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ISIS Firing Rockets at Air Base in Iraq; Philadelphia to Host 2016 DNC; Levity with Obama, Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg; Debate Over U.S. Hostage Policies; Interview with James Foley's Parents; 2014: Worst Year for Car Recalls

Aired February 13, 2015 - 07:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: A developing story for you now, ISIS firing rockets at an air base in Iraq. This is where hundreds of U.S. marines are stationed. They're training Iraqi forces, at least 320 U.S. Marine are on this base. This was struck by mortar fire late last year.

We've also learned the terrorist have seized control of the town of al-Baghdadi.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: We have breaking news for you, firefighters at the scene of a raging inferno with the Islamic Institute in Houston. It's not clear how or why this fire began. We also don't know if there are people still inside. We are following the developments as we get them, we'll bring them to you.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: A man has been indicted in Ferguson, Missouri for setting fire to a convenience store, not just any convenience store, the convenience store were Michael Brown's stole cigarillos shortly before he was shot and killed by Darren Wilson.

Authority said, 26-year old Antonio Whiteside torched that store in November after the grand jury decline to indict Wilson.

CAMEROTA: We want to warn you this next video is difficult to watch. An Alabama police officer slamming a grandfather to the ground. The force leaving the man partially paralyzed. The 57-year-old victim is from India. He was in Madison visiting his son. He speaks little English and says he was just walking down the street when the police officer attacked him.

Police were reportedly responding to a suspicious person in the area. The officer has been arrested on an assault charge.

PEREIRA: All right, we have an opportunity to speak to the man who reigns Inside Politics. Inside Politics, John King is here with us...

JOHN KING, CNN HOST, "INSIDE POLITICS": Yes.

PEREIRA: ... on set in New York which is such a treat for us. KING: Thank you. It's nice to be here.

PEREIRA: We can reach out in touch.

KING: I ran into this guy wandering...

PEREIRA: I know.

KING: ... the streets of the city last night.

PEREIRA: He does that.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

PEREIRA: He does that. A lot of the things...

KING: He talked to the people.

CUOMO: Appreciated -- appreciated the loose change.

PEREIRA: And you're giving. Let's shift here for a second. We've got lot of nuggets we want to talk...

KING: Yes.

PEREIRA: ... you about. 2016 Republican candidate -- potentially, governor of Wisconsin Scott Walker get a little buzz about this mystery surroundings his college group, you know, he didn't finish, but there's a little bit a buzz going on about that because people are saying "Hey, if you're going to run for president, shouldn't you have a college degree?"

KING: Well, some people might ask that question, it's obviously no requirement. There's an age requirement. There's a citizenship requirement. But there's no requirement that you need that. I would say this, biography always matters when you run for president. He's been elected twice -- actually three times if you count the recall election, in a very big important state and presidential politics, the people of Wisconsin have ligated this.

But biography matters. For biography for President Obama was huge. You know, he's compelling story, the history making campaign. But one thing I will say, this is -- you always learn something about somebody when they run for president, even if they've been around forever.

Everybody thinks (inaudible) elected George W. Bush, we learned late in the campaign he had a DUI. He still won the presidency. But things come up. So he's going to asked about this and he's going to have explain it.

I also say this, there will be Democrats to try use against him, not in a public way, not in a public way but now you have Scott Walker, he never finished the college, he's going to have to explain it to the American people why.

CAMEROTA: Do he have to explain why he didn't finish college? KING: He said he got job opportunity. That he was in college, that he was -- you know, what would have been -- it was his fourth year. So we think senior year, but he was well behind in credits. He would have need, at least another year, maybe a year and a half of college. He said he had great job offer and he decided he needed to take that.

CUOMO: A lot of people will identify with that. Do you think his biggest problem will be what happened on the set when the English guy asked him about how he feels about evolution and all that, and he says, "I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it."

People are going to (inaudible) about that, but I tell you what, after our interview yesterday with Chief Judge Moore, you know what people most have said about, "Why did Cuomo say the declaration of independence? All our rights come from the Creator." Is Walker, you know, smart to avoid that?

KING: It depends who you ask. Remember, the first contest is Iowa. He is -- it doesn't matter right now, the voting's a year away. But he's leading on the polls right now. He's from a neighboring state in the midwest. You do have an evangelical base there and they -- you know, they might have a different answer than you or I on that question.

The question is it's not just the specifics of one issue. Any presidential candidate, are they pandering to a base, that could matter to you. Can he square? As he says, I have my faith and then I have science, can he square that?

If you're running for president, an entirely different level of scrutiny. I would say this is about is -- Scott Walker not having a college degree, if Democrats think they can make too much hay of it, they run a risk. Remember, a lot of people said George W. Bush was -- you know, Democrats have to mumble he was the village idiot. Last time I check he was a two-term president.

PEREIRA: All right. Let's move on to our next topic here. I'll leave that alone. Let's move on to our next topic.

2016, DNC will be held in Philadelphia, beating out two other cities that were considered front runners, New York City and Columbus, Ohio.

KING: The Republicans are going to Cleveland, so the Democrats decided they didn't want to go to Ohio, and so they picked another state. New York would be fine. You think with Hillary Clinton, if it's her story, it's her new adopted home state anyway.

But New York, who knows, is blue (ph) in presidential politics. You just know it. Most of this is done for the TV stage. Philadelphia, Democrats would concede did a great job for George W. Bush's convention. The Republican convention in 2000, they think the city did a great job. It's a state Democrats have won consistently in presidential politics, they want to hold it. This is about -- most of it is about TV stage but it's also about blue collar economics.

PEREIRA: All right. Let's talk about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Turns out she was not just tired at the State of the Union Address.

KING: I love this story.

PEREIRA: There was an additional component...

KING: Right.

PEREIRA: ...to her snooze. What's going on there?

KING: Well, let's listen to her. She was at a panel last night in CNN. I think she was the only person have a TV camera, where she explains what I'll call the "nod".

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUTH BADER GINSBURG, U.S. Supreme Court JUSTICE: The audience, for the most part, is awake because they're bobbing up and down all the time. And we sit there, stone-faced, sober judges. But we're not -- at least I wasn't 100 percent sober because before we went to the State of the Union, we had dinner together. And Justice Kennedy brought...

ANTONIN SCALIA, U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE: Well, that's the first intelligent thing you've done...

GINSBURG: Well, there was a time you came to those dinners, especially it was -- Opus something or other, a very fine California wine that Justice Kennedy brought. And I vowed this year just sparkling water, stay away from the wine, but in the end, the dinner was so delicious, it needed wine to accompany it...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: We understand. Opus something...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: I'm inviting Justice Kennedy to dinner. Opus wine is in the ballpark $300 to $500 a bottle.

CAMEROTA: Yeah. Not bad taste.

KING: So Justice Kennedy, I'll send you my address...

PEREIRA: And last but not the least, a little more fun for us, and then also a little bit of controversy. The president and Buzzfeed getting together in a way to promote his health insurance plan, and involving a selfie stick.

KING: If you look at this video, the president's critics are online saying this is degrading the presidency, it's undermining the president, it's not presidential. Look, I was with Bill Clinton when he won (inaudible) hall, Governor Bill Clinton back in the day and played the saxophone. Everybody said, "What are you doing?" The times have changed. The ages have changed. Some people won't like this, that's their right. It's a free country... PEREIRA: Let's just play a portion of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PRESIDENT: ... February 15.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: It's better without sound.

PEREIRA: Yeah. We had the sound earlier.

KING: Yeah.

PEREIRA: Basically, he was practicing his speech in the mirror and sort of goofing around.

KING: Right. The cookie (ph) thing it's like, you know, if anything goes wrong, they blame Obama. The guy who first drop his coffee in the streets says thanks Obama. He was so quick as to say, "Thanks Obama."

CUOMO: That's the funny thing about the critics saying he's degrading the presidency. They are the same one who are tearing down this president in ways they've never done before. How many people watch it?

KING: As of last night, it was 13 plus million. That's what they wanted...

PEREIRA: OK.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Yeah. The success -- look, the numbers are in the success for that. They knew there'd be critics. Leave it alone. This is the times we live in. Some people won't like it, but you know what, he's reaching people.

PEREIRA: You can't please everybody, right, John King? Except you, you please all of us by having...

KING: You only get one second term and he's having fun with it.

PEREIRA: That's good.

CAMEROTA: Very often.

PEREIRA: Come and visit us more often.

KING: Oh sure.

PEREIRA: Make sure to watch John King and his Inside Politics panel breakdown the very best in political news of the week every Sunday, 8:30 a.m. Eastern. Make sure not to have too much wine in it.

CAMEROTA: Yeah. Thanks, John.

KING: Thanks to you.

PEREIRA: In the wake of Kayla Mueller's death in captivity, debate it intensifying over when to attempt ISIS hostage rescues. Coming up, we're joined by the parents of James Foley, the American journalist who was killed by terrorist. That video -- that grizzly video played around the world.

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CAMEROTA: The death of 26-year-old aid worker Kayla Mueller igniting a debate over the U.S. policy on hostages and rescue missions. Mueller's death, it's close to home for another family, that of freelance journalist James Foley.

Foley was the first American hostage killed by ISIS. Foley's mother and father join us now, Diane and John Foley are here. Thanks so much for being here with us.

JOHN FOLEY, JAMES FOLEY'S FATHER: Good morning.

CAMEROTA: Diane, you've been very vocal about saying that you are not crazy about the U.S. policy in terms of hostages. You believe that they should have attempted rescue of your son and Kayla sooner. What makes you think that that would have been effective or that they could even have made a rescue effort sooner?

DIANE FOLEY, JAMES FOLEY'S MOTHER: Well, Jim was in captivity nearly two years and what became apparent to us that our government knew where they were by December of 2013, even perhaps earlier.

CAMEROTA: So why didn't they try sooner?

FOLEY: Oh I think there were multiple reasons. I certainly don't know all the reasons. I guess that's part of -- it appears to me that the American policy is failing, though.

Now, five young Americans in the last six months have died whereas, their 10 counterparts in Europe are all home.

J. FOLEY: Reestablishing their lives.

CAMEROTA: And you think that is because ransoms were paid?

J. FOLEY: I think that the European nations were willing to negotiate. I think money did change hands. I'm not sure where it came from but I know there was an intense negotiation involved.

My own opinion, and John Foley's own, is that I think rescue was delayed because the European nations -- or military intervention was delayed because European nations were actually negotiating. They felt that they could get their citizens home and they didn't want any casualties in a military intervention prior to getting them out.

PEREIRA: Help us understand a little bit about what was going on at home for you when we knew this was happening and it became news. And you got this horrifying message first of all, that your son was held captive. Talk to us about the involvement and the information you were getting from the government -- the American government and the military. What were those conversations? Did you feel in a loop? Did you feel that they're being forthcoming about what was happening?

D. FOLEY: We had no idea, Michaela. There was -- information went one way, I mean, you know, FBI was quite effective at getting at information out of us because we were frantically trying to find out all that was going on and interviewing the freed hostages when they came home. But we didn't get anything back.

So we really didn't know what was going on.

J. FOLEY: One of our hopes for a reformation of the hostage policies that our government could develop a specialized hostage unit which would be able to cross all departments within the government, CIA, the state, the FBI. And decide on what information they could share with the family, in some ways declassify it, because for a year and a half, almost two years, we were told, "Jim is a high priority. We're doing all we can."

PEREIRA: But it didn't feel that way?

J. FOLEY: "We can't tell you anything because it's all classified." So we had no idea what was going on.

D. FOLEY: It didn't turn out that way.

PERIARA: That must have been agonizing.

J. FOLEY: It didn't turn out that way. And it hasn't turned out for anyone, so I'm very grateful. We're so grateful that the president has called for this hostage review. I mean, that's awesome. And we've met with the team that's working on it. So -- but we really sincerely hope the White House really look at the way we're handling things. We tend to think we can learn from some of our allies, work together better.

PEREIRA: And you said that you wish that you had done a little bit more on your own. What would you have like to have seem done or what would you have done, I mean, it's easy to say in hindsight...

(CROSSTALK)

J. FOLEY: In hindsight, I think and this is for debate -- we were too quite. We thought (ph) a policy of secrecy initially at the request of the captors and our government. Eventually, we've heard nothing and we became frantic and went public. I think in this country, the only way to change filling activity is through public debate, votes, et cetera.

CAMEROTA: And but -- and if you haven't publicize it, what would have changed, I mean, so in other words, are you saying that captor -- that ISIS and the captors were telling you to be quite about this.

J. FOLEY: Exactly.

D. FOLEY: But our government was, initially, Alysin.

CAMEROTA: As well.

D. FOLEY: Absolutely, right from the beginning.

J. FOLEY: So that helped the captors, didn't the government.

CAMEROTA: Yes. So nobody really knew what was going on?

D. FOLEY: It had the world known that 18 journalists and aid workers were held together. I think that in their most hopeful moments, the captives really envisioned a coalition of governments working together and really trying to get them out and nothing could have been further from the truth.

Everyone was kind of doing their own thing. There was very little collaboration. We can do better. I just know we can do better. And part of Jims's legacy foundation, we hope is to partner with the government, you know, work towards something that will really value an America's citizien.

J. FOLEY: We really want a partner. We don't want to be a stone thrower. We really want a partner because there's such a need. In addition, you know, this is not a only a problem for journalists, aid workers, we could go on vacation or send your child to school, they could be captured or taken hostage and then right now, it's good luck.

PEREIRA: The sad thing is that you essentially were the first -- you're the first family that have to deal with this. And now, as you've said, there are others -- and we've seen others -- but there was really no guidebook for you, sadly, on knowing what to do and I'm sure that's something you struggle with. Can we talk about your son because it's important to keep his legacy alive and the foundation and the work is very important, but tell us about your boy.

D. FOLEY: Well, Jim was a remarkable young man like so many others. Like Steven Sotloff and Luke Somers, Peter Kassig, Kayla, you know, and ones before like Marie Colvin.

PEREIRA: Sure, sure.

D. FOLEY: I mean many, you know -- so these are the best of America in many ways. Jim really believed in the United States of America. Really cared for the underdog, and that's partly why he was drawn to a lot of the suffering in those conflict zones.

J. FOLEY: And he really tried to hold the group together in captivity.

D. FOLEY: He be really felt confident that our government is going to do something...

J. FOLEY: ... American, he was treated poorly and also because he just refused to say -- to ask for mercy. And so -- Jim is not only a captive, he was a teacher and a mentor, you know. So we just don't want to make him a hostage for the rest of his life.

D. FOLEY: And we really applaud, last night at Columbia, you know, they did this call for global standards and principles for freelancers for safety. And it was really...

J. FOLEY: Amazing.

D. FOLEY: ... amazing because here all these different news organizations, you know, who are generally quite competitive, came together to, you know, decide on what freelancers need to have for standards but also what news organizations. It was a beginning because it's been difficult to be a freelancer, particularly in a conflict zone, you know...

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. I mean this is calling into really stark relief just how dangerous it has become to be a journalist...

FOLEY: For the citizens.

CAMEROTA: ... for citizens and freelance journalists as well. Well, it's wonderful to have this conversation with you and we know that the whole country is having it -- in terms of what we should when Americans are in danger and become hostages.

Diane, John Foley, thank so much.

D. FOLEY: Thanks so much.

J. FOLEY: Thank you for having us.

D. FOLEY: Appreciate it.

CAMEROTA: Well, ISIS attacking an air base where hundreds of U.S. marines are stationed in Iraq as Congress debates the president's war plan. We'll hear from White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest live on New Day, straight ahead.

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CUOMO: All right, you know the graphic, you know the sound. It means time for CNN Money now. CNN Money correspondent Cristina Alesci is in our Money center. What we've been hearing about the cars all year and the problems turns out it was a big deal for this year, wasn't it?

CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Chris. It's official, last year was the worst year for car recalls ever. The government says nearly 64 million vehicles were recalled, more than double the previous record set in 2004.

Of course, the biggest culprit, General Motors. It recalled more than 30 million cars.

Now, one company trying to make customers happy in a rather morbid way. Facebook, you can sign a legacy contact to takeover your Facebook page when you die. That person could post information and respond to friend requests, but they won't be able to read your messages.

And here's one to take the edge off, pot has been legal for a year in Colorado. The state made $53 million in tax revenue. That's actually a bit less than expected because people are still buying pot illegally to avoid that steep 28 percent tax rate. Now this, of course, takes a bite of the argument in favor of legalization for two reasons. One, may not be the panacea that state budgets are looking for, and two, you're clearly not shutting down the black market, Chris.

CUOMO: Well, that's for sure. I mean look, this is going to take time. We knew there was going to be an evolution.

ALESCI: Yes.

CUOMO: Thank you very much, Christina. Always great to have you. Have a great weekend.

We knew that was going to happen, though. You know, but they'll be bumps along the way. 28 percent is a big hit, too.

PEREIRA: Yeah.

CAMEROTA: Meanwhile, developing story this morning. American lives on the line in Iraq. ISIS surrounding a U.S. air base. We have a live report from the battle zone ahead.

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