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CNN NEWSROOM
"Barack Obama, Disappointer-In-Chief; U.S. Prisons In Iraq Helped ISIS Recruiters; Parents Of ISIS Hostage Appear On TV
Aired October 13, 2014 - 15:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Joining me to have a big conversation about this, CNN "CROSSFIRE" co-host and former adviser to the president Van Jones, and the man himself who penned that piece, Aaron David Miller, vice president at the Woodrow Wilson Center and a former aide and top adviser at the State Department and the author of "The End of Greatness: Why America Can't Have (and Doesn't Want) Another Great President."
Gentlemen, thanks for coming on.
AARON DAVID MILLER, WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS: Pleasure.
VAN JONES, CO-HOST, "CROSSFIRE": Glad to be here.
BALDWIN: Aaron, to you first.
You detail these three elements that lead to presidential greatness, a crisis, character, and capacity necessary to achieve said greatness. Why do you think the president is falling short?
MILLER: Look, in a minute, but let me just make one point.
This is not just -- so we understand, this is not an R thing and it's not a D thing. I worked for R's and D's, secretaries of states. I have voted for R's and D's.
This conversation about greatness in a presidency, this is an American thing. And the dividing line on this question shouldn't be between left and right, liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat. It's should be between dumb on one hand and smart on the other.
And we Americans need to start getting smart on reducing and lowering the expectations that we have for our presidents. Here's a guy, all right, rode into town recreating part of the train journey that Lincoln took from Springfield, was sworn in on the Lincoln Bible. Actually, the inaugural lunch was served on a replica of Mary Todd Lincoln's china and they recreated more or less the meal that Lincoln had consumed, right down to the cherry chocolate.
So the frame of reference, our expectations, and I suspect many of the president's supporters, had aspirations, in my judgment, that fundamentally could never be achieved. It's not that Obama is a failed president. He's not a failed president.
VAN JONES, CNN CO-HOST, "CROSSFIRE": I have to get in here at some point, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How about now?
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Jump in.
JONES: Look, first of all, you know, you're painting this big picture but your thing goes after Obama. Your piece says that he's a disappointer-in-chief. That's incredibly unfair.
First of all, he came in to be the repairman in chief. Let's not forget we were losing about 800,000 jobs a month at that point. We are in two wars. The Wall Street has just crashed. This president comes in as repairman-in-chief and against those things actually succeeds.
We've been growing jobs for five years. We've been pulling back out of these terrible wars and even basic stuff he gets no credit for. Gas prices right now are incredibly low. If gas prices were up, it would be another point against Obama.
I just want to say I agree with you that expectations might have been too high, but to say that Obama is a disappointer-in-chief, you know what? The Republicans made him the Pinata-in-chief and you don't take them to task for that. I think that's wrong.
BALDWIN: Can I just jump in? Because your point about Americans having these expectations, we know that Lincoln is really sort of an idol for the president. Doesn't the president own some of the expectations as well? You yourself quoted him when he was standing there on the mall in '09, you know, the inauguration speech talking about the earth moving under him.
MILLER: You got to read the real estate correctly. And in America, you know, it was said 50 years ago. The best you're going to do is to come up with proximate solutions to problems. That's the nature of change in America. Things happen gradually in an evolutionary incremental fashion.
JONES: Would you say it's wrong --
MILLER: Here's the thing. If things are so good, the real question is why do people feel so bad? There are many explanations for that. You have Democrats who don't want the president around them in any way in Virginia and North Carolina.
You have very bad public approval ratings. There is a sense -- I'm not begrudging the fact that this guy was dealt a very bad hand and over time, it may well be that he will be judged to be consequential but --
JONES: I will tell you who say he's consequential. Eight million people who right now can see a doctor that couldn't before Obamacare went through. They are going to say it's consequential. A bunch of soldiers who are home now who would be stuck in a bad situation, their families will say it's consequential. I'm going to tell you who else, a lot of students who have been trying to fight to get student loans cut and reduced, he's able to save them a bunch of money. There are a lot of constituencies that can say he's consequential.
To say that this is a disappointer-in-chief when you look at -- I'm concerned that we're now having a narrative that when we have divided government of the opposing party gets off the hook scot-free for whatever they do and we lay it all at one person, I think that's wrong.
MILLER: Unfortunately, that's become the nature of our political system in which you have dysfunctional politics and parties that really do represent particularly when it comes to the role of government as an agent and source of remedy two fundamentally different views and that's going to have to be argued out. You know, Obama --
BALDWIN: You put out multiple times how partisan the president is.
MILLER: In fact, in many respects in relationship to the great, he wasn't partisan enough. One of the accusations against the president is that unlike Lincoln and FDR, he didn't have the kind of fire that's required.
He was simply too much of a conciliator, too detached and too remote. I think frankly that may well prove to be true. I will refuse to turn this into an either/or proposition. They think he's Satan's finger on earth.
His defenders believe that he's still a savior. The reality is the presidency has become so mired in a number of factors that make it painful for even the most talented among us to succeed. I guarantee it within two years we are going to be looking for the "one" whoever he or she may be.
I'm arguing this basically. Stop expecting these presidents to be great and allow them to be good. Good in the sense that they are effective and competent.
Good in the sense that they are morally sensible and remain within the perimeters of the law and good in the sense they are emotionally intelligent and not haunted by demons that force them into scandal or aspirations --
JONES: First of all, I agree with you. Wouldn't you then say on that score he's not the disappointer-in-chief, he's your ideal person. He meets all those criteria. I just have to say I really do feel that we're in a situation where you have a country that was -- we can't remember how bad it was.
The ship is not -- didn't turn into a space shuttle, but it didn't sink. This president has done a much better job. Let me say one last thing about where we are.
Gas prices, can you believe that right now -- ordinary people just regular people at home are paying less at the pump -- all this great stuff is going on and all we can talk about how he's doing a terrible job. It's wrong.
BALDWIN: Gas prices, doctors, sweeping health reform. I hear you loud and clear, Van Jones. Aaron David Miller, I think no matter how you fall, it's worth a read "Barack Obama, Disappointer-In-Chief" in "The Washington Post." Thank you both so much. We'll have the conversation in two more years. Thank you very much.
Next, we are learning ISIS has been recruiting people for years including inmates held by the U.S. during the Iraq war. CNN spoke with these service members who are in the prisons. They tell us exactly what they saw and what they told us about the recruitment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: How did ISIS build this ruthless, vicious army out of nothing? Well, it turns out the U.S. may have actually helped in a way. It seems the detention facilities in Iraq run by U.S. soldiers may have been one of the first places where ISIS could spread its message of hate and evil.
And now those service members who were in those prisons are talking about what they saw. CNN's Stephanie Elam spoke with one of them and she joins me now with more on this story. What did they see, Stephanie?
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, it's amazing to hear the accounts of this one man that we spoke to who was a soldier, a U.S. soldier. His name is Andrew Thompson. He was saying that while he was there -- if he sees pictures right now of some of the ISIS members when they come up on TV, he recognizes them.
He says that they were in U.S. custody at one point in time and during that time he says that they knew there were some people who are more radicalized than others.
And that they were spreading their message, but they were up against a hill there despite the soldiers best efforts to keep this message from spreading. Take a listen to what Andrew Thompson had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDREW THOMPSON, GATHERED INTELLIGENCE FROM PRISON DETAINEES: If a group of detainees is sitting in a circle and talking, while that may not be a threatening posture as it were, but they may be teaching a class on bomb making or something along those lines.
The limited language skills that we had in addition to massive number of detainees meant that we just could not control everything all the time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ELAM: So if you think about what he's saying there, not knowing exactly what's being said, but also saying that some of the people that were in custody were radicalized, but also managed to hide it better than some of the others.
So they didn't know how radical they were at the time. During all of that, theories were manifesting and spreading during that time and could have led to what we know now as ISIS -- Brooke.
BALDWIN: To think they are recognizing some of these people. Based upon some of these eyewitness accounts, are there lessons? Is there intelligence to be gleaned here for future counterterrorism missions?
ELAM: Well, as far as Mr. Thompson is concerned and a professor at the University of Texas, who we spoke to as well to get his perspective on it, they're saying what needs to happen is that there needs to be a plan.
That you can't just go in and start a war and not have a plan for detaining people and for having custody. They are saying at one point there was 4,000 people in one detention center in Iraq and just that shear number of people that they were outnumbered.
And so these messages could spread, these radicalized messages could totally spread. They are saying there has to be a plan and when possible to not have so many people in one place at one time if it gets back to that point -- Brooke.
BALDWIN: I know this is just a piece of your reporting. We'll watch for the entire thing airing tonight on CNN Tonight at 10:00 Eastern. Stephanie Elam, many thanks to you this afternoon.
Coming up next, just into us here at CNN, we are now learning the name of that Dallas nurse who has been infected with Ebola. Here she is, a picture for the first time.
Plus, a scathing letter from the husband of the Spanish nurse also infected with Ebola. Hear his harsh words for health officials. Stay here.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: All right, we are now identifying this young woman. This recent graduate of Texas Christian University, this young nurse at Presbyterian in Dallas who became infected with Ebola, here she is. She's 26-year-old, Nina Fam.
You know, when I talked to a friend of her family who taught her bible classes at a Dallas area church for a bunch of years and he really was saying how wonderful, how compassionate and how much of a devout Catholic she was.
And how excited she was when she learned about getting into nursing school in the first place. So again, 26-year-old Nina Fam is the name of this young woman who has contracted Ebola, the nurse in Dallas.
Meantime, the husband of the Spanish nurse infected with Ebola has written a scathing letter calling for the resignation of Madrid's regional health minister absolutely furious over the handling of his wife's case and the death of their dog. The 44-year-old Teresa Romero is the only person known to have caught the virus outside of Africa. Joining me now is Nic Robertson, senior international correspondent. Nic, you have the letter. What has he written?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, as you say, very scathing. There is strong language in there. He criticizes the regional health officials for essentially blaming his wife for her neglect when putting on and off her protective equipment.
And he says, look, she didn't have any training in this. She had 30 minutes sort of initiation in how to put on and off that equipment from a colleague. Not adequate he says. He goes on and I'll read you some of what he says here.
He says, "Now I know that in other countries they quarantine healthcare workers after treating an Ebola patient. Even though I am only a welder," he goes on to say, "I understand that if we had done this with my wife, my wife would possibly not be battling between life and death."
His dog and her dog would be alive and everyone including myself would be in isolation. "We wouldn't be in potential danger of this disease." He goes on to say, "And Sir, the difference between you and I is I haven't been eating well because my wife is between life and death and I can't eat. Have some nerve and resign."
Now we were told about this letter by a friend who has been able to go in and visit him. She gets up in full protective gear. She typed out this letter on her phone and she says what also disappoints him hugely is that his wife is almost being treated by officials here as someone who is to blame for catching Ebola.
Where he points out that in the United States this nurse who threw no fault of her own has caught Ebola treating somebody else is treated as a hero and with respect. He says there's a huge difference between Spain and the United States in this regard. This is a man who is clearly struggling to cope with everything that's going on right now.
BALDWIN: Nic Robertson, this absolutely echoes what's been playing out over the last 24 hours here in the U.S. We said that this Spanish nurse was the first to have contracted it outside of Africa.
Now we have this nurse in Dallas, Texas, as well and many in the nursing community very frustrated with the CDC for seeming to blame her when as you put it perfectly, they are heroes and very brave to be stepping in and treating this. Nic Robertson, thank you so much in Madrid for me.
The parents of ISIS hostage, Peter Kassig, doing what few have done, speaking out publicly about their fight to save their son. The 26- year-old war veteran who was working as a medic in Syria was named as the next westerner to die if coalition airstrikes do not stop.
After tweeting the ISIS militants directly, the heartbroken family appeared this morning on NBC's "Today" show telling of an audio recording from their son and reading a letter brought out by a former hostage.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAULA KASSIG, MOTHER OF ISIS HOSTAGE: He described that his time is running out and he was made to tell what he was supposed to tell.
ED KASSIG, FATHER OF ISIS HOSTAGE: Don't worry, dad, if I go down, I won't go down thinking anything, but what I know to be true, that you and mom loved me more than the moon.
PAULA KASSIG: He knows this is bigger than being just about him. We haven't forgotten him. We haven't abandoned him and we certainly do love him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Kassig's parents now refer to their son as Abdul Rahman. The first name his family says he took having converted to Islam while being held hostage.
We here at CNN, we're doing something pretty exciting. We are taking a unique look at a number of the people you watch on TV each and every day. Some CNN anchors traveled far and wide to research their heritage.
Here he is. We chatted earlier in the day, Mr. Lemon joining me on set about this emotional journey. It looks pretty tasty, by the way. We'll talk to Don Lemon. Took his momma with him, all the way down to Africa, went down to Louisiana.
We'll talk about what you discovered about yourself. Some of it's tough to talk about. But we'll share it next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: How much do you know about your roots? A lot of us don't know very much about our ancestry beyond maybe our great parents. But as part of our "Roots" series, CNN anchor, Don Lemon went much farther back all the way to Ghana.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): My ancestry is deeply rooted in what is now known as the Slave Coast. My mom and I traveled to Ghana, the main exit point for slaves coming to the United States.
(on camera): Nice to meet you. This is my mother, Katherine. Why are we here?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This was constructed in around 1792. It was designed for 1,000 people.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In here?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
LEMON: Can you imagine being here?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stay here for about three months on average, in this darkness, yes.
LEMON: It felt like a descent into hell. I felt like, it must be what it's like to enter hell. I couldn't believe that people walk down that path and walk through here and then spent months in here, if you survived.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BALDWIN: That was just a little piece of what we get to see tomorrow night, Don Lemon. We were chatting earlier and you were saying to me, Brooke, this is the kind of thing -- we've had emotional moments on the TV before. But this was the kind of thing that took your breath away.
LEMON: I've had this conversation with a lot of people even my bosses this morning. It feels really intimate and personal because everything else that I reveal to you -- I came out on the air with you. But this involves my family and I went back with my mother.
So sharing things about my family that many people don't share and it's really tough because this isn't pretty. A lot of people are like, my great grandfather fought in the revolutionary war, civil war?
It's not that happy when you're talking about people that came over from the Atlantic slave trade. It's a very dark history. It is what it is. I'm very proud of my ancestors especially some of them had to survive in order for me to be here.
But it's really tough by the time you get to Africa -- when you go to Louisiana and the things that happened there, we had to do Louisiana first before we went to Africa and that was even tougher.
BALDWIN: So all the while, I know you're so close to your mom who's watching right now. This is so special for her, I'm sure. This is just for your family. But when was the moment that you were clinching and holding it in?
LEMON: This is Louisiana. I was covering Ferguson when we did this and I went home for a little bit and saw my family physically and emotionally.
BALDWIN: You're in the thick of it.
LEMON: But I think the moment for me was when you got to the slave castle and you go through the dungeon and you go through the door of no return, which is the end, which where the slaves boarded the boat that took you to the slave ship.
So either you got on the ship -- you spent time in that slave castle which is really a dungeon for three months in your own feces and bodily fluids, no place to go to the bathroom. Once you got onto the ship that was a three-month journey. It was either survive or die. You didn't know what was ahead of you. I tried to hold it in. When you watch, my mom is doing most of the talking because I cry if you look at me. That was the moment for me that I just couldn't handle it anymore.
BALDWIN: That's when you let it go.
LEMON: And I kind of lost it at that moment.
BALDWIN: In the final 60 seconds -- we're airing the whole thing tomorrow night at 10:00. But we live pretty blessed lives and this is the kind of -- this has to be the kind of thing where now every day, you are much more cognizant of that.
LEMON: Yes. I'm a pretty determined person. This made me even more determined. Look out, world, here comes Don Lemon. I have no fear anymore. I didn't have much. But there is no fear for what my ancestors suffered in order to survive and in order to be here, there's nothing that will stop me.
That's where my head is. Nothing you can do that will harm me or hurt me. I'm here because I'm a survivor, because there were people who were survivors.
BALDWIN: Thank goodness for your ancestors and thank you for coming on. Make sure you watch as Don traces his roots tomorrow night, 10:00 Eastern here on CNN.
Tonight, make sure you watch Anderson Cooper, finding out a little bit more about his own father's roots at 8:00 Eastern.
And that's it. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you so much for being with me. "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.
