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Protests Continue Regarding Grand Jury Decision; Interview with Former Press Secretary Jay Carney; Rescue Mission Leads to Deaths of Al Qaeda Hostages; CIA Report to be Released Tomorrow

Aired December 08, 2014 - 08:00   ET

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Your NEW DAY continues right now.

Good morning to you. Welcome back to NEW DAY. It is Monday, December 8th. Before 8:00 in the east, police in Berkeley, California say the city is calm this hour after another night of violent clashes between police and protestors over the Michael Brown and Eric Garner grand jury decisions.

Obviously I left out the obvious. You have the crowds looting and vandalizing businesses. Police say at least five people were arrested overnight.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: In New York City, a fifth night of protests featured song. People were singing what they call justice carols to discuss feelings about the Garner case.

At this hour, the U.S. capital will be so-called die-in where protestors lay down to protest victims of unarmed victims. CNN's Alexandra Field joins us now with all of the latest. Good morning, Alexandra.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. We've seen those die-ins before they are poignant and they are peaceful. One protestor hit with a hammer by another protestor, a handful of arrests made, and serious damage to a number of businesses.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FIELD (voice-over): Violence erupting for a second night in Northern California after 500 protesters swarm in Oakland Freeway, a stand up with police officers who eventually deployed tear gas and arrest a small number of people.

In Berkley, demonstrations, looting multiple businesses, peaceful protesters trying to stop a leader were hit in the face with a hammer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A guy with a crowbar comes in. They start stealing stuff, like as much as they can get.

FIELD: This after a grand jury decided last week not to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo in Eric Garner's choke hold death.

GWEN CARR, ERIC GARNER'S MOTHER: He sends a message. We don't want any violence. But keep on keeping on. FIELD: Just the night before, a group of agitators in Berkeley,

California, broke windows and threw what they could at hundreds of local police in full riot gear. Some demonstrators saying on social media police were firing rubber bullets. Police have yet to comment. In New York City over the weekend a few hundred people clashed with police, staging die-ins at Grand Central Station, Apple's flagship store, Macy's in Herald Square.

The national outcry even hitting the field. Washington Redskins defense lineman Chris Baker making the "hands up, don't shoot" gesture after a play Sunday. And several NFL and an NBA player wearing "I Can't Breathe" t-shirts. New York City mayor Bill de Blasio tells ABC News this week his predecessor Rudy Giuliani fundamentally misunderstands the reality.

BILL DE BLASIO, NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: You can't act at an incident in Missouri, another incident in Cleveland, Ohio, another incident in New York City, all happening within the space of weeks, and act like there's not a problem.

FIELD: Giuliani blasted de Blasio on FOX News last week saying it's, "racist to not acknowledge black on black crime" after he tells his biracial son to take special care around police.

RUDY GIULIANI, FOR NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: You should spend 90 percent of your time talking about the way they're actually going probably to get killed, which is by another black.

FIELD: Garner's widow tells NBC's "Meet the Press" she fears for her children.

ESAW GARNER, WIDOW OF ERIC GARNER: I'm so afraid of what could happen to them in the street by the police. I'm afraid of the police.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FIELD: This morning we're hearing more from police many Oakland about what happened overnight. They say five different patrol cars were vandalized. They say that two officers had minor injuries during those demonstrations, the clashes that we saw erupting there all night with the protestors. And this morning there are more calls for demonstrations to continue across the country all week long. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Thanks for that update Alexandra.

For more on all of this let's bring in CNN's senior political commentator and former White House press secretary Jay Carney. Good morning, Jay.

JAY CARNEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right, let's start with those national protests and the unrest that we're seeing in places like Berkeley. We understand that President Obama is going on BET tonight, Black Entertainment Television. And we have a little preview of his interview. So let me play that for you. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This isn't going to be solved overnight. This is something that is deeply rooted in our society and it's important to recognize, as painful as incidents are, we can't equate what is happening now to what was happening 50 years ago.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So Jay, President Obama is engaged in the national dialogue that is happening about all of these issues regarding law enforcement and blacks in America. Is there anything else the White House should be doing about this?

CARNEY: Well I think any president would have to be engaged in this dialogue. And I think in this case obviously because President Obama is the first African-American president that more people are looking to him to have a role in the dialogue.

Additionally, what he's doing and what I think a president has to do is have the attorney general, Eric Holder in this case, launch investigations in specific cases where there may be a civil rights case to be made, where a grand jury haven't indicted on a criminal case there could be a civil rights case to be made.

But I think what the president is trying to do, and it's not easy, is balance the outrage that a lot of people feel, especially in the wake of the Eric Garner case where you had video, compelling evidence of excessive force by police, against the overall argument can which has to be made which is that there has been significant progress over the last 50 years. And of course President Obama is an embodiment of that progress.

CAMEROTA: Do you think that we're going to see federal charges in the Eric Garner case?

CARNEY: I don't know. I think that it is always difficult to make a case, a federal case around issues like this. But I think that especially in the Garner case the evidence is compelling enough that they have a better chance of putting a case together than they would in Ferguson.

CAMEROTA: All right, let's move on and talk about this report that is about to be released by the Senate on the CIA's enhanced interrogation tactics. Here is what the chairman of House Intelligence Committee says about the report. He doesn't want it released. Listen to Mike Rogers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REP. MIKE ROGERS, (R) CHAIRMAN, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: We're going to pay a lot of money to countries who take these particular prisoners. That's not their culture, that's not where they're from. And these services or law enforcement or intelligence services are supposed to monitor these people. What we have found in the past is it doesn't work. Our foreign partners tell us this will cause violence and deaths. Our foreign leaders who approached the government said you do this, this will cause violence and deaths. Our own intelligence community has assessed this will cause violence and deaths. We have seen what happens when other incidents are used in the propaganda terrorist machine to incite violence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Jay, if we have all this intelligence that says it will cause violence and deaths to have this report released, why are we doing it?

CARNEY: Because we're the United States and we can't brush under the rug an incident or a series of incidents that this report reveals. I think that a significant amount of care has to be taken in the way the information is packaged and preparing the ground for the release of information. But it is not news to anyone that waterboarding tactics were used, other enhanced interrogation tactics that amounted to torture were used. This president ended those practices, but there needs to be an accounting, in my view. And I think that it's important for the American people to know what has been done in the name of the United States in the past.

And I understand the reticence. I understand the reluctance. I understand the concern about potential violence. But I don't think that those are strong enough arguments to make against the idea of releasing this information.

CAMEROTA: Jay, we're talking about those enhanced techniques which some people call torture. Of course we all know waterboarding, sleep deprivation, confinement in small spaces. Will this report address the big question, which is did any of those tactics ever lead to intelligence that was able to stop some sort of terror attack?

CARNEY: Well, I haven't seen the report, and so we don't know yet. I think that overwhelmingly as I understand it the argument will be made in the report that the tactics, the torture techniques, did not produce a lot of actionable intelligence. On the other side, there are suggestions that some progress was made because of the use of techniques. What opponents of torture argue, and I think they have a strong case to make, is that the intelligence that was garnered through torture could have been garnered effectively through other means and that by and large torture doesn't work. And it does produce what we've seen what we've seen over this past decade, which is outrage around the world and it hurts the United States more than it helps our cause.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about the tragedy this weekend, the failed rescue attempt of these two hostages. We were trying to get the American Luke Somers out of Al Qaeda's hands. Navy SEALs went in and then somehow the terrorists were tipped off and ended up shooting Luke Somers along with Pierre Korkie. And Pierre Korkie's family says that he was hours from being released. They worked with civilian negotiators and they had gotten together $200,000 reportedly to secure his release. What can the White House do about families that want to take matters into their own hands when their loved one has been captured and that they feel that the administration is not doing enough to get them out?

CARNEY: I think as you saw from the attempt to rescue the American hostage and attempts in the past to do the same, that the United States is focused on trying to get American hostages back. These are incredibly difficult operations. And I think that we've seen over the past years that when the White House has authorized some these rescue attempts, we've been extraordinarily successful and lucky and have not had situations like this. This is a tragic outcome. But the risk involved when you send Navy SEALs into an environment like this is immensely high. And any time the decision is made by the commander- in-chief and military leaders to go forward with this mission there is a huge and relatively high percentage, a huge possibility and a high percentage that it could go wrong and hostages could be killed, special operators, Navy SEALs could be killed. But I think in the end we have to take those risks in order to try to release these hostages.

CAMEROTA: Of course what makes this particularly sad is Pierre Korkie's family went to bed believing that they were hours away from his release and woke up and he had been killed. And there seems to have been a major disconnect between the communications. The U.S. government didn't know that his family was trying to secure his release in these sort of back channel ways and they hadn't communicated with each other. Is there anything the U.S. can do with that type of communication with victim's families?

CARNEY: That's particularly hard, especially when it's not an American family. So we're going to have less insight into what's happening with families abroad for other foreign nationals who are being held hostage. That communication would have to happen hopefully between governments, and the family whose member has become a hostage is communicating at least with their host nation, with their national government that might be communicating with the United States intelligence through intelligence services. But if this played out as the family says it played out, it's obviously a terrible tragedy.

CAMEROTA: It sure is.

Let's talk about the president's health. President Obama is apparently suffering from acid reflux. Is this something that he was plagued with when you were in the White House?

CARNEY: No, I don't remember any incident that would have said to me, oh, my gosh, he's got acid reflux. I heard Sanjay Gupta talk earlier about the concern that there might be among the president's physicians about making sure that when there's a throat issue since he's a past smoker that he's all clear in that regard which I think explains probably some of the tests. I don't know that with special insight, but I imagine that would be the case.

I can say when it comes to smoking that I was press secretary from early 2011 until the summer of this year, and I never saw the president ever smoke. I know for a fact after he quit after the health care law was passed that he quit for good. So that's a good thing. But I think -- my guess is that some of this has to do with stress of the job. It's not exactly a serious illness. And in a circumstance like this when you're the president of the United States they check everything to make sure he's OK. But overall he's very healthy.

CAMEROTA: I'm no doctor, but I too am going with stress of the job of being president. That sounds plausible. Jay Carney, great to see you this morning. Thanks so much.

CARNEY: Thanks for having me.

CAMEROTA: All right, let's get over to Michaela for some more news.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, thanks so much, Alisyn. Here are you headlines right now. Security officials in Pakistan report a drone strike killed a top Al Qaeda commander in that country along with five other militants. The drone fired two missiles on a compound where Taliban militants had gathered. This all comes just after Pakistan claimed it killed another Al Qaeda leader who faced charges in the U.S. for a plot to try and bomb a New York subway.

A massive fire shut down parts of two major freeways in the heart of Los Angeles. Over 250 firefighters are on scene trying to battle that blaze at a building that was under construction downtown. The latest word from L.A. Fire is that the blaze was contained but not completely extinguished. Officials don't believe anyone was living or working inside when building went up in flames. No word yet on the cause or even the extent of damage there.

So what is it like to get swallowed alive by an anaconda? Well, we still do not know. Discovery's "Eaten Alive" special promised to answer that question. Sunday night's show left many viewers so underwhelmed the show got eaten alive on Twitter, as you can imagine. The snake did begin to consume conservationist Paul Rosolie head first, but anaconda's constriction proved too much. He tapped out, called in a rescue team. But what I've heard is because he was doing this to sort bring attention to the plight of the habitat of the snake he says he wants to try it again.

CAMEROTA: No thanks. That is appalling. That is so gross.

(LAUGHTER)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Gross?

CAMEROTA: Yes. I don't want to watch a man be eaten by an anaconda.

CUOMO: First of all, he punked out, all right. If you're going to get eaten by a snake, you've got to go through with it all the way. It's an obvious man-law violation. Everybody knows that. But I feel like I've been had.

CAMEROTA: You should.

PEREIRA: You should get on twitter and join the show.

CAMEROTA: I know that you were glued to the set hoping to see the outcome.

CUOMO: What did he think, it wasn't going to hurt when the 20 foot snake starts squeezing you? Give him a pass for science?

CAMEROTA: I don't give him a pass for any of this.

CUOMO: I think he should get eaten by the snake now just because he didn't let it eat him. And no suit this time. That's TV.

CAMEROTA: Tell us what you think about these thrill television events. Let me know @AlisynCamerota.

Meanwhile, our top story, a rescue attempt that came up fatally short. Was there anything else the U.S. could have done to save two hostages from their captors in Yemen? And given the outcome, is it time to rethink the strategies of paying ransoms?

CUOMO: Plus, the man star is not shining brightly both figuratively and literally now. Bill Cosby's star on the walk of fame vandalized. More alleged victims coming forward. The obvious question, can Bill Cosby survive this? Does he have to confront the accusations? Would it help?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Welcome back to NEW DAY. New questions this morning about the death of Luke Somers. Defense Secretary Hagel confirming the American journalists was killed by his captors during a Special Forces raid meant to free him. South African hostage Pierre Korkie also was killed in that raid. So, what goes into a mission like this? Is this something that went wrong, or is this just how it is sometimes and we have a skewed view of how successful we are often are in these measures?

So, let's bring it all in. Let's bring in Philip Mudd, he's a CNN counter terrorism analyst and a former CIA counter terrorism official. I want to ask you about the report that's coming out tomorrow, but let's deal with what we know today. This raid, should this be seen as, oh, they screwed up, these SEALs? They didn't get it done, or is this the reality of missions like this?

PHILIP MUDD, CNN COUNTER TERRORISM ANALYST: No, I think this is the reality. We went through the bin Laden raid and I think people had a false sense of security, that this stuff is easy. What you're seeing in the aftermath is just what you saw in the past couple days. You have to find, fix and finish a target in an area that's owned by the bad guys when you don't have perfect intelligence. Before we stop this, though, you have to remember one thing, that half of this was a tremendous success. To locate a target like that in the badlands of Yemen with enough specificity to plan a raid, pretty remarkable intelligence success.

CUOMO: Yes, but at the end of the day it's all about whether or not you save the guys, and you didn't.

MUDD: Sure, but you're going to go in saying 50, 60 percent chance of success in a raid like this to me is a pretty high rate when you're considering there's a 90 to 100 percent chance if you don't raid, he's going to get his head cut off. CUOMO: All right, so that becomes the balance, is that the U.S. says we heard they were going to kill them if we didn't do this right now, so that's why we did it. And, on the other side, though, you have the families who are saying we had a deal to pay ransom and they were going to release them tomorrow. So that takes us to the issue of whether or not you negotiate with terrorists. Listen to what Congressman Mike Rogers, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, had to say about that.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

ROGERS: When you pay ransom, you get more kidnappings. That's certainly what we saw across Africa, we're certainly seeing it in Yemen as well. I agreed with the president's decision, I don't think this was an easy decision. I do think it was the right decision to actually engage and try to go in for the rescue attempt.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

CUOMO: Make the case for what the chairman is saying to me, because for me they kidnap anyway, and if you have a chance of getting back a loved one why wouldn't you do this? What's the other side?

MUDD: I agree with that, I think there's other things and the White House is undergoing a review on what to do in situations like this. There's other things you might do, that is prisoner exchanges for example. Ransoms have a couple problems. I think the chairman is right, that is the first ransom you pay, these groups are going to start seeing this as an income stream, not just as an exchange for a prisoner.

And furthermore, in the world I live in, that is the counter terrorism world, counter terrorism operations are cheap, but the back end of terrorism, the administrative side paying the families of terrorist groups, paying the widows when a terrorist dies, paying kids when their father's gone, that's pretty expensive. A million bucks out there, Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, goes a long way. So, I'd say, even though it might look like in American terms relatively small numbers, for terrorist groups this is a lot of money.

CUOMO: So the money winds up being a problem, okay. But look, it's just such tragic circumstances that everybody was wishing it had a better outcome. The question is, can you make that happen in a safe way going forward? You're mentioning your business, the CIA.

MUDD: Yes.

CUOMO: Report comes out tomorrow. The big question first will be whether or not you air something like this. Chairman Rogers says don't air it, you're going to make everybody angry, and all of the things that are in it have already been canceled. Torture, does it work in your opinion?

MUDD: Look, first of all, the Department of Justice said what the CIA did wasn't torture. We jumped over that hurdle in the media and now we're in government saying what we did, pushing someone against a flexible wall is torture. If you just judge whether tactics that we use, whether you consider them torture or not, works my opinion, having been in the chair was people will talk when they're under duress. Separate question whether you think America should do that. But people will talk, and we checked what they said based on other data we had, and it turned out to be accurate.

CUOMO: Have, in your history and in your experience, have we ever - - has the U.S. ever not tortured?

MUDD: Sure, I mean, if you look at the history of what we did before 9/11 for example in the wars against Hezbollah in the 1970's, 1980's, Hezbollah tortured a CIA officer to

death. We didn't use those kinds of techniques on Hezbollah, but we were charged after 9/11 with making sure this didn't happen again. We went to the Intelligence Committee, Department of Justice, and the White House and we said if you want this to happen there are things we're going to do. And they said fine. Ten years later, there's the metropolitan moonwalk in Washington, D.C., there's a bunch of people saying we didn't know. Here's a clue - -

CUOMO: The metropolitan moonwalk.

MUDD: They did. That is correct.

CUOMO: Is that a term of art, or is that - -

MUDD: I just made that up.

CUOMO: Did you? That was great.

MUDD: It was on the spot.

CUOMO: So, you're saying that they're backing away, they knew what this was, and now it's -

MUDD: We told them. I mean, this is Washington, D.C., how many - - I didn't witness a single secret at the CIA that never came out. You think we kept some secret that there's some back room operations regarding detainees the Senate didn't know about? We didn't tell the Department of Justice about? We didn't tell the White House about? Excuse me, that isn't the way that city works.

CUOMO: So they knew, and now it's unpopular for obvious reasons.

MUDD: Yes, I understand what they're saying. Look, we've had 13 years to reconsider this. I think there's a fair debate about American values. Do you want your security services doing this moving forward? But look, moving back and saying, hey, we didn't know and what you did was wrong after we checked every box we could, I don't get it.

CUOMO: And when you say under duress, straight answer, when you use these techniques, do they work better than when you just detain them?

MUDD: We didn't try just detaining them, so people say you could have gotten this information some other way, from the 100 plus high-value guys we detain, history won't know because we didn't do that. The problem we will have today in assessing this is a problem historians have had forever. Going back to that time, I was at the table in '02,'03. We died not have the luxury of time to wait. I sat there on Friday night at the threat table saying, is the big one going to happen tomorrow? I don't know, Director Tennant, I don't know, President Bush, but we better figure out today because the people have told us if this happens again, it's on you.

CUOMO: What's going to happen when the report comes out tomorrow? Do you think there will be backlash?

MUDD: I think there will be. We've seen backlash in the Arab world against lesser things the United States has done. Abu Ghraib, for example, that was a horrific experience and in my world of counter terrorism, the echo effect from that lasted for years because those photos were available on the internet. I think the echo effect from this is going to hit the law of unintended consequences. Something bad is going to happen, I don't know how bad it is, but I can't believe people are just going to sit back and watch the show.

CUOMO: Philip Mudd, appreciate the perspective. When we go to break you can explain to me what a flexible wall is. And for you out there, please let us know what you think about these issues. Tweet us @newday, or you just use our name. All right? Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right, Chris. "Rolling Stone" magazine under fire over its discredited report of an alleged culture of rape at UVA. This unfolding as Bill Cosby deals with more fallout over allegations of sexual assault. His Hollywood star getting vandalized. We'll speak with HLN's Doctor Drew Pinsky, and our own Brian Stelter about the coverage of both stories.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: All right, here we go with the five things you need to know for your NEW DAY. At number one, at least five arrests and violent protesting overnight in Berkley, California. Local businesses vandalized and looted. Meanwhile in New York, demonstrators sang holiday so called justice carols.

Two hostages, American photojournalist Luke Somers and South African teacher Pierre Korkie, killed by al Qaeda during a failed U.S. rescue attempt over the weekend in Yemen.

Dire predictions of deaths overseas if a Senate report on CIA torture is released this week. The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee claims extremists will use the report as a propaganda tool it incite anger and violence.

"Rolling Stone" magazine clarifying its apology over a discredited report detailing an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia. It's now telling readers that mistakes in the article are the magazine's fault, not the alleged victim's.

And then there were four. It will be Alabama versus Ohio State, Oregon versus Florida State in college football's first ever playoff. Those games, of course, on New Years Day. The winners meet for the national championship January 12th.

We update those five things to know, so be sure to go to newdaycnn.com for the very latest. Chris?

CUOMO: All right, Mick, wait for it. Where's the jingle? It's Money Time. There it is. Come on, let's get it. I look forward to that. There it is. Chief business correspondent Christine Romans is here with news for stocks. Big news, small news.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUESINESS CORRESPONDENT: Big news, stocks have never been this high. They have never been this high. The Dow is just inches now from 18,000. It was just five months ago, July 3rd, the Dow hit 17,000 for the first time. Now, knocking on the door of 18,000. The Dow is up more than 8% this year.