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Deadline for U.S.-Iran Nuclear Talks Extended; Interview with Douglas Brinkley; Iraqi Forces Claim to Take Tikrit from ISIS Control; Interview with State Rep. Brian Bosma, Republican Speaker of the Indiana House; Interview with State Rep. Scott Pelath, Indiana House Minority Leader. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired April 1, 2015 - 08:00   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Will all sides today agree to any deal or even a framework?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: The negotiations around the table are, pure and simple, arms control negotiations.

CAMEROTA: Lufthansa now says it knew Andreas Lubitz suffered depression.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Cell phone video from onboard that plane.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We hear more screaming and then that is the end of the sequence.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The commanders do not believe these reports.

GOV. MIKE PENCE (R), INDIANA: I don't support discrimination against anyone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everyone believes that an individual should be able to carry out their beliefs the way they want without government interference.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Religious conservatives know they have lost the gay marriage battle.

[08:00:02] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I love him. Every class I feel like it's church being, being kissed by the divine.

CAMEROTA: They say that you somehow manage to get them alone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Wednesday, April 1st, 8:00 in the east. And right now in Switzerland a deal on Iran's nuclear program not looking good. The self-imposed deadline for a deal expired last night, but that's not the big problem. The biggest problem is three foreign ministers have already left.

CAMEROTA: So after all of the back and forth, is the deal dead? Is it suspended? Is a framework still on the table? Some new comments from a top Iranian negotiator could lend insight into all of this. Let's begin with CNN's global affairs correspondent Elise Labott. She is live at the talks in Switzerland. What do we know this hour, Elise?

ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, the deputy foreign minister who is one of the lead negotiators here at Lausanne said that there are still unresolved issues but he thought there could be some conclusion tonight. But he was careful to say it would not be a deal. Why is that? Because Iran doesn't want to sign on to anything before that full deal is due on June 30th. This was just supposed to be a political framework.

But there are still key issues unresolved. The British foreign secretary speaking just a short time ago told reporters there has been a lot of progress, key issues unresolved. We've been talking about them all week. They've been the pace of lifting U.N. sanctions against Iran, the pace of nuclear development and research that Iran could do. It wants to do advanced nuclear research in technology in the end years of the deal. And also the Iranian enrichment program, there has been a lot of progress. But again, these are the key issues that remain elusive. So even if there is some statement tonight, we understand it's going to be very general. It's going to be very vague. And it's going to keep some of those larger issues unresolved, kicking the can down the road, if you will, really more of an agreement to keep talking, Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Elise, thank you very much. Keep us updated.

Now, President Obama is of course getting regular updates from the talks as well. And the stakes are very high, especially for him both practically and politically. So let's bring in CNN senior White House correspondent reporter Jim Acosta with more. Jim?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Chris, the White House is adamant that President Obama is not going to accept a bad deal with Iran last night. The president held a video conference call with his security team and with Secretary of State John Kerry and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. There they are on the big screen there. They are leading the U.S. side of the talks in Switzerland.

And at this point administration officials cannot say whether or not they will reach a breakthrough. As Elise was saying, these negotiations are not moving towards some sort of concrete agreement. The one thing White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest made clear to reporters yesterday is that the U.S. is prepared to walk away from these talks. He said that the option of military action, also the option of sanctions against Iran remain on the table should these talks fail.

And there's obviously a lot at stake for Secretary Kerry as well as the president after these talks missed their deadline yesterday. The Republican National Committee put out a statement saying the president had crossed another red line, but the White House is saying, you know what, they are not going to accept a bad deal and that nothing is agreed to, as they like to say here at the White House, until everything is agreed to. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: OK, Jim, thanks so much for that update.

So let's put all of this into some context. We want to bring in Douglas Brinkley. He of course is our CNN presidential historian. He's also a history professor at Rice University. He joins us now. Douglas, great to see you this morning. There are so many different ways to look at these talks, and often we do dissect the details of them as we have been this morning, but you're sort of a big picture guy. That's why we brought you in. Tell us the historical context of what we're seeing happen today.

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, since 2008 Barack Obama's talked about wanting a deal with Iran. And he's really put a lot of resources into it. We have to admit, John Kerry has been working around the clock trying to get a deal there. I don't know how he does it. He should be very exhausted, because he's poured his heart and soul into this, and in the end coming up largely empty- handed. So it's a setback for the Obama administration.

The only silver lining I'm seeing now, Thomas Edson used to say you can have 100 ways of doing something and you fail on one, then it's 99 to one, then you fail and it's 98, you know, and you get it down. I do think these talks have boiled it down to a few key issues. But the idea that we can even get a framework for this going by June seems more and more remote. And we have a Congress that obviously has been wanting to firebomb these talks, and the Republican Party's probably happy that things seem to be disintegrating right now.

[08:05:04] CAMEROTA: It seemed to be more optimistic yesterday when we heard they were going to be extending the deadline. It went past midnight. They worked late into the evening. But now this hour, the news that we're getting from there feels as though something's fallen apart. Some foreign ministers have already left. We're not seeing a deal. So if they do leave empty handed, what does that mean historically?

BRINKLEY: Well, what it means is that you don't call it a loss. You just say things didn't work. We boiled -- we boiled it down to a few key issues that we're still debating, and big ones. It's the metaphor everybody is using of kicking the can down, to say talks are going to continue on a lower level, not so high.

That doesn't bode well for Iran. There is a lot of feeling in the United States that economic sanctions need to be continued and toughened against them. That's only going to inflame the Iranian people against the United States. So we're at a very kind of dangerous flash point here.

But the Obama administration is correct. If you don't get a good deal, walk. Nobody has trusted the Iranian government from day one but the idea of just refusing to have any kind of talks is dangerous in the extreme. Every administration says at least that we're trying to have talks between Israel and Palestine and solve the Middle East peace problem. The question is how often do we keep it as a priority and how often do we kind of backpedal. And right now I see the administration in backpedal mode on Iran. They give it their best. It's a big time-out. Yet they don't want to say they failed totally, so they're going to keep stringing the talks along at a lower level for a while to come.

CAMEROTA: We've had some others policy maker on NEW DAY this week who have talked about the groundbreaking nature of what we've been watching happen in Switzerland. How do you put it? Do you think that this -- they've likened it to Nixon going to China. How do you see it?

BRINKLEY: Well, I see it as a kind of a Camp David like moment that Jimmy Carter brokered. It could have been Nobel Peace Prize for John Kerry. This is a big deal. The Middle East is the tinder box of the world, and to be able to remove a nuclear threat of any kind out of Iran, that would have been a big deal, very positive step forward.

But there are so many things that aren't working right. The United States and Saudi Arabia, for example, are backing the rebels in Syria while Iran is, you know, backing Assad. That's a pretty big difference. That's not even part of the negotiation. And I think the real problem is the United States, rightfully, is doing the old Reagan trust but verify. The United States is saying we want to go in on spot inspections to military installations wherever we want and see what we're doing, and Iran still wants to have a kind of secretive cloak over their nuclear program. So I think there were good-faith negotiations, but thus far it hasn't reached a huge profit.

CAMEROTA: Very quickly, Douglas, if John Kerry leaves empty handed today, does that mean that Iran and the U.S. go back to their old positions, or have we turned a permanent corner here by talking to them for so long?

BRINKLEY: I think we've turned a corner, meaning, as I've suggested by the Edison analogy, if we do seek some of the issue, we've been able to boil it down to the real problems. That's useful and helpful. And I think now it has to be more of an ambassadorial level or assistant secretary level. I don't think we could put the prestige of John Kerry constantly on the line on talks like this. Warren Christopher once went 27 times when he was secretary of state to Syria and came up empty-handed. The Middle East is a very frustrating place to do business.

CAMEROTA: History has taught us that. Douglas Brinkley, always great to have you on NEW DAY. Thank you.

BRINKLEY: Thanks.

CAMEROTA: Let's get over to Michaela.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, the complexity of that we'll see right now. Iraqi forces are battling ISIS for control of Tikrit. They're now declaring victory. But even though Iraq's prime minister said they've retaken control, pockets of fighting persist. CNN senior international correspondent Arwa Damon is in Tikrit with Iraqi security forces. She got a firsthand look at the city.

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ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: War in Tikrit city center, this is the main road that leads through it. The tank behind me right there is one of those belonging to the popular movement units. You also have Iraqi police. That building, we were told, had a sniper and a suicide bomber in it, and over here you see what was Tikrit's governorate.

Now, we were told that this is an example of one of the many buildings that ISIS fighters had booby trapped. Inside here one of the majors here was telling us that as one of their officers stepped onto the stairs they detonated. The stairs themselves had been in lain with explosives. Two officers were killed in here, three were wounded.

[08:10:01] Further down you can see smoke continuously arising. And this is a scene that you see throughout the entire city. That is because according to what we are being told there are so many IEDs, so many booby trapped homes, that in some cases they cannot be diffused. Forces are being obliged to detonate them in place. There are some homes that are actually on fire in the distance.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Arwa Damon, calm amidst chaos. Thank you for your reporting and showing us what that situation is like in Tikrit right now. Please stay safe. We'll check back with her if there are any developments and get them for you.

Now in other news, officials say reports that a cell phone video from inside flight 9525 was recovered, they say that, quote, "completely wrong." Meantime, Lufthansa says it did know that the co-pilot who downed the plane suffered from bouts of severe depression because the 27-year-old told them back in 2009. More questions to come about that.

CAMEROTA: President Obama commuting the prison sentences of 22 people convicted of drug offenses. That more than doubles the number of reprieves he has issued while in office. The White House calls this move a push by the president to make the justice system a level playing field by reducing harsh sentences handed down under outdated guidelines.

PEREIRA: The interesting study here, letting curious children take sips of alcohol may not be as harmless as you think. A new Brown University study suggests children who are allowed the occasional sip are more likely to start drinking by the time they are in high school. Researcher followed more than 500 middle school students in Rhode Island for about three years. Those who had sips were more than four times as likely to have a full drink by ninth grade. The findings suggest sips don't encourage responsible drinking and reduce alcohol's appeal. Very interesting. Are you thinking back? I thought back. CAMEROTA: Definitely. I was allowed to dunk a finger in and that's

what I allow my children to do, dunk a finger in the glass of wine to taste it. But maybe that's the wrong approach.

CUOMO: How did you do on the ninth grade test that they put out there?

CAMEROTA: It might have been a gateway.

PEREIRA: I didn't drink -- I didn't take my first sip of alcohol until like 21.

CAMEROTA: We should study you. So you did take a sip as a child?

PEREIRA: I don't want to indict my parents. Maybe.

CAMEROTA: But you didn't take a drink until 21.

PEREIRA: So Rhode Island, not true in Canada where I grew up.

CUOMO: I'm not sure I buy it. Just because it's a study doesn't mean it's absolutely --

PEREIRA: Absolutely, but interesting to see the results.

CUOMO: And I think there's something to be said from removing the taboo of things. Binge drinking is not as big a problem in Europe as it is in the U.S. Maybe that's a small part of the culture of moderation.

CAMEROTA: We'd love to hear your thoughts on all of that.

Also back to our top story. Can the Indiana religion law be clarified in a way that -- Chris tells me this is his read.

CUOMO: This is my tease. I wrote it and I told Alisyn that I was going to read it and she takes it because it's April Fool's Day? No, she does this every day. Please continue.

CAMEROTA: As I was saying, will it pass or there will be an acceptable fix? We have the men trying to make it happen, top lawmakers from Indiana. Chris is going to interview them and put their ideas to the test for you.

CUOMO: Very well said.

A CNN exclusive is also coming up. The man who invented Bikram yoga breaks down over six allegations. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIKRAM CHOUDHURY, FOUNDER, BIKRAM YOGA: That's a top question. I -- I just -- I cannot --

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[08:17:15] CUOMO: Indiana's governor says he wants a clarification, still not saying he'll fix, but what's going to be the difference? He's not going to do it anyway. It comes down to the lawmakers with his religious freedom law that's on the books in Indiana now that some say is built to discriminate against the LGBT community.

Now, the man tasked with figuring out the clarification/fix is Representative Brian Bosma. He is the Republican speaker of the Indiana House. He's going to run the general assembly through this.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, for joining us. And let's go with the obvious.

REP. BRIAN BOSMA (R), INDIANA HOUSE SPEAKER: Thanks, Chris.

CUOMO: What is this clarification/fix going to be?

BOSMA: Well, Senate President David Long and I pledged privately a week ago and publicly on Monday that we would find a legislative fix to what really is a mischaracterization of the bill but it's no longer time to justify or defend it, it's time to fix it. We've been working with community leaders, the convention folks here, members of the LGBT community to just try to find the right language to bring this discussion to a close and re-install Hoosier hospitality.

We really are a hospitable group to everyone. And we just want to make sure that's clear to the country and the world.

CUOMO: Well, I'll tell you -- I think in following the coverage, this isn't about the Hoosiers. This isn't about the good folks of Indiana, it's about what some special interest groups and you guys did with this law. I don't think people are blaming the citizens of Indiana.

Now, during the debating process, didn't the Democrats offer you a piece of language that said, this law may not be used to discriminate against the LGBT community and you rejected it, isn't that true?

BOSMA: Well, there were concerns that the language, that was one of 15 or 20 amendments that were offered, the language added to our version of the RFRA law which was very similar to other state's laws would make us an outlier. You couldn't look at the case law in other states which clearly didn't allow that discriminatory intent that some had given to it.

We're finding language that is not too dissimilar from that, that I think is going to be more inclusive and expansive than what the Democrats had proposed.

CUOMO: Well, but obviously the suspicion is if that was rejected what will be accepted. Maybe you're in a different state of mind now.

And along those lines, are you rethinking the need for this law? Why do you need this? It's certainly not in line with the original federal statute. It's nothing like it. BOSMA: Actually, it's very close to the original federal statute.

The only change is following the Hobby Lobby case of last year in saying that small corporations and businesses have constitutional rights as well.

So, those who have said it's vastly different, they're just inaccurate.

[08:20:00] If you'd like to look at the bill itself, you can do so on our Indiana House Republican RFRA resource page. You can see for yourselves that legal experts say it's the same.

CUOMO: Mr. Speaker, I have read this law so often that I'm seeing it in my sleep, Mr. Speaker.

Let me put up a graphic. You can't see it, but I'll read it to you. These are the key points of difference as I assert between the Indiana law and the original federal law.

BOSMA: OK.

CUOMO: The original federal law, the big headline is it was designed to protect religious minorities. You know the background. I don't mean to condescend to you, you know it.

BOSMA: Absolutely.

CUOMO: This one is designed to protect Christian businesses which are a majority effort, not a minority.

Substantial burden was the strict scrutiny standard under the federal law. This is burden or likely burden under yours, which makes it a potential injury, not an injury.

And then federal laws, of course, about state action because that was the concern, and you could even extend that to Hobby Lobby which was state action, mandating a business pay for contraceptives within health care. This includes that the government does not have to be an entity. This could be a private party bringing the action.

And, of course, the federal law didn't really have to deal with any discrimination because it was dealing with an aggrieved class. Here, you have a class that wants to aggrieve others and say we find you intolerant. We don't like your beliefs so we don't want to do it.

Those are key distinctions, don't you think?

BOSMA: Well, Chris, you're trying to get me to defend the law.

CUOMO: Yes.

BOSMA: I wasn't the author, the sponsor of it. I did vote for it.

And that was -- I will tell you that the intent that's being stated was not the intent of those legislators who voted for this. We don't support discrimination. It was not the intent. My focus now is to fix that concern and we're extremely close to

making that happen. To make it very clear that we're not trying to discriminate against any class of Hoosiers, including those that are gays or lesbians.

CUOMO: But the concern is obvious, and now you said we're rethinking -- we're in the rethinking phase. You said during a presser, it is true under current Indiana law you could put a sign in your window no gays are allowed and that would be legal because no LGBTs aren't a protected class. How can you tolerate that? No pun intended. But how can you allow that to be the presence of Indiana state law, how can you not change?

BOSMA: Well, first of all, we don't see that happening in Indiana. But I get that there's concern that it could.

So, we are having concerns about the future of our civil rights laws here in Indiana. We have just a few weeks left in our session, so it's just not realistic that that major policy leap can happen in those few short weeks. But what can happen is to make it abundantly clear that the law that was adopted doesn't impact the rights of any Hoosier, especially the LGBT community in any way.

CUOMO: All right. And lastly when you say, hey, this was never the intention, never the -- the speculation is that this was the intention because there was politics on the table here. You didn't get the marriage as defined between a man and woman amendment through and this was the give back, that this law would be an accommodation to people like you who want to define under your Constitution marriage as between a man and a woman. You are pushing that amendment once again for 2016.

Is this your gift because you didn't get the amendment you wanted?

BOSMA: Absolutely not.

I'll tell you what the real catalyst was here was the Hobby Lobby case that legal scholars looked at and said, you know, this would have been decided differently in Indiana or at least unclearly in Indiana. You can see those legal opinions on our Web site.

CUOMO: Right.

BOSMA: And if you carefully read it, you'll see that was the motivator.

CUOMO: So, the whole gay marriage thing, you trying to stop it, you don't think that has anything to do with it?

BOSMA: Absolutely not. It didn't in my mind.

I think if you talk to legislators on the Republican side that voted against the marriage amendment last time that were supportive of the RFRA law, you'll find uniformly that there was no connection and that was not the intent at all to discriminate. CUOMO: All the businesses, all the groups coming out saying they

don't like this type of law, is it going to make you rethink your gay marriage amendment?

BOSMA: We're not even talking about the marriage amendment at this point. What we're talking about is the RFRA law and clarifying that there's no discrimination there.

I know you want to make that connection. It's not there for me. It's not there for the majority of legislators.

CUOMO: It's there for all the people who are fighting against it, though, right now. That's why I ask.

Mr. Speaker, thank you very much. We look forward to what you come up with as a fix.

BOSMA: Thank you, Chris.

CUOMO: We look forward to talking to you again.

BOSMA: Thanks.

CUOMO: All right. So, that's half the equation. The other half of the equation is going to be the Democratic minority.

So, let's bring in Representative Scott Pelath. He's the Indiana House minority leader.

Now, you heard what the speaker was saying there. Is that a legitimate representation of the spirit of this law, that that's why it was made, that it has nothing to do with discrimination, has nothing to do with them wanting to define marriage between a man and a woman and being afraid of what the Supreme Court might deliver to Indiana?

[08:25:03] REP. SCOTT PELATH (D), INDIANA HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: Well, it absolutely was a consolation prize, Chris, for the anti- marriage equality advocates people in Indiana. They felt they took it on the chin. They wanted something to be able to keep their narrow group of supporters stirred up and this is what they were given.

And I know what the characterizations have been, that it had nothing to do with discrimination or treating people differently, but if you look at what some of the key proponents were saying about the statute right after it was passed, it certainly was about the ability to treat people differently.

CUOMO: Can I ask you something?

PELATH: Sure.

CUOMO: Why didn't you make more of a stink during the debate about what this law could possibly do? I did the research. You were out there a little bit. Others were out there. But not really. It almost makes it look like you were giving in to this deal. Help me with this.

PELATH: Absolutely not. As a matter of fact, Chris, that was our longest debate of the legislative session.

CUOMO: OK.

PELATH: It had been -- it had been fought tooth and nail. I will tell you what has changed, Chris. Originally, the debate was about the civil rights aspect of this and the moral issues about treating people unfairly. But now, it's become an economic conflagration. Now, it's about the jobs in our state. It's about investors and businesses rethinking their commitments to Indiana or even pulling out.

That is what could not be foreseen is that now our state's economic future is at risk.

CUOMO: How do you feel about that though, that the morality of it and the righteousness of how you treat one another under law wasn't enough. That it had to be that you were going to get stung by potential big donors and job makers that's going to force action in the legislature?

PELATH: Well, unfortunately, there are some leaders of our state, and I have to put Governor Pence at the top of that list, they just don't get it. They don't understand that America has changed and Indiana has changed specifically with the respect that it thinks about sexual orientation.

And we've moved so far beyond the debates of the past and the old attitudes and old-fashioned ideas. Our leaders just haven't caught up to that. That's what's saddening. Now there's an economic impact.

And we have to address it specifically, boldly, understandably. That means taking the statute, repealing it immediately and replacing it with protections for all people so everyone again understands that Indiana is a great place to do business and welcoming to everyone.

CUOMO: The speaker wasn't talking about repeal and replace unless I have him wrong. He's talking about additional language. The governor said making LGBT a protective class under state law, that's not on the table either.

So, what are you pushing?

PELATH: Well, they're still caught up on their own internal politics. They're trying to mollify the social conservatives who pushed this to begin with, and make the business community happy. They can't do it.

They have to clearly show that economics comes first and I've been advocating every day, as well as all other Democrats, that repeal is the only answer. It's the only way to fix it. You can't -- you can't repair it without pulling it up from the roots and throwing it on the brush pile.

CUOMO: Unless you make LGBT a protected class under state law and exempt them from this law, as the provisions of the law provide. But we'll look forward to what fix you come up with. We're going to follow this very closely.

Thank you for joining us on NEW DAY. Please come again.

PELATH: Thank you, Chris.

CUOMO: All right. You heard both sides there and what the potential might be? What do you think? What are the questions and concerns? Tweet us @NewDay, or go to Facebook.com/NewDay.

Mick?

PEREIRA: All right. Back to our other top story: authorities deny that cell phone video exists of those final moments aboard Flight 9525. But two European publications say it was found at the crash site and is authentic. We're going to discuss it with the newspaper editor who says he saw that video.

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