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Several Leads in Police Shooting in Ferguson; Rescue of Baby Caught on Video; Four Patients to be Monitored in Nebraska; Monster Storm Slams Island Paradise; Ex-Soldiers Volunteer for Battle; Did GOP Senators Break Law with Iran Letter?

Aired March 14, 2015 - 16:00   ET

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

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: 4:00 Eastern. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Poppy Harlow joining you from New York.

We begin in Ferguson, Missouri, a city where an all-out manhunt is still under way to try to find whoever is responsible for shooting two police officers on Wednesday night. Investigators say they are pursuing several leads in this case. They're now offering a $10,000 reward.

Our Stephanie Elam is live in Ferguson for us this afternoon.

Stephanie Elam, what can you tell us on the ground? What's the latest in the investigation?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the investigation definitely is continuing here, Poppy. Law enforcement saying that they have investigators working around the clock to try to identify who was behind shooting those two police officers who have been released from the hospital, though one was shot in the face and one was shot in the shoulder.

But looking at who they have, they don't have anyone in custody at this point. They said that they've interviewed other people, they've interviewed witnesses as well.

And just to categorize the shooting, this is what the police chief from the St. Louis County Police Department had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF JON BELMAR, ST. LOUIS COUNTY POLICE: This is really an ambush, is what it is. I mean, you know, you can't see it coming. You don't understand that it's going to happen and you're basically defenseless from the fact that it is happening to you at the time. And that is something that is very difficult to guard against when you have a group of officers standing in a large group, and then, you know, you have gunfire -- certainly gunfire directed at them.

It's a tragedy either way because it undermines everything that everybody is trying to do in this. It really does. Now I won't walk away from the fact that it is not beyond the realm of possibility that having all those officers standing there together and the fact that two of those officers were hit, that these officers weren't targeted. (END VIDEO CLIP)

ELAM: Now that $10,000 reward that is out there, they are considering -- law enforcement is considering increasing that number. They think that will actually help get them some leads on who was behind this shooting Wednesday -- late Wednesday night, Poppy.

HARLOW: And, Stephanie, quickly before I let you go, the mayor of Ferguson, I believe, speaking this afternoon? After seeing so many officials step down or get fired in the town of Ferguson, I wonder if he's going to address his job at all. Do we know?

ELAM: Well, he's not speaking necessarily.

HARLOW: OK.

ELAM: What he's doing is he's meeting with members of the black business community here. What we understand is that some of those business owners may actually pledge their support to the mayor. And it's worth pointing out as well that last night even in the driving rain, while there were people out here protesting the Ferguson Police Department, there was also a small group of people who was out here, and they were actually showing their support not just for the police department and specifically the police officers, but also for the mayor, for James Knowles, saying that they stand behind him.

And that there's a lot of change right now but they think that he needs to stay in place. He is saying that he's not going anywhere, telling our Sara Sidner that, and that he says if the people want to remove him there are ways that they can go about that. And we understand one organization is looking to see if they can go ahead and get the signatures from people of Ferguson to make that happen. But right now that's all under the preliminary phases is what we're hearing -- Poppy.

HARLOW: All right. Stephanie Elam, live for us in Ferguson.

Stephanie, thank you.

I want to go now to Milwaukee County sheriff, David Clarke. He joins me.

Thank you for being with me, Sheriff.

SHERIFF DAVID CLARKE, MILWAUKEE COUNTY: My pleasure, Poppy.

HARLOW: First I want everyone to listen to part of what President Obama said this week responding to the attacks on these two police officers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There was no excuse for criminal acts. And whoever fired those shots shouldn't detract from the issue. They're criminals. They need to be arrested. And then what we need to do is to make sure that like-minded, good-spirited people on both sides, law enforcement who have a terrifically tough job and people who understandably don't want to be stopped and harassed just because of their race, that we're able to work together to try to come up with some good answers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Attorney General Eric holder also coming out this week after those officers were shot, calling it heinous, calling it disgusting and cowardly.

Sheriff, you say those responses aren't enough. Why?

CLARKE: Well, they're mixed messages. This is a very convoluted message from the president. On one hand he talks about the seriousness of the offense.

Where was he when he made that statement, by the way? Because his initial reaction to the shooting of two of St. Louis's finest was through a tweet. And I thought that was highly insensitive.

But anyway, then he drags in at the end that people don't want to be stopped by the police because of their race. And I'm trying to figure out how that fits in with what happened with the shooting of two of St. Louis's finest.

Eric Holder, on the other hand, came out with a statement yesterday or the day before and said that they were damn punks whoever shot the police. And I was wondering why he didn't have that sort of statement about Mike Brown, who just held up a strong arm robbery, anyway, where he bullied a convenience store clerk and stole items, and then went and tried to disarm a law enforcement officers. He didn't have those words for that action.

HARLOW: So you asked for those comments were made, the president made those comments on "Jimmy Kimmel Live," on that program. I have to ask you.

CLARKE: Totally inappropriate. Totally inappropriate venue for that kind of statement.

HARLOW: Well, he shouldn't have -- I mean, he should have addressed it on that program at all when he was asked?

CLARKE: Look, that's an entertainment and a semi-comedy program. That's not appropriate. I don't know why -- when he talked about Mike Brown he had a suit on and he was in either the White House press room or he was in the East Room when he made that comment. But he couldn't put on a suit on after two of St. Louis's finest were shot and hit. Took sniper fire and deliver his concerns about that incident that incident then.

I just -- you know, it doesn't -- the optics are horrible, especially for law enforcement officers who are looking at this. And he goes on an entertainment and a comedy program.

I like Jimmy Kimmel. But it's not the type of venue that this sort of thing should be talked about.

HARLOW: But -- so you would have liked to see something more formal. Understood.

Let me ask you this. Police shot in the line of duty across this country rose more than 50 percent in 2014. That's according to the December report from the National Law Enforcement Officer fatality report. I'm wondering if your officers there in Milwaukee, officers that you know across the country, are scared when they see numbers like that.

CLARKE: Well, not scared but hyper-vigilance, hyper-vigilance goes up. There's a tipping point. You know you can't keep cops in a state of hyper-vigilance for a long period of time before it starts to have a physical and emotional effect. But that's what we have to do to stay alive. But that piece of data in the face of this lie, this false narrative about the deadly use of force by law enforcement officers against young black males.

You know, let's have some balance in this discussion. The environment that a law enforcement officer has to work in is extremely dangerous. We can have these discussions about both of these incidents. But this is a one-sided argument right now. It's a false narrative that cops use an inordinate amount of deadly force against young black males.

HARLOW: Sheriff, before I let you go, I do want to ask you this. The DOJ report had two main points. The first point was that the shooting of officer -- by Officer Darren Wilson of Mike Brown was a justifiable use of force. And it also found that the hands up, you know, don't shoot did not happen in that situation.

Secondly, it found systematic racism among some in the Ferguson Police Department. The president addressed both in those comments to Jimmy Kimmel.

Do you not believe that both should be addressed?

CLARKE: I believe that the report compiled by Eric Holder was not objective. One of the things he also should have pointed out in there is that black males have a disproportionate involvement in crime and violent crime. And that black citizens all across United States are disproportionately victimized as well at the hands of other blacks. I think that needs to be put in there. And we can have this discussion about both.

HARLOW: Sheriff David Clarke, good to have you on the program. Thank you very much, sir.

CLARKE: Thank you, Poppy.

HARLOW: Joining me now here in New York, former New York City police commissioner, Bernard Kerik.

Thanks for being here.

BERNARD KERIK, FORMER NYC POLICE COMMISSIONER: Thanks. HARLOW: First, you were listening to that interview with me. Any

response?

KERIK: I understand the sheriff's concerns. On the president's side, I think one thing has nothing to do with the other. You know, the abuse of people and all that stuff, I get it. I understand, you know, that's been an ongoing issue now for months. But the attempted assassination of two cops?

HARLOW: Right.

KERIK: That had nothing to do with anything else. And I think it should have been handled differently.

HARLOW: You think the president shouldn't have talked about DOJ report when responding about the officers?

KERIK: No. I think he should have focused on the two cops.

HARLOW: OK.

KERIK: Especially for the law enforcement community. There is 700,000 law enforcement officers in this country that's watching what's going on. They need support. They need the benefit of the doubt. They need to know that our government, be it the president, state governments, local governments, are going to be out there behind them in the event that they have problems.

HARLOW: To be fair here, every comment that I've heard, every time we've heard Attorney General Eric Holder or President Obama address the Michael Brown shooting and the Darren Wilson situation before the verdict came down from the grand jury and after has been to say -- has not been to attack law enforcement, right?

They have said consistently our law enforcement officers are here to protect us. The majority of them are, you know, good, upstanding citizens.

Do you feel like that message has not gotten across enough?

KERIK: No, it hasn't gotten across enough. You know, and I was -- I fully agree with Eric Holder's statements on this circumstance.

HARLOW: Calling it heinous, disgusting and cowardly.

KERIK: You know, cowardly, punks, and all that other stuff. I get it. I agree with it. But I think we've been in a position where we've mixed two messages, two things too much that we're losing sight of reality.

HARLOW: I wonder if you think some have said that they believe that the DOJ report and the comments about it after it came out placed a lot more emphasis on the systematic, which is frankly systematic heinous racism that it outlines that has happened from some in the police force in Ferguson to a large amount of the community there, but that it focused so much more on that than on the situation of Officer Darren Wilson, saying there was not justifiable, you know, grounds for him to be -- you know, that he was justified in the shooting of Michael Brown and that the hands up, don't shoot did not take place in that situation.

Do you believe the DOJ report unfairly focused on one over the other?

KERIK: Well, I think one thing is much bigger. You know, the systematic racism and all that stuff, that's a much bigger issue.

HARLOW: Right.

KERIK: Michael Brown was one incident, one event. And the reality is, all of the protests and all of the civil unrest that went on as a result of Michael Brown --

HARLOW: Right.

KERIK: -- was basically based on a lie. He didn't have his hands up. He resisted arrest. He tried to take the officer's guns. It was all based on a lie.

Now the systematic stuff, if that stuff really happened, and if the DOJ report --

HARLOW: Well, the investigation found that it did happen.

KERIK: And if the DOJ report says that that's their finding, then there are some major concerns.

HARLOW: It's incredibly troubling, right?

KERIK: It should be for anyone.

HARLOW: For the majority of, you know, more than half the population in Ferguson is African-American.

Before I let you go, what do you do with the Ferguson Police Department and the community? How do you make this situation better?

KERIK: Well, I think the first thing you have to do is keep the rebel rousers out, keep the race baiters out. Keep the real people --

HARLOW: Freedom of speech. Freedom to protest. What do you do?

KERIK: I don't -- except here's the problem. Real community leaders have to be the ones dealing with the police department. It's those people with the police department, the real community leaders, they're the ones that can make this work. When you have these outsiders come in and they create all this dissension and unrest, then it's never going to heal itself. You need healing.

And the only healing is going to come from the city officials, the police department and real community leaders, not the outsiders.

HARLOW: Bernard Kerik, thank you very much.

KERIK: Thank you.

HARLOW: Appreciate it. Good to have you on the program.

We'll be back in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: All right. Shasta Darlington joins me now with some incredible video that we want to show you. You'll remember that last week we told you about this rescue of a 14-month-old baby in a tragic car accident. She joins me now on set to talk to me about it.

So this is new video of what we were really dubbing this sort of this miraculous story.

SHASTA DARLINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Exactly. And you really get the feeling from this video why we call Baby Lily the miracle baby. Basically it shows you what it's like to be a rescue worker because you see it from their perspective. The emotional and physical effort they go to keep this baby alive. Let's watch it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DARLINGTON (voice-over): New body cam video from one of the Spanish Fork officers as he rushes to the overturned car.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What have you got? What have you got?

DARLINGTON: You can hear their desperation as they try to flip the car. They soon discovered 25-year-old Lynn Jennifer Grossbeck, dead in the driver seat, but they do find a survivor.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My god, there's a baby.

DARLINGTON: They pull a tiny body from the wreckage and run up the hill.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She's definitely hypothermic. She is freezing.

DARLINGTON: Patting her back and willing her to live.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on, sweetie.

DARLINGTON: They perform baby CPR and rush her into the hospital.

Eighteen-month-old Lily was submerged in the car in the frigid Spanish Fork River in Utah for about 14 hours. She'd survived hanging upside down in freezing temperatures in the upper 20s with no food or water.

BOCK ROYALL, DOCTOR, MOUNT VIEW HOSPITAL: If anything had been different, she might not have made it.

DARLINGTON: Bock Royall was the emergency room doctor who saw Lily when she was rushed in. ROYALL: You can see just how pale she is and how cold and stiff her

arm is.

DARLINGTON: Four days later, baby Lily playing along as her father sings "Old MacDonald" in the hospital, the best reward possible for those who fought so hard to save her.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DARLINGTON: One of the really amazing things about this is when the rescue workers started they couldn't feel a heartbeat. So they just kept going and going without really having any security at all that she was going to live. But I should mention we've had some good news since then. We've been in touch with the Spanish Fork Police Department. They say Lily is out of the hospital.

They actually -- some police went to visit her with her family. They say she's healthy and happy and for the time being living with her aunt and uncle. So some good news has come out of this -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Some good news. Of course the loss of her mother.

DARLINGTON: Absolutely. It's a --

HARLOW: But a miracle.

DARLINGTON: Exactly.

HARLOW: Hanging upside down in that car.

DARLINGTON: I know.

HARLOW: On freezing temperatures. Thank you, Shasta, for that. We appreciate it.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: All right. This just in to us here at CNN. A number of American aid workers possibly exposed to the deadly Ebola virus are on their way right now to the United States for monitoring. The CDC saying those people are being flown to the U.S. as we speak from Africa.

Joining me on the phone, CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.

Elizabeth, what do we know at this point?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Poppy, we know that these 10 or so folks are headed either to the NIH outside of Washington, D.C. or to the University of Nebraska or to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. They will not be admitted to these institutions. Instead they will be housed in hotels or similar places, and they'll stay there for the 21 days after we start counting from when they were possibly exposed. Of course if they get sick they'll be admitted to the hospital.

Now some of these folks will quarantine themselves and will not leave their housing. Others, however, will be leaving their housing, we're told. But again, none of these folks have Ebola that we know of. They just at this point have been possibly exposed. And so they want to just make sure they don't get Ebola so they'll be very closely monitored.

HARLOW: I know looking at this CDC release, Elizabeth, it says that these are people who worked alongside an American volunteer health care worker in Sierra Leone who did test positive for Ebola. So I know that it is -- and it's important to remind our viewers that it is very hard to contract Ebola. It's not contagious through the air, et cetera.

But they're just being extremely cautious because this one person did test positive in Sierra Leone, an aid worker?

COHEN: Right. And so what I've been told is that these 10 folks had exposure to this person after he or she started to get sick.

HARLOW: OK.

COHEN: And so you can get Ebola with exposure. But as you said, Poppy, it's not easy to get Ebola. And we don't know, did these people have exposure to his or her bodily fluids or were they just working or living near them? We just don't know. But they're concerned enough about them that they've flown them back to the U.S. watching them very closely and then admitting them if they do start to show symptoms.

(CROSSTALK)

COHEN: And Poppy, I want to emphasize. Ten is a -- 10 is a big number.

HARLOW: Right.

COHEN: Ten is a big number. I mean, the NIH, the patient that's currently at NIH that was just admitted, the colleague of these other folks.

This person is number -- is the 11th person to be treated for Ebola in this country. So 10 possible new cases, that's a big number.

HARLOW: And just to be clear, worst-case scenario here would be that those 10 people somehow did contract Ebola which is not likely. But we do have the facilities in this country, here in New York, in Maryland, in Nebraska, right? To treat all of those people if it were needed.

COHEN: Right. The facilities that these folks would be treated with are NIH in Maryland or Emory in Atlanta or the University of Nebraska in Nebraska. And you're absolutely right. The U.S. now does have quite a bit of experience treating people with Ebola. And in all three of those institutions have a lot of experience. They have not infected anyone. There are no health care workers at those three institutions who got Ebola.

HARLOW: Right.

COHEN: They're -- the patients for the most part survived. None of their doctors or nurses got sick. It all went as it was supposed to.

HARLOW: We know that some those patients took an experimental drug called ZMapp. But at this point am I right, Elizabeth, in saying there still is one -- there still is no one proven treatment or vaccination for the Ebola virus?

COHEN: Correct. There's no vaccination -- there's no proven vaccination. And the treatment that these other folks got who've been treated in the U.S., they were given various things. There is ZMapp. Different people got different things. And we're still not sure whether those drugs work. They were given those drugs, but we don't know if they survived because of those drugs or if they survived just because they got good what's called supportive care.

They were well hydrated. They were well taken care of. You know, that in and of itself could save you from Ebola.

HARLOW: Yes. And this reminds us of the urgency and importance in West Africa where now more than 6,000 people have died from the Ebola virus. Many of them who do not have the care that these people are going to get if needed here in this country.

Thank you very much, Elizabeth. Appreciate it. We'll bring you more on this of course as we know.

Also we've been tracking all day the widespread destruction in Vanuatu, that is a series of violence after this tropical cyclone Pam smacked the island.

Joining me on the phone, journalist, Michael McLennan.

Sir, thank you for being with me. If you can hear me, just tell me what you're seeing there.

MICHAEL MCLENNAN, JOURNALIST: Look, there's just total destruction here. It's just hard to describe and put into words. Just so many buildings have lost their roofs. So many buildings have been damaged and the windows ripped out completely. It's just utter -- just total destruction.

There are so many yachts parked either sank on dry land. Just a scene of trees that have fallen down everywhere. Power lines all over roads. There's no way to get from A to B anywhere. It's just (INAUDIBLE) everywhere. There's no water, there's no power. Basically those of us who -- it's just massive destruction. It's just incredible.

HARLOW: And the images that our viewers are seeing as you and I are speaking, Michael, if we can keep them up here, are images of Port Vila which is the biggest, by far the biggest city in Vanuatu. Vanuatu is about 83 different islands most of them where people live in huts built with, you know, straw. And the infrastructure is nowhere near as good as what we're seeing. Any idea what the conditions for the people are there?

MCLENNAN: Well, basically since the island has taken a path which is channeled straight south from where we are right through the rest of the islands. And I don't know if you're showing the cyclone tracking map at the moment or not. But the island of Vanuatu are a longer spread. And basically we've got the first part of that intensity of the category 5 and it's just ripped through here.

Further down to the south what it has done we don't know. These local communities down there without obviously they don't have telephone, they don't have access. We have no idea about the conditions down there. You can't fly planes in. You can't get planes out. At the moment everybody is trying to clear airports so we can bring planes in to get medical aid and assistance. Trying to get life back to normal and assess everything.

I think there are only about six confirmed dead at the moment but that number will rise as we start to get more reports back from the islands.

HARLOW: Yes. Can I ask you about how aid has been coming in? Because only small, small planes like Cessnas can even fly into the main airport there. So I'm assuming a lot of it is going to have to come by ship and that's going to take awhile.

MCLENNAN: You can fly 737s. And there are regular routes of 737s into the airport here. For example, I think the American military had a C-17 here last week on a different mission with Kevin Barnes. So you can definitely fly larger planes in.

But a lot of the medical help that we need is obviously doctors that are able to fly into here. And medical workers, obviously, with materials and tools to rebuild houses. All of that would have to be shipped in.

But having said that, there is a reasonable supply of building materials here. But I imagine things like tarpaulins and plastic and things to cover roofs, as soon as shops open tomorrow I imagine a few shops will open. And those supplies will just be soaked up within minutes, I imagine.

HARLOW: Michael McClennan, thank you very much for bringing us that first hand account of what it is like on the ground there in Vanuatu right now. We appreciate it.

A lot more news straight ahead. But first CNN's ones to watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NARRATOR: A sculpture is someone who with a spark of an idea and a set of materials draws in space.

ANTONY GORMLEY, SCULPTOR: The challenge for me is how do you move all of that power in the best way to make something in reality? NARRATOR: One of the best-known sculptors working today, Anthony

Gormley, shares his thoughts on the state-of-the-art. And we've enlisted two prominent voices, an eminent arts critic and the director of London's State Modern Museum to select their ones to watch.

JONTY HURWITZ, SCULPTOR: My first reaction to the need for scale as an artist was to go absolutely nano.

ABRAHAM CRUZVILLEGAS, SCULPTOR: When I work, I really feel like a tire, and I try to be playful, and not to have prejudices about what is ugly and what is nice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: All right. We're back with the story of a Florida man who is taking the fight of ISIS into his own hands.

Army veteran Sean Rowe says he's tired of the headlines, the horror coming out of Iraq and Syria with the ISIS beheadings and much, much more. He's recruiting his fellow veterans to try to go with him overseas to take on ISIS. He joins me now live from Jacksonville, Florida.

Also with me, Jesse Rosenfeld, a contributor for "The Daily Beast" in Istanbul. He just wrote an article about this exact topic.

Thank you both for being here.

Sean, let me begin with you. You've started this Web site to ask veterans to go overseas and try to fight is. A lot would look at that and say good intentions but incredibly, incredibly dangerous. Why are you doing this?

SEAN ROWE, VETERANS AGAINST ISIS: Well, for three reasons. Like you said before, I'm just outraged at what's going on with is. And secondly, I'm frustrated with our leadership's very slow and very weak response.

And the catalyst that ultimately motivated me I would say gripped me to launch this Web site was when I started reading, it was the second article where I read about a veteran going overseas to help out. And his words, why aren't more people going to help, is what really just lit a fire in me. I couldn't even sleep that night. I was working on the Web site. And everything's been taking off since there.

I've now had several hundred people from all over the country and three other countries, civilians and veterans, wanting to go. I'm currently talking to several dozen veterans who are really serious about going, and able and willing to fund themselves over there.

HARLOW: You know, Sean, I understand that. But I think what is really worrisome, look what we've seen is do to people they've taken prisoner. You're a veteran. You have these skills but you don't have the backing of the U.S. military, the coalition forces. Other people that might join in this might not have any of those skills are.

Are you worried about risking lives?

ROWE: Well, I'm screening everyone I talk to. I'm not going to take anyone who's not experienced or qualified. Let me clarify that we'll be playing more of a defensive supportive role with the locals against ISIS. We're not going to be running around playing Rambo.

HARLOW: OK.

Jesse, you spent time with three young men like Sean who are doing this right now on the ground. They're fighting right alongside the Kurds trying to help. What stood out to you most about what drives them to do this?

JESSE ROSENFELD, CONTRIBUTOR, "THE DAILY BEAST": Well, it was interesting. Yes, I was meeting with three young Americans, all of them were ex-soldiers or ex-contractors that had basically joined the Peshmerga outside the city of Kirkuk on the front lines with ISIS.

What struck me was beyond anything their primary political goal is to fight ISIS, not necessarily support the Kurds, not support any particular faction. But what I also discovered was it's a wide spectrum of people that are going over to join the anti-ISIS fight. You have people like Matthew Gardner in Australia and who went to join the YPG in Syria and support the Kurdish fight against ISIS in Kobani.

You've got a lot of mercenaries and contracting outfits that are looking to make a name of themselves and basically make a business out of this war. And then you've got these ex-American G.I.s that are looking to go over and do something.

But I have to say that primarily that kind of decision doesn't actually seem like it's addressing the fundamental problems of the sectarian war in Iraq.

HARLOW: Right.

ROSENFELD: I mean, some of these mercenaries want to go over and fight with a Christian army and add another religious dimension to it. And others are going into a new war after the previous war created this mess in the first place.

HARLOW: Jesse, let me ask you this -- are they worried the young men you're with about what might happen when they come home?

ROSENFELD: The Americans that I spoke with were fairly reassured that they wouldn't be prosecuted when they got back. At least that's what they told me.

I know from other countries in the West, there have been concerns and there are issues as to what happens when they go back. But with these three Americans, they were quite confident that they would be OK.

HARLOW: Before I let you both go -- Sean, I want to ask you, your story's been out there. It was in "USA Today" as well. Have the authorities, anyone from the government contacted you and said, look, we don't want you to go?

ROWE: No, they haven't. And I don't know why they would. This is really none of their business.

HARLOW: Gentlemen, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Go ahead, really quickly there, Jesse. I'll let you respond.

ROSENFELD: Right. Well I mean, I think one thing a lot of these Americans that want to go over and fight have to keep in mind that the problems with Iraq are not with having enough fighters against ISIS. It's that the divisions in Iraq are making the battle against ISIS near impossible. Divisions between the Shia-backed militia, Iraqi government and the Kurds, all of these are the result of the Iraqi occupation in Iraq.

These are not things young Americans going over to fight are going to be able to fix. It's got to be a political issue that's addressed and unifying people to fight ISIS on the ground there.

HARLOW: Sean, I have to let you respond to that.

ROWE: Tell that to the families who are being slaughtered that they don't need help. The need is obvious.

But we're also going to take medical supplies. I'm talking to numerous combat medics who want to go. Like I said, we're playing a defensive, supportive role for these people who are just being slaughtered over there. And if people who don't see that need, I just think it's crazy.

HARLOW: Sean, I do have to say one thing. That is we have heard from the administration, people with such good intentions, aid workers going to Syria, going to Iraq, who have been taken captive by ISIS, who have been beheaded. We've seen U.S. forces, coalition forces go in and try to save them, risking their own lives.

Are you worried about that at all, risking lives even the ones that volunteer in order to save you and other vets if something like this does happen?

ROWE: They won't -- I mean, obviously, it's dangerous. And there's risks. But it's a risk we're all willing to take. I'm not afraid of dying.

HARLOW: But it risks other lives if they have to come in and try to rescue you guys.

ROWE: They won't be capturing me or my team, OK?

HARLOW: Well, how do you know? Just out of concern.

ROWE: We are very well-trained.

HARLOW: I appreciate it very much, Sean. Please take care. Be safe. I appreciate you joining us very much. Jesse, thank you as well.

I do want to have our CNN intelligence and security analyst and also former CIA operative Bob Baer join me now to talk about this.

With your perspective and your history in the agency, Bob, what do you make of what we just heard?

BOB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: Well, a couple of things, Poppy. I wouldn't be so confident about the U.S. government. There's a thing called the neutrality act which Americans aren't supposed to take up arms in another country privately. And you also have the question of permits.

The State Department actually issues what's called an ITAR permit for people who want to go work in a foreign country. These guys don't have it.

But I think, Poppy, what I've seen is this is much more widespread than most people know. I've seen Christian groups up there that have hired essentially mercenaries to protect missionaries in Kurdistan. And you have a lot of Americas going up there. I've got ex-colleagues in Kurdistan helping the Kurds.

The problem is this is a free for all. You've got the Iranians in Iraq. You've got the Shia death squads. You've got private groups. You've got the Kurds whose intentions aren't just to beat ISIS, but they also want to establish a state up there.

It would really serve us well if we had sort of an international policy that was unified on this and got rid of the Islamic State through state intervention rather than private.

HARLOW: Bob, what about what Sean said? We are very well-trained. We can do this. And tell that to the families who have lost their loved ones.

You can see where he's coming from and his intentions and that he wants to help. Do you worry at the same time, though?

BAER: I definitely worry. I mean, last week, there was a Canadian special forces officer who was killed -- I believe that was last week was coming back in patrol in Kurdistan. Clearly protected by helicopters and the rest of it. But the Kurds mistakenly opened up fire on his unit and killed them. Kurdistan is a wide open place.

I spent years up there. It's just not a safe place for anybody. And you've got the Islamic State who can infiltrate people or overrun Kurdish positions. And it would be terrible if an American were caught at this point, because, you know, the worst would come.

HARLOW: Bob Baer, thanks very much.

Quick break. We're back in a minute.

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MAYSOON ZAYID, COMEDIAN: Mom, you're not going to hit a disabled child, are you?

(LAUGHTER)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Comedian Maysoon Zayid has cerebral palsy, an incurable neurological disorder that affects body movement, leaving some patients confined to a wheelchair, but not Maysoon.

ZAYID: I learned how to walk because my dad taught me how by putting my feet on his feet and just walking. And my parents also sent me to dancing school. I could hold on to the dance bar and that's how I learned to hold up my body to stand up.

GUPTA: Maysoon's parents also used other non-traditional methods like piano lessons to help her increase her dexterity.

ZAYID: Those piano classes served me because I wouldn't be able to type and tweet.

GUPTA: Maysoon still dances and even does yoga.

ZAYID: Before I started doing yoga, the resting position of my arms was this. It was nearly impossible to flex them and to relax them. And doing yoga has allowed me to have so much more coordination.

GUPTA: Maysoon has never let cerebral palsy stand in her way. She has headlined popular clubs, co-founded the New York Arab-American Comedy Festival. And at a TED talk in 2013, Maysoon even proved that comedy is a universal language.

ZAYID: I've got 99 problems and palsy is just one.

(LAUGHTER)

GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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HARLOW: Forty-seven Republican lawmakers who signed their names on an open letter to Iran's leaders are said to have, by some, possibly violated the Logan Act. This is a measure that dates all the way back to 1799.

So, what exactly is the Logan Act? Tom Foreman explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A New York paper is calling some Republicans traitors.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And this is serious stuff!

FOREMAN: Those Republicans are defending their actions.

SEN. TOM COTTON (R), ARKANSAS: This is ultimately about stopping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.

FOREMAN: And all over D.C., critiques are talking about the Logan Act.

(on camera): What on earth is the Logan Act? Well, it is a relic of history. A law that grew out of a spat between the United States and France way back in the late 1700s, cue the fife music.

(voice-over): President John Adams' Federalist Party wanted war, but a Pennsylvania doctor named George Logan traveled to France and brokered a deal to stop it. The Federalists were furious and passed the Logan Act to make such freelance diplomacy punishable by fines and prison.

And accusations of violation have appeared ever since over Richard Nixon's dealings with Vietnam, Jesse Jackson's talks with Russia, Nancy Pelosi's 2007 trip to Syria and not a single case has ever amounted to anything.

(on camera): Still on a White House Web site, tens of thousands of people have signed a petition for an investigation. Convinced Republicans are now illegally interfering with foreign policy, by sending a letter to Iran's leadership.

But they probably should not expect much.

(voice-over): After all, in 2008, candidate Barack Obama chatted with the Iraqis. And guess what Republicans hollered about? Yes, the Logan Act.

Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: All right. Let's bring in David Gergen, a former adviser to four U.S. presidents. Thanks for being with me, David.

I want to begin with what we just saw from Tom Foreman, what Logan Act is. And you hear Secretary of State John Kerry calling this letter from Republicans an interference, calling it unprecedented. But Nancy Pelosi ignored the White House, right, when she traveled to Syria for talks when she was house speaker in 2007.

What's your take on both sides?

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I think this is -- the Logan Act is just not something that's going to be invoked in this case. Over 200 years, nobody's ever been prosecuted. They're not going to be prosecuted here.

What I do think is it enables people on the left to paint the Republicans as even more far right and more dangerous than the public may already perceive. It's more political than anything else.

I think what the Republican letter -- the Republican letter is not illegal. What it is in retrospect to even many Republicans is stupid, and it has, I think, it's backfired on the Republicans.

And frankly, Poppy, it's also going to have an impact on the elections coming up, 2016 American elections. And that is, this is -- Iran is almost inevitably now going to be a central issue in the elections. And the Republican candidate is going to be pushed hard by his own party or her own party to go to a hard line position on Iran.

So, this is going to have ripple effects. But I don't think it's going to have any criminal investigation.

HARLOW: Do you think that this letter could scuttle the negotiations with the deal deadline at the end of this month?

GERGEN: It may be invoked by at least one of the parties. We've seen the ayatollah, the supreme leader of Iran, shake his fist now about the letter and say how unreliable the Americans are.

But, you know, there are more serious issues right now and differences in these closing days. Secretary Kerry is just setting out this weekend to go back to the negotiations in Europe. And there are some serious obstacles that are understood on both sides, that they haven't agreed on. It's not just the number of centrifuges but importantly now, there are questions about inspections, questions about how long this agreement would last.

So, I think they've got some hard bargaining to do. And there's a real possibility that the negotiators themselves will be unable to reach agreement. And it's possible at the end of that when the people look back are going to say, well, it was the Republican letter had a lot to do with it. But it's also clear there are serious substantive differences between the parties.

HARLOW: Right. No question the president has said no deal is better than a bad deal. I do want to get your take on the Hillary Clinton news conference this week.

GERGEN: Sure.

HARLOW: Her explanation for setting up her own private e-mail server while she was secretary of state and using exclusively her own e-mail address and not government e-mail. You just wrote an op-ed on CNN.com about this. And you said that actually is oddly related to the GOP letter to Iran. What do you mean?

GERGEN: Well, in both cases I think the Republicans have legitimate concerns about where the Iran deal is going. I believe having worked for the Clintons back in the '90s, she had legitimate concerns about the security of her e-mails. There are lots of people who would like to crack into her e-mails. And I'm not terribly surprised that they went to the protective service.

But in both cases, both Republicans and Hillary herself, you know, took the wrong action. They made mistakes in what they then did about their concerns.

And if the Republicans had sent their letter to the president of the United States we wouldn't have this controversy, because they sent it to the Iranian leadership.

In Hillary's case, if she had set up her private system but then linked it up immediately with the State Department so that she was obeying all the protocols and understandings of how this was to be done she wouldn't have this controversy on her hands.

And I just want to say one last thing. The story continues surprisingly because we now learn that what she said was that her e- mails were going into an automatically going to other people in the government. It turns out the State Department had a sloppy system. They don't know what went where. They don't have the records themselves to sustain that claim.

HARLOW: Wow.

David Gergen, great to have you on as always. Thanks so much.

Stay with us. We're back.

GERGEN: Poppy, you're terrific. Thank you. Bye.

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