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Kerry Remarks Coming On Iran; White House Says No Iran Nuke Deal Yet; Chris Coons Confidence; Interview with Sen. Chris Coons; John Kerry Gives Updates on Iran Nuke Deal; Trump Interview with Anderson Cooper. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired July 09, 2015 - 13:00   ET

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

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's going to be the test on the measure of what he's been able to accomplish so far. I suspect that it's something on those lines that we're going to hear shortly here, Brianna.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: And, Jim, it seems kind of like shuttle diplomacy today. You have Secretary Kerry, he's meeting with his allies, with Iran's allies, then he's meeting with Iran. Then, he goes back to meet with his allies and Iran's allies. Does this deadline, which has been bumped until tomorrow, does this really mean anything?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think we have to stop using the word, deadline, because they've broken so many of them. So, it's sort of like a dead-ish line or it's a target date.

KEILAR: Yes.

SCIUTTO: That kind of thing. Now, it does mean something in Congressional terms because if they pass through this, then Congress will have instead of 30 days to review, they'll have 60 days to review which, earlier on in these talks, was something that the administration wanted to avoid. I think, now, they're more focused on the deal and they've just sort of thrown their hands up in the air and said, hey, if we've got to deal with that, we've got to deal with that.

KEILAR: So, meaning if Congress does not get the text of this deal, which is largely complete but there are still a lot of sticking points, if they don't get this tomorrow, really in the morning, right?

SCIUTTO: Right, based on the difference in European time because the deadline is July 9th.

KEILAR: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Then Congress will have 60 days. But, clearly, the focus now is on getting an agreement. And this has been a tough week. You even had some tensions bursting out of the room earlier in the week, shouting matches heard through closed doors between Zarif and Kerry. More smiles since then. But this could also be posturing. You're up against the wall here. I think from the U.S. side and from Kerry, as we hear him now, you're going to want to hear a couple of things. I mean, he's going to want to give the impression that the talks aren't about to fall apart, on the one hand. But as he's been doing all week, he also doesn't want to give the impression, and this has been a storyline that's out there, that the administration wants the deal so badly that they're going to fold on everything.

So, they've got to exude both toughness and hope. And you've been seeing that from both sides. But, listen, clearly, they still have some disagreements because they haven't come to an agreement yet.

KEILAR: Nic, you're hearing this, exactly what Jim is describing over the last few days. Critics of President Obama, of Secretary Kerry, saying they are too eager for a deal. But then, here, over the last -- really, the last day, we heard President Obama went and talked to Congress and he told senators that he thinks there is less than a 50- 50 chance of a deal. What is that trying to signal to people there in Vienna who are negotiating?

ROBERTSON: Well, it certainly signals the Iranian side that the U.S. position is one that's rock solid. They're not going to move. There was a real sense here, earlier in the week, that the Iranians knew this July 10th deadline to get an agreement before Congress. And they were playing to that. They were hoping that the U.S. would concede positions based on that time line. The Iranians, for days now, have been saying they don't care if it blows through the 9th, the 10th, the 11th. They say the deal if it goes a few days longer, then so what? It's not the end of the world.

So, in a way, I think what we saw earlier in the week was we certainly saw the U.S. side recognize that, perhaps, they were being played by the Iranians, in that way. Turn it around against the Iranians saying, we don't care about that deadline either. So, where do you stand? Then, we heard the Iranians raise the issue of wanting this arms embargo lifted.

The Iranians, today, their president was told by President Putin of Russia he supports the lifting of that arms embargo. If they -- if that isn't enough for the Iranian president to see that he's going to have support in the U.N. Security Council resolution of which would follow the agreement here and frame the agreement here, then you have to begin to ask, what is going to be enough? Because, certainly, we're hearing messages of support for the Iranian side from the Russians on key issues for the Iranians.

But it does seem, certainly yesterday, the talks seemed in free fall. Today, there seems to be a better grasp on them. But certainly from that position of the United States that Secretary Kerry being too ready to cave in, I think really we've moved beyond that. The recognition now is that that is not the case here -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Jim, I know you want to react to that. I just want to get this quick headline in because we've heard, just a moment ago, from Josh Earnest, the White House Press Secretary, in the White House briefing, he says there is no deal that has been reached with Iran. So, no deal. So, then what is this? Just a status report? Do we get -- do we get to read the tea leaves on how optimistic Secretary Kerry is?

SCIUTTO: I think for sure. We have to hear every -- listen, if Kerry -- and he's not going to do this or I'd be surprised if he walks up and says, I'm finished. I'm going home. We're not going to reach a deal. But, you know, he may tell us just how much more distance they have to cover to get to an agreement or just to express that there is hope that they will and they're going to give it more time and the two sides are serious, that kind of thing. That's the sort of statement I would expect here because that seems to be the status. And we would know if there was a deal coming.

But, you know, the point that Nic mentioned that I think is key here is, you know, some signs of disagreement within the west, and that's a problem at this stage in the negotiations, if you have Russia saying in public that, yes, maybe Iran, we don't need this arms embargo. That's exactly what Iran wants because the U.S. and European partners feel very different about that.

[13:05:11] And that would be a very difficult one for President Obama to sell at home if that's something that he gave up in these negotiations. So, that would be a tough one. If you're seeing the splits not just between the west and Iran, but within the west on one of those key issues.

KEILAR: All right. And so, in a way, then, you end up having Iran, China and Russia facing off against the U.S. and its allies.

SCIUTTO: And what's very important about that point is that this -- you know, there's a lot of talk about what happens if there's not a deal. You know, let's look at the scenarios, people bring up military action, et cetera. But let's say the talks do fall apart. One real prospect is that this whole sanctions regime that's been built up over several years, really hard work. You know, it's fairly easy to get the U.S. and Europe on the same page but to get China and Russia on that page --

KEILAR: Especially under the current environment. This is 13 years of work, right?

SCIUTTO: Exactly. In the current environment, enormous disagreements over Ukraine, you've got Russian bombers off the west coast, that kind of thing. But, you know, that coalition, if you don't have an agreement here, is very likely to -- unlikely to stay together if there's no agreement. And then, Iran starts breaking the sanctions regime, and then they're getting more money and they're selling their oil, that kind of thing. So, you know, neither side wants the talks to fall apart.

KEILAR: Nic, one of the issues that we've seen, one of the sticking points, has to do with Iran's past behavior in whether it tried to seek nuclear weapons capability. We're learning from a U.N. investigation that they believe that was the case. And yet, Iran is maintaining, no, that's not what we did. Our nuclear program has been just for energy. So, how does that complicate matters here?

ROBERTSON: Oh, hugely. And I don't think that issue has been properly resolved. There's sort of (INAUDIBLE) it's termed here, often, as PMD, Possible Military Dimensions. How much of the nuclear technology did Iran use to try to develop nuclear weapons? There are substantially 12 issues on the PMD account. Iran was beginning to answer those a few years back. They answered one of them. There were 11 really outstanding.

The IAEA chief went to Tehran last week to talk about this. But it was very clear, from this statement when he came back, that he might have made some progress on it. But he said it would take to the end of the year, and goodwill on the Iranian side as well, to begin to go further to answering all those questions.

So, I think that has been a key stumbling block. That may have been what we heard from the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, a few minutes ago. Certainly, that is an issue that he was putting on the record as an outstanding issue just in the last couple of days.

So, unless that is resolved, unless it is substantially answered, that key question that Iran has been holding out with the international nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, for so long already, that if that is not addressed in a way that everyone can feel comfortable and that Iran has really told everything it's got to say on that, then, again, that lowers the chances of getting a deal -- Brianna.

KEILAR: And as we try to get a sense of exactly where this is, we're learning now new reaction from Iran's foreign minister. This is Secretary Kerry's counterpart. The man who is negotiating on behalf of Iran in Vienna.

SCIUTTO: Right. You're right, the chief Iranian negotiator. And then, this is how news comes these days. He tweeted this comment just a few minutes ago. We're working hard but not rushed to get the job done. Mark my words, you can't change horses in the middle of a stream. And that echoes, to some degree, what the French foreign minister said a short time ago, saying that we are going to continue talks into the night, that they're still working, in effect. They don't have an agreement but they're not going to pick up their gloves and go home. They're going to keep working together.

KEILAR: Do you -- it's funny because -- pardon me. Diplo-speak is so subtle --

SCIUTTO: Yes.

KEILAR: -- compared to what people normally say. So, when you hear that tweet, when you hear an Iranian official saying, god only knows if we'll have a deal.

SCIUTTO: Right.

KEILAR: And you hear President Obama saying, less than 50-50 percent chance. You kind of want -- you almost multiply it in real speak, I think, for what it means. Can we really read into what stage this is? Is this a final stage of jockeying? Is this -- the Obama administration covering themselves because of critics back here at home? How do you read this?

SCIUTTO: You can -- you have to run it through a major filter here.

KEILAR: Exactly.

SCIUTTO: Right? Because, you know, the politics are involved but also negotiations. And both sides, you know, what they say in private may be very different from what they say in public.

KEILAR: Sure.

SCIUTTO: Both have very sensitive politics back home, so they're speaking to a domestic audience. Both sides want to show that they're being tough with the other side. And they're negotiators. And we've all been involved in negotiations and people say a lot of stuff during negotiations to try to color how things are and to firm up their position.

So, I think, you know, we have to take this all with a grain of salt. I think the key messages here are, as the White House said, there is no deal yet. They haven't reached an agreement. But they're not giving up yet either. And I think we can expect something similar, along those lines, from Secretary Kerry.

[13:10:03] But let's face facts here. Time is running out, to some degree, at least to get a deal done by that Congressional deadline. But I've been told by folks that there's another possibility where, listen, even if they go home, in the next 24-48 hours, they might let the interim agreement continue and say, listen, when we have something to talk about we can come back -- come back to the table at a later date.

KEILAR: Well, that would be a huge development.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

KEILAR: And we are awaiting Secretary John Kerry to see what he will say there, in Vienna. A morning of shuttle diplomacy over Iran's nuclear capabilities. All sides saying there's progress. But what does that really mean? Is there really progress? We'll talk about that after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Joining me here now, we have Delaware Democrat. We have Chris Coons. He's a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, so he knows a lot about what's going on here. We are waiting on Secretary John Kerry there in Vienna. We are expecting him to come out and talk after a morning of shuttle diplomacy between all of the nations involved in these talks over Iran's nuclear capabilities.

Senator, thanks so much for joining us.

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D), DELAWARE, FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: Thank you.

KEILAR: And you were in this meeting with President Obama, what he has to say about where the progress of these talks are is so important. And what he told you, right, was less than a 50-50 percent chance?

KUNZ: That's right. The president invited over the whole Democratic Senate caucus earlier this week. We had a great chance to talk about a wide range of issues. But before the evening wrapped up, he made of point of saying to us, don't be concerned and anxious about what the supreme leader is saying about what Iranians or Zarif are saying on behalf of the Iranians. Listen to me, I won't sign, I won't present to you a bad deal. I will insist on sanctions relief only happening after the Iranians meet the conditions. I'll insist on robust and thorough sanctions. I'll insist on making sure that we freeze or prevent pathways towards a nuclear weapon. I am committed to preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapons' capability. And I found that reassuring.

KEILAR: So, you took away from this meeting that he is willing to walk away?

COONS: Yes, he exactly said that.

KEILAR: That basic -- and, obviously, the strongest negotiating position is to say, you know, what? That's not good enough for me. I'm out of here.

COONS: That's right.

KEILAR: And what a lot of Republicans are saying, that's not where he's had. But not just Republicans. We heard from the number two Democrat in the House this week, Steny Hoyer. He said he's worried that the U.S. is going to get rope a doped here. What do you say to that?

COONS: Well, I have confidence in Secretary Kerry. I served with him in the Senate. I have confidence that Brad Sherman and the other folks on his team are negotiating hard. And I am hopeful that the deal, if there is one, will be a tough deal, an enforceable deal and one that I could support. But I'm responsible, as a senator, to exercise my own review and my own judgment. If it's not a good deal, if I'm not convinced it's in our country's best interest, I won't support it.

KEILAR: We see what appears to be a State Department aide putting remarks there on the podium in Vienna, as we wait for Secretary John Kerry, a sign that he may be very close to coming out. Talk to us about this deadline as we wait for him. The deadline, which a target date, as Jim put it, I thought it was a good way to say it, it's been pushed now until tomorrow.

[13:15:10]

So, Washington time, East Coast time, we're talking the text would need to come in, in the morning. We see John Kerry, so we may have to pick this up, but you're basically saying the deadline isn't as hard and fast. In a word it's not, right?

COONS: There's a 30-day review period if they get us the text after September 8th, 60 days from now till then.

Let's listen to the secretary.

KEILAR: OK, let's listen to John Kerry in Vienna, Austria.

JOHN KERRY, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, good evening, everybody, and let me start by thanking all of you for your remarkable patience. I know, in fact all of us involved in this know that this has been a very difficult couple of weeks for the many journalists who are here in Vienna with us. But let me assure you, we would not be here continuing to negotiate just for the sake of negotiating. We're here because we believe we are making real progress toward a comprehensive deal.

But as I have said many times, and as I discussed with President Obama last night, we are not going to sit at the negotiating table forever. We also recognize that we shouldn't get up and leave simply because the clock strikes midnight. And I emphasize, given that the work here is incredibly technical and that the stakes are very, very high, we will not rush and we will not be rushed and we won't let ourselves be rushed through any aspect of this. All that we are focused on is the quality of the agreement, and that is what will continue to define our work.

If, in the end, we are able to reach a deal, it has to be one that can withstand the test of time. It is not a test of the matter of days or weeks or months. It's a test for decades. That's our goal here. And the simple fact is that despite all of the progress that we have made, and it's real, some of the tough issues remain unresolved.

We know that difficult decisions don't become easier over time. And one way or the other, those decisions must be taken very soon. That is precisely why all of our delegations remain hard at work here in Vienna and it's why a number of my counterparts returned last night and are here now so that we can continue to push through on the tough issues and ultimately see whether or not the good deal that we have been working for so hard is possible to achieve. That's what we're working on and that's what we'll continue to work on.

Thank you all very much.

QUESTION: But how long are you willing to stay, Mr. Secretary?

KERRY: I just said, this is not open-ended. President Obama made it very clear to me last night, you can't wait forever for the decision to be made. We know that. If the tough decisions don't get made, we are absolutely prepared to call an end to this process.

Thank you all very, very much. Thank you.

QUESTION: The president has made --

KERRY: Thank you. QUESTION: The president said it's less than 50/50 that you get a deal.

That's what he --

KEILAR: All right, Secretary Kerry there -- oh, let's listen in. What is he saying?

KERRY: Thanks.

KEILAR: All right, final -- quick final words there from him.

So he said this is not open-ended, Secretary Coons, but it's not specifically closed off at a date either. Doesn't that give some sort of wiggle room here? I mean you heard him saying decisions don't get easier over with -- over time, they need to be made soon. What do you -- what do you read from that?

COONS: What I read from that is that there are a few critical, unresolved issues. As you have reported, in recent days the Iranians have tried this gambit of introducing into these negotiations the idea that the U.N. Arms Embargo should be lifted. That's not on the table. This is about Iran's elicit nuclear weapons program, not about the longstanding arms embargo, which should remain in place. That was an effort by the Iranians to drive a wedge between us and the Russians who are also participants in these negotiations.

KEILAR: But it did. But it did drive a wedge, right?

COONS: I suspect -- well, but they are not now changing their tune and leaving negotiations or siding with the Iranians.

KEILAR: Because of that (ph).

COONS: I think it was a distraction and my hunch is that what we're hearing here from Secretary Kerry is a determination to send a message to the Iranian supreme leader, the deal that's on the table is the best deal you're going to get. You either need to accept it or we're going to walk away.

KEILAR: Is -- is there another level of rhetoric here to communicate that? He's saying that we're open to walking away, but he's not saying when. He's not -- this is not take it or leave it.

[13:20:07] COONS: Not yet. My hope is that if the Iranians will not agree to some of the core issues that are unresolved about inspections so that there are sensitive or military sites where we have legitimate concerns that there might be elicit nuclear weapons research or programs going on, we have to have access, full accounting for their possible military dimensions of their long-standing illicit and illegal nuclear weapons program, a conditions based relief for sanctions and real limits on their future -- centrifuge R&D. There's a whole series of issues that if the Iranians aren't willing to accept the position that the United States and our key allies have put forward, then we should walk away from the deal.

The president has long said, and I agree with this and so do most of the members of Congress, that no deal is better than a bad deal. And I appreciate that Secretary Kerry just said the test for this agreement, should there be one, isn't whether it survives a few months or years, but decades. As someone who may well be serving in the Senate for a number of years ahead and is very concerned about the flawed deals that we reached in North Korea and in Pakistan, where those countries ultimately did get the bomb, I'm very concerned that we not sign off on, that Secretary Kerry and the president not sign off on a deal that isn't enforceable over a very long period of time. So I'm encouraged by what Secretary Kerry said and I do think there will -- there will come a point here soon where we should walk away if the Iranians won't agree.

KEILAR: When you talk to Americans, when you talk to your constituents in Delaware, how do you explain to them why this matters so much to them personally?

COONS: What I explained to them is that Iran is a country that is one of the foremost sponsors of terrorism in the world, that they're doing horrible things around the Middle East and that we have been really in tension and conflict with them for decades and I don't trust them and neither should they and that they have been trying to get a nuclear weapon now for many years. We've pulled together an impressive international coalition. We've imposed sanctions on them. And this is the moment when we've got a chance at resolving it diplomatically. If we don't, it will pose a real threat to our troops in the region and to our allies in the region.

KEILAR: Jim Sciutto, our chief national security correspondent, you just listened to Secretary Kerry's remarks from Vienna. What did you take from them?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: I think a couple key takeaways. One, they're still talking there, but, two, there are still disagreements on key issues. And then John Kerry repeating a point that we heard from the president just last week and we've begun to hear more of this week, and that is that if those key issues aren't resolved and the message from that is, if Iran does not make key concessions on some of these issues, then they're willing to walk away. So, again, a very public warning there, an expression of hope saying they're still working, they wouldn't stay here, John Kerry said, if they didn't believe they had a chance of resolving these issues.

But on the other side, major issues remain and putting out that warning in effect that if Iran does not come to the table, does not move, then we will walk away from the talks, says John Kerry. It's a warning. You know, how much of that is negotiation posturing at this point, you know, impossible to tell because, as we were just talking earlier, Brianna, both sides have a lot invested in this deal and after two years of diplomacy, it would be very difficult for either side to give up and walk away from the table.

KEILAR: The translation there, we're not quite to take it or leave it, but we are on our way.

Jim Sciutto, thank you so much.

Senator Coons, really appreciate you being with us as well.

COONS: Thank you.

KEILAR: And still ahead, did the RNC chair ask Donald Trump to tone down his act? Our reporting says yes. Trump says no. So what's really going on here?

Plus, the billionaire had this -- what he had to say about the controversy over his remarks on immigration. We have that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:27:51] KEILAR: Presidential Candidate Donald Trump is the lightning rod of the Republican Party, and with good reason. A source tells CNN, Trump's incendiary comments about undocumented Mexican immigrants has the head of the RNC telling him to tone it down, but Trump disputes that characterization, as well as that a protest is about to begin outside of the future site of his luxury hotel in downtown Washington, D.C. We will go into depth on both of those angles in just a moment.

But despite upsetting both the party and much of the public, in an interview with Anderson Cooper, Trump doesn't back down. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, ANCHOR, "AC 360": I've got to ask you about a couple of things in -- in the news. "The Washington Post," as you know, says that some of the workers building this beautiful hotel that you're building down in Washington, D.C., are illegal. They've talked to 15 workers. They said a number of those 15 came here legally through asylum. They're now legal. But that a number of them did say they're illegal. Isn't it hypocritical for you saying that illegal immigration is killing this country to be employing illegal immigrants?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I read the story. And, by the way, that story does not name any names. I'd love them if they could give us the names, but they said they spoke to one or two and -- but they don't name them and they don't even know if it's true.

COOPER: Well, what they -- what they say is, "several of the men who hail mostly from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, have earned U.S. citizenship or legal status through immigration programs targeting Central Americans fleeing civil wars or natural disasters. Others quietly acknowledge that they remain in the country illegally." They don't give numbers.

TRUMP: They have to give us the names because we have, you know, many more --

COOPER: But you know illegal -- they're not going to give you names.

TRUMP: No, no, no, they have to give us the names. And I have to say this, we believe so strongly -- I hired a very big contractor. One of the most prestigious, one of the best in the world, to build the building. It's their responsibility to make sure they have done --

COOPER: Doesn't the buck stop with you, though?

TRUMP: Yes, it does.

COOPER: You're paying their salaries.

TRUMP: Oh, absolutely. We have gone out of our way to make sure that everybody in that building is legal. And we do have some that were -- that became legal.

COOPER: And --

TRUMP: And, wait a minute. We have some, many, I think, that became, frankly, me, you, everybody, I mean ultimately we we're all sort of in the group of immigrants, right?

COOPER: (INAUDIBLE).

TRUMP: But we have done that to the absolute letter of the law. We're very, very careful on it. Beyond --

[13:30:01] COOPER: But if "The Washington Post" can go there and talk to 15 people and find some illegal immigrants --

TRUMP: Well, they haven't shown us anything. I wish they would give us some names. We would get them out immediately.

COOPER: But you've got to -- you must have a guy on the job site who --

TRUMP: We have more than one guy --

COOPER: Right.