unilaterally make a decision he'll depart from this organization because he or she may not like what's going on.

The obligation is to raise a hand and make opinions known and have those be absorbed by leadership. Either taken aboard or not. That soldier has no right to walk off the base. The point is we don't know this yet. We don't have the investigation. The real issue in this clearly is what are these five bad guys doing in Qatar and what is the United States doing to ensure that these guys don't disappear?

COSTELLO: Right. I just want to go back to that video if we might. I want to point out that the guy with the pipe that you see, we'll see him soon. This is not it. This is not it either. It's at the end unfortunately. It will play through, General. You can see Bowe Bergdahl has a pipe in his mouth working with members of his platoon and they seem to be getting along. Who knows? And again they're without body armor. Some without helmets. They're in dangerous territory here.

MARKS: Certainly without getting into all of this stuff, it is important since we're peeling this thing back. If you're on the forward operating base, you can take your Kevlar off and body armor off and you have other tasks to perform and when you leave that to engage with the enemy, you are completely outfitted and kited up as we call it. So for us to draw conclusions based on this anecdotal video is another piece that needs to be included. We need totality of this picture.

COSTELLO: I hope we get it soon. I really do.

MARKS: Yes, me too. We sure need it.

COSTELLO: General "Spider" Marks. Thanks for your insight. I appreciate it.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the economy has gained back all of the jobs that lost in the recession, but are we really any better for it? Christine Romans is here to talk about that. Good morning.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. At this pace, it is going to take another two or three years to really absorb all the new entrants into the workforce and get back to full employment, but the stock market really likes this report, 217,000 jobs created, a five and a half year low for the unemployment rate. I'll break down all numbers for you right after the break.

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COSTELLO: There are signs the economy is recovering and recovery is gaining traction. We learned today that 217,000 jobs were added to payrolls last month, which means we have regained all of the jobs lost during the recession and then added more jobs on top of that. Christine Romans is here to take us through the numbers. This sounds good.

ROMANS: It's an important milestone, no question, Carol, and 270,000 jobs is more than many people had expected. The unemployment rate 6.3 percent is a 5.5-year low matching a 5.5 year low. It's taken a long time to get here. This is the slowest jobs recovery in history.

When you look, however, at these numbers this month, you see that we've beaten back all of those jobs that were lost and added a few more and they were broad based gains. Manufacturing gains, construction jobs gains, business and professional services. You saw jobs gain from that as well.

So I like to see the broad based nature of these job gains. Wages increase about 5 cents an hour. It will take a couple years to absorb all of the other people who entered the jobs market over the past few years. Think of class of 2009, 2010, 2011, '12 and '13. A lot of work to be done.

The president may be in France, but his economic advisers are hard at work looking at these numbers and they think that more can be done to strengthen economic growth and expand economic opportunity. They are pushing to increase the minimum wage and do some other things to try to help people who feel left behind by this recovery.

COSTELLO: I know. I'm still getting over the wages increased 5 cents an hour.

ROMANS: Don't spend it all in one place.

COSTELLO: Yes, exactly. Christine Romans, many thanks. All right, so as Christine said we regained the jobs we lost, but is the economy any better for it? To talk about this, I'm joined by Monica Mehta. She is the managing principal for Seven Capital Investment and Salim Furth, the senior policy analyst for the Heritage Foundation. Welcome to you both.

SALIM FURTH, SENIOR POLICY ANALYST, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Good to be here.

COSTELLO: Monica, hiring is back on the upswing. These aren't necessarily the kinds of jobs that push up the middle class, are they?

MONICA MEHTA, MANAGING PRINCIPAL, SEVENTH CAPITAL INVESTMENT: No. We're still seeing really kind of a barbell effect with this recovery. Better jobs with consulting, professional services, healthcare, energy, some jobs make $70,000 a year, but in the lower ends of our economy, you find people asking themselves and others do you want fries with that?

We're not making those good blue collar jobs anymore. We've imported them away and frankly technology has gotten rid of a lot of those opportunities as well. This is a structural problem. It's been happening for a long time. This economic recession that we've been experiencing has really shed light on this big structural problem that we have.

COSTELLO: Of course, we're all wondering how long to fix that structural problem. Because we have that structural problem, you can understand these poll numbers I'm about to lay by you. A new CNN poll found that for people who don't think the economy is in full recovery, nearly one-third believe it will be five years before we get there. There's clearly something wrong here because unless people have confidence that the economy is getting better, it won't get that much better, will it?

FURTH: I think they are right that we are a long way behind. If you look at the employment to population ratio, despite the big drop in the unemployment rate, more people aren't finding jobs as a fraction of the total population. And I think people are right that we're a long way. I don't know if it is five years, but we're a long way from the kind of economy where anybody who wants a job can go out and get one.

COSTELLO: Once you get that job, that job probably doesn't pay very much and you talked a lot about that just moments ago. Wage growth is nearly flat. We're not meeting inflation rates. Is this a sign we should embrace a $10 or $15 minimum wage like they just did in Seattle?

MEHTA: Bottom line is that the American dream was never about working in a fast food restaurant. I think the bigger problem is we're not creating good bread winner jobs for the blue collar and the middle class anymore. I saw a statistic that was staggering, 52 percent of people can't afford the house that they live in anymore. One out of every six adult men is not working who is in working age.

We're leaving young people behind. We're leaving the poor behind. And while we can raise the minimum wage and that will give them more money for their day-to-day expenses now, we're still not giving people that American dream and that hope is what really lifts an entire society and so we have to work a lot harder than just raising the minimum wage. We need to start creating good jobs that people can actually raise a family with.

COSTELLO: Monica Mehta, Salim Furth, thanks so much for being here. I appreciate it.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, after weeks of tensions over the crisis in Ukraine, President Obama and Vladimir Putin come face to face in France. Details on that meeting just ahead.

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COSTELLO: Tensions between Russia and its western counterparts on full display this week as Vladimir Putin is excluded from G7 meetings. But today could there have been a sign the frosty relations between the United States and Russia are beginning to thaw? After sitting apart at a luncheon today, which was part of the 70th anniversary of storming of Normandy Beach, White House officials confirm that Vladimir Putin and President Obama had a face-to-face meeting on the sidelines of that meal.

You can see both of the men sitting far apart at the table but they did meet. They were close enough to shake hands. CNN chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour joins me now. One of the other images that I kind of enjoyed is when President Obama was walking down the red carpet at Sword Beach where you are to meet the French president, you could see President Putin there sort of clapping. He did clap. That's important.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, it's really amazing what's happening here right now. Over my shoulder you can probably see and hear this rousing speech. All commemorating and enumerating the sacrifices of the veterans and he's been really rousing. We have challenges today and those challenges obviously the big one right now in Europe is Ukraine and to that end, President Obama did shake hands and meet with President Putin.

It wasn't formal but clearly there have been words exchanged. This comes after the German chancellor and the French president orchestrated a meeting before the lunch between President Putin and the new Ukrainian president-elect. According to President Hollande's office, they decided and discussed the fact that they need to sit down and talk about a cease-fire to try to stop this civil war that could really explode beyond control at any point.

So there's some -- it looks like there's some cause for potential diplomatic progress. We'll see. It looks like trying to use this occasion of this gathering to also address the very current big, big problems between Russia and the west right now. Obviously Syria as well. No word on whether any of this will lead to any help to tamp down the war in Syria.

But President Hollande has thanked the United States and thanks to the British and thanked all of those that came here to liberate this continent. It was a rousing speech with very many huge rhetorical flourishes. He called that day 70 years ago when these 20-year-olds who should enjoy the most beautiful days of their lives.

And this generation of 20 year olds had taken on the ultimate sacrifice and ultimate duty and they came here on this day 70 years ago and he described the dark and clouds and the fumes of battle and gunpowder and war they were engulfed with saying look at this beautiful, calm Atlantic Ocean and then it was a battle scene.

It was foaming with ships and with bodies and red with the blood of those who had been killed and he said you are all heroes because you advanced and you advanced and you kept advancing for our liberty, he said, and you reclaimed the continent of Europe meter by meter from this beach. He's just finished his speech.

You can see the camera panning across President Obama is now standing. You just saw the queen of England, and Angela Merkel. It was remarkable. He kept talking about fighting to defeat this regime and save victims of Nazis. Angela Merkel is here. She's Democratic. There you have her clapping and clapping at each mention of the diabolical face. It's very, very emotional and it's very relevant to what the world faces continually.

COSTELLO: Christiane Amanpour, many thanks to you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a college student hailed as a hero. He tackled a gunman who had opened fire on campus. You'll meet him next.

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