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CNN NEWSROOM

ISIS Game Plan; The Flight 370 Search Continues; Self-Driving Cars in Two Years?; Serena Williams Dominates U.S. Open, Men's Final Tonight

Aired September 8, 2014 - 09:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: It is time to play offense. That's President Obama's game plan when it comes to ISIS. On Wednesday, Mr. Obama is expected to lay out his battle plan. But it comes at a time both he and Congress inspire little confidence. The approval ratings for the president weigh in at around oh 40 percent. And, Congress, well, just 13 percent of Americans approve of what they've been up to. Not surprising since Congress is expected to work only a handful of days this fall before returning home to campaign.

And the president is forced to explain why he went golfing so soon after talking tough about militants beheading James Foley. Here's what he told NBC's "Meet the Press" about that decision.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I should have anticipated the optics. You know, that's part of the job. And, you know, I think everybody who knows me, including, I suspect, the press, understands that -- that -- you know, you take this stuff in, and it's serious business. And you care about it deeply. But part of this job is also the theater. Part of it is, you know, how are you --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You (INAUDIBLE) --

OBAMA: How are you -- well, it's not something that always comes naturally to me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: With me now, Josh Rogin, CNN political analyst, he also writes for "The Daily Beast," and Ana Navarro, CNN political analyst.

Welcome to both of you.

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Thank you.

ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning, Anna.

The president says he feels awkward when it comes to the handling of the theater of the job. Well, he didn't just start yesterday. So why not go to a place where the press can't shoot you golfing?

NAVARRO: Well, you know what, I really was somewhat disappointed in that answer. I thought his answer about ISIS was much more coherent and he laid out a plan and a course of action of what he's going to do with Congress in the next several days. But his answer about golfing after the Foley presser I found very disappointing because it wasn't about theater, it wasn't about optics. That was part of it. He shouldn't have done it because it was not the right thing to do.

And also, you know, he's been president now for over five years. He is not a newbie at this. He's not a rookie. Of course he knows what the optics are. He knows the optics matter. He knows it when he's campaigning. He's been through two very public presidential campaigns where the optics matter most and he was able to perform them. So he shouldn't have done it because it was the wrong thing to do. As president, he is the comforter in chief, and that means that you just don't go to the first hole of the golf course right after a presser about a beheaded American.

ROGIN: Yes, I have to --

COSTELLO: Say, Josh, it would have -- it would have set -- it would have sat better with me if he had just said, yes, that was stupid, because it would have been honest.

ROGIN: Right, I -- right, I totally agree with Ana that the problem really is not that the press made a big deal out of the president's actions. The problem were the president's actions and the messages that they send. So this is a common sort of tactic of this White House to go ahead and say, oh, I did everything right but because of the optics, the press is manipulating it to look like I did everything wrong.

I would disagree with Ana in that -- in where she said that the president's laid out a clear strategy for combatting the Islamic State. I feel like the policymakers, the media, regular Americans all over the country are waiting and going to be listening very intently when the president makes a major speech on Wednesday to lay out his strategy. According to the reports, this is going to be a three stage strategy which involves air strikes, then training Iraqi forces and then eventually getting around to combatting the Islamic State in Syria.

That's really not going to satisfy most of the critics' calls for action now to prevent the Islamic State from becoming more of a threat to the region and to the west. So I think that strategy is still pending. I think the Obama administration and the president has recognized that they made a big mistake when the president admitted we don't have a strategy yet for combatting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and they're going to, again, try to fix the messaging and fix the optics without fixing the actual strategy. That's the fear.

NAVARRO: I --

COSTELLO: Ana. NAVARRO: I agree -- I agree with Josh. When I said that he had laid out a course of action, I should have said a political course of action. He talked about how he's going to be meeting with lawmakers, he's going to be giving this speech on Wednesday. And I guess maybe it's because my expectations are so low, but I do feel he seems to have come a long way from the, we don't have a strategy yet, where he looked like a commander-in-chief that was a deer caught in the headlights.

ROGIN: Yes --

NAVARRO: At least right now he's talking coherently about how he's going to deal with Congress. So --

ROGIN: Well, I guess everyone has their own --

COSTELLO: Tell me -- tell me -- tell me the language --

NAVARRO: (INAUDIBLE) lots to be filled in.

COSTELLO: Tell me the language the president ought to use. He will deliver his strategy a day before the anniversary of 9/11. What must he say, Josh?

ROGIN: Right. I think if you listen to President Obama on "Meet the Press" on Sunday, he said a lot about what the strategy was in Iraq. Arm the Iraqi forces, help reduce the Islamic State's territory in Iraq. He said almost nothing about what the strategy would be in Syria where ISIL lives, where the Islamic State has all of its money, all of its territory, all of its troops and is expanding. Even into Lebanon today. Today we saw reports of Lebanese armed forces being taken prisoner by the Islamic state.

So what people are going to be listening for is, what will the president say about Syria? We know that he's asked for $500 million to train and equip the Syrian rebels. We also know that that request was really made with no planning and no details attached and is not really actionable. We also know that he's calling for the building up of a moderate opposition. But the facts on the ground are that the moderate opposition has been fighting the Islamic State for over a year, that they've received little or no help from the west in that regard and for three and a half years we've been saying that we're going to help the moderate opposition and not actually doing it, at least in the view of the moderate opposition.

So without talking about both Iraq and Syria, you can't have a comprehensive tragedy for fighting the Islamic State. It's not clear that the president will actually do that on Wednesday. We're likely to hear, as we said, a fixing of the optics, a fixing of the messaging, a strategy that does -- that allows the president to say that we are combatting the Islamic State but doesn't actually achieve the goal of defeating them and destroying them.

COSTELLO: We'll see. Josh Rogin, Anna Navarro, thanks to you both. I appreciate it.

ROGIN: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, six months later and it's still the biggest mystery ever in aviation history. But the search for Flight 370 is about to enter a new phase. We'll talk about that next.

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COSTELLO: Six months later, the whereabouts of Malaysia Flight 370 remains just as much a mystery today as it did when it disappeared on March 8. The 777 jetliner is believed to have plunged into the Southern Indian Ocean, killing all 239 on board. Nearly two months of searching turned up nothing, not one single piece of debris. Now, another search is expected to start later this month.

CNN aviation correspondent Richard Quest joins me live from Atlanta with more on this. So tell us more on this upcoming search.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, this last several months since Bluefin-21 stopped its underwater search has been one of reset. They have been looking again at all the data, particularly the Inmarsat data. They still believe, Carol, that they're absolutely in the right area. But they have been refining that area, from the old search area in the north where they thought they heard and misdirected those pings to wide search area in the southern part.

Carol, they've used the Inmarsat data, they've used the unanswered satellite phones, and they've also been very busy mathemetrically (ph) surveying the ocean floor. Put it together, they know believe they're in a better position to do a more detailed search in a more refined fashion.

COSTELLO: So was there like any startling bit of evidence that they found that leads them to believe this? Because isn't it strange that nothing has turned up? No piece of debris?

QUEST: That's the biggest conundrum of all -- no debris, no oil on the water, nothing at all. And, in fact, anybody who tells you that they're actually closer to understanding why it did what it did is erroneous. There's no further evidence of which I'm aware that actually says why this plane did what it did. What they have done is delved deeper into technicalities of where it might be.

But here's the fascinating part. That part of the ocean they're surveying has never been surveyed before. They're seeing geographical and geological formations that they didn't expect. And it's proving the fact it's going to be a year long grinding search on the bottom of the ocean, because sometimes there are mountains; they disappear into valleys in an instant.

COSTELLO: Is it possible they'll never find that plane, Richard?

QUEST: I've been on record of saying it's not if but when. I maintain that point of view, Carol, not because out of sort of halcyonic view that they must -- that they're going to do what needs to be done, but because there's an aviation mystery. They cannot have a 777 200 where they don't know what happened. And then you've got the shared humanity of the people on board. So it

may take a year, it may take ten. But they will find something that tells them what happened.

COSTELLO: I hope so. Richard Quest, thanks so much.

Still to come on the NEWSROOM, if you hate driving, well, you're in luck. In just two years you might be able to buy yourself a self- driving car. Seriously. CNN's Christine Romans has all the details. Christine?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Would you take your foot off the pedal and your hands off the wheel, Carol? Because in just a couple of years, it will be possible your car can park itself, maybe can drive itself to Vegas. I'll have the story.

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COSTELLO: OK, guys, the future is here. Self-driving cars will be on the market in about two years. Two years, I'm serious. GM just announced plans to roll out a hands-free foot-free Cadillac in about two years. They say the so-called supercruise technology will make driving safer.

CNN chief business correspondent Christine Romans is following the story. I can't wait.

ROMANS: Well, some people are saying, what, self-driving car, are you crazy? It's an almost self-driving car and the technology, they're calling it supercruise technology, and GM is saying you can take your hands off the wheel, your foot off the pedal, and you can enjoy the ride.

Whether you want to -- say you're in a lot of traffic, Carol. The car will do the stop-and-go driving for you in the most efficient manner, right? There's sensors and cameras, the same kind of things collision avoidance and self-parking, all that kind of sensor technology has been really perfected here. And they say in a couple years they will have a version of a Cadillac that will have the self-driving technology.

COSTELLO: That is so awesome. So how much will it cost?

ROMANS: I don't know how much it's going to cost. They're not giving a price tag on this quite yet. But we know that others have been doing this. Google has I think 700,000 miles already with its self- driving cars and have not had any accidents. We know that Nissan and Mercedes have had developments in this arena as well.

The technology is there, Carol. I don't think people are there, consumers are necessarily 100 percent there, but the technology is there.

COSTELLO: But it's not going to work unless everyone is driving a self-driving car. ROMANS: They're talking about -- what would NHTSA, what would

transportation regulators do? Maybe they'd have a self-driving driver's license and you'd have a regular car driver's license. Because maybe there are going to be certain rules for self-driving cars and for not self-driving cars.

Again, this is an almost self-driving car. You still have to be in there and you still have to start this car, but there are parts of your drive that GM says --

COSTELLO: Wouldn't it be great, though, if you could send the car to pick up your kid at soccer practice?

ROMANS: I know right, right? Bring home the right child, please. Please bring home the right child.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: Well, just for fun, I looked up a Cadillac from 1907 to show how far we've come, and then this new Cadillac that they're trying to develop to be the self-driving car.

ROMANS: So that Cadillac on the right was probably -- that's a Model K I think -- $750. A car person might tell me it's a Model M. OK, so I'm not sure exactly which model, but it was I think $750, no power steering, no power brakes, clearly no air conditioning. No power windows -- no windows, actually.

Think of the changes that we have seen over the past 100 years and those changes are coming fast and furious now. I mean, really. There's so much technology. And the agriculture -- they've been using self-driving tractors or testing self-driving tractors. Think of the things you can do if you take the human component out of there for a minute.

COSTELLO: I'm telling you, I can't wait. I hate driving. I hate -- that's the est part of coming to New York. I haven't driven a car in two months.

ROMANS: I think it's an interesting idea for people who are Uber commuters and also for elderly people who maybe don't want to lose their independence, maybe don't have exactly the crash avoidance skills they used to. I mean, things like this can really help safety.

COSTELLO: See? It will catch on. Christine, thanks so much.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, put her name in the history books. Serena Williams dominates the U.S. Open again.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ladies and gentlemen, your 2014 U.S. open champion, once again, Serena Williams.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: All right, this news just coming in to CNN. London's Luton Airport has been evacuated. The press office telling CNN that a terminal building was evacuated after a suspicious item was found the security search area. Not Heathrow but London's Luton Airport. I don't have much more information for you than that. Of course we're still working this story, and when I get more information I'll pass it along.

All right, let's talk a bit sports to end the hour. The U.S. Open is Serena's world and the rest of us just marvel at it. Serena Williams beat Caroline Wozniacki in straight sets yesterday to take the women's singles title. It's Serena's third straight U.S. Open championship, sixth overall, and 18th grand slam title. Truly impressive numbers.

Andy, this is insane.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS: It really is. And, Carol, we were sitting there watching her just dominate that match. We're like, how does she ever lose? She just must wake up and not be having a good day when she loses a match.

And as you said, 18th career grand slam title; that ties her with Chris Everet and Martina Navratilova on the all-time list. She only trails Steffi Graf, who has 22. And it wouldn't surprise anyone if we see Serena back here again next year going for the fourth straight and for, who knows, maybe it's number 19, 20, 21. She could even be going for tyiing Steffi Graf this time next year.

COSTELLO: And she still delights in winning, which is awesome. It's just awesome.

Let's talk about the men's final today because I don't know anybody in it.

SCHOLES: That's right. Everyone was kind of hoping for the Federer/Djokovic final. Well, the opposite ended up happening. We've got Kei Nishikori out of Japan taking on Marin Cilic. Now, Nishikori is actually a fascinating story, Carol, because he's the first man from Asia to ever make it to a grand slam final. He's basically a national hero now in Japan. He's on the front page of every newspaper. So they're all pulling for him there.

And just to let you know how unlikely this final match up was, according to RJ Bell in Las Vegas, it's over 1000:1 odds that these two would meet in the final game. So it might not be the one everyone was hoping for, but hopefully we still get some good tennis tonight.

COSTELLO: I hope so. Andy Scholes, thanks so much.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.