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ISIS Targets Iraqi Airbase Where American Marines are Training Iraqi Military; Interview with White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest; More Red Flags Raised About Brian Williams

Aired February 13, 2015 - 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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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ISIS back on the offensive.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VERMONT: 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.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Now we're learning about possible red flags with other stories that Williams has told.

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

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Are they too incredible?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just feel like we deserve what everybody else has.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's absolutely clear that the federal judicial powers vested in the Supreme Court.

ROY MOORE, CHIEF JUSTICE OF ALABAMA: The rights contained in the bill of rights do not come from the constitution. They come from god.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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 about 8:00 in the east, and hundreds of American marines are on the ground in Iraq, and now there is a problem. They are helping to train soldiers at an airbase, and ISIS is now targeting that airbase, moving closer, using rocket fire. And, remember, those marines are there.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We're also learning the terrorists are in control of the town of al Baghdadi. So let's get right to CNN's Phil Black. He is on the ground in northern Iraq. Phil?

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PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Behind me is the town of Sinjar, an ISIS controlled town, one that was once home to hundreds of thousands of people, members of the Yazidi religious sect. When ISIS first invaded, it triggered a humanitarian exodus. Tens of thousands of them fled, and witness accounts say so many others were executed or abducted. In the streets below there is a fight going on as local fighters try to clear the town of ISIS. We've also seen two fast- moving military jets overhead, witnessed at least one likely airstrike.

There is an effort to try to clear the town of ISIS. But the hold that ISIS has is very strong. And it shows that all the progress that has been made against ISIS in northern Iraq by Kurdish fighters mostly, the territory that they have taken back from ISIS, ISIS still remains in control of key towns and cities. The town of Sinjar, the town of Tal Afar, and of course the major town of Mosul still very much an ISIS stronghold.

It is in the west of the country, Anbar province, that ISIS is still on the offensive where it has maintained military momentum against the Iraqi army and Sunni tribes who have been trying to stop them, a great deal of fighting around the town of al Baghdadi. And Iraqi officials are now telling us ISIS now has complete control of al Baghdadi and from there are moving south towards the al Assad airbase. That airbase, it is a sprawling complex, one that has come under fire, indirect fire, rockets, mortars, in the past, nothing substantial. This could be different because this is where there are hundreds of U.S. military personnel training the Iraq army and other military personnel there as well.

And the latest word from Iraqi officials on the ground that ISIS has sent a number of suicide bombers, perhaps as many as eight, towards that facility. They say they have stopped that many so far, but it would seem that this could be a more sustained military threat than that facility has known up until this point. And all of it very close to the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

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CUOMO: All right, Phil Black, thank you very much, being in harm's way to bring you this story.

So as ISIS goes on the offensive, what will the U.S. do? That's a good question because we don't know yet. Congress is debating President Obama's response to the situation and his authorization request for further source. Let's bring in Sunlen Serfay live from the White House. What's the latest, Sunlen?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, it's already off to a rocky start on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisles through both chambers have really blasted this resolution, really calling into question whether it stands a chance on Capitol Hill. Democrats say it's far too broad. Republicans argue that it's too narrow, and they're actually wanting a tweak in the language to allow President Obama even more authority than he asked for. So on Capitol Hill lawmakers will work for the next weeks and months, will tweak the language, will hold hearings, will have a debate in the hopes of getting something passed.

But administration officials tell us there is a very real possibility that at the end Congress could come up short, could come up with nothing. Now if that happens, most likely we'll see President Obama move forward with the ongoing military operation. He has been firm in his belief that he believes he has the authorization already from the 2001 authorization of military force. But all of that said, Alisyn and Chris, the White House wants the Congress to pass something here. They think that is symbolically important to move forward from the united front. Alisyn?

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

Meanwhile, Ukraine's president says his country is still a long way from peace. Reports of violence erupting this morning two days before the cease-fire is set to take hold. Ukrainian military officials reporting at least eight soldiers killed in new fighting with pro- Russian separatists. Some civilians also reportedly killed. So what does this mean for the fragile peace agreement? CNN's senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh has the latest from eastern Ukraine. Nick?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We've been hearing in the past few hours there is shelling in the separatist stronghold of Donetsk. And the separatists say in the neighboring region of Luhansk three people were killed in shelling overnight. And yesterday three children were also killed by shelling.

Ukraine also reporting casualties on its side, but the fear is the Minsk agreement didn't actually say what the boundaries should be and 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 years. That's the fear now, that with violence swirling around the key towns, hundreds if not thousands of Ukrainian troops the separatists say they've encircled inside it, well, that fighting could intensify in the hours ahead. Vladimir Putin said in Minsk he thought those soldiers would give themselves up. So many questions unanswered, so little time left ahead of that cease-fire, and so much that could derail it. Back to you.

CUOMO: All right, thank you very much, Nick Paton Walsh.

Let's get the Obama administration perspective on all of this. We have Josh Earnest. You know him, White House press secretary. Josh, Friday the 13th, let it go. It doesn't mean anything. It's just a superstition.

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Good morning, Chris.

CUOMO: Good morning to you.

Let's start with what the president is doing today. Cyber security, they say that we have a better chance of stopping the extremists than we do hackers. What can the president do to make us feel safe enough to even file our taxes, and, here's an idea, should we not have the to file our taxes until it can be done completely safely?

EARNEST: Well, listen, Chris, these emerging cyber threats that we face is sort of a new realm of national security. It does, as we have seen, pose a significant threat to our economy as well. Some of these hacks have been targeted at retail and financial institutions.

And so what the federal government can do is actually play an important role in helping private sector industry do a better job of coordinating their efforts to improve the cyber defenses of all their networks. And if we can set up and facilitate the ability of individual private companies to share information about the attacks that they're repelling, we can help other companies do the same thing in terms of sealing their defenses to protect the information and data that they're holding on their network as well.

And so what the president believes that we can do and what the president is going to sign an executive order to do today is to make it easier for the private sector to try to share this information and coordinate our efforts to strengthen our cyber defenses here in this country.

CUOMO: Give me a quick follow up take. Slippery slope, big brother reaching in sharing my information, are they going to use it to their corporate advantage? Is this an invasion of my privacy rights?

EARNEST: Well, we certainly want to make sure that all of this information sharing is part of or includes very important privacy protections for individual consumers. And the fact of the matter is, Chris, if we can get individual companies to do a better job of sharing this data that will actually assure that this data is better protected and is not subject to hackers who are able to steal it and use it for nefarious purposes.

CUOMO: OK, let's switch to Ukraine. The issue on the table is still whether or not to arm. The latest rationale in terms of the process that I'm hearing is, well, the United States can't do enough to even the playing fields, as if that is a reason to not arm. Why would that be a basis not to arm? Doesn't that just show the need even more?

EARNEST: Well, Chris, that's a good question. I think the first thing that's important for people to understand is the United States has provided military assistance to the Ukrainian military. We've provided $100 million in military assistance to the Ukrainian military just in the last nine to 12 months. So there already is significant assistance that's already been provided.

The question, Chris, is what are we going to do to resolve and deescalate this situation in Ukraine? And it's the view of this administration and the view of our partners in Europe, by the way, that there is no military solution to this -- to this ongoing violence in Ukraine. What we need to do is we need to bring all the parties to the table and try to reach a negotiated solution, and that's actually what European leaders with the strong backing of the United States were doing earlier this week in Minsk. They brought to the table the Ukrainian president, President Putin from Russia, to try to hammer out a negotiation.

There was an agreement that was reached. Previous agreements have not been -- I guess I should say it this way -- President Putin has not upheld his end of the bargain in previous agreements. So we're actually not going to watch the words of president Putin but we're actually going to watch the actions of the Russian military along the border and see if they're going to live up to the agreements that President Putin has made.

CUOMO: You know what the word on the ground is better than I do. People are still dying. Russian assets are still moving across the border while they were negotiating. Those are the reports we were hearing. So is there a decision whether or not to arm Ukraine yet. It sounds to me like you're moving away from that choice.

EARNEST: Well, the cease-fire is set to take place or to go into effect on February 15. And so we're hopeful that we will see both sides live up to the commitments that they made in the context of the agreements. But goals here, Chris, all along has been to bring both sides to the negotiating table. And that's why the president has worked closely with Europe to put in place a financial sanctions regime against the Putin regime to pressure them and to isolate their economy and to isolate Russia in a way that has had a very serious negative impact on the Russian economy. We've seen the value of their currency cut in half in just the last six to nine months. So we have seen a significant toll on the Russian economy. There have been costs associated with President Putin's efforts to interfere in the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

And so hopefully he's going to start living up to the commitments that he's made in the context of these diplomatic negotiations, and we can start to deescalate the conflict in Ukraine and stop the bloodshed there. And it is the view of the president that only adding more military assistance and only adding lethal assistance to that equation is likely to expand the bloodshed, and that's exactly what we're trying to put a stop to.

CUOMO: All right, let's move on to this AUMF, the authorization for use of military force. Please let's put up the points of what is in the president's offer right now to Congress, just so you see there. He's limiting it. This is a little complicated for people. He's still got the 2001 AUMF in place. There's one in 2002, three year limit. That's his way of saying the next administration will have to make its own decisions. No ground troops. That's not really accurate, right, because that's where that sticky word "enduring" gets in place. The big question is this, Josh. Does this count as a strategy? Your critics say he doesn't have a strategy yet. We don't know what we're doing yet. These are just -- this is just -- these are ingredients, there's no recipe.

EARNEST: Well, Chris, the authorization to use military force is only one element of our strategy. Military force is something that we have employed to significant effect against ISIL over the course of the last six months. The strategy has been to train and equip and bolster the capability of local security forces on the ground in Iraq who have been able to take the fight on the ground to ISIL targets. Over the course of the last six months they haven't just blunted an ISIL offensive across western Iraq. They've actually rolled it back in some key areas. They've been backed up by coalition airstrikes, many of them carried out by the United States military.

CUOMO: Most of them.

EARNEST: And that has had an impact. The same is true in Syria, that what we have done is backed up Kurdish fighters in Kobani with coalition airstrikes. And there was a lot of talk in the success ISIL had in overrunning the border town of Kobani. Well, over the last month the coalition has succeed in backing Kurdish fighters and driving ISIL out of Kobani.

CUOMO: Right.

EARNEST: So that is an indication that our military strategy so far is showing some progress. But there are other elements that are also important that don't require the use of military force. We're trying to shut down the financing of ISIL. We're trying to counter their ability to recruit foreign fighters around the world. That's an important part of our strategy, too.

CUOMO: Understood. But, Josh, you know the concern is that you put American fighting men the ground. They're on the ground and what happens on the ground will happen to them right now. You know what's going on in western Iraq with hundreds of marines in that airbase. ISIS is closing in on it. The rockets are getting in range. You can say they're there just to train but now they might wind up getting hit by rockets, god forbid. Doesn't that just show that either you're in or you're not and the strategy right now is halfway?

EARNEST: Well, Chris, I don't think I agree with that characterization only because there is a substantial difference between the strategy that we're pursuing now and the strategy that was pursued in the previous Iraq campaign. In the previous Iraq campaign there was the commitment of more than 100,000 U.S. men and women in ground combat operations in Iraq. That was a strategy that was bad for our national security interests and it was a strategy that didn't invest the Iraqi people in providing security for their own country.

The strategy that we have is to bolster the security capability of the Iraqi and Kurdish security forces. We're training them. We're equipping them. And, yes, Chris, I don't want to minimize the risk to our men and women in uniform who are putting themselves in harm's way. This is a dangerous countries country and a dangerous place. And this is a testament to the service of our men and women in uniform. But there should be no mistake, the strategy that this president is pursuing in Iraq is very different than the strategy pursued by the previous administration.

CUOMO: Do you know anything more than we know about what's happening on the airbase right now?

EARNEST: Well, Chris, I haven't gotten a detailed update this morning.

CUOMO: Right.

EARNEST: But we certainly are aware that there are ISIL forces that are operating in western Iraq, and we have been pleased at the improving performance of Iraqi security forces on the battlefield to take the fight on the ground to ISIL.

What's clearly improving their performance is a sustained campaign of military airstrikes that are being carried out by the United States and our coalition partners against ISIL targets in Iraq. We're targeting ISIL leadership, we're targeting ISIL fighting positions, we're targeting ISIL oil and gas facilities that are sort of essentially providing the financing for their operations. So we've had some success in rolling back ISIL, but it's still a dangerous place, there's no doubt about it.

CUOMO: We're just concerned because those men and women are sitting there. That's why I'm asking. We'll stay on that story.

EARNEST: I know you will.

CUOMO: Last question. The president, the coming into the middle end of his second term, big legacy considerations. He was a presidential -- he was a constitutional professor. That's very important to him. Why doesn't he take this opportunity to say, you know what, I'm not going to come to you and say I don't need you, Congress, for this AUMF, which is basically what he's basically saying right now, that the War Powers Act of 1973, the War Powers Resolution, I understand that it was really to check the president and not to allow me to unilaterally do it.

I get Article 1, Section 8, I get Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution. I get that the president has been given extra- constitutional powers with war. I'm not going to do it. I'm going to stop it.

Why does he continue playing this game of not having Congress own its responsibility when it comes to making war, which is exactly what we're doing?

EARNEST: Well, Chris, the reason that the president and his team have worked so hard to try to put together an AUMF proposal that reflects the bipartisan input of both Democrats and Republicans in the house and the Congress is because he does believe in the principle of Congress having a voice in our foreign policy.

CUOMO: But he says I don't need them, Josh. That's his thing. I don't need them to do this. I can do it anyway. And, really, that kind of flies in the face of existing constitutional law, and that's why I ask you about it. And I figure this would be something that the president would be sensitive to as a constitutional scholar.

EARNEST: Well, Chris, what's clear though is that the Congress has given the commander in chief statutory authority under the 2001 AUMF to carry out the military operations that he has ordered so far. So this is less a constitutional question about whether or not he has the authority to do what he's doing right now.

What the president is suggesting is that that 2001 AUMF was passed almost 14 years ago. What we need is we need an updated, modernized, right sized AUMF that reflects the threats that we actually face. So the president is basically suggesting that Congress needs to go in and update the authority that they've given to the commander in chief so that he can continue to do exactly what he's doing, which is ordering the military to take the steps that are necessary to protect the American public.

But, again, I don't want people to be confused. The strategy that the president is pursuing right now is very different than the strategy that was pursued by the previous administration. This is -- we're not seeking an enduring offensive ground combat operation in Iraq and in Syria. What we want to do is we want the Iraqis and the Syrian opposition to take responsibility for the security situation in their own country. They should be the ones that are taking the fight on the ground to ISIL. And their performance is going to be enhanced because they're going to be backed up by military air power, not just of the United States but of the 60 members of the coalition that the president has recruited across the world to take the fight to ISIL and ensure that they're not just degraded but destroyed.

CUOMO: Well, hopefully they can take care of business before those rockets get too close to that airbase where our fighting men and women are right now.

Josh Earnest, thank you very much. Have a good weekend. Appreciate you being on NEW DAY as always.

EARNEST: You too, Chris. Happy Valentine's Day, man.

CUOMO: Thank you.

Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: OK, Chris.

There are new questions this morning about Brian Williams' reporting, including claims that he flew with SEAL Team 6. Are all of these embellishments?

And the politics of same-sex marriage. The Alabama chief justice fighting it tooth and nail, and you won't believe who wants him to knock it off.

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CAMEROTA: New questions this morning about Brian Williams. NBC suspended him for six months without pay after he admitted that a story about being shot down in a helicopter in Iraq was not true. Now, we're learning about more possible red flags with Williams' stories.

CNN's John Berman has details.

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JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: (voice-over): May 2011. An MH 60 black hawk helicopter is in engulfed in flames after Navy SEAL Team Six 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, NBC NIGHTLY 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.

DAVID LETTERMAN, HOST, LATE SHOW 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 in 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 in to Baghdad invasion plus three days on a black out mission at night with elements on SEAL Team Six 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, was a 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 and I lost half of my net supply of Wheat Thins but then I chatted him up and admired a knife as part of the utility belt.

LETTERMAN: Right.

WILLIAMS: Darned to the fed knife didn't show up at my office a few 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.

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CAMEROTA: For more now, we are joined by Peter Bergen, CNN national security analyst and author of "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden", and CNN senior media correspondent and host of "RELIABLE SOURCES", Brian Stelter.

Gentlemen, thanks so much for being here.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Peter, let's start with you, and just talk about some of the things that we heard in John Berman's piece, because you have long standing ties to the SEAL team community. What are they saying about the claim that Brian Williams made that he flew into Baghdad on the helicopter with them?

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, Alisyn, I mean, Special Operations Command, which doesn't normally go on the record about very much, has basically said that the story is not true.

I would add to John's good piece on the subject that Brian Williams not only made these claims on the David Letterman show, it's one thing to be kibitzing with Letterman and saying things that aren't true. He also made it on his own show. He's actually said it on his own show on May 3rd, 2011, that I flew into Baghdad with SEAL Team 6. Now, that's either true or it's not true. The Special Operations Command is simply saying that that just did not happen.

CAMEROTA: And, Peter, what about the piece of the fuselage that he says was mailed to him with an unsigned note of thank you.

BERGEN: Well, why would they be thanking Brian Williams, let's start there? He had absolutely no role to play in any of this. And, secondarily, you know, that was a night that bin Laden was killed. Two body guards were killed. There was multiple firefights, the helicopter was blown up.

You think that somebody in the SEAL team was sort of picking up pieces of helicopter fuselage to give as mementos to Brian Williams, his favorite news anchor? It doesn't pass a common sense test. It was a night where people wanted to get out really fast. The last thing they did is blow up that helicopter and they left immediately thereafter.

CAMEROTA: Brian, these stories do now seem incredible in a way that they didn't two weeks ago. But now when you hear them, this he have this complete incredulity surrounding them. Why now are they come to go light, only now, not then?

STELTER: Perhaps when you're watching someone like Brian Williams on Letterman, we're not watching him thinking about the fact checking in a way that we watch the "NBC Nightly News" and think about it. Now, however, it does seem like these things have been hidden in plain sight for a while, and they require fact-checking and verification.

We know that NBC's investigation is ongoing. We know they're not looking at that one Iraq war incident that we covered last week that started all this. We know they're looking at a wide range of comments.

Now, a lot of them happened off NBC's air. I think Peter makes a good point. What has been said on NBC's air is the most troubling because that gets to the heart of NBC's credibility. That's why the network as much as it values Brian Williams, it has to think of its own future and credibility even more.

CAMEROTA: Brian, even if he said them off air and was saying them on Letterman, a different venue, not the same sorts of checks and balances. But I -- I mean, we work as colleagues. If I was saying incredible stories on any show, you know, Michaela and Chris would be like, what are you smoking? They would have called me on it.

STELTER: Right.

CAMEROTA: So, was anybody at NBC ever calling Brian Williams on something?

STELTER: They would call you on it and the executives behind the scenes would call you on it. There have been some anonymous reports that people inside NBC were starting to raise red flags. We know that Tom Brokaw has been vocal about his concerns about what Brian Williams has said.

But the question you're asking is what we need to get answers about, which is to what extent did NBC management think about these issues and express concern about these issues? And to what extent was Brian Williams able to go around them and not be filtered or not be treated like every other news anchor and every other journalist that practices this way? This is a management issue as much as it's about Brian Williams.

CAMEROTA: Peter, very quickly, what are your contacts on the SEAL team or even in the military, what do they want to see happen?

BERGEN: Well, I don't think they want to see anything happen. Their basic view was this all seems highly improbable, there's nothing to look into because it ain't true.

CAMEROTA: Brian, let's move and talk to someone who we lost this morning. We found out, David Carr, "New York Times" media reporter. It's been a bad week for journalism. I mean, first, Brian Williams' fall from grace, Bob Simon's death, now David Carr with whom you were very close.

Tell us about this.

STELTER: I was. He treated me like a son and I looked up to him like a father. He was really the father figure for me for the past number of years. Even when I was ready to propose to my wife, he gave me advice. We just saw him on Wednesday night, he was at CNN taping with Anderson Cooper. Gave me a big bear hug.

Now I think back to that as the last moment I saw him. None of us had a chance to really say goodbye, because this was so sudden, he collapsed in the newsroom. But he will be remembered as the giant that he is. He helped explain the media revolution to readers and to us, to journalists in the industry.

That's why it's such a profound loss for journalism. It is because he was helping us all understand the changes in this industry. Even media moguls who he had on speed dial who he knew by first name relied on him to understand what was changing, and on a very personal level, he was so generous, so thoughtful and so wise. It is a loss that honestly I'm still stunned by.

CAMEROTA: It's a sad week.

STELTER: It is.

CAMEROTA: Brian Stelter, Peter Bergen, thanks so much for both being on.

STELTER: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Well, a Supreme Court justice admitting she was not sober as a judge during President Obama's State of the Union speech last month. She'll explain why she was dozing there.

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