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Terror group Al-Shabaab Attacks a University in Kenya; Al Qaeda Figures Break Out of Jail in Yemen; Battle Over Religious Freedom & Gay Rights. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired April 02, 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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[08:00:10] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mass gunmen storming a university in Kenya.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Smoke coming out of a certain area in the university close to the dormitories.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In Yemen Al Qaeda militants storming a prison.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Releasing a senior Al Qaeda figure.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nuclear talks with Iran extending into double overtime.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Each side blaming the other for the obstacles in the talk.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are obviously problems.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are Arkansas.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've asked that the leaders of the general assembly to recall the bill.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whether you'll agree or disagree on gay rights, these laws are not the same old same old.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think there would be a place for criminal sanctions against homosexual behavior.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He just started kissing all over me, my chest.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you actually have sex with any of these women?

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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's Thursday, April 2nd, 8:00 in the east. And we have two stories breaking right now. Gunmen with the terror group Al-Shabaab storming a university in Kenya. Explosions, heavy gunfire breaking out, at least 15 dead, dozens wounded. Those numbers are still very early. We do know this -- hundreds of students still unaccounted for. Word of a hostage situation unfolding right now. This dormitory that you're looking at, that's where the terrorists are reportedly holding captives, that picture taken by local journalists on the ground.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: And in Yemen Al Qaeda fighters storming a prison, releasing hundreds of inmates, among them a senior Al Qaeda figure held for years. Yemen spiraling into absolute chaos. We have these stories covered the way only CNN can. Let's begin with our Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr live for us in Washington. What do we know at this hour, Barbara?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. The U.S. watching the situation unfold in Kenya very carefully, very cautiously. This is still an ongoing terrorist attack, as you say. Hundreds of these students perhaps still unaccounted for, as many as 15 potentially dead. This is a hostage situation, gunshots still ringing out. Al Shabaab gunmen attacking this university in southern Kenya earlier this morning.

Now the Al-Shabaab claiming credit for this attack is a group that the U.S. has been watching for years. Their stronghold is in Somalia. They have staged any number of raids and attacks across the Kenya border. In 2013, of course, they claimed responsibility for the attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya. This is a group that has also vowed to attack U.S. shopping malls in February of this year. Just a few weeks ago, they released a video claiming that they were planning to attack U.S. and European shopping malls, sparking a good deal of concern in particular about the mall of the Americas in Minnesota.

One reason Al-Shabaab is of such concern to the U.S. intelligence community, they are able to recruit American Somalis to join their cause. They have had some success in doing that in the past. And there is a good deal of concern that the group is also trying to work on the Internet, work on social media to not just recruit those people but to potentially also stage so-called loan wolf attacks in the United States against soft targets. And that is what we are seeing in Kenya this morning, soft targets like universities, like shopping malls that could never be fully protected, that are really in the cross hairs of groups like Al-Shabaab. That is why the U.S. is watching them so carefully.

And it's worth pointing out in recent months the U.S. military, including Navy SEALs, have staged a number of raids into Somalia to try and kill top Al-Shabaab leaders. This morning we are seeing the group still very much alive. Alisyn, Chris?

CUOMO: Barbara, easy to get across the border there, too, and stage attacks as well. That's what's going on right now. Barbara, thank you for the latest.

Let's get to the other breaking story, proof that Yemen is a free-for- all for bad guys. Al Qaeda just sprung hundreds of their brothers out of a jail. CNN's Becky Anderson has the latest from Abu Dhabi. Becky, what do we know?

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As many as 300 prisoners, Chris, many with links to Al Qaeda as you rightly point out have escaped from a jail in a place called Mukalla which is a city 300 miles of the coast city of Aden. Now senior security officials are telling us that dozens of attackers, amongst them Muslim Islamists, stormed the jail releasing one man particularly who is a senior Al Qaeda figure who we believe had been held for more than four years. And he's thought to be among Al Qaeda's top regional commanders and reportedly had a leading role in a battle with Yemeni government troops back in 2011- 2012.

[08:05:04] At that point large amounts of territory were seized in the south and the east. Now obviously this is going to complicate things for the Saudi led coalition that have been making advances against the enemy, as it were, the Iran backed Shia Houthi militia in the south. This jailbreak by Al Qaeda elements overnight is clearly going to ratch up concerns that extremists are taking advantage of this lawlessness, this chaos and confusion on the ground in a country who, let's remember, has a legitimate government who has expanded. The president now sits in Riyadh. Remember, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claiming responsibility most recently for the "Charlie Hebdo" attack in Paris. And ISIS also purportedly emerging in recent weeks in the country. So big concern about what is going on at present in Yemen.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely, Becky. Thank you so much for all of that.

Let's break down all of this breaking news with our CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour. Christiane, nice to see you this morning. Let's talk about what's unfolding right now in Kenya. As we speak we believe there are possibly hundreds of students at this Kenyan university still unaccounted form possibly being held hostage by, I should say, Al-Shabaab. These are Africa students, many Muslim. What on earth is Al-Shabaab trying to accomplish with this attack?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it does have this horrible Boko Haram ring about it, doesn't it, going after schools just as Boko Haram does in northern Nigeria, soft targets, as Barbara said. But you know, I've just been talking and listening to the experts, and what's happening is that Al-Shabaab is trying to do as many spectacular attacks on these soft targets as possible to get the maximum amount of international coverage, and they've been doing that relentlessly, especially as we remember the Westgate mall.

They now, according to the experts, have made a new claim. Before it was we're going after Kenya because Kenya has put troops in to try to stabilize Somalia. But now they're saying when they claimed responsibility today that actually that part of Kenya that they attacked today is actually part of Somalia occupied by Kenyan troops. Of course this is nonsense, but you see they are sort of morphing reasoning. But they really want is to cause as much instability as possible.

Now, Al Shabaab has not affiliated itself with ISIS, so it's not necessarily formally morphed into ISIS yet, just trying to create as much mayhem as possible in east Africa there.

CAMEROTA: You make such a great point because Al-Shabaab is notorious for having done that 2013 mall attack in Nairobi. They've threatened mall attacks here in the United States. And it's what you say, they're going for these sort of high profile soft targets with a big emotional impact.

AMANPOUR: Exactly. The president of Kenya, President Kenyatta, is due to address the nation and we will find out what he has to say about this and how they're going to try to fight this. It is really difficult. You know, some of Al-Shabaab in that area, they're not just Somalis who have come across the border. They are Kenyans also who belong to Al-Shabaab. So the effort has to be to try to divorce any Kenyan input into Al-Shabaab, and that's the challenge for the Kenyan government, and also almost an impossible challenge to try to secure that very, very long and porous border there.

CAMEROTA: Here in the U.S. we've been so focused for the past months on ISIS and the danger of ISIS and just how brutal they are. How dangerous is Al-Shabaab particularly to the U.S.? What kind of resources do they have?

AMANPOUR: Well, as you heard Barbara say, they threatened to attack American malls, too. And any number of terrorist groups can have sleeper cells in any number of places. But they're most threatening to that particular east African region at the moment. You know, you go all the way over to Yemen and you see a little ISIS, a lot of Al Qaeda, and the practical collapse of Yemen right now into a failed state. You know, all of these places so close to each other that are failing, failing, failing, including Libya, Syria. Iraq is getting a little bit better one sort of liberated town at a time. But it's a huge confluence of this vacuum that is being filled by the most extreme of the extremists, and that's very scary.

In Yemen everybody is talking about Saudi pushing back the Houthis. Well, you know, several days and weeks of bombing have not managed to push the Houthis back. There are reports that some ground forces or some kind of expeditionary forces may have landed in the south of Yemen. We don't exactly know who it is. Is it the spearhead of a Saudi invasion force? We just don't know right now. But it's not working yet. They haven't managed to push the Houthis back.

CAMEROTA: You make such a good point, because let's talk about the breaking news, this developing story out of Yemen this morning -- 270 prisoners, many linked to Al Qaeda, have been turned loose in Yemen by we believe Al Qaeda terrorists. It does feel as though Yemen is completely unraveling in these past weeks.

[08:10:12] AMANPOUR: Well, it actually is completely unraveling. The U.N. special envoy says that. It's not just on the brink of civil war. I mean, it is in civil war, but it's on the brick of total collapse and failure. And you have to remember from American point of view and an American perspective, Yemen was the place where CIA director John Brennan and President Obama and the government has put so much time and effort in their counterterrorism strategy in Yemen. And this, you know, in a few short months, really since September, has totally unraveled to the point that you have Al Qaeda being able to stage what it did just now.

But of course Al Qaeda would take any opportunity of chaos to do it. Maybe it's not surprising that in the chaos of what's going on right now, particularly in that region they managed to make this jail break. These have happened in the past, these kinds of jail breaks. Sometimes they've managed to rein these people back in. But right now there's very little organization on the ground in Yemen to push Al Qaeda back or to push the Houthis back. Very difficult to see where this is headed right now.

CAMEROTA: Christiane, always helpful to have you give us context. Thanks so much for coming on. Let's get over to Michaela.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Alisyn, back here at home religious freedom laws are getting makeovers in two states. In Arkansas the government is ordering lawmakers to rework a bill he vowed to sign after it already passed the House. In Indiana, new language for a religious freedom bill will be debated by lawmakers in just about an hour's time.

The changes are designed to silence critics who claim the law paves the way for businesses to discriminate against gays. CNN's Miguel Marquez is live in Indianapolis where the NCAA is having a big tournament this weekend.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, all of this will be done before tipoff it looks like. Republican lawmakers here say that they have a deal at hand. At 9:00 they will hold a press conference. By 9:30 it will be in committee. Sometime thereafter in both Houses and possibly by tonight on the governor's desk. It will make no one happy. It sounds like from the "Indianapolis Star" they've inserted language in this new Bill that would recognize the rights based on sexual orientation across the state in this bill. That will not make the conservative backers of this bill happy because the religious businesses here wanted -- were concerned about having to perform services for gay marriages.

That said, Arkansas watching what's happening here in Indianapolis. Business community really reacting vociferously to these bills, both in Arkansas and here in Indianapolis. The governor there not just backtracking but doing a backflip saying he would sign this thing if it got to his desk. Once it did he sent it back to the House and Senate there and asked them to rework it and make it more along the lines of what federal law. And that's what they seem to be doing. Among others, the governor Asa Hutchinson in Arkansas, his own son. Chris?

CUOMO: It's interesting, Miguel, if they put him to the law not to discriminate against the LGBT of the community, then what will the purpose of the law be? That will be a very interesting dynamic. Miguel, thank you very much. We'll check back with you.

In other news, Iran's foreign minister saying significant progress has been made during a break, although there's nothing to announce yet. Meantime, criticism of President Obama is ramping up for refusing to walk away from the talks after not one but two deadlines that went by without a deal.

CAMEROTA: New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez set to appear in federal court in Newark this morning after his indictment on corruption charges. He's accused of taking nearly $1 million in gifts and campaign contributions in exchange for political favors. Menendez insists he did nothing wrong and he's ready for a fight. The senator accusing prosecutors of not knowing the difference between friendship and corruption.

PEREIRA: Dramatic video to show you from police dash and body cameras as officers risk their lives chasing a tornado. Newly released footage is from a twister that touched down in south Oklahoma City and Moore, Oklahoma, last week. You can see officers helping victims from a car wreck, officers also scrambling to check on people in a damaged home, including one that had its roof blown off. A sergeant even kicking in a door to make sure people were OK, do a safety check there. Fortunately no one inside was injured.

CUOMO: Their job, to run toward danger when the rest of us are running away.

CAMEROTA: They do god's work. That's more visual evidence of it.

CUOMO: Especially there, Moore, Oklahoma. Boy, did they get hit.

All right, so there's a lot of uproar over legislation allowing discrimination against gays potentially. But now Arkansas's governor is refusing on signing it, Indiana is working on changes. So what does this mean? Has the tide turned? Do we need these laws if you're going to water them down into something else? We have a supporter of Indiana's controversial law. He'll make his case.

[08:15:00] CAMEROTA: Also, we have a NEW DAY exclusive. The man behind Bikram Yoga, he's defending explosive sex assault charges.

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[08:15:03] CAMEROTA: There are six women, three Jane Does, three who have used their names. Five of them say that you raped them. One says sexual assault. Did you actually have sex with any of these women?

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CAMEROTA: How he answers that question and many others might surprise, even shock you. That's coming up.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JENNIFER WILLIAMS, FLOWERE SHOP EMPLOYEE: You can still love someone, even though you don't serve them.

MELISSA JEFFCOAT, FLOWER SHOP EMPLOYEE: I would respectfully tell them that I'm sorry, that I just don't want to do it because of my beliefs.

CARLTON JEFFCOAT, SON OF FLOWER SHOP EMPLOYEE: I serve a God that's higher than any Supreme Court judge. He's called the judge of the universe. I don't care what anybody else says.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: The battle continues in this clash of culture and the Constitution. You are just seeing some business owners in Georgia where a religious freedom bill is under consideration saying they would refuse to serve the LGBT community.

Now, back in Indiana, the controversial religious freedom law is being clarified to ensure it can't be used to discriminate against LGBT folks.

[08:20:02] And in Arkansas, the governor says he won't sign a bill until it is fixed we believe in similar fashion.

Now, this is not going according to plan for supporters of these RFRA laws, like senior fellow for policy studies at the Family Research Council, Mr. Peter Sprigg. He joins us now to make the case.

Mr. Sprigg, you don't like these fixes. Why?

PETER SPRIGG, SENIOR FELLOW, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL: Well, I don't think there was anything wrong with these bills as they were originally passed because they simply create -- there's been tremendous misinformation about what they represent. The impression is being given that these bills represent a get out-of-jail-free card for people who want to discriminate against homosexuals, and that is simply false.

Let me remind everyone, the bills contain no language respecting discrimination laws, no language regarding sexual orientation. They simply pursuant to the First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion, create a standard of review for deciding cases in which a person asserts that a government action is infringing on their free exercise of religion.

They don't decide -- RFRA doesn't decide how that case will be decided, how it will come out. It doesn't guarantee the religious person will win. It only says these are the steps that a court needs to do and what they need to look at.

CUOMO: What would happen if you didn't have the law? Would the standard of review be any different at trial?

SPRIGG: The reason why RFRA was first created at the federal level in 1993 was because the Supreme Court issued a decision which reversed earlier precedent. The earlier precedent had been that infringements upon the free exercise of religion were always subjected to what is called strict scrutiny, meaning that there was a high burden of justification placed on the government if they were going to infringe on someone's free exercise rights. The Supreme Court lowered that standard and so Congress acted to restore it.

The -- but then the Supreme Court ruled that that federal law did not apply to the states.

CUOMO: Right.

SPRIGG: So, that's why they began doing it at the state level.

CUOMO: Now, we want to address misinformation on both sides. The laws as they are currently iterated in Indiana and Arkansas are not focused on what that '93 law was. That '93 law was to protect a discrete religious minority, like Native Americans, doing something that isn't central to their faith but is important to them and may be missed by the rest of society, in that case Native Americans using peyote.

That is not what these laws are. This is about empowering businesses which are not a minority group and giving them a legal basis to defend judgments against others, and that's the obvious concern which is why there's so much backlash. It's not the same as the '93 law. I think you know that.

SPRIGG: The standard of review is exactly the same as the '93 law. The person in order to assert a claim has to demonstrate that there's a substantial burden upon their free exercise. If and only if they are able to demonstrate that, then the burden of proof shifts to the government --

CUOMO: Burden or likely burden.

(CROSSTALK)

SPRIGG: -- compelling government interest being served by the least restrictive means. The standard is the same.

Now, some people --

CUOMO: Burden or likely burden. Likely burden you added to these, which means there is no burden yet, but I think there would be a burden, likely burden.

You know the law, right? That's different. Not just that you've been burdened because you did it, but I'm not going to do it because I think I would be burdened, right?

SPRIGG: Look, when there are conflicts, there's all these scenarios that have been raised about these horrible things that might result if we just allow religious freedom to run wild, but that's not what this bill does. What the bill does is to provide a way of adjudicating those disputes. It's simple. How will we prevent these horrible things from happening, that people

have hypothesized? By demonstrating that there's a compelling government interest, which is being accomplished by the least restrictive means.

CUOMO: But why give a basis for people to discriminate? Why allow it in a society where you're trying to move toward tolerance? Why as a reverend during Easter week would you be pushing Christianity as a process of e exclusion and not inclusion?

SPRIGG: These are not intended to give a basis for discrimination. They are intended to give a basis for adjudicating religious free exercise claims. And they do not guarantee that religion will always win. That's all they are about.

CUOMO: Understood that that's what you think they're about, I get it.

But why do you see the exercise of religion, right? That's a term of art. That means something, OK? That's not just I think this, that means I do this.

SPRIGG: Exactly.

CUOMO: What does it inhibit in your exercise of your Christianity to say these people are gay and they're getting married and I have a business that serves that proposition, I bake a cake? How is that inhibiting your exercise of your religion?

[8:25:00] SPRIGG: OK. It inhibits the exercise of religion because it is forcing somebody to do something that violates their personal conscience. If somebody has a religious belief that marriage is by definition the union of one man and one woman and cannot be in God's eyes the union of two men or two women, then it violates their religious belief and their free exercise of religion to force them not only to participate in a ceremony that they don't support but to express a message of support and celebration using their artistic gifts in support of something.

It's not only a freedom of religion issue, it's also a freedom of speech issue or a compelled speech issue in this case.

CUOMO: But we don't hear this being extended. I'm not going to take any role in this second marriage when this guy cheated on his wife. I'm against adultery. It's one of the commandments. We don't hear that.

Hey, this guy, he lies a lot. I'm not going to have anything to do with his marriage and he can't make me because he's a liar and my Christianity says lying is wrong.

No, always gays. And it is no coincidence that it comes from you because you're not about protecting a religious minority. You are about trying to stop the progress of the LGBT community. Please tell me that that is true.

SPRIGG: No, that's not true. This bill is about religious freedom for everybody. It is intended to protect liberal religious views and conservative religious views. It protects minority religions and majority religions.

It protects people that you agree with and people that you disagree with. If it doesn't protect everybody, it's not freedom.

CUOMO: But here's the problem with your proposition -- that we keep talking about Christians because the Christians are coming out saying that they don't like that this bill is being fought, right? Yes, it may protect all religions but we're only hearing from you guys.

When you say it has nothing to do with the LGBT community, that's what you're best known for, saying that homosexuality is destructive to society. That it should be criminal behavior. That's how you feel about gays.

And this is your attempt to insulate yourself from the movement in the country towards gay marriage and LGBT acceptance. Why not just say that's what this is, because we're against that movement, I've said it a thousand different ways and I want to protect my people as best I can? Why not be honest?

SPRIGG: Look, because that's not the issue we're discussing right now in respect to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

CUOMO: That's your motivation. That's your motivation. And you say misinformation about the perception of the law. Your whole reason for being involved you're hiding from.

SPRIGG: Well, I do not believe that the movement in favor of same-sex marriage should enlist a strong arm of the government to punish people who sincerely -- who sincerely disagree with that.

This law is to protect everybody. It protects people who oppose same- sex marriage. It would protect people who support same sex marriage. It would protect a baker --

CUOMO: You wouldn't need it if you supported same-sex marriage.

SPRIGG: It would protect a baker who refused to bake a cake that had Scripture versus against homosexuality written upon it. I think that baker should not be forced to do something which violates his conscience and the conservative Christian baker should not be forced to do something which violates her conscience.

CUOMO: All right. Mr. Sprigg, I appreciate it. This is a debate. I look forward to calling on you on the future. Thanks for being on NEW DAY. Have a good Easter, sir.

Michaela?

SPRIGG: Thank you.

PEREIRA: All right. Another debate of a different sort. All sides are back at the table talking about a nuclear deal with Iran. But is a deal a good idea while Tehran supports terror and anti-American rhetoric in the Middle East? We're going to discuss it all with someone who knows.

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