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NEW DAY

Obama Lays Out ISIS Strategy; Carney And McCain Argue Over Syria; Report Says NFL Received Rice Tape in April

Aired September 11, 2014 - 06:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria as well as Iraq.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Call to arms. President Obama vows to hit ISIS , wherever they are, even inside Syria. Now, more U.S. troops heading into Iraq. Will it work? We're going to break it down with our military experts. Plus this, Senator John McCain and Jay Carney's heated exchange on CNN.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking overnight, the NFL appoints a former FBI director to investigate the league's handling of the Ray Rice case. This as a new report claims the NFL did have the Ray Rice tape. Was the commissioner then lying?

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: CNN exclusive, explosive new video from right after the Michael Brown shooting. Two new witnesses say they saw Brown with his hands up and that there was a second cop at the scene with his gun drawn, too.

CUOMO: Your NEW DAY starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Kate Bolduan, and Michaela Pereira.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Welcome to NEW DAY. It is Thursday, September 11th, a day you should never forget. Today marks 13 years since those cowardly attacks on New York and Washington and all these years later we're back where we started. Battling the threat from the Middle East.

Last night, President Obama laid out his plan to stop the threat now from ISIS. What he says will be a very long fight.

BOLDUAN: And the president warning ISIS saying if you threaten American, you will find no safe haven, and that includes Syria, where airstrikes are now on the table.

But the president insists this time will not involve U.S. combat troops as he has said all along over the last couple months. But more troops are heading to the region. Let's get a breakdown of everything the president said, what the strategy is from Jim Acosta. A long day for you yesterday live at the White House for us. Jim, what more did we learn from the president on what he's going to do now?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Kate, on this anniversary of 9/11, the president says there is no ISIS threat against the U.S. homeland. But he also came out talking tough, announcing his decision to order airstrikes on ISIS and Syria, but the questions have already begun on just how he'll get the job done.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OBAMA: My fellow Americans --

ACOSTA (voice-over): It was a cautious commander-in-chief no more, rolling the dice with an ambitious plan to wipe out ISIS.

OBAMA: Our objective is clear -- we will degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counterterrorism strategy.

ACOSTA: The president's biggest leap -- ramping up U.S. airstrikes on ISIS targets in both Iraq and Syria.

OBAMA: I've made it clear that we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country wherever they are, a core principle of my presidency. If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.

ACOSTA: To help expand those airstrikes, the president is sending 475 more U.S. service members to Iraq, raising the total there to 1600. Add to that, a new mission to equip and train moderate Syrian rebels. To make that happen, the president has been working the phones to build a global coalition.

And officials say includes Saudi Arabia, which will host a training program for anti-ISIS fighters. But the president also insisted the war on ISIS will be different.

OBAMA: I want the American people to understand how this effort will be different from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA (on camera): As for a timeline for those air strikes in Syria, a senior administration official says the White House is not going to quote telegraph its punches in the White House is defending the president's cautious approach. One official saying this president does not shoot first and ask questions later -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: The president also not giving any idea of a timeline or a time table. That's something we also did not hear much of last night. Jim Acosta at the White House for us. Jim, thanks so much -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, so the question is, what do you make of this plan? You have the politics and the practicality and we have two great guests. They have lived this, they have studied this situation -- the perfect people to help us understand this morning.

CNN political commentator, Peter Beinart and contributing editor for the "Atlantic" and the "National Journal," and Lt. Col. Rick Francona, he is a CNN military analyst and former U.S. military attache in Syria.

Gentlemen, can't think of two guys to help understand this better than you two. You have the politics and the practicality.

Peter, politically, do you hear in this plan what you need to succeed politically?

PETER BEINART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think so, on the one hand public opinion has shifted very radically since these beheadings and there's now a lot of support for military action.

On the other hand, the legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan still means almost nobody wants boots on the ground. So the president is treading that line. It will be an aggressive air campaign. Aid to the free Syrian rebels, but not putting boots on the ground.

I think by and large, you see that he has support in Congress. Most people in Congress either don't want to vote or probably vote his way.

CUOMO: How about in the Levant and the Middle East, do you think he can have the political leverage, the clout, to get the Arabs and the Islamists, the legitimate moderate ones to fight their own fight?

BEINART: Well, I think what is going for him is there are a lot of people in the Middle East, who are also afraid of ISIS at this point. ISIS is a threat to the regime in Saudi Arabia and the regime in Jordan. It certainly a threat to a Shia regime in Iran.

So there are a lot of people who have a reason to oppose ISIS. The problem is, you're, it's in the midst of this larger Shia/Sunni sectarian war. Also other regional conflicts like between Saudi Arabia and Qatar where they are arming different groups.

Does the U.S. have the power to basically bring these guys together and get them to put the fight against ISIS ahead of narrower agendas?

CUOMO: So that gets you to the practicality. Now when you look at this situation, we keep hearing the word complexity. What we want to do now, what the U.S. wants to do now, more complexity. Anything we've ever done in Iraq before. What did you hear last night? How would it work?

LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA (RET), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: It's a good thing to consider Syria and Iraq as one target set, we have to do that. It has to be done together because if ISIS detects that we're only going to attack them in Iraq first and then Syria later, they will move their assets to Syria and wait it out.

Operations in Syria are going to be more complex because you've got warring parties there. You've got a civil war going on and if you're going to any boots on the ground, which you're going to need, who are they going to be? Where are they going to come from?

Iraq, you could figure out. Syria is going to be a much tougher nut to crack. But you can't do this in isolation, the air power will probably be done as a coherent policy. That's great.

But once you move into the ground phase, Iraq, I think we can get the Kurds and the Iraqis, not a problem. But who are going to back you in Syria. The Free Syrian Army has taken a real beating. The complexity is much greater than anything we've faced so far and way too many moving pieces to be comfortable with us right now.

CUOMO: All right, remember, this is 9/11, I don't have to remind you of that. This is the fourth consecutive U.S. president to give a major address to you saying we're going into Iraq and here's why. That's the context.

The three big challenges are, as you just laid out and you did, too, Peter, can you get the right people on board to fight the fight? Can you arm the right people in Syria to fight this fight?

And then third, can you win without the best fighters in the world involved? Now when you deal with the first two of those, you have to look backwards to how we got where we are today. There's going to be a lot of blame game, that's the way politics is, especially in the U.S.

No example of it is better than what happened last night than with Senator John McCain and Jay Carney, the former president's spokesperson, take a listen to the battle that's going on about how we got where we are.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: I'm astounded that Mr. Carney should say that the Free Syrian Army is now stronger. In fact they've been --

JAY CARNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That's what I said, senator. I said, if I could, sir, what I said is we know a great deal more about the makeup of the opposition.

MCCAIN: Jay, we knew all about them then. You just didn't choose to know. I was there in Syria, we knew them. Come on, you guys are the ones -- it's your boss is the one that when the entire national security team wanted to arm and train them, that he turned them down, Mr. Carney. After a --

CARNEY: Well, Senator, look, I'm not --

MCCAIN: The fact that --

CARNEY: We have to agree to disagree.

MCCAIN: Facts are stubborn things and his entire national security team including the secretary of state said we want to arm and trap and equip these people and he made the unilateral decision to turn them down.

And the fact that they didn't leave a residual force in Iraq overruling all of his military advisers, is the reason why we're facing ISIS today. So the facts are stubborn things and history and people ought to know them.

And now the president is saying basically that we are going to take certain actions, which I would favor. But to say that America is safer and that the situation is very much like Yemen and Somalia shows me that the president really doesn't have a grasp for how serious the threat of ISIS is.

CARNEY: Well, again, senator, we're going to have to agree to disagree. I think that you know the question of the residual force, you know, there was another player in that, which was the Iraqi government, A, B, it was the fulfillment of the previous administration's withdrawal, Plan C.

And it was the fulfillment of the president's promise to withdraw from Iraq and not maintain a troop presence in perpetuity, which I think is pretty consistent with what the American people wanted and it was the right approach.

MCCAIN: That didn't mean it was the right decision, it was a bad decision and got us to where we are today. It's not a matter of disagreement. It's a matter of facts.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

CUOMO: This isn't just an argument, OK. What it is, it sets the context for where we are politically in this. Facts are stubborn things, we didn't keep a residual force there. It probably was a mistake. However, it's complicated.

Senator McCain, although different, he took a photograph next to a guy he thought was a good guy, turned out to be a bad guy. It's hard to understand who you're dealing with in that situation and a lot of his Republican brothers and sisters didn't want to bomb in Syria when the president said he wanted to do it.

Not so long ago with crossing the red line deal. When you listen to it and put it in context, Peter, who's right and who's wrong about how we got here? What matters?

BEINART: Look, in retrospect, given that we're now going to try to arm the Free Syrian Army to fight against ISIS, McCain is right that we would have been better off starting to do that a few years ago. And it's true that Hillary Clinton and David Petraeus at that point in the Obama administration wanted to do that.

We don't know where we would be. There are real dangers that the Free Syrian Army could bleed into jihadist groups. It's not a clear line between the good guys and the bad guys. In retrospect, given that we're going to try to do now because we need some allies on the ground in Syria when we bomb, we would have been better off had we been doing this for the past few years and trying to build them up. I think McCain is right on that.

CUOMO: Now you guys often in the military, you worry about the now and how you get to what your goal is and how to execute that. But when you hear this discussion, what does it mean to you in terms of the practicalities on the ground?

FRANCONA: We set this up ourselves and it doesn't matter who is responsible now. It's we did not keep a residual force there, that created the force that was able to take advantage of the power vacuum when we did not help the Syrian, Free Syrian Army when they asked for help.

So those are facts, yes, it happened. The problem is now we're faced with a situation in Syria that we have very little control over. The Free Syrian Army is yes, they're the people we would like to support, but they've taken such a beating at the hands of the Syrian military and ISIS and the Islamic front.

You've got like five different major groups in Syria all vying for power. And the ones that really win this is the Syrian regime. The ones we're trying to overthrow. Now we see ourselves in the position of conducting airstrikes against their primary adversary.

Which is OK with Baghdad, because Baghdad supports the regime in Damascus. But this is the government of Damascus, we want out of there. We're going to find ourselves working with our ally on one side and against our ally on the other? This is really confusing. And I, I like your point -- you can't tell the good guy from the bad guys there.

CUOMO: And I think you know look, right now most of you at home, if you're like me, your head is swimming because Rick knows what he's talking about, but it's so complex and Peter lays it out.

And what it gives you a window into is why there's such a reluctance for the U.S. while they want to lead, to not be the only player there and they want the region to fight its own battle.

What will happen? We're going to have to see because the biggest challenge will be, can you win a fight without the best fighters in the world involved, the U.S. fighters.

Peter Beinart, thank you very much and Rick Francona, we look forward to leaning on you very heavily to understand what's happening over there. Thanks for starting us off this morning.

A lot of news this morning. Let's get you right to Mich.

PEREIRA: All right and we begin with breaking news, the judge in the Oscar Pistorius trial said the state did not prove premeditated murder in its case. Right now, the South African judge is summarizing testimony and evidence that's been presented at trial before announcing her verdict.

Prosecutors allege Pistorius intentionally shot and killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine's Day in 2013. The defense says Pistorius merely thought she was an intruder and this was all a tragic accident. We'll be staying on this for sure.

People in the U.S. and around the world once again will stop to pay their respects to those lost 13 years ago on 9/11. A ceremony in New York begins with a moment of silence at 8:46 Eastern. The time the first plane hit the north tower of the World Trade Center.

President Obama will mark September 11th and the second anniversary of the Benghazi attack at a ceremony at the Pentagon. Around the same time, a ceremony will take place in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

A new CNN/ORC international survey finds a majority of Americans now say they think a terror attack is likely around this time.

John Kerry is in Saudi Arabia this morning. The secretary of state is trying to bring Middle Eastern leaders together in the fight against ISIS. Saudi Arabia has agreed to provide a base to train Syrian rebels fighting ISIS in that country's civil war.

Secretary Kerry is also asking for help to cut off ISIS' financial support by discouraging private donations, cracking down on oil smuggling.

All right, that's a look at your headlines, guys.

BOLDUAN: All right, Michaela, thanks so much. The former director of the FBI is now stepping in to investigate the Ray Rice scandal. Amid a new report claiming that someone within the NFL did see the video, that's second video of Rice striking, punching, square in the head, his then-fiancee. Now there are new doubts about Roger Goodell's claims that he never saw it until it was made public.

CUOMO: Also, a stunning account of the Michael Brown shooting from two new witnesses. And they gave this witness, just moments after the actual shots. We're going to tell you what they claim, and what does it mean for the case?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is still feeling the heat over the league's handling of the Ray Rice case. He has now tapped former FBI director, Robert Mueller, to conduct an independent investigation. It follows an "Associated Press" report, really damning, that a copy of the graphic second video showing Rice punching his then-fiancee, was sent to the NFL five months ago, back in April. Goodell insists they never saw the images until the video was released Monday.

Miguel Marquez is joining us with the details.

What are we learning, Miguel? MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're learning that what started off as a stream of questions and doubts about the NFL story, it has turned into a river and now both the NFL and the Ravens are trying everything they can to staunch the flow.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUEZ (voice-over): The NFL tapping former FBI director, Robert Mueller, to lead an independent investigation, looking into how the NFL handled evidence in the domestic violence case against Ray Rice. Mueller's probe will be overseen by two NFL owners and will be made public.

The announcement comes hours after the "Associated Press" reported a law enforcement source told them the tape of Rice violently striking Janay Palmer was sent to an NFL executive five months ago.

In an interview with CBS News on Tuesday, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell maintained the league never saw the video until it went viral on Monday.

NORAH O'DONNELL, CBS NEWS: So, did anyone in the NFL see this second videotape before Monday?

ROGER GOODELL, NFL COMMISSIONER: No.

O'DONNELL: No one in the NFL?

GOODELL: No one in the NFL to my knowledge.

MARQUEZ: The "A.P." says their source sent a DVD of the video unsolicited because he wanted them to see it before deciding on Rice's punishment. The "A.P." also saying the source played a 12-second voicemail message that came from an NFL office number on April 9th, confirming the video had arrived with a female voice saying. "You're right, it's terrible."

The NFL issued a statement following the potential bombshell. "We have no knowledge of this, we are not aware of anyone in our office who possessed or saw the video before it was made public on Monday. We will look into it."

Baltimore Ravens owner, Steve Bisciotti, admitting they dropped the ball in handling the incident after seeing the initial video.

STEVE BISCIOTTI, BALTIMORE RAVENS OWNER: I was picturing her whaling on him and him smacking her and maybe her head was this far from the wall and with her inebriation, dropped. So, why -- why did I conclude all that? Because I wanted to, because I loved him, because he had a stellar record and the cops had already seen the video. So, I assumed it wasn't a forceful blow that moved her head three feet into that wall.

MARQUEZ: The league continues to insist that it reached out multiple times to police and the prosecutors' office for the video, but couldn't get it. Yet, Rice's own attorney had a copy. In a letter to NFL club executives on Wednesday, Goodell says it would have been illegal for the league to get the video from either law enforcement or the casino itself once a criminal investigation begins.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUEZ: I also want to show you one other thing, this is the criminal complaint filed, the initial criminal complaints, the initial video of Janay Palmer being dragged out of the elevator was February 19th that came out, and the original complaint it says that he struggled with his hands, rendering her unconscious, everything that the Ravens and the NFL needed back in February was right in front of their face -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: That is the important point to keep returning to, Miguel. You're spot. Thank you so much, Miguel Marquez, laying it out for us.

Let's talk more about this. Let's turn to Kavita Davidson, a sports columnist at "Bloomberg View", and Mel Robbins, a CNN commentator and legal analyst.

We see how some believe the NFL has handled all of this, "The National Football liars", that's one view of it, if you will.

Let me ask you this: what do you think of the NFL bringing in Robert Mueller? His name brings a lot of weight. What's he going to do, Mel?

MEL ROBBINS, CNN COMMENTATOR AND LEGAL ANALYST: Well, he's going to do exactly what they did in the Richard Incognito case, where they were looking into bullying. And that's the exact --

BOLDUAN: When they brought in Ted Wells?

ROBBINS: Correct.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

ROBBINS: That's the exact right thing that they need to do, because I actually love that title. That's how I feel, "The National Football liars", they have a huge credibility problem.

You kind of laughed when we saw the thing that said, oh, we're going to look into this, because nobody saw it. Nobody believes anything that the NFL is going to say about this. So, this was a very good step forward and a necessary step.

BOLDUAN: Kavitha, from what you know of covering sports, of covering the NFL, what is the range of possibility here? Could Roger -- could the league have received a video? And Roger Goodell not have been aware of it?

KAVITHA DAVIDSON, SPORTS COLUMNIST, BLOOMBERG VIEW: I think that Roger Goodell could have willfully not been aware of it. I think maybe he could have known that such a video existed and chosen not to see it. You know, the fact of the matter is, what happened in that video wasn't anything we didn't already know happened. The police report was damning in itself and it's kind of sad that it took video evidence for any kind of action in this kind of domestic violence case to be taken.

BOLDUAN: But what does this change? This latest reporting from the "Associated Press," it seems pretty damning. They've got a voicemail from someone saying, acknowledging from the NFL office's number saying, "We've got the tape, and you're right, it's terrible."

It seems like it's got to change something, am I wrong, Mel?

ROBBINS: No, I think you're right. This -- this latest catastrophe from a public relations perspective, and also from just handling the case, because let's keep in mind, this happened in February. If you think about it from a victim of domestic violence's point of view, every single time, the NFL or the ravens screwed up what they did, she's being abused again as far as I'm concerned.

And so, the truth is that the fact that we've now know that they perhaps covered this up, that somebody inside the NFL saw it, I agree with you, that -- of course, people in the NFL saw this thing. If he wanted to look at it, he would have looked at it.

But you're talking about a superstar in the league, you're talking about a point of view with the NFL where what's their incentive? Their incentive is to create a narrative where, OK, she's OK, we think. The couple is moving on, he's in therapy, nothing to see here. Everybody move on. Let's get back to football. Come on.

And so, what's going to change is in my mind, that the NFL cannot handle these cases. Unless they have a zero tolerance policy like they do with performance-enhancing drugs, we find out that you're doing it -- I don't care what your excuses are, you're out. You've got to have that kind of policy at the point of arrest or else the NFL has absolutely no experience, no credibility to be able to handle these kinds of very tricky and psychological cases.

BOLDUAN: And it is very complex, because we know the then-fiancee, now-wife, she has said the fact that we continue to talk about it in the media continues to bring the nightmare back to the forefront for their family. That is one aspect of it and it is very difficult, and I'm very sensitive to it, because it's difficult to have to talk about.

But, still, there is an aspect of accountability. When you have multibillion-dollar industry, that everyone loves watching. You've got so many people involved, you've got to have some standards. But we can talk about it all we want. If you think that Goodell's job is safe? I am inclined to think yes.

DAVIDSON: I -- you know, at the beginning of the week I was skeptical as to the possibility that Goodell would have to resign and I wrote a column basically saying we would need some kind of independent advisory board. So, I think that the fact that you have a former FBI director coming on is very positive. I think the NFL has proved it cannot police itself on these issues. BOLDUAN: What if -- what if Bob Mueller says Goodell knew -- I mean,

what if it went completely, Goodell knew about this, it was a complete cover-up. But it's up to the league's owners.

ROBBINS: It's up to the owners. They've got 24 of the 32 owners vote him out, and given the amount of money that he's made them and how popular he is, and the fact that the owners have rallied around him, I highly doubt that's going to happen.

And the other thing that I found to be interesting is watching the Ravens --

BOLDUAN: The Ravens owner.

ROBBINS: Yes, come out and say what a lot of people believed, Ray Rice's own attorney had said, he had seen the tape, he went on a radio show saying hypothetically, if this was a mutually combative -- knowing full well it wasn't. But a lot of people believed that this was a situation where the couple was fighting and that's why they downplayed it.

And he was being refreshingly honest about what he believed. And so, I think it's time for people to realize --

BOLDUAN: I think you're spot-on. I think you're spot-on, because this goes into the category of the cover-up seems to be, I don't want to say worse than the crime. But the cover-up sure is making this worse.

The fact that we're having -- I agree with you, that he's, the owner of the Ravens was so refreshingly honest, it's OK to make a mistake if you fix it then. But it doesn't seem that there's any desire to fix it.

ROBBINS: Not when Ray McDonald is going to play on the field with the 49ers on Sunday after the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution denouncing it. Yet the 49ers are basically saying, sorry.

He's due in court on Monday on charges for domestic violence, he hasn't been charged yet, just arrested, but he's still on the field. Sideline him, pay him, but at least expedite an investigation, now you know all of the things that you did with Ray Rice.

BOLDUAN: Final thoughts, Kavitha, on that?

DAVIDSON: Well, you know, frankly, the cover-up is the biggest issue here because Goodell's mantra throughout the years has always been "protect the shield", and we can see now that protecting the shield comes at the cost of the lives, it comes with the cost of a woman who's been beaten. And, frankly, I'm skeptical as to whether, you know, getting rid of Goodell would actually change anything, because these 32 owners wield so much power, I think it would kind of just be seen as falling on the sword or falling on the shield, if you will. And I doubt that very much will change.

ROBBINS: It might actually be better if he stays, he'll be incented knowing what happened --

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: His reputation is so tarnished and everyone is watching him so closely.

Mel, Kavitha, thank you so much. We continue obviously talking about this.

A lot of other news we're following, though.

President Obama taking aim at ISIS now, promising airstrikes in Syria against ISIS targets and sending hundreds more troops to Iraq. But does his plan for wiping out the terror group go far enough?

And, exclusive new video, plus two new witnesses coming forward in the Michael Brown shooting. Was there another officer on the scene during the shooting?