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New Day

ISIS on the Move in Iraq; Congress Deliberates Over War Authorization; Ukraine Fighting Rages Ahead of Ceasefire; Muslim Student Deaths to be Probed as Possible Hate Crime; Weekend Blizzard Predicted for New England; Williams' SEAL Team 6 Stories Questioned; NYT Columnist Dies Suddenly

Aired February 13, 2015 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ISIS back on the offensive.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If ISIS is going to be defeated, it is going to have to be defeated by the Muslim nations in the region.

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: The president has tied his own hands and wants to tie his hands further.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Navy SEAL team six.

BRIAN WILLIAMS, NBC ANCHOR: A thank you note, unsigned, and attached to it was a piece of fuselage.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That relationship is questioned by members of the special operations community.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Many people here believing that this was a hate crime.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His word is the only thing they have to go on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He had a moment. He cracked.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is looking at a life sentence no matter what.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is new day with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota, and Michaela Pereira.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Friday, February 13th just before 6:00 in the east. Terrorist forces seizing large chunks of territory in Western Iraq. Now hundreds of U.S. Marines could be in the line of fire. Remember, last week, word was terrorists were losing ground. Now an apparent a shift in momentum poses a major threat.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: The terrorists closing in on an air base where American troops are training Iraqi soldiers to combat the Islamic State.

Let's get right to CNN's Phil Black; he is live for us in Mount Sinjar, Iraq. What is the situation on the ground there, Phil?

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's where I am, at the top of Mount Sinjar. It overlooks the town of Sinjar. You may recall that, not long after ISIS first invaded Northern Iraq, they triggered an enormous humanitarian crisis in this region when the population of Sinjar, religious Yazidis, members of the Yazidi sect, they fled the town up onto this mountain.

This is the area where I'm overlooking now. It is a town that is still completely under ISIS control.

Kurdish Peshmerga fighters are starting to move in from the north of this town, from the side of the mountain. But it is a difficult task.

It is a large town. Hundreds of thousands of people live there. It will be a long, difficult job to free this town. It is an area that has put Kurdish Peshmerga fighters on the offensive as opposed to just trying to contain ISIS.

ISIS clearly, as we've been talking about, has been on the move on other parts of Iraq, the west in Anbar province, near the town of al- Baghdadi. That has seen heavy fighting over the last 24 hours ago.

And, of course, a concern, because it is very close, just a few miles from an air base where there are hundreds of American military personnel involved in training Iraqi army air fighters there. It is increasingly an area of Iraq where ISIS has maintained military momentum over the Iraqi army, over the local Sunni tribesmen that have been trying to stop their advance. This is also getting very close to the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

Meanwhile, across the north of Iraq, where the Kurdish fighters have done a much more effective job containing Iraq, they reported over the last 24 hours, they have come under significant fire at a number of locations. They think that this is just part of the ISIS tactic to attack them on multiple fronts in order to distract them. Distract them from their main strategy, which is circling Mosul, the big city in the north that ISIS still holds.

Chris, back to you.

CUOMO: All right, Phil. We understand that the fighting up there is very random. You're a pro, but please be safe.

So from what Phil is telling us, with ISIS on the move, what's going on here in the United States? Congress and the president are going back and forth on the latest war authorization request. So what are the sticking points and the potential timing for any progress?

Let's bring in Sunlen Serfaty, live from the White House. What do we know?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, this is already off to a very rocky start on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle and from both chambers in Congress have blasted this resolution, really setting up a hard debate ahead for this resolution.

Democrats continue to say that this is way too broad. Republicans say it's too narrow. And Republicans are in the ironic position of wanting to give the president more authority, and they want to loosen the language.

So, on Capitol Hill, they'll spend the next weeks and the next months debating this. They'll tweak the language. They'll hold hearings, try to get this resolution to something that can pass.

But administration officials tell us there is the very real possibility that Congress could, in the end, come up with nothing. Now, if that happens, expect for President Obama, the White House to continue on. The president has been clear that he believes that he has the authorization to move forward without Congress on this by the 2001 authorization of military force. But, of course, the preference from here at the White House and for President Obama himself is to have a united front with Congress.

Back to you.

CAMEROTA: OK. Sunlen, thanks so much for all of that.

So for more on the ISIS activity in Iraq and the president's war proposal, let's bring in CNN's military analyst and former Army General Mark Hertling.

Great to see you, general.

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good morning, Alisyn. How are you?

CAMEROTA: I'm well. Let's start with what's going on in the Anbar province, the fighting that's going on in al-Baghdadi. ISIS is apparently taking control of that city? So how imperiled are our hundreds of troops there?

HERTLING: I wouldn't suggest that it's going to be anything critical. And I think, as Phil Black reported just now, it is an attempt at distracting away from Mosul. That's the key prize right now.

And I think the preparatory motions of both the coalition air and the Iraqi security forces, ground forces, are preparing to re-take this critically important city. And ISIS strategy is to try and pull people away from -- from actually encircling that city and preventing their reinforcement.

I wouldn't -- I wouldn't say that any of these minor skirmishes going on in either Anbar province or against the Kurds or anything significant. And that's what my contacts are telling me, as well.

CAMEROTA: Beyond the apparent distraction that you say that they're trying to cause in al-Baghdadi, what's the significance of al- Baghdadi? Is this the hometown of the head of ISIS, al-Baghdadi? HERTLING: It is what he claims, Poppy [SIC]. And for your listeners

that might not understand the way things -- the way people -- the way terrorists name themselves, they usually say Abu something from somewhere. So Abu means "the father of." In this case, Abu Bakr. He's the father of Bakr. Al-Baghdadi, from Baghdadi. You see those kind of nom de guerres in many of these -- these criminal terrorists who take on leadership roles.

CAMEROTA: OK. So, General, let's talk about the authorization for war request that came from the president.

HERTLING: I'm sorry.

CAMEROTA: And you can feel free to call me Alisyn.

HERTLING: I'm sorry, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: I know, General. I know it's early. But let's talk about this war authorization request. It seems to have pleased no one. Democrats find that it's too broad. Republicans think it's too tame. What do you think of this request from the president?

HERTLING: Well, as you just said, it's much too early to bring in war theory, Poppy [SIC]. But a guy named Clausewitz once said you not only have to have a very strong army, but you have to have the will of the people and the support of the government behind you. And I think that's what the president's actually trying to do.

He has a very strong army. The people of America are somewhat mixed in terms of what they want the strategy to be in Iraq and Syria; and the government has been arguing about it. So, actually, throwing the AUMF, the request for military force, on Congress and having them continue to debate it is the president's way of saying, "Hey, I'm the executive. I'm going to do what I need to do from a strategy perspective. If you all want to argue about this, go ahead and do that."

But I think he wants to avoid the silliness of phrases like "mission creep" and "boots on the ground" and really get to the strategy. And he's allowing Congress to debate this. If they don't come back with a better solution, he has the authority to act as the executive anyway.

CAMEROTA: General, let's remind people what's in this war authorization that the president has requested. It's ground forces for rescue operations; missions to kill ISIS leaders; intelligence collection; and airstrikes.

But here's the part that seems to be the most controversial, or at least the sticking point. There are limitations. Here, let me read it for you. "The authority granted in subsection 'A' does not authorize the use of the United States armed forces in enduring offensive ground combat operations."

Apparently, people are confused about what "enduring offensive operations" mean. What do you think of that language? HERTLING: Yes. The phrase that is part of the letter the president

wrote is no large-scale, long-term ground combat operations. And that tells me what he's attempting to avoid is the extended presence of large bodies of American forces.

Now, we're going to have advisers. And he has said from the very -- the president has said from the very beginning, if the military needs to accompany forces on the front line, tell me. As we go into Mosul, there will certainly be the need for advisers and joint air tactical controllers, which are all in the AUMF, as well.

But what he doesn't want is large formations to be there several years at a time.

I believe, in reading the AUMF, that it is a very flexible document. It allows for the ability to address the key issues in Iraq and Syria. And I think that's what the true beauty of this document is.

CAMEROTA: General Mark Hertling, great to see you this morning. Have a nice weekend.

HERTLING: Alisyn, and again, I apologize.

CAMEROTA: I accept your apology. Have a great weekend.

HERTLING: OK. You, too.

CAMEROTA: Also, we'll hear from the White House on the ISIS offensive and the ongoing debate over the president's war proposal when we are joined live by White House press secretary Josh Earnest in the 8 a.m. hour of NEW DAY. Stick around for that.

Let's go to Chris.

CUOMO: And there are a lot of suggestions about what the president can do in this situation that don't necessarily have constitutional backing. We're going to put that to the test.

So now on to the Ukraine. Military officials are reporting more than eight soldiers killed, more than 30 wounded in new fighting with pro- Russian separatists. Some civilians also reportedly killed. So what does this mean for the chance of a successful ceasefire just two days from now?

Remember, Russia was at the diplomacy table, not any actual rebel contingent. So is the word and the reality on the ground the same as in Minsk? For a report from the ground, senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh, live in eastern Ukraine.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We've been hearing in the past few hours here shelling in the separatist stronghold of Donetsk. And the separatists say that in the neighboring region of Luhansk, three people were killed in shelling overnight. And that yesterday, in a town of Gorlovka (ph), far from where I'm standing, three children were also killed by shelling.

Ukraine also reports casualties on its side. But the fear is that Minsk agreement didn't actually say what the boundaries should be. It let the two sides potentially fight it out until the end of Saturday, to live with borders they may have to contend with for months, if not for years. That's the fear now, that with violence swirling around the key town, Debaltseve, hundreds if not thousands of Ukrainian troops, but the separatists say they've encircled inside it. Well, that fight could really intensify in the house ahead. Vladimir Putin said in Minsk he thought those soldiers should give themselves up.

So many questions unanswered, so little time left ahead of that ceasefire, and so much that could derail it.

Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Nick. Thanks so much.

The case of three Muslim students shot execution-style in North Carolina now being investigated as a possible hate crime as troubling new details emerge about the suspect's past. Jean Casarez joins us live from Chapel Hill with the latest.

Good morning, Jean.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Michael, you're right. Last night, the FBI announced that they are going to begin a preliminary parallel investigation to try to see if this was a bias crime, a hate crime.

Meanwhile, while that was being announced last night, there were vigils across this country honoring the three young Muslim students who were slain. The heart and soul of it was right here in North Carolina.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CASAREZ (voice-over): Overnight, hundreds uniting in continued grief and anger across North Carolina.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: These three people, as long as they were, were a source of inspiration, warmth and light for our community.

CASAREZ: Mourning the murder of three Muslim students, Razan Abu Salha, sister Yusor Abu Salha, and Deah Barakat, all shot and killed execution-style, police say, allegedly by their 40-year-old neighbor, Craig Hicks.

Family and friends believe the three scholars and philanthropists were targeted because of their Muslim identity. At the funeral Thursday...

MOHAMMAD ABU SALHA: This has hate crime written all over it.

CASAREZ: ... the father of both female victims called for justice. ABU SALHA: We don't want revenge. We don't care about punishment.

We care about acknowledging this the way it is and protecting every other child.

CASAREZ: As thousands in attendance knelt down in prayer, Chapel Hill police were going door to door, talking to neighbors.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're just canvassing, and that's all we're doing at the moment.

CASAREZ: According to a preliminary investigation, police say Hicks shot the students over an ongoing parking dispute at their apartment complex.

Neighbors' reaction, mixed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've been a homeowner here for 15 years. Not at one point has there been an issue with parking.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When it came to parking, he was pretty adamant about no new people, no new cars.

CASAREZ: A law enforcement source tells CNN, Hicks told police he went into a rage after he saw a car belonging to one of the victims parked in what he claimed was his spot.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CASAREZ: And we have learned a little bit more about the defendant in this case. He is actually a full-time student at a technical college here in Durham. He's going toward his paralegal degree, set to get his diploma in May. But now, of course, he sits behind bars, facing the rest of his life in prison.

And I want to tell you, I was at that vigil last night at North Carolina State University. I cannot tell you the pride that was on that campus with the hundreds of students that were there. So many speakers, including the governor of North Carolina. And I think the overall theme was that the faces of these three young Muslim students slain will forever be the face of their cause of acceptance in this country -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Jean, it's so emotional. We're going to be talking to two of the victims' best friends. And they disagree, actually, about what the motive was here. So stick around for that. Thanks so much for all the background reporting.

Well, nearly two dozen Marines recovering from an accident at the Air Ground Combat Center in California. Officials say a fire extinguisher system inside their assault vehicle went off unexpectedly during a training exercise, exposing the Marines to fire-retardant gas and sending them to the hospital. None of the injuries is said to be serious.

PEREIRA: This morning, two Al Jazeera journalists are free for the first time in more than 400 days. A court in Cairo, Egypt, released them on bail until their re-trial later this month. The two are accused of supporting the banned Muslim Brotherhood. A third journalist, who was convicted with them, was freed about two weeks ago and deported home to Australia.

CUOMO: A federal judge has ruled on same-sex marriage in Alabama again, making it clear, again, that all judges and relevant members of the state must start issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples immediately. The chief justice of Alabama, Roy Moore, has already defied a federal court order and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling by telling probate judges in his state not to issue same-sex marriage licenses. The question: So now what?

CAMEROTA: That was an epic debate you had yesterday.

PEREIRA: I got more phone calls.

CUOMO: It was not a debate. It was a testing. But, you know, this only takes away his idea about probate judges. He said it only applied to the attorney general. That is not a solid legal reckoning, because the attorney general is the respondent, defendant for the state. It always names the attorney general.

CAMEROTA: Hold on. But without the legalese, he said -- his argument, the judge's argument, was that he's not doing this on principle. That he has legal grounds, because the Supreme Court hasn't decided yet. Was that his argument?

CUOMO: It's part of the argument. It's also -- you have to be legal when you're discussing legal things. And there is a statement. The Supremacy Clause isn't as simple as what you think it is. And he does have some basis in who's supposed to tell him what from the federal court.

But the idea that the attorney general isn't the probate judge was always what they would call, like, a specious premise. And now the judge made it clear, "I don't care who you are. If you're in Alabama, start issuing the licenses."

CAMEROTA: It'll be interesting to see what happens today.

PEREIRA: Yes, I would love to be a fly on the wall in his office this morning.

All right. Another winter storm is targeting New England. Snow-bound Boston could be facing another blizzard. Jennifer Gray, our meteorologist, this is actually live. I'm not just repeating a piece of tape from two weeks ago. This is happening again.

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, I think this is three weeks in a row. But yes, all the elements are coming together once again, and once again, a blizzard watch in effect. And that does include Boston and all of coastal Maine, and it goes up all the way up through coastal Maine, including Massachusetts.

We also have a winter storm watch included in that for places inland. So let's time this out for you. We are going to see quiet conditions

the rest of today through the first half of tomorrow. That's when things start to change. We start to see the snow push in throughout the day tomorrow. That includes tomorrow evening. Also, through Sunday morning.

And we are going to have incredibly windy conditions. We're talking about possibly 12 inches of snow across coastal Massachusetts all the way up through Maine.

So we're also looking at very cold temperatures, guys. This morning, the wind chill is 10 below zero in Boston. We're going to be talking about winds 40 and 50 miles per hour, possibly 70 miles per hour, 70- mile-per-hour winds along the cape. So that is substantial. We're also looking at very cold temperatures, guys, that are going to stay in place through the weekend.

Back to you.

PEREIRA: Slight prediction, Valentine's Day weekend, cold weekend, we're going to see babies in November. Just saying.

GRAY: Exactly.

CUOMO: Good spin. Good spin.

CAMEROTA: I like it. Yes, that's the silver lining. All right. Thanks so much for that.

So suspended NBC anchorman Brian Williams now being called into question over even more of his reporting. We have the very latest for you.

CUOMO: Plus, David Carr, a very respected media columnist for "The New York Times," just collapsed in the newsroom. Just 58 years old. So his colleagues, everybody, obviously stunned. The question is, what happened?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: Well, the first week of Brian Williams' suspension is wrapping up, NBC suspending him for six months without pay after he admitted a story about his experience in Iraq wasn't true. But now we're learning about possible red flags with other stories that Williams has told, including some about the vaunted Navy SEAL Team 6. John Berman has our details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): May 2011, an MH-60 Black Hawk helicopter is engulfed in flames after Navy SEAL Team 6 successfully killed Osama bin Laden at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The Special Ops team set fire to the stealth aircraft after it crashed in this courtyard, an attempt to destroy the helicopter's critical technology.

In an interview with David Letterman in January of 2013, Brian Williams had this to say about a piece of the burned-out wreckage.

BRIAN WILLIAMS, SUSPENDED NBC NEWS ANCHOR: About six weeks after the bin Laden raid, I got a white envelope. And in it was a thank-you note, unsigned, and attached to it was a piece of the fuselage, the fuselage from the blown-up Black Hawk in that courtyard. And I don't know how many pieces survived. But I...

DAVID LETTERMAN, HOST, CBS'S "LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN": Wow. Sent to you by one of the...

WILLIAMS: Yes. One of my friends.

BERMAN: But that relationship is being questioned by members of the Special Operations community and could be one of the things an internal NBC investigation is focused on.

Then, in 2012, during yet another Letterman appearance that perhaps raises the most questions, Williams goes further.

WILLIAMS: I flew into Baghdad, invasion plus three days, on a blackout mission at night with elements of SEAL Team 6, and I was told not to make any eye contact with them or initiate any conversation. It was like horses in the gate right before a mission.

This guy had a wristband with his human target that he was after when we landed. It was one of the members of the Deck of Cards, one of the leadership targets. They are amped. This is the best we have. And until he reached into my box of Wheat Thins, my last remaining American food, it could have been a Wheat Thin commercial. Because this hand the size of a canned ham goes in. I lost half of my net supply of wheat thins.

But then I chatted him up and admired a knife as part of his utility belt. Darned it if that knife didn't show up at my office a couple of weeks later.

LETTERMAN: Oh, man.

BERMAN: Whether Brian Williams will be allowed back at that office is now being decided by NBC.

John Berman, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PEREIRA: Joining us now, CNN senior media correspondent, host of "RELIABLE SOURCES," Brian Stelter. Pretty incredible stories, a series of them coming to light. And now so many more questions about the veracity of these stories.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: You say the word "incredible." And maybe that's the key here.

PEREIRA: Too incredible (ph), right.

STELTER: Are they too incredible? And this is -- this one of a series of stories that is now getting scrutiny. And deservedly so. And it's not just external outlets at "The Huffington Post," which first wrote about this yesterday. It's NBC that's doing the scrutinizing. I was told yesterday they are nowhere near done; their probe, their fact-checking investigation of Brian Williams. They're even thinking about bringing in some third -- some sort of third-party investigator to help them with that. We also know that NBC's legal counsel is involved.

Meanwhile, Brian Williams is not being allowed to say anything. And the network has him on the bench, suspended. And he can't defend himself. And he may have defenses to all of what we've heard, but we're not hearing them from NBC...

PEREIRA: Part of the terms of the agreement.

STELTER: That's right. And he's under a contract. They've got him on the bench. And so in the meantime, more and more questions come up, and more and more journalists outside NBC keep finding more examples.

PEREIRA: And we should point out that NBC has not -- has declined to comment, actually, about these latest stories to come into question.

I want to pivot to something that has come as quite a shock to all of us in the journalistic world. And to any readers in "The New York Times," and to you, I know, personally, we lost a great voice, a great man. David Carr passed away suddenly. And I know that he was a mentor to you, Dave. I had no idea that you had the connection that you did. But you sent out a tweet. I actually want to show the tweet. I know you've taken this quite personally.

STELTER: He was the closest thing I had to a father in recent years. He was the media columnist for the "New York Times" for the last number of years. This is a picture of us together at a film festival.

PEREIRA: What was happening there?

STELTER: Well, it looks like he's strangling me, but he's actually trying to give me a kiss on the cheek. And that's who he was.

There's a famous scene in the documentary that we were in together called "Page One," where he says that I was a robot sent to destroy him. Because I was this up-and-comer at "The New York Times," this kid in the newsroom, frankly, this terrified 22-year-old at the "New York Times" in 2007-2008.

And I thought someone like David Carr was -- and this is a scene from the film. I thought someone like David Carr was a god. Which he was, at the time.

I also thought he would ignore me at best and crush me at best. So in fact, he took me under his wing. He took so many under his wing and mentored us and instilled in us a deep appreciation for all the things we've been talking about in the past week. Credibility and trust and voice and journalism. PEREIRA: We actually have a little bit of sound. I'd love to play

that so people can remember David Carr as you, with warmth and humor. Let's take a listen to the documentary, "Page One."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID CARR, COLUMNIST, "NEW YORK TIMES": Is that a bridge to the future? Or wait, it's a gallows. Right there's the dream come true.

That is a great media experience right there.

STELTER: Yes.

CARR: You know what it reminds me of?

STELTER: What?

CARR: A newspaper.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: Reading the paper on a tablet. How about that?

STELTER: He had such a love, ferocious love for the "New York Times" and for his friends and family. I don't know what we're going to do without him. He was the best and most important media reporter of our time. And he was explaining this revolution that's happening to the world around us.

He -- he always knew -- he's the kind of guy I went to when I was ready to propose to my wife. He's the kind of guy I went to when I had trouble at work. He's the kind of guy I went to when I was thinking about joining CNN. And he always knew what to say. Can I read to you one line from his book?

PEREIRA: I'd like that. Yes.

STELTER: You know, he was a drug addict in his 20s.

PEREIRA: Recovering.

STELTER: Real struggle early on. He was really given a second life and a second chance.

He wrote in his book, "I now inhabit a life I don't deserve. But we all walk this life feeling like we are frauds. The trick is to be grateful and hope the caper doesn't end soon."

It's ended just far too soon for David Carr. And, especially, on a week like this. We need him on a week like this. Bob Simon's death, Brian Williams' fall, Jon Stewart's signoff. There's so much changed, so going on in this world, this media world, and we're all going to be at a loss without him.

PEREIRA: Well, I know you certainly are. And we thank you so much for helping us remember your friend, your mentor, and a great, great man in the world of journalism. His voice won't be forgotten any time soon, or his words. Thank you so much, Brian.

STELTER: Thanks.

PEREIRA: Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Mick.

The "American Sniper" murder trial is certainly one to watch. The prosecution case so far is all about what happened after -- after -- the defendant took Chris Kyle's life. Does it prove that he was not insane?

CAMEROTA: And, remember when Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg appears to doze off during the State of the Union address last month? Or is she looking at her shoes? No, we now know what made her so tired.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)