Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Gun Debate Reignited; Iraq Attacks; Hagel Faces Grilling; Hagel Faces Grilling on Bergdahl; Stunning Tea Party Win over GOP's Cantor; Interview with Rep. Lee Terry

Aired June 11, 2014 - 09:30   ET

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

CLIFF SCHECTER, COLUMNIST, "THE DAILY BEAST": Who are only trying to do their job, are jack-booted thugs. So they feed this rhetoric. And then they fight every attempt at reasonable gun regulation. Ninety percent of the country supports background checks and they blocked it. Seventy percent supports an assault weapons ban. They blocked it. So they basically have done what they can to light the fire to insight riot among people that are less than stable, who have a far right wing agenda, and they've made sure these people have access to weaponry of war. As recently as 30 years ago, people couldn't (ph) get that -- those kind of weapons and now they're everywhere.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Well, I will say - I will say the Las Vegas shooting, let's go back to that for a second, because there was a customer in Wal-Mart -

SCHECTER: Sure.

COSTELLO: And his name was Joseph Wilcox. And he was carrying a concealed weapon legally. And police call him a hero. I mean he died in this, but he tried to stop it. Police called him a hero. So, in that instance, I think the NRA would argue that, you know, carrying a gun can actually save lives.

SCHECTER: Well, they would but, you know, I think the evidence here - look, I feel terrible for what happened to him, but look at the evidence. We had two what the NRA calls good guys with guns, policemen, somebody walked up to them and shot them point blank range and killed them. Then we had this gentlemen in Wal-Mart, another good guy with a gun we would say, who was shot and killed even though these terrible -- two terrible people had only asked everybody to leave the store. What if he had missed and hit other innocent people there. What if they had fired back? It's the job of the authorities to show up and handle that situation. We're not living in a cowboy movie.

And again, I don't want to be disrespectful. I think he did what he thought was right. But we've encouraged people to open carry guns to restaurants, to concealed carry guns. We're telling them that they're the law, they're the jury, the judge and the executioner and more people end up getting killed. I mean the University of Pennsylvania's School of Epidemiology produced a study that said if you have a gun in your house, you're 4.5 times more likely to die from that gun than you are to stop an intruder. So there's this consensus on this.

COSTELLO: But the - SCHECTER: Go ahead. Sorry.

COSTELLO: But there is consensus on this. But to blame everything on the NRA strikes me as kind of unfair because you have to place the blame on lawmakers as well, don't you, because they're not exactly, you know, running to the front of the line, getting something done?

SCHECTER: No, you're entirely right and I do blame lawmakers. I probably reserve my strongest language. But in many of these pieces I've written, look, I've called the entire Republican caucus cowards. There's a number of Democrats, too, so don't think I'm just -

COSTELLO: But what about the Democrats?

SCHECTER: I just said, there's a number of Democrats too, blue dog Democrats, those four senators who voted against the background checks bill. They're cowards also. It's a bipartisan problem. But to be clear, it's a lot more on the Republican side where you can barely get one to support it.

And we know - here's the quick answer. We know how to do this. Every other high-income country, as President Obama said, has done this. Australia, in 1996, had the Port Arthur Massacre, like our Newtown, where 40 people or so were killed, many other injured. What did they do? They passed a series of strict gun laws. They had 11 mass shootings in the 10 years before that. They've not had one since. Their suicide rate has gone down about 70 percent. Their guns with homicides rates have gone down about 70 percent. We've seen it happen in England. We've seen it in France. We've seen it in Canada.

And Canada and Australia had that same frontier history as us. And we are willing to look at this as a public health problem, like drunk driving, like second-hand smoke and regulate it in that manner which is to say that some people should not have access to guns. We should have universal background checks, there should be psychological tests. People should have to have at least a few family members vouch for them, which is what most other countries do. In every one of these cases, from the Navy yard to Tucson to Aurora, family members knew that these people were in trouble and didn't want them getting their hands on guns.

We can do this. Every other country has done it. We've just got the powerful lobby (INAUDIBLE) cowards in Congress who are stopping us from doing it right now.

COSTELLO: All right, Cliff Schecter, thank you so much for sharing your insight.

And we did reach out to the NRA. We did not hear back. Thank you, Cliff.

Now to the escalating crisis in Iraq. In just a matter of days, the violence is spreading, causing chaos. Today, a Shiite cleric announced he's ready to defend the holy places of Muslims and Christians. Residents are fleeing, more than half a million so far, as brutal al Qaeda backed insurgents are gaining major territory. They now control major parts of Mosul, Iraq's second largest city. And civilian casualties are said to be high. Nic Robertson has more for you.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After just five days of fighting, terrorists now control large swaths of Iraq's second largest city. Power, water, and phone lines have been cut in parts of Mosul, 250 miles north of Baghdad, where the al Qaeda splinter group ISIS has seized the important transportation and administration hub. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki calling it a humanitarian crisis and asking parliament to declare a state of emergency, calling on men to volunteer to fight.

The speaker of Iraq's parliament urging the U.S. to play a role in supporting Iraq against the terrorist attack and asking for urgent relief for the displaced by the international community. The voice of a refugee in this video pleading, God help us, as half a million Iraqis have already fled the city.

JOHN KIRBY, DEFENSE DEPARTMENT PRESS SECRETARY: We're certainly in touch with Iraqi leadership as much as possible, but ultimately this is - this is for the Iraqi security forces and the Iraqi government to deal with.

ROBERTSON: The fight proving too much for the U.S.-trained Iraqi soldiers. Some reportedly discarding their uniforms, abandoning their military armed vehicles and weapons, leaving it all to a terrorist group considered more ruthless and brutal than al Qaeda.

ISIS gaining more power and control in a city once held as a successful example of U.S. counter insurgency. Only two and a half years after American boots left Iraqi soil.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Senior international correspondent Nic Robertson is in Qatar this morning and our chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto is in Washington because we want to talk more about this story.

I want to start with you, Nic. This is so disturbing to many Americans because it makes our mission there seem pointless.

ROBERTSON: Certainly a concern that the Iraqi forces that we trained, we armed, we equipped, have fled in the face of what is essentially a terrorist organization, that they haven't stood their ground. And they've not only ceded ground, they've ceded their weapons, their ammunition. The ISIS group now have U.S.-made, up-armored Humvees. These are important fighting vehicles. They're upping their own game by taking control of Mosul. So very disappointing to see that all that effort has come to the fact they won't stand their ground and the political institution in Iraq aren't strong enough, haven't been strong enough to head all this off in the first place, which was a potential. They could have done it.

Carol.

COSTELLO: It's just mindboggling. I mean, Jim, all those American lives lost in Iraq, close to $2 trillion spent, all for naught.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: You know, I spent - I spent so many weeks and months there after the invasion, 10 or 15 visits, and, you know, you do have to wonder what our legacy is. You know, the administration's priority, since it came into office, has been getting out of Iraq. The president's position was that it was a dumb war. And, in effect, to keep those troops there was throwing, you know, good money after bad, you know, as it were.

Now the administration's critics say, though, whatever you think of the invasion, that a stabilizing force, say 10,000 Americans, had the administration successfully negotiated a status of force agreement with the Iraqis, that you would have something of a stabilizing force to help prevent the kind of violence we're seeing there right now. But, you know, in Iraq and now in Afghanistan, the administration's priority has been -- really has been getting out.

COSTELLO: So I guess, Nic, this question is for you. Can the United States really afford to leave this in the hands of Iraqi security forces?

ROBERTSON: The bigger, broader answer is, do they have much choice? There has got to be a huge political will to reengage. It just - it would - it's beyond my expectation and I think a lot of peoples to think we will go back in.

What Nuri al-Maliki needs to do is what the U.S. Marines did in al Anbar province where there was an al Qaeda problem in 2006, 2007, and that was embrace the Sunni tribes. This group in Iraq is angry that feel - that feel they're angry with Nuri al-Maliki. They feel he's advancing his Shiite Muslim agenda over their Sunni interests. He needs to embrace them as the Marines did. That means a political compromise. He's not shown any willing to do that so far. But what he gets out of that is he gets those Sunni tribes on side (ph) and they can be used against al Qaeda, which is what the Marines did in an Anbar, which is what was successful.

But this group, ISIS, has taken root in Syria as well. It's using Syria as a base. Can we afford not to do something? Greater instability to come. Foreign fighters attracted to ISIS. They're suing them in Iraq. They're also sending them back to Europe. Thousands of European foreign fighters coming. Potential, as we saw possibly, not there yet, but that fatal shooting of four people at a Jewish museum in Brussels three weeks ago, indicates potentially the person that did that had been a foreign fighter in Iraq, in Syria rather, with ISIS, gone back to Europe for an attack.

So all of these are at stake. Can we afford not to get involved? But it's hard to see how we could at this stage, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Nic Robertson, Jim Sciutto, thanks so much.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Hagel in the hot seat. Can the defense secretary make the case for one of the most controversial prisoner swaps in U.S. history. We'll look ahead in the next hour and look back on his bungled testimony in an earlier appearance on Capitol Hill. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: At the top of the hour, Congress holds its first public hearing on the prisoner swap that freed U.S. Army Soldier Bowe Bergdahl. The deal has angered lawmakers in both parties. They say it was too costly an exchange - to exchange five Taliban detainees for Bergdahl's freedom. And they're upset that they were not able to voice concerns beforehand. Defending that deal today to the - in front of the House Armed Services Committee, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. He faces a hostile grilling and the ghost of his nomination hearing, remember that, he didn't do so well. He stumbled badly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHUCK HAGEL, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Well, I can't give you an example.

What I meant to say, should have said, that I misspoke.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Well, Hagel's poor performance at that time almost cost him a nomination that had been all but assured. But let's look ahead to the next hour. Joining me now, senior political analyst David Gergen , Republican strategist and CNN political commentator Ana Navarro, and Patricia Murphy, a contributor to "The Daily Beast."

Welcome to all of you.

PATRICIA MURPHY, CONTRIBUTOR, "THE DAILY BEAST": Good morning.

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Thank you.

ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.

COSTELLO: OK. So, Patricia, I understand from "The New York Times" that Chuck Hagel has been working and working on this - on his initial statement before this committee. He's had five different drafts. He's going to be strong. Will he deliver?

MURPHY: Oh, if you look at his own hearing, his own hearing for his own confirmation, which should have been a lay-up. These were people, these were senators who he knows well. He was asked about his own experiences when he was in the Senate and even failed to deliver good answers on his own experience. I don't know how he can deliver on this. I just don't know. I know Democrats are worried that he is their spokesman at this time. But because of his own experience in the infantry, his own experience in Vietnam, walking the line, knowing what -- having that question in his mind, what do we do when somebody goes missing, I think that will help him a lot, but his track record is very troubling.

COSTELLO: And, Ana, he's going to be attacked, isn't he, by both sides?

NAVARRO: I think he's going to be asked some tough questions. I have some questions I'd like to see asked. I want to know why it is that Bergdahl's platoon members were made to sign do not disclose agreements. I want to know why they didn't go to Congress. I want to know what the evidence was that this was such an urgent issue. So I think there are tough questions and he better have some good answers.

COSTELLO: I think you're right about that, Ana.

David, some Republicans actually say Hagel is being made the scapegoat for that controversial prisoner swap. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. BUCK MCKEON (R), ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: It was the President of the United States that came out with the Bergdahls and took all the credit and now that there has been a little pushback, he is moving away from it and Secretary Hagel. I don't think so. I think this is the President's decision.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So David I can hear that line of questioning coming down before the senate committee. Is it fair?

GERGEN: It's a fair question. But I think in fairness to the administration, the White House quickly came along and said, no, this was the President's decision. Yes, Chuck Hagel did authorize it. But ultimately, the President signed off. I believe he actually will be very effective in arguing the case and going after Bergdahl. After all in Vietnam, as an enlisted man, he had to go after people himself in very dangerous situation even they had wandered off and or made mistakes about where they were in the jungles. I think on that issue, he will be very good.

I think he's going to have a much, much tougher time explaining the terms of the swap, why the Congress was not informed as the law required. And we have learned today, there's news out today that not even the top commander in Afghanistan and the head of central command knew about this until just at the last minute, knew about the details of this.

And we also have been -- learned today there is a report that Secretary Hagel, himself, this was made, the decision was made so swiftly by the White House that he, himself, had not been fully briefed yet by his own team on the details surrounding Bergdahl's wandering off.

And when you get into the details that's when the picture becomes much darker about what Bergdahl was up to.

COSTELLO: Oh that's just it. I keep saying senate committee. It is the congressional committee. And I apologize for that. Along those same lines Patricia it does seem the administration, you know, comes out with a different story every hour it seems. And that really muddies the waters further for the American people.

MURPHY: It does. I think there are two issues and I think David Gergen hit the nail on the head. Was the Bergdahl decision the right one? Was it right to go after the American who was still a POW. And the second issue, is how the White House ruled this out and how they have told people about it and what was behind the decision. I think the Bergdahl decision itself people can make up their own minds. So we don't have the information, we weren't there. We're not really the right people to judge that. But the way that the White House has handled it has so muddied the waters on the first question. I think they've done this to themselves, they've done a huge disservice to Bergdahl, his parents, Congress and the American people -- I think so.

COSTELLO: So -- so Ana do you think we'll hear anymore about Bergdahl and exactly what happened? I know they want to talk to him and interrogate him and all that. And he is not in the proper shape to do that. But they must know something more about the circumstances of his wondering away from his platoon.

NAVARRO: You know I don't think that we are going to hear too much about that in detail, because I think that they are going to wait to do a proper investigation when Bergdahl is back and able to speak and they are able to ask him the questions they need to. I think it is going to revolve around the issues that David brought up. And it's because -- you know and I wasn't surprised by what David just said about how the White House had made this decision and not even briefed some of the people on the ground and not even fully briefed Secretary Hagel until afterwards.

Because we've known that this White House micro manages the cabinet and rolls out these issues in a political way. The reason this backfired, is because they made it a political rollout as a symbolism of ending the war. They wanted to have victory. They wanted the Rose Garden ceremony. And that's where things started to go awry.

COSTELLO: Well, the hearing gets underway just around 10:10, 10:15 Eastern Time. Of course CNN will carry that live. David Gergen, Ana Navarro, Patricia Murphy, thanks to all of you. I appreciate it.

GERGEN: Thank you.

COSTELLO: I want to return to our "Top Story" now, Eric Cantor's stunning loss at the Virginia primary. Dana Bash live on Capitol Hill and she's joined by Nebraska Congressman Lee Terry with some perspective. Take it away Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Thank you Carol. Well Congressman Terry was walking by giving his constituents a tour. And all the guys are talking and we asked him to come on live. Thank you very much for coming on.

REP. LEE TERRY (R), NEBRASKA: Well thank you.

BASH: First what kind of impact do you think that this has on your party, on your Republican rank and file in the House?

TERRY: Well first of all, it's just stunning that this happened and secondly, it's just you know sending shivers throughout the Republican conference. And we're trying to analyze what really happened here. But I think the message is that, you know, if you're not part of that crowd, Eric is the number two guy for being the establishment and this is very much a non-establishment year. If you're in Congress, people are angry at you.

BASH: You've watched him work. You've been in Congress for eight terms. He has -- fair to say he's been among the most, if not the most, conservative member of the leadership.

TERRY: He is the one of the most conservative members and he had one foot in what the Tea Party group as they would call him the more conservative as well as the other parts of Congress. And I -- but I guess that's not good enough. If you're part of leadership, you've got a target on you.

BASH: You've had primary challenges.

TERRY: Yes I've got primary challenges the last two from the right. There's not a lot of room on my right but they still find what there is.

BASH: As a rank and file Republican, seeing what happened to your leader, do you feel less inclined to compromise now?

TERRY: I think that's one of the messages is that first of all if you're here, you've got a target just because you're here. You can do great work but they're still going to come after you. And number two, do we compromise? How do we work together? All of this is now in question.

BASH: So is that -- is that a yes? Do you feel or I guess I should say are you more reluctant to compromise now?

TERRY: Well I think you have to really look at each issue. But yes I think the first thing you're going to say is do I -- is there political harm in having negotiations? Because negotiations is a bad thing now.

BASH: Because that was already the case. I mean it was already very hard to govern here with a Democratic president, Democratic senate and a House Republican conference that has many of them were already scared of their own shadows for lack of a better way to say it from the right. It's hard to imagine it worse, but it will be?

TERRY: I think it will be worst in the sense that that was one of the specific things used against Eric was not only was the establishment but that he had been part of some of these compromises like what kept the government open. And that was used against him. And so the message to us is negotiation or compromise could get you beat.

BASH: You're here with your constituents from Nebraska giving them a tour. But I know it's still early. We're trying to figure out what exactly happened. Do you think that maybe he failed Politics 101, he didn't tend to his constituents enough?

TERRY: Well that's interesting. Because a bunch of us got together last night to kind of do our own assessment. And that was one of the things that maybe he didn't spend enough time in his district and that is always a fatal flaw.

BASH: Now, he's also a leader. And as you said, the grassroots doesn't like the establishment. Maybe it's not so much about the issues it's just that he's an inside guy and they're outside people?

TERRY: I would agree with that. I don't -- I've heard a lot that maybe it was immigration. But I don't think it was any one issue. I think it was, A, you're establishment and, B, when you become a leader you become a national guy and so your time is spread out so thin that maybe you don't get to your district as much.

BASH: OK, Congressman, thank you very much.

TERRY: Thank you.

BASH: Maybe your timing wasn't so great walking by us but I appreciate it thank you very much.

Carol, fascinating to hear firsthand from a congressman saying that he's going to think twice before voting for something that might be even perceived as compromise because of what happened.

COSTELLO: Interesting. You know, on the other issue, some feel that Eric Cantor might run as a write-in candidate in the general election. Do you think he will?

BASH: Unlikely. I've been waved off that. I should say that Eric Cantor is meeting with his staff as we speak here in the Capitol to try to go over all with his options but I'm been told that's pretty unlikely. He's in a Republican district. It is possible. It is legal to do that. But it would be very, a very tough haul and it would be especially as a party leader probably something he's not interested in.

The question we're looking at now and the open question is whether he's going to even stay in the house Republican leadership and whether he will remain on as House Majority Leader or whether he'll step down and let the games begin for lack of a better way to say it to fill his seat.

I don't think that the House Speaker would like that because they want some -- some calm, some unity as much as they can have as this primary season winds down in order to really focus on beating Democrats in November.

COSTELLO: All right. Dana Bash, thanks so much. And thanks to Representative Lee Terry as well.

The next hour of NEWSROOM after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. This hour on Capitol Hill, Congress holds its first public hearing on that prisoner swap that freed U.S. Army soldier Bowe Bergdahl. Lawmakers in both parties are upset with the deal that freed five Taliban detainees in exchange for Bergdahl's freedom. Critics say that cost was too high and done without their input.

So just minutes from now Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will try to defend the deal to the House Armed Services Committee. This is a live picture from the committee room that you're looking at. Hagel faces a grilling from a hostile panel.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He looks forward to explaining why the President's decision to secure the release of Sergeant Bergdahl was the right one and why the process we undertook in doing so was in keeping with our national interest.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Quote, "The President's decision" marks a subtle but significant shift in wording. First President Obama celebrated the release with Bergdahl's parents and then when the deal turned unpopular, the White House said it was Hagel who made the decision. That ignited charges that Hagel was being made a scapegoat.