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Possible Upcoming Offensive Against ISIS in Mosul Announced; President Language Describing Threat of Terrorism Assessed; Cold Weather Hits Niagara Falls; Interview with U.S. Congressman Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania

Aired February 20, 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: Retaking Mosul. This could be the biggest battle against is so far.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: These terrorists are desperate for legitimacy. We must recognize that lasting stability and security require democracy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Brian Williams may not be the only journalist with credibility problems.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He has a bigger audience than anyone else on cable news.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are not the story. The journalists should not be the story.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're live here in Hollywood.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The glitz, the glamor, the red carpet.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hollywood's biggest night.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The countdown to Oscar Sunday is near at hand.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota, and Michaela Pereira.

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CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Friday, February 20th. Just after 8:00 in the east. Alisyn is off, but I am fortunate to be here with Brianna Keilar, thank you very much, and John Berman. The one and only Michaela, where she should be, looking royal in Hollywood, covering the Oscars on the red carpet. You look beautiful. Be with you in just a little bit.

We have some big news for you, though. A major military offensive is being planned to drive ISIS out of Mosul. That is ISIS stronghold in Iraq. It's the second largest city. This is an Iraqi mission with the backing of the United States, but already questions are being raised from Iraqi commanders about whether the mission can really succeed without the United States on the ground.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: This as President Obama calls for unity against extremism despite taking heat from all sides for his reluctance to use the words "Islam" and "Muslim" in describing the terror threat. Let's begin our team coverage now with Barbara Starr. She's at the Pentagon. Barbara, explain to us this reasoning behind talking about a major offensive coming in the spring, talking really about when and where it's going to be. Why is the Pentagon putting that out there?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Brianna. The Pentagon is saying this is the Iraqi plan to retake Mosul. That's the first point. I have to tell you, some Iraqi Kurdish commanders are already expressing some doubt, saying that Iraqi forces simply aren't ready to fight. The plan as articulated by the Pentagon, 20,000 to 25,000 Iraqi forces including some Peshmerga, some local police, some security forces moving to take Mosul in the April and may timeframe. That's pretty soon. A lot of those forces still need to go through the U.S. backed training.

Why are they talking about it? The Pentagon will tell you that ISIS inside of Mosul, ISIS all over Iraq, already knows obviously that this battle is coming. This is no secret. This is the real prize, to retake Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, back from ISIS control. But it's a plan with a lot of questions. And question number one for President Obama, will he be asked by the Pentagon to approve a plan to put a small number of U.S. troops into that battle to help the Iraqis with their targeting? Chris.

CUOMO: This is what we were worried about, Barbara. It comes down to this. Let's see what happens. We'll check back with you if any developments come up.

So the president does not see the problem as Muslim, but he does see Muslims as the solution, namely allies countering radical message and conditions that breed extremism. So let's get to the White House with CNN's Michelle Kosinski. What's the word from there?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we definitely heard the talk both ways even at times from the administration here. We heard some more pretty blunt talk from the president wrapping up this summit, clearly feeling like he still needed to address this. The White House hasn't clearly articulated the role Islamic extremism in this, and hammering home those points again, that first of all he doesn't want to further elevate or legitimize terrorists to the level of religious leaders. He says that's exactly what they want. And he doesn't want to fall prey to their bait that this is a war against Islam. At the same time he's calling on Muslim leaders and Muslim communities to actively counter that ideology.

Even though this was a global summit, it was really focused deep within communities. And you may well ask, what is going to come out of all of this? We know that there will be more summits and more talk, but also more funding for programs that do things like try to identify early warning signs, engage young people, programs that support democracy, job training, more opportunities for young people. That was something we heard over and over again as a real need.

Also for these programs to propagate. We're also going to see the U.S. and UAE collaborate on something they call a digital communications hub to try to counter all the social messaging that's out there from terrorist groups. John?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Michelle Kosinski for us at the White House. Thanks so much.

Joining us here in the studio, Fareed Zakaria, the host of "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS." Thank you so much for being with us right now. Let's start with the new news today, as it were. Word from the Pentagon that the Iraqis are planning an assault on Mosul this spring. That's Iraq's second largest city. What reason do we have to believe that the Iraqis are up to this? This is the same Iraqi military that melted away from Mosul six, seven months ago.

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST, "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS": That's a very good question. And it's important to know why they melted away. They melted away not because the Iraq army doesn't have people who know how to fight, that they don't have weapons. They have all that. It's not a technocratic problem. It was a political problem.

The army is composed of a lot of Sunnis and they did not feel like fighting for the Baghdad government which they regarded as a Shiite government that oppresses them. So the question really is has that been solved? If it has, if the government in Baghdad has the confidence and loyalty of its soldiers, look, the Iraqi special forces were trained in Jordan and the Jordanians are very good at this stuff. The Kurds are very good. So there are a lot of very good fighters here. The larger question is, is there an Iraq to which they feel loyal? And I think the jury is out on this. The Iraqis feel they have made some progress and the new prime minister has made some progress. But that's the litmus test. It's much less technocratic. These guys know how to fight. There are lots of people in Iraq who want to fight. The question is, what are they willing to fight for? So far you haven't had enough Sunnis willing to fight for the government of Iraq.

BERMAN: We'll know this spring if that's true. Can I ask about the other issue that's really in the news now in the battle against ISIS is President Obama choosing not to use the word "Islamic" when referring to them as terrorists. He calls them "violent extremists," not 'Islamic terrorists." If you can, Fareed, connect the dots for me. How does his use of words or his choice of words here help get ISIS out of Mosul?

ZAKARIA: Well, it doesn't. You know, you've got to fight fire with fire. The only thing that will get ISIS out of Mosul is a very strong armored assault on Mosul. These are in a sense separate issues.

But the question he's trying to find out is how do you prevent -- Donald Rumsfeld had a very good memo once in which he said the real question is not how many terrorists are we killing but how many are they producing, and are we killing more than they're producing? And so the president is trying to get at the production end. How are these people alienated from society and why do they become terrorists? And part of that effort is this White House summit.

The key to why he's doing that, of course in terms of accuracy, he's wrong. They are Islamic extremists. This is radical Islam. You can call it what you will, but the word "Islam" features centrally in it. The reason he's not doing it is political. He's not trying to be a scholar in getting this right. He's trying to figure out what will be most useful in aligning the west with the large majority of Muslims who don't -- so I call up a few people in Jordan. I said, do you like the way the president is describing this? And they said, 100 percent we do because our government keeps saying day in and day out ISIS is not a Muslim organization. They're not Islamic. We are the real Muslims. They're the heretics. So from that point of view it helps a lot of the mainstream Muslim community that is trying to in a sense excommunicate is.

KEILAR: You talked, Fareed, in a column that you have out today in the "Washington Post" about a 20-year-old Egyptian man who was trying to be a personal trainer. The economy in Egypt falls apart. Now he two years later is in Syria fighting for ISIS. The president has said focusing really on poverty is the cause that makes some of these young men so vulnerable. But is it poverty or is it alienation, or is it both?

ZAKARIA: You know, it's a very complicated mix. Let's throw into this the repressed energies of young men.

KEILAR: Teenage angst kind of? Is that what it is?

ZAKARIA: Sexual energy, all kinds of things. But the central piece of that brilliant "New York Times" piece was you realize that here's a guy who wants to, you know, meet girls, make money, be a fitness trainer. Egypt's economy goes nowhere. He can't get a job.

He then gets interested in politics and he starts aligning himself with these new political parties thinking that he'll be part of Egypt's democracy. The democracy collapses and you get the return of a military dictatorship. So what you have is economic stagnation, political alienation. The guy feels frustrated, tries to leave Egypt to get a job somewhere else. And that feels just right.

Now here's the irony. So the president talked about poverty. He also talked about the need for democracy because the thing you see in the Arab world is that all these regimes are very repressive. And so what ISIS says is we are the alternative to this retched reality you have. You know who used to talk like this -- George W. Bush. This was one of the points that Bush used to make, that we can't keep supporting these dictatorships. We can't give them a carte blanche because that's in a sense what's producing the terrorism.

CUOMO: Let me ask you a quick question because one of the questions that comes up with the Islamic or whatnot to call it is that it hurts president Obama at home. It feeds phobia. Now we see Rudy Giuliani come out and say I don't think the president loves America. Big backlash. It sounds certainly outrageous, but what do you think that does to the optics for the president at home?

ZAKARIA: So I think at one level you have to say this failed. This is a wonderful quote from Peter Feaver who worked for Bush. He says any time you have to start talking about your talking points, you know that things are not going well. But I think what this represents is the president is saying I'm going to govern the way I think is responsible to govern.

CUOMO: He's got a major leader here, Giuliani. People respect what he says. He says you don't love America.

ZAKARIA: And I think -- I'm guessing the president when they thought up this strategy, somebody must have said to him, you know FOX News will go crazy, and the president said, I don't care. You know, I think that he's decided I'm going to do what I think is the responsible thing to do here in this struggle, and I know it's going to -- it's going to -- you know, this is red meat for a certain part of the political spectrum. He seems to be aware of that and, you know, this is such a consciously chosen strategy that I am not going to use that word. Frankly, he's used it in the past.

CUOMO: Sure.

ZAKARIA: In the interview with me he said when I asked him, are we at war with radical Islam? He said, look, let's not kid ourselves, this problem emanates from Muslim communities. So he's very aware of the reality. He's made a political decision that it helps his cause to do it the way he's describing, and he knows some Republicans are going to go crazy. He doesn't seem to mind. Remember, he's only got 18 months left of his presidency. I think he's governing the way he wants to govern.

KEILAR: Thank you so much, Fareed.

It sure is cold, right, from New York to Florida, all the way down. It is record-breaking temperatures on most of the eastern coast. And 185 million people in 30 states gearing up for what's already turning out to be the coldest day of the season. CNN's Ryan Young, very happy even though we would say maybe that he drew the short straw here as he's bundled up in Niagara Falls with more. Ryan?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Very cold. In fact, first three live shots you barely can feel your face because any exposed skin, you can definitely feel it. But you have to be happy about the sight that you see behind me. You almost feel like James Bond in terms of just looking over the edge and looking at the water flowing. This is Niagara Falls. What a beautiful sight, so many people flocking here during this frozen wonder land to see this beauty as we walk a little closer so you can see this. You can see the water flowing over.

Some images show you a frozen picture. But guess what, the water is still moving here, more than 20 million gallons flowing over, creating this large mist. And this is a time that photographers like to show up to take the picture of this beautiful sunrise. And of course, sunrises are free, so you can obviously enjoy this picture.

Now what we were just told is actually the ice builds up so high down there, sometimes it gets ten stories high. That's how much ice just comes through this area. The American sides back in this direction behind that mist looks frozen but we can see the water rolling off the edge. This just compounds the coldness that's been throughout the area. We're going to show you this graphic that shows you how cold it is across the country. In Kentucky, negative 13 right now. It's been a lot lower than before. Of course, Boston hasn't been above freezing in the last 15 days. And where we're standing, negative 30 wind chill. It is very cold but people still keep coming here to enjoy the sight. And I've got to tell you, my crew has been standing outside with me the entire time, we love the view but it is very bone-chilling cold.

KEILAR: Sure is, Ryan. But he's, you know, having a good time. So we certainly appreciate him being there.

CUOMO: He doesn't have a choice. I don't know if he's having a good time or his face is stuck that way.

KEILAR: He's making the best of it.

CUOMO: All right, some chaos in Caracas to tell you about. A mayor in Venezuela arrested, accused of plotting a coop. Police smashed into his office Thursday and carried him away, very dramatic scene. This comes after a protest against Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro's rule. Months of violence left dozens dead. Maduro says the mayor is facing overdue justice for undermining the government.

BERMAN: The FDA is issuing a warning about the design of medical scopes linked to a deadly super bug. Health officials say scopes inserted down the throat may be infecting patients with a drug- resistant bacteria even though these devices were cleaned properly. The FDA says the design makes it especially hard to clean and now questions are being raised about whether they can be sterilized well enough to prevent infection at all.

KEILAR: A very close call for a police officer in Michigan caught on dash cam. The officer standing there just outside of that car.

And this one sliding off the highway very suddenly coming out of nowhere. It hits the disabled vehicle. Somehow that police officer narrowly avoided being crushed. He actually got thrown into a ditch behind the car. He was taken to the hospital. He is thankfully expected to be OK.

CUOMO: Wow.

KEILAR: And Rudy Giuliani going a step too far, a step further than that. Not only refusing to apologize for saying President Obama doesn't love America but repeating it. We're going to show you what he said and what many Republicans are not saying, ahead.

CUOMO: And Bill O'Reilly says he'll put the man who called his war reporting into question into the kill zone. He says he doesn't have a Brian Williams problem, but people disagree. What did he say? Is there any there there? Ahead.

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MEGYN KELLY, FOX NEWS: Mr. Mayor, do you want to apologize for your comments?

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER NYC MAYOR: Not at all. I want to repeat it. It's my opinion and I'm entitled to it -- I do not detect in this man the same rhetoric, the same language, the same love of America that I detected in other American presidents, including Democrats. I think it guides a lot of the things that he said and a lot of the things that he does.

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CUOMO: You know that man, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani on FOX News last night, backing up, not backing off comments that President Obama doesn't love America. Giuliani has received a surprising little amount of pushback for what he said from members of his own party.

Let's bring in Congressman Tim Murphy. He's a Republican from Pennsylvania. We're going to him really about the "American Sniper" trial and Eddie Ray Routh's mental health and lack of help and what does it mean about PTS and how it's being cast in this trial.

But, Congressman, having you here, when one of the guys on your team says something like this, we do have to touch on it. What do you make of the mayor's comments?

REP. TIM MURPHY (R), PENNSYLVANIA: Well, you know, that's his opinion. I think the focus should be on the president's comments with regard to how we need to deal with ISIS or ISIL.

I know a lot of my constituents are concerned when we can't really define who this enemy is, and they are really at war with an enemy that continues to assault other faiths, other religions even within Islam. What you don't define, you can't defeat. And I think perhaps the mayor's comments relate to a lot of the frustrations Americans have about this.

I think that's also where the president needs to get with Congress and talk with us more about some of his requests for military force because right now for him making statements about this is an unemployment problem really doesn't fit well with the American people.

CUOMO: Right. Doesn't make them hate America.

Just a quick follow. Do you think members of your party have to come out and say the president -- we don't believe the president hates America? We don't endorse the comments about him being raised by a white woman making this OK?

MURPHY: No. That's inappropriate. I don't -- that's not where we should be going, trying to say what's in the president's mind. Let's go with what we need to be focusing on, and that is the folks with ISIL who have great harm to the world.

CUOMO: Do you think we've ever had a president who doesn't love America? Isn't it a natural thing to believe President Obama loves America?

MURPHY: I'm assuming every president like members of Congress love America. They want to do what's right. We may disagree on some aspects here, but I'm not here to ascribe any untoward thoughts about the president or anybody else about our country. I assume they all care a great deal about country and that's what we have to focus on that.

CUOMO: Let's leave it at that. You're not the one who said it.

So, "American Sniper" trial, it's going on. Chris Kyle, Chad Littlefield lose their lives. We're having a big raging legal battle there. You get on the phone to me right away and you say this is the issue playing out in real time with mental health. The family, the friends, they knew this man was mentally ill. They tried to get him help. The V.A. wouldn't keep him in place there. The system doesn't work.

You say that this is the problem on display in the worst way, true?

MURPHY: Absolutely true. This goes on many times in our country, whether it ends up in the tragedy of suicide or homicide or victimization, mentally ill. Several parts of this are playing out and once again, this is in the media limelight on a very tragic case. Families are barred from having input on cases where someone has mental illness. Many times doctors say we can't listen to you and we can't tell you what's going on. They will not accept family's background information, history. It isn't just V.A. hospitals but other hospitals also discharge people instead of listening the crisis.

Another aspect to this is understanding PTSD symptoms do not include violence, do not include aspects of someone having some homicidal behavior. And it's very important with PTS and PTSD, we do not equate veteran's behavior and actions with violent behavior.

But we also don't have a place in this country to treat people with mental illness. Not only within the Department of Defense, but the V.A. and other places don't have enough assets to work with veterans, or anybody for that matter. And this is the problem that plays out in America all the time. Once again, tragedy hits the news because of a lot of problems we have with treating people and we know we can treat them.

CUOMO: And you've been very strong saying, by the way, the overwhelming majority of mentally ill people are not violent. That's not the point --

MURPHY: That's right.

CUOMO: -- is that we have to stop them before they become monster. But untreated, any mental health issue can wind up destabilizing somebody and to hear from Routh's mom, okay, just let's put her words up there so you can remember. This is a mother she knew her kid was trouble. She goes to the V.A. in Dallas, called and they said they were releasing Eddie and that I need to pick him up. I objected and said, he's not repeated ready.

But that's the reality of the system, right? There is no control.

MURPHY: Exactly.

CUOMO: There is no forced holding of somebody unless you meet a very high legal standard?

MURPHY: That's right. Legal standard based upon some 17th century antiquated law system saying unless you say you're in imminent danger of hurting yourself or someone else, they won't keep you.

You can go down the path and look at these cases, whether it's Adam Lanza, whether it was Jared Loughner, look down these cases of these individual or mass homicides or other things, you notice a number of things. One, the person was either not in treatment or under treated or had stopped treatment. You see issues where parents are trying to get help and they're blocked by some HIPAA laws which prevent that. Not enough hospital beds, et cetera.

And so, this continues to play out. This is where I think it's the outrage that people ought to be feeling about a broken mental health system. I released a report last week in my role as chairman of oversight investigation committee, federal government, 112 agencies.

The general accounting office says they don't work together. They have no accountability for what they do. So even though the federal government's spending $130 billion, it's outrageous that it's not really focused on helping families in crisis. And then we end up with problems like this.

CUOMO: And just to take it back to the trial, what does it mean to you that despite all the obvious evidence of this man's delusions, incredible mental health instability, that the law in Texas especially is so narrowly defined that if you knew what you were doing was right or wrong, the illness doesn't matter. Do you think that we need a cultural and legal evolution in how we understand mental illness and see it as a disease instead of as an excuse?

MURPHY: We do need to understand severe mental illness. That's the schizophrenias, psychosis, the bipolar and other severe mental illness. We need to understand that's a brain disease. We need to stop thinking of a cosmic thing where it's I'm OK, you're OK, it's your word against mine.

There are groups that denied the reality of the brain concerns about delusions and hallucinations. We have to get out of that mode and understand this is a brain disease, there are treatments for it and we get to people early in their life, particularly in their teens and young adult years. It makes a big difference. But what happens with someone with severe mental illness, they have a

25 year shorter life span and worsening of symptoms. Our country when we closed the hospitals and did nothing with them, what we ended up with is putting more in jail, more homelessness, more in emergency rooms, more suicides, all the data is going against us and we need to change our system.

CUOMO: Irony is this case is a perfect demonstration of how the system doesn't work, how the legal system doesn't reflect the urgency and reality and the victim, Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield, they did recognize the problem. They were trying to help people like the man who killed them.

Representative Tim Murphy out of Connecticut -- out of Pennsylvania, I'll never make that mistake again -- thank you for being with us, Tim. I look forward to continuing this conversation, Congressman, because the need is great. Thank you, sir.

MURPHY: Thank you so much, Chris.

CUOMO: Brianna?

KEILAR: Thanks, Chris. Bill O'Reilly says that he didn't lie. Well, "Mother Jones" begs to differ. Did the FOX News anchor fib about the Falklands war decades ago? We'll have a look at what he said.

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