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Carson 2nd in Poll on 2016 GOP Race; Assad Says No Change, Kerry Says Anti-ISIS Coalition Making Progress; Charles Barkley Talks Race, Police, and More; Iraq Throws Water on Lebanese Claim of Arresting ISIS Leader's Wife; Hillary Clinton Leads Democratic Pack for 2016.

Aired December 03, 2014 - 13:30   ET

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

DR. BEN CARSON, PROFESSOR EMERITUS, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: That's not the point of what I was saying. The point of what I'm saying and we have to learn how to talk about what is the point? The point is a major fundamental shift of power has occurred. If we continue down that road, the United States of America becomes something very different than it was intended to be.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Let's move on and quickly get your thought on immigration reform. How do you feel about what's going on right now? What should the Congress do, the Senate, as you know passed comprehensive immigration reform? It's been stuck for a year and a half, or whatever, in the House of Representatives. If you could get your way as far as immigration reform, what would you do?

CARSON: Well, first of all, we have to recognize that we do have laws and we should uphold those laws. And we also have a mechanism for taking care of immigration reform. It is well-stated in our Constitution and we should use those constitutional avenues to take care of this. There is nothing in our Constitution that warrants an executive order for something of this magnitude and something that affects so many Americans. This is a republic type of government. We have a representative government. It should be done according to the will of the people, not according to the will of someone who thinks that they know better than all the people.

BLITZER: One final question before I let you go, Dr. Carson. What do you think of President Obama?

CARSON: Well, I think that he is a man who some people say is stupid, is inexperienced, doesn't know what he's doing. I very much disagree with those people. I think he knows exactly what he's doing. And I think he has an agenda that is very different from that of many Americans and he's doing a very good job of accomplishing it.

BLITZER: Dr. Ben Carson, a potential Republican presidential candidate, thanks very much for joining us.

CARSON: Always a pleasure, Wolf.

BLITZER: Dr. Ben Carson joining us from Philadelphia.

By the way, read a lot more about Dr. Carson on CNN.com/politics. Take a look at Mark Preston's extensive report, "Ben Carson, Political Phenomenon. That's on CNN.com/poltics.

Still ahead --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLES BARKLEY, FORMER NBA PLAYER: We have a racial issue in this country. We've always had a racial issue in this country. And the biggest problem with it is we never discuss race until something bad happens.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: We'll have a lot more from Charles Barkley on race relations in the wake of the Ferguson, Missouri, protests. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer, reporting from Washington.

The Syrian president, Bashar al Assad, is calling U.S.-led air strikes against ISIS in Syria completely ineffective. Bashar al Assad telling the French magazine "Paris Match" that Syrian forces fighting ISIS on the ground haven't seen any changes in the terror group's strength since coalition strikes began more than two months ago.

Let's bring in CNN's chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, joining us from London.

Christiane, the secretary of state of the United States, John Kerry, is meeting today in Belgium with representatives from, what, 60 countries, this anti-ISIS coalition. What is he saying about this ongoing battle?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. It's the first high-level meeting of this coalition. And they have obviously been discussing their progress report.

Now, as to Bashar al Assad, by most accounts, his forces wouldn't know, because they're not actually fighting ISIS. That was the moderate FSA. And, in fact, many say that Bashar al Assad has allowed ISIS to flourish and he's just been taking it out on the moderate forces while the U.S. has been pounding ISIS.

But beyond that, John Kerry, the secretary of state, has said this is not something that's going to be won from the air. It is going to take a long time but that they have made inroads. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: DASH is still perpetrating terrible crimes. But there was a consensus that the momentum which it had exhibited two and a half months ago has been halted, that it has been forced to modify its tactics. And some of those modifications are severely hampering their ability to operate in the way that they were, certainly, that their hold on territory has been challenged already, and their finances have been strained.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Now, as you can see, the secretary of state is changing the terminology. He called them DASH, which is what many in the anti-ISIS Arab-speaking world calls them, no longer ISIS, I.S., ISIL or whatever is the confusing amount of nomenclature being used.

So what seems to have happened is that also the Iraqi new defense minister is asking NATO to step up training of Iraqi forces. And it's crucial to know when the U.S.-led training of the Free Syrian Army forces will start in earnest. As yet, that hasn't really got under way. There's also obviously a humanitarian end to this. And very interestingly, I spoke to the archbishop of Canterbury yesterday. He leads 80 million worldwide Anglicans. He's spoken to the beleaguered Christians and other minorities who have been discriminated very harshly against by ISIS. And he said that some of them have spoken to him favorably about what happened all these years ago when John Major and George Bush Sr put up a no-fly zone to protect the beleaguered Kurds and Shiite Muslims under Saddam Hussein. So there's still people talking about a possible safe haven, no-fly zone for humanitarian reasons -- Wolf?

BLITZER: Let's see if that happens. Unfortunately, way too many people have died and been made homeless by what's going on.

Christiane, as usual, thanks very much.

An important note for our CNN International viewers, you can catch "Amanpour" coming up at the top of the hour on CNN international.

Still ahead, our own Brooke Baldwin sits down with Charles Barkley, talks about race, police and a whole lot more.

And Hillary Clinton leads the Democratic pack of possible 2016 presidential candidates. But does she risk underestimating some of her potential rivals? Gloria Borger is standing by. We'll talk politics.

All that and a lot more coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: The grand jury decision of Ferguson, Missouri, and the subsequent protests have become a dividing line for so many people out there. The former NBA star, the current broadcaster for our sister network, TNT, Charles Barkley, made news recently for his take on the situation.

And Charles Barkley spoke at length with our own Brooke Baldwin. Here's a small part of that conversation.

((BEGIN VIDEO CLIP))

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Because of what happened in Ferguson, there's a lot of anger, there's a lot of frustration. What can we, as a country, do with that, this energy, right now?

BARKLEY: First of all, we can open a dialogue. And I think that's probably what I did was open a dialogue.

Brooke, in fairness, there's some black people out there who are crooks. And when the police come to your neighborhood, it's a tense situation. The only time you interact with the cops is when things are going wrong. That's the only time we ever interact with the cops.

But first of all, we, we, as black people, we've got a lot of crooks. We can't just wait until something like this happens -- we have to look ourself in the mirror. There's a reason they racially profile us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Let's bring Brooke in from New York.

He isn't backing down at all, even after all the criticism, is he, Brooke?

BALDWIN: No. Wolf, you've been around Charles Barkley a few times. I have been as well. Whether the cameras are rolling or not, this is a guy who speaks his mind. And he'll also sit here and say to you, I'm not speaking on behalf of African-Americans. He's speaking on behalf of Charles Barkley.

And so one of the reasons I picked up the phone and called him and said, hey, we need to talk, is some of the comments he gave to the radio station in Philadelphia in which he had labeled the people who are breaking the law, the people who are setting businesses and cars on fire the night the grand jury decision came down in Ferguson, called them scumbags. And he doubled down on that in our interview. He's frustrated because he says that within the African-American community, Wolf, he says, if I disagree with you, why can't we just agree to disagree? Why do people have to throw names like Uncle Toms and sellouts and traitors? He's frustrated with that. He said a lot of people are angry because they don't like how it ended up.

BLITZER: I want to play another little clip from the interview, Brooke. I know the full interview is going to air on your program in the next hour. That's coming up for our North American viewers. But listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARKLEY: My grandmother taught me, you judge everybody on their own individual merit, you don't care what any other jackass has to say. Black is not always right and white is not always wrong. You've got some bad apples who take advantage of the situation. And that's unfortunate because this is a serious -- somebody lost a child. And this is something we need to seriously sit back and discuss and figure out what happened what went wrong. But let my say this. The notion that white cops are out there just killing black people, that's ridiculous. It's just flat-out ridiculous. And I challenge any black person to try to make that point. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: One thing about Charles, he always speaks directly. He doesn't mince any words. I've known him for a long time.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: He's a really, really smart guy not only in sports but in all sorts and other issues as well. And I'm sure you appreciate that.

BALDWIN: Yeah. I appreciated that he spent at least a half hour with me. This is just a snippet of what -- we'll play the entire thing at the top of the hour, everything from -- I asked him his thoughts on Ferguson police investigating Michael Brown's stepfather for potentially inciting a riot. I asked him if he thinks Michael Brown is a hero. I asked him if he thinks the situation would be different if Officer Darren Wilson had been African-American. I asked him about the St. Louis Rams players with their hands up, peacefully protesting. And I also asked him about Ray Rice. We turned the page and I asked him, now that he's eligible again to the play for the NFL, will a team pick him up?

And you're a big basketball guy, I asked him about his 76ers. They are 0-17. Ended on a bit of a lighter note. We'll have all of that at the top of the hour.

BLITZER: I remember, a year or so ago, my Washington Wizards were just beginning to come back and he told me -- I remember this very vividly -- he said to me, they're going to be in the playoffs, even when a lot of us were not even expecting the Wizards to be in the playoffs. He said it. He knew what he was talking about then. They made the playoffs. And they're having a good season this year as well. This is very, very good.

All right, thanks very much.

BALDWIN: Thank you.

BLITZER: We'll watch the full interview coming up right at the top of the hour with Brooke Baldwin. She's doing an amazing job for all of us.

Still coming up this hour, she's number one, but could Hillary Clinton's front-runner position lead to overconfidence? Gloria Borger is standing by live. We'll talk 2016 presidential politics.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Iraq is throwing cold water on claims that Lebanon recently detained a wife and child of the ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. The interior ministry says the woman's identity didn't match up with either of the names of al Baghdadi's two wives.

But intelligence sources tell our senior international correspondent, Nic Robertson, that's not necessarily the case, saying they have a very high-value target. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the woman a regional intelligence source tells CNN was arrested last week while crossing from Syria to Lebanon. It was shot in March last year. She was part of a nighttime prisoner exchange. She is believed by regional sources to be the wife of the ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. The video of the prisoner exchange is titled, "Man screened Lebanese security personnel who tried to touch Baghdadi's wife."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(SHOUTING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTSON: On the video, you can hear the man say, "Hey, you, take your hands off her. Keep your hands away from the woman. No one touches her."

So little is known about Baghdadi that pinning down whether this is, indeed, his wife or, as U.S. sources suspect, a former wife, is tough. What is clear to regional sources is that she was a high-valued target taking as a result of a long planned intelligence operation involving Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.

MICHAEL STEPHENS, ANALYST, RUS/QATAR: We also know, at this particular time, there was a lot of Western military activity in the area as well to do with reinforcing border areas and toughening up Lebanese security in that area.

ROBERTSON: A regional source with knowledge of the operation tells CNN she is a powerful figure in ISIS in her own right. That she is very active in ISIS.

STEPHENS: It's interesting that she was trying to come across into Lebanon at a time when Western forces were making a concerted effort to try to make sure that that part of Lebanon was stable. So it hints at some information mismanagement.

ROBERTSON: Both regional sources tell CNN the CIA was involved, working with the Iraqis, and the U.S. was aware of the operation.

Twitter accounts used by ISIS members denied Baghdadi's wife was arrested.

(on camera): But regional sources close to the capture say they are sure that Baghdadi's wife was arrested and that she was the intended target. One source even adding that Baghdadi has been calling up, asking about his 4-year-old son who was arrested with his mother, would the boy be released.

Nic Robertson, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BLITZER: Here in the United States, the midterm congressional elections are certainly history right now. Congress is winding down its lame-duck session, so the political focus automatically shifts to the 2016 presidential race.

Democrats are waiting for Hillary Clinton to announce her decision. She spoke this morning at a leadership forum at Georgetown University here in Washington D.C. A recent CNN/ORC poll shows her the overwhelming favorite among Democrats. She leads Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren by 55 points.

Our chief political analyst, Gloria Borger, is joining us.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: By the way, Wolf, Elizabeth Warren told me about 10 times she's not running so there you are.

BLITZER: Maybe if Hillary Clinton decides not to run, she might run.

BORGER: That's right.

BLITZER: But right now she's not running.

She's way, way ahead. So is it too early to say, if she runs, Hillary Clinton, it's hers, the nomination, for the taking?

BORGER: Look, it's hers to lose. You don't have to tell anybody who is in the Hillary Clinton circle that inevitability is not a campaign strategy. These people remember when they didn't take Barack Obama serious enough and when Hillary Clinton was all but the anointed Democratic nominee. That didn't work out well.

This, however, is a different situation. She's the favorite. She's run before. She's been road tested in that sense. And I think they are scratching their heads and saying, wait a minute, what's our rush to announce formally for the presidency. Everybody assumes Hillary Clinton is running. Why put her out there to be the target for everybody so quickly? Just delay the deadline a little bit for running. You know, there is nothing in a rule book that says you have to declare by January 1.

BLITZER: She doesn't necessarily have to announce she's running but she can create an exploratory committee --

BORGER: Sure. Sure.

BLITZER: -- in advance, like others are doing.

BORGER: Yes. She can do that in a nanosecond. She has other committees running without her. And she's one of the rare candidates who can get up and started at the snap of a finger. So this isn't as if people aren't planning behind the scenes. She just hasn't formally declared and they think, what's the rush for her to do so? Most people do assume that Hillary Clinton is running. It would be a real surprise if she did not.

BLITZER: You heard Dr. Ben Carson, a leading Republican potential candidate, saying he'll announce by May.

BORGER: Right.

BLITZER: But everyone seems to think Hillary Clinton should announce a lot earlier than that.

BORGER: You know, she doesn't have to announce honestly, Wolf. People know she's running. It's a matter of getting apparatus started. And it's also a question of the other Democratic candidates. If for some reason Hillary Clinton were to say, you know what, I'm not going to run, she ought to say that sooner rather than later so other potential candidates, like Elizabeth Warren, like Joe Biden, could get up and running. You see Jim Webb there who has already announced he's going to run. Give those other Democratic candidates a shot at getting up and running and competing with the Republicans. That's the real reason for her to announce earlier.

BLITZER: The former Virginia Senator has started an exploratory committee.

BORGER: Yes, he has.

BLITZER: We'll see how that goes for him.

Quickly, on the Republican side, you've been doing some reporting. Jeb Bush, in or out?

BORGER: Don't know. I don't think he's made a decision yet. I have spoken to people who talk to Jeb Bush regularly. He hasn't let anybody know what his decision is. Again, on the announcement, he has said in the new year. I doubt he's going to come out with a balloon drop and say, by the way, I'm becoming a presidential candidate.

But he's someone who doesn't have the apparatus running. His folks have done all of the research but they haven't started, you know, getting a PAC together, et cetera, et cetera. That would be the clear sign in the new year if Jeb were running, if he were to get some of that machinery running, and then you would know that he was seriously considering a presidential bid.

At some point, Wolf, presidential candidates are going to stop being coy about this and say to us, yes, I want to be president, here's why, we're going to get the committee up and running, and here I am.

BLITZER: Before you know it, those Democratic and Republican debates are going to be scheduled for later this year.

BORGER: Yeah.

BLITZER: Gloria, thanks very much.

BORGER: Thanks very much.

BLITZER: That's it for me. Thanks for watching.

For our international viewers, "Amanpour" coming up next. For viewers in North America, "Newsroom" with Brooke Baldwin starts

right now.