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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Iran Media: American Sailors Released; Obama Delivers Final State of the Union Address; South Carolina Governer Offers GOP Response; Viewers React to the State of the Union; Analyst Note: "Sell Everything". Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired January 13, 2016 - 05:30   ET

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

[05:30:05] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, big breaking news this morning, just in. The ten American sailors who've been detained by Iran, they have been released. That is according to Iranian state media. Again, this just in, we are live with new developments.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: The president, President Obama delivering his final State of the Union address, what he believes the administration has accomplished, what he regrets, and what still needs to be done. Welcome back to EARLY START, I'm Christine Romans, good morning.

BERMAN: I'm John Berman. About 30 minutes past the hour, and again, breaking news, word just in from Iranian state run television and the ten American sailors that Iran had been holding. They have now been released. We are waiting for confirmation from the pentagon. We have reached out, but as of now, we have no confirmation from U.S. officials. Still, the Iranians say they are free. They were captured by Iran's revolutionary guard, taken to Farsi Island when they wound up, and we don't know how, the Iranians say, in Iranian territorial waters.

Joining us now live with the latest with the word of this release, international diplomatic editor, Nic Robertson. Nic, what do we know?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Well, the photograph that's been released by the Iranian state media press TV seems to show what they say are these American sailors in good condition. It's not clear if this is what the Iranians say it is, a photograph of them. If it is, what we see in that photograph is a number of those ten sailors, perhaps you can see seven or eight clearly, sitting in uniform, around on the floor, around two sides of a room. It's a fairly bare room. There are no tables, no chairs in there but they're all together, they appear to be if good condition.

Now we don't know at this stage if that is the sailors who were captured and what that photograph really is. But the Iranians, right after saying that they've been released, their state media then released this photograph. What the Iranians had said was that these sailors would be released early in the morning with daylight. Well that didn't happen. The rhetoric changed a few hours ago, saying that they were being questioned, interrogated to see if they were on a spying mission, that they've been provocative and unprofessional. Since then, the language changed saying that the process of releasing them was underway and it was discovered that the reason that they had ended up in Iranian territorial waters was because of a failure of their navigation equipment on the two small vessels.

The truth behind all this, the details that may amplify and explain what the Iranians are saying, we just don't know yet. There's clearly one side to this that we have yet to learn, yet to get details on, but the Iranian have sort of moved in the past couple of hours to say that they did seem to trust, that there was a decent explanation for why the sailors were there. But that said, the army commanding officer came out on the Iranian state media in the past hour saying that this was a lesson to the trouble makers, the tone throwers, as he called them, in U.S. congress and this wouldn't be the last of the U.S. mistakes in the region. But at the moment, the Iranians are saying that they've released these ten sailors, one woman, nine men, we really need to learn a lot more when they're in safe hands again. John --

BERMAN: It is interesting. Again, we are awaiting confirmation from the pentagon right now on the status of these ten sailors but Iranian state media says they have been released. We're also waiting for confirmation, Nic, on word about what happened to the two naval vessels. If, in fact, they are released, and it does look like they have been, talk to me about the timing here, about how long they were in custody and what that tells us right now about the U.S.- Iranian relationship.

ROBERTSON: The stakes are huge for Iran right now. The nuclear deal is going to get some more signatures on it in the coming days to validate what the Iranians say they have done if terms of keeping their part of the Iranian nuclear deal, that is, getting a lot of their (ph) partially rich uranium out of the country, deconstructing some of their nuclear research facilities, all things that would allow them to make a weapon very quickly. What is at stake for them is getting sanctions lifted on billions of dollars of frozen assets. The foreign minister has been heavily involved, we understand, talking to secretary Kerry, to get these ten sailors released. There was talk that he demanded an apology from the United States. The concern was the hard liners, the revolutionary guard who had these sailors were in control behind the scenes. But I think when we look at how quickly they've been released, and I say quickly in relative terms, 2007, 15 British sailors taken in a similar period, released after 13 days, it does appear that the Iranians, both moderates and hard liners, want to get their hands on the money and see the deal, the nuclear deal, go through as planned.

ROMANS: And Nic, we're showing those pictures right now that you were referencing, the pictures that were released by Iranian state TV. I have to say, the pentagon has not confirmed yet that those are the sailors, but this is what Iranian TV have put out. Those sailors, as you said, in a room on a carpet, nothing on the walls. Nine men, one woman, and now the Iranians have said they have released all ten of those sailors.

Thanks for that, Nic.

We're going to turn now to help understand this latest development to CNN military analyst, Cedric Leighton. He's a former member of the joint chiefs of staff, former deputy director for training at NSA. Good morning. We're seeing those photos. Those are the photos that've been released by the Iranians. We are told that they have released all ten -- we have not heard yet from the pentagon and the big question is, the condition of those sailors, what kind of interrogation, if any, did they undergo with the Iranians, and the two craft, their naval vessels.

CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, exactly, Christine, good morning. There are a lot of different aspects to this but I think we can all breathe a sigh of relief that this has happened so quickly. And when you look at this, the Iranians, when they interrogate somebody like this, I don't think they had very much time to really spend a great deal with each individual sailor and that really means that they didn't spend the time to interrogate them from an intelligence perspective. They were interested in other things and it sounds more like this is beginning to be a bit of an accident or some kind of incident like this instead of a deliberate act on either the U.S. or the Iranians.

BERMAN: Cedric, let me read you a release we just got from U.S. central command. So this is U.S. military confirmation. Ten U.S. Navy sailors safely return to U.S. custody today after departing Iran. There are no indication that the sailors were harmed during their brief detention. The sailors depart Farsi Island at 8:43 am GMT aboard the two riverine command boats that they had been operating when they lost contact with the U.S. Navy. The sailors were later transferred ashore by U.S. Navy aircraft while other sailors took charge of the RCBs and continued transiting towards Bahrain, the boats' original destination. The Navy will investigate the circumstances that led to the sailors' presence in Iran.

So the U.S. military now confirms those ten sailors have been released, also confirms the U.S. got its two boats back as well, those two naval vessels and also confirms that it is investigating the circumstances by which those vessels strayed into Iranian waters.

ROMANS: And also, U.S. officials telling CNN all ten American soldiers are now on board the U.S.S. Anzio getting initial medical checks. So we're going to be learning a lot more, Cedric, in the minutes to come here.

LEIGHTON: Absolutely, John and Christine. And when you look at this, it really seems as if the Iranians did not want to hold them for very long and President Obama and the administration are going to look at this as a vindication of their efforts and in essence, it's a start to a new military to military relationship with the United States. So in this sense, it's very positive from a relationship standpoint. It's also positive from that military to military standpoint and that could

pay dividends for us when we are dealing with ISIS; the fight against ISIS is both an Iranian fight as well as an American fight and the Iranians made a calculated decision here to really do things concretely that would help improve their stature in the eyes of the U.S. and I think that's what we're seeing here at the moment.

BERMAN: There's two conflicting actions here, right, that I think the U.S. and Americans need to analyze right now. It's number one, the fact that Iran did seize and arrest these ten U.S. sailors, held them in custody. And secondly, that they released them the next day. So there are people saying the fact that they were seized, that's an act of war. But the flipside of that, Cedric, is that they were released very, very quickly. So which is it?

LEIGHTON: Well, that's very interesting. When it comes to these types of actions, if somebody strays into your territorial waters for whatever reason or lands on your shores for whatever reason, you generally take them into custody and you try to find out what's going on so you could potentially say that the Iranians did that just from that standpoint. They were trying to find out what was going on. It was something that was unanticipated and they basically looked at it as, let's see what we're doing here and let's try to make sure that everything happened. If, on the other hand, it's a rescue of some type because of an engine failure on one of the ships or if there's some other reason for a maritime rescue, then Iran would have been obligated under international law to protect the sailors and also to harbor them. If they deliberately went after them or one element of the Iranian military went after them to take them hostage or take them prisoner, that, of course, would be a very different scenario and would mean one party in Iran wanted to do something of a hostile intent against them and they were overruled by Tehran.

ROMANS: This is certainly a good outcome for these sailors and for the diplomacy between these two countries, in part because in the early hours of this, there was some rhetoric from the Iranians that was concerning. They were complaining about provocative behavior by the Americans. Some 40 minutes of unprofessional and provocative behavior, according to the Iranians, and they demanded an apology and it seemed as though it could have been a very tense situation.

LEIGHTON: Oh, absolutely. When I was looking at those initial reports as well, I had visions of two things. The Iranian hostage crisis and the pueblo incident back in the late 1960s with North Korea. And luckily, it's pretty clear that we didn't go that far, especially given the brevity of this detention, but it was very concerning and it also showed, I believe, because there were, those reports were conflicting with other reports that you got from the Iranians that used slightly different language and actually considerably different language, you had, I feel that there were different views of what had transpired within the Iranian hierarchy and of course when you can dealing with a country that has factions on either side of a particular issue, you're never sure exactly where you're going to end up.

So not only can the sailors breathe a sigh of relief, but we can also, as a government and as a country, breathe a sigh of relief. It is definitely not what happened back in 1979, 1980 with the Iranians and it clearly shows that there's been a bit of a significant improvement in our relationship with them.

BERMAN: A very quick resolution to this; ten U.S. sailors released, confirmed by the fifth fleet right now. Those sailors now on the U.S.S. Anzio right now getting

medical treatment, at least being looked at to see if they need anything, and those two U.S. Naval vessels back in U.S. custody as well. Importantly, the Navy says it will investigate the circumstances that led to the sailors' presence in Iran. That's neither an ad mission of guilt or innocence in this case, they're just going to say, they're going to investigate how they ended up in Iranian custody. Cedric. Thank you so much for being with us.

LEIGHTON: Thank you so much.

ROMANS: All right, 42 minutes past the hour. President Obama delivering his final state of the union address. What he says he regrets who he went after from the podium next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right, the breaking news is ten U.S. sailors have been released. The other big news overnight, the State of the Union address, President Obama urging Americans to turn away from what he called the fear and tribalism that have dominated the presidential campaign and toward a more welcoming optimistic vision for the country. Want to break down the speech and the response.

We're joined by CNN politics reporter Jeremy Diamond via Skype from Iowa, an important state right now. Jeremy, I think one of the really interesting things we heard from the president was essentially, I'm sorry. He issued what he said was one of his biggest regrets and what you don't often hear from a president. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's one of the few regrets of my presidency that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better. I have no doubt a president with the gifts of Lincoln or Roosevelt might have better bridged the divide. And I guarantee, I'll keep trying to be better so long as I hold this office.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Saying he wish he could have done better there. It's interesting to hear that.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Yes, I thought that was one of the most fascinating lines of the speech because Obama is often criticized for not kind of taking enough stock in his own role in the divisiveness of the politics, kind of always trying to stay above the fray and point fingers at republicans, in particular, but others, especially for kind of not coming along with him on kumbaya train. So I think it was certainly interesting to see President Obama taking a little bit of responsibility there for the division in Washington.

ROMANS: And the republican response came from the South Carolina governor, Nikki Haley, who talked about how democrats and republicans both share the blame for some of the lack of bipartisanship in Washington and the rancor in Washington but then she also very specifically, I think, without saying his name, took on the front runner in her own party. Listen to what she said. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. NIKKI HALEY (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: During anxious times, it can be tempting to follow the siren call of the angriest voices. We must resist that temptation. No one who is willing to work hard, abide by our laws and love our traditions should ever feel unwelcome in this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: She got a kind of a vicious hit back online from conservatives overnight on Twitter but that was clearly the establishment striking back.

DIAMOND: Yes, I mean, it's fascinating. Nikki Haley is one of these fresh faces of the republican party. That shows that the party can be diverse, can be, not some

people's vision of the party, which is old white men and so she certainly presents an alternative vision and she's presenting an alternative vision to Trump, in particular. Obama was also was hitting at Trump last night without naming him by name, but talking about these politics that are divisive and that kind of single people out for looking different or being different or kind of being strange and inciting those politics of fear.

So Nikki Haley showing that the republican party, at least her republican party, doesn't endorse those kind of politics that Trump has been peddling and showing that there is an alternative vision to President Obama's message and one that doesn't necessarily have to (ph) devolve into the politics of fear.

ROMANS: All right. Jeremy Diamond, thanks so much for that, reporting in Iowa where it's not even 5:00 am yet. Nice to see you, thank you. Have a great day on the trail.

BERMAN: We got a very busy morning with all kind of breaking news. Let's take a look at what's coming up on "NEW DAY". Chris Cuomo joins us now. Hey, Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR, "NEW DAY": John Berman, Christine Romans, it's good to see you. Here we are down in the rotunda so I have to have a little more gravity in my voice this morning. We are coming off a very big night. As we know, we do have news now about what happened in Iran exactly, what's the status of those sailors. It's a very big position specifically for them but also, this is going to have a geopolitical feel. It was echoed last night surrounding the State of the Union. Of course the president did not address it directly. Why, why not? We have Jeb Bush on the show this morning. We have Nancy Pelosi on the show this morning. We're going to spend a lot of time with Pelosi because, where the democrats are, what their blame is as President Obama pointed to, at himself last night.

When's the last time we heard any politician, let alone a sitting president, say that he had done something wrong, right, which is what he did when he said, I'm not Lincoln, I'm not Roosevelt. Someone could have done better. So we're going to take through this level set as the president laid out last night. He said, sometimes it's good to have a level set. Kind of look at things fresh. I think that's our moment right now because certainly, John and Christine, there was a lot laid out there last night about the tone. A lot of it was echoed by Nikki Haley and I think that this is an important moment in this election to kind of look at where we are and how we want to be.

BERMAN: Chris Cuomo in the rotunda, your voice echoing through the halls of power as it should. Thank you so much, Chris. Looking forward to "NEW DAY". President Obama, as Chris said, delivered his final State of the Union address. We're going to hear from pundits and analysts but what about the public? A fascinating way to look at viewer response next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Reactions pouring in this morning to the president's State of the Union address, from analysts, from pundits, but what about the American people? Let's turn to Tom Foreman in CNN's (ph) bursreal studio to hear where democrats, republicans, and independents agreed and disagreed with the president.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey Christine, hey, John,. 125,000 people joined us through microsoft pulse to let us know what they thought of the president's speech moment by moment. We put the democrats in blue, the independents in purple, the republicans in red, and there were several points where they really diverged in their assessment of the president, one of those areas being where he brought up us his nuke deal with Iran. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: That's why we built a global coalition with sanctions and principle diplomacy to prevent a nuclear armed Iran and as we speak, Iran has rolled back its nuclear program, shipped out its uranium stockpile, and the world has avoided another war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOREMAN: Many republicans have not liked that deal all along, certainly not with the current circumstances with Iran and U.S. service members. Another area in

which there was broad agreement, however, was when the president talked about cutting red tape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: I think there are outdated regulations that need to be changed. There is red tape that needs to be cut. There you go. Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP

FOREMAN: Yes, you saw them all trying to come together there. That happened several times, but they never quite made it. Look at what happened when he talked about education.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: We should recruit and support more great teachers for our kids. And we have to make college affordable for every American.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOREMAN: You saw the republicans start jumping off there as soon as he talked about ffordable college because it seemed like he might have been fish biting at that

idea that some democrats have proposed of the government paying for more college. In the end, though, this is what we know; at no point did this order ever change. Approval was always highest among the democrats. Always in the middle for independents, and always the lowest from the republicans. Christine, John --

ROMANS: All right, Tom Foreman, thanks for that.

Let's get an EARLY START on your money this morning. U.S. stock futures are higher. If that holds, it would be a third higher day in a row. Long way to go, though, of the thousand points lost last week. Europe trading higher right now, Shanghai posting a loss overnight. The start of a new year is a time many analysts offer their predictions about your money and this year, one dramatic forecast caught our attention. RBS analyst Andrew Roberts wrote this, quote, sell everything but high quality bonds. He also wrote this, we think investors should be afraid. Why? He says the banks' red flags for 2016 all flashed in just the first week of trading. What are those red flags? Falling oil, volatility in China, and rising corporate debt. RBS compared the market mood today to 2008. Remember that? That was the eve of the financial crisis. That's just one scary prediction. There are others who are saying you could have a six to eight percent advance in the stock market this year but, ouch.

BERMAN: Yes, 2008 memory, not a happy one. All right, the breaking news this morning -- the military says ten U.S. sailors detained by Iran have been released. New details on "NEW DAY" now.