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Kerry in Iraq; Aaron Hernandez Hearing; IRS Chief Tangles with House Committee; World Cup Bite; LeBron James Free Agent; Charlie Rangel Re-Election

Aired June 24, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Wolf Blitzer, thank you so much.

As always, great to be with you on this Tuesday. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

We begin the hour here with this battle between Iraqi security forces and jihadist militants happening here at the country's largest oil refinery. Now let me back up because it's unclear exactly who has control of this strategic target. Iraq's deputy oil minister says security forces have it, but several security officials tell CNN that militants instead have seized it.

All of this a backdrop to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's mission to help the Iraqi government regain control of the country. On day two, as he is on the ground here in Iraq, Secretary Kerry met for these critical talks with the Kurds, urging them not to quit this political process. Later telling CNN that the Kurdish president is willing to participate in this formation of a new government in Baghdad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: There is a constitutional process which we, in our strategic framework agreement, are pledged to be supportive of, and we are. That constitutional process is actually playing out right now. The fact is that even President Barzani today, who is opposed to the prime minister, made it clear that he wants to participate in the process, that he wants to help choose the next government. And other leaders that I met with were all engaged and energized and ready to go to bat for a new governance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The secretary is also going into these talks, we should say, with a healthy dose of skepticism, saying in Iraq, words are cheap. Jim Sciutto, our chief national security correspondent, is traveling with Kerry, has more on that interview.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: As Secretary Kerry touches down in Iraq for a second time during this crucial Mideast trip, he says the president is prepared to take military action even before Iraqi leaders make the political compromises that the administration believes is necessary for any medium or long term solution here. He says that the president has options prepared. And that when he takes military action, it will be sustained and intense. We were able to sit down with Secretary Kerry here in Erbil.

Let's talk about the U.S. response if we can. Twelve days ago, June 12th, the president said, he was appearing with the Australian prime minister, that my team is working as around the clock on options to respond. During that 12 day sense, we calculated ISIS has captured an additional 11 cities and towns --

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: Uh-huh.

SCIUTTO: A key refinery, crucial roadways and border crossings. Hasn't the delay and the administration's response here on the ground, military action, strengthened ISIS during that time?

KERRY: I think - I think the real question, Jim, is not sort of what happened in those days. The question is, what can happen going forward. The strategy that's really going to work. The reason the president sent me out here is that if he were to make the decision - and, I mean, he may have to ultimately -- but if he made the decision without trying to see whether or not you can have a government that can work or reconstitute the military, then you have a whole different set of options .

SCIUTTO: But you said yesterday that the president was prepared to act before there's political compromise.

KERRY: He might. Well, he -- he's always prepared to act under any circumstance. He reserves the right to use force if he has to that's going to accomplish a goal. But the primary effort is to get the government to form so that you have something backing up what you're doing. So that you have a military here which can be reconstituted, so you have political leadership that can pull the people together and they will feel invested in their government and prepared to push back.

SCIUTTO: Here in Kurdistan, the political division that's are pulling Iraq apart are clear. Kurdistan operates essentially independently. The Kurds made a land grab of their own in the last week, seizing Kirkuk. And as Secretary Kerry met the Kurdish leader, Massoud Barzani, Barzani told him there is a new reality in Iraq. As with military action, political action here will require U.S. help and pressure that is also sustained and intense.

Jim Sciutto, CNN, Erbil, northern Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Happening right now, NFL star turned murder suspect Aaron Hernandez due to appear in a Boston court any second here. We have eyes on the courtroom. Live pictures. I don't see him quite yet but, guys, let's stay on this here. This is yet another step in the three murder cases against him. Today's hearing is related to the 2012 drive by killing of two men. It was a year ago this week he was also charged with murdering an acquaintance. And CNN's Susan Candiotti has been following this case really from the get go.

Susan, what is the purposely here of today's hearing?

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, as you said, this has to do with that double murder in Boston in 2012 where Hernandez is accused of getting angry and killing someone after someone, a stranger on the dance floor, accidentally bumped into him and caused him to spill a drink. That is supposed to be the motive in this case. This is a routine matter right now. They're just scheduling things. He's already entered a not guilty plea. They might possibly set a trial date. But certainly this trial would follow the trial of Odin Lloyd, who was murdered about a year ago.

BALDWIN: OK. And as I mentioned, you've been covering this Aaron Hernandez story since the very beginning when it broke. You have this new documentary, Susan, airing tonight with all kinds of new details about his life behind bars. Let's take a look at a clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CANDIOTTI (voice-over): The fallen football star spends his days waiting alone in a seven by 10 foot cell. Trying to keep him in line is Sheriff Thomas Hodgson.

SHERIFF THOMAS HODGSON, BRISTOL COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS: I've talked to him at length. There's a warmth within this person.

CANDIOTTI (on camera): What went wrong?

HODGSON: Learned behaviors and the environment that people grow up in have an incredible influence on who we become.

CANDIOTTI (voice-over): Sheriff Thomas Hodgson believes in modifying behavior behind bars. He says inmate number 174954 is reading the Bible and another book he suggested.

HODGSON: I got him reading "Tuesday's with Morrie."

CANDIOTTI: It examines how to create a centered, meaningful life.

HODGSON: He was clearly moved by the book. He called his mother and told her she needed to read it.

CANDIOTTI: The sheriff tells Hernandez to find his center by turning to his childhood anchor, his late dad.

HODGSON: He will never be able to get back to that place that you felt comfortable and safe. And that's only going to happen if you go back. Talk to your father. Go back to your cell and talk to your father.

CANDIOTTI (on camera): What did he think about that advice?

HODGSON: When I see him every so often, hey, did you do what I asked you? No, but I'm getting there. I think at this point he's got a picture that he didn't have before. His dad's picture.

CANDIOTTI (voice-over): A photograph of his late father in his cell.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That's fascinating new detail and to think that he's reading "Tuesday's with Morrie," Susan Candiotti.

CANDIOTTI: Can you imagine?

BALDWIN: No.

CANDIOTTI: Who knew.

BALDWIN: What else?

CANDIOTTI: Who knew. Well, I will tell you that we are going to tell you new details about the investigation, as well as more information about his alleged drug use and paranoia, more crime scene photos that you have never seen before. And you're going to hear possibly some new details from people who knew him way back when from the time he was a kid through now. And clearly what you take away from all of this, leading up to Odin Lloyd's murder, is that this is a person of incredible contrast. A guy that was a rising star on the football field with an electric smile, and yet, according to people we've interviewed, he had a dark side, obviously. It has led to three murder charges now.

BALDWIN: Is this - guys, tell me, are these live pictures? Did we just see him? No. OK. This is tape. Just keeping my eye out for it.

Susan Candiotti, thank you so much. We'll be watching your special report tonight. It's called "Downward Spiral: Inside the Case Against Aaron Hernandez" tonight, 9:00 Eastern, here on CNN.

Coming up next, this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DARRELL ISSA (R), OVERSIGHT CHAIRMAN: Did you cause someone to find out at the White House, at Treasury or your IG?

JOHN KOSKINEN, IRS COMMISSIONER: I did not. If you have any evident of that, I'd be happy to see it.

ISSA: I asked a question.

KOSKINEN: And I answered it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Whoo. That is the current head of the IRS pushing back and forth against these allegations that his office was involved in a cover up. The fireworks continuing to fire today. Wait until you hear this exchange. We'll play it for you coming up from Washington.

And, NTSB investigators reveal what they believe caused that deadly crash of an Asiana Airlines flight last year. What or I should say who was at fault? And ahead, the big talker today, King James opting out of his contract

with the Miami Heat. Huh. That means LeBron James will be a free agent and can sign with any team. So, where will the league's best player end up you ask? We will discuss. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Short tempers, fireworks flying on Capitol Hill here as Republican led House committees continue their hunt for those missing IRS e-mails. First of all, we'll take you into this hearing last night. You have the Oversight Committee chairman, Darrell Issa. He squared off with the IRS commissioner about these e-mails which Republicans believe could shed light on these allegations that the IRS targeted conservative groups during the last two elections. Issa wanted to know if the White House got an early heads up that those e-mails were missing. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DARRELL ISSA (R), OVERSIGHT CHAIRMAN: Did you cause someone to find out at the White House, at Treasury or your IG?

JOHN KOSKINEN, IRS COMMISSIONER: I did not. If you have any evident of that, I'd be happy to see it.

ISSA: I asked a question.

KOSKINEN: And I answered it.

ISSA: You did not cause anyone to find out?

KOSKINEN: I absolutely didn't.

ISSA: So you -

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The hearings continue today with witnesses from the National Archive and the White House counsel's office. CNN's Athena Jones joins me from Washington.

So, some grilling last night. How's today going, Athena?

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Brooke.

Well, today we saw a continued focus on who knew what at the White House and what did they do with that information? Members of Congress - Republican members of Congress, I should say, in this committee were hoping to get those answers from Jennifer O'Connor, who is a lawyer in the White House council office. They wanted to know, OK, when the White House found out about this missing Lois Lerner e-mails, who got that information? The chief of staff, the president? Did anyone at the White House pass this information on to the Department of Justice or the FBI? Now, Jennifer O'Connor simply said, I can't answer these questions

because I've only been in this job about a month. And so she just couldn't answer it. I should note that O'Connor did spend six months last year working as a lawyer with the IRS during the time when they were trying to comply with all of the documentation requests from these various congressional inquiries into this matter, so she also was able to discuss this with this panel.

The other big issue of focus was the rules and the laws governing how e-mails are kept and what records should be retained. I want to play for you an exchange between David Ferriero, who's the national archivist, and Congressman Tim Walberg, a Republican from Michigan. He was asking Ferriero whether the IRS broke the law. Let's listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TIM WALBERG (R), MICHIGAN: Is it fair to say that the IRS broke the Federal Records Act?

DAVID S. FERRIERO, ARCHIVIST OF THE UNITED STATES: They're required -- any agency is required to notify us when they realize they have a problem that could be destruction or disposal -- unauthorized disposal.

WALBERG: But they didn't do that?

FERRIERO: That's right.

WALBERG: Did they break the law?

FERRIERO: I'm not a lawyer.

WALBERG: But you administer - you administer the Federal Records Agent.

FERRIERO: I do.

WALBERG: If they didn't follow it, can we safely assume they broke the law?

FERRIERO: They did not follow the law.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: So that's an example of the kind of questioning we saw of Congressman Walberg trying to get Ferriero to say the IRS should have notified the National Archives under the law when they discovered that these Lois Lerner e-mails were missing.

I should mention to you, Brooke, this hearing lasted about three and a half hours. Last night's hearing was more than three and a half hours. So in the last couple of days, they've spent seven hours on this issue and it's not over.

Brooke. BALDWIN: What's next as far as an investigation goes?

JONES: Well, this is interesting. There are a lot of investigations going on by separate congressional committees, but there's now one more investigation to add to the mix. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told the panel last night that the treasure inspector general for tax administration, that's the inspector general for the IRS, has already launched an investigation into these missing Lois Lerner e-mails. And so we can expect to see the results of that independent review at some point. So that's just one more investigation going on here.

Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK. Add it to the list. Athena Jones, thank you so much.

Coming up, we're going to stay here on politics. Hotly contested political primaries today. One of those involving New York Congressman Charlie Rangel. His Harlem seat being challenged by an up and comer in his most serious re-election battle, by the way, in his 43 years in Congress. We'll take you to New York for that one.

And blowing up right now on social media, moments ago, a player in a World Cup game allegedly bit another player. And guess what, this is apparently not the first time he's done something like that. We'll show you what happened, get reaction, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: OK. Moments ago, major incident in the World Cup. This player appeared to bite another player during the second half of this match. And this, by the way, is not the first time this player is accused of doing something like this. This is blowing up on social media right now.

So Rachel Nichols, thank you so much for hopping in the chair for us, host of CNN's "Unguarded," to walk us through what happened. I hear it was a bite allegedly to the shoulder. Who's this player?

RACHEL NICHOLS, HOST, CNN'S "UNGUARDED": Well, Brooke, if you want a nickname, you don't want the nickname "the cannibal." And this is this player's nickname because this is the third -

BALDWIN: Are you serious?

NICHOLS: Third alleged incident of this. This is going to have huge repercussions. Luis Suarez plays for Uruguay. They were playing Italy today. And in the 80th minute, he did appear to bite one of Italy's defender on the shoulder. Obviously the Italian team very ruffled by this, very upset. The player who was bitten tried to show it to the officials. The officials didn't do anything about it.

BALDWIN: They did nothing.

NICHOLS: Nothing. And then a minute later, Uruguay scores on a set play from the corner. So Italy, obviously, you know, not really prepared at this point because one of their players -- someone just tried to eat him. This is going to have repercussions.

BALDWIN: It is.

NICHOLS: Uruguay did move on. Italy is knocked out of the World Cup now. Uruguay has moved on to the next round. But you can definitely expect Suarez to be penalized from here on out. It is doubtful we are going to see him play for the rest of the World Cup. That's certainly an option on the table for FIFA officials. And this could even have repercussions back in his home club, Liverpool, where he plays in the premier league because this is, as you said, not the first time this has happened. This is reprehensible behavior.

BALDWIN: Yes.

NICHOLS: You don't want a nickname "the cannibal."

BALDWIN: And you can see the Italian player clearly holding his jersey down, trying to show officials, throwing his hand up, and as you pointed out, nothing happening. Let's follow that.

This is something else we wanted to follow. This is a guy you have interviewed many a times, King James, the biggest star in basketball, may soon be looking for a new team. LeBron James has decided to exercise this option to terminate his contract with the Miami heat. What does that really mean?

NICHOLS: Yes. It's not a huge surprise. Even the team president, Pat Riley, came out today and said he expected this to happen. What this does is give LeBron options. It doesn't mean necessarily that we're going to have decision part two yet. He's not necessarily leaving the Miami Heat. But he has put the Miami Heat on notice. He has said to them, I'm going to shop around. And if you want to still be a big consideration for me, you need to improve the roster. Remember --

BALDWIN: Cha-ching. Cha-ching.

NICHOLS: Exactly. Miami just got manhandled by the Spurs. Not just the money, though, Brooke, because I really think that his concern is the players around him.

BALDWIN: Huh.

NICHOLS: There used to be, in the NBA, this trend with superstars. They would sign max deals. They would sign for seven or eight years for the most money possible, try to get those dollar bills up front. LeBron really became his signature is sign for the short deal. And what he does is by signing these three contracts, and he's now at the end of his second one, you're betting on yourself, right? You're betting that in three years you're still going to be worth a lot of money -

BALDWIN: Right, that you get picked up.

NICHOLS: But you're forcing the other teams around you to make you the best offer of the best team to win a championship. It's why he left Cleveland, because he had a better offer for better teammates in Miami. And now we're going to see if he has a better offer for better teammates and more star power somewhere else.

BALDWIN: How about that? Yes, I mean, that's exactly what that is, betting on himself. And he does have a little leverage, I suppose, even though they got manhandled, to quote you.

Rachel Nichols, thank you so much for jumping on. We appreciate it.

Coming up, the NTSB making its call today on what caused that deadly crash at the Asiana Airlines flight last year, remember, at San Francisco International Airport. Who does the NTSB say was at fault. We have that answer.

Also ahead, long time, as in 23 long terms long time, New York Congressman Charlie Rangel facing the toughest re-election battle in his 43 years in Congress. We are live in Harlem right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Just about the bottom of the hour. I'm Brooke Baldwin here.

And three hot primary races are being contested right now as we speak. So, take a look and here are the states right here. You have Republican votes in Colorado and Mississippi and a Democratic race in New York. That is where Charlie Rangel, 84 years of age, 43 tumultuous years in office, is the voice of Harlem in Congress. Charlie Rangel might be running in his last race today. So stand by for more on that.

Speaking of lifers, Mississippi's Thad Cochran, six term as a U.S. senator, six time six, that is 36 years in office. Thad Cochran, like some other Republican stalwarts, faces a challenge from the right, the Tea Party. Odd race, that one. We're going to talk about that later.

But in Colorado, former Congressman Tom Tancredo, his famous quotes now include this one, quote, "you can't criticize Barack Obama because he's black. And if you do, you're a racist." That's what Tancredo is telling "The New York Times." Tom Tancredo is one of four Republicans running today for the party's nomination for governor in the state of Colorado.

Back to Charlie Rangel, as promised. Charlie Rangel has been around so long in Congress, he is considered really an institution. His challenger says a crumbling institution. Here is CNN's Alexandra Field.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CROWD: Charlie! Charlie!

REP. CHARLIE RANGEL (D), NEW YORK: How's everybody doing? All right. Good to see you.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here in Harlem, everyone knows Charlie Rangel. He's the "Harlem Lion." At 84 years old, he has been in Congress for 43 years.

CROWD: Charlie Rangel. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One voice, one community.

FIELD: Right now he's facing a real challenge in the primary battle. And there is a legitimate chance he could lose his seat.

RANGEL: If he had a good race horse that was old, would you say he's too old to win again?