Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Sterling is Suing the NBA for $1 Billion; Iraq Crisis Sparks Concern on Capitol Hill; Secretary Duncan: "I Believe in Tenure"; U.S. Coach: We Can't Win the World Cup

Aired June 13, 2014 - 10:30   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: CNN legal analyst Danny Cevallos joins me now from New York. Welcome.

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Thank you for having me.

COSTELLO: OK this is a new tactic by Donald Sterling, could it be effective?

CEVALLOS: Yes it serves two purposes hiring this team of investigators. First, it collects facts for the underlying legal case. And those facts will go directly to the issue of whether or not Donald Sterling is being treated arbitrarily. In other words, if other NBA owners were doing the same thing, if this atmosphere of racism was pervasive within the league, then Donald Sterling would argue that he was treated arbitrarily.

But more than that, part two is not legal. It's social pressure. The other NBA owners have to be thinking we didn't bargain for this. They had nothing to gain from a sale of the Clippers but now they have everything to lose if a team of high priced investigators is looking up every skeleton in their locker. Given that the NBA is looking for -- just to get rid of Sterling, the other owners had nothing that would come of that bargain. So I think the owners in this situation have to be the most concerned, more so than Commissioner Silver.

COSTELLO: So what about Sterling's wife and the deal she's already made to sell the team and how does that play into this?

CEVALLOS: So there's a separate probate court action where Donald Sterling is now challenging Shelly Sterling's ability to even have been involved in the sale of the team in the first place. Shelly Sterling based her attempted sale of the team on a medical determination that Donald Sterling allegedly was -- was unfit. And because of language in the trust that owns the team, that was a provision that would have allowed Shelly Sterling to take over the team. But Donald Sterling is fighting that right now as we speak. So we have multiple -- multiple battles being fought on multiple fronts here and there's a real chance of mutually assured destruction. Donald Sterling has made it clear that if I'm going down, everyone else is coming down with me. That's what the hiring of these investigators heralds for everybody.

COSTELLO: So maybe he's not suffering for dementia?

CEVALLOS: Well that is way outside my pay grade but who knows? He certainly seems to have some element of strategy at least and his advisers do too.

COSTELLO: Danny Cevallos, many thanks to you. I appreciate it.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, as the White House weighs options on the crisis in Iraq, some lawmakers on Capitol Hill put the blame for rising tensions squarely on the shoulders of President Obama. We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me.

On Capitol Hill, the crisis in Iraq is sparking strong reaction among lawmakers as the Obama administration says it's weighing a range of options. Here's how Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina responded after a briefing by the Pentagon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: I don't know what the President is being told but what I heard today scared the hell out of me. The worst is yet to come and this place is completely falling apart.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Graham's colleague Missouri Senator Roy Blunt not mincing words issuing a statement that reads in part quote, "It appears to me that the chickens are coming home to roost for the President's policy of not leaving anybody there to be a stabilizing force" end quote.

CNN's chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash joins me now. Ouch.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A lot of I told you so is going on in the Republican caucus. They did not want the President to pull out all U.S. troops and they are saying this is what happens when you do. But Carol on the other side of the aisle you have some leading Democrats like Nancy Pelosi who took over the control of the House and she became Speaker in large part because of opposition to the Iraq war and does not want to go back in at all. Listen to what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), MINORITY LEADER: It's a real danger to the region and has global implications but I don't -- I don't know what our going in does about that. Are we going to refight the war that we just got out of where we were for 2003 almost a decade?

(END VIDEO CLIP) BASH: So certainly a lot of discussion over the past 48 hours or so over what to do about how dire the situation is. One thing I want to point out which our producer Virginia Nicolaidis (ph) who watched all of the Hagel hearing which was on Bergdahl a couple of days ago, this is the Armed Services Committee in the House. They had the Defense Secretary in the chair again for five hours. Nobody asked about this.

So you know there are a lot of people asking questions now but Congress also has a lot of work to do with regard to making sure that they know what's going on over there.

COSTELLO: Well let's talk about air strikes. The President can order air strikes on his own, can he, can't he?

BASH: There seems to be bipartisan agreement that the answer to that is yes. That the use of force military agreement that Congress passed, that the President signed into law, does likely cover any decision that he would make to use any kind of air strikes. Again, we have a source who is with the Democrat, who is the head of the Armed Services Committee in the House, nobody really seems to dispute that at this point.

Having said that, if the President does decide to do that given all of the ramifications for not telling Congress about Bergdahl, you would think maybe he would want to -- he would likely pick up the phone and at least give them a heads-up. Probably that would happen. But again you know no decisions have been made.

And I should point out that John Kerry, the Secretary of State just this morning, didn't go there on the idea of air strikes but did tick off a lot of things that the U.S. is already doing right now with regard to military support with regard to military aid and aerial help above the region.

COSTELLO: All right Dana Bash reporting live from Washington. Thanks so much.

I want to dig a little deeper now. With me now Will Cain, a CNN political commentator he also writes for "The Blaze" and Maria Cardona a CNN commentator and Democratic strategist. Welcome to both of you.

WILL CAIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.

MARIA CARDONA, CNN COMMENTATOR: Good morning Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning.

So, Will, I'll start with you. Senator McCain for example he keeps saying as many Republicans do, I told you so. And then he called on Mr. Obama to fire his entire national security team. Shouldn't he be offering solutions instead of doing the happy dance?

CAIN: Well you know, I think focusing on Senator McCain might be a mistake. Because first, we have to understand this is a bigger problem than Iraq. This is a regional conflict that stretches all the way from Turkey through Syria, Lebanon and into Iraq. Most importantly, Syria right because that's where ISIS gathered its strength before marching through Iraq.

Now look Senator McCain said we should have left a residual force in Iraq. But that really wouldn't have solved your problem in Syria. So would you have to have a force in Syria as well? I don't want that.

Clearly President Obama didn't want that he didn't do anything in Syria. I don't think the American people wanted that. So as you go further back on the decision tree, you have to ask yourself where will you place American troops and better yet, where won't you?

So the point about Senator McCain is he's been the one guy Carol who said, yes, you know, action everywhere. Iraq, Syria, we can be in all of those places. Say what you will about Senator McCain and he is consistent.

COSTELLO: Yes he is and Maria I want you to listen to what Senator McCain said when Chris Cuomo pressed him on this issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: I had called for the firing of Donald Rumsfeld because of our failure prior to the surge and advocated the surge. So this isn't the first time I've asked for a national security people to be fired. And we had it won. And we needed to have residual force. We had literally no casualties there in Iraq during the last period after the surge was over. And by leaving a vacuum, then that was obviously failed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: In other words Maria, he's saying he's not playing partisan politics here because he didn't you know has not exactly admired Donald Rumsfeld either. I mean does he have a point though? He's saying that we should bring back General Petraeus, a man who knows how to deal with Iraq. Why not do that?

CARDONA: Well you know what's interesting about Senator McCain's comments is and I agree with Will he's consistent. He's consistent on calling for the firing of the national security folks in both administrations. So good to him.

Here's where he's not consistent, Carol. He talked about how he has been the one to call for troops having been left behind in Iraq and let's remember, that the President tried to negotiate this with Maliki and he said no. Iraq is a sovereign nation. We can't be there if they don't want us to be there.

But also, McCain is not now calling for American troops to be there that I think is a huge inconsistency. So he's criticizing the President for not having left troops behind yet now he's saying oh no we don't want troops there now. So why doesn't he then sit down with the President, sit down with Democrats and Republicans in Congress to figure out how to move forward. Because to Will's point, this is a big, big problem. Bigger than Iraq. And we need to figure out how it doesn't hurt and continue to become a humanitarian crisis and then end up hurting American interests in the region.

COSTELLO: Yes because Will we, I don't know. It's juts, it's the same old thing. Instead of coming together in a time of crisis, our politicians don't. What if God forbid there was another attack on United States? How would they handle it this time? Would it would all on the same page or we're just throwing darts at each other?

CAIN: You know what's interesting, Carol. Maria is right by the way. The Iraqis didn't want us to remain in Iraq any longer. But the more interesting question is about the American people. You see war is inherently a political question. Now there's a question of whether or not our leaders like President Obama should guide us and influence us towards decisions that his moral compass says is right or if he should respond to the public's will at that time.

But the point is war is inherently political. And Senator McCain has mentioned residual forces in places like Germany and Japan.

And you know I don't know if the American people were ready to have a residual force in that region to maintain that. That is a political question that, you know, you say we should come together. That's the one that has to be debated. And I will tell you this the answer to that question I bet you does not break clearly on R & D, on red and blue, on left and right.

CARDONA: I bet you though, I mean and I think you're right. The problem is the American people is a very war weary people.

CAIN: Absolutely.

CARDONA: Because -- because we have been there for so long and so yes, the American people don't want us to be involved. They don't want us to be the police of the entire global community. And that is attention that we have to deal with because at the same time we have to make sure that, you know, we are part of the global community we're the leaders of that global community. So that is a tension.

But also -- let's also remember that Senator McCain and Senator -- and President Obama back when he was Senator they were always on the wrong or on different sides of this. Senator McCain wanted to go into Iraq. President Obama won his election because he thought that was the wrong choice. And the American people agreed with him.

COSTELLO: All right. I'm going to have to leave it there. Will Cain, Maria Cardona many thanks. I appreciate it.

CARDONA: Thank you Carol.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, California clears the way to kick out some teachers who do not make the grade and Education Secretary Arne Duncan is cheering the decision. We'll hear from him next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: It was a ground breaking decision. This week a California judge ruled that state's tenure law unconstitutional keeping bad teachers in the classroom and forces out good ones. Christine Romans talked exclusively with Education Secretary Arne Duncan and got his take on the tenure ruling.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARNE DUNCAN, U.S. SECRETARY OF EDUCATION: I absolutely believe in tenure, I believe in due process. We have to have those supports in there. But having said that, having teachers get tenures that were there in 18 months or two years is not a meaningful bar, that doesn't make sense to me.

And inability to remove grossly ineffective teachers, teachers just by any measure who are simply not working and we know where those teachers typically end up, unfortunately -- that's in the most needy communities. And finally the big thing for me Christine is whether it's there in L.A. or in California across the country, the lack of incentives to find the hardest working, the most committed teachers, the most successful principals and place them in the neighborhoods where the children need the most help.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Do you think teachers should be paid based on merit and shouldn't have life-long jobs just because they've been in the jobs for as long as they have?

DUNCAN: Again, these are complex issues but I think a piece of teacher compensation, we should be rewarding excellence. We should be encouraging teachers to go work in the most underserved communities. Let me be clear, no teacher ever goes into education to make a million dollars. I've been very public. I think starting teacher's salary should be much higher. I think a great teacher should be able to pick a number. 120,000 -- 130,000 -- 150,000.

ROMANS: Let's talk a little bit about student loans. This week talking about making available some income based repayment and pay as you earn plans for people who are really struggling with big student loans and low salaries. There are grumbling middle class families saying wait a minute, we are driving a beater of a car and we're not going on vacation and we're saving money like crazy. Someone who borrows too much, they're going to get loan relieved after ten years, is that fair?

DUNCAN: We just want to relieve some of the onus nature of that's huge amount of debt and rather than just paying that debt back if those people are starting jobs, starting business, buying homes, buying cars, that's good for the economy.

So we think this is absolutely the right thing to do. This is part of larger national conversation the amount of debt out there is over a trillion dollars. It's huge. The amount of angst this is causing and the stress this is causing on young people, their families, their parents is huge.

As a nation going to college is the most important thing folks can do to enter the middle class. Going to college has never been more important but sadly it's never been more expensive. We have to address the massive cost of going to college.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Catch the rest of Christine's interview with Education Secretary Arne Duncan on her show "CNNMONEY" tomorrow, 2:00 p.m. Eastern.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, odds makers peg Team USA as a huge long shot to win the World Cup. But it seems their coach is giving them no shot at all.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Jurgen Klinsmann is not backing down and that has many American soccer fans steamed. The coach of the U.S. men's soccer team told "The New York Times", quote, "We cannot win this world cup because we're not at that level yet." Klinsmann repeated that to reporters on Wednesday.

What? Rachel Nichols is host of CNN's "UNGUARDED". She joins us now. Wow. I would love him as my coach cheering me onto a win.

RACHEL NICHOLS, CNN HOST: Right. Absolutely. Look, Jurgen Klinsmann is German and he's lived in America for quite some time. But he's definitely German. And we have to look at the national character there. This is not a culture that promotes people thinking of candy- coated visions and sugar clouds with rainbows dancing in the sky.

When he uses the language and his language was that it's quote "not realistic" for the U.S. Team to win a World Cup this year, you know, he's probably right. Here's the thing. He may be German, but he's coaching an American team and it's our national character as Americans to believe in the impossible and to reach for things we probably can't quite reach and in fact it's so built in to this country -- I don't know if you looked out a plane window when crossing the Rocky Mountains any of you. If someone told me I had to go in a covered wagon to cross all of that to go to California, I would have told you it's not realistic that I would make it without food but people did it. They accomplished it.

And there is so much about American culture based on reaching for things. I think it's a misapprehension on his part to not understand why people are so upset about this. Yes, he may be technically correct. But it is not how we do things and frankly that's not how we believe you accomplish things that you might not quite be capable of yet.

COSTELLO: What are his players -- they're probably not saying anything about it. But what might they feel about this?

NICHOLS: You know, they obviously won't say because they work for him right now. You know, we're hearing them fall in line. But it is interesting. Landon Donovan, who is a former player, who was not picked for this team and freely admits he has a bit of an ax to grind against the coach but says I've been in that locker room as recently as just a couple months ago and I would tell you for me that would not be inspiring. We can only assume the rest of the guys --

COSTELLO: I can understand that. Rachel Nichols, many thanks as always. Rachel will have more on Team USA's chances on tonight's edition of "UNGUARDED". You can watch at 10:30 Eastern right here on CNN.

Thank you for joining me today. I'm Carol Costello.

"@ THIS HOUR WITH BERMAN AND MICHAELA" after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)