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Obama Defends Nuclear Deal; One al Shabaab Gunman was Son of Government Official; Hillary Clinton Announcement Imminent?; Manhunt Intensifies for Kenya Attack Mastermind. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired April 06, 2015 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It is a good deal even if Iran doesn't change at all.

[05:58:42] BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: The better deal would roll back Iran's vast nuclear infrastructure.

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D), CALIFORNIA: It can be a very serviceable, classical agreement. And it can signal a new day.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The manhunt intensifying for the alleged mastermind of last week's university terror attack.

BOB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: This is a new ideology. Anything to do with Christianity, they want to efface from the sight of the earth.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Poisoned: A trip to paradise turned nightmare.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's really scary to think that this could happen to somebody that you know.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some basic failures of Journalism 101.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "Rolling Stone" said it had taken Jackie's word and failed to fact check much of her story.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN HOST, "RELIABLE SOURCES": Rolling Stone just did not get it right.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota and Michaela Pereira.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It's Monday, April 6, 6 a.m. in the east.

And first up, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. That's what President Obama calls the preliminary agreement with Iran. But can he convince Congress and Israel? But really Congress, because they have sanction powers. So the question is will nuclear weapons become a political football?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Congress is skeptical, lawmakers pressing for the right to reject any final deal. Some of the president's biggest critics accusing him giving away too much. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling this an historically bad deal.

CNN's Sunlen Serfaty is live at the White House with our top story.

A lot happened over the weekend, Sunlen.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Alisyn. There are critics in Congress trying to kill this deal. There are critics abroad that are trying to kill this deal.

This interview is an attempt by President Obama to try to wrangle that opposition and frame this, in his opinion, as the best bet to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

Now Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, he has launched a full-out, no-holds-barred counteroffensive here, calling members of Congress directly, revealing he's spoken to two-thirds of Congress, he believes, trying to get them to block this deal. He believes that it makes his country less safe.

President Obama pushing back in this "New York Times" interview, saying that it would be the fundamental failure of his presidency if this deal made Israel more vulnerable.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: What I would say to the Israeli people is, however, that there is no formula, there is no option to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon that will be more effective than the diplomatic initiative and framework that we put forward, and that's demonstrable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: And Congress will be back in town next week. They're ready to challenge President Obama on the details of this deal.

Now President Obama indicated some openness to be able to have Congress register their feelings about this deal. But without making it a binding agreement. But Alisyn, many in Congress believe that might not be good enough.

CAMEROTA: Sunlen, thank you so much for all of that background.

CUOMO: A lot of "mights" and "maybes." Let's break down what the real political stakes are here. We've got Richard Socarides, Democratic strategist, was a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton; and Mr. Kevin Madden, Republican political strategist who's worked for Mitt Romney's campaign, among others.

I start with you, Socarides. What is the sell from the president coming to Congress? What's his best bet?

RICHARD SOCARIDES, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I think the best bet is that this is an historic opportunity to change the way we do business with this country. And we have to keep our eye on the big prize that, if the framework results in a binding agreement, which we hope it will, that Iran will agree not to obtain nuclear weapons for a good amount of time. And that is, you know, a game-changer in terms of the security of the whole world.

CAMEROTA: OK. So Kevin, you heard Richard's point.

KEVIN MADDEN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Right.

CAMEROTA: And he's not alone. That we've heard two completely disparate views of this deal. The critics say, like Netanyahu, it is a historically bad deal. The supporters say that this is history- making, and it could sort of reorder the entire relationship, even in the Middle East. Some of our pundits have likened it to Nixon going to China. How do you see it?

MADDEN: Well, I think the big problem is that there a trust deficit up on Capitol Hill between the White House and the members of Congress. The president has to go and really sell this and the merits of the deal. I think many up there worry that this has essentially enshrined Iran's right to enrich, and some of the facilities that were built illegally still remain in place.

So the president, I think one of the big risks that the president took when he announced the deal was that he seemed to throw down the gauntlet, saying that if Congress gets involved, it will scuttle any chance to get this deal. I think that's a mistake, because this Congress has shown every time that the president wants to throw down a gauntlet, they have picked it right up.

Now, he has signaled a bit more, as Sunlen mentioned in her package, he has signaled a bit more of a cooperative approach. It will be interesting to see if, starting this week, and when Congress comes back, that it continues with that approach to go up there and really sell this to a lot of skeptics up on Capitol Hill.

And the skeptics are not just nonpartisan skepticism. There are nine Democrats up there right now that are cosponsors of Bob Corker's bill to make sure that Congress reviews this.

CUOMO: You know what the problem is with Corker's bill, though, is that it's not an alternative plan. It's just about sanctions. Kevin, my point of pushback to you is I'm hearing a lot about emotion, a lot about the politics of it, about how he did it. Is that the right basis to evaluate this deal on how nice he was to you in the process?

MADDEN: No.

CUOMO: Or is it about having a better plan?

MADDEN: No. It is about the substance, I think. Look, that's one of the delicate balances here, Chris, is that the Congress recognizes that the president should have -- be the sole voice of foreign policy around the globe.

But, at the same time, they do have the -- believe that there's a Congressional role when it comes to having these sanctions. And enforcing or ensuring that the American people's national security is protected and that a good deal is gotten instead of just any deal.

CAMEROTA: Richard, about Senator Corker's bill, the legislation that he's trying to pass, do you think that Congress is meddling, or do they have a right to weigh in on the final product here?

SOCARIDES: Well, certainly, Congress has an important role to play in foreign policy, but what we don't want to do is get into the situation where the president makes a deal. Right now we only have a framework, but we're working towards a deal. We don't want the president to make a deal and then have Congress nit-pick it. That kind of thing won't work, and it's never worked in the context of diplomacy.

[06:05:01] But some of the Republicans -- Kevin is -- the position Kevin is articulating, they kind of want to have it both ways, right? I mean, this is only a framework. It's not a final deal.

I would say to Congress and to Kevin and to others who are criticizing this deal now, let's wait and see. Let's see what the final deal looks like. Let's not squander this historic opportunity to make progress and really make the world, the entire globe, a safer place.

CUOMO: A little bit of is you reap what you sow. Right? You isolate Congress; you ostracize them. Now you need them, right? Because they do have sanction power. And you don't have a great relationship. So it is a balance, as Kevin was saying.

But let's listen to what the president has to say, because he's now articulating what his sell is for Congress. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: What I've said to them is we will not only go through all the details of what the current framework is and provide them updates in terms of how the negotiations go going forward, but we are committed to finding a mechanism for appropriate congressional involvement and oversight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: There you go. Kevin, will that assuage Congress's fears? He says we will find a mechanism. We will include them.

MADDEN: It could. I think one of the big worries that folks up on Capitol Hill had is that there were rumors earlier on that the president was going to take this bill to the U.N. before he would take it to Congress. But again, I think that was a very different tone that he took

when he originally announced the framework, and it will be interesting to see if they continue with that. It is going to be a very tough job selling this up on Capitol Hill.

And again, it's not just Republicans. He's going to have to find ways to peel off Democrats up on the Corker bill. And if he doesn't, you know, there could very well be a veto-proof majority up there if they don't really work to make sure that Democrats come to their side.

CUOMO: My wife always says, though, tone matters, Alisyn. And I heard it, because the question for you, the easier question for Kevin, but for you -- how big is this for the president? If this does not go his way, if he has to wind up going to the P5+1 to say, "I can't get it done," how big a test is this?

SOCARIDES: It's not really a question of how big it is for the president but how big it is for us, for all of civilization, for all of humanity.

I mean, the struggle to end nuclear proliferation, the struggle to keep, you know, other powers, especially dangerous places like Iran, from getting nuclear weapons is, you know -- is one of the most important issues of our time.

So if we can't succeed diplomatically here, what are the alternatives? Are we going to war with Iran to try to prevent this? I mean, everybody is against this or say they're against it, they have no alternatives. No one has put forth anything.

So I think you saw -- I'm hopeful because I think you heard in Kevin's last answer a little bit of an opening. I think the president is doing the job he needs to do. I think the talk over the weekend was important. I think he and Congress will come together.

CAMEROTA: OK, Kevin, Richard, thanks so much. Great to see you guys.

MADDEN: Great to be with you.

CAMEROTA: Let's get over to Michaela.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Alright, Alisyn.

The manhunt intensifying this morning for the mastermind of that horrific massacre that claimed 147 lives on a university campus in Kenya. Authorities are revealing that one of the four gunmen was the son of a Kenyan government official. This amid reports that Kenya is going after al Shabaab. CNN's Christian Purefoy joins us now from Garissa, Kenya, with the very latest for us -- Christian.

CHRISTIAN PUREFOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Michaela, we're now getting reports that Kenya are bombing at least two al Shabaab camps. Now, that is about a four-hour drive from where I'm standing in Garissa. Now, we spoke to a security official from Kenya, and they said

that this is simply part of the ongoing operations against al Shabaab, but it has to be said the timing is very convenient, if you like. You know, the attack happened here, and now they are bombing the camps.

But this is, Michaela, what we know so far.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PUREFOY (voice-over): This morning, Kenya on heightened alert. Even Easter prayers shaken, with security checks outside churches. Kenyan forces on guard after the terrorist group al Shabaab threatened, quote, "another bloodbath" over the weekend.

Relatives grieving, in complete anguish as Kenyans remain on the lookout for the al Shabaab militant behind the Garissa University attack that killed nearly 150 people. The government says Mohamed Mohamud, wanted for a bounty of more than $200,000, is the mastermind. Known by other aliases, the former religious teacher is the regional al Shabaab commander in the Juba region of Somalia.

According to a ministry document given to CNN, the al Qaeda- linked militant is in charge of external operations against Kenya. Garissa sits on one of the longest religious fault lines in the world, a largely Christian sub-Saharan atmosphere in the south and a mostly Muslim population to the north.

UHURU KENYATTA, PRESIDENT OF KENYA: Our forefathers bled and died for this nation, and we will do everything to defend our way of life.

[06:10:04] PUREFOY: Meanwhile, Kenya's interior ministry identifying another attacker. This man, an apparent home-grown terrorist, Kenyan Abdirahim Abdullahi, the 20-something son of a Kenyan government chief of Somali descent. His father says his law- graduate son has been missing since 2013, last working for a bank. The ministry says he disappeared to Somalia last year.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PUREFOY: Now a thing that's -- one thing to bear in mind here. You know, we used these phrases like "mastermind," but you know, we have to remember that these people are using the most basic means to murder as many people as possible -- Chris.

CUOMO: Absolutely. That cannot be lost. This is just a massacre. Nothing sophisticated about it. Thank you for the reporting.

In political news, Hillary Clinton is close to announcing her second bid for the White House. CNN first reported on Friday that Clinton's team signed a lease for a campaign office in Brooklyn. So when will her team take the field, and what will it look like?

CNN senior Washington correspondent, Jeff Zeleny joins us now from Washington with more. What do we know, Jeff? JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning,

Chris.

We know that this announcement is really just days away. Some people in her orbit think it could come later this week. Next week is probably the last point it could come.

And we're really getting more of a sense of what this campaign is going to look like. We've talked to a lot of operatives in her world, and they say one thing is clear. She is going to make this campaign less about her and less about her own ambitions. Well, of course, remember when she got in eight years ago, she said, "I'm in, and I'm in to win." A lot of use of the word "I." That's not going to be the same this time around. It's a lot about voters' concerns.

And Chris, we're told that she's going to have fewer big rallies, fewer large speeches. She's really going to try and make her campaign a smaller campaign, trying to take her message individually to voters one-on-one, trying to reintroduce herself as a candidate.

Now of course, it's an open question how someone this famous, this well-known and this polarizing can actually introduce herself. She doesn't necessarily have one big Democratic opponent. She has a couple, but she has a lot of Republican rivals who are trying to distinguish themselves by sort of attacking her. So she has a big re- introduction phase here to work on.

But a couple of other things we're finding out. She is going to also not use her husband as much in early rallies. We are told that he is not going to appear with her at the beginning of her campaign at all. It's going to be some weeks or months away before he takes an active role in this campaign. So she's really trying to send the signal that she is not inevitable, that she is not looking for a coronation here. That she's trying to win every vote.

She's going to campaign a lot in Iowa, we're told, a lot in New Hampshire. We're told a couple of her top operatives were visiting the states last week. And top Democrats there we spoke to said that she is going to come out. She'll campaign hard for this.

So Alisyn, this is almost on the verge of an announcement. It could be this week. It could be next week, we're told, at the latest.

CAMEROTA: Very interesting, Jeff. Always interesting to see how famous people can reinvent themselves.

ZELENY: We'll see if it works.

CAMEROTA: We sure will. Thanks so much, Jeff.

Meanwhile, a bombshell surrounding "Rolling Stone" magazine. "Columbia Journalism Review" releasing its scathing report, slamming the magazine for failing to engage in, quote, "basic, even routine journalistic practice." "Rolling Stone" issuing a retraction of the highly-publicized article about a female student who claimed she was gang raped at the University of Virginia. Meanwhile, "Rolling Stone's" publisher has decided not to fire anyone, saying that he believes the mistakes were not intentional.

PEREIRA: Closing arguments are set to begin this morning in the Boston Marathon bombing trial. The jury could get the case sometime today. The defense admits that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was a bomber during those attacks almost two years ago but claims he was acting under his brother's influence. You'll recall three people were killed and hundreds more were injured. An MIT police officer was killed in a subsequent shooting. If convicted, jurors will have to decide whether Tsarnaev will be put to death.

CUOMO: Comedian John Oliver, funny guy, but NSA leaker Edward Snowden wasn't laughing. On HBO's "Last Week Tonight," Oliver chased Snowden in an interview about owning the dangerous nature of what he released, seeing how some journalists didn't redact them as carefully as they should have. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EDWARD SNOWDEN, NSA LEAKER: In journalism, we have to accept that some mistakes will be made. This is a fundamental concept of liberty.

JOHN OLIVER, COMEDIAN: Right. But you have to own that thing. You're giving documents with information you know could be harmful which could get out there.

SNOWDEN: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: John Oliver!

CUOMO: He had Oliver thinking -- Oliver had him thinking there for a second. He also had some ribald signature humor, John Oliver, about how little Americans care about surveillance and how little they know Snowden. And he said to Snowden, "You know, the upside is nobody really seems to know who you are or care about this, so maybe you can come back home." But he came out of it.

CAMEROTA: It's interesting, right? The satirists are doing some of the most sort of pointed interviews.

[06:15:04] PEREIRA: And it got him, too. He sat there and thought about it for a second.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

CUOMO: There's an advantage, though. He is allowed to judge the answer as it comes across. You know, so Snowden says, "It's going to happen."

He's like, "No, no, no, it's not good enough." You know, "I don't like that answer." Gives him a little bit of a freedom. But it was -- I was surprised by it. I'll be honest.

PEREIRA: Ditto. CUOMO: I'm fixed on that guy. He came after me once. I don't

like him.

PEREIRA: Come on.

CAMEROTA: I hear the end of (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

Let us know what you think about that story.

Meanwhile, back to the search for the alleged mastermind of the Kenya university terror attack, as al Shabaab threatens more violence. How should the U.S. respond?

CUOMO: And did you hear about this one? Poisoned in paradise: this entire family gets really, really sick on vacation. Critical condition. You won't believe what authorities think happened. We'll tell you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:19:17] CUOMO: Alright. This morning we are learning more about the man allegedly behind the massacre at the university in Kenya, as well as the threat of North African terrorists in general that seems to have slipped right past us.

Let's bring in Philip Mudd, CNN counterterrorism analyst and author of the new book, "The Head Game," available today. And Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Mr. Gartenstein, senior fellow for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Mr. Gartenstein-Ross, Mr. Mudd, thank you very much.

I would like to start with this, gentleman, because one, it's mostly full of pictures, which I was not surprised by, but some of the actual writing in here deals specifically with Somalia, Mr. Mudd. And it says in here, on page 36, "We didn't realize during that time until it was too late that the al Shabaab extremist infection in America -- in American cities spread well beyond fundraising. Somali parents in American cities were unaware that their sons had been recruited to fight in Somalia until these young men turned up in Somalia, and the families started asking what had happened to their children." How did you miss it, Mudd?

PHILIP MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: I think you're asking the wrong question. The book is about not starting with the data and data overload. It's about starting with the question. The data we had then had to do with fundraising for Somali terrorists in the United States, a group we call al Shabaab.

We should have asked another question. If we see this extent of fundraising, what's the likelihood that there's also recruiting going on in American cities. By not asking that question, I still fault myself for this. We missed a separate stream of activity here.

The recruiters for Somali kids here were separate than the fundraisers. And all of a sudden parents started coming in in American cities, particularly Minneapolis, saying, "Where's my kid?" And that kid had gone over to fight with al Shabaab in Somalia.

CUOMO: Minneapolis, because there is a significant Somali population there. People are unaware of that, but there is.

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, do you accept Mr. Mudd's defense at the American intelligence system? Was that not an obvious question that they should have thought about, with the link between fundraising and terrorism would be? How do you miss that?

DAVEED GARTENSTEIN-ROSS, FOUNDATION FOR THE DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: Well, that's an excellent question. I think that sometimes when a question is missed it's absolutely defensible. I mean, there's so many different questions that are being asked by the intelligence committee that you can't get all of them right. But the flipside is I do think we should take a hard look at our intelligence apparatus. I think that we should look at things like politicization of intelligence, whether we have an analytical quirk in all the money that we're spending that is getting questions right consistently. That's a little bit beyond the scope of what Phil is talking about, though.

CUOMO: Now, let me ask you something. The reason I skipped over the who is the guy behind the attack, is because it seems like the people at the head of the snake, this isn't a snake; it's a worm. Right? Because the head winds up never being that instrumental. You cut off the head, and the thing starts moving in another direction, regrowth. How important is he? Of course, you want to find him because of the horror he just did. But leadership, how important is it in organizations like this?

MUDD: When you're evaluating a terror groups, there's two fundamental parts of it. There's the guys on the line who are out storming something like universities in Somalia or Kenya and killing people.

And then there's the leadership. When you think about threats to the United States, I focused more time on leadership, because these are the people who have the vision to tell somebody down the line, a 19-year-old terrorist, your target isn't in Somalia, your target isn't in Kenya. Your target is in New York City.

It's very difficult for terror organizations to grow people with that kind of vision over that time. So when we were focusing intelligence efforts, I always thought the guys out on the field can be taken care of by people like the Kenyan military. It's the leadership we at the CIA and the FBI have to go after, and that's -- those are the people who are the targets for things like drone strikes, eliminating the head of the snake.

CUOMO: So eliminating the head of the snake, where is this guy? How hard will it be to find him? And what do you do with him once you get him, Mr. Ross?

GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: He's looked at in Somalia, as to how difficult he's going to be to fight, I think that history shows that he'll probably be fairly difficult. I mean, sometimes the U.S. or one of its allies will get a good line in on intelligence and be able to carry out a targeted strike. And in fact, the U.S. has had a pretty good success in the past year or so and carried out targeted strikes in Somalia.

But in general, it's very hard to find one individual. The manhunt for bin Laden took a decade. The hunt for Zawahiri afterwards, demonstrates just how difficult it can be to find that one guy, especially when he is practicing strong operational security.

But you know, he's -- Mohamed Mohamud has responsibility. He's in Juba, and he has responsibility for broad swaths of Kenya, including the Dudab (ph) refugee complex. He definitely has a hand into Kenyan society.

And one final thing I'd say is that it's worth understanding that Shabaab is really, in Somalia and Kenya is really two organizations. You have Somalia Shabaab. Then you have Kenya Shabaab, sometimes called al Hijra. And while they've been weakened in Somalia, in Kenya, there's no question that they're becoming stronger.

CUOMO: All right, Mr. Mudd. You have a book out today.

MUDD: That's right.

CUOMO: Now, you answer this question any way you like. But do you think that it was right that you wrote a shameless tell-all, where you do nothing but divulge state secrets in the book just for your own financial gain?

MUDD: I think that was a brilliant move on my part. I expect all the shameless secrets I reveal will sell the book. Next question.

CUOMO: High-efficiency analytic decision making and the art of solving complex problems quickly. How in this book to you apply the thinking and reasoning that you use in the intelligence community to other endeavors for people?

MUDD: It took me a while to realize, when I was looking at a ton of data about al Qaeda. We had data from foreign security services, data from intercepted al Qaeda communications. You sit, you come in every day. You can't say, "Let me sort through this data again." You've got to start with a simple methodology to say let me make sense of this data.

Then I started looking at other aspects of life: I moved to Memphis a while ago. Should I look at a thousand ads in the newspaper, or should I say is there a simple methodology to sort through the question of what house do I want? It's a very simple process to say, please don't start with the data. You'll waste a lot of time. Start with the question you want to answer, and only slowly do you get to the mound of data you've got to deal with.

[06:25:15] CUOMO: Did you apply this method to the cufflinks that you decided...?

MUDD: I did. Yes, the tyrannosaurus cufflinks. These are cufflinks that cost me -- let me give you the data -- $10. So the complex analytic process I went through involved saying, "I don't want to spend 20, but I'm willing to spend 10." And tyrannosaurus rex cufflinks, you've got to be kidding me.

CUOMO: Look at Gartenstein-Ross's face. You see the look on his face? That's your answer.

MUDD: He can't match these. That's why he's intimidating.

CUOMO: He's thinking, "I don't know what this has to do with intelligence." Daveed Gartenstein-Ross.

GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: I'm just wondering where I can get myself those cufflinks.

CUOMO: No, you're not. You're not thinking that at all. It's the first untrue thing you've said on this show.

Philip Mudd, congratulations on the book.

MUDD: Thanks. Take care

CUOMO: Thanks to both of you, as always -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, guys. Looks like a good book, Phil.

All right. Meanwhile, listen to this crazy story. A Delaware family is fighting for their lives after their tropical vacation turns into a nightmare. Were a husband, wife and their two teenage sons poisoned in paradise?

PEREIRA: And an epic battle for bragging rights. Duke's Jahlil Okafor takes on Wisconsin's Frank Kaminsky tonight. We've got a preview of tonight's NCAA finals.

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