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CNN NEWSROOM
Bernie Sanders Won't Attend Netanyahu's Address; More Snow Headed for Boston; Interview with Boston Mayor; Kayla Mueller's Death Confirmed
Aired February 10, 2015 - 11:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JOHN BERMAN CNN ANCHOR: Just a short time ago, Benjamin Netanyahu ratcheted up the tension between the United States and Israel more. He tweeted, "I'm determined to speak before Congress to stop Iran. Retweet if I have your support." This adds to the controversy in the United States, in Israel, the prime minister was invited by House Speaker John Boehner who initially did not consult the White House.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: For his part, President Obama talked of very real differences with Benjamin Netanyahu over Iran and explained why he won't be meeting with the prime minister in Washington.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have a practice of not meeting with leaders right before their elections, two weeks before their elections. As much as I love Angela if she was two weeks from an election, she probably wouldn't have received an invitation to the White House. I suspect she wouldn't have asked for one.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: That's a little pointed, if you will.
Meanwhile, sources telling CNN things may be changing still with the speech, including the venue where the prime minister speaks.
Joining us to discuss, the Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, first U.S. Senator to say he won't attend Netanyahu's address before Congress if it happens before Congress.
Senator, why have you decided it's best for you to boycott when the prime minister of Israel is coming to speak before Congress?
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, (I), VERMONT: I'll tell you why. A president of the United States, whether that person is a Democrat or Republican, leads us in foreign policy. When you have a situation in the Middle East where the politics and the dangers are so volatile, the idea that the speaker of the House would invite Mr. Netanyahu to Congress without consulting President Obama is, I think, a very, very bad idea. Second point, I think President Obama made this point. It is wrong to give any politician, not just Netanyahu, the stage of a speech before a joint session of Congress as part of his political campaign. That's wrong for politics in Israel. It's wrong for politics anywhere in the world. And last point that I would make, Mr. Netanyahu has every right to disagree with President Obama or any of us about our relationship and how we proceed with Iran in terms of trying to prevent that from getting nuclear weapons. He has every right. He doesn't have the right in my view to inject himself into an American political discussion by being the speaker before a joint session of Congress to criticize the president of the United States. There are all kinds of avenues open to him to speak to members of Congress and that's fine. I don't think it's a good idea to have a foreign leader coming before Congress to rip apart the president of the United States.
BERMAN: Just a few things here. There are several nations involved with these talks with Iran right now. You know, it's hardly just an American policy that he's talking about. It's an international plan to deal with Iran. Hang on one second.
SANDERS: Well --
BERMAN: Hold on one second here. Also on the subject of the timing here, I suppose two weeks is a very short time before an election. But some critics point out, look, President Obama when he was Senator Obama went to Germany and gave a speech several months before the election but as a candidate he traveled. Is this some kind of hard and fast rule or are there gray areas here?
SANDERS: Every candidate for president of the United States goes all over the world and speaks to groups. Several months is different from several weeks. Your point about this being an international issue is quite right. By the way, I think most of our allies who are trying what Obama and our allies are trying to do is what the American people want to prevent a war with Iran. I understand there are differences of opinion. I think it's a bad precedent to invite the leader of a foreign country to come before a joint session of Congress to attack the president's position on a very sensitive issue.
BOLDUAN: Are you -- do you threaten to inflame it more or make more out of it than it already is by making this stand by not attending the speech? Do you think that your constituents would rather have you sitting in the speech so you know what the prime minister is going to say rather than turn your back on him?
SANDERS: I was asked the question yesterday and I gave an answer. You invited me on the show. I'm giving you an answer. I think what my constituents want is to see foreign policy as best we can done in a nonpartisan way and in a way that's good for the people of the United States of America. I think what Speaker Boehner has done is politicized the situation in a way that's unprecedented.
(CROSSTALK)
BERMAN: Senator, if he does it behind closed doors in Congress, a closed session, would you attend the speech then?
SANDERS: It's not a question -- you can't have a closed session when you are inviting the prime minister of Israel to be here or the prime minister of any country. The point is the president of the United States -- again, doesn't matter to me whether that's a Democrat or Republican, leads foreign policy and to invite that prime minister, that political leader without the consultation of the president is a horrendous precedent.
BERMAN: Senator Bernie Sanders from the great state of Vermont. Thank you for being with us. Appreciate your time. Thank you.
SANDERS: Thank you.
BERMAN: Speaking of New England, snow. More snow heading for Boston. They've had six feet of snow in the last 30 days. That's about six inches shorter than I am. No. Here's the thing. More is on the way. The forecast is for more snow. We'll speak with Boston's mayor on what they're going to do about all this snow. That's next.
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BERMAN: In Boston they have never seen anything like this.
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BERMAN: The snow is piled so high cars are buried. Roofs are collapsing. There's nowhere to put the snow and it's not melting. The third major snowstorm has left six feet of snow piled up in spots, six feet in less than 30 days and another snowstorm is coming tomorrow.
BOLDUAN: It really is an emergency at this point. School is out again today. If you have friends in Boston or family in Boston or you live in Boston, I can only imagine how stir crazy your children are, which means you can't handle it either. Kids might have to make up for these days during spring vacation, maybe even Saturdays, rail service is stopped. It's Boston's snowiest month ever. More snow than the city gets in an average year.
Rosa Flores is in Boston.
Rosa, you've been amid the snow drifts. How's it looking? Give us a sense of it.
ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think this picture really tells the story, Kate. Take a look. I'm just shy of six feet. Take a look at this snow bank. Now, here's what's most telling. This has been a prolonged snow event like you mentioned. Here you are able to see some of those layers of salt for example right here and then more salt and then some ice. Here's what I found at the bottom. This is one of the issues. Just a block of ice. This is what Bostonians are dealing with while trying to dig out. I want to take a look at this time lapse. I dug out a car not so long ago. It took me 20 minutes which lure k at on your screen. Bostonians, it will take them longer because I only did half of the car. It's very tedious and of course you have to be very careful because you never know what's under these piles of snow. Here's the other thing I want to show you. People have been very hard at work but take a look at this. This is a sidewalk that we were able to clear not too long ago and now it's completely blocked off by the snow. You can see that it's very difficult to get through. We talked to one of the homeowners who says that he was trapped inside. He was actually using his shovel to dig himself out. We did call Boston Public Works and we haven't received a comment yet. This just really gives you an idea of what people are going through.
That's bonkers.
BOLDUAN: I'd say so.
BERMAN: That is crazy.
BOLDUAN: That's a technical term there. That is bonkers.
BERMAN: Rosa Flores, thank you so much.
Let's find out what will happen to sidewalks like that. We want to bring in the mayor of Boston, Marty Walsh.
Mayor, thank you so much for being with us. There is more snow in the forecast for as soon as tomorrow. Could be a foot. Another foot of snow. Explain to me how you are dealing with the snow that is there? Where are you going to put it? We saw pictures of a sidewalk completely covered.
MARTY WALSH, MAYOR OF BOSTON: We've had snow farms up and running for two weeks where we are moving snow off the streets, bringing it to a snow farm, melting snow every night. We melted in the last two weeks over 200,000 tons of snow in the city of Boston. We're going to continue to do that for the foreseeable future. I think you have a picture of a snow melter coming up now. We're doing that right now. The streets that you just saw your correspondent on, we are out there today. A snow emergency in the city of Boston. We're removing snow as best we can off the street and trying to get snow off the sidewalks as well in certain areas. It's really difficult. You saw the snow bank that was viewed, that's three major storms on top of each other and we haven't had any type of warm spell even above freezing. We've had one day in the last 14 days at 37 degrees above freezing. So we're not even getting any help from the weather as far as being able to melt some of this stuff and move it. We're constantly in either a snowplowing mode or a snow removal mode and today we are in snow removal in the city of Boston.
BOLDUAN: Folks at this point are probably like, I'm used to it. What's another foot on top of six feet at this point or more? How much will it take to dig out assuming the storm may come tomorrow is the last one for a while do you think?
WALSH: If we had a week without snow and we could -- and the weather worked with us even a little bit and even got above freezing, we could do some real major damage. The problem with the next storm that's coming is even if it doesn't hit us at 12 inches, we're looking at weather in the single digits. It's very difficult. Once the snow freezes, it becomes like concrete. It's hard. You can only use certain equipment to move it out. Plows won't work anymore. One of our problems is our plow blades aren't tall enough. So we're moving forward. Hopefully we'll make a decision today on school. We have a parking ban in effect in the city right now on major thoroughfares and probably keep that parking ban in effect for another day at least. We'll make decisions as the day goes on. We have a press conference --
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BERMAN: Mayor?
WALSH: Yes?
BERMAN: Let me ask you about schools quickly, because we have to run here. What about all of these days the kids have missed? We heard from an official this morning that you are considering the possibility of school on Saturdays?
WALSH: I have a meeting today -- we have a meeting today and we'll make announcements later today about makeup days. We're one over now. We've gone beyond -- we have to make days up now so we're looking at where do we make those days up and trying to build in future snow days with the anticipation that we get more snow from now until the end of winter.
BERMAN: All right, Mayor. You're lucky kids can't vote.
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(LAUGHTER)
WALSH: Absentee ballots will be all right but after that they won't be happy with me in a couple weeks.
BERMAN: Mayor Marty Walsh good luck.
WALSH: Thank you.
BERMAN: We know you're working hard to keep that city moving as best it can. We appreciate you taking the time to be with us.
BOLDUAN: Thanks, Mayor. Good luck.
We'll get back to other news we're following including this, our breaking news about a young woman Kayla Mueller. The White House along with Mueller's family confirming her death. Now the question is, did she die in an airstrike as ISIS claims? Did her captors kill her? How will U.S. officials be able to tell and what will they share with the public? Our terrorism analysts will weigh in next.
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BOLDUAN: Heartbreaking confirmation this hour about another U.S. hostage held by ISIS. The family of Kayla Mueller along with the White House say the humanitarian worker is dead. Still unknown, though, how she died and when she was killed.
BERMAN: According to fresh intelligence, ISIS is working on plans now to kidnap more Americans, more Westerners, also possibly people from other Middle Eastern countries and doing this in countries such as Jordan and Lebanon.
We're joined now by our terrorism analyst, Paul Cruickshank.
Paul, look, we don't know for sure how Kayla Mueller died. Let me read the statement from Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona. He says the death of Kayla Mueller can be laid "squarely at the feet of ISIL." ISIL says she died last week. We don't know one way or another. Why does it matter?
PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: I think the family will want to know for their peace of mind, how she died. That will be important to them. They clearly don't know yet. The administration doesn't appear to know yet either whether she could have been kill in an airstrike last week or if is themselves killed her and sort of framed it as her being killed in an airstrike.
BOLDUAN: What are you hearing, Paul? You've heard from your sources that when you're talking about the death of Kayla Mueller, the next question for a lot of folks is, what of other hostages being held? There's a lot of reporting that ISIS is running out of hostages, strange to say, and that your sources are telling you they're looking to go into other countries, even Jordan, to try to abduct folks.
CRUICKSHANK: Yeah. They're looking to get more Western hostages --
(CROSSTALK)
BOLDUAN: What would that mean? That's a change of the game. A change of their approach from today.
CRUICKSHANK: Yeah. The intelligence suggests they've been looking to do this since at least the middle of last year, to get more Western hostages. They've seen it as useful from a propaganda perspective. They've been looking at Jordan, Lebanon, neighboring countries where there are Americans and Westerners that they might be able to snatch and bring back across the border. There's a lot of worry about Egypt as well because this new is affiliate there which is very active, killed an American in a carjacking last summer. Just yesterday released a video where it beheaded eight spies. A lot of concern that it could abduct Western tourists still traveling to Egypt, because it's very much part of that ISIS fold, this group now.
BERMAN: Up until this point, all the hostages were seized in Syria, I think. Not necessarily in Iraq. It's all a Syrian operation. If they started operating to seize hostages outside that country, that would be a big deal, that would be a big shift. Why is the possession of hostages so crucial to ISIS?
CRUICKSHANK: Think of all the propaganda they've made out of it. ISIS has been in the news in a way that they can control it, makes them look 10 feet tall in the eyes of their supporters, makes it look as if they're retaliating against the West for these airstrikes. Just last September, we saw a French hiker in Algeria beheaded by a group which had allegiance to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. So this is happening more at a regional level now, not just Syria and Iraq, but other countries where ISIS and ISIS affiliates are active. Libya is another country where there's a lot of concern. A lot of Western contractors still operating in Libya.
Do you see this tactic of taking hostages for propaganda purposes and even for money purposes? Because we know that some other countries, some other actors, they do pay ransom for these hostages. Do you see this being a more important tactic for ISIS when you take a look at the battlefield, if you will, and they are losing ground in certain places? They've seen some success on part of the coalition in areas in Iraq.
CRUICKSHANK: Yeah. It changes the subject. They've obviously had a number of setbacks in recent weeks. And they've lost ground in Kobani and Diyalah Province.
(CROSSTALK)
CRUICKSHANK: But all they're talking about is this horrible burning to death of this Jordanian pilot, and that works to their advantage because it makes them look strong with their most hard-line supporters, allows them to continue to recruit.
BERMAN: Does the absence of hostages -- we know Jonathan Cantlie is being held, he's part of these latest propaganda videos. As they lose hostages, does that free the hand to the coalition to attack ISIS perhaps with more force?
CRUICKSHANK: It may do. I don't think that was necessarily a big restraint. It's been quite difficult for them to find targets in Syria and Iraq because ISIS is in urban areas, it's mixing with the local population, using them as human shields. So it's been very, very difficult to target this group from the air. There have been 2,000 airstrikes and that has degraded them to some degree but only very, very slowly. ISIS is still pretty resilient, controls a lot of territory in Iraq and Anbar Province. It's still in Mosul.
BOLDUAN: How do you think Kayla Mueller -- the announcement of her death, how she died and when she died are important factors, not only for the family but for the coalition, knowing how this transpired? Do you think her death changes the game?
CRUICKSHANK: I think it's going to only strengthen the resolve of this country. That the American people are going to be absolutely outraged by this. Here was somebody who went -- dedicated her life to help the people of Syria and look what happened. I think this really sort of increases the resolve here from everybody.
BOLDUAN: Paul, great to see you. Thank you so much.
BERMAN: That's all for us today.
"LEGAL VIEW" with Ashleigh Banfield starts right after a quick break.
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