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NEW DAY

ISIS Releases a Video of American Beheading; Congressional Republicans Warn President against Executive Action; Interview with Senator Bernie Sanders; Has the Coalition Against ISIS been Effective?

Aired November 17, 2014 - 08:00   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Pure evil -- a third American beheaded by ISIS on video, a mass militant promising even more bloodshed, taunting President Obama and vowing to hunt down more Americans.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: And President Obama back home and facing a political war, major backlash from the GOP about the president's plan to use executive action on immigration. Can Congress and the president compromise?

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Disturbing tactics. A California dating coach under fire for promoting aggressive actions for men to use against women. Why the so-called pickup artist tactics to get a female target into a compromising position have some countries trying to ban him from entering.

CUOMO: Your NEW DAY continues right now.

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

CUOMO: Good morning. Welcome to NEW DAY. It is Monday, November 17th, 8:00 in the east. Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota here with news that ISIS has beheaded another American, this time a humanitarian aid worker and a Muslim convert who went to the Middle East to help people.

CAMEROTA: In a just released video a terrorist stands over Peter Kassig's severed head vowing to kill more Americans. The president denouncing the terrorist group for reveling in, quote, "the slaughter of innocents." Let's go live now to CNN's senior Washington correspondent Joe Johns. Good morning, Joe.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, in some ways, some say the release of this video comes at a time when ISIS is trying to regain some of its momentum after a number of setbacks. It came back on the very same weekend that the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff was visiting Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: This morning, U.S. officials left reeling over the new chilling video released by ISIS.

SEN. DICK DURBIN, (D) ILLINOIS: This video we have seen here is a tragic reminder of the savagery of ISIS.

JOHNS: In nearly 15 minutes production, the fifth western hostage, a native of Indiana, Peter Kassig, appears to be decapitated, his head left at the feet of a man now known as "Jihadi John." Kassig, who changed his name to Abdul-Rahman Kassig after converting to Islam in captivity, has been held since October, 2013. The latest video also showing the beheadings of other men whom ISIS claims are Syrian government pilots. The man in black speaking directly to President Obama, threatening the U.S., warning "We will slaughter your soldiers, and eventually Islamic State will begin to slaughter your people on your streets." Hours after the gruesome video's released, President Obama said in a statement "Abdul-Rahman was taken from us in an act of pure evil like Jim Foley and Steven Sotloff before him. His life and deeds stands in stark contrast to everything that ISIL represents."

Kassig, the former army ranger turned humanitarian aid worker and medic, was in Syria where he told CNN that he could make a difference.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's this impression, this belief that there is no hope. You know, that's when it's more important than ever we come in against all odds and try to do something.

JOHNS: Last month the 26-year-old's parents released a video pleading for their son's life.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let our son go.

JOHNS: In a statement, Kassig's family said they're heartbroken to learn their son has lost his life as a result of his love for the Syrian people.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are so very proud of you and the work you have done.

JOHNS: Another American murdered as two more terror attacks struck near Baghdad International Airport Sunday, the attacks, ISIS says, designed to kill Americans at the exit.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: The United States intelligence agency spent a lot of time trying to locate Kassig. He was a former U.S. army ranger. Alisyn, back to you.

CAMEROTA: Joe, thank you.

CUOMO: All right, I'm going to stay say it, shutdown. I can't believe that word is in the offing once again, but it is in the wind. It is the potential Republican response if the president doesn't back off on immigration reform. Chief Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash reports from Washington.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Chris, last year when the government shut down over the GOP desire to repeal Obamacare I saw a conservative Republican high-five another over the fact that they shut down the government. That same conservative Congressman told me that now although he and others are furious about the president planning to go around Congress on immigration, these Republicans don't want the government to shutdown over it. So that begs the question, how will they retaliate against the president?

Well, they're talking about a series of things that include legal action and using the power of the purse. But truth is, Republicans admit, most of their options just aren't great. And because of that, many are talking about buying time. What that means in the practical sense is that instead of passing a bill to fund the government for the entire year, which is the current plan, pass a series of short-term funding bills to make sure the government doesn't shut down when it runs out of money. And by the way, that's December 11th. But also try to figure out a way to get around this executive order while they have that time that they've bought.

But you know, the best way to do this, Republicans admit, is a legislative solution, actually pass immigration reform as the president says he wants. Most Republicans want to do that. The open question, though, Chris, is whether or not the president going alone will cause so much rebellion among conservatives that will make legislating impossible, Chris.

CUOMO: Dana, you lay out the question. Should the president use executive action when Republicans say clearly this will destroy hope for compromise over the next two years? Let's bring in Senator Bernie Sanders. He's an independent from Vermont who caucuses with the Democrats. He's the chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and a Member of the Budget Committee. Senator, great to have you on set here at NEW DAY. Let me ask you this. What's your answer to the basic question of should the president do this?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, (I) VERMONT: Look, Chris, this country faces enormous problems. Our middle class is disappearing. We have more people living in poverty almost at any other time in the history of this country, and massive wealth and income inequality. And what we've seen over the last six years is Republicans doing hundreds and hundreds of filibusters. We passed legislation. We got a majority vote to raise the minimum wage, to do pay equity, to do a jobs program. Republicans filibustered, filibustered, and filibustered.

I think what the president is finally saying, look, immigration is a serious problem. We have got to do something. And if you guys don't do it -- remember, the Senate last year passed a reasonably good bill. What has the House done? Absolutely nothing. So what the president is saying, this country has problems. I'm going to go forward. If you pass legislation, I'll rescind the executive order. But do something, address problems.

CAMEROTA: Even if it means that by acting unilaterally he threatens the relationship for any possible compromise. If election meant that there was a new beginning that now they will once again be at loggerheads, there could be a government shutdown, and all the other ripple effect. SANDERS: Threaten, compromise. Is that what you said?

CAMEROTA: Well --

SANDERS: For six years we are trying to get the Republicans to support anything. Look, the Republicans -- I have to say I'm an independent. I'm not particularly partisan. But any objective observer understands they have become a right wing party, not a center-right party. They have a right wing base. They have an agenda can which does not want to work with the president.

And I think what the president is saying, look, we've got problems. We have got to move. To say that we're going to break the wonderful harmony and working relationship that we've had six years, that did not exist.

CAMEROTA: It's not that. It's that they are threatening shutdown, that they won't work with Democrats and the president if he were to do this.

SANDERS: Then the American people have to make a choice. If they think the government shutdown is a response to the enormous problems facing this country. Look, the American people in poll after poll and on Election Day said we could raise the minimum wage. Do you hear Republicans talking about that? The American people in poll after poll say women should get paid the same amount of money as men. Do you hear the Republicans talking about that? The American are disgusted with Citizens United.

CUOMO: They heard something, though, senator, because they just voted in the Republicans in a very big way. And I think there's a political calculation here to be made. You're certainly right about that. But there are a lot of lives in the balance.

What I don't understand here is there's an absence of leadership by the party and president. And by the party I mean the Democratic Party, because you can't play the same game the Republicans are. You don't have the leverage. So you're dealing with need of these families being separated. Everybody should be able to agree that's horrible. How does the party that you caucus with and leader of the country find a way to make that salable, which should not be so difficult?

SANDERS: Chris, I agree with you. It should not be so difficult. I think the vast majority of people in this country want immigration reform. We passed it in the Senate. We have kids who are born in this country that are going to see a situation if we don't act that their parents may be expelled.

CUOMO: It's happened before. Presidents Bush and Reagan both did this. But here's the difference. The difference was that the Congress had been massaged in those two situations in the direction of the ultimate reform, so that when the president signed these executive orders stopping the families from being separated, Congress undid it quickly. They were moving that way. That leadership, that compromise has not been found here. SANDERS: I don't think it's leadership and I don't think it's

compromise. The Republican Party is today a very different party than it was back then. That's just the simple reality. And you pay attention to this every day. Have you heard Republicans talking in a serious way about immigration reform? They have not.

So the president again on all of these issues, he is sitting there and saying, we have problems. We have got to act. And what he has said over and over again is if you pass legislation, I'll rescind executive orders. Everybody knows executive orders are not the best way to do things. We know that. But you have a party now, I have to say this, which is really recalcitrant in terms of wanting to do much.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about something the Republicans do want to get done, the Keystone pipeline. The House just approved it. What's the Senate going to do tomorrow?

SANDERS: I hope very much that we will not provide 60 votes.

CAMEROTA: And why? What do you have against the Keystone pipeline?

SANDERS: What the scientific community tells us, virtually unanimously, Alisyn, is that climate change is real. It is already causing devastating problems. And if we do not transform our energy system away from fossil fuel this planet is going to face some pretty serious problems. The idea that we would give a green light for the transportation of 800,000 barrels of some of the dirtiest oil in the world makes no sense to me.

CAMEROTA: You know the State Department has done all sort of environmental impact studies and found that it would have no negative impact.

SANDERS: Yes, I do know that, and they were very faulty studies. What they assumed if that we killed the pipeline, the oil would come by rail. I don't accept that. And the people who did that study had a prior relationship with TransCanada. Bottom line is the Republicans talk about this as a jobs program. Do you know how many permanent jobs are going to be created on this?

CUOMO: How many?

SANDERS: It's 35.

CUOMO: Why? Because you're defining it narrowly. It's not just the making of the pipeline. It's what this will provide as commerce, how it changes our dependence on foreign trading. There's a lot going on.

SANDERS: There is. But the Republicans refer to this often as a jobs program. There are 35 permanent jobs. If you want a jobs program, it might be a good idea to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, our roads, our bridges, and our rail system, and start creating millions of jobs, not 35 jobs.

CAMEROTA: Are you running for president? SANDERS: I'm giving some thought to it. You know, I've been going

around the country take on the billionaire class and Wall Street and the Koch brothers. It's not easy.

CUOMO: How you going to get elected president if you take on the billionaire class? Don't you watch the elections?

SANDERS: Chris, to be very honest with you, we may have reached point, the tipping point, where candidates who are fighting for the working class and the middle class of this country may not be able to do that anymore because of the power of the billionaire class. That's the simple reality. If I do it, I want to do it well. If I do it, I know that I will need millions of people engaged in a real grassroots campaign to take on big money and to fight for an agenda, a jobs program, raising minimum wage, pay equity for women, dealing with climate change, all of these things. And I have to ascertain what kind of support there is out there.

CAMEROTA: Senator, great to see you. Thanks so much for stopping by NEW DAY.

CUOMO: I'm not sure that Vermont accent is going to sell across the country.

CAMEROTA: It will. It's charming.

SANDERS: OK.

(LAUGHTER)

CUOMO: It's great to have you, Senator. Thanks for taking on the issues. Appreciate it.

SANDERS: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Thank you so much.

Let's get over to Michaela for headlines.

PEREIRA: Where you from again?

CUOMO: New Jersey.

PEREIRA: Just saying.

All right, 12 minutes past the hour. Let's give you a look at those headlines. A surgeon diagnosed with Ebola in Sierra Leone is in extremely critical condition. Dr. Martin Salia is in an isolation unit. In a Nebraska medical center in Omaha doctors are said to be using several treatment options. Meanwhile the CDC just announced airport screening will begin for travelers flying to the U.S. from the west Aftrican nation of Mali which is now reporting at least three Ebola case.

Today we're learning more, that two of the four people killed in a DuPont gas leak southeast of Houston, they were brothers. "The Houston Chronicle" reports that Gilbert Tisnado grabbed a gas mask to try to save his younger brother Robert. At one point relative say he removed his own mask, tried to place it on his brother, but that the toxic chemical methyl mercaptan overcame both of them.

The Drug Enforcement Administration is investigating the NFL following allegations of illegal prescription drug use. At least three teams were subjected to surprise inspection following games on Sunday. Agents questioned trainers and doctors from the San Francisco 49ers, the Seattle Seahawks, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers about allegations of rampant distribution of illegal painkillers by their medical personnel. The claims were made by more 1,000 former NFL players in a class action lawsuit against the league.

Long wait times are still a big problem at V.A. hospitals and clinics. "USA Today" reporting that more than 600,000 are still waiting a month or more for appointments. That amounts of 10 percent of all Veteran Affairs patients. But the V.A. has reportedly made some progress, substantially cutting down on the worst case scenarios which involve veterans who waited more than four months for an appointment.

Some of music's biggest stars coming together to tackle Ebola. Bono, One Direction, just a couple of the big names on the roster of performers who came together to remake Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" Proceeds from that recording will go towards combating Ebola. Bonno was also featured of course in the original 1984 version that the three of us remember very well. That song raised money for famine victims in Ethiopia.

I remember what a big deal that was.

CUOMO: Right?

PEREIRA: I remember - - -

CUOMO: Remember the video?

PEREIRA: Oh, it was the best.

CAMEROTA: Of course, so great.

PEREIRA: On MTV, remember when they played videos? Remember that?

CUOMO: That's right. All those legends together.

PEREIRA: I know, it was really cool.

CAMEROTA: They're doing it again. It's an evergreen idea.

PEREIRA: It is, I love it.

CAMEROTA: Alright, thanks Michaela.

Well, the vicious killing of U.S. aid worker Peter Kassig puts the effectiveness of the fight against ISIS in the spotlight. Is the U.S. headed for an endless conflict in Iraq and Syria? We'll debate that. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: In the wake of another hostage murdered by ISIS, many question the effectiveness of the current U.S. mission to destroy ISIS. Let's debate this with Phillip Mudd, he's a CNN counter terrorism analyst and former deputy director of the CIA counter terrorism center, and Hillary Mann Leverett, she's the author of "Going to Tehran." She's also a former member of the National Security Council staff under presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and a former foreign service officer who served at U.S. embassies across the Middle East. I can think of two no better people who are more qualified to weigh in on this discussion.

Phil, let me start with you. When we see yet another one of these sickening videos that has beheaded an American, it's hard to feel as though we're making any strides against ISIS. Are we?

PHILIP MUDD, CNN COUNTER TERRORISM ANALYST: I think we're making strides, but you have to put this in the context of time. That is the Americans want progress over weeks or a month. If you remember where we were back in the summer, even a month or two ago, ISIS was making gains and threatening Kurdistan up in northern Iraq, coming toward Baghdad.

A lot of that has been blunted. We were concerned about a group called the Khorasan group, cited by the president as a threat to United States out of Syria. I think those plots have been disrupted for the moment, so if you contrast to where we were a few months ago, we blunted some of the ISIS forward progress, but we probably have years to go in terms of blunting the overall threat.

CAMEROTA: Hillary, do you agree with that assessment? And it seems as though if we're blunting their land grabs, we're doing nothing in terms of changing their barbaric mission statement.

HILLARY MANN LEVERETT, AUTHOR OF "GOING TO TEHRAN": Yes, I mean, I think that the Islamic State has made significant progress. My deepest concern is that we are in fact participating in sewing the seeds for next 9/11 here in the United States.

CAMEROTA: How?

LEVERETT: I think the strategy is - - What we've seen three key developments that aside from the video should really be the focus of our attention. One is the continued surge in recruitment to the Islamic State, not just from within the Middle East, but from beyond the Middle East. The second is that the Islamic State has now merged with the most potent al Qaeda group in Syria, which had previously banished the Islamic State as a being too brutal. Now they've joined forces.

And the third very important thing is that the Islamic State has now declared, has now recognized provinces beyond Syria and Iraq. So, they now have a province that they've recognized in Libya, and Algeria, in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. This group is on the move, it's expansionist, and in a lot of ways it's winning in ways that we can't see.

It's not just the horrific, brutal video that we did see, but it's ways that we don't see where they're entrenching themselves. They're printing currency, issuing parking tickets, setting up schools, collecting trash. They're doing things that make them for formidable, not just a group of criminal thugs, but more like a state that's going to be extremely difficult to combat.

CAMEROTA: Phil, Hillary has a much more troubling assessment of ISIS and their progress than you do. What's the discrepancy there?

MUDD: Well, I think we should be troubled here. We looked at an organization that is ISIS, that's taken more geography than most of the terrorist groups I ever faced. But if you look at the history of groups that have taken territory and tried to establish states in countries like Algeria or Somalia, what you have to look at over time is Hillary's right.

Initially they provide security, but over time, maybe the course of years, people in villages and towns start to say security is nice, but I can't live in an environment where I'm beheaded because I don't share the beliefs of the group that's taking over. The problem is, to reverse that trend takes a long time because the people in those villages today are saying these guys might be a little better than the Iraqi government. It's going to take them a long time to say but they don't provide a future for my children, and therefore, I have to fight them. We have a long way to go here.

CAMEROTA: But, Hillary, beyond time, the time that it takes to fight ISIS, what is the answer?

LEVERETT: Well, and part of the problem is as we give ourselves, as we indulge ourselves in this time, we're actually making it worse. By bombing the Islamic State, we're making it worse. If we look at the Pentagon's own figures, they claim that 800 people have been killed in our bombing campaign so far. Out of the 800, they claim 50, 5-0, were militants of the Islamic State.

That's a huge difference between civilians that were killed, 750, and 50 militants.

CAMEROTA: So what should we do ?

(CROSSTALK)

LEVERETT: What that's done is it surges recruitment. And so if you have for example in a country like Egypt, you have 80 million people, if only 20 percent, and that's what the latest polling shows, if only 20 percent of them support the Islamic State, you're still talking about a pool of 16 million people to recruit.

CAMEROTA: Of course.

LEVERETT: That's where my concern comes from.

CAMEROTA: But if not using the air strikes to try to blunt their forward progress, what is the answer, Hillary?

LEVERETT: Well, we have to first stop helping them. Stop helping them by legitimating two of their prime targets, the Assad government in Syria and the Islamic Republic of Iran. By our focus, by legitimating the overthrow of Assad, a Shia sect, and the Islamic Republic of Iran, we're fuelling what they use as one of their strongest recruitment tools, their hatred of the Shia.

We should make a deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran, and we should deal with the Assad government in Syria in a form of conflict resolution to recognize that they're one of the pillars that can work against the Islamic State.

CAMEROTA: Okay.

LEVERETT: We have to do no harm and actually work with these groups.

CAMEROTA: Okay, interesting suggestions. Phillip Mudd , I owe you a response, and I'll give it to you next time. Hillary Mann Leverett and Phillip Mudd. Great to see you. Thanks for the debate.

MUDD: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Let's go over to Chris.

CUOMO: It is a NEW DAY and a new week, but the disappearance of 43 college kids and their assumed murders still demands answers. Demonstrators, as well as student's parents, have been creating tense standoffs with police, and the violence is now affecting people's livelihoods in Mexico. We're going to take you there.

And illegal immigration gets real and personal in an "LA Times" op-ed. "Orange is the New Black"'s Diane Guerrero reveals that her parents and older brother were deported. She's going to speak to us about the hardship she endured growing up without loved ones, and about all the kids who may be facing the same fate if our leaders don't get their acts together.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: All right. Time for the five things you need to know for your NEW DAY. At number one, ISIS has beheaded former U.S. soldier and humanitarian aid worker Peter Kassig. The president slamming the murder, calling it an act of quote, "pure evil."

Breaking news just into CNN. A surgeon who contracted Ebola in West Africa has died in a Nebraska hospital, just hours after arriving in the U.S., that is according to "Reuters." Dr. Martin Salia contracted the virus in Sierra Leone.

The Drug Enforcement Administration keeping a close eye on the NFL after allegations of illegal prescription drug use. Federal agents made surprise visits to at least three NFL teams following their games on Sunday.

Long wait times still a big problem at VA hospitals and clinics. "USA Today" reports more than 600,000 veterans are still waiting a month or more for their appointments.