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Hillary Slams Obama's Foreign Policy; Some Refugees are Heading to Syria for Safety; Protest Next Hour over Teen Killing; Rory McIlroy Wins PGA Tour

Aired August 11, 2014 - 10:30   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSAY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: This Commander-in Chief has no strategy. He has no vision. This is situation where he knows better than everybody else, he was told you should get engaged in Syria three years ago by his national security team. He said no. His military commander said he should leave troops in Iraq as an insurance policy and he got the no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Ok. So we know Republicans are not fans of President Obama's foreign policy and you can now add former secretary of state Hillary Clinton to that list. She told "The Atlantic" quote, "Great nations need organizing principles. Don't do stupid stuff is not an organizing principle." End quote.

Our senior political correspondent, Brianna Keilar is following the story in Washington. Good morning -- Brianna?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you -- Carol. It seems this was a very sort of candid I think admission by Secretary Clinton when she was talking about don't do the stupid stuff being how President Obama and many of his aides have framed recently his foreign policy. To give that a little more context, one of his aides described it to the L.A. Times as basically being less isolationist or unilateral and being an interventionist and an internationalist.

But the thing is here even though if you look at the context here she goes on to say in this "Atlantic" article which is a very in-depth article, an interview about foreign policy, that she's talking about how that's more of a political argument than a foreign policy argument, this is a slam. She is critical of President Obama and she goes on to talk about Syria. She says the failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad. There were Islamists. There were secularists, there was everything in the middle. The failure to do that left a big vacuum which the jihadists have now filled. So I think you see her being very candid.

But you also have to look at this of course, through the prism of 2016. She is the frontrunner by far for Democrats at this point. In that regard, this is something that is necessary. She will need to distance herself from President Obama. He's unpopular right now especially when it comes to foreign policy and certainly this is an area that's a safe bet.

In a way, a lot of people share her sentiments, even some Democrats and this is something we know there are differences on Syria have existed before -- Carol. The other question here is what's going on between the White House and Hillary Clinton or President Obama and Hillary Clinton in reaction to this, which is really the biggest, I guess, act we've seen of her distancing herself from President Obama publicly. They are not jumping on her we know that when her book was coming out, there was a lot of messaging coming from the White House. They were stressing that they wanted there to not be this daylight between President Obama and Secretary Clinton. Well, here it is, and it's glaring.

COSTELLO: Yes, it is. Brianna Keilar reporting live from Washington -- thank you

So let's talk about this. CNN political commentator and New York Times op-ed columnist Charles Blow is here; and Republican Strategist Cheri Jacobus is also with me.

COSTELLO: Thanks for being here.

CHERI JACOBUS, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Good to be here.

COSTELLO: Ok, so my first question is to you Charles why is Hillary Clinton criticizing President Obama in the middle of U.S. airstrikes in Iraq?

CHARLES BLOW, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I personally think it takes place in the context of an interview. People kind of ask it particularly if it's happening right then and she is gearing up to, you know, we suspect, run for president in 2016. She's going to have to make spaces between herself and the president, particularly if there are real differences. Within this administration and within any administration, on foreign policy, particularly --

COSTELLO: You are saying running for office is more important than being on the same page with --

BLOW: That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that these kinds of issues are prickly. The Syrian conflict is a very complicated conflict and there are a lot of people, people of good intentions on all parts of the political spectrum who had different opinions about what we should have done, whether or not we should have armed the rebels, whether or not we should have had a more aggressive stance in Syria. I'm not one of those people but I know that there are people within the liberal camp who did have those differences and who did think that maybe we should have done something. If she's one of them, this is the time, in fact, to say something about that.

COSTELLO: Well, President Obama has come back and said, you know, he armed those Syrian rebels who were actually pharmacists and doctors, it wouldn't have done any good anyway and it's a fantasy to think that would have made any difference. JACOBUS: Well, he's wrong on that. What I find stunning about this

is not that we have a member of the administration slamming this administration before this administration is over. We've gotten kind of used to that. And we all have that sense of faux outrage when that happens.

But this was his key foreign policy person, his secretary of state and I think she's in CYA mode frankly where she's trying to separate her is he from it. What's amazing to me and Republicans and Democrats right now is not that she's doing this because of 2016, she's doing this before 2014, before the mid term elections. That she would separate herself from the president, obviously scrambling now to make it look like she's very tight with Netanyahu and was always on board and supports Israel, she was definitely dinging him on behalf of the Obama administration on the settlement in the West Banks.

So the fact that she's doing this now before the mid terms tells me perhaps she really, really wants to run against a Republican senate, when she runs for president in 2016 because --

(CROSSTALK)

BLOW: But you make that sound like 2016 has actually been pushed off because of '14. It has not. We all know that all of the -- all of the candidates who want to run for president in 2016 are already gearing up, when we see books being published now.

(CROSSTALK)

BLOW: I'm not sure that Joe Biden is running. I'm much more certain that Hillary Clinton is probably in the race than I think Joe Biden is in the race. So I think whether or not Joe Biden would do it is very different. In fact he's still part of -- an active part of the administration, where Hillary Clinton is not. You did not make that distinction.

What I'm saying is that everybody who is thinking about 2016 has cast 2014 to the side. They are not worried about that.

JACOBUS: They should be.

BLOW: That's a different point -- whether or not they should be or not.

JACOBUS: It's a big deal that she's doing it before the midterm because this does affect the congressional races and she's with Republicans on this and it's an invitation for Democrats running for re-election to separate themselves from this president and his policy. So it's a very big deal.

BLOW: Hillary Clinton has always been much of a hawk. You act like this is a new thing for Hillary Clinton. She's always been much more of a hawk than Barack Obama.

You understand Hillary Clinton. You know her history. She's always, always been much more of a hawk than Barack Obama. JACOBUS: No. The fact that she was --

BLOW: Please explain that. She has not been much more of a hawk.

JACOBUS: As his Secretary of State, she had to support his policy or help him change it.

BLOW: She no longer is secretary of state.

JACOBUS: Let me finish. It shows that she was either ineffective as secretary of state in terms of affecting his policy, she disagrees with them. Or she's running from him for purely political purposes and she doesn't care about the mid terms.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: All right. We'll have to leave it there. Thanks so much. I'll be right back.

All right. I have to -- thanks so much.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: It is a crisis so awful some Iraqi families are heading to Syria for safety. Tens of thousands of refugees have been rescue from Mt. Sinjar in Iraq but about 30,000 are still trapped on the mountain side. They were driven there by ISIS militants who threaten them with death if they did not convert to Islam. Dozens though have died on top of that mountain. Many of them are children.

Now the United Nations is working to open up a humanitarian corridor to get these people out. With me now Nikolai Miladinov, the head of the U.N. assistance mission for Iraq. Welcome sir.

NIKOLAI MILADINOV (via telephone): Yes, good morning.

COSTELLO: Nikolai, how do you open a humanitarian corridor for tens of thousands of people?

MILADINOV: It's a very difficult task and it's in a very sensitive situation in the north of Iraq. Our first priority right now is to work with the United States in sustaining the air drops that are keeping people alive on top of the mountain. And then the second priority is to make sure that the security situation on the ground permits the U.N. to move in and start getting people out of the mountain. We fear that many people have died from dehydration and malnutrition.

COSTELLO: All right. Our connection is terrible, and we're really sorry because it was fascinating, but as you heard the United Nations are making these corridors for some of those people to escape the mountain side. But many people are still dying and humanitarian aid is still need.

Nikolai -- I'm sorry about that. Hopefully he'll join us again in the future. Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the shooting of an unarmed teenager by police near St. Louis is sparking not only outrage and protest but a new hashtag called #if they gunned me down. We'll talk about that next.

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COSTELLO: The mayor of Ferguson, Missouri outside of St. Louis appealing for calm as protesters gather for another rally in just a few minutes over the shooting of an unarmed African-American teenager by police. This is what it looked like last night in that St. Louis suburb.

Hundreds of people turned out demanding justice in the killing of 18- year-old Michael Brown. The outrage over Brown's death has prompted a new hash tag on Twitter called "if they gunned me down".

To talk about that hash tag our CNN political commentator Marc Lamont Hill and CNN's senior media correspondent and host OF "RELIABLE SOURCES", BRIAN STELTER: Before we get into our conversation, I have a little bit of new information out of Ferguson. We understand 32 people have now been arrested for looting and burning down stores and police also confirmed that they were shot at, at certain points of the night so this is an explosive situation.

And there's supposed to be this peaceful protest there today, Marc, and the people, the organizers say they are going to try to keep it peaceful but who knows.

MAC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, whenever you have a string of violence, like you've seen here, here in New York, Michael Brown in Missouri and really around the country, black men and women being killed oftentimes unarmed, there's a great deal of anger in the street. There's a great deal of anger in the community and often times you will see something like this.

That's not to say that it's right. I actually think that rioting is the wrong approach. I think rioting and violence is the wrong way to get justice. It actually only creates more internal confusion and destruction. I think organizing is the way to respond. I do understand the anger. And it would not shock me if we saw more but I hope today that people instead of reacting with looting and violence, which destroys the community they organize against police terrorism.

COSTELLO: Now, the incident that led up to the shooting is murky. We don't exactly know what happened. We do know that no Michael Brown was 18 years old. He was supposed to start college today. He had some sort of confrontation with the police officer.

He was unarmed and ended up shot multiple times by this police officer who said that this young man was assaulting him. Again, we don't know all of the details surrounding this incident, but, of course, everybody is going to have their opinion, right and that's why this hash tag was born. If they gunned me down. Tell me about this.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN HOST: Right. one of the photos we just showed on screen, it's one where he's holding his fingers in a certain way and some people on line perceive that to be a gang sign. There's no evidence that it actually was.

But it was because of that photo actually that this hash tag started. People were saying why aren't they showing pictures of him in his cap and gown? Of course, hopefully we're showing all of those. But the hashtag is "#if they gunned me down" how will I be portrayed. And this is -- it goes back to framing. How are these stories framed? Is it about an unarmed teenager a child still who was gunned down or is it about something else? Media framing is so important here because if it's done wrong, people feel they're not being represented.

COSTELLO: And when you look at some of these tweets, Mark, some of them are pretty powerful.

LAMONT-HILL: Oh, absolutely. Because I think part of it is because human beings are complex. Human beings have different identities. They operate in different ways and different spaces. And if you were to take a photo of me or you or Brian on vacation or at a wild party when we're 18 years old, it may frame us in a certain way that may make the public think we're less deserving the justice and protection. When it comes to black male bodies they are even more vulnerable to that, because it's already a public narrative that black male bodies are inherently dangerous.

And so how they take our picture, how they frame us and how they present us in the media -- I guess we are today in this case -- help shape our people respond to us. There's a very big difference between having someone throwing up a gang sign or having someone with a cap or gown. But my point to the media but to other black well, is even if he is a gang member. Even if he was stealing, even if he was committing a crime, that doesn't make you worthy of lethal force. If you are unarmed and not posing a physical threat.

Of course, we have to in fact all of the facts there. But we don't need victims to be perfect to be deserving of justice, to be treated like human beings. We have to move away from that. I don't care if you had a cap and gown or if he was running with a piece of stolen (inaudible) in his hand. it doesn't matter. He still doesn't deserve to be murdered or killed by that.

STELTER: Because we live in this climate this national media climate where any local story can become a national story it seems to me it creates an narrative of an epidemic of police brutality. You talk about Eric Garner a couple of weeks ago here in New York and now this.

We can take these local incidents and they become a bigger story because of social media and because even local media stories become national.

COSTELLO: And that's what's so important. And I think you both illustrated the importance of talking about this story responsibly in the media, and I know I'll strive to do that. Thanks to both of you. Marc Lamont Hill, Brian Stelter -- I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COSTELLO: The buzz in golf has always been around Tiger Woods. Will he play this weekend? If so how will he play. But now it's different because everybody is talking not about Tiger Woods but about Rory McIlroy. McIlroy won the PGA championship yesterday, his second straight major title third tournament win in a row.

Andy Scholes joins me now. So, should we forget all about Tiger now and just go with Rory?

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS: Well, Carol -- you know, we haven't seen someone dominate the world of golf like this since Tiger did it back in the early 2000s. Rory is winning and the way he's winning just so impressive. Here. Let's take a look at what he's done in the past month. He won the open championship in July. Then he regained the number one player in the world by winning the WGC championship last week.

And of course, yesterday he outlasted his Phil Mickelson and Ricky Fowler to win the PGA championship. Just an incredible, incredible run he's on right now. And if you look at it, he now has four majors at 25 years old. If you look at the company he's in, only Tiger Woods and jack Nicklaus have won their fourth major at a younger age and Rory says he's already has his eyes set on winning number five at the masters next year.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RORY MCILROY, PGA CHAMPION: I didn't want to go to Augusta next year not having won this. I wanted to go to Augusta with four major championships and I want to go to August trying to win five and trying to win the third leg of whatever slam you want to call it. I prefer to call it a Rory slam than anything else.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: He's still a little bit ways away from that Rory slam as he likes to call it. To complete that, he would need to win the masters next year and the U.S. Open and he would be the reining champion at all four majors. Tiger Woods, the only person to ever accomplish that, he did it back in 2000-2001. But Carol, Rory's dominance right now is probably a bigger story.

COSTELLO: Ok, before we have to go. We have to talk about Monet Davis, she's 12 years old and she throws a 70 miles per hour fallow, she's 12 years old. That's insane.

SCHOLES: It is incredible. And this game we're watching right now -- the little league regionals. She struck out six in this game, struck out 10 in a game before that. She's won -- she single-handedly, you know, almost got Pennsylvania to the little league world series.

COSTELLO: You go, girl. Thanks, Andy.

And thank you for joining me today. I'm Carol Costello. Berman and Michaela starts after a break.

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