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New Day

Ukraine Recovering from Worst Shelling in Months; Families Left in Limbo as Obamacare Fight Stalls; Patriots Super Bowl Parade Today; Impact of Trump's Travel Ban on Muslims. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired February 07, 2017 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:30:16] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Iran's supreme leader says he's not afraid of the Trump administration. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Iranian military officers just hours ago that Mr. Trump shows, quote, "the real face of America" and that, quote, "no enemy can paralyze Iran", end quote. The White House imposed new sanctions on Iran after Iran's recent missile tests. So far, no plans to cancel the Iranian nuclear deal as the president vowed to do during his campaign.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Now, it hasn't been a big talking point for American politicians, certainly for the president. But there's finally some calm in the Ukraine following a weeklong surge in warfare. The fighting between Ukrainian troops and pro- Russian separatists is some of the worst that's been reported in months.

President Trump once again seems reluctant to call out Russian involvement in this situation.

CNN's Phil Black live in Ukraine with the latest.

Phil, we were there together for MH-17. You were actually first on the ground. Then we were surprised at the presence of Russian influence.

What's it like now?

PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we're seeing here, Chris, we're seeing some of the most intense fighting of almost the 3-year-old conflict.

Where I'm standing now is where an artillery shell hit in a residential street in the town of Avdiivka, a front line Ukrainian controlled town. Behind me, that building had its windows and roof and much of the wall blown in. Luckily, the 65-year-old woman who lived there had fled only 15 minutes earlier.

Many other people here were not so fortunate. Dozens have been killed over the last week or so in intense shelling. Now ever since that broke out, not long after President's Trump and

Putin spoke on the phone, other western governments have been calling on Moscow to use the significant influence to get those pro-Russian separatists on the other side of the front line to back off and stop shelling civilian areas.

Now, President Trump in his interview with FOX has discussed breaking with international consensus, that that may not be possible because maybe Moscow doesn't control those separatist fighters. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL O'REILLY, FOX NEWS HOST: Within 24 hours of you on the phone with the Russian leader, the pro-Russian forces step up the violence in Ukraine.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Yes.

O'REILLY: Did you take that as an insult?

TRUMP: No, I didn't because we don't really know exactly what that is. Are they pro-forces? We don't know. Are they uncontrollable? Are they uncontrolled? That happens also. We're going to find out. I would be surprised. But we'll see.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACK: President Trump is essentially repeating the Russian position. Moscow frequently says that it is not a party to this conflict, but that is not a view that has ever held any real credibility internationally where it's broadly accepted that Russia trains, instructs and supports those fighters delivering instructions to them.

The concern here on the ground in Ukraine is that if President Trump continues to water down support for the Ukrainian government, it will embolden those pro-Russian fighters and Moscow, make the Ukrainian forces more desperate and the end result could only greater violence.

Alisyn, back to you.

CAMEROTA: Phil, it is so important for our understanding to have you there on the ground. Thank you for that reporting.

Well, President Trump pushing back the timeline for replacing Obamacare. It could be more than a year away now. Millions of Americans who depend on Obamacare are, of course, concerned about what their life will look like in the future. One family's story, next.

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[06:37:32] CUOMO: It bears some reminding that President Trump vowed to repeal Obamacare right away, maybe day one. But now, we're two weeks into the presidency and the idea of a replacement for ACA seems more and more remote. Why? Well, for some good reason. It would leave millions of

Americans in limbo, including a West Virginia family who tells us that law is keeping their son alive.

CNN's Miguel Marquez has their story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HOWARD CLAYTOR, CONCERNED ABOUT LOSING OBAMACARE: This is his breathing treatment.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the fight for Obamacare, the most powerful voices, those like Cedric Claytor, the 29-year-old paralyzed from the neck down can't utter a word.

HOWARD CLAYTOR: You're OK.

MARQUEZ: Ten years ago, Cedric was an avid gymnast, healthy, handsome. A rare blood disease required a liver transplant, then he contracted a neurological disorder. After four years, it paralyzed him.

(on camera): How much work is it every day to keep him going?

MARY ANN CLAYTOR, CONCERNED ABOUT LOSING OBAMACARE: We're pretty much from 6:00 do midnight. It's pretty much --

HOWARD CLAYTOR: Uh-huh, no sleep.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): The Claytors have insurance through Howard's job, but Obamacare did one thing for them, and everyone else -- remove the million dollar lifetime limit on care. Anyone who's ever dealt with serious illness knows how rapidly the bills can mount.

MARY ANN CLAYTOR: You can go through a million dollars, believe me. We went through $600,000 in a month.

MARQUEZ: Before Obamacare, most insurance policies had lifetime and sometimes annual limits on care. The Affordable Care Act got rid of all of it, affecting everyone with insurance regardless of whether they got it privately, through their employer or from Medicare or Medicaid.

(on camera): If Obama care goes away, do you know what will happen?

MARY ANN CLAYTOR: No, you don't really know what's going to happen because nobody has said what's going to happen.

HOWARD CLAYTOR: If we can't afford his medicines, we don't know what's going to happen.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): Cedric's medications alone administered by the handful of ground up, served intravenously morning and night cost in the thousands.

HOWARD CLAYTOR: We both work, I got insurance. We make good money and it's still hard to get by. If it weren't for Obamacare, he'd be dead a long time ago.

MARQUEZ: The Claytors have transformed themselves into nurses, a full time effort.

[06:40:03] Their son's health now as uncertain as his health care. Their message to those rushing for repeal --

HOWARD CLAYTOR: Come and sit with us one day and see what we go through. That's all you have to do.

MARY ANN CLAYTOR: I think what they need to be able to do is put faces to what they're talking about.

MARQUEZ: Cedric Claytor, his body devastated by disease, still loved and a cause worth fighting for.

Miguel Marquez, CNN, Charleston, West Virginia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Boy, that is a family just united in an endless struggle for their kid. Just one example of how a law can make all the difference in a life.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. That story really brings it home and there are others like that out there.

All right. On a much lighter note, fire up the duck boats. The New England Patriots are ready to roll through the streets of Boston to celebrate their fifth Super Bowl victory. The "Bleacher Report" is next.

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CAMEROTA: Patriots fans are getting ready to hit the streets in downtown Boston for a Super Bowl victory parade.

Andy Scholes has more on the "Bleacher Report".

People here don't know what duck boats are. They are a staple of Boston celebration.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Alison.

You know, Tom Brady has declared today is a holiday in Boston.

[06:45:03] He posted that message on social media to all managers in the city, adding that today, we dance in the streets. Now, it's going to be a very cold parade later on this morning. Now, that's not stopping the team though from riding through downtown on those duck boats, just like they did in 2015. Parade scheduled to get started at 11:00 a.m. Eastern.

Now, Texas Rangers and Houston Police Department meanwhile are now on the case of Tom Brady's missing jersey. Brady said he put the jersey in his bag at his locker right after taking it off. But when he came back moments later, it was gone. Collectors say the Super Bowl MVP's game worn jersey could be worth as much as a half million dollars.

All right. Finally, Cavs and Wizards playing an absolute thriller last night. Cavs down three, three seconds left in the clock. LeBron gets it, hits an amazing fade-away falling out of bounds. The three sends it into overtime. The Cavs would go on to win 140-135.

So, just like Brady, Chris, LeBron coming through in the clutch.

CUOMO: I don't know about that. What Brady did in that game was still --

SCHOLES: A little more important for Brady. I'll give you that.

CUOMO: I don't know if the king called the kiss off the glass 27.

SCHOLES: He did not.

CUOMO: I don't know. I'll explain what that means at the break. I know that sounded the wrong way. We'll figure it out.

Patriots fans are going to have to bundle up for their big parade. But I'm sure they're feeling --

CAMEROTA: There's a switch.

CUOMO: They'll be feeling new pain right now.

CNN meteorologist Chad Myers, what are they looking at?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: We're looking at some snow coming in this morning. It could be heavy around parade time. I'm thinking 8:00 or 9:00, snow could be heavy, but 35 degrees. But honestly, that's not truly bundling up for a place like Boston, 35, 35, 35 all the way through the morning hours. I don't think I changes very much, but the rain does move in. The snow moves away. And we get the rain/snow mix later on in the afternoon.

This weather is brought to you by Purina. Your pet, our passion.

Let's focus a bit further around the country. What else are we going to do for today? I think we're going to see the chance I think of some scattered storms, some of them could be very strong to severe across the Ohio Valley. Other than that, we'll see the potential for that same weather into Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama.

This is not a tornado outbreak, though, like we had a couple of weeks ago. We had 40 tornadoes on the ground. This is just a warm weather event trying to get into spring down here in the Southeast. Although for you, Chris and Alisyn, there is snow on the way. And by Thursday, 5 to 7 inches for New York City with this next storm here.

CAMEROTA: Five to 7 inches?

MYERS: Yes.

CAMEROTA: OK. Duly noted. Thank you very much. MYERS: You got it.

CAMEROTA: All right. President Trump's travel ban is sparking, of course, mixed emotions around the U.S.

Up next, we're speaking to two Muslim men. What are their biggest fears? How is the ban affecting them?

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[06:51:47] SEAN SPICER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Clearly, the law is on the president's side. The Constitution's on the president's side. He has broad discretion to do what's in the nation's best interests to protect our people and we feel very confident that we'll prevail in this matter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: All right. That was White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, confident that President Trump's travel ban will be reinstated by the federal appeals court.

Many Muslims in the U.S. and around the world are watching this case with baited breath.

And joining us now is director of development of the Center on Global Policy, Haroon Moghul. And Mubin Shaikh, he's a former extremist and now a counterterrorism operative and author of "Undercover Jihadi".

Gentlemen, thank you so much for being here with us.

Mubin, I want to start with you, because it's always fascinating to talk to you. You were a jihadist once and then after 9/11, you had sort of a crisis of conscience and you changed your entire philosophy and you, in fact, began working with Canadian counterterrorism officials. You helped foil terror plots and you continue to do that now. You try to re-educate people who may be geared towards extremism or jihad.

How does this travel ban affect your mission?

MUBIN SHAIKH, FORMER EXTREMIST: Yes, well, I see it from two perspectives. One is the ex-extremist perspective and the other is, you know, I was a trainer for a coalition's psychological operations, individuals who are in theater, on the ground in anti-ISIS messaging basically. I was to role-play ISIS.

So, when everyone tells you that the recruiting bonanza that we have given ISIS is real, it's very real. It's making it very difficult for people like myself who are on the operational or practitioner's side to combat the ISIS narrative.

CAMEROTA: How? SHAIKH: Which is, look, they hate you because of Islam. This is the

whole point. They hate you because of Islam. They're openly telling you that they hate Islam or Islam hates us, however you want to frame it. And it's just feeding into their narrative. It's making life very difficult for people who are on the front lines doing the counter messaging.

CUOMO: Haroon, the counter-argument is, ISIS already hates the West. You're not going to give them anymore incentive. All you're going to do at something like this is, one, recognize the threat which is from Muslim extremists towards the West and give yourself a cushion during which time you can get vetting that will help you in places where there is no use for database because there is no communication, there is no digitalized security.

HAROON MOGHUL, SR. FELLOW AND DIR. OF DEVELOPMENT, CENTER ON GLOBAL POLICY: I don't -- I don't buy that. And part of the reality here is that we have obviously troops on the ground in places like Iraq and we have partners that we work with in Muslim majority countries to fight ISIS and fight groups like ISIS.

And imagine for a moment that you're an American soldier on the ground. You're working with Iraqi partners and you find out that this travel ban has been put in place. Basically what you're saying or what your government is saying is that, hey, we trust you enough to fight ISIS, but we're not sure if you are ISIS, so we don't want you in our country.

Essentially, what Donald Trump has done is put our troops in danger and made it harder for American to accomplish its objectives. It's a little bit of working backwards. You need allies in any kind of conflict.

[06:55:02] And when you're alienating our allies just because it feels good to say radical Islamic terror, to institute a Muslim ban, you also have to think about the long-term consequences, the long term consequences that Americans are less safe and there will be more American boots on the ground and more American lives on the front lines, rather than a coalition effort, which has been on a whole pretty successful given the complexity of the situation.

CAMEROTA: Mubin, you don't just have these counterterrorism conversations professionally where you're trying to combat extremism, you're also a father of five. You have children, I believe, from 8 years old to 17. What are the conversations that you're having with them about the travel ban?

SHAIKH: Yes. It's just a general conversation on the president and the approach of your president.

Look, I try to be diplomatic with them. You know, I don't want to, you know, just say he's -- he's this or he's that. They themselves, they hear the narratives from school. They see reactions on TV. They look at -- they hear the reactions of everyone.

And I try to explain to them that, look, America is -- it really is a great place. You know, it's almost like there's a split personality. You know, on one hand, there's very, very tolerant people.

I mean, I reinforce to them the outpouring of support that Muslims have been getting. I mean, there was a funny joke about, you know, now Muslims are praying at the airport and it's OK.

So, I try to explain to them, you know, to put it in context that it is very abrasive, the manner in which this -- you know, this is being done by the current president, but I remind them that the U.S. is a big place with different kinds of views.

CUOMO: But, you know, Haroon, as you know, polls have the country -- you don't need a poll to tell you the Americans are split on this. I mean, there are real feelings about our root cause in diversity and the new Colossus column that sits afoot of the Statute of Liberty. But now, it has a competing pressure which is safety. It's not an accident that the president is calling out attacks over the last two years, dozens of them, and saying, we could be next if we're not safer.

What do you say to people in America, Haroon, when you say, boy, you look at all of these other places, they're getting attacked, I could be next, we should be as safe as possible and we have to do better than we do now?

MOGHUL: One of the biggest challenges of being a Muslim in the public space and being a Muslim in America is that people have a tendency to collapse you into your identity. So, people say, oh, you are a Muslim, therefore, if you're opposed to the travel ban, it must be because you're Muslim and it must be because at best you're skeptical of the United States. You're not really loyal to the United States.

And that's a really frustrating reality and it's part of the way a lot of media sources, especially, unfortunately, Hollywood and the way Muslims are portrayed in TV shows and movies are always collapsing the identify.

So, what I tried to do is a lot of personal engagement and actually had a great conversation with someone a couple of days ago, right before a CNN segment with a Republican, with a Trump supporter, and he asked me what I did. I said part of my work is actually bringing Muslim leaders to Jerusalem to study with Israeli counterparts and to build bridges of understanding. It's remarkable that the U.S. is only one of the countries where you can do that.

And now, we're having trouble recruiting people for that programming part because people are anxious as to whether they'll be allowed back into their own country.

And so, sometimes it's about reframing it. So, instead of seeing threats which is unfortunately how Islam is portrayed, you also have to see how America creates. And those are the opportunities in the long term don't just stop terrorism as in prevent attacks but actually weaken and degrade and destroy groups like ISIS because that's where we want to go, right? We don't just want to keep ourselves relatively safe, we want to win this.

CAMEROTA: Yes, Haroon, Mubin, thank you as always for your message. We always appreciate talking to you.

And thank you to our international viewers. For you, CNN "NEWSROOM" is next.

For our U.S. viewers, NEW DAY continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Radical Islamic terrorists are determined to strike our home. It's not even being reported.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His assertion is laughable. Everybody out there knows it's laughable.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Journalists are putting their lives on the line every day reporting on terrorism.

TRUMP: We will not allow it to take root in our country.

Not going to allow it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You don't need access to classified information to know people fleeing terror and torture pose no national security threat.

MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The president is operating within his authority.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You don't uphold the Constitution by saying the courts are not valid.

TRUMP: We should have something within the year and the following year.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: This was a promise made to the American people and we need to deliver on that promise.

TRUMP: We are putting in a wonderful plan.

Obamacare doesn't work.

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

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY.

Up first, we're going to see our justice system in action today. A federal appeals court is going to hear arguments on whether to reinstate the president's controversial travel ban. Now, the Justice Department is claiming that national security is at risk.

CAMEROTA: The two state attorneys general suing the president say his executive order is unconstitutional.