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CNN NEWSROOM

Panetta Criticizes Obama Over ISIS; Report: Syrian "Moderates" Betrayed American; "South Park" TV Ad Mocks Redskins; 130,000 Syrian Refugees Flee Into Turkey

Aired September 22, 2014 - 15:30   ET

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


VAN JONES, CNN CO-HOST, "CROSSFIRE": There's still a big, big process here. And I think the president -- had the president acted, the very conservatives now who criticize him and some Democrats who criticize him, had he acted and those weapons been used against Americans, he would have gotten slammed by the very same people. That's all.

(CROSSTALK)

CUPP: No, you're absolutely right, Van.

And you're absolutely right about the threat now in arming the Syrian rebels now. There are more of them. It's hard to keep track of who is who and who is fighting who. ISIS is a lot more dangerous than it was two years ago.

You're right. There's still a problem in arming these guys now. Arming them earlier might have been a little bit easier. Cutting ISIS off earlier might have made things a little bit easier.

I'm actually a little more hawkish than Leon Panetta was. I would have coupled that with attacks on Assad's artillery to weaken that regime at the same time. You're right. We can't go back. Now we're stuck with a big mess.

DON LEMON, CNN GUEST ANCHOR: Let's go a little bit further because I want to get you guys to comment on this as well. Panetta also told CBS that the U.S. should not have pulled all U.S. troops out of Iraq in 2011. Is he calling the president's foreign policy judgment into question by doing this, Van?

JONES: Yes, he is. I think that -- I'm very, very concerned about this whole pathway that he's on. Maybe he's trying to sell books. I don't know what he's doing. The bottom line is this. We did not have a status of forces agreement there. Our troops would have been in harm's way and in danger there.

Everybody says the president should have fought harder for it. But Americans wanted us to be able to bring our troops home and that's what he was focused on doing.

Really what I'm concerned about is why we are now relitigating the past. There are things we could be uniting us a country on right now. For instance, ISIS is now making $3 million a day selling oil on the black market. CUPP: Van, come on. All this president does is relitigate the past and the mistakes that George W. Bush made. We relitigate the past to prevent future mistakes. That's what President Obama has told us for six years.

Look, the president's foreign policy -- I've said this before -- has been don't be Bush. So he's boxed himself into lanes. He's boxed himself into no boots on the ground. That's a mistake and dishonest.

He's boxed himself into this idea that ISIS is not a threat to the homeland when most of his advisers disagree. And he boxed himself out of Iraq when clearly leaving intelligence forces on the ground there might have given us a clear indication of ISIS moving in earlier when they were bombing Aleppo and Fallujah back in January. It doesn't take a crystal ball. It just takes some common sense.

LEMON: Listen, not even to mention that just public support of war. Obviously there is none. The president seems to be using that at least to whoever is making these decisions, the president, whomever, is going by public support maybe than what his advisers are telling him to do.

JONES: First of all, there was a big debate about what to do and the way to go forward. Fundamentally, I don't have enough time left in this segment to rebut everything that she said to disagree with. We are in a situation now going forward where the country needs to come together.

ISIS is a real threat. The president just came before the country last week and said it's a big threat and we're going to bomb and we're building a big global coalition. The president is doing what his critics say they wanted him to do and they're still criticizing him. It's part of dysfunction.

LEMON: I'll tell you're right this, man. We have to go. We don't have time. We're done. Thank you very much, Van Jones. Thank you, S.E. Appreciate it, "CROSSFIRE."

All right, just ahead here, the Obama administration, the family of a beheaded journalist had been at odds over how he was kidnapped. Now new information is surfacing about how the terror group ISIS got its hands on Steven Sotloff. Did the good guys sell him out?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: The terror group, ISIS, reportedly paid for information that led to Steven Sotloff, the American ISIS' beheaded. So according to one of his friends, the deadly tip came from moderate Syrian rebels, yes, moderate Syrian rebels.

These are the ones we are talking about possibly arming, right? The ones Washington planned to arm and to train and not to buddy up to ISIS, but to fight them.

Josh Rogin of "The Daily Beast" talked with one of Steven Sotloff's friends and he joins us. So what did he say about this capture? How exactly did they get -- that ISIS get their hands on Steven Sotloff?

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right, what we know is last August, Steven Sotloff, American journalist, traveled from Turkey to Syria. He stopped at the border crossing, which was controlled by a Free Syrian Army brigade that works with the United States.

They held him there for a while. A few hours later after he left the crossing, he was picked up by ISIS and a year after that they murdered him. What happened between his capture and him getting to the border crossing is highly debated.

His best friend told me in an interview that the FSA brigade from the Northern Storm, the exact same one that met with John McCain only three months prior, tipped off ISIS. That's an allegation.

If true, that would call into question the Obama administration's strategy for arming the rebels because it means we can't trust them.

LEMON: That's exactly what I want to talk to you. These are people that they are considering arming, the moderate Syrian rebels. So what do we do then?

ROGIN: Here's the problem. It's not clear exactly that the story is true. Obama administration says they have their own intelligence that says they had nothing to do with Steven Sotloff's abduction. John McCain said according to his sources, they had nothing to do with Steven Sotloff's abduction.

I tried to report it out. It's impossible to know, but what it shows us is that there's a lot of uncertainty here. If we arm the rebels whether it's these or others it's risky.

Even if a certain rebel group likes us, there could be a person inside that rebel group that doesn't like us. Now ISIS and the rebels are --

LEMON: So you don't know who to trust.

ROGIN: It's very hard to know.

LEMON: So here's my question. This is the exact group that John McCain met with in 2013. Talk to me more about the precise relationship between the fighters who betrayed Steven Sotloff and the Free Syrian Army.

ROGIN: Right. Allegedly the ones that Barak Barfi, Steven Sotloff's friend, said sold Steven to ISIS are part of the Free Syrian Army. They've received weapons from the United States. It's not clear if they would receive more. The problem here is that those brigades is at war with ISIS. They hate each other. So it's a flaw in the theory. That's why this is so complicated.

ISIS hates the FSA. They've been fighting them for over a year. If we give arms to FSA they will use them to fight ISIS and the Assad regime, but we can't be sure that somebody in that group won't turn on us and weapons will stay where we put them. It's a risk that President Obama seems willing to take. LEMON: Josh Rogin, thank you. Appreciate the information.

Just ahead, the voice of "South Park," sack the skins.

The cartoon creators stepping into the middle of the naming controversy involving Washington's football team.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: The debate over the Washington Redskins name has moved from criticism to ridicule. The program "South Park" poked fun at the NFL team's loss of its federal trademark in a commercial that ran during yesterday's game between Washington and Philadelphia.

(CARTOON CLIP FROM "SOUTH PARK")

LEMON: Let's talk about this commercial and this issue at its core. We're laughing, but we'll talk to Peter Shankman, a branding expert. Before we go to that, that's brilliant.

PETER SHANKMAN, BRANDING AND SOCIAL MEDIA CONSULTANT: It's so brilliant. Do you remember in the closet thing with certain celebrities where they were stuck in a closet literally. The beauty of "South Park" is it's written and produced within a matter of days. So they really have the ability to skewer anything in real time.

LEMON: But I notice the people, there are some people who on social media who got really mad because every argument that you have been using for this, they use it in the commercial and now you see how silly you are.

SHANKMAN: This is a guy who ground up the parents of a school bully and fed it to him. This is not unexpected. What's really smart is that they had advertisement air only during the game and only in Washington. Talk about trolling. It's brilliant.

LEMON: It's brilliant. Now you get it, people. Do ads like this really work?

SHANKMAN: For "South Park," yes. Fans will watch regardless and people that hate the show will never watch it. It's not so much that it's going to drive new viewers, but it got everyone talking about it. Social media was abuzz and it's funny. When they say exactly what the Redskins have been saying and turn it around on them. It's brilliant.

LEMON: But do you think that -- they say the truth is spoken in jest and obviously you learn, which we do from "The Daily Show" and from Stephen Colbert. We learn through humor, right, and sometimes you go, do I look that silly? But can humor change policies when it comes to something so serious?

SHANKMAN: If the entire debate was one sided. If everyone who was against the name was from one specific side and everyone who wasn't was from another side it might have a better shot. You have 50-50.

You have several Indian tribes and several different people in America who have said there's nothing wrong with this. Others have said this is a problem. Not likely to change policy, but it will probably respark the debate. At the end of the day, it's a cartoon. It's a show.

LEMON: But that makes it brilliant. If you sit there going that's stupid --

SHANKMAN: If you are taking public policy cues from "South Park," you probably have bigger problems.

LEMON: Thank you, Mr. Shankman. Appreciate it.

All right. Just ahead, breaking news to tell you about in the search for three Afghan soldiers who disappeared right here in the United States. They have just been located, but hear where they were found. It's interesting.

Plus, ISIS continues to make advances in Syria. And as terrorists move forward, more than 100,000 people have fled into Turkey in just the last three days. We'll go live to the Turkish border next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Right now, Syrian Kurds are flooding across the border into Turkey, fleeing as brutal ISIS militants storm their towns. Today, Turkey closed the border following another mass exodus from Syria. More than 130,000 Syrian Kurds have crossed into Turkey just over the past three days.

Joining us now to discuss this, Arwa Damon joins us now. Arwa, how bad are things there now? The government has limited access at that border, right?

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It has. When this influx first began on Friday, they had eight or nine entry points that would allow people access into the country.

Since then, they have limited that down to two. Some people saying that they waited for days trying to get into Turkey. Estimates as high as 200,000 refugees, that according to the Syrian observatory for human rights.

Turkey itself really struggling already because of the sheer volume of refugees that have been inside this country since the Syrian crisis began. Turkish officials trying to give everyone ID cards, vaccinate children.

Temporarily providing people shelter inside schools while they rush to try to put up more and more makeshift tents to provide something of perhaps a longer-term situation. These refugees arriving exhausted, absolutely desperate.

Many of them just carrying the clothing on their backs. People of all ages, truly heartbreaking images we are continuing to see as the Syrian crisis gets even worse and as ISIS it seems gains more territory. LEMON: I want to talk about that because a human rights group, Arwa, says that ISIS has taken control of 60 villages near a Syrian Kurdish town. Is there anyone attempting to push them back, the rebel fighters?

DAMON: That's right. That town is called Kobani. At this stage, the Kurdish fighting force has been able to keep ISIS outside of the town itself. They have been getting reinforcements from some Turkish Kurds who have fighting experience, some just civilians volunteering.

It has boosted morale. But according to one Syrian Kurdish official that CNN spoke to, the force that they're facing is formidable because ISIS has really pushed a significant number of its fighters from other key positions, swarming, surrounding the town after it took over dozens of villages.

Let's remember what they're armed with. They're armed with everything they manage to capture from inside Iraq, tanks, artillery, all sorts of ammunition. So most certainly at this stage, they do have the weaponry, but maybe not the capabilities to push into the city, but how long will that Kurdish force be able to keep them out? That is unclear at this stage.

And one Syrian Kurdish activist said they're not trying to recapture the towns that ISIS took over. They're just trying to prevent another massacre from taking place at the hands of ISIS inside the town itself.

LEMON: All right, thank you very much, Arwa Damon. Appreciate that.

Up next, breaking news in the search for three Afghan soldiers who disappeared right here in the U.S. after going to the mall. They have just been located. Hear where they were found.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: It is a good day to be Apple. All those long lines at Apple stores around the world are translating into record sales of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus, 10 million, we're talking about. That's to be exact. That beat last year's iPhone 5's opening weekend by 1 million sales.

Pre-orders momentarily crashed Apple's website a week ago and supply of the super large iPhone 6 plus quickly sold out.

I want to tell you about three missing soldiers from Afghanistan's army. They have been caught trying to cross the U.S. border into Canada. They were stationed at Cape Cod in Massachusetts for an international training exercise when they disappeared.

It appears that they fled Saturday night while on a chaperoned off- base trip to a shopping mall. They're now in the custody of Canadian border services. We'll have much more on that throughout the evening here on CNN.

Make sure you catch me tonight on "CNN TONIGHT" 10 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN. In the meantime, I'm going to give it over to Jake Tapper and "THE LEAD." Thank you so much for watching.