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New Day

Boko Haram Swears Allegiance to ISIS; Military Situation in Iraq Assessed; White Policeman Shoots Unarmed Biracial Man in Wisconsin; Racist Chants by Oklahoma Fraternity; What is the State of Race Relations in America?

Aired March 09, 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 FEMALE: It appears that the leader of Boko Haram is pledging his support to the head of ISIS.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What you see behind me of course is oil fires that have been set by ISIS.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the most overt conduct of Iranian support.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (CHANTING)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Chapter members joining in a racist chant.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This battle between the best in America and the worst in America and the best of America goes on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do we want?

CROWD: Justice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When do we want it?

CROWD: Now.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My son has never been a violent person.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I could hear it right through there. He was unarmed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was a small baby in the back seat.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Suspended in her car seat more than 12 hours.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just ran up and climbed in the ambulance with the child.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota, and Michaela Pereira. ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everyone. The Nigerian terror group Boko Haram swearing allegiance to ISIS. What does this mean for the war against terror? Let's get right to CNN's senior international correspondent Arwa Damon live in Istanbul for us. I think it's Ben Wedeman. Let's go to Ben Wedeman. Ben, what's the latest?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We're about 1 mile to the east of Tikrit. Just about an hour or so ago here there were a lot of troops. They were firing rockets in the direction of Tikrit. But what we saw was the entire force has moved forward. The goal today is to retake the town of al-Alam that's just on the outskirts of Tikrit. And with the taking of al-Alam they believe that they will now have Tikrit completely surrounded. And it's just a matter of days, the commanders here tell us, before they can retake the city.

While we were here, we had the opportunity to talk to Hadi Al-Amiri. He's the head of the Badr organization. And he said, yes, there's no -- we're hiding nothing, that we have help from Iran in the form of advisors and some leadership on the ground providing guidance. But he insisted, he stressed that this is purely an Iraqi operation, that they're receiving assistance from the Iranians but it's being fought and led by the Iraqis.

And he also had some harsh words for the United States, saying that their assistance has not amounted to what people were hoping for. And he said at this point the Iraqis, with a little help from their friends, can retake not just Tikrit, Mosul but the rest of Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: All right Ben Wedeman, thank you very much. That is our top story this Monday just at 8:00 in the east. And related to that, the terror group Boko Haram swearing allegiance to ISIS. Now, what does that mean in the war against terror. Let's get to CNN's senior international correspondent Arwa Damon live in Istanbul, Turkey. What do we know?

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, we were actually in Chad not too long ago attending a special forces exercise in training up African special forces. And amongst the American commanders and leaders we were able to talk to, a concern that Boko Haram would be pledging allegiance to ISIS was at the foremost of many conversations.

Now, when it comes to Boko Haram, this was certainly at this junction serves to help the terror organization bolster its own credibility. The U.S. has also been heavily focused on encouraging the African countries that make up the Lake Chad Basin to come together in an alliance themselves to combat Boko Haram. We have been seeing this taking place with Chad launching numerous operations into Nigerian, and most recently Chadian and Nigerian troops launching an offensive over the weekend into northeastern Nigeria as well.

Boko Haram has suffered some setbacks. The group does need to reestablish its credentials and reestablish its credibility. ISIS benefits from this as well. It now with the support of Boko Haram can claim credit for attacks carried out by Boko Haram and also helps to expand its own footprint into the a African continent.

When it comes to what this means for security for Europe and the United States, while commanders were telling us and have been telling us nothing happens in a vacuum anymore, terror knows no boundaries, and therefore threats posed by terrorist organizations in the Middle East and in Africa do have the very real potential to pose an even bigger threat to Europe and the United States, Chris.

CUOMO: Arwa, thank you very much. Let's figure out what this means and do some analysis. CNN military analyst Major General James "Spider" Marks and CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank. Paul, the big threat is this, the fear is oh, look, they're linking up one group after another, next will be Al Qaeda, then AQAP. Then we are taking on a massive enemy. Is that far-fetched? Is that what this means, Boko Haram?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: It's certainly concerning that Boko Haram, this group in Nigeria and ISIS which is in Syria and Iraq are linking up now and there's going to be a merger between these two groups.

But it's not like ISIS is going to be in command and control of Boko Haram. They're a long, long way away and there's not too much mixing between operatives between these two groups. But concerning nevertheless, because this gives ISIS more options for going after U.S. interests in the region in west Africa.

CUOMO: We do know that the main fear is still the lone wolf when you're thinking about U.S. security interests in this. But do you believe that there will be a significant linking of groups? Is this the path to the future? The pushback would be that there's supposedly racism that's involved between the Arab terrorists and African terrorists, perversely enough, that they don't really see them as equals. What do you think?

CRUICKSHANK: That's exactly right. There's been a reluctance for ISIS to create this merger. Boko Haram has been courting ISIS for months, putting out videos and praise about al Baghdadi. Finally ISIS allowed them in the fold. I think they want to create to create a sense of momentum. Obviously that momentum has stalled to some degree in Syria in Iraq. But ISIS does have chapters now in Egypt, a very powerful group there, and also in Libya, which is really the most worrying front now. ISIS is expanding at an alarming rate in Libya right on the southern shore of the Mediterranean, very close to Europe, a growing threat to Europe.

CUOMO: So, General, what we see is this coalescing of those with similar grievances and bad intentions. That in part is part of the calculus of what's going on in this major battle for Tikrit right now, right, not just taking back that land from ISIS but how you govern it after you take it back so as not make the problem worse, right?

MAJOR GENERAL JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Chris, absolutely. The issue truly is what happens after Tikrit has been reclaimed by the ISF, the Iraqi Security Forces? It's not dissimilar from the strategy that the United States tried to put in place in Iraq several years ago, which was clear, hold, and then build. And the real issue became not just the clearing part, the kinetic, the military effort to try to reclaim some land, but to hold on to it, resist temptations from others, attacks from others, but then be able to establish some form of governance that was lasting and that the locals, the moderate Arabs could cling onto and see as an alternative to what's in place right now.

CUOMO: You have been saying this from the beginning, that the military aspect is some ways is the easy part. But we have Dempsey now on the ground. The word is that's why he's there, to encourage the Iraqi government and other leaders to not remote the mistakes of the past, because ISIS is largely Ba'athists, Saddam's old Sunni buddies, and the Sunni who feel disenfranchised. What is the chance they can do it better this time?

MARKS: Well, there are very few indicators right now that the outcome might be dissimilar. The fact that General Dempsey is there right now, absolutely Chris has more to do with after the kinetic, after the military operation in Tikrit. Marty Dempsey has plenty of excellence in commanders on the ground and eyes on the ground in order to establish what is a good military operation in the vicinity of Tikrit.

And also bear in mind, it is Tikrit, it's Mosul, it's the rest of northern Iraq, and then as it spreads over into northern Syria. So it really is about governance and it is about government to government type relations, which makes it so sticky right now because of Tehran's involvement in this fight quite visibly and quite, frankly, a very strong alternative to what the United States is putting in place right now.

CUOMO: And the concern there is not that it's simply just Iran, which is scary enough from the U.S. interests perspective, but that they are known for doing ethnic cleansing in the name of helping liberate situations. And that's the concern going in there. Is it a fair one?

CRUICKSHANK: A lot of concern because you have got a Shia dominated army going in and Shia militia going with the allegations of massacres recently, and some of the Sunnis living in Tikrit are going to see this presumably as some kind of foreign invasion into the Sunni heartland. So if they're heavy-handed this could really drive the Sunnis in Iraq into ISIS's hands even more and really complicate efforts to go after Mosul.

CUOMO: This is something that doesn't really get spoken a lot about partly because it's a little complicated, right, which Sunni, Shia, what do I know, what do I not know. But the bottom line is, General, that's how we got here. ISIS is largely an amalgam of these aggrieved parties growing out of Iraq. That's why people blame the U.S. for how the conducted affairs there. I don't know what we're doing to avoid that. And now with Iran in there as a major player, it really seems like we're setting ourselves for a blast from the past.

MARKS: Unfortunately you reap what you sew. The United States left Iraq in 2011 without an adhesive glue in the form of U.S. forces that could continue to train Iraqi forces and continue to build the readiness of Iraqi force and assess where they were and have an open kind of transparent dialogue in terms of what the next steps needed to be. So we are where we are right now. And this is really a toxic mix.

The Iranian Shia influence is significant because it is actually a military capability. It's more than just Shia militia. This is a significant capability on the ground and it has significance in terms of its tactical application. But we see it from a strategic perspective, and what Iraq wants right now is a little bit time and space. We have not been able to achieve that now and they're not stepping up significantly to get it done.

CUOMO: Ben Wedeman is reporting thus far the Iranian element has been seen as advisory and providing equipment, that they're not in there in duking it out so to speak. But it doesn't matter to the people in Tikrit or those in Mosul. It's that they're there and you are going to have to build consensus on the ground no matter what happens militarily. General Marks, as always, thank you very much. Paul Cruickshank, thank you.

MARKS: Thank you, Chris.

CUOMO: Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Chris, a Russian court charging two men in connection with last month's murder of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov. Three other suspects also in custody and a sixth man blew himself up as Russian police moved in to make an arrest. CNN's Matthew Chance is live for us in Moscow with all the latest. What do know this hour, Matthew.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Alisyn. It's been a matter of pretty dramatic developments when it comes to this investigation into the killing of Boris Nemtsov, one of Russia's most prominent opposition figures. Five people are now in custody. Four of them are protesting their innocence to the court where they appeared in Moscow yesterday, but one of them according to the judge there has confessed. He's been named as Zaur Dadayev. He's an ethnic Chechen from the Chechen capital of Grozny.

There was another suspects, the sixth that you mentioned there, he died as police tried to arrest him. He threw a hand grenade at the police as they surrounded his building in Grozny in Chechnya. He then detonated another hand grenade that killed him. And so we don't know what secrets he may take to the grave about the killing of Boris Nemtsov.

On the face of it, it seems that some progress has been made. These individuals have been for the most part charged with not just carrying out the killing but planning it as well. And so there's some significant progress been made officially. Critics beg to differ. There's a lot of skepticism amongst opposition figures here that this is merely a cover-up, an attempt to try and put some distance between the Kremlin and the killing of Boris Nemtsov. Back to you, Michaela. MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: It's always interesting to see how those investigations proceed. Thank you so much for that, Matthew.

Back here at home, anger, frustration, and grief in Madison, Wisconsin, after a white police officer shot and killed an unarmed biracial teenager. His name was Tony Robinson. Protesters taking to the streets, and they are demanding answers. Rosa Flores is live in Madison, Wisconsin, and she joins us now.

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ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Charged protesters unloading anger and frustration at police officers guarding this Madison, Wisconsin, house turned crime scene. This is where unarmed 19-year-old Tony Robinson was shot and killed by Mrs. Friday. No one is allowed inside except for Kathleen Bufton. She lives a thin wall away from where the gunshots rang out.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right here near the kitchen.

FLORES: Bufton says she was in the kitchen when she heard a scuffle next door, then pounding on the door, she says.

Was that the police?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. He forced the door open.

FLORES: What she didn't know, according to police, is that there were multiple calls in to dispatch regarding Robinson including an alleged battery accident.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Looking for a male black, light skinned, tan jacket, confused, outside yelling at cars.

FLORES: Police say Officer Matt Kenny responded, heard a commotion inside the home and forced his way in and then gunfire.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You could really hear it. I mean, right here. Nothing went through.

FLORES: Police say Robinson attacked, Kenny, provoking the officer to use deadly force. But Bufton has her doubts.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I wonder if it was a white person if he wouldn't have gotten shot, even gotten tased.

FLORES: Her thoughts echoed by Robinson's family.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I think the cop shot him because he was afraid of him.

FLORES: This is not the first time the 45-year-old officer used deadly force. Officer Kenny was exonerated for an incident that took place eight years ago. The police chief says he's working to regain trust.

MIKE KOVAL, POLICE CHIEF: We need to start as any reconciliation would with an "I'm sorry."

FLORES: But hundreds gathered throughout the weekend demanding more than apologies.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FLORES: And Officer Kenny, 45-years-old, a 12 year veteran of that department, and he's on paid administrative leave. Chris?

CUOMO: All right, Rosa, thank you very much. So while Madison is a reminder of current racial tensions, thousands of people marched in Selma, Alabama, to mark the past, the 50th anniversary of bloody Sunday. Legendary figures of the civil rights struggle joining President Obama and former President George W. Bush in a separate march across the infamous Edmund Pettus Bridge on Saturday. The brutal 1965 police assault on civil rights activists, that gave birth to the idea of Bloody Sunday spurred the passage of the Voting Rights Act.

CAMEROTA: Two female tourists from California may have to face a judge in Italy. They got caught carving their initials into the wall of the Coliseum in Rome. The women, age 21 and 25, scratched the letters J and N on the iconic landmark, then proudly took selfies to show off their handiwork. Police caught them in the act. The last tourist who defaced the Coliseum was a Russian man; he was fined $25,000.

PEREIRA: Ouch.

A bit drama on the dog show circuit. The owners of a 3-year-old Irish setter who died a day after taking part in a prestigious event in England claim that their dog was poisoned by a jealous rival. The Irish setter named Jagger took second prize at the Crufts Dog Show before he collapsed and died. Pieces of tainted meat were found in his system. The results of a toxicology tests are expected today as part of this ongoing investigation.

CUOMO: What is that about? For a dog show?

CAMEROTA: I mean, those are taken very seriously.

PEREIRA: They are.

CAMEROTA: Not usually not to this level. We'll see what happens with that.

Well, college students in Oklahoma videotaping themselves singing a racist chant. What are other students at the school saying about this video?

CUOMO: If nothing else, the video is proof that, while race relations have come a long way in the United States, there's still a ways to go. You combine it with Ferguson and Wisconsin, whether it's facts or perception, the question is where are we today on this issue that matters so much? Lively debate ahead.

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PEREIRA: What are the state of race relations in America right now? On the very weekend where a commemoration was held 50 years after Selma and bloody Sunday, an unarmed biracial teenager was shot and killed by police in Wisconsin. This morning, a fraternity in Oklahoma finds itself suspended a repulsive video shows some of the students singing racist chants.

So how far have we come? Joining us now, CNN political commentator and op-ed columnist for "The New York Times", Charles Blow. And CNN political commentator, Van Jones. Both of you were there; both of you were in Selma, got to walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, which I know for both of you, as African-American men, was significant. And Charles, you wrote about that. And one of the things I found very interesting was the president making a very moving speech and mentioning that, most importantly, if Selma taught us anything, that our work is never done. And you repeated that in your op-ed.

CHARLES BLOW, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Right. I think we want there to be a terminus, we want there to be an end to the striving, that there is a goal that is reachable and we can get there. I think that the truth is, is that that last stretch of the marathon is a very long stretch. And I think that's part of the frustration, is that there is a perpetual incompletion to that last part.

And what we're seeing now is people having discussions about implicit bias and things that are -- and structural inequality, things that are very hard to get rid of because they're really hard to get -- it's like grasping at sand. It's hard to get your hands around it. And so it's much harder to get rid of. When things are codified, when it is written into the law, that you cannot do something or another, then it is very clear as to what the goal is, is to change that particular wording.

CUOMO: The president was talking about that as well. It's interesting. And most of the take on what the president's speech had been about is that we got a lot of work left to do.

And, Van, let me bring you in on this. But he also said it is no longer endemic, to Charles' point, it is no longer acceptable to have the kind of overt racism that we did have. And often it just becomes about perspective. If you say, hey, we're doing much better, sometimes it sounds like, well, you don't care enough. But don't we have to recognize the progress as well as the potential problems?

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I thought the speech was brilliant, because it struck that balance. He said, listen, anybody who says we haven't made the progress is essentially denying the achievement of our parents and our grandparents and our great- grandparents. We have come a long way.

I thought what the president did was he took this idea of patriotism, which for some people -- you talked about some of these students who don't even like the American flag, which is just ridiculous, but you have people who go that far. They think patriotism can only be jingoism or xenophobia. And he said, no, no, patriotism means all Americans. And he drew this picture that included literally every kind of American -- lesbians and gay, women, African-Americans, et cetera. And he really, I think, gave a love letter to the next generation of America that's trying to figure out how do we find our way forward?

There is a way to think of America that is inclusive, where everyone gets to have a part. And yet he also, I thought, did a great part of pointing out how far we have to go. And he talked about specific policy issues. He was very specific. He talked about attacks on the voting rights of Americans and the need to restore the bill that those people were beaten for. And he talked about criminal justice reform.

Now, you have Republicans and Democrats beginning to agree, finally. We are putting way too many people in prison because they're either poor or maybe the color of their skin or they're mentally ill, and then we need to be doing better. And for young people of color, this idea of a new Jim Crow, which is Michelle Alexander's book, "A New Jim Crow", has to be taken on.

And I just want to say one last thing about these fraternity boys. When they say there will never be an N-word from my fraternity, but you can hang them from a tree, they'll never be a pledge from me -- that shows that there's, even as this young generation comes on, there is some toxic, toxic stuff ni our culture we've got to deal with.

CAMEROTA: Charles, I want to ask you about that video. Because it is so shocking to see these fraternity boys on this bus singing those sorts of repugnant chants. And it's hard for Americans, I think, to get their arms around where we are with race relations. We have a black president. We have all sorts of accomplishment; we've made all sorts of progress in the past 50 years. But then where have these kids been? How can these kids still be singing this song this weekend?

BLOW: One of the other things that is happening in America is the great sorting. We are basically moving ourselves both educationally and in places that we live into same kinds of groups, in same kinds of neighborhoods and we're sorting ourselves out.

CAMEROTA: Self-selecting.

BLOW: This is self-done. This is not by policy. We are doing it ourselves. And that is causing our kids to, even as they live in a much milder climate than what I grew up in and what my parents grew up in, they don't see each other nearly as much as I might have seen someone who was different from me. That is a real dilemma for us.

CUOMO: You think there's less mixing of different types of people now?

BLOW: Well, you look at -- there was a recent report about segregation in schools. The found schools in New York state are more segregated --

CUOMO: More segregated now? BLOW: -- than any place in the country, and that schools in general

are more segregated than when Brown versus the Board of Education was passed. We're doing the self-sorting thing. We used to -- even though there was incredible segregation, people had a closer proximity to each other. And now, because of our gated communities and price tagged communities and because of growing income inequality, all of that is helping the sorting and it's moving people, even in places in New York City, which prides itself --

PEREIRA: Right.

BLOW: -- on being incredibly diverse. But if you walk into neighborhoods, they are not diverse at all.

PEREIRA: But then, you know, I think we have this idea that these millennials have a different attitude about race than we do. And I think that's why I found this fraternity video extra chilling. I mean, not just the words and the hate and what was spoken, but the fact that millennials are supposed to have a better attitude about race than we are.

JONES: And to give credit to the other students on campus, they did and they do. The other students came out very aggressively; they said, "We don't like this." The national chapter of that fraternity, SE, came out and said we don't agree with this. So there is this tug- of-war.

I just want to say, having been in Selma, I think for some people they think, well, that's ancient history. I want to be very clear. My mother was born in segregation. Not my great great-grandmother, not my -- my mother. My father was born in segregation. I was born in '68. Dr. King was killed that year.

So this is all very new. People say you have a black president. That is true. But it's really Obama not as president but precedent of being the first even though we've been here -- I'm a ninth generation American. My family's been here for nine generations. So the fact that you have Barack Obama as president for so much more means that we all, as a country, have a lot of adjusting to do and learning to do.

But Selma, it was a beautiful, beautiful moment on Sunday to wake up this morning with some bad news, I think was sobering. I do agree with Mr. Cuomo. We have made a tremendous amount of progress. Nobody can take that away from us. And yet on specific issues of voting, criminal justice, and racial perception, we still have a long way to go.

CAMEROTA: Charles Blow, Van Jones, thanks so much for the conservation. You got a Mr. Cuomo.

CUOMO: I'll take it.

CAMEROTA: Wow. All right, thanks so much, guys. Great to talk to you.

But we will have more on that Oklahoma fraternity shut down over this racist video and the song. We will speak with a student leader at the school and a major protest happening this morning on campus. How do they feel about it?

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