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NATO Prepared to Help Iraq Fight ISIS; Interview with Congressman Tom Cole of Oklahoma; Remembering Joan Rivers; Father Indicted for Murder in Hot Car Death

Aired September 05, 2014 - 08:00   ET

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

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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, and welcome once again to NEW DAY, everyone. Friday, September 5th, 8:00 in the East right now.

We have breaking news for you at this hour. Major decision this is morning coming out of the NATO summit. NATO leaders announcing they will help Iraq fight ISIS if they request it. The U.S. announcing a core coalition, 10 countries who will work together to fight the terror group with no combat boots on the ground.

NATO secretary general also saying it will create a response course that could respond within days to any threat any NATO ally faces.

Let's get straight over to White House correspondent Michelle Kosinski who's been traveling with the president outside the NATO Summit. So, we have big news coming out of the summit finally from these leaders, Michelle.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Right, right, yes.

Yesterday was a day of discussion. Today was supposed to be the day of response. So, really, the first big decision we see is this rapid response force created by NATO. They've been talking about this. Now, they've decided this will be several thousand troops, not sure where it will be based yet but they've had offers from the Baltics, Poland, or Romania, and these troops who would be ready to respond to a situation where defense was needed within two days, much faster than their current abilities.

Also now, NATO has pledged that it will support Baghdad if Iraq needs additional help in fighting ISIS.

The U.S., meantime, has been trying to do this coalition building with European nations. They say that Europe is willing to help.

John Kerry was in a meeting to work on this coalition building. He delivered some remarks, saying there is no contained policy for ISIS. They're an ambitious, avowed, genocidal, territory-grabbing, caliphate-desiring quasi-state within a regular army, and leaving hem in some capacity intact anywhere would leave a cancer in place that would ultimately come back to haunt us. So, there's no issue in our minds about our determination to build this coalition and go are this.

And there has been so much controversy over the last couple of days over what President Obama said during this summit. Or he said it in Estonia, just before the NATO summit, kind of unclear to some as to whether he was saying the goal of the U.S. and its allies was to destroy ISIS or was it to contain ISIS, Kerry has just made it clear the goal is to destroy them. I mean, he said leaving any part of it intact could come back to haunt us.

He did say, though, at the end of those remarks that defeating ISIS could take a year, two years, it could take three years -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Time line getting longer and longer as the reality on the ground seems to be changing.

Michelle Kosinski, traveling with the president at the NATO summit -- Michelle, thank you so much.

Chris?

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: It's going to take even longer with this pledge from the allies that we just heard in this breaking news, not committing any of their own boots on the ground. But that was qualified, right, because there will be this NATO spearhead force.

And now, what will that mean in Ukraine? And what will it mean in terms of U.S. troops, how will they be involved in the spearhead movement?

So, let's get straight to Barbara Starr at the Pentagon.

Barbara, what are you hearing about U.S. boots, which is our new vernacular, right, for meaning troops in harm's way with this NATO coalition?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Chris.

I think that all of this is still being chewed over because the political reality of NATO always overtakes the military goals. That's just how it works.

On this question of a spearhead force, based in Eastern Europe to counter the Russian moves in Ukraine, to counter any Russian aspirations to move further into Eastern Europe. The U.S. already has roughly 60,000 or so U.S. troops in Europe, many of them may be put against this rapid response force.

But for the European allies who are making these commitments, they have much smaller militaries. They are under even tougher budget pressures in their military spending than the U.S. is, many of the NATO European members are actually coalition government, so their own internal political reality may well overtake eventually any aspirations to make all of this work. It will be very tough.

But the goal is to put a signal out there that NATO will defend the eastern European allies, Poland topping the list. The Poles obviously have long memories about the former Soviet Union and they want assurances that NATO members will come to their defense.

About Iraq -- no boots on the ground, no combat boots on the ground. Of course, the U.S. already has about 1,000 troops in Iraq performing security duty, advice and assistance to the Iraqi forces conducting those air strikes. Don't look for the NATO members to put any of their boots on the ground. It will be more about resupplying the Iraqis and conducting those humanitarian air drop missions -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Barbara. Talk about a mixed message, you have NATO saying we're totally in, except not with our own boots. I wonder how that's going to play.

Barbara, thank you very much for the reporting -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: All right. Let's continue this discussion. Let's focus on the threat of ISIS once again and let's discuss it with Republican Congressman Tom Cole is joining us now.

Congressman, it's great to see you, thanks so much.

REP. TOM COLE (R), OKLAHOMA: Hey, Kate, great to see you.

BOLDUAN: Great to see you as well.

So, there had been -- call it a mixed message, call it whatever you want, the president seemed unclear earlier this week. Was the goal against ISIS to destroy, degrade, contain?

We heard just now from Michelle Kosinski John Kerry laid out clearly the goal is to destroy.

How do you propose -- when they say that, how do you propose we go about doing that at this point? What do you think, Congressman?

COLE: Well, I think the goal is the appropriate goal. Look, I think one thing you could say about ISIL, they know how to unite the whole world against them, even people that don't normally agree with one another are willing to work together in this particular instance and we should take advantage of that.

So, again, I think we probably already know basically the things that we're going to do. We're going to use air strikes.

When we say "no boots on the ground", that doesn't mean no special operators. So, I could see instances where they might be dropped in to take out a particular target. I think we're going to train and supply people, and we're going to try and build a regional alliance and you're seeing elements of that come together today in the NATO summit.

But I think you'll see more in the Middle East itself. There are a lot of people on the ground like the Kurds, like the Jordanians, like the Saudis, that also are very concerned about ISIL, like the Iranians. So, I think we can build a coalition that can first contain and then destroy these guys. BOLDUAN: Let me ask you about the issue of strategy. You have

praised the president or at least said the president is being commendably cautious in terms of you considering U.S. military action against ISIS in Syria specifically.

Senator Susan Collins was on the show earlier -- earlier today, speaking to Chris, and she says -- she criticized the president saying he is long overdue in coming to Congress and laying out his strategy.

What is the senator missing here? Which one is it?

COLE: Well -- look, I don't think she's missing anything. I agree with Senator Collins, that he is -- was slow to react. This president was calling these guys the junior varsity earlier this year and frankly has never acknowledged that he and former Prime Minister Maliki probably made a big mistake in not keeping an American presence in Iraq past 2011.

Now, again at this point, I think there's two components here. We've got pretty much a free hand in Iraq because we're operating with the permission of the Iraqi government.

Syria is very different. We at least a three-sided civil war, the Syrian government is not a government that we support. We go in there and we run the risk of being shot at not only by ISIL but potentially by the Syrian government as well.

So that I think the president is right to be careful about Syria. I don't think any American wants to be involved in the Syrian civil war. But at some point, we probably are going to have to one way or the other engage ISIL not just in Iraq but in their home base in Syria.

BOLDUAN: How does the U.S. go about doing that is the big question? I want to get your take on that. But also in the context of your colleague Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, he wrote an opinion piece in "TIME" magazine, in "TIME," and said this in part directly to this point of the discussion we're in, Congressman. He says, "We need to defeat the ISIS safe haven in Syria, eliminate it on the battlefields in Iraq and stop its march into Levant." He goes on to say, "To defeat this enemy, we will have to risk Americans who will be operating in the fight, but let's be clear, American lives around the world are at presently at risk from ISIS' brutality."

Now, "we're going to have to risk American lives operating in the fight." Is he acknowledging saying no combat boots on the ground, that they're still going to be in harm's way, they're still going to be in the fight?

COLE: That's absolutely correct. Look, we're risking American lives right now and Chairman Rogers is right to point that out.

Look, when our people fly combat operations, that's a dangerous thing. We almost lost people in Libya. We had a plane, they didn't shoot down, but it conked out, if you will, over Libyan air space. We had two pilots on the ground. They were within minutes of being captured by the Libyans and, frankly, we were able to extract them.

So, once you engage in military activity, you're risking American lives. Now, I think -- again, we have 1,000 people on the ground. They're not in direct combat. But anybody that thinks they're not at risk is being painfully naive.

The same thing will be true as we get drawn deeper into this. But you have to weigh what is the threat and the threat with ISIL as we've seen pretty dramatically with the brutal murder of two American journalists is real and if they're allowed to constitute a safe haven they will develop the capability over time to strike the United States and kill Americans around the world.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: Congressman, what do we do about that?

COLE: This is an issue we could be united on.

BOLDUAN: What do you propose? What is -- what do you advocate? What is the best policy in Syria against ISIS at this point? Airstrikes -- and do airstrikes require in your view congressional approval?

COLE: Absolutely. Look, I think the president would be very wise to, when Congress comes back to lay out, this is my objective, this is my strategy. Here are the basic things we're going to do. I need congressional authorization to do them -- and ask the Congress to vote yes or no.

Now, I think he'll win that vote. I think he should win that vote and it would be a bipartisan victory, but there will be some opposition from both parties, fair enough.

But the president runs a big risk if he effectively wages war on his own. That's not only unconstitutional, it's politically unwise. He needs to assemble a domestic coalition that will support military action. If he fails to do that, we'll get partway down the road, and it will become a domestic political issue and that can be avoided if the president just deals directly with Congress.

BOLDUAN: Well, and, Congressman, what do you -- talking about politics, what do you say to your colleagues who might not want to take a tough vote that could follow them later in terms of authorizing further military force?

COLE: Hey, they pay to you vote in this business, OK? And dodging votes is always a mistake. Just tell us what I think. Listen to the evidence, listen to debate, vote in good conscience. The Americans even accept that. They even accept decisions sometimes that they disagree with if you arrived at openly and honestly and you explain your position.

If you're not willing to do that, you don't need to be in politics and don't need to be in the United States Congress. Being afraid of votes is being afraid of doing your job.

BOLDUAN: That's an important message I think many of your colleagues need to hear running up to the midterm election.

Congressman Tom Cole, always great to have you here. Thank you.

COLE: Thanks, Kate.

BOLDUAN: OK.

Michaela?

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Kate, we want to talk about showbiz lady Joan Rivers. She was showbiz through and through this morning, friends and fans saluting her immense comedic talent following her death at the age of 81. A funeral for Rivers is planned for Sunday in New York City, but the circumstances surrounding her death are the subject of not one but two investigations.

CNN's Nischelle Turner is here with us.

Two investigations looking into the circumstances.

NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there are definitely questions that need to be answered, but we are also talking about her remarkable career. It's a remarkable career built on hard work, determination, perseverance -- you know, all of those things and while Joan Rivers' family and her legion of fans are mourning her death today, the search to find out just what went wrong at that clinic is under way.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TURNER (voice-over): This morning, two investigations into the death of legendary comedian Joan Rivers now under way.

New York state officials launching a full investigation into the outpatient clinic where the Tony-nominated star went into cardiac arrest during a throat procedure last week. Rivers was then rushed to Mt. Sinai Hospital where she remained on life support until she passed peacefully Thursday, according to her daughter, Melissa Rivers.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're so sorry.

TURNER: Medical examiners also requesting an autopsy as questions are raised as to why an 81-year-old in fine feisty form just the night before doing an hour-long standup event would suddenly stop breathing.

RIVERS: Enjoy your bodies now. Add a brassiere, this is how I go to the bathroom --

TURNER: The Emmy-winning comedian showed no signs of slowing down --

RIVERS: Yes, you have to wear dead animals because I tried and live ones bite. You must wear dead --

TURNER: -- ever since her debut on "The Johnny Carson Show" in 1965.

RIVERS: I never cook when I was single because I figured if the Lord wanted a woman to cook, he'd give her aluminum hands.

TURNER: Her career skyrocketing throughout the decades.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here's Joan Rivers.

TURNER: Becoming the first and only woman to host a network nightly talk show.

RIVERS: You're still a pig, lose more weight.

JIMMY FALLON, "THE TONIGHT SHOW" HOST: She hadn't done "The Tonight Show" in I would say over 26 yeas.

TURNER: Current host Jimmy Fallon tearing up, remembering the first time she returned to "The Tonight Show."

FALLON: She came out and she came over to me, and she started crying and gave me a kiss. It was really emotional and really nice.

TURNER: Rivers, a trailblazer for female comics who poured out in remembrance.

KATHY GRIFFIN, COMEDIAN: I owe my career to her, no doubt about it.

TURNER: Fellow comedian Kathy Griffin breaking down on Anderson Cooper after he played this clip about a woman who says she never wanted to stop making people laugh.

RIVERS: I'll show you fear. That's fear. If my book ever looked like this, it would mean that nobody wants me, that every I ever tried to do in life didn't work, nobody cared and I've been totally forgotten.

TURNER: At the Hollywood Walk of Fame, her legions of fans prove the iconic comedian's fears were misplaced.

RIVERS: If anything happens, Melissa --

TURNER: In 2012, Rivers' humor took a serious turn with her daughter. Before undergoing plastic surgery, she assured Melissa that if anything happens, her time was well-spent.

RIVERS: I've had an amazing life. If it ended right now, amazing life, and life is so much fun. It's one big movie.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TURNER: One big movie. You know, successful Hollywood movies always have a compelling character that chronicle that character's rise and fall, and they celebrate their redemption and reinvention.

So, yes, I would say Joan Rivers, your life has been like a movie, one that Ebert and Roper would give two thumbs up.

PEREIRA: Way, way up. Absolutely. I thought Sarah Silverman's tweet that says she wasn't done yet, and

it feels a bit that way, doesn't it? She went out and making us laugh.

TURNER: Yes, she did.

PEREIRA: She sure did.

TURNER: I actually laughed a lot yesterday listening to a lot of the things, a lot of her jokes and so I felt good about that.

PEREIRA: Absolutely, that's what she'd want.

Nischelle, thanks so much.

A Georgia grand jury has indicted the father of a toddler left to die in a hot car. Justin Ross Harris faces three different murder charges among the eight that he's been indicted upon. Can the prosecutors get a conviction in the case or did they overcharge? We'll explore.

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CUOMO: There is news this morning in case you will be watching, the father a accused of leaving his son to die in a hot car will face a trial, indicted on eight charges, including malice murder, that's the highest form of homicide available, and cruelty to children. And in an unusual twist, there's an unrelated charge of sexting with a minor, the key there the sexting was done while the child was in that hot car.

Justin Ross Harris was arrested in June after his 22-month-old son, Cooper, died, after being left in a hot car for seven hours. Harris says he simply forgot his son was in the car. Prosecution refutes that, accusing Harris of searching for information about hot car deaths.

But there are developments on both sides of this case, unusual things that we need to get to.

Sunny Hostin, CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor. And Page Pate, constitution and criminal defense attorney.

Thanks to both for being here.

Let's start with the charges -- using multiple different homicide charges, death by a person, not unusual.

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: That isn't unusual.

I think, though, Chris, what is unusual for me at least in this case is the malice murder. I mean, we know that in Georgia that opens him up to the death penalty and the judge in the probable cause hearing sort of indicated, listen, this is serious enough that this could be a death penalty case.

So, I think we all know that was the possibility but the prosecution has placed such a heavy burden on the team because they've got to prove, if they can prove, that he premeditated this and I think it's going to be really difficult to find a juror quite frankly or jury that's going to be able to get over the hump that a father would not only kill his child, but intend to kill his child in that way. I mean, who has ever heard of murder by hot car?

CUOMO: Well, banking on emotion, right, Page Pate? Prosecutors are banking when a jury hears, many of them will be parents, I'm sure, you won't be able to keep parents off the jury, that not only did you kill your kid, which has to be stupid at a minimum, but you were sexting at the same time? What role will that play?

PAGE PATE, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Oh, I think it's going to be a huge role in this case, because that's exactly what the prosecution needs to do to get a conviction on malice murder and to even consider the death penalty. They have to hit the jurors viscerally. That's exactly what the sexting evidence is going to do.

Now, I think they added the charges to the indictment simply because they wanted to make sure that the judge would allow them to introduce that evidence at the trial. If those charges were not in this indictment I don't think it would be relevant to the underlying murder charge.

CUOMO: Can you sever the charges? There's something you can do in the law, where, you say, hey, this has nothing to do, the sexting has nothing to do with this homicide case. Let's split that and deal with that another day.

Do you think the defense will be successful here, Sunny?

HOSTIN: I think the defense is going to try that. Any good defense attorney will. But I don't think that will be successful because this all rises out of the same act. So, that's not going to work.

But let me say this about the sexting charge, which I think true tactically, strategically brilliant, because you do want to be able to kind of attack the character of the defendant and that's the back way door of doing that.

CUOMO: And remind you at home you can't introduce bad character of evidence unless the defendant brings up good character. So, that's a legal thing and you need to know it, that's why this is smart.

HOSTIN: Right. It's smart so they get that in. It cuts both ways and I've said this all along, what -- in this day and age there aren't going to be that many jurors that haven't surfed the Internet, found sort of pornographic images and don't understand I think sort of the addiction to sexting.

And so, there could be a couple jurors that get on the jury and say, well, yes, he was sexting but maybe that is why he forgot his kid was there. Maybe that is why he was so obsessed with the sexting that it's not possible that he intended to kill his child that way.

I mean, if he did do this intentionally, that he's the worst of the worst, right? And I think again the sexting could lead some jurors to think, well, he's just like every other person that has done that

CUOMO: Page, you're shaking your head.

PATE: Right. If that's right and the jury does look at it that way and Sunny is correct, then they still get him on felony murder because then he's criminally negligent for leaving his child in the hot car, and that is enough for an underlying felony to convict him of felony murder, which still carries life in prison. So, it's a similar charge.

CUOMO: Now, what's the big hit on the prosecution side? The big hit for them is that cop they put on in the preliminary hearing makes that videotape like something it may not stand up to scrutiny about. And what I'm saying, that's vague. He then make assertions -- oh, boy, he went back to the car and looked in and he saw that his kid was there and when he was walking away, he saw this guy and he was very nervous and then you watch the tape and it seems as though those assertions are pushing it a little bit.

Sunny, you're a prosecutor. Should they have known better to put a cop on that could be debunked?

HOSTIN: Well, no, because during a probable cause hearing, you just have to prove just enough. And so, when you're a prosecutor, Chris, you put on just enough to get past that hurdle.

CUOMO: But they didn't. They went too far, Page. And now, as I've as the defense attorney, I'd say, hey, you had that cop on there who said -- I spent all this time with the car. It's like a flash. You have this cop on there who said, I took all this time getting out of the car. It was a flash.

HOSTIN: That doesn't bother me but I will tell you this, since they charged it this way, since they got the indictment this way, we don't know what the grand jurors heard to vote for the indictment, there must be something more. There must be something we haven't heard about that points to premeditation.

CUOMO: Now, how many times, Page Pate, have we heard that -- maybe even from Sunny -- how there must be something more they have and then they don't?

PATE: Well, I actually agree with Sunny. I think there is something more the grand jury heard.

HOSTIN: Wow, it's my morning.

PATE: But let me tell you this, though, just like the probable cause hearing, the grand jurors only heard from the detective. There was no defense evidence, there was no opportunity to cross-examine him. All that is going to change at a trial when they have to withstand what I assume is going to be aggressive cross-examination of the video and other aspects on the case.

CUOMO: Page Pate, Sunny Hostin, thank you so much.

HOSTIN: Thanks.

CUOMO: This is just the beginning.

HOSTIN: Oh, definitely, we're going to hear a lot more about this case.

CUOMO: Yes, good to hear what it starts and make sense of it as we go along.

CUOMO: All right. ISIS, all over the media, literally. It's hard to avoid it. And it may be thanks to the man you're looking at right now, and guess what? He is an American from Boston. The question now is, can authorities take him out before it's too late?

But, first, the August job numbers are out and just moments, Christine Romans is going to bring them to us live. What will they mean for the economy and for you?

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