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NEW DAY

ISIS Video of Beheading of Christians in Libya Draw Egyptian Military Response; Trial of Accused Killer of American Sniper Chris Kyle Continues; Interview with Governor Charlie Baker of Massachusetts

Aired February 17, 2015 - 08:00   ET

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


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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Horrific scene one after another. This is a cult that should give the president the authority to fight.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Only 40 percent of the public supports the president's handling of this war against ISIS.

CUOMO: Eddie Ray Routh's interrogation and confession.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The ramblings is going to be used.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you know the difference between right and wrong, you are not insane.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're standing on the river bank where we saw the train explode.

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CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It's Tuesday, February 17th, 8:00 in the east. Government and business reps from 60 nations are heading to the White House, all desperate for an answer to the problem of extreme Jihadism. The truth is not in dispute. More and more terrorism is becoming a cause for angry, ignorant, and disaffected young men and women all over the globe.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: This as new poll numbers show the president losing support on foreign policy and his strategy to destroy is. So can this summit help? Let's get right to CNN's White House correspondent Michelle Kosinski with a preview. It sounds like pundits are already criticizing portions of the summit before it has even begun, Michelle.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. I mean, there's back and forth on various aspects of the summit, as you might expect. For a long time we've heard the White House talk about how the fight against ISIS is really a regional fight because it poses an existential threat to countries in that region. Lately it seems like it takes something like a brutal murder specific to a country in that region to see, say, Egypt join the coalition or Jordan step up with airstrikes, the UAE to get back to doing airstrikes.

So we're going to see countries from that region take part in this three-day summit. In fact, as you said, more than 60 countries will. What they want to do is look at programs around the country and around the world and take a look at what is working and what is not working, because we've also heard the White House focus many times on getting at the violent ideology is really key ultimately to defeating ISIS for the long term.

The thing is, this comes at a time when according to a new poll, a majority of Americans now say they feel the war against is ISIS going badly, and is growing disapproval with how the president is handling terrorism. And 57 percent responded that they disapprove of how he's handling foreign policy in general, but the White House wants this summit to highlight action that is ongoing as well as be a catalyst for more, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right, Michelle Kosinski. Thanks so much for the preview.

Meanwhile, Egypt launching another round of airstrikes on ISIS in Libya following the gruesome beheadings of more than a dozen Christians. CNN's Ian Lee is in Minya, Egypt, at the hometown of most of the victims. Ian?

IAN LEE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Al-Our is a small, poor village. You won't find it on most maps. But 13 of those men who were brutally executed by ISIS came from here. They went to Libya looking for decent wages to create a better life back home, but now this is a village in mourning while Egypt is looking for revenge.

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LEE: This morning Egypt appearing to gear up for war against ISIS in Libya, airstrikes hitting 10 targets ISIS used for training and weapon depots up north in Derna according to the Egyptian government. But Islamist militias in the ISIS stronghold say they, quote, "woke up to disaster" and claimed the bombings killed women and children. CNN could not independently verify these claims.

SAMEH SHOUKRY, EGYPT'S FOREIGN MINISTER: We are hopeful that the strike was surgical with targeting specific installations and that there have been no collateral damage.

LEE: The strikes, Egypt's immediate retaliation over the slaughter of 21 Egyptian Christians. According to an Egyptian official, they have already undertaken activities to restrict the brutal militant group's finance activities and recruitment measures. The country also preparing to ask the U.N. Security Council to treat the terror group's presence in Libya as serious as ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

GEN. SAMEH SEIF ELYAZAL (RET), CHAIRMAN AL GOMHORIA: This is now definitely worse than the border with Libya. We won't wait until they come next to our border and threaten our border or try even to penetrate our border. LEE: ISIS a growing threat as the brutal beheadings posted online

rallies the nation. Al Azhar, Egypt's leading Islamic institution, issued a ruling prohibiting Muslims from watching the video. This as Egypt's president declared a week of mourning in the Muslim majority country for the slain Christians. The state's authority responsible for religious edicts in Egypt said in a statement, "The blood of our Christian children and brothers is the same of that blood of Muslims which belongs to the Egyptian nation."

Egypt seems content with airstrikes for now. They now plan for putting boots on the ground. I talked to one retired general who told me it will likely remain like that unless ISIS threatens Egypt's borders and people directly.

Ian Lee, CNN, Al-Our, Egypt.

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CUOMO: All right, Ian, thank you very much. The grand mufti, the head religious leader, and another religious leader, they're coming out condemning these actions early, even forbidding watching the video. But the question becomes is the violence we're seeing the problem or a symptom of the problem?

Let's bring in Hillary Mann Leverett. She's a former member of the National Security Council under presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. She's also a visiting scholar at Georgetown University, and the author of "Going to Tehran, Why the United States Must Come to Terms with the Islamic Republic." All right, it's good to have you here as always. Let's do this. There's a debate going on. Is this our problem, our being the United States, or is this their problem? Should the region take it? Is it a good thing they Jordan and Egypt have had a finger stuck in their eye so that now they can fight their own battle? Your take on it is what?

HILLARY MANN LEVERETT, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL MEMBER: Well, it's our problem as far as we make it our problem, as far as we put ourselves in the crosshairs, and as far as we support, arm, fund, and train governments that are perceived, and there's a lot of subjectivity about this, but are perceived as essentially American puppets, doing the work of the American states and the so-called crusader west as we hear in the rhetoric of the Islamic state.

The facts are today, even with the beheadings in Egypt, even with the horrific killing of the Jordanian pilot last week, there are more Jordanians today fighting with and for ISIS than against it, more Egyptians today fighting with and for ISIS than against it.

CUOMO: Right.

LEVERETT: That's true in all of our so-called allies from Turkey, to Saudi Arabia, to Pakistan, to Afghanistan.

CUOMO: We're a news organization. I'm supposed to say we, I'm supposed to say the U.S.

LEVERETT: Right.

CUOMO: But it just doesn't work in this hypothetical. So I'm playing the U.S. in this.

LEVERETT: Right.

CUOMO: What is the U.S. supposed to do? If this problem is sourced there, which you acknowledge, and these societies are repressive, which is a common trait of like three-quarters of the, you know, the sovereigns in this world, don't we have to assist them in some way to get them to deal with the problem there, at least to keep it insulated?

LEVERETT: Well, there's a very pragmatic assumption, particularly here in Washington, that there is something wrong with, something pathological about Islam which is generating these types of problems, particularly in the Middle East and in other parts of the Muslim world. But there was nothing that we saw in this regard in the 1970s or the 1980s. There's something new. There's a new and very important element that we are so reluctant to come to terms with but is so important for the American public.

CUOMO: What is it?

LEVERETT: U.S. policy. The U.S. policy since the 1990s of putting in, deploying a million troops in 1990, hundreds of thousands of troops in the 2000s in Iraq and Afghanistan, trillions of dollars, billions of dollars in arms sales, to both put ourselves on the ground as on the ground occupiers, perceived to and in fact responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Muslims. This is what the Islamic State and Al Qaeda before it has been able to use in the rhetoric. There are 90,000 social messages a day. All they have to do is put real footage of what the United States has done in Iraq, and Afghanistan and Libya.

CUOMO: So how do you get the truth out, which is, look, the Iraq war was a bungled situation. America hasn't come to terms with why we went there, what was true and what wasn't true. But what should be universally true is that the problem is being incubated there. Those are the oppressive regimes. The United States does not have this problem with Muslims in this country. This is the land of opportunity still. So how is it that the U.S. is getting the black eye for what they are doing to their own there?

LEVERETT: Well, because the way that it is perceived, and I think genuinely felt by -- and we see this in polling data throughout the Middle East and throughout the Muslim world, is that these organizations rise up and gain support as resistance organizations, as resistance to in particular U.S. actions, U.S. invasions, occupations, and killings. That is what they are doing. They're resisting that.

And they're resisting what they perceive as these American puppet regimes that just pile onto the American invasions with their policies on rendition, on torture. You know, the American -- the Egyptian government is seen in Egypt by millions of people in Egypt as an American puppet that overthrew their democratically elected moderate Islamist government. They don't see themselves as having another way to resist what they see these massive attacks in the Muslim world other than to join the strongest organization, the Islamic State that can resist this continued onslaught. That's the message that works for them.

CUOMO: The context for what you're saying now about that perception isn't going to be helped by this latest poll obviously that Americans want Congress to authorize more military force in dealing with this question. You're saying we need a different solution. Let's see what they come up with at this summit on extremism. And a lot of people say it's not the right word. You shouldn't call it extremism. You should call it something else, like Islamism or whatever. But we'll get into it as we see what they do. Hillary, thank you so much, as always. Appreciate the perspective.

LEVERETT: Thank you very much.

CAMEROTA: All right, Chris, the American sniper trial resumes today in Texas. On Monday jurors heard Eddie Ray Routh's taped confession. The 27-year-old veteran has pleaded not guilty to killing Chris Kyle by reason of insanity. CNN's Ed Lavandera has the latest on the trial from Texas.

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ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In the videotaped confession from two years ago, Eddie Ray Routh looks far different than he does today. It was recorded just after Rough surrendered to police following a car chase and few hours after he shot and killed Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield. Routh starts with a rambling and incoherent answer when he's asked what happened. He says, "I keep talking to Chris. There's a few dozen Chrises in my world, and it's like every time I talk to another man named Chris or get sent to another man named Chris, it was like talking to the wolf, you know? The ones in the sky are the ones that fly, you know what I mean, the pigs." The detective asks, "Who did you shoot first?" And Routh says, "The one I could clearly identify." He's talking about Chris Kyle here. "I knew if I did not take out his soul, he was coming to take mine next."

TIM MOORE, ROUTH'S ATTORNEY: He was in the middle of a psychosis, a psychosis so severe at that point in time that he did not know what he was doing was wrong.

LAVANDERA: The investigator asked Routh, "After you killed them, what did you do next?" And Routh responds, "I fled. I didn't know what else to do. My adrenalin was so high I didn't know what was right, I didn't know what was wrong." The detective then asks Routh what he would like to tell the victim's families. "I would tell them I'm sorry for what I've done." Prosecutors say the tape proves Routh knew what he was doing.

ALAN NASH, PROSECUTOR: Mental illnesses, even the ones that this defendant may or may not have don't deprive people of the ability to be good citizens, to know right from wrong.

(END VIDEOTAPE) LAVANDERA: And back live in Stephenville, Texas, where court will resume again today in less than two hours. And, Alisyn, this was really a significant moment in the trial. This was the first time this jury was able to hear directly from Eddie Ray Routh as close to the moment of those murders as they will possibly see in this trial and judge for themselves his demeanor and state of mind. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: That is a significant moment. Ed, thanks so much for telling us about it.

We have some breaking news to get to. At least a dozen people are dead and 40 more injured after an accident at a carnival in Haiti. We're told an electrical poll fell on to a float during a parade while people were celebrating Mardi Ggras. We'll have more details on this as they come into our newsroom.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking overnight, a federal judge in Texas blocking president Obama's federal action on immigration. The order is temporary but it does give 26 states time to press ahead with a lawsuit to stop the president's action entirely. The orders had been set to go into effect tomorrow. The Justice Department plans to appeal the decision.

CUOMO: Investigators are on the scene now in West Virginia after a train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded in Fayette County. A second explosion shook the area around midnight. One of those burning train cars fell into a river and now officials are concerned that drinking water could be contaminated. They shut down two water treatment plants as a result. Still not clear yet what caused the derailment, but the obvious is the weather.

PEREIRA: So many things going on right now. My goodness.

CAMEROTA: Hopefully they can figure all of that out.

Well, there is another round of brutal weather bearing down on the country. And once again, Boston is the bull's eye. How much more snow can my beloved Boston handle, and your beloved Boston, right, Michaela? We're going to ask the governor of Massachusetts what they're doing.

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PEREIRA: All right. There's gridlock in Washington, and we're not talking of the congressional sort. A snowstorm hitting the nation's capital overnight. Look at the shot from the White House. Just beautiful.

It is part of a wide swath of bitter, bitter cold. Winter weather hitting the U.S. from the Midwest to New England.

We have our reporters deployed for the occasion.

We will begin with Sunlen Serfaty. She is in D.C.

Hi, Sunlen. SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Michaela.

Definitely gridlock in Washington. This is all but a ghost town. This is the most snow that Washington has seen all winter. It is just declared a snow emergency by officials. Show you a little bit of the accumulation here. About 4 to 5 inches, but this sort of snow is that light, fluffy snow, the kind of snow that sticks right to the pavement. Why a lot of people are having trouble out on the roads this morning.

Now, D.C., as you can see is all but shut down. The federal government is closed. D.C. schools are closed. The White House briefing has been canceled for the day. People are trying to avoid being out on the streets.

And even President Obama, he encountered some travel problems with the weather last night. Here's some video -- he arrived at Andrews Air Force Base coming back from California. He was hit himself by the snow and the bitter cold. That was about 9:00 last night. The snow lasted all night. He was forced to take motorcade back to the White House instead of Marine 1.

The good news is here for today in D.C. the snow is done for the day, but officials say to stay off the roads. It is still going to be below freezing here in D.C. because we're going to be dealing with this snow for some while.

PEREIRA: Yes, a different sort. We keep saying that. It is important for people to heed those warnings. Just stay off the roads and let the road crews work on clearing the snow.

Thanks so much, Sunlen.

Well, the south is not getting spared. We're getting word of 200,000 power outages in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Snow, sleet, freezing rain making driving dangerous. Look at that mere disaster. The driver of an SUV almost hits another car and almost a news crew. My goodness, that was awfully close.

Ana Cabrera, nowhere near that accident. She's live, though, in Richmond, Georgia, where getting around is a bit of a challenge.

ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's a bit of a challenge. It's snowy, it's slippery, it's sloppy and chunky on the roadways. You can see hardly any cars now as a lot of people have chosen to travel by foot.

We see this gentleman walking across the street. Notice his feet. He doesn't have snow boots. We see a lot of that here. Because people in this part of the country aren't really used to this snow, at least not this much snow.

You take a look. We're talking about six inches here in Richmond. Of course, this is piled up from all the great shoveling that's been done already here. But this is a common sight all around this area where, again, they

just don't see this amount of snow, especially all at once. Not just the snow but the very cold temperatures, temperatures in the teens today. We've been like that for the past couple of days here in the South and they aren't expecting temperatures to go above freezing until the weekend.

And it's that extreme cold that has a lot of people worried, especially in the parts of Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina where they saw all of that ice accumulation in the past 24 hours. That's going to be an issue with those 200,000 power outages so people are just trying to cope right now as we make it through this 2015 winter blast -- Michaela.

PEREIRA: The one that never seems to end. Hopefully, neighbors are helping neighbors, people are helping the elderly, the homeless. Because again, the power outage is what's adding a real degree of seriousness to all of that, the snow and the cold.

Ana, thank you so much for that.

You're saying Virginians aren't necessarily used to snow and cold. Well, our reporters are. We're going to head to Boston where we find our Ryan Young.

We know snowfall records have already been broken. More of the same is coming. I don't know where they're going to put snow on top of the mountain that you're already standing on top of, Mr. Young. It's going to be an engineering feat there in Boston.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I mean, this is unbelievable how big this is. Talk about maybe four football fields worth of snow. I can tell you the heights back this direction are unbelievably high.

In fact, it's like Boston is in a fight with old man winter. Right now, Boston is not giving up.

I can tell you we're likely not to get snow yesterday. If you look around look at the size of this going back this direction. You can see how they stacked it up high. They have a snow melter they're using in an effort to make sure they melt some of the snow.

We have this at this point measure that we're going to try to use as I walk across this -- maybe not. But essentially we have this pulled out at 11 feet 7. And it doesn't reach the bottom of the ground if I use this and try to go all the way to the ground. It's something we've been working on for a while to see how massive this is.

Now, of course, you can't see from my vantage point, but if you look back this direction, it is just huge. They're also running out of salt in this area and that's something they desperately need. They said more shipments are coming in -- Michaela.

PEREIRA: All right. Well, let's talk -- thank you so much, Ryan.

Let's talk about what's going on in Massachusetts and Boston. We have the governor joining us, Charlie Baker.

Governor Baker, how are you fairing?

GOV. CHARLIE BAKER (R), MASSACHUSETTS (via telephone): Oh, we're having just a wonderful time up here. We're thrilled that we're breaking all kinds of records, but I'm not sure it's the records you necessarily want to break.

PEREIRA: No, it certainly isn't. Obviously, safety is the number one concern, the safety of the people in your state.

We understand that you've been telling folks to stay off the roads stopping short of having a travel ban officially in place. You think we're getting to the point with these -- these further storms set to hit your area?

BAKER: Well, we're -- I mean, at this point we've had four major storms in the past three weeks. And so -- and for people to understand a major storm, I mean, that means like at least a foot of snow. I think overall based on some of the visuals you folks have shown we're talking, you know, eight or nine feet of snow in less than a month and we've been melting it using these snow and ice melters at literally hundreds of tongues an hour and yet anywhere you go in eastern Massachusetts there's still a ton of snow around.

I mean, it's just been -- I will say this. I think people have worked enormously hard over the course of the past three or four weeks to sort of whittle it down and, frankly, people generally have been pretty patient about the consequences of all of this. I will say though, it has been enormously difficult for local retailers and restaurants, folks who survive on main street traffic to maintain any sort of equilibrium from a business point of view. That's too bad. It's just a function of where we are.

PEREIRA: We're just watching some of the images of bulldozers and front end loaders loading snow on top of mounds. I mean, it's just -- it's really incredible the vast amount of snow.

You're talking about the local retailers there. You actually sent out a tweet yesterday declaring it unofficially Valentine's Week. I sense it's because you're not a hopeless romantic, Governor. You are looking to get relief from some of those mom and pop stores and businesses and restaurants. Are folks, you getting the sense, heeding your call?

BAKER: Well, a lot of the local chambers and a lot of the restaurant groups, small business groups took that Valentine's Week proclamation and ran with it with their own marketing proposals. It was our way of figuring out some kind of way to spread the warmth over the week.

Since, it is school vacation week, one of the thoughts we had was that, you know, people might have a little more time. They might be looking for things to do with their kids, and if we could just remind folks that there's plenty to do nearby that might help. But, yes -- and, by the way, it would also give us a chance to continue to move snow out from some of our main streets so that folks will be able to access some of these retailers and restaurants.

PEREIRA: That's the important part about getting business back to work is getting that snow removed, dealt with, processed, however you want to put it. But the fact is, for example, the city of Boston has already blown through $34 million this year. That's double their entire snow budget.

Is there going to be any relief? Can the state help with some finances, with resources, any relief in site for some of these communities that are dealing with the expensive cost of snow removal?

BAKER: Well, that's been an issue for the state as well. We are certainly going to spend far more than we anticipated spending on snow removal. By the way, we've also asked for and received help, much of which we pay for, from eight other states that have thankfully sent us manpower and equipment to help us with our snow removal efforts as well.

We also bought a couple of snow melters and rented a couple to deal with this. And I think it's a question, obviously, that we'll be talking to our colleagues in local government about as we get towards the end of the year here.

But certainly anybody's snow budget, no matter how much they put in it this year, has probably blown it at this point, in part because, you know, the snow just keeps coming. The weather stays cold. There's no melt to speak of at all. The only way to remove it is literally to remove it physically and then dispose of it.

PEREIRA: Right. Mother Nature has different plans for us. We will never forget this winter of 2015.

Governor Charlie Baker, thank you so much. Stay warm. Hunker down and we'll be talking to you again, I'm sure, before this is all over.

BAKER: OK. Thank you, guys. Take care.

PEREIRA: We have some incredible images emerging from the weather. These are from Philadelphia. Crews fighting a fire in West Philadelphia Monday. The water they used froze leaving the building -- it almost looks like a haunted mansion.

There are concerns though, serious concerns, that the weight of that ice could collapse the building. It was 3 degrees at the time of the fire with the wind chill of 16 below. So just incredible images coming in.

If you have any photos you've snapped on your phone or on your camera, videos, share them with us. Tweet us. You can go to NEW DAY on Facebook and Twitter. Use #CNNsnow.

I'm Canadian and I had never heard of snow melters and snow farms. There's like this whole business of snow removal. We just waited until April until it thawed. But we can't. Not in cities.

CAMEROTA: You know, she's shocked after what she grew up with in Canada. I know.

PEREIRA: I know.

CUOMO: It's also just numbing, no pun intended. We just went to four different states, the governor, the same story. Everybody is standing in the same conditions, same problems, same thing. It's tough.

Speaking of that same dynamic applies for what I'm about to tease. The White House is holding this summit to combat the wave of Islamist terror or extreme jihad, whatever you want to call it. In fact, they don't even know what to call it yet. The question is, are they just too far behind the ball? Is the time to talk over? We'll take you through it.

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