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U.S. Reducing Embassy Staff in Yemen; More Fallout Over Netanyahu Visit to Washington; Mysterious Death of Argentine Prosecutor; Obama Takes Questions from YouTube Stars.

Aired January 23, 2015 - 13:30   ET

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


WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Joining us now from London is Adam Baron. He's reported from Yemen over the years. He knows the subject well.

Adam, your sense, because you know a lot about Yemen, U.S. embassy personnel, military personnel, there are supposedly a few hundred still there, are they in danger?

ADAM BARON, CORRESPONDENT BASED IN YEMEN 2011-2014: I think it remains a very volatile and uncertain situation, Wolf. The fact of the matter is, it's very obvious that the former president was a very close ally of the United States and they were caught off guard by the resign resignation. So I think there is this sense that anything could happen. So I'm sure there's a great degree of concern and a great degree of anxiety regarding the security concerns for the U.S. embassy.

BLITZER: An official from the Yemeni embassy here in Washington told me the other day there are thousands, his word, thousands of dual Yemeni-American citizens in Yemen right now. I assume they're very worried about what's going on and I don't know if there's any contingency plans to get those American citizens out of there. Do you know their fate?

BARON: I think when it comes to the duo, for the most part, the ones living in Yemen, there's not a great degree of anxiety. Obviously they're anxious about what's going on as Yemenis, but generally speaking they're very used to the situation, hopping in and out of Yemen and the U.S. Very few of my friends seem to be basing their decision to go back based on the turmoil. Obviously Yemenis are concerned with what's going on but not as Yemeni Americans specifically.

BLITZER: What do you think about the situation? The Yemeni president seemed to have resigned. The Houthis seem to be in charge. Walk us three what's been happen and what will be happening in the coming days and weeks?

BARON: I think Sunday will be the crucial day. They'll decide whether to accept the president's resignation. Anything could happen after that at this point. If they reject the situation, that means the president effectively despite his resignation becomes president again. There's a question of whether there would be early elections. There's a question of whether some sort of political power would create a transitional council and whether the south will break off and form its own country. We've seen meetings and protests today working toward the aim of the south regaining its independence. So when it comes down to it, Wolf, anything can happen. It's one of the most uncertain periods in Yemen's history I would say since the overthrowing of monarchy in 1962.

BLITZER: A lot of analysts in Washington have told me, Adam, this is all good news for al Qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula, AQAP, which is based in Yemen and represents a significant threat to the U.S. Would you agree with that assessment?

BARON: I would say it's not that far off. AQAP feeds on one of two things. Number one, they feed on certainty and a power volume. And this recent political turmoil has exacerbated the power vacuum in Yemen. Number two, they feed off disgruntled groups of Yemenis. There are many who are angry, especially those sympathetic to Houthi Islamists. They're doing their best to reach out to them. They're employing very sectarian language, calling the Houthi agents of America, destined to destroy Yemeni Sunnis. Even though there's not a large amount of sectarian sentiment, AQAP is doing its best to provoke this in order to make gains off of the turmoil.

BLITZER: A lot of the Sunni countries in the region, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and a whole bunch of others, they're very worried that with the success of the Shiite Houthis, this represents a bonanza potentially for Iran. Do you buy that?

BARON: I think to a large extent this is much more of a political crisis than it is something that's rooted in sectarian issues. The reason the Houthis have been able to do what they do is not because of their overwhelmingly Shiite identity. The Shia are different than the Shia in Iran. They're a different sect. Number two, they're a very small minority in Yemen, only 33 percent of the country. So the Houthi gains have come due to their political agenda, their ability to benefit on the disagreements of many Yemenis. I think what's really making Saudi Arabia and the other gulf countries nervous is the fact that they're a Shiite group, but the fact their rise has brought a great degree of uncertainty and turmoil into Yemen. While they have recently come into power saying they were going to bring stability, we have yet to see signs of it. Indeed, obviously, with the resignation of the president, of the cabinet, with, in fact that the only political group in the country is the parliament that was elected in 2003, Yemen is arguably at one of the most unstable points it has ever been, so that's something that obviously concerns the gulf states.

BLITZER: And the ramifications for the gulf and the region, indeed, of the world, given the AQAP' presence there in Yemen.

Adam Baron, thanks for joining us.

BARON: Thank you for having me, Wolf.

BLITZER: So the White House won't be putting out the welcome mat for the visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. We're going to have more on the fallout over Netanyahu's plan to address a joint session of Congress. At the corner of this dispute between Netanyahu and Obama, Iran. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)'

BLITZER: President Obama has reportedly told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stay out of the Iran sanctions debate here in Washington, that according to a Israeli newspaper. It's the latest fallout over the invitation for the prime minister to address a joint session of Congress on the issue of Iran, that invitation coming from the House speaker, John Boehner.

Let's talk about all of this with Aaron David Miller, Middle East expert, former State Department Middle East negotiator, and now a distinguished scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center here in Washington.

Just big picture. This dispute between the prime minister of Israel and the president of the United States, it's very, very serious, isn't it?

DAVID AARON MILLER, SCHOLAR, WOODROW WILSON CENTER & FORMER STATE DEPARTMENT MIDDLE EAST NEGOTIATOR: It is. It is. And it's ongoing, Wolf, since '09. It's an ongoing soap opera, which has had different issues and different episodes, but the dysfunction is real. It's driven by different personalities, different policies. And it's reached a level where you have a perfect storm. You have the dysfunction in the background. You have Iran, which has raised the sensitivities. We're almost in the end game in the next several months over whether or not there will be a deal or not. And you've got the Republican-controlled Senate prepared to oppose the president's policies and demonstrate its own muscularity when it comes to foreign policy. And as if it's not enough, you have Israeli elections on March 17th. So you've got this perfect storm that's resulted in mistrust, miscalculation, and is capable of doing significant damage to the relationship.

BLITZER: It's extraordinary, though, for a foreign leader to come to Washington to address Congress, and for the administration, the president of the United States and the secretary of state, to learn about it when there's an official announcement from the House speaker, isn't it?

MILLER: Without precedent, at least from my experience. Again, it reflects the fact that Speaker Boehner and some Republicans are determined to marshal every conceivable resource and the prime minister is Exhibit A. Clearly, in a Democrat and Republican Congress, Exhibit A is laying out the case as to why we have to distrust Iran and why diplomacy may not succeed. So it's unprecedented.

And, again, I think if Netanyahu is re-elected or there's a national government and the president will serve out the next 18 months, it will be another 18 months of a roller-coaster ride.

BLITZER: This president is going to be president of the United States for two more years.

(CROSSTALK)

So there's a lot of time.

Hold on for a minute.

Elise Labott, our global affairs correspondent, is in Jerusalem.

I understand there's fierce criticism of the prime minister for, in effect, siding with the Republicans in Washington and abandoning what has traditionally been an Israeli policy, trying to make sure Democrats and Republicans support Israel. The reaction that this could backfire for Netanyahu. That's what some Israeli analysts are suggesting, Elise.

ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Very much so, Wolf. I've been talking to administration officials all day. In a very testy phone call a week before the State of the Union, President Obama said to Prime Minister Netanyahu, listen, butt out, I need some space here. I need to get this deal going with Iran before the end of March. If we don't get a deal, I'll be the first one to line up with sanctions. Instead, Prime Minister Netanyahu did the opposite and, the administration feels, went behind his back, plotted to come to Washington and get this very critical speech going at a very critical time to boost his own political credibility in advance of elections. And here in Israel, they're crying afoul. Right now, the U.S. officials are so upset at the way the relations are going right now. Obviously, U.S. support and security remains sacrosanct. That could hurt Prime Minister Netanyahu because he's going to hear from Congress. If it's any indicator of the last speech he made, he's going to get this rousing applause, but when you hear this criticism coming from the administration, it doesn't look like he's the wonderful arbiter of the relationship. That's very important to the Israeli public here -- Wolf?

BLITZER: It certainly is.

You know, Aaron, there's one way out of this mess for the Israeli prime minister, if he decides, you know what, I'm not going to come to Washington after all, it's too close to the Israeli elections. Do you think he can back out of this?

MILLER: If he doesn't or he doesn't, the reality is the damage has already been done. You're right about this, Wolf, and so is Elise. Two weeks before an Israeli election, to have an Israeli prime minister here talking to Congress, talking to the Americans on the committee, with the White House doors shut and the State Department doors shut, Israelis want prime ministers who can manage the most important relationship between the country and their closest country. This is the thing that brought down a previous prime minister in 1992.

BLITZER: Right. They want to have a strong relationship --

MILLER: Exactly.

BLITZER: -- with their closest ally, the United States of America. And if they believe this prime minister up for re-election is not able to do so, they may not vote for him.

MILLER: It may have been too clever by half, and these sorts of political maneuvers often are.

BLITZER: You probably know this as well. I'm told that within two weeks or so of an Israeli election, the Israeli media, television, can't televise campaign speeches.

MILLER: Right.

BLITZER: And now a judge is going to decide if he comes to speak before the joint session of Congress, will they be allowed to show that speech on Israeli television. And that's a question a judge is going to decide in the coming days.

MILLER: The cruelest of ironies. A major campaign announcement which we addressed before a bipartisan joint meeting of Congress wasn't broadcast to the electorate.

BLITZER: We'll see how they fix this problem.

Aaron David Miller, thanks so much.

MILLER: Pleasure, Wolf.

BLITZER: Elise Labott, in Jerusalem, thanks to you as well.

A prosecutor accused Argentina's president of a criminal cover-up in a major terrorist case is now found dead. First, the president said it was a suicide. Now, she says not so fast, it was not a suicide. The reason for her stunning reversal and a whole lot more. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: It sounds like a movie script. A prosecutor turns up dead. It happens just hours before he's scheduled to testify about an alleged presidential cover-up. Initially, it looked like a suicide but now authorities say it may be a murder.

CNN's Shasta Darlington lays out the facts for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHASTA DARLINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Argentine prosecutor, Fernandez Nisman, spend the last 10 years of his life building a high-profile case that ended up targeting his country's top officials. On Sunday, just hours before he was set to testify before Congress, he was found dead inside his Buenos Aries home with a bullet wound to his temple. Next to his body, a gun and shell casing, leading the president and investigators to label his death as a suicide. But now, new details causing Argentina's president to make an about-face, writing on her Facebook page, "The suicide that I'm convinced was not a suicide." Investigators now revealing no gun powder residue was found on Nisman's hands, indicating he may not have pulled the trigger himself.

In a 289-page report citing wiretap phone conversations, Nisman alleges the president, foreign minister, and other Argentine officials conspired to cover up Iran's involvement in the country's deadliest terror attack, the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center that killed 85 people, all to help facilitate trade deals between the two nations. It's a charge Argentina's government strenuously denies.

This new surveillance video shows the prosecutor arriving in the Buenos Aires airport on January 12th, meeting with an unidentified person.

This week, accusations of a government conspiracy spread among the Argentinean Jewish community.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

DARLINGTON: One member calling the prosecutor's death a blow to the investigation. But, he says, they will not allow it to be the death of his cause.

So far, no arrests have been made in his death.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Shasta joining us now live from Buenos Aires.

So what's been the public reaction there to the president's about- face?

DARLINGTON: Well, Wolf, I'm standing here in front of the apartment building where Nisman's body was found. We see police going in and out. The investigation continues.

But what we're hearing from about 70 percent of the people said he had didn't believe it was a suicide. So when you had the president initially coming out referring to it as a suicide and then, just two days later, saying, no, she's convinced it wasn't, this has really gotten people riled up, people who were calling for justice and going out on the streets. They say this just shows how little faith you can have in our government for them to so blatantly change sides and because the evidence is now going against them. They say they really want to see this particular case carried out with transparency and quickly. Remember the 1994 bombing, that investigation was never concluded. That's exactly what Nisman was working on. So they are saying they hope this doesn't drag out another 20 years. You can imagine -- Wolf?

BLITZER: Yeah, I certainly can.

Shasta, thank you very much.

Shasta Darlington, reporting live from Buenos Aires.

It's not every day you see the president of the United States with a woman wearing green lipstick. His interview with three YouTube stars led to some unusual, some would say, awkward moments. We will have the video for you. All that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BLITZER: This just coming in right now. The NFL is now making its first public comments on allegations of cheating against the New England Patriots. The team has come under a lot of fire when it was found that the footballs they used in Sunday's win against the colts, those footballs were under inflated. Here is part of the NFL's official statement that just came out. The head coach, Bill Belichick, and the quarterback, Tom Brady, they both have said they weren't involved. They don't know anything about the deflated footballs. We will continue to watch this story for you throughout the day and the coming days as well.

Other news we are following on a very different note. These weren't your usual interviews with the president of the United States. President Obama taking questions from three YouTube stars. They posed for selfies with the president afterwards. There he is.

One of the more awkward moments came during the interview with GloZell. She asked him about relations with Cuba in her own candid way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GLOZELL GREEN, YOUTUBE STAR: I mean, the guy puts (EXPLETIVE DELETED) in dictatorship. So I'm trying to understand, how do you justify dealing with the Castros?

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Here is what's happening. We have had the same policy since I was born, which was we were going to have an embargo, we were going to cut off all contact, all communication. And nothing changed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Let's discuss what's going on with our chief political analyst, Gloria Borger; and our senior media correspondent, Brian Stelter, the host of CNN's "Reliable Sources."

Gloria, you have been speaking to folks over there. Why did the president decide to use this, shall we say unusual format for the post-State of the Union interview?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: I was talking to senior administration officials, asking about the new paradigm, which it seems to be. What's the rational for it? And what he said is that we're going to go where the conversations are happening and engaging with those communities, in this case, it was YouTube. He said, it's not instead of mainstream media, such as you and me, but rather in addition to.

I think the problem with that, of course, is that sometimes the president, as you just saw, wound up in a tricky situation there, which I thought he handled pretty well. But the question is whether it diminishes him in some way to be in that situation. The White House clearly believes, it doesn't.

BLITZER: They have a lot of followers, Brian, on YouTube, these three YouTube stars. White House officials have said, we want to reach that audience who may not necessarily be reachable via traditional broadcast or cable news.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT & CNN HOST, RELIABLE SOURCES: That's exactly right. YouTube is a way to reach young people, teenagers and 20 somethings that don't tend to watch as much information. Bethany has eight million followers on YouTube. That's something few news organizations can say. The White House has an "all of the above: strategy for press. They go on Jimmy Fallon, they go on YouTube, the same way they go on CNN. Next week, for instance, the president will give a pre-Super Bowl interview as he always does because he wants to reach that big audience. But he wants to reach the big audience on YouTube. Whether there's a Republican in power in a couple of years or a Democrat, I have a feeling they will continue this strategy.

BORGER: I do, too. Don't forget that during the health care debate that they were trying to get people to log on to the website. The president went on, and what they discovered was there was a 40 percent increase in traffic on the Affordable Care Act website the next day. I think they're trying to use that as a model in the future.

But there's a down side to it, because you could put the president in an awkward situation, as we saw. The up side is, you are really broadening his appeal.

BLITZER: Any initial numbers, Brian, how many people were watching that YouTube interview with the president?

STELTER: You know, it doesn't compare to television ratings. Over time, it could. That's the thing about YouTube, is that it's on demand. People might watch this a week or month from now and it might still have the impact that -- when you have a television interview, it's big right away and then go away quickly. On demand on YouTube, it could have a long life.

BLITZER: We will see.

Brian hosting "Reliable Sources, Sunday morning. He'll be live 11:00 a.m. eastern for all of our viewers.

Thanks, guys, very much.

That's it for me. I will be back 5:00 p.m. eastern in "The Situation Room."

For our international viewers, "Amanpour" is next.

For our North American viewers, "Newsroom" with Brooke Baldwin starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.