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New Day
U.S. Visa Process Failed To Catch Red Flags; Interview with Sen. Tim Kaine; Advocates Push To Ban Guns For People On No-Fly List; Interview with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Aired 7:30-8a ET
Aired December 14, 2015 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[07:30:22] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right. We're counting down until tomorrow night, CNN Republican debate in Vegas, baby, nine candidates taking the main stage at 8:30 and 6:00 is the undercard. Watch it live right here on CNN.
The big focus will be terror and national security. The moderator, Wolf Blitzer, will put the candidates through their paces, Trump is in the center. He's in the lead. He's got Cruz on one side, Carson on the other.
This has become the matchup you're looking at on screen right now. The pair has seen their bromance evaporate over the weekend. Trump calling Cruz a little bit of a maniac ahead of the numbers showing Cruz overtaking Trump in Iowa -- Michaela.
MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, President Obama heading to the Pentagon today to review the U.S. strategy against ISIS with his team of national security advisers. The White House cautioning there would be no major policy shifts as a result of the meeting saying it's more of an update. It is the president's first Pentagon visit since the terror attacks in San Bernardino and in Paris.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Candidates with the far right National Front Party in France coming up short in regional elections. The party's anti-immigration platform got off to a roaring start after the Paris attacks, but finished third behind the conservative party and socialist party. The party's leaders plan to be on the presidential ballot in 2017.
PEREIRA: A week-long ceasefire beginning today in Yemen after nine long months of civil war. U.N.-led peace talks between the warring sides are set to begin this week in Switzerland. The fight between an Iranian-backed rebel group and Saudi backed supporters of the exiled government has left about 6,000 people dead -- Chris.
CUOMO: Thank you very much. The president is heading to the Pentagon this morning to review ISIS strategy. He faces a skeptical public and largely uncooperative Congress. The question then becomes will the White House finally get a formal war authorization from Congress?
This is the AUMF you hear about all the time. Senator Tim Kaine is a Democrat from Virginia. He is on the Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committee. He is the co-author of a bipartisan Senate war authorization against ISIS bill. Senator, it's good to have you.
SENATOR TIM KAINE (D), VIRGINIA: Good to be back.
CUOMO: Early Christmas wishes to you and the family.
KAINE: You, too.
CUOMO: There are checklists of things that need to get fixed.
KAINE: Yes.
CUOMO: Let's go through them. The first one is the visa waiver program.
KAINE: Yes.
CUOMO: What do we see with the K-1 fiance visa? It's an old visa. People argue it's abused for many years. Now what happened in San Bernardino has it in sharp focus.
KAINE: It does.
CUOMO: They're using it as proof that you can't keep us safe, you can't vet well enough. What do you say?
KAINE: Can we make it better? Absolutely, but you got to focus on the problem and I think the fiance visa is an area that we should focus on. Student visas, the folks who came into the country who were part of the al Qaeda attacks were often in on student or tourist visas.
The one that we are prepared to act on is the visa waiver program, that allows folks in 38 nations to come here without getting a visa. The House passed a bill last week. We'll be grappling with it. I think we'll come to an accord where we'll tighten up the visa waiver program.
The good news is people started off with concern about the refugees. Once they looked at the refugee vetting process, they realized that is very tight. We have other areas we ought to tighten up. I think that's what we'll do.
CUOMO: Now I would submit to you, yes, they looked at the Syrian vetting situation, but they came to an opposite conclusion as we see from the poll numbers that 40 some odd percent of Republicans and a healthy number of Democrats say banning all Muslims is not a bad idea.
People look at vetting and say this vetting is about what it isn't. You haven't even asked this maniac lady -- to use a Trump word today -- if she was responsible for all this stuff that was in public domain about Jihad. You can't keep us safe. We need to back off. That's the fear. How do you address it?
KAINE: Fears are real. You have to address them. As I've gone out and talked to Virginians, they have concerns. When I walk through what we do on refugee vetting, that sounds solid. How about the visa waiver program?
[07:35:03]CUOMO: You have Comey coming out the head of the FBI saying I can't use the data base for these people in Syria. There's no footprint.
KAINE: And the good news, Chris, is to the extent that a question can't be answered, somebody doesn't get in, there are 4 million registered refugees, 20,000 have been referred to the United States, 2,000 have been accepted after an 18-month review. If there are questions that can't get answered they don't get in.
CUOMO: It only takes one. That's what we hear. It only takes one.
KAINE: But the proposal and the rhetoric like ban all Muslims, that is exactly what ISIL wants. I spent a lot of time on foreign relations and armed services, in classified briefings. What do they want? They want to paint a west that is in a war against Islam. This is not what this is about. We're in a war against jihad and violence. We're not in a war against Islam.
CUOMO: The push back on that is who cares what they want. What they want to do is chop my head off. This allows them a potential way to get in here. They want to use our refugee and immigration --
KAINE: But still it allows them, you know, the House passed this bill about the refugees. They call it security America against foreign enemies act calling refugees enemies. Refugees are not our enemies. ISIL is our enemy.
Congress won't have a debate and vote about whether ISIL is our enemy to declare war. But we call the refugees from ISIL enemies, makes no sense. Call evil out for what it is, but don't call refugees evil.
That's not the problem. ISIL is the problem and Congress has been on the sidelines since this war started in August of 2014.
CUOMO: One of the things I like least on this show is when a politician comes on that I can't beat over the head about something. You have been out in front of having a debate about the AUMF for a long time.
KAINE: Yes.
CUOMO: We've discussed it several times. I can't hold you to blame for this. I will any way and here's why.
KAINE: Yes.
CUOMO: You've not been able to get your brothers and sisters on the left to motivate debate about this for the president.
KAINE: Yes.
CUOMO: Which is part of the plan of being within the party, why won't they take it up? They all explain left and right about the strategy. This is their constitutional responsibility to declare war.
KAINE: It is ours. I think first the president should have said at the beginning, I need Congress on this and the fact that he didn't, I think I have the authority, now the president is saying, in February, he sent over an authorization in his speech last week, he said Congress needs to get off the sidelines and do something. So I think he should have demanded more up front.
CUOMO: The president, being a political isolationist, he wanted the power, doesn't want to work with Congress. Now hoisted on his own --
KAINE: Here was the problem. The leadership told him in August of 2014 when he started the bombing campaign we have a midterm election coming up. We don't want to have to vote on this. Just go ahead and do it.
CUOMO: Why didn't he tell the American people that?
KAINE: He should have.
CUOMO: It's not like he has a good relationship with him.
KAINE: He should have. They encouraged him to do this on their own. Congress voted on the Iraq war in '02 and most now agree was a big mistake. Maybe if we can criticize the president and not be held accountable we can get away with something.
We have 3,600 people risking their lives overseas every day, 11 service members have been killed in operation inherent resolve. Congress is afraid to have a vote because it might be unpopular, controversial?
The constitution says we're supposed to do it. If we do it, it sends a message to our troops, allies and a message of resolve to ISIL. The parliaments in Britain, the national assembly in France, the bundestag in Germany, the duma in Russia have had a debate about this. What are we waiting for?
CUOMO: I tell you what, what happened in the U.K., close vote, very tough, a lot of passion on both sides, keyed the people in to what was going on and why. That's the kind of national resolve we do not have right now.
KAINE: The debate educates the public and brings the public along and that's one of the main things our troops need, to know the public has their back.
CUOMO: Senator Tim Kaine, thank you very much. A very good early Christmas wish for you and our present to the American people is get debate going on.
KAINE: Indeed. We need to, thanks.
CUOMO: Appreciate it, Senator -- Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: The female terrorists in the San Bernardino attack passed a number of background checks and interviews but her social media posts told a far different story about her. Will law enforcement change their focus?
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[07:43:07]
PEREIRA: Three background checks, two personal interviews and yet apparently, neither was enough to stop a Jihadist from entering the United States and partaking into that terrible attack in San Bernardino.
"The New York Times" is reporting that authorities missed extremist posts from the female in the San Bernardino attack before she came stateside. How are these revelations going to change the vetting process going forward?
Joining us is CNN Juliette Kayyem. Juliette, good to have you with us on this Monday morning. I want to show you what "The New York Times" has in their reporting about what Tashfeen Malik was posting. I mean, pretty blatant in her postings online.
She talked openly on social media about her views on violent jihad, saying she supported it and wanted to be part of it. Hindsight is 20/20, I suppose. Why hasn't social media been part of the screening process for visas?
JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Part of it is just simply capacity to put this in context, tens of millions of people come through the United States lawfully on a number of different visas, some of them short term, some of them long term.
The marriage visa that we're talking about all the time, 90,000 in the last year so these are just a lot of people are flowing through our system lawfully.
PEREIRA: OK.
KAYYEM: The more you put a security system on it, right, whether it be social media review, the slower that process is going to be. It's just basically a judgment call about resources.
PEREIRA: But wait, I mean, we get the judgment call on resources but we know universities do it to screen potential students. We know employers do it, screening potential employees. It seems to me that this would have been a -- you know, a given when we've seen how technology has advanced over the past few years.
[07:45:00]KAYYEM: Yes. And I hope at some stage -- it's not a given, it doesn't need to be done in every context, but certainly whether someone is triggered for further review that a look at their social media presence, what they put out to the world will be part of that review.
I think that is what you're starting to hear from the administration. I know that's what you're starting to hear from the administration as it says it's reviewing different visa programs, either the visa waiver program or marriage program. We're starting to even hear that they may sort of close up the marriage visa program.
PEREIRA: Right. Do you think that's why?
KAYYEM: -- for some time to begin to review it. I think you have to at this stage. I don't think you can close something down for that long. Look, people think, she got through, so the system is negligent.
Just to understand what security is, it is -- there's security and then there's flow and somewhere between that continuum you have a system that is going to try to promote flow and be as secure as possible.
PEREIRA: Right.
KAYYEM: The system will be over-inclusive sometimes and under- inclusive. But what we have to remember is one of the reasons why we have the marriage visa is because it's a strong public policy, family policy to have family unification, to keep people apart is not only wrong. We actually want to promote families being together.
PEREIRA: Sure. Let's talk about the resources again. That is -- that's going to be -- I mean, it's difficult enough for me to search for something on my own Facebook page, not even talking about what the government would have to do or what officials would have to do.
It sounds like it would require a ramp-up. Is that something that can happen quickly? I'm not saying that everybody's posts that's trying to immigrate to the country needs to be reviewed. But if they trigger enough red flags, that should be a given. How long would it take to ramp that up?
KAYYEM: It could probably be done relatively quickly if they close down the system as we're hearing and then begin to look at who's coming through.
This discussion about whether we should target particular countries, Iraq, Syria, Iran and people from those countries or with dual citizenship which the Obama administration is actually on the side of beginning further reviews through the visa waiver process or the marriage process, is just one way to begin to get to manage just the flow of people.
I think that the administration is correct in promoting a further review of people from those countries. It's not religious based. It is nationality based.
So that we can begin to keep the system as secure as possible, knowing we're not going to get every person but also promoting flow. It is very important that even security analysts say we cannot close the system down.
PEREIRA: Right.
KAYYEM: It would disrupt who we are but also our economy, tourism. Just imagine how every city would be impacted.
PEREIRA: It is definitely worth review. I think to some it's surprising that it hasn't been done yet. Juliette Kayyem, thank you so much for joining us to discuss this. We'll be talking about it more coming up -- Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: Michaela, gun control advocates beating a new drum, namely if you're on the no-fly list, you should not be able to purchase a weapon. How should officials reconcile gun rights and public safety and the constitution? New York's governor is going to join us next on NEW DAY.
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CAMEROTA: Terror concerns and gun rights coming to a head after the terror attacks in San Bernardino. Governors in Connecticut and New York want people on the FBI's no-fly list to be barred from buying guns.
Joining us now is New York Governor Andrew Cuomo who supports consulting the federal watch list in gun background checks. Governor, great to see you.
GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO (D), NEW YORK: Good to see you, Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: So you and I are speaking on a sad anniversary. Three years ago, the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, happened. After that, people thought that something would change in terms of gun control or gun rights in this country, but little has. You now are making an effort to close what some say is this loophole, whereby, people on the no fly list can buy guns. What are you trying to do?
GOVERNOR CUOMO: Right. First, Alisyn, it is the anniversary of sandy hook, and that should be a reminder to all of us how much damage and pain one person can cause with an assault rifle. It's not that nothing happened after Sandy Hook. This state passed, weeks after Sandy Hook, the most comprehensive gun control law in the nation called the safe act.
I'm very proud of that. Sandy Hook actually woke up people, especially in this part of the country. New York is very close to Sandy Hook. We took action. Now, one state alone is not enough because we now have guns coming in from other states. We closed the front door.
The guns are coming in the back door, but I believe this country is in the process of evolution on this issue. Another situation that is really going to cause us to reevaluate what we're doing is this terrorist threat, which I don't believe is limited. I don't believe San Bernardino is the last of it.
I wish I could say it is, but I think this is going to be an ongoing pattern. I think this is the new normal. I think terrorism, which was in the Middle East for so long, is now spread 6,000 miles, and the internet and social media did it. I think we're going to have to recalibrate our response.
My point is very simple, you don't have -- not every person in this country has the legal or constitutional right to have a gun. They don't. If you have a criminal background, you don't have the right to have a gun. If you're mentally ill, you don't have the right to have a gun.
CAMEROTA: Yes, but --
GOVERNOR CUOMO: If the federal government has information that says you are a -- you are suspected of terrorism, so much so that you can't step on a plane, then you should not be allowed to buy a gun and pull a trigger. It's that simple.
[07:55:01]CAMEROTA: The problem with that, of course, is many say that the people -- that the no-fly list, which has roughly, according to the TSA, 16,000 names on it, is flawed. There are all sorts of people on there who have no connection whatsoever to terror.
We had Senator Rand Paul on our program last week, who cited the examples of Senator Ted Kennedy having at one time being on the no-fly list. Musician Cat Stevens having been on the no-fly list. The list is imperfect and you can't keep anybody who might show up on the list from their constitutional right to own a gun.
GOVERNOR CUOMO: With all due respect to Senator Rand Paul, there is no perfect list, Alisyn. We now have lists that we check before a person can buy a gun. There is a list of people who have criminal background histories. There is a list of people who have been mentally ill.
I am sure there are mistakes on those lists. I'm sure. That doesn't mean you let everybody buy a gun because maybe there was a mistake on a list.
CAMEROTA: Yes, but --
GOVERNOR CUOMO: It means they have a right to appeal.
CAMEROTA: I mean, look, Governor, critics say that owning a gun is a constitutional right. Applying is a privilege. How can you -- how can the no-fly list trump the second amendment?
GOVERNOR CUOMO: Owning a gun is a constitutional right, subject to reasonable regulation. Criminal history, mental health background, and if this nation knows or has reason to believe you are a terrorist, that is a reasonable basis not to allow a person to buy a gun.
Look, it's a reasonable basis enough not to let you fly. And inhibit your travel, literally. It's a reasonable basis not to let you buy a gun. And if there is a mistake on the list, have a process where the person can appeal and they can present their side of the case.
That's fine because I'm sure there's going to be mistakes on a list. I'm sure there are mistakes on every list. But we need to be safe. GAO did a study where, for the past ten years, they looked at known suspected terrorists, 2,000 of them tried to buy a gun in this country, 90 percent were successful.
CAMEROTA: Yes.
GOVERNOR CUOMO: That's frightening. We're talking about trying to keep people out of the country. This whole political conversation about, do we let refugees in? Do we not let refugees in?
We have people in the country who are suspected of terrorism and who, right now, can't step on a plane, but can buy a gun, I mean, that is ludicrous. I'm the New York governor, the state of 9/11. These people are living in denial.
How many San Bernardinos, how many Sandy Hooks do you need before you have basic sanity that says safety still matters?
CAMEROTA: Governor, I want to ask you about the presidential race while we have you. You, of course, are the governor of Donald Trump, the frontrunner's home state. You know Donald Trump as a developer, real estate, and negotiator. I know you don't share his positions and I know you're not in his party, but do you think that Donald Trump has the skills to be president?
GOVERNOR CUOMO: I'm not the governor of Donald Trump. I'm the governor of the state of New York. I'm a Democrat so I'm not going to be voting in the Republican primary. I'm not going to make the selection among them.
I can tell you this, forget the politics. I'm sure Mr. Trump has very smart people who are advising him and they've come to the conclusion that there are enough extremists in the Republican Party that this Muslim ban is good politics for him.
But I believe it's terrible policy. I believe it's hurting this country. I believe it is actually fomenting the growth of ISIL. Donald Trump could be a recruitment poster for ISIL, because he is fanning the flames of hate.
No Muslims in the United States. One billion Muslims were alienated with one sentence. At this point, we don't want Muslim -- we don't need more Muslim enemies. We need more Muslim allies.
Saying that this country doesn't trust or doesn't like all Muslims and the religion plays right into their hands. That's what ISIL is selling.
ISIL is saying to a disenfranchised population, come join us. Fight the good fight.
